Project Details
Description
Populism is everywhere – in the news, in political debates, in academic research. Yet despite all
the talk about populism, there is surprisingly little agreement about what it actually is. Why is
populism so difficult to define? This project turns the question on its head, suggesting that the real
issue lies not in populism itself, but just as much in the ways we have learned to think and speak
about it.
The project begins from the observation that “populism” is rarely a label anyone uses to describe
themselves. Instead, it tends to function as a derogatory term, deployed to discredit political
opponents. In this sense, populism comes into being through anti-populism – a paradoxical framing
of certain forms of popular mobilization as a threat to democracy, which simultaneously helps
define and shape them.
The project traces how “populism” has been problematized across three key sites using Michel
Foucault’s genealogical method: the debates among U.S. historians in the 1950s–60s about the
People’s Party (the original "populists"), an agenda-setting 1967 London School of Economics
conference on populism, and the so-called populist wave from 2015 onwards. On this basis, the
project develops a new understanding of populism, anti-populism, and the democratic challenges
of our own time.
the talk about populism, there is surprisingly little agreement about what it actually is. Why is
populism so difficult to define? This project turns the question on its head, suggesting that the real
issue lies not in populism itself, but just as much in the ways we have learned to think and speak
about it.
The project begins from the observation that “populism” is rarely a label anyone uses to describe
themselves. Instead, it tends to function as a derogatory term, deployed to discredit political
opponents. In this sense, populism comes into being through anti-populism – a paradoxical framing
of certain forms of popular mobilization as a threat to democracy, which simultaneously helps
define and shape them.
The project traces how “populism” has been problematized across three key sites using Michel
Foucault’s genealogical method: the debates among U.S. historians in the 1950s–60s about the
People’s Party (the original "populists"), an agenda-setting 1967 London School of Economics
conference on populism, and the so-called populist wave from 2015 onwards. On this basis, the
project develops a new understanding of populism, anti-populism, and the democratic challenges
of our own time.
| Status | Not started |
|---|---|
| Effective start/end date | 01/01/2027 → 31/12/2030 |