Global Populism

Soc 543

Fall 2015

Professor Carlos de la Torre

Thursday 6-8:30 pm

Populist leaders and movements across the globe are promising to give power back to the people. Do the Tea Party, the Chávez-Maduro governments in Venezuela, the National Front in France, and Syriza, the Greek leftwing party, have something in common?

This class analyzes global manifestations of populism in Western Europe, the Americas, Africa, and the Asia Pacific. We will analyze different constructions of the category “the people” to distinguish xenophobic from inclusionary populism. We will investigate the similarities and differences between appeals to the people in institutionalized and poorly institutionalized democracies. Insurrections made in the name of the people will be studied to explore the condition under which populism could lead to better forms of democracy or alternatively to authoritarianism.