Search

Begin New Search Topic Populism Publication Year within 5 Years

41. The Importance of International Partnerships for Israel’s Progressive Camp

Author:
Nimrod Goren
Publication Date:
02-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Mitvim: The Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies
Abstract:
The progressive camp in Israel has been trying for years to find its way back to the corridors of power and influence, so far unsuccessfully. Those seeking strategies and tactics for change often wonder whether the solution to Israel’s problems will emerge from without, for example driven by international pressure, or from within, by convincing and mobilizing the Israeli public. A third option to this dichotomy has emerged in recent years in the shape of combined and coordinated moves both within Israeli society and in cooperation with allies abroad.
Topic:
International Relations, Civil Society, Nationalism, Politics, Partnerships, Populism, and Progressivism
Political Geography:
Middle East, Israel, and Palestine

42. Populism and COVID19: How Populist Governments (Mis)Handle the Pandemic

Author:
Michael Bayerlein, Vanessa A. Boese, Scott Gates, Katrin Kamin, and S. Mansoob Murshed
Publication Date:
07-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW)
Abstract:
Populist parties and actors now govern various countries around the world. Often elected by the public in times of crises and over the perceived failure of ‘the elites’, the question stands as to how populist governments actually perform once elected, especially in times of crisis. Using the pandemic shock in the form of the COVID-19 crises, our paper answers the question of how populist governments handle the pandemic. We answer this question by introducing a theoretical framework according to which populist governments (1) enact less far-reaching policy measures to counter the pandemic and (2) lower the effort of citizens to counter the pandemic, so that populist governed countries are (3) hit worse by the pandemic. We test these propositions in a sample of 42 countries with weekly data from 2020. Employing econometric models, we find empirical support for our propositions and ultimately conclude that excess mortality in populist governed countries exceeds the excess mortality of conventional countries by 10 percentage points (i.e., 100%). Our findings have important implications for the assessment of populist government performance in general, as well as counter-pandemic measures in particular, by providing evidence that opportunistic and inadequate policy responses, spreading misinformation and downplaying the pandemic are strongly related to increases in COVID-19 mortality.
Topic:
Governance, Populism, Public Health, Pandemic, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
Global Focus

43. Local David Versus Global Goliath: Populist Parties and the Decline of Progressive Politics in Italy

Author:
Matteo Cavallaro
Publication Date:
01-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
Abstract:
This paper analyzes the role of local spending, particularly on social welfare, and local inequality as factors in the Italian political crisis following the adoption in 2011 of more radical national austerity measures. We employ two different methods. First, we develop an original database of municipal budgets. There we show that even the lowest level of social welfare spending, that offered by Italian municipalities, though also hit by austerity, was still able to moderate this national shock. We test three operationalizations of local spending: aggregate current expenditures, aggregate current expenditures on social services, and current expenditures disaggregated by function. We show that municipal current expenditures, particularly on social spending, significantly affected the post-2011 share of votes for the progressive coalition. The results also show that social spending, especially on education, significantly moderated the combined effect of national austerity and the economic crisis on voting for populist radical right parties, while no significant results appeared for populist parties in general. Local inequality appears to significantly enhance vote shares of populist radical right parties and populist parties in general. We caution that, although significant, the effect is not strong: that local policy and economic conditions can moderate national shocks but cannot reverse them. The second analysis relies on survey data to ascertain the individual-level mechanisms behind the role of local welfare. The paper argues that local economic inputs influence voters’ position on non-economic issues. Our results, however, do not identify any significant individual-level channel of transmission, be it cultural or economic.
Topic:
Politics, Elections, Inequality, Populism, and Austerity
Political Geography:
Europe and Italy

44. The U.S. and Hungary: Friends in Need of a Better Way

Author:
Jon Greenwald
Publication Date:
03-2021
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Council on International Policy (CIP)
Abstract:
When the Wall fell in 1989, I was the U.S. Embassy political counselor in East Berlin. We immediately realized something new would replace the Cold War, but one of my few certainties was that if Moscow released its grip on the Warsaw Pact, Hungary – Eastern Europe’s freest and most economically diverse society — would be quickest to integrate smoothly into Western Europe. President George H.W. Bush’s goal of a “Europe whole and free” has come closer, but we are not there yet, and Hungary, where I held a similar position earlier, has lagged. Respected observers Freedom House and Transparency International chart a course that puts it dangerously close to, even within, the autocratic zone. Worse, it champions a nationalist populism and “illiberal democracy” directly challenging key principles to which the European Union (EU) of which it is a member and the U.S., its ally in NATO, subscribe. What should be done?
Topic:
International Cooperation, Nationalism, Bilateral Relations, and Populism
Political Geography:
Europe, Hungary, North America, and United States of America

45. Mexico 2018-2021: Pandemic, Crisis, Security and Geopolitics/México 2018-2021: Pandemia, Crisis, Seguridad y Geopolítica

Author:
Raúl Benítez Manaut
Publication Date:
05-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Revista UNISCI/UNISCI Journal
Institution:
Unidad de investigación sobre seguridad y cooperación (UNISCI)
Abstract:
The article starts from the hypothesis that the COVID-19 pandemic re-evaluates the concept of multidimensional security, which emerged from the 2003 meeting of the Organization of American States. It is argued that, at the level of hemispheric geopolitics, it is in the three most populous countries, under the nationalist and populist leaderships of Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro and Andrés Manuel López Obrador, where the pandemic has wreaked the most havoc. The similarities in the initial handling of the pandemic, its minus-valuation, the so-called Fourth Transformation policy and its characteristics, deployed by President López Obrador in Mexico and its effect on the militarization of the country are analyzed as well as the impact of the pandemic on the population and the great economic crisis induced. It is concluded that Mexico is experiencing a "militarization with popular support", and that the pandemic has favored the public image of the military. / El artículo se desarrolla sobre la hipótesis de que la pandemia COVID-19 revalora el concepto de seguridad multidimensional, desprendido de la reunión de la Organización de Estados Americanos de 2003. Se afirma que, a nivel de la geopolítica del hemisferio, es en los tres países más poblados, los liderazgos nacionalistas y populistas de Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro y Andrés Manuel López Obrador, donde la pandemia ha causado más estragos. Se analizan las similitudes en el manejo inicial de la pandemia, su minusvaloración, la llamada política de la Cuarta Transformación y sus características, desplegada por el presidente López Obrador en México y el efecto que tiene en la militarización del país; el impacto de la pandemia en la población y la gran crisis económica inducida. Se concluye que México vive una “militarización con respaldo popular”, y que la pandemia ha sido un elemento que ha favorecido a los militares en su imagen pública.
Topic:
Security, Populism, COVID-19, and Militarization
Political Geography:
Brazil, Latin America, Mexico, and United States of America

46. Exporting the War on Terror: Islamophobia in Asia

Author:
Khaled A. Beydoun and Sahar Aziz
Publication Date:
01-2021
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Center for Security, Race and Rights (CSRR), Rutgers University School of Law
Abstract:
Join us for a fireside chat between Professor Khaled Beydoun and Professor Sahar Aziz on the latest legal and political developments in the troubling rise of Global Islamophobia in India, China, and other Asian countries.
Topic:
Human Rights, Populism, Islamophobia, and War on Terror
Political Geography:
China, India, and Asia

47. Talking about Europe: exploring 70 years of news archives

Author:
Enrico Bergamini and Emmanuel Mourlon-Druol
Publication Date:
03-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Bruegel
Abstract:
This paper quantitatively explores news coverage on the subject of ‘Europe’ in three different countries and three newspapers: France (Le Monde), Italy (La Stampa) and Germany (Der Spiegel). We collected and organised large web-scraped datasets covering the period 1945 to 2019. After ensuring the quality of the archives, we identified articles referring to ‘European’ news while leaving aside national and other non-European news, based on a mix of keyword matching, large-scale natural language processing and topic identification on the full text of news articles. Once articles were classified and datasets labelled, we performed a time-series analysis, detecting salient events in European history, across France, Germany and Italy. We analysed these events in light of the evolution of European cooperation and integration since 1945. We found that the most important events in post-war European history are easily identifiable in the archives and that European issues have gathered substantially greater attention since the early 1990s.
Topic:
Governance, Public Opinion, European Union, Media, Populism, and Data
Political Geography:
Europe

48. Interest in European matters: a glass three-quarters full?

Author:
Francesco Papadia, Enrico Bergamini, Emmanuel Mourlon-Druol, and Giuseppe Porcaro
Publication Date:
03-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Bruegel
Abstract:
A disconnect between European Union integration and the level of interest of EU citizens in European matters is a potential weakness in the EU’s democratic foundations. The existence and possible size of this disconnect is a critical issue in assessing the potential for further integration of the EU and the risks to its stability. To move beyond qualitative assessments of this disconnect, we use three indicators to measure EU citizens’ interest in Europe: turnout in European Parliament elections relative to national elections, Eurobarometer surveys of interest in Europe, and the presence of European news in national newspapers, relative to all published news. We interpret our empirical results using three frameworks: Putnam’s social capital concept, the agenda-setting hypothesis and the no-demos hypothesis. All three indicators point to an increased interest in European matters, especially since the 1990s and the creation of the euro. However, this result does not settle the issue of whether the increased level of interest matches the actual state of integration of the EU’s member countries. Our results indicate the European construction maintains a technocratic character.
Topic:
Governance, European Union, Media, Populism, and Macroeconomics
Political Geography:
Europe

49. The Limits of Democracy

Author:
D. Eric Schansberg
Publication Date:
10-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
There’s an old saying that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all of the others. Or putting it another way: the best form of government is a benevolent and knowledgeable dictator, except for the problem of finding a good and wise leader. Whatever democracy’s strengths, they are relative not absolute, and they are contingent on context—namely, the people being governed, the people governing, and the underlying institutions.
Topic:
Politics, Governance, Democracy, and Populism
Political Geography:
Global Focus

50. Populism and the Pandemic in Southeast Asia

Author:
Paul D. Kenny
Publication Date:
09-2021
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
East Asia Institute (EAI)
Abstract:
Southeast Asian countries that are within close proximity to China were immediately affected by the spread of COVID-19 virus. Paul D. Kenny, Professor at the Australian Catholic University discusses the role of populism in public health responses to the virus and the reciprocal effect of the pandemic on the fate of populists in the region focusing on the Philippines and Indonesian cases. He argues that while the two governments took different responses to the pandemic crisis, both measures led to similar results in terms of how it affected support for the government. While President Duterte responded aggressively towards the pandemic with the issuance of Proclamation 922, President Jokowi’s response was substantially less coercive than that of Duterte’s. Professor Kenny states that both countries, in their current state, have seen similar results — support for both presidents in their respective countries remain considerably high. Nonetheless, the author adds that the continuing decline in Philippines’ economy may hamper his efforts in securing presidency.
Topic:
Government, Economy, Populism, Public Health, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
China, Indonesia, Philippines, and Southeast Asia