Authors:Alfredo Ferrara Abstract: The article proposes an ideological typification of the populisms emerged in North America and Western Europe since 2008, articulating the relationship between populism and ideology through a combination of the Ideational approach and the Discursive-Performative approach. Using the analytic tool of the matrix in the version elaborated by Hyperpolitics, this typification is constructed through a work on some political concepts and the connection between them. The cross-tabulation is useful in order to highlight the presence of three main typologies of populisms: the productive populism, the nationalist populism, and the citizen populism; the paper also highlights how the ideological mix between authoritarianism and regulation can be seen as a possible evolution of Western populisms.
Authors:Damiano Palano Abstract: In the theoretical discussion of populism, two main options can be identified: a perspective conceives the populism as a thin-centered ideology; a second perspective believes that populism is a set of rhetorical, stylistic and organizational tools, which can be used by any political force. With respect to these two perspectives, Ernesto Laclau’s proposal outlines a further strategy. This article examines the merits and limitations of Laclau’s proposal. This paper highlights two problematic aspects: for Laclau, populism is not only a logic of political discourse, but also a political proposal; furthermore, ‘populism’, in his perspective, is not a specific phenomenon, because it is the mechanism by which every political identity is produced. The paper suggests that a solution consists in recovering the distinction between the logic of equivalence and the logic of difference, which was advanced by Laclau and Mouffe during the 1980s. PubDate: 2021-12-23 Issue No:Vol. 7 (2021)
Authors:Alessandro Simoncini Abstract: This article reflects on the commonalities of contemporary right-wing populism and neoliberalism. It thereby focuses on how neoliberalism has undone the ontological basis of the modern sovereign people and how this process has generated the conditions for the possibility of neo-populism, which thus appears as the obscene reverse of neoliberalism. Populism and neoliberalism form a ‘perverse alliance’ that leads them to fight the same battle, albeit in different forms, against material equality. Populism fights this battle with two privileged instruments: a ‘war of values’ that deflects interest from the conflict against socio-economic inequality and a ‘war on migrants’ that amplifies xeno-populism while nevertheless sharing with neoliberalism the processes of the hierarchisation of citizenship and social order. PubDate: 2021-12-23 Issue No:Vol. 7 (2021)
Authors:Gianpasquale Preite Abstract: This paper attempts to interpret the contemporary forms of populism, in the light of the political and economic debate about the function of the state and the market as relevant modern institutions. Considering different economic perspectives and analysing them from an historical point of view, the paper describes the evolution of contemporary society, and the changing relevance of the political and the economic systems. Against the theoretical background of Niklas Luhmann's social systems theory (1984), a critical assessment of different economic approaches is proposed: it is argued that none of them has been able to tackle the generalized increase of social, economic, and individual problems, and the growing social exclusion. In contemporary modernity, social systems are becoming more and more intransparent to one another, and apparently unable to solve the problems for which they functionally evolved. The paper proposes that populism may be intended as a reactive adaptation of the political system to its inability to solve social and economic questions and suggests the necessity of a new paradigm to understand the growing complexity and mutual intransparency of social systems. PubDate: 2021-12-23 Issue No:Vol. 7 (2021)
Authors:Gianluca Piccolino, Sorina Soare Abstract: Populism is undoubtedly one of the most relevant concepts to the study of contemporary party politics. A massive amount of literature has been produced on this topic, especially with regard to the European continent. However, the literature still lacks a comprehensive meta-analysis of this vast body of research. In this work, we summarize the results of one hundred and ninety-four articles present on the two most authoritative bibliographic databases, Web of Science and Scopus, in the last three decades. The meta-analysis enquires into definitions of populism employed across the decades and the main characteristics of the research design. The main results show that, across time, the definition of the concept has become increasingly clear, with the interpretation holding populism to be a thin-centred ideology clearly prevailing. The focus on the empirically oriented partially confirms our expectations, although relevant differences are identified and further discussed. We conclude that more research is needed on this topic, in particular with regard to the diversity of the geographical contexts. PubDate: 2021-12-23 Issue No:Vol. 7 (2021)
Authors:Paolo Marzi, Maria Giovanna Sessa Abstract: The present research investigates the extent of misinformation and conspiracy theories in radical right-wing populist parties (RRPPs) in light of the pandemic. As the Covid-19 emergency progressively gave way to an ‘infodemic’ within the EU’s domestic political systems, RRPPs made regular use of misinformation as a political tool to build consensus and to polarise the public debate. This strategy is further maximised within the realm of social media, which disintermediates communication and allows political actors to directly reach their preferred audience with personalised content. Relying on an original dataset based on fact-checked statements from politicians, our study conducts a descriptive mapping of the discursive tactics employed by the League and Brothers of Italy within the Italian political scenario throughout 2020. PubDate: 2021-12-23 Issue No:Vol. 7 (2021)
Authors:Leonardo Puleo, Alice Cavalieri Abstract: The translation of electoral pledges into the executive’s agenda is all but a linear process. Parties that take office have to compromise on what issues will be prioritized in the governmental agenda, which never exactly matches parties’ electoral platforms. Populists may further challenge this mechanism, as they pursue a more direct link with people and claim to be different from non-populist parties. This study, bridging the party mandate model and agenda-setting scholarship, analyses the congruence between electoral manifestos and the prime minister’s investiture speech in Italy, both at the aggregate and individual-issue levels. By comparing the behaviour of parties in government (1994–2021), the analysis reveals that populist parties do not reinforce the ‘transmission belt’ from electoral pledges to the executive agenda. PubDate: 2021-12-23 Issue No:Vol. 7 (2021)
Authors:Margherita Belgioioso, Jennifer Philippa Eggert Abstract: We argue that rebel groups with a higher share of female fighters carry out more lethal terrorist operations using more female perpetrators. Rebels have incentives to exploit gender-specific tactical and propaganda advantages of their female operatives in terrorist operations to cause more damage to the opponents and to attract support. Gender stereotypes make female fighters more effective in terrorist operations, and common media narratives on female perpetrators discredit the government and allow rebels to shame men and encourage other female sympathizers to take up arms. We test this mechanism using casual mediation analysis against new data on the prevalence of female fighters in terrorist operations on a sample of 186 rebel groups fighting in civil wars. We find robust empirical evidence that rebels with a higher prevalence of female fighters employ a higher share of females in terrorist attacks leading to more lethal terrorist violence. PubDate: 2021-12-23 Issue No:Vol. 7 (2021)
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