Annual Workshop

The full programme for our 8th Annual Workshop in PDF is available here

Call for Papers

Keynote speakers

Oliver Marchart (University of Vienna)

Emilia Palonen (University of Helsinki)

Contemporary societies are said to be characterised by increasing polarisation on almost every single issue – ranging from science and the vaccines, identity politics and intersectionality, the environment and climate change, truth and freedom of speech, to name but a few. The so-called truth or culture wars constitute the new norm, drawing new political antagonisms that cut across the classic left/right axis. A burgeoning literature suggests that polarisation has pernicious effects, not only on political party systems but also on society and, by extension, democracy. Reflecting the recent populist hype, polarisation is most often associated with populist leaders, parties and discourses that challenge the political and social consensus, mobilising negative affects and forming antagonistic partisan identities that transgress the established norms of liberal democracies. 

However, polarisation is not a new political feature, nor is it necessarily intrinsic to the populist phenomenon as antagonism and conflict are seen as inseparable parts of the political. The same goes for political emotions – a core dimension of political conflict that has always been met with suspicion. While the role of populists in the politics of polarisation has been extensively studied, the role of anti-populists has been largely overlooked. This blind spot is significant, as understanding polarisation as a relational dynamic implies, by definition, that anti-populism also plays a prominent role in this divide. 

We welcome critical and reflexive contributions that interrogate the dynamic between populist and anti-populist polarisation, and more broadly explore the rise of the polarisation narrative and how it can be connected to discourses on populism as an alleged threat to democracy. A non-exhaustive list of topics can be found below:

• Critical perspectives on populism, anti-populism and polarisation 

• Populist/anti-populist polarisation across time and space

• The role political elites play in polarisation and the impact they have on democracy

• The relationship between conflict and democracy, and its interconnection with populism 

• Nuanced understandings of political affects/emotions that go beyond their stereotypical demonisation 

• Antagonism as an intrinsic aspect of collective identification 

• Contrasting constructions of ‘common sense’ as a source of antagonism 

• Converging and diverging antagonism (e.g. class, people-centric politics, nationalism) 

• The role the internet-sphere, memes, humour and technology play in polarisation between populists and anti-populists 

Please submit a 250-word abstract by 17 May 2024 using this form.

We will notify applicants by 28 June 2024.  We aim to provide feedback to those whose abstract is rejected.

The workshop is free of charge. However, applicants should make their own arrangements for transport and accommodation. 

The Populism Specialist Group provides an inclusive, vibrant and critical space for dialogue. We highly encourage junior and emerging, as well as established scholars, from different fields, ethnic backgrounds and regions of the world to participate. 

Full programme

Thursday, 19 September 2024

9:30 – 11:00am | Panel 1: Polarisation, Agonism, Antagonism

Chair: Théo Aiolfi

• Anat Ascher (The Open University of Israel) Creating dissensus: Polarisation as a democratic mechanism

• Pedro Pinheiro (University of Minho) The Challenge of Chantal Mouffe: Reconciling agonism and anti-populist critiques

• Juan Roch; Daniel Baliñas Pérez; Aurelien Mondon (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid; Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona; University of Bath) A critique of the polarisation narrative: Expanding the limits of democracy, parties and political participation

11:30am – 12:45pm | Panel 2: Populism, Organisation, Democracy

Chair: George Newth

• Allan Dreyer Hansen (Roskilde University) Populism and organizing: Critical remarks on the distinction between difference and equivalence in discourse theory

• Giuseppe Ballacci; Thomás Zicman de Barros (University of Minho) Rhetoric and manipulation in populism: Some normative considerations

• Lelde Luika (Södertörn University) Populism, representative institutions and normativity in post-foundational theorising of democracy

11:30am – 12:45pm | Panel 3: Populist and Anti-Populist Strategies

Chair: Giorgos Venizelos

• François Robinet (Université Clermont Auvergne) Fighting Populism: Rhetorical Strategies Against the So-Called Populist Movements in France, Spain and the United States at the End of the 19th century

• Eline Severs; Lien Smets (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) Dreaming of home? Representative Claim-Making and the Dutch Farmer Citizen Movement

2:15 – 3:45pm | Panel 4: Populism, Affect, Fandom

Chairs: Lone Sørensen & Thomás Zicman de Barros

• Emmy Eklundh (Cardiff University); Sebastián Ronderos (Fundação Getulio Vargas) Studying affect through discourse theory: Towards a methodology of practice

• Elena Sotelo-Prol (University of Leeds) How to Save Peru (Again): Nostalgia as Affective Practice among Populist Subjects on Facebook

• Riku Kusumoto (University of Essex) To Love or to Hate: Juxtaposing Laclauian Populism and Fandom

• Alex Yates (University of Bath) Who, What, Where, and Why? A Theoretical Framework for the Study of Anti-Populism

2:15 – 3:45pm | Panel 5: Populism, Anti-Populism and Conservatism

Chair: Théo Aiolfi

• Andreas Eder-Ramsauer (University of Vienna) Anti-Populism and the Conservative Hegemony in Japan: Antagonizing against the People in Conservatism

• Lazaros Karavasilis (University of Bremen) Anti-Populism in Conservative Parties’ Discourses: the case of New Democracy in Greece

• Vladimir Bortun (University of Oxford) Hostile brothers: Intra-capitalist conflict and the rise of right-wing populism

4:15 – 5:30pm | Keynote Address

• Oliver Marchart (University of Vienna)

Friday, 20 September

9:30 – 11:00am | Panel 6: Polarisation in Context

Chair: Théo Aiolfi

• Antonio Athayde Sauandaj (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) Polarising Political Competition through Gender Politicization: A case study of Jair Bolsonaro's masculinist populism in Brazil

• Luke Oldfield (Victoria University of Wellington) New Zealand after Ardern: Populist revolt or par for the course?

• Archibald Gustin (Vrije Universiteit Brussels / University of Liège) Anti-woke populism and anti-gender discourses: spot the difference. The case of Vlaams Belang’s anti-gender and anti-wokeism

• Gabriel Solans (Université Paris-Cité) Newt Gingrich and the polarisation of US politics

11:30am – 12:45pm | Panel 7: Populism and Anti-Populism in Academia

Chair: Thomás Zicman de Barros

• George Newth (University of Bath) The 'common sense' of the ideational approach: Critiques from a Gramscian and discourse-theoretical perspective

• Carlos Meléndez (Central European University); Lisa Zanotti (Universidad Diego Portales) Populism, anti-populism, and the moralization of politics

11:30am – 12:45pm | Panel 8: Populism, Visuals and Visuality

Chair: Juan Roch

• Kun He; Scott A Eldridge II; Marcel Broersma (University of Groningen) Internet Memes, Populist Campaigns: Nationalism, Populism, and Online Visual Protests in China

• Lone Sørensen (University of Leeds) Studying Populist Polarisation: Portraiture as method

• Utku Bozdag; Admilson Veloso da Silva (Corvinus University of Budapest) Populism and Social Media User Engagement: A Systematic Review of Empirical Evidence

2:15 – 3:45pm | Panel 9: Aesthetics, Performativity and Culture

Chair: George Newth

• Théo Aiolfi (University of Burgundy); Grigoris Markou (University of Macedonia) Spotlight on Anti-Populism in Europe: Comparing Performative Dimensions in French and Greek Politics

• Alexandra Liakopoulou (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens) Brexit: Exploring anti-populist discourse and literary reflections

2:15 – 3:45pm | Panel 10: Post-Truth and Epistemology

Chair: Lone Sørensen

• Adam Dinsmore (University of York) Fighting for Peace: The Anti-Populist Logic of Performative Polarisation

• Andrea Sau (St Mary's University Twickenham) Populism and Anti-Populism: The Role of Conspiracy Theories in Increasing Polarisation

• Giorgos Venizelos (Central European University) The Anti-Populist Logic of Pro-Vax Discourse

4:15 – 5:30pm | Keynote Address

• Emilia Palonen (University of Helsinki) What is in the form? Populism as a heuristic in understanding Hungarian politics

Call for Papers

Keynote Speakers

Lone Sørensen (University of Leeds)

Óscar García Agustín (Aalborg University)

At the dawn of the COVID-19 outbreak, pundits rushed to announce the death of populism. However, reality suggests that populism remains a salient feature of con-temporary politics. It wasn’t just that incumbent populists survived the pandemic, but emergent populists have capitalised upon this opportunity, articulating classic but also novel political demands. This highlights the relevance of populism as well as its critical and reflexive study – and through focusing on its encounters with those topics already explored but also with emergent ones.

In contributing to the burgeoning field of populism studies, we welcome cross-disciplinary theoretical, methodological and empirical proposals that are related, but by no means restricted, to the following themes:

• Anti-populism and populist hype

• Pandemic politics

• Environmentalism

• Feminism

• Class

• Nationalism

How to submit your paper proposal

Please send a 250 words abstract, including your paper title, name, email and affiliation by the 1st of June 2022. We will notify applicants by the 1st of July 2022.

There is no participation fee but presenters should sort out their accommodation and travel themselves.

We strongly encourage junior researchers, researchers of the Global South, women and minorities to submit their proposals.

Full programme

Thursday, 22 September

10:15 – 11:30am | Panel 1: Populism and the far right 1

Chair: Thomás Zicman de Barros

• • Newth George (University of Bath) A ‘Common Sense Revolution’? Matteo Salvini’s project of Far Right hegemony via social media (2017-2022)

  • Maria Elena Indelicato and Maria Magalhães Lopes (University of Coimbra) [Online] Reproductive racism in Italy. Georgia Meloni’s exclusion of non-white women from the family of the nation

  • Juan Roch (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid) [Online] The contingency of populism in the case of radical right-wing parties: exploring the case of Vox in Spain

12:00 – 1:15pm | Panel 2: The populist hype

Chair: Giorgos Venizelos

• • Aurelien Mondon (University of Bath) Far-right studies, populist hype and the absence as presence of racism and whiteness

  • Thomás Zicman de Barros (Sciences Po Paris) Anti-populist language-games in Brazil during the pandemic

  • Jana Goyvaerts (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) The role of politicians in the Populist Hype

2:15 – 3:30pm | Panel 3: Populism, anti-populism and crisis

Chair: Andy Knott

• • Thomas Siomos (Aristotle University Thessaloniki) [Online] Crisis Theory: Dislocation, Media and Populist Discourse

  • Salome Ietter (Queen Mary University of London) Policing or embracing crisis? Brexit, anti-populism and neoliberal resilience

  • Rubrick Biegon (University of Kent) and Soraya Hamdaoui (University of Warwick) Post-Populism or Anti-Populism? Debating the Effects of Trumpian Populism on U.S. Foreign Policy

4:00 – 5:15pm | Panel 4: Populism and theory

Chair: Emmy Eklundh

• • Adrià Porta Caballe (University of Barcelona) Politics and Time: the Nostalgic, the Opportunist and the Utopian. The Case of Podemos

  • Dominik Schmidt (Goethe-University Frankfurt) [Online] There is No Such Thing as Democratic Anti-Populism

  • Andy Knott (University of Brighton) Populism, Structure, Crisis

5:30 – 6:30pm | First Keynote Address

• Lone Sørensen (University of Leeds) Populist Communication: Claims to Representation as Communicative Practices

Friday, 23 September

10:00 – 11:00am | Panel 5: Populism and the pandemic

Chair: Giorgos Venizelos

• • Gianfranco Baldini (University of Bologna), Alice Cavalieri and Andrea Pritoni (University of Turin) Populism, technocracy and the management of the Covid crisis: the Italian governments of Conte and Draghi compared

  • Margherita Bordignon and Francesco Piacentini (University of Milan) Technocratic Populism and Public Opinion during the Covid-19 Pandemic

11:30am – 12:45pm | Panel 6: Discourse about populism

Chair: Thomás Zicman de Barros

• • Lazaros Karavasilis (University of Bremen) What we talk about when we talk about “the elite”: theoretical and empirical understandings of an often-neglected term in populism studies

  • Omran Shroufi (University of York) and Benjamin De Cleen (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) Far-right intellectual discourse about populism: A German case study and some future avenues for research

  • Savvas Voutyras (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) What do we mean by ‘populism’, anyway? A corpus analysis of references to ‘populism’ in European politics and media

1:45 – 2:45pm | Second Keynote Address 

• • Óscar Garcia Agustin (Aalborg University) The Spatialities of Populism: People in Place and the Politics of Scale

3:00 – 4:15pm | Panel 7: Populism and the far-right 2

Chair: Emmy Eklundh

• • Seongcheol Kim (University of Bremen) Between Populism and völkisch Reductionism: Continuities and Shifts in the Discourse of the Alternative for Germany (AfD)

  • Roi Pérez-Boquete and Gabriel Bello (University of Santiago de Compostela) National rearticulation in a populist context: the case of Texas Nationalist Movement

  • Theo Aiolfi (CY Cergy Paris Université) Populism and the French Far Right in the 2022 Presidential Elections

4:45 – 6:00pm | Panel 8: Populism and grassroots

Chair: Andy Knott

• • Nicolás Ortiz Ruiz (Universidad Católica Silva Henríquez) Memory and populist articulation in 2019 Chile’s October Revolt

  • Roni Kuppers (London School of Economics) How to study populism as a mass phenomenon? Devising new approaches beyond the ideational hype

  • José Javier Olivas Osuna (UNED), Eduardo Ryo Tamaki (University of Erfurt) and Jocelyn J. Belanger (NYU Abu Dhabi) [Online] Populist attitudes, nativism and gun control in America

Call for Papers

Keynote speaker

Aurelien Mondon (University of Bath)

Populism remains as hotly debated as ever with relevant studies proliferating in recent years to an unprecedented extent. This has led many to talk about the emergence of a distinct field of ‘populism studies’ which spans disciplines from political theory and comparative politics to anthropology and international relations. Within this context, and on the theoretical and methodological level, we have seen new critical perspectives on the phenomenon as well as substantial critiques to established approaches. Similarly, in empirical research, we have seen studies of actors and regions previously ignored or under-researched but also the ‘usual suspects’ being scrutinised with new tools and methods, shedding light on aspects previously missed or downplayed. In this sense, the field is not only expanding, but is currently going through a period of maturation and critical reflexivity in which cross-disciplinarity and theoretical/methodological innovation play a key role. At the forefront of this movement there is a new generation of early career researchers (PhD students and postdoctoral researchers) that have come of age in a period of overlapping crises and tectonic shifts that have been reshaping societies and political systems across the world. At this workshop we aim to take stock of these novel developments in the field and give the floor to this new generation of populism scholars in order to promote both theoretical and empirical innovation in today’s critical juncture and to further cultivate the links among this vibrant community of younger researchers.

There are no limitations as to the thematic scope of the workshop, but we would particularly encourage people to present papers on the following topics:

• Critiques of established approaches to populism

• New approaches/perspectives in populism research

• Analyses of under-researched actors and regions (e.g. Africa, Middle East)

• Populism and the pandemic

• Populism, gender and race

• Populism’s ‘double hermeneutics’ / The role of populism scholars in normative debates

Please send a paper title and abstract (max. 200 words), along with a brief biographical note (max. 70 words) by 15 February 2021. Accepted participants will be notified by 31 March 2021.

Notes: 

(1) Given the still fragile and uncertain situation with the COVID19 pandemic, this workshop will take place fully online. More details will be sent to accepted participants in due course;

(2) There are two specialist events that the Populism Specialist Group of the PSA will be (co)coordinating for 2021 – the second one in Berlin, in collaboration with the DVPW Populism Group Initiative on 8-10 September. We remain committed to generating and sustaining a scholarly community and, as a result, we will prioritise a wider spread of applicants for both events over duplication of personnel and/or presentations.

Full programme

Wednesday, 9 June

5:00 – 6:15pm | Keynote Address

• • Aurelien Mondon (University of Bath) The populist hype, ‘the people’ and the far right

Thursday, 10 June

9:30 – 11:00am | Panel A1: Populism and Discourse Theory  

Chair: Emmy Eklundh (Cardiff University)  

Discussant: Lasse Thomassen (Queen Mary University of London)  

• • Carola Schoor (Maastricht University) A short-cut from individualism to populism – Laclau’s route to populism reassessed  

  • Thomás Zicman de Barros (Sciences Po Paris) The Polysemy of an Empty Signifier  

  • Abdellatif Atif (Free University of Bolzano-Bozen) Populism and Education, a reductive view  

  • Kurt Sengul (Newcastle University) Studying populism discursively: A critical comparison between the Discourse-Historical Approach and Discourse Theory

9:30 – 11:00am | Panel A2: Populism, Media and Social Media  

Chair: Giorgos Venizelos (Scuola Normale Superiore)  

Discussant: Lone Sorensen (University of Leeds)  

• • Natalie Whittaker and Antal Wozniak (University of Liverpool) The Divided States of Reddit: Comparing Right- and Left-Wing Political Memes on Reddit  

  • Lluis de Nadal (Sorbonne) Explaining the Gap Between Participatory Promise and Plebiscitarian Reality in Digital Parties: The Case of Podemos  

  • Corina Lacatus (Queen’s University Belfast) Populism, Authenticity, and Social Media Discourse in Sub-Saharan Africa?  

  • Jana Goyvaerts (Free University Brussels) The Academic Voice in Media Debates on Populism

11:30am – 12:45pm | Panel B1: Measuring populism  

Chair: Andy Knott (University of Brighton)  

Discussant: Stuart Turnbull-Dugarte (University of Southampton)  

• • Emilia Palonen & Juha Koljonen (University of Helsinki) Mainstreaming populism and the EP2019: a Laclaudian approach to topic modelling  

  • Aline Burni (German Development Institute), Eduardo Tamaki & Matheus Ferreira (Federal University of Minas Gerais) The upsurge of far-right populists and its challenges to Latin American democracies  

  • Fedja Pavlovic (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich) Unpacking the Populist 'People v. Elite' Distinction: a Critique of the Ideational Approach to Populism

11:30am – 12:45pm | Panel B2: Populism in Eastern Europe  

Chair: Alen Toplišek (King’s College London)  

Discussant: Petra Guasti (Charles University Prague)  

• • Ilana Hartikainen and Zea Szebeni (University of Helsinki) Populism beyond populism: Uncovering tribalism in Slovakia  

  • Francesco Melito (Jagiellonian University in Kraków) The nation, the people, the values: The fantasy of Polish neo-traditionalist discourse  

  • Veronika Dostalova (Masaryk University) The whole is greater than the sum of its parts, but the parts can have their unique effects: The bifactor model of populist attitudes and its applications within the Czech context

1:45 – 3:00pm | Panel C: Populism in Theory I  

Chair: Giorgos Katsambekis (Loughborough University)  

Discussant: Paula Biglieri (University of Buenos Aires)  

• • César Morales Oyarvide (University of Chicago) Machiavelli’s Ambiguous Populism  

  • Katy Brown (University of Bath) Talking ‘with’ and ‘about’ the far right: how the populist hype means we do both  

  • Gil Gonçalves (Universidade Nova de Lisboa) Populists and the Past – potentialities of historiographic approaches to populism

3:30 – 5:00pm | Panel D: Populism, performance and popular culture  

Chair: Marina Prentoulis (University of East Anglia)  

Discussant: Pierre Ostiguy (University of Valparaiso) and Emmy Eklundh (Cardiff University)  

• • Muhammed Afzal (Birla Institute of Science and Technology) Cinema and the Production of a Popular Identity: Melodrama and the Left Developmental Aesthetic in Puthiya Akasam Puthiya Bhoomi  

  • Théo Aiolfi (University of Warwick) Beyond “Bad Manners”: Populism and Performances of Transgression  

  • Salma el-Idrissi & Drew Margolin (Cornell University) Singing for the people: Populist sentiment and resistance music in Morocco and Chile  

  • Callum Tindall (University of Nottingham) The Populist Style: Reassessing the relationship between Populism, Performance and the Cultural Low

Friday, 11 June

9:30 – 11:00am | Panel E1: Nativism, migration, xenophobia  

Chair: Giorgos Venizelos (Scuola Normale Superiore)  

Discussant: Caterina Froio (Sciences Po)  

• • George Newth (University of Bath) Beyond the ‘nativist hype’? Rethinking nativism as a racist and xenophobic discourse  

  • Mari-Liis Jakobson (Tallinn University), Sebastián Umpierrez de Reguero (Diego Portales University) and Inci Öykü Yener-Roderburg (University of Duisburg-Essen) When migrants become ‘the people’: unpacking homeland populism  

  • Thorsten Wojczewski (King’s College London) Conspiracy Theories, Right-Wing Populism and Foreign Policy: The Case of the Alternative for Germany

9:30 – 11:00am | Panel E2: Anti-populism  

Chair: Giorgos Katsambekis (Loughborough University)  

Discussant: Yannis Stavrakakis (Aristotle University Thessaloniki)  

• • Salomé Ietter (Queen Mary University of London) Policing or embracing crisis? Brexit, anti-populism and neoliberal resilience  

  • Lewis Bassett (University of Manchester) The Politics of Anti-Populism  

  • Eduardo Enríquez Arévalo (Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar) Understanding Latin American anti-populism  

  • Sebastián Ronderos (University of Essex) From Lula to Bolsonaro: the mainstream’s replacement of a populist for another

Call for Papers

Keynote speakers

Ruth Wodak (Lancaster University)

Michael Freeden (University of Oxford)

Populism has been a buzzword for quite a few years now. But after Brexit and Trump, and with the rise of new populist actors in Europe and beyond we have been witnessing an unprecedented inflation in the use of the term both in the public sphere and in academic debates. The concept is often applied to antithetical phenomena, left-wing and right-wing, anti-democratic or radical democratic ones. Accordingly, the debate seems to be split between those who see populism as a ‘clear and present danger’ for democracy and those that stress the democratic potential of such movements. A lot depends on the particular definition of democracy one adopts: elitist or participatory, liberal or radical; and thus on the normative position one takes. Indeed, for many researchers and commentators, democracy is often reduced exclusively to liberal democracy, which leads to an almost automatic dismissal of all populist movements either as undemocratic or, at best, as minimally democratic but ‘illiberal’.

The Populism Specialist Group seeks papers that confront these questions. Is populism by definition anti-democratic or illiberal? What is the relationship between the crisis of liberal democracy and the proliferation of populism(s) in today’s world? Is populism, at best, a symptom of this crisis or can it be also envisaged as a solution for the reinvigoration of democracy? What are the conditions leading to the one or the other political outcome?

We are looking for abstracts which engage with the question of populist politics from either a theoretical, empirical, or methodological perspective, qualitative or quantitative, local or global. In particular, we are interested in papers that deal with the various definitions and concrete forms of populism in their ambivalent relationship with liberalism and democracy.

Full programme:

Friday, 12 April

9:15 – 10:30am | Panel 1: Populism and Performativity  

Chair: Yannis Stavrakakis  

• • Angelos Kissas (University of Cambridge) The digital performativity of populism: the case of the charismatic personae on Twitter  

  • Lone Sørensen (University of Huddersfield) Performance and ideology in populist claims to democracy in transitional and established democracy  

  • Imogen Lambert (Loughborough University) Crisis and representation of events within populist discourse  

11:00am – 12:30pm | Panel 2: Populism, Metaphors, Representation  

Chair: Andy Knott  

• • Máté Mátyás (Corvinus University of Budapest, University of Tartu) Media-polity relations and populist electoral success: Comparing the Brexit referendum and the 2010 general elections in Hungary  

  • Massimiliano Demata (University of Turin) Riding the populist wave. Metaphorical constructions of populism in news media  

  • Thomás Zicman de Barros (Sciences Po Paris) Beyond the “Return of the Political”: Is “Symptom” an adequate Metaphor to describe populism?  

  • Josefin Graef (Hertie School of Governance) Representative Democracy and the Populist Politics of the Extraordinary  

1:30 – 3:00pm | Panel 3: Non-Populist Populism?  

Chair: Giorgos Katsambekis  

• • Théo Aiolfi (University of Warwick) Leaderless populism and the limits of representative democracy: the French case of the yellow vests  

  • Panos Panayotu (Loughborough University) The Transnational Aspects of Populism: A Way Forward? The Case of DiEM25  

  • Salome Ietter (Queen Mary University of London) Anti-populism, populism and ‘Gilets jaunes’: democracy in question  

  • Petra A. Honová (Charles University-Prague) “Fighting Fire with Fire”: Progressive Populism of DiEM25 as a reaction to the crisis of liberal democracy  

3:30 – 5:00pm | Panel 4: Populism in Power  

Chair: Emmy Eklundh  

• • Grigoris Markou (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki) Radicals in government: The populist experiment of the SYRIZA-ANEL alliance  

  • Seongcheol Kim (WZB Berlin Social Science Center) Because the Homeland Cannot Be in Opposition: A Discourse and Hegemony Analysis of Fidesz and Law and Justice (PiS) from Opposition to Power  

  • Giorgos Venizelos (Scuola Normale Superiore) Conceptual and methodological propositions in the study of populism in power  

  • Syed Tahseen Raza (Aligarh Muslim University) The Rise of Populism in India: A Geneological Account  

5:15 – 6:15pm | First Keynote Address 

• Ruth Wodak (Emerita Professor of Discourse Studies, Lancaster University/University of Vienna) Revisiting Orwell’: The Shameless Normalization of Exclusion  

Saturday, 13 April

9:00 – 10:30am | Panel 5: Populism and Global Orders  

Chair: Andy Knott  

• • Jenna Higham (Lancaster University) Leave or Remain? Populism as a political tool in the battle for Brexit  

  • Ilke Civelekoglu, Lerna Yanık, Umut Korkut (Istanbul Ticaret University, Has University, Glasgow Caledonian University) Matrushka Populism(s): Conceptualizing the Link Between Populism and Foreign Policy in Turkey and Hungary  

  • Ying Miao (Aston University) If Populism is the Answer, What is the Question? Identity Politics and Populist Discourses in China  

  • Francesco Melito (Jagiellonian University in Krakow) Finding the Roots of Neo-traditional Populism in Poland. “Cultural Displacement” and European Integration  

11:00am – 12:30pm | Panel 6: Challenges to the Liberal Order  

Chair: Yannis Stavrakakis  

• • Alen Toplišek (SOAS University) Liberal Democracy in Crisis and the Populist Quest for the State  

  • Carola Schoor (Maastricht University) The Clashing Freedoms of Populism and Liberalism  

  • Emmy Eklundh (King’s College London) Populism, sovereignty, masculinity: A decolonial critique  

  • Aman Gaur (LSE) Beyond economics and culture: explaining populism in Australia as a loss of trust in government  

1:30 – 2:30pm | Second Keynote Address 

• Michael Freeden (Emeritus Professor of Politics, University of Oxford/SOAS University of London) Where is the debate on populism taking us? Academic hurdles and conceptual conundrums

2:45 – 4:15pm | Panel 7: Defining the people  

Chair: Emmy Eklundh  

• • Rajat Roy (Presidency University, Kolkata, India) The Crisis of the Category of People in India: Towards an idea of the Dalit as new Universal  

  • Maria Ivana Lorenzetti (University of Verona) Discursive Representations of ‘the People’ in Populist Discourse and the Representation of Democracy: The case of Italy  

  • Yuliya Moskvina (Charles University, Prague) Who are the people in left-wing populist movements? The relationship between populism and democracy  

  • François Debras (Université de Liège) The singing of sirens: when right-wing populist talks about democracy  

4:45 – 6:15pm | Panel 8: Populism, Anti-populism and Authority  

Chair: Giorgos Katsambekis  

• • Maren A. Schäfer (University of Heidelberg) The Impact of Populist Anti-Authority Rhetoric on American Democracy  

  • Anton Jäger (University of Cambridge) Mediation and the Corporate Question in Late Nineteenth-Century Populism  

  • Halil Gürhanlı (University of Helsinki) Anti-Populism in Turkey: The Centre-Periphery Model and Its Modernist Roots  

  • Thomas Swann (Loughborough University) Deliberative Democratic Polling as Anti-Populism. An Intersectional Anarchist Response  

Call for Papers

Keynote speekers

Benjamin De Cleen (Vrije Universiteit Brussel)

Dani Filc (Ben-Gurion University)

Over the past few years, it has become evident that populism forms a central part of contemporary political landscapes worldwide. In Europe, North and South America, populist narratives are gaining political traction as shown by a multitude of examples from Podemos and the 5 Star Movement to Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. Simultaneously, we have also witnessed an increased importance of and focus on the nation state. This has, in turn, signified an increased critique against political projects which challenge the nation state, such as the European Union or other international or supranational organisations.

In addition, this critique emanates from both sides of the political spectrum, where resistance against neoliberal globalisation is rife. On the right, we are witnessing a questioning of globalisation as open borders, whereas on the left, the critiques against global capital are abundant.

This workshop seeks to gather researchers with an interest in the interactions, possibilities, and tensions between populist politics and rejections of globalisation, between populism and nationalism in their different forms and articulations.

We are looking for abstracts which engage with the question of populist politics from either a theoretical, empirical, or methodological perspective. We welcome scholars and practitioners from a range of field including, but not limited to, electoral politics, political theory and philosophy, and social movement studies. In particular, we are interested in papers which investigate the relationship between populist projects and trans-, inter-, or supra-national organisations and initiatives. Exploring the relationship between populism on a national level and the international setting is one of the key aims of this workshop.

Full programme

Friday, 7 April

10:30am – 12:00pm | Panel 1  

Chair: Yannis Stavrakakis (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki)  

• • Marcello Gisondi (Università della Svizzera Italiana) Social movements media activism and parliamentary organization: a brief history of Podemos (2010-2016)  

  • Paolo Gerbaudo (King’s College London) Populism and the politics of sovereignty between national and transnational  

  • Panos Panayotu (University of Essex) From National to Transnational Populism: The Case of DiEM25  

  • Emmy Eklundh (King’s College London) On the limits to inclusive populism

1:30 – 3:00pm | First Keynote Address  

• • Benjamin de Cleen (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) Distinctions and articulations: A framework for studying the connections between populism, nationalism and the nation-state

3:30 – 5:00pm | Panel 2  

Chair: Emmy Eklundh (King’s College London)  

• • Murat Ardag (Oldenburg University) Is populism an intra-group or an inter-group phenomenon? Evidence from the United Kingdom  

  • Alen Toplišek (Queen Mary University of London) The shortcomings of the nation state in the age of globalization and the rise of populism in the UK and US  

  • Andy Knott (University of Brighton) Populists and Populism

Saturday, 8 April

10:00 – 11:30am | Panel 3  

Chair: Andy Knott (University of Brighton)  

• • Yannis Stavrakakis (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki) Populism equals nationalism?: Beyond reductionism  

  • Sakir Dinscahin (Hasan Kalyoncu University) Populism or Nationalism?: “The Local and the National (Yerli ve Milli)” in the Discourse of Justice and Development Party in Turkey  

  • Aurelien Mondon (University of Bath) Populism, abstention, and the stigmatisation of the working class  

  • Ryan Brading (SOAS) Is Populism a Thick Ideology?

11:45am – 1:15pm | Second Keynote Address  

• • Dani Filc (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev) Populism, popular sovereignty, and crisis of representation

2:15 – 3:45pm | Panel 4  

Chair: Emmy Eklundh (King’s College London)  

• • Angelos Chryssogelos (King’s College London) An ideology of social sovereignty? Populism as reaction to globalization  

  • Tugce Ercetin (Istanbul Bilgi University) How Turkey’s repetitive elections affected the Populist Tune in the discourses of the Justice and Development Party Leaders?  

  • Balkan Devlen (Izmir University) Populist International? Populist Leaders in International Affairs  

  • Caglar Ezikoglu (Aberystwyth University) Populism in Turkey: The rise of conservative authoritarianism under Erdogan’s Catonism