Defining populism: concepts, contexts, genealogies
This workshop brings together national and international panels to discuss the concept of populism on a backdrop of recent political events.
Today populism seems to be, once more, firmly back in the agenda. An avalanche of recent events have shocked and scandalised our public spheres internationally, puzzling academics, journalists and citizens alike. Although populism is becoming politics' buzzword and its impact is being felt across the globe, beyond a widespread concern about its explosive appearance, there's little agreement about how the phenomenon should be defined, the context behind its surge and what factors in our past and current conjuncture facilitated it.
This second annual workshop is organised by the PSA Populism Specialist Group, with the support of the PoLIS Populism, Nationalism and Radicalism research cluster, bringing together national and international panels to discuss the concept of populism on a backdrop of recent political events.
Event programme
Friday
Panel 1: 9.30 - 11.00am
| Speaker | Institution | Session |
|---|---|---|
| Clare Woodford | University of Brighton | Desiring the people |
| Evangelos Fanoulis and Simona Guerra | Metropolitan University Prague and Leicester University | On left-wing populism in Europe: 'home' and 'the people' |
| Cristóbal Sandoval and Cristóbal Rovira | University of Essex and Diego Portales University | Inclusionary populism in Spain: analysing the evolution of Podemos’ political discourse |
Panel 2: 11.30am - 1pm
| Speaker | Institution | Session |
|---|---|---|
| Anton Jäger | Cambridge University | The masses against the classes: populism, class and ‘exclusive representation’ |
| Camila Vergara | Columbia University | Empowering the people-as-plebs: populism as plebeian ideology and politics |
| Giorgos Katsambekis | Loughborough University | Constructing the people of populism: a critique of mainstream approaches |
Lunch: 1.00 - 2.00pm
Panel 3: 2.00 - 3.30pm
| Speaker | Institution | Session |
|---|---|---|
| Tilman Klawier | University of Erfurt | A proposal for enhancing framing approaches to populism |
| Thomas Zicman de Barros | Sciences Po | Populism: instituting fantasy or traversing fantasy? |
| Noirin MacNamara | Queen's University Belfast | Populism and social transformation: taking an Ettingerian critique of Lacan into consideration |
| Adrian Calo | SOAS | The politics of language and Rodrigo Duterte’s populism |
Keynote speech: Ben Moffitt, Uppsala University - 4.15 - 5.45pm
Saturday
Panel 4: 9.30 - 11.00am
| Speaker | Institution | Session |
|---|---|---|
| Marcel Lewandowsky | University of Hamburg | Populism as an attitude of political elites: concept, patterns and explanations |
| Aurelien Mondon and Aaron Winter | University of Bath and University of East London | Populism, free speech and the mainstreaming of racism |
| Jana Goyvaerts and Benjamin de Cleen | Free University Brussels | We need to talk about how we talk about populism |
| Jens Maesse | University of Giessen | The economist as populist: on the discursive construction of academic authorities |
Panel 5: 11.30am - 1pm
| Speaker | Institution | Session |
|---|---|---|
| Grigoris Markou | Aristotle University | Populism or civilisation?: Anti-populist discourse in Greece and Argentina in the 21st century |
| Gustavo Castagnola | The ontic foundations of ontology: peronism, populism and hegemony in Ernesto Laclau´s early work | |
| Marina Prentoulis | University of East Anglia | The contours of ‘transversality’: Labour’s discourse on Brexit |
Lunch: 1.00 - 2.00pm
Panel 6: 2.00 - 3.30pm
| Speaker | Institution | Session |
|---|---|---|
| Andras Toth and Hortenzia Hosszu | MTA TK PTI and Közszolgálati Egyetem, Budapest | Crisis of globalisation and economic nationalism: understanding the rise of populist nationalist right and moving away from the European model in the European periphery |
| Attila Antal Eotvos | Lorand University | Populism and nationalism from an Eastern European perspective |
| Vassilis Petsinis | Tartu University | Identity politics, the refugee crisis and the populist and radical right in Estonia and Latvia |
| Emilia Palonen | University of Helsinki | Nationalism entangled, Janus-faced populism in Hungary |
Panel 7: 4.00 - 5.30pm
| Speaker | Institution | Session |
|---|---|---|
| Emre Erdoğan and Pınar Uyan-Semerci | Istanbul Bilgi University | Populism/s: singular or plural? |
| Lazaros Karavasilis | Loughborouh University | From historiography to anarcho-populism: the theoretical evolution of populism |
| Théo Aiolfi | University of Warwick | Fleshing out the stylistic definition of populism: the overlooked legacy of performance studies |