This edited book provides a first overview of how populist parties responded to the COVID-19 pandemic crisis in Europe. Although populism would normally benefit from crisis situations (e.g., political representation or economic crises), the peculiar nature of this health crisis does not make the benefit obvious. For it to be exploited, a crisis must be politicized. While populists have tried to take advantage of the crisis situation, the impossibility of taking ownership of the COVID-19 issue has made the crisis hard to be exploited. In particular, populists in power have tried to depoliticize the pandemic, whereas radical right-populists in opposition tried to politicize the crisis, though failing to gain the relevant public support. This book considers populist parties in eight European democracies, providing a framework of analysis for their responses to the COVID-19 crisis. It does so by engaging with the literature on crisis and populism from a theoretical perspective and through the lens of the politicization process.

This book provides the first systematic and comparative analysis of the intersections of populism and science in Europe, from the perspective of political sociology. Populism is the object of rich scholarly debate over its definition and the best way to approach its study. But until now, little attention has been paid to the relationships between populism and science. Recently, the Covid-19 crisis has exposed the contradictions in this relationship, and this book combines an analysis of the theoretical aspects of the relationship between populism and science with rigorous empirical research. The theoretical perspectives show populism as a thin-ideology, as discourse and performance, and as a political logic, consider both right-wing and left-wing populism, and focus on leaders as well as citizens. The book also offers an overview of controversies within different fields of ‘science’, including case studies on food science, climate change, vaccination, gender theory, COVID-19, and environmental issues. The book will be of interest to scholars and students of a number of social science disciplines, including political sociology, political science and political psychology.

Populists and the Pandemic examines the responses of populist political actors and parties in 22 countries around the globe to the COVID-19 pandemic, in terms of their attitudes, rhetoric, mobilization repertoires, and policy proposals. The responses of some populist leaders have received much public attention, as they denied the severity of the public health crisis, denigrated experts and data, looked for scapegoats, encouraged protests, questioned the legitimacy of liberal institutions, spread false information, and fueled conspiracies. But how widespread are those particular reactions? How much variation is there? What explains the variation that does exist? This volume considers these questions through critical analysis of countries in the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa, by leading experts with deep knowledge of their respective cases. Some chapters focus on populist parties, others on charismatic populist leaders. Some countries examined are democracies, others autocracies. Some populists are left wing, others right wing. Some populists are in government, others in opposition. This variation allows for a panoramic consideration of factors that systematically influence or mediate populist responses to the pandemic. The book thus makes a unique contribution to our understanding of the intersection between two of the most pressing social and political challenges of our time. The book will be of interest to all those researching populism, extremism, and political parties and those more broadly interested in political science, public policy, sociology, communications, and economics.

Over the last decade, the world has watched in shock as populists swept to power in free elections. From Manila to Warsaw, Brasilia to Budapest, the populist tide has shattered illusions of an inexorable march to liberal democracy. Eschewing simplistic notions of a unified global populism, this book unpacks the diversity and plurality of populisms. It highlights the variety of constitutional and extraconstitutional strategies that populists have used to undermine the institutional fabric of liberal democracy and investigates how ruling populists responded to the Covid-19 crisis. Outlining the rise of populisms and their governing styles, Wojciech Sadurski focuses on what populists in power do, rather than what they say. Confronting one of the most pressing concerns of international politics, this book offers a vibrant, contemporary account of modern populisms and, significantly, considers what we can do to fight back.

European leaders faced the Covid-19 pandemic by adopting very different leadership styles, characterized by diverging approaches to crisis communication, power management, and relationship-building with actors and stakeholders in the public sphere. The pandemic also highlighted the importance of the already-existing cleavage between populism and technocracy, positioning it at the centre of the political scene. These complex circumstances required a multidisciplinary perspective grounded in political sociology and communication studies. To address these issues, this book analyses the communication and leadership styles of seven European leaders, grouped into ‘political families’. It analyses the cases of Angela Merkel and Erna Solberg to understand if and how female leaderships differentiated from their male counterparts. It then analyses the relationship between techno-populism and professional politics by comparing the cases of Giuseppe Conte, Emmanuel Macron and Pedro Sanchez. Finally, it focuses on populist leaders Boris Johnson and Victor Orbán, who represent emblematic cases with opposite outcomes.

Drawing on his Engelsberg Lectures, Michael Burleigh explores the new global era of national populism. He first probes the nature of mass anger in the West: how might popular discontent be artificially incited and sustained by elite figures claiming to speak for the common people? He then compares empire's difficult aftermaths in Britain and Russia: how does History foster a sense of exceptionality, and how is it exploited by populists, as we've seen again with 2020's 'statue wars'? And finally, he turns to China, where the ruling Communist Party depends on a nationalised version of History for popular support. Covid-19 has created problems for several populist leaders, whose image has suffered amidst the public's new-found respect for expertise and disappointment over their shouty handling of the pandemic. Yet despite Donald Trump's defeat, with extended economic depression looming, Burleigh fears that new post-populists may yet arise.

During the European elections of 2014, one of the main issues raised by the media was the electoral performance of so called ‘populist parties’. The electorate confirmed its deep dissatisfaction with mainstream political parties, voting for far right parties in parliamentary elections in Northern Europe (Austria, Denmark, Sweden), Eastern Europe (Hungary, where the deeply anti-Semitic Jobbik party gained votes) and in France (where the French National Front won about a quarter of the vote), while in the Southern European countries, battered by austerity policies, it was the radical right and left in Greece (Golden Dawn and Syriza) and the radical left in Spain (Podemos) that obtained excellent scores. This book examines the growing trend towards far and extreme right populism that has emerged prominently in Northern (Finland), Western (Austria, Denmark, France, the UK), Southern (Greece, Italy) and Central/Eastern Europe (Slovenia, Bulgaria) since the 1990s. Providing a critical understanding of current European trends and analysing the complex phenomena covered by the notion of populism, this book will be of interest to students and scholars researching right-wing politics, as well as European politics more generally.