NASP International and Interdisciplinary Seminars

Radosław Markowski (University of Social Sciences & Humanities, Warsaw)
On varieties of populism

11 May 2018, 14.30
Room A
NASP Graduate School in Social and Political Sciences
Via Pace, 10 - Milan

Abstract

Debates about the malfunctioning of contemporary democracies hardly ever avoid referring to populism. This is partly justified, yet the plethora of ways authors use the term calls for order in its precise definition. Briefly, the "basket" with populism will soon explode as it is overcrowded with phenomena that are either similar to populism, are indicators of populism or happen to be highly correlated ones or qualify as its' adjectivized forms. The talk aims at discussing the above problems and seeks to answer several key questions: (1) are there any limits to the travelling capacity of the notion of populism across political cultures of the world? (2) Should we stick fundamentally to the narrow concept of populism (rejecting all associated phenomena) or should we allow for its 'adjectivized' forms or even speculate on different models of populisms? (3) What is the logical-terminological and phenomenological opposite of populism? Do we need to focus on this problem in order to clarify the notion of populism? 

This seminar is part of the NASP International and Interdisciplinary Seminars Series 2018.