Political power and the globalizing spread of populist politics

ABSTRACT

Populism has recently been surging with explanations to date focusing on economic or cultural power. This paper builds on Mann’s work to develop an explanation centered on political power instead. It presents an account of populism’s longer-term trajectories and a process of struggle ‘from below’ for citizenship rights, which should be curtailed for some and expanded for others. This paper compares four countries – Sweden, the United States, India and China – their commonalities but also the differences in terms of how ‘others’, internally and externally, are excluded, and how elites are criticized. The conclusion assesses the prospects for populists in power.

KEYWORDS:

• Populism
• United States
• Sweden
• India
• China

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ralph Schroeder

Ralph Schroeder is Professor in Social Science of the Internet at the Oxford Internet Institute. He is also the director of its MSc programme in Social Science of the Internet. Before coming to Oxford University, he was Professor in the School of Technology Management and Economics at Chalmers University in Gothenburg (Sweden). His publications include ‘Social Theory after the Internet: Media, Technology and Globalization’ (UCL Press, 2018) ‘Knowledge Machines: Digital Transformations of the Sciences and Humanities (MIT Press, 2015, co-authored with Eric T. Meyer), ‘An Age of Limits: Social Theory for the Twenty-First Century’ (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). His current research interests include digital media and right-wing populism, and the social Implications of big data.