Inside populism: theory and empirical cases

Over one in four Europeans today votes “populist”. In a dozen European nations, as lately in Italy, populist parties have entered government. In countries like Hungary or Poland, they rule. What do they have in common? How can one define populism? What do these parties stand for? Who supports them? Why do some develop and others not? To what extent are they a danger for democracy? This course will present the large populist party-family that developed in Europe, first on the far right, to a lesser extent on the far left. The concept of populism is one of the most controversial discussed in both sociology and political science. It is used to denote a wide range of different empirical events in a chronological, cultural, geographical sense.
Hence, labelling a political phenomenon as populist may mean relegating it to a sort of «black box», that can often be too vague and generic. The incautious use of this theoretical framework may therefore paradoxically lead to weaker and poorer interpretations, instead of a deeper understanding of political phenomena. With this 18 hours’ course, we try to open the black box of populism, by approaching it from an interdisciplinary and multi-method perspective, giving to the concept historical, political and sociological profundity. The first part of the course will be devoted to the introduction of the concept from a theoretical and historical point of view. We will explore the main analytical dimensions that scholars have associated to populism, the debate around possible definitions of the concept, and some historical declinations of it. In the second part, we will zoom in into specific dimensions, empirical configurations and sub-topics, in order to produce a concrete and empirically oriented knowledge of the scientific debate. More specifically, we will study and discuss on new populist narratives and configurations that are characterizing the development of populism in the last years (populism and science; populism, gender and sexuality; populism, social media and new forms of political communication; populism, affect and emotions). We will also focus on some empirical cases of populist parties, both in power and in opposition.
In addition to classical reading materials, the course includes the use of other media, such as audio and video materials, photographs, printed articles and the like, useful to boost theoretical reflection with case studies. Students are warmly invited to propose such materials themselves, which will be shared in the virtual classroom space and discussed collectively during the course.