Here are 100 books that Populism fans have personally recommended if you like
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I am researching how elites and societies in Russia and East Central Europe have adapted to the social, political, and economic transformation processes following the end of Communism. What fascinates me about this topic is understanding why many of these countries continued to fall back to the same patterns of re-autocratization as they did during the Communist times. My answer is that it is because many institutions and elites in these regions have continued certain policies and behaviors from Communist times, which are still affecting their politics and economics. I also examine the impact of the transformational shock on Russia's international revisionism and democratic backsliding across the region.
Another influential book explains why left parties decided to rebrand and adopt seemingly suicidal economic policies. Mudge traces the evolution of left parties' economic policies and the adoption of neoliberal policies as a function of their adaptation to waning voter loyalties.
This book explains the motivation behind the Third Way rebranding that many such parties underwent.
Left-leaning political parties play an important role as representatives of the poor and disempowered. They once did so by promising protections from the forces of capital and the market's tendencies to produce inequality. But in the 1990s they gave up on protection, asking voters to adapt to a market-driven world. Meanwhile, new, extreme parties began to promise economic protections of their own-albeit in an angry, anti-immigrant tone.
To better understand today's strange new political world, Stephanie L. Mudge's Leftism Reinvented analyzes the history of the Swedish and German Social Democrats, the British Labour Party, and the American Democratic Party. Breaking…
I am researching how elites and societies in Russia and East Central Europe have adapted to the social, political, and economic transformation processes following the end of Communism. What fascinates me about this topic is understanding why many of these countries continued to fall back to the same patterns of re-autocratization as they did during the Communist times. My answer is that it is because many institutions and elites in these regions have continued certain policies and behaviors from Communist times, which are still affecting their politics and economics. I also examine the impact of the transformational shock on Russia's international revisionism and democratic backsliding across the region.
This book is fascinating because it shows how underlying informal political structures remained the same even after empires and political regimes collapsed.
Ledeneva explores the nature of the informal patronal networks connecting Russian elites and how that explains the persistent non-democratic dynamic over time and under various contexts. This book sheds light on the informal nature of Russian politics.
During the Soviet era, blat-the use of personal networks for obtaining goods and services in short supply and for circumventing formal procedures-was necessary to compensate for the inefficiencies of socialism. The collapse of the Soviet Union produced a new generation of informal practices. In How Russia Really Works, Alena V. Ledeneva explores practices in politics, business, media, and the legal sphere in Russia in the 1990s-from the hiring of firms to create negative publicity about one's competitors, to inventing novel schemes of tax evasion and engaging in "alternative" techniques of contract and law enforcement. She discovers ingenuity, wit, and vigor…
I am researching how elites and societies in Russia and East Central Europe have adapted to the social, political, and economic transformation processes following the end of Communism. What fascinates me about this topic is understanding why many of these countries continued to fall back to the same patterns of re-autocratization as they did during the Communist times. My answer is that it is because many institutions and elites in these regions have continued certain policies and behaviors from Communist times, which are still affecting their politics and economics. I also examine the impact of the transformational shock on Russia's international revisionism and democratic backsliding across the region.
This is one of my favorite books on the topic: it explains how and why electorates in postcommunist Europe became disillusioned with the promises of modernization and liberalization following the collapse of the Communist system. It shows how naïve and cheerful they were at first and how skeptical and disillusioned they’ve subsequently become.
The reforms were painful, and the results of those reforms were not always as expected. This disillusionment led to the rise of populism across the region. The authors also trace similar dynamics in Russia and the United States, which led to the rise of Putin and Trump, respectively.
Why did the West, after winning the Cold War, lose its political balance?
In the early 1990s, hopes for the eastward spread of liberal democracy were high. And yet the transformation of Eastern European countries gave rise to a bitter repudiation of liberalism itself, not only there but also back in the heartland of the West.
In this brilliant work of political history, Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes argue that the supposed end of Communism turned out to be only the beginning of the age of the autocrat. Reckoning with the history of the last thirty years, they show that…
It didn’t begin with Donald Trump. When the Republican Party lost five straight presidential elections during the 1930s and 1940s, three things happened: (1) Republicans came to believe that presidential elections are rigged; (2) Conspiracy theories arose and were believed; and (3) The presidency was elevated to cult-like status.
I am researching how elites and societies in Russia and East Central Europe have adapted to the social, political, and economic transformation processes following the end of Communism. What fascinates me about this topic is understanding why many of these countries continued to fall back to the same patterns of re-autocratization as they did during the Communist times. My answer is that it is because many institutions and elites in these regions have continued certain policies and behaviors from Communist times, which are still affecting their politics and economics. I also examine the impact of the transformational shock on Russia's international revisionism and democratic backsliding across the region.
Like the above, the book analyses the social consequences of the transition across the post-communist region. It tracks how painful and shocking some of its aspects were to the corresponding countries. It helps us understand why the reform overachievers, the countries that did best in reforming their economies (like Hungary and Poland), subsequently suffered some of the most pronounced political backlashes against these reforms.
The book is well-written and fun to read despite the serious topic.
Kristen Ghodsee and Mitchell A. Orenstein blend empirical data with lived experiences to produce a robust picture of who won and who lost in post-communist transition, contextualizing the rise of populism in Eastern Europe.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, more than 400 million people suddenly found themselves in a new reality, a dramatic transition from state socialist and centrally planned workers' states to liberal democracy (in most cases) and free markets. Thirty years later, postsocialist citizens remain sharply divided on the legacies of transition. Was it a success that produced great progress after a short recession,…
I am Lecturer in US Foreign Policy at Queen Mary University of London, and I work on issues of national security and identity, political rhetoric and the role of the everyday in shaping politics, especially media and popular culture. I have written extensively on American politics and US foreign policy over these past years with two published monographs and more than a dozen articles in peer-reviewed academic journals, plus a couple of op-eds and multiple TV and radio appearances. My most recent research project explores the role of populism under the Trump presidency and its political impact in the United States.
A perfect book for anybody looking for a short and accessible yet very comprehensive introduction to the subject of populism.
What I particularly liked was how engaging the writing was (not a given with political scientists!) and how it offered key insights on real-world political developments, from Trump to Brexit. I found it an ideal starting point for learning more about populism and it greatly helped my own understanding of the concept.
Donald Trump, Silvio Berlusconi, Marine Le Pen, Hugo Chavez-populists are on the rise across the globe. But what exactly is populism? Should everyone who criticizes Wall Street or Washington be called a populist? What precisely is the difference between right-wing and left-wing populism? Does populism bring government closer to the people or is it a threat to democracy? Who are "the people" anyway and who can speak in their name? These questions have never been more pressing.
In this groundbreaking volume, Jan-Werner Muller argues that at populism's core is a rejection of pluralism. Populists will always claim that they and…
I am an economist by training, who has researched and taught classes related to business, governance, and democracy for more than 30 years at the University of Southern California. My work is multidisciplinary, spanning economics, finance, law, and political science, with a grounding in empirical analysis. In addition to two books and numerous scholarly articles, I am a frequent op-ed contributor and media commentator on topics related to democracy. I also direct the Initiative and Referendum Institute, a nonpartisan education organization focused on direct democracy.
This political science classic explains why it is impossible to create a voting system that reliably reveals citizen preferences; all systems can be manipulated by those who frame the questions and timing of elections. What this implies, Riker argues, is that democracy’s strength is not allowing citizens to micromanage policy; its strength is allowing the people to remove elected officials that don’t serve their interests. This is a scholarly work—not for the casual reader—it offers illuminating examples contains illuminating examples that illustrate key principles, and is accessible to an educated reader with some effort.
The discoveries of social choice theory have undermined the simple and unrealistic nineteenth-century notions of democracy, especially the expectation that electoral institutions smoothly translate popular will directly into public policy. One response to these discoveries is to reject democracy out of hand. Another, which is the program of this book, is to save democracy by formulating more realistic expectations. Hence, this book first summarizes social choice theory in order to explain the full force of its critique. Then it explains, in terms of social choice theory, how politics and public issues change and develop. Finally, it reconciles democratic ideals with…
We’ve all experienced the overwhelming level of political and social divisiveness in our country. This invisible “virus” of negativity is, in part, the result of the name-calling and heated rhetoric that has become commonplace among commentators and elected leaders alike.
My book provides a clear perspective on the historical and…
I’m a political philosopher who lives in Seattle. I teach and write about political ethics, and the ways in which moral concepts change when they get applied to the relationships between states—and to the complicated borders that define where states end. I tend to write about what puzzles me, and many of these puzzles come from my personal life; I’m a migrant myself, and the experience of migrating to the United States led me to write about what sorts of values a country can rightly pursue through migration policy—and what sorts of things, more generally, it can and can’t do to migrants themselves.
This book somehow manages to deal with explosive topics like racism and migration with grace and clarity. It’s difficult to understand the reaction to migration without dealing with the rise of politicians who gain power by stoking fears about migration, and Kaufmann helped me to understand the rise of populism in political life without reducing anyone to a caricature.
Whiteshift: the turbulent journey from a world of racially homogeneous white majorities to one of racially hybrid majorities
This is the century of whiteshift. As Western societies are becoming increasingly mixed-race, demographic change is transforming politics. Over half of American babies are non-white, and by the end of the century, minorities and those of mixed race are projected to form the majority in the UK and other countries. The early stages of this transformation have led to a populist disruption, tearing a path through the usual politics of left and right. Ethnic transformation will continue, but conservative whites are unlikely…
I came to activism at a young age, inspired by a book given to me by a friend in Grade 10. I also grew up poor; my trajectory into university was unusual for my demographic, a fact I only discovered once I was doing my PhD in the sociology of education. By the time I started interviewing activists for my doctorate, I had a burning desire to understand how social change could happen, what democracy really looked like, and who was left out of participating. I am still trying to figure these things out. If you are, too, the books on this list might help!
I’ve loved Wendy Brown’s work since I started reading it while I was doing my PhD back in 2003. I cite her stuff in almost everything I’ve written. This recent book pulls together her vast expertise and insights about political theory, inequality, and democratic practices to explain how neoliberalism has always been anti-democratic, and how it continues to prop up authoritarian styles of leadership, like that of Donald Trump in the US. Key to this, she argues, is how neoliberalism has always made an appeal to ‘tradition,’ which smuggles in patriarchal, classist, and heterosexist notions of the nuclear family, the supremacy of Christian ideals, and a sort of rugged individualism that denies the necessity of a welfare state.
Across the West, hard-right leaders are surging to power on platforms of ethno-economic nationalism, Christianity, and traditional family values. Is this phenomenon the end of neoliberalism or its monstrous offspring?
In the Ruins of Neoliberalism casts the hard-right turn as animated by socioeconomically aggrieved white working- and middle-class populations but contoured by neoliberalism's multipronged assault on democratic values. From its inception, neoliberalism flirted with authoritarian liberalism as it warred against robust democracy. It repelled social-justice claims through appeals to market freedom and morality. It sought to de-democratize the state, economy, and society and re-secure the patriarchal family. In key works…
I grew up on the Northern Plains, visiting Indian Reservations where my mother was a social worker. The poverty, hopelessness, and general lack of medical care and schooling made a profound impact on me. It led me to Graduate School and the study of American Indians. Of my twelve books, two have been finalists for the Pulitzer Prize, and several others have won minor prizes. As a historian, I realize that we can turn things around. We can strive to better understand the past, and prepare our children and grandchildren for the future. But this will never happen by banning books. We must face the brave, new world that is upon us.
I doubt that there is any American who can look at our country over the past four or five years and conclude that the ship is running smoothly.
Hofstadter, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian from the 1950s, is the first historian to really put his finger on what makes America tick. He sees a clear relationship between concern over Status (and one could include race), anxiety, paranoia, irrational fear, and the evolution of politics.
And while the book is not quite as pessimistic as the title might seem, I wonder what he would say about the country’s status today? Are we as a nation really committed to democracy? It would seem that a considerable percentage of people are not. Those same people seem to promote violence.
And has not the massive increase in shootings been a major factor in increasing our anxiety, and paranoia? Such an increase in those concerns has…
Anti-Intellectualism in American Life is a book which throws light on many features of the American character. Its concern is not merely to portray the scorners of intellect in American life, but to say something about what the intellectual is, and can be, as a force in a democratic society.
"As Mr. Hofstadter unfolds the fascinating story, it is no crude battle of eggheads and fatheads. It is a rich, complex, shifting picture of the life of the mind in a society dominated by the ideal of practical success." —Robert Peel in…
I’m a former economics professor and a member of the Australian Parliament. I’ve written over ten books on policy, politics, and economics. As someone who enjoys fresh ideas, believes in kindness over hate, loves democracy, and thrives on international engagement, I’m deeply concerned about the rise of populism and the risk that it spills into authoritarianism. Only by understanding the causes and consequences of populism can we help address the threat and shape a fairer, more prosperous, and safer world.
While some dictators grab power through violent coups, a surprising number of authoritarian leaders initially won power through the ballot box. Levitsky and Ziblatt’s book tells the story of authoritarian populists such as Hugo Chávez in Venezuela and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey, who won elections and then eroded democratic norms and institutions.
In many cases, populist authoritarians subvert democracy not by overtly breaking the law but by gradually weakening institutional checks and balances. Populists exploit societal divisions and erode democratic norms by portraying themselves as the true voice of the people while demonizing opponents as illegitimate.
'The most important book of the Trump era' The Economist
How does a democracy die? What can we do to save our own? What lessons does history teach us?
In the 21st century democracy is threatened like never before.
Drawing insightful lessons from across history - from Pinochet's murderous Chilean regime to Erdogan's quiet dismantling in Turkey - Levitsky and Ziblatt explain why democracies fail, how leaders like Trump subvert them today and what each of us can do to protect our democratic rights.
'This book looks to history to provide a guide for defending democratic norms when they are…
