#populism and power
News
The Populist Paradox: Economic Pain, Enduring Power
Populism is no longer a fringe phenomenon. Across Western democracies, from Donald Trump in the US to Viktor Orbán in Hungary and now even in Austria, populist leaders are gaining traction and wielding considerable power. What are the economic and social consequences of this political shift?
24.03.2026
News
Brazil’s Democratic Resilience: How Institutions Withstood Bolsonaro’s Assault
Populist leaders are often framed as menaces to democracy—and for good reason. Brazil under Jair Bolsonaro quickly rose to the top of everyone’s backsliding list, a veritable cautionary tale in the age of eroding norms. Yet Brazilian democracy endured. The story of how it survived offers valuable lessons for democracies everywhere.
23.05.2025
News
How Bolsonaro’s Gendered Populist Performance Polarized Brazil
In Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro leveraged gender performance to craft and sustain an outsider persona, despite his long-standing tenure in parliament and his role as head of the executive. This performative act, however, had dire consequences. It intensified political polarization and turned intimate spheres shaped by gender relations into battlegrounds of ideological conflict, especially during the 2022 electoral campaign.
15.04.2025
Podcasts
Populism in Power – A Conversation with Giorgos Venizelos
There's indeed a lot of confusion about populism, even though there's so much literature about it. Without going too deep in this heated debate, I should say that scholars agree that populism is organised around two notions: people- centrism and anti-elitism. Of course, there are very different approaches to these two operational criteria related to the people and the elite. For me, populist communication is not just about rhetoric, but also bodily gestures, accents and aesthetics that resemble, represent and enact ‘the people.’ When we talk about populism, we also talk about a certain logic, a certain style or performance. And it can also be said that populism operates with a political cleavage that is distinct from the typical left-right political cleavage – it's a cleavage between ‘the populists’ or ‘the people’ at the bottom and ‘the elite’ or ‘the anti-populists’ at the top. There is non-populist politics as well, of course, politics or discourses that do not have these [...]
14.08.2024
Debunking Myths About Populism in Power
'Populism' and 'power' have an uneasy relationship. Key texts reveal three assumptions about populism's 'fate' in power: first, it becomes mainstream; second, it turns authoritarian; third, it fails / succeeds to implement policies. Giorgos Venizelos argues we must look beyond populism's content or outcomes and turn instead to populism's function of constructing collective identities through discursive / affective performativity.
3.06.2024
