Overview

A study of the rising popularity of populism and the misconceptions surrounding it Populism may come across as little more than an extreme form of national belonging -- nationalism run wild so to speak -- a case for national psychologists or a kind of collective pathology. However, as so often, appearances are deceptive. Paradoxes of Populism argues that the far-from-random similarities with ordinary manifestations of nationalism should be approached not as a venture into the classical structures of nation-states and identities, but as a disruptive and destabilising consequence of some of the constituent elements of sovereign nation-states becoming eroded and prised apart by contextual global processes and their agents. Hence, populism in all its varieties -- and there are many, as the book demonstrates -- is riddled with even more paradoxes and inconsistencies than mainstream nationalism itself: confusing causes and appearances, realities and fantasies, and turning the world inside out. The age of populism is truly the Second Coming of nationalism, and it has come with a vengeance. Its advent, however, happens in the background of real problems for millions of ordinary people in liberal-democratic states. This book sets out to engage with these real-world challenges as well as their political and cultural interpretations in the populist fantasia.

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9781785272141

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Ulf Hedetoft is Professor of international studies, Saxo Institute, University of Copenhagen, and Director, Center for the Study of Nationalism.

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