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The Populism Specialist Group's fourth annual workshop features keynote addresses from Maria Esperenza Casullo and Simon Tormey, and will investigate the theme of populism's temporality especially in light of the diverse and complex forms of populism that have appeared in recent years.

Call for Papers (deadline closed 30 December 2019)

After the rise of Trump and Brexit, it has almost become a cliché among scholars and commentators to suggest that we are living through a ‘populist moment.’ As the argument goes, populism has always been a significant force in Europe and the Americas, but its rise had been characterised by episodic and context-specific surges. What is different, now, is that surges seem to manifest simultaneously, not only in Europe and the Americas, but also beyond, notably in India, Southeast Asia, Australia, but also Africa. In other words, the populist surge seems to have gone global for good. But is this really the case? If yes, how can we better explain it, taking into account the heterogeneity of populist actors as well as the multiplicity of institutional settings? If this is not really the case, how are we to critically assess discourses that seem to be ‘hyping’ populism, often to the extent of triggering moral panic? In this sense, we are interested both in contributions that aim to substantiate the claim that we live in a ‘populist moment,’ and others that would problematise and question this, focusing on the uses (and abuses) of ‘populism’ as a term or signifier. Could it be that part of what’s often discussed as an unprecedented rise of populist politics has also to do with the way that the media, politicians, think-tanks and scholars talk about the term?