Populism:How, What Why?

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

We are inundated by talk of “populism” everywhere today. But when we seek to define the term, disagreement abounds. Is populism about the politics of the poor and marginalized? What is its relationship to liberalism? Are populists friends or enemies of democracy? How do social media and the global economy shape contemporary populism? These are questions that lend themselves to a range of answers, all partial and tentative, that we will discuss and critique over the course of the semester. We will draw on a variety of disciplines (political science, anthropology, sociology, history, media studies) and a wide array of cases drawn from across the world to reflect on these questions and come up with our own answers. In this sense, the work we put into this course is cutting-edge social science, engaging with a subject that confounds experts and defies those who wield bureaucratic power in domestic and international institutions. Students will have the opportunity to design their own research projects, focusing on specific countries or topics, and to present and defend their own explanations of how populism works.