Articulations of populism: the Nordic case

Populism as a concept is elusive and has been connected to very different political movements. Generally, populism’s connotations are rather negative and the term is often used pejoratively in the academic field as well. However, Ernesto Laclau has approached populism by arguing that populist reason is a manifestation of political logic in which group identification – formed through various signifiers such as ‘the people’, which are articulated as part of an ‘equivalence chain’ – eventually establishes political agency as a totality. This paper uses Laclau’s articulation theory to analyse the public construction of contemporary populism in the Nordic countries of Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark. The analysis demonstrates that mainstream media frame populism rather negatively, although examples of the term’s positive identification with ‘the people’ are available, especially in the tabloid media. Thus, the positive identification behind the forming of populist movements clashes with the media discourse that prioritizes established journalistic views, practices and sources, making populism a ‘floating signifier’, that is, a concept that has several meanings which are contested in various public discourses. A general pattern in the construction of populism in Northern European multi-party democracies can be discerned, thus identifying the central role of nationalist and nativist identifications in contingent populist articulations. However, the differences between the Nordic countries emphasize a context-driven approach.     

美国中期选举及“茶党”兴起的影响

美国中期选举使民主党和奥巴马总统本人受到很大打击。民主党失掉众议院多数席位,奥巴马未来两年执政道路充满荆棘,竞选连任困难重重。共和党通过中期选举掌控了众议院,标志着他们说便宜话的时代结束了,未来的道路也并不好走。茶党的兴起,对美国政坛和社会的影响正在显现。美国保守主义思潮回归,金融经济危机冲击下的各种社会问题交织,其国内外政策走向正在深刻演变之中。     

Why do American Indians vote Democratic?

We examine the relationship between a relatively large population of American Indians in eastern Oklahoma and the slow pace of that region's partisan realignment. With a 2012 exit poll, we empirically examine whether American Indians’ cultural ties and their socio-economic characteristics affected their vote choices. Because of their greater poverty, American Indians are more economically progressive and vote more Democratic than their white counterparts.     

“Build a wall”. “Tax a shed”. “Fix a debt limit”. The constructive and destructive potential of populist anti-statism and “naïve” statism

ABSTRACT

Populist surges, movements and parties often centre around radically simplifying policy proposals, sometimes anti-statist in intent (e.g. fix a limit to state borrowing in cash terms), and at other times pushing naïve statist solutions (e.g. build a giant wall to keep out migrants; or tax companies' activities in a given shed, not their profits). Most liberal political science condemns the crudity and often unrestrained vigour of populist “solutions”. But on occasion, they can have value in counteracting the increasing complexities that elites often build into public policies. Two case studies show populist pressure for simplification working effectively in one instance – the “tax shaming” campaign against multinationals avoiding corporation taxes; and engendering only disorder in another instance – the effort to enforce national debt limits in nominal terms in the USA.     

AUSTRIFYING EUROPE: ULTRARIGHT POPULISM AND THE NEW CULTURE OF RESISTANCE

The article investigates the political and cultural causes of the emergence of right-wing coalitions throughout the European Union, taking Austria as a symptomatic case of this return of political antagonism within a culture of consensus. It is argued that, methodologically and theoretically, a valid analysis of the phenomenon of xenophobic populism can only be achieved with the combined effort of both political and cultural theory,respectively of both political discourse analysis and cultural studies. Two axes of analysis have to be taken into account: the first being the relation between culture (or the popular) and politics (or the ‘people’), and the second concerning the even more fundamental relation or difference between politics and the political.     

The Effect and Policy Choice of Youth＇s Cyber Political Participation from the Perspective of Democracy

公民政治参与是现代民主的核心要素。青年政治参与是公民政治参与的重要组成部分，关系着中国民主建设状况与政治发展方向。青年政治参与先后出现过计划经济时代的政治动员型参与、市场经济时代的利益趋动型参与、网络时代的自我表达型参与三种类型。青年是网络政治参与的重要主体，由于网络自身的适时性、便捷性、交互性，再加之现实政治参与渠道的狭窄，在网络空间的青年政治参与表现出迥异于物质世界青年政治参与的活跃性。网络政治参与是青年政治参与新的增长点，不过其自身也存在着非理性、失范性、网络民粹主义、网络谣言等负面效应。为此，构建引导青年网络政治参与的政策与制度势在必行。     

欧洲新法西斯主义与新平民主义比较研究

新法西斯主义和新平民主义是欧洲极右翼势力中主要的两类政党,在反对现行体制、主张集权的特点上有其相似性,在历史渊源、意识形态、政治主张和选举基础上有其差异性。新法西斯主义是法西斯主义的继续,但它得到的支持非常有限,欧洲也没有法西斯卷土重来的土壤。新平民主义以“代表平民利益”为旗号,以反对腐败的传统政党政治为卖点,它具有改变政党系统的潜力,同时也暗示欧洲社会的深刻变化。     

论五四时期的民粹主义

中国近代存在着浓厚的民粹主义倾向,并在五四时期得到集中体现。五四时期的民粹主义,除了揭露资本主义罪恶并主张中国走非资本主义前途外,主要有四个基本特征:一是劳动主义的兴起及对劳动、劳工的推崇;二是平民主义思潮兴起及对民众力量的重视;三是呼吁到农村去、到工厂去,到民间去;四是对知识及知识分子的贬低,反智主义萌动。民粹主义倾向与启蒙主义的内在冲突,对五四新文化运动的历史走向产生了重大影响,使其逐渐偏离了启蒙轨道,走向了后五四时代的平民主义激进之路。     

“农业神话”与美国平民主义运动的兴起

美国平民主义运动是发生在美国19世纪70年代初至19世纪末,以农场主为参与主体,以格兰其、农民联盟、人民党为主要组织形式的一场广泛性群众抗议运动。美国传统的＂农业神话＂是导致农场主们积极行动起来并投身该运动的重要因素之一。随着19世纪中后期工业革命的迅速发展,美国农场主的经济、政治地位进一步降低,这与农业时代农场主作为社会中坚力量的实际形成了强烈的反差。农场主们于是通过平民主义运动,呼吁联邦政府对经济垄断进行管制,对社会弱势群体承担更多的责任,以回到＂农业神话＂时代那个更为温情、更具人性化、社会阶层更为平等的政治经济秩序中去。     

现代性成长进程中如何消除民粹主义意识

现代性的成长加速着从传统社会向现代社会的转变。在这个过程中,传统的农民在经济、政治和思想文化等方面都发生着重大的变化,一定程度上存在着的民粹主义潜流。因而必须正确认识现代性与民粹主义意识的关系,采取有效措施,逐步消除民粹主义的影响,以实现社会的和谐发展。