Rally 'round the flag effects are not for all: Trajectories of institutional trust among populist and non-populist voters

Using the Consequences of COVID-19 (COCO) dataset (quota sample of the adult Italian population, surveyed seven times by email), we analysed the trend of trust in political (political parties, parliament and local administrations), super partes (president of the Republic, judiciary and police) and international (the European Union and the United Nations) institutions from June 2019 to October 2022. Three latent growth curve models showed that trust in political institutions increased between June 2019 and April 2020 and subsequently decreased below the pre-pandemic level. Trust in super partes institutions decreased slightly between June 2019 and April 2020, decreased from April 2020 to April 2022 and increased in the subsequent months. Trust in international institutions declined between June 2019 and April 2020 and then returned to pre-pandemic levels. Three piecewise decompositions showed different trends in trust for non-populist voters, populist voters and non-voters. Strengths, weaknesses and possible developments of the study are discussed.

Health emergencies, science contrarianism and populism: A scoping review

Populism has emerged as a central explanation employed by both media outlets and scholars for the mishandling of the COVID-19 crisis. Nonetheless, the relationship between public health and populism extends before and beyond the pandemic. This paper offers a comprehensive overview of existing evidence and theoretical conceptualisations on the intersection of populism, health emergencies, and contrarian scientific positions, drawing from a diverse range of disciplines. I conducted a scoping review of 283 original studies, analysing their analytical framework, geographic focuses, and methodological approaches. Employing quantitative text analysis, I summarised the research field into 18 common topics, organised into five coherent categories: citizen's perspective, political elites, political communication, pandemic consequences, and non-COVID-related issues. While the scholarly interest in this area has surged since the onset of the pandemic, it has predominantly concentrated on specific cases, such as Brazil and the US, often conflating different policy types. The evidence summary elucidates that populism assumes varying roles within distinct contexts, and there is no linear relationship between political populism and specific approaches to health crises and science. I further compare definitions of populism within the context of health and scientific positions. I propose that future research should employ a policy typology for health emergency responses, assessing political positions based on policy arenas. This paper contributes to the understanding of the complex interplay between political populism, contrarian scientific perspectives, and public health.

Understanding Populism

The diversity of features attributed to populism - and, as a result, the variety of critiques leveled at it - are remarkable. It sometimes seems as though people are using the same terms to address very different phenomena. Is there any distinctive meaning to populism? Is populism inherently anti-democratic or, on the contrary, is it the epitome of democratic practice? What should an engagement with populist movements mean for the theory and practice of democracy? This paper seeks to map the discursive ecosystem that populism determines. It canvasses the phenomena often associated with populism, proposes an interrelated set of concerns that is distinctive to populism, suggests how populism intersects with propensities and affinities with which it is often associated, emphasises the role of growing economic inequality, and suggests responses to populist movements that are grounded in a truly democratic constitutionalism.

How orientations to expertise condition the acceptance of (mis)information

This review explores psychological barriers to the acceptance of expert guidance. Specifically, the constructs of epistemic overconfidence, institutional distrust, anti-expert sentiments, anti-establishment orientations, science populism, and conspiracist worldviews are jointly considered as orientations to expertise. I review the state of the literature on their origins, prevalence, and effects on misinformation endorsement and acceptance of corrections. Addressing these psychological barriers requires building trust in institutions, backed by transparent communication and the involvement of community-based, non-expert messengers. As the review synthesizes disparate research strands, it underscores the need for future studies to compare, validate, and consolidate different orientations to expertise, understand causal relationships, and explore generalizability to diverse contexts.

Comprehensive security, disinformation, and COVID-19: An analysis of the impacts of mis- and disinformation and populist narratives during the pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has generated many fundamental and challenging implications regarding security, for both states and people. This article addresses the pandemic as a security threat, whereby societal and human dimensions of security are intertwined with the narrower (so-called traditional) state dimensions, culminating in comprehensive security. This article uses mixed methods, combining desk research and a selection of narratives or stories from several parts of the world that signify how the intersection of disinformation and populist discourses exacerbated the COVID-19 security challenges. These are analysed through an innovative comprehensive security analytical approach. Drawing on both security theory and policy, the article examines how the COVID-19 pandemic jeopardised security on multiple levels. First, the state's capacity to effectively act and deliver in the domestic sphere waned. Second, the social contract between the state and its citizens eroded as public trust dissipated. This article argues, however, that the most pervasive threat to security during the pandemic pertained to the exploitation of the information domain in relation to the state, society, and people. The article interrogates how mis- and disinformation about the pandemic compounded and exacerbated the security challenges it posed, often relying on existing narratives within right-wing populism movements to increase mistrust and discontent. These largely right-wing populist narratives contributed to broadening the gap between states and people, besides weakening public compliance with state health security measures. The nature of populism and the narratives of particularly right-wing populism contributed to increases in fragmentation, polarisation, and discrimination impacting societal trust. The article concludes with recommendations to mitigate the adverse impacts of mis- and disinformation, including reinvigorating the relationship between state institutions and the people to strengthen comprehensive security.

Trump divide among American conservative professors

There has been an outpouring of research on right-wing populist conservatism since the advent of the Trump presidency and right-wing movements in Europe. Yet, little research has been devoted to divisions among conservatives themselves, especially among conservative academics. Although Trump has maintained remarkable unity within the Republican Party for electoral reasons, he has fostered sharp divisions among conservative intellectuals and academicians. This article compares 102 politically conservative professors who are Trumpists and 80 conservative professors who are anti-Trumpists. All 182 function as public intellectuals who advocate their views in print and digital media. Drawing on recent research in the sociology of intellectuals and particularly Pierre Bourdieu's analytical field perspective, this article proposes a fielding political identities and practices framework to show how these two groups of professors (Trumpists and anti-Trumpists) differ in where they teach, their intellectual orientations, their scholarly productivity, where they network with think tanks, scholarly professional associations, and government agencies, and their stances on key issues surrounding the Trump presidency. The academic Trumpists embrace the right-wing populist wave mobilized by Trump and the conservative academic critics resist this move. This polarization of views between these two groups of conservative professors is enduring and rooted in two distinct social networks that connect positions in the academic field to affiliations with think tanks, government agencies, and professional associations in the field of power that reinforce their respective political identities. This research contributes to political sociology, the sociology of intellectuals, and the sociology of conservative politics in American higher education.

Empirical validation study and psychometric evaluation of the properties of the populist attitudes scale for the portuguese population

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE

Recent developments in Europe and Portugal provide a fertile ground for the rise of populism. Despite the growing interest in the topic, there is no reliable tool to gauge Portuguese citizens' populist attitudes to date. The Populist Attitudes Scale (POP-AS), developed by Akkerman et al. [1], is one of the best-known instruments for measuring populist attitudes. However, no version for use in the Portuguese population is available. This paper describes the psychometric validation of the POP-AS for the Portuguese population.

METHODS

Trustworthy measures of validity suggested by Boateng et al. [2] to address the psychometric features of the POP-AS were approached. A robust psychometrical pipeline evaluated the reliability, construct validity, cross national/educational validity, and internal validity of the POP-AS.

RESULTS

The Portuguese version of the POP-AS exhibited sound internal consistency and demonstrated adequate properties of validity: a one-factor model was obtained, revealing evidence of construct validity; invariance was ensured for education and partially ensured for the country; All the items of the POP-AS revealed relatively good values of discrimination and contributed adequately to the total score of the scale, ensuring evidence of internal validity.

CONCLUSION

Psychometric analysis supports the POP-AS as a valid and reliable instrument for measuring populist attitudes among Portuguese citizens. A validation framework for measurement instruments in political science was proposed. Implications of the findings are discussed.

Segmentation of intentions towards COVID-19 vaccine acceptance through political and health behaviour explanatory models

BACKGROUND

Management of the COVID-19 pandemic has been plagued by an online 'infodemic', not least on the topic of vaccine safety. Failure to vaccinate is often addressed with corrective, factually based information. However, this may be overly simplistic. European vaccine hesitancy levels correlate closely with popularity of populist parties while scientific populism refers specifically to populist distrust in scientific expertise.

AIMS AND METHOD

Combining an evaluation of risk through the health belief model and the cognitive constructs from the theory of planned behaviour, with the influence of populist statements, anticipated regret, trust, and past healthcare behaviour, an online survey explored the components of vaccine decisions amongst a demographically representative Irish adult sample (N = 1995).

RESULTS

The regression model accounted for a large proportion of variance amongst the total sample. A primary set of influences suggests a considered risk evaluative decision-making approach while a second tier of weaker influences incorporates a broader set of values beyond cost-benefit analysis. Six ideological subsets were identified through K-means analysis. Segments were differentiated by subjective norms attitudes (particularly around social media), populist political attitudes, self-efficacy, perceptions of COVID-19 severity, and susceptibility to the condition.

CONCLUSIONS

While the 'right thing to do' is clear when viewed through a lens of scientific expert advice, this is precisely the paradigm which populist movement rejects. Segmentations, such as the outputs from this study, validate the importance of proactively engaging with diverse communities both on and offline and afford a framework for developing and evaluating more refined, targeted, policies and interventions.

The Critical Masses: The Rise of Contemporary Populism and Its Relation to Solidarity, Systems, and Lifeworlds

This paper examines the contemporary spread of populism across the globe. We argue that populist movements worldwide are responses to the colonization of lifeworlds by increasingly opaque knowledge and regulatory systems. The complexity of the systems that regulate and control the day-to-day life of individuals from afar makes these systems alien and incomprehensible, and consequently perceived as illogical and oppressive. To regain a sense of autonomy, actors have reasserted a way of thinking and acting contrary to the organic web of global interdependence, seeking independence from communities outside the known lifeworld via revitalized community control and an emphasis upon qualities resembling mechanical solidarity. We evidence this claim by comparing two contemporary phenomena which seem to be distinct events until interpreted in this way: movements against international humanitarian law and the French Gilets Jaunes. We conclude by discussing the implications for those interested in contemporary populist events in the USA and abroad and the role of scientists in communicating our findings.

Subjective Freedom of Speech: Why Do Citizens Think They Cannot Speak Freely?

We provide the first systematic research into the origins of subjective freedom of speech in Germany. Relying on the GLES 2021 Cross-Section Pre-Election Survey, which includes a newly designed survey item on subjective freedom of speech, we evaluate a whole range of plausible candidate hypotheses. First, we contribute to cumulative research by testing the explanatory factors in Gibson (1993)-citizens' social class, their political involvement and political preferences, and their personality dispositions-for the German case. Second, we move beyond the state of the art and test three new hypotheses that reflect more recent political developments and arguments in the free speech debate: the role of social media, increasing political and social polarization, and the rise of populism. Importantly, all hypothesis tests reported in this paper have been preregistered prior to data collection. Our results reveal that three explanatory factors are significantly, consistently, and substantively related to subjective free speech in Germany: political preferences, populist attitudes, and identification with the Alternative for Germany party.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION

The online version of this article (10.1007/s11615-022-00414-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

The promises and perils of populism for democratic policymaking: the case of Mexico

Much has been said theoretically about whether populism corrects the limitations of democracies, or instead damages their foundations. Yet we still know very little about how populist governments affect democratic policymaking in practice. Taking the classic policy cycle approach as a heuristic device, this article analyzes how populists influence agenda-setting, policy formulation and design, implementation, evaluation, and termination processes. Using a variety of sources, the article provides a qualitative in-depth analysis of the Mexican case during the first half of president Andrés-Manuel López-Obrador administration. The article shows that a populist government may fulfill some of its promises, but it ultimately materializes most of its perils, causing significant policy, institutional, and social damage. Populists introduce important distortions in each one of the policy stages and thus alter considerably the policymaking processes usually associated with democratic regimes. They employ a variety of strategies to limit the number of policy actors taking part in agenda-setting and evaluation exercises; formulate ineffective policy tools based on questionable design assumptions; develop personalistic implementation channels prone to patronage and clientelism; undermine the value of evidence-based analyses and discussions; and terminate institutions and programs on a discretionary basis. By exerting a rhetorical monopoly over the 'will of the people,' populists can follow policymaking patterns that significantly depart from the technical, rational, and pluralistic standards commonly associated with democratic policymaking. The article brings together debates on populism and policymaking, and studies a national case which has received limited scholarly attention, thus adding to both our theoretical and empirical contemporary understanding on this subject.

An interpretation of meta-analytical evidence for the link between collective narcissism and conspiracy theories

Meta-analytical evidence indicates the robust association between collective narcissism and conspiracy theories is moderated by the content of conspiracy theories. Belief in conspiracies of specific outgroups fits collective narcissistic posture of intergroup hostility but collective narcissism is also bound to other conspiracy theories because it simultaneously comprises a committed belief (that the ingroup is great) and a threatening belief (that the ingroup is unrecognized). This creates compensatory motivations to believe in conspiracy theories that protect the committed belief and to seize on any conspiracy theory as a meaning-making activity. Collective narcissism and conspiracy theories may also co-occur because they serve to coordinate undemocratic leaders and their constituencies. They produce threatening environments that justify coercion, violence and undemocratic governance.

Long-Term Economic Effects of Populist Legal Reforms: Evidence from Argentina

In this paper, we examine the consequences of populist government for long-term economic growth and development. To this end, we estimate the long-term growth impact of the Juan Péron's political rule in Argentina, which led to a comprehensive overhaul of the institutional framework laid by the Argentine founding fathers in the 1853 Constitution. Our hypothesis is that the progressive substitution of a growth-enhancing institutional framework by exclusionary growth-distorting frameworks explains Argentina's economic decline from one the world's richest countries on the eve of World War I to an underdeveloped nation in the present day. We emphasize the erosion of the rule of law and restraint of economic freedom during Perón's first government (1943-1955) as two fundamental coadjutant causes of Argentina's decline. The populist legal reforms of Perón had long-lasting adverse economic effects. By comparing Argentina's pre-Péron growth trajectory with a donor pool of 58 countries for the period 1860-2015, we estimate the counterfactual scenario without Péron's reforms. A variety of synthetic control estimates uncover substantial negative effects of the weakening of the rule of law and the populist reforms that began in 1940s on the trajectory of economic growth and development. The populist overhaul negated the economic growth advantages inherent in the 1853 Alberdian constitution. Without the short-sighted populist Peron episodes, Argentina would be a rich country down to the present day with per capita income comparable to southern European countries. We also perform a series of randomization inferences and a battery of placebo analyses, which confirm our results.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1057/s41294-022-00193-4.

The Impact of COVID-19 on the Support for the German AfD: Jumping the Populist Ship or Staying the Course?

Populist parties enjoy stable support in various European countries. The literature on the rise of populism argues that this support especially increases in times of crises. Surprisingly, the German right-wing populist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) did not increase its support in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, the party even lost 2.3 percentage points in the 2021 federal election. We address this puzzle and ask why the AfD has not been able to use the crisis to its advantage. Our main argument in answering this question is that, although the AfD pursued the classic populist strategy of fundamental opposition, the support base of the AfD is strongly divided on the preference towards measures containing the spread of COVID-19. This division is reinforced by individual affectedness by the pandemic. Introducing a novel weekly dataset on voter preferences, we show that the AfD support base is strongly divided on the issue with approval of the government measures being a significant and substantial contributor to vote switching away from the AfD. Using regional-level data and a difference-in-differences approach, we further show that western German regions hit especially hard by the pandemic display a lower AfD vote share than other regions. Our findings have important implications for the impact of exogenous shocks on electoral competition and also on the future of populist parties.

A Narrowing of the British Conservative Mind?

The Brexit referendum in June 2016 was a momentous event in British politics. It was also highly significant in the evolution of British conservatism, bringing to the fore a 'hard right' tendency. The hard right has framed the result as the initial stage of a counter-revolution against the liberal elite that, it feels, dominates the UK's key institutions. The rise of the hard right has concerned many, including even some conservatives, who see it as a nascent form of authoritarian populism. This commentary piece provides an overview of the fundamental narrative and ideas of the British hard right through some of its most prominent figureheads: Roger Scruton, Douglas Murray and Nigel Farage. It argues that while the hard right's ideas are not new, they are in process of dominating the British conservative movement to an unprecedented degree. As a consequence, other strands of conservative thinking are being marginalised. The article concludes by suggesting that the British hard right may have hubristically overinterpreted the Brexit result and recent Conservative Party electoral successes in 2019 and 2021, and this has led to a narrowing of the British conservative mind.

Conspiracy beliefs of Italian voters for populist parties: The moderated mediational role of political interest and ideological attitudes

Grounded in the theoretical framework of the dual-process motivational model of ideology and politics, we investigated the mediational role of RWA and SDO on the relationship between voting for populist parties and conspiracy beliefs; the moderation of political interest was also explored. Collapsing different convenience samples gathered after the European election (2014/2015) and the General National Election (2018/2019) allowed us to analyse two datasets (Study 1, n = 4141; Study 2, n = 2301). We hypothesised that populist voters would report higher conspiracy beliefs, RWA, and SDO, compared to non-populist voters and abstainers, and that populist voters would report more conspiracy beliefs through indirect pathways running through RWA and SDO. Furthermore, we hypothesised that such direct and indirect associations would be stronger for individuals with high rather than low political interest. Analyses of variance and moderated mediation models mostly confirmed our expectations, although RWA, and not SDO, mediated the relationships in the expected directions.

Backlash against Meat Curtailment Policies in online discourse: Populism as a missing link

Given overwhelming evidence that current levels of meat consumption jeopardize human and planetary health, there is a need for governmental action to reduce meat consumption (i.e., Meat Curtailment Policies, or MCPs). However, few such policies are actually being implemented, in part due to fear of backlash. Better understanding the ideological underpinning of backlash is thus crucial for designing strategies that can further the much needed transition towards more plant-based diets. To address this issue, this study unravels the diverse ideological notions informing backlash in discourse against MCPs. Data consists of three news articles in right-wing publications and over 2700 corresponding comments, posted on Facebook in response to policy proposals to reduce animal protein consumption in the Netherlands. Analysis of the data is based on a framework for ideological discourse analysis, which enables the identification of ideological notions through recognizing semantic and formal structures in text. The research reveals that next to the well documented notions related to neoliberalism (e.g., freedom of choice) and carnism (e.g., meat is normal), populist notions are a significant ideological basis of backlash. In addition, ideological notions related to populism, such as anti-elitism, are interlocked with carnism and neoliberalism. The analysis contributes to a better understanding of the socio-political nature of backlash against MCPs. It suggests that while notions related to carnism can explain how people justify their meat consumption, such notions are only partly relevant for explaining resistance to MCPs. Such resistance is not just an individual response, but a theme around which groups of people converge, through shared ideologies.

Crisis of Authority: The Truth of Post-Truth

This article is a critique of the notion of post-truth. Drawing on the work of Hannah Arendt, I argue that the epistemological crisis suggested by the notion of post-truth is epiphenomenal to a more general crisis of authority, a crisis that is poorly understood in the literature. I also argue that revisiting Arendt's account of authority can help us elucidate the vexed dynamics of authority in modern society, as well as the dynamics behind its current crisis. The post-truth situation is a loss of authority that is political before it presents as epistemological. Effectively addressing this situation, I conclude, is a much more challenging and complex proposition than what is suggested in the literature on post-truth.

Scotland and England's colliding nationalisms: neoliberalism and the fracturing of the United Kingdom

This paper explores the growing divide between Scotland and England, a schism that was beginning to take form with Scottish devolution and which has grown exponentially since the Independence Referendum of 2014. The central argument presented in the paper is that renewed impetus for national distinction and self-determination in Scotland is best understood as one facet of a much wider popular disenchantment and growing restiveness with the trajectory of contemporary UK politics, culture and society that has found an outlet via a resurgent nationalist discourse and institutional framework. Analysis here is approached via the application of an original biosocial theory with the aim of presenting further insights into the underlying processes driving contemporary political instability. Moreover, it is argued that this scenario can be understood, and may shed light upon, the wider rise in nationalist and populist sentiment that is contributing to increasing political turbulence across Europe and beyond.

Populism and Health Policy in Latin America Comment on "A Scoping Review of Populist Radical Right Parties' Influence on Welfare Policy and its Implications for Population Health in Europe"

This commentary focuses on Latin America, a region known for its rich variety of populist politicians and some of the most extensive welfare states in the Global South. Contemporary Latin America offers examples of left-wing and right-wing populist leaders, none of whom demonstrate the same focus on excluding immigrants from welfare state benefits as that noted by Chiari Rinaldi and Marleen Bekker in the European context. We see this contrast not because immigrants’ access to health services is less important in Latin America, but because Latin American populists are more focused on internal "enemies." The commentary concludes with observations regarding Latin American populist leaders’ handling of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

Are Populist Leaders Creating the Conditions for the Spread of COVID-19? Comment on "A Scoping Review of Populist Radical Right Parties' Influence on Welfare Policy and its Implications for Population Health in Europe"

Do populist leaders contribute to the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)? While all governments have struggled to respond to the pandemic, it is now becoming clear that some political leaders have performed much better than others. Among the worst performing are those that have risen to power on populist agendas, such as in the United States, Brazil, Russia, India, and the United Kingdom. Populist leaders have tended to: blame "others" for the pandemic, such as immigrants and the Chinese government; deny evidence and show contempt for institutions that generate it; and portray themselves as the voice of the common people against an out-of-touch 'elite.' In our short commentary, focusing on those countries with the most cases, we find that populist leaders appear to be undermining an effective response to COVID-19. Perversely, they may also gain politically from doing so, as historically populist leaders benefit from suffering and ill health. Clearly more research is needed on the curious correlation of populism and public health. Notwithstanding gaps in the evidence, health professionals have a duty to speak out against these practices to prevent avoidable loss of life.

[National populism and fascism in a comparative historical perspective. Max Weber's sociology of domination revisitedComparaison historique entre national-populisme et fascisme. Sur l'actualité de la sociologie de la domination de Max Weber]

The rise of rightwing populism in the last decade, but more recently also the seemingly "authoritarian" measures taken by the state in protection against the COVID-19 pandemic, inspire ever more frequent comparisons with historical fascism. The paper discusses to what extent such a diachronic comparison is empirically and methodologically sound. The analysis is based in Max Weber's concept of "ideal type", which can be used as a tertium comparationis. The concept of "fascist minimum", which systematizes the structural features of fascist movements and regimes, provides a standard of comparison that combines theoretical rigor and empirical substance. Applying the concept of "fascist minimum", the article examines if and to what extent current tendencies of and in German politics deserve to be called "fascist".

The privilege of public service and the dangers of populist technocracy: a response to Michael Gove and Dominic Cumming's 2020 Ditchley annual lecture

On 27 June 2020, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, Michael Gove, gave the Ditchley Annual Lecture on the theme of 'the privilege of public service'. Although the fact that it took place in the context of the broader Coronavirus crisis meant that it received relatively little publicity or attention, the central argument of this article is that the lecture provides great insight into the ideas shaping government policy, in general, and into the inner mind of Dominic Cummings, in particular. As such, we argue that although the lecture was given by Michael Gove, it was clearly floating ideas and themes that were taken, almost directly, from Dominic Cummings' website. We draw out and explore these themes and suggest that what they combine to offer is a dangerous blend of technocratic populism that is as intellectually splintered as it is politically naïve.

Getting the Problem Definition Right: The Radical Right, Populism, Nativism and Public Health Comment on "A Scoping Review of Populist Radical Right Parties' Influence on Welfare Policy and its Implications for Population Health in Europe"

Building on Rinaldi and Bekker’s scoping review of articles on the impact of populist radical right (PRR) politics on welfare and population health, this short article formulates three pointers towards a framework that might help structure future research into PRR, populist politics more generally, and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and other health issues. First, we discuss the centrality of welfare chauvinism to the PRR’s impact on health, taking this as a cue for a broader reflection on the importance on distinguishing between the nativist and populist dimensions of PRR politics. Secondly, we turn our attention to the potential moderating effect of the PRR’s welfare chauvinism on the welfare cuts proposed by their right-wing coalition partners, comments we see as pointing to the need to focus on nativist, populist, neoliberal and other threats to welfare policy more generally, rather than on the PRR only. Thirdly, we reflect on the paradoxical nature of welfare chauvinism – its negative consequences for the health of the ‘own people’ it proclaims to defend – as a starting point for a brief discussion of the need to consider carefully the not-so-straightforward relation between the PRR’s political rhetoric, its (impact on) policy and institutions, and the outcomes of such policy.

The International Health Regulations (2005), the threat of populism and the COVID-19 pandemic

The global response to the COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare weaknesses and major challenges in the international approach to managing public health emergencies. Populist sentiment is spreading globally as democratic nations are increasing their support for or electing governments that are perceived to represent "traditional" native interests. Measures need to be taken to proactively address populist sentiment when reviewing the IHR (2005) effectiveness in the COVID-19 pandemic. We discuss how populism can impact the IHR (2005) and conversely how the IHR (2005) may be able to address populist concerns if the global community commits to helping states address public health threats that emerge within their borders.

Populism and health inequality in high-income countries

The rise of populist parties and movements in general and right-wing populist parties in particular has been noted also in the public health literature. While economic and other factors behind the populist surge have been systematically analyzed in the political and social science literature, the understanding of this political phenomenon seems weak in important parts of the public health literature. The lack of analysis of economic effects on health inequity of immigration of people with low levels of work skills to many high-income countries is given with the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health report as an example. Public health scholars should be able to fully analyze all effects on health inequity within countries. Public health scholars and professionals may lose credibility if they do not fully assess all relevant determinants, and the investigation of health inequity within countries should consider all systemic roots. Health inequity between countries is a crucial issue and should be addressed through international cooperation between countries, regions and international organizations. The approach from political science and social science should be adopted.

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A populist (right or left) political challenge has surged in recent decades.

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Public health may lose credibility if economic and other determinants of health are not correctly analyzed.

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The systematic and analytical approach in social science should be adopted.

Measuring populist discourse using semantic text analysis: a comment

A quantitative index for measuring populist discourse based on the number of times references are made to the own and the other group has been proposed by Aslanidis (Qual Quant, 2017. 10.1007/s11135-017-0517-4). The references to the two groups are found in the actor part of the clauses in texts. In this contribution, it is argued that the clause contains a lot of additional information not on the frequency of occurrence of populist speech, but regarding the how or the why of populist speech. In this text, this is used for a comparison of populist and non-populist statements in speeches by a Prime Minister.

Some Conceptual Caveats Comment on "The Rise of Post-truth Populism in Pluralist Liberal Democracies: Challenges for Health Policy"

In their editorial, Speed and Mannion identify two main challenges "the rise of post-truth populism" poses for health policy: the populist threat to inclusive healthcare policies, and the populist threat to well-designed health policies that draw on professional expertise and research evidence. This short comment suggests some conceptual clarifications that might help in thinking through more profoundly these two important issues. It argues that we should approach right-wing populism as a combination of a populist down/up (people/elite) axis with an exclusionary nationalist in/out (member/non-member) axis. And it raises some questions regarding the equation between populism, demagogy and the rejection of expertise and scientific knowledge.

Community Psychology as a Process of Citizen Participation in Health Policy Comment on "The Rise of Post-truth Populism in Pluralist Liberal Democracies: Challenges for Health Policy"

This brief commentary discusses a recent paper by Speed and Mannion that explores "The Rise of post truth populism in liberal democracies: challenges for health policy." It considers their assertion that through meaningful democratic engagement in health policy, some of the risks brought about by an exclusionary populist politics can be mediated. With an overview of what participation means in modern healthcare policy and implementation, the field of community psychology is presented as one way to engage marginalized groups at risk of exploitation or exclusion by nativist populist policy.

Populism and Feminism: Odd Bedfellows

In this era of populist insurgency breaking the mold of democratic politics, two movements clashed.They represented opposite sides of the political spectrum, one emancipatory, the other exclusionary. One may be identified as feminism, the other as populism. This essay analyzes both concepts and explores their connection.

This Is My (Post) Truth, Tell Me Yours Comment on "The Rise of Post-truth Populism in Pluralist Liberal Democracies: Challenges for Health Policy"

This is a commentary on the article ‘The rise of post-truth populism in pluralist liberal democracies: challenges for health policy.’ It critically examines two of its key concepts: populism and ‘post truth.’ This commentary argues that there are different types of populism, with unclear links to impacts, and that in some ways, ‘post-truth’ has resonances with arguments advanced in the period at the beginning of the British National Health Service (NHS). In short, ‘post-truth’ populism’ may be ‘déjà vu all over again,’ and there are multiple (post) truths: this is my (post) truth, tell me yours.

"Stop, You're Killing us!" An Alternative Take on Populism and Public Health Comment on "The Rise of Post-truth Populism in Pluralist Liberal Democracies: Challenges for Health Policy"

Ewen Speed and Russell Mannion correctly identify several contours of the challenges for health policy in what it is useful to think of as a post-democratic era. I argue that the problem for public health is not populism per se, but rather the distinctive populism of the right coupled with the failure of the left to develop compelling counternarratives. Further, defences of ‘science’ must be tempered by recognition of the unavoidably political dimensions of the (mis)use of scientific findings in public policy.

Signs of Fascism Rising: A European Americanist Looks at Recent Political Trends in the U.S. and Europe

This paper's central concern is with signs of fascism in recent political developments in a number of European countries and the United States. It takes the reader back to earlier periods in European and American history when this same anguished question was raised. Thus a longer intellectual history of concerns about the viability of democratic systems is drawn to guide us in our current political evaluations.

The Rise of Post-truth Populism in Pluralist Liberal Democracies: Challenges for Health Policy

Recent years have witnessed the rise of populism and populist leaders, movements and policies in many pluralist liberal democracies, with Brexit and the election of Trump the two most recent high profile examples of this backlash against established political elites and the institutions that support them. This new populism is underpinned by a post-truth politics which is using social media as a mouthpiece for ‘fake news’ and ‘alternative facts’ with the intention of inciting fear and hatred of ‘the other’ and thereby helping to justify discriminatory health policies for marginalised groups. In this article, we explore what is meant by populism and highlight some of the challenges for health and health policy posed by the new wave of post-truth populism.