Abstract
This chapter, based on a review of existing literature on the phenomenon of populism, aims to demonstrate the “double nature” of populism as the “consequence and catalyst” of social problems. The social problems behind the rise of populism may range from socioeconomic underdevelopment to poorly designed political institutions, from rapid social change, urbanization, and industrialization to lack of state capacity, from corruption to sharp sociocultural rifts within society stemming from domestic as well as international inequalities. On the other hand, there are social problems that are generated and facilitated by populism such as social polarization, clientelistic practices in public bureaucracy, corrosion in the rule of law, decay in administrative capacity, as well as democratic backsliding.
The chapter also focuses on seven distinct cases of populism for solid evidence that may help understand the “double nature” of the phenomenon as the “consequence and catalyst of social problems.” These cases include the Trump era in the USA, Chavismo in Venezuela, “populist democracy” of Greece under PASOK rule, the Nasser era in Egypt, Turkey under the rule of Erdoğan’s AKP, India under the rule of Modi’s BJP, and the Duterte rule in Philippines. By using case studies overwhelmingly from the Global South, the chapter proposes a new perspective for understanding the dynamics that paved the way to the global rise of populism to power and social problems corroborated by these strong populist incumbents today.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Arditi, B. (2005). Populism as an internal periphery of democratic politics. In F. Panizza (Ed.), The Mirror of democracy (pp. 72–98). London and New York.
Baykan, T. S. (2017). Halkçılık ve popülizm: Türkiye vakası ve bir kavramın kullanımları. Mülkiye Dergisi, 41(1), 157–194.
Baykan, T. S. (2018a). “İdare-i maslahatçılık”tan “popülizm”e Türkiye’de duyarlı siyasal pratik: “Popülizm yapıyorsun!”. Birikim, 353, 15–36.
Baykan, T. S. (2018b). The justice and development party in Turkey – Populism, personalism, organization. Cambridge University Press.
Blaydes, L. (2011). Elections and distributive politics in Mubarak’s Egypt. Cambridge University Press.
Brading, R. (2013). Populism in Venezuela. Routledge.
Brubaker, R. (2017). Why populism? Theory and Society, 46(5), 357–385.
Canovan, M. (1981). Populism. Junction Books.
Canovan, M. (1999). Trust the people! Populism and the two faces of democracy. Political Studies, 47(1), 2–16.
Curato, N. (2016). Politics of anxiety, politics of hope: Penal populism and Duterte’s rise to power. Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs, 35(3), 91–109.
Demirel, T. (2011). Türkiye’nin Uzun On Yılı Demokrat Parti İktidarı ve 27 Mayıs Darbesi. Bilgi.
Drucker, P. (2015). Yönetim (İ. Gülfidan, Trans.). Optimist.
Duverger, M. (1974). Siyasi Partiler (E. Özbudun, Trans.). Bilgi Yayınevi.
Finchelstein, F. (2019). Faşizmden Popülizme (A. Karatay, Trans.). İletişim.
Germani, G. (1978). Authoritarianism, fascism, and national populism. Transaction Books.
Green, M., & White, J. K. (2019). Populism in the United States. In D. Stockemer (Ed.), Populism around the world (pp. 109–122). Springer.
Hawkins, K. A. (2010). Venezuela’s Chavismo and populism in comparative perspective. Cambridge University Press.
Hawkins, K., et al. (2017). Populism and its causes. In C. R. Kaltwasser et al. (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of populism (pp. 267–286). Oxford University Press.
Hawkins, K. A., et al. (Eds.). (2018). The ideational approach to populism: Concept, theory, and analysis. Routledge.
Heinisch, R., & Mazzoleni, O. (2017). Analysing and explaining populism: Bringing frame, actor and context back in. In R. Heinisch et al. (Eds.), Political Populism (pp. 105–122). Baden-Baden.
Jaffrelot, C., & Tillin, L. (2017). Populism in India. In C. R. Kaltwasser et al. (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of populism (pp. 179–194). Oxford University Press.
Johnson, P. (1972). Egypt under Nasser. MERIP Reports, 10, 3–14.
Kalaycioğlu, E. (2001). Turkish democracy: Patronage versus governance. Turkish Studies, 2(1), 54–70.
Karaömerlioğlu, M. A. (2022). Populism in Turkey: From a political style to a model for global politics. In J. Jongerden (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of contemporary populism (pp. 75–88). Routledge.
Katz, R. S., & Mair, P. (1995). Changing models of party organization and party democracy: The emergence of the cartel party. Party Politics, 1(1), 5–28.
Kirchheimer, O. (1966). The transformation of the Western European party systems. In J. L. Palombara & M. Weiner (Eds.), Political parties and political development (pp. 177–200). Princeton.
Kollmeyer, C., & Pichler, F. (2013). Is deindustrialization causing high unemployment in affluent countries? Evidence from 16 OECD countries, 1970–2003. Social Forces, 91(3), 785–812.
Kurmanaev, A. (2019). Venezuela’s collapse is the worst outside of war in decades, economists say [HTML]. Retrieved from The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/17/world/americas/venezuela-economy.html
Laclau, E. (2005). On populist reason. Verso.
Levistsky, S. (2003). Transforming labor-based parties in Latin America: Argentine Peronism in comparative perspective. Cambridge University Press.
Levitsky, S., & Loxton, J. (2013). Populism and competitive authoritarianism in the Andes. Democratization, 20(1), 107–136.
Lowndes, J. (2021). Trump and the populist presidency. In P. Ostiguy et al. (Eds.), Populism in global perspective (pp. 95–117). Routledge.
Lyrintzis, C. (1987). The power of populism: The Greek case. European Journal of Political Research, 15(6), 667–686.
Mavrogordatos, G. T. (1997). From traditional clientelism to machine politics: The impact of PASOK populism in Greece. South European Society and Politics, 2(3), 1–26.
Maya, M. L. (2018). Populism, 21st-century socialism and corruption in Venezuela. Thesis Eleven, 149(1), 67–83.
Mazzoleni, G., & Schulz, W. (1999). “Mediatization” of politics: A challenge for democracy? Political Communication, 16(3), 247–261.
Meny, Y., & Surel, Y. (Eds.). (2002). Democracies and the populist challenge. Palgrave Macmillan.
Moffitt, B. (2016). The global rise of populism. Stanford University Press.
Mouffe, C. (2015). Siyasal Üzerine (M. Ratip, Trans.). İletişim.
Mouffe, C. (2019). Sol Popülizm (A. Yanık, Trans.). İletişim.
Mudde, C. (2004). The populist zeitgeist. Government and Opposition, 39(4), 541–563.
Mudde, C. (2007). Populist radical right parties in Europe. Cambridge University Press.
Mudde, C., & Kaltwasser, C. R. (Eds.). (2012). Populism in Europe and the Americas: Threat or corrective for democracy? Cambridge University Press.
Mudde, C., & Kaltwasser, C. R. (2017). Populism. Oxford University Press.
Müller, J. (2017). Popülizm Nedir? (O. Yıldız, Trans.). İletişim.
Murray, R. (1995). Fordizm ve Post-fordizm. In S. Hall & M. Jacques (Eds.), Yeni Zamanlar. (A. Yılmaz, Trans. pp. 46–62). Ayrıntı.
Nielsen, K. B., & Nilsen, A. G. (2022). Hindu nationalist statecraft and Modi’s authoritarian populism. In S. Widmalm (Ed.), Routledge handbook of Autocratization in South Asia (pp. 92–100). Routledge.
Norris, P., & Inglehart, R. (2019). Cultural backlash. Cambridge University Press.
Ostiguy, P. (2017). Populism: A Socio-Cultural Approach. In C. R. Kaltwasser et al. (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of populism (pp. 73–97). Oxford University Press.
Ostiguy, P. (Ed.). (2021). Populism in global perspective. Routledge.
Özbudun, E. (2015). Turkey’s judiciary and the drift toward competitive authoritarianism. The International Spectator, 50(2), 42–55.
Pappas, T. (2014). Populism and crisis politics in Greece. Palgrave Macmillan.
Roberts, K. M. (2021). Populism and polarization in comparative perspective: Constitutive, spatial and institutional dimensions. Government and Opposition, 1–23.
Sözen, Y. (2020). Studying autocratization in Turkey: Political institutions, populism, and neoliberalism. New Perspectives on Turkey, 63, 209–235.
Stockemer, D. (2019). Introduction. In D. Stockemer (Ed.), Populism around the world (pp. 1–7). Springer.
Taggart, P. (2004). Popülizm (B. Yıldırım, Trans.). Bilgi Üniversitesi.
Taşkın, Y. (2020). Populism in Turkey: Historical and contemporary patterns. In G. M. Tezcür (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of Turkish politics (pp. 275–294). Oxford University Press.
Thompson, R. (2019). The rise of illiberal democracy in The Philippines: Duterte’s early presidency. In I. Deinla & B. Dressel (Eds.), From Aquino to Duterte (2010–2018) (pp. 39–61). Singapore.
Tinker Salas, M. (2015). Venezuela: What everyone needs to know. Oxford University Press.
Urbinati, N. (2014). Democracy disfigured. Harvard University Press.
Walicki, A. (1987). Rus Düşünce Tarihi 1760–1900 (A. Şenel, Trans.). V Yayınları.
Webb, A., & Curato, N. (2019). Populism in The Philippines. In D. Stockemer (Ed.), Populism around the world (pp. 49–66). Springer.
Weyland, K. (2001). Clarifying a contested concept: Populism in the study of Latin American politics. Comparative Politics, 34(1), 1–22.
Weyland, K., & Madrid, R. L. (Eds.). (2019). When democracy trumps populism. Cambridge University Press.
Wolinetz, S., & Zaslove, A. (Eds.). (2019). Absorbing the blow. Rowman & Littlefield.
Yeşil, B. (2016). Media in new Turkey: The origins of an authoritarian neoliberal state. University of Illinois Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Baykan, T.S. (2023). Populism as the Consequence and Catalyst of Social Problems. In: The Palgrave Handbook of Global Social Problems. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68127-2_217-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68127-2_217-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-68127-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-68127-2
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Social SciencesReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences