Heterogeneous drivers of heterogeneous populism

a column by Italo Colantone and Piero Stanig for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal

Populist parties tend to share an anti-establishment stance and the claim to represent ordinary people versus the elites.

This column, part of the Vox debate on populism, argues that despite these similarities, populist parties are fundamentally heterogeneous and the drivers of their support tend to be diverse. It also argues that the economy and culture should be seen as tightly interrelated rather than mutually exclusive explanations for the populist surge, and that rather than being a simple ‘protest vote’, the surge might reflect a new political cleavage resulting from the contraposition of winners and losers from structural economic changes.

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Some limits and political implications of participation within health and social care for older adults

an article by Malcolm Carey (University of Chester, Warrington, UK) published in Ageing & Society Volume 39 Issue 8 (August 2019)

Abstract

This paper critically examines service user participation and involvement for older adults. It concentrates on research and community-led engagement for older people, and maintains that despite extensive support and expansion, participation offers a complex form of governance and ideological control, as well as a means by which local governments and some welfare professions seek to legitimise or extend their activities.

Some of the paradoxes of participation are discussed, including tensions that persist between rhetorical claims of empowerment, active citizenship and democratic engagement, on one hand, despite tendencies towards risk-aversion, welfare retrenchment and participant ambivalence, on the other.

The paper also highlights practical problems in relation to participative research and community involvement, and questions arguments that participation may challenge the authority of welfare professionals.

Critical theory is drawn upon to contextualise the role of participative narratives within wider welfare, including its role in moving debate away from ownership or redistribution while masking and validating policy-related goals which can counter many older people's needs.

Tension is also noted between participation projects represented as resources to support ageing identities as opposed to those representing technologies for social regulation and conformity.

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The social-democratic roots of global governance: Welfare internationalism from the 19th century to the United Nations

an article by Jens Steffek and Leonie Holthaus (Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany) published in European Journal of International Relations Volume 24 Issue 1 (March 2018)

Abstract

Welfare internationalism was and still is one of the most powerful justifications for establishing international organizations. It suggests that public international organizations should cater to the material needs of individuals, rather than solve conflicts among states.

In this article, we trace the origins of welfare internationalism, challenging the dominant narrative that depicts it as a projection of the British welfare state or the American New Deal to the globe.

We show that welfare internationalism emerged earlier and combined ideational elements of very different origins. Notions of professional colonial administration migrated to the international context and dovetailed with a cosmopolitan interpretation of 19th-century public unions as caretakers of citizen interests.

Reform socialist approaches to the social question inspired domestic and international developments simultaneously, leading to the foundation of the International Labour Organization, which became a crucial venue for the promulgation of welfare internationalism.

We thus document how international theorists and practitioners of the early 20th century established a new perspective on international affairs, emanating from individuals and their needs. That perspective came to rival the traditional conception of international politics as intergovernmentalism and delivered important building blocks for the (self-)legitimation of the League of Nations and the United Nations.

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Populism and social media: how politicians spread a fragmented ideology

an article by Sven Engesser, Nicole Ernst, Frank Esser and Florin Büchel (University of Zurich, Switzerland) published in Information, Communication & Society Volume 20 Issue 8 (2017)

Abstract

Populism is a relevant but contested concept in political communication research. It has been well-researched in political manifestos and the mass media. The present study focuses on another part of the hybrid media system and explores how politicians in four countries (AT, CH, IT, UK) use Facebook and Twitter for populist purposes.

Five key elements of populism are derived from the literature:

• emphasizing the sovereignty of the people,
• advocating for the people,
• attacking the elite,
• ostracizing others, and
• invoking the ‘heartland’.

A qualitative text analysis reveals that populism manifests itself in a fragmented form on social media. Populist statements can be found across countries, parties, and politicians’ status levels.

While a broad range of politicians advocate for the people, attacks on the economic elite are preferred by left-wing populists. Attacks on the media elite and ostracism of others, however, are predominantly conducted by right-wing speakers.

Overall, the paper provides an in-depth analysis of populism on social media. It shows that social media give the populist actors the freedom to articulate their ideology and spread their messages.

The paper also contributes to a refined conceptualization and measurement of populism in future studies.

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Ideology and utopia: Historic crisis of economic rationality and the role of public sociology

an article by Val Colic-Peisker (RMIT, Victoria, Australia) published in Journal of Sociology Volume 52 Issue 1 (March 2017)

Abstract

This article reflects on the role of public sociology in the debate on the systemic crisis of western capitalism reinvigorated by the 2007–8 global financial crisis.

The article argues that, in the current moment in history, sociologists have a professional duty to challenge the growing irrationality of the economically rational public discourse and to more vigorously uphold the formulation of alternative ‘real-utopian’ discourses.

The article first introduces capitalism’s core ideology – economic rationality – arguing that it has hardened into the irrational dogma of the ostensibly rational West, with an unrelenting grip on the public discourse, especially in the ‘neoliberal’ Anglosphere.

The ideology suppresses measures needed to address issues such as global warming and global financial disorder. Contemporary ‘Anglo’ sociology, including Australian sociology, is internally compartmentalized, self-referential and of marginal influence in the public sphere.

Moreover, it espouses economic rationality in its practice within increasingly corporatized universities, while maintaining a progressive cloak over its intellectual products.

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Trade unions and the pension crisis: defending member interests in a neoliberal world

an article by Jo Grady (University of Leicester, UK) published in Employee Relations Volume 35 Issue 3 (2013)

Abstract

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to draw upon empirical research in order to demonstrate the ways in which trade unions have responded to the so-called current UK pension crisis.

Design/methodology/approach
The paper uses both theoretical approaches to neoliberalism, and empirical research in the form of interviews, to examine the contradictions between the rhetoric and reality of government policy towards, and trade union responses to, pension reform in the UK.

Findings
That trade unions have been constrained by: the fact that the labour party, which they support, has been in government but has increasingly become receptive to neoliberal economic policies; and by the broader discourse of pension reform, advanced by elites that are committed to neoliberal reforms to the British welfare state.

Research limitations/implications
The scope of the paper is large and thus certain issues regarding the pension crisis and ideology are not covered in as much detail as would be preferred.

Practical implications
The paper offers forward a unique critique regarding the current favoured pension policies and solutions.

Originality/value
This paper draws upon front-line theoretical contributions and combines them with the author's interviews with leading trade union general secretaries. As such, it is a unique insight into not only the current so-called “pensions crisis” but also the responses of trade unions, and the labour movement more broadly, to this constructed dilemma.

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Materialist theology and anti-capitalist resistance, or, ‘What would Jesus buy?’

an article by Anna-Maria Murtola (Independent Researcher, Waiwera, Auckland, New Zealand) published in Organization Volume 19 Number 3 (May 2012)

Abstract

Analysis of resistance in critical organization and management studies today tends to focus on expressions of micro resistance in the workplace. Meanwhile, much broader struggles are taking place on the global arena in response to the ongoing violence of neoliberal capitalism.

Capitalism, which has always had a fraught relationship to religion, appears today in many ways as a religion in its own right. Furthermore, its ongoing expansion is explicitly secured through the support of particular theological ideas and proponents, primarily from American conservative Christianity. It should thus come as no surprise that anti-capitalist resistance today turns to theology for an effective counter-politics.

This article draws on the materialist theology of Slavoj Žižek in order to analyse the resistance of anti-capitalist activist Reverend Billy. In doing so, it shows how theology is today mobilized in anti-capitalist resistance.

If contemporary ideology operates on a logic of distancing, as Žižek claims, then an effective strategy of resistance may reside in the opposite, a logic of overidentification. The overidentification that we see in both Žižek’s own work and in the activism of Reverend Billy, however, takes the form of parodic overidentification, which embraces in an exaggerated form a part rather than the whole.

The analysis points to the need in studies of resistance to recognize the broader social and ideational context in which resistance operates, and emphasizes in particular the importance of resistance to confront both the postmodern cynicism and the rising absolutism that are part and parcel of contemporary capitalism.

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Do we lose the past by moving forward?

I read blog postings (skim through most and really read the minority) using a reader. Most of the time, therefore, I'm only looking at one item at a time and not going to the actual weblog site and reading sidebars, comments etc. Even for the "I really need to read this" ones I don't always go to the site before taking some action:

• email link to Dawn to make a decision as to whether to include the item in Members' Update
• email link to myself because it's to do with something that I'm interested in on a personal level maybe some learning opportunity e.g. a "how-to" (either work or pleasure), it could be a new application that I want to study in more depth or even an exhortation to work smarter not harder/longer
• grab the details for using in one of ADSET's weblogs -- it's either "careersy" or it's "businessy" and that defines which of the two blogs it goes to ... but

... what do I do with a piece which came to me via Library Link of the Day entitled "Cultural past of the digital age"? It's on the BBC News site. Bill Thompson, in what is more of a short essay than a news report, asks whether books and film have a place in the modern world.
Short answer is, I put it here and just hope that you have the time to go and read it. I believe that we are in danger of losing our cultural past by moving headlong into a digital future -- and if we're not careful we'll be losing that past more and more rapidly as our culture becomes more ephemeral.

Acid test for policy advisers

John McCarthy at the ICCDPP (International Centre for Career Development and Public Policy) alerts us to this piece the The Australian.

It's interesting to observe how the fiery battles between the Left and Right in the 20th century have been replaced today by more modest debates about public policy options. The grand ideologies associated with capitalism and socialism are still active and relevant as moral and intellectual irritants, but they are decreasingly used as benchmarks in political judgment or as stories in the political contest.
That role has been taken up by social, economic, environmental and governance outcomes: growth and employment, measures of amenity and global warming, crime rates, health and education standards, and degrees of citizenship. Our new gurus have even been given a name: "policy wonks".

I've like to have given you the link direct to The Australian because, no offence meant, getting into the ICCDPP site is more often impossible than not! If it was just any old site with occasional useful information I'd probably (no, I'd definitely) give up on it -- as it is it's a major irritant!
But you'll also have to suffer the "major irritant" if you want to read the full story as it's disappeared into the archives at the original source only to re-appear on payment of money!