Current Populism in Europe

In order to strengthen and protect principles of liberal democracy that have been steadily endangered by illiberal populist movements, we must try to understand the motivations and worries of their supporters, broaden our knowledge about the nature and strategies of populist actors and find meaningful paths for overcoming the threats of populism.

Thus, we are glad to present to you the book Current Populism in Europe: Gender-Backlash and Counter-strategies that aims at exploring populism from various new conceptual, empirical and methodological perspectives. First three chapters of the book address a surge in anti-gender movements, typically originating on the right and far-right end of the political spectrum and using gender issues to exploit cultural conflict and promote and legitimize nationalist agendas. Additionally, we present to you a set of revealing, up-to-date studies about populist communication strategies on social media during the current pandemic in Italy, emergence and consolidation of the Spanish, radical-right party VOX, innovative concept of democratic efficacy as well as a theoretical deliberation on the cause and retort of populism.

We hope that this publication will give the theorists and practitioners a more in-depth insight into the complex picture of populism and will inspire further debate on the counter-strategies in Europe.

The printed version could be ordered by email via info@cz.boell.org