Populism

Saturday, February 20, 2021 at 12:00pm EST
Past Event

“Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob.” – James Madison, Federalist Paper No. 10 Populism refers to the political mobilization of “the people” against a perceived elite caste of professional politicians. And whereas a corps of elected representatives was Madison’s and Hamilton’s buffer against the tyranny of... read more! »

“Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob.”

- James Madison, Federalist Paper No. 10

Populism refers to the political mobilization of “the people” against a perceived elite caste of professional politicians. And whereas a corps of elected representatives was Madison’s and Hamilton’s buffer against the tyranny of factions, from time to time the political class may come to be viewed as insufficiently attentive to the needs of their constituents and then become the target and nidus that creates a populist movement.

What causes such mass movements and are they usually kept in check by the designs laid out in the Federalist Papers? What sorts of perceived failures on the part to the ruling class may provoke such movements, and when do these factors lead to right- versus left-wing populism? When do such movements form around notions of nationalism, classism, religion, xenophobia, or domestic oppression? Do anomie, alienation, or social humiliation play a role? What has been the effect of social media in catalyzing populist movements around the globe?

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This is a past event that happened on Saturday, February 20, 2021 at 12:00pm EST.

Participants

Jeffrey Alexander

Lillian Chavenson Saden Professor of Sociology, Yale University
Co-Director, Yale’s Center for Cultural Sociology
Co-Editor, The American Journal of Cultural Sociology

Jeffrey Alexander is the Lillian Chavenson Saden Professor of Sociology at Yale University, founder and co-director of Yale’s Center for Cultural Sociology, and co-editor of The American Journal of Cultural Sociology. A social theorist whose early work challenged the anti-cultural reductionism of classical and modern sociology, Alexander has worked with generations of students and colleagues... read more! »

Dhananjay Jagannathan

Assistant Professor, Philosophy, Columbia University

Dhananjay Jagannathan teaches philosophy and classical studies at Columbia University. His academic research centers on Aristotle’s ethics and political philosophy and contemporary virtue ethics. He has also written about issues at the intersection of philosophy and literature, including on tragedy and the novel. At present he is completing a book manuscript entitled Aristotle’s Practical Epistemology, which... read more! »

Takis Pappas

Author & Researcher, University of Helsinki, Finland

Takis S Pappas (PhD, Yale) is a Greek author and researcher currently associated with the University of Helsinki, Finland. Formerly a professor of comparative politics at the University of Thessaloniki, Greece, he has also held teaching and research appointments at the universities of Strasbourg, Oslo, Freiburg, Luxembourg, Central European University in Budapest, European University Institute in Florence, Yale,... read more! »

Harry L. Watson

Atlanta Distinguished Professor of Southern Culture, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Harry L. Watson is the Atlanta Distinguished Professor in Southern Culture in the History Department of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A native of Greensboro, North Carolina, he received his bachelor’s degree from Brown University and his doctorate from Northwestern before joining the UNC-CH History Department in 1976. His teaching and research... read more! »