Dr. Werner Binder Spring 2019
Populism and Authoritarianism (soc 286)
Course
Description
What’s wrong with “the people”? Since the invention of democracy, we can observe the rise and fall
of populisms and authoritarianisms. But what exactly makes a democracy populistic or
authoritarian? And under what circumstances do populist and authoritarian sentiments and
movements gain strength? This course tackles the sociological as well as the political problem of
populism and authoritarianism discussing classical and contemporary authors. In order to complete
the course, all participants have – among other things – to submit a final paper examining populist
and authoritarian phenomena in different national contexts empirically.
Course
Requirements
1. Regular attendance (miss more than two times and you are out!)
2. Being able to demonstrate knowledgeability of the required readings
3. Six response papers (2-3 pages) each on the required readings of a session (and three of them
before the reading week!)
4. Either a presentation in class (10-15 minutes) or a final essay (6-8 pages, submission till 15th
of
June)
Assessment
Methods
Participation in class (20%), six response papers (60%), presentation or final essay (20%, deadline is
June 15, 2019)
ECTS points 9
I (21.2.) Organizational meeting
II (28.2.) What is Populism?
Required
Reading
Müller, Jan-Werner (2016): What is Populism? [Introduction + chapter 1] Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, pp. 1-40.
Sullivan, Andrew: “America Has Never Been So Ripe for Tyranny”. New York Magazine, May 2, 2016.
Presentation Plato: The Republic. [Focus on Book VIII]
III (7.3.) Populism and Brexit
Required
Readings
Freeden, Michael (2017): “After the Brexit Referendum: Revisiting Populism as an Ideology”. In:
Journal of Political Ideologies 22(1), 1-11.
Clarke, John & Janet Newman (2017): “‘People in this country have had enough of experts’: Brexit
and the Paradoxes of Populism”. In: Critical Policy Studies 11(1), 101-116.
Presentation On the history of EU, British membership and Brexit
IV (12.3.) Discussion with students of the University of Northampton (12.00-13.40)
V (14.3) Authority and Charisma
Required
Readings
Weber, Max (1978): “Types of Legitimate Domination”. In: Economy and Society. Outline of an
Interpretative Sociology. Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 212-216, 241-254.
Arendt, Hannah (1961): “What is Authority?” [section 1]) In: Between Past and Future. Six Exercises
in Political Thought. New York: Viking Press, pp. 91-141 [only pp. 91-104].
Isaac, Jeffrey C.: “How Hannah Arendt’s classic work on totalitarianism illuminates today’s America”,
Washington Post, December 17, 2016.
Presentation Arendt, Hannah (1976): The Origins of Totalitarianism. San Diego et al.: Harvest (joint presentation
possible).
VI (21.3.) Authoritarianism and Moral Politics
Required
Reading
Amanda Taub, “The Rise of American Authoritarianism,” Vox, March 1, 2016. Available online:
http://www.vox.com/2016/3/1/11127424/trump-authoritarianism.
Lakoff, George: “A Minority President: Why the Polls Failed, And What the Majority Can Do”,
November 22, 2016; available online: https://georgelakoff.com/2016/11/22/a-minority-
president-why-the-polls-failed-and-what-the-majority-can-do/
Gordon, Peter E.: “The Authoritarian Personality Revisited: Reading Adorno in the Age of Trump”,
boundary 2, June 15, 2016; https://www.boundary2.org/2016/06/peter-gordon-the-
authoritarian-personality-revisited-reading-adorno-in-the-age-of-trump/
Presentations Adorno, Theodor W., Else Frenkel-Brundwick, Daniel J. Levinson, and R. Nevitt Sanford (1950): The
Authoritarian Personality. New York: Norton; also available online:
http://www.ajcarchives.org/main.php?GroupingId=6490 (focus on introduction and conclusion).
Lakoff, George (2006): Moral Politics. How Liberals and Conservatives Think. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
VII (28.3.) The Cultural Logic of Populism
Required
Reading
Laclau, Ernesto (2005): “Populism: What's in a name?” In: Panizza, Francisco (ed.), Populism and the
Mirror of Democracy. London, New York: Verso, 32-49.
Alexander, Jeffrey C. (1998): “Citizen and Enemy as Symbolic Classification. On the Polarizing Discourse
of Civil Society”. In: Alexander, Jeffrey C. (ed.), Real Civil Societies. Dilemmas of Institutionalization.
London: Sage, 97-114.
Presentations Laclau, Ernesto (2005): On Populist Reason. London; New York: Verso.
Alexander, Jeffrey C. (2006): The Civil Sphere. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press.
Reading week
VIII (11.4.) Populist Authoritarianism as Cultural Backlash
Required
Reading
Inglehart, Ronald & Pippa Norris (2017): “Trump and the Populist Authoritarian Parties: The Silent
Revolution in Reverse”. In: Perspectives on Politics 15(2), 443-454.
Alexander, Jeffrey C. (2019): “Frontlash/Backlash: The Crisis of Solidarity and the Threat to Civil
Institutions”. In: Contemporary Sociology 48(1), 5-11.
Presentation Inglehart, Ronald & Pippa Norris (2019): Cultural Backlash: Trump, Brexit, and Authoritarian
Populism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Free Session (18.4.)
IX (25.4.) Populism as Performance
Required
Readings
Gauna, Aníbal F. (2018): “Populism, Heroism, and Revolution. Chávez’s Cultural Performances in
Venezuela, 1999–2012”. In: American Journal of Cultural Sociology 6(1), 37-59.
Moffitt, Benjamin (2015): "How to Perform Crisis: A Model for Understanding the Key Role of Crisis in
Contemporary Populism". In: Government and Opposition 50(2), 189-217.
Presentation Moffitt, Benjamin (2016): The Global Rise of Populism. Performance, Political Style, and
Representation. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
http://eds.b.ebscohost.com/eds/ebookviewer/ebook/bmxlYmtfXzEyMTk0NjdfX0FO0?sid=97d519
d2-e8d6-4295-afb4-376c6afbfd47@sessionmgr101&vid=7&format=EB&rid=1
X (2.5.) Populism and Class
Required
Reading
Ostiguy, Pierre (2017): “Populism: A Socio-Cultural Approach”. In: Kaltwasser, Cristóbal Rovira, Paul
Taggart, Paulina Ochoa Espejo & Pierre Ostiguy (eds.): The Oxford Handbook of Populism. Oxford;
New York: Oxford University Press, 1-27.
Kanzler, Katja & Marina Scharlaj (2017): “Between Glamorous Patriotism and Reality-TV Aesthetics:
Political Communication, Popular Culture, and the Invective Turn in Trump’s United States and
Putin’s Russia”. In: Zeitschrift für Slawistik 62(2), 316-338.
Presentation Hochschild, Arlie Russel (2016): Strangers in their Own Land. Anger and Mourning on the American
Right. New York; London: New Press. [Focus on p. 135-153]
XI (9.5.) Populism in Power
Müller, Jan-Werner (2016): What is Populism? [chapter 2] Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 41-74.
Enyedi, Zsolt (2016): “Paternalist Populism and Illiberal Elitism in Central Europe”. In: Journal of
Political Ideologies 21(1), 9-25.
XII (16.5.) How to Fight Populism?
Required
Readings
Müller, Jan-Werner (2016): What is Populism? [chapter 3 + conclusion] Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 75-103.
Eco, Umberto: “Ur-Fascism”, The New York Review of Books, June 22, 1995.
Additional Literature
Classics Cassirer, Ernst (1955): The Myth of the State. Garden City: Doubleday Anchor Books.
Freud, Sigmund (1949): Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego. London: Hogarth.
Hobbes, Thomas (1998): Leviathan. New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Le Bon, Gustave (2002): The Crowed. A Study of the Popular Mind. Mineola: Dover.
Machiavelli, Niccolo (2005): The Prince. New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Popper Karl (2013): The Open Society and its Enemies. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Authori-
tarianism
Brownlee, Jason (2007): Authoritarianism in an Age of Democratization. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Dahl, Robert A. (1989): Democracy and its Critics. New Haven: Yale University Press
Linz, Juan J. (2000): Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes. Boulder: Lynne Rienner.
Jennifer Gandhi (2008): Political Institutions under Authoritarianism. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Brooker, Paul (2013): Non-Democratic Regimes. Houndmills: Palgrave.
Svolik, Milan (2012). The Politics of Authoritarian Rule. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Levitsky, Steven and Lucan Way (2011): Competitive Authoritarianism. Hybrid Regimes after the Cold
War. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Zakaria, Fareed (2003): The Future of Freedom. Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad. NewYork:
Norton.
Populism Canovan, Margaret (2005): The People. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Mudde, Cas and Christóbal Rovira Kaltwasser (2016): Populism. A Very Short Introduction. Oxford;
New York: Oxford University Press.
Judi, John B. (2016): The Populist Explosion. How the Great Recession Transformed American and
European Politics. New York: Columbia Global Reports.
Kazin, Michael (1998): The Populist Persuasion. Cornell University Press, 1998.
Taggart, Paul (2000): Populism. Open University Press.