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The Populist Moment

The Left After the Great Recession

Part of Jacobin

Author Anton Jager, Arthur Borriello
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Paperback
$19.95 US
Verso Books | Verso
5.1"W x 7.78"H x 0.57"D   | 7 oz | 80 per carton
On sale Sep 26, 2023 | 224 Pages | 9781804292488
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A Left-wing populist insurgency exploded across the West in the wake of the Great Financial Crisis

After decades of retreat, the last decade saw a left resurgence from the US to Western Europe and the Mediterranean. This revival of anti-establishment left-wing candidates was not only left but also populist. Though in most cases these movements ran out of steam before effectively being in a position wield state power, many of the parties and figures associated with this wave of left populism have entered government and others are still contesting high office.

Providing a blow-by-blow history of the rise and defeat of left electoral movements in the West, Boriello and Jaeger guide us through the conditions that shaped this wave of insurgencies. These include extreme and rising inequality, the collapse of civic life, and a lack of trust in traditional institutions.

In this context, Boriello and Jaeger argue that some or another form of populism was all but inevitable. And, despite defeats, left offensives of present and future will be populist in nature. This is because the conditions that shaped the first left populist wave are still very much with us.
"In The Populist Moment, Borriello and Jäger provide much needed clarity and a grounded understanding of the origins, character, appeal, and limits of post-class populist mobilization as the basis for the left challenge to the dominant regime of intensifying global inequality. The book is a must-read for anyone serious about understanding the current political moment and especially for those seriously committed to generating an effective anticapitalist politics."
—Adolph Reed, author of The South

"A fascinating and original analysis of our current political economic conjuncture and an invaluable guide for socialists attempting to organize in this brave new world. Required reading for those struggling to understand the failures of the populist movements of the 2010s, and those trying to build new hegemonic coalitions in a world of permanent crisis."
—Grace Blakeley, author of The Corona Crash

"Populism is a problem, but not for the reasons that any of its opponents or defenders think. With a few deft cuts, a series of sharp claims, and a voluminous catalog of historical examples and precedents, Jäger and Borriello brilliantly show how populism tries, again and again, to break the constraints of neoliberalism and hollowed-out democracy with none of the tools that once might have enabled it to do so—leaving us all with a pervasive sense of disappointment and dread."
—Corey Robin, author of The Enigma of Clarence Thomas

"[The Populist Moment's] synthesizing account of the twenty-first-century Euro-American left is theoretically sophisticated and ambitious."
—Cihan Tugal, New Left Review

"Boriello and Jäger have a knack for making political writing lucid and elegant (La France Insoumise, they write, “displayed the physical properties of gas: expansive, flexible, but also volatile”), and they offer a persuasive analysis of contemporary politics as a thin soil of PR, protest spectacle, and social media fads in which serious left-wing projects struggle to take root. The result is a clear-sighted political postmortem"
—Publishers Weekly

"With The Populist Moment, Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger have done something rare, and written a book about populism that refuses to treat it as either an irrational complaint against stately liberal-democracy, or as the heaven sent re-politicization of a depoliticized world."
—Jordan Ecker, Cleveland Review of Books
Anton Jäger is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Catholic University of Leuven. He has published widely on populism, basic income, and the contemporary crisis of democracy. His work has appeared in Jacobin, The Guardian, and The New Statesmen.

Arthur Borriello is a FNRS postdoctoral research fellow at the Université libre de Bruxelles. He has published on populism and the political transformations in Southern Europe in places including Jacobin, Mediapart, Catalyst and La Trivial.
Anton Jager View titles by Anton Jager
Arthur Borriello View titles by Arthur Borriello

About

A Left-wing populist insurgency exploded across the West in the wake of the Great Financial Crisis

After decades of retreat, the last decade saw a left resurgence from the US to Western Europe and the Mediterranean. This revival of anti-establishment left-wing candidates was not only left but also populist. Though in most cases these movements ran out of steam before effectively being in a position wield state power, many of the parties and figures associated with this wave of left populism have entered government and others are still contesting high office.

Providing a blow-by-blow history of the rise and defeat of left electoral movements in the West, Boriello and Jaeger guide us through the conditions that shaped this wave of insurgencies. These include extreme and rising inequality, the collapse of civic life, and a lack of trust in traditional institutions.

In this context, Boriello and Jaeger argue that some or another form of populism was all but inevitable. And, despite defeats, left offensives of present and future will be populist in nature. This is because the conditions that shaped the first left populist wave are still very much with us.

Praise

"In The Populist Moment, Borriello and Jäger provide much needed clarity and a grounded understanding of the origins, character, appeal, and limits of post-class populist mobilization as the basis for the left challenge to the dominant regime of intensifying global inequality. The book is a must-read for anyone serious about understanding the current political moment and especially for those seriously committed to generating an effective anticapitalist politics."
—Adolph Reed, author of The South

"A fascinating and original analysis of our current political economic conjuncture and an invaluable guide for socialists attempting to organize in this brave new world. Required reading for those struggling to understand the failures of the populist movements of the 2010s, and those trying to build new hegemonic coalitions in a world of permanent crisis."
—Grace Blakeley, author of The Corona Crash

"Populism is a problem, but not for the reasons that any of its opponents or defenders think. With a few deft cuts, a series of sharp claims, and a voluminous catalog of historical examples and precedents, Jäger and Borriello brilliantly show how populism tries, again and again, to break the constraints of neoliberalism and hollowed-out democracy with none of the tools that once might have enabled it to do so—leaving us all with a pervasive sense of disappointment and dread."
—Corey Robin, author of The Enigma of Clarence Thomas

"[The Populist Moment's] synthesizing account of the twenty-first-century Euro-American left is theoretically sophisticated and ambitious."
—Cihan Tugal, New Left Review

"Boriello and Jäger have a knack for making political writing lucid and elegant (La France Insoumise, they write, “displayed the physical properties of gas: expansive, flexible, but also volatile”), and they offer a persuasive analysis of contemporary politics as a thin soil of PR, protest spectacle, and social media fads in which serious left-wing projects struggle to take root. The result is a clear-sighted political postmortem"
—Publishers Weekly

"With The Populist Moment, Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger have done something rare, and written a book about populism that refuses to treat it as either an irrational complaint against stately liberal-democracy, or as the heaven sent re-politicization of a depoliticized world."
—Jordan Ecker, Cleveland Review of Books

Author

Anton Jäger is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Catholic University of Leuven. He has published widely on populism, basic income, and the contemporary crisis of democracy. His work has appeared in Jacobin, The Guardian, and The New Statesmen.

Arthur Borriello is a FNRS postdoctoral research fellow at the Université libre de Bruxelles. He has published on populism and the political transformations in Southern Europe in places including Jacobin, Mediapart, Catalyst and La Trivial.
Anton Jager View titles by Anton Jager
Arthur Borriello View titles by Arthur Borriello

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