The Europe Center is jointly housed in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Stanford Global Studies Division.
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Blood and Diamonds: Germany’s Imperial Ambitions in Africa
The Dynastic Imagination: Family and Modernity in Nineteenth-Century Germany
Time’s Monster: How History Makes History
Global Populisms and Their Challenges
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Filter results CloseBeyond War and Contracts: The Medieval and Religious Roots of the European State
Where does the state come from? Two canonical answers have been interstate wars and contracts between rulers and the ruled in the early modern period. New scholarship has pushed back the historical origins of the European state to the Middle Ages, and focused on domestic institutions such as parliaments, universities, the law, inheritance rules, and cities. It has left open questions of the causes of territorial fragmentation, the structural similarities in state administrations, and the policy preoccupations of the state.
Weasel Words and the Analysis of “Postcommunist” Politics: A Symposium
A weasel word is a term used in academic or political discourse whose meaning is so imprecise or badly defined that it impedes the formulation of coherent thought on the subject to which it is applied, or leads to unsubstantiated conclusions. In this symposium we consider several key terms central to the study of postcommunist politics and discuss the extent to which they fall into this category. The terms discussed here include regime terminology, the notion of postcommunism, the geographic entity “Eurasia,” socialism, populism, and neoliberalism.
Global Populisms and Their Challenges
“Populism” has claimed enormous amounts of popular and press attention, with the Brexit vote of 2016, the election of President Donald J. Trump, and the rise of self-proclaimed populists in Europe and elsewhere. But what exactly is populism? And is populism in Poland the same phenomenon as in the United States? Does populism have the same set of universal causes, or are there many paths to populist resurgence?
“Global Populisms and Their Challenges” finds that established mainstream political parties are the key enablers of populist challenges—and the key solution.
Consequences of Authoritarian Party Exit and Reinvention for Democratic Competition
How do the successors to authoritarian ruling parties influence subsequent democratic party competition? The existing literature does not distinguish among these parties, nor does it differentiate among the distinct strategies of their adaptation to the collapse of authoritarian rule. As a result, the impact of these parties on democracy has been unclear and difficult to discern.
The Failure of Europe's Mainstream Parties
The failure of mainstream political-party competition fueled the rise of populism in Europe. Popular anxieties about immigration, economics, or cultural change are not sufficient to explain the surge in populist support. Mainstream parties on both the center-left and the center-right have failed to represent constituencies, to articulate their needs, and to propose distinct policy solutions. The center-left has abandoned its traditional social-policy commitments, and the center-right has often failed to contain xenophobes and nativists.
Conclusion: The Global Forces of Populism
Three themes emerge from this symposium. First, populism is largely shaped by (and is influencing) mainstream party political competition. Second, it has gained opportunities because of the economic policy decisions of governments regarding market reforms and liberal flows of labor and capital. Third, it is shaped by international forces such as the European Union. The symposium calls for further analyses of immigration, the fusion of cultural and economic threats, and what some call the “illiberal international.”
Symposium on Global Populisms and the European Experience
The introduction to this symposium provides a working definition of populist parties and movements and then examines the rise in their support in Europe and the implications of populist rule. As does the symposium as a whole, it highlights the diversity of populisms, identifies the crisis of representation as a root cause of the populist rise, and examines the consequences of populist rule for formal institutions, informal norms of democracy, and representation itself.
How Populists Rule: The Consequences for Democratic Governance
Poland and Hungary are two European countries where populist parties govern without coalition partners. Such undiluted power has meant they could target the formal institutions of accountability—courts, news media, and oversight agencies—and the informal norms of democracy, including tolerance and forbearance, by attacking the opposition, dividing societies, and reconfiguring national memories to justify their policies. The result is the authoritarian backsliding of these post-communist democratic pioneers.
Once, the ‘Judeo-Christian tradition’ united Americans. Now it divides them.
Even as Notre Dame Cathedral was burning, pundits such as Ben Shapiro and Katie Hopkins began to mourn it as a “monument to Western civilization … built on the Judeo-Christian heritage” — describing the fire as symbolic of a “Judeo-Christian annihilation.” The president of Poland immediately called for rebuilding the cathedral as a symbolic reconstruction of Europe on its “real, historical, Judeo-Christian foundation.” As critics responded, the debate heated up, leading to both religious and historical confusion. So what is the “Judeo-Christian tradition”?
Making Godly Nations: Church-State Pathways in Poland and the Philippines
How does religious nationalism arise? Poland and the Philippines represent two striking examples of religious and national identities becoming practically coterminous. Yet these two Catholic nations traveled different historical paths towards a tight fusion of religion and nation. In Poland, the church defended the nation in dramatic struggles against a strong and secularizing state. This fused religious and national identities, endowing the church with unrivaled moral authority.
Hoist on their own petards? The reinvention and collapse of authoritarian successor parties
Global Populisms and Their Impact
Populism is on the rise: but to understand this phenomenon, we should first clearly conceptualize it and recognize that populism takes on different forms in various historical and political contexts. These “populisms” pose a threat to modern liberal democracy. As Poland and Hungary show, populists exclude entire swathes of society from the polity, and undermine the formal institutions and the informal norms of democracy.