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 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. Yet, using a novel data set with observations from postcommunist Europe, Africa, Asia, and Latin America, I find that the exit of authoritarian ruling parties from power and their subsequent reinvention as committed democratic competitors are powerfully associated with robust democratic party competition. Mixed effects regressions and estimates of treatment effects show that authoritarian exit and reinvention promote the success of democratic party competition.

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.”

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. While the authors come to different conclusions about the extent to which these terms are weasel words, they also provide pointers for how to deploy terms in ways that are consistent with the underlying concept and thus aid in the cumulation of knowledge about the region.

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. One answer is a powerful but neglected force in state formation: the medieval Church, which served as a rival for sovereignty, and a template for institutional innovations in court administrations, the law, and the formation of human capital. Church influence further helps to explain why territorial fragmentation in the Middle Ages persisted, why royal courts adopted similar administrative solutions, and why secular states remain concerned with morality and social discipline.