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  • Published: 27 November 2017
  • ISBN: 9780141987378
  • Imprint: Penguin Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 160
  • RRP: $22.99

What Is Populism?




Essential reading on one of the most important phenomena of our time from a remarkable political thinker

From Donald Trump to Viktor Orban, populists are on the rise across the globe. But what exactly is populism? Should everyone who criticizes Wall Street or Washington be called a populist? What precisely is the difference between right-wing and left-wing populism? Who are "the people" anyway and who can speak in their name? These questions have never been more pressing.

In this provocative book, Jan-Werner Müller argues that at populism's core is a rejection of pluralism. Populists will always claim that they and they alone represent the people and their true interests. Proposing a number of concrete strategies for how liberal democrats should best deal with populists, Müller shows how to counter their claims to speak exclusively for "the silent majority".

  • Published: 27 November 2017
  • ISBN: 9780141987378
  • Imprint: Penguin Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 160
  • RRP: $22.99

Praise for What Is Populism?

No one has written more insightfully and knowledgeably about Europe's recent democratic decay than Jan-Werner Müller. His depiction of populism as democracy's antipluralist, moralistic shadow is masterful

Dani Rodrik, Harvard University

An exceptionally intelligent book about a notoriously slippery, yet essential, political concept. Jan-Werner Müller's sweeping critique of populism will both instruct and challenge anyone who seeks to understand the roots and nature of the political conflicts that are roiling Europe and the United States

Michael Kazin, author of The Populist Persuasion: An American History

Populism is not just antiliberal, it is antidemocratic -- the permanent shadow of representative politics. That's Jan-Werner Müller's argument in this brilliant book. There is no better guide to the populist passions of the present

Ivan Krastev, author of After Europe

In this essential book, Müller defines populism's most salient characteristics --antielitism, antipluralism, exclusivity -- and explains Trump and other populists through that framework. It is a quick read, and worth every page

Washington Post

An excellent short book

Timothy Garton Ash, New York Review of Books

This lucid guide is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand leaders such as Trump and Chávez

Guardian