“Neoliberal Populism

After five years of populist breakthroughs across Europe, the United States, Latin America, and South and Southeast Asia, scholars are far from discovering any “universal theory” that can explain why illiberal politicians appeal to voters in every time and place. Yet in the context of Western societies, at least, recent theories examining the respective roles of “economic grievance” and “cultural backlash” have helped to shed some light on the issue.

Democratization and State-Building To understand the rise of authoritarian strongmen in developing democracies, then, it is important to recognize the divergence of state-building trajectories and democratization trajectories over recent decades.