Centre for Social SciencesHungarian Academy of Sciences Centre of Excellence

Populism is not always bad, but a populist political message can divide societies between “us” and “them”, explains Jennifer McCoy, a distinguished professor of political science at Georgia State University and a senior core fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study at Central European University. In a new episode of DEMOS interviews on YouTube, McCoy discusses the main features and negative consequences of populism for democracy, like a deep political polarization, and how society can detect and react to them.

The Institute for Political Science of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences intends to honour the best English or Hungarian presentation at Conference for Doctoral Students of Political Science organized by Institute for Political Science CUB.

Political scientist David M. Wineroither, DEMOS researcher at the Centre for Social Sciences of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, wrote an op-ed for the Austrian national daily Der Standard. In his piece, Wineroither summarizes the structural inability for collective leadership on behalf of British Tory Brexiteers—a feature to characterize both the political ascendancy of Boris Johnson and populists in the majority of countries on the continent

DEMOS interviews Levente Littvay, Professor of Political Science, Central European University (CEU) and member of the Team Populism on collaboration between academics and the Guardian, which has published a series of evidence-based articles on populism. Littvay also spoke about his research on populism, populist discourse, and the CEU Comparative Populism Project

Jose Maria Castellà, professor at the University of Barcelona and leader of the Spanish team in DEMOS, said that the use and abuse of referenda on any subject in contemporary democracies are typical of populist parties. “These parties tend to claim that institutions of representative democracy are not representing the so called true people, and present their political action as a direct enactment of people’s will,” Castella, also a member of the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe, told “Expansión”, Spain’s leading business newspaper. The interview, on the rise and impacts of populist politics in Europe, came out on the eve of Spain’s elections.

DEMOS project leader Zsolt Boda interviews Andrew Arato on the impacts of populism on democratic life and its relationship with authoritarianism and well-fare state.

DEMOS Leader Zsolt Boda Says "Populism Challenges Institutions of Liberal Democracies"

Populism is a complex term usually carrying a negative connotation, often associated with leaders who criticize the elite—be it political, academic or scientific—that their citizens view, and react to, with skepticism. Scholars have tried to define the term and label parties and politicians as such, but the H2020 Research and Innovation Action project DEMOS seeks to go beyond that, taking into account both the individual level, psychological roots of populist attitudes and describing the features and consequences of populist governance. In an interview for the Hungarian radio channel Civil Rádió on March 6, Zsolt Boda, the leader of DEMOS, spoke about the goals of the project. One of them is to cover populism through multiple manifestations across Europe and beyond, shedding light on its varieties, how populism relates to specific cultural contexts, and how different social actors react to the challenges of populism.