Post-Populist Transformations of Democracy

• Applicant: Dr. Manon Westphal
• Subject Area: Political Science
• Term: from 2020 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 443084823

The success of right-wing populist parties across countries shows that western democracies are in a crisis. Political science research on populism has produced a large body of literature, including both empirical and theoretical studies dealing with the characteristics of populism, with the relationship between populism and democracy, and with the causes of the success of right-wing populist parties. However, there is very few literature on potential responses of western democracies to the challenge of right-wing populism. The research project builds on studies that explain the causes of the success of right-wing populist parties to address the question of democratic responses to the challenge of right-wing populism. Political, cultural and economic explanations point to structural features of western democracies: current conditions of political discourses and institutions, economic processes and socioeconomic structures, and cultural cleavages. Responses to the challenge of right-wing populism should therefore not only focus on the question of how to deal with right-wing populist actors, but also ask through what self-reflective responses of structural reform and innovation western democracies could give responses to the current crisis. It is argued that those structural features of western democracies that the political, economic and cultural explanations point to express a neglect of central conditions of democracy, namely conflict about political alternatives, socioeconomic cohesion and political compromise. The research project develops a democratic theory approach that systematises the meaning of those conditions for democracy and develops measures of institutional design for post-populist transformations of western democracies.

• DFG Programme: Research Fellowships
• International Connection: Netherlands
• Host: Enzo Rossi, Ph.D.