L'Enjeu mondial.

Up until the 1990s, populism was a force for contestation, but today it is at the helm of several states in Europe, in North and South America, in Asia, and in the Middle East. This is a major phenomenon that haunts the contemporary political landscape, and which is spreading around the world, affecting both established and recent democracies as well as the most closed political regimes.

Whether it is considered a "soft" ideology, a political style, or an electoral strategy, populism in all cases encourages the personification of power as well as more or less blatant authoritarianism. Its success is always based on an easily exploited antagonism between supposedly corrupt elites and ordinary people who are seen as “pure”.

This volume of the « Global Issues » series looks at the way in which populists come to power, how they use it, and how they keep it. It examines that social foundations of “populist powers” as well as the forces that resist them. Indeed, populism can also be merely temporary, quickly curtailed by strong institutions able to protect the rule of law.