Book Announcement: Jan-Werner Müller, What Is Populism? (Penn 2016)

Network member Jan-Werner Müller (Princeton) announces a new book from University of Pennsylvania Press, entitled "What Is Populism?"  In an analysis described by Dani Rodrik as "masterful," the new volume sets out to untangle the concept of populism, to map its relationship to pluralism and authoritarianism, and to set out strategies for response to populist movements.  The publisher's blurb follows; the book can be ordered here.

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Donald Trump, Silvio Berlusconi, Marine Le Pen, Hugo Chávez—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? Does populism bring government closer to the people or is it a threat to democracy? Who are "the people" anyway and who can speak in their name? These questions have never been more pressing.

In this groundbreaking volume, 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. Müller also shows that, contrary to conventional wisdom, populists can govern on the basis of their claim to exclusive moral representation of the people: if populists have enough power, they will end up creating an authoritarian state that excludes all those not considered part of the proper "people." The book proposes a number of concrete strategies for how liberal democrats should best deal with populists and, in particular, how to counter their claims to speak exclusively for "the silent majority" or "the real people."

Analytical, accessible, and provocative, What Is Populism? is grounded in history and draws on examples from Latin America, Europe, and the United States to define the characteristics of populism and the deeper causes of its electoral successes in our time.

Kelemen and Blauberger on Democratic Backsliding

In a new article, out now with the Journal of European Public Policy, network member Dan Kelemen (Rutgers) and his co-author Michael Blauberger (Salzberg) examine the ways in which the European Union can serve as a bulwark against what the authors call "democratic backsliding."  Entitled "Introducing the debate: European Union safeguards against member states’ democratic backsliding," the piece explores the mechanisms available to the Union, their practical feasibility, and their implications.

The abstract follows; the article can be found here.

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Today, the European Union (EU) is confronting a new democratic deficit at the national level. A number of EU member states have experienced an erosion of democracy and the rule of law in recent years, most severely in Hungary and Poland. Drawing on different strands of political science research, the contributions to this section debate the strengths and weaknesses of the various safeguards and tactics the EU has deployed or might deploy to resist democratic backsliding by member governments. This brief introduction raises the main questions of the debate: how politically feasible is the application of existing and proposed EU safeguards, and what are the likely consequences, intended as well as unintended, of various judicial and political approaches?

Jan-Werner Müller in The Guardian on Populism

Network member Jan-Werner Müller (Princeton) has a new piece out in The Guardian.  In the article, entitled "Trump, Erdoğan, Farage: The attractions of populism for politicians, the dangers for democracy," Jan-Werner offers a thoughtful and incisive examination of the various forms of populism and the complex relationships between populism, democracy, and identity.  

The first paragraph follows; the full piece may be found here.

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After Brexit, and with a Trump victory in November still a possibility, liberals are in a panic about populism. They have struggled to comprehend what a figure like Trump is about ideologically – hence the enormous amount of ink spilt over the question of whether he is or isn’t a fascist – and the rather hapless attempt to coin the term “Trumpism” (Trump, you see, is really a representative of Trumpism). Alternatively, liberals have focused on actual Brexit and Trump supporters and jumped to conclusions about what they think and, especially, feel. As a result, the content of what, after all, is an “-ism” – that is to say, a political belief system – has become conflated with the supposed psychological states of its supporters, namely feelings of resentment and relative deprivation.

The piece continues here.

Dan Kelemen on "Poland's Constitutional Crisis: How the Law and Justice Party is Threatening Democracy"

Network member R. Daniel Kelemen (Rutgers) has alerted to his new piece in Foreign Affairs, entitled "Poland's Constitutional Crisis: How the Law and Justice Party is Threatening Democracy," which may be of interest to readers. The first paragraph is below and the remainder can be read here.

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After simmering for nine months, the tension between Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party and the country’s highest court, the Constitutional Tribunal, is coming to a boil. The PiS government is attempting an unconstitutional takeover of the tribunal—ignoring its rulings, trying to pack it with new judges, and, most recently, threatening the head judge with prosecution. At stake are the survival of constitutional democracy and the rule of law in Poland. [continue reading here]

Dan Kelemen in Foreign Affairs on Brexit: London Falling

Network member Dan Kelemen (Rutgers) has a great piece out in Foreign Affairs on the impact and causes of Brexit: the UK's "historic act of self-harm."  Entitled London Falling, it is available in full here (free registration required).  The first two paragraphs follow.

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In a historic act of self-harm, the British electorate has chosen to leave the European Union. Brexit—as it is called—will do severe damage to the United Kingdom’s economy and its strategic interests. Brexit will also deal a heavy blow to the project of European integration. The EU will survive, but it will never be the same. Leaders of far-right parties across Europe cheered the referendum result, as did Donald Trump. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom’s allies shuddered, and financial markets in the country and across the world plummeted.

With negotiations beginning over the terms of the United Kingdom’s departure, much is uncertain. But one thing is clear already: the Leave campaign’s claim that the EU had robbed the United Kingdom of its sovereignty was false. If nothing else, the vote shows that the country was sovereign all along and that it was free to make disastrous decisions.

The piece continues here.

Lucas Bergkamp on Brexit's Lesson for the European Union

In this post, network member Lucas Bergkamp (Erasmus University Rotterdam (emeritus) and Hunton & Williams) offers some provocative thoughts on the implications of Brexit.  Rather than focusing on ways to "punish" Britain or to forestall similar outcomes in other Member States, he argues that Europe's decision-makers should heed the true lesson of Brexit: that the critics have been right all along in their attacks on the Union's democratic credentials, and radical reform is needed if European integration is to survive and flourish.

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Brexit's Lesson for the European Union

Those who are dissatisfied with the outcome of the UK referendum on EU membership have responded defensively and dismissively. Accusations have been made about lies and misrepresentations by the pro-Brexit campaign, while the representations made by the other camp have not generally been subject to serious scrutiny. Is there any evidence, for instance, that Brexit will result in war? Concerned about further defections, some EU leaders have promoted a counter-productive strategy of harsh punishment: the UK should be punished severely to prevent other Member States from even considering an exit. Implicit in their position is the unattractive proposition that the EU can be kept together only if it punishes defectors. Unfortunately, the retributive approach, which has long been abandoned in criminology, has merely reinforced the impression of an anti-democratic behemoth controlled by an unaccountable bureaucracy.

Structural change

Proposals have also been made for structural changes to the referendum process in Britain (or more generally). One such proposal involves raising the minimal decisive vote in future referenda from a simple majority to some qualified majority (e.g., two thirds) to preclude a narrow majority from making fundamental long-term changes to the system. The US has adopted a high threshold for amendments to its constitution, but there at least some current thinking seems to favor reducing the threshold. In any event, if a referendum is part of the process, it seems logical that the threshold for leaving the EU should be the same as the threshold for joining the EU, and it should be agreed in advance, not after the fact and in light of a controversial outcome. Other proposals involve a second referendum that would be decisive on the issue. The justification for a second vote would be that people should be given a chance to learn from their mistakes, to change their mind, and to make the right choice. Of course, the unproven assumption is that people were uninformed or misled, and made the wrong choice.

Max Weber Conference: Democracy and Expertise (March 31-April 1, 2016, NYC)

We are pleased to announce a terrific Max Weber Conference on "Democracy and Expertise" to be held at NYU's Deutsches Haus on March 31 and April 1, 2016.  The conference features a superb lineup, including network members Christine Landfried (NYU & Hamburg) and Gráinne de Búrca (NYU), alongside Mario Monti (Bocconi University; formerly Prime Minister of Italy and European Commissioner), Robert Post (Yale), Katharina Pistor (Columbia), and many others.  The conference will explore the tension between democracy and expertise in an age of innovation and specialization, and at a time when the European Union faces sharp technical and democratic challenges on every side.

Further information and a conference schedule are available here.  Please note that RSVP is required to deutscheshaus.rsvp (at) nyu.edu.

Jan-Werner Müller on Populism and Democracy

Network member Jan-Werner Müller (Princeton) has alerted us to a piece in Public Seminar, entitled "Claims to Populism, Danger to Democracy?"  The thoughtful and incisive piece charts the contour of populism -- the "permanent shadow of modern representative politics" -- and its relationship with democracy.

The first paragraph is below; the full version is available here.

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No US election campaign in living memory has seen as many invocations of “populism” as this one. Both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are labelled as “populists”; the term is regularly used as a synonym for “anti-establishment,” irrespective of any particular political ideas; it is also associated with particular moods and emotions: populists are “angry,” their voters are “frustrated,” or suffer from “resentment.” Similar claims are made about figures in Europe: Marine Le Pen and Geert Wilders are most commonly referred to as populists, as are Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain. Yet do all these political actors actually have anything in common? If we hold with Hannah Arendt that political judgment is the capacity to draw proper distinctions, the widespread conflation of right and left when talking about populism should give us pause. Might the popularity of diagnosing all kinds of different phenomena as “populism” possibly be a failure of political judgment? In fact, could contemporary diagnoses of populism turn out to be a second coming of theories of totalitarianism, where the extremes are always bound to touch each other?

The post continues here.

Dan Kelemen in Foreign Affairs: Europe's Autocracy Problem

Network member Dan Kelemen (Rutgers) has a new article out in Foreign Affairs.  Co-authored with Mitchell Orenstein (UPenn), and entitled "Europe's Autocracy Problem: Polish Democracy's Final Days?," the article explores Poland's slide toward autocracy and the role played by EU inaction in bringing it about.  The first paragraph follows; the full version can be found here.

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Winter has come to Europe, but it seems to be springtime for the continent’s autocrats. Following the example of the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz Party, Poland’s new government, led by the nationalist-populist Law and Justice party (PiS), has launched assaults on the country’s judiciary and public media, putting Polish democracy and the rule of law at risk. In December, tens of thousands of Poles demonstrated against the government’s illiberal actions; European Commission officials, meanwhile, have promised to investigate whether the developments in Poland constitute a “systemic threat” to the rule of law there. Unsurprisingly, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the leader of the PiS, has dismissed the protestors as traitors and rejected criticism from abroad.

The article continues here.

Book Announcement: Antoine Vauchez, Democratizing Europe (Palgrave 2015)

We are delighted to announce that network member Antoine Vauchez (Paris) has released the English translation of his book Democratizing Europe with Palgrave Publishing.  A German translation is planned for 2016.  The publisher's blurb is below; further details are available here.

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How can we account for numerous and repeatedly failed attempts to redress the European Union's democratic deficit over the past three decades? In the wake of the Eurozone crisis, Democratizing Europe argues that part of our collective failure to re-orient the EU's trajectory lies in our failure to fully characterize the EU government's dependent path. Bringing together new streams of scholarship in history, law, sociology, and political science, this book suggests a new portrait of the EU's singular political model. Tasked with Europe's grand project, the edification of a unique economic and monetary Market, the European Court, Commission, and Central Bank have been the cradle in which the EU polity has been shaped, staged, and legitimized. In this context, it is no wonder that the many attempts to parliamentarize Europe have had limited democratic effects. Vauchez suggests that we recognize this historically-rooted centrality of Europe's independent branch and adapt our democratization strategies accordingly.

Book Announcement: Luuk van Middelaar and Philippe van Parijs, eds., After the Storm: How to Save Democracy in Europe (Lannoo 2015)

We are pleased to announce that network member Luuk van Middelaar (Leiden) has just co-edited a remarkable new work with Philippe van Parijs (UC Louvain).  Drawing together contributions from a range of leading scholars including network member Turkuler Isiksel (Columbia and Emile Noel Fellow at NYU), Jürgen Habermas, Koen Lenaerts, Fritz Scharpf, Amartya Sen, and others, and assembled at the request of former European Council President Herman van Rompuy, the work is entitled After the Storm: How to Save Democracy in Europe.  The publisher's blurb is below: the work can be ordered here.

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In his years as president of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy met with an impressive series of leading thinkers to discuss the future of Europe. He set the bar high by asking them to tell him something he had not heard before. The philosophers, economists, political scientists and legal experts who took up his invitation met the challenge brilliantly.

President Michael Higgins of Ireland on the State of the (European) Union

A few weeks ago, President Michael D. Higgins of Ireland visited NYU to give the Eleventh Annual Emile Noël Lecture on the State of the (European) Union, sponsored by the Jean Monnet Center for International and Regional Economic Law & Justice at NYU.  Network member Gráinne de Búrca (NYU), Director of the Jean Monnet Center, introduced President Higgins and acted as discussant at the event, which drew a capacity crowd.  We are pleased to share the following summary, prepared by friend of the network Johann Justus Vasel (Visiting Researcher at NYU).

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The European Union – Towards a Discourse of Reconnection, Renewal and Hope

The Eleventh Annual Emile Noël Lecture on the State of the (European) Union

presented by

His Excellency, the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins

On Monday September 28, 2015, His Excellency Michael D. Higgins, President of Ireland, honored the NYU School of Law by delivering the Eleventh Annual Emile Noël Lecture on the State of the (European) Union (full text available here; video available here). The Annual Emile Noël Lecture is sponsored by the Jean Monnet Center for International and Regional Economic Law & Justice. 

Following opening remarks by Dean Trevor Morrison and an introduction by Professor Gráinne de Búrca, His Excellency gave a vivid, bold, and inspiring address entitled “The European Union – Towards a Discourse of Reconnection, Renewal and Hope.” The President took as his subject the current legitimacy crisis facing the European Union. In a rich and powerfully argued presentation, he offered and elaborated the vision that this crisis must be recognized as a consequence and symptom of an inadequate worldview that has taken root among policymakers and politicians: a worldview grounded on assumptions that are grossly inadequate for the tasks facing the Union today. 

Jan-Werner Müller in the New York Review of Books Daily on Hungary's "Viktator"

Network member Jan-Werner Müller (Princeton) has a new piece out in the New York Review of Books Daily.  Entitled "Hungary: 'Sorry About Our Prime Minister,'" the article focuses on Hungary's controversial Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, and his handling of the European refugee crisis.  Jan-Werner's provocative and powerfully written piece argues that Orbán's conduct, policies, and posturing represent nothing short of an effort to start a "pan-European culture war," posing a challenge to "the moral core of the European project."  The first paragraph follows; the full article is available here.

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Visitors to Budapest this past July were greeted by large billboards, sponsored by an opposition group, saying: “Sorry about our prime minister.” A few weeks later, ugly images from Hungary began circulating around the world: Hungarian prison laborers, soldiers, and jobless men in workfare programs all mobilized to build a razor-wire fence at the border with Serbia in record time; Syrian families prevented from boarding carriages at Budapest train stations; police firing tear gas on refugees trying to cross the border from Serbia; government leaders warning of a “United European Caliphate” if the Muslim masses aren’t stopped in time. Yet the prime minister, Viktor Orbán, clearly thinks there’s no reason for him to be sorry, let alone for Hungarians to feel ashamed of him. He gleefully points out that he is merely applying European rules that require him to secure the EU’s external borders. And in Brussels and at the UN, he has been shopping around his proposal to close Europe and send refugees elsewhere—what he calls a system of “global quotas.”