Beyond Populism: Angry Politics and the Twilight of Neoliberalism

Across the world, politics is lurching to the right, ethnic nationalism is on the rise, and people are furious. Beyond Populism critically examines the new destructive projects of resentment that have surfaced in the political spaces opened by neoliberalism’s failures, particularly since the financial collapse of 2008. It contextualizes the recent history of the Global North—notably Brexit and the Trump election—among wider comparative politics, with chapters on India, Colombia, Eastern Europe, the Philippines, Ethiopia, and other parts of the globe marked by populist insurgencies.

The essays collected here explore how global, regional, national, and local structures of power produce angry politics. They go beyond conventional academic debates about populism to explore the different kinds of anger that shape politics today and to make legible the multiplicity of forces, antagonisms, conflicts, and emergent political forms that mark the present. By examining the politics of anger, Beyond Populism also considers what is needed to transform anger from a reactionary to an emancipatory force.

Jeff Maskovsky is professor of anthropology at the Graduate Center and professor of urban studies at Queens College, the City University of New York.

Sophie Bjork-James is an assistant professor of the practice in anthropology at Vanderbilt University and has appeared on the NBC Nightly News, on NPR’s All Things Considered, and in the New York Times.