Concept Notes & Themes

Anthropology and Sociology

The concept of populism, has been developed over time from historical studies of individual cases. Although, there is a lack of theoretical and comparative analyses of the concept of populism, it as a rampant conceptualization in political sciences refers to the flexible ways of animating people’s support for political purposes. Populism, uses the banner of ‘the people’ and attempts to appeal to the ‘claimed people’. Populist leaders assert to represent the ‘will of the people’ for legitimacy and are alleged often by the public intellectuals for circumventing established democratic institutions. Usually the populist leaders maintain direct contact with the support base and a charismatic approach to politics.

Alberto Fujimori in Peru, Chavez in Venezuela, Correa in Ecuador, Evo Morales in Bolivia, Erdogan in Turkey and Trump in the United States of America are considered some of the well-known populists though this list is not exhaustive. There are many claims of growing populism reported from every corner of the globe. The implications of populism is manifold - social, democratic, economic, political etcetera- but specific to the social and systemic features of a given society. Understanding this dynamic connection between populism and society is of paramount importance.

It is important to investigate how and why some societies become more prone to populism whereas others could resist. This involves an understanding of the social and individual dimensions of populism and its interface. For instance, understanding which sections of population would resist populism, their reasoning, and the role of individuals as reflective citizen subjects in either endorsing or dissuading populism, are pivotal in developing a holistic picture of populism at the global level. Towards this end, the present section of the handbook attempts to bring together narratives from across the world about the interface between social and individual dimensions of populism and their implications. The following subthemes are identified for the purpose.

List of themes

1. Exclusivism and populism

2. Popular consent and populism

3. Left wing - right wing populism

4. Populism, public health & family care

5. Populism, identities and law

6. Globalization and populist responses

7. Populism in social movements

8. Race/caste and populism

9. Populism in the public sphere

10. Nationalism and populism

11. Leadership styles, charisma and populism

12. People's sentiments/ mass sentiments

13. Populism and exploitation

14. Federalist overtones and populist responses

15. Populism and social solidarity

16. Social polarization and populism

17. Civil society and populism

18. Issues of the migrants and populism

19. Patronage politics and populism

20. Marginalized, marginalization and populism

21. Popular culture and populism

22. Religious undercurrents and populist responses

23. Ideology, crisis and populism

24. Social welfare and populism

25. Religion and populism

26. Reflexivity and populism

27. Sex, gender and populism

28. Urban poor, poverty and populism

29. Ethnicity and populism

30. Civil society and populism

Art and Literature

Literary Studies closely witnesses and reflects shifts and turns in socio political discourse. Literary and artistic texts are themselves shaped and formed by the ever changing currents of contemporary societal discourse. There is an ever-present need therefore for scholarly scrutiny of these emerging ideas.

Populism, rooted in political theory, has impacted and shaped the identity of twentieth century literary modes of production and necessitated academic engagement with the broadening spectrum of that which comprises artistic form. From media coverage to politics of demagoguery, the thematic possibilities are endless.

Is there populist literature? What is the literature of populism? Does geography determine what is populist? Do the popular and the populist intertwine in these post truth times? If so, what discussions does it demand?

The concept of the popular as we hitherto have perceived it is in the context of mass production and distribution directed by market forces and a demand created for mass consumption. The popular is perceived as lacking in exclusivity, rightfully so, but at the cost of quality.

In India, the popular is associated closely with the regional and while the western popular imagination is associated with globalization in terms of cultural production. Counter cultures and fringe cultures are relegated to the popular imagination as opposed to the traditional which is the bastion of the elite. A tension exists between the conspiratorial elite and the use of the popular movements and practices of the people with a tendency to leave them homogenized and controlled by certain classes. Commercialization and consumerism are at the drivers of the popular.

Populism negotiates this resistance to a dominance and hierarchy of cultures. While political theory warns of the rise of demagogues marauding as representatives of ‘the people’, art sees these disruptions as possibilities for new ways of perception and expression.

Academic engagement with these notions is necessary to delve into these areas and provide terminology and instances of the rising tide and nature of populism in literary studies.

While disciplinary boundaries are blurred and offer new eclectic readings for discussion, artistic forms and sites of expression are also evolving and need to be contemplated and the need for a new critical vocabulary.

List of themes

Long Essays (3000 words)

1. Digital Cultures

2. Popular Culture

3. Visual Culture

4. Ecocriticism

5. Catachresis

6. Methods of knowledge: An Intersection of Philosophy and Literature

7. Eco semiotics

8. Sound and Space

9. Temporality in Populist Revivalism

10. Body, Mental Illness, and Female Language

11. Language of Space

12. Precarity

13. Consumption Cultures

14. Charismatic Leaderships

15. Reimagining Nation through Monuments and Museumization

16. Memory

17. Violence

18. Aurality

19. Algorithmic Cultures

20. Fandom

Short Essay:(1000-1500 words)

1. Literary practices

2. Criticism

3. public sphere

4. Cinematic Populism

5. Rhetoric of Populism

6. Popular Representations

7. Cultural Identities

8. Political Society

9. Governmentality

10. Cultural Diplomacy

11. Social Media

12. Traditional Media

13. Print Capitalism

14. Social Movement

15. Discourse on Rights

16. Sports Clubs and associative practices

17. Religiosity and its popular expressions

18. Subaltern Identity making

19. Motilities and Migration

20. Popular Justice

Cultural Studies

Cultural Studies analyzes culture as power in the crystallization of popular belief. This can happen by virtue of a TV show or a political leader, an outstanding movie or a critical social media site. It's the process that counts. Reciprocal groups and interests struggle one against the other by means of the creative representation of issues that influence daily life, that contend to shape the values and institutions by which people live. This shaping is a constant force; this is cultīvus, the tilling of the soil, the shaping of the plant. This is what Cultural Studies observes and tries to figure out.

Hence in American Cultural Studies the US TV crime show from Dragnet (1951-59) through The Wire (2002-2008) was a "Magic mirror on the wall" that tried to explain lawless actions to Americans. In contemporary times Sacred Games (2018-) tried to do the same for Indians, The Unforgotten (2015-2020) for the United Kingdom. This example can be multiplied in practically every genre, every time the social, economic and political reality bore witness in articulate cultural expressions.

The discipline of Cultural Studies in the United States tends to focus on racial and gender struggles, in the UK on the strife between the nation's socio-economic classes. In both countries it's an old story but not the only one. The range of human issues which cultural can comprise is immense. Hence Culture Studies thrives in a mainstream. If one reduces it to a single focus one denies its prismatic nature.

Some have described this field more in terms of a scientific direction of inquiry than a single discipline. That is unfortunate and short sighted since the taproot of cultural studies as a discipline of inquiry and creative order was the traditional discipline of Cultural History that extends from Herodotus' The Histories (430 BC) to Burckhardt's 1860's Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien ("The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy") and Friedrich Nietzsche's 1872 Die Geburt der Tragödie aus dem Geiste der Musik ("The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music")

It's true that Cultural Studies is in formation. It is an eclectic form of analysis that seeks a syncretic order. Our objective is to give it additional form here.

List of themes

Long Essay

1. Arts

2. Food

3. Women's Rights

4. Youth Culture

5. Class

6. Malls and Shopping Centres

7. Social Networking

8. Popular Music

9. Heroes and Celebrities

10. Family Values (cultural anthropology)

Short Essay

1. Museums (Interpreting Past & Present; How the past isn't what it used to be)

2. Popular Culture. Populism.

3. Higher Education (aka: Education, culture, values, students)

4. Education (aka: in social sciences)

5. Film

6. Populism and Social customs

7. The best seller

8. Fast food

9. Ethnic cultures and social customs

10. Populism and Nationalism

11. Images of the outdoors man (strong man)

12. Comics (graphic novel)

13. Populism and promised land

14. Populism and the myth of innocence

15. Populist Images of work

16. Success and ambition in Popular culture

17. Pacifism and culture

18. The myth of progress

19. Free enterprise

20. Ingenuity

Economics

In the twenty first century national systems, both economic and political, in various parts of the world have and are going through dramatic changes. There is a shift in the issues that attract the attention and responses of common people and policy makers. In the twentieth century attention of policy makers and debates as well as discourses in the public space had revolved around economic redistributive conflict. However, emergence of populism, that has been brought about due to diffusion of social media, the internet and repeated financial crisis, shifted the focus of discourse from distributive issues to debates located in themes such as nationalism, social conservatism, and social progression. Putting it another way public debate and discussion has veered around two strands namely nationalism and social conservatism on the one hand and cosmopolitanism and social progressive viewpoints. In fact, these two have and are emerging as two opposing blocks in the way economic policy making, academic and intellectual discourse are shaping up.

These changes have been witnessed in no isolated manner across geographies but has pervaded into a global phenomenon covering South Asia, Far East Asia, Europe, North America and South America. The finer nuances of these changes is the shifting of attention from traditional class struggle to simultaneous attention to conservative, progressive and cosmopolitan values systems. This creates a certain puzzle. Recent economic crisis that many economies witnessed undoubtedly shifted the focus back to the economic welfare state but through conservative channels which actually also condescend to shrinking the role of the economic welfare state. So new ideas about public versus private provisioning and about essential versus non-essential goods or services have beginning to get foregrounded. These changes imply shift in attention from class based stratification to stratification located in cultural identities.

Ironically these churnings are not restricted to the economic policy making elite but is spreading even among the common folk as it were, with mobilizations from the lower rung of the population. In other words, the demographic spread of such economic processes is fairly public and people centric too. The introspection and questions that these changes bring about are very critical such that ideas, models and conceptualisations in the science of economics need a very subtly nuanced reorientation. So what are the turns, economics has to take to accommodate these populist views? What are the opposing positions in the knowledge base of economics? Has economics taken cognizance of such populist and anti-populist thought patterns? How will it change or how has it changed the study of economics? These debates will be focus of attention in this section of the encyclopedia.

List of themes

Long Essays: (3000 words)

1. Gender Economics

2. Economics of Social Sector

3. Migration and Uneven Development

4. Neoliberalism

5. Economics of Labour

6. Economic Sustainability

7. Neo-Mercantilism

8. Well-Being

9. Constitutional Economics

10. Fiscal sustainability

Short Essays:(1000-1500 words)

1. Rationality and Bounded Rationality

2. Nudge and populism

3. New Institutional Economics and populism

4. Well Being

5. Game Theory and populism

6. Religion and Economics Decision.

7. Neuro Economics

8. Economic and Analytics

9. Behavioural Economics

10. Innovation Economics

11. Memes as Popular Culture on Social Media

12. Religion and Economic Decision Making

13. Postmodernism Feminism

14. Economics of Social Sector

15. Migration and Uneven Development

16. Economics of law

17. New Institutional Economics

18. Neuro Economics

19. Economic Analytics

20. Information Asymmetry

History

Populism as an idea is as well as an intellectual discourse has consistently been confined within the domain of Political Science, Cultural Studies or Sociology. Rarely have historians engaged with it actively. The absence of such an engagement is ironical, when the study of Populism stems from a certain historical rootedness and spans out into many arenas, ranging from politics to personal and individual family histories. The emphasis on community representations, culture as an important source for historical construction, the voices of the subalterns by various schools of History, ranging from the Annales to the Post-Colonial and Post-Modernist historians is an evidence of the possibilities of inclusion of Populism in History. The ideational approach by Cas Mudde who argued that ideas that underlie populism must be the sole determining factor in its understanding, rather than the economic systems or political events of the day, strengthens the urgency of the need for History’s and Historians engagement with Populism.

Writings on populism have covered a wide spectrum of contesting and rejecting it to that of upholding the approach as the most egalitarian and inclusive one. Richard Hofstadter in his Age of Reform termed the populists as regressive losers in the process of Modernization. At the other extreme was Lawrence Goodwyn who articulated the idea that the populist movement was one of the largest democratic mass movement in his Democratic Promise: The Populist Movement. In between these two swings are the ideas that populism needs to be reclaimed from the right wing, because structurally, it has more left orientation. History of 20^th century world was dominated by these two ideological polarities, where Populism was represented by individuals such as Roosevelt, Peron, Mahatma Gandhi, Jayaprakash Narayan, to mass movements such as the anti-colonial struggles.

A major feature of populism has been the domination of Revisionist history, in all parts of the world. This revisionism has an ever widening arch, that envelopes, individual political leaders such as Donald Trump, Nigel Ferange, Political Movements and Protests, Local Histories, Oral Narratives, Urbanism, Visual and performing arts and many other spaces. This Revisionist trend combined with exclusionist policies are driving the policies and priorities of States and Societies all over the World in 21^st century. The far right AFD party in Germany represents the populist stand of opposing immigration. Similar is the stance of Swiss People’s Party, that has catapulted it into a mainstream political voice in Switzerland. The cry of Post-Colonial Studies is to reconstruct historical experience from non-Euro American centric perspective, has gained it populist support. Hence this project intends to navigate amongst these extreme stands, exploring why and how Populism should be read in Historiography.

A broad outline for authors

Populism is a political approach that addresses the concerns of ordinary people in a society, who feel otherwise that their interests have been disregarded by established elite groups. It also refers to involvement of the larger community in political decision making that may lead to and design, several social, cultural and historical movements. The rhetoric often consists of anti-elitist sentiments, opposition to the Establishment, and speaking to the "common people". Thus Populism has been a major voice of representation for the non-elites, that includes, all walks of life.

Since the theme of this encyclopaedia is New Populism, our request to authors, is to root their topic/writing in Populism.

This can be done either

a) by specifically focussing on populism in a given territory/area/ or a nation

b) by interpreting their topic through the lens of Populism.

For example, if the author is elaborating on an economic transformation, then the issue can be linked to

i) How the transformation was driven by the community’s urges?

ii) The impact it had on the community

iii) Were there any fundamental changes at the grassroot level?

iv) Were the concerns for economy dictated by political considerations?

v) Did the said economic transformation have a potential to become a mass movement?

Similarly, if the author is engaging with environmentalism or women’s rights, then the author can explore the possibility of these themes, transcending from individual level to mass movements. In the process, the author can also examine, the extent of politicization of these issues, that can be mapped through the responses that was generated across the society.

As a further explanation, the themes mentioned are a broad framework for authors to work on, but they are not necessarily bound by it. The areas mentioned may help the author to choose. For example in Arts, the author can specifically look at structures or spatial identity or architecture. Similarly under Environmentalism an author can focus on Forest laws or Water or Public gardens. Thus the perspective of Populism gets constructed accordingly.

List of themes

Long Essay

1. Anti-Globalization.

2. Arts

3. City, The (aka: Urban Culture, Urbanism, Urban Society).

4. Food (aka: Diet, Politics of Food, Food History)

5. Populist Leader (aka: Rise of the middle class popular leaders, shifting political

6. agendas of populist leaders, political leaders and their politics of

7. appeasement.)

8. Environmentalism (aka: forest laws, water, green zones, protected

9. forests,parks)

10. Political Parties (aka: ideology, long lasting)

11. Political Movements (aka: grassroots, Mass movements, temporary)

12. Protests (aka: power of protests, specific protests, outrage

13. History (aka: Archives; Museums; Interpreting Past & Present; How the past

14. isn't what it used to be)

15. Elites (aka: social class; work specialisation; social structure)

16. Digital populism (aka: online campaigns, twitter, Facebook, eg. Jasmine

17. Revolution)

Short essay:

1. Government

2. Language

3. Religion

4. Popular Culture, Symbols and Populism

5. Social Sciences in Education

6. Women’s Rights

7. Labour activism: Marginalised Unionism

8. Popular reconstruction of Local History

9. Oral Narratives

10. Documentary film

11. Astoriography

12. Lingering impact: Colonialism in post-colonial territories.

13. Post-Colonial constructions in History

14. Multiculturalism as new historical identity

15. History and Films as visual text

16. Ownership of Cityscapes

17. Historicising local myths

18. Dilemmas in identities: Immigrants and Migration

19. To whom does land belong? State and indigenous people.

20. Motifs, Mediums and Men: Jewellery as sources for History.

21. History in popular fiction: 20^th century writings.

22. Interdisciplinary construction of Historical narratives.

Management and Business Studies

Increasingly, populism is receiving attention in management and business studies (M&BS).

M&BS populism is described both in positive and negative light depending on perceptions, impacts and contexts. M&BS populism for the needs of those who are not included in the perceived elite class establishment. M&BS populism usually combines elements of strong political stances opposing established norms of large government, business, and mainstream interests.

Specific terms related to populism in management and business studies are chosen based on three criteria: (1) evidence of populism movement;(2) recognition in reputable publications (books and journals); (3) wide usage in management and business studies and organizational contexts.

Key topics include the following but not limited to:

Global Economies (e.g., Globalization, Nationalism, Top of Pyramid, Base of Pyramid, Micro-Financing, Global Supply Chain Management)

• Market System Reform (e.g., Collective Actions, Market Populism, Occupy Wall Street, Middle Class Populism, Business Nationalism, Stakeholder Governance, managing diversity, inclusive workforce, Sensitivity Training, Identify Politics)

• Organizational Reform Movement (e.g., Corporate Activism, Stakeholder Capitalism, Corporate Social Responsibility, Sustainability, Public-Private Partnership)

Investor Activism (e.g., Investor Populism/Valuation, Pop Finance, Crowd Funding, Investor Nationalism)

• Technology-driven Innovation (e.g., Sharing economy, Co-value creation, Co-evolution, Open Innovation, Open Access, Digital Capitalism, Digital Transformation, Platform Innovation, Smart Cities, Disruptive Innovation)

List of themes

Long Essays (3000 words)

1. Authoritarian Capitalism

2. Bitcoins; Cryptocurrency

3. Globalization and Globalization

4. Global Logistics/Sourcing

5. Co-Value Creation

6. Conspiracy theories

7. COVID-19; Remote Work; Social Distancing

8. Corporate Social Responsibility

9. Cross-functional work

10. Cyber Security/Surveillance

11. Digitalization

12. Diversity/Workforce Training

13. E-Commerce

14. Emotional Intelligence/EQ Leadership/Servant Leadership

15. Externalities Reporting

16. Future Shock/World of Work/Living in the Future

17. Information Society/The “Gilded age”; Post Industrial Society

18. K-Pops/Hanryu

19. Social Entrepreneurship

20. Frugal/Incremental/Open/Radical/Disruptive Innovation

21. Management Integrity/Accountability

22. Multinational Corporations (MNCs)

23. Outsourcing/Off-shoring/Reshoring

24. Rising Asia/China/India/Trade Tensions

25. Scenario Planning/

26. Sharing/Gig-Economy

27. Sustainability/Environmentalism

28. Productivity Movement

29. Quality/Lean Management/Six Sigma

30. Shareholder/Stakeholder Capitalism

31. Supply Chain Management

32. Technology Imperatives (AI, Blockchain, IoT, Automation, Robotics)

33. Top of Pyramid/Base of Pyramid

Media Studies

Populism, perhaps the most significant movement in contemporary politics, has a symbiotic relationship with the media. All politicians depend on the media to disseminate their message and amplify their narratives, but populist leaders seem to have a relationship with the media that goes deeper than most. Today’s new populists are often media darlings, frequently rise to prominence because their style of communication resonates with the media, and they know how to instrumentalism it in their political communication.

Populism at its heart refers to a form of political communication and strategy, one which transcends common ideological categories to champion ‘the people’ and denounce ‘elites’. Conceptualized as an expression of the will and sovereign power of the ‘pure’ people in opposition to the ‘corrupt’ elite, it is in large part a communicative act, a media and communication phenomenon.

Populism is often understood as a ‘thin’ ideology, a style of politics and a rhetorical strategy rather than a developed ideology that outlines a coherent set of political and economic policies. Modern history has seen leftist as well as right-wing populist movements, democratic as well as authoritarian, religious and well as secular. Nineteenth and twentieth century populisms empowered marginalized sections of the population in many countries, overthrew colonial rule in large parts of Africa and Asia and, if some were instrumental in the establishment of fascist and communist totalitarian regimes, others emerged as successors to such regimes. They emerged largely in the context of state-building or the establishment of democratic regimes.

By contrast, twenty-first century populism, the New Populism, has usually emerged within the settled national boundaries of established democracies that are going through a crisis, often linked to the pressures of globalization and immigration. Contemporary populists frequently target ethnic, religious or ‘outsider’ groups as part of their muscular nationalism and accuse the elite of protecting or favoring these ‘enemies of the people’. Populist politics has been mentioned as a significant factor in Donald Trump’s ascendance to the White House, Brexit, and the domestic politics of a long list of countries including Australia, Brazil, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Netherlands, Philippines, Poland, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda and Venezuela.

New populism is often – but not always – right-wing and posited against the ideals of deliberative democracy, a framework within which the elite are portrayed as having deprived the people of their rights, reward or sovereignty. New populism is seen as opposing informed dialogue and solidarity, embracing instead a venomous, othering and polarising rhetoric powered by instrumentalization of the media, in particular television and social media. Populist parties are adept at using social media, with ardent followers on media vastly outnumbered their formal membership. The cementing of people’s anti-establishment identity and the arousing of their awareness and action is the result of a specific strategy of political communication made possible by the media.

Many factors have been mentioned apropos the centrality of the media to New Populism. These include, but are not limited to:

• the agenda-setting power of the media

• the medialization of politics and the convergence of political logics with media logics

• populists’ exploitation of journalistic news values and processes, which privilege controversy, conflict and spectacle

• the natural fit between the polarizing rhetoric of new populisms and the specific commercial logic of tabloid media, which privileges simplification, polarization, personalization, stereotyping, emotion, drama and conflict

• the fact that populists and tabloid newspapers and television channels share a common constituency – the ‘common man’ or ‘the people’

• the media’s focus on political scandals and corruption, which is seen to encourage political alienation and cynicism among audiences

• the transformative effect of social media along multiple communicative dimensions

• various aspects of social media technology including filter bubbles, the use of data, and micro-targeted political advertising

• various aspects of the phenomenon known as fake news

• polarization and the propagation of hate speech online

• various forms and aspects of ‘othering’

The Media Section of the Encyclopedia of New Populism and Responses in the 21 Century will comprehensively cover the intersection of new populism and the media, embracing legacy mass media as well as social and online media, including:

• the role and context of the media

• structural aspects

• legal, regulatory and ethical aspects

• media processes and practices

• media content

• audiences, usage and effects

• media-politics interactions

• platforms and technology

populism and the media in various political contexts, preferably overviews of continents or parts of a continent rather than case studies of specific countries

List of themes

Long Essays:( 3000 words)

1. Medialization of politics in the digital age

2. Media freedom and free speech

3. Micro targeting on social media and algorithmic rise of the alt-right

4. Social media users and politics

5. Collective action in the digital media

6. Right-wing broadcast-media personalities and populism

7. Impact of political social media influencers on elections

8. Countering the online populist narratives

9. Rise of populism and damage to journalism

10. Liberal media stands up to populism

11. Extreme parties take to Facebook and Twitter for popularity

12. Spreading populist ideology through social media

13. Measuring media populism in media coverage

14. The appeal of new populism by the media

15. Media’s role in priming the new populist response

16. Media setting the agenda for a new populism

17. Defining the other: How Amar Chitra Katha's narratives define current politics in India?

18. Social welfare through freebie culture? Competitive populism and Media Narratives in Tamil Nadu

19. The language of populism

20. Populism in the “liberal” bubble on social media

21. The real damage from fake news: A study of the association between violence and fake news

22. Magic multiplication of new populism: References from India

23. Media and populism: Media processes and practices

Short Essays:( 1000-1500 words)

1. Media Studies and Populism in US

2. Media and populism in Eastern Europe

3. Media and populism in Africa

4. Media and polarization

5. Journalistic ethics under pressure of populism & social media

6. Professional values of journalism and their relationship with populist discourse

7. Social media, populism and fake news

8. Youtuber as counter culture

9. Emojis as political visuals

10. Populism as good storytelling

11. Memes for political campaigning

12. Films and politics in digital era

13. Woke as a counter to new populism

14. Social media enabled digital activism

15. Big data journalism in digital storytelling

16. Twitter as a tool of political activity

17. Globalisation and the populist challenge

18. Community radio and populism

19. Journalistic ethics in the age of new populism

20. Memes as Popular Culture on Social Media

21. Role of fake news in fanning populist sentiments

22. Digital media and the emergence of new public sphere

23. Decline in media freedom with the rise in populism

24. Media propaganda leads to a rise in populism

25. Education and populism

Political Science and International Studies

Twenty first century has witnessed several changes in politics. Many of the concepts and theories that were taken for granted are being questioned. Liberal democratic world order has been increasingly haunted by the spectra of populism. Populism which was relegated to election campaigns has now become the word of the decade as we see many populist leaders assuming government power in several countries: the US, Hungary, Italy, Turkey, Brazil and the Philippines are some of the examples. Even where ‘established’ parties and actors continue to govern, populism as a political style and strategy has left its mark, from Brexit to the electoral successes of right-wing populist parties across the world.

The world is also witnessing popular movements that are well-versed in attracting the attention of the media. How do these bottom-up mobilizations help us understand the under-researched demand side of populism? How might these movements, their organization and strategies inform our understanding of populist politics and its impact on democracy?

Populism has also been associated – and sometimes held responsible for – phenomena of democratic backsliding or constitutional erosion which can be observed in both ‘established’ and ‘young’ democracies around the globe. This proliferation of populist actors around the globe needs a comprehensive mapping of the phenomenon. What are the preconditions for the rise of populism? What are the variations of populist phenomena? Along with the rise of populism, one can observe the rise of discourse consistently opposing or fighting it. Are there patterns and commonalities in ‘anti-populist’ discourses that characterize actors utilizing them, or is this just a rhetorical tool used rather randomly?

What are the long term effects of this new ‘populist moment’? How will this change the disciplinary study of politics, governance and administration? These are some of the issues and debates that will be discussed in this section of the Encyclopedia.

Section: Political Science

List of themes

Short Essays (1500 words)

1. Sovereigntist

2. New nationalism

3. Electoral behaviour,

4. Political rhetoric

5. neo-sovereigntist

6. demagogues

7. Jingoism

8. New nationalism

9. Electoral behavior

10. Demagogues

11. Politics of exclusion

12. US populism

Section: International Studies

List of themes

Long Essays (3000 words)

1. Populist leaders: Vladimir Putin

2. Populist leaders: Viktor Orban

3. Populist leaders: Recep Tayyip Erdogan

4. Populist leaders: Jair Bolsanaro

5. Global governance and populist leaders

6. Social media democracy

7. Post truth politics

8. Refugee crisis as a cause

9. Natural Resource politics

10. Leader Democracy

11. Ethnicism

12. Political mobilization

Short Essays (1500 words)

1. New isolationism

2. Illiberalism,

3. Authoritarian populist

4. Politics of exclusion

5. Pluralism

6. Sovereigntism

7. New nationalism

8. Electoral behaviour

9. Political rhetoric

10. Authoritarian populists

11. Demagogues

12. Jingoism

13. Politics of exclusion

14. Pluralism

15. Neo-sovereigntism

Psychology

Populist and neo populist movements have received greater attention among the academic community in recent years. Though it has its root in political theory, the field of psychology has a keen interest in understanding the neo populist phenomenon, exploring the factors leading to it, and its impact on the society; Social and political psychologist are into exploring the characteristics of the populists.

People participation and acceptance is vital to populist and their movements. initial days the issues they raised or the points they brought were key in getting this mass support. Now the understanding about human behavior is exploited, though propaganda, media and other means of communication by certain groups to create populist leader who has vested interests and to win people’s mind.

People’s perception of reality and the how they react differently to same trends and threads are depending on multiple factors like demographic, cultural, political awareness, education etc. Inequalities, mainly social and economic are vital in creating the division between us (the good) and them (the corrupted elite). Perception of the system unfairness, status anxiety, political distrust, heightened sense of intergroup threats etc. can add impetus to this friction.

Hence a multidisciplinary approach is essential for a better understanding of the populism and neo populist movements. we also need to look into the regional, cultural and social factors as well. So, the current work looks into the philosophical underpinnings, factors that affect populism, the characteristics of populist and the manipulation of human behavior and emotions from a multicultural, interdisciplinary perspectives.

List of themes

Long Essay (3000 words)

1. Sanity and insanity in populism

2. Religion, Fear, and Nationalism in populist era

3. Cognition, Neuroscience and Populism

4. values (virtual and physical) and populism

5. leadership (Political, Social) and populism

6. Multicultural and intercultural models: clarifications, reflections and urgencies

7. Beyond the Multicultural Paradigm: The Contribution of Intercultural Education and Competence

8. Areas of culture and pandemic

9. Superwoman': new-age identity of working-women

10. Social Consciousness of Youth in India: Role of Social Media in the Era of Neo Populism

Short Essay (1000-1500 words)

1. Celebrity, Fame and recognition, Impression formation and impression management in the populist world

2. Movie, superhero and millennials and post millennials

3. Identity and populism

4. The other in populism (altruism and egocentrism)

5. Human behaviour and populism (rational being or emotional being)

6. Digitalization and individual rights

7. Social media and populism

8. Youth Mental health in populist era

9. Regional Populism in India: A case of Sikkim

10. Climate emergency during populist leaders