*Need to check how to cite this source properly, not a journal article.*
The Trump presidency and the rise of populism in the global context. Aydin Düzgit & E. Fuat Keyman. January 2017.
This article was extremely helpful for understanding the definition and characteristics of populism. Charting the election of Trump in the U.S. and the Brexit referendum as examples, the article argues that “populism today emerges as a part of a new broader global political economic reality that cuts across geographic, economic, and political boundaries” (p. 3).
Populism by definition considers society as being broken into two parts: the “elites” and the “people.” Populist leaders claim to be of and for the people, pushing back against the elites or the establishment. The defining characteristics of populism are 1) anti-establishment; 2) authoritarianism; 3) nativism. When reading these characteristics, I wondered, As defined in this article, is the effect of populism on reproductive healthcare policy? In what ways does this render the pro-life/anti-choice dichotomy particularly insufficient? How does an anti-authoritarian approach to activism around reproductive healthcare/abortion ameliorate this insufficiency? I was also thinking about the ways in which the three aforementioned characteristics of populism overlap and intersect to further marginalize people. Because of this, it is evermore important for reproductive healthcare access to be intersectional–if the activism cannot attend to each of these characteristics, it will be ineffective. This reminds me of the articles on coalition-building (Breton, et al.; Carastathis, 2013; Cole, 2008). The article also discusses popular theorizations in regards to the rise of global populism, particularly the “cultural backlash thesis” and the “economic fears” thesis.
MellowMusing 