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Palgrave Macmillan

Populism and the Politicization of the COVID-19 Crisis in Europe

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  • © 2021

Overview

  • Identifies the main features of populist action by focusing on the leaders’ statements and political initiatives
  • Contributes to crisis and populism literatures defining patterns among different types of populism
  • Offers an empirically grounded overview of the topic through eight country cases

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Table of contents (10 chapters)

Keywords

About this book

This edited book provides a first overview of how populist parties responded to the COVID-19 pandemic crisis in Europe. Although populism would normally benefit from crisis situations (e.g., political representation or economic crises), the peculiar nature of this health crisis does not make the benefit obvious. For it to be exploited, a crisis must be politicized. While populists have tried to take advantage of the crisis situation, the impossibility of taking ownership of the COVID-19 issue has made the crisis hard to be exploited. In particular, populists in power have tried to depoliticize the pandemic, whereas radical right-populists in opposition tried to politicize the crisis, though failing to gain the relevant public support. This book considers populist parties in eight European democracies, providing a framework of analysis for their responses to the COVID-19 crisis. It does so by engaging with the literature on crisis and populism from a theoretical perspective and throughthe lens of the politicization process.

Reviews

“Populism and the Politicization of the COVID-19 Crisis in Europe is a successful discourse analysis of populist parties. The authors’ clean organization of these exceedingly difficult and intersecting cases can serve as a useful and trustworthy guide for scholars studying different strategies of right- and left-wing populist parties … . Along with its scholarly value, the book will be of considerable interestto anybody curious about the populist parties and their reactions in a time of worldwide turmoil.” (Alper Çakmak, Insight Turkey, Vol. 24 (1), 2022) “This book provides a theoretically informed and thorough assessment of the behaviour of one particular type of political actor (populist parties) in an exceptional situation (comparable to a natural disaster) across EU member states. This is unprecedented and useful for understanding what characteristics (if any) populist actors have in common despite different contexts. The theoretical framework develops carefully, based on an impressive knowledge of the literature on the central characteristics of populism in European politics thus avoiding simplifications or an underdeveloped conceptualization. On the empirical side, the book offers an instructive comparative approach, which has the merit to take systematically into account the same set of factors across national contexts. Thus, the commonalities as well as the nuances of populist parties’ response to this health crisis emerge.”-        Peter Maurer, University of Trier, Germany

Editors and Affiliations

  • Department of Cultures, Politics and Society—Collegio Carlo Alberto, University of Turin, Turin, Italy

    Giuliano Bobba

  • Centre for Research on Mediations (CREM), University of Lorraine, Metz, France

    Nicolas Hubé

About the editors

Giuliano Bobba is Associate Professor in the Department of Cultures, Politics and Society and Affiliate at the Collegio Carlo Alberto, University of Turin, Italy.

Nicolas Hubé is Professor in the Centre de Recherche sur les Médiations, University of Lorraine, France.

Bibliographic Information

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