WHAT DO WOMEN WANT FROM POPULISTS?
Back in the autumn of 2016, in the aftermath of the Brexit referendum in the United Kingdom, at the margins of an academic workshop on the emergence of far right populism in Europe, I recall chatting about recent political developments with colleagues over a drink. There we were, engaging in what some commentators have identified as a hallmark of populism – “the politics of the Stammtisch (the pub)”, expressing our bewilderment over the turn politics had taken, and the role women and young people could play in rejuvenating politics.
At that moment a colleague reminded us that in the UK referendum, close to 50 percent of female voters voted for Brexit and in an instance of exasperation she said she could not understand what women wanted from the populists. This is the first of several questions that we have now decided to explore in this first debate of #Rethinkingpopulism.
