Thaksin Shinawatra, who has just become 23rd PM of Thailand, with George Bush in the Oval Office in 2001. Wikicommons/White House photo by Eric Draper. Some rights reserved. It is difficult to think of a political phenomenon that has gained more currency in public and policy debates internationally in the last few years than populism.
Already the object of analysis in a voluminous literature, populism proved to be a highly relevant factor in momentous political events such as the emergence of radical left anti-austerity government in Greece in 2015, and the election of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States and the vote of the British people to leave the EU (Brexit) in 2016.
These events came on the heels of a longstanding process of strengthening of populist forces in the West more generally. But populism has now become a relevant phenomenon in many other world regions as well. Long a dominant force in Latin America, populism has now emerged as a distinct feature of politics in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. Why is this so, and what does the global emergence of populism mean?
