The Missing Intellectual Right in Political Sociology: A Look at Scholars Who Support Trump

An interesting challenge to political sociology theorizing and empirical research is the choice of research topics. Why do certain topics produce tremendous bodies of research and others go largely neglected. A functionalist answer stressing the intrinsic importance of the topic will not work in all cases. Certainly the focus on nation-states seems to point to an area of considerable political importance. Yet, recently a number of scholars exploring the influence of forms of global power on national agendas are suggesting that methodological nationalism misses key relational dynamics linking colonial powers to their former colonial holdings. Fashion could well be another contributing factor though social scientists might be reluctant to admit it. Of interest in this paper is why a certain topic seems to elude political sociological attention. Take for example scholars who support the Donald Trump presidency. There is in the sociology of intellectuals, one important subfield of political sociology, an important literature on left-leaning intellectuals. But intellectuals on the political right have received far less attention. There is considerable interest in populist movements, opinions, and political leadership particularly in Europe and the US, but strikingly little on scholars supporting populist agendas. Why? Politically right as well as left intellectuals can be influential in shaping political agendas. This paper will offer some plausible reasons for this lack of attention to populist academics and it will look at the population of scholars who support the Trump presidency in particular.