How Conservative Professors Think about State-Society Relations

How do professors who support populist social movements think about state-society relations? Do they tend toward a liberitarian anti-state position or towards a reformed central authority to correct for market excesses and reinforce national identity - to mention but two polar opposites. Does their populist support focus on specific public policies or a broad readjustment of state-society relations. And as academics do their views differ at all from those of non-academic populist leadership and intellectuals? What issues are most salient in the thinking of conservative scholars: identity, legitimacy, sovereignty, etc.? These are some of the guiding questions to ask of academics who support populist causes in light of the challenges of globalization and transnationalism to state autonomy. This paper will explore these questions using an original data set of around 100 American professors who support the Trump presidency.