Populism Crisis Nexus

Whether having populist actors proclaim it or whether an actual crisis occurs, populism and crisis have often been connected in the literature as having a symbiotic relationship. At present the focus remains on populism and e.g. crisis of ideological discourse (Laclau, 1977), representational notion of crisis (Gramsci, 1971), crisis of previously hegemonic discursive orders (Stavrakakis, 2005), performance of crisis (Moffitt, 2015), contexts of crisis or profound transformations (Roberts, 1995), and crisis and the role of leadership (Taggart, 2000). But little is known about how populist actors construct and mobilise crisis. As populism does not only respond to crisis but it often also creates it, the study of populism enables understanding social, cultural, and political crises in a new light. Due to the symbiotic relation of populism and crisis, and in order to understand holistically the populist phenomenon and its effort to attract or deflect public attention, it is essential to study crisis and populism together and to understand the strategy of populist actors when constructing and instrumentalise crisis for voter mobilisation or pacification.