Jan-Werner Müller, What is Populism?

How can we fail to notice that today, the academic world is divided on the meaning and the importance of the concept of “populism” in academic debate? Can this term, so often used in the media, be considered a scientific concept? As the political scientist Federico Tarragoni notes, the study of populism—which he calls “populology”—is, in Europe and North America, limited today mostly to warning against a phenomenon often defined as “illiberal,” “anti-democratic” and “pathological.” Another sc...