Human Rights In A Time Of Populism

Leading experts examine the threats posed by populism to human rights and the international systems and explore how to confront them.

How can we interpret and respond to the rise of populist regimes that infringe on human rights? This incisive book analyses illiberal, repressive, and patriarchal logics of rule, identifying critical catalysts in the meteoric growth of populist agendas. Contributors scrutinise the records of authoritarian and nationalist leaders in Brazil, Hungary, India, Mexico, the Philippines, Poland, Turkey and the United States.

Right-wing nationalist populism poses direct attacks on social tolerance, human rights discourse, political debates, the survival of the welfare state and its universal services, impacting on the roles of social work. This book demonstrates how right-wing nationalist populism can and must be countered. Using case studies from around the world, this book shows how a revitalised radical social work where community organisation, building alliances, trade union commitment and social action can be used as political forces to speak up against discrimination and hate in accordance with human rights, social justice, and social work values. The rise of national populism signals that now is the time for social work to forge and reforge such networks and create links with civil society and challenge right-wing populist policies wherever they manifest themselves. It will be of interest to all social work students, practitioners and academics, particularly those working on critical and radical social work, green social work, anti-oppressive practice and community development.

Populism is a central concept in the current media debates about politics and elections. However, like most political buzzwords, the term often floats from one meaning to another, and both social scientists and journalists use it to denote diverse phenomena. What is populism really? Who are the populist leaders? And what is the relationship between populism and democracy? This book answers these questions in a simple and persuasive way, offering a swift guide to populism in theory and practice. Cas Mudde and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser present populism as an ideology that divides society into two antagonistic camps, the "pure people" versus the "corrupt elite," and that privileges the general will of the people above all else. They illustrate the practical power of this ideology through a survey of representative populist movements of the modern era: European right-wing parties, left-wing presidents in Latin America, and the Tea Party movement in the United States. The authors delve into the ambivalent personalities of charismatic populist leaders such as Juan Domingo Péron, H. Ross Perot, Jean-Marie le Pen, Silvio Berlusconi, and Hugo Chávez. If the strong male leader embodies the mainstream form of populism, many resolute women, such as Eva Péron, Pauline Hanson, and Sarah Palin, have also succeeded in building a populist status, often by exploiting gendered notions of society. Although populism is ultimately part of democracy, populist movements constitute an increasing challenge to democratic politics. Comparing political trends across different countries, this compelling book debates what the long-term consequences of this challenge could be, as it turns the spotlight on the bewildering effect of populism on today's political and social life.

A state-of-the-art analysis of the contentious areas of EU law that have been put in the spotlight by populism.

Contrary to warnings about the dangers of populism, Donald F. Critchlow argues that grassroots activism is essential to party renewal within a democratic system. Grassroots activism, presenting a cacophony of voices calling for reform of various sorts without programmatic coherence, is often derided as populist and distrusted by both political parties and voters. But according to Donald T. Critchlow, grassroots movements are actually responsible for political party transformation, both Democratic and Republic, into instruments of reform that reflect the interests, concerns, and anxieties of the electorate. Contrary to popular discourse warning about the dangers of populism, Critchlow argues that grassroots activism is essential to party renewal within a democratic system. In Defense of Populism examines movements that influenced Republican, Democratic, and third-party politics—from the Progressives and their influence on Teddy Roosevelt, to New Dealers and FDR, to the civil rights, feminist, and environmental movements and their impact on the Democratic Party, to the Reagan Revolution and the Tea Party. In each case, Critchlow narrates representative biographies of activists, party leaders, and presidents to show how movements become viable calls for reform that get translated into policy positions. Social tensions and political polarization continue to be prevalent today. Increased social disorder and populist outcry are expected whenever political elites and distant bureaucratic government are challenged. In Defense of Populism shows how, as a result of grassroots activism and political-party reform, policy advances are made, a sense of national confidence is restored, and the belief that American democracy works in the midst of crisis is affirmed.

"A definition of Europe can be geographic, historic, political and/ or legal. This book understands Europe as Member States of the Council of Europe and thus states party to the European Convention of Human Rights (echr, the Convention). Unlike the European Union (EU), the Council of Europe was explicitly created with the aim of human rights protection.1 At present, it has forty- seven Member States which are ipso facto party to the echr"--

For decades, framing an issue as a ‘human rights’ issue carried certain power and effect in politics and international relations, one that has been challenged by the recent rise of populist political forces. Ford explores the recent impact of populist politics on the universalist human rights project, in particular, how scholars have framed and responded to this challenge. Ford offers a provocation to the human rights movement. Rather than ‘what have populists done to human rights?’, it asks ‘how did we, the human rights movement, do this to ourselves?’ How did fundamental protections for all become so easily scapegoated as ‘us and them,’ as claims of small, often foreign, minorities? Did human rights lose some vital connection to ordinary people’s interests, their value taken as obvious and self-explanatory? Looking forward, the book asks how – in a post-truth ‘fake news’ world – we might reimagine human rights as underpinning human flourishing as well as important constraints on public and private concentrations of power. Traversing relevant scholarly literature on the future of human rights and zooming out to look at wider patterns of political and diplomatic discourse, this book will speak to policymakers, diplomats, journalists, and human rights advocates – and all interested in the crisis of liberal democracies.