The Noisy Counter-Revolution: Understanding the Cultural Conditions and Dynamics of Populist Politics in Europe in the Digital Age

Lars Rensmann
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Lars Rensmann: Centre for International Relations and Department of European Languages and Cultures, University of Groningen, The Netherlands

Politics and Governance, 2017, vol. 5, issue 4, 123-135

Abstract: The article argues for a cultural turn in the study of populist politics in Europe. Integrating insights from three fields—political sociology, political psychology, and media studies—a new, multi-disciplinary framework is proposed to theorize particular cultural conditions favorable to the electoral success of populist parties. Through this lens, the fourth wave of populism should be viewed as a “noisy”, anti-cosmopolitan counter-revolution in defense of traditional cultural identity. Reflective of a deep-seated, value-based great divide in European democracies that largely trumps economic cleavages, populist parties first and foremost politically mobilize long lingering cultural discontent and successfully express a backlash against cultural change. While the populist counter-revolution is engendered by profoundly transformed communicative conditions in the age of social media, its emotional force can best be theorized with the political psychology of authoritarianism: as a new type of authoritarian cultural revolt.

Keywords: anti-cosmopolitanism; authoritarianism; cultural turn; noisy counter-revolution; politics of transgression; populism; post-factual politics; social media (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cog:poango:v5:y:2017:i:4:p:123-135

DOI: 10.17645/pag.v5i4.1123

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