Margaret Canovan, populist gadfly

Paris Aslanidis

Chapter 11 in Research Handbook on Populism, 2024, pp 131-141 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: The late Margaret Canovan is immensely respected by scholars of populism for her pivotal contributions to our field during her long career. However, the prevailing image among us of her as a disinterested centrist who marched without a flag is a distortion of what Canovan really stood for. Based on a close reading of her entire work and five semi-structured interviews, I reveal Canovan as a distinctly conservative thinker, a staunch defender of the nation-state in the global order and a critic of progressivism, liberalism and ideological vanguardism. Nevertheless, I argue that the conservative label does not do her full justice. Canovan should best be remembered as an irreverent populist gadfly, one that took pleasure in poking holes in lofty academic theories to ultimately goad her utopian peers out of the Ivory Tower and into the real world, where the common people dwell.

Keywords: Politics and Public Policy Research Methods; Sociology and Social Policy; Sustainable Development Goals (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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