2020/12/03 by Sheri Berman · 243 citations
Social Sciences · #Populism, Right-Wing Movements #Electoral Systems and Political Participation #Media Influence and Politics #Populism #Grievance #Politics #Scholarship #Political economy #Political science #Agency (philosophy) #Sustenance #Sociology #Social science #Law
paper · doi:10.1146/annurev-polisci-041719-102503
published in Annual Review of Political Science 24(1), 71-88 (Annual Reviews)
openalex publication_date 2020/12/03 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
The global ascendance of populism has produced an explosion of research, bringing together scholarship on American and comparative politics as well as encouraging intellectual exchange among political scientists, economists, and sociologists. A good way to get a handle on what is now a wide-ranging and interdisciplinary literature is to focus on the key debates characterizing it. This article reviews the literature on the causes of populism, and in particular right-wing populism, in the United States, Europe, and other advanced industrial nations generally, but much of this literature draws on and refers to research on other parts of the world as well. This review analyzes the nature as well as the strengths and weakness of demand- and supply-side explanations of populism, economic grievance–based and sociocultural grievance–based explanations of populism, and structure- and agency-based explanations of populism.