The populist explosion

'The Populist Explosion: How the Great Recession Transformed American and European Politics' by John B. Judis (Columbia Global Reports, $13, 184 pages)

Right-wing populism is on the march everywhere. The election of Donald Trump in the U.S. is just the latest symptom of a growing global phenomenon: The nationalist internationale. The tide is not limited to the West; established and emerging powers seem to be heading in the same nativist direction. Putin in Russia, Erdoğan in Turkey, Modi in India, Abe in Japan, and Orban in Hungary all supply a rising demand for strongman rule. Twenty-five years after the end of the Cold War, our increasingly interconnected global order appears to be entering a new post-liberal age.

"The Populist Explosion" by Americanjournalist John Judis is a lucid examination of the populist surge across Europe and the United States. Judis argues that populism is not an ideology, but rather a "political logic," a way of thinking about politics that "assumes a basic antagonism between the people and an elite at the heart of its politics." The new populism comes in many different forms, but Judis stresses a key distinction: Leftwing populists like Bernie Sanders accuse the establishment of betraying the people; right-wing populists like Donald Trump or France's Marine Le Pen also accuse the establishment of coddling a third group - whether it be Muslims, Latinos, Jews, migrants, or African Americans.

The current populist explosion has many forerunners. Judis traces it back to America in the 1890s, when the People's Party set the precedent of a mass movement based on anti-elite protectionism, committed to reforms that both major parties spurned. A later instance came in the 1960s with the presidential primary...