| Popis: |
Democracy Unmoored begins with personal observations. A trip to Argentina revealed uses of executive power to tilt elections, from massive doles on election eve to hijacking the stage of football competitions. In Venezuela, a trip to lecture on press freedom overlapped with the destruction of media offices. Whether caudillo politics in Latin America or attempts at election interference by President Trump, authoritarian populists’ tactics around the world are not the blunt tools of 20th-century military rulers and other tyrants. This introduction defines populism as a movement based on political mobilization in disregard of institutions, focused on society rather than institutions of the state. Populism is not a challenge of new, fragile democracies—young and mature democracies around the world are confronting similarly motivated populist movements using similar, often intralegal, tactics to consolidate power and wear down opposition. These new challenges and the new solutions they demand are discussed in the following chapters. |
