DAY 0 | Wednesday, June 9
17:00-18:15 | KEYNOTE: Dr Aurelien Mondon (University of Bath) – ‘The populist hype, ‘the people’ and the far right’
18:15 | DRINKS & NETWORKING – Online breakout room
DAY 1 | Thursday, June 10
09:00-09:30| Welcome by hosts/organisers
09:30-11:00 | Panel A1: Populism and Discourse Theory
Carola Schoor (Maastricht University) – ‘A short-cut from individualism to populism – Laclau’s route to populism reassessed’
Thomás Zicman de Barros (Sciences Po) – ‘The Polysemy of an Empty Signifier’
Abdellatif Atif (Free University of Bolzano-Bozen) – ‘Populism and Education, a retroductive view’
Kurt Sengul (Newcastle University) – ‘Studying populism discursively: A critical comparison between the Discourse-Historical Approach and Discourse Theory’
— Chair: Emmy Eklundh (Cardiff University)
— Discussant: Lasse Thomassen (QMUL)
09:30-11:00 | Panel A2: Populism, Media and Social Media
Natalie Whittaker & Antal Wozniak (University of Liverpool) – ‘The Divided States of Reddit: Comparing Right- and Left-Wing Political Memes on Reddit’
Lluis de Nadal (Sorbonne) – ‘The Role of Social Media in the Processes of Recruitment into Vox’
Corina Lacatus (Queen’s University Belfast) – ‘Populism, Authenticity, and Social Media Discourse in Sub-Saharan Africa?’
Jana Goyvaerts (Free University Brussels) – ‘The Academic Voice in Media Debates on Populism’
— Chair: Giorgos Venizelos (Scuola Normale Superiore)
— Discussant: Lone Sorensen (University of Leeds)
11:00-11:30 | COFFEE BREAK – Online breakout room
11:30-12:45 | Panel B1: Measuring populism
Emilia Palonen & Juha Koljonen (University of Helsinki)– ‘Mainstreaming populism and the EP2019: a Laclaudian approach to topic modelling’
Aline Burni (German Development Institute), Eduardo Tamaki (Federal University of Minas Gerais) and Matheus Ferreira (Federal University of Minas Gerais) – ‘The upsurge of far-right populists and its challenges to Latin American democracies’
Fedja Pavlovic (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich) – ‘Unpacking the Populist ‘People v. Elite’ Distinction: a Critique of the Ideational Approach to Populism’
— Chair: Andy Knott (University of Brighton)
— Discussant: Stuart Turnbull-Dugarte (University of Southampton)
11:30-12:45 | Panel B2: Populism in Eastern Europe
Ilana Hartikainen & Zea Szebeni (University of Helsinki)– ‘Populism beyond populism: Uncovering tribalism in Slovakia’
Francesco Melito (Jagiellonian University in Kraków) – ‘The nation, the people, the values. The fantasy of Polish neo-traditionalist discourse’
Veronika Dostalova (Masaryk University) – ‘The whole is greater than the sum of its parts, but the parts can have their unique effects: The bifactor model of populist attitudes and its applications within the Czech context’
— Chair: Alen Toplisek (King’s College London)
— Discussant: Petra Guasti (Charles University Prague)
12:45-13:45 | LUNCH BREAK
13:45-15:00 | Panel C: Populism in Theory I
César Morales Oyarvide (University of Chicago) – ‘Machiavelli’s Ambiguous Populism’
Katy Brown (University of Bath) – ‘Talking ‘with’ and ‘about’ the far right: how the populist hype means we do both’
Gil Gonçalves (NOVA University Lisbon) – ‘Populists and the Past – potentialities of historiographic approaches to populism’
— Chair: Giorgos Katsambekis (Loughborough University)
— Discussant: Paula Biglieri (University of Buenos Aires)
15:00-15:30 | COFFEE BREAK
15:30-17:00 | Panel D: Populism, performance and popular culture
P. Muhammed Afzal (Birla Institute of Science and Technology) – ‘Cinema and the Production of a Popular Identity: Melodrama and the Left Developmental Aesthetic in Puthiya Akasam Puthiya Bhoomi’
Théo Aiolfi (University of Warwick) – ‘Beyond “Bad Manners”: Populism and Performances of Transgression’
Salma el-Idrissi & Drew Margolin (Cornell University) – ‘Singing for the people: Populist sentiment and resistance music in Morocco and Chile’
Callum Tindall (University of Nottingham) – ‘The Populist Style: Reassessing the relationship between Populism, Performance and the Cultural Low’
— Chair: Marina Prentoulis (University of East Anglia)
— Discussant: Pierre Ostiguy (University of Valparaiso)
DAY 2 | Friday, June 11
09:30-11:00 | Panel E1: Nativism, migration, xenophobia
George Newth (University of Bath) – ‘Beyond the ‘nativist hype’? Rethinking nativism as a racist and xenophobic discourse’
Mari-Liis Jakobson (Tallinn University), Sebastián Umpierrez de Reguero (Diego Portales University), Inci Öykü Yener-Roderburg (University of Duisburg-Essen) – ‘When migrants become ‘the people’: unpacking homeland populism’
Thorsten Wojczewski (King’s College London) – ‘Conspiracy Theories, Right-Wing Populism and Foreign Policy: The Case of the Alternative for Germany’
— Chair: Giorgos Venizelos (Scuola Normale Superiore)
— Discussant: Caterina Froio (Sciences Po)
09:30-11:00 | Panel E2: Anti-populism
Salome Ietter (QMUL) – ‘Policing or embracing crisis? Brexit, anti-populism and neoliberal resilience’
Lewis Bassett (University of Manchester) – ‘The Politics of Anti-Populism’
Eduardo Enríquez Arévalo (Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar-Ecuador) – ‘Understanding Latin American anti-populism’
Sebastian Ronderos (University of Essex) – ‘From Lula to Bolsonaro: the mainstream’s replacement of a populist for another’
— Chair: Giorgos Katsambekis (Loughborough University)
— Discussant: Yannis Stavrakakis (Aristotle University Thessaloniki)
11:00-11:30 | COFFEE BREAK
11:30-12:45 | Panel F1: Populism and gender
María Esperanza Casullo (National University of Rio Negro) & Rodolfo Colalongo, (Università degli Studi di Salerno) – ´Tough Men or Empty Suits? Populism, Masculinity and Technocracy in Social Media Performances of South American Presidents´
Jonathan Dean (University of Leeds) – ´Beyond Feminism versus Populism? Notes on the gender politics of anti-populism´
Proma Ray Chaudhury (Dublin City University) – ´The Political Asceticism of Mamata Banerjee: Female Populist Leadership in Contemporary India.´
— Chair: Emmy Eklundh (Cardiff University)
— Discussant: Luciana Cadahia (Cornell University/FLACSO Ecuador)
11:30-12:45 | Panel F2: Constructing populist identities
Susan de Groot Heupner (Griffith University) – ‘Exploring the mutual aspect of populist identity: an introduction to islamist-populism´
Maren Schäfer (University of Heidelberg) – ´Who’s to blame? Framing “Them” During the COVID-19 Pandemic´
Samer Alnasir (UNED) – ´Second Wave of Arab Revolts: The Iraqi Movement of October 2019´
— Chair: Andy Knott (University of Brighton)
— Discussant: Benjamin de Cleen (Free University Brussels)
12:45-13:30 | LUNCH BREAK
13:30-14:45 | Panel G1: Populism on the Left
Reid Kleinberg (University of Essex) – ‘The Transformative Limits of Left-Populism: The Discourse of Tyrannicide in Mélenchon’s 6th Republic and Nationalism as Tradition’
Luke Melchiorre (Universidad de los Andes) – ‘Politics Unusual’: Generational Populism and the Making of People Power in Uganda’
Ugo Gaudino (University of Kent) – ‘Left-wing populism and Islam: a difficult path to de- securitization’
— Chair: Marina Prentoulis (university of East Anglia)
— Discussant: Bice Maiguashca (University of Exeter)
13:30-14:45 | Panel G2: Populism in Theory II
Kostiantyn Yanchenko (University of Hamburg) – ‘Conceptualizing a populist narrative: Rationales, attributes, implications’
Enrico Padoan (Scuola Normale Superiore) -What is Populism (and What is Not). A Structural Approach
Carolina Plaza-Colodro and Beatriz Tomé-Alonso (University of Salamanca/Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha) – ‘Populism and Islamist political parties: overview of a neglected relation’
— Chair: Alen Toplisek (King’s College London)
— Discussant: Simon Tormey (University of Bristol)
14:45-15:00 | CLOSING REMARKS
Welcome to the digital version of the PSA Populism Specialist Group workshop 2021! Below are some pointers for how to navigate the digital format:
- All panels will be held on Zoom. You will be sent a link to all panels prior to the conference, so watch out for this email.
- We would advise you to download Zoom, but you don’t need an institutional account. A personal account is enough.
- We are looking for 15 minutes of presentation per paper, and then 30 minutes of general question time per panel. You will be able to share your screen with the rest of the group if you want to do a PPT presentation.
- When entering the chat room, we will admit you manually, and this will take just a minute.
- When listening to presenters, please make sure that your microphone is on mute, or else we may have a lot of echoes in the call (or we may hear your pets/family).
- For the coffee breaks, we will organise a digital breakout room, where you can chat with people! Hopefully, this will enable some networking in addition to the panels!
- We will record the keynote speaker session. Please be aware that if you make a contribution to this session, it will be uploaded to our website.
Thanks for bearing with us in these unusual times! We look forward to seeing you!
Emmy, Giorgos K, Giorgos V, Marina, Andy and Alen.
PSA Populism Specialist Group 