it on its own terms rather than giving Nigel Farage, the movement's leader, the seriousness of partisan contention. Second and relatedly, if we see Reform as largely a social movement, it requires alternative social movement organizing of our own, to affirm the principle of multiethnic citizenship.

Lactic nourishment transferrence!

Indeed, though requires more structural shifts. Europe mostly trying to replicate / compete with a winner take all model involving huge amounts of research grants concentrated in a small number of researchers

After Adolescence, the suits are going to pivot: "but what if the Harry Potter show is a single take every episode"?!

guns don't kill people, physics does?

Populism is democratic politics at its most visceral and unnerving -- of conflict and bending norms - that is why it's different from public administration and policy. But populists don't automatically doom democracy, even as they can threaten it and certainly will change it. /fin

I don't think anybody knows the endgame here, but the establishment is powerful, and diverse and hard to coopt unless some factions are ideologically aligned (to one extent or another) with the populist project -- the Modi, Orban playbook. No evidence that this is happening, quite the contrary. 5/

What the pain, fear, chaos and distress of Trump II so far is continuing to declare war on the system, the establishment, the deep state -- a politics of grievance, vengeance. He's trashing much of the state, w/ the help of Musk, in the process. But it's not popular, not a governing strategy. 4/

Transforming the system is hard to do, and these aren't revolutionaries. FDR did it, Cardenas in MX, but it's rare. Moderate and compromise and play golf was a lot of Trump I (with obvious exceptions). Centralize, personalize power is the Modi, Orban playbook but requires other factors. 3/

Once in power, what to do? a) moderate, compromise, enjoy power, and perhaps get voted out (or worse). b) continue a war against the establishment ("the deep state"). c) centralize and personalize power and threaten democracy. d) actually transform the system to help people. 2/

Maybe! As academia has grown and grown and gotten more fragmented, it’s not as clear who one would want as a keynote speaker in many conferences — too often, it’s a random famous person who hasn’t actually done any research on the subject but has scribbled some thoughts down.

yet academic poobahs use no of keynotes as criteria for evaluation (“esteem”) these days. Hence continuing demand and thus supply of these monstrosities.

PS: @benansell.bsky.social thanks so much for reopening the debate on the (causes and) consequences of populism!

Most fail though: Boris Johnson & Imran Khan being excellent examples. Trump is heading in this direction as well, but doing a lot of damage while doing so. BUT the roots of successful populist appeals lie in failures of representation. Unless solved, cycles of populism will continue. /fin

... that have diverse consequences, depending on the impact on the party system. Most confront opposition parties, opposition within their own parties, judges, civ society, other actors incl military and security services. Authoritarians like Modi & Orban coopt the latter and starve the former. 2/

But the real danger is institutional confrontations and cooptation, plus the weakness of the opposition (thus, Orban, Erdogan, Modi). If not, failure. However, the background conditions in the failures of representation continues, generating populist cycles. global.oup.com/academic/pro...

Great perspective! What Pradeep and I argue is that populism is a strategy for getting into power, rather than governing, but it sets up confrontations both within parties and with other institutions that determine populism's impact. Thus not surprising that populists tend to flame out in chaos.

The trouble being that we are a craft union that pretends like we’re an industrial union, but with too much heterogeneity of interests and circumstances to assume solidarity. Casework might serve as the basis for that solidarity, but it’s grinding work. /fin

Am heading in to work the bimonthly caseworker drop-in as we speak! There is indeed so much bullying, harassment, inequity in HE that implicate especially the most vulnerable and truly represent the bloody edge of neoliberalism, but need to be handled case by case. 1/