Seven leading scholars spanning a variety of disciplines from around the country will provide insight into the manifestations of global populism, as part of a lecture series that begins this fall at the University of Delaware.
The lecture series, “Taking Stock of Global Populism,” is hosted by the Center for Global and Area Studies (CGAS) and is free and open to the public. Its aim is to help students, faculty, staff and the general public gain a better understanding of the rise of populism, its causes and implications.
Kim Lane Scheppele, of Princeton University, will deliver the first lecture from
3-4:30 p.m., Monday, Oct. 2, in 140 Smith Hall. Her topic is “The End of ‘The End of History.’”
Kim Lane Scheppele of Princeton University is the first speaker in the “Global Populism” lecture series.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Francis Fukuyama pronounced the “end of history” when it seemed that the world was moving toward a consensus on the establishment of liberal, democratic, constitutional governments. But now, 25 years later, the number of liberal constitutional democracies is steadily declining.
Scheppele’s lecture will examine Hungary, Poland, Russia, Turkey, Venezuela and Ecuador as models of the new illiberal constitutionalism. In each case, she says, strongman leaders modify or replace constitutions while turning their new forms of constitutionalism into the production of “worst practices.”
Scheppele is the Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Sociology and International Affairs in the Woodrow Wilson School and the University Center for Human Values at Princeton. She was the founding director of the gender program at Central European University Budapest and has taught in the law schools at Michigan, Yale, Harvard, Erasmus/Rotterdam and Humboldt/Berlin. From 2017-2019, she will serve as the elected president of the Law and Society Association.
Three other lectures in the series will be held during fall semester:
Oct. 11, Justin Gest of George Mason University, “The New Minority: White Working Class Politics in the Trump Era”;
Oct. 25, David Timberman, an independent scholar, “Rodrigo Duterte and Populism in the Philippines”; and
Nov. 13, Julio Carrión, associate professor of political science and international relations and of Latin American and Iberian Studies at UD, “Understanding Populist Governance in Latin America.”
Three additional talks will be held during spring semester. For a full schedule, download the series flyer.
This series is co-sponsored by UD’s Journalism Program; College of Arts and Sciences-Humanities; Center for Political Communication; School of Public Policy and Administration; and the departments of Anthropology; English; History; Languages, Literatures and Cultures; Political Science and International Relations; and Sociology and Criminal Justice.
Article by CAS communications September 27, 2017
