Cas Mudde: The Rise of the Populist Right

Cas Mudde is a political scientist from the Netherlands who specializes in political extremism, democracy, civil society and comparative political studies. Since 2010, he has been teaching seminars on Radical Right movement in Europe at DePauw University in Indiana, US. He is also an Associate Professor of Political Science at the School of Public and International Affairs, University of Georgia. His latest book, The Far Right Today, has been hailed as a “comprehensive overview of contemporary far right politics” by the LSE Book Review.

The discussion will center around some of the major driving forces between the numerous far right movements we see today. It will touch upon the prevalence of populist discourse within the far right, urban versus rural dynamics, the rise of Islamophobia and anti-semitism, and comparisons between the far right and the far left. How did we get to the current trend of popular far right parties across the world? What threat do these parties and movements pose to democracy? And is populism inherently destructive?