Overview

This  course  deals  with  the  political  economy  of  populism.  Students  will  gain  a  thorough  understanding of recent populist economic policies as well as the history of populism.

The  course  will  aim  at  understanding  the  relationship  between  populism  and  economic  policies, how populism has evolved over the last decades and how populist policies have assumed  their  present  shape  under  global  neoliberalism.  It  will  describe  the  structure  of  populism and analyze the role of populist economic policies within the global economy. We will examine key features of populist policies, case studies and recent debates on populism. A special emphasis will be on Neoliberalism’s stance toward populism, institutional features of populist policies, and populist policies after the global financial and economic crisis. Finally, we  will  look  into  populist  social  strategies,  distributive  consequences  of  economic  and  institutional policies under populism and deal with their contradictions.

Topics and issues include: Defining populism; populism and economic policies; theoretical and empirical  questions  on  populism;  populism  of  the  left  and  of  the  right,  the  neoliberalism‐globalization‐populism nexus; institutions and social policies under populism; monetary policy and populism; case studies: Latin America, USA, EU and Turkey.