The dangerous geopolitics of populism

The Fetish of Geopolitics

Gopal balakrishnan is one of the foremost experts in the Anglo-American world on the life and work of Carl Schmitt, and I am grateful for his response in nlr 68, ‘The Geopolitics of Separation’, to my essay on the thinker, ‘Decisions and Indecisions’, in nlr 67. Balakrishnan’s intellectual biography of Schmitt, The Enemy, remains, according to one eminent voice in the field, ‘the best English-l...

the geopolitics of afghanistan after september 11, 2001, and its impact on iranian national security

abstract u.s. attack to afghanistan after 9/11 provided opportunities for us who tried to become the dominant power after collapse of ussr and bipolar world. thinkers like fukuyama believed american liberal democrats thought would be universally accepted without resistances. liberal democracy is the best and final model of governance; in this regard, united state has moral responsibilities for...

Rise of populism

A Political Theory of Populism

When voters fear that politicians may have a right-wing bias or that they may be in‡uenced or corrupted by the rich elite, signals of true left-wing conviction are valuable. As a consequence, even a moderate politician seeking reelection chooses ‘populist’policies— i.e., policies to the left of the median voter— as a way of signaling that he is not from the right. Truly right-wing politicians r...

The rise of anti-EU populism

rise in most European countries – North and South, East and West – and that they resort to anti-EU rhetoric to increase their political and electoral support. The combination of the global financial and economic crises (since 2008) with the specifically European sovereign debt crisis (since 2010) has only strengthened this trend. It is equally undeniable that mainstream parties now embrace some...