Populism and gender

Operating within the androcentric premises that support idealized models of populist leadership, self-representations cultivated by female populist leaders often involve precarious balancing acts, compelling them to appropriate contextualized traditionalist discourses and modes of power to qualify for conventional leadership models. This article engages with the stylistic performance of populist leadership by Mamata Banerjee of the All India Trinamool Congress in the state of West Bengal, India, focusing on her adoption of the discursive mode of political asceticism, nativist rhetoric, and religious iconography. Through an interpretive analysis of selected party documents, autobiography, and semistructured interviews with Banerjee's followers and critics, the article delineates Banerjee's populist self-fashioning as a political ascetic and explores perceptions of her leadership. The article argues that while the self-makings of female populist leaders remain fraught and contested, they contribute substantially toward redrawing the boundaries of both conventional leadership models and the broader political landscapes they inhabit.

This is a book announcement:
Rada Iveković,
Migration, New Nationalisms and Populism. An epistemological perspective on the closure of rich countries, Birkbeck Law Press, Routledge, 2022.
https://www.routledge.com/Migration-New-Nationalisms-and-Populism-An-Epistemological-Perspective/Ivekovic/p/book/9781032185279

This book examines the antagonistic relationship between new European nationalisms as these often go hand-in-hand with populism, and the phenomenon of migration.
Migration has become a significant issue both in Europe and the whole world. Although it has always existed, much of public opinion sees it now as a problem. The latter has been exaggerated through a crisis in hospitality exacerbated by the relatively recently constructed and misplaced feeling of a civilisational threat from islam. Migration is then countered by the escalation of new nationalisms, at least some of which are supported by populism. This book offers an understanding of this conjunction of migration and nationalism in the post-cold war European and global context. More specifically, the book takes up how the end of the simplified cold war cognitive binary means an unprecedented epistemological confusion and depoliticisation which takes migration as its target, but could resort to other targets too. Discussing the postcolonial background to the new migrations, the book also considers womens' rights, postsocialism and the relevance of the current pandemic, as the issue of migration is addressed in the context of the European crisis-ridden present as well as the trans-European context.
This wide-ranging interrogation of how contemporary European immigration is conceived and understood may appeal to readers with interests in contemporary migration, new nationalisms, populism, feminism, colonial, postcolonial, and decolonial issues, as well as socialism and postsocialism.

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Livre en anglais
Rada Iveković,
Migration, nouveaux nationalismes et populisme. Une perspective épistémologique sur la fermeture des pays riches. Birkbeck Law Press, Routledge, 2022.
https://www.routledge.com/Migration-New-Nationalisms-and-Populism-An-Epistemological-Perspective/Ivekovic/p/book/9781032185279

Cet ouvrage examine les relations antagonistes entre les nouveaux nationalismes européens car ceux-ci vont souvent de pair avec le populisme, et le phénomène migratoire.  La migration est devenue un enjeu important tant en Europe que dans le monde entier. Bien qu'elle ait toujours existé, une grande partie de l'opinion publique y voit désormais un problème. Ce dernier a été exagéré par une crise de l'hospitalité exacerbée par le sentiment relativement récent et déplacé d'une menace civilisationnelle de l'islam. La migration est alors contrée par l'escalade de nouveaux nationalismes, dont certains au moins sont soutenus par le populisme. Ce livre propose une compréhension de cette conjonction de la migration et du nationalisme dans le contexte européen et global de l'après-guerre froide. Plus précisément, le livre étudie comment la fin du binaire cognitif simplifié de la guerre froide signifie une confusion épistémologique et une dépolitisation sans précédent qui prend la migration comme cible, mais pourrait également recourir à d'autres objectifs. Discutant du contexte postcolonial des nouvelles migrations, le livre considère également les droits des femmes, le postsocialisme et l’importance de la pandémie actuelle, alors que la question de la migration est abordée dans le contexte du présent européen en crise ainsi que du contexte transeuropéen.  Cette vaste interrogation sur la façon dont l’immigration européenne contemporaine est conçue et comprise pourrait  intéresser ceux  qui sont intéressés par la migration contemporaine, les nouveaux nationalismes, le populisme, le féminisme, les questions coloniales, postcoloniales et décoloniales, comme par le socialisme et le postsocialisme.

Rada Iveković,
Migration, New Nationalisms and Populism. An epistemological perspective on the closure of rich countries, Birkbeck Law Press, Routledge, 2022.

Operating within the androcentric premises that support idealized models of populist leadership, self-representations cultivated by female populist leaders often involve precarious balancing acts, compelling them to appropriate contextualized traditionalist discourses and modes of power to qualify for conventional leadership models. This article engages with the stylistic performance of populist leadership by Mamata Banerjee of the All India Trinamool Congress in the state of West Bengal, India, focusing on her adoption of the discursive mode of political asceticism, nativist rhetoric, and religious iconography. Through an interpretive analysis of selected party documents, autobiography, and semistructured interviews with Banerjee's followers and critics, the article delineates Banerjee's populist self-fashioning as a political ascetic and explores perceptions of her leadership. The article argues that while the self-makings of female populist leaders remain fraught and cont...

Operating within the androcentric premises that support idealized models of populist leadership, self-representations cultivated by female populist leaders often involve precarious balancing acts, compelling them to appropriate contextualized traditionalist discourses and modes of power to qualify for conventional leadership models. This article engages with the stylistic performance of populist leadership by Mamata Banerjee of the All India Trinamool Congress in the state of West Bengal, India, focusing on her adoption of the discursive mode of political asceticism, nativist rhetoric, and religious iconography. Through an interpretive analysis of selected party documents, autobiography, and semistructured interviews with Banerjee's followers and critics, the article delineates Banerjee's populist self-fashioning as a political ascetic and explores perceptions of her leadership. The article argues that while the self-makings of female populist leaders remain fraught and cont...

Operating within the androcentric premises that support idealized models of populist leadership, self-representations cultivated by female populist leaders often involve precarious balancing acts, compelling them to appropriate contextualized traditionalist discourses and modes of power to qualify for conventional leadership models. This article engages with the stylistic performance of populist leadership by Mamata Banerjee of the All India Trinamool Congress in the state of West Bengal, India, focusing on her adoption of the discursive mode of political asceticism, nativist rhetoric, and religious iconography. Through an interpretive analysis of selected party documents, autobiography, and semistructured interviews with Banerjee's followers and critics, the article delineates Banerjee's populist self-fashioning as a political ascetic and explores perceptions of her leadership. The article argues that while the self-makings of female populist leaders remain fraught and cont...