The Populist Delusion by Neema Parvini

The Populist Delusion by Neema Parvini

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The Populist Delusion by Neema Parvini

The 2016 presidential campaign of Donald Trump unleashed a wave of populism not seen in America since the Nixon era, which carried him into the presidency. Seen widely as a vindication of the people over elites, his failure to bring about any meaningful change was then seen as an aberration, a departure from a natural state where the people are sovereign and their representatives govern by their consent. This is the populist delusion.

This book explodes that delusion. Beginning with the Italian elite school, Parvini shows the top-down and elite driven nature of politics by explicating one thinker per chapter: Mosca, Pareto, Michels, Schmitt, Jouvenel, Burnham, Francis, and Gottfried. The sobering picture that emerges is that the interests of the people have only ever been advanced by a tightly organized minority. Just as fire drives out fire, so an elite is only ever driven out by another elite.

The Populist Delusion is the remedy for a self-defeating folk politics that has done the people a great disservice.


Parvini, Neema: - Neema Parvini is Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Surrey. His previous books include Shakespeare's History Plays (EUP, 2012), Shakespeare and Contemporary Theory (Bloomsbury, 2012), Shakespeare and Cognition (Palgrave, 2015) and Shakespeare and New Historicist Theory (Bloomsbury, 2017).
SKU Unavailable
ISBN 13 9781922602442
ISBN 10 1922602442
Title The Populist Delusion
Author Neema Parvini
Condition Unavailable
Binding Type Paperback
Publisher Imperium Press
Year published 2022-04-20
Number of pages 174
Cover note Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.