Pod Academy

This lecture on Left populism is part of the IF Project’s lecture series, Thinking between the Lines: Truth, Lies and Fiction in an age of populism.   Dr Marina Prentoulis, Senior Lecturer in the School of Politics, Philosophy, Language and Communication Studies at University of East Anglia and a member of Syriza, explores the differences between Left and Right Wing populism. She recognises that Left and Right populism are often seen as two sides of the same coin, and points to What is Populism? by Jan-Werner Müller (one of the best known books on populism) as being an analysis which wrongly conflates left wing and right wing populism, in part because it uses a journalistic rather than a rigorous theoretical approach, focusing on form rather than policy.  For example, Werner contends that “populist claim that they, and only they, represent the people” p. 20 “populists live in a kind of political fantasy world: they imagine an opposition between corrupt elites and a morally pure, homogeneous people” (p.