Populist politicians are on the march, first in Latin America, then in Europe and the US. They are on both the left and right, and their policies vary, but their approach carries the same risks.
With its share of the vote rising with each election, can the extreme-right party take power on its own? The example of the French communists during the postwar boom suggests otherwise.
Leader of the Front National, Marine le Pen, the morning after her party’s strong showing in the first round of regional elections.
Pascal Rossignol/Reuters
France’s extreme-right party has national ambitions, but its lead in the first round of local elections puts it in direct contradiction with its long-proclaimed ideology.
It might actually be better for the Conservatives to work with Nigel Farage in government.
Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras and Pablo Iglesias of Podemos have taken their populist parties to victory in Greece and a lead in the polls in Spain.
Flickr/Fanis Xouryas
The rise of left-wing populism challenges those who flatly denounced right-wing populism as undemocratic. Populism can appear as a democratic force in some contexts and anti-democratic in others.
On many major issues, Labor’s Bill Shorten and the Liberals’ Tony Abbott are essentially two wings of the same bird.
AAP/Mick Tsikas
The crisis of public confidence in politics is not limited to Australia, but public disengagement, retail politics and lack of vision are crippling our ability to tackle long-term and wicked problems.
Has firebrand Tasmanian senator Jacqui Lambie fallen into the populists’ trap of political overreach?
AAP/Lukas Coch
Apart from the brouhaha over some Victorian schools bumping one minute’s silence to before or after the traditional 11am, Tuesday’s Remembrance Day commemorations went off without a hitch, soberly recognising…