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The Crisis of Democracy and Populism: Structure, Causes, Consequences - JTM734

Title:	The Crisis of Democracy and Populism: Structure, Causes, Consequences
Czech title:	Krize demokracie a populismus: struktura, příčiny, důsledky
Guaranteed by:	Department of Russian and East European Studies (23-KRVS)
Faculty:	Faculty of Social Sciences
Actual:	from 2024 to 2024
Semester:	summer
E-Credits:	6
Examination process:	summer s.:
Hours per week, examination:	summer s.:1/1, Ex [HT]
Capacity:	unlimited / unknown (7)
Min. number of students:	unlimited
4EU+:	no
Virtual mobility / capacity:	no
Key competences:	critical thinking
State of the course:	taught
Language:	English
Teaching methods:	full-time
Note:	course can be enrolled in outside the study plan enabled for web enrollment priority enrollment if the course is part of the study plan

Guarantor:	prof. Jan Kubik, Ph.D. Dr. Irena Kalhousová PhDr. Jiří Kocián, Ph.D.
Teacher(s):	Dr. Irena Kalhousová PhDr. Jiří Kocián, Ph.D. prof. Jan Kubik, Ph.D.
Class:	Courses not for incoming students

Examination dates SS schedule Noticeboard

Annotation

The course is taught by professor Jan Kubik (visiting from Rutgers University/UCL), in bloc format (see syllabus below) and is offered to graduate students (MA and PhD programs) only.

Winston Churchill once famously quipped: “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time” (from a House of Commons speech, November 11, 1947). Recently, however, there have been many debates about democracy’s weaknesses and its peculiar tendency towards “exhaustion,” both in the well-established democratic states and the newly democratizing ones. In many countries, trust in democratic institutions is declining and there is also a lot of talk about democratic deficit and democratic backsliding, both at the level of states and in the international arena.

Churchill’s formulation has been challenged from several directions, as people in many countries express their disappointment with the performance of democracy, doubt its effectiveness, and challenge its legitimacy. Moreover, the number of people ready to accept authoritarian leaders has gone up considerably in many countries over the last twenty or so years. Yet, there is something new in the present situation. While several years ago competitive authoritarianism (a system we will briefly analyze) was commonly seen as the main rival of democracy, today everybody seems to be talking about populism. We will try to answer several key questions about this phenomenon: What is the meaning of this term and what are the phenomena it refers to? Is populism good, as it aims to return power to the people or is it bad as it undermines the democratic architecture? Or perhaps it is ambiguously somewhat good and somewhat bad? What are the different forms or types of populism? How much does it vary from one country to another? Is it similar to fascism? If so, how?

The course is designed to familiarize students with: (a) the basic ideas of the literature on populism, (b) dominant current attempts to define its features and determine its impact, and (c) attempts to formulate strategies of combating its spread, as most experts believe it is detrimental to political stability and opens the way towards authoritarianism.

For the last several years I have been working on the rise of right-wing populism, trying to understand its main features and diagnose its impact on the world’s politics. So, I am inviting you to my “kitchen,” to observe how a researcher develops the topic, reviews the literature, prepares research tools, conducts research, and writes up the results. The course is conceived as a workshop/seminar therefore each student is expected to be actively involved in class discussions and presentations and prepare their own paper. I hope that our conversations will help us become better researchers, more careful thinkers, and more thoughtful citizens.

Last update: Kocián Jiří, PhDr., Ph.D. (12.02.2025)

Aim of the course

Upon successful completion of the course, you should be able to:

Design, complete, and defend a research project
Understand the process of research and discovery in political science and social sciences in general
Have solid knowledge of various regime types
Understand/explain how democracy works and how it can be weakened or destroyed
Understand/explain populism, its origins, varieties, and consequences

Last update: Kocián Jiří, PhDr., Ph.D. (04.02.2025)

Course completion requirements

All readings are required and should be completed before class.

Before each class (by 8:00 pm on Saturdays before our Monday sessions), you’ll submit a memo (about 1-2 pages). Its goal is to help you organize your thoughts on the readings and give me an idea of how you are working. You are expected to complete at least 5 of these (so you can skip one of weeks if needed).

Your memo should have three parts:

· Summary of the argument:

o What are the main ideas/points of the readings?)

o What types of questions are being asked in this reading?

o What conception of culture is the author using?

o What types of explanations and concepts are being offered as responses to the authors’ questions?

o What form of evidence or assumptions about what counts as evidence is the author using (if any)?

· Questions:

o What did you find unclear or confusing?

o What needs to be developed?

· Criticisms or praise:

o On what points and why you disagree with the author?

o In what ways did the readings challenge your thinking?

I’ll provide an overview of the readings and the theme for the week at the beginning of class and

the rest of the class will be discussion that everyone is expected to contribute to. I’ll also have you

all help lead a session by providing some organizing thoughts readings, developing discussion

questions to start the conversation, and potentially suggesting some activities to aid in

understanding and analysis.

Last update: Kocián Jiří, PhDr., Ph.D. (04.02.2025)

Requirements to the exam

Students’ performance will be assessed on the basis of: (1) attendance and active participation in class discussions, (2) preparation of short weekly reading summaries for at least FIVE sessions, (3) a research design outline for the final paper (due: May 5, 2025), and (4) the final paper. The paper must analyze the role of “culture” (in one of the meanings discussed in class) in a political event, phenomenon or process. It must utilize at least one theoretical approach. The outline of the papers MUST specify the problem to be investigated and discuss at least TWO approaches that will be used.

Last update: Kocián Jiří, PhDr., Ph.D. (04.02.2025)

Syllabus

Schedule (Selected Mondays 17:00-18:20). Required Reading

Session 1 (February 17): Introduction. Basic ideas of the course. What is populism? What is Illiberalism? (will take place online - link will be distributed to enrolled students)

(1) Kubik, Jan. 2020. “The POPREBEL and FATIGUE Manifesto.” Working Paper no. 1, POPREBEL Working Paper Series, edited by Jan Kubik and Richard Mole. Accessed 27 August 2024. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6402044.

(2) Weyland, Kurt. 2017. “Populism: A Political-Strategic Approach.” In Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser, and others (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Populism, Oxford Handbooks,

In-person classes (Room C321):