Speaker: A/Prof. Paul Jones (Australian National University)

Location: Larry Saha Room (HA2175)

The current spectacularity of the demagogic in the USA is forcing belated comparisons with European precedents. For, until recently in the burgeoning research on (neo)populism, ‘bad’ neopopulism was considered to be primarily a European problem. A major 2012 anthology on populism in ‘Europe and the Americas’ lacked even a chapter on the USA. This paper argues that the remarkable durability of what Shils labelled US 'intellectual populism' has delimited the academy’s ability to theorize nascent demagogy within populist insurgencies (of left or right). It has also distorted comparative consideration of populisms and their demagogic potentiality. Its passing may enable fuller consideration of US historian Richard Hofstadter’s attempts to map the demagogic potential of US populist traditions in the wake of McCarthyism. Hofstadter worked with sociologists and drew on the US-resident Frankfurt School’s analyses of anti–Semitic demagogy. It is from this ‘moment’ - and its prescient recognition of culture-industrialised demagogy - that an adequate critical-synthetic conceptualization of demagogic populism might be built. As this is my self-introduction to ANU Sociology I’ll interweave some personal background into this presentation (non-demagogically, I promise, trust me!).
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