Category Archives: Populism

The Conservative Party will elect a new leader on Sept. 10, but already one Quebec Conservative MP is warning that the results could cause him to re-evaluate his future with the party.

The unity of the Conservative Party after the leadership election will depend largely on the direction the new leader decides to take, says Tasha Kheiriddin, co-chair of Jean Charests Conservative leadership campaign. It will also impact whether three-term Conservative MP Jol Godin, who won his Portneuf-Jacques-Cartier, Que., riding with 51 per cent of the vote in the 2021 election, remains with the party.

Pierre Poilievre, left, is the front-runner in the Conservative leadership election. In addition to Poilievre, four other candidates are running for the partys top job, including Leslyn Lewis, Jean Charest, Roman Baber, and Scott Aitchison. The Hill Times photographs by Andrew Meade, Sam Garcia, and handouts

I dont like what I see about Pierre in this race, said Godin, who is uncomfortable with front-runner Pierre Poilievres (Carleton, Ont.) populist style of campaigning, and the potential future direction of the party he represents, in an interview with The Hill Times. If Poilievre does take the reins and lead the party down a populist path, Godin said he might consider crossing the floor or sitting as an Independent. Im moderate. Im not a populist.

Godin, who is supporting former Quebec premier Jean Charests candidacy in the leadership election and who describes himself as a progressive conservative, said he wants to stay in the party, and he wont automatically leave the caucus if Poilievre wins. The only reason for his potential departure, he said, would be if Poilievre wins and refuses to pivot to the centre. Godin argued that when a new party leader is elected whose ideological views and style of leadership are different from some caucus members, its the right of an individual caucus member to reconsider if they want to remain in caucus. Poilievre won his Carleton, Ont., riding with 50 per cent of the vote in the 2021 election.

Three-term Conservative MP Jol Godin says if Pierre Poilievre wins the leadership election and does not pivot to the centre, he will have to consider his options whether he wants to stay in the caucus or not. The Hill Times file photograph

Godin said if he decides to leave the Conservative caucus, he would have several options to choose from, including crossing the floor, sitting as an Independent MP, resigning from his seat, or starting a more progressive conservative party, perhaps with a few other Conservative members.

Poilievre, who is running a populist campaign with slogans such as, take back control of your life, and make Canada the freest nation on earth, is seen as the front-runner in the contest and has the majority of caucus endorsements.

In addition to Poilievre and Charest, the other three leadership candidates are Conservative MPs Scott Aitchison (Parry Sound-Muskoka, Ont.) and Leslyn Lewis (Haldimand-Norfolk, Ont.), and former Ontario Independent MPP Roman Baber.

Poilievre is a right-of-centre candidate, while Charest and Aitchison are progressive conservatives. Lewis is a social conservative and Baber is a libertarian candidate.

Poilievres campaign focus of freedom from gatekeeperswho, in his view, control peoples lives, as well as his support of the controversial Freedom Convoyis alienating some moderate Conservatives.

Some high-profile moderate Conservatives have gone as far as to suggest that party unity is in jeopardy and could fracture if Poilievre is elected as leader and if he does not realign his ideological positions.

Two Conservative MPs who are supporting Poilievre recently told The Hill Times that they are not sure if the Ottawa-area MP would pivot to the centre.

Tasha Kheiriddin is the campaign co-chair of Jean Charests campaign. She has recently authored a book, The Right Path: How Conservatives Can Unite, Inspire and Take Canada Forward. Photograph courtesy of Andre Forget

Pierre is someone who doubles down, this is who he is, a Conservative MP, who has officially endorsed Poilievre, told The Hill Times two weeks ago. Thats the reality of it, and he cant help himself. I dont think he knows another way.

A former senior Conservative, who is not supporting Poilievre but knows him well and who did not want to be identified in order to be candid for this article, said that if Poilievre wins the leadership, he would be more like former Ontario premier Mike Harris than former populist U.S. president Donald Trump. The source referred to the fact that former Stephen Harper-era cabinet minister John Baird is one of the co-chairs of the Poilievre campaign, who, before entering federal politics, was a caucus member and cabinet minister in the provincial Harris government. Before becoming a cabinet minister, Poilievre served as parliamentary secretary to Baird in the Harper cabinet. The other co-chairs of Poilievres leadership campaign are former Harper-ear cabinet minister Gail Shea, Conservative Senator Leo Housakos (Quebec), and Conservative MP Tim Uppal (Edmonton Mill Woods, Alta.)

The source said that when media stories mention that the Conservative Party was formed by the merger of the Progressive Conservative and Alliance parties in 2003, they overlook the Harris Progressive Conservatives in Ontario, who were not part of the negotiation team for the merger but had a significant presence in the federal Conservative caucus and its senior staff when the party came to power in 2006. This includes Baird, Jim Flaherty, Tony Clement, Paul Calandra, and a significant number of cabinet ministerial and MPs staffers who numbered the same, if not more, than federal PC MPs and staffers. These cabinet ministers and Queens Park staffers held senior positions in the Harper government and played important roles in shaping the direction of the government.

The source said that for years, Poilievres chief focus has been on fiscal issues and on winning, and will remain the same going forward. They said that, strategically speaking, Poilievre wants to eliminate Maxime Berniers Peoples Party of Canada, which was one of the key reasons why he has publicly supported the Truckers Protest. According to one estimate, the PPC denied the Conservatives winning in 20 ridings across the country.

Something that could hurt him [Poilievre] in the general [election], he wont embrace something like that, said the source. Hell go and hell find something else to reach out to the Peoples Party voters. So in that sense, there may be some mild pivoting.

Meanwhile, according to a poll by Nanos Research for Bloomberg released last week, Poilievre was the choice of 17 per cent of Canadians for prime minister, while 24 per cent said they would prefer Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (Papineau, Que.), and 13 per cent would choose Charest. The poll also suggested that Poilievre is ahead of Trudeau among men, non-college graduates, and Canadians who cant work remotely from home. To win the next election, according to the poll, Poilievre will have to broaden his support base by winning over the moderate Conservatives who are currently supporting Charest. According to this poll, the Charest and Poilievre combined total vote would beat Trudeau in every demographic except for women. The phone and online poll of 1,038 Canadians was conducted between July 29 and Aug. 2 and had a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Tasha Kheiriddin, co-chair of the Charest campaign, said that the unity of the party depends on who becomes the new leader and how they engage with caucus members, rival leadership candidates, party members, and which direction they choose for the party. If the new leader fails to bring the party together, it would become an uphill battle for the Conservatives to win the next election. She argued that rather than engaging in populist politics, the new leader should talk about Conservative principles like equality of opportunity, personal responsibility, and community engagement.

I dont believe that populism is going to be the direction the party should take and put in the window for the next election, said Kheiriddin, who recently authored a new book called The Right Path: How Conservatives can Unite, Inspire and Take Canada Forward. I believe we have to address the concerns of populists, which are valid, things like being denied opportunities, feeling that you cant get ahead. Populism takes root when people feel blocked, and cannot advance even though they do all the right things.

Conservative MP Michael Cooper is the co-caucus liaison of Pierre Poilievres leadership campaign. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade

Conservative MP Michael Cooper (St. Albert-Edmonton, Alta.), who is a co-caucus liaison for Poilievres leadership campaign, said the Poilievre campaign is not taking anything for granted, and is focused on getting out the vote. Cooper declined to discuss specifically what direction Poilievre would take the party in as the contest is still on-going. He argued that all party members should get behind whoever wins the leadership election.

Its the leaders prerogative to put together a team that he or she can work with and believes is best suited to fulfill the important role that we as a parliamentary caucus have as the official opposition, said Cooper in an interview with The Hill Times two weeks ago. When a leadership race is over, the leadership race is over. And the leader assembles a team, then we move forward.

But Kheiriddin said that it will be a mistake if Poilievre fails to make a sincere effort to bring the party together by accommodating rival candidates and their supporters in the shadow cabinet, or including rival campaign staffers in the Official Opposition Leaders Office. She said that Erin OToole (Whitby, Ont.) made this mistake, and he did not last long as party leader. OToole was elected as the party leader in the 2020 leadership election and was voted out by the party after the 2021 election.

There would have to be a lot of bridge-building done to repair a lot of the feelings and sentiments that are out there that are negative towards him, such as expressed by Mr. Godin, said Kheiriddin. So it would really be at that point, incumbent on him [Poilievre] if he were leader, to reach out to people, and I think to an extent to change the focus of his message, because some of that message turns off centre right voters.

More than 675,000 eligible Conservative Party members are currently in the process of voting for their favourite candidates.

The Hill Times

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If Poilievre wins leadership, but fails to pivot to the centre, Quebec Tory MP Godin says he will 'reflect' on his own 'future political life' - The...

In the last few weeks we have seen how politics of family first, corruption first and freebies first have led to the complete destruction of economies around India especially Sri Lanka. Sounding a note of caution, Prime Minister Modi, without taking the name of any state, political party or personality spoke about the perils of short cut politics and populism. This is something upon which various intellectuals and institutions, including the Supreme Court , have weighed in upon from time to time.

Any effective and efficient administrator would endorse the idea of ensuring that his or her government ensures targeted, foolproof and leakage free delivery of welfare policies to those who need it the most rather than a free for all approach that is inherently unfair to the most deprived and perhaps nothing more than a gimmick because usually such schemes can never be implemented or sustained for a long time. Given that any state has finite resources, and not unlimited bounties , which ultimately come from the tax payer it is essential that administrators ensure that the first right on these resources belong to the poorest and most marginalised.

From this it is very clear that while a welfare measure is a targeted instrument to effect long term change and for improving the condition of the beneficiary by raising it to a level where the beneficiary can become self sustaining and productive, a freebie or a Revdi is a mere feel good announcement whose implementation is suspect, outcome is flawed and intent is malafide.

In that context one was perplexed as to why the chief minister of Delhi took the comment of the Prime Minister so personally even when nobody had been identified or named. It was as if a raw nerve had been touched. The over reaction by Mr. Kejriwal therefore prompts us to examine in some greater depth the difference between welfare and Revdi.

Mr Kejriwal has been constantly harping about his so called free education model. His spokespersons claim that many in Delhi have taken their children out of private schools and enrolled them into government schools in Delhi. Logically that would mean more schools should have been opened by Mr Kejriwals government in the last eight years to cater to this huge demand.

But in debate after debate, night after night, much to my surprise, those who promised that they would open 500 new schools and 20 new colleges cant name 20 new schools and 5 new colleges they have opened up in the last eight years. In fact the Delhi government is guilty of closing down several government schools instead of opening of new ones and this issue was raised by the BJP in the Delhi assembly. They keep talking about adding classrooms but that means nothing unless you have other infrastructure including teachers, toilets, grounds, etc. to cater to those additional children and unless you open up a school that is close to their locality instead of adding some rooms in an existing school which is far away and inaccessible.

The reality is also that of the 1027 schools the Delhi government has nearly 750+ schools had no principal and 418+ schools had no vice principal, something that has been flagged by the NCPCR. It is also fact that thousands of seats meant for EWS category students had not been filled as per the RTE Act thereby depriving poor children of their constitutional right to free and compulsory education. 22,000 guest teachers lost their jobs.

Delhi government has promised to make them permanent but far from that they havent even filled up the sanction positions for teachers in Delhi government schools. In fact recently the Delhi High Court sought a response from the Kejriwal government on a plea that exposed how 63% of teachers posts, 80% of principals posts were lying vacant in schools run by Delhi government. Delhi High Court in April 2022 pulled up the Delhi government for failure to pay salaries to teachers and Justice Subramanium Prasad lamented that lack of money was not an answer for non-payment and teachers could not be treated like this as they shape the future of the country. Surely this is far from being a world-class model!

All of this is having a direct impact on the performance of the schools and a recent report suggested of 40% of students who failed class ninth are dropping out of school. Recently the NAS 2021- a survey testing students of classes 3rd, 5th, 8th and 10th from across the country in a variety of subjects showed the Delhi government schools scored comparatively lower in every subject and across classes in comparison to Punjab.

What the Delhi government schools have been at the forefront of his allegations of irregularities and corruption in construction of classrooms. Recently on the basis of a complaint made by MP Manoj Tiwari alleged that classrooms that could have been constructed at Rs.5lakhs per room were constructed at an inflated price of Rs.28 lakhs per room. This complaint has been taken cognizance of by the Delhis lokayukta and a probe and report has been sought. Even Mr Sisodias Education ministry has flagged off a number of complaints about use of low quality material, where is deficiencies in the construction work done by the PWD in a letter dated 20th of July 2022.

Since the orientation of the Revdi model is only to gather votes and make no substantive or transformational change, it emphasises more on advertisement or vigyapan and less on vyavastha or systemic change. A proof of this can be seen in the loan scheme of Kejriwal government were only two students could avail of a loan out of the 89 that had applied in the year 2021-22 but a sum of Rs 19 crores had been spent on advertising it. Welfare economics can transform and uplift lives of the most deprived whereas Revdi-nomics only burdens the tax payer while earning some short term political brownie points for its patroniser.

Views expressed above are the author's own.

END OF ARTICLE

Continue reading here:

Revdi-nomics - Times of India

It is always valuable to engage the other side. Especially when one finds the other side utterly bewildering.

The other side I am trying to engage is American political conservatism. My guide today is Matthew Continetti, a brilliant conservative policy wonk with all the right credentials a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, columnist for Commentary magazine, and founding editor of the Washington Free Beacon. He began his career at the Weekly Standard.

Continettis new book, The Right, is being praised by authoritative conservative voices. I just worked my way through this bulky but fascinating work. I think it helps us understand what is going on in our politics right now.

Continetti tells a comprehensive story, which he subtitles as The Hundred Year War for American Conservatism.

He begins his chronicle of conservatism with the 1920s and the administrations of Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover. He describes this first iteration of American conservatism as pro-business, pro-limited government, pro-Constitution, pro-patriotism, pro-religious piety, and isolationist in foreign policy. It also was anti-immigration and supported high tariffs rather than globalized trade.

Roosevelts New Deal was perceived by conservatives as fundamentally changing the nature of government, making it much larger and more centralized than it ever should have been.

Herbert Hoover, a highly regarded and experienced leader when elected president in 1928, was perceived by the public to have failed in addressing the Great Depression and was swept out of office by Franklin Roosevelt. The Democrats dominated government for decades. Roosevelts New Deal was perceived by conservatives as fundamentally changing the nature of government, making it much larger and more centralized than it ever should have been, leaning in the direction of socialism and undercutting free-market principles.

It thus became a permanent goal of conservatives to roll back or privatize as much of the New Deal as possible, to reduce the government social welfare apparatus, and to cut back government regulation of business and government intervention in the economy. Those efforts have failed repeatedly, but in their rhetoric and often in their policy proposals, conservatives have demonstrated that they have never fully accepted the New Deal and the further expansions of federal government power in succeeding years.

Conservative isolationism in foreign policy remained a significant force until it was utterly discredited by Pearl Harbor and went underground during World War II. It remained submerged during the Cold War, when conservatives largely embraced a hawkish anti-Communist, interventionist foreign policy that became Democratic policy too. Anticommunism, says Continetti, held together disparate parts of the conservative movement as long as the Soviet Union lasted. Afterward, especially after the disastrous invasion of Iraq under George W. Bush, the older isolationist strand resurged, although it never was the only conservative approach.

Anticommunism, says Continetti, held together disparate parts of the conservative movement as long as the Soviet Union lasted.

Continetti spends considerable ink considering the anti-Communist mole-hunting crusade of Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) in the 1950s. McCarthy is significant not just because of the damage he did in hurling accusations at innocent people. For Continetti, he clearly foreshadows major later trends, apotheosized in but not confined to Donald Trump and his movement: apocalypticism, conspiracy theories, serial mendacity, constant attacks on major American government institutions and leaders, and the ability to mobilize ill-informed populist energies. The John Birch Society, also treated by Continetti, is another example of similar pathologies. Both McCarthyism and the John Birch Society bear a resemblance to todays QAnon conspiracy thinking as well as the overall irrational, conspiratorial, apocalypticism on the hard right.

For Continetti, the late 1960s marked a collapse of American progressivism/liberalism, symbolized by the chaos of the year 1968: campus riots and takeovers, anti-Vietnam fervor and liberal soft headedness on Communism and nuclear disarmament, the drug culture, the sexual revolution, street violence, race riots, political assassinations and the collapse of the presidency of Lyndon Johnson. The fracturing of the Democratic coalition provided an opening for a Republican return to power, which happened with Richard Nixons election in 1968.

Continetti also shows, through the rise and fall of Alabama Gov. George Wallace, who ran a popular third-party campaign in 1968, that there was a rather large constituency for race-baiting populism and not only in the South. Continetti could have said a bit more forthrightly that the Republican successes that developed from this point forward have always involved finding ways to appeal to this constituency and securing it reliably for the GOP.

Ronald Reagan is treated by Continetti as the most effective conservative leader of the entire century he surveys. Reagan was able to bridge the various divides within conservatism with his pro-business, small-government, anti-Communist platform, as well as his skill in bringing the emerging Christian Right to his side through his traditionalist religious and moral values rhetoric, offered in a generally sunny and upbeat manner.

Twenty years later, George W. Bush was less successful. Continetti seems intrigued by Bushs initial compassionate (Christian) conservatism platform, but his presidency was unexpectedly dominated by 9/11 and its aftermath. Bushs unprovoked attack on Iraq, followed by a bloody quagmire, divided conservatives (along with other Americans), his social policy agenda went nowhere, and he limped across the finish line with little surviving popularity. This helps us understand why the Bush dynasty proved completely powerless to prevent the rise of a very different kind of conservatism after George W.s departure to his art studio in Texas.

This reflects Continettis relatively muted treatment of white conservative racism throughout his book, which he largely treats as a fringe problem rather than central to the modern Right.

The presidency of Barack Obama is painted by Continetti as essentially the ineffectual meandering of a classic liberal academic, one of the elite types increasingly scorned by populist conservatives. Continetti notes and dismisses the birther myth and the conspiracy mongering that went on related to Obama and doesnt consider the idea that the rise of Donald Trump was deeply connected to white shock over the American election of a Black president. This reflects Continettis relatively muted treatment of white conservative racism throughout his book, which he largely treats as a fringe problem rather than central to the modern Right.

Continetti shows that large parts of the conservative punditocracy people like David Brooks, William Kristol, George Will, and so on sought to kill Donald Trumps candidacy during the primaries in 2016. But these heavy hitters proved just as powerless to stop him as were the numerous Republican politicians who ran against him or otherwise opposed him. Trump had the more powerful forces of the talk-radio and Fox News populists with him, along with tens of millions of base voters. He also demonstrated enormous skill in holding everyones attention.

Unfortunately, especially with Trumps refusal to concede the election and then Jan. 6, says Continetti, the very worst impulses of the populist wing of the American Right, such as demagoguery, scapegoating, and conspiracy theories were unleashed even more fully than they had been before. In the end, a politics of nihilism that lacked any real constructive agenda other than Trump himself was all that was left.

Continetti says that previously there had been some guardrails to contain or cabin fringe elements on the conservative side, like McCarthyism or the Birchers. But with the older stabilizing institutions and figures of conservatism dead, conquered or in disarray, Trump and his movement eventually came to represent all those worst instincts, entirely unrestrained.

With the older stabilizing institutions and figures of conservatism dead, conquered or in disarray, Trump and his movement eventually came to represent all those worst instincts, entirely unrestrained.

For Continetti, all this is disastrous for the conservative tradition he reveres, and it is clearly a dead end for the Republican Party they never can win majorities going down this rabbit hole. But, says Continetti, not only was the Right unable to get out of the hole; it did not want to.

As I write on Aug. 12, 2022, the Justice Department appears to be closing in on Trump for taking, holding and possibly sharing top secret U.S. government documents related to nuclear weapons; if true, along with the other investigations closing in on him, this may mean the end for Trump. But Trumpists have won most primary races this summer and appear set to lose very winnable races for Senate seats, governors offices and so on. And there are many other ways the disastrous Trump legacy will live on.

Continetti does a lot more than I have been able to summarize here. All major and many minor institutions, leaders, books and events in the conservative world of the last century are described in his book. I urge everyone who wants to understand where we are as a country to read it.

America is an ideologically diverse country. It needs a functioning conservative political party that cares about democracy. People like Matthew Continetti will be needed to help clean up the mess on the right and build something better.

David P. Gusheeis a leading Christian ethicist. serves as distinguished university professor of Christian Ethics at Mercer University, chair of Christian social ethics at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and senior research fellow at International Baptist Theological Study Centre. He is a past president of both the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Christian Ethics. His latest book isIntroducing Christian Ethics. Hes also the author ofKingdom Ethics,After Evangelicalism, andChanging Our Mind: The Landmark Call for Inclusion of LGBTQ Christians. He and his wife, Jeanie, live in Atlanta. Learn more:davidpgushee.comorFacebook.

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What happened to American conservatism? Engaging Matthew Continetti's The Right - Baptist News Global

All politicians in India promise development, yet the state apparatus and political factions in control cause inequality

All politicians in India promise development, yet the state apparatus and political factions in control cause inequality

Economic development is a primary means by which the Indian democratic project has legitimated itself. Given an electorate of mostly poor people, no government has been elected without making development the uplift of the downtrodden through service provision, the creation of individual freedom, and collective opportunity inherent in economic transformation its primary objective. Unlike archetypal developmental states such as the Republic of Korea, the Indian state after Independence had to accomplish its mandate of development in the context of a diverse and fissiparous democracy that had endured centuries of British colonial domination and the expropriation of its wealth.

This historical context, and the bureaucratic and political processes surrounding the delivery of development outcomes have generated growth but also created significant structural inequities that have taken different forms across Indias post-Independence history. The inequity associated with the actions of the developmental state, the corruption, and moral outrage that constitute the states broken promises to the people has been the driver of waves of political conflict in the Indian polity since Independence. The moral failings of different phases within the trajectory of Indias developmental state have inspired collective challenges to the establishment throughout its history.

Critiques of underdevelopment and the promises of development were at the heart of the nationalist movement against colonial rule. For early nationalist thinkers, the idea of India itself was suffused with a claim that it was one economy and one nation, suppressed in the fulfilment of its destiny by an imperial apparatus that sought to keep it divided, while draining its wealth and sending it overseas. The Congress party, when taking the reins of power, legitimated its rule primarily through a solemn promise that it would redress structures of political, economic, and social inequality by deploying the state to implement far-reaching programmes of development. Jawaharlal Nehru, in his famous Tryst with Destiny address, pledged the service of a sovereign government to the ending of poverty and ignorance and disease and inequality of opportunity.

There was, however, a profound disconnect between the promises and actions of the developmental state in the first quarter-century after Independence. The Planning Commission, chaired by Nehru, drew up ambitious plans for development that entailed significant public and private investment in industry and the encouragement of cooperatives to transform agriculture. For poor peasants and aspirant workers, the solemn promises of development and the dismantling of inequality rang hollow. Structures of domination and pervasive social inequality reigned in practice as the conservative colonial-era bureaucracy and politicians, business elites, and dominant landowners benefitted the most from this developmental state. The abject failures of community development programmes, and sclerotic economic growth led to the political turmoil of the mid-to-late 1960s.

Indira Gandhi changed the nature of the developmental state. She effected a populist resurgence from within the Congress to address the gap between lofty promises of the state and degraded reality. Her appeal, which ended up splitting the party and transforming the nature of party competition, did deliver an overwhelming electoral mandate to her Congress. Indira Gandhis slogan Garibi hatao (eliminate poverty) and the subsequent 20-point programme conceived of the direct intervention by an empowered and enlarged state. The politicised state apparatus was now to address social inequalities through land reform, enforcement of the minimum wage, nationalisation of key industries, and extension of agricultural credit, among many other policies.

A main legacy of Indira Gandhis left-populism was that the state presented itself as the antidote to social and economic inequalities. The developmental state now looked different. The state apparatus was engorged, from the national to the State and local levels. Multiple public sector companies emerged at all levels of the economy, from the Centre to the States. Financial institutions banking and insurance were now in the hands of state apparatchiks. This system fostered corruption, rent-seeking and the capture of the institutions and resources of the state for the benefit of influential clients.

The increased demand for public resources to satisfy an ever-growing number of clients proved financially unsustainable. The economy underwent several rounds of liberalisation that dismantled some elements of state-directed development in the 1980s, but the basic pattern remained the same. The developmental state was now a state whose resources were allocated by and through political compulsions. And as political fragmentation grew, the pressure to control the remaining state resources for political gain expanded.

The storied liberalisation of 1991 renewed promises of dismantling inequality. Liberalisation offered a new idiom of increased opportunity. When combined with political fragmentation, neoliberal reform yielded crony capitalism, ineffective service delivery, and distrust of the system. Self-help and rights-based discourse now emerged as part of a new language of development. The United Progressive Alliance government expanded welfare-based rights, such as the Right to Education and the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. But the ambitiousness of these centrally-planned schemes achieved only middling outcomes on the ground, as petty bureaucrats and local rent-seekers influenced their implementation for their ends, thus failing to build a political constituency among the poor around them. The middle classes protested this new developmental state which had created a state-facing inequality, where being known to the state and the politicians controlling it increasingly determined life chances and the economic prospects for Indias striving citizens.

In 2014, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Narendra Modi won a parliamentary majority by promising to restore opportunity and clean up politics. His main slogan was, together, development for everybody. He attacked the Congress leadership for its corruption, projecting himself as a humble chaiwallah and servant of the people. While Hindu nationalist themes were never far from the surface and have become dominant in the BJPs discourse since the 2019 elections, the right-wing populist moment of the 2014 election brought together a broad and unlikely coalition of upper-middle-class professionals and lower-middle-class strivers. These groups were promised the end of inequality of opportunity, which had come to characterise many citizens interactions with the state in Indias known-to democracy. While Mr. Modis treatment of what ails the Indian body-politic has been tremendously polarising, and his own government has been wanting in delivering economic growth, his politics echoing that of regional populists in India, from N.T. Rama Rao to Jayalalithaa and Mamata Banerjee tapped into a mood of widespread discontent toward the states development project.

Since 1991, the Indian state is no longer in the business of keeping the solemn promises of dismantling inequalities. The state now focuses on growth and passing handouts to voters a policy honed to perfection in Tamil Nadu by the various iterations of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam.

A developmental ideology is inextricably associated with democratic politics in independent India. The nations founders made solemn promises to deliver the people from inequity and subjugation the real meaning of development for democratic India. These ideas have been honoured more in the breach than in observance. Nehrus developmental state could not redress inequalities and failed to grow the economy quickly enough. Indira Gandhis policies placed the state at the centre of political life. The state was the agent of growth, yet, despite the rhetoric, addressing social and economic inequalities took a back seat. Even while speaking in lofty tones about development, the current regime does not emphasise the state as central to changing social norms and addressing income inequalities.

All politicians in India promise development as a part of democratic deliverance. Yet, the state apparatus and the political factions that control it reproduce inequality. From time to time, populist leaders shine a light on these hypocrisies. Their electoral mobilisations dramatically transform Indian politics without changing the states ability to deliver on political promises. This highlights the idea that development is the most powerful idiom of Indian democracy, an ideal on which ordinary people across social stations hold governments to account. Development, in other words, is as much a moral commitment as a technocratic undertaking. Development is inextricably linked with the meaning of Indian democracy.

Adnan Naseemullah and Pradeep Chhibber teach at Kings College, London and the University of California, Berkeley, respectively

Link:

The moral failings of the developmental state - The Hindu

Number 10 Downing Street, the office of the UK Prime Minister. Credit: Defence Imagery, Flickr.

The race to be UKs next Prime Minister is now down to 2- Liz Truss, the current Foreign Secretary and the former Chancellor Rishi Sunak, whose resignation led to the start of backlash and the ultimate fall of Boris Johnson as the PM. The final two candidates will be trying to convince Tory party members to back them at hustings events around the country between 28July and 31August. The ballot will close at 17:00 BST on 2September. The next PM will be announced on September 6. The agendas of both the leaders have been set out to the public- with focus on tax cuts, leveraging a green economy and both at the same time more than ever enthusiastic at scrapping the remaining EU laws - something to cheer for, at least for some Eurosceptic media.

Liz Truss appears to be the favourite to replace Boris Johnson as the next PM, riding high on her promise of billions of pounds of tax cuts, setting targets for reducing carbon dioxide emissions and leveraging green growth and continuing the undeterred stance of the UK on the Ukraine War. Recent polls from the 4th of August suggest that her lead over Rishi Sunak has increased significantly (87 percent chances of Truss becoming the next PM) and chances are likely that come September 6, the 3rd ever woman will be sworn in as the next UK Prime Minister. Trusss tax cut promises come at a time when the UK economy has become stagnant and inflation has been at an all time high in recent decades along with a significant increase in public distrust towards the government in particular. Critics have lashed out at her, stating her campaign is being run on grounds of populism and that she is simply saying what the public wants to hear, rather than having a pragmatic approach to solving the challenges home and abroad. Another significant aspect would be the approach to international affairs and anchoring the UKs relations with the EU.

Foreign Policy Implications and Relations with the EU

Once a Remainer and now a strong Brexiteer, Trusss approaches embody a Reaganite style where UK continues to remain a faithful ally of America and a sharp critic of China and Russia. In terms of UKs relation with the EU, it is highly unlikely that Truss would not go ahead with Johnsons approach of no compromise with Brussels. She also seeks to scrap the remaining EU laws that the UK still holds adherence to, echoing the phrase: The destiny of the UK is in the hands of the people. Her spearheading of the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill also prompted legal actions by the EU. She remains adamant that post-Brexit freedom would help in unleashing economic growth by stimulating opportunities that are UK-centric and for the British people. Trusss promise to scrap all of the remaining EU Laws by 2023 earlier than her contender has claimed to do so, remains a promise only on paper as the UK continues to struggle economically as its population mediates with high taxes and a frivolous job market, made only more complicated by Brexit. Trusss bid for the leadership has garnered popular support, especially among her ex-rivals such as Penny Mordaunt and others within the tory camp, which is largely seen to be Eurosceptic, a sharp contrast to how the majority of the Brits is feeling at the moment.

On issues such as Russia-Ukraine War and China, Truss maintains that the UKs stance on the matter would remain the same and that the UK would not directly get involved in the war. She, like her rival, has echoed the chants of an increased defence expenditure, to avert any possible future Russian aggression on its soil or that of its NATO allies, only to be overshadowed by a proper blueprint to achieve the same. On the issue of China, Liz Truss appears to be hard on China and its ways and measures, calling for a clampdown on the Chinese tech companies such as TikTok, in her stance of regulating tech companies hailing from authoritarian regimes. She also lashed out at Sunak, for trying hard to broker an economic deal with China. In contrast, her present actions and views appear outlandish, given her role in helping to set up the Confucius Institutes in the UK. Liz Truss oversaw the signing of a memorandum of understanding between University College Londons education faculty and Hanban, a wing of Chinas education ministry in 2014. She was serving as the education secretary at that time. In the wake of the China-Taiwan Crisis, Truss called the Chinese actions of military drills near Taiwan to be inflammatory and called for immediate de-escalation, commenting that Chinas invasion of Taiwan would be catastrophic.

Rallying on popular support for her stand on tax cuts, the economy and the Ukraine War, among others, Truss, has a very high chance of being the next PM, hailed as a true conservative by her party peers. What remains to be seen however is for how long can Truss hold onto the strings of the conservative party leadership, which in the recent decade has often been in a crisis and conflict regarding the right person to lead them forward?

Original post:

Race to 10 Downing Street : How the next Reaganite could further deter relations with the EU Le Taurillon - thenewfederalist.eu

Ms Koranda, another former Palin fan, chimed in. She's a media whore, she said. I think she's gonna attract such a circus, shes not gonna be able to get any work done, she added, asking: Is she in it for herself, or for Alaska?

Ms Palin has argued her fame would be an asset for a state that has a smaller population than Merseyside. As Alaskas sole congresswoman, she said, she could pick up the phone and call any reporter and be on any show if I wanted to, and it would be all about Alaska.

She has hit back, too, at what she called an inaccurate narrative that she left Alaska behind.

At one campaign event, she bemoaned spending $140 to fuel her truck due to rampant inflation and joked about a recent collision with a moose as proof she understands the concerns of ordinary Alaskans.

That's the sign of a true Alaskan - I took a moose out of season, she quipped.

A large Sarah for Alaska billboard sits along the secluded gravel drive that leads to her lakefront home in Wasilla.

Just visible beyond a tall brown fence is the large satellite dish which serves Ms Palins home TV studio.

On a recent visit, The Telegraph spotted very few pro-Palin campaign signs around the town, but some residents remain fiercely protective over their famous neighbour.

One nearby resident, who declined to be named, offered a strong defence of Ms Palin whom she argued was the victim of smear campaigns.

Another described how, despite her celebrity status, she still frequents a local Mexican restaurant in town.

Ms Palin, long mocked for her gaffes - memorably mixing up North and South Korea, and failing to name a single newspaper she reads - has also framed herself as the victim of Americas liberal media.

After years of tabloid-worthy family dramas and political scandals, she said she has nothing left to lose in reviving her political career. What more can they say? she told Fox News.

An earlier endorser of Mr Trump, the former president returned the favour last month by holding a rally for Ms Palin in Alaskas largest city, Anchorage.

Long seen as a forerunner to Trumpism with her rogue one-liners - waterboarding is how we baptise terrorists - and rage-filled populism, Mr Trumps endorsement has prompted speculation he could name Ms Palin as his running mate for a potential 2024 presidential bid. Ms Palin herself has said she is open to the idea.

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The return of Sarah Palin: how the Tea Party star is plotting a comeback - The Telegraph

Liberal: Inclusive Populism Wont Fly

The Liberal Patriots Ruy Teixeira examinesa new entrant in the Democratic messaging sweepstakes: inclusive populism. Proponents wont move to the center on culturally-inflected issues like crime, immigration, race, gender and schooling. Instead, they argue forturning it up to 11on economic populism. Yet cultural issues are a hugely important part of how voters assess who is on their side and who is not, and Democrats need to convince these voters that their views on culturally-freighted issues will not be summarily dismissed as unenlightened. E.g., crime worries are unlikely to be magicked away by attacks on greedy corporations. Plus: It defies common sense to think Democrats can win over working class voters who are suffering from inflation simply by pointing to greedy oil companies and promising to fight harder for the working class.

Metas third-party fact-checkers have flagged as false information posts on Instagram and Facebook accusing the Biden administration of changing the definition of a recession in order to deny that the U.S. economy has entered one,gripes Reasons Robby Soave. Yet this authority, PolitiFact, used the now-false definition (two straight quarters of negative GDP growth) to debunk GOP claims about coming recessions and to bolster Democratic claims. Fact-checkers are supposedly somehow above the fray, only weighing in when something can be proven or disproven quite definitively. Instead, they are often making dubious judgment calls on issues where reasonable disagreements exist.

Team Biden doesnt justnotfeel our pain it jumps through hoops to tell us we arent feeling that pain at all,notes the Washington Examiners Salena Zito. Last week, it insisted the nations not technically in a recession, which does nothing about what it feels like to the American people. And in American politics one of the most important things you have to do is validate people, to acknowledge their concerns, even if you privately think to yourself they are unfounded. President Biden has embraced the same dismissive attitude that elites often cast toward voters. . . . Otherwise, he wouldnt be telling people there is no recession when they are clearly feeling or fearing its effects on them. No wonder every new poll . . . seems to show him at a new low.

Americans find their country in a recession,observes The American Spectators Daniel J. Flynn, yetThe New York Times Paul Krugman, like Team Bidens other media allies, insists we wait for word from the people who actually decide were in a recession.Whodecides? The elite eight National Bureau of Economic Researchs Business Cycle Dating Committee members, who can go years without meeting. They include James Stock, who donated to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Pete Buttigieg and President Bidens 2020 campaign and David Romer, another Joe donor. The latterswife, Christina Romer, also sits on the committee; she chaired Obamas Council of Economic Advisers. Sorry: Economists do not decide on a recession. The economy does.

Gov. Hochul cheered that the just-approved Cider Solar Farm, a 3,000-acre, 500-megawatt facility upstate, can power about 125,000 homes. But the numbers dont add up,warns the Empire Centers James E. Hanley. New Yorks average home uses 7,000 kilowatt hours of electricity yearly. A 500-megawatt power plant operating at 90% percent capacity, like a nuclear or natural gas plant, would power 530,000 homes but New York solar produces only about 12.6 percent of its theoretical capacity, enough power for 79,000 homes, 37 percent less than advertised. And thats just 14% as many homes as a more reliable source of electricity could power. Like Cider Solar, the states entire climate plan is based on dubious assumptions and questionable math. We must keep reliable energy sources, like our nuclear and natural gas plants, to ensure we have the energy to supply our needs.

Compiled by The Post Editorial Board

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Inclusive populism wont fly and other commentary - New York Post

I recently posted a piece atLawyers, Guns and Moneyabout Jonathan Swanstwopart series on Trumpworlds plans for a second term. The gist is that Trump and his inner circle intend to revive his Schedule F executive order.

What is Schedule F? Eric Katzexplains:

In October 2020, just before the presidential election, Trump signed his controversial executive order creating a new class of federal employees excepted from the competitive service. The order sought to remove career federal workers in confidential, policy-determining, policy-making or policy-advocating jobs from the General Schedule into a new job classification where virtually all of their civil service protections were absent, essentially making them at-will employees. Although the Trump administration began efforts to reclassify jobs into the new Schedule F, they ultimately were unable to move any workers before January 2021, and President Biden quickly signed an executive orderrescinding the edictas one of his first acts as president.

The former Trump administration officials envision quickly shifting many employees under the new classification, making those positions eligible for quick hiring and firing without the normal protections afforded to civil servants. The new flexibility would allow a future Trump administration to get rid of any employees it deems as standing in the way of implementing its agenda and replace them with loyalists.

It literally takes five minutes to reissue it, a former Trump administration official involved in personnel policy and current talks about Schedule Fs revival toldGovernment Executive. There was real value to issuing Schedule F because it turned it into a flip the switch thing for the next administration that wants to do it.

The original Schedule F order faced widespread condemnation from lawmakersincluding members of both partiesgood government groups, unions, employees and former government officials.

Swans article provides another reminder that Trump remains an existential threat to U.S. liberal democracy. But its not just Trump. Any number of other GOP presidential hopefuls say Ron DeSantis or Josh Hawley would likely implement the same kind of plan.

The specifics of the Schedule F plot also track with how Ive come to understand Trumpism: as aspecificformofreactionarypopulism.

Reactionary populism has in one form or another been around for quite some time. If I remember correctly, we can find a reactionary-populist faction of the Republican Party at least as far back as the 1930s, and the Democrats used to be home to one as well. Reactionary populism started, as best I can tell, gaining real traction in the GOP during the Obama years. It did not, however dominate the party.

This changed with Trump. He not only mobilized reactionary populists. He also mainstreamed the reactionary-populist worldview.

What does this have to do with Schedule F?

Once in power, reactionary populists pretty much always pursueneopatrimonial styles of governance. This involves breaking down state autonomy and transforming government bureaucracies into an extension of their own personal authority.

Ive mentioned before that IconsiderStephen Hanson and Jeffrey Kopsteins Understanding the Global Patrimonial Wave (Perspectives on Politics, 2022) an essential read.

As theyexplain:

German sociologist Max Weberconsidered the key act of politics to be obedience to the leaders command. Such obedience is more likely and consistent, Weber argued, when subordinates subjectively believe that orders from their superiors are legitimatethat is, that they have a duty, and not merely a self-interested motive, to obey. Without obedience to commands there can be no government, no matter how it is chosen. The core link is between the leader and his or her administrative staff. This relationship can be highly personal and intimate, or it can be impersonal and legalistic. The staff accept commands as legitimate for basically one of two reasons: because of their sense of duty to the person of the leader or because of their sense of duty to law and abstract rules. For much of human history, this sense of duty was based primarily on personal relationships. During periods of social crisis, followers might obey orders under the spell of a leaders personal charisma. Yet charismatic leadership generally does not last long. The patrimonial bond, when durable, was emotional, one of respect, friendship, and devotion, embodied in the beloved monarch whose royal lineage had ruled since time immemorial. Finding a loyal staff is not easy, so in its purest form patrimonialism amounts to rule by the family and friends of the leader. To provide a succinct definition, a patrimonial regime is a form of legitimate domination in which the ruler and his staff fuse administration with personal authority, considering the state itself to be a family business of sorts.

We should not conflate patrimonialismwhether new-style or in its OG formwith authoritarianism.

democracies are becoming more personalistic.

Plenty of authoritarian regimes operate along more legal-rational line. They make use of state bureaucracies staffed by a civil service of educated professionals who follow rules and procedures and are recruited on the basis of merit rather than personal relationships. In more rational-legal regimeswhether democratic or authoritarianthe basic grounds on which commands are obeyed stem not from duty to the person of the ruler but from duty to the impersonal abstraction of the rules themselves.

Of course, all real-world political systems combine different forms of authority. But the term neopatrimonialism describes a specific kind ofhybrid arrangement.

On paper, neopatrimonial regimes look like legal-rational ones. Most civil servants do standard civil-servant things. State bureaucracies and political officials invoke principles of fairness, equal treatment, merit, and following the rules.

In practice, patrimonial authority predominates; the state serves the personal interests of its leadership; agencies just happento target opponents of the regime for audits and regulatory violations (the Obama IRS scandal, if it werentbullocks, would have been a good example of how this works). Supporters somehow almost always submit winning bids for government contracts.Opponents dont.That kind of thing.

Hanson and Kopstein point out that the current patrimonial wave affects both democratic and autocratic regimes. Manycommentatorswarn about the rise ofpersonalist authoritarianismin countries like Russia and China. As others point out,democraciesare also becoming, on average, more personalistic.

Erica Frantz and her co-authorswritethat:

[O]bservers intuitions are correct: Levels of personalism have increased in democracies in recent years. Importantly, we show that greater personalism is associated with a variety of negative outcomes, such as higher levels of populism, a higher probability of democratic erosion, and greater political polarization. In addition, we explore the potential causes of the personalist wave and find evidence that new technologies and digital tools are facilitating it.

We should distinguish betweenpersonalist regimesandpersonalist politics.

When we talk about the personalist politics we mean, more or less, the relationship between parties and their leaders:

Personalist politics do facilitate neopatrimonialism; personalist regimes tend to exhibit higher levels of neopatrimonial governance. But keep in mind that we also find neopatrimonial styles of governance in contexts where authority rests in families, ethnic groups, or parties.

Indeed, one plausible future in the United States is that term limits produce a succession of reactionary-populist regimes. Perhaps they might crystalize around a family. It is more likely, I expect, that wed see authority derive from a flexible arrangement, in which party provides a bridge between personal loyalty to presidents.

Americans dont tend to think in terms of patrimonial authority

Hanson and Kopstein make a lot of important arguments, but one is that political scientists have generally dropped the ball because were used to thinking about regimes mostly in terms of the autocracy-democracy continuum; when we do study neopatrimonialism, we typically assume its confined to the developing world (this tendency is, in part, a holdover from modernization theory).

This myopia explains, in part, why the field struggles to make sense of regimes that combine electoral democracy with neopatrimonial governance: we tend to try to put their square pegs into the round holes of democracy and authoritarianism.

Of course, neopatrimonialism does erode liberal democracy.

Despite this, neopatrimonial quasi-democracies are going to look and behave differently than legal-rational quasi-democracies.

The conceptual challenge here extends far beyond political science. Americans dont tend to think about regimes in terms of patrimonial and legal-rational authority. This is a real problem. It makes it much harder for people to understand the nature and extent of the threatespecially if it involves reforms that, on face, might seem reasonable.

This is particularly true, Id wager, for Republicans who otherwise do not particularly care for Trump or Trumpism. The reason? Trumps efforts to establish personal authority over the civil services easily slot into longstanding GOP complaints about bureaucracy.

Republicans have spent decades attacking the federal bureaucracy, and the rhetoric that they use has a strongly polyvalent quality. It communicates distinctive meanings to different audiences.

Lets keep things simple by limiting ourselves to three difference valences of anti-bureaucracy rhetoric: libertarian, technocratic, and populist.

These valences can combine in a lot of different ways. Technocratic criticisms commonly feature in more populist and libertarian attacks on the civil service. By the 1980s, national politicians usuallyencodedpopulist objections to Civil Rights in libertarian and technocratic language.

Some reactionary populist demagogues are true believers. Others are cynical opportunists. But, as I noted above, no matter where they fall on that axis, they invariably attempt to consolidate their power by transforming the state into their own personal patrimony.

Populist leaders paint their actions as returning power to the people

Successful populist leaders are able to turn their efforts into a self-reinforcing process. They use every incremental increase in personal control over government finances to reward supporters, thus encouraging business leaders and political officials to throw in with the regimeand reducing the clout of those who refuse; when their loyalists take control of a regulatory body, they turn it into a political weapon for weakening opponents; this makes the next body easier to capture. Rinse and repeat.

The irony, of course, is that populist leaders paint their actions as returning power to the peopleeven as they consolidate elite control, they claim to be breaking the power of elites.

With Trump, though, we saw an interesting (and worrisome) twist.

His uncoordinated assault on the independence of the civil service was also legible in libertarian and technocratic terms. In essence, Republicans fromdifferentwings of the party each could view his action throughdifferentframeseach of which obscured the nature of Trumps personalist power grab.

Well, maybe obscure isnt quite the right word. Lets put it this way: they had an easier time accommodating Trumps neopatrimonialism.

From a technocratic or libertarian perspective, Trump wasnt making the state his own personal patrimony. He was finally reining in those liberal, big-government bureaucrats! Talk of Trump killing U.S. democracy? Liberal hysteria. Even if he actually wanted to, theres no way he could succeed because of the guardrails built into the system (i.e., the ones he was trying to dismantle).

For what its worth, this gets at why, after January 6, it took massive intervention by FOX News and the broader right-wing media ecosystem to rescue Trump form political collapse. Its also why the January 6 Select Committee hearings are damaging, however modestly, his changes of winning the presidency in 2024. January 6 was consistent with a more traditional understanding of how leaders try to destroy democracy. It wasnt slow and complicated.

Now, as far as I know, its true that members of the civil service lean Democratic. Theres apparentlylittle evidencethat this translates into a disposition to undermine Republican presidents.

So did some parts of the civil service thwart Donald Trump? Sure.

Sometimes, I expect civil servants prioritized bureaucratic interests or organizational mission over enacting policy directives. The same thing happens to Democratic administrations.

There are also clearly pockets of active partisanship. This is most worrisome when it shows up in the security services a pattern thatseemstoskewright, not left.

But it is important to stress how little disloyalty the Trump administration would accept. Swan reports that the idea for Schedule F began early in 2017, when the State Department rebelled against the so-called Muslim Ban.

How, exactly, did State rebel? Something like 900 members of the State Departmentsigneda dissent memo. They used normal channels and standard-operating procedure toregisterdisapproval. Yeah, it blew up in the press. But thats not a refusal to carry out Trump policy. Not even close.

Indeed, most of the time, though, civil servants thwarted Trump becausethey were doing their jobs.

For example, a career employeeblew the whistleover concerns that Trump pressured Ukraines president to investigate his political rival. Aninspector generalcited whistleblower protection laws when siding with a Customs and Border Protection employee who blew the whistle on his agencys racial profiling of motorists. A court relied on civil service lawsto issue an injunctionprotecting several Voice of America employees from an agency head accused of political meddling and trying to disseminate political propaganda. An inspector generals report later vindicated other VOA employees in this work environment.

Both the technocratic and libertarian frames imply that this is precisely what the civil service should be doing. Unfortunately, thanks to Trump, the populist frame now predominates. It is conventional wisdom in the GOP that civil servants make up a hostile deep stateone dedicated to destroying Republican presidencies.

The only solution, it follows, is to purge it and install reliable Republicans. Or those loyal to the current GOP president.

Doesnt really matter.

Same difference.

See the original post here:

Textbook Reactionary Populism - The Duck of Minerva

The Conservative Partys leadership race has been conventionally seen as a battle between the moderate establishment candidate Jean Charest and the rowdy populist Pierre Poilievre.

But one academic who studies populism and its cultural causes says Poilievres campaign has been fairly traditional, especially when compared to the global populist movement that has swept the Western world in the last decade.

The populist moment really was about parties moving away from just talking about economics to talking about those tricky cultural issues. Its happened with the Peoples Party, but its not happened with Poilievre. I guess I would still see that as pretty much a standard conservatism, more of an establishment conservatism, said Eric Kaufmann, a professor of politics at Birkbeck, University of London and the author of Whiteshift: Immigration, Populism, and the Future of White Majorities.

On a recent episode of the Hub Dialogues, Kaufmann said one clear sign that a candidate is pushing into populist territory is a fixation on immigration and the social justice politics (or wokeness) embraced by the Left. Instead, Poilievre has trained his rhetorical sights on inflation, the Bank of Canada, the countrys housing shortage, and an all-encompassing opposition to gatekeepers.

Poilievre, I think, has shied away largely from those (cultural) issues except in a few places. Hes largely about economics, which in my view is a relatively safe topic. Youre not going to get canceled for it, said Kaufmann.

Although Poilievre has been the consistent frontrunner in the race to succeed Erin OToole as the permanent leader of the Conservative Party, he has been dogged by questions about whether he will be palatable to moderate voters in a federal election.

A recent survey by the Angus Reid Institute seemed to confirm that Poilievre is disliked by previous Liberal and NDP voters, although Peoples Party of Canada voters view him favourably. Poilievre may also be shunning the conventional strategy of chasing swing voters and, instead, pursuing people who have previously chosen not to vote in federal elections.

In chasing these new voters, Poilievre has doubled down on opposition to COVID-19 restrictions and vaccines mandates, while vocally supporting the cause of Freedom Convoy protesters, to the chagrin of establishment Conservatives.

Kaufmann believes that the populist spasm in response to the pandemic, seen in Canada and other Western countries, will pass quickly and wont necessarily fuel the larger populist movement.

I actually dont think that that is a significant source of populist movements we see across the West now. Even though it has played in Canada, I think thats a departure from the pattern that we tend to see across the West, said Kaufmann.

Kaufmann said that conventional populism, which targets immigration and other cultural issues, hasnt taken root in Canada due to a strong taboo against those topics in the media and other elite institutions.

I think its because of the power of the cultural Left in Canada. Now, of course, the way the power of the cultural Left works is that it works up until the point it doesnt work. The suppression works to keep ideas such as reducing immigration out of the political debate until that crumbles, said Kaufmann.

In his book Whiteshift, Kaufmann wrote that attitudes in Canada arent very different from other countries, like the United States, that were rocked by a populist candidates.

What you see in Canada is you do see the Peoples Party raising these issues. You do see that Conservative voters, for example, compared to Liberal and NDP voters, are like 50 points apart on immigration. Theres a natural place for the Conservatives to go, but of course, the media environment and the cultural environment in Canada is very strongly dominated by the cultural Left, he said.

Kaufmann said he views populism as a fundamentally cultural phenomenon, and with the Left currently dominating important institutions like the media and academia, it could mean that our populist moment turns into a populist era. In his research, Kaufmann has tracked the ideological shift in journalism and academia that, over decades, has pushed progressives from a slight majority to utterly dominant in these institutions.

I think there is a kind of in-built dynamic here where were going to see populism as long as there is a very strong cultural Left controlling these institutions, said Kaufmann.

Theres an awful lot of incentive to rail against the elites in those institutions.

Read more:

One of the worlds leading populism experts says Pierre Poilievre isnt quite a populist - The Hub

Populism, development, and the drama of White Rock politics What happens when a populist movement storms into office on a platform of change, and then has to govern?

The City of White Rock has proven an interesting case study the last four years.

In 2018, it was one of those towns where the all-candidate meetings were packed and the comments on the local political Facebook pages were angrier than most.

Campaigning primarily on issues of development (too much) and transparency (too little), a new political party called Democracy Direct White Rock swept to power. Former B.C. General Employees' Union (BCGEU) president Darryl Walker became mayor, all four council candidates were elected, and they set out to reshape how the seaside community of about 20,000 people was run.

But then an interesting thing happened: after initially working together as a team to restrict tower heights in the centre of the municipality, the coalition began to splinter. Walker started voting more often in favour of new housing, saying he had evolved his thinking.

Before this term, I didn't realize how slow and arduous municipal politics can be, he said, talking about the work to rebuild the pier and the need to upgrade roads and sewers.

We've got developers that come before us that are willing to work with us on affordable housing. And the tendency from a couple of councillors has been to turn it down.

Those councillors have primarily been Erika Johanson and Scott Kristjanson, who ran with Walker. Not surprisingly, they tell a different story.

There's a honeymoon. And then when you get to the nitty gritty, the day-to-day stuff, he was terrible, said Johanson, who argues Walker turned his back on what he campaigned on, and allowed staff to control too much of the citys agenda.

They only answer questions very specifically as we ask them, they don't volunteer any information. Thats got to change, she said.

Johanson and the city are in the midst of a protracted legal battle over whether Johanson bullied and harassed staff or not. Walker has been unable to convince the majority of his colleagues to support him on a number of votes.

And Democracy Direct has been dissolved: Walker is asking for a council thats progressive and will support more mid-rise developments, while Johanson promises a mayor candidate who will challenge Walker.

In short, its been messy and it's another example that campaigning is a lot different fromgoverning.

Walking in the first day as a mayor three and a half years ago, said Walker, I didn't know what I know now.

In their final major week of meetings prior to the election (there willbe a couple of smaller housekeeping things closer to the vote), council approved a social housing tower next to an incoming SkyTrain station at Broadway and Arbutus after six days of meetings. It was the last of this council's famed marathon meetings, which led us to explore just why Vancouver has become known for inefficiency at the council table. Meanwhile, one of Kennedy Stewart's chief rivals for mayor unveiled his park board candidates platform which reversed his promise to try and get rid of the board.

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Populism, development, and the drama of White Rock politics - CBC