Best Of: Why the Far Right Is Thriving Across the Globe
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Why is the rise of far‑right populism considered a global phenomenon?
So as the era comes to a close, I wanted to share some episodes from the archives that I think give some insight into the moment we're in now. Today's conversation is with the political scientist Pippinoris. We talked back in 2022 about the rise in right-wing authoritarian politics around the globe and the work she has done on the concept of cultural backlash as its driver. Take a lesson.
I'm Ezra Klein. This is the Ezra Klein Show.
It's easy to look at American politics as aberrational right now. It's comforting in a way. Maybe the whole problem, the whole question is Donald Trump and the unique magnetism and attributes he brings to modern politics. I mean Trump is many things, but one thing he is is distinctive. Once a billionaire or maybe billionaire developer, known for being a businessman, a celebrity reality TV star forever in the tabloids with an unerring sense of what will get people's attention, who is somehow immune to the disciplining force of shame. Maybe that's a story right there, the particular package of attributes Donald Trump brings to all this. And then you have the weird dimension of American institutions, a Republican Party that he was able to take over in part due to our weird way of doing primaries and the electoral college and the way we distribute power.
So it's easy to step back from that and think, something's just wrong with America. Why are we taken in by this guy? But maybe nothing's wrong with America, or at least nothing specific. Look at Joe Biden. Joe Biden may be polling in the low 40s, and people can come up with all kinds of explanations for that. But that's better than other G7 leaders right now. In Canada, Justin Trudeau, also in the low 40s. In France, Emmanuel Macron, upper 20s. In Germany, Olaf Schultz, also in the 20s. In the UK, Liz Truss was at 9%, 9% when she resigned as prime minister. And she resigned mere months after Boris. Johnson had also resigned as Prime Minister. Nor is the Republican Party's ongoing competitiveness or turn towards a more reactionary subversive message all that unusual.
Italy just elected a far-right prime minister from a party with fascist roots. In France, Maureen Le Pen, the far-right leader, she won around 40% of the vote in the final round of their presidential elections, doing better than she did in 2017. In Sweden, I mean Sweden. A hard right group founded by neo-Nazis and skinheads won the second highest number of seats in parliament in elections earlier this year. In Brazil, Bolsonaro lost on Sunday. I mean, Bolsonaro is about as trumpy a figure you will find outside of the Trump family. So it's a big deal. But he won 49% of the vote. 49%. It's hardly a resounding rejection of what he stood for or how he governed the country. That is just a partial list. The rise of these right wing populist parties and politicians is happening in many countries and many contexts.
It's coming in wealthy countries and poor ones, in places with high levels of immigration and low levels, in countries with a lot of economic inequality and much lower inequality. This is not just an American dilemma, not just a French one, not just a Swedish one or Brazilian one. And so we need theories that explain more than one country or more than one situation. Which brings me to Pippinoris. She's a comparative political scientist at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. And in twenty nineteen, she and her co-author, the late Ron Inglehart, published what I've come to see as a really crucial text for thinking about the rise of global populist authoritarians. It's called Cultural Backlash, and I asked her on the show this week to explain it.
As always, my email, Ezra Kleinshow at nytimes.com.
Pippinoris, welcome to the show.
Thank you so much, Ezra. Pleasure to be here.
Tell me about the silent revolution in cultural values.
So this is very much part of the legacy of Ron Inglehart, who we sadly lost from the University of Michigan. He was observing what was happening in the nineteen seventies. That's how he started his work. And he went to Paris and saw people on the streets, young people, workers, everybody out demonstrating and protesting.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
Why is the rise of far‑right populism considered a global phenomenon?
0:00–23:28
2
What is Pippa Norris’s ‘cultural backlash’ theory and how does it frame today’s authoritarian surge?
23:28–28:42
3
How did the advent of smartphones and social‑media after 2010 amplify cultural backlash?
28:42–56:21
4
What three key data points illustrate the shift toward authoritarian populism since the 1970s?
56:21–57:56
5
How have changes in gender, religion, and environmental values reflected the cultural backlash?
57:56–1:17:59
6
Why do younger generations feel disoriented and how does that fuel support for transgressive leaders?
1:17:59–1:31:04