Populism in Europe and the Americas

Cas Mudde holds a PhD from Leiden University and is currently the Hampton and Esther Boswell Distinguished University Professor of Political Science at DePauw University. His most recent book, Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2007), won the Stein Rokkan Prize and was named a Choice Outstanding Academic Title in 2008. Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser holds a PhD from the Humboldt University of Berlin, has worked for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB). He is the recipient of the Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship for a two-year research project on populism in Europe and Latin America, which he is currently undertaking at the University of Sussex. His research interests include populism, democracy and Latin American politics and his work has been published in Democratization and the Latin American Research Review, among others.

'Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser's volume makes conceptual and empirical headway on what is difficult terrain. They sensibly define populism as a 'thin-centered' ideology, more akin to a political style that finds highly diverse empirical expressions in conjunction with varying specific circumstances and 'thick' beliefs about the correct social and political order. The editors have done a great job assembling a set of case studies with just the right variance to speak to the theoretical question they put front and center, namely the differential consequences of populism for democratic participation and contestation.' Herbert Kitschelt, George V. Allen Professor of International Relations, Duke University

• 1. Populism and (liberal) democracy: a framework for analysis Cas Mudde and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser; 2. Populist parties in Belgium: a case of hegemonic liberal democracy? Sarah L. de Lange and Tjitske Akkerman; 3. Populism and democracy in Canada's Reform Party David Laycock; 4. The Czech Republicans, 1990–8: a populist outsider in a consolidating democracy Seán Hanley; 5. 'To hell with your corrupt institutions!': AMLO and populism in Mexico Kathleen Bruhn; 6. Populism in government: the case of Austria (2000–7) Franz Fallend; 7. Populism and democracy in Venezuela under Hugo Chávez Kenneth M. Roberts; 8. Populism and competitive authoritarianism: the case of Fujimori's Peru Steven Levitsky and James Loxton; 9. Populism, democracy, and nationalism in Slovakia Kevin Deegan-Krause; 10. Populism: corrective and threat to democracy Cas Mudde and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser.