Recent elections in the advanced western democracies have undermined
the basic foundations of political systems that had previously beaten
back all challenges -- from both the left and the right. The election
of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency, only months after the United
Kingdom voted to leave the European Union, signaled a dramatic shift
in the politics of the rich democracies.
In Anti-System
Politics, Jonathan Hopkin traces the evolution of this shift and
argues that it is a long-term result of abandoning the post-war model
of egalitarian capitalism in the 1970s. That shift entailed weakening
the democratic process in favor of an opaque, technocratic form of
governance that allows voters little opportunity to influence policy.
With the financial crisis of the late 2000s these arrangements became
unsustainable, as incumbent politicians were unable to provide
solutions to economic hardship. Electorates demanded change, and it
had to come from outside the system. Using a comparative approach,
Hopkin explains why different kinds of anti-system
politics emerge in different countries and how political and
economic factors impact the degree of electoral instability that
emerges. Finally, he discusses the implications of these changes,
arguing that the only way for mainstream political forces to survive
is for them to embrace a more activist role for government in
protecting societies from economic turbulence.
A
historically-grounded analysis of arguably the most important global
political phenomenon at present, Anti-System Politics
illuminates how and why the world seems upside down.
