Can a Liberal Polity Survive the Politics of Grievance?

About this episode

Mark Blyth discusses the challenges liberal polities face in addressing the grievances of the working class amidst rising populism.

Contemporary populism is almost everywhere; a right wing phenomena that focuses on a politics of white working class grievance. A set of grievances that are to be addressed, when in power, with policies of expulsion, exclusion, and domination. Attempts by liberal states to deal with such movements paradoxically rely on a similar politics of exclusion, such as building so-called firewalls against the right, which are themselves deeply anti-democratic. Mark Blyth, professor of international economics at Brown University, says that given that these grievances are based on real social and economic problems that have blighted working class communities across the world, can a liberal polity address such grievances in a more positive way? Or must it, to protect itself, similarly exclude and dominate such parties, movements and such grievances? Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 41069]

People in this episode

Guest: Mark Blyth

Topics covered

• populism
• liberal polity
• grievance politics
• exclusion
• domination

Keywords

• politics
• working class
• anti-democratic
• social problems

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