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Podcast: New Books in American Politics
Episode: Matthew Rhodes-Purdy et al., "The Age of Discontent: Populism, Extremism, and Conspiracy Theories in Contemporary Democracies" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
Description: How do we explain the rise of populism, extremism, and conspiracy theory in the Americas and Europe? Why do members of a society come to feel this strong sense of discontent with their political system – so deep and broad that they believe the system to be irreparably broken? Scholars have explained these phenomena using two main models. The first focuses on economics and imagines the source of discontent is long-term economic change that creates winners and losers. An alternative model posits that cultural factors such as hostility to ethnic, racial, and gender minorities is more significant than economic attitudes. In...