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'Crisis' being a vague term, it is easily coined and devalued. Thus it is not difficult to associate 'populism' (or almost anything else) with 'crisis'. There is also a tautological tendency to impute populism (or anything else) to 'crisis', as if 'crisis' were a discernible cause, when, in fact, it is often a loose description of a bundle of phenomena. Disaggregation sometimes reveals that it was not 'crisis' which generated populism (or mobilisation, rebellion, etc.), but rather populism (or mobilisation, rebellion, etc.) which generated crisis. (Knight 1998: 227, emphasis mine)
It appears that we are well and truly living in the age of crises. The global financial crisis has entered its seventh year; the eurozone sovereign-debt crisis is threatening the very existence of the European Union; and more widely, we are allegedly suffering from a crisis of faith in democracy (Crouch 2004; Zakaria 2013). In such a situation, it would seem that the stage has been set for populists to sweep in, appeal to 'the people' and enjoy great success by capitalizing on a general loss of faith and disaffection with politicians, the elite and representative politics in general.
To some extent, this has occurred: Beppe Grillo's Five Star Movement (Movimento 5 Stelle) made a stunning political debut in Italy, capturing approximately a quarter of the overall vote in the 2013 federal elections; populist parties in Scandinavia have enjoyed a steady rise in popularity, while in Latin America, Rafael Correa has been re-elected for a third term as president in Ecuador, and Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro will continue to fly the Chávista flag as a follower of former president Hugo Chávez. Yet elsewhere, populists are not doing so well in these times of crisis. The US Tea Party is flailing following the humiliating defeat of a number of their star candidates; despite her best efforts, Australia's Pauline Hanson has not been able to gain political office since the late 1990s; and in many countries allegedly undergoing crises, populist challengers have simply not emerged. This mixed evidence from across the world suggests a need to challenge the received wisdom regarding the causal relationship between populism and crisis, which tends to argue that crisis acts as either an...