2018 Zurich - Populism

Populism was the topic of the 5th Swiss Summer School of Democracy Studies which was held at the University of Zurich from 11 to 15 June 2018. The Summer School focussed on populism from a multidisciplinary perspective and addressed both, individual attitudes on which populist support is based and socio-economic, cultural and institutional conditions making its success more or less likely in a comparative and historical perspective.

The program was composed of lectures and seminars held by leading international experts and workshops in which young scholars presented and discussed their research with the experts. Five one-day sessions focussed on a particular theme related to the wider topic of Populism:

• Populist Democracy (Simone Chambers, U of California, Irvine, USA / Francis Cheneval, U of Zurich)
• Populist Cultures (David Art, Tufts U, USA / Daniele Caramani, U of Zurich)
• Populist Communication (Agnieszka Stepinska, UAM Poznan, Poland / Regula Hänggli, Caroline Dalmus, U of Fribourg)
• Popuist Media (Michael Hameleers, U of Amsterdam, Netherlands / Frank Esser, U of Zurich)
• Populist Attitudes (Andrej Zaslove, Agnes Akkerman, Radboud U, Nijmegen, Netherlands / Marco Steenbergen, U of Zurich)

Various social activities such as a group dinner with the experts and a foxtrail tour through the emerging and aspiring trendy quarter Züri West complemented the program. The full program is available here.

Twenty-two young scholars were admitted to attend the Summer School, of which 17 from 7 countries (CH, BEL, CAN, CL, CZE, GER, ITA) took the opportunity.

An online survey was conducted to evaluate the Summer School. All answers to this survey were anonymized. The results of this poll are presented here.