National populism – Matthew Goodwin

When Axfoundation in 2019 organized the Human Nature seminar (Swe: Människans Natur) for the eighth time, experts took on the subject of nature, the body, society, seas and the climate – all with the aim of getting below the surface. In this film, one of these experts, Matthew Goodwin, gives his view on national populism.

“All of these parties share on feature – they are populist outsiders, that’s their appeal. If you want to make a populist outsider even more appealing, you keep reminding everyone that it is an outsider, that it is anti-establishment, that it’s not like them. The way that you dilute the potency of those parties – especially today when they are not overtly anti-democratic, they are not revolutionary like the fascists, they are not saying ‘let’s tear down institutions’ – it is to turn them into an insider, that you bring them into a discussion about the future settlement,” says Matthew Goodwin, Professor of Political Science, University of Kent, Senior Visiting Fellow Chatham House.