{"title":"病毒作为补救:COVID-19和民粹主义元危机的结束","authors":"M. Bitschnau","doi":"10.1163/25888072-bja10057","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"\nUnderstood not only as a challenge to democracy but as a crisis, populism has received widespread attention in both media and academic circles for the better part of the past decade. Yet the outbreak of COVID-19 and its escalation into a pandemic eclipsed the fear of rising populism within weeks: With lockdowns imposed and civil liberties suspended, it lost its menacing character and became a mere background nuisance. This, I argue in this article, is the consequence of a discursive constellation in which there is only room for one dominant crisis – a meta-crisis as I call it – at a time. Populism filled this meta-crisis role for a long while, but the COVID-19 shock redirected society’s attention to a more pervasive and immediate threat. While this does not spell the end of populism, it still marks a notable shift in the relative importance we attribute to it.","PeriodicalId":29733,"journal":{"name":"Populism","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3000,"publicationDate":"2023-08-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"The Virus as Remedy: COVID-19 and the End of the Populist Meta-Crisis\",\"authors\":\"M. Bitschnau\",\"doi\":\"10.1163/25888072-bja10057\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"\\nUnderstood not only as a challenge to democracy but as a crisis, populism has received widespread attention in both media and academic circles for the better part of the past decade. Yet the outbreak of COVID-19 and its escalation into a pandemic eclipsed the fear of rising populism within weeks: With lockdowns imposed and civil liberties suspended, it lost its menacing character and became a mere background nuisance. This, I argue in this article, is the consequence of a discursive constellation in which there is only room for one dominant crisis – a meta-crisis as I call it – at a time. Populism filled this meta-crisis role for a long while, but the COVID-19 shock redirected society’s attention to a more pervasive and immediate threat. While this does not spell the end of populism, it still marks a notable shift in the relative importance we attribute to it.\",\"PeriodicalId\":29733,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"Populism\",\"volume\":null,\"pages\":null},\"PeriodicalIF\":0.3000,\"publicationDate\":\"2023-08-18\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"\",\"citationCount\":\"0\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"Populism\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"1085\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://doi.org/10.1163/25888072-bja10057\",\"RegionNum\":0,\"RegionCategory\":null,\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"Q4\",\"JCRName\":\"POLITICAL SCIENCE\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Populism","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1163/25888072-bja10057","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"POLITICAL SCIENCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
The Virus as Remedy: COVID-19 and the End of the Populist Meta-Crisis
Understood not only as a challenge to democracy but as a crisis, populism has received widespread attention in both media and academic circles for the better part of the past decade. Yet the outbreak of COVID-19 and its escalation into a pandemic eclipsed the fear of rising populism within weeks: With lockdowns imposed and civil liberties suspended, it lost its menacing character and became a mere background nuisance. This, I argue in this article, is the consequence of a discursive constellation in which there is only room for one dominant crisis – a meta-crisis as I call it – at a time. Populism filled this meta-crisis role for a long while, but the COVID-19 shock redirected society’s attention to a more pervasive and immediate threat. While this does not spell the end of populism, it still marks a notable shift in the relative importance we attribute to it.