ABSTRACT
Donald Trump is a departure from the conventions of the US presidential politics, but from a comparative perspective, he is far from an outlier on the global stage. Instead, Trump is a manifestation of a global phenomenon that this chapter seeks to understand as a new type of politics: Global Trumpism. The backlash the Western democracies are witnessing is best understood as a reaction against a specific set of political and economic arrangements, which combine decreased competition in the political sphere and enhanced competition in the economic sphere. These arrangements have left many, perhaps most, citizens in Western democracies exposed to greater economic risk while reducing the scope for political action to cope with those risks. In circumstances of such sustained economic insecurity, any politician who offers to ‘root out’ the politicians responsible for producing it, and offers protection from the unpredictability of globalized markets while doing so, has just cornered a ready electoral market. Global Trumpism is the distinctive pattern of backlash against advanced neoliberal capitalism.
