Introduction

With populism seemingly taking hold in democracies throughout the world, this introductory chapter outlines our argument for the need to interrogate the claim that other political systems, namely political meritocracy, might be better suited at halting the rise of populist politics than democratic counterparts. In response to Daniel A. Bell’s assertion that political meritocracy is able to inoculate itself against populist uprisings, this chapter argues that in fact political meritocracy’s defining elements means that it is seemingly both immune and susceptible to a populist style of politics manifesting. While acknowledging that neither are ideal types, this chapter also makes the argument for using China and Singapore as illustrative examples for analysing political meritocracy in practice.