Making of the Populist Movement

State, Market, and Party on the Western Frontier
Erscheinungsjahr 2020
ISBN: 978-0-19-009050-0
Verlag: Oxford University Press

Buch, Englisch, 280 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 236 mm, Gewicht: 567 g

When it comes to explaining the origins of electoral populism in the United States, we often look to the characteristics and conditions of voters, overlooking the reasons why populist candidates emerge in the first place.

In The Making of the Populist Movement, Adam Slez argues that the rise of electoral populism in the American West was a strategic response to a political environment in which the configuration of positions was literally locked in place, precluding the success of new contenders or otherwise marginal competitors. Combining traditional forms of historical inquiry with innovations in network analysis and spatial statistics, he shows how the expansion of state and market drove the push for
market regulation in southern Dakota, where an insurgent farmers' movement looked to third-party alternatives as a means of affecting change. In the context of western settlement, the struggle for political power was synonymous with the struggle for position in an emerging urban hierarchy. As inequities in
the spatial distribution of resources became more pronounced, appeals to agrarian populism became a powerful political tool with which to wage partisan war.

Offering a fresh take on the origins of electoral populism in the United States, The Making of the Populist Movement contributes to our understanding of political action by explicitly linking the evolution of the political field to the transformation of physical space through concerted action on the part of elites.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Slez, Adam

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Systeme Wahlen und Volksabstimmungen
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Systeme Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Amerikanische Geschichte
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein Gesellschaftstheorie
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtswissenschaft Allgemein
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Systeme Politische Parteien

Über Autor(innen)

Adam Slez is Assistant Professor at the University of Virginia, where he joined the faculty in 2013. His previous work has appeared in the American Sociological Review, Sociological Methods and Research, Socius, and the International Journal of Comparative Sociology.