Disrupting The Global Order With Janice Stein

The wave of populism that has swept through the United States and Europe has been a shock to many who did not foresee the impending disruption to doing politics as well. Perhaps it should not have been a surprise. Global financial crises, the Harvard economist Ken Rogoff tell us, run deep. Their effects last a decade and they can have seriously destabilizing social and political consequences. It is reasonable to understand the current wave of populism in the United States and Europe as a consequence of the financial crisis of 2008-2009. After all, these were the areas hardest hit by the Great Recession. Not everyone agrees. Some see a dark underside to current populist movements. They trace its origins to the kind of thinking that Steve Bannon, and to some extent, Marie Le Pen in France, trumpet: white nationalism, a stereotyping of the “foreigner” and the “outsider,” an anger at immigrants who allegedly – although not in fact – receive special benefits. At the extreme, some analysts hear echoes of earlier Fa