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The Populist Moment: The Left After the Great Recession
A Left-wing populist insurgency exploded across the West in the wake of the Great Financial Crisis
After decades of retreat, the last decade saw a left resurgence from the US to Western Europe and the Mediterranean. This revival of anti-establishment left-wing candidates was not only left but also populist. Though in most cases these movements ran out of steam before effectively being in a position wield state power, many of the parties and figures associated with this wave of left populism have entered government and others are still contesting high office.
Providing a blow-by-blow history of the rise and defeat of left electoral movements in the West, Boriello and Jaeger guide us through the conditions that shaped this wave of insurgencies. These include extreme and rising inequality, the collapse of civic life, and a lack of trust in traditional institutions.
In this context, Boriello and Jaeger argue that some or another form of populism was all but inevitable. And, despite defeats, left offensives of present and future will be populist in nature. This is because the conditions that shaped the first left populist wave are still very much with us.
After decades of retreat, the last decade saw a left resurgence from the US to Western Europe and the Mediterranean. This revival of anti-establishment left-wing candidates was not only left but also populist. Though in most cases these movements ran out of steam before effectively being in a position wield state power, many of the parties and figures associated with this wave of left populism have entered government and others are still contesting high office.
Providing a blow-by-blow history of the rise and defeat of left electoral movements in the West, Boriello and Jaeger guide us through the conditions that shaped this wave of insurgencies. These include extreme and rising inequality, the collapse of civic life, and a lack of trust in traditional institutions.
In this context, Boriello and Jaeger argue that some or another form of populism was all but inevitable. And, despite defeats, left offensives of present and future will be populist in nature. This is because the conditions that shaped the first left populist wave are still very much with us.
224 pages, Paperback
Published September 26, 2023
13 people are currently reading
298 people want to read
About the author
Anton Jäger
13 books47 followersAnton Jäger is een Belgisch historicus en publicist. Zijn werk handelt over ideeëngeschiedenis, meer bepaald de verhouding tussen kapitalisme en democratie. Jäger studeerde aan de universiteiten van Essex en Cambridge en doctoreerde in 2020 aan die laatste universiteit.
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Anton Jäger (b.1994) is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Catholic University of Leuven. He has published widely on populism, basic income, and the contemporary crisis of democracy. His work has appeared in Jacobin, the Guardian, and the New Statesman.
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Anton Jäger (b.1994) is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Catholic University of Leuven. He has published widely on populism, basic income, and the contemporary crisis of democracy. His work has appeared in Jacobin, the Guardian, and the New Statesman.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
November 26, 2024
Reading *The Populist Moment* by Anton Jäger and Arthur Borriello felt like revisiting a conversation I’ve been having with myself for years—a conversation about the promise and pitfalls of populism, about hope, disillusionment, and what it takes to achieve lasting political change.
The authors examine the rise and fall of left populism in Europe and the USA since the 2008 economic crisis and austerity measures that followed. The book is filled with the sense that the old certainties of class struggle, the foundation for so much leftist politics, no longer hold the same unifying power:
"The harder it is to reduce political conflict to a binary opposition between capital and labor in the manufacturing sector, the less the industrial working class can regard itself as the key political subject for social transformation—and the more tempting a populist approach will be for the left."
Once again the old riddle of how to form an alliance of working and middle classes came to front, but the challenge was how to do it now when traditional working class parties and unions lost their credibility. Populist movements have emerged to fill the gap, promising broad coalitions that are often too fragmented to sustain themselves.
Jäger and Borriello describe the conditions under which these populist moments arise—moments where traditional parties lose credibility, social groups cry out for unification, and charismatic leaders use new media to mobilize disillusioned masses. As they put it:
"From the People’s Party to the Five Star Movement, the populist moments erupt in situations where a social democratic option was either unavailable or discredited, the channels of democratic mediation were clogged, and the main social groups of a popular coalition were relatively fragmented and isolated."
The authors don’t shy away from showing how precarious these coalitions are—how quickly they rise, and how inevitably they fall apart.
One of the most poignant sections of the book recounts the reflections of Spanish activists after a decade of populist struggle. They described their early optimism, their sense of belonging, and the thrill of glimpsing a possible victory. But by the end, all that remained was bitterness and disillusionment:
"Camaraderie between populists had given way to personal enmity, acrimony, even hatred between former teammates. At the end of the political cycle opened by the Great Recession, they were feeling—and looked—considerably older. They had aged, but time had also sped up."
This sense of time slipping away, of opportunities missed, probably feels so personal to everyone who was active in any of these or similar movements in the previous 15 years. It’s a reminder that political movements aren’t just intellectual exercises; they’re lived experiences that leave their mark on the people involved.
The book also dives deep into the structural challenges that left populists face, especially in the digital age. While online organizing lowers barriers to entry, it also makes disengagement just as easy:
"Cheap entry costs translated into cheap exits. The 100,000 who joined Momentum had little but online mailing lists and Twitter accounts to sign up for; the voting mechanisms by which they exercised power were notoriously opaque."
In other words, we’re always connected, but rarely committed. Digital platforms make movements feel immediate and accessible, but they struggle to build the long-term solidarity and discipline that older mass parties once had.
By the end of the book, I was left with more questions than answers—which, I think, is exactly the point. Jäger and Borriello don’t pretend to offer a clear roadmap for the left. Instead, they lay out the tensions and contradictions inherent in populism and challenge us to grapple with them. Should we embrace alliances with center-left parties or risk losing outsider credibility? Should we stick to rapid, media-driven campaigns or invest in the painstaking work of party-building?
"Should left populism seek alliances with surviving center-left parties and consolidate its gains, albeit at the risk of ceding outsider status? Or should it stick to its mostly digital, pop-up-style organization to launch blitzkrieg campaigns across election cycles?"
These aren’t just theoretical questions—they’re the dilemmas we face every day in trying to imagine a better world.
*The Populist Moment* is a book about hope, but not the naive kind. It’s about the kind of hope that survives disappointment, that acknowledges failure without giving up. It’s a sobering yet inspiring reminder that political transformation is possible—but only if we’re willing to confront the messy, often painful realities of collective action.
The authors examine the rise and fall of left populism in Europe and the USA since the 2008 economic crisis and austerity measures that followed. The book is filled with the sense that the old certainties of class struggle, the foundation for so much leftist politics, no longer hold the same unifying power:
"The harder it is to reduce political conflict to a binary opposition between capital and labor in the manufacturing sector, the less the industrial working class can regard itself as the key political subject for social transformation—and the more tempting a populist approach will be for the left."
Once again the old riddle of how to form an alliance of working and middle classes came to front, but the challenge was how to do it now when traditional working class parties and unions lost their credibility. Populist movements have emerged to fill the gap, promising broad coalitions that are often too fragmented to sustain themselves.
Jäger and Borriello describe the conditions under which these populist moments arise—moments where traditional parties lose credibility, social groups cry out for unification, and charismatic leaders use new media to mobilize disillusioned masses. As they put it:
"From the People’s Party to the Five Star Movement, the populist moments erupt in situations where a social democratic option was either unavailable or discredited, the channels of democratic mediation were clogged, and the main social groups of a popular coalition were relatively fragmented and isolated."
The authors don’t shy away from showing how precarious these coalitions are—how quickly they rise, and how inevitably they fall apart.
One of the most poignant sections of the book recounts the reflections of Spanish activists after a decade of populist struggle. They described their early optimism, their sense of belonging, and the thrill of glimpsing a possible victory. But by the end, all that remained was bitterness and disillusionment:
"Camaraderie between populists had given way to personal enmity, acrimony, even hatred between former teammates. At the end of the political cycle opened by the Great Recession, they were feeling—and looked—considerably older. They had aged, but time had also sped up."
This sense of time slipping away, of opportunities missed, probably feels so personal to everyone who was active in any of these or similar movements in the previous 15 years. It’s a reminder that political movements aren’t just intellectual exercises; they’re lived experiences that leave their mark on the people involved.
The book also dives deep into the structural challenges that left populists face, especially in the digital age. While online organizing lowers barriers to entry, it also makes disengagement just as easy:
"Cheap entry costs translated into cheap exits. The 100,000 who joined Momentum had little but online mailing lists and Twitter accounts to sign up for; the voting mechanisms by which they exercised power were notoriously opaque."
In other words, we’re always connected, but rarely committed. Digital platforms make movements feel immediate and accessible, but they struggle to build the long-term solidarity and discipline that older mass parties once had.
By the end of the book, I was left with more questions than answers—which, I think, is exactly the point. Jäger and Borriello don’t pretend to offer a clear roadmap for the left. Instead, they lay out the tensions and contradictions inherent in populism and challenge us to grapple with them. Should we embrace alliances with center-left parties or risk losing outsider credibility? Should we stick to rapid, media-driven campaigns or invest in the painstaking work of party-building?
"Should left populism seek alliances with surviving center-left parties and consolidate its gains, albeit at the risk of ceding outsider status? Or should it stick to its mostly digital, pop-up-style organization to launch blitzkrieg campaigns across election cycles?"
These aren’t just theoretical questions—they’re the dilemmas we face every day in trying to imagine a better world.
*The Populist Moment* is a book about hope, but not the naive kind. It’s about the kind of hope that survives disappointment, that acknowledges failure without giving up. It’s a sobering yet inspiring reminder that political transformation is possible—but only if we’re willing to confront the messy, often painful realities of collective action.
August 9, 2024
Started this in the spring shortly after reading Vincent Bevins new book. This book complements Bevins book well as analysis’s of contemporary left wing political movements. Sat it down because it was a lot packed into a short 200 page book. Learned a lot about movements in Greece, Spain and France on top of renewed lessons on Great Britain and the U.S.
Book makes a good point about erosion of formal political structures and the ephemeral nature of contemporary political movements.
Picked because this was a title in the Jacob/Verso Collab series.
Book makes a good point about erosion of formal political structures and the ephemeral nature of contemporary political movements.
Picked because this was a title in the Jacob/Verso Collab series.
Read
July 3, 2025An excellently written book with an important thesis- that populism derives from the weakness and decline of civil society organisation. At times, though, this reads like the longest op-ed you've encountered, rather than a rigorously evidenced argument.
September 29, 2024
Left populists did extraordinary things in “the long 2010s”, but ultimately failed to achieve their own meteoric objectives.
This book does an excellent job of tracking this rise and fall. As we seek to build on their successes and learn from their failures, this book makes clear, for example, that we need proper organising in our parties - not just shallow level engagement.
The book, however, leaves one big question unanswered: how can any leftist force marry the seemingly contradictory positions of the urban educated with the disaffected working class? How can we, in other words, build power across class lines? This is the great undelivered promise of left populism.
—
I am probably a left populist.
I believe there is no self-identifying “working class” to build power - we can only build power as the people across class lines. I believe traditional parties are different flavours of shit. I believe in the value (indeed, necessity) of charismatic leadership. And I believe obsessively in the need for us to radically include more people in our democracy.
(Yes, despite the rhetoric of liberals, it is the left populists who are most radical in their ferver for democracy - a point that this book makes well.)
And hey, when I was coming of age, populism was sexy!
In the 2010s - while old school communists continued trying to sell newspapers on street corners and social democrats continued selling their souls - Corbyn, Mèlenchon, and Bernie defied expectations, oligarchy and establishment politics to get within an inch of power. Heck, Syriza and Podemos DID win power.
And then they ran out of steam. All of them. (Podemos, in fact, stumbled into power having already run out of it.)
The question is why. Were they a product of their time? Or is there a failure inherent to the left populist strategy? This book argues that it’s a mix of the two.
Certainly, in the post-2008 world of misery and hyper-politics, with the rise of the leaderless anti-austerity movements and social media, the time was ripe for left populism. The cases listed above managed to exploit this political moment with the goal of building a broad coalition across class lines, uniting disaffected groups under the banner of “the people” against elites. They used new digital tactics for engagement and opened cut through the noise the inspire people.
The issue, this book argues, is that these parties were hollow. They were media parties that engaged many people in a shallow way, and few people in a deep way. When their leader made a misstep (like Mèlenchon shouting into the face of a Policeman, Iglesias buying an expensive house, or Corbyn not visibly singing the national anthem) and had their popularity chipped away at, there was no mass membership to organise and soldier on.
This alone cannot explain the failure - since the same could be said for Macron’s La Republique En Marche.
The thing is that they never won over enough of the population. By and large, they never succeeded in winning over the disaffected working class, but instead remained largely urban, educated movements. Corbyn nearly did - then Brexit got in the way.
I closed this book without all the answers I hoped to get from it. Without doubt, I understand the rise and fall of these movements much better, but what I want to know is what the left should do now.
Part of the answer is to move beyond shallow engagement. Left populism CAN create parties that genuinely organise people in a meaningful way beyond transactional politics - indeed, I’d argue Syriza and Corbyn showed glimpses of this, though the authors don’t recognise it.
But the more difficult question is one of demography. How can we be a movement that organises across class lines? This book doesn’t answer the question, but it does at least raise it with a solid historical context and analytical framework. The next step is answering it.
This book does an excellent job of tracking this rise and fall. As we seek to build on their successes and learn from their failures, this book makes clear, for example, that we need proper organising in our parties - not just shallow level engagement.
The book, however, leaves one big question unanswered: how can any leftist force marry the seemingly contradictory positions of the urban educated with the disaffected working class? How can we, in other words, build power across class lines? This is the great undelivered promise of left populism.
—
I am probably a left populist.
I believe there is no self-identifying “working class” to build power - we can only build power as the people across class lines. I believe traditional parties are different flavours of shit. I believe in the value (indeed, necessity) of charismatic leadership. And I believe obsessively in the need for us to radically include more people in our democracy.
(Yes, despite the rhetoric of liberals, it is the left populists who are most radical in their ferver for democracy - a point that this book makes well.)
And hey, when I was coming of age, populism was sexy!
In the 2010s - while old school communists continued trying to sell newspapers on street corners and social democrats continued selling their souls - Corbyn, Mèlenchon, and Bernie defied expectations, oligarchy and establishment politics to get within an inch of power. Heck, Syriza and Podemos DID win power.
And then they ran out of steam. All of them. (Podemos, in fact, stumbled into power having already run out of it.)
The question is why. Were they a product of their time? Or is there a failure inherent to the left populist strategy? This book argues that it’s a mix of the two.
Certainly, in the post-2008 world of misery and hyper-politics, with the rise of the leaderless anti-austerity movements and social media, the time was ripe for left populism. The cases listed above managed to exploit this political moment with the goal of building a broad coalition across class lines, uniting disaffected groups under the banner of “the people” against elites. They used new digital tactics for engagement and opened cut through the noise the inspire people.
The issue, this book argues, is that these parties were hollow. They were media parties that engaged many people in a shallow way, and few people in a deep way. When their leader made a misstep (like Mèlenchon shouting into the face of a Policeman, Iglesias buying an expensive house, or Corbyn not visibly singing the national anthem) and had their popularity chipped away at, there was no mass membership to organise and soldier on.
This alone cannot explain the failure - since the same could be said for Macron’s La Republique En Marche.
The thing is that they never won over enough of the population. By and large, they never succeeded in winning over the disaffected working class, but instead remained largely urban, educated movements. Corbyn nearly did - then Brexit got in the way.
I closed this book without all the answers I hoped to get from it. Without doubt, I understand the rise and fall of these movements much better, but what I want to know is what the left should do now.
Part of the answer is to move beyond shallow engagement. Left populism CAN create parties that genuinely organise people in a meaningful way beyond transactional politics - indeed, I’d argue Syriza and Corbyn showed glimpses of this, though the authors don’t recognise it.
But the more difficult question is one of demography. How can we be a movement that organises across class lines? This book doesn’t answer the question, but it does at least raise it with a solid historical context and analytical framework. The next step is answering it.
December 22, 2023
This is a shrewd and timely assessment of where, how and why left populism saw moments in the “long 2010s” (2008-2022) when it seemed to be building robust emancipatory politics, yet ultimately failed to deliver on that promise.
The book has a lot of depth. The writers weave political economy into their account, grounding it in history and theory. An example:
Rather than a politics pitting workers against bosses, structured by the capital–labor opposition, Bonaparte’s was a politics of debtors and creditors—another shared feature with the 2010s, in which private debts transferred onto public accounts fueled the American and European crises. It was also a politics centered on circulation and taxes, rather than production.
In a concluding chapter, they put some empirical ducks in a row, examining salient moments of left populism. These serve both as elegies and as scenarios of what in spite of defeat may still be possible. These are: Disappearance (Corbynism in the UK); Normalization (Podemos in Spain); Reordering (La France insoumise); Neutralization (Syriza in Greece); and Splintering (Bernie Sanders in the US). Revival of classical 20th century mass politics, drawing on older communist and social democratic models, may have been on left populism’s horizons. But today left populism seems “tragically transitory”, being largely sidelined by today’s easy-come, easy-go “politics of the swarm” a tide that is lifting the Right, but not the Left.
With their focus on populism, the writers don’t discuss politics in mass forms developing as climate catastrophe looms, nor as savage wars re-awaken peace protests. They insist that “deliberation over collective ends cannot be kept out of the public sphere forever” yet without the reemergence of stable (classical?) mass politics, engagement in the public sphere will stay confined to ‘swarms’ and their feckless discourses.
The book has a lot of depth. The writers weave political economy into their account, grounding it in history and theory. An example:
Rather than a politics pitting workers against bosses, structured by the capital–labor opposition, Bonaparte’s was a politics of debtors and creditors—another shared feature with the 2010s, in which private debts transferred onto public accounts fueled the American and European crises. It was also a politics centered on circulation and taxes, rather than production.
In a concluding chapter, they put some empirical ducks in a row, examining salient moments of left populism. These serve both as elegies and as scenarios of what in spite of defeat may still be possible. These are: Disappearance (Corbynism in the UK); Normalization (Podemos in Spain); Reordering (La France insoumise); Neutralization (Syriza in Greece); and Splintering (Bernie Sanders in the US). Revival of classical 20th century mass politics, drawing on older communist and social democratic models, may have been on left populism’s horizons. But today left populism seems “tragically transitory”, being largely sidelined by today’s easy-come, easy-go “politics of the swarm” a tide that is lifting the Right, but not the Left.
With their focus on populism, the writers don’t discuss politics in mass forms developing as climate catastrophe looms, nor as savage wars re-awaken peace protests. They insist that “deliberation over collective ends cannot be kept out of the public sphere forever” yet without the reemergence of stable (classical?) mass politics, engagement in the public sphere will stay confined to ‘swarms’ and their feckless discourses.
August 5, 2025
Worthwhile read for understanding the state of left politics in the information age.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews