Anna Vincenzi

Scholars seem to struggle in defining what populism is. Yet, two main features seem to run across many recent scholarly definitions of populism: First, the tendency to privilege the unilateral action of a charismatic leader, who claims to have a direct connection to the people and therefore a right to bypass traditional representative institutions; second, the fact that, by its nature, in claiming to satisfy the immediate needs of ‘the people’ and being fuelled by resentment against the elites, populism privileges sudden change over gradual reform.¹ Examples of both of these features can easily be found in recent news on