Giorgos Venizelos

About me
I am a Lecturer in Political Communication at the Cyprus University of Technology.

Previously, I was Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Fellow at the University of Cyprus, Fellow in Political Polarization at CEU’s Democracy Institute, a postdoctoral researcher at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, and a visiting lecturer at the University of Cyprus. I received my PhD from the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence, Italy, my MA from Goldsmith's College, University of London and BA the University of Essex

I co-convene the Populist Specialist Group (Political Studies Association, UK).

My research

My research sits at the intersections of comparative politics, contemporary political theory and political communication, with a special focus on populism and anti-populism. I specialise in discourse analysis, visual analysis, in-depth interviews and participatory methods.

Expand the sections below for an overview of my research. For more details, explore the website or get in touch.

Populist & Anti-Populist Polarisation in the Age of Post-Truth

I am currently studying the socio political polarisation between populism and anti-populism in the so-called age of post-truth. While populism receives enormous scholarly and public attention – and is commonly associated with misinformation and anti-vax movements – the role anti-populists play in fuelling contemporary polarisation is largely overlooked.

In this respect, I shift focus from populism's perceived meaning and consequences on democracy and society, to its dynamic interaction with anti-populism. I study how each 'camp' antagonises one another, constructing notions of 'us' and 'them' and competing for its own versions of 'democracy' and 'rationality'. Furthermore, I am interested in how political and scientific authorities redefine the notion of populism in the current conjuncture. Stressing the salience and malleability of anti-populism, I argue that the (post-)pandemic conjuncture renders visible a new type of post-truth anti-populism . I am also interested in questions of epistemology, epistemic knowledge and elitism, how these relate to anti-populism and how 'populists' draw on their own 'science' and epistemology to construct a counter-hegemonic common sense.

Populism in Opposition, Populism in Power

I research populism’s transition from opposition to power, the way populists' definitions of 'the people' and 'the elite', and the overall populist transgression, undergo changes as a result of institutionalisation. My first book focused specifically on the cases of Donald Trump and SYRIZA. It went beyond paradigms expecting populism either to fail, turn mainstream or authoritarian once in government. Rather, it brought to the discussion the notions of collective identity, political style and emotions that are largely overlooked in the literature. Through the employment of discourse analysis, in-depth interviews and ethnographic research conducted in the USA and Greece, this research project argued that populism is a political style that through transgressive performativity – identified in language, bodily performativity and transgressive dynamics – constructs collective identities and electorally mobilises the masses through emotional appeals. As such, in government, populism was examined in terms of the way populist leaders perform in power, how their discourse changes and how peoples’ affective identification strengthens or weakens. This research has produced, and still does so, publications on adjacent topics such as varieties of populism and their relationship with democracy, social movements, political parties and charismatic leaderships, nationalism, digital media as well as anti-populism.

The Politics of Crisis in Southern Europe: Governmentality, Resistance, Normalisation

I researched extensively the politics of the post-2008 economic crisis in Southern European periphery, particularly in Greece and Spain. The main focus of this study lied on the variegated and competing discursive and socio-political responses to the crisis. On the one hand lie elite responses: they include technocratic mechanisms of socio-political control, such as debt and austerity, as well as moralistic ones such as fear-mongering. On the other hand lie grassroots responses: they include prefegurative politics, assemblies and alterative political visions that are organised around hope, love and solidarity.

Although there are a lot of studies focusing on the politics of the financial crisis, especially in southern Europe, this research offers two contributions that have not been addressed by the literature so far. First, it develops a broader understanding of what ‘crisis’ means and goes beyond the 2010-2013 time frame, which is the period that is commonly understood as 'the moment of crisis' in the two countries. In this respect, the research extent its focus on the whole decade and argues thee crisis has passed from a moment of exception towards a state of permanence and normalisaton proving itself as a salient technology of governance. This being said, the research focuses until 2019 and on the capitulation of SYRIZA and the institutionalisation of PODEMOS.

Following from this, the second contribution our project makes is that it follows the trajectory of social movements, ‘movement-parties’ and radical politics in general until the end. Although, literature has paid sufficient attention to the emergence of these movements, there is an evident gap with respect to their trajectory. Our project addresses themes related to the consequences of institutionalisation as well as the alternative paths social movements followed when the left assumed power.

Left-wing populism

Left-wing populism constitutes a central aspect of my research agenda. Throughout my doctoral and postdoctoral career, I have researched extensively the emergence of contemporary left-wing populism, its relationship with social movements, its discursive and performative style, the redefined symbols and aesthetics it employed. Following the limitations and setbacks of various contemporary leftists who have often framed as democratic populists (Bernie Sanders, Podemos, Corbyn, SYRIZA) and the proclamation of the ‘end of the populist moment’, I have directed my focus not only towards studying their evolution but also towards conceptualising ‘success’ and ‘failure’.

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