For the last 15 years, IU South Bend faculty have taught in Université de Toulon et du Var as part of a faculty-exchange program. This year, international programs staff are trying a new possibility of having the Toulon candidate come in the fall and provide guest lectures and teach in French courses.
This year’s Toulon exchange Professor is Andrei Popescu and will begin his guest lectures September 9.
He will also be offering a public lecture to the the League of Women voters with the title “Populism & women’s Political Leadership” September 13 at noon at the South Bend Chocolate Cafe 122 S. Michigan South Bend
Populism is often described as an attack on the political elites, whether they be corporate or bureaucratic, liberal or conservative. Irrespective of these differences, it can be argued that the political establishment in the USA and Europe has been in general represented by male leaders and politicians. The question one may ask is whether woman politicians, as not representative of this establishment, could benefit in the race to political office from the opposition to the elites found in populism. Times change, and woman politicians and leaders have gained ground. However, there are some that have been associated with populism such as Margaret Thatcher – British Prime Minister 1979-1990, and others that unashamedly court the populist label, such as Marine Le Pen, leader of the French right-wing nationalist party, National Rally. While Margaret Thatcher courted populism in certain ways, she served as a leader of the political establishment, Marine Le Pen has founded her campaign in opposition to elites.
Picture: Populist Politician Marine Le Pen Source
By using these two examples, this talk presents the traits of a populist leader which can be used as a checklist for establishing the populist nature of any other politician.
This talk also proposes a few questions and talking points relating to the nature of woman leadership and its associations with populism or populist political traits. What are such populist political traits? Can they be found in the two examples of woman leaders given here or in others? Do these traits contribute or do they hinder the success of woman leadership in politics? Are woman leaders or have they been the shock to the political establishment that populism is thought to be?
Resources
Burns, James MacGregor. Leadership. 1. Harper Perennial Political Classics. New York, NY: Harper Perennial, 1979.
Steinberg, Blema S. Women in Power: The Leadership Styles of Indira Gandhi, Golda Meir, and Margaret Thatcher, Montreal, McGill University Press, 2008.
Taggart, Paul A. Populism. Concepts in the Social Sciences Series. Open University Press. 2000
Taggart, Paul A. “Populism and Unpolitics”. Video. University of Toulon. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqgTwT2NCsQ>, 2017. Last consulted 11 August 2019.
Tournier-Sol, Karine. “Leadership and the European Debate from Margaret Thatcher to John Major”. Leadership and Uncertainty Management in Politics. Leaders, Followers and Constraints in Western Democracies. Agnès Alexandre-Collier and François Vergniolle de Chantal. Palgrave Studies in Political Leadership. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. 2015. pp. 127-140.
International Programs 