| Summary/Abstract |
In traditional understandings of classical populism, power is commonly
defined as being in need of devolving from the corridors of power and
out to a more grassroots foundation. At its core, populism was usually
seen as a belief in empowering regular people. ‘Regular people’ were
typically defined as being disconnected, if not outright disenfranchised,
from central power and outside the realm of the ‘elite.’ This paper
investigates the modern phenomenon in Russia and America that turns
these traditional concepts completely on their head. Rather than being
a movement engineered against elite political insiders, populism in
America and Russia currently seems to be occupied by the elites of
society. Ironically, these elites position themselves as the chosen
representatives of the disenfranchised. These strange bedfellows have
arguably produced a new form of ‘power populism’: instead of being
focused on removing power from the state, this populism is founded
more upon strengthening the global position of the state while tacitly
dismissing/attacking the perceived intellectual elite of each society.
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