The omnipresence of the term ‘populism’ only serves to underline its semantic and ideological ambiguity. According to J.-W. Müller, populists claim that they and they alone represent the popular will and are both a reflection of political institutions in crisis and a threat to democracy.
How can we explain the Chinese Communist Party’s lasting legitimacy? Part of the answer may be found in the ritual official inspections of the grassroots. Even if limited and orchestrated, they tend to boost transparency, communication, efficiency.
Thirty years ago, Pierre Bourdieu’s La Distinction laid the groundwork for a reintegration of cultural factors into our thinking about capital. Is this argument still valid today? Philippe Coulangeon talks about the metamorphoses of distinction in a world defined by inequalities in wealth and by the mutations of cultural legitimacy.
