The Great Recoil:Politics after Populism and Pandemic

Praise for The Digital Party:

With a rare mix of narrative flair and analytical insight, Gerbaudo tells the riveting story of how tech-savvy leaders and 'connected outsiders' have reshaped politics in the digital era.

Praise for The Digital Party:


Paolo Gerbaudo shows how the internet shapes contemporary politics and vice versa. A must read for everyone interested in digital politics.

Praise for The Digital Party:


Gerbaudo shows how technology-based “platform parties’”are designed, how they fit into the history of political parties, and how they reflect changes in politics, society, economics, and communication. This rich analysis looks at both the promise and the limitations of these fascinating political experiments.

Praise for The Digital Party:

This book by Paolo Gerbaudo goes deep into the “morbid” crossroads of our present and offers us suggestive ideas on the key elements of its emerging political practice. A brilliant work.

Praise for The Digital Party:

A wide-ranging, and international, survey of those parties that have gone furthest to embrace the organisational changes the new modes of communication demand of us all and as such is a compelling read for the future of politics.

Praise for The Mask and the Flag:

Seminal.

Praise for The Mask and the Flag:

Faced with neoliberal austerity and increasingly authoritarian states from Egypt to America, a new generation has created a resistance movement that combines anarchist networking with the rich heritage of left-populism. As a lucid explanation of this phenomenon, The Mask and the Flag could not be more timely.

Praise for The Mask and the Flag:

The Mask and the Flag is one of the few studies of the “movements of the squares” that goes beyond the usual platitudes and wishful thinking and actually provides thought-provoking insights. It will hopefully inspire future studies of these movements, as well as of progressive politics in the early twenty-first century more generally.

Praise for The Mask and the Flag:

In a moment in which the term populism is being used and abused, this volume proposes an original theoretical framework and a thick empirical analysis of a broad range of protests against austerity, suggesting the emergence of a long-term wave of contentious politics characterized by new conceptions of citizenry and democracy. A stimulating read to provoke discussion on the successes, but also the challenges, for progressive politics.

Praise for The Mask and the Flag:

This book is essential reading in the time of Brexit and Trump because it reminds us that the upsurge of populism has a message of hope as well as one of shock. Drawing on the accounts of activists, Gerbaudo gets inside both the dreams and complexities of movements that form the basis for a democracy renewed.

Praise for Tweets and the Streets:

Very timely, not just in terms of addressing the impact of Web 2.0 on social movements and activism, but also in that it addresses and soberly assesses the use of technology from recent protests in North Africa and elsewhere.

Praise for Tweets and the Streets:

Offers an incisive and challenging new direction in thinking about the context and possibilities for digital media and activism.

Praise for Tweets and the Streets:

Gerbaudo's insightful observations and detailed empirical research contribute greatly to our understanding of the uses of social media in such movements.

With remarkable intellectual reach, Paolo Gerbaudo draws on centuries of political thought to analyse and tackle big questions arising from society's 'recoil' from the failed project that was/is neoliberal globalisation. This is a vital and timely text for a fuller understanding of how the left should react to the pandemic in order to 'build back better'.

A fascinating journey from neoliberal hegemony, through anti-globalist populist backlash, to the neo-statism of the pandemic world; it is a critical text for progressives seeking to orient themselves in a world marked by both dirigisme and cultural reaction. Gerbaudo rightly argues that a left populism in the post-pandemic world must centre on the deepening of political and economic democracy in order to combat a right-wing politics of domination and control.

In this intriguing book that weaves together the ideas of authors such as Hegel and Polanyi, Paolo Gerbaudo follows the swinging pendulum of global capitalism moving from its expansive form to the inwardness of statism. The global crisis of 2008 and the pandemic have ushered in a great recoil in which Western capitalism looks like a giant pulled down by its own strength, and the return of the interventionist state is viewed as a possible solution to its ills.

Counter-movements against neoliberal globalisation have been gathering momentum for a number of years, but are now reaching a critical mass. The Great Recoil provides a definitive account of how the nation state has been revived and transformed, bringing much-needed clarity and critique to the vast political questions of our present moment.

What will replace neo-liberalism? Will it be a new big state capitalism overseen by a populist political right? In this timely and important book, Paolo Gerbaudo shows how the left can contest the meaning of sovereignty, protection, and control, and put forward its own progressive populism founded on economic and social inclusion, environmental sustainability, and radical republican politics.

Persuasive ... [Gerbaudo's] historical analysis gives his prescriptions for the left heightened urgency.

Gerbaudo avoids a simplistic account of neoliberalism ... [he] is an astute and rigorous analyst, and The Great Recoil is perhaps the most thorough yet compact synthesis of the crises and challenges that have reset the parameters for state action in the twenty-first century.

Stimulating.

Brilliant ... essential reading for those interested in the current state of European social democracy.

Asks interesting questions for those looking to navigate a pathway between right-wing populism and liberal cosmopolitanism.