PiAP Team Media Work Round-Up of 2020

Josh Allen on 9th December 2020

A group of informally dressed middle aged white people are working in an office. It is high up in a roof space and illuminated y skylights. The office is sparsely furnished, although the central desk wwhere many of the workers sit or stand around flatscreened computer monitors is quite crowded with papers and units like intrays and filining systems where paper is stored. It is the office of a local newspaper in Poland

Engaging in dialogue, informing debate and sparking conversations about the phenomenon of contemporary populist radical right party politics beyond academia is an integral and a critical part of the work that the Populism in Action Project (PiAP) does. One of the main ways in which the research team does this, is by writing and producing content for general audiences, and through speaking with and assisting the work of communications professionals, such as journalists. Over the last year or so the project’s staff have between them racked up over 100 such appearances, whether as authors, contributors or expert advisors.

This has included apperances in broadcast, print and digital media outlets based in the UK, USA, Netherlands, Italy, France, Belgium, Spain, Finland, Ireland and publications whose audience is Europe as a whole, rather than the population of a specific geographical entity. Titles which have featured comment from PiAP’s researchers range from major outlets like The Financial Times, New York Times and the BBC to local newspapers which have run in-depth interviews with Research Fellows about the purpose of their fieldwork.

For some of the highlights from the project team’s media work in 2020 see below:

Particular highlights for individual team members include:

  • Daniele Albertazzi – PiAP’s Principal Investigator (project lead) – has contributed extensive insight to the Financial Times’ reporting on populist radical right party politics, and populist politics (especially in Italy), more generally this year. In addition to this his analysis has appeared in many other news reports, including in the Wall Street Journal, as well as in a major feature on contemporary populism and COVID-19 in Spain’s El Confidencial.
  • PiAP’s Co-Investigator Stijn van Kessel has also appeared in the highly regarded business press, with his thoughts and analysis featuring at length in a news feature published in The Netherlands’ Het Financieele Dagblad.
  • Following a highly successful first outing in the paper at the start of October 2020, Italy focused Research Fellow Mattia Zulianello is now a frequent columnist for Domani a new Italian “quality” newspaper focused upon longform journalism and expert analysis.
  • Niko Hatakka, PiAP’s Finland focused Research Fellow, has made numerous contributions to the country’s public discussion around both the phenomenon of contemporary right-wing populism, and questions around how political groups utilise and relate to new media and the communities that form on online platforms. Here he provided analysis for an article published on yle.fi.
  • Belgium (Flanders) focused Research Fellow Judith Sijstermans was invited by the University of Edinburgh’s Centre for Constitutional Change to produce an in-depth portrait and analysis of Vlaams Belang, the party that she is studying.
  • In addition to his work on the project, Switzerland focused Research Fellow Adrian Favero has been appointed by the journal Government & Opposition as their Mick Moran Fellow to support their engagement work and find “…new ways to curate and promote the scholarship [Government & Opposition] publish both to ensure past insights do not get lost in the current political turmoil and to encourage innovative lines of inquiry and research.

In the wider world, PiAP Co-Investigator Scott Lucas of EA Worldview has provided relentless commentary and analysis of developments in the USA in the lead up towards, and the aftermath of, the 2020 Presidential Election: