Speaker: Monica Quirico
Chair: Tora Lane
Discussant: David Payne

Abstract

The aim of my research project, funded by RENEW’s mobility funds, is to analyze to what extent populism has encouraged Nordic countries to redefine forms and content of democracy. Notwithstanding levels of trust in institutions which are still remarkably high compared to other countries, even Norden shows signs of legitimacy crisis of traditional democratic processes, populism being at the same time symptom and trigger of it. My main interest lies not in institutional settings, but in conceptual history; the project will focus on the impact of populism both on procedural and substantive accounts of democracy.

The project will examine the way in which different models of democracy (substantive vs. procedural; representative vs. direct; deliberative vs. radical) as well as their mutual relation have been reformulated in the Nordic debate as a response to the populist upsurge.

The focus is on Sweden and Finland, two countries with a similar political culture (neo-corporatism; welfare state) yet different in regard of geopolitical legacies and constitutional paths, which may explain also the diverse reception of populism.

The project starts from the idea that it is necessary to examine the rhetoric of crisis (economic, political, humanitarian) in these countries, in order to understand the relation between diagnosis (what fuels populism) and (suggested) therapy. How has populism been inscribed in the narrative of the historical development of democracy: as a paradigm shift or rather as something that has shaken, but not overwhelmed, Swedish and Finnish politics?

Short bio

Monica Quirico has been several times guest researcher at the Institute of Contemporary History, SHI (and once at the CBEES), at the Södertörn University; in 2008 the Institute appointed her as “honorary research fellow”, because of her research on Swedish history and society. On these fields Quirico has published several books and articles, in Italian, English and Swedish. She has furthermore taken part in international conferences and workshops arranged by the University and has been invited to hold seminars on Swedish and Italian history in comparative perspective.

Quirico has as well contributed to publications funded by the Institute: Det långa 1990-talet. När Sverige förändrades (ed. by A. Ivarsson Westerberg, Y. Waldemarson, K. Östberg, 2014) and the proceedings of a witness seminar that she arranged and leaded together with Yulia Gradskova: Solidariteten med Chile 1973-1989 (2016).