UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Cas Mudde, one of the world’s leading scholars on right-wing extremism, will present a lecture on populism and religion Oct. 20 as part of a two-day conference on those themes at Penn State.
Mudde is the Stanley Wade Shelton UGAF Professor in the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Georgia and a professor in the Center for Research on Extremism at the University of Oslo. He is an expert on European politics and the foremost scholar on the far right in Western democracies.
He is a columnist for Guardian US and host of the podcast “Radikkal,” which explores the radical aspects of music, politics and sports. His books include “Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe” and “The Far Right in America.”
Mudde’s lecture will explore how religion shapes far-right politics around the world, particularly political leaders like Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, India’s Narendra Modi and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
The Populism, Piety and Patriotism Conference is chaired by Chris Beem, McCourtney Institute for Democracy managing director, and Vineeta Yadav, associate professor of political science at Penn State. As countries around the world see the expansion of far-right parties, Beem said now is an important time to consider the role that religion plays in that growth.
“Mudde was first on our list to keynote our conference,” Beem said. “He is a renowned scholar on populism and his work engages both the attraction and the danger of combining populism with religious identity.”
Mudde’s lecture will be held at 4 p.m. Oct. 20 in Paterno Library’s Foster Auditorium on the University Park campus. Visit democracy.psu.edu/events for more information.
The Populism, Piety and Patriotism Conference is supported by the McCourtney Institute for Democracy, Rock Ethics Institute, Humanities Institute, the Departments of History and Political Science, and the College of the Liberal Arts.