Salvatore Babones | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | October 5, 1969 New Jersey |
| Citizenship | American |
| Alma mater | University of Montevallo (BS) Johns Hopkins University (MA, MSE, Ph.D.) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Sociology |
| Institutions | University of Sydney |
Salvatore Babones (born October 5, 1969) is an American sociologist, and an associate professor at the University of Sydney.
Babones received a B.S. in sociology from University of Montevallo in 1991, M.A. in Sociology in 1997, M.S.E in Mathematical Sciences in 2002, and a Ph.D. in Sociology in 2003 from Johns Hopkins University. [1]
From 2003 to 2008 he was a professor of sociology at the University of Pittsburgh; and since 2008, at the University of Sydney. [1] He has also been a visiting associate professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore (2015) and a visiting scholar at Academia Sinica in Taipei (2015). [1]
Babones focuses on the "political sociology of democracy, economic development in post-socialist transition economies and quantitative methods for cross-national comparisons". [2] [3]
Salvatore Babones and Hartmut Elsenhans in their book BRICS or Bust? Escaping the Middle-Income Trap compares the social, economic, and political trajectories of BRICS countries over the year. They argue that these countries are stuck in a middle-income trap, which was caused by the inequalities generated during their early development; this caused consumption to shift inefficiently towards luxury goods, preventing the continued growth in mass income. Babones concludes that BRICS counties can catch up with high-income countries only if their political leaders pursue growth strategies that benefit the entire population. [4] [5]
Political scientist BM Jain found the book to be a "must read" — it was a "distinctive contribution" to the understanding of BRICS economies. [6]
In his 2017 book, American Tianxia: Chinese money, American power, and the end of history, Babones questions the narrative of the 21st century being a Chinese Century. He argues that the Chinese concept of Tianxia is most suitable to describe the tremendous influence of the United States in International politics. The American Tianxia is a global club that elites worldwide want to join. The United States has the world's largest economy, a powerful military, and the world's reserve currency. According to him, this centrality of the United States in International affairs would prevent China from ever dominating it. [7] [8]
In 2018, Babones published The New Authoritarianism: Trump, Populism, and the Tyranny of Experts on Donald Trump and his administration. [9] Lacking in sources and notes, he did not intend it to be an academic monograph but rather a political screed. [10] Babones welcomed Trump's populist approach to governance as a dissent against the usual "tyranny of unelected authoritarian experts" in liberal democracies. Rejecting allegations of authoritarianism, he found Trump's administration effective and credited Trump with strengthening democratic ideals by returning power to the electorate. [10] [11] [9] On the overall, populism was a legitimate political position in liberal democracy. [12]
Markus Heide of Uppsala University found[ clarification needed ] Babones' "apologetic approach" to ignore the anti-democratic rhetoric of Trump and his supporters. [12] Dan Glazebrook, reviewing for socialist newspaper The Morning Star, found the work to be an exercise in "Trumpian obfuscation". [13] However, the book was favorably received in conservative media: Janet Albrechtsen, reviewing for The Australian , commended Babones for an "overdue ... corrective about populism"; [9] it went on to feature in the 'Best [Books] on Politics 2018' by the Wall Street Journal . [11]
Babones has since held the January 6 United States Capitol attack to be a "mostly peaceful protest"; [14] he argued that Joe Biden was still a bigger threat to democracy on account of being supported by the press. [15]
In September 2022, Babones criticized the democracy indices by Freedom House, V-Dem Institute, and Economist Intelligence Unit for their decision to downgrade India while under Narendra Modi's premiership and called for a retraction; noting their evidence to be flawed and "wildly disproportionate", he blamed the intellectuals who were surveyed for not being objective in their evaluations. [16] [17] Two months later, in a conclave arranged by India Today, speaking on the same locus, Babones accused the Indian intellectuals of being "anti-India and anti-Modi as a class" in remarks that were widely shared in the social media. [18] [19]
His research into Australian universities' dependence on international (particularly Chinese) students drove political debates in the country. [20] [21] [22]
Meritocracy is the notion of a political system in which economic goods or political power are vested in individual people based on ability and talent, rather than wealth or social class. Advancement in such a system is based on performance, as measured through examination or demonstrated achievement. Although the concept of meritocracy has existed for centuries, the first known use of the term was by sociologist Alan Fox in the journal Socialist Commentary in 1956. It was then popularized by sociologist Michael Dunlop Young, who used the term in his dystopian political and satirical book The Rise of the Meritocracy in 1958. Today, the term is often utilised to refer to social systems, in which personal advancement and success are primarily attributed to an individual's capabilities and merits.
Populism is a range of political stances that emphasize the idea of "the people" and often juxtapose this group with "the elite". It is frequently associated with anti-establishment and anti-political sentiment. The term developed in the late 19th century and has been applied to various politicians, parties and movements since that time, often as a pejorative. Within political science and other social sciences, several different definitions of populism have been employed, with some scholars proposing that the term be rejected altogether.
An illiberal democracy describes a governing system that hides its "nondemocratic practices behind formally democratic institutions and procedures". There is a lack of consensus among experts about the exact definition of illiberal democracy or whether it even exists.
Modernization theory is used to explain the process of modernization within societies. The "classical" theories of modernization of the 1950s and 1960s drew on sociological analyses of Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim and a partial reading of Max Weber, and were strongly influenced by the writings of Harvard sociologist Talcott Parsons. Modernization theory was a dominant paradigm in the social sciences in the 1950s and 1960s, then went into a deep eclipse. It made a comeback after 1991, when Francis Fukuyama wrote about the end of the Cold War as confirmation on modernization theory and more generally of universal history. But the theory remains a controversial model.
Ronald F. Inglehart was an American political scientist specializing in comparative politics. He was director of the World Values Survey, a global network of social scientists who have carried out representative national surveys of the publics of over 100 societies on all six inhabited continents, containing 90 percent of the world's population. The first wave of surveys for this project was carried out in 1981 and the latest wave was completed in 2019. From 2010 Inglehart also was co-director of the Laboratory for Comparative Social Research at the National Research University - Higher School of Economics in Moscow and St Petersburg. This laboratory has carried out surveys in Russia and eight ex-Soviet countries and is training PhD-level students in quantitative cross-national research methods. Inglehart died on 8 May 2021.
Timothy David Snyder is an American historian specializing in the history of Central and Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and the Holocaust. He is the Richard C. Levin Professor of History at Yale University and a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna.
Right-wing populism, also called national populism and right-wing nationalism, is a political ideology that combines right-wing politics and populist rhetoric and themes. Its rhetoric employs anti-elitist sentiments, opposition to the Establishment, and speaking to or for the "common people". Recurring themes of right-wing populists include neo-nationalism, social conservatism, economic nationalism and fiscal conservatism. Frequently, they aim to defend a national culture, identity, and economy against perceived attacks by outsiders. Right-wing populism has remained the dominant political force in the Republican Party in the United States since the 2010s.
In political science and sociology, a cleavage is a historically determined social or cultural line which divides citizens within a society into groups with differing political interests, resulting in political conflict among these groups. Social or cultural cleavages thus become political cleavages once they get politicized as such. Cleavage theory accordingly argues that political cleavages predominantly determine a country's party system as well as the individual voting behavior of citizens, dividing them into voting blocs. It is distinct from other common political theories on voting behavior in the sense that it focuses on aggregate and structural patterns instead of individual voting behaviors.
Liberal democracy, substantive democracy, or western democracy is a form of government that combines the structure of a representative democracy with the principles of liberal political philosophy. It is characterized by elections between or among multiple distinct political parties, a separation of powers into different branches of government, the rule of law in everyday life as part of an open society, a market economy with private property, universal suffrage, and the equal protection of human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, and political freedoms for all people. To define the system in practice, liberal democracies often draw upon a constitution, either codified or uncodified, to delineate the powers of government and enshrine the social contract. The purpose of a constitution is often seen as a limit on the authority of the government.
Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of democracy and political plurality. It involves the use of strong central power to preserve the political status quo, and reductions in the rule of law, separation of powers, and democratic voting. Political scientists have created many typologies describing variations of authoritarian forms of government. Authoritarian regimes may be either autocratic or oligarchic and may be based upon the rule of a party or the military. States that have a blurred boundary between democracy and authoritarianism have some times been characterized as "hybrid democracies", "hybrid regimes" or "competitive authoritarian" states.
Left-wing populism, also called social populism, is a political ideology that combines left-wing politics with populist rhetoric and themes. Its rhetoric often consists of anti-elitism, opposition to the Establishment, and speaking for the "common people". Recurring themes for left-wing populists include economic democracy, social justice, and scepticism of globalization. Socialist theory plays a lesser role than in traditional left-wing ideologies.
The middle income trap is an economic development situation in which a country that attains a certain income gets stuck at that level. The term was introduced by the World Bank in 2007 who defined it as the 'middle-income range' countries with gross national product per capita that has remained between $1,000 to $12,000 at constant (2011) prices.
Trumpism consists of the political ideologies or political movement associated with 45th U.S. president Donald Trump and his political base. Trumpists and Trumpians are terms used to refer to those exhibiting characteristics of Trumpism. Trumpism has been referred to as an authoritarian movement.
American Tianxia is a term coined by the historian Wang Gungwu in 2013 to refer to the contemporary global order centered on the United States. It was further developed by sociologist Salvatore Babones to analyze today's millennial world-system through the lens of the Chinese concept of tianxia, meaning "all under heaven." While the United States is often called an "empire," this is a historically loaded term that is associated with perceptions of American imperialism. The concept of tianxia has a different set of meanings attached to it that Wang suggests and Babones argues are closer to what the United States actually displays in its contemporary approach to foreign affairs.
Democratic backsliding is a process of regime change towards autocracy that makes the exercise of political power by the public more arbitrary and repressive. This process typically restricts the space for public contestation and political participation in the process of government selection. Democratic decline involves the weakening of democratic institutions, such as the peaceful transition of power or free and fair elections, or the violation of individual rights that underpin democracies, especially freedom of expression. Democratic backsliding is the opposite of democratization.
Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism is a 2020 book by Anne Applebaum that discusses democratic decline and the rise of right-wing populist politics with authoritarian tendencies, with three main case studies: Poland, the United Kingdom and the United States. The book also includes a discussion of Hungary.
Populism in the United States reaches back to the Presidency of Andrew Jackson in the 1830s and to the People's Party in the 1890s. It has made a resurgence in modern-day politics in not only the United States but also democracies around the world. Populism is an approach to politics which views "the people" as being opposed to "the elite" and is often used as a synonym of anti-establishment; as an ideology, it transcends the typical divisions of left and right and has become more prevalent in the US with the rise of disenfranchisement and apathy toward the establishment. The definition of populism is a complex one as due to its mercurial nature; it has been defined by many different scholars with different focuses, including political, economic, social, and discursive features. Populism is often split into two variants in the US, one with a focus on culture and the other that focuses on economics.
Democratic backsliding in the United States has been identified as a trend at the state and national levels in various indices and analysis. Democratic backsliding is "a process of regime change towards autocracy that makes the exercise of political power more arbitrary and repressive and that restricts the space for public contestation and political participation in the process of government selection".
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
| Other | |
