Chapter 25: Eradicating Twin Pandemics?: Populism and COVID-19 in 2021, European Studies, and Global Politics

This chapter focuses on how European Studies, an academic and external grant funded program at the UW for 50 years, has developed an international working group focusing on the effects of the pandemic on populist politics. Since 1998, European Studies has achieved international renown through successful bids for competitive research funding through U.S. Department of Education Title VI National Resource Center and Foreign Language and Areas Studies grants, the European Commission (European Union) Jean Monnet granting program, and the German government’s German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). European Studies promotes classroom, research, and public affairs undertakings in European and EU Studies and makes this work available for any Wisconsin constituent as part of its outreach mission. The domestic and international remit of European Studies is substantial and the program partners with a dozen international networks which focus on key UN SDGs, for example, gender equality, reduced inequalities, climate action, decent work and economic growth. In 2019, European Studies Director Nils Ringe launched an important initiative funded by the European Union through a “Center of Excellence” to study the proliferation of populism in a global setting and how the COVID-19 pandemic might be exacerbating this political polarization in some settings and vanquishing it others.