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Populism is one of the main symptoms of the contemporary crisis in Europe. How can the rise of populism best be understood? Whereas existing analyses predominantly utilise rationalist and behaviouralist approaches and focus on political, economic and cultural interests, this contribution proposes a different approach. The author focusses on affects and emotions. The author shows that where other parties or political movements opt for rational and dispassionate debates on merits of political programmes, populists instead offer, invoke and respond to strong emotions across multiple political settings. Emotions feed and propel populism in its bid for power by forming collective identities through the clustering of love for ‘us’ and hate for the ‘other’.

Ontological Security Theory (OST) is used here as a framework for understanding populist behaviour in the sphere of security perception, identification and community-building. In recent debates, OST has been used because it allows the motives for certain behaviours to be located in the need to maintain or recreate positive identity constructed via biographical narratives. OST suggests that any lack of narrative continuity regarding the shape of the self-images for both individual and collective identities will therefore constitute a source of ontological threat; the lack of a sense of security. In this contribution, the author uses the examples of populist policies and discourses in Hungary and Poland that illustrate this dynamic to analyse the past- and future-oriented collective identifications underpinning the recent rise of populism in Europe.

This article analyzes the question why the Dutch patients’ health movement, specifically its branch of organizations for handicapped people, increasingly appeals to civic identity, and what consequences this has for the movement's mobilization efforts and effects. To address this question, we first analyze the meaning of ‘identity’ for patients’ organizations. In addition to an internal function (a shared identity as the basis for contact with other patients), the ‘patient identity’ also has an external function: identity movements can also produce instrumental actions. At the same time, it turns out that the specific ‘patient identity’ is being undermined through these instrumental actions, since in particular the instrumentally oriented wing of the movement insists on a broader basis for mobilization than the patient identity alone. This wing propagates citizenship as the empowering core topic, also because it seems to generate a better response in the political arena than the victim-like patient identity. This is a problematic situation. Employing a broad civic identity may appeal to some handicapped people. For other patients, however, this appeal works only in a very limited way, especially as long as citizenship does not take into consideration the differences between citizens, and as long as citizenship is defined in opposition to corporeality.

Democratic renewal in Sri Lanka as well as a cross the Global South depends on strengthening democratic social movements within varieties of patrimonial capitalism. Patrimonial capitalism, emphasising patron–client relations, coincide with weakening democratic institutional cultures and practices. The dominant corruption/anti-corruption narrative is bracketed with elite class strategies aimed at negotiating a ‘managed corruption’. The realm of representative politics creating consent for patrimonial capitalism is shaped by: ethnic and class relations; the weakening of working-class parties; patriarchal cultures within parties; links with criminal networks; opaque finances and the integration of mainstream media with party patronage.

Democratising the realm of representative politics points towards democratic social movements. The internal dynamics of social movements, their relationships with political parties and collective learning are significant factors that shapes the strategic orientation of social movements. State repression of social movements highlights the need for demilitarisation and the abolition of prisons. The global sense of this local struggle relates to transforming financial markets and platform economies towards notions of financial and digital commons. The integration of different realms of politics, such as representative, movement, life and emancipatory politics, is vital for reinforcing solidarity as the basis for counter-hegemonic struggles.

Purpose – Recent research on the modes of patient activism has displaced older notions of patients as passive, compliant subjects of biomedical power. This chapter expands analyses of patient activism to examine the intersections between the processes of identity formation, the emergence of a new scientific field (human stem cell research), and political institutions.

Methodology – This chapter uses in-depth interviews, ethnographic techniques, and textual analyses to collect data regarding California's 2004 ballot initiative, Proposition 71, The California Stem Cell Research and Cures Act. Data were analyzed using a situational analysis approach. Situational analysis is a variant of grounded theory that organizes data in the form of maps of connections between actors and social worlds.

Findings – This chapter examines the content and significance of this event through the construction of a collective identity among supporters of Proposition 71, what I call “stem cell activists.” The construction of this collective identity serves as an important ground from which individuals and groups carve out political claims of self-representation. Stem cell activists also helped pass a controversial initiative through the efforts in publicly supporting Prop 71 and human stem cell research.

Research limitations – This research is limited in that it only examined individuals who became stem cell activists, and not individuals from whom this identity failed to gain salience. More research is needed to understand the conditions under which this identity becomes incorporated within a person's political repertoire.

Value of chapter – This chapter brings together theoretical perspectives on the symbolic aspects of identity construction and the political economy of biomedical science. This chapter will be of interest to scholars in medical sociology, science and technology studies, and social movement researchers.

This conceptual paper aims to contribute to the growing literature around the “politics of heritage” by focusing on India which has a multifaceted society with several layers of religious culture and history.

The work is based on an extensive review of the literature and philosophical discussions relating to the politics of heritage tourism and the political dimensions of nationalism and ethnicity from an interdisciplinary perspective.

The main purpose of this conceptual paper is to develop hypotheses. Hence, the study asks: How does postcolonial India reconstruct its past and how are religions represented as part of the national image and for the purpose of tourism promotion? How tourism and religious heritage support a broader secular dreamscape of harmonious cultural nationalism in India? Considering all allegations for supporting the Hindutva movement (who considers Hinduism to be the source of India’s “essential” identity and believes it alone can provide national cohesiveness) by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in India, it is worth examining if there are any subtle changes to the tourism agenda created by the new government and the ambivalence surrounding it. Is there any place for the “foreigners” (Muslims and Christians) in Hindutva political ideology? Future scholars can analyze how tourism promotional material represents three major religions in the country by the current Indian Government (i.e. BJP) in its official tourism website: www.incredibleindia.org. This will take “politics of heritage” studies to a different trajectory, as analysis of web media has emerged as a critical medium in understanding numerous social processes.

The paper draws on a wide range of seminal work by scholars of nationalism and ethnicity over the past few decades, but it cannot be comprehensive.

The paper’s originality lies in its novel approach to an understudied aspect in tourism studies (i.e. politics of heritage) and providing suggestions for future research.

Adumbrates that Laud Humphrey’s studies have shaped the debate on sociological methods, they have also distracted from emphasizing his potential contributions to sociological theory. Identifies four themes in Humphrey’s work, which are important to the sociological study of identity. Concludes that Humphreys demonstrates that sexual identity may not be as permanent and fixed as may first appear.

Purpose – This chapter reflects on the interpretation and effects of the term intersectionality within the academy and across a broad spectrum of institutional and grassroots environments in which it is operationalized and deployed.

Design/methodology/approach – Based on the authors’ experiences within the academy and their respective participation as researchers and organizers within feminist, queer, and racial and economic justice movements, the chapter surveys the rhetorical, political, and organizational uses of intersectionality across these realms.

Findings – Five general challenges to intersectional practice are identified and described: misidentification, appropriation, institutionalization, reification, and operationalization. The authors trace these challenges across the academy, grassroots movements, and nonprofit organizations.

Originality/value – Offers a new articulation of intersectional practice as the application of scholarly or social movement methodologies aimed at intersectional and sustainable social justice outcomes.

Purpose: Researchers and advocates alike have noted that persons with disabilities and older persons are the two groups most marginalized by neoliberal economic policies and therefore could come together as a broad-based movement against the roll back of their rights. Yet, these two groups fail to collaborate, and instead compete against one another for an ever-shrinking pool of benefits. This chapter explores the barriers to their collaboration within the context of structural adjustment in Jamaica.

Methods/Approach: The author engages in a critical analysis of neoliberalism's effect on the advocacy strategies of the disability and older persons' movements in Jamaica based on 32 semi-directed depth interviews, participant observation of numerous events, and a survey of media written by local advocates.

Findings: The disability movement makes claims on behalf of their members by focusing on the potential returns that society will gain by providing the opportunities that will make young persons with disabilities productive employees over their lifetime. The older persons' movement advocates by portraying themselves as “vibrant” and worthy of social investment because of the contributions they make. Both of these arguments for inclusion are also exclusionary. The disability movement excludes older persons as potential contributors and the older persons' movement similarly excludes persons with disabilities.

Implications: The only way neoliberalism will successfully be rolled back and universal rights returned is if the disability movement and older persons' movements build an alliance that is more inclusive, including of one another, by rejecting the language of investment and productivity, and instead focus on rights and inherent dignity.