The Role of Elite Corruption in Today’s Illiberalism

Welcome to Janine Wedel's inaugural lecture as a Kerstin Hesselgrens Visiting Professor: The Role of Elite Corruption in Today’s Illiberalism: Trump as “Trickster,” Why Trumpism is No Accident, and theThis talk, by social anthropologist and public policy professor Janine R. Wedel, examines how the activities of a novel breed of “shadow” or “influence elites” have helped corrode civic trust and fueled the surge in income inequality.  Partly as a result, many citizens in the United States and Europe (notably Poland and Hungary) have turned to demagogic figures who flout both the norms of the rigged system they seek to smash, and the Weltanschauung of the establishment. The talk will explore why people turn to them, Donald Trump’s role as “trickster,” and how Trump and other taboo-breaking, system-busting leaders govern once in power. 

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