What has prompted the dramatic rise of anti-establishment politics in recent years? And why has this development taken a progressive form in some countries while taking a nativist form in others? For John Brown, “populism” is a result oftoo littledemocracy. In Europe, he observes, neoliberal de-democratization and austerity have led to an increase in anti-immigration sentiment. In Latin America, by contrast, the presence of powerful popular movements has prevented such scapegoating and tipped the balance in favor of progressive forces. This highlights the importance of social mobilization and credible leftwing alternatives.

The rise of the nativist far right in Europe and North America has brought back an old question: what makes liberal societies so vulnerable to far-right extremism? Focusing on the canary in the coalmine (the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party in Greece), a trio of Greek researchers highlight the role of the country's deep socio-economic crisis and the rapid implosion of its centrist establishment parties. We should be warned: with another global recession on the horizon, the familiar pattern of nativist backlash to socio-economic insecurity could easily be repeated.

Greece is not the only European country to have experienced a nativist backlash at the polls. The electoral advances of Marine Le Pen in France can be taken as another important symptom of Europe's democratic crisis. What role has European economic integration played in this development? Julia Lux dispels the claim that Le Pen is simply a result of the EU undermining France's national sovereignty. Instead, she locates the growing popularity of the far right in the marginalization of anti-capitalist discourse by the neoliberal turn towards technocracy.

Today's central banks stand as the very emblems of this neoliberal turn towards technocracy. We know that their much-vaunted “independence” is really a code word for their insulation from democratic pressures. But where did this technocratic idea of central bank independence originate? Adriano do Vale demonstrates that the roots of the concept go back much further than commonly recognized: at least to the 1920s. This is an interesting text to read alongside recent histories like Quinn Slobodian's Globalists and Jamie Martin's The Meddlers, which also trace the origins of neoliberal thought and economic governance back to the interwar period.

The past decade has seen a huge amount of new literature highlighting neoliberalism's antagonistic relationship with democracy. Yet many recent contributions still fail to recognize the racialized dimension behind this – especially in the context of the Global South. In this article, Lars Cornelissen provides an important corrective. Turning to neoliberal discussions of post-colonial self-determination in the postwar period, he shows that “these discussions were steeped both in racialized tropes and in more explicitly racial theories, which served to enframe post-colonial peoples as 'civilizationally immature' and hence unfit for democratic rule.”

If neoliberalism is all about insulating economic policy from democratic pressures, we should not be surprised to observe a growing gap between the political preferences of citizens and real-world policy outcomes. In 2014, Gilens and Page published aninfluential studythat revealed a clear representation gap in the US. Zoe Lefkofridi and Nathalie Giger find something similar for the EU: their study shows that the poor are systematically underrepresented in the European Parliament and Council, leading these institutions to take political positions that are always to the right of the preferences of most citizens and closer to the views of the wealthy.

If neoliberalism is all about insulating economic policy from democratic pressures, we should not be surprised to observe a growing gap between the political preferences of citizens and real-world policy outcomes. In 2014, Gilens and Page published an influential study that revealed a clear representation gap in the US. Zoe Lefkofridi and Nathalie Giger find something similar for the EU: their study shows that the poor are systematically underrepresented in the European Parliament and Council, leading these institutions to take political positions that are always to the right of the preferences of most citizens and closer to the views of the wealthy.

The legitimation crisis of the advanced capitalist democracies is closely intertwined with the socio-economic consequences of financialization and the financial crisis of 2008. How did these same developments impact China? In this article, Shenjing He, Mengzhu Zhang and Zongcai Wei show that China is not immune to the legitimation problems of financialized capitalism. The Chinese state, too, has been forced to contend with the threat of growing social discontent triggered by the economic recession of 2008. The result has been a pattern of “over-intervention” by the state, leading to a “crisis of crisis management.”

The tensions between technocratic rationality and democratic representation are not limited to economic policy. The failure of many advanced capitalist democracies to address the climate crisis has led some to wonder whether democracy may be holding back the green transition. Should we place environmental policy in the hands of technocratic experts instead? Amanda Machin answers firmly in the negative: what we need is more democracy, not less. Without “the creative power of the demos,” we will not be able to address the looming environmental crisis.

How will the world respond to the planetary crisis of climate change and ecological destruction? As efforts at decarbonization continue to fall short of stated objectives, there has been a notable increase in proposals for geo- and climate engineering. Here, Columba Peoples critically interrogates such proposals, identifying them as part of a “technopolitics of planetary crisis management” that is narrowly geared towards securing the survival of “market civilization.” If this vision prevails, he warns, it will likely deepen the global crisis of inequality and insecurity.

How will the climate crisis impact the future of capitalism? In this case study of Canada, the country with the highest per capita carbon emissions in the G20, William K. Carroll dissects the political economy of fossil capitalism and argues that we can already detect the early stirrings of a “passive revolution” by corporate and political elites that will eventually lead towards a new form of green capitalism. In opposition to this hegemonic ruling class project, Carroll explores the potential for an anti-hegemonic project of energy democracy, opening onto eco-socialism.