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Adnan (Dann) Naseemullah @dnaseemullah.bsky.social · 08/09/2025

it on its own terms rather than giving Nigel Farage, the movement's leader, the seriousness of partisan contention. Second and relatedly, if we see Reform as largely a social movement, it requires alternative social movement organizing of our own, to affirm the principle of multiethnic citizenship.

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Adnan (Dann) Naseemullah @dnaseemullah.bsky.social · 08/09/2025

two thoughts on UK politics at this dire moment. First, Reform really seems more like a social movement than a political party, bringing together different groups on a single set of issues through contentious politics. If we treat it as a (reactionary) social movement, then we can address...

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Adnan (Dann) Naseemullah @dnaseemullah.bsky.social · 03/08/2025

Very much looking forward to working with colleagues @osgaoxford.bsky.social @ox.ac.uk and Wolfson College in the autumn! Sad to be leaving colleagues at @warstudieskcl.bsky.social after so many years.

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Adnan (Dann) Naseemullah @dnaseemullah.bsky.social · 27/05/2025

Fantastic to get such a comprehensive and incisive review on Righteous Demagogues from Sefika Kumral in @PacificAffairs -- verklempt! pacificaffairs.ubc.ca/book-reviews...

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Paul Staniland @pstaniland.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

Some thoughts on DOGE/the Trump administration's destruction of USIP, the Wilson Center, and home-grown social science/area studies expertise about the rest of the world: paulstaniland.com/2025/04/16/u...

paulstaniland.com

USIP, the Wilson Center, and the Politics of Wrecking

I recently received this email from Nate Cavanaugh, listed as the “Acting Chairman and President” of the United States Institute of Peace (USIP): It cancelled a contract for a special r…

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Adnan (Dann) Naseemullah @dnaseemullah.bsky.social · 13/04/2025

Indeed, though requires more structural shifts. Europe mostly trying to replicate / compete with a winner take all model involving huge amounts of research grants concentrated in a small number of researchers

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Adnan (Dann) Naseemullah @dnaseemullah.bsky.social · 31/03/2025

After Adolescence, the suits are going to pivot: "but what if the Harry Potter show is a single take every episode"?!

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Adnan (Dann) Naseemullah @dnaseemullah.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

Populism is democratic politics at its most visceral and unnerving -- of conflict and bending norms - that is why it's different from public administration and policy. But populists don't automatically doom democracy, even as they can threaten it and certainly will change it. /fin

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Adnan (Dann) Naseemullah @dnaseemullah.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

I don't think anybody knows the endgame here, but the establishment is powerful, and diverse and hard to coopt unless some factions are ideologically aligned (to one extent or another) with the populist project -- the Modi, Orban playbook. No evidence that this is happening, quite the contrary. 5/

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Adnan (Dann) Naseemullah @dnaseemullah.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

What the pain, fear, chaos and distress of Trump II so far is continuing to declare war on the system, the establishment, the deep state -- a politics of grievance, vengeance. He's trashing much of the state, w/ the help of Musk, in the process. But it's not popular, not a governing strategy. 4/

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Adnan (Dann) Naseemullah @dnaseemullah.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

Transforming the system is hard to do, and these aren't revolutionaries. FDR did it, Cardenas in MX, but it's rare. Moderate and compromise and play golf was a lot of Trump I (with obvious exceptions). Centralize, personalize power is the Modi, Orban playbook but requires other factors. 3/

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Adnan (Dann) Naseemullah @dnaseemullah.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

Once in power, what to do? a) moderate, compromise, enjoy power, and perhaps get voted out (or worse). b) continue a war against the establishment ("the deep state"). c) centralize and personalize power and threaten democracy. d) actually transform the system to help people. 2/

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Adnan (Dann) Naseemullah @dnaseemullah.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

worth noting yet again that populism is a strategy for winning elections, not for governing. It relies on a resonance that the system is broken, and the establishment is uncaring. But successful populists are, more often than not, the dog that caught the firetruck. 1/

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Adnan (Dann) Naseemullah @dnaseemullah.bsky.social · 11/03/2025

Maybe! As academia has grown and grown and gotten more fragmented, it’s not as clear who one would want as a keynote speaker in many conferences — too often, it’s a random famous person who hasn’t actually done any research on the subject but has scribbled some thoughts down.

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Adnan (Dann) Naseemullah @dnaseemullah.bsky.social · 11/03/2025

yet academic poobahs use no of keynotes as criteria for evaluation (“esteem”) these days. Hence continuing demand and thus supply of these monstrosities.

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Adnan (Dann) Naseemullah @dnaseemullah.bsky.social · 10/03/2025

PS: @benansell.bsky.social thanks so much for reopening the debate on the (causes and) consequences of populism!

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Adnan (Dann) Naseemullah @dnaseemullah.bsky.social · 10/03/2025

Most fail though: Boris Johnson & Imran Khan being excellent examples. Trump is heading in this direction as well, but doing a lot of damage while doing so. BUT the roots of successful populist appeals lie in failures of representation. Unless solved, cycles of populism will continue. /fin

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Adnan (Dann) Naseemullah @dnaseemullah.bsky.social · 10/03/2025

... that have diverse consequences, depending on the impact on the party system. Most confront opposition parties, opposition within their own parties, judges, civ society, other actors incl military and security services. Authoritarians like Modi & Orban coopt the latter and starve the former. 2/

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Adnan (Dann) Naseemullah @dnaseemullah.bsky.social · 10/03/2025

Populism is primarily a strategy for getting into power by making claims for moral restoration on behalf of the people, against elites as we argue in global.oup.com/academic/pro... Populism dies on the vine when achieving power, but it also sets up institutional confrontations... 1/

global.oup.com

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Adnan (Dann) Naseemullah @dnaseemullah.bsky.social · 10/03/2025

But the real danger is institutional confrontations and cooptation, plus the weakness of the opposition (thus, Orban, Erdogan, Modi). If not, failure. However, the background conditions in the failures of representation continues, generating populist cycles. global.oup.com/academic/pro...

global.oup.com

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Adnan (Dann) Naseemullah @dnaseemullah.bsky.social · 10/03/2025

Great perspective! What Pradeep and I argue is that populism is a strategy for getting into power, rather than governing, but it sets up confrontations both within parties and with other institutions that determine populism's impact. Thus not surprising that populists tend to flame out in chaos.

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Adnan (Dann) Naseemullah @dnaseemullah.bsky.social · 07/03/2025

The trouble being that we are a craft union that pretends like we’re an industrial union, but with too much heterogeneity of interests and circumstances to assume solidarity. Casework might serve as the basis for that solidarity, but it’s grinding work. /fin

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Adnan (Dann) Naseemullah @dnaseemullah.bsky.social · 07/03/2025

Am heading in to work the bimonthly caseworker drop-in as we speak! There is indeed so much bullying, harassment, inequity in HE that implicate especially the most vulnerable and truly represent the bloody edge of neoliberalism, but need to be handled case by case. 1/

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Adnan (Dann) Naseemullah @dnaseemullah.bsky.social · 03/03/2025

Distinct memory of having an appetizer and a drink without a reservation in a completely empty Balthazar in mid-March.

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Adnan (Dann) Naseemullah @dnaseemullah.bsky.social · 23/02/2025

Earlier Trump boom seems as usual to be correlated to anticipating tax cuts and deregulation. Drop on Friday attributed to declining consumer confidence (as per UMich survey), not sure when that sentiment reverses. Could lead to a flight to bonds, but unclear those will be redeemed in Trump era.

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Adnan (Dann) Naseemullah @dnaseemullah.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

probably thinks you're a weird obsessive and wants you to broaden your interests to calligraphy and literature, no? The robots are concerned for us.

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Adnan (Dann) Naseemullah @dnaseemullah.bsky.social · 03/02/2025

Can one provide for the Common Defense and General Welfare… without spending?

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Adnan (Dann) Naseemullah @dnaseemullah.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

Seems more practicable say five years ago than it is now, when AI operates in a breathless but jumbled lingua where it's hard to separate signal from noise and is always selling the future without really understanding the present.

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Alan Lester @alanlester.bsky.social · 01/01/2025

Delighted to hear that this short film, in which I address comparisons between trans-Atlantic slavery and other historical forms of enslavement, made by www.mjr-uk.com/afterthefloo..., just had its premier at the Kwanzaa film festival in Harlem, New York: player.vimeo.com/video/101761...

player.vimeo.com

Why it Still Matters on Vimeo

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Milan Vaishnav @milanv.bsky.social · 18/12/2024

For the season finale of #GrandTamasha, I sit down with Adnan Naseemullah (@dnaseemullah.bsky.social) & Pradeep Chhibber to discuss their new book, "Righteous Demagogues: Populist Politics in South Asia and Beyond." Listen here: grand-tamasha.simplecast.com/episodes/pop...

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William Hurst @wjhurst.bsky.social · 08/12/2024

Despite significant differences in context, their playbooks reveal a global appeal of right-wing populism in channeling discontent across the world today. @dnaseemullah and Pradeep Chibber explain this eloquently in their recently published book: global.oup.com/academic/pro... 5/5

global.oup.com

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William Hurst @wjhurst.bsky.social · 08/12/2024

Donald #Trump and #Prabowo Subianto share striking similarities as right-wing populist leaders. Both built their political brands on nationalism, strongman personas, and promises to upend the establishment. Here’s a quick breakdown: 🧵 #populism #indonesia #UnitedStates 1/5

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John Springford @johnspringford.bsky.social · 19/11/2024

You know who hasn't had this degree of media support for their financial interests? Disabled people, poor people with more than two kids, public sector workers (after all that clapping for the NHS). I'm not usually a 'blame the media' person but seriously - this is mad

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Adnan (Dann) Naseemullah @dnaseemullah.bsky.social · 19/11/2024

Exempt below £1 million! This is not exactly the repeal of the Corn Laws, chaps.

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Adnan (Dann) Naseemullah @dnaseemullah.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

anyone checked to make sure that Liz Truss hasn't secretly been naturalized and isn't in the running for Treasury Secretary?

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Adnan (Dann) Naseemullah @dnaseemullah.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

like affordability of housing and grocery bills and maybe place a little less emphasis in defending democratic norms (a bit abstract) and being dragged in to culture wars. Tim Walz had it right, actually, but the cake was baked by then, given Biden unpopularity.

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Adnan (Dann) Naseemullah @dnaseemullah.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

election results are always ambiguous! To your point though, and against Remnick, many people were voting against the incumbent, rather than for Trump and racism / misogyny. It suggests a) Trumpism isn't likely to be the same force in '28, and b) Democrats could refocus on material issues...

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Adnan (Dann) Naseemullah @dnaseemullah.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

Yes, growth, so Democratic defeat wasn't a wipeout. but also such a skewed income distribution meant that many people -- certainly, most who voted for Trump, the 50% of Americans not invested in the market -- saw their incomes decline in real terms over the last four years.

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Adnan (Dann) Naseemullah @dnaseemullah.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

also the absolute refusal to see it in comparative terms. There's absolutely no way to understand the (more serious) Tory wipeout of four months ago without understanding inflation as an incumbency-killer.

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