It’s enough to make one want to dust off one’s Hegel, and explain the rise of the populist right as a kind of inevitable antithesis moving through the Weltgeist, a literal reaction to the post-Cold War thesis of liberal internationalism in foreign policy, progressivism in cultural politics, and globalism in finance. Or, alternatively, to dust off one’s Marx and look for common changes in material conditions that might drive people in so many different cultures to an acute anxiety about order — accelerating urbanization, the collapse of village and family hierarchies, a global collapse in the power of labor relative to capital — and an acute distrust of the authorities that claim to maintain it.

Because that is the common thread that runs through all of these diverse cultural and political environments. Anxiety about order traditionally pushes the public to embrace parties of the right, who most credibly promise to restore order, whether we’re talking about fighting crime or preserving a familiar culture. And anger at corruption and elite self-dealing quite naturally drive the public to punish established leadership and give newcomers a try, and to seek out newcomers who viscerally share their frustration. What is the commonality in contemporary conditions, around the world, that has made people in so many countries susceptible to both emotional impulses at once, and powered the global rise of the populist right?