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Jan-Werner Müller


Jan-Werner Müller is Professor of Politics at Princeton University.

Jan-Werner Müller

Confronting the Pandemic’s Toxic Political Legacy

Jan-Werner Müller 5th February 2025

Resentment over pandemic policies fuels far-right gains, deepens distrust in science, and reshapes politics in the US and Europe.

From Left to Right and Beyond: The Strange Migration of Political Mavericks

Jan-Werner Müller 5th November 2024

Tulsi Gabbard, RFK Jr., and Sahra Wagenknecht are crossing political lines—are they chasing headlines or revealing deeper political divides?

Let them eat respect?

Jan-Werner Müller 14th February 2022

The idea that social-democratic parties should accommodate anti-immigrant sentiment is not only misguided but empirically wrong.

Can Liberalism Save Itself?

Jan-Werner Müller 13th April 2018

The causes and consequences of what is often described as “the rise of populism” are matters of deep dispute. But if there is one thing everyone can agree on, it is that populism is primarily an attack on liberalism. As such, a number of avowed liberals have authored books in which they take a long, […]

The People Vs. Democracy?

Jan-Werner Müller 9th March 2018

The election result in Italy, where populists and far-right parties topped the polls, following the twin disasters of Brexit in the United Kingdom and Donald Trump’s election in the United States, seems certain to harden a common liberal belief: the people brought these calamities on themselves. “Ordinary citizens,” according to this view, are so irrational […]

Can Movement Politics Renew European Democracy?

Jan-Werner Müller 15th January 2018

Many people expected the big political story of 2017 to be about the triumph of populism in Europe. But things didn’t turn out that way. Instead, the biggest story was about self-styled “movements” upending or replacing traditional political parties. Consider French President Emmanuel Macron’s La République En Marche!, which swept the French presidential and parliamentary […]

How Populists Win When They Lose

Jan-Werner Müller 29th June 2017

Today, it appears that every single election in Europe can be reduced to one central question: “Is it a win or a loss for populism?” Until the Netherlands’ election in March, a populist wave – or, as Nigel Farage, the former leader of the UK Independence Party, put it, a “tsunami” – seemed irresistible. Now, […]

Theresa May’s Other Citizens of Nowhere

Jan-Werner Müller 21st June 2017

British Prime Minister Theresa May has, of her own volition, stripped her Conservative Party of its governing parliamentary majority by calling an early election. If she stays on as prime minister, she will also strip British citizens of the political and economic rights conferred by membership in the European Union. But May’s habit of stripping […]

A Majority Of “Deplorables”?

Jan-Werner Müller 15th November 2016

Barack Obama was right to say that democracy itself was on the ballot in the just-concluded US presidential election. But, with Donald Trump’s stunning victory over Hillary Clinton, do we now know for certain that a majority of Americans are anti-democratic? How should Clinton voters relate to Trump’s supporters and to the new administration? Had […]

The Problem With ‘Illiberal Democracy’

Jan-Werner Müller 27th January 2016

Poland’s turn toward authoritarian rule has set off alarm bells across the European Union and within NATO. Since coming to power in October, Jarosław Kaczyński’s Law and Justice party (PiS) has attacked the country’s Constitutional Court, politicized the judiciary and the civil service, and launched an assault on media pluralism. Critics of the PiS government, […]

Erdoğan And The Paradox Of Populism

Jan-Werner Müller 11th August 2014

The triumph of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey’s first direct presidential election is no surprise. Erdoğan is popular, and, as Prime Minister since 2003, he has been riding a wave of economic success. But he is also a populist, who has steadily tightened his grip on the state and the media, demonizing all critics (including […]

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Spring Issues

The Spring issue of The Progressive Post is out!


Since President Trump’s inauguration, the US – hitherto the cornerstone of Western security – is destabilising the world order it helped to build. The US security umbrella is apparently closing on Europe, Ukraine finds itself less and less protected, and the traditional defender of free trade is now shutting the door to foreign goods, sending stock markets on a rollercoaster. How will the European Union respond to this dramatic landscape change? .


Among this issue’s highlights, we discuss European defence strategies, assess how the US president's recent announcements will impact international trade and explore the risks  and opportunities that algorithms pose for workers.


READ THE MAGAZINE

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WSI Report

WSI Minimum Wage Report 2025

The trend towards significant nominal minimum wage increases is continuing this year. In view of falling inflation rates, this translates into a sizeable increase in purchasing power for minimum wage earners in most European countries. The background to this is the implementation of the European Minimum Wage Directive, which has led to a reorientation of minimum wage policy in many countries and is thus boosting the dynamics of minimum wages. Most EU countries are now following the reference values for adequate minimum wages enshrined in the directive, which are 60% of the median wage or 50 % of the average wage. However, for Germany, a structural increase is still necessary to make progress towards an adequate minimum wage.

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Cohesion Policy

S&D Position Paper on Cohesion Policy post-2027: a resilient future for European territorial equity”,

Cohesion Policy aims to promote harmonious development and reduce economic, social and territorial disparities between the regions of the Union, and the backwardness of the least favoured regions with a particular focus on rural areas, areas affected by industrial transition and regions suffering from severe and permanent natural or demographic handicaps, such as outermost regions, regions with very low population density, islands, cross-border and mountain regions.

READ THE FULL POSITION PAPER HERE

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HESA Magazine Cover

What kind of impact is artificial intelligence (AI) having, or likely to have, on the way we work and the conditions we work under? Discover the latest issue of HesaMag, the ETUI’s health and safety magazine, which considers this question from many angles.

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Eurofound advertisement

Ageing workforce
How are minimum wage levels changing in Europe?

In a new Eurofound Talks podcast episode, host Mary McCaughey speaks with Eurofound expert Carlos Vacas Soriano about recent changes to minimum wages in Europe and their implications.

Listeners can delve into the intricacies of Europe's minimum wage dynamics and the driving factors behind these shifts. The conversation also highlights the broader effects of minimum wage changes on income inequality and gender equality.

Listen to the episode for free. Also make sure to subscribe to Eurofound Talks so you don’t miss an episode!

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