Greater economic and cultural openness in the West has not worked for all citizens. Among those who’ve benefitted least, a populist politics of culture and identity has risen to challenge the traditional politics of left and right, creating a new division: between the mobile ‘achieved’ identity of the people from Anywhere, and the more marginalised, roots-based identity of the people from Somewhere. This value divide helps to account for the Brexit vote in Britain, the election of Donald Trump, the decline of the centre-left, and the rise of populism across Europe. David Goodhart’s framework for understanding contemporary politics shows how the Somewhere backlash is a democratic response to the dominance of Anywhere interests in everything from mass higher education to mass immigration and the EU. Goodhart explores the political and moral intuitions that are sharply dividing Brexit Britain, and offers a proposal for a new political settlement.
Speaker
David Goodhart
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