Populism and Revisionism: World-Making Beyond the Liberal Order

About this event

This talk examines how contemporary populist governments challenge the international order not only through territorial claims or policy disputes, but by contesting the very terms of legitimacy, authority, and sovereignty. Drawing primarily on the case of Turkey, and situating it comparatively alongside Hungary and India the talk conceptualises populism as a political logic that enables revisionism to operate as a form of world-making. Rather than seeking incremental change within existing rules, populist revisionism advances alternative moral and political foundations for domestic and international order, with significant implications for diplomacy, multilateralism, and global governance.

The SFU School for International Studies' Consular Conversations series is a monthly public forum featuring discussions with members of the Consular Corps in Vancouver. These conversations are moderated by Dr. Ricardo Arredondo, an IS Adjunct Professor and Consul General of Argentina. The goal is to bring together the Consular Corps of British Columbia for public lectures that encourage dialogue on issues that transcend borders, explore inspiring topics, and cultivate connections. We invite members of the consular corps of British Columbia and the Simon Fraser University community to join us.

Speakers

Spyros A. Sofos

Sofos is Assistant Professor of Global Humanities at Simon Fraser University. He was previously Senior Fellow at the London School of Economics Middle East Centre (UK) and Lecturer and Researcher at the Lund University Centre for Advanced Middle Eastern Studies and the Joint Faculties of Humanities and Theology (Sweden). His research focuses on populism, nationalism, revisionism, and geopolitics, with particular emphasis on Turkey in comparative perspective. His latest monograph, titled Turkey, Geopolitics and the Age of Populism will appear in 2026 (Routledge). He is the author of Turkish Politics and “The People”; Mass Mobilisation and Populism (Edinburgh University Press), and co-author of Islam in Europe: Public Spaces and Civic Networks (Palgrave MacMillan) and Tormented by History: Nationalism in Greece and Turkey (Hurst and Oxford University Press). His work has appeared in several academic journals, and he regularly contributes to public and policy-oriented debates on populism, political polarisation, and international conflict.

Gerardo Otero

Otero is Professor Emeritus at the School for International Studies at Simon Fraser University. He received his B.A. in Business Administration at the Instituto Technológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM, 1975), an M.A. in Latin American Studies, with a major in Economics, at the University of Texas at Austin (1977), and a Ph.D. in sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1986. Dr. Otero held a faculty appointment at SFU from 1990 to 2025. Gerardo Otero was the 2021/2022 President of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA), and organized its 40th international congress, with the central theme being: Socioenvironmental Polarization and Rivalry Among Great Powers.