Benjamin Moffitt
Benjamin Moffitt is Senior Lecturer in Politics & International Relations at Monash University. His research is located at the intersection of comparative politics, contemporary political theory and political communications, and focuses on contemporary populism across the globe.
Benjamin joined Monash in 2024. Prior to this, he was Asssociate Lecturer in Politics at Australian Catholic University, and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Uppsala University and Stockholm University, Sweden. He received his PhD from the University of Sydney in 2014, and his BA (Hons) from the University of Wollongong. He has been a visiting researcher at the WZB (Berlin Social Science Centre) and University of Toronto, and is an associate of the Sydney Democracy Network and Uppsala University's Department of Government.
Benjamin is the author of three books on populism: 'Populism' (Polity, 2020), 'Political Meritocracy and Populism: Curse or Cure?' (with Mark Chou & Octavia Bryant, Routledge, 2020), and 'The Global Rise of Populism: Performance, Political Style and Representation' (Stanford University Press, 2016). He is also the co-editor of 'Populism in Global Perspective: A Performative and Discursive Approach' (with Pierre Ostiguy and Francisco Panizza, Routledge, 2021). He has also authored numerous articles and chapters on populism in Australia, New Zealand and Western Europe, as well as the theoretical and media-communicative dimensions of populism. These have appeared in journals including Political Studies and Government & Opposition, and in collections such as The Oxford Handbook of Populism.
Benjamin is currently working on two major projects. The first, funded by the Australian Research Council (2019-2025), is entitled 'The Visual Politics of Populism', and comparatively examines how populists use visual media and how visual media covers populists across the globe. It aims to develop a broader theoretical understanding of the linkages between populism, aesthetics and democracy.
The second, funded by the MM Wallenberg Foundation (2019-2022), is entitled 'Democratic Self-Defense: The Social Model', and is a collaboration with former colleagues at Uppsala University, Sofia Näsström, Paula Blomqvist and Anthoula Malkopoulou. This project examines how democracy can be defended in times of political discontent and democratic instability, with a particular focus on the role of social integration and welfare as opposed to militant or liberal approaches.
Benjamin is also a frequent commentator in the Australian and international press, and his work has appeared in outlets such as The Economist, The Huffington Post, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Bloomberg News, The Conversation, the ABC, and the BBC World Service. In 2018, Benjamin was named one of ABC's inaugural Top 5 researchers in Humanities and the Social Sciences in Australia.
Benjamin joined Monash in 2024. Prior to this, he was Asssociate Lecturer in Politics at Australian Catholic University, and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Uppsala University and Stockholm University, Sweden. He received his PhD from the University of Sydney in 2014, and his BA (Hons) from the University of Wollongong. He has been a visiting researcher at the WZB (Berlin Social Science Centre) and University of Toronto, and is an associate of the Sydney Democracy Network and Uppsala University's Department of Government.
Benjamin is the author of three books on populism: 'Populism' (Polity, 2020), 'Political Meritocracy and Populism: Curse or Cure?' (with Mark Chou & Octavia Bryant, Routledge, 2020), and 'The Global Rise of Populism: Performance, Political Style and Representation' (Stanford University Press, 2016). He is also the co-editor of 'Populism in Global Perspective: A Performative and Discursive Approach' (with Pierre Ostiguy and Francisco Panizza, Routledge, 2021). He has also authored numerous articles and chapters on populism in Australia, New Zealand and Western Europe, as well as the theoretical and media-communicative dimensions of populism. These have appeared in journals including Political Studies and Government & Opposition, and in collections such as The Oxford Handbook of Populism.
Benjamin is currently working on two major projects. The first, funded by the Australian Research Council (2019-2025), is entitled 'The Visual Politics of Populism', and comparatively examines how populists use visual media and how visual media covers populists across the globe. It aims to develop a broader theoretical understanding of the linkages between populism, aesthetics and democracy.
The second, funded by the MM Wallenberg Foundation (2019-2022), is entitled 'Democratic Self-Defense: The Social Model', and is a collaboration with former colleagues at Uppsala University, Sofia Näsström, Paula Blomqvist and Anthoula Malkopoulou. This project examines how democracy can be defended in times of political discontent and democratic instability, with a particular focus on the role of social integration and welfare as opposed to militant or liberal approaches.
Benjamin is also a frequent commentator in the Australian and international press, and his work has appeared in outlets such as The Economist, The Huffington Post, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Bloomberg News, The Conversation, the ABC, and the BBC World Service. In 2018, Benjamin was named one of ABC's inaugural Top 5 researchers in Humanities and the Social Sciences in Australia.
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Books by Benjamin Moffitt
Exploring this puzzle, the authors argue that political meritocracies are simultaneously immune and susceptible to populism. The book maintains that political meritocracy’s focus on the intellect, social skills, and most importantly virtue of political leaders can reduce the likelihood of populist actors rising to power; that meritocracy’s promise of upward mobility for the masses can work against elitism; and that rule by the ‘meritorious’ can help avoid crises, diminishing the political opening for populism. However, it also shows that meritocracy does little to eliminate grievances around political, cultural, and social inequality, instead entrenching a hierarchy – an allegedly ‘just’ one. The book ultimately argues that the more established the system of political meritocracy becomes, the more it opens the door to populist resentment and revolt.
Pitched primarily to scholars and postgraduate students in political theory, comparative politics, Asian studies, and political sociology, this book fills an important scholarly gap.
In this concise and engaging book, leading expert Benjamin Moffitt cuts through this confusion. Offering the first accessible introduction to populism as a core concept in political theory, he maps the different schools of thought on how to understand populism and explores how populism relates to some of the most important concepts at the heart of political debate today. He asks: what has populism got to do with nationalism and nativism? How does it intersect with socialism? Is it compatible with liberalism? And in the end, is populism a good or bad thing for democracy?
This book is essential reading for anyone – from students and scholars to general readers alike – seeking to make sense of one the most important and controversial issues in the contemporary political landscape.
The Global Rise of Populism argues for the need to rethink this concept. While still based on the classic divide between "the people" and "the elite," populism's reliance on new media technologies, its shifting relationship to political representation, and its increasing ubiquity have seen it transform in nuanced ways that demand explaining. Benjamin Moffitt contends that populism is not one entity, but a political style that is performed, embodied, and enacted across different political and cultural contexts. This new understanding makes sense of populism in a time when media pervades political life, a sense of crisis prevails, and populism has gone truly global.
Journal Articles by Benjamin Moffitt
Caiani, 2018
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Koch, 2023
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Luger, 2022
). The current strength of far-right activism – visible in the recent success of far-right parties in European Union – prompts us to pay even more explicit attention to the far right as a phenomenon that operates through and produces multiple spatial configurations. We posit that a useful way to understand the spatiality of far-right activism is the concept of translocalism, which became prominent in geographical research about a decade ago.