Introduction to special issue: Rethinking populism and democracy in politically turbulent times

This is the introduction to a special edition of Recerca, a Spanish Journal, about the politics of populism and democracy. The challenge of populism is not only a challenge to those who implement, protect and maintain global inequality. These inequalities are also implicated in an ideological commitment to the maximization of resource extraction from the earth, and the exploration of every new frontier – whether it be genetic, informational or material – for the purpose of profit. Such colonial metaphors reflect the continuity between contemporary forms of neoliberalism and the centuries long destruction of the earth and its inhabitants.