Mudde was the first chair of the Department of Political Science at the University of Antwerp (Belgium) and the co-founder of the ECPR Standing Group on Extremism & Democracy. His research agenda aims to address the question: how can liberal democracies defend themselves against political challenges without undermining their core values? He has published widely on topics such as (un)civil society, democratization, Euroskepticism, extremism and democracy, political parties, and populism. His prime geographical regions of expertise are Europe, both East and West, and North America.
Professor Mudde is an expert on European politics and the foremost scholar on the far right in western democracies. His book Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2007) won the Stein Rokkan Prize in 2008 and was named an Outstanding Academic Title by Choice in 2008. His co-edited volume Populism in Europe and the Americas: Threat or Corrective for Democracy? (Cambridge University Press, 2012) was named an Outstanding Academic Title by Choice in 2013. In 2015 he won the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Award of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Germany and in 2017-18 he was the Belgian Francqui Professor Chair.
He is a former co-editor of the European Journal of Political Research (EJPR) and the Routledge Studies in Extremism & Democracy as well as a former editor of the IPSA Committee on Concepts & Methods (C&M) Working Paper series on Political Concepts and on Political Methodology. Professor Mudde serves, and has served, on the editorial board of many journals, including Acta Politica, European Journal of Political Research, Journal of Politics, Party Politics, Perspectives on Politics, Politics in Central Europe, and Politics, Religion & Ideology.
His most recent book is the co-authored, with with Sivan Hirsch-Hoefler, The Israeli Settler Movement: Assessing and Explaining Social Movement Success (Cambridge University Press, 2021). In 2019 he published The Far Right Today (Polity, 2019), which so far has been translated into almost 10 different languages. Other relatively recent publications include On Extremism and Democracy in Europe (Routledge, 2016), SYRIZA: The Failure of the Populist Promise (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), The Populist Radical Right: A Reader (Routledge, 2017), and The Far Right in America (Routledge, 2018). His co-authored book, with Cristobal Rovira Kaltwasser, Populism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2017), has so far been translated in almost 20 different languages.
He is current working on three new books, which are scheduled to be published in the coming five years. The first is a successor to his award-winning book Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe for Cambridge University Press, provisionally entitled The European Populist Radical Right in the 21st Century. The second is a multi-authored book, with Ann-Cathrine Jungar, Anders Jupskås and Duncan McDonnell, on the youth branches of right-wing populist parties in Europe. And the third is a book on the political transformations in 21st century Europe, to be published by Hurst Publishers, provisionally entitled Politics in Populist Times.
Professor Mudde has been invited to speak at many academic and non-academic meetings worldwide, including at the Council of Europe, the European Parliament, and the World Foresight Forum. He is regularly consulted on issues of extremism and democracy by state and non-state organizations, such as the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (UK), Canadian Security and Intelligence Service, Council of Europe, Global Affairs Canada, Migration Policy Institute, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (ISR), Ministry of Social Affairs (NL), Open Society Institute, Public Safety Canada, Southern Poverty Law Center, Prime Minister’s Office (S), and the US Helsinki Commission. He has appeared on radio and tv (e.g. ARD, BBC, NPR) and is regularly interviewed and quoted by the national and international media (e.g. BBC, CNN, The Economist, Haaretz, Reuters, Der Spiegel, Washington Times) and regularly contributes op-eds to international media.
Professor Mudde is a columnist for the Guardian US and a regular contributor to VoxEurop. SInce June 2020, he hosts the biweekly podcast RADIKAAL, which focuses on the radical aspects of music, politics, and sports.
Mudde’s full list of publications includes 6 single-authored books, 3 co-authored books, 6 edited volumes, 3 readers, 2 special issues/mini-symposiums, ca. 40 refereed journal articles, ca. 60 non-refereed journal articles and book chapters, and some 300 articles in non-academic magazines and newspapers. My work has been published in 27 languages: Arabic, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Dutch, English, Estonian, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mongolian, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, and Turkish. Most publications can be downloaded here.
My most recent publications include:
- The Israeli Settler Movement: Assessing and Explaining Social Movement Success (with Sivan Hirsch-Hoefler). Cambridge University Press, 2021, 295 pp.
- The Far Right Today. Polity, 2019, 205 pp.
- The Far Right in America. London: Routledge, 2018, 140 pp.
- The Populist Radical Right: A Reader. London: Routledge, 2017, 642 pp.
- Populism: A Very Short Introduction (with Cristobal Rovira Kaltwasser). Oxford University Press, 2017, 144 pp.
- SYRIZA: The Failure of the Populist Promise (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 98pp.
- On Extremism and Democracy in Europe. London: Routledge, 2016, 164 pp.
- Youth and the Extreme RIght. New York: IDEBATE, 2014, 224 pp.
- Political Extremism, 4 Volumes, London, etc.: SAGE, 2014, 1576 pp.
