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Can cognitive and evolutionary anthropology explain why many voters are turning to right-wing populists? Bogdan Ianosev and Osman Sahin investigate.

One striking aspect of the coronavirus crisis was the poor response of the right-wing populist leaders to the pandemic in countries such as the US, Britain, and Brazil. Despite this fact, the continuing voter support right-wing populist leaders attract across countries with different socio-economic traits is puzzling. In this paper, we argue in favour of a cognitive anthropological view of populism scholarship. Cognitive and evolutionary anthropology shows that mental systems common to all humans shape the way we understand the world, making some ideas more plausible than others regardless of their levels of accuracy. Even though the action of 'building a wall' to keep illegal migrants away can prove ultimately unfeasible and does not address real immigration issues, due to our cognitive evolution, it makes intuitive sense as a plausible option to reducing immigration. Populist leaders exploit our cognitive intuitions by providing such intractable but oftentimes intuitively-plausible ideas in order to get elected or to promote preferred policies. Furthermore, we intuitively admire powerful individuals and tend to defer to authoritative and charismatic figures as an evolutionary strategy for acquiring valued skills and negotiating hierarchies. As a result, by committing to the intuitively-plausible policies populist leaders promote, such as 'building a wall', they give additional credence to the political beliefs that are based on our cognitive intuitions, effectively increasing their plausibility for the "common folk".

The project of European integration has undergone a succession of shocks, beginning with the Eurozone crisis, followed by reactions to the sudden growth of irregular migration, and, most recently, the Coronavirus pandemic. These shocks have politicised questions related to the governance of borders and markets that for decades had been beyond the realm of contestation. For some time, these questions have been spilling over into domestic and European electoral politics, with the rise of "populist" and Eurosceptic parties. Increasingly, however, the crises have begun to reshape the liberal narrative that have been central to the European project. This book charts the rise of contestation over the meaning of "Europe", particularly in light of the Coronavirus crisis and Brexit. Drawing together cutting edge, interdisciplinary scholarship from across the continent, it questions not merely the traditional conflict between European and nationalist politics, but the impact of contestation on the assumed "cosmopolitan" values of Europe