Catherine Fieschi

Catherine Fieschi is the director of Counterpoint a research and advisory group that works to provide governments, businesses and NGOs with analysis on how cultural and social dynamics affect politics

Tahrir squared

A functioning state and pride in this functioning state is as much part of the Egyptian identity as the rest. It is precisely this compact of pragmatism, pride and aspiration that need to be understood to make sense of recent events.

By Catherine Fieschi

/ 4 Jul 2013

Who’s afraid of the populist wolf?

Populism may not be entirely coherent (what ideology is in its lived form?) but it has a consistent logic, and a line of distinction along which it treads that marks it out and accounts for its power. We should beware of falling into the many traps it creates for democrats.

By Catherine Fieschi

/ 25 Jun 2013

A plague on both your populisms

Populist movements can bear a strong, but misleading, resemblance to more respectable cousins: movements for democratic accountability. It has now become fashionable even to argue that ‘some populism is good’ - because populism is seen as ‘speaking truth to power’. It’s important therefore for dem

By Catherine Fieschi

/ 19 Apr 2012