Ritchie Savage
PhD candidate, The New School for Social Research
Expected completion: Spring 2013
Curriculum Vitae (PDF)
Dissertation title
"A Comparative Analysis of Populist Discourse in Venezuela and the United States"
Areas of expertise
Social theory, political sociology, comparative-historical sociology, cultural sociology
Profile:
Ritchie Savage is a PhD candidate in the Department of
Sociology. His work utilizes discourse theory within a
comparative-historical framework to identify similar structures of
political discourse across cases and tie them to transformations in modern
politics. His current research analyzes
the role of populist discursive formations in political contexts from
1945 to the present in Venezuela and the United States.
Dissertation abstract:
My dissertation investigates the way in which populist
discourse is structured in order to appeal to the people and foster multiclass
coalitions. Confronted with the
proliferating usage and ambiguity of the concept, I began my project with the
research question: What is populism? I
discovered three bodies of literature, corresponding to three regions (i.e. the
U.S., Latin America, Western Europe), with contrasting usages of the term. Every combination of comparisons had been
made between the regions, except that there were no systematic comparisons of
populism in the U.S. and Latin America.
Why? And to what level of
phenomena does populism correspond – a type of regime, political tactic, or
discourse? Using the conceptual
framework of populism as discourse, I have analyzed speeches and articles
covering Betancourt’s Democratic Action, Chávez, Senator McCarthy, and the Tea
Party, and I argue that there is an essential structure to populist discourse
revealed in references to the ‘opposition’ as a representation of the
persistence of social conflict. These
references to the opposition are posed against a ‘founding moment of the social,’
which serves as a collective memory of the origins of democracy and strive for
equality. With evidence provided that
this binary structure is present in all of the aforementioned cases, I conclude
that populism is a case of a universal discursive formation, which can emerge
in administrations, social movements, and ideologies with vastly different
characteristics. I utilize this
framework to reveal that instances of populism, which once proved to be
exceptional phenomena within modern forms of political rule, are now becoming
part of the institutionalized structure of democratic politics. My work contributes to the field of political
sociology by showing that a structural approach to political discourse can
bridge empirical and historically specific data with an overarching theory of
transformations in modern politics. I
contribute to comparative-historical sociology by providing an approach that
analyzes cases, in which there are obvious differences and resistances to
comparison, for the purpose of elucidating important overlooked similarities.
Teaching experience:
With seven years of teaching experience, I have developed and taught courses at Pratt Institute and St. John’s University, including Introduction to Sociology, Language and Culture, and Race and Ethnicity. I also held a position as a teaching assistant for Social Thought 1 in the New School University Lecture Program.
Selected publications:
Frth. “From McCarthyism to the Tea Party: Interpreting Anti-leftist Forms of U.S. Populism in Comparative Perspective.” New Political Science, Vol. 34: 4 (December 2012)
2011 “Populist Elements in Contemporary American Political Discourse.” Pp. 169-188 in Sociological Roots and Political Routes, eds. Michaela Benson and Rolland Munro. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell/The Sociological Review, Vol. 58 Special Issue
2008 “Merleau-Ponty’s Use of the Weberian Example: Avoiding Totalizing Meanings in History.” Pp. 73-85 in Max Weber Matters: Interweaving Past and Present, eds. David Chalcraft, Fanon Howell, Marisol Lopez Menendez, Hector Vera. Farnham: Ashgate
Contact information
Ritchie Savage
Department of Sociology
The New School for Social Research
6 East 16th Street, 9th floor
New York, NY 10003
Email: savar647@newschool.edu
