A specter is haunting representative democracy: the specter of populism. With the rise of populist parties and politicians on both the left and the right, scholars have looked for lessons in the democracies of ancient Greece, which dealt with their own “demagogues.” This talk explores the similarities but, more importantly, the profound differences between populists and demagogues. In ancient Greece, the danger was not so much political elites failing to stop a demagogue from becoming a tyrant, but instead an excess of popular fervor triggering elite backlash and the replacement of democracy with oligarchy.

Matthew Simonton is an Associate Professor of History in the School of Humanities, Arts, and Cultural Studies at Arizona State University. His research brings contemporary social science theory to bear on ancient Greek history, particularly political history. He is interested in the ways the Greeks created social and political institutions in response to crises and how those institutions shaped history over time. His first book, "Classical Greek Oligarchy: A Political History" (Princeton University Press, 2017), approaches the phenomenon of Classical Greek oligarchy, or the "rule of the few," from an institutional standpoint, comparing oligarchic political practices to those of contemporary authoritarian regimes. He is currently writing a book on ancient Greek demagogues.