This is On Point, I'm Megna Chakrabardi.

A couple of weeks ago, we ran a five-part special series called The Power of Populism.

It's Global Reach, Authoritarian Threat, and Democratic Promise.

And the series generated a ton of interest and feedback from listeners.

And by the way, if you haven't heard the entire series just yet, you can, at onpointradio.org

or in your podcast feed, just subscribe to On Point, if you haven't already.

Now, in that populism series, we presented this startling fact.

Only 4% of the world's people live in countries that are becoming more democratic.

Just 4%.

Meanwhile, more than a third of people are living in countries that are becoming more autocratic.

Here's economists, Prana Bardam.

All over the world, inequality has been rising and in some countries it's reached grotesque levels.

Inequality has produced strong reaction.

But I personally think while inequality is extremely important,

the way the workers are moving toward these populist demagogues,

most often right-wing extreme demagogues, it is not just inequality.

Because inequality is a left-wing issue.

And then question is, why are people turning right instead of left?

In order to understand that question, you have to grapple with cultural issues

and both economic insecurity, but also I talk about cultural insecurity.

Well, Professor Bardam spoke about that in an hour where we focused on populism in India.

So we didn't actually have adequate time to dig deeply into the roots of cultural insecurity around the world.

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