Is populism a phenomenon of 2016?

Populism has become one of the buzzwords of 2016. According to Google Trends, worldwide online searches for the term peaked in the week of the US election, where Donald Trump seemingly rode a wave of populism to the White House.

In the UK, the result of the Brexit vote was also widely seen as a victory for populism in the country.

Across mainland Europe the trend continued, with the rise of Marine Le Pen's National Front in France and Geert Wilders in the Netherlands the most prominent examples.

But is this a new phenomenon for 2016? Senior Fellow at Chatham House and expert in populism Professor Matthew Goodwin doesn't think so.

Speaking to IBTimes UK, he said, "I think populism has certainly been with us for many years already. In reality, European party systems have been grappling with populism pretty much since the late 1970s onwards."

"Most, if not all, Western democracies, long before the rise of Donald Trump or Brexit had already been seeing voters abandoning the mainstream parties. Particularly blue collar and lower-middle class voters, who tend to have lower levels of education, and tend to be struggling with globalisation."

The tide of populism does not look to be slowing in 2017 either. With the presidential election in France, and general elections in the Netherlands and in Germany, it seems populist parties in Europe will have the chance to consolidate their rise in popularity.

Goodwin added: "The next two years are going to present, I would suggest, a succession of challenges to the EU in particular and to the Eurozone. Against the backdrop of Brexit and Donald Trump, [these challenges] are going to take this debate that we're having over populism to all new heights."