In the wake of Romania’s high-turnout 2025 presidential election, Dr. Vladimir Bortun offers a powerful analysis of how deep-rooted economic insecurity—fueled by decades of neoliberal reform—has driven support for the far right. Despite a centrist victory, nationalist George Simion’s strong performance underscores a broader post-crisis populist consolidation. In this exclusive ECPS interview, Dr. Bortun explores the AUR’s appeal among the diaspora and rural poor, the ideological vacuum left by the mainstream left, and how Romania exemplifies a wider European shift from democratic to authoritarian neoliberalism. A must-read for anyone interested in the structural dynamics behind Europe’s populist realignment.
Romania’s 2025 presidential election represented a pivotal moment for the country’s democratic trajectory and its place within the broader European political landscape. In a high-stakes runoff, centrist candidate and pro-European reformer Nicușor Dan secured a clear victory over George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR). With the highest voter turnout in a quarter-century and the specter of a previously annulled election looming large, the vote was widely interpreted as a referendum on Romania’s political future—particularly on the tension between liberal democracy and the rising tide of far-right populism. Despite Simion’s defeat, his strong first-round performance and continued popularity signaled a deeper, more durable undercurrent of reactionary politics in Romania.
Against this backdrop, the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS) spoke with Dr. Vladimir Bortun, a lecturer at the University of Oxford and an expert on European politics, transnational party networks, and left-populist movements. With unique insight into both the structural drivers and class dynamics underpinning political realignments in Romania and beyond, Dr. Bortun offers a compelling analysis of how economic insecurity—rooted in decades of neoliberal reforms, mass emigration, and systemic inequality—has created fertile ground for the rise of the far right.
In this wide-ranging interview, Dr. Bortun reflects on how the socioeconomic legacies of Romania’s post-1989 transition have failed to deliver on their liberal democratic promises, especially for large swaths of the population living in poverty or working precariously. He argues that this deep economic discontent, compounded by the collapse of credible left-wing alternatives and the ideological convergence of the center-left and center-right, has allowed far-right actors like Simion and AUR to present themselves as anti-establishment voices—even as their own policies serve entrenched economic elites.
Crucially, Dr. Bortun situates Romania within a broader European context, where authoritarian neoliberalism is increasingly replacing the post-Cold War liberal consensus. He draws instructive comparisons with Poland, France, and Southern Europe, exploring how the mainstreaming of far-right rhetoric and policy by centrist parties—particularly around immigration and national sovereignty—has reshaped the ideological field.
By examining the rise of AUR’s support among the Romanian diaspora and among marginalized rural voters, Dr. Bortun challenges simplistic narratives about populism and brings attention to the lived realities of class, exclusion, and political abandonment. As he makes clear, the battle over Romania’s future is not only political or cultural—it is fundamentally about economic power, ownership, and whose voices get to shape the nation’s path forward.
Dr. Vladimir Bortun, a lecturer at the University of Oxford and an expert on European politics, transnational party networks, and left-populist movements.
Here is the lightly edited transcript of the interview with Dr. Vladimir Bortun.
Neoliberalism Created the Perfect Storm
Professor Vladimir Bortun, thank you so very much for joining our interview series. Let me start right away with the first question:Given Simion’s stronger-than-expected first-round lead and his continued appeal despite being defeated in the runoff, how would you theorize the durability of far-right populism in Romania beyond the electoral cycle? Can this be conceptualized within a broader post-crisis populist consolidation rather than a mere reactionary surge?
Dr. Vladimir Bortun: That’s a very important question. First of all, thank you again for the invitation. I should clarify that I’m not a professor yet—just a lecturer.
To go straight into the topic: recent academic literature has shed significant light on the key drivers behind the rise of the populist far right across borders. While there are, of course, multiple factors at play—and we will explore some of them—the most consistent driver across all contexts is economic insecurity, rooted in decades of neoliberal globalization.
These conditions have only worsened in the aftermath of the 2007–2008 crisis, which—as you mentioned—took a particularly austerity-driven form in Europe, shaped by how both European institutions and national governments responded. Romania was no exception.
To provide some context on the socioeconomic situation in Romania: after 35 years of neoliberal capitalism and roughly 18 years since joining the European Union—which has brought certain benefits but, for many Romanians (including those who have supported the far right), has failed to fulfill its initial promises—we are now facing deeply concerning indicators.
Approximately 45% of the population lives in poverty or on the brink of it—the highest percentage in the European Union, meaning nearly half the population is affected. Romania also ranks first or second in terms of in-work poverty. Moreover, it allocates the lowest—or among the lowest—shares of GDP to healthcare, education, and social protection.
After Ireland, Romania has the lowest tax collection capacity in the European Union. It also maintains some of the lowest tax rates in the EU. There is a 10% flat income tax, which disproportionately affects workers and employees—particularly because, in addition to this tax, they are also responsible for paying social contributions that were previously covered by employers. These include contributions to healthcare and pensions.
Unsurprisingly, this flat tax structure primarily benefits the wealthier segments of society. In addition, Romania has a corporate tax rate of 16%, one of the lowest in the European Union.
These are clearly the right conditions for economic insecurity—fertile ground for the rise of the far right. But it’s not only the poorest in society that we should consider. Economic insecurity affects various social classes and class fractions.
In Romania, it has had a particularly strong impact on the petty bourgeoisie—small and medium-sized entrepreneurs—who have been closing down their businesses at an increasing rate over the past few years, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic. I believe the pandemic represents another critical crisis that must be factored into any explanation of the far right’s rise. These small and medium entrepreneurs, going bankrupt by the thousands, form a core component of the far right’s social base.
Nationalism Meets Neoliberalism in a Peripheral Economy
People in traditional national costume return from Sunday church service in Maramureș, Romania—a region renowned for preserving its cultural heritage. Photo: Theodor Bunica.
How would you situate the AUR’s electoral messaging—particularly its nationalist-economically neoliberal synthesis—within the wider genealogy of post-2008 far-right formations in Europe? Is there a uniquely Romanian hybrid emerging, or does AUR largely mirror external templates?
Dr. Vladimir Bortun:There are certain similarities with the broader profile of the European far right. There is clearly this populist discourse they employ, which is built on the dichotomy between the “pure people” and the “corrupt elite.”The elite, as in other countries, is portrayed as those who have sold out our country—who don’t represent the interests of our country but rather represent foreign interests, globalist interests. And of course, other undesirable categories in society are targeted as well, such as the LGBTQ community and immigrants from non-European countries, who have started to come to Romania in recent years as cheap labor—these are the usual suspects in far-right rhetoric.
At the same time, there is an element of truth in relation to the domination of foreign interests in Romania. Foreign companies hold a dominant position in key sectors of the economy, such as the energy sector, manufacturing—especially the auto industry—and the banking sector. They make huge profits in Romania, which they then repatriate to their home countries rather than reinvesting, even partially, in the Romanian economy.
Foreign banks, in particular, are guilty of this kind of profit repatriation from Romania, and this has generated a level of dissatisfaction that can also be observed in other countries. For example, in Poland, there is a very interesting study on the role of “comprador bankers” in the rise to power of the Law and Justice Party (PiS), which governed the country for about a decade. These comprador bankers were Polish managers of foreign bank subsidiaries who eventually came to realize that these foreign banks were operating in Poland solely to extract profit—profits that were then repatriated to their home countries, rather than being reinvested in the Polish economy. They did not, for instance, offer affordable or advantageous loans to Polish businesses. In response, some of these managers rebelled against the model and aligned themselves with the national capitalist hegemonic project advanced by PiS.
So, there is an element of what I would call the “comprador professional managerial class” that has served foreign capital in these peripheral Central and Eastern European countries, now fighting back against this foreign capital domination—in coalition with the domestic capitalist class. Particularly, those fractions of the domestic capitalist class that are trying to secure the sectors where they are still dominant—especially in Romania, such as real estate, construction, and hospitality.
The party you mentioned—AUR—led by Simion, who lost the election, is heavily funded by segments of the domestic capitalist class, particularly in the construction, real estate, and hospitality sectors. These actors are seeking to ring-fence and protect their interests from foreign capital, while also attempting to gain state power in order to advance those interests.
This project of the national bourgeoisie reclaiming state power is a common regional feature across Central and Eastern Europe. Hungary, Poland, and now Romania exhibit this pattern. I would even argue that it extends beyond the region—to Turkey, for example. Correct me if I’m wrong, but the Erdogan project seems to share similar characteristics, as far as I understand.
Now, regarding the distinctive features of the Romanian case—since I’ve already outlined some of the common regional characteristics—there are two aspects that stand out about the Romanian far right. I would highlight these two features, and perhaps we’ll focus on one of them in the following questions.
The first is their particular appeal to the diaspora. The diaspora represents a significant portion of their social base, and I’ll elaborate later on why they’ve been so successful in mobilizing this group.
The second distinctive feature is their appeal to farmers. Romania has the highest share of the workforce employed in agriculture in the entire European Union—between 18% and 20% of the total workforce. To give you a sense of how high this is: the second-ranked country in the EU is Poland, with only 10% of its workforce in agriculture. France, despite having a strong agricultural sector, has just 2.4% of its workforce employed in this field.
So, this is a huge sector in Romania, and the vast majority of these people working in agriculture are subsistence farmers. They are small farmers who feel like nobody is looking after their interests. The state is perceived as only overburdening them with regulations and taxation, while favoring the interests of big foreign corporations. And the far right is managing to build inroads into this significant social class in Romania.
A Left in Name, Neoliberal in Practice
Crin Antonescu, the pro-European presidential candidate, speaks during the Social Democratic Party (PSD) Congress in Bucharest, Romania, where he was officially confirmed as the party’s nominee on February 2, 2025. Photo: Dreamstime.
How do you interpret the apparent paradox between widespread socioeconomic grievances and the relative electoral failure of redistributive political platforms, particularly in the light of the Social Democratic Party’s strategic vacillation and policy convergence with the right?
Dr. Vladimir Bortun: That’s the key factor from a subjective perspective. I’ve tried to talk about the objective factors, but in terms of the subjective conditions, clearly the key factor that has facilitated the rise of the far right—not just in Romania, but across the region and beyond—is the lack of a credible left-wing political project.
And the current left party, the center-left party you’ve mentioned—the PSD—is left in name, but not in substance, not in policy. They have actually governed for the majority of these 35 years of neoliberal capitalism—more or less 20 of those 35 years have seen them in government. So, they have implemented some of the very policies I mentioned earlier, which are responsible for the current socioeconomic conditions.
The very minimal social concessions they have made in terms of redistribution while in government have been largely limited to increasing the minimum wage—which is, of course, better than nothing. This partly explains why they remain the most voted-for party in Romania.
However, these measures are far from sufficient. Despite repeated increases over the past six or seven years, the minimum wage remains very low—about 30% below what would be considered a living wage in Romania, that is, the income necessary for a decent standard of living.
Moreover, Romania has the highest share of its workforce earning the minimum wage. Nearly 40% of all workers are on minimum wage—twice the EU average.
So, we are a minimum-wage economy, a low-taxation economy, and a low public spending economy. Romania is pretty much a paradigmatic case of neoliberalism—and the PSD is very much responsible for this. It is arguably the single most responsible political party for this situation.
Proletarians Abroad, Petit Bourgeois at Home
With over 60% of the diaspora backing Simion in the first round, what implications does this have for the dominant narratives that have historically cast diasporic Romanians as liberalizing or pro-European agents?
Dr. Vladimir Bortun:That’s a significant shift indeed! And it started already in 2020, when the party AUR—which, by the way, stands for the Alliance for the Union of Romanians, but the acronym aur also means “gold” in Romanian— from the very beginning targeted its message toward the diaspora. They even called the diaspora “the gold of Romania” that they wanted to bring back to the country.
The party was launched in the diaspora in December 2019, one year before the first elections in which they stood candidates. Their launch meeting took place in the UK, among Romanians living there—not in Romania. So, from the outset, they were oriented toward the diaspora, and they managed to appeal to it in several ways.
On the one hand, this diaspora is not one unified entity; it consists of several diasporas. We’re talking about five million people, which is a quarter of Romania’s total population. They live very different lives in the West of Europe. Some of them live in quite squalid conditions, working very hard jobs for low wages, in poor environments, with little respect and little sense of being treated equally.
There is a widespread feeling among them that Romanians are treated as second-class citizens. Many are temporary or circular migrants—working on a construction site for three or four months, then returning to Romania, or working seasonal jobs picking vegetables on farms in Italy, Spain, the UK, or Germany, and then going back.
They don’t have a favorable context for integration or for deeper socialization in the host countries. But let’s be honest—those host countries themselves have experienced a surge in far-right politics. The far right is now much more mainstream in Western Europe than it was 10 or 20 years ago, when these migrants may have been sending back more liberal kinds of social remittances.
These societies have shifted significantly to the right. Anti-immigration discourse has become more mainstream, normalized, and legitimized—and Romanians living there have internalized some of that discourse.
In my own fieldwork, I often came across people who, despite being migrants themselves and suffering from anti-immigration attitudes and discourse, were nevertheless against other groups of migrants. They distinguished themselves from them—talking about “good migrants” and “bad migrants.” There is a real cognitive dissonance at play here, where migrants adopt anti-migration attitudes and political preferences.
Another aspect is that many feel Romania is a peripheral country that lacks a real voice in the European Union and in the broader global political stage. They perceive Romania as subordinated economically and geopolitically—which is true.
So, when a populist demagogue like Simion comes along and says, “I will make Romania stand tall again in the EU and in the world,” it resonates. It gives them a sense of restored dignity and pride.
Meanwhile, all the other political parties—including the PSD—are utterly uncritical in their allegiance to the EU, NATO, and the West in general. They refuse to acknowledge the real problems Romanians face, both in terms of their living conditions in the diaspora and in terms of Romania’s position within international power structures.
These parties speak only about the benefits and advantages of being part of these institutions, without addressing the contradictions, the challenges, or the structural disadvantages of Romania’s position in the European and international economic and political system. This, of course, creates a window of opportunity for the far right to come in and capitalize on people’s sense of marginalization and humiliation.
One additional point is that many of these migrants, as I mentioned, are circular or temporary migrants. They may be working blue-collar jobs abroad, but they’ve managed to accumulate enough capital to open a small business back home in their town or village of origin. This means they occupy a complex, dual class position: proletarians abroad, petit bourgeois at home. When they return home, after years of hard work abroad to save capital and open a small guesthouse, café, restaurant, or corner shop, they feel the state does nothing for them.
Instead, they feel overburdened by taxation. Increases in the minimum wage are perceived as a burden because they are now small employers who have to pay two, three, or four salaries. They blame the state—but they also blame those below them: people on minimum wage, or on welfare benefits, whom they see as lazy or asking for too much. They see themselves as the real hard-working people who have sacrificed abroad to invest in the Romanian economy—only to be abandoned by the state, which should be protecting their interests.
I think this is very important. I’m not saying it’s unique to Romania, but it is very salient here—and perhaps not as salient a feature in the social base of the far right in other European countries.
A Race to the Bottom Among Migrants
Building on your work on transnational political mobilization, how should we understand the AUR’s success among emigrants in Italy and Spain? Do these cases indicate a diasporic production of illiberal subjectivities shaped by specific host-country political contexts?
Dr. Vladimir Bortun:I think I already touched on this in my previous answer. However, Italy and Spain are particularly illustrative of some of the dynamics I outlined earlier—especially Italy, where the far right has been in power for the past two and a half years.
In that context, migrants often find themselves in a race to the bottom, trying to prove they are more deserving than other migrant groups. I encountered numerous cases of Romanian migrants in Italy—or former migrants who had lived there for many years—expressing very negative attitudes toward Moroccan or Albanian migrants, for example.
Some even told me they had voted for the Northern League, now known as La Lega—Salvini’s party—which was the original far-right populist force before Brothers of Italy surpassed it in popularity. Ironically, this is a party that had made openly anti-Romanian statements in the Italian press. Nevertheless, this became their way of attempting to carve out a place for themselves—by identifying someone “below” them to target as the “bad” migrant.
In Spain, we see a similar surge with the Vox party over the last few years. It is now the third-largest political force in Spain—a country where the far right was outside of Parliament for decades.
Again, we’re talking about a Romanian diaspora that has suffered a lot of discrimination and marginalization. It took a long time for this community to settle. But there is also a split within these diasporas, as I mentioned—between the more settled, integrated diaspora, and the precariously employed, circular, temporary migrants who come and go and who cannot really find a foothold in these countries.
The Center Imitates, but the Far Right Dominates
Comparing Romania’s recent presidential runoff to parallel dynamics in Poland and Portugal, to what extent can we speak of converging or diverging trajectories in the European center-right’s strategy to contain or accommodate far-right surges?
Dr. Vladimir Bortun: I think we see a very strong trend of accommodation of the far right—and not just from the center-right, but also from the center-left. In Denmark, for example—going a bit outside the region—the Social Democratic Party currently in government has adopted one of the harshest anti-immigration policies in Europe. And this trend extends further. Even here in the UK, the Starmer-led Labour Party has adopted many of the talking points not just from the Conservative Party but also from Reform UK. Just the other day, Starmer was speaking about Britain being “a country of strangers,” “an island of strangers” due to mass migration, according to him. Apparently, that makes me a stranger here.
There is a growing body of literature—by scholars like Aurelien Mondon and Aaron Winter—that refers to this as the mainstreaming of the far right: the normalization of reactionary ideas and policies. And this applies not just to rhetoric, but to actual policymaking, with both center-right and center-left parties adopting positions in an attempt to win back voters lost to the far right.
But as the saying goes, “the original is better than the copy.” People who want to vote for the far right for reactionary reasons—because they oppose immigration, for example—are unlikely to switch to the center-left just because it has adopted similar anti-immigration tropes. They will continue to vote for the far right. And we have seen this across the board.
The one Social Democratic party currently in power in Western Europe—in the EU at least—is in Spain. And they have resisted the temptation to go in this reactionary direction on issues like immigration and other topics dear to the far right. On the contrary, in some ways they have been an example of what a progressive government can and should say on key issues of our time, including the atrocities we are seeing in Gaza. They are, of course, not a perfect government—they have many flaws and shortcomings. But they demonstrate that it is still possible to stay true to Social Democratic values and policies and win elections. And that’s just speaking from a pragmatic point of view.
Corruption Isn’t the Cause—It’s the Symptom of a System
Protesters gather for the 13th consecutive day in front of Victoria Palace, the government headquarters in Bucharest, Romania, on February 12, 2017. Over 50,000 demonstrators rallied against controversial corruption reforms, illuminating the night with their mobile phones and forming the national flag with colored paper and cellophane. Photo: Dreamstime.
What insights might Romania’s 2025 election offer for understanding the evolving relationship between anti-corruption discourse and far-right populism, especially when contrasted with the cases of Poland’s Law and Justice or France’s National Rally?
Dr. Vladimir Bortun: That’s a very interesting question. I think, on the one hand, the far right’s collusion with corrupt and clientelist practices shows that, after all, they are not such a real alternative to the mainstream parties they criticize. They are quite happy to engage in the same kind of bad politics that the mainstream parties are guilty of.
On the other hand, while corruption is indeed a major issue in Romania—as it is in many other countries—it is often framed in a very legalistic or even moralistic way, as if it’s simply a flaw of character or the result of an inefficient state bureaucracy.
In this sense, corruption is frequently instrumentalized ideologically to justify the further shrinking of the state and additional cuts to public spending. For example, it’s often claimed that there’s widespread corruption in the welfare system—even though Romania already allocates the lowest percentage of its GDP to welfare in the entire European Union.
Nevertheless, this anti-corruption mantra remains highly salient in public discourse.
The anti-corruption discourse has thus been used to legitimize harsh austerity and neoliberal measures. At the same time, when actions are taken against corruption—such as jailing corrupt politicians—they often remain at a superficial, legalistic level.
This approach is ineffective against the far right. In the United States, we saw the democratic establishment spend four years trying to go after Trump through legal channels—and yet Trump still won the election. Le Pen has been barred from standing in elections, and her party continues to grow in the polls. It’s certainly not declining.
In Romania, the Constitutional Court canceled the November election and barred the winning candidate, Georgescu. Yet the person who replaced him—Simion—secured double the percentage in the first round. It didn’t work.
I’m not saying such measures shouldn’t be taken—if there is a legal basis for them, then by all means, pursue them. But we need to recognize that this is not a real solution to tackling the far right.
On the subject of corruption, an important point must be made beyond its ideological instrumentalization. Corruption is a real issue that must be addressed, but it is often decontextualized.
Corruption needs to be understood as a key vehicle for the primitive accumulation of capital—something characteristic of any early stage in the development of capitalism, in any country, at any point in history.
Corruption, along with other violent forms of capital accumulation, has always been present—even in so-called advanced, consolidated democracies that have practiced capitalism for a longer time. Corruption played a massive role in the emergence of capitalism and continues to play a central role in capital accumulation today.
After all, the dirty money of drug cartels, criminal syndicates, and authoritarian regimes around the world is largely laundered through the City of London—the very heart of global capital. So, if we truly want to tackle corruption, we need to go to the root of the problem and understand it as part of a broader structural and systemic issue.
From Democratic Neoliberalism to Its Authoritarian Mutation
Lastly, from a historical-comparative perspective, how does the Dan–Simion runoff recalibrate the ideological field established in the 1990s transition era? Are we witnessing a definitive exhaustion of post-1989 liberal centrism or its tactical reanimation?
Dr. Vladimir Bortun: This is a great question. There have been repeated claims about the death of the neoliberal center over the past 15 years—after the financial crisis, for instance. There were suggestions that neoliberalism was coming to an end, and that we would see a return to a more Keynesian type of economic model. That didn’t happen. Instead, we got more neoliberalism—more austerity, more privatizations, more deregulation, more flexibilization of the workforce.
Then, again, after the COVID-19 pandemic, there were claims that this marked the death of neoliberalism, especially given the forceful intervention of the state to keep societies afloat—or more accurately, to keep the accumulation of capital going. But again, that was temporary. Neoliberalism has returned in full force.
Now we are witnessing the militarization of Europe, with promises of spending cuts on the most important public services in society in order to fund military efforts. So, I’m afraid we are not seeing the end of neoliberal centrism, but rather its transformation into something more authoritarian—still neoliberal, but authoritarian. A shift, if you will, from democratic neoliberalism to authoritarian neoliberalism.
This transformation is being endorsed by the political center, which is increasingly adopting authoritarian measures across Europe. Here in the UK, the so-called center-left government has imprisoned individuals not for taking part in a protest, but simply for holding a Zoom meeting to plan one—specifically, a protest against environmental destruction. They were not punished for blocking a motorway, but merely for discussing civil disobedience in response to the climate crisis. This illustrates a clear shift toward authoritarianism. Yet when it comes to economic policy, there is a striking convergence between centrist parties and the far right.
The far right claims to be an alternative to the status quo and capitalizes on the grievances, socioeconomic anxiety, and insecurity of ordinary people. But if we look at their actual policy proposals—or, in places where they are in power, their actual policymaking—it’s more of the same. They might throw a few crumbs to ordinary people, to the popular classes, in order to maintain their support. But the bulk of their economic agenda still serves the business class and the wealthy—just different factions of the business class and wealthy than those typically represented by centrist parties.
Date: May 22-23, 2025 Venue: University of Warsaw, Krakowskie Przedmiescie 26/28, 00-927, Warsaw
This two-day symposium will explore different aspects of the interplay between populism, religion, and civilizationism from local, national, transnational, international and global perspectives. Evaluating their combined impact on plural societies, intergroup relations, social cohesion and democratic institutions, the symposium will analyze how populists from diverse cultural, geographical, and political contexts both in Global North and Global South interact with and employ religion, civilizationism and digital technologies in their discourses and performances.
Populism has emerged as a defining feature of contemporary politics, exerting profound local, national, international, and global influences. Increasingly, it has become part and parcel of states’ transnational activities in constructing and reaching out to their “peoples” outside of their nation-state boundaries. The rise of digital technologies and the rapid advances in AI applications have only intensified the impact of populism, locally, transnationally and globally.
Often characterized as a “thin ideology,” populism operates alongside core/thick ideologies such as socialism, neoliberalism, racism, or religion, serving as a potent force for impacting emotions, mobilizing the masses, shaping public opinion and securing (or seizing) political power. Within this context, civilization —in some cases — serves as a metanarrative through which populists emphasize distinctions and escalate antagonistic relations among ‘the people” and ‘others,’ usually along religious lines. Civilizational populism not only employs the traditional ‘us’ versus ‘them’ rhetoric but also accentuates cultural, civilizational and religious identities, intensifying conflicts within, beyond and between nations. Civilizational populist discourses have also initiated discussions on transnationalism, south-south cooperation, globalization, and multipolarity, thereby potentially influencing international relations.
In this new and rapidly changing context dominated by uncertainty on many levels, the symposium will focus on the complexity of populism not only from different disciplinary perspectives but also across multiple political, religious, and cultural groups beyond the North/South divide. The symposium also aims to provoke discussions on innovative ways to think about the policy implications of this complex phenomenon in cyberage.
Organizing Institution
European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS) (Brussels)
Hosting Institution
Centre for Europe, University of Warsaw (Warsaw)
Partner Institutions
Georgetown University (Washington DC)
University of Birmingham (Birmingham)
Deakin University (Melbourne)
DAAD / Cambridge University
University of Duisburg-Essen, Institute of East Asian Studies
Centre for International Relations (Warsaw)
Program Flow
DAY ONE – May 22, 2025
Adress: Sala Kolumnowa, Faculty of History, University of Warsaw, Krakowskie Przedmiescie 26/28, 00-927.
Welcoming Coffee
(08:30 – 09:00)
Opening Ceremony
(09:00 – 09:40)
Moderator
Dr. Azize Sargın (Director for External Relations, ECPS).
Welcome Remarks
Dr. Kamil Zajączkowski (Professor of International Relations, Director of the Centre for Europe, Warsaw University).
Irina von Wiese (Honorary President of ECPS, Lawyer, Academic, former MEP, and Councilor in the London Borough of Southwark).
Dr. Malgorzata Bonikowska (Professor of International Affairs and European Studies, President of the Center for International Relations).
Opening Speeches
Dr. Adam Bodnar (Minister of Justice of Poland / (Video Recording).
“A Relational Approach to Religion and Populism: Recontextualizing Civilizational Narratives in National and Global Contexts,” by Dr. Jocelyne Cesari(Professor and Chair of Religion and Politics at the University of Birmingham, UK, and Senior Fellow at the Berkeley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University).
Panel 1
(10:05 – 11:30)
Populism: Is It a One-way Route from Democracy to Authoritarianism?
Moderator
Dr. Erkan Toguslu(Researcher at the Institute for Media Studies at KU Leuven, Belgium).
Speakers
“Making Sense of Multiple Manifestations of Alternatives to Liberal Democracies,” by Dr. Radoslaw Markowski(Professor of Political Science, Center for the Study of Democracy, Director, SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Warsaw & Polish Academy of Sciences & Polish National Election Study, Principal Investigator).
“Constitutional Intolerance: The Fashioning of ‘the Other’ in Europe’s Constitutional Repertoires,” by Dr. Marietta van der Tol(Politics & International Studies, DAAD-Cambridge).
Paper Presenter
“Identity Construction Mechanisms in the Age of Populism: A Tale of the West Against Rest?” byAmna Ben Amara (Senior researcher at George Simons International, The University of Tours, France).
Coffee Break
(11:30 – 11:50)
Panel 2
(11:50 – 13:00)
Civilizational Rhetoric, Emotions, and Societal Cohesion
Moderator
Dr. Erin K. Wilson(Professor, Chair of Politics and Religion, the Faculty of Religion, Culture, and Society, University of Groningen).
Paper Presenters
“Populism, Civilization, and Restorative Nostalgia,” by Dr. Nicholas Morieson (Research Fellow, Deakin University’s Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalization).
“Emotional Dimensions of Civilisationist Populism: A Comparative Analysis of Erdogan, Modi, and Khan with Transformer-Based Classification,” by Dr. Matthew Belanger(Lecturer in Substance Use Sociology, Social Policy, and Criminology Faculty of Social Sciences University of Stirling) and Dr. Ana-Maria Bliuc (Reader in Psychology, School of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Law at the University of Dundee).
Keynote Speech
(13:00 – 13:30)
The Role of the UN in Fighting for Human Rights in This Populist Age,” by Kamil Wyszkowski (Director of UN Global Compact).
Lunch
(13:30 – 15:00)
Panel 3
(15:00-17:00)
Religion and Populism: Local, National, and Transnational Dimensions
Moderator
Dr. Jocelyne Cesari(Professor and Chair of Religion and Politics at the University of Birmingham (UK) and Senior Fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University).
Speakers
“Remember to be Jewish: Religious Populism in Israel,” byDr. Guy Ben-Porat (Professor of International Relations and Politics, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev).
“Religious Populism and Civilizationalism in International Politics: An Authoritarian Turn,” byDr. Ihsan Yilmaz(Research Professor of Political Science and International Relations and Chair in Islamic Studies at Deakin University’s Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalization) & Dr. Nicholas Morieson (Research Fellow, Deakin University’s Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalization).
Paper Presenters
“National Populists of Christian Europe, Unite? Civilizations Dimensions of Far-right Populist Alliances in Post-Brexit Britain,” by Dr. Rafal Soborski(Professor of International Politics, The Department of Social Science at Richmond American University and Senior Research Fellow at the Global Diversities and Inequalities Research Centre at London Metropolitan University).
“Anwar Ibrahim’s Civilisational Populism: Between the Muslim World and Malaysia,” by Dr. Syaza Shukri(Assoc. Professor& Head of Department of Political Science, International Islamic University Malaysia).
DAY TWO – May 23, 2025
Adress: Biblioteki Uniwersyteckiej, Room: 308, University of Warsaw Krakowskie Przedmiescie 26/28, 00-927.
Keynote Speech
(10:00 – 10:30
Dariusz Mazur (Deputy Minister of Justice of the Republic of Poland).
Panel 4
(10:30 – 12:00)
Impacts of Civilizational Populism on the Market and Globalization
Moderator
Antoine Godbert(Affiliate Professor of Law, Economics & Humanities at ESCP Business School, Paris, and Director of International Affairs at the Rectorat of Île-de-France – Paris).
Speakers
“On the Nature of Economics and the future of Globalization under Civilizational Populism,” by Dr. Ibrahim Ozturk (Professor of Economics, Duisburg-Essen University, Institute of East Asian Studies (IN-EAST), Germany, Senior Economic Researcher at the ECPS, Brussels).
“Populism as a Reaction to Neoliberal Technocratism,” by Dr. Krzysztof Jasiecki(Professor of Economic Sociology at the Centre for Europe, University of Warsaw).
“Far-Right Populism and the Making of the Exclusionary Neoliberal State,” by Dr. Valentina Ausserladscheider (Associate Professor, Department of Economic Sociology, University of Vienna and Research Affiliate, Department of Sociology, University of Cambridge).
Coffee Break
(12:00 – 12:20)
Panel 5
(12:20 – 14:20)
Religion and Identity Politics
Moderator
Dr. Ana-Maria Bliuc(Reader in Psychology, School of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Law at the University of Dundee).
Speaker
“Religion and Power in an Age of Identity Politics,” byDr. Erin K. Wilson(Professor, Chair of Politics and Religion, the Faculty of Religion, Culture, and Society, University of Groningen).
Paper Presenters
“Civilizational Populism and the Making of Sexualized Cultural Christianity,” byDr. Ludger Viefhues-Bailey(Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, Gender, and Culture, Le Moyne University, NY).
“Imagine No More Small Boats in the Channel’: How Populist Parties and Their Leaders Normalize Polarization in Their Communication on Social Media Platforms, a Multimodal Discourse Analysis,” byDr. Valeria Reggi(Post-doc Researcher at the University of Venice and Adjunct Professor and Tutor at the University of Bologna).
“Populism from a Double Perspective. Timo Soini and the Finnish Version of Populism,” byDr. Jarosław Suchoples(Centre for Europe, University of Warsaw, Former Polish Ambassador to Finland).
Closing Remarks
(14:20 – 14:30)
Dr. Kamil Zajączkowski (Professor of International Relations, Director of the Centre for Europe, Warsaw University).
Lunch
(14:30 – 15:30)
Workshops
Populism in Regions
(15:30 – 17:00) (Room 308)
Moderators/ Discussants
Dr. Guy Ben-Porat(Professor of International Relations and Politics, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev).
Dr. Rafal Soborski(Professor of International Politics, The Department of Social Science at Richmond American University and Senior Research Fellow at the Global Diversities and Inequalities Research Centre at London Metropolitan University).
Paper Presenters
“Civilizational Populism and Foreign Policy: Analyzing Italy-Tunisia Migration,” by Dr. Helen L. Murphey(Post-Doctoral Scholar at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies at the Ohio State University).
“Greater Than the Nation: Civilizational Discourse in Orbán’s Hungary,” byDr. Tamas Dudlak(International Relations, the ELTE Eötvös Loránd University of Budapest, and researcher in the Contemporary Arab World Center, Budapest, Hungary).
“Civilizational Populism in Hybrid Regime: The Case of Serbia,” byNikola Ilić(PhD Candidate in political science at the University of Belgrade).
“The Return of Kahanism to Israeli Politics – the 2022 Elections,” byAdam Sharon (Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Politics and International Relations University of Oxford, Somerville College)
Selected Topics in Populism
(15:30 – 17:30)
(Room 106)
Moderators/ Discussants
Dr. Ludger Viefhues-Bailey(Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, Gender, and Culture, Le Moyne University, NY).
Dr. Joanna Kulska(University Professor, Institute of Political Science and Administration, University of Opole)
Paper Presenters
“Turanism, the Great Kurultáj and ‘Eastern Opening’: An Alternative View of Eurasia and the ‘West,’” byDr. Robert Imre(Associate Professor in Political Sciences at the University of the Faroe Islands).
“Sanitary Segregation Enforced by Big Brother: A Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis of Grzegorz Braun’s Extreme Anti-Vaccine Rhetoric,” byDr. Marcin Kosman(Assistant Prof., The University of Economics and Human Sciences in Warsaw, Department of Social Sciences).
“State-led Civilizational Populism: A Comparison of Pakistan and Israel,” by Dr. Fizza Batool (SBAZIT University, Karachi, Pakistan).
“Populism and Traditional Catholicism in the United States: A Convergence of Religious Identity and Political Ideology,” byTiffany Hunsinger(Ph.D. Candidate in Theology at the University of Dayton).
“The Role of Culture War in Shaping the Alliance Between Christian Conservative Movements and Chega Party,” by Francisco Batista (Ph.D. Candidate and Researcher, Political Science, Universidade Nova de Lisboa).
Religious symbols on sand: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Orthodoxy Buddhism and Hinduism. Photo: Godong Photo.
Brief Biographies
Dr. Azize Sargin
Dr. Azize Sargin is the Director of External and Institutional Relations at the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS) and a political consultant. She holds a PhD in International Relations from the University of Kent. Her research interests include foreign policy and populism, EU politics, transnationalism, globalisation, migrant belonging and integration, diversity, and global cities. Dr. Sargin previously served for 15 years as a diplomat in the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, holding various positions and assignments in countries such as Romania, the United States, and Belgium. In her final diplomatic posting, she was Political Counsellor at the Permanent Delegation of Turkey to the EU, where she focused on Turkey-EU relations and EU politics. She currently coordinates large-scale academic research projects and organizes academic events. Dr. Sargin is also involved in the EU-funded Horizon Europe project ENCODE, which explores the intersection of politics and emotions.
Dr. Kamil Zajączkowski
Dr. Kamil Zajączkowski is Assistant Professor and Coordinator for Research and International Cooperation at the Centre for Europe, University of Warsaw; recipient of the prestigious Ministry of Science and Higher Education Scholarship for the Best Young Scholars (2013). Holds a PhD in political science and international relations. Vice-President of the Polish Association for European Community Studies; member of the Polish-African Association and the Polish Association for International Studies.
Dr. Zajączkowski’s main research interests include: the EU in international relations, EU foreign policy, EU policy toward non-European countries (especially Sub-Saharan Africa), development and humanitarian policy, and emerging markets. He is the author of numerous publications on these topics. He has edited two books: Introduction to European Studies: A New Approach to a Uniting Europe, Centre for Europe Publishing Program, University of Warsaw, Warsaw 2013 (co-editors: D. Milczarek and Artur Adamczyk); Poland in the European Union: Adaptation and Modernization. Lessons for Ukraine, Centre for Europe Publishing Program, University of Warsaw, Warsaw-Lviv 2012 (co-editor: A. Adamczyk).
Irina von Wiese
Irina von Wiese is the Honorary President of the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). Born in Germany to a family of Polish and Russian refugees, she studied law in Cologne, Geneva, and Munich before receiving a scholarship to pursue a Master in Public Administration at the Harvard Kennedy School. Her legal training took her to Berlin, Brussels, and Bangkok, where she first engaged with the struggles of refugees and human rights defenders worldwide.
From 1997 to 2019, Irina worked as a lawyer in both the private and public sectors in London, while actively volunteering for human rights organizations. She has long advocated for progressive migration policies and has hosted refugees in her home for many years. In 2019, she was elected as a Member of the European Parliament representing the UK Liberal Democrats. She served as Vice Chair of the Human Rights Subcommittee and was a member of the cross-party Working Group on Responsible Business Conduct, contributing to landmark legislation on mandatory human rights due diligence in global supply chains. She also served on the Executive Committee of the European Endowment for Democracy, supporting grassroots civil society in fragile democracies.
Following the UK’s exit from the EU and the loss of her parliamentary seat, Irina returned to the UK and was elected to Southwark Council, representing one of London’s most diverse boroughs. She continues her engagement with EU affairs through her advisory role at FGS Global, focusing on EU law and ESG policy. Additionally, she is an Affiliate Professor at ESCP Business School, where she teaches international law and politics, including the course Liberalism and Populism.
Dr. Małgorzata Bonikowska
Dr. Małgorzata Bonikowska, Advisory Board Member at ECPS, holds a PhD in humanities and is a specialist in international relations, with a particular focus on the European Union and communication within public institutions. An accomplished EU expert, government advisor, and academic, Dr. Bonikowska earned degrees in Italian studies from the University of Warsaw, in history and political science from the University of Paris-Sorbonne, and in cultural history from the State College of Theatre (PWST). She is an alumna of two doctoral programs—one at the Polish Academy of Sciences and another at the SSSS in Italy. Additionally, she completed a specialized course in international affairs at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) as a Fulbright Scholar. Dr. Bonikowska has authored over 150 publications and has supervised more than 100 BA, MA, and postgraduate theses.
Dr. Adam Bodnar
Dr. Adam Bodnar (Ph.D., habil.) is Poland’s Minister of Justice. He was born on January 6, 1977, in Trzebiatów. He received his PhD in law in 2006 and completed his habilitation in 2019. From 2006 to 2020, he lectured at the University of Warsaw’s Faculty of Law and Administration and served as a professor at the Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology (2019–2020). Since 2021, he has been the Dean of the Faculty of Law at SWPS University. He is also a visiting professor at the University of Cologne and a Senior Fellow at the Democracy Institute of Central European University.
In the late 1990s, Bodnar collaborated with the “Never Again” Association and worked at the law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges (1999–2004). He has served on the boards of the European Institute for Gender Equality, the UN Fund for Victims of Torture, and was an expert for the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights. He was actively involved in numerous NGOs, including the Panoptykon Foundation (as Program Board Chair) and the Association of Prof. Zbigniew Hołda (as co-founder and board member). From 2004 to 2015, he worked with the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, eventually becoming Vice President of its Management Board.
Bodnar served as Poland’s Ombudsman from 2015 to 2021 and has received numerous national and international awards for his defense of the rule of law and human rights. Notable recognitions include the Rafto Prize, the Badge of Honor of Gryf West Pomeranian, the Wincenty Witos Medal, and France’s Legion of Honor (Knight).
He is the founder of the “Congress of Civil Rights” Foundation and serves on advisory boards of organizations such as the World Justice Project, International IDEA, and the Civil Liberties Union for Europe. Elected to the Polish Senate in 2023, Bodnar represents Warsaw’s 44th district.
Dr. Alojzy Zbigniew Nowak
Prof. Alojzy Z. Nowak is a prominent Polish economist and academic. He holds a PhD and a habilitation in economics, and currently serves as Rector of the University of Warsaw. He specializes in international economic relations, banking, and financial risk management. Prof. Nowak has served as Dean of the Faculty of Management at the University of Warsaw (2006–2012, 2016–2020) and previously held roles at the University of Illinois, University of Exeter, and Freie Universität Berlin. He also worked at Kozminski University in Warsaw.
He has been a member of numerous supervisory boards, including PZU SA, Bank Millennium, JSW, and ZE PAK. He also served as an advisor to the CEO of PZU and chaired the Scientific Council of the National Bank of Poland. He is a member of President Andrzej Duda’s National Development Council and the Scientific Council of the Institute of New Structural Economics in Beijing.
Since 2018, he has been President of the Academic Sports Association (AZS), Poland’s largest student organization. Prof. Nowak has received numerous honors, including the Gold Cross of Merit (2002), a Doctor Honoris Causa from the University of Physical Education in Wrocław (2022), and the Gold Medal for Merit to Polish Science Sapientia et Veritas (2023).
Dr. Jocelyne Cesari
Dr. Jocelyne Cesari holds the Chair of Religion and Politics at the University of Birmingham (UK) and is Senior Fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University. Since 2018, she is the T. J. Dermot Dunphy Visiting Professor of Religion, Violence, and Peacebuilding at Harvard Divinity School. President elect of the European Academy of Religion (2018-19), her work on religion and politics has garnered recognition and awards: 2020 Distinguished Scholar of the religion section of the International Studies Association, Distinguished Fellow of the Carnegie Council for Ethics and International Affairs and the Royal Society for Arts in the United Kingdom. Her new book: We God’s Nations: Political Christianity, Islam and Hinduism in the World of Nations, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2022 (https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/we-gods-people/314FFEF57671C91BBA7E169D2A7DA223) (Book Award of the Scientific Society for the Study of Religion). Other publications: What is Political Islam? (Rienner, 2018, Book Award 2019 of the religion section of the ISA); Islam, Gender and Democracy in a Comparative Perspective (OUP, 2017), The Awakening of Muslim Democracy: Religion, Modernity and the State (CUP, 2014). She is the academic advisor of www.euro-islam.info and Advisory Board Member of ECPS.
Dr. Erkan Toguslu
Dr. Erkan Toguslu is the Director of the Extremism and Radicalisation research program at ECPS. He holds an MA and PhD in sociology from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris. His research explores transnational Muslim networks in Europe, Islamic intellectual movements, interfaith dialogue, the public-private divide in Islam, and the intersection of religion and radicalization. Dr. Toguslu is co-editor of the Journal of Populism Studies (JPS) and editor or co-editor of several volumes, including Everyday Life Practices of Muslims in Europe, Europe’s New Multicultural Identities (with J. Leman and I. M. Sezgin), and Modern Islamic Thinking and Islamic Activism (with J. Leman), all published by Leuven University Press. His recent scholarly work focuses on violent extremism, including articles such as “Caliphate, hijrah, and martyrdom as a performative narrative in ISIS’ Dabiq magazine” (Politics, Religion and Ideology) and “Capitalizing on the Koran to fuel online violent radicalization: A taxonomy of Koranic references in ISIS’s Dabiq” (Telematics and Informatics, co-authored).
Dr. Radosław Markowski
Dr. Radosław Markowski is Professor of Political Science, Center for the Study of Democracy, Director, SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Warsaw & Polish Academy of Sciences. He specializes in comparative politics and political sociology, with research interests in elections, voting behavior, democracy, and party systems. He also serves as the director of the Polish National Election Study (PGSW). He is a recurring visiting professor at Central European University in Budapest and has previously held visiting positions at Duke University, the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and Rutgers University.
Dr. Markowski has published extensively in leading journals such as Electoral Studies, Party Politics, Political Studies, and West European Politics. He is co-author of the widely cited book Post-Communist Party Systems (Cambridge University Press) and has edited or contributed to volumes published by Oxford University Press, Manchester University Press, Routledge, and Sage. He is also an expert contributor to research projects conducted by the Bertelsmann Foundation and the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project.
Dr. Marietta van der Tol
Dr. Marietta van der Tol is a political theorist and legal historian whose research explores religion, nationalism, and democratic politics. She earned her PhD from the University of Cambridge in 2020 with a dissertation on Politics of Religious Diversity, analyzing toleration, religious freedom, and the visibility of religion in public life in France, Germany, and the Netherlands.
She was the inaugural Alfred Landecker Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Blavatnik School of Government and held a Junior Research Fellowship at New College, Oxford. In 2023, she taught Comparative Politics at St Peter’s College and was a full-time College Lecturer in Politics at Lincoln College (Oxford) during 2023–2024. She currently holds a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship at Cambridge (2024–2025).
Dr. van der Tol leads interdisciplinary research networks including Religion, Ethnicity and Politics in German, Dutch and Anglo-American Contexts: Nationalism and the Future of Democracy (DAAD-Cambridge) and Protestant Political Thought: Religion, State, Nation (with Dr. Sophia Johnson). She co-edited special issues such as Rethinking the Sacred in Religion and Nationalism (Religion, State & Society) and Old Testament Imaginaries of the Nation (Journal of the Bible and Its Reception). She is also a convenor of the annual Political Theologies conference series.
Amna Ben Amara
Amna Ben Amara is a Ph.D candidate, researcher and consultant in intercultural management. She holds two master’s degrees: one in Intercultural Management from Slovenia and another in Cultural Studies from the Faculty of Arts and Humanities in Sousse, Tunisia, her home country. Currently, she is pursuing a Ph.D. at the University of Tours, France, focusing on the geopolitical construction of the Middle East in American foreign policy discourse. Amna has authored several journal articles and presented her work at numerous national and international conferences. She has also completed various training programs through Erasmus+ and DAAD. Most recently, she served as a visiting researcher at the University of Paris-Est Créteil, France.
Dr. Erin Wilson
Dr. Erin Wilson is an associate professor of Politics and religion at the Faculty of Religion, Culture and Society . She studied Political Sciences and was awarded a PhD by the University of Queensland in 2008. Her research is at the interface of religious studies, international relations and philosophy. Wilson developed the ‘relational dialogism’ model, which provides new explanations for the roles and meaning of religion in terms of international relations. Her work is intended to be practical for politicians and policy-makers.
Dr. Matthew J. Belanger
Dr. Matthew J. Belanger is a Lecturer in the Department of Sociology, Social Policy, and Criminology at University of Stirling, United Kingdom. He serves on the research advisory board at the Recovery Outcomes Institute and is on the board of directors at Recovery Scotland. He has a BSc in Kinesiology (2017) from the University of Massachusetts – Amherst, an MSc in Brain Sciences (2019) from the University of Glasgow, and a PhD in Addiction Psychology/Data Science (2024) from the University of Dundee, where he studied biopsychosocial factors influencing addiction recovery. Previously, he worked as a research scientist in the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at Universitaetsklinikum Carl Gustav Carus in Dresden Germany, undertaking research concerning environmental influences on behaviour. Beyond addiction recovery, Belanger’s interdisciplinary research also heavily involves the application of machine learning in sociological and political contexts.
Arkadiusz Myrcha
Arkadiusz Myrcha is a Polish politician of the Civic Platform and Deputy Minister of Justice in Poland. He has been a member of the Sejm since 2015. He was previously a city councillor of Toruń from 2010 to 2015.
Dr. Guy Ben Porat
Dr. Guy Ben Porat is a Distinguished Professor in political science and international relations, having earned his doctorate in political science and government from Johns Hopkins University. His doctoral dissertation, titled “Globalization, Peace, and Discontent: Israel and Northern Ireland,” laid the foundation for his book, Global Liberalism, Local Populism: Peace and Conflict in Israel/Palestine and Northern Ireland, which received the Ernst-Otto Czempiel award from the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt. His other areas of research include international relations, comparative politics, the relationship between religion and state and processes of secularization in Israel, and the relationship between the police and minorities in Israel and the global community. His research on the impact of economic and demographic changes on religious and secular identities in Israel won awards from the Association for Israel Studies and the Israeli Political Science Association. Dr. Porat is a full professor in the department of politics and government at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, where he served as department head from 2018 to 2022. In his work at the Mandel Center for Leadership in the Negev, Dr. Porat teaches topics in government, policy, and local government, with a focus on the Negev, and is involved in shaping the Mandel Program for Senior Executive Leadership in the Negev.
Dr. Ihsan Yilmaz
Dr. Ihsan Yilmaz is Deputy Director (Research Development) of the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation (ADI) at Deakin University, where he also serves as Chair in Islamic Studies and Research Professor of Political Science and International Relations. He previously held academic positions at the Universities of Oxford and London and has a strong track record of leading multi-site international research projects. His work at Deakin has been supported by major funding bodies, including the Australian Research Council (ARC), the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, the Victorian Government, and the Gerda Henkel Foundation.
Presently, he leads two ARC Discovery projects: “Civilisationist Mobilisation, Digital Technologies, and Social Cohesion: The Case of Turkish & Indian Diasporas in Australia” (in collaboration with Prof Greg Barton) and “Religious Populism, Emotions, and Political Mobilisation: Civilisationism in Turkey, Indonesia, and Pakistan.” Additionally, he co-leads a Gerda Henkel Foundation (Germany) project titled: “Smart Digital Technologies and the Future of Democracy in the Muslim World.”
He stands as one of Australia’s foremost scholars on religion & law & politics, authoritarianism, digital politics, populism, transnationalism, soft power, and sharp power, with a particular focus on Turkey, Indonesia, and Pakistan. His prolific authorship is evident through publications in leading political science and international relations journals across the globe.
Furthermore, he holds the position of a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at Oxford University’s Regent College and is associated with the Brussels-based think tank, the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). His advisory role extends to numerous government departments, policy makers, and bureaucrats in the UK, USA, EU, and Turkey. His contributions span renowned institutions such as the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the Brookings and Hudson Institutes, as well as esteemed media outlets including CNN, BBC, the New York Times, ABC, Sydney Morning Herald, and The Australian.
Dr. Rafal Soborski
Dr. Rafal Soborskiis Professor of International Politics at The Department of Social Science at Richmond American University and Senior Research Fellow at the Global Diversities and Inequalities Research Centre at London Metropolitan University. Dr Soborski holds a PhD in Political Science from University of Surrey. He has taught extensively in areas of ideology, global studies and development and published several peer-reviewed articles and chapters on globalization, ideology, social movements, Euroscepticism and green political thought. Dr Soborski is the author of two monographs: Ideology in a Global Age: Continuity and Change (Palgrave Macmillan 2013) and Ideology and the Future of Progressive Social Movements (Rowman & Littlefield 2018). He is the editor of The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Global Studies and chairs the Global Studies Research Network. He is also on the Committee of the Global Studies Association UK.
Dr. Syaza Shukri
Dr. Syaza Shukri is an associate professor at the Department of Political Science, Kulliyyah of Islamic Revealed Knowledge and Human Sciences, International Islamic University Malaysia. Her area of specialization is in comparative politics, specifically in democratization and politics in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. Her current research interests include populism, identity politics, inter-ethnic relations, political Islam, geopolitics, and gender studies, specifically in Muslim-majority contexts. Among Dr. Shukri’s recent works is “Populism and Muslim Democracies,” published in Asian Politics & Policy.
Adriana Porowska
Adriana Porowskais Minister for Civil Society of Poland, chairwoman of the Public Benefit Committee Minister for Civil Society, chairwoman of the Public Benefit Committee– Adriana Porowska. Porowska is a Polish social and political activist, specializing in civil society issues.
Porowska is an experienced social worker who has been committed for many years to helping marginalized individuals and refugees. She served as the president of the Camillian Mission for Social Assistance, where she managed a shelter and training apartments for people experiencing homelessness and war refugees from Ukraine.
For 19 years, she has been working actively with NGOs, local governments, and national administrations. Her roles include co-chairing the Expert Commission on Combating Homelessness under the Polish Ombudsman, serving as a member of the Ombudsman’s Social Council, and chairing the Sectoral Social Dialogue Commission on Homelessness under the Mayor of Warsaw.
Joanna Kos-Krauze
Joanna Kos-Krauze is a Polish film director and screenwriter, best known for her creative partnership with her late husband, Krzysztof Krauze. Together, they co-wrote and directed acclaimed films such as My Nikifor (2004), Plac Zbawiciela (2006), and Papusza (2013), a biopic of the Romani poet. Her most recent work, Birds Are Singing in Kigali(2017), explores themes of trauma and reconciliation.
Kamil Wyszkowski
Kamil Wyszkowski has been working for the United Nations. He currently serves as the Representative and Executive Director of the UN Global Compact Network Poland and as the Representative of UNOPS in Poland. He is an expert on UN and EU policies, particularly in areas intersecting business and public administration.
From 2002 to 2009, he worked at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), where he was responsible for international and multilateral cooperation and for developing programs across Europe and Asia. He has implemented development projects in dozens of countries, including Iraq, India, Thailand, and Romania, drawing on knowledge transfer from Poland. He has also worked at UNDP headquarters in New York and its regional center for Europe and the CIS in Bratislava. From 2009 to 2014, he was the Director of the UNDP Office in Poland. Since 2004, he has been the National Representative and Chair of the Board of the UN Global Compact Network Poland (GCNP), which coordinates cooperation between the UN and business, academia, cities, public administration, and NGOs in Poland. He has also led the Know How Hub (a UNDP Poland initiative, now under GCNP) since 2011.
He lectures at institutions including Central European University (Bucharest), Ukrainian Catholic University (Lviv), Warsaw School of Economics, Kozminski University, Collegium Civitas, SWPS University, the Paderewski Institute of Diplomacy, and the University of Warsaw.
Antoine Godbert
Antoine Godbert is Affiliate Professor of Law, Economics & Humanities at ESCP Business School, Paris, and Director of International Affairs at the Rectorat of Île-de-France – Paris.
A graduate of the École Normale Supérieure de Fontenay-Saint-Cloud and the École Nationale d’Administration, Godbert holds a postgraduate degree (DEA) in epistemology from Paris VII University and an agrégation in geography. He began his career as a lecturer and researcher in geopolitics at ESCP Business School before joining the General Secretariat for National Defense as a policy officer in an interministerial crisis management unit. He later served at the Directorate-General for Administration and the Civil Service as director of the “senior management and careers” mission.
His distinguished career in public service led him to serve as coordinator of the governance and East Paris hubs within the “Capital Region Mission” under the Secretary of State for Capital Region Development, and subsequently as diplomatic adviser to the Minister of National Education. In recognition of his merit and expertise, he was later appointed Director of the French National Erasmus+ Agency, Director General of the Royal Abbey of Fontevraud, and most recently, Project Director at the Defender of Rights office.
Dr. Ibrahim Ozturk
Dr. Ibrahim Ozturk is professor of economics and a visiting fellow at the University of Duisburg-Essen since 2017. He is studying developmental, institutional, and international economics. His research focuses on the Japanese, Turkish, and Chinese economies. Currently, he is working on emerging hybrid governance models and the rise of populism in the Emerging Market Economies. As a part of that interest, he studies the institutional quality of China’s Modern Silk Road Project /The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), its governance model, and implications for the global system. He also teaches courses on business and entrepreneurship in the Emerging Market Economies, such as BRICS/MINT countries. Ozturk’s Ph.D. thesis is on the rise and decline of Japan’s developmental institutions in the post-Second WWII era.
Dr. Ozturk has worked at different public and private universities as both a part-time and full-time lecturer/researcher between 1992-2016 in Istanbul, Turkey. In 1998, he worked as a visiting fellow at Keio University, in Tokyo, and again in 2003 at Tokyo University. He’s also been a visiting fellow at JETRO/AJIKEN (2004); at North American University, in Houston, Texas (2014-2015); and in Duisburg/Germany at the University of Duisburg-Essen (2017-2020).
Dr. Ozturk is one of the founders of the Istanbul Japan Research Association (2003-2013) and the Asian Studies Center of Bosporus University (2010-2013). He has served as a consultant to business associations and companies for many years. He has also been a columnist and TV-commentator.
Dr. Krzysztof Jasiecki
Dr. Krzysztof Jasiecki is a political scientist and economic sociologist, professor of social sciences, and long-time researcher at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences (1987–2017). He served as a member of the Scientific Council for the Discipline of Sociology at the University of Warsaw (2019–2020) and was awarded the University of Warsaw Rector’s Individual Third-Degree Award for Scientific Achievement (November 2020). He has been a member of the Jury for the Prof. Tadeusz Kotarbiński Award since 2021 and serves on the Scientific Council of the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
His research focuses on economic sociology, institutions of contemporary capitalism, the role of political and economic elites, interest groups and lobbying, the material and social dimensions of wealth, social and civic dialogue, Poland’s EU membership, and the political and economic dimensions of globalization, with special emphasis on Central and Eastern Europe.
He has contributed to numerous Polish and international journals and edited volumes. He serves on the advisory board of the Warsaw Forum of Economic Sociology (WFES) and reviews for journals including Polish Sociological Review and Studia Socjologiczne.
Prof. Jasiecki was a member of the Anti-Corruption Program Council at the Stefan Batory Foundation (2008–2013) and served as an expert for the Polish parliamentary special committee on lobbying legislation (2003–2005). He has also been part of the Poland 2025+ Club under the Polish Bank Association (ZBP) and its Ethics Committee. He was awarded the Nicolaus Copernicus Medal by ZBP and recognized by the Wokulski Foundation as “Positive Thinker of the Year” in 2012 for promoting entrepreneurship.
Dr. Valentina Ausserladscheider
Dr. Valentina Ausserladscheider is an Assistant Professor of Economic Sociology at the University of Vienna. Before joining the University of Vienna, she completed her PhD in Sociology at the University of Cambridge. Her research empirically investigates institutional change and continuity in times of crises. Currently, she explores climate-vulnerable industries´ responses to climate change. Her work has been published in Review of International Political Economy, New Political Economy, Cambridge Journal of Economy, Regions and Society, and the Journal of Cultural Economy.
Dr. Ana-Maria Bliuc
Dr. Ana-Maria Bliuc is an Associate Professor of Social and Political Psychology in the Psychology Department at the University of Dundee, where she has been a faculty member since 2019. Her research explores how social identities influence behavior across various contexts, including health, environmental issues (such as climate change), and socio-political domains (such as collective action and social change). Recently, her work has focused on online communities, investigating how collective identities and behaviors are shaped through digital interactions.
Dr. Ludger Viefhues-Bailey
Dr. Ludger Viefhues-Bailey is a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, Gender, and Culture Chair at the Department of Philosophy at Le Moyne University, NY. Dr. Viefhues-Bailey is a scholar whose work bridges philosophy, gender studies, and cultural theory. His research explores the intersections of religion, secular democracy, and sexuality. He is the author of No Separation: Christians, Secular Democracy, and Sex (Columbia University Press, 2023), Between a Man and a Woman? Why Conservatives Oppose Same-Sex Marriage (Columbia University Press, 2010), and Beyond the Philosopher’s Fear: A Cavellian Reading of Gender, Origin, and Religion in Modern Skepticism (Ashgate, 2007). He serves on the editorial board of the journal Political Theology.
Dr. Valeria Reggi
Dr. Valeria Reggi is an Adjunct Professor Department of the Arts, Department of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures, and Department of Political and Social Sciences, University of Bologna. Dr. Reggi is a discourse analyst and certified English–Italian translator. She holds a PhD from the Centre for Translation Studies (CenTraS) at University College London, a specialization in literary translation from the University of Venice, and a degree with honours in Modern Languages from the University of Bologna.
She collaborates with several institutions, including UCL, the University of Brescia, and the University of Turin, and currently serves as an adjunct professor and tutor at the University of Bologna. Until 2020, she was a subject expert and a member of the Scientific Committee of the international research hub WeTell Alma Idea, focused on storytelling and civic awareness.
Reggi is a member of the editorial board of New Explorations: Studies in Culture and Communication (University of Toronto), a journal dedicated to media ecology. Her work, with a particular emphasis on qualitative discourse analysis and multimodality, includes contributions to literary criticism, translation, and discourse analysis, published by John Benjamins, Routledge, Peter Lang, Stockholm University Press, and Tangram.
Dr. Jarosław Suchoples
Dr. Jarosław Suchoples holds a Ph.D. in History from the University of Helsinki (2000) and an M.A. from the University of Gdańsk (1993). His career includes roles as an analyst at the Polish Institute of International Affairs (2000–2001) and visiting researcher at the University of California, Berkeley (2001–2002). From 2003 to 2013, he taught at institutions in Poland and Germany, including the Willy Brandt Centre, Humboldt University, and Free University Berlin. He later served as Associate Professor at the National University of Malaysia (UKM) and, in 2017, returned to Finland as Poland’s Ambassador. Currently, he is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Jyväskylä, focusing on the history and memory of World War I, World War II, and the Cold War.
Dr. Helen L. Murphey
Dr. Helen L. Murpheyis Post-Doctoral Scholar at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies at the Ohio State University. Murphey received her PhD from the University of St Andrews in 2023, where she was a Carnegie Ph.D. Scholar. She previously held a post as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Politics at Whitman College. Her research focuses on the role of identity and ideology in politics, with a specialization in religious political parties in North Africa, populism, conspiracy theories and polarization. Her work has been published in Mediterranean Politics, the Journal of North African Studies, Feminist Media Studies and Oxford Middle East Review, among others. She is a Research Associate at the Institute of Middle East, Central Asia and Caucasus Studies at the University of St Andrews.
Nikola Ilić
Nikola Ilić is a junior researcher at the University of Belgrade – Faculty of Political Sciences, where he is currently pursuing doctoral studies in political science. Professionally, Ilić has worked as a teaching associate in courses such as Contemporary Political Theory, Political Culture and Political Order, and Human Rights Culture and Politics. He is currently involved in the Horizon Europe project EMBRACing changE: Overcoming obstacles and advancing democracy in the European Neighbourhood as an assistant researcher.
Dr. Tamas Dudlak
Dr. Tamas Dudlak is a Doctor of International Relations based in Budapest, Hungary and affiliated with the ELTE Eötvös Loránd University of Budapest as a researcher in the Contemporary Arab World Center. He previously received degrees in History, Arabic, and Turkish and studied geopolitics. His main research interest lies in the Middle East; he analyses contemporary Turkish politics from a comparative perspective. He focuses on the similarities and differences betweenTurkey and Hungary in various fields, such as migration policies, the characteristics of the populist regimes, electoral strategies of the incumbents and the oppositions, and the role of religion and civilizational discourse as the underlying ideologies of the Hungarian and Turkish governments.
Adam Sharon
Adam Sharon is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford, Somerville College. Prior to his doctoral studies, he earned an M.A. in Politics and Philosophy from the University of Edinburgh, graduating with First Class Honours. He has served as a research assistant at Tel Aviv University, collaborating with Professor Uriya Shavit on his forthcoming book, The Jewish Civil War (2025), which explores the influence of religion on voting behavior in Israel. During his time at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), he also conducted research on Middle Eastern affairs and co-authored articles focusing on the foreign policies of Egypt and Jordan.
Dr. Joanna Kulska
Dr. Joanna Kulska is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Political Science of University of Opole where she also holds the post of the director of trinational Polish-German-French Europa Master Program and Erasmus program coordinator. She graduated from Warsaw University (International Relations) and University of Lodz (Knowledge of Culture). She received her Doctoral Degree from the Faculty of Journalism and Political Science of Warsaw University based on the doctoral thesis published in 2006 entitled The Holy See in International Cultural Relations from John XXIII to John Paul II. She was the fellow of John Paul II Foundation in Rome (2001) and The Kosciuszko Foundation in New York (2015) conducting her research at the University of Chicago. In 2017 she was the guest professor at the Institute of Political Science at University of Mainz within Polonikum Program. Her main area of interest are international cultural relations and more specifically the changing role of religious factor in international relations with the special focus on religious peacebuilding as well as the evolution of contemporary diplomacy.
Dr. Robert Imre
Dr. Robert Imre is an Associate Professor in Political Sciences at the University of the Faroe Islands. He holds university degrees from Queen´s University and University of Victoria in Canada and a PhD degree from the University of Queensland in Australia.
Dr. Imre has spent many years as a researcher and lecturer in several countries around the world. He has worked as an academic at the University of Victoria in Canada, Tampere University in Finland, the University of Regensburg in Germany, the University of Newcastle in Australia, the University of Notre Dame in Australia and other universities in Australia and Hungary.
Robert Imre’s current interest of research is the comparative politics of small states. He is concerned with security policies, environmental and green politics, and is working on comparative civil defence projects dealing with how small states might think about their own changing civil defence needs including food security, environmental and economic security. He is also interested in Arctic security, Nordic and Baltic states politics, and small states in East Central and South East Europe.
Dr. Marcin Kosman
Dr. Marcin Kosman is Assistant Professor at Department of Social Sciences of University of Economics and Human Sciences in Warsaw. Dr. Kosman is a media scholar, discourse analyst, linguist, and psychologist. He holds a Ph.D. in the humanities and is an assistant professor at the University of Economics and Human Sciences in Warsaw. He is a two-time recipient of the Polish Minister of Science and Higher Education scholarship for outstanding academic achievements. With funding from the National Science Centre, he is currently conducting a research project on media discourse surrounding the situation at the Polish-Belarusian border. His academic interests include mechanisms of political (de)legitimization, social communication, public discourse analysis, and political marketing.
Dr. Fizza Batool
Dr. Fizza Batool is an academic and policy researcher interested in Comparative Politics, Comparative Democratization, Peace Studies and Populism. She is a post-doctoral fellow at the Central European University (CEU) Democracy Institute in Budapest and an Assistant Professor (Social Sciences) at SZABIST University, Karachi. She has authored two books on populism in Pakistan, both published by Palgrave Macmillan. Her works have also been published in prestigious research journals like Third World Quarterly, South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, Pakistan Horizon etc. She also contributes to English dailies in Pakistan and international research magazines such as South Asian Voices. She was one of the 2020 SAV Visiting Fellows at Stimson Center, DC.
Tiffany Hunsinger
Tiffany Hunsinger is a PhD student in Theology at the University of Dayton specializing in traditional Catholicism and politics in the United States. She has written and presented papers on St. Oscar Romero and the Christian Democratic Party, theology of immigration, the political grammar of critical race theory, and the continuity of the political messages from papal encyclicals. Her current project is her dissertation which investigates the influence of the hagiography of G.K. Chesterton on traditional Catholic movements and education in the United States. She is involved in community initiatives relating to the environment, immigration, and women’s justice.
Francisco Batista
Francisco Batista is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at NOVA FCSH, specializing in Elite and Political Behaviors. His doctoral research, supervised by Professor Madalena Meyer Resende, focuses on “The Role of Culture War in Shaping the Alliance Between Christian Conservative Movements and the Chega Party.” His academic interests span Religion and Politics, Populism and the Radical Right, Political Philosophy, and Social Movements.
In this thought-provoking conversation, Dr. Jefferson Lyndon D. Ragragio—Gosling-Lim Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Michigan—discusses the resilience and transformation of populism in the Philippines. He explores how symbolic narratives of “pro-people, anti-elite” sentiment continue to drive support for dynastic figures like the Dutertes, despite mounting legal scrutiny. From social media toxicity to youth electoral shifts, Dr. Ragragio argues that populism is “here to stay,” shaped by local patronage networks and reinforced by mediatized political performance. He also highlights the importance of civic education and independent journalism as counterforces. This is a timely, incisive analysis of a political culture in flux.
In this wide-ranging and incisive interview with the European Center for PopulismStudies (ECPS), Dr. Jefferson Lyndon D. Ragragio—Gosling-Lim Postdoctoral Fellow in Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Michigan—offers a sobering yet nuanced analysis of the enduring logic of populism in Philippine politics. With a research focus on media, democracy, and political communication in Southeast Asia, Dr. Ragragio traces how populist discourse and dynastic power have remained mutually reinforcing features of the Filipino political landscape.
“Populism in the Philippines is here to stay,” he affirms, stressing that whether “right-wing, illiberal, or left-wing-oriented,” such formations continue to thrive due to “an enduring clamor for pro-people, anti-elite sentiments” across both national and local arenas. This durability, Dr. Ragragio argues, is not merely rhetorical but structural, anchored in long-standing regional patronage networks and a media ecosystem conducive to symbolic politics.
Reflecting on the Duterte family’s electoral resurgence amid legal controversies—including former President Rodrigo Duterte’s detention at the ICC and Vice President Sara Duterte’s looming impeachment—Dr. Ragragio interprets this revival not simply as continuity, but as a strategic “recalibration of expressions of support” rooted in the “symbolic resilience” of populist narratives. Despite mounting legal and institutional scrutiny, he observes that “support can be sustained, especially at the local level,” even as national opposition gains ground.
Equally compelling is his analysis of political journalism as a contested discursive terrain. “Political journalism has long been a battleground,” Dr. Ragragio notes, shaped by both populist co-optation and democratic resistance. He commends outlets like Rappler and regional campus journalists for expanding critical coverage during the midterm elections, while also warning of the toxic political performance encouraged by algorithmic propaganda on platforms like Facebook.
Crucially, Dr. Ragragio identifies media literacy, civic education, and institutional accountability as key interventions in combating “authoritarian masculinity and political exceptionalism.” Yet he remains realistic about the persistence of dynastic dominance, noting that “a third of the Senate is composed of familial pairs.”
Ultimately, his insights reveal a landscape in flux—where democratic recalibration and populist entrenchment coexist in uneasy tension, and where the future of Philippine democracy hinges on how these competing narratives are mediated, institutionalized, and resisted from below.
In this compelling conversation with ECPS, Dr. Mark Riboldi unpacks how corporate influence and elite career pathways hollow out democratic representation in Australia. From revolving doors in politics to the marginalization of community voices, Dr. Riboldi warns that without transparency and reform, “the closed loop between politics and corporate power” will persist. He also explores party fragmentation, the Greens’ identity struggles, and the risks of technocratic drift. “Boldness needs legitimacy,” he insists, urging progressive parties to pair vision with credibility. Dr. Riboldi ultimately sees Australia’s electoral system as a “stopgap” against populist capture—but not an immunity.
In this incisive interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Dr. Mark Riboldi—a lecturer at the University of Technology Sydney and scholar of political communication and civil society—offers a sobering yet constructive account of the structural pressures undermining democratic vitality in Australia. At the center of his critique lies a sharp diagnosis of state capture: “One of the biggest problems in Australia—and I think it’s probably the same in other liberal Western democracies—is the impact of big business on government,” Dr. Riboldi explains, stressing how revolving-door pathways from student politics to Parliament and then into private sector boardrooms bypass “real work experience and meaningful community engagement.”
This theme threads through his broader reflections on the fragmentation of Australian party politics, the rise of independents, and the populist logic animating both left- and right-wing actors. Dr. Riboldi rejects simplistic narratives that frame emotionally charged political messaging as inherently populist, noting instead that such communication has long been central to movements across the spectrum. Still, he warns that populism becomes dangerous when it feeds on legitimacy gaps and places all faith in personalistic saviors: “Let’s talk about a problem—I will fix it,” he says, paraphrasing the demagogic logic of figures like Donald Trump or Nigel Farage.
Dr. Riboldi’s insights into party dynamics are especially sharp in his discussion of the Greens. He views the party’s struggle between institutional respectability and activist roots not as a liability but as a productive tension: “It helps to keep a party like the Greens connected to their roots and accountable to those roots.” Yet he also cautions that technocratic messaging—as seen in their focus on parliamentary influence and minority government potential—can fall flat, especially when voters crave bold but believable visions for the future. “Boldness needs to be connected to legitimacy,” he insists, adding that the Greens’ record on housing and climate action has earned them the political capital to stake out such positions.
Ultimately, Dr. Riboldi remains cautiously optimistic about Australia’s institutional resilience. Compulsory voting, preferential ballots, and a proportional Senate system form what he calls a “stopgap” against populist insurgency. Nevertheless, his core warning remains clear: unless transparency is enforced and the influence of corporate power curtailed, Australian democracy—like others around the world—risks further erosion from within.
Here is the lightly edited transcript of the interview with Dr. Mark Riboldi.
A Realignment, Not a Populist Break
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese attends the national memorial service for Queen Elizabeth II. Photo: Dreamstime.
Professor Mark Ribaldo, thank you very much for joining our interview series. Let me start right away with the first question: You’ve written extensively on the fragmentation of party politics in Australia. To what extent do you see the rise of minor parties and independents—especially the Teals and Greens—as indicative of a populist moment or a broader realignment?
Dr. Mark Riboldi: It’s a good question. I should say that I’m not a populist scholar, so I’m not a scholar in populism. So my knowledge of populism literature generally is probably not as in-depth as some of your audience’s.
I think what’s been going on in Australia, probably for the last 50 years or so, is a sense that there’s something wrong with the current system, with the way that politics is working—the two-party system we have in Australia. And there’s a demand for better representation. So that has meant that people have been voting more and more frequently for independent or minor party candidates—or basically non-major party candidates.
Some of the research that I’ve done with some colleagues is showing that that trend away from major party voting is kind of aligning, realigning parts of the left and the right, rather than being more of a kind of a populist break from it. So, I’d probably say it’s more of a broader realignment than anything else.
In your co-authored article, you distinguish ‘party-like independents’ from traditional party politics. Do you see this trend as fostering a new form of populism, or rather as a correction to major-party ossification?
Dr. Mark Riboldi: What we’re talking about with party-like independents—independents operating in a party-like fashion—is a phenomenon in Australia where a central organization called Climate 200 has been collecting funds from various sources to back specific candidates in election campaigns, particularly against Liberal Party candidates. This organization has taken on functions typically associated with political parties, such as centralized fundraising, conducting research, and managing mass communications.
Ordinarily, an independent candidate might only have the resources to campaign within their local seat or engage in a limited range of activities. The existence of Climate 200 as a support vehicle allows these independents to access party-like resources and infrastructure.
So, I see this as a reaction to the major party system—specifically, a response to the right-wing Liberal-National Party in Australia. Climate 200 emerged in reaction to two primary issues: the Coalition’s failure to take meaningful action on climate change, and its inadequate representation of women. Notably, all the Climate 200-backed independents elected in the 2022 federal election were women, and they largely defeated male Liberal-National Party incumbents.
Sometimes You Win Them, Sometimes You Lose Them
How do you interpret the Greens’ recent electoral losses in the lower house within the broader context of Australia’s shifting political cleavages? Was this a rejection of their platform, leadership style, or something more structural like preferential voting patterns and redistributions?
Dr. Mark Riboldi: I think, in terms of the Greens, it’s important to understand that, yes, they lost seats in the lower house—the House of Government—but they maintained the same number of seats in the Senate, the House of Review. They’ve consistently secured two senators per state across the six states for the last three elections. So, the Greens’ Senate vote has been very stable. In contrast, as we saw in the most recent federal election, their position in the lower house has been less secure. The Greens went from holding four seats to just one. If a major party with 80-something seats loses three, it’s not a huge concern. But when you only have four seats, losing three is significant.
The tension for the Greens here is that there’s a big difference between getting a consistent vote in the Senate and winning a lower house seat. In the upper house, with a national vote around 12–13%, you can get those senators elected—as the Greens did. That’s very different from the lower house, where to win a seat consistently in Australia, you probably need a primary vote of over 40%.
So, what happened in the last election was, in part, a correction from the election before, where the Greens won some seats due to the preferential system—which we’ll talk about in a bit. Then, the surge of the left-wing Labor Party and the collapse of the right-wing Liberal Party meant the alignment of the top three candidates in those seats changed order, and so the Greens lost three of their seats. I don’t think it was necessarily a rejection of their platform or leadership style. I think part of it is just that when you have lower house seats, sometimes you win them, and sometimes you lose them.
Democratic Populism Must Be Modeled, Not Just Preached
You’ve emphasized the role of legitimacy and power dynamics in how political actors—especially civil society organisations (CSOs)—mobilize support. How do you see populist rhetoric reshaping public perceptions of legitimacy among CSOs and minor parties?
Dr. Mark Riboldi: It’s a danger when we’re thinking about populist rhetoric and the kinds of messages that appeal—especially the populist messages that resonate with people. Whether it’s in parts of Europe, the UK, the United States, or even Australia, it’s important to recognize that we shouldn’t simply write off those who respond to that rhetoric as anti-democratic or undemocratic. Often, there’s a real response to the political and social conditions people are experiencing—a demand for a greater say.
That said, this demand is definitely exploited by parts of the right. The way figures like Donald Trump, Nigel Farage, or right-wing leaders in Europe talk about democracy and legitimacy tends to be very narrow, even neoliberal. It’s framed as: “Here’s a problem, I will fix it,” placing all power in one individual—which we know is dangerous and can lead to autocracy.
I was rereading some notes this afternoon from Chantal Mouffe’s For a Left Populism—probably the one major piece of populism literature I’ve read—where she talks about the need for a form of left-wing populism. One that responds to the same concerns people have: the sense of being disenfranchised, the widening gap between the better-off and the less well-off. The left can respond to that—and as Mouffe suggests, and I would argue, the Greens in Australian politics do this—in ways that expand democracy rather than contract it.
For civil society organizations as well, there’s a crucial role: they need to be exemplars of democratic behavior and democratic activity. Because if CSOs and left-wing minor parties aren’t showing what democratic populism or left populism can look like, people are just going to turn to right-wing organizations instead.
Populists Exploit Gaps—But CSOs Must Defend Democratic Advocacy
Crowds hold “Say Yes to Cutting Carbon Pollution” and “Clean Energy” signs during a World Environment Day rally in Brisbane, Australia, on June 6, 2011. Photo: Dreamstime.
Your typology of CSO activities outlines both service delivery and systemic advocacy. How do you see populist actors either co-opting or challenging these CSO functions, especially during elections?
Dr. Mark Riboldi: That’s a good question. In the most recent election in Australia, a quite populist right-wing figure in the form of a coal baron—Clive Palmer—ran under the Trumpet of Patriots party. He spent millions and millions of dollars on billboards, social media advertising, and I think pretty much everyone in Australia received about four text messages from him during the campaign. His message included quite a few universalist claims like free education or canceling student debt—what we might call socialist concerns that genuinely resonate with people. That’s clearly a response to public concerns, but of course, there was no intention to follow through. And in the end, Trumpet of Patriots actually lost ground in the election.
On the advocacy side, we’ve also seen right-wing governments in Australia work to delegitimize advocacy as a function of civil society organizations and NGOs. Over the last 40–50 years, we’ve had roughly 20–25 years of right-wing governments, and they’ve consistently tried to undermine the ability of these organizations to engage in advocacy. Their argument is essentially, “We give NGOs money, so they should just deliver services and stop speaking out.”
Even left-wing governments, at times, take the attitude that civil society organizations should help them get elected—and then be quiet and let them govern without criticism. So it’s a real challenge. For me, systemic advocacy is a crucial democratic function. Civil society organizations play a vital role in sustaining a pluralist society, ensuring that multiple voices are heard in the political system.
In discussing power distribution within civil society, you raise concerns about homogeneity in the Climate 200 movement. How might this lack of diversity undermine their capacity to challenge right-wing populism and broaden their democratic appeal?
Dr. Mark Riboldi: So the Climate 200 independents in Australia are very middle class, and they’re very white. In Australia’s political spectrum, you might identify five main positions. You have the centre-left Australian Labor Party, the centre-right Liberal-National Coalition, and to the left of Labor, parties like the Greens. On the far-right, you have parties like One Nation—a very populist right-wing movement that, thankfully, has not been particularly electorally successful despite being around for some time. Then, in the middle of all that, you have Climate 200 and the independents they support.
These Climate 200-backed independents are very much centrist, middle-class, and white. I don’t think Climate 200 is positioned to meaningfully challenge right-wing populism. Rather, I see them as representing a realignment within the centre-right of Australian politics. So no, I don’t think they are a challenge to right-wing populism—I think they’re just a soft shift back toward the centre for parts of the Liberal Party’s traditional base.
People Want Vision, Not Parliamentary Machinations
You were critical of Adam Bandt’s leadership being perceived as too ‘insider’ or technocratic. In the context of Australian populism, how important is anti-elitist performance or outsider image, even for progressive candidates?
Dr. Mark Riboldi: I think it’s very important. My criticism of the Greens during the election was more about the lead slogan or the message they had in the campaign. Basically, they pitched around the potential role the Greens could play in a minority government, and that was a lot of the messaging they were putting forward. Even the Climate 200 independents were doing something similar. A lot of polling in the lead-up to the elections showed the potential for a minority government, so both the Greens and Climate 200 were pitching into that.
Late in the campaign, it became reasonably clear that the right-wing National Party wasn’t campaigning effectively, and their vote was collapsing. It became increasingly likely that the Labor Party would reclaim government with a larger majority. As a result, the technocratic message of the Greens didn’t really cut through—or at least didn’t appear to resonate with voters, in my view.
To the substance of the question: I think people are tired of that kind of talk. They don’t want to hear politicians discussing the machinations of Parliament—whether it’s minority government, who’s going to do what, or preferences and who’s going to prefer whom. People want to hear politicians talk about ideas and present a vision for Australia that’s bold yet realistic. So I think it’s a real problem if we don’t have political parties—and if a left-wing movement like the Greens isn’t articulating that vision clearly—because then they’re just falling into that more elitist style of politics.
The Greens’ emphasis on housing and renters’ rights was arguably a populist move, targeting a disenfranchised demographic. Do you think this issue can serve as a long-term populist wedge against both major parties, or was it electorally premature?
Dr. Mark Riboldi: I don’t think it was electorally premature. The Greens in Australia have been campaigning on housing at the state and federal levels for 10 to 15 years, if not a little more. There are places in Australia where there are more renters in electorates than there are homeowners. There’s an increasing demographic of people in Australia who are locked out of the housing market. It’s not just young people—there are people getting older, people around my age, who have been and will be lifelong renters.
Another aspect is that the rental system in Australia is heavily geared towards landlords, and so the power distribution between landlords and renters is very imbalanced. So I think it’s a perfect issue for the Greens and other social democratic institutions to campaign on. The political discourse in Australia for the last three years has been heavily dominated by housing.
The government has invested a lot of money. The Greens were able to negotiate about an extra $3 billion from the government for housing in the last term. But the problems around housing are not going to go away. The price of houses is going up, the price of rents is going up. There are no, as yet, systemic changes to the incentives for people to just buy investment properties and raise the rents again and again.
Emotion Isn’t New—But It Needs to Be Backed by Facts
An elderly woman prays amidst a busy crowd in Sydney, Australia. Photo: Martin Graf.
You argue that civil society groups often deploy emotionally charged messaging (e.g. “Truth,” “Stop Dutton”). Is this a sign of populist communication logic seeping into the mainstream left, or a necessary rhetorical strategy in the current media landscape?
Dr. Mark Riboldi: There’s nothing new about emotionally charged messaging in politics—on the left or the right. It’s a very common tool to mobilize supporters, get votes, and prompt people to take action. Emotion is a powerful political tool. I don’t think it’s necessarily tied to some kind of populist communication logic.
If you think about common framing devices used to get people engaged, one key example from the union movement is the “anger, hope, action” frame—which is still widely used today. You communicate something the opponent has done that makes people angry, then offer a sense of hope—saying we can do something about it—and finally, you give them an action: volunteer, protest, take to the streets. That frame is used by both the left and the right.
So no, emotionally charged language isn’t new. In fact, I think one mistake early on—particularly in the climate movement—was assuming that governments make decisions based on evidence. A lot of policy and progressive-minded people have believed that rational arguments alone will win the day. That’s a nice rationalist view, but I don’t think it’s ever truly been the case.
Balanced messaging needs both facts and emotion. The strongest messaging I’ve seen from either the workers’ rights movement or the climate movement in Australia combines solid facts with emotional language, compelling music, and strong visuals to connect with people. Getting people to make decisions is often driven by emotion. So yes, you need emotional rhetoric—it’s just a question of whether you can back it up with facts, or whether, as in the case of some populist figures in various places, you’re just full of shit.
Preferential Voting Acts as a Democratic Stopgap Against Populist Surges
Australia’s preferential voting system has helped both minor parties and independents. Do you think this electoral setup inadvertently creates fertile ground for populist insurgents, or does it actually moderate them compared to first-past-the-post systems?
Dr. Mark Riboldi: I think it’s the latter. Australia’s electoral system—and our system of government more broadly—means that Australia is largely governed from the center. We have compulsory voting, so you’re not just competing to get a small subset of people to vote—everyone votes. We also have preferential voting, which means that votes tend to flow toward one or the other of the major parties.
The third aspect is our proportional upper house. So for me, Australia’s political system functions as a kind of stopgap on populism and right-wing insurgency. We’ve had right-wing populist figures elected in Australia before, but they don’t seem particularly good at staying elected. In our research, we’ve found that many of the One Nation MPs who got elected often quit the party within 12 to 18 months and end up standing as independents. There’s a real fragmentation among the right in Australia—they don’t really have their act together in terms of getting elected, staying elected, and forming a sustained political force.
So while the preferential system might help third-party candidates get elected, it’s different from first-past-the-post systems like in the US or UK, where other voices are often completely locked out. That can suppress pluralism to the point where pressure builds and eventually erupts in some kind of populist insurgency. In contrast, Australia’s system allows for those moments of political breakthrough—a sudden rise of a particular voice in a community—but it also contains built-in checks and balances. So, for me, it functions as a pretty effective stopgap against populist insurgency.
Reclaiming Democracy Means Breaking the Corporate-Politics Conveyor Belt
Two businessmen shaking hands as Australian banknotes fall around them. Photo: Dreamstime.
Given the increasing number of independents and minor party MPs, what reforms—if any—do you believe are necessary to maintain the integrity and functionality of parliamentary democracy in Australia?
Dr. Mark Riboldi: One of the biggest problems in Australia—and I think it’s probably the same in other liberal Western democracies—is the impact of big business on government and the broader issue of state capture. Some of the reforms that have been proposed in Australia include making ministers’ diaries and politicians’ diaries transparent, so the public can see exactly who is meeting with whom.
Another reform area involves strengthening laws around the declaration of interests—what politicians might own or have investments in—and addressing the issue of the “conveyor belt” from Parliament directly into high-paying jobs in industry. This same conveyor belt also often runs from student politics into Parliament and then into lucrative private sector roles. It’s a trajectory that tends to skip real work experience and meaningful community engagement.
So, trying to reclaim government for the community—by increasing transparency and breaking that closed loop between politics and corporate power—is a really important step for maintaining the integrity of parliamentary democracy.
Do you think the Greens face a strategic identity crisis: trying to be a party of responsible governance while also holding onto their roots in protest and radical critique? Is this tension a barrier to populist appeal and a strength in a polarized political climate?
Dr. Mark Riboldi: I think this tension is a good thing. It’s a healthy and important tension for a social democratic party on the left to have. It revolves around the connection that parties like the Greens maintain with the social movements they emerged from—whether that’s the environmental movement, the peace and nonviolence movements, or socialist movements in different parts of the country. These are deep, activist roots. On the other side of the tension are the elected parliamentarians, their staff, and those working to gain office and participate in running the country and forming government.
That’s a tension because some people might argue that the Greens should always stay a protest party—that their role is to represent activists and not be compromised by being in Parliament. And others might say, “Well, what’s the point of being in Parliament if you can’t actually go on to form government at some point?” So I think that tension is really useful. It helps to keep a party like the Greens connected to their roots and accountable to those roots.
The Australian Labor Party—one of the more successful labor parties in the world—still has very strong connections to the union movement, and the union movement is still able to discipline the Labor Party. That’s a tension too. The Labor Party can’t structurally drift away from its base in the way that the Democrats have in the US, for example. It’s just not structurally possible at this point.
So, those tensions are really important in parties—particularly in left-wing parties. It makes it harder for them to have a populist appeal, especially the older and more successful they become. As parties become more institutionalized, people want to take fewer risks because they’re interested in keeping their jobs or getting more people elected. But if you’ve got that tension—whether it’s from environmental movements, socialist movements, workers’ rights movements, peace and nonviolence movements—then you’ve got voices that can appeal to people in a populist way that speaks to their genuine democratic concerns for better representation.
Boldness Without Believability Risks Falling Flat
Protesters at the No Carbon Tax Rally in Canberra, Australia, on March 23, 2011. Photo: Phillip Minnis.
Bob Brown called for greater boldness from the Greens. In your view, what would ‘boldness’ actually look like in the current political climate? Is there a risk of boldness tipping into populist demagoguery?
Dr. Mark Riboldi: If boldness is not coupled with a sense of realism and believability—like I was mentioning before—then it risks falling flat. Clive Palmer and the Trumpet of Patriots were out there during the election saying they were going to give everyone free education, completely wipe out student debts, and do a whole lot of things. Some of it sounded quite good, but people didn’t believe them. People didn’t have faith that they would actually do those things.
So, boldness needs to be accompanied by legitimacy, and that’s something a party like the Greens does have. People can believe what the Greens are talking about. The Greens have been in Parliament now for well over a decade. They can point to reforms they’ve championed or contributed to—including the creation of a National Integrity Commission, action on climate change, and, as I mentioned before, securing extra funding for housing. People have seen the Greens deliver, so I think that has bought them, for lack of a better word, a degree of political capital they can spend on advocating for bold policies.
In that sense, I agree with Bob Brown. Boldness is about selling a compelling vision of what Australia’s future could be. I read an article today about the new Greens leadership where a former leader was saying, “We didn’t have new policies; we were just talking about the same things we’ve been talking about for 10 years.” And he said that as though he was proud of it. But for me, maybe that’s not the kind of message people wanted to hear. Perhaps they needed something different, especially when so much of the campaign was focused on the prospect of minority government.
So yes, boldness is important—but it needs to be grounded in legitimacy and an ability to achieve tangible outcomes in Parliament. The Greens have that, through their balance of power in the Senate and their track record of working in and around government.
Australia’s Institutions Also Act as a Stopgap Against Populist Surges
Finally, with the continuing fragmentation of both the left and right in Australian politics, do you foresee a populist surge from the right akin to the US or Europe—or is the Australian political system too institutionally embedded for such movements to dominate?
Dr. Mark Riboldi: This might be wishful thinking, but I do think that Australia has some structural resistance to those kinds of populist surges. That’s not to say there aren’t right-wing populist movements in Australia. I’ve mentioned Pauline Hanson’s One Nation a couple of times. Like other places, we’ve had protest movements around anti-vaxxers, and there are nationalist movements in parts of Australia that have jumped onto those kinds of issues. So we do have an active right-wing nationalist populist presence in Australia.
But I do think our electoral system is a bit of a stopgap for that. We have a proportional Upper House, and the government rarely has control of both houses of Parliament in Australia. Usually, the government is formed with control over the lower house—the House of Government—but in the Senate, they typically have to negotiate, similar to the US system, where passing bills requires working with different coalitions of senators. That serves as a useful check on populism and prevents one party from gaining total control and running rampant over the system.
I also think the preferential voting system helps mitigate that risk. And compulsory voting means people are more engaged in the system—the political pitch in Australia isn’t just to narrow bands of partisan voters, but to the broader political center. All of those things aren’t an antidote per se, but they act as a kind of stopgap. Populist surges in Australia might break in from outside the Parliament, but I don’t think they get a foothold or gain as much institutional power as they do in other places.
In this compelling interview, Dr. Maxine Newlands—an expert in environmental politics and ocean governance—warns that the “Australian political system has essentially stepped back from climate change.” Speaking with ECPS, she highlights how rising polarization and populist denialism have rendered climate policy too risky for major parties. “Politicians avoid addressing it altogether,” she explains, noting that even terms like “climate change” were strategically omitted from campaigns. Dr. Newlands critiques the media’s role in spreading disinformation and urges a more pluralistic approach grounded in community voices, Indigenous knowledge, and the Blue Humanities. Her analysis provides a powerful lens into how populist narratives have reshaped Australia’s environmental politics and what it will take to restore trust and democratic inclusion in climate action.
In this in-depth and timely interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Dr. Maxine Newlands—a leading expert on environmental politics, ocean governance, and media ecosystems—offers a powerful diagnosis of Australia’s political retreat from climate leadership. Drawing on over a decade of research on the Great Barrier Reef, climate denialism, and populist media strategies, Dr. Newlands, Adjunct Professor in Political Science at James Cook University, Queensland, Australia, outlines how environmental discourse has become increasingly politicized in ways that have paralyzed mainstream policymaking.
“Australian political system has essentially stepped back from [climate change],” she states early in the conversation, framing the issue as a casualty of polarization and populist backlash. As climate change rose in political salience over successive election cycles, so too did opposition to it—especially from the populist right, which “either denies climate change outright or downplays its severity.” This dynamic, according to Dr. Newlands, has left the major parties “highly risk-averse,” with climate no longer functioning as a credible electoral issue.
Reflecting on recent electoral patterns in Australian politics, Dr. Newlands underscores how the Morrison government deliberately avoided the term “climate change” during its campaign, fearing it had become a political liability. This conscious rhetorical avoidance, she argues, exemplifies how populist pressure has warped the national conversation, “creating a vacuum” that has since been filled by more radical or issue-specific groups, such as the Greens or environmental NGOs.
Throughout the interview, Dr. Newlands unpacks how this climate retreat has been reinforced by media manipulation, especially from Rupert Murdoch’s syndicates, and disinformation campaigns that have framed environmental regulation as a threat to sovereignty, jobs, and national identity. These narratives are particularly potent in resource-rich regions like Queensland, where “climate becomes intertwined with concerns over foreign influence” and where populist slogans—like “Don’t take my mining job, and I won’t take your soy latte”—gain traction.
Against this backdrop, she calls for renewed, pluralistic approaches to environmental governance—ones grounded in the arts, Indigenous knowledge systems, and the Blue Humanities—to “open up the narrative” beyond the rigid binaries of denial versus technocracy. In her view, it’s not enough to combat populism with more data or more policy: what’s needed is a new cultural imaginary—one capable of re-enchanting the public’s relationship with nature and democracy alike.
In this thought-provoking conversation, Dr. Jefferson Lyndon D. Ragragio—Gosling-Lim Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Michigan—discusses the resilience and transformation of populism in the Philippines. He explores how symbolic narratives of “pro-people, anti-elite” sentiment continue to drive support for dynastic figures like the Dutertes, despite mounting legal scrutiny. From social media toxicity to youth electoral shifts, Dr. Ragragio argues that populism is “here to stay,” shaped by local patronage networks and reinforced by mediatized political performance. He also highlights the importance of civic education and independent journalism as counterforces. This is a timely, incisive analysis of a political culture in flux.
In this wide-ranging and incisive interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Dr. Jefferson Lyndon D. Ragragio—Gosling-Lim Postdoctoral Fellow in Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Michigan—offers a sobering yet nuanced analysis of the enduring logic of populism in Philippine politics. With a research focus on media, democracy, and political communication in Southeast Asia, Dr. Ragragio traces how populist discourse and dynastic power have remained mutually reinforcing features of the Filipino political landscape.
“Populism in the Philippines is here to stay,” he affirms, stressing that whether “right-wing, illiberal, or left-wing-oriented,” such formations continue to thrive due to “an enduring clamor for pro-people, anti-elite sentiments” across both national and local arenas. This durability, Dr. Ragragio argues, is not merely rhetorical but structural, anchored in long-standing regional patronage networks and a media ecosystem conducive to symbolic politics.
Reflecting on the Duterte family’s electoral resurgence amid legal controversies—including former President Rodrigo Duterte’s detention at the ICC and Vice President Sara Duterte’s looming impeachment—Dr. Ragragio interprets this revival not simply as continuity, but as a strategic “recalibration of expressions of support” rooted in the “symbolic resilience” of populist narratives. Despite mounting legal and institutional scrutiny, he observes that “support can be sustained, especially at the local level,” even as national opposition gains ground.
Equally compelling is his analysis of political journalism as a contested discursive terrain. “Political journalism has long been a battleground,” Dr. Ragragio notes, shaped by both populist co-optation and democratic resistance. He commends outlets like Rappler and regional campus journalists for expanding critical coverage during the midterm elections, while also warning of the toxic political performance encouraged by algorithmic propaganda on platforms like Facebook.
Crucially, Dr. Ragragio identifies media literacy, civic education, and institutional accountability as key interventions in combating “authoritarian masculinity and political exceptionalism.” Yet he remains realistic about the persistence of dynastic dominance, noting that “a third of the Senate is composed of familial pairs.”
Ultimately, his insights reveal a landscape in flux—where democratic recalibration and populist entrenchment coexist in uneasy tension, and where the future of Philippine democracy hinges on how these competing narratives are mediated, institutionalized, and resisted from below.
Here is the lightly edited transcript of the interview withDr. Jefferson Lyndon D. Ragragio.
From Continuity to Calibration: The Evolving Symbolism of Duterte’s Populist Appeal
Professor Ragragio, thank you very much for joining our interview series. Let me start right away with the first question: In the light of Rodrigo Duterte’s International Criminal Court (ICC) detention and Sara Duterte’s impeachment trial, how do you interpret the Duterte family’s electoral resurgence as a recalibration of populist performativity rather than a simple continuation of its earlier iteration?
Dr. Jefferson Lyndon D. Ragragio: Thanks very much to the ECPS for this kind invitation. So, your first question really is a hard question already. Just to be clear for your audience—I’m not a political scientist, and I’m not a legal expert. My area really is in media and democracy.I’m particularly focused on news media and independent journalism in the Philippines, and I’m trying to expand that to Southeast Asian countries as well. But I’m very much interested in media populism, and I think this is one of the main thrusts of the ECPS.
Maybe before I go into details, I think it would help if I provide some very brief background about the Philippine midterm elections. We have just recently concluded the midterm elections in the Philippines. Normally, the midterm elections are less enticing compared to the national ones. Why? Because they are usually a referendum or a test of the trust or approval ratings of the current president or the current administration as a whole.
This midterm election that we just had is relatively more colorful—and perhaps some would say more historic—compared to past election cycles because the strong support for the current administration did not stand still. So, I think my key takeaway for this election is that, at least if we look at the national results of the Senate race, the midterm election results are somewhat bad for President Bongbong Marcos. But at the same time, they are also not so good for Vice President Sara Duterte, who is currently—and will eventually be—facing an impeachment trial at the Senate. So, that’s my main takeaway.
Regarding your question, there is obviously a resurgence of support for the Dutertes. If we look at both the national and the regional/local levels, you can see some clear indications that there is indeed a resurgence of support for former President Rodrigo Duterte, who is currently detained at The Hague at the International Criminal Court (ICC) for charges of crimes against humanity, and also for the political clan of the Dutertes in general.
The former President Duterte won the majority race very easily, and his children have also won virtually all key positions in the city of Davao. So, if the question is: Is there a resurgence? The short answer is yes. Is there a recalibration of expressions of support for the Dutertes? There were clear recalibrations—but there are also some emerging, more complicated, mixed expressions of support for the Dutertes.
Populism After Accountability
Does the Duterte camp’s sustained support reflect what you have elsewhere called the “symbolic resilience” of populist narratives, particularly in contexts where legal accountability coexists with popular legitimacy?
Dr. Jefferson Lyndon D. Ragragio: It appears they can. It appears they can sustain this support from the city, from the regional publics, regional voters. But also, there are clear indications that this public support can be cut down— can be trimmed down.
Again, if we look at the national Senate race in the previous midterm elections, there is no clear and concise support going to the Dutertes, because this midterm election also opened opportunities for non-Dutertes—or anti-Dutertes rather—for supporters of the Liberal opposition, for example, which paved the way for the former Senators Aquino and Pangilinan to win this election cycle. So, yes, the support can be sustained, especially at the local level. But at the national or even regional levels, there might be some strong opposition—and consistent opposition as well—to the Dutertes.
To what extent does the Duterte revival indicate the adaptive strength of populist movements to institutional rupture and legal contestation? Can this be read as a post-accountability phase in Philippine populism?
Dr. Jefferson Lyndon D. Ragragio: Oh, definitely. The resurgence, for example, of so-called young or youth voters—while we don’t yet have concrete data—appears to reflect a consensus among many observers that the youth vote delivered not for the Dutertes or the Marcoses, but rather for independent candidates who articulated strong platforms on governance issues such as agriculture, local livelihood, and basic education. So yes, the short answer to your question is also yes.
The resurgence, for example, of so-called young or youth voters—many of them, well, we have no concrete data yet, but it appears that many observers share a consensus that the young votes, or the youth vote rather, delivered not only for the Dutertes nor the Marcoses, but more on candidates—independent candidates—that spoke well of important platforms of governance, for example, agriculture, local livelihood, basic education, and so on. So yes, the short answer to your question is yes, as well.
Elite Rule in Anti-Elite Clothing
Davao City officials, including Vice President Sara Duterte, celebrated Philippine Independence Day on stage in Davao City, Philippines, on June 12, 2024. Photo: Elvie Lins.
Considering the dynastic entrenchment of both the Dutertes and the Marcoses, how does Philippine populism mediate between elite familial power and its rhetorical positioning as anti-elite, anti-establishment politics?
Dr. Jefferson Lyndon D. Ragragio: I’m not an expert in that field—I know there are scholars and political scientists who specialize in familial and patronage politics. But what I can say in response to your question is that anti-establishment expressions remain very much predominant—not only at the national level, but arguably even more so at the local and regional levels. For example, in races for the House of Representatives—what we call the “lower House of Congress”—and in contests for governorships, anti-elite and anti-establishment sentiments are widespread. And, not surprisingly, it’s often the same members of entrenched political families who deploy these very narratives. So yes, it’s a bit toxic, in a sense, to see how anti-elitism and anti-elite rhetoric continue to operate within regional and local elections.
How does the personalization of governance, exemplified by Sara Duterte’s political rhetoric and Rodrigo Duterte’s mayoral campaign from detention, reinforce the mythos of populist indispensability in Philippine political culture?
Dr. Jefferson Lyndon D. Ragragio: I think the indispensability aspect of your question relates to the durable brand of politics—and populism in particular—in its right-wing or authoritarian form, which I would emphasize more. There is a clear sense of durability because, in the first place, the Dutertes have held political power in the city of Davao for over two decades. This style—especially its mediated, authoritarian populist expression—has significantly contributed to their continued dominance. And, as you mentioned earlier, several institutional aspects and barriers also reinforce their hold on power. Political patronage is one such mechanism. Moreover, the collaboration between and among political clans in local politics has been instrumental in sustaining this durable brand of governance in Davao.
The Marcos-Duterte Rift and the Strategic Deployment of Populist Performance
Is the current Marcos-Duterte schism a rupture within populist logic itself—or does it signal a competition over the same populist register of “strongman sovereignty” and “political vengeance”?
Dr. Jefferson Lyndon D. Ragragio: I wouldn’t really call it a schism or a rupture in the context of populist politics because, first of all, it’s somewhat challenging to identify President Marcos as a populist. Of course, he has some expressions that could resonate or qualify as populist—such as being pro-people. But compared to the brand of populism espoused by former President Rodrigo Duterte, this isn’t really a schism between populist politics; it’s more about politics at large. For example, both President Marcos and Vice President Sara Duterte ran on a so-called platform of unity during the 2022 national elections. However, it only took them about a year—or even less—to realize that there was no unity at all in the brand of politics they had tried to project. So, while populism may not be at the forefront of the schism or rupture between the Marcoses and the Dutertes, if we define populism as an expression of how you resonate with the people—many segments of the public—this is where you can see the potential for both the use and misuse of populist politics.
In your analyses of editorial framing and mediatized nationalism, how has the news media contributed to either normalizing or contesting the discursive legitimacy of the Duterte camp’s post-presidency populism?
Dr. Jefferson Lyndon D. Ragragio: Yeah, it’s a mixed bag. I haven’t yet expanded my study of editorials, but what I can say in relation to the recent midterm election cycle is that some independent news media outlets have done a commendable job of reporting. For example, if you look at the reporting by Rappler—an online news media platform—they expanded their coverage from the national level to include regional and local contexts. Covering regional and local elections has consistently been a challenge not only for national media outlets but even for local ones, largely due to a lack of sufficient manpower to cover election races in the provinces. But this time around, it’s commendable to see how media outlets collaborated with campus journalists—regional campus journalists in particular—who covered important local elections in their respective areas.
Toxic Platforms and Battleground Newsrooms
How would you assess the role of algorithmic propaganda networks, particularly on platforms like Facebook, in sustaining the Duterte narrative as a populist moral crusade amid institutional delegitimization?
Dr. Jefferson Lyndon D. Ragragio:I haven’t looked systematically yet at the social media aspect of this midterm election. But I would surmise—based on my very cursory reading of Facebook pages or posts by politicians—that social media platforms, especially Facebook in the Philippines, represent one of the most toxic political environments you can think of. What I mean is that this is where you often see politicians, both national and local, trying to craft or reinforce certain images that will resonate with their target publics.
For example, what makes this environment particularly toxic is that you might see a senatorial candidate who would rather dance and capitalize on his showbiz celebrity charisma on stage than discuss his platform of governance. This is one aspect of what makes social media campaigning more problematic.
Of course, I do not deny that social media platforms can also serve as important avenues for grievances and for the expression of credible sentiments—especially among young voters—who may use these channels to voice their discontent against the administration or any politician, for that matter.
Has political journalism in the Philippines evolved into a form of discursive battleground, where journalists are not just observers but are increasingly cast as either custodians or co-conspirators within populist frameworks?
Dr. Jefferson Lyndon D. Ragragio: I think political journalism in the country has been in that state for a long time. A quick backgrounder: Philippine journalism in general—the journalism environment—is regarded as one of the freest, if not the freest, practices of independent journalism in the region. Of course, there are many important and historical experiences by Filipino journalists that have shaped who they are and what they practice today.
So going back to your question, yes, political journalism has long been a discursive battleground for the expression of a variety of political sentiments. You have journalists who may support certain kinds of populist sentiments expressed by the Dutertes, but at the same time, you have journalists who are openly critical of the authoritarian populist sentiments of the leader. And then, of course, you also have some journalists—even some news media outlets—who are not so keen on expressing their political stance. Perhaps they prefer to observe, say, objectivity or nonpartisanship in the way they conduct their journalistic practices.
Courts, Congress, and the Contest for Accountability in a Populist Legal Order
Militant groups storm the Mendiola Peace Arch near Malacanang Palace during the 64th Universal Declaration of Human Rights to protest alleged violations under the Noynoy Aquino government, Manila, Philippines, December 10, 2012. Photo: Dreamstime.
Drawing from your work on media law and the judiciary, how do you evaluate the potential of institutions like the Senate and the Supreme Court to act as bulwarks against populist legalism—or are they being absorbed into its logics?
Dr. Jefferson Lyndon D. Ragragio: I’d like to believe that—or at least have confidence in—institutions of checks and balances. For example, based on my work on the Supreme Court and press freedom in the country, I think there are avenues and strong potential for the Supreme Court to police and regulate extreme incivility coming from politicians and even from government officials.
In the case of the news media, as I mentioned earlier, there is also the potential for journalism—especially independent journalism—to express discontent and actively challenge illiberal politics and authoritarian populist sentiments. But I would go even further and consider the potential of other institutions. For instance, the role of the academia, of universities, and even credible polling or survey firms. These are critical institutions—critical organizations—that can contribute to building a more diverse and more democratic environment.
Is Sara Duterte’s impeachment trial a moment of institutional accountability or a spectacle of juridico-political theater shaped by dynastic rivalry? Given your analysis of the politicization of libel law, to what extent are legal instruments still being weaponized to manufacture legitimacy in the Duterte-Marcos power struggle?
Dr. Jefferson Lyndon D. Ragragio: I think there are two main questions there. One has to do with the impeachment trial of the current Vice President. This is definitely an expression of accountability. One thing we need to look at is the upcoming impeachment trial at the Senate, which is scheduled for sometime in July—likely the last week. This will be broadcast live, making the proceedings publicly accessible. What this means is that public sentiment will figure significantly in the way the senators—the sitting senator-jurors—decide on the trial.
That’s one aspect. The other concerns the institutions. I understand there are related libel cases—not only against the Marcoses and the Dutertes, but also involving other politicians. That is something we need to keep a close eye on. Fortunately, there have been recent trends and initiatives by the Supreme Court to take more seriously the question: How exactly do we treat libel? And is there room for the decriminalization of libel as a criminal offense? Because in the Philippines, libel is a criminal offense. I believe we are one of the few countries—if not the only one—left in the world that still treats libel as a criminal offense. So that’s another important development to watch.
Democratic Pluralism from Below?
With the electoral success of figures outside the dynastic duopoly, such as Bam Aquino and Francis Pangilinan, do you perceive a nascent re-articulation of democratic pluralism—perhaps even a counter-populist discourse—emerging from below?
Dr. Jefferson Lyndon D. Ragragio: I’d like to believe that way. I’d like to think that there is really great potential for the Liberal opposition to challenge the toxic brand of authoritarian populism. But at the same time, there are some unfortunate realities. For example, if you look at the upcoming composition of the Senate—we have 24 senators—and a third of them, so we’re talking about eight members, are related to one another. We have four pairs of senators who are siblings. This is really a kind of toxic politics that we need to be critical about. So your question about political dynasty, I hope, is one thing that can be tackled seriously by the resurging Liberal opposition in this election cycle.
What civic, educational, or legal interventions do you view as most urgent to disrupt the entrenched narrative of authoritarian masculinity and political exceptionalism in Philippine populist politics?
Dr. Jefferson Lyndon D. Ragragio: That’s an important question, because we have a lot of discussion in the Philippines—and even in Southeast Asia—on how to combat mis- and disinformation. So, I think that is critical to both political education and even civic education. How, or to what extent, can media literacy develop our astute understanding of what a credible political brand or what a credible political, electoral campaigning slogan really matters.
Populism Is Here to Stay in the Philippines
People flooded the streets of Manila to demand justice for all the victims of extrajudicial killings that happened during the time of President Duterte on June 30, 2021. Photo: Santino Quintero.
Finally, in your view, does the 2025 midterm outcome represent a deepening of the populist-authoritarian paradigm—or does it contain seeds of democratic recalibration amidst an increasingly mediatized and dynastically polarized landscape?
Dr. Jefferson Lyndon D. Ragragio: Well, the short answer is yes to both your questions. First, I think populism is here to stay. I understand there’s a lot of scholarly and public discussion about what populism really is. In many European and American contexts, we tend to distinguish between right-wing populism, left-wing populism, or illiberal populism. In the Philippines, although those categories are present, I think we also see historically and politically distinct forms of populism that deserve more focused attention.
That said, to answer your question—populism in the Philippines is here to stay. Whether we are dealing with right-wing, illiberal, or left-wing-oriented forms, populism persists because there is an enduring clamor for pro-people, anti-elite sentiments that resonate strongly within both national and local political landscapes.
In a compelling interview with ECPS, political sociologist Dr. Josh Roose unpacks the 2025 Australian federal election, arguing it marked “a resounding rejection of Trumpist-style populism.” Dr. Roose explores how Liberal leader Peter Dutton’s strongman image backfired, while Labor’s inclusive yet grounded masculinity resonated with urban voters—especially women. He warns, however, of far-right undercurrents and rising generational and economic divides. Reflecting on political masculinities, Islamophobia, and online extremism, Dr. Roose calls for educational and legislative reforms to bolster democratic resilience. A timely deep dive into Australia’s populist landscape—and a must-read for scholars and studenst of global politics.
In a sweeping analysis of Australia’s 2025 federal election results, Dr. Josh Roose—a political sociologist and Associate Professor at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation—offers a compelling assessment of what he calls “a rejection of Trumpist-style populism in Australia.” Speaking to the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Dr. Roose contextualizes the electoral defeat of Liberal Party leader Peter Dutton within a broader international trend, noting, “What we saw in Canada—where Trump backed the right and attacked Canada, and people mobilized against that and favoured the political left—played out in a very similar vein here.”
Throughout the interview, Dr. Roose explores the dynamics of Australia’s right-wing populism, which has been notably influenced by US political discourse. He underscores how attempts to “personalize Trump through Dutton” and flirt with alt-right masculinity narratives—such as “strong men create good times, weak men create tough times”—largely backfired, particularly among urban professionals and women voters. In this context, he points to Anthony Albanese’s reelection as emblematic of a political style that is both masculine and inclusive: “He doesn’t walk away from traditional working-class masculinity… but he does so in a way that is far more popular and acceptable to women.”
While the Labor Party’s landslide victory marks a historic realignment, Dr. Roose also cautions against complacency. He observes that far-right parties, including Pauline Hanson’s One Nation and the pro-Trump “Trumpet of Patriots,” collectively garnered 10–12% of the vote in some electorates—indicating persistent, if marginalized, populist undercurrents.
Dr. Roose also situates these electoral shifts in the context of deeper transformations in political legitimacy and authority. “The traditional authoritarian mode of politics with a strongman leader… is being resoundingly rejected,” he argues, especially by younger and more diverse electorates. However, he notes that Australia’s deeply masculinist political culture is only gradually giving way to more inclusive norms, catalyzed in part by pandemic-era changes to work and caregiving.
Drawing on his expertise in counter-extremism, Dr. Roose concludes with a call for civic and institutional interventions, from regulating online hate speech to embedding models of “healthy masculinity” in educational curricula. “We need a masculinity that is strong, but also nurturing… capable of moving beyond the ego,” he asserts.
Dr. Roose’s analysis offers both an in-depth case study of Australia’s evolving political terrain and a timely contribution to the global debate on the future of populism, masculinity, and democratic resilience in the post-Trump era.
In this compelling interview, Dr. Maxine Newlands—an expert in environmental politics and ocean governance—warns that the “Australian political system has essentially stepped back from climate change.” Speaking with ECPS, she highlights how rising polarization and populist denialism have rendered climate policy too risky for major parties. “Politicians avoid addressing it altogether,” she explains, noting that even terms like “climate change” were strategically omitted from campaigns. Dr. Newlands critiques the media’s role in spreading disinformation and urges a more pluralistic approach grounded in community voices, Indigenous knowledge, and the Blue Humanities. Her analysis provides a powerful lens into how populist narratives have reshaped Australia’s environmental politics and what it will take to restore trust and democratic inclusion in climate action.
In this in-depth and timely interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Dr. Maxine Newlands—a leading expert on environmental politics, ocean governance, and media ecosystems—offers a powerful diagnosis of Australia’s political retreat from climate leadership. Drawing on over a decade of research on the Great Barrier Reef, climate denialism, and populist media strategies, Dr. Newlands, Adjunct Professor in Political Science at James Cook University, Queensland, Australia, outlines how environmental discourse has become increasingly politicized in ways that have paralyzed mainstream policymaking.
“Australian political system has essentially stepped back from [climate change],” she states early in the conversation, framing the issue as a casualty of polarization and populist backlash. As climate change rose in political salience over successive election cycles, so too did opposition to it—especially from the populist right, which “either denies climate change outright or downplays its severity.” This dynamic, according to Dr. Newlands, has left the major parties “highly risk-averse,” with climate no longer functioning as a credible electoral issue.
Reflecting on recent electoral patterns in Australian politics, Dr. Newlands underscores how the Morrison government deliberately avoided the term “climate change” during its campaign, fearing it had become a political liability. This conscious rhetorical avoidance, she argues, exemplifies how populist pressure has warped the national conversation, “creating a vacuum” that has since been filled by more radical or issue-specific groups, such as the Greens or environmental NGOs.
Throughout the interview, Dr. Newlands unpacks how this climate retreat has been reinforced by media manipulation, especially from Rupert Murdoch’s syndicates, and disinformation campaigns that have framed environmental regulation as a threat to sovereignty, jobs, and national identity. These narratives are particularly potent in resource-rich regions like Queensland, where “climate becomes intertwined with concerns over foreign influence” and where populist slogans—like “Don’t take my mining job, and I won’t take your soy latte”—gain traction.
Against this backdrop, she calls for renewed, pluralistic approaches to environmental governance—ones grounded in the arts, Indigenous knowledge systems, and the Blue Humanities—to “open up the narrative” beyond the rigid binaries of denial versus technocracy. In her view, it’s not enough to combat populism with more data or more policy: what’s needed is a new cultural imaginary—one capable of re-enchanting the public’s relationship with nature and democracy alike.
Here is the lightly edited transcript of the interview with Dr. Maxine Newlands.
Populist Pressure Has Made Climate Too Politically Dangerous to Touch
Thank you very much for joining our interview series. Let me start right away with the first question:In the light of your work on climate denialism and environmental media, how would you interpret the electoral retreat of both far-right and green populisms in the 2025 federal election? Does this suggest an emergent fatigue with ideological extremes, or a recalibration of populist rhetoric within major party discourse?
Dr. Maxine Newlands: I think it’s worth acknowledging the historical context of where climate change and climate denialism have sat within Australia. There’s been a slow increase over a series of election cycles where climate change has repeatedly been positioned as a key issue. We’ve had many elections branded as the climate change election. In 2019, for example, the narrative from the left focused heavily on net zero targets, climate impacts, and climate mitigation—particularly highlighting the Great Barrier Reef as a central concern.
This buildup has been met with a strong pushback. The conversation became polarized between a populist right that either denies climate change outright or downplays its severity, and a more progressive side where the issue was front and center.
This tension has politicized the debate to such a degree that the Australian political system has essentially stepped back from it. So yes, to an extent, we can ask whether denialism and populism have worked—because climate change has now become such a fraught issue that politicians avoid addressing it altogether. For example, in the election cycle under Scott Morrison, about three or four years ago, his Liberal-National coalition made a conscious decision not to use the term “climate change” at all in their campaign. It had become such a hot-button issue that they feared it would be hijacked or weaponized.
Understanding that landscape is crucial. The constant pressure from the populist movement has made the major parties highly risk-averse regarding climate change as an electoral issue. As a result, that political vacuum has been filled by the Greens, more radical green and environmental groups, and progressive activist and lobbying organizations. So, while there are many engaged stakeholders, the two major parties have adopted a very low-risk appetite when it comes to foregrounding climate change during elections.
Climate Policy Becomes a Battle for Sovereignty in Populist Strongholds
To what extent has the performance of populist environmentalism—particularly among regional independents—relied on symbolic appeals to land, livelihood, and sovereignty? Can these aesthetic registers be disentangled from the exclusionary logics of right-wing nationalism?
Dr. Maxine Newlands: No, is the simple answer. The populist right in Australia is very conservative—protectionist, nationalist—and often views Australia as a self-contained unit, rather than part of a global context. Within that framework, pressures on issues such as UNESCO World Heritage sites, like Kakadu National Park or the Great Barrier Reef, tend to generate highly binary debates.
You’ll see populist groups rejecting the influence of international organizations—typically referencing the UN—insisting that such bodies shouldn’t tell Australia what to do with “our” Great Barrier Reef, for example. This leads to a rejection of external input and turns climate debates into questions of sovereignty and national control.
In this way, the climate conversation becomes intertwined with concerns over foreign influence on domestic policy—particularly on issues like net-zero targets. The “external” becomes an enemy figure for the populist movement, which aligns with a classic populist playbook: identifying an outside threat to rally domestic support.
This tactic is particularly effective in regions like Queensland and Western Australia, both of which are heavily dependent on mining industries. Queensland, notably, is also home to the Great Barrier Reef, making it a focal point for these tensions.
Minor parties such as Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, as well as individual senators, often deploy this narrative, casting environmental policy as a threat to national sovereignty. This frames the issue not as one of ecological stewardship, but as a defense of Australia’s sovereign decision-making over its land, resources, and environment.
Disinformation Turns Reef Policy into a Battlefield of Economics vs. Environment
Coral reef with colorful marine plants in the ocean. Photo: Vitaly Korovin.
Drawing from your research on social media ecosystems, what role did digitally mediated climate disinformation and “blue denialism” play in shaping voter perceptions of reef policy and environmental restoration during the recent electoral cycle?
Dr. Maxine Newlands: This is an interesting one because, as I mentioned earlier, the reef hasn’t played a central role in the election narrative for the last couple of election cycles. In both 2020 and 2022, it wasn’t really part of the core political narrative. In 2019, it featured a bit more prominently, and during that cycle, social media played a significant role—disinformation definitely did as well, as we showed in the paper I co-wrote with my former student.
What we found was that traditional legacy media on the right—particularly Rupert Murdoch’s publications—were central to spreading certain narratives. Many of these are regional outlets, publishing syndicated stories across different communities, and they also produce The Australian, the only national newspaper. These outlets frequently framed stories by questioning environmental policy decisions, particularly focusing on the cost of net-zero policies from the Labor Party to individual voters—essentially promoting an “economics versus the environment” narrative.
This framing is often reinforced by climate denialism from certain political parties. Sometimes it’s outright denial; other times, it’s a refusal to engage with the science around coal burning, CO₂ emissions, or broader human impact.
Social media, in this context, becomes the platform through which these narratives are amplified. That’s where much of the disinformation circulates.
It’s important to note that the media landscape consists of two distinct dynamics: one is the dominant, loud “middle press” or mainstream media echo chamber; the other is a more decentralized network of progressive voices. You essentially get an echo chamber versus a network dynamic.
Because our political landscape is fairly binary, this dynamic tends to favor dominant, populist narratives. Preferential voting does sometimes complicate this, but the arguments remain largely the same—recycled each election cycle.
We hear the same populist talking points echoed in the UK and Europe: that climate change isn’t man-made, that it has nothing to do with coal. Or, if they don’t go down that path, the narrative shifts to fearmongering—claims that electricity bills will skyrocket, the lights will go out, or that renewable energy is unreliable (e.g., “wind turbines only work when it’s windy”). These are classic, well-worn lines used by populist parties everywhere—tried, tested, and repeated in every election cycle.
The Greens’ Paradox of Power in Parliament
How do you interpret the Greens’ simultaneous Senate gains and House losses within the broader context of Australian environmental politics? Does this reflect a strategic misalignment between parliamentary ambitions and the affective terrain of regional constituencies?
Dr. Maxine Newlands: The Greens did really well in the last election—back in 2022—by their standards. They gained two inner-city seats and the seat of Brisbane, which is the capital of Queensland. If you’re not familiar, these seats were heavily affected by flooding caused by heavy rainfall and a cyclone occurring at the same time. That cyclone hit the north of Queensland, and the resulting water flowed southward.
In that context, the Greens performed strongly, winning lower house (House of Representatives) seats. At the time, they already had representation in the Senate, but not as many seats as they do now.
Fast forward to the current cycle, they’ve only retained one of the three lower house seats they previously held in Queensland. This may be partly because people no longer have the same lived experience of those extreme weather events—flooded homes and damaged infrastructure. Voters may have reverted to the major parties: Labor or the Liberal Party.
But as you mentioned, the Greens made gains in the Senate. They now hold 11 Senate seats and, in effect, will hold the balance of power. The Labor Party has the most seats, followed by the Liberal-National Coalition, and then the Greens. If the Greens negotiate effectively with Labor, they could help deliver the 39 or more votes required to pass legislation in the Senate.
This sets the stage for a significant trade bloc—a shift in power. While the Greens have lost ground in the Lower House, where they now hold only one seat, they’ve gained considerable influence in the Senate. Maintaining a working relationship with Labor will be key, especially around contentious climate issues like net-zero targets. Australia has set different emissions targets: one around 2035 and another by 2050. The feasibility of these timelines is under debate.
What I’m trying to say is that, in the last election, Greens benefited more from urban dynamics. Regional factors were less influential. But this time, due to the way Senate seats are allocated—state-wide rather than by individual electorates—regional and preferential votes may have played a bigger role in their Senate success.
We don’t yet have the full data, but it could turn out that this broader, more regional voting base helped the Greens in the Upper House, while they struggled in the urban inner-suburban seats they performed well in last time.
Beyond Technocracy: Reclaiming Ocean Narratives Through the Blue Humanities
Underwater view of the coral reef. Photo: Dreamstime.
Given your leadership in reef restoration policy and blue humanities scholarship, how might populist critiques of technocratic ocean governance—often framed as elite overreach—be constructively re-engaged to foreground environmental justice and democratic inclusion?
Dr. Maxine Newlands: This is an interesting one. Over time, both the Reef Restoration Project and the Blue Humanities have emerged as relatively novel conceptual frameworks. They haven’t been explored or developed to the same extent as broader marine science. We’ve had small-scale reef restoration for quite some time, but at scale—what we’re now attempting—it’s about understanding how ocean systems function together.
It’s important to note that reef restoration has often been framed in binary terms: either we intervene to save the reefs and corals worldwide, or we do nothing and let them die. That binary framing has become problematic, and I think that’s where the perception of elitism comes in. The message becomes: “Either let us do this, or the reef will die.” That kind of either-or position limits the conversation. Initially, around 2017–2018, this was the dominant narrative. But now, there’s growing work focused on reframing our relationship with the ocean—rethinking the narratives around the “blue” and how we interact with it.
For example, in the Reef Restoration Project, one study involved surveys and in-depth interviews with more than 100 people. What they found was that individuals who had direct experiences with the reef—such as snorkeling—developed a stronger connection. They began to see the reef not as a scientific playground but as part of their community.
The Blue Humanities framework opens up this space for dialogue. The goal is to ask: What do we need to do to protect the oceans? How can we address climate change? And crucially, how can we do this without relying solely on science?
There are complementary approaches. The Blue Humanities draw from the arts, social sciences, politics, and history—areas that help people engage with these issues in diverse ways. This helps dismantle elitism and fosters a more participatory action research model, where people can understand and engage based on how their minds work and how they relate to the world.
So yes, I understand your point—it is technocratic, and it can be elitist. And while the scientists working on reef restoration are outstanding, their approach is highly engineered and solution-driven, operating within rigid technocratic systems.
The Blue Humanities—and other interdisciplinary methods—allow us to open up the narrative, create new stories, and still aim toward the same goal: encouraging people to bear witness to what’s happening. The difference is, these stories aren’t confined to foundational or pure science frameworks, like those used within RRAP (Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program).
Restoration Requires Political Will, Not Just Scientific Evidence
What institutional safeguards or communicative strategies would you recommend to inoculate reef science and environmental policy-making against the populist backlash tactics identified in your recent analyses of media manipulation and science skepticism?
Dr. Maxine Newlands: Oh, that’s a PhD in itself—not just a paper. And it’s a hard one, because, as I’ve alluded to, this is part of a global problem. It’s deeply connected to how people receive information and how narratives are framed.
At the end of the day, there is a need for policymakers to recognize that there’s space for restoration and for alternative or complementary methods to more traditional approaches. But it’s a slow process. Regulation can be slow—unless we have a crisis like the pandemic, where we clearly demonstrated that things can move quickly when needed.
Still, this is something that requires political will—and that’s not unique to Australia. It applies globally, whether you’re talking about coral reef restoration or broader ecosystem restoration, including marine and terrestrial systems, which have been studied and implemented far longer than ocean restoration.
I think it’s really about a convergence of efforts and, importantly, about shifting the broader mindset. That includes scientists being honest and realistic about what large-scale restoration can actually achieve—and then crafting policies that support and enable those realistic goals.
Women Wanted to Be on the Front Line—Not in the Kitchen
Photo: Dreamstime.
In your work on gender and environmental activism (e.g., Knitting Nannas and anti-fracking movements), how do you see the gendered performance of care and stewardship contrasting with masculinist populist narratives of control, particularly in climate policy debates?
Dr. Maxine Newlands: There are a couple of things I think of here. It’s very interesting that, in the last election cycle in Australia, we saw the emergence of what some have called the “Teals.” These are independents who prioritize climate change mitigation and adaptation as core policy issues, while also adopting an economically pragmatic approach. Although they are all independents, many began receiving financial support from Climate 200 in 2019. What’s notable is that many of these independents are community-based or city-based—and predominantly women. Not exclusively, of course—there are men in the mix—but there is a gendered dynamic worth highlighting.
There’s a connection here to movements like the Knitting Nannas. In both cases, these women have encountered patriarchal systems that try to define their roles and restrict their participation. In mainstream politics, as well as within broader activist spaces, this has often meant being side-lined or pigeon-holed.
One anecdote from the Knitting Nannas stands out. That group, a female-led anti-fracking movement, emerged partly because women involved in broader environmental groups—such as Lock the Gate—found themselves confined to “traditional” support roles, like cooking at protest camps, instead of being allowed front-line or leadership roles. They wanted to be out there, leading, visible, and equal. So they created a space where they could do that—and the act of knitting became a form of peaceful resistance and identity.
I think we are seeing a broader gender shift, particularly within activism and increasingly within the independent political movement. Women are stepping forward—not because this is solely a gender issue, but because they are reaching a point where their leadership is more visible and impactful.
It’s also important to remember that, since Federation in 1901, Australia has only had one female Prime Minister. But now, things are shifting. The deputy leader of the Liberal Party is Susan Ley, and the Greens’ Senate leader is Larissa Waters, while Prime Minister Anthony Albanese leads the Labor government.
So we’re seeing change, particularly in a political culture as historically conservative as Australia’s. Movements like the Teals, community independents, and the philanthropic and grassroots funding that supports them are helping make that change possible. It feels like we’re witnessing the beginnings of a move toward greater gender parity within the political system.
Time Will Tell If Hyper-Local Politics Can Dislodge Extractive Power
Given the strategic expansion of community independents into regional and rural electorates, how sustainable is their model of hyper-local environmental governance amid the entrenched political economies of extractivism and agrarian populism?
Dr. Maxine Newlands: I think time will tell. I know that’s a very wishy-washy answer, but ultimately, time will be the judge—particularly in Australia. We’ll see whether Australia follows a pattern observed elsewhere in the world, where voters move away from the traditional two major parties and toward independents and minor parties, especially because of hyper-local issues that directly affect them.
These include concerns like healthcare, education, early childhood care, and other day-to-day needs. The community independents tend to frame their approach not through the lens of agrarian politics, but through the broader needs of the community. They present themselves as advocates for the community as a whole, rather than emphasizing any one specific sector.
We’re seeing independents increasingly occupy that space, while, in some states, traditional conservative parties—particularly the Liberals (who are the conservative party in Australia)—appear to be retreating from regional and rural constituencies.
If we look at the last election, for example, the National Party—a right-leaning, rural-focused party—lost only one seat, whereas the Liberals lost many more. The Nationals, with their agrarian populist base, largely retained their support. While there are both progressive and populist factions within that party, they have managed to hold on to their core constituencies.
This suggests that agrarian populism still resonates in regional Australia. Meanwhile, the Liberals are struggling to define their role in these areas, which has sparked ongoing debate about whether the coalition between the Liberal and National parties can or should continue in its current form.
So yes, voters are turning to independents and to the Nationals to represent regional issues—but whether this momentum continues over multiple election cycles or proves to be a one-off anomaly remains to be seen.
The Blue Humanities Help Us Tell Ocean Stories Through Plural Voices, Not Just Science
To what extent can the cultural narratives embedded in the Blue Humanities reconfigure public imaginaries of marine ecologies in ways that resist populist reductionism and foster more pluralistic ocean ethics?
Dr. Maxine Newlands: The key with that would be to have that kind of variety of pluralistic voices. As we talked about earlier, it’s about having a different lens in the way that you tell the story of the ocean. One of the key ways of doing that, I would suggest, is through co-design with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, particularly in Australia.
They have lived on the land for a lot longer—65,000 years. They understand how the land and the oceans work. They understand the cycles and the way the system functions. And something like the Blue Humanities is not about co-opting or imposing; it’s clearly about understanding different ways of thinking and different ways of looking for solutions.
So it’s certainly not about cultural adaptation of Indigenous knowledge, but being willing to at least understand it and learn about it. And then, you have two different systems running in Australia, particularly around marine science. There are projects by the Australian Institute for Marine Science, for example, where they have a whole division or strand—I’m not quite sure of the technical term—that’s very much around assisting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
But it’s also about giving them autonomy and support to do their own projects. And at the same time, you have the scientists understanding that when they go onto sea country, when they go on country, respect needs to be shown. And that isn’t something that was happening ten years ago.
So, looking at the Blue Humanities and the cultural components that make up Australia, it’s not about adopting those perspectives, but about recognizing, understanding, accepting, and seeing how those two things can possibly work together—whether side by side or through a process of co-design. And obviously, it’s about collaboration. The Blue Humanities—this is why we have authors from Torres Strait and elsewhere—is to try and explain to people who may not be familiar how you can understand the relationship with water, the ocean, and the marine space in a way that isn’t rooted in that traditional, science-based, pure science, basic science kind of approach.
It’s Either Jobs and Mining or Nothing—That’s the Binary We Must Move Beyond
Active quarry with machinery and gravel, crushing rock to supply the Adani Carmichael mine in Central Queensland, Australia. Photo: Inge Blessas.
How should we understand the electoral backlash in coal-reliant regions as both a repudiation of top-down climate policy and a symptom of deeper socio-economic dislocation? Can climate justice be effectively articulated in such communities without capitulating to extractive populism?
Dr. Maxine Newlands: I think it can. The classic example that comes to mind is Queensland. In Queensland, we have strong senators who have adopted some of those populist strategies. But at the end of the day, those communities have been heavily reliant on the mining industry. The mining industry has been a key source of employment.
The political debate has often been framed around the loss of jobs. But there is just about enough space within those communities for alternatives. So we hear about things like just transition—moving away from those mining industries. And by mining, I mean fossil fuel mining, coal, etc.
I’m looking more specifically at those areas. But we are still mining in Australia—it’s about creating communities that are provided with an alternative, so those communities don’t just die off because the industry has moved away.
By the same token, we still have a lot of coal mining in those areas. For example, what used to be the Adani mines, now operated by Bravus, is a key player in that region.
That’s where the tension and electoral backlash come from. You’ve also got embedded conservative values in that state, which are tapped into by populist narratives that frame things around a North-South divide—“us and them.”
We had a classic campaign run by the Nationals in 2019. Our two biggest cities—Sydney and Melbourne—are south of Queensland. They ran a bumper sticker campaign with a slogan along the lines of, “If you don’t take my mining job, I won’t take your soy latte.” That created a binary opposition—don’t tell us what to do, we need the mines for our jobs and families.
That kind of populist rhetoric around coal was up against significant activism, like the Stop Adani campaign, which aimed to prevent the mine from opening. We’re still trying to find pathways for these communities to transition, but you’re right: the backlash has come because of that binary—it’s either jobs and mining or nothing.
That kind of framing makes the debate difficult. But ultimately, those communities will have to find alternatives—or rather, policymakers and governments must create them. One of the conversations we’ve had recently was around nuclear. Australia has a moratorium on nuclear power; we don’t have nuclear power stations, just one nuclear facility used for research and medical purposes.
They were trying to introduce the debate around nuclear power as an alternative for those communities, but that hasn’t worked. It’s not a viable long-term solution.
So that kind of repudiation is now folded into a broader debate around what we do next. But it’s increasingly becoming a grassroots, community-based debate. These communities are being held up as either the victims or the winners of whatever policy is yet to be decided.
We Haven’t Got That Far-Right Green Appropriation
And finally, Professor Newlands, do you perceive any co-optation of environmental discourse by far-right actors—such as eco-nationalism or green nativism—and if so, how should progressive movements strategically differentiate themselves in such contested semiotic terrain?
Dr. Maxine Newlands:I’m not sure we have that kind of extreme right-wing environmental discourse in Australia. Are you referring to the kind of green anarchism or radical eco-politics sometimes discussed on the far left? If so, not really. We certainly have a wide range of progressive groups—lobby organizations like GetUp, activist networks, and foundations such as the Bob Brown Foundation—but I don’t think any of them operate at the level you’re describing, at least not with significant electoral impact. It’s not something that has featured prominently in recent election cycles. There may be minor parties or independents entertaining such ideas, but that kind of radical or anarchist spectrum doesn’t really factor into mainstream political debate here, including within the Greens.
We have people that are more proactive, and people and organizations that host events. They may put on a protest, they’ll stage a high-profile action, or they’ll take their position to Canberra in order to generate public awareness. I’m thinking of organizations led by former leaders of the Greens, for example, like the Bob Brown Foundation. But to the point of it being anarchic, I would say personally I’m not aware of anything like that—that doesn’t mean it’s not there, but it’s hard to measure.
You’ve kind of got the middle ground. You’ve got Labor, which is progressive to the left on the environment, and they’re introducing their net zero targets. They have a whole suite of regulation and policy under the umbrella of “nature positive,” which includes things like biodiversity credits as well as net zero. Then you have the Greens, a little further left, and maybe a couple of others. But they generally tend to be more activist, lobby, or advocacy groups—things like the Environmental Defenders Office, which is a group of lawyers that help or advise activists like the Knitting Nannas.
But we haven’t got that far-right green appropriation to any significant degree. Let’s see what happens—it’s interesting that the Liberals lost so many seats this time around. It gives Labor, and as I said earlier with the Senate, a much bigger block to get things through.
For example, in the last election there was a bit of caution about whether the whole suite of environmental policy and regulation under “nature positive” would get through, so it was withdrawn. We would probably expect to see a version of that come back now, because there’ll be more confidence in getting those sorts of measures passed—which, of course, naturally negates any of those more far-right amplifiers, because the main political parties are already doing what those voices might be demanding in terms of regulation.
In a compelling interview with ECPS, political sociologist Dr. Josh Roose unpacks the 2025 Australian federal election, arguing it marked “a resounding rejection of Trumpist-style populism.” Dr. Roose explores how Liberal leader Peter Dutton’s strongman image backfired, while Labor’s inclusive yet grounded masculinity resonated with urban voters—especially women. He warns, however, of far-right undercurrents and rising generational and economic divides. Reflecting on political masculinities, Islamophobia, and online extremism, Dr. Roose calls for educational and legislative reforms to bolster democratic resilience. A timely deep dive into Australia’s populist landscape—and a must-read for scholars and studenst of global politics.
In a sweeping analysis of Australia’s 2025 federal election results, Dr. Josh Roose—a political sociologist and Associate Professor at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation—offers a compelling assessment of what he calls “a rejection of Trumpist-style populism in Australia.” Speaking to the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Dr. Roose contextualizes the electoral defeat of Liberal Party leader Peter Dutton within a broader international trend, noting, “What we saw in Canada—where Trump backed the right and attacked Canada, and people mobilized against that and favoured the political left—played out in a very similar vein here.”
Throughout the interview, Dr. Roose explores the dynamics of Australia’s right-wing populism, which has been notably influenced by US political discourse. He underscores how attempts to “personalize Trump through Dutton” and flirt with alt-right masculinity narratives—such as “strong men create good times, weak men create tough times”—largely backfired, particularly among urban professionals and women voters. In this context, he points to Anthony Albanese’s reelection as emblematic of a political style that is both masculine and inclusive: “He doesn’t walk away from traditional working-class masculinity… but he does so in a way that is far more popular and acceptable to women.”
While the Labor Party’s landslide victory marks a historic realignment, Dr. Roose also cautions against complacency. He observes that far-right parties, including Pauline Hanson’s One Nation and the pro-Trump “Trumpet of Patriots,” collectively garnered 10–12% of the vote in some electorates—indicating persistent, if marginalized, populist undercurrents.
Dr. Roose also situates these electoral shifts in the context of deeper transformations in political legitimacy and authority. “The traditional authoritarian mode of politics with a strongman leader… is being resoundingly rejected,” he argues, especially by younger and more diverse electorates. However, he notes that Australia’s deeply masculinist political culture is only gradually giving way to more inclusive norms, catalyzed in part by pandemic-era changes to work and caregiving.
Drawing on his expertise in counter-extremism, Dr. Roose concludes with a call for civic and institutional interventions, from regulating online hate speech to embedding models of “healthy masculinity” in educational curricula. “We need a masculinity that is strong, but also nurturing… capable of moving beyond the ego,” he asserts.
Dr. Roose’s analysis offers both an in-depth case study of Australia’s evolving political terrain and a timely contribution to the global debate on the future of populism, masculinity, and democratic resilience in the post-Trump era.
Here is the lightly edited transcript of the interview with Dr. Josh Roose.
It’s a Rejection of Trumpist-Style Populism Here in Australia
An Australian Labor poster targeting Peter Dutton at an early voting polling station in Heidelberg, Melbourne, Victoria, on April 26, 2025. Photo: Dreamstime.
Professor Josh Roose, thank you very much for joining our interview series. Let me start right away with the first question:In the light of your work on populist political masculinities, how do you interpret the electorate’s resounding rejection of Peter Dutton’s leadership? Does this signify a critical juncture for the trajectory of right-wing populism in Australia?
Dr. Josh Roose: Great question. There’s a lot to unpack from this election, and we are nowhere near having all the data necessary to do so. My broad take on this comes down to two or three main points. First, it’s a rejection of Trumpist-style populism here in Australia. What we saw in Canada—where Trump backed the right and attacked Canada, leading people to mobilize against that and favor the political left—played out in a very similar vein here.
Australia hasn’t been immune to, for example, Trump-style tariffs, nor to the influence of members of the right faction of the Liberal opposition. For clarity, in Australia, the Liberal Party is the political right, unlike the US. Elements of Trumpist populist politics were embraced. For instance, one of the key figures, Jacinta Price—a prominent Aboriginal politician opposed to the Voice referendum, which would have given Indigenous Australians a voice to Parliament—was seen wearing “Make Australia Great Again” hats. She said this slogan publicly on the campaign trail.
There was also an effort to personalize Trump through Dutton. He even spoke about bringing in a DOJ-style department in Australia. That went down like an absolute lead balloon, particularly in urban areas with educated professionals.
That said, and somewhat concerningly, there was a surge to the far right that hasn’t yet been fully unpacked. In many seats, the One Nation Party—led by Pauline Hanson, a well-known figure on the populist right—performed strongly. They have, in some ways, become a more mainstream right-wing party, gaining more votes.
Additionally, the embarrassingly pro-Trump party called “The Trumpet of Patriots,” led by a mining billionaire, didn’t gain seats but still garnered 2–3% of the vote in many electorates. Combined with One Nation, that amounts to roughly 10–12% in a lot of areas.
So, while there was a surge toward the governing Labor Party, there was also a push to the right. The Liberal Party now finds itself wedged between its hard-right base and its more centrist, slightly progressive wing. Just today, they held a post-election leadership vote. The result was 28 to 25 in favor of the Moderates. The Australian Liberal Party now has its first female leader in the party’s history.
There Was a Strong Repudiation of Trumpist Politics
To what extent can Albanese’s re-election be read as a repudiation of the rhetorical and symbolic frameworks commonly associated with ‘strongman’ populism, or does it rather suggest a recalibrated centrism in response to global political volatility?
Dr. Josh Roose: Another good question. In many ways, Peter Dutton, the opposition leader, really struggled to overcome his past as a strongman. He had various portfolios when the Liberal Party was in government—Home Affairs, among others—and he was a former policeman who spoke extremely firmly about crime and other areas, which are traditional fodder for the political right and the populist right. So he struggled to overcome that.
Albanese paints himself very much as a centrist, moderate leader—the everyman. He shows up at Rugby League games, so he doesn’t walk away from masculinity or distance himself from traditional working-class masculinity. He seeks to embrace it, but he does so in a way that is far more popular and acceptable to women. Female voters, in particular, really turned significantly against the Liberal opposition in this election.
So, in the context of what’s going on globally, that played an important role. We’re yet to determine—based on the data, interviews, and upcoming research—just how important it was. But I do think there was a strong repudiation of Trumpist politics. Trump’s done more in his first 100 days to unite the world, in many respects—particularly among people in countries with elections coming up. You could argue that the conclave and the new Pope are also, to some extent, potentially indicative of this.
So, I think we’re seeing a reaction and a backlash to Trumpist politics in the developed world. And it will be really interesting to see how that plays out in the developing world.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese attends the national memorial service for Queen Elizabeth II. Photo: Dreamstime.
No Appetite for Trumpism Even Amid a Cost-of-Living Crisis
Given the transnational dimensions of populism, particularly the re-election of Donald Trump in the US, how do you assess the ‘Trump effect’ in shaping Australian political sensibilities and its potential backfire in this electoral cycle?
Dr. Josh Roose: Trump has a strong following among segments of the political right here. They embrace not only the ultra-nationalist, self-interested approach, but also a nostalgia for a long-lost past that he successfully mobilized in the US election—this idea that men are being hard done by, the notion of “woke” politics, and so on. There’s still a strong element of that in Australian politics. By no means has that gone away.
In fact, elements of the opposition party have talked about needing to double down, arguing that the only reason they didn’t win the election was because they weren’t strong enough in embracing that extreme rhetoric. But I think, for the most part, there is no appetite for it—which is quite amazing given that we’re facing a significant cost of living crisis here, a global phenomenon at the moment. Housing is increasingly unaffordable; the average price of a house in Sydney and Melbourne now hovers around a million dollars. We’ve got a younger generation locked out of the housing market.
But what we’re seeing is that the older generation—the so-called boomer generation—is effectively becoming a minority in the electorate. We’re seeing younger people come through who are looking for more progressive policies and politics that speak to them, that resonate with their concerns about building a better life, having a chance of owning a home, starting a family, and so on.
So, it’s going to be really interesting to see how this plays out. But, it’s fair to say that, unless something quite incredible happens, this is now a two-term Labor government. Given their majority—I think it’s 91 seats in Parliament, which is just about historically unprecedented—we could be looking at at least three terms, possibly four. That gives the governing Labor Party a real chance to institute a progressivist agenda. They’ve got to play their cards right—they can’t come across as radical or overly focused on dramatic change. This could shape Australian politics for the next 20 to 30 years if things continue on their current trajectory.
Strongman Model Is Being Rejected by Young and Female Voters
Considering your research on political identity and citizenship, how might the 2025 election result reshape our understanding of political legitimacy and representative authority in the context of populist decline?
Dr. Josh Roose: If we’re talking about authority, we’ve got to look at what resonates with young people, because young people are increasingly shaping political outcomes—and women are increasingly shaping political outcomes. So, this authoritarian, hierarchical decision-making model, which has defined Australian politics since Federation—over a hundred years—is becoming less viable.
In a world of social media, where everyone is a publisher, where everyone has an opinion and demands to be heard, especially in a society with an education system that encourages critical thinking and resilience, I don’t think there’s an appetite for the traditional authoritarian mode of politics with a strongman leader. I think people resoundingly reject it.
Ironically, those who are most susceptible to such narratives tend to be the weakest and most vulnerable—the people who feel dispossessed, marginalized, alienated, disrespected, who experience humiliation and shame. They’re looking for someone strong to get behind, to pull them out of their challenges. But Australia appears to be navigating economic crises, international security, and other key issues reasonably well while keeping people onside.
So, while we do have an increase in extremism—particularly among young people—on a par with what we’re seeing in the UK, it is not necessarily playing out as mass mobilization toward a strongman leader.
This Is Labor’s Moment in Australia
Does the resurgence of major-party dominance and marginalization of the populist right suggest a broader democratic correction, or might it risk complacency in addressing the socio-economic grievances that often underline populist support?
Dr. Josh Roose: Good question. I think in the context of our preferential voting system—first and foremost—voting is compulsory, which is a real strength of Australian democracy. You line up, you vote, and then you go get what we call a “democracy sausage,” which is a sausage on a slice of bread, and people post photos of that to show they voted. You get fined if you don’t vote, so while people can vote informally, voting is really a requirement of all citizens. To that extent, you get much better buy-in to the political debate and the campaign, because people have to show up. It’s a key part of the responsibility of citizenship here.
That said, there’s been a lot of talk about the rise of minority parties. The vote for major parties has been falling year on year. The Labor Party used to hover in the mid-40s, then dropped to around 40%, and is now hovering at about 33% of the vote. The Liberal Party slipped below them. The National Party, which is more of a regional party, and the Liberal Party tend to combine—so it’s called the Liberal National Coalition—and they form government.
Labor has typically had to work with the Greens. But over the last three years, the Australian Greens have taken a more extreme bent. They’ve sought to consolidate real political power. The environment has been put on the back burner, and they’ve embraced social issues. For example, they’ve come out very strongly and worked with Muslim communities on the issue of Gaza and recognition. That might have alienated some among their base.
But for many Australians, there is a broad resistance to extremism at either end of the political spectrum. Some of the rhetoric and aggression from certain politicians proved detrimental. As a result, the Greens failed to gain any seats at the federal level and, in fact, may have lost three. The Labor Party’s victory in this election is historically unprecedented in terms of its strength. They no longer need the Greens to govern. While there had been serious talk of a minority government requiring Green support to pass legislation, Labor now holds full control in the Lower House—though they still need Green backing in the Senate.
Despite the major parties’ overall decline in vote share, this appears to be Labor’s moment. They’ve spoken of becoming the “natural party of governance”—a mantle once claimed by the Liberal Party. Their ambition is to remain in power for 10, 15, even 20 years, much like the Menzies government of the 1960s and 1970s. That is their goal.
Dutton Tried to Tap into ‘Alt-Right Masculinity’
People are attending a political rally and marching through the city streets of Melbourne with a police escort in Victoria, Australia on March 16, 2019. Photo: Adam Calaitzis.
Your scholarship explores ‘protest masculinities’ as fertile ground for right-wing mobilization. In what ways did Peter Dutton’s campaign draw on, or fail to effectively deploy, gendered narratives of crisis and control?
Dr. Josh Roose: Very early on in the campaign, Peter Dutton referenced a dominant trope seen frequently in more extreme right masculinity spaces that I’ve studied—a narrative I haven’t seen cited elsewhere. It’s the saying: “strong men create good times, weak men create tough times,” and so on. You’ve probably heard the narrative. It’s this idea that when times are good, men become weak, and only in tough times do strong men come to the fore and shape society. He adopted some of that language—alt-right type masculinity that’s been prominent online. It was clear he was tapping into it and attempting to mobilize it.
To be fair, however, the Liberal Party also came out incredibly strongly against anti-Semitism—not in a “Trumpian” way, but in a clear and firm manner. There has been a significant rise in anti-Semitism here. They also came out strongly against neo-Nazis.
There’s a neo-Nazi movement in Australia that’s attempting to grow. They’ve been hijacking public events like Anzac Day, trying to mobilize and exploit young men on the margins. While their numbers haven’t grown exponentially—maybe from a few dozen to around 100—they are very loud, very active, and there was a resounding rejection of that type of extreme right from the mainstream right-wing political party. That helps explain why some people have been pushed further right—why those fringes have been radicalized even more.
But where is this going? I think, ultimately, when you have a government with this kind of majority, they can implement meaningful changes over time—changes that will directly target extremism, particularly the far right. We’ve already seen strong legislative actions, such as banning the Nazi salute, the swastika, and other hate symbols. We know there’s likely to be further action in that space—positive action, to that extent.
Australia’s Deeply Masculinist Politics Is Starting to Shift
How do you situate the performance of masculine-coded populism—often framed through control, toughness, and sovereignty—in a political environment increasingly shaped by demands for inclusivity and post-pandemic care politics?
Dr. Josh Roose: There’s a lot of moving parts to that question. I think what we see—even on the left side of politics here—is an embrace of masculinity as a mobilizing factor. Let me take a step back. Australia produces some of the world’s leading scholars in both masculinity and feminist studies. Think of figures like Germaine Greer, or in the field of masculinity, people like R.W. Connell, Michael Flood, and others. Our gender politics are incredibly dynamic and prominent in public life.
While Indigenous Australians have lived here for 60,000 to 70,000 years, the modern nation-state is relatively young. In this modern context, gender politics are very much at the forefront. Because of that, we’ve seen strong resistance—not just from the right, but also from elements of the left, particularly the trade union movement—toward what is perceived as being too soft, too aligned with femininity, or too accepting of a “masculinity of care.” There’s some valuable literature on this, also written by Australian scholars.
It’s a complex issue, but I think the dichotomy is beginning to be challenged. It’s a process that will take time. Historically, Australia has had overwhelmingly masculine political leadership. For much of the 20th century, we were governed under the White Australia Policy. Multiculturalism only came into effect in the 1970s and 1980s. We’ve had only one female Prime Minister, and she came to power through what we call “knifing” the previous leader. She received a level of abuse for that which no male leader has ever experienced.
So, we do have a deeply masculinist political culture. However, the COVID-19 pandemic—working from home, the rise in care responsibilities—has begun to shift things. These changes are happening in ways we haven’t fully studied or understood yet.
But I do think, with three or four potential terms of a left-leaning government—and a Cabinet that is, for the first time in Australian history, made up of more than 50% women—we’re likely to see the political landscape change significantly over the next decade, particularly as younger generations rise. Exactly how that will unfold remains to be seen.
We’re Seeing the Beginnings of a New Class Divide in Australia
With economic precarity and housing affordability at the center of public concern, how might evolving expressions of masculine discontent shift political alignments among traditionally right-leaning working-class male voters?
Dr. Josh Roose: I think we’re seeing it—and I’ve discussed this elsewhere. People have shifted away from the Liberal Party and are increasingly critical of it. The Liberals have just elected a moderate as their leader—the first female leader and a moderate in the party’s history. That happened today (May 13, 2025), and it’s a pretty significant event.
It was also a very close vote within the party room, highlighting internal divisions. We know that men in Australia—much like in the rest of the world—are increasingly shifting to the political right. There was stronger support for far-right-style politics. While still a small minority, about 10% of the vote is not negligible and must be taken seriously.
At the same time, there’s growing tension within the major opposition party about its stance on economic precarity and working-class issues. The opposition has talked about becoming the party of the outer suburbs—areas where real economic struggle is concentrated. These are people who own homes and cars, are trying to put their kids through school, but can’t keep up with mortgage payments and are stuck in long commutes. The party assumed it would automatically capture that demographic—but it failed. It didn’t do enough to make the race competitive, let alone win government.
So, I think we’re witnessing a shift in political alignment. Smaller far-right parties are emerging. There was even talk from neo-Nazi groups about forming a political party, though they were far too late to register and, realistically, would never be allowed to register in Australia. Still, the fact that the idea was floated is notable.
We’re also seeing the emergence of a significant generational and economic cleavage in Australia—something I never thought I’d see. A new class system appears to be forming. Australia has long prided itself on being an egalitarian society, at least in principle. But increasingly, if you’re not born into a family that owns property, it’s incredibly difficult to enter the housing market at all.
So yes, I think we’re seeing the beginnings of a new class divide—one that will reshape the political landscape, including the major parties, while populist politicians on the fringes will continue to try and exploit the resulting anger and anxiety.
Anti-Muslim Racism Has Shifted—But It’s Still There
Anti-racism protesters clash with Reclaim Australia groups rallying against Muslim immigration in Melton, Victoria, Australia, in November 2015. Photo: Dave Hewison.
To what extent does Islamophobia remain a structuring logic within Australian right-wing populist discourse, and how has it evolved in the context of declining electoral returns for its chief proponents?
Dr. Josh Roose: It was a really interesting political campaign because the Muslim community became very active—I’ve written about this. They argued that neither major political party was representing their interests, particularly around the issue of Gaza.
A number of Labor Party politicians were campaigning in seats that had previously been somewhat marginal and were now being targeted on the basis of their stance on Gaza, due to high Muslim population concentrations—around 35 to 40% in some areas. There was an attempt to mobilize a Muslim vote, with three or four different groups emerging under names like “Muslim Votes Matter.” In some cases, these groups gained 15–20% of the vote. So, while they didn’t shape the overall outcome, they were influential.
Racism is embedded in Australia as a settler-colonial society with a long history of exclusion and discrimination. It persists in institutions, structures, parliaments, and businesses. However, the type of racism evolves over time. What we’re seeing now is more of an effort by the far right to put migration and immigration at the center of political debate. There’s this narrative—though factually unsupported—that Australia is being “flooded” by Indians, Chinese, or others.
With regard to Muslims, the evolution has been particularly interesting. For the first 10–15 years post-9/11, anti-Muslim racism was at a peak—especially during the rise of Islamic State (IS), when young men were going off to fight abroad. There was a lot of tabloid coverage and moral panic. But now, we’re looking at second-, third-, even fourth-generation Australian Muslims—highly culturally literate, deeply embedded in the fabric of society, business owners, homeowners, building wealth. That integration has shifted public perception.
There’s been a noticeable political alignment between Muslim communities and the Greens, despite some ideological contradictions. So, while Islamophobia or anti-Muslim racism is still present and remains problematic—and likely always will be to some extent—I think we’ve seen a marked shift away from its peak in the last 5 to 10 years in the Australian context.
“We Need a Masculinity That Is Strong—But Also Nurturing”
And finally, drawing from your work on countering right-wing extremism, what institutional, educational, or civic interventions would you prioritize to consolidate democratic resilience and pre-empt future cycles of cultural backlash politics?
Dr. Josh Roose: To me, there are a number of layers. Social media is a massive issue here, and I know that there are various cases ongoing around that. We’ve got to hold social media companies accountable for what they’re allowing on their platforms. We need more responsive laws that prohibit, for example, unregulated anonymity—where people can say and do what they like and get away with it. Why can someone publish hate in Australia, from their home or in a public space on their phone, share it online, threaten, abuse, harass, and humiliate others, and not be held accountable? If they said the same things in a physical public space, they’d be arrested under our laws. So, there are significant issues around what people can say, do, and publish online. That’s not to say I want to get caught up in the freedom of speech debate, but where it crosses the threshold into hate and violence, it must be better regulated and enforced.
In terms of education, I think resilience is a key element of the Australian curriculum—there are entire units dedicated to teaching resilience to young people. But I think the construction of healthy masculinity is critical. A masculinity that, on the one hand, is strong, resistant to shock, capable of dealing with difficulty and challenge, embraces physicality, and even a bit of stoicism—but on the other hand, is caring, nurturing, loving, and capable of moving beyond the ego: doing housework, allowing vulnerability, and so on.
There’s a lot of really good work being done in that space, but it’s not systematic. It’s not embedded at a curriculum level. And wherever it does pop up, there’s always resistance from some parents claiming that it’s an attempt to “turn children woke.”
We’re still seeing this Americanization of our right-wing politics. The sooner that stops—when the right develops some maturity and a bit of introspection, and rejects this Americanized, extreme-right style politics, including Trumpism—the sooner they’ll reconnect with people. But honestly, the chances of that happening are low.
Please cite as: Yilmaz, Ihsan; Mamouri, Ali; Morieson, Nicholas & Omer, Muhammad. (2025). “The Transnational Diffusion of Digital Authoritarianism: From Moscow and Beijing to Ankara.” European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). May 12, 2025. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp0098
This report examines how Turkey has become a paradigmatic case of digital authoritarian convergence through the mechanisms of learning, emulation, and cooperative interdependence. Drawing on Chinese and Russian models—and facilitated by Western and Chinese tech companies—Turkey has adopted sophisticated digital control strategies across legal, surveillance, and information domains. The study identifies how strategic partnerships, infrastructure agreements (e.g., Huawei’s 5G and smart city projects), and shared authoritarian logics have enabled the Erdoğan regime to suppress dissent and reshape the digital public sphere. Through legal reforms, deep packet inspection (DPI) technologies, and coordinated digital propaganda, Turkey exemplifies how authoritarian digital governance diffuses globally. The findings highlight an urgent need for international accountability, cyber norms, and ethical tech governance to contain the expanding influence of digital repression.
This research explores the diffusion of digital authoritarian practices in Turkey as a prominent example of the Muslim world, focusing on the three mechanisms of learning, emulation, and cooperative interdependence, covering four main domains: Legal frameworks, Internet censorship, urban surveillance, and Strategic Digital Information Operations (SDIOs). The study covers both internal and external diffusion based on a wide range of sources. These include domestic precedents, examples from authoritarian regimes like China and Russia, and the role of Western companies in spreading digital authoritarian practices.
The study had several findings. The key findings are detailed below:
Learning: Turkey, like other regional countries that experienced public unrest, has learned from previous experience in order to impose power and control on people using different digital capabilities. Countries like China and Russia played significant roles in this learning process across the region, including in Turkey. The research highlights the importance of both internal learning from past protest movements and external influences from state and non-state actors.
Emulation: Authoritarian regimes in Turkey and across the Muslim world have emulated China and Russia’s internet governance models in all four aforementioned domains. The Turkish government has developed its own surveillance and censorship techniques, influenced by the experiences of authoritarian states and bolstered by training and technology transfers from China and Russia, and certain western companies.
Cooperative interdependence: Turkey’s economic challenges have led it to forge closer ties with China, particularly through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This cooperation often comes with financial incentives, promoting the adoption of China’s digital governance practices, including urban surveillance systems and censorship technologies.
Role of private technology companies: Western companies have played a significant role in facilitating the spread of digital authoritarianism, often operating independently of their governments’ policies. Companies like Sandvine and NSO Group have provided tools that support the Turkish government’s digital control strategies, contributing to a complex landscape of censorship and surveillance.
Diffusion of SDIOs: The diffusion process of digital authoritarian practice is not limited to importing and using digital technologies. It also includes the spreading of legal frameworks to restrict digital freedom and also running Strategic Digital Information Operations (SDIOs), including state propaganda and conspiracy theories that China and Russia had a significant role in.
Based on these findings, the study proposes several recommendations to counteract the spread of digital authoritarian practices:
– Strengthening international cyber norms and regulations to define and regulate digital governance, particularly in countries with strong ties to the West.
– Enhancing support for digital rights and privacy protections by advocating for comprehensive laws and supporting civil society organizations in Turkey.
– Encouraging responsible corporate behavior among technology firms to ensure compliance with human rights standards.
– Fostering regional and global cooperation on digital freedom to counter digital authoritarianism through joint initiatives and technical assistance.
– Leveraging economic incentives to promote ethical technology use and partnerships with human rights-aligned providers.
– Using strategic diplomatic channels to encourage Turkey to adopt responsible surveillance practices and align with global digital governance norms.
The research illustrates the dynamics of digital authoritarianism in Turkey, revealing a complex interplay of emulation, learning, and economic incentives that facilitate the spread of censorship and surveillance practices. The findings underscore the need for international cooperation and proactive measures to safeguard digital freedoms in an increasingly authoritarian digital landscape.
Photo: Hannu Viitanen.
Introduction
Research suggests that a significant number of countries in the Muslim world, specifically those in the Middle East, are often characterized by authoritarian governance (Durac & Cavatorta, 2022; Yenigun, 2021; Stepan et al., 2018; Yilmaz, 2021; 2025). The rise of the internet and social media during the late 2000s provided immense capacities to civil society and individual activists in the Muslim world. This development burst into political action during the late 2000s and the early 2010s in the instances of the Gezi protests in Turkey and other examples in the region, including the Green Movement in Iran and the Arab Spring protests across the Arab world (Iosifidis & Wheeler, 2015; Demirhan, 2014; Lynch, 2011; Gheytanchi, 2016).
The fact that the protesters in all these cases have extensively used the internet and associated technologies (e.g., social media, digital messaging, and navigation) has led many observers to declare the latter as ‘liberation technology’ due to their role in facilitating anti-government movements across non-democratic countries (Diamond & Plattner, 2012; Ziccardi, 2012). Advocates of the internet as a liberation tool have also pointed to enhanced social capacity to mobilize and organize through the spread of dramatic videos and images, instigating attitudinal change, and countering government monopoly over the production and dissemination of information (Breuer, 2012; Ruijgrok, 2017). These qualities have been seen as giving the internet an equalizing power between the state and society. In the early 2000s, when the Internet and social media were spreading across the developing world, authoritarian governments were generally unable to control the digital sphere; they lacked the technical expertise and the digital infrastructure to curb the internet. So, they typically relied on completely shutting it down (Cattle, 2015; Gunitsky, 2020).
However, authoritarian regimes gradually learned how to use the digital space for empowering their control on the society and have even started using it for transnational repression and sharp power (Yilmaz, 2025, Yilmaz et al., 2024; Yilmaz, Akbarzadeh & Bashirov 2023; Yilmaz, Morieson & Shakil, 2025; Yilmaz & Shakil, 2024). Scholars such as Sunstein (2009) and Negroponte (1996) have warned against the capacity of the internet to fragment the public sphere into separate echo chambers and thus fundamentally impede ‘deliberative democracy,’ which is supposed to be based on debates of ideas and exchange of views.
Furthermore, the breakthroughs in deep learning, neural network, and machine learning, together with the widespread use of the internet, have accelerated the growth of artificial intelligence (AI), providing more capability to authoritarian regimes to impose control on people. In a Pew poll, almost half of the respondents believed that the ‘use of [modern] technology will mostly weaken core aspects of democracy and democratic representation in the next decade’ (Anderson & Rainie, 2020). This pessimism is driven by an unprecedented degree of surveillance and digital control brought forward by digital technologies, undermining central notions of freedom, individuality, autonomy, and rationality at the center of deliberative democracy (Radavoi, 2019; Stone et al., 2016; Bostrom, 2014; Helbing et al., 2019; Damnjanović, 2015). Tools of the governments to digitally repress democracy include smart surveillance using facial recognition applications, targeted censorship, disinformation and misinformation campaigns, and cyber-attacks and hacking (Feldstein, 2019).
Research as to how digital technologies such as high-speed internet, social media, AI, and big data affect, enable or disable democracy, human rights, freedom, and electoral process is in its infancy (Gardels & Berggruen, 2019; Margetts, 2013; Papacharissi, 2009). Further, most of this scant literature is focused on Western democracies. The existing literature on Muslim-majority countries is mostly focused on traditional social media (Jenzen et al., 2021; Wheeler, 2017; Tusa, 2013). This is despite the fact that extensive digital capabilities, especially AI and big data, offer governments of these countries the capabilities to exert control over their citizens, with disastrous outcomes for democracy. Indeed, we may be facing the rise of a new type of authoritarian rule: digital authoritarianism, that is, ‘the use of digital information technology by authoritarian regimes to surveil, repress, and manipulate domestic and foreign populations’ (Polyakova & Meserole, 2019; see also Ahmed et al., 2024; Akbarzadeh et al., 2024; 2025).
With the expansion of the internet in developing countries, authoritarian governments derive a similar benefit from technological leapfrogging with the capacity to selectively implement new surveillance and control mechanisms from the burgeoning supply of market-ready advanced AI and big-data-enabled applications. As one internet pioneer foreshadowed to Pew “by 2030, as much of 75% of the world’s population will be enslaved by AI-based surveillance systems developed in China and exported around the world” (Anderson & Rainie, 2020). Developing countries often experience technological leapfrogging; they shift to advanced technologies directly, skipping the middle, more expensive and less efficient stages because modern technologies, by the time of their implementation within those countries, become more economical and effective than the initial technology. This leapfrogging is demonstrated via the adoption lifecycle of mobile phones to that of landlines. It took less than 17 years, from the early 2000s to 2017, for mobile phones to be extensively adopted in Turkey, from 25% to 96%. (Our World in Data, 2021).
After the crises of the early 2010s, both democratic and authoritarian regimes worldwide started to invest heavily in sophisticated equipment and expertise to monitor, analyze, and ultimately crack down on online and offline dissent (Aziz & Beydoun, 2020; Feldstein, 2021). In addition to curtailing independent speech and activism online, authoritarian regimes have sought to deceive and manipulate digital environments in order to shape their citizens’ views. They have flooded the digital realm with propaganda narratives using trolls, bots, and influencers under their control (Tan, 2020).
More importantly, thanks to authoritarian diffusion, governments in developing countries are learning from and emulating the experiences of their peers of surveillance technologies such as China and Russia. However, there has been limited research on the political mechanisms through which such digital authoritarian practices spread. Against this backdrop, this report examines the mechanisms through which digital authoritarian practices diffuse in Turkey as an example of authoritarian regimes in the Middle East. We ask: What kind of authoritarian practices have the governments enacted in the digital realm? How have these practices diffused across the region? To address these questions systematically, we develop an analytical framework that examines the mechanisms of diffusion of digital authoritarian practices. Our framework identifies three mechanisms of diffusion: emulation, learning, and cooperative interdependence. We focus on four groups of digital authoritarian practices: legal frameworks, Internet censorship, urban surveillance, and Strategic Digital Information Operations (SDIOs). We aim to show how emulation, learning and cooperative interdependence take place in each of these four digital authoritarian practices. In addition to the above, the report will explore the international dimension of this phenomenon, discovering how Western companies, in addition to totalitarian systems like Russia and China, played a role in empowering the Turkish government to claim the digital space.
We first discuss our analytical framework which integrates the scholarship of digital authoritarian practices and authoritarian diffusion, and explain the concepts of learning, emulation, and as prominent diffusion mechanisms. We then move to the empirical section where we first identify convergent outcomes that are comparable between earlier and later adopters and then we will elucidate the mechanisms through which the diffusion process occurred by showing contact points and plausible channels through which decision-makers were able to adopt from one another.
Analytical Framework
To explore the phenomenon of diffusion, we follow best practices laid out in the literature (see Ambrosio, 2010; Ambrosio & Tolstrup, 2019; Bank & Weyland, 2020). We begin by identifying convergent outcomes that are comparable between earlier and later adopters. As part of this, we will also establish feasible connections between the two parties, which may take the form of physical proximity, trade linkages, membership in international organizations, bilateral arrangements, historical ties, cultural similarities, or shared language. Then, we will elucidate the mechanisms through which the diffusion process occurred by identifying contact points and plausible channels through which decision-makers were able to adopt from one another.
We will follow three good practices that have been advised by scholars (e.g., Ambrosio & Tolstrup, 2019; Strang & Soule, 1998; Gilardi, 2010; 2012). First, we adopt a comparative design that involves four middle powers (see Strang & Soule, 1998). There are important similarities and differences among the four cases that make comparison a useful exercise. Second, we provide extensive data to showcase the workings of diffusion mechanisms despite the challenge of working on authoritarian settings. As Ambrosio and Tolstrup (2019: 2752) noted, “the relevant evidence needed can be hard to acquire in authoritarian settings.” It is much more likely to gain access to strong evidence in liberal democratic settings where much of the current diffusion research has accumulated. Our article contributes to the literature on diffusion in authoritarian settings with Turkey as a prominent example. Finally, we provide smoking gun evidence based on several leaked documents to support our assertions.
In the empirical section, we follow the convention (see Ambrosio & Tolstrup, 2019) and start with identifying convergent outcomes among the major political actors in regard to the practices of restrictive legal frameworks, Internet censorship, urban surveillance and SDIOs. This section involves demonstrating the items that have been diffused between earlier and later adopters. Not only is there a substantial amount of similarity between the practices among these political systems, but also, we show a temporal sequence between earlier and later adopters that point at convergence.
We then move on to explain plausible mechanisms of diffusion, following the model provided by Bashirov et al. (2025): Learning, Emulation, and Cooperative Interdependence. It’s important to highlight from the outset that these three mechanisms functioned together in Turkey settings. As was observed in other settings (see Sharman, 2008), it is not feasible to examine the impact of these mechanisms independently. Instead of existing as separate entities or operating in a simple additive manner, these mechanisms are inherently interconnected, and they do overlap. We follow this understanding in our empirical analysis and discuss how each mechanism worked in tandem with other mechanisms.
Types of Digital Authoritarianism
Illustration: Shutterstock / Skorzewiak.
We identified four main domains of digital authoritarianism in general, and examples of them could be found in Turkey’s case as well.
Restrictive Legal Frameworks
The legal framework includes a variety of practices. We identified the following:
1- Laws that mandated internet service providers to establish a system allowing real-time monitoring and recording of traffic on their networks. These legislations mandated internet service providers to establish a system allowing real-time monitoring and recording of traffic on their networks (Privacy International, 2019). Moreover, all censorship laws refer to national security and terrorism as vague criteria to enforce widespread censorship of undesirable content. In Turkey, a Presidential decree (No 671) in 2016 granted the government extensive power to restrict internet access, block websites, and censor media (IHD, 2017). Under the decree, telecommunications companies are required to comply with any government orders within two hours of receiving them. In recent years, the Turkish government also prosecuted thousands of people for criticizing President Erdogan or his government in print or on social media (Freedom House, 2021).
2- Laws that have converged around penalization of online speech, referring to concepts such as national identity, culture, and defamation. It is hard to miss similarities between the laws in Turkey among other regional countries and those enacted in China earlier. In 2013, China’s Supreme People’s Court issued a legal interpretation that expanded the scope of the crime of defamation to include information shared on the internet (Human Rights Watch, 2013). In 2022, the Turkish Parliament passed new legislation that criminalized “disseminating false information,” punishable by one to three years in prison, and increased government control over online news websites. Article 23 of the law was particularly controversial as it stated that “Any person who publicly disseminates untrue information concerning the internal and external security, public order and public health of the country with the sole intention of creating anxiety, fear or panic among the public, and in a manner likely to disturb public peace, shall be sentenced to imprisonment from one year to three years” (Human Rights Watch, 2022). This clearly shows the pattern of diffusion from China and Russia by leaving vague and broad provisions of what constitutes “national security,” “peace” and “order” (Weber, 2021: 170-171; Yilmaz, Caman & Bashirov, 2020; Yilmaz, Shipoli & Demir, 2023; Yilmaz & Shipoli, 2022).
3- Laws that ban or restrict the use of VPNs following China and Russia’s lead. In Turkey, VPNs are legal, but many of their servers and websites are blocked. China banned unauthorized VPN use in 2017 in a new Cybersecurity Law. Russia introduced a similar ban the same year. The Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK), national telecommunications regulatory and inspection authority of Turkey, issued a blocking order targeting 16 Virtual Private Networks (VPNs). These VPNs, including TunnelBear, Proton, and Psiphon, are popular tools used by audiences seeking to access news websites critical of the government.
While entirely banning VPN access remains a challenge, governments can employ Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) technology to identify and throttle VPN traffic. Countries like Iran, China, and Russia are indulging in such practices. Users in Iran and Turkey, for example, have reported extensive blockage of VPN apps and websites since 2021. Engaging in efforts to access blocked content through a VPN can potentially result in imprisonment (Danao & Venz, 2023). Simon Migliano, research head at Top10VPN.com, acknowledges that blocking VPN websites in Turkey makes it harder to download and sign up for new services. Moreover, individual VPN providers like Hide.me, SecureVPN, and Surfshark confirm technical difficulties for their users in Turkey. Proton, on the other hand, maintains that their services haven’t been completely blocked.
As such, the report “Freedom on the Net 2023” by Freedom House (2023) reflects the aforesaid harsh reality, ranking Turkey as “not free” in terms of internet access and freedom of expression. However, it is worth noting that the Turkish government’s censorship efforts are met with a determined citizenry. Audiences, even young schoolchildren according to Ozturan (2023), have become adept at using VPNs to access banned content. Media outlets themselves sometimes promote VPNs to help their audiences bypass restrictions. Examples abound: VOA Turkish and Deutsche Welle (DW), upon being blocked, directed their audiences towards Psiphon, Proton, and nthLink to access their broadcasts. Diken, a prominent news website, even maintains a dedicated “VPN News” section offering access to censored content dating back to 2014.
4- Laws that tighten control on social media companies. While Western social media platforms remain accessible in Turkey, in recent years the government has introduced similar laws and regulations that increase their grip over the content shared on these platforms. They do so by threatening the social media companies with bandwidth restrictions and outright bans if they fail to comply with the governments’ requests. Moreover, in 2020, the Turkish Parliament passed a new law that mandated tech giants such as Facebook and Twitter (now X) to appoint representatives in Turkey for handling complaints related to the content on their platforms. Companies that decline to assign an official representative have been subject to fines, advertising prohibitions, and bandwidth restrictions that would render their networks unusable due to slow internet speeds. Facebook complied with the law in 2021 and assigned a legal entity in Turkey after refusing to do so the previous year (Bilginsoy, 2021).
Since the early 2010s, many countries in the region including Turkey have enacted a series of legal reforms that converged around similar concepts and restrictions. As Table 1 shows, these laws follow the Chinese and Russian laws in temporal order. The table makes a comparison with some other countries in the region as well, in order to see Turkey’s position in this field.
Internet Shutdown
All governments in the region have resorted to shutting down the internet as a simple solution over the past 20 years, mostly during the times of mass protests, social unrest or military operations. In Turkey, in 2015, access to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube as well as 166 other websites were blocked when an image of a Turkish prosecutor held at gunpoint was circulated online. The internet was also cut off multiple times during the July 15, 2016 coup attempt, as well as during the Turkish military’s operations in the Southeastern regions of the country. In many instances, the government has used bandwidth throttling to deny its citizens access to the internet. However, internet shutdown is costly as it affects the delivery of essential public and private services and has been dubbed as the Dictator’s Digital Dilemma. Therefore, even when it is practiced, the shutdown is limited to a certain location, mostly a city or a region, and would typically last only few days. According to Access Now (2022), an internet rights organization, no internet shutdown has taken place in Turkey in 2021.
Given the high cost of switching off the internet and thanks to the rise of sophisticated technologies to filter, manipulate and re-direct internet content, censorship has become a more widely used digital authoritarian practice over the last decade. Countries have converged on the use of DPI technology. DPI is “a type of data processing that looks in detail at the contents of the data being sent, and re-routes it accordingly” (Geere, 2012). DPI inspects the data being sent over a network and may take various forms of actions, such as logging the content and alerting, as well as blocking or re-rerouting the traffic. DPI allows comprehensive network analysis. While it can be used for innocuous purposes, such as checking the content for viruses and ensuring the correct supply of content, it can also be used for digital eavesdropping, internet censorship, and even stealing sensitive information (Bendrath & Mueller, 2011).
Countries across the Muslim world including Turkey started in the mid-2010s to acquire DPI technology from Western and Chinese companies who have become important sources of diffusion. US-Canadian company Sandvine/Procera has provided DPI surveillance equipment to national networks operating in Turkey (Turk Telekom). This system operates over connections between an internet site and the target user and allows the government to tamper with the data sent through an unencrypted network (HTTP vs. HTTPS). Sandvine and its parent company Francisco Partners emerged at the center of the diffusion of DPI technology in the Middle East. Recent revelations show that the company has played significant role in facilitating the spread of ideas between countries. Through their information campaign, Sandvine contributed to learning by governments. As such, Sandvine and Netsweeper’s prominent engagement in provision of spying technology shows that it is not merely Chinese companies that enable digital authoritarianism. Western companies have been just as active.
Turkey made its first purchase from Sandvine (then Procera) in 2014 after the Gezi protests and corruption investigations rocked the AKP government the previous year. The government later used these devices to block websites, including Wikipedia, and those belonging to unwanted entities, such as independent news outlets and certain opposition groups in later years. The governments in the region including Turkey have gathered widespread spying and phishing capabilities sourced from mostly Western companies. For example, in Turkey, FinFisher used FinSpy in 2017 on a Turkish website disguised as the campaign website for the Turkish opposition movement and enabled the surveillance of political activists and journalists. FinSpy allowed the MIT to locate people, monitor phone calls and chats and mobile phone and computer data (ECCHR, 2023). This could link in with our discussion in emulation more clearly as well regarding private companies being key actors (Marczak et al., 2018).
Urban Surveillance
Three high-definition video surveillance cameras operated by the city police. Photo: Dreamstime.
With the advance of CCTV and AI technology, urban surveillance capabilities have grown exponentially over the past ten years. Dubbed as “safe” or “smart” cities, these urban surveillance projects are “mainly concerned with automating the policing of society using video cameras and other digital technologies to monitor and diagnose “suspicious behavior” (Kynge et al., 2021). The concept of Smart city captures an entire range of ICT capabilities implemented in an urban area. This might start with the simple goal of bringing internet connectivity and providing electronic payment solutions for basic services and evolve to establishing AI-controlled surveillance systems, as we have seen in many Chinese cities (Zeng, 2020). Smart cities deploy a host of ICT—including high-speed communication networks, sensors, and mobile phone apps—to boost mobility and connectivity, supercharge the digital economy, increase energy efficiency, improve the delivery of services, and generally raise the level of their residents’ welfare (Hong, 2022). The “smart” concept generally involves gathering large amounts of data to enhance various city functions. This can include optimizing the use of utilities and other services, reducing traffic congestion and pollution, and ultimately empowering both public authorities and residents.
The rapid development of smart city infrastructures across world has led to controversies as critics argued that the surveillance technology enables pervasive collection, retention, and misuse of personal data by everything from law enforcement agencies to private companies. Moreover, in recent years, China has been a major promoter of the ‘safe city’ concept that focuses on surveillance-driven policing of urban environments – a practice that has been perfected in most Chinese cities (Triolo, 2020). Several Chinese companies have been at the forefront of China’s effort to export its model of safe city: Huawei, ZTE Corporation, Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology, Zhejiang Dahua Technology, Alibaba, and Tiandy (Yan, 2019).
China has been a significant exporter of surveillance technology worldwide, including to countries like Turkey. Chinese firms such as Hikvision and Dahua have supplied surveillance equipment, including facial recognition systems, to various nations. Reports indicate that Turkey has utilized facial recognition software to monitor and identify individuals during protests (Radu, 2019; Bozkurt, 2021).
Holistically, the global expansion of China’s urban surveillance model sparks significant concerns, particularly in relation to its potential to increase authoritarian practices in adopting countries. In the absence of robust counter mechanisms, the adoption of Chinese surveillance model by authoritarian states is only likely to augment.
Strategic Digital Information Operations (SDIOs)
Another interesting aspect of authoritarian regimes is the use of digital technologies in creating and spreading pro-regime propaganda and conspiracy narratives that benefit the regimes. This is happening extensively in the region, including Turkey, as a part of the manipulation of the people in order to impose control on them and silence the opposition. The pro-regime propaganda machine uses conspiracy theories with a dual strategy, defensive and offensive, to shape the public perception of the regime. Defensively, it seeks to portray the regime as a legitimate national authority, emphasising its adherence to the nation’s interests and well-being in a way that no legitimate alternative is imaginable. In these narratives, leaders are portrayed as heroic figures with exceptional qualities, and the system is presented as flawless and well-suited to the country’s needs. On the offensive front, the propaganda machine works to discredit any alternative to the current regime. Opposition figures are either assassinated, arrested or labelled as traitors, criminals, or foreign agents so they can be eliminated politically. To reach to this end, conspiracy theories link opposition figures to nefarious plots or foreign intervention, thus undermining the credibility of opposition narratives.
In recent years, propaganda and conspiracy theories have played a significant role in Turkey’s political landscape, influencing political narratives and public opinion. The Turkish government, particularly under President Erdoğan and his ruling party (AKP), has been known for using state-controlled or pro-government media to push certain narratives. The government’s media strategy includes promoting nationalistic themes, highlighting Turkey’s achievements under AKP rule, and portraying the government as the protector of national interests against both internal and external threats. The government often emphasizes Turkey’s sovereignty and positions itself against perceived Western interference, such as criticisms from the European Union or the United States. By doing so, it strengthens a nationalist image, resonating with citizens who view Turkey as being unfairly targeted by foreign powers. Propaganda often incorporates Islamic and conservative values to appeal to the AKP’s core voter base. Erdoğan’s speeches and media outlets supportive of the government emphasize the defense of Islamic culture and values, framing the AKP as a protector of both religion and national identity. Government narratives frequently depict opposition groups as threats to national stability. This includes not only political rivals but also groups like the Kurdish population, the Gülen movement (which is accused by Erdogan regime of being behind the 2016 coup attempt), and the pro-Kurdish HDP party, who are often associated with terrorism or disloyalty.
Additionally, conspiracy theories have been pervasive in Turkish political culture, often used to explain domestic unrest or justify political decisions. Here, pro-government media often propagate conspiracies about the opposition, portraying them as aligned with foreign powers or terrorist organizations. A persistent theme in Turkish political discourse is the idea that foreign powers or global financial institutions are working to undermine Turkey’s economy and political stability. Moreover, the failed coup attempt in July 2016 became a fertile ground for conspiracy theories. While the Turkish government attributed the coup attempt to Fethullah Gülen, a cleric who lived in exile in the United States for decades until his death, alternative theories continue to circulate. Some claim that foreign powers, particularly the US, were involved in the coup plot, while others suggest that elements within the Turkish government may have allowed the coup to proceed as a means to justify a subsequent crackdown on opposition. In the same vein, many conspiracy theories center around the idea that Western powers, particularly the US and Europe, are conspiring against Turkey to prevent it from becoming a major regional power. These theories often cite Turkey’s geopolitical location, its military interventions in the region, or its aspirations to become an independent economic powerhouse.
A significant portion of the mainstream media in Turkey is either directly controlled by the government or aligned with it. These outlets often echo government narratives, downplaying criticisms, and emphasizing government achievements or conspiracy-laden stories about opposition and foreign interference. Despite the dominance of pro-government media, social media platforms have become spaces for both opposition voices and pro-government voices. The government has sought to control these platforms through legal means, introducing laws to regulate social media and threatening to block access to platforms that do not comply with government requests to remove content.
Mechanisms of Diffusion
We observed that the diffusion of digital authoritarianism occurs in three main mechanisms: learning, emulation and cooperative interdependence.
Learning
It has been widely argued that countries across the globe learned from domestic and foreign experience to adopt various forms of digital authoritarian practices. This is more prominent in countries experiencing public unrest, like Turkey and Egypt. For example, they both have learned lessons from the Gezi Park and Tahrir Square protests, respectively. Despite many indications to this effect, for a long time there was a lack of smoking gun evidence pointing at this type of learning. In 2016, a series of leaked emails from Erdogan’s son-in-law and then Energy Minister Berat Albayrak’s account revealed that in the aftermath of the Gezi Park protests, the Erdogan regime identified its lack of control of digital space as a problem and sought solutions in the form of “set[ting] up a team of professional graphic designers, coders, and former army officials who had received training in psychological warfare” (Akis, 2022). In later years, the regime built one of the world’s most extensive internet surveillance networks on social media, particularly on X, according to Norton Symantec.
In regard to external learning, China (and Chinese companies) and Western private companies have been at the forefront of actors promoting internet censorship practices. China has been not only a major promoter but also a source of learning for middle powers when it comes to internet surveillance, data fusion, and AI. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) has become a key vehicle that drives these efforts. For example, during the 2021 SCO summit, Chinese officials led a panel titled the Thousand Cities Strategic Algorithms, which trained the international audience that included many developing country representations on developing a “national data brain” that integrates various forms of financial and personal data and uses artificial intelligence to analyze it. The SCO website reported that 50 countries are engaged in discussions with the Thousand Cities Strategic Algorithms initiative (Ryan-Mosley, 2022). China has also been active in providing media and government training programs to representatives from BRI-affiliated countries. In one prominent example, Chinese Ministry of Public Security instructed Meiya Pico, a Chinese cybersecurity company, to train government representatives from Turkey, Pakistan, Egypt, and other countries on digital forensics (see Weber, 2019: 9-11).
Moreover, the spread of internet censorship and surveillance technologies points to a highly probable learning event facilitated by western corporate entities. Specifically, Sandvine, NSO Group, and their parent company Francisco Partners, emerged at the center of the diffusion of DPI technology in most Middle Eastern countries except for Iran where the company is not allowed to operate. Recent revelations show that the company has played a significant role in facilitating the spread of ideas between countries. Alexander Haväng, the ex-Chief Technical Officer of Sandvine, explained in an internal newsletter addressed to the company’s employees that their technology can appeal to governments whose surveillance capacities are hampered by encryption. Haväng wrote that Sandvine’s equipment could “show who’s talking to who, for how long, and we can try to discover online anonymous identities who’ve uploaded incriminating content online” (Gallagher, 2022).
The spread of DPI practices in general and Sandvine’s technology in particular is also evidenced by the chronology of acquisition by developing countries. The list of countries contracted to buy Sandvine’s DPI technology includes Turkey, Algeria, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Eritrea, Jordan, Kuwait, Pakistan, Qatar, Russia, Sudan, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, and Uzbekistan (Gallagher, 2022). There is a clear trend here, both in terms of regime susceptibility and chronology of adoption. Turkey purchased Sandvine’s DPI technology in 2014, Egypt in 2016, and Pakistan did so in 2018 (Malsin, 2018; Ali & Jahangir, 2019).
It is highly likely that later adopters of this technology reviewed its performance in early adopters and decided upon their own adoption. We know from previous research that private companies can “influence the spread of state policies by encouraging the exchange of substantive and procedural information between states” (Garrett & Jansa, 2015: 391). Governments are required to understand details about the content of a technology and relevant institutional mechanisms to use it effectively. Corporations facilitate communication about these details. The existence of extensive links between Sandvine and authoritarian regimes, the similarities of how the tech has been used, and the sheer prominence of this company and its technology demonstrate a plausible argument for diffusion.
Using practice framework, we focus on ‘configurations of actors’ who are involved in enabling authoritarianism (Glasius & Michaelsen, 2018). In most instances, these actors are not states, but private companies (see Table 2). Moreover, contrary to perceived active role of Chinese companies, with the prime exception of Iran, it was Western tech companies that provided most of the high-tech surveillance and censorship capabilities to authoritarian regimes in the Muslim world including Turkey. These included, inter alia, US-Canadian company Sandvine, Israeli NSO Group, German FinFisher and Finland’s Nokia Networks.
Emulation
There’s evidence that authoritarian countries in the region like Turkey have emulated major powers, as well as each other, when it comes to internet censorship practices. Among other things, homophily of actors played important role as actors prefer to emulate models from reference groups of actors with whom they share similar cultural or social attributes (Elkins & Simmons, 2005). Political alignment and proximity among nations foster communication and the exchange of information (Rogers, 2010). We observe the influence of this dynamic between China and Russia, and political regimes in the Muslim world who are susceptible to authoritarian forms of governance to varying degrees.
Research noted that states tend to harmonize their policy approaches to align with the prevailing norms of the contemporary global community, irrespective of whether these specific policies or institutional frameworks align with local conditions or provide effective solutions. Notably, since most transfers originate from the core to the periphery, policy transfers to developing regions might be ill-suited and consequently ineffective. There’s evidence that adoption of city surveillance is driven by the desire for conformity rather than the search for effective solutions. China’s CCTV-smart city solutions are considered in the region to be “bold innovations” as they’ve gathered disproportionate attention from the developing countries across the world. However, there’s evidence that the countries adopt this technology because of their apparent promise rather than demonstrated success. For example, there has been a controversy about whether Huawei’s safe city infrastructure actually helps to reduce urban crime. In a dubious presentation in 2019, Huawei claimed that its safe city systems have been highly effective in reducing crime, increasing the case clearance rate, reducing emergency response time, and increasing citizen satisfaction. However, research by CSIS revealed that these numbers have been grossly exaggerated if not completely fabricated (Hillman & McCalpin, 2019).
Emulation and learning appear to be the major mechanisms through which such practices spread. First, by demonstrating the effectiveness of disinformation campaigns and propaganda – such as Russian interference in US presidential elections in 2016 and China’s propaganda around the Covid-19 pandemic – these countries have shown other regimes that similar tactics can be used to control their own populations and advance their interests (Jones, 2022). Second, China and Russia have acted as important sources of learning for authoritarian regimes. China has hosted thousands of foreign officials and members of media from BRI countries in various training programs on media and information management since 2017 (Freedom House, 2022). For example, in 2017, China’s Cyberspace Administration held cyberspace management seminars for officials from BRI countries. Chinese data-mining company iiMedia presented its media management platform which is advertised as offering comprehensive control of public opinion, including providing early-warnings for “negative” public opinions and helping guide the promotion of “positive energy” online (Laskai, 2019).
The governments in the Muslim world learned how to use the social media and other digital technologies for ‘flooding,’ which helps strengthen and legitimize their political regime. This is a part of a broader objective of shaping the information environment domestically and internationally (Mir et al., 2022). At home, these governments are attempting to mold their citizens’ conduct online. They hired social media consultants and influencers to do their propaganda. They learned how to flood the information space with propaganda narratives using troll farms and bots. For example, in Turkey, the AKP government created a massive troll army in response to the Gezi Protests in 2013. A 2016 study published by the cyber security company Norton Symantec shows that among countries in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Turkey is the country with the most bot accounts on Twitter (Akis, 2022). In 2020, Twitter announced that it was suspending 7,340 fake accounts that had shared over 37 million tweets from its platform. Twitter attributed the network of accounts to the youth wing of the ruling AKP.
Through the aforementioned techniques, Turkey moved beyond strategies of “negative control” of the internet, in which the government attempt to block, censor, and suppress the flow of communication, and toward strategies of proactive co-optation in which social media serves regime objective. The opposite of internet freedom, therefore, is not necessarily internet censorship but a deceptive blend of control, co-option, and manipulation. As the public debate is seeded with such disinformation, this makes it hard for the governments’ opponents to convince their supporters and mobilize (Gunitsky, 2020).
Here, the practices appear to be a mixed bag of diffusion, convergence and even innovation on the part of some regional countries. There is some proof of learning on the part of the Turkish regime: Berat Albayrak’s emails reveal the government’s learning from the Gezi protests and intentional establishment of their own troll farms (Akis, 2022). Similarly, the Sisi regime learnt from the Arab Spring protests as well. While it is hard to find a smoking gun evidence of these regimes copying Russian or Chinese playbook, extensive links between some of these countries (such as Pakistan and Turkey), as well as between some of these countries and Russia/China (Turkey and Russia; China and Pakistan/Iran) brings some evidence of diffusion.
Cooperative Interdependence
Nested dolls depicting authoritarian and populist leaders Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, and Recep Tayyip Erdogan displayed among souvenirs in Moscow on July 7, 2018. Photo: Shutterstock.
We have observed that a cooperative interdependence has been at play when it comes to the diffusion of internet censorship practices from China to developing countries. Countries like Turkey are facing serious economic challenges and are in dire need of foreign direct investment. When tracing China’s technology transfer in these countries, a common thread emerges that tie most of the Chinese engagement to various forms of aid, trade negotiations, or grants. Prominently, China uses its Digital Silk Road (DSR) concept under the banner of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to push for adoption of its technological infrastructure and accompanying policies of surveillance and censorship in digital and urban environments (Hillman, 2021). For example, at the 2017 World Internet Conference in China, representatives from Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE signed a “Proposal for International Cooperation on the ‘One Belt, One Road’ Digital Economy,” an agreement to construct the DSR to improve digital connectivity and e-commerce cooperation (Laskai, 2019). The core components of the DSR initiative are smart (or “safe cities”), internet infrastructure, and mobile networks.
We do not argue that China is “forcing” these countries to adopt internet censorship practices. Rather, a cooperative interdependence works through changing incentive structures of BRI-connected states where financial incentives by China, coupled with technology transfer, promote China’s practical approach to managing the cyberspace as well. Indeed, BRI’s digital dimensions include many projects such as 5G networks, smart city projects, fiber optic cables, data centers, satellites, and devices that connect to these systems. In addition to having commercial value in terms of expanding China’s business of information technology, these far-reaching technologies have strategic benefit as they help the country achieve geoeconomic and geopolitical objectives that involve promotion of digital authoritarian practices and Chinese model of internet governance (Malena, 2021; Tang, 2020).
For example, Huawei’s growing influence in Turkey, and other regional countries such as Iran, Egypt, Pakistan, and particularly in the context of building their 5G infrastructure, is tied to these countries’ involvement in DSR projects. As mentioned above, all the abovementioned countries have signed agreements to cooperate with Huawei to build their 5G infrastructure. The latter is not merely an advanced technology, but also a vehicle of promoting an entire legal and institutional infrastructure for China. In 2017 the Standardization Administration of China (SAC) released the “BRI Connectivity and Standards Action Plan 2018-2020” which aims at promoting Chinese technical standards and improving related policies among BRI-recipient states across technologies including AI, 5G, and satellite navigation systems (Malena, 2021).
Cooperative interdependence such as loans, commercial diplomacy and other state initiatives are prominent mechanisms through which China spreads its urban surveillance practices. The Table 2 also demonstrates this process.
In the Muslim world, countries converged on importing China’s smart city platforms in recent years. A close collaboration between Chinese technology companies and authoritarian governments has led to the development of smart city infrastructures in multiple urban settings. Several Chinese companies have been at the forefront of this endeavor: Huawei, Hikvision, ZTE Corporation, Alibaba, Dahua Technology, and Tiandy (Yan, 2019). Huawei is a key source of diffusion of urban surveillance practices.
Huawei has established partnerships with major Turkish telecom companies, Turkcell and Vodafone TR, to implement smart city technologies in Samsun and Istanbul, respectively (KOTRA, 2021). Additionally, Turkey hosts one of Huawei’s 19 global Research and Development centers. In 2020, Turkcell became the first telecom operator outside China to adopt Huawei’s mobile app infrastructure, a system developed by Huawei in response to US sanctions that limited the use of certain Google software on Huawei devices. In 2022, Turk Telekom signed a contract with Huawei to build Turkey’s complete 5G network (Hurriyet, 2022). This infrastructure, known as Huawei Mobile Services (HMS), encompasses a suite of applications, cloud services, and an app store, which Huawei describes as “a collection of apps, services, device integrations, and cloud capabilities supporting its ecosystem” (Huawei, 2022).
Countries have also emulated China as the role model when it comes to urban surveillance practices. Indeed, China’s influence was highly discernible in the area of urban surveillance, where it has emerged as a role model and a key provider of high-tech tools (Germanò et al., 2023). To begin with, there are extensive linkages between sender (mostly China) and adopter countries in political and economic areas. These include the growing presence of China in regional economies, participation in China-dominated organizations such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and cooperation with China on internet governance issues such as the statement in the UN by several countries. Moreover, China has long acted as a laboratory to observe the results of its unique blend of high-tech authoritarianism that combined extensive urban surveillance with control of the internet under the pretext of national security and sovereignty (see Mueller, 2020). The perceived success of Chinese officials in curbing crime, ensuring stability and efficient management of urban settings, including their draconian measures to control the spread of COVID-19, have elevated China as a role model to be emulated by many authoritarian countries, including those in the Muslim world (Barker, 2021).
The table below demonstrates China’s role in the diffusion of digital authoritarianism in the region including Turkey:
Conclusion
This research illustrates how Turkey’s adoption of digital authoritarian practices—encompassing restrictive legal frameworks, internet censorship, urban surveillance, and strategic digital information operations—has been propelled by a combination of learning from domestic unrest, emulating paradigms set by major authoritarian players like China and Russia, and capitalizing on cooperative interdependence forged through economic and strategic partnerships. Despite Turkey’s NATO membership and other Western affiliations, the government has selectively borrowed from authoritarian models, integrating advanced surveillance technologies and normative frameworks that restrict civic freedoms in the digital realm. In this ecosystem, private Western companies, operating with limited oversight, have facilitated the supply of censorship and surveillance tools, challenging conventional expectations that illiberal digital governance is primarily state-driven.
These findings highlight the urgent need to establish robust international cyber norms and regulations that delineate clear boundaries on digital governance, particularly in states with deep ties to the West. Multilateral fora, including the United Nations and the Council of Europe, can take the lead by defining the scope of “digital authoritarianism,” instituting transparent guidelines on surveillance exports, and ensuring that technology providers are held accountable for the potential misuse of their products. Greater emphasis on privacy protections and digital rights is equally critical, calling for comprehensive legislation within Turkey that shields citizens from unwarranted data collection. Support from the international community—through funding, awareness campaigns, and legal assistance—can empower local civil society groups to advocate for these rights, educate citizens on online privacy, and hold authorities to account.
A second imperative is responsible corporate behavior, where companies must be compelled—via legal and reputational mechanisms—to adhere to human rights standards and disclose how their technologies are deployed in countries like Turkey. Establishing an independent monitoring entity to track repressive digital practices, publicize violations, and elevate them to international organizations can reinforce such accountability. Equally important, regional and global cooperation on digital freedom can help counter Turkey’s authoritarian trajectory; governments committed to open societies should launch joint initiatives aimed at improving cybersecurity, combating disinformation, and expanding transparent governance models that respect human rights. Technical assistance and knowledge-sharing will be particularly valuable where Turkey’s domestic institutions seek alternatives to purely repressive tools.
Moreover, economic incentives can be used strategically to steer Turkey away from partnerships that reinforce authoritarian tendencies. By prioritizing trade relationships and development aid tied to ethical technology practices, major economic powers and international financial institutions can encourage Turkey to align more closely with suppliers committed to democratic values. Such an approach has the added benefit of opening the market to innovators developing privacy-enhancing products, thus providing viable alternatives to invasive surveillance systems. Finally, the use of strategic diplomatic channels remains a powerful lever. Dialogue within NATO, discussions at the European Union level, and broader diplomatic engagements allow Turkey’s partners to advocate for transparent, responsible digital practices. Joint resolutions or multilateral condemnations of authoritarian behaviors can further raise the political costs of continued repression.
Taken together, these initiatives underscore that countering digital authoritarianism in Turkey requires a proactive, holistic strategy. While local factors—such as domestic protest movements and longstanding elite interests—play a crucial role, the role of international actors and private corporations is equally significant. Each dimension, whether it be legal reform, corporate accountability, economic leverage, or diplomatic pressure, offers a piece of the puzzle. Coordinated action that weaves these elements into a cohesive approach is essential not only for Turkey but for the broader effort to preserve the open, rights-respecting nature of the global digital landscape. By challenging the unchecked diffusion of repressive technologies and policies, the international community can mitigate the risks posed by an ever-expanding authoritarian playbook and ensure that the internet remains a domain of freedom and democratic possibility.
Funding:This work was supported by Australian Research Council [Grant Number DP230100257]; Gerda Henkel Foundation [Grant Number AZ 01/TG/21]; Australian Research Council [Grant Number DP220100829].
Authors
Ihsan Yilmaz is Deputy Director (Research Development) of the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation (ADI) at Deakin University, where he also serves as Chair in Islamic Studies and Research Professor of Political Science and International Relations. He previously held academic positions at the Universities of Oxford and London and has a strong track record of leading multi-site international research projects. His work at Deakin has been supported by major funding bodies, including the Australian Research Council (ARC), the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, the Victorian Government, and the Gerda Henkel Foundation.
(*) Ali Mamouri is a scholar and journalist specializing in political philosophy and theology. He is currently a Research Fellow at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation at Deakin University. With an academic background, Dr. Mamouri has held teaching positions at the University of Sydney, the University of Tehran, and Al-Mustansiriyah University, as well as other institutions in Iran and Iraq. He has also taught at the Qom and Najaf religious seminaries. From 2020 to 2022, he served as a Strategic Communications Advisor to the Iraqi Prime Minister, providing expertise on regional political dynamics. Dr. Mamouri also has an extensive career in journalism. From 2016 to 2023, he was the editor of Iraq Pulse at Al-Monitor, covering key political and religious developments in the Middle East. His work has been featured in BBC, ABC, The Conversation, Al-Monitor, and Al-Iraqia State Media, among other leading media platforms. As a respected policy analyst, his notable works include “The Dueling Ayatollahs: Khamenei, Sistani, and the Fight for the Soul of Shiite Islam” (Al-Monitor) and “Shia Leadership After Sistani” (Washington Institute). Beyond academia and journalism, Dr. Mamouri provides consultation to public and private organizations on Middle Eastern affairs. He has published several works in Arabic and Farsi, including a book on the political philosophy of Muhammad Baqir Al-Sadr and research on political Salafism. Additionally, he has contributed to The Great Islamic Encyclopedia and other major Islamic encyclopedias.
Nicholas Morieson is a Research Fellow at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University. He was previously a Lecturer at the Australian Catholic University in Melbourne. His research interests include populism, religious nationalism, civilizational politics, intergroup relations, and the intersection of religion and political identity.
(**) MuhammadOmer is a PhD student in political science at the Deakin University. His PhD is examining the causes, ideological foundations, and the discursive construction of multiple populisms in a single polity (Pakistan). His other research interests include transnational Islam, religious extremism, and vernacular security. He previously completed his bachelor’s in politics and history from the University of East Anglia, UK, and master’s in political science from the Vrije University Amsterdam.
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