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Professor Schabas: US, Germany, and Others Could Be Held Liable as Accomplices to Genocide in Gaza

September 1, 2025

by ECPS_admin Multimedia Videos

In an exclusive interview with ECPS, Professor William Schabas, one of the world’s foremost authorities on genocide and international criminal law, warns that the Gaza crisis represents a “litmus test” for the credibility of international justice. He argues that the case filed by South Africa against Israel at the ICJ is “arguably the strongest case of genocide ever brought before the Court,” citing Israeli military actions and statements by senior officials as evidence of genocidal intent. Professor Schabas also highlights Prime Minister Netanyahu’s populist rhetoric, framing Gaza’s population as an existential threat, which he links to patterns of incitement fueling atrocities. Crucially, he stresses that third-party states, including the US, Germany, and others risk legal liability as “accomplices to genocide.”

In an extensive interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Professor William Schabas—one of the world’s foremost authorities on international criminal law and genocide studies, and a professor at Middlesex University—offers a detailed assessment of the unfolding crisis in Gaza through the lens of international law, populist politics, and global governance. Coming from a family of Holocaust survivors, Professor Schabas warns that Gaza represents a “litmus test” for the credibility of international justice and the authority of global legal institutions.

At the heart of his analysis is a stark conclusion: the case brought by South Africa v. Israel before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is “arguably the strongest case of genocide that has ever come before the Court.” He argues that evidence of genocidal intent can be inferred not only from Israel’s military conduct but also from statements by senior Israeli officials, such as Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s remarks about cutting off food, water, and electricity in Gaza. “We have more than just a pattern of conduct—we also have statements and clear indications of policy. All of these must be considered together when making a final judgment,” said Professor Schabas.

Professor Schabas also highlights how Prime Minister Netanyahu’s populist framing of Gaza’s population as an existential threat has intensified concerns about incitement and mass atrocity crimes. “Racist populist rhetoric has often been part of genocidal contexts, mobilizing mass support for atrocities. We see elements of that dynamic in Israel today,”he said. Drawing comparisons to Rwanda (1994) and the Namibia genocide (1904–1906), he underscores both the parallels and distinctions, warning against simplistic analogies while emphasizing recurring patterns where populist narratives fuel extreme violence.

Importantly, Professor Schabas stresses that third-party states—including the US, Germany, Canada, and others—risk being held legally accountable under Article III of the Genocide Convention for aiding and abetting Israel through military and political support. He warns: “To the extent that they are providing material assistance of a significant nature, they can be held responsible as accomplices to genocide.”

Finally, he frames Gaza as a defining moment for international justice mechanisms like the ICJ and ICC, warning that failure to apply consistent standards risks entrenching a “two-tier system of international law” and undermining human rights globally: “These institutions are absolutely vulnerable, and they are aware of it. Gaza is a test for their credibility and authority.”

This interview situates Gaza within broader debates about populism, authoritarianism, and international accountability, offering an urgent call to rethink legal, institutional, and political frameworks for preventing mass atrocities in an era of resurgent populist authoritarianism.

Here is the transcript of our interview with Professor William Schabas, edited lightly for readability.

Coming from a family of Holocaust survivors, Professor William Schabas is one of the world’s foremost authorities on international criminal law and genocide studies, and a professor at Middlesex University.

Professor Schabas: US, Germany, and Others Could Be Held Liable as Accomplices to Genocide in Gaza

August 30, 2025

by ECPS_admin Editor’s Choice Home Human Rights Interviews

In an exclusive interview with ECPS, Professor William Schabas, one of the world’s foremost authorities on genocide and international criminal law, warns that the Gaza crisis represents a “litmus test” for the credibility of international justice. He argues that the case filed by South Africa against Israel at the ICJ is “arguably the strongest case of genocide ever brought before the Court,” citing Israeli military actions and statements by senior officials as evidence of genocidal intent. Professor Schabas also highlights Prime Minister Netanyahu’s populist rhetoric, framing Gaza’s population as an existential threat, which he links to patterns of incitement fueling atrocities. Crucially, he stresses that third-party states, including the US, Germany, and others risk legal liability as “accomplices to genocide.”

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

Here is the transcript of our interview with Professor William Schabas, edited lightly for readability.

Destruction in Shejayia, Gaza City, Gaza Strip. Photo: Dreamstime.

Gaza Is a Litmus Test for the Credibility of International Justice

Professor Schabas, thank you very much for joining our interview series. Let me start right away with the first question: As a leading genocide scholar and coming from a family of Holocaust survivors, before delving into the legal and political complexities, how would you characterize the current situation in Gaza from the perspective of international law? Considering the patterns of conduct, the scale of destruction, and official statements by Israeli leaders, do the unfolding events appear to meet the legal thresholds of genocide, crimes against humanity, or ethnic cleansing under Article II of the Genocide Convention, or are we still at a stage where these legal categories remain indeterminate?

Professor William Schabas: There’s always going to be debate about legal categories, and you’re asking me, as a scholar and specialist in the field, to make an assessment. Ultimately, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) will deliver its judgment, primarily in the case filed by South Africa against Israel. In my view, South Africa’s case is exceptionally strong—arguably the strongest case of genocide ever brought before the ICJ. Of course, I have not seen South Africa’s full submissions, as these remain confidential until the hearing begins, which is likely to take place in two or three years. However, based on the information and material currently available in the public domain, I believe their case rests on a very solid foundation.

Based on that, I think South Africa is likely to prevail in the case, and Israel will lose and be found to have violated the Genocide Convention. You mentioned some of the factors that will be part of that assessment—the notorious statements by Israeli politicians, declarations of various kinds that continue. These all contribute to identifying the policy of the State of Israel. But there are other factors as well, mainly the conduct of Israel, which indicates that its policy is directed towards the elimination of the presence of the Palestinian Arab people in Gaza. That leads to genocide. You also mentioned other terms, like “ethnic cleansing,” which, technically speaking, is not covered by an international treaty and is not, strictly speaking, a crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). However, it is used to describe a type of conduct that borders on the crime of genocide—in other words, the expulsion of people from a territory so that another population can prevail there.

I think it’s often misunderstood that there is not a bright line between genocide and ethnic cleansing. The ICJ, in its important judgments on the Genocide Convention, has clearly stated that, while ethnic cleansing is not necessarily genocide, it can also amount to genocide. So, there’s a zone between the two concepts—it’s not a sharp division.

Another commonly misunderstood point concerns intent. One of the arguments we hear from those defending Israel is that “they could have killed more people, and they haven’t,” suggesting that this proves there is no intent to commit genocide. We have encountered similar claims in assessments of the Holocaust and other historical examples of genocide, where it was argued that the absence of even greater killings indicates a lack of intent. However, this reasoning has never been accepted by courts. So, briefly—though I could speak on this subject for much longer—that is my assessment.

US and European Devotion to Israel Has Undermined International Law

Election billboard showing Netanyahu shaking hands with Trump, with the slogan “Netanyahu. Another League,” in Jerusalem on September 16, 2019. Photo: Dreamstime.

In your work on preventive obligations, you highlight that early warning mechanisms are underutilized in atrocity prevention. In Gaza, where warnings have existed for years, what explains the persistent inaction by international bodies like the UN and the ICC?

Professor William Schabas: Well, a significant problem with the United Nations is that it is ultimately guided by the political views of its member states, particularly the most powerful ones—the permanent members of the Security Council. I am talking here mainly about the United States, but I would not overlook the United Kingdom and France either. Other wealthy and influential states, primarily in Europe or European settler states elsewhere, such as Canada and Australia, are also deeply devoted to Israel. They have been reluctant to take measures that would rein Israel in and, on the contrary, have often encouraged and emboldened it, frequently turning a blind eye when Israel has engaged in particularly troubling actions. As a result, they have significantly constrained the United Nations’ ability to address Israel’s violations of international law effectively.

I think we can trace that position back a century or more, even before the creation of Israel, to when the mandate was given to the British at the end of the First World War. The British had long coveted the territory of Palestine and had encouraged Zionism for decades before receiving the mandate. In effect, what they sought was a settler state in the Middle East that would allow them to influence and control the region as much as possible.

I don’t believe that underlying objective has changed. This explains the deep devotion to Israel not only by the United States but also by the major European powers, for whom the Middle East remains of immense economic and strategic importance. They need to maintain control over the region, and they cannot rely on other governments there in the same way they can rely on Israel—although some, like Saudi Arabia, are also closely aligned with and loyal to the European powers and the United States. But they cannot count on them in the same way they can with Israel.

Israel Cannot Invoke Self-Defense While Acting Unlawfully in Gaza

Drawing on your analysis of the ICJ’s evolving jurisprudence, how might the Court balance Israel’s claims of “self-defense” with its responsibilities as an occupying power under the Fourth Geneva Convention, especially after its 2024 advisory opinion reaffirming Gaza’s occupied status?

Professor William Schabas: Israel has invoked the notion of self-defense, and this is echoed in the defenses of Israel that we hear from countries like Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and the United States. I really don’t think—I’ve thought a lot about this—that Israel can legitimately invoke self-defense in relation to what it’s doing in Gaza. Regarding the attacks that took place in October 2023, there is an element of self-defense they could claim, as this was an incursion into their territory by various Palestinian forces. However, Israel’s response in Gaza is entirely disproportionate to what self-defense would require.

Moreover, the International Court of Justice has declared the occupation of Gaza to be unlawful. You cannot claim self-defense while engaging in unlawful actions. It’s like a bank robber who fires on the police because they’re firing on him—he can’t go to court and invoke self-defense, because he is, by definition, acting unlawfully. In the same way, I don’t think Israel can credibly rely on self-defense here. In my view, this is simply a bogus argument.

Evidence of Genocidal Intent in Gaza Goes Beyond Circumstantial Patterns

Morning bombing attack on Gaza near the Al-Saraya buildings. Photo: Ahmed Fraije.

Given your argument that genocidal intent can be inferred from patterns of conduct and policy, rather than explicit declarations, how do you assess Israel’s military strategy in Gaza in the light of Article II of the 1948 Genocide Convention? To what extent do statements by Israeli leaders, such as Yoav Gallant’s remarks about cutting off food, water, and electricity, strengthen claims of genocidal intent?

Professor William Schabas: The proof of genocidal intent is almost always at the core of legal debates about whether genocide is occurring. It has been central to the judgments of the International Court of Justice in cases from the former Yugoslavia, as well as to rulings of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in prosecutions of individuals for genocide. The case law is quite consistent: when evidence of genocidal intent relies exclusively on conduct—in other words, on what is known as circumstantial evidence—you must be able to rule out any other reasonable explanation for that conduct. If ambiguity remains, the claim of genocide must be rejected. This principle, derived from basic criminal law, is applied in most jurisdictions when dealing with crimes of this nature and cases based entirely on circumstantial evidence.

The point, however, is that we have more than just circumstantial evidence here. We have more than a mere pattern of conduct—we also have statements and other indications of policy. All of these elements must be considered together when making a final judgment. Ultimately, this assessment rests with judges or, in some contexts, juries, depending on the legal framework. They will need to determine whether the totality of this evidence amounts to genocide.

As I mentioned at the outset of the interview, my own conclusion is that it does. However, we will have to see how the judges respond. They may not be unanimous; there could be a majority either for or against. Time will tell how they weigh the evidence. In my view, there is already sufficient evidence in the case to reach a conclusion. We must also see what arguments Israel presents in its reply and what its defense entails. If their primary claim is that they are acting in self-defense, for the reasons I’ve already explained, I don’t think they’re going to fare very well.

The ICJ Is Becoming a Forum for Issues Once Left to Politics

You have noted that international law is moving toward a broader interpretation of genocide, as seen in the ICJ’s handling of the South Africa v. Israel case. Do you believe this shift represents a new phase in international jurisprudence? How might it redefine accountability for powerful states in future conflicts?

Professor William Schabas: Yes, I think there is something significant happening at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), particularly regarding the interpretation of genocide, which is likely to make proving genocidal intent somewhat easier. I base this view not only on the conduct of the Court in some of its recent decisions dealing with genocide cases—it currently has four such cases before it—but also on the attitude taken by governments.

One of the striking features of recent litigation before the ICJ, not just in the case brought by South Africa against Israel but also in The Gambia’s case against Myanmar and Ukraine’s case against Russia, is the unprecedented number of state interventions. In the entire 80-year history of the Court, there had only been a handful of interventions in any cases until 2022–2023. Now, we have around 50 states intervening in ongoing genocide-related cases. This level of engagement has never happened before—not even in the Yugoslavia cases.

I think this indicates that states now expect the Court to do more with the Genocide Convention than it has done in the past, which may involve a somewhat more liberal interpretation of genocidal intent. However, this does not mean there is pressure to expand the definition of genocide itself; states are not seeking to add political groups or new categories to the Convention. Rather, they are calling for the Court to be more receptive to evidence indicating genocidal intent, and if the Court responds to this expectation, it will likely be reflected in its final decisions.

Time will tell, of course, but ultimately, the ICJ is the states’ court—it is, in a way, their institution. By choosing to participate, states are signaling their trust in the Court and their expectation that it will deliver justice. What is also remarkable and relatively new is that states are increasingly turning to the Court on matters that were traditionally settled in political forums like the UN General Assembly, the Human Rights Council, or the Security Council.

Now, they are asking the ICJ to decide on issues beyond genocide, such as climate change, occupation of territory, decolonization, labor rights, and even the right to strike. Instead of negotiating these matters politically, states are effectively saying: “We will let these 15 judges decide, based on the law, what should be done.” That marks a significant shift compared to how things were handled 10, 15, or 20 years ago.

The entrance sign of the International Criminal Court (ICC) at its headquarters in The Hague, Netherlands, on February 14, 2018. Photo: Robert Paul Van Beets.

Western Inconsistencies Expose a Two-Tier System of International Justice

In one of your interviews, you highlighted the selective application of the genocide label, noting that “our enemies commit genocide, not our friends.” Considering Western reluctance to describe Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide—while readily applying the term to cases like Russia in Ukraine or China with the Uyghurs—and reflecting on your 2013 article “The Banality of International Justice” where you discuss the ICC’s tendency to target weaker states while avoiding powerful ones, do you believe this dynamic risks reinforcing perceptions of a two-tier system of international justice and undermining the credibility of international law?

Professor William Schabas: Double standards have been a feature of international law forever, really. International law was created by European colonialist states and used, in large part, to govern the rest of the world that they controlled as a result of colonization. Over time, it has evolved and changed, largely because states—particularly those that were not initially considered “states” in the European sense—have insisted that the same standards be applied to wealthy, powerful states as to what we now call the Global South.

I could give a lengthy demonstration of these double standards, particularly in the conduct of the political bodies of the United Nations. For example, when we have a political body like the Security Council and a government like the United States says, “South Africa is committing genocide against the white population”—this was President Trump’s claim a few months ago—that’s an absurd suggestion and profoundly insulting to the people of South Africa, who endured apartheid for so long. At the same time, the US dismisses South Africa’s application to the International Court of Justice against Israel as “meritless,” to use Secretary Blinken’s term. When this happens in a political forum, people tend to shrug and say, “Well, that’s politics.” Terms like genocide are used politically to condemn enemies and dismissed when it comes to allies.

The International Court of Justice and the judicial route are not entirely immune to double standards, but they are less vulnerable than political bodies. For example, in The Gambia’s case against Myanmar at the ICJ, several Western states—Canada, Germany, France, the UK, Denmark, and the Netherlands—filed a joint intervention in late 2023, before South Africa filed its case against Israel. In that intervention, they called for a more liberal approach to genocide, suggesting that genocidal intent could be inferred from factors like forced displacement within a territory—something we see regularly in Gaza—or the victimization of children, which we also see very dramatically in Gaza.

Of course, these states didn’t have Gaza in mind when they submitted that intervention, and they would likely reject any argument applying their position there. But they are now, in a sense, stuck with their own words. For instance, Germany later intervened in the Ukraine v. Russia case and took a different stance. There, Germany did not call for a broader interpretation of genocide; instead, it leaned toward a stricter interpretation, because it suited their position defending Ukraine’s claim that Russia was misusing the term “genocide.”

This inconsistency will likely embarrass Germany and others before the ICJ when lawyers point out that they argue one thing in one case and the opposite in another. In a judicial environment, it is harder to sustain such contradictions than in a political environment, where people can simply dismiss it as “just politics.”

Populist Incitement Can Mobilize Mass Support for Atrocities

Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel visits the Synagogue of Copacabana in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on December 28, 2018.

Considering Prime Minister Netanyahu’s populist framing of Gaza’s population as an existential threat, how do you assess the relationship between populist political rhetoric, incitement, and the potential establishment of genocidal intent? Can parallels be drawn with earlier contexts—such as Rwanda in 1994—where inflammatory discourse played a decisive legal role, and to what extent do such political narratives influence judicial assessments at the ICJ?

Professor William Schabas: This is a complicated question to answer because you’re asking me to make parallels or equivalences between what happened in Rwanda in 1994 and what’s going on in Israel today. Parallels are always difficult to draw, and I see this increasingly in discussions about genocide. There is a tendency, when we talk about genocide, to treat the concept—and the Genocide Convention itself—as something premised mainly on the Holocaust, the Shoah of the Second World War.

People often say that the Genocide Convention resulted from the Holocaust, as a direct reaction to it. But that’s not entirely accurate. I’ve examined the drafting history of the Genocide Convention in great detail, and the convention itself explicitly points out that genocide has been committed at all times in human history. The same is true of the General Assembly resolution that preceded it. In 1946, 1947, and 1948, when the Genocide Convention was being adopted, there was a very clear desire to emphasize that genocide is not only about the Holocaust but also about other historical examples.

When we compare different genocides and attempt to draw parallels, we find significant differences among them, which makes it hard to generalize. You mentioned populism, and indeed, racist populist rhetoric has often been part of genocidal contexts. Mobilizing mass support for atrocities is common, and we do see elements of that in Israel. There is opposition, of course, but it is relatively subdued. Many within the Israeli population, without explicitly endorsing what Netanyahu and his government are doing, are primarily focused on rescuing captives—the hostages in Gaza—rather than on acknowledging the scale of crimes and abuses being perpetrated against Palestinians.

One analogy I’ve found striking comes from my recent reading for an article I’m writing on what is widely recognized as the first genocide of the 20th century: the genocide perpetrated by Germany in Namibia, then called Southwest Africa, between 1904 and 1906. That conflict began with a rebellion by the local indigenous people against German colonial rule, during which, according to German accounts, serious atrocities were committed by the rebels. The rebellion itself was not peaceful; it was quite brutal. Germany’s response, however, was genocidal. Today, Germany acknowledges this as genocide, though it classifies it as a “historic genocide” to distinguish it from genocides covered by international law and to limit its legal obligations.

But what I find striking are the parallels between the genocide that took place in Namibia in 1904 and what has happened in Gaza over the last two years. Not that Germany would want to draw this parallel, of course, but there are undeniable similarities. The German brutality was a response to a rebellion by the people of Namibia, yet Germany does not claim it was acting in self-defense. Instead, it has since apologized and officially acknowledged that it committed genocide between 1904 and 1906.

That said, there are also important differences between these cases. There are some similarities between the Rwandan genocide and what we see in Gaza, but Rwanda’s genocide was largely a mass atrocity carried out by irregular forces. In contrast, the situation in Gaza involves actions conducted by the Israeli army, using highly advanced and modern weaponry. Rwanda’s context was also quite different because it did not involve the colonial settler-state dynamics that are present in Gaza.

Each case of genocide has its own distinctions and unique historical circumstances. I think we must be very careful about expecting them all to follow a single pattern or model.

Article III Makes Enablers Responsible: US and Germany Face Legal Exposure

Given the ICJ’s clarification that states party to the Genocide Convention have obligations both to prevent genocide and to avoid complicity, how should countries like Germany and the United States—as major suppliers of military aid to Israel—be held accountable under international law? Moreover, how should international legal frameworks evolve to better define the responsibility of third-party enablers, particularly when geopolitical alliances influence states’ actions and responses?

Professor William Schabas: The Genocide Convention specifies explicitly in Article III that you violate the Convention by complicity—by being an accomplice to genocide—and what you’ve referred to as “enablers.” You’ve mentioned the United States and Germany, but there are other states as well that have been enabling Israel in different ways.

To the extent that they are providing material support of a significant nature—and there’s no doubt this applies to the United States, Germany, and others—they can be held responsible as accomplices to genocide. In fact, there is currently a case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) where Germany is being charged with complicity in genocide, filed by Nicaragua.

There is another important facet you’ve raised regarding the prevention of genocide. The treaty is formally titled the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, yet its provisions largely concern punishment. However, in the landmark 2007 judgment in Bosnia v. Serbia, the ICJ developed a significant doctrine on prevention. The Court emphasized that the obligation to “prevent” genocide is meaningful and binding. States party to the Convention—including Germany, the United States, and more than 150 others—have a duty to use their influence on other states or entities perpetrating genocide.

In Bosnia v. Serbia, the Court clarified that states are not required to send troops but must take all lawful measures available to prevent genocide. For example, in 1994, when France stood by as the Rwandan government perpetrated genocide against the Tutsi population, there was arguably a legal obligation to act—even though no case has yet been brought before the ICJ on that matter.

Importantly, the Court also ruled that this duty arises not only when genocide is being committed but when there is a serious risk of genocide. That sets a lower threshold. In Gaza, there is, at the very least, a serious risk of genocide. This means that states like Germany and the United States have a legal obligation to use their influence on Israel to prevent it.

Furthermore, because the ICC has jurisdiction over the territory of Palestine, this opens the possibility that German and American leaders could be investigated and potentially prosecuted as individuals for failing to prevent genocide or for aiding and assisting Israel.

Finally, much of this has implications for domestic litigation as well. Activist lawyers in various countries are already pursuing cases, and the legal principles developed by the ICJ and ICC are increasingly being used to support these efforts.

European Hypocrisy on Gaza Undermines Decades of Human Rights Advocacy

You have suggested that Gaza represents a “litmus test” for the credibility of international justice mechanisms. If the ICJ and ICC fail to apply consistent standards to Israel as they have in other contexts, what are the long-term implications for global governance, human rights protection, and the authority of international law?

Professor William Schabas: Yes, it’s a test for the courts. There have been similar tests in the past, and I’ll give you an example of a historic one involving the International Court of Justice in the 1960s. The Court was confronted with a case filed by two African states, Ethiopia and Liberia, both of which had also been members of the League of Nations. They brought a case against South Africa concerning Namibia and the administration of the mandate—and later the trusteeship—over Namibia by the South African government, which had imposed apartheid there.

The case was ultimately thrown out by the International Court of Justice by a single vote. It was a very close decision, but it severely discredited the Court. Well, not everywhere. In South Africa, and probably in the United Kingdom, the United States, and some other European colonial powers like Belgium and perhaps France, there was a sigh of relief when that ruling came down. But in most parts of the world, countries and people were deeply shocked by the Court’s decision.

For the next 20 years, the ICJ had very little work. It went years without holding any trials because the world, in a sense, had voted its disapproval. It was terribly disappointing, and the Court had lost its credibility. Slowly, it has regained that credibility, and the judges today are well aware of this history.

I think at the International Criminal Court, the judges and the prosecutor are also aware that, for too long, the ICC has been seen as a court dealing primarily with situations in Central Africa and resisting opportunities to engage with cases involving major powers. Even as it has begun to shift away from that focus, it remains vulnerable to criticism—especially since it has concentrated so much of its efforts on Russia and Ukraine while devoting relatively few resources to Gaza.

It has now taken some steps with the issuance of two arrest warrants, and I believe there are probably two more—against Smotrich and Ben-Gvir—that have either been issued or are about to be issued, though it’s unlikely that will be made public. We won’t know for sure until, or unless, those individuals are apprehended, which could happen at some point in the future.

But yes, these institutions are absolutely vulnerable, and they are aware of it. I should also note that it’s not only the United States that is being discredited for its attitude towards Gaza—it’s also many European states. For the last 20 or 30 years, European countries have enjoyed a position of moral authority, lecturing others around the world about human rights violations, calling them to account, and supporting NGOs in these efforts—many of which I’ve supported myself.

But this reveals a profound hypocrisy, and it’s becoming increasingly transparent. This damages the credibility of their broader efforts to promote human rights globally. I won’t limit this critique to the so-called “Global South” either; even in the United States, there have been human rights violations, and European states have occasionally intervened—for example, in death penalty cases before the US Supreme Court.

Nonetheless, Europe’s sanctimonious attitude—this assumption of being the “most human rights-friendly” part of the planet—is now exposed as deeply inconsistent, particularly due to its unwillingness to apply the same standards to Gaza. That said, there are exceptions. A few European states, such as Ireland, Spain, Norway, and Slovenia, have taken more principled positions. But for many others, their stance has been quite shocking, and I believe they will ultimately pay a price for it.

Restoring Trust in International Justice Depends on Enforcing the Law

The flag in front of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands on March 27, 2016. Photo: Dreamstime.

And lastly, Professor Schabas, looking forward, what mechanisms—legal, institutional, or political—do you believe are necessary to restore trust in international justice, ensure accountability for Gaza, and prevent future atrocities where powerful states are involved?

Professor William Schabas: I think I’ve largely addressed that question in my previous responses. I certainly have high expectations for the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ), but, based on their historical performance, I am also prepared for disappointment. What I’m ultimately hoping for are meaningful and positive contributions from these institutions, which would—this is really the key test—demonstrate their continued relevance and authority.

People often lament that judgments are ignored. I think that’s somewhat overstated when we look, for example, at the ICJ’s orders in the South African case. While they’ve been largely disregarded by Israel, they have nonetheless had significant political impact elsewhere. The same can be said of the work of the ICC.

However, all of this underscores an important reality: the ICJ—and, to a large extent, the ICC as well—remain fundamentally dependent on states and international organizations for the enforcement of their decisions.

In both cases, the ICC can only arrest people if states assist them in doing so. And in the case of the arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant, we’ve had some ambiguous statements from certain governments about whether or not they would actually arrest them if given the opportunity. Hungary openly defied the order of the Court by inviting Netanyahu—Hungary is a special case, of course, because of its government and its head of state—but there were also ambiguous statements from other governments.

That’s really the test. And it’s the same for the International Court of Justice. There is already more room for enforcement, for example, of the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice of July 2024, which confirmed the illegality of the occupation—not just of Gaza, but also of the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. That needs to be addressed, and states could do a lot more in terms of implementing the conclusions of that advisory opinion.

Populism and political marketing: An illustration of how populist rhetoric is often employed as a strategic tool to swiftly gain voter support. Illustration: Jakub Jirsak.

Doing Populism with Words: A Philosophical-Linguistic Clarification of Empty Signifiers’ Role in the Post-Laclauian Approach

August 4, 2025

by ECPS_admin Articles Editor’s Choice Home Populism & Politics (P&P)

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Please cite as:
Mancin, Luca. (2025). “Doing Populism with Words: A Philosophical-Linguistic Clarification of Empty Signifiers’ Role in the Post-Laclauian Approach.” Populism & Politics (P&P). European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). August 04, 2025. https://doi.org/10.55271/pp0050

Abstract

This paper delves into the post-Laclauian approach to populism to offer a deeper theoretical and philosophical-linguistic analysis of empty signifiers within populist discourse. While the ideational approach has dominated recent scholarship by defining populism as a thin-centred ideology grounded in people-centrism, anti-elitism, and the general will, it has also been criticised for treating ‘the people’ as a homogenous monolith. In response, the post-Laclauian framework offers a more dynamic, discursive, and performative understanding of populism. However, this approach has insufficiently addressed the linguistic and pragmatic nature of empty signifiers so far. By examining the philosophical and semiotic foundations of empty signifiers throughout the works of Laclau, Lévi-Strauss, and Barthes, this article clarifies their role in the bi-directional construction of meaning between populist leaders and voters. Additionally, it argues that a clearer understanding of these signifiers is essential to grasp how populist messages resonate and are co-constructed from the demand-side. The paper concludes by outlining future directions for research, drawing especially on focus groups and quantitative text analysis to investigate empty signifiers in populist discourses further.

Keywords: populism; empty signifiers; post-Laclauian approach; performative politics; populist communication

By Luca Mancin

Research Problem and Background

Populism is today one of the most common, if not abused, words in the political realm (Brown & Mondon, 2021; Schwörer, 2021). In 2004, Mudde talked about a “populist Zeitgeist”, and the early 2000s coincided with a resurgence of works on populist empirical cases. Nevertheless, it is from the second decade of the 2000s that populism studies experienced a considerable number of publications (Rooduijn, 2019). The most widely accepted definition of populism is Mudde’s, who defines it as “an ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic groups, ‘the pure people’ versus ‘the corrupt elite’, and which argues that politics should be an expression of the volonté générale (general will) of the people” (2004, p. 543).

This definition is central to the ideational approach that considers populism a ‘thin-centred ideology’. This approach highlights the three elements of people-centrism, anti-elitism, and the general will and frames the dichotomy between the people and the elite as moral (Hawkins et al., 2019; Mudde & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2018). However, scholars adopting the post-Laclauian approach have lately questioned the ideational one (Ostiguy et al., 2020). The latter depicts populist ‘the people’ as a homogenous community (Albertazzi & McDonnell, 2008; Betz & Johnson, 2004; Jansen, 2011; March 2017; Stanley, 2008) or a cohesive entity (Jagers & Walgrave, 2007; Taggart, 2000). The ideational approach to populism reveals the flexible and imaginative character of populist ‘the people’, as well as its ad hoc construction and supposed homogeneousness – making it a fictitious uniform group that cannot effectively include the entire citizenship.

This debate, however, is nothing new: from a political-philosophical standpoint, the ontological and political nature of ‘the people’ is an ever-lasting debate. During the French Revolution, the Count of Mirabeau stated that ‘the people’ “necessarily means too much or too little (…). It is a word that lends itself to everything” (Rosanvallon, 2002: 36). Accordingly, Pierre Rosanvallon represents ‘the people’ as a mysterious object whose features are not easily recognisable. While central to politics, ‘the people’ is nothing more than an assumption on which the exercise of popular sovereignty and the entire democratic system relies (Kelsen, 2018). To use Dubiel’s words, ‘the people’ is “like the ‘thing-in-itself’ of political theory” (1986: 80), that, like the Kantian Noumenon, is an imperceptible object per se, independent from human sensations and, therefore, unknowable. Thus, Rosanvallon writes that ‘the people’ is a Janus-faced entity: it is “both power and enigma: as power, it is the source of all legitimacy, as enigma it does not present an easily identifiable face” (2002: 36).

Building on these philosophical premises, the conceptualisation of ‘the people’ as an artificial homogeneity leads, according to Katsambekis (2022), to the homogeneity thesis, which risks producing rigid and aprioristic categorisation of populist actors. Ostiguy et al.’s (2020) post-Laclauian approach seems to overcome this problem by combining Laclau’s discursive approach to populism with the performative one and merging the former’s theoretical nature with the latter’s more empirical-oriented attitude. Indeed, scholars of the ideational approach postulate ‘the people’ as a homogenous socio-political construct in the definition of populism (Mudde, 2004; Taggart, 2004).

However, populist voters present different sociocultural backgrounds and diversified identities – as studies on these parties’ voters demonstrate (Akkerman et al., 2014; Inglehart & Norris, 2016; Van Hauwaert & Van Kessel, 2018). Treating ‘the people’ as a monolith would produce interpretational mistakes about populist parties and actors’ categorisation. On the contrary, ‘the people’ is multifaceted and protean and is always the product of contingent circumstances (Katsambekis, 2022). To make sense of the inner elements of Katsambekis’ critique of the homogeneity thesis and understand the post-Laclauian approach to populism and its focus on discourse and performativity, it is essential first to provide a brief sketch of the theoretical foundations of Laclau’s approach.

Laclau and Mouffe’s Hegemony and Socialist Strategy (1985) sets the philosophical-linguistic ‘guidelines’ of their constructivist discourse theory. According to their post-structuralist approach, meanings are not fixed but constantly redefined through social practices and struggles over discursive hegemony. As Torfing explains, “A discourse is a differential ensemble of signifying sequences in which meaning is constantly renegotiated” (1999: 85). A discourse becomes a ‘meaningful whole’ through articulation, connecting various elements into a unified framework. It can happen in two ways, as Laclau explains in On Populist Reason (2007): through a ‘logic of difference’ (i.e., stressing particularity and distancing it from other particularities based on a differential criterium) or through a ‘logic of equivalence’ (i.e., renouncing to a portion of that particularity to emphasise the commonalities those particularities share).

Within these chains of words, ‘nodal points’ construct the identity of a discourse by creating a network of interconnected meanings. Nodal points work as purely formal signifiers – that is, empty, floating, or overflowing signifiers (henceforth, I will refer to them as empty signifiers), words that can mean different things according to different persons (Chandler, 2007). Examples of nodal points are ‘God’, ‘Nation’, or ‘Class’, whose meaning depends on individuals’ opinions and beliefs or the discursive context. In concrete, nodal points retroactively define the identity of empty signifiers by integrating them into a coherent discourse (see Torfing, 1999).

Building on that, the post-Laclauian approach aims to study populism relationally, stressing the role of discourses and performative staging of populist leaders and supporters. Additionally, Ostiguy et al. (2020) question the moralist elements that, according to the ideational approach, would characterise populism (i.e., the anti-elitism and the dichotomy between the pure people and the corrupt elite). Similarly, they refuse the general will as the third distinctive trait of populism because populism “operates somewhere else, as a logic, as a kind of argument, as a rhetoric, or more broadly as a style or way in politics of stating, framing, and performing particular political projects” (2020: 3). Moreover, unlike the ideational one, the post-Laclauian approach provides a comprehensive outlook on populist strategic elements (De Cleen & Stavrakakis, 2017) and does not overlook the relationship between ideological construction and sociocultural dynamics (Stanley, 2008).

However, even though the post-Laclauian approach proposes a solid solution to deal with populism both as a discourse and a set of acts, it does not convincingly delve into the linguistic side of populist discourses and arguments. It does not clarify the linguistic nature and, consequently, the pragmatic role of empty signifiers in Laclau’s theory. While recent research has increasingly acknowledged the centrality of empty signifiers in populist rhetoric and empirically investigated these terms (Baloge & Hubé, 2022; Gruber et al., 2023; Sorensen, 2023; Zanotto et al., 2024; Zienkowski & Breeze, 2019) all these works focus on how leaders employ these signifiers (i.e., the supply side). Moreover, explaining these words’ role in the bi-directional identification process between populist leaders and supporters is under-researched and taken for granted from a philosophical-linguistic standpoint. Indeed, whilst from a performative perspective (Butler, 1988), populism consists of a set of acts and attributes (Canovan, 1984; Moffit, 2016; Ostiguy, 2017), what is missing is clarificatory and theoretical research on empty signifiers to highlight how their nature works in the populist identification process, with particular attention to the demand-side.

Thus, this paper theoretically elaborates on the post-Laclauian approach to populism to deepen the linguistic analysis of empty signifiers within populist communication. This article sets out the theoretical premises necessary to better understand how audiences interpret, negotiate, and co-construct the meanings of empty signifiers in populist discourses. The paper is structured as follows: First, I outline the theoretical foundations of the post-Laclauian approach. Next, I examine the bi-directional relationship between populist leaders and voters. Drawing on insights from pragmatics, I then explore the philosophical-linguistic nature of empty signifiers, referencing the works of Lévi-Strauss and Barthes. Finally, I conclude with suggestions for future research addressing the demand-side reception and co-construction of populist language between leaders and voters.

From Discourse to Pragmatic: What the Post-Laclauian Approach Leaves Unsaid

Ostiguy et al.’s (2020) post-Laclauian framework combines Laclau’s discursive approach with sociocultural and performative ones. By doing so, it stresses the logico-discursive dimension on the one hand and the sociocultural and stylistic dimension on the other.

The discursive approach to populism is traceable to Laclau’s (1977, 1980) early works on the topic and is fully elaborated in On Populist Reason (2007), drawing from Laclau and Mouffe’s (1985) theory. It investigates populism through discursive frameworks to illustrate populist claims and statements by examining the content rather than the form (Panizza & Stravakakis, 2020). According to Laclau (2007), populism represents a political logic entailing a series of unsolved socio-political demands which might link each other in a ‘chain of equivalence’ (relying on the above-mentioned logic of equivalence). Indeed, populism’s preconditions are 1) an inner frontier separating ‘the people’ and the Other, 2) a demands’ chain of equivalence highlighting the emergence of ‘the people’, and 3) the systematisation and unification of these demands through symbols (Laclau, 2007).

The etymological meaning of ‘symbol’ helps to understand Laclau’s idea of populism better: ‘Symbol’ derives from the Ancient Greek symbállo (‘to put together’, ‘to unite’). Communication (from the Latin communicare, ‘to put in common’) has a symbolic and connective nature. As discussed, this aspect is due to nodal points, the central elements of the chain of equivalence that allow understanding of what discourses deal with (Diez, 2001). Nodal points are “privileged discursive points that partially fix meaning within signifying chains”, creating “the identity of a certain discourse by constructing a knot of definite meanings” (Torfing, 1999: 98).

Therefore, nodal points are (and must be) accessible, familiar, and identifiable words or concepts used to mobilise the heterogeneous variety of individuals by acting as a mutual symbol. Recurrent nodal points in political discourses are words such as ‘God’, ‘homeland’, ‘class’, or ‘party’. However, nodal points can also be objects with a symbolic meaning, such as the umbrellas in Hong Kong protests, the yellow vests of the French Gilets Jaunes movement, the rainbow flag both for pacifism and LGBTQIA+ Community support, Javier Milei’s chainsaw, Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) red hat, or the Guy Fawkes mask from the movie V for Vendetta (McTeigue & the Wachowskis, 2005). All these words and icons are used to mobilise different socioeconomic and political demands around them and combine different needs in a homogenous political struggle. However, at the same time, they also manage to convey wider and various meanings through a simple name or image.

Accordingly, Torfing explains, “the conception of nodal points reveals the secret of metaphors: their capacity to unify a certain discourse by partially fixing identity of its moments”^{^[1]} (1999: 99). Again, the etymology of ‘metaphor’ is crucial to grasp the nature of populist communication: ‘Metaphor’ stems from the Ancient Greek metaphéro (i.e., ‘to carry’, ‘to transfer’). In metaphors, the meaning is transferred from one realm to another, as in the statement, “Smart as a whip”. Thus, metaphors also consist of the linguistic capacity to produce an image of reality that is much more ductile than reality itself (Martinengo, 2016) since it forces to analogise a speech element (‘smart’) with an element that is inconsistent with the speech context (‘whip’).

Concerning populist communication, the most recurrent nodal point is ‘the people’ (De Cleen & Stavrakakis, 2017; Katsambekis, 2022). In this article, I will use ‘the people’ as the main example, but the same reasoning can be made for other populist nodal points (e.g., ‘homeland’, ‘nation’, ‘sovereignty’, ‘freedom’, ‘family’, ‘gender’, or ‘justice’). ‘The people’ is used by populist leaders as an immediately recognisable word around which they build their party’s narrative. “The signifier ‘the people’ operates here as a nodal point, a point of reference around which other peripheral and often politically antithetical signifiers and ideas can be articulated” through a dynamic process (Panizza & Stavrakakis, 2020, p. 25). Thus, populism polarises society into two factions: “a dichotomic division between unfulfilled social demands, on the one hand, and an unresponsive power, on the other” (Laclau, 2007, p. 86). These unanswered and unapproached citizens’ claims produce a chain of dissent, which needs to be amalgamated around some similarities (i.e., the chain of equivalence) and polarise against an external enemy (the Other, usually the government).

However, the construction of ‘the people’, Laclau (2007) says, does not happen in a vacuum but relies on a set of performative repertoires, strengthening a broad sense of the group’s unity and cohesion (Moffitt, 2016). Accordingly, Canovan considers populism “a matter of style” (1984, p. 314) and, besides verbal and metaphorical elements (messages, us-versus-them rhetoric, and body language), also focuses on non-written communicative aspects (implications, allusions, irony, and gestures) and aesthetics (staging, symbolism, clothes, and slang). All these elements have primarily in common the appeal to ‘the people’ and seek to mobilise voters, polarise the debate in a dichotomic manner, and create a relationship between the leader and the electorate (Aalberg et al., 2016; Kazin, 2017; Knight, 1998). Generally, despite differences in the content’s framing of populist communicative style, these categorisations share the populist leaders’ attempt to forge a new identity among voters by calling into being the category of ‘the people’ through rhetorical techniques (Moffitt & Tormey, 2014).

Ostiguy (2017) works specifically on this bi-directional approach to populism by illustrating the sociocultural dimension of its support and reception. Populist success is not exclusively due to a top-down relation, in which a charismatic leader mobilises and bewitches the masses; it also consists of a bottom-up dynamic through which the voters identify themselves with the leader. While focusing on populist performance and praxis as the stylistic approach does, the novelty of the sociocultural outlook is the assumption of a political high-low axis. According to Ostiguy, the high consists of well-mannered, elegant, rationalist, and acculturate politicians who speak a cold policy and legislative language and are distant from the citizenry. By contrast, the low refers to politicians who use a language full of slang, folksy expressions, metaphors and vulgar gestures, wear comfortable and casual clothes, and present themselves as ordinary individuals like the members of their electorate.

‘The people’ image and identity result from a bi-directional and synthetical operation between leaders and voters. On the one hand, the leader advances instances in the name of a certain ‘the people’; on the other hand, those voters who are expected to embody such entity can accept, modify, or reject these instances (Ostiguy & Moffit, 2020). In other words, the identity of ‘the people’ is not imposed from the top by the leader but stems from a twofold elaboration involving voters participating in their collective identity formation. This combination of discursive, sociocultural, and stylistic approaches has the benefit of anchoring Laclau’s theory to concrete populist dynamics by giving ‘the people’ a political agency and clarifying how and why the identification process between leaders and voters works (Ostiguy & Moffit, 2020).

Then, voters have an active role in dealing with the leaders’ construction of ‘the people’, which entails a bi-directional relationship and produces a two-way echo discourse (Panizza, 2017). Still, to be effective, the two poles of the continuum (the leader and the voters) must develop a sense of belonging and construct a ‘we-ness’ by emphasising negative differences with the out-group (‘them’) and positive similarities within the in-group (‘us’). Given the mix of different subgroups constituting ‘the people’, populist leaders attempt to forge a cohesive image of it by appealing to its vague and general nature. Hence, according to the post-Laclauian approach, populism is a way of ‘doing politics’ that a) generates an us-versus-them dynamic and b) actively constructs identities through affective investments and symbolism (Herkman, 2017; Palonen, 2018).

This process is quite evident from Butler’s (1988) visual, performative perspective since specific manners, gestures, clothes, or settings (Canovan,1984; Moffit, 2016; Ostiguy, 2017) work as identity-making acts and performances. Butler explains that a repetition of acts institutes the identity because performing a specific set of attributes constitutes the identity that those attributes say to express. However, despite these advances, the post-Laclauian framework still lacks a clear account of how language itself – beyond symbols and performances – operates in populist discourse. There are several studies on populism with a pragmatic approach, but they always adopt a visual performative outlook (Casullo, 2020; Ekström et al., 2018; Kissas, 2020; Palonen, 2019; Volk, 2020).

The post-Laclauian still does not examine how specific terms become effective political signifiers through meaning-generation and listener inference processes. This gap calls for investigating empty signifiers in populist rhetoric, particularly from the demand-side perspective. Hence, in the next section, I intend to do so by looking at the branch of the philosophy of language known as pragmatics, which investigates, beyond a statement’s literal meaning, the meaning related to what a speaker intends to say.

Pragmatics and Implicit Language: A Cooperative Activity

Pragmatics deals with the relationship between speakers and linguistic signs and what individuals aim to do with language as a social and communication tool (Bianchi, 2003). Individuals speak not only to describe the world’s facts; language also entails a series of practical implications (Morris, 1938). For instance, if I state, “It is raining”, I am describing a natural phenomenon, but I might also suggest to my friend to take an umbrella. Therefore, pragmatics focuses on analysing the implicit meaning of a message and a speaker’s intention and always requires an understanding of context (i.e., interlocutors’ identities and shared knowledge, linguistic co-text, and spatiotemporal coordinates).

Pragmatics mainly deals with ambiguity, deixis, and figurative language, which entail using implicit language. Indeed, in all these cases, the speaker does not convey all the information, and the statement’s meaning is not entirely clear. Consequently, the interlocutor must ‘interpret’ that by relying on the context. However, implicit language is essential; otherwise, our language would be too wordy and cumbersome, and every communication would be too time-consuming. For example, if I tell my friend, “Go downstairs and close the door, please”, I am implicitly informing her that there is an open-door downstairs (something that she probably already knows from the context, and I do not need to repeat).

The British philosopher Herbert Paul Grice (1975) explained the mechanisms of implicit language through the theory of implicature. The theory relies on the Principle of Cooperation, a series of four maxims that reflect the expectations each of us has when participating in a conversation. These maxims are of quantity, quality, relation, and manner and require the speakers, during communication, to be informative, truthful, relevant, and clear, respectively. This principle implies that all participants contribute to communication according to the discourse’s purposes and orientation.

Hence, every utterance has two meanings: the expression’s (i.e., the literal meaning) and the speaker’s (i.e., the speaker’s intention, which implies an interpretative process). The speaker’s meaning, as said, is often implicit, and Grice (1975) calls it implicature – which can be conversational or conventional. For instance, I ask my friends, “Are you coming to the stadium?” and they answer, “We are working”. Their answer is not literal but implies they cannot go to the stadium because of their work. I must draw the implicature based on my knowledge of the world (i.e., when individuals are working, they cannot do something else). Besides the value of the linguistic economy and the chance to have interpersonal communication, implicit language also plays a pivotal role in persuasion. Indeed, implicit statements convey messages that bypass epistemic vigilance and critical thinking more easily than explicit ones (Lombardi Vallauri, 2019).

Consequently, implicit language is used as an in-group identity marker in political communication by emphasising dichotomic rhetoric (Cominetti et al., 2023; Sbisà, 2007). Simple examples are proposed by Lombardi Vallauri (2019), analysing Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia 2006 electoral campaign. On some of his electoral posters were the following statements: “Do we stop major works projects? No, thank you” and “Illegal immigrants at will? No, thank you”. These declarations announce an adverse scenario – no public investments and more illegal immigrants – and Forza Italia simply positions against them. However, these claims also suggest – and citizens elaborate that from them – Berlusconi’s adversaries will pursue those measures if they win. Another strategy to exploit implicit language for political purposes consists of using common names such as ‘migrants’ or ‘homosexual’ to convey cliches, as these words generate stereotyped and oversimplified images in the listeners’ minds (Lakoff, 1987; Levinson, 2000; Putnam, 1975). After all, since implicit language rests on close and necessary cooperation between interlocutors, one speaker may use ambiguous terms to persuade the other. Therefore, common names strategically exploit their vagueness as they are accepted more readily and subjected to lower critical scrutiny.

Something similar happens with imprecise and non-specified statements that may refer to several entities or objects. It is particularly evident with terms known as deictic expressions (e.g., ‘here’, ‘now’, ‘this’, or ‘that’) or for placeholder words(e.g., ‘democracy’, ‘freedom’, or ‘justice’) that change meaning according to context and listeners (Ophir, 2018). As said, all deictic expressions have a concrete reference only within a context, and it is appropriate to make semantic use of it to grasp their meaning (Bianchi, 2003). When dealing with intentional deixis used for descriptions or demonstrations, they (can) create ambiguity. To fully grasp the meaning, one always needs an indication from the speaker unless the interlocutor shares prior knowledge gained from the context (e.g., I say “That” and point to it with my finger if we have not talked about the said object yet).

Advertisements use the same mechanism: consider the claim “Paradise Island Hotel: experience the best in Acapulco” from Lombardi Vallauri (2019). ‘Experience the best’ will have several meanings or mental connotations depending on individuals’ experiences, tastes, and beliefs. Due to its vagueness, the statement allows everyone to interpret and react to that personally. As a result, the same message leads to several, and potentially opposite, outcomes. It happens the same with the two examples from Forza Italia given above. ‘Major works projects’ and ‘At will’ are vague and imprecise because they are deliberately unspecified so that voters can ascribe to these expressions whichever meaning they want to and fill them depending on their opinions, beliefs, and experiences.

The parallels between implicature, strategic vagueness, and political placeholders lead us back to the concept of the empty signifier. In populist discourse, these signifiers are effective precisely because their meaning is open to personal inferences and interpretations, allowing each listener to make their own associations. Empty signifiers are thus not mere rhetorical tools but real pragmatic acts of co-construction of meaning. Now, populism is known for its wide use of strategic vagueness (Mény et al., 2002) since it recurs to several placeholders, such as ‘God’, ‘homeland’, ‘class’, or ‘party’, as Laclau (2007) explains. Ambiguity is unavoidable if not even necessary for populism: “The language of a populist discourse – whether of Left or Right – is always going to be imprecise and fluctuating […] because it tries to operate performatively within a social reality which is to a large extent heterogeneous and fluctuating” (p. 118). Therefore, populist communication can achieve the same goals of statements like “Paradise Island Hotel: experience the best in Acapulco” or “Illegal immigrants at will? No, thank you” (Lombardi Vallauri, 2019). Voters interpret populist leaders’ (deliberately vague) words as they want and always find a way to identify with them (if needed).

However, the more the identification with a nodal point is extended, the more the precision of this identity is impoverished because it is too generic and vague. A concrete example from language is deictic expressions like ‘here’, ‘now’, ‘this’, or ‘that’: they can indicate everything, but the precision of their ‘identification’ of a specific object decreases. Consequently, in populist discourses, the nodal point is often an empty signifier (Laclau, 2007), as it must be flexible and ambiguous enough to encompass different meanings to unify various questions and construct a collective identity. Empty signifiers are malleable and adaptable to various sociocultural, political, and economic situations. They are defined as signifiers “with a vague, highly variable, unspecifiable, or non-existent signified. Such signifiers mean different things to different people: they may stand for many or even any signifieds; they may mean whatever their interpreters want them to mean” (Chandler, 2007: 78).

In pragmatics, implicit language requires the listener’s proactive participation in the speaker’s words to grasp the meaning. Similarly, I argue that empty signifiers require the recipients to fill the void with their own, often implicit, meaning for their role as linguistic glue to work. This aspect is precisely what the post-Laclauian approach has taken for granted, even though it adequately explains the bi-directional linkage between the leader and the supporters from a communicative standpoint. This work is the same cooperative one that the speaker and listener establish when the former does not convey all the information, and the latter must ‘interpret’ the message based on the context. As seen, however, context consists of linguistic and extralinguistic elements. Therefore, to fully understand the mutual construction of identity between leaders and voters, it is worth analysing not only the visual and performative aspects of populism but also its linguistic core. In what follows, I examine how empty signifiers function pragmatically and what their nature reveals about the dynamics of populist identification from a voter-centred perspective.

Empty Signifiers: A Philosophical-Linguistic Detour

It is worth starting from de Saussure’s (2011) work to understand empty signifiers’ linguistic nature. The Saussurean structural linguistic theory first entails the distinction between language and speech. Language (or langue) is the social element of linguistic dynamics and relies on structures, codes, and social rules linked to a specific community (Bernstein, 1964). Language also composes the conditions of possibility of the speeches (or paroles), which instead represent the individual, creative, and singular aspects of speaking and writing expressing personal thoughts and feelings. Thus, the language is not a scheme which allows speakers to label objects and things with their names. Conversely, each linguistic sign is the product of a combination of a signified (i.e., the mental concept: the abstract image we have of a specific object) and its signifier (i.e., the acoustic image: the reaction produced by the physical existence of the object in the form of written or spoken word) (see Figure 1).

In de Saussure’s system, the sign ‘house’ (a conventional and arbitrary word) unifies an acoustic image (the signifier: the letters composing ‘house’) with a specific mental concept (the signified: the mental and personal image of ‘house’) (Chandler, 2007; Torfing, 1999). Thus, the signified and the signifier are mutually tied: they are inseparable, but their relationship is arbitrary. Indeed, speakers can express the same meaning through different signifiers – both in translations and via periphrasis or synonyms. For de Saussure, this arbitrariness is an unmotivated and unnecessary behaviour where the chimaera of empty signifiers thrives (Chandler, 2007). For this reason, the scheme in Figure 1 does not apply to empty signifiers, as the research of Claude Lévi-Strauss and Roland Barthes shows.

In the Introduction to the Work of Marcell Mauss (1987), Lévi-Strauss describes the words ‘man’ and ‘hau’ as empty signifiers. Mana and hau must be considered as words that per se do not mean anything concrete and specific, but that can be used for everything, such as, in English, the already mentioned deictic expressions ‘the thing’, ‘that’, or ‘something’. Lévi-Strauss’ research stems from the symbolic dimension of language, according to which symbols are more concrete than the objects they depict. This happens because, as shown, a symbol conveys a broader abstract meaning than the object that materially composes it. In these cases, de Saussure’s (2011) framework is subverted, and the signifier precedes and determines the signified; namely, the acoustic image produces the mental concept. Thus, mana and hau are “the subjective reflection of the need to supply an unperceived totality” (Lévi-Strauss, 1987: 58).

According to Barthes’ Myth Today (2006), mythical constructions are discourses relying on a peculiar semiological system. In Barthes’ works, ‘myths’ are all those narratives that offer an extra level of reading than the literal one – so propaganda or advertising, for example, also fall into this category. In myths, the relationship between the signifier, the signified, and the sign is still present; however, contrary to de Saussure’s (2011) idea that the sign is the mediation between the signified and signifier, Barthes considers myths as a “second order semiological system” (p. 128). Accordingly, the sign in the first order becomes a signifier in the second one (see Figure 2). Then, it is crucial to distinguish between denotation and connotation. Denotation is a sign’s direct and ‘literal’ meaning, while connotation is a personal association of images or meanings (based on sociocultural background, emotions, or beliefs) to the sign (Chandler, 2007). To put it in Fiske’s words, “Denotation is what is photographed; connotation is how it is photographed” (1990: 86). Thus, Barthes (2006) states that the first semiological order coincides with denotation, while the second is the connotation level. Therefore, in Barthes, connotation and mythical dimensions overlap.

Consider the example of a white dove: the denotation is the bird per se, while its connotation is the symbol of peace accompanying the image of a white dove in the popular imagination. The sign/signifier has two faces: one whole, the meaning in the linguistic order, and the other empty on the mythical level. This double semiological system is particularly evident in advertising and propaganda, as a famous example by Barthes (2006) also shows. One day, he says, on the cover of the Paris Match, there was a black soldier with a French military uniform – and this is the linguistic sign of the first order. The mythical second order signifier conveys messages about the great French Empire, where everyone – regardless of ethnicity and background – is treated equally, and there is no such thing as oppressing colonialism.

Hence, myth is “a double system” (Barthes, 2006: 121), led more by a communicative intention than by its literal meaning. “The signifier of myth presents itself in an ambiguous way: it is at the same time meaning and form, full on one side and empty on the other” (Barthes, 2006: 116). This emptiness and vagueness are what Lévi-Strauss (1987) highlights in mana and hau and in their attempt to represent totality. However, in mythical speeches, the aim is different and concerns a distortion and a deformation. Accordingly, Barthes states: “If I focus on the mythical signifier as on an inextricable whole made of meaning and form, I receive an ambiguous signification: I respond to the constituting mechanism of myth, to its own dynamics” (Barthes, 2006: 127).

Populist recurrent terms such as ‘the people’, ‘homeland’, ‘family’, or ‘gender’ function as empty signifiers not only because they are strategically vague but because they activate deeply embedded connotative associations shaped by personal, cultural, and emotional experiences. Much like Lévi-Strauss’s (1987) mana or Barthes’ (2006) mythic signs, their linguistic power lies not in literal reference but in their capacity to unify heterogenous meanings into a single affective node. Therefore, understanding populism requires us to investigate not only what is said but also how audiences interpret and acknowledge it.

Beyond the Signifier: Toward a Voter-centred Linguistic Turn in Populism Studies

Building on the previous sections, two core insights emerge: the fluidity and resignification of populist empty signifiers and the co-creation of their meaning in a dialogic process between leaders and audiences. As discussed, empty signifiers are not simply vague labels or stylistic choices, but they work as sites of meaning negotiation, anchored in context, speaker intention, and listeners’ interpretation. Then, it is clear why Ostiguy and Moffit maintain that “discursive acts do not ‘stand alone’ (…) but must also resonate with the lived experiences and social encounters experienced in daily life” (2020:53). On the one hand, empty signifiers unite populist discourse, and their effectiveness lies in strategic ambiguity, allowing them to serve as affective, symbolic vessels for various political demands (Mény et al., 2002). On the other hand, populism relies on a top-down relation (i.e., the leader charming the voters) but also a bottom-up dynamic (i.e., the voters’ identification with the leader) (Ostiguy, 2017).

While political leaders deliberately use vague words, their acceptance and resonance depend on the voters. It implies that meaning is co-created through a dialogic process where leaders and followers play an active role. Thus, voters are not to be considered passive recipients of political messages; instead, they interpret, accept, reject, or modify the meanings proposed by leaders. This dialogic nature occurs in visual and verbal symbols mentioned above that serve as nodal points in contemporary populism: Javier Milei’s chainsaw, the Guy Fawkes mask, the yellow vest, or Trump’s MAGA hat. Some symbols are imposed from above and circulate vertically, while others rise from spontaneous protest and are retrospectively adopted by leaders. Their power stems from symbolic condensation in both cases: they unify diverse grievances through emotionally charged, easily recognisable forms.

Dealing with a timely example, MAGA simultaneously operates as a visual icon (e.g., Trump’s red hat), a political brand, and what de Saussure has termed an acoustic image – a signifier that produces a concept in the listener’s mind. For some voters, MAGA may convey images of national pride or economic resurgence; for others, it might entail nativism or cultural exclusion. As shown in the previous sections, the MAGA’s success lies precisely in its malleability: its ability to function as a symbol filled with various – and sometimes contradictory – meanings.

This growing interest in populist discourse has led to a wave of empirical studies investigating how leaders articulate empty signifiers across various contexts. Scholars like Katsambekis (2022), Sorensen (2023), and Gruber et al. (2023) have shown how terms such as ‘the people’ and ‘the elite’ are strategically filled with different content by left- and right-wing populist parties. On their side, Baloge and Hubé (2022) highlight how Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Marine Le Pen deploy ‘the people’ with different connotations – pluralist and civic on one side, ethnic and exclusionary on the other. Similarly, Zanotto et al. (2024) apply a computational-linguistic approach to track how Italian populist parties shift the emotional charge and thematic associations of empty signifiers over time. These studies converge on a key insight: the meaning of empty signifiers is contextual, dynamic, and politically constructed.

Nevertheless, while these contributions are valuable, they all focus on the supply side. They analyse what political actors say, how they frame key terms, and how symbols are deployed in speeches or campaigns. What remains underdeveloped is the interpretive labour of audiences: how voters understand, fill, resist, or reshape these empty signifiers. This lack is especially remarkable, given how central the idea of identification is in both Laclauian and post-Laclauian theory. If, as Laclau (2007) argues, populism succeeds by unifying disparate demands into a chain of equivalence, then understanding how audiences interpret those demands is just as crucial as understanding how leaders articulate them. Some studies investigate voters and citizens, but they rely on pre-defined categories of populist content or leader’s traits rather than allowing audiences to define their interpretations of populist signifiers (Akkerman et al., 2014; Milner, 2021; Rooduijn, 2018; Spruyt et al., 2016; Voogd & Dassonneville, 2020). In these works, voters are typically profiled – demographically, psychologically, economically, or attitudinally – but not investigated as ‘meaning-makers’. As a result, the co-constructive nature of populist discourse remains methodologically underexplored. A partial exception to this common practice is the work by Şahin et al. (2021), which explores how targeted groups interpret and respond to populist discourse and empty signifiers.

To address this gap, I think it is necessary to conduct more research on populism in political psychology. This approach can only be helpful because it is poorly employed within populism studies, as Rovira Kaltwasser (2021) claims. More specifically, I believe qualitative research may help develop new studies on the fluidity and resignification of populist empty signifiers and the co-creation of their meaning from a voter-centred perspective. For instance, throughout focus groups (Kitzinger, 1994; Morgan, 1997) it would be possible to understand how voters from different parties react or interpret various empty signifiers and how these interpretations influence their political choices and vary among parties’ bases. Just as performative acts are a constant ‘confirmation’ of a said identity (Fischer-Lichte, 2008), the co-interpretation of empty signifiers’ meanings and consequences should be seen as a reiterated choice to adhere to and support a particular party. Therefore, it is crucial to understand how voters perceive empty signifiers, how they react to them, and which emotional reactions these words trigger. If scholars do not explore this second and fundamental side of the bi-directional linkage between leaders and voters, the risk is treating populism as a solipsistic practice without fully grasping its dynamics.

The theoretical basis for this turn is grounded in pragmatics and semiotics, as discussed in previous sections. Just as the meaning of a deictic expression like ‘here’ or ‘now’ depends on context, a term like ‘the people’ depends on who is saying it, when, and to whom. Nevertheless, this approach has potential limitations when applying these philosophical-linguistic elements to empirical research. I showed that empty signifiers rest on a post-structuralist and semiotic theory whose concepts are not operationalizable into clear-cut indicators or variables. Moreover, empty signifiers are highly context-sensitive and relational, a characteristic that makes it difficult to detect and measure them in empirical data through qualitative methodologies. Consequently, any empirical application of this framework must proceed cautiously and, as Zienkowski and Breeze (2019: 4) emphasise, focus on in situ analyses (i.e., carefully considering each country’s cultural, socioeconomic, and political context). Therefore, any investigation relying on focus groups while offering valuable insights must account for the instability and fluidity of empty signifiers.

However, recent advances in computational discourse analysis and machine learning may allow researchers to overcome these limitations and complement a focus-group approach by mapping patterns of ambiguity and resonance. For instance, using word embedding models like word2vec or BERT may detect signifiers with high semantic variance by tracking how key populist empty signifiers – e.g., ‘the people’, ‘family’, ‘class’, ‘gender’, or ‘nation’ – shift in meaning across ideological contexts or over time (see Mostfavi et al., 2024; Stöhr, 2024). On its side, topic modelling (see Choi, 2025) can uncover themes around empty signifiers to detect which topics are mainly associated with them. If these terms are ‘empty’, they should show high semantic drift over time, polysemy across ideological clusters, and ambiguity in co-occurring contexts – all of which can be empirically measured. However, these tools are not sufficient on their own: computational models identify patterns, not meanings; they can suggest that ‘the people’ or ‘gender’ is used differently by left and right populists, but they cannot explain why or how these differences matter for identification and political behaviour. That task still belongs to interpretive, qualitative inquiry. Still, machine learning can help track their contextual fluctuations and audience-specific interpretations at scale, especially when integrated with qualitative data from focus groups.

A mixed-methods approach is therefore essential: focus groups can reveal the interpretive logic through which individuals assign meaning to ambiguous political terms, while computational models can then scale up those insights, showing whether the patterns observed in small groups hold across broader populations and media environments. This combination respects the contextual, relational nature of populist language while expanding the empirical reach of discourse analysis. It also opens new possibilities for comparative work. For instance, new research might investigate how empty signifiers travel across national, ideological, or linguistic boundaries. New studies could also explore how they mutate or stabilise in times of crisis.

Conclusion

In conclusion, populism studies would theoretically and methodologically benefit from incorporating the voter’s interpretive role into the study of populist discourse. Additionally, this approach would allow populism scholars to avoid the trap of reductionism (i.e., treating populism as a fixed set of traits, ideologies, or leader personalities) by focusing instead on the flexibility, affective power, and communicative negotiation that sustain it. As the philosopher John Langshaw Austin (2009) reminds us, we do things with words. In populism, words do things: they mobilise, exclude, and unify. Doing populism with words means engaging in a collaborative linguistic process that constantly shapes and reshapes collective identities and political allegiances – as long as one investigates both poles of demand and supply.

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^[1] Emphasis added.

Professor Wodak: Autocracy Has Become a Global Economic Corporation Backed by Oligarchs and Social Media Power

August 4, 2025

by ECPS_admin Multimedia Videos

In this powerful interview with ECPS, Professor Ruth Wodak warns that “autocracy has become a global economic corporation”—a transnational network where oligarchs, libertarians, and tech barons control discourse, distort truth, and undermine democracy. From Trump’s incitement of violence to Orbán’s fear-based migrant scapegoating, Professor Wodak outlines how authoritarian populists weaponize crises and social media to legitimize regressive policies. Yet she also defends the vital role of public intellectuals, urging them not to give in to “preemptive fear.” With deep insight into the politics of fear, techno-fascism, and discursive normalization, Professor Wodak’s reflections serve as both an alarm and a call to resistance in our increasingly volatile democratic landscape. A must-read for anyone grappling with today’s authoritarian turn.

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

In a time when liberal democracies are increasingly challenged by authoritarian populism, far-right, disinformation, and escalating political violence, the voice of critical scholars has never been more urgent. In this in-depth interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Professor Ruth Wodak—Emerita Distinguished Professor of Discourse Studies at Lancaster University, affiliated with the University of Vienna, and a member of the ECPS Advisory Board—provides a sobering assessment of our contemporary moment. With decades of pioneering work on discourse, racism, and the far right, Professor Wodak, who is also one of the signatories of the “International Declaration Against Fascism,” published on June 13, 2025, alongside Nobel laureates, public intellectuals, and leading scholars of democracy and authoritarianism, brings both scholarly rigor and moral clarity to an increasingly fraught public debate.

At the heart of this conversation lies a stark warning: “We are facing a kind of global kleptocracy and oligarchy that owns social media and is, in some cases, part of governments,” Professor Wodak says. Drawing on Anne Applebaum’s recent book Autocracy, Inc., she argues that autocracy has evolved into a global economic corporation—one where power, capital, and algorithmic control are intertwined and weaponized against democratic norms. This nexus, she explains, enables “very powerful individuals, libertarians, and oligarchs—supported by governments—to wield enormous influence.”

Professor Wodak also elaborates on what she calls the “politics of fear,” a strategy used by populist and authoritarian actors to exploit or fabricate crises in order to manufacture scapegoats and position themselves as national saviors. “It’s a very simple narrative,” she explains. “There is danger, someone is to blame, I am the savior, and I will eliminate the threat.” From Donald Trump’s MAGA slogan to Orbán’s anti-migrant rhetoric, such narratives are not only emotionally charged but “discursively effective in obscuring regressive agendas while appearing to restore order.”

The interview further explores how fascist traits—particularly state-sponsored or paramilitary violence—are resurfacing even in democratic societies. Professor Wodak points to cases in the United States, Germany, Turkey, and Greece as troubling examples. “We do see that the government in the US is taking very violent actions,” she warns, referring to ICE raids and militia-linked violence under Trump. Similarly, she notes how “Golden Dawn in Greece only became scandalized after the murder of a pop singer—despite its long history of violent attacks on migrants.”

Yet amid these challenges, Professor Wodak emphasizes the indispensable role of public intellectuals. Despite increasing hostility, she insists, “one shouldn’t be afraid to speak out.” Indeed, she urges scholars and citizens alike not to succumb to what she calls “preemptive fear,” which “leads you to accommodate to some kind of danger which you envision—but which is actually not there.”

In this urgent and wide-ranging dialogue, Professor Wodak offers a powerful analysis of how authoritarianism is being normalized—and how it can still be resisted.

Here is the transcript of our interview with Professor Ruth Wodak, edited lightly for readability.

Professor Ruth Wodak is Emerita Distinguished Professor of Discourse Studies at Lancaster University, affiliated with the University of Vienna, and a member of the ECPS Advisory Board.

Professor Wodak: Autocracy Has Become a Global Economic Corporation Backed by Oligarchs and Social Media Power

August 4, 2025

by ECPS_admin Authoritarianism Digital-populism Editor’s Choice Home Interviews

In this powerful interview with ECPS, Professor Ruth Wodak warns that “autocracy has become a global economic corporation”—a transnational network where oligarchs, libertarians, and tech barons control discourse, distort truth, and undermine democracy. From Trump’s incitement of violence to Orbán’s fear-based migrant scapegoating, Professor Wodak outlines how authoritarian populists weaponize crises and social media to legitimize regressive policies. Yet she also defends the vital role of public intellectuals, urging them not to give in to “preemptive fear.” With deep insight into the politics of fear, techno-fascism, and discursive normalization, Professor Wodak’s reflections serve as both an alarm and a call to resistance in our increasingly volatile democratic landscape. A must-read for anyone grappling with today’s authoritarian turn.

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

In this urgent and wide-ranging dialogue, Professor Wodak offers a powerful analysis of how authoritarianism is being normalized—and how it can still be resisted.

Here is the transcript of our interview with Professor Ruth Wodak, edited lightly for readability.

Fascist Rhetoric and Violence Are Reemerging Across Democracies

Border Patrol agents monitor an anti-ICE protest in downtown Los Angeles, June 8, 2025. Demonstrators rallied against expanded ICE operations and in support of immigrant rights. Photo: Dreamstime.

Professor Ruth Wodak, thank you so very much for joining our interview series. Let me start right away with the first question: How do you interpret the contemporary resurgence of fascist traits in democratic societies, especially in light of the anti-fascism declaration you co-signed on June 13, 2025? In your view, what are the key discursive markers we should be most vigilant of, both conceptually and in concrete political communication? Could you provide some recent illustrative examples—from campaign speeches, media discourse, or policy debates—that exemplify these traits in action?

Professor Ruth Wodak: I think that’s a huge question. There are, unfortunately, many examples of what you explained just now and asked about. First, I would like to say that we should be careful when using the term fascism, because it always leads us to associate it with the 1930s, National Socialism, Mussolini, etc. So, we should be aware of what the main characteristics of fascism are, and one important point to mention is the existence of violence and paramilitary movements that support a fascist movement or government.

What we can observe right now is an increasing level of violence. For example, in the US, quite recently, there was violence in Los Angeles, where Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), along with the National Guard, were called in by President Trump to apprehend so-called illegal migrants and deport them to camps in El Salvador and other South American countries. These camps, in some ways, resemble concentration camps. Most surprisingly and disturbingly, Donald Trump had photos taken of himself at one such camp, appearing to be proud of these actions.

Now, when we think back just a few years—if you remember Charlottesville and the riots that took place there due to the attempt to remove the statue of a so-called hero of the Confederacy—the Proud Boys, a truly fascist movement of young, mainly male supporters, killed a young woman. Trump then said, “Well, actually, both the protesters and the Proud Boys were to be seen in an equal way.” So, we do see that currently the government in the US is taking very violent actions. These are still visible as snapshots—yes, they are localized in places like Los Angeles or elsewhere; they’re not yet covering the entire country. But of course, this could be a sign of what is to come. I think it’s very dangerous. And if you look back, you asked me about speeches and rallies—there was a speech by Trump where a protester entered the rally, and Trump just said, “Beat him up.” So, you can really also observe a rhetoric that orders or supports people to implement violence.

But this is not only the case in the US—it’s just a case we are all very aware of. If you look at Turkey, for example, where the Mayor of Istanbul was taken into prison, we again see violence enacted by the government. It’s not as if he was taken to court, there was a trial, and then democratic procedures were followed. No—this mayor was simply taken to prison, and as far as I know, nobody knows how long he will remain there. I depend on the media—you know much more about this.

We also saw violence—though again, very localized—in Germany, where there is no significant fascist mass movement that we can observe, except for very small groups of neo-Nazis and identitarians. But we do see assassinations and attacks on prominent politicians. There was an attack on a Social Democratic politician before the election. There are attacks on Green politicians. A mayor was actually shot. So, this is all very disconcerting.

Moreover, if we look back a little further—if you remember Golden Dawn, which was clearly a paramilitary fascist movement that was very strong in Greece around 2010 and a bit later—they enacted a great deal of violence against migrants. In fact, this only became widely scandalized when they killed a well-known Greek pop singer. Then, suddenly, it was talked about. But Golden Dawn had long used symbols of fascism, and so forth.

So, there is a trend that is leading up to the violence we see enacted today. And of course, I don’t even want to talk about Russia, because there, violence against protesters or opposition politicians has been ongoing for decades.

We’re Witnessing the Rise of Techno-Fascist Capitalism

Elon Musk speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center on February 20, 2025, in Oxon Hill, Maryland. Photo: Andrew Harnik.

The declaration highlights “techno-fascist enthusiasts” among media barons. How do you conceptualize the role of digital platforms and algorithmic governance in sustaining what you call the “politics of fear”?

Professor Ruth Wodak: First, let me explain what the politics of fear is about. It refers to how political groups or parties instrumentalize existing crises—or exaggerate them—and sometimes even create crises artificially through fake news and disinformation. They use these crises to construct scenarios of threat and fear—very dystopian visions of decay, collapse, and terrible events looming ahead.

Then, the leader of the party or group—because there are also women who do this—presents him or herself as the savior. So, there is a kind of link: on the one hand, creating a fearful scenario, and on the other, projecting a vision or utopia where the savior will rescue the country and eliminate those deemed responsible for the crisis.

This strategy also involves the creation of scapegoats, because someone must be blamed—someone must be guilty of the major problems that exist. The identity of these scapegoats depends on the context. Sometimes they are Turks and migrants, sometimes Jews and Roma. It all depends on who is available to be constructed as the scapegoat.

In this way, the narrative becomes very simple: there is danger, someone is to blame, I am the savior, and I will eliminate the threat—then everything will be fine.

It’s a very simple narrative and a very simple argument. But many people who are currently very insecure—because of the polycrisis we are all experiencing—seem to be easily manipulated into believing such a narrative.

And now we come to social media, which plays a very big role in this manipulation and in this propaganda. If we think of the big social media networks—for example, X—and Elon Musk, who is obviously the richest man on earth, we have someone who owns such a vast platform and who can actually manipulate the content.

In this way, dangerous content and disinformation are widely distributed, while evidence and factual counter-narratives are either deleted or not distributed—or at least distributed far less. Beyond that, there are also trolls and bots who amplify this content even further. So the whole—I would say—secondary discourse world of social media is saturated with disinformation.

There isn’t enough counter-information. We do now have Bluesky, for example, which tries to counter X—quite successfully in some ways. Many people have switched from X to Bluesky as a form of protest. But still, X remains more powerful because it is backed by an enormous amount of money.

In that way, I would say, power and money are going hand in hand right now in a really unpredictable way. We haven’t experienced something like this for a long time. I would point to the Russian oligarchs after 1989—but that was more localized. Now we are facing a kind of global kleptocracy and oligarchy that owns social media and is, in some cases, part of governments.

I would also mention a recent and very interesting book by Anne Applebaum, Autocracy, Inc.—yes, “the corporation.” So autocracy has become a big economic corporation, because power is now linked to money and to specific groups of libertarians, very powerful individuals, and oligarchs who are supported by governments and who wield enormous power.

Fear of Losing Control and Status Fuels the Far Right’s Rise

White nationalists and counter protesters clash in during a rally that turned violent resulting in the death of one and multiple injuries in Charlottesville, VA on August 12, 2017. Photo: Kim Kelley-Wagner.

The declaration refers to fabricated enemies and the weaponization of security. How have right-wing populist actors used crisis narratives (e.g., migration, pandemics) to justify authoritarian measures?

Professor Ruth Wodak: We see that happening all the time. I mean, migration has become such an important agenda in this construction of fear. And looking at recent EU barometers, it’s actually quite interesting that other topics also generate a lot of fear but are not instrumentalized in the same way. The statistics show us that, for example, the fear of the cost-of-living crisis, the energy crisis, the climate crisis, and the fear of wars—yes, we have, for the first time since the 1990s and the Yugoslavian wars, a war very close to or even within Europe, namely Ukraine—all of that could also be talked about extensively and used to create fear. But it seems to be migration that is, for the far right, the so-called best agenda to be instrumentalized. And that is the case across the board. I mean, I cover especially the Austrian and German debates, but I also follow the French and British debates.

I just read The Guardian yesterday, where there were reports of anti-foreigner riots in Manchester and another city in the north of England, and I was really disturbed—because, as you know, I’ve lived in the UK for 12 years in the North, and I had never encountered anything like that. I mean, there’s xenophobia everywhere, yes, but to have these riots, which were triggered by far-right groups—this is really very scary in the UK.

And again, if you look at Austria, the extreme right, far-right party—the Austrian Freedom Party—has been leading the polls since 2022 and won the last national election. They are not in government, but right now they are still leading the polls. Their main agenda is constructing the fear of migrants, and it’s really a paradox because, on the one hand, it’s obvious that in all European countries—or all countries of the European Union—specialist workers and people with expertise in various professions are needed. There are special ways of allowing them to enter the various countries—special permits and so on—and, on the other hand, this fear of migration still seems to resonate strongly.

We have to ask why the construction of this scapegoat is so successful. And it’s especially—and again, not only—targeted at Muslim migrants. Because this fear of migrants has already been a huge manipulative device, so to speak, since as early as 1989. If you recall the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989—the end of the so-called Eastern Bloc—you’ll remember that many people from Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Poland entered the West—yes, the so-called West. The Freedom Party in Austria, and especially Jörg Haider—who was quite a charismatic and very clever rhetorician—constructed his entire agenda against foreigners and became very successful.

And that was not during a time of crisis. There was no economic crisis at that time. We did a big study back then, and we found that the discursive patterns used at that time are very similar to those used now—except that at the time, the migrants were white Christian people, and now we have Muslims coming from Syria, Iraq, or elsewhere as refugees. But basically, the discourse of exclusion is very similar.

And if you ask yourself what triggers this enormous fear, I think there are basically two—possibly many more—but two really important points. One is the fear of losing control, which has become salient in the context of the polycrisis, but was also very visible during the Brexit campaign. So, the fear of losing control—because so many people are coming—and then you don’t know what’s happening anymore. The slogan at that time in the UK, “Take back control,” was very successful.

The second big issue is the fear of losing your social welfare—all the benefits, your jobs—they will take things away. So you haven’t lost them yet, but you might lose out. It’s not just the people who have already lost out, as is often discussed. It’s the fear among the middle class and the lower middle class of losing their status, their benefits, their way of living. That also explains why, for example, in very rich countries like Austria, Denmark, Switzerland, and Sweden, the far right is so prominent.

Authoritarianism Thrives on Silence; Intellectuals Must Refuse It

The open letter evokes the historical memory of anti-fascist intellectuals in 1925. How do you see the role of public intellectuals and discourse scholars today in resisting what you have termed “shameless normalization”?

Professor Ruth Wodak: I think it’s a hard job, and it really is difficult to summarize—or even observe—what impact public intellectuals might have, because they are, of course, part of the elite—the so-called elite—that the far right is fundamentally campaigning against. So public intellectuals form a group that is not wanted by the far right.

That said, it’s really important that people speak out. And the more people do so—and are listened to, and their voices are heard in social media, newspapers, and so forth—the more others become aware that there is a different position, a counter-discourse. I believe that to be very important, even if it isn’t widely distributed by platforms like X or other major channels.

So the more people speak out, the better it is—and one shouldn’t be afraid of doing so. Of course, this really depends on where you live. If you are in a dictatorship or a classically authoritarian state, public intellectuals may have a very hard time—they might be imprisoned, as has happened, or even killed, as we see in countries like Russia or China. And if we look at Turkey, they are imprisoned—just like many journalists—so they are forced into exile and speak out from abroad.

But if you live in a country that still allows freedom of opinion and supports human rights and the Human Rights Charter, then it is even more important to speak out—because you have the right to do so. And you shouldn’t be afraid.

Personally, I’ve never been afraid to speak out. Of course, I’ve encountered a lot of opposition. I’m not liked by everyone—but I tell myself, I don’t have to be loved by everybody. I also see many colleagues in the US or in Germany who speak out—not only at conferences and in academic settings, but who also leave the ivory tower and engage with the public, speak in schools or wherever they’re invited.

And I believe that it’s very important not to be frightened preemptively, especially in countries where freedom of opinion exists, where you don’t have to fear imprisonment or worse. There’s no reason to silence yourself out of imagined fear. Preemptive fear is dangerous, because it makes you accommodate to a threat that you envision—but which may not actually be there.

So in that way, I encourage scholars and intellectuals who are able to speak out—to do so.

Slogans Like MAGA Obscure Regressive Agendas Through Nostalgia

A Trump supporter holds up a “Make America Great Again” sign at presidential candidate Donald Trump’s rally in the convention center in Sioux City, Iowa, on November 6, 2016. Photo: Mark Reinstein.

How would you analyze the role of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” narrative and the narratives of Erdoğan, Putin, Netanyahu, Modi, Orban etc.—not just rhetorically but also in terms of its affective and mobilizing power? What makes such slogans so resonant across diverse audiences, and how do they function discursively to both obscure and legitimate regressive political agendas?

Professor Ruth Wodak: These slogans—and I would say these are really slogans—
MAGA, for example, resonates because, as I already said, many people are afraid and feel insecure—legitimately so—because there are existential crises right now. And these slogans construct a past that seems to have been much better. I say “seems” because it never was much better. There were always problems, always crises, etc.

We once conducted a study that looked at all the crises the European Union had experienced up until 2009, and it clearly showed a continuity of crises. There were always crises, so you could say the EU was essentially moving from one crisis to the next.

It’s basically what Bauman calls “retrotopia”—a fantasy, an imaginary past that is perceived as better. Now, we can think about what Trump actually—or what he might—mean when pointing to such a past. And it’s quite obvious that the past being invoked might be the period before the civil rights movement—a time when traditional gender roles were still enforced, when there was no political correctness, and so forth.

So, a past that some people would really like to return to, or at least evoke again. But of course, this is impossible. We cannot turn the clock back, and in that sense, it remains a complete fantasy or imaginary. Yet it resonates—because there is so much nostalgia. There is nostalgia, there is a lot of anger, and there is also, as Eva Illouz puts it, a lot of love and patriotism. This imaginary—where “we all were together” in some kind of imagined white community in the US, where all these values were still upheld—resonates strongly.

The same applies, of course, in other contexts, where one has to look at the specific historical elements that are being invoked.

Meloni’s Soft Fascism Balances Between Brussels and Trump

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen meet in Brussels, Belgium on November 03, 2022. Photo: Alexandros Michailidis.

And lastly, Professor Wodak, you’ve researched the discourse of the European far right extensively. How would you compare the current discourse strategies of far-right and populist actors in Austria or Hungary with those in the United States, Turkey, or India?

Professor Ruth Wodak: I have not researched Turkey and India extensively, because I don’t speak the languages. And it is, of course, for us as linguists and discourse analysts, always important to look at the original texts—visual, written, oral—because we need to understand all the nuances, the intonation, the latent meanings, and so forth. So translation is not enough.

But if I now speak about what is reported, what I can read about, and if I look—as I already cited examples from the US—there is a difference between these authoritarian or neo-authoritarian countries and the still liberal democracies.

So, for example, if we look at Italy, where Giorgia Meloni is leading the government and comes from a fascist movement which she claims to have left completely, we see an example of soft fascism. She balances between the EU—she is still also a friend of Trump—but she wants the EU funds to continue, so she negotiates in a nice way with von der Leyen and with the European People’s Party. She is for Ukraine and against Russia, and so forth. So there are many interesting positions. But in the actual domestic policies in Italy, her party attacks journalists. There are attacks on press freedom, freedom of opinion, freedom of assembly, and so forth.

However, civil society in Italy is very strong, so this is also being resisted. And this marks a difference—at least in some ways—from Hungary, where Orbán has really implemented an authoritarian state. But there too, civil society and the opposition are now growing. So it’s not clear what will happen in the elections next year, because there is a conservative opposition party led by Magyar, which has been leading the polls for several months.

And if we look at Austria and Germany again, this kind of explicit, violent speech would not be possible—or at least, when it occurs, it is scandalized. Certain politicians might say such things, but they are often suspended from their parties, especially if they make statements that invoke the fascist past. There are strict laws against that, and those laws are enforced. You cannot use these symbols or rhetoric freely.

Whereas—and this marks a major difference from the US—Trump openly violates such laws, human rights norms, and taboos, and yet there is comparatively little opposition—not the kind we see here. So I think the difference lies in EU legislation and national contexts, where violence and the breaking of taboos are still scandalized, prohibited, and prosecuted—unlike in countries where the government can break these taboos and act unlawfully, and it seems everything goes.

Professor Bartov: Making Life Impossible in Gaza Is a Deliberate Strategy of Slow-Moving Genocide

August 2, 2025

by ECPS_admin Multimedia Videos

In a powerful interview with ECPS, genocide scholar Omer Bartov argues that Israel’s military campaign in Gaza amounts to a “deliberate strategy of slow-moving genocide.” Drawing on the legal framework of the UN Genocide Convention and field reports from Israeli human rights groups, Professor Bartov contends that the Israeli government is intentionally making Gaza uninhabitable through starvation, displacement, and destruction of civilian infrastructure. He warns of a broader system of international complicity—what he calls a “diplomatic Iron Dome”—shielding Israel from accountability. As he dissects settler-colonial logic, media self-censorship, and the erasure of Palestinian voices, Professor Bartov issues a clear call: it is time for the world to confront both the scale of the violence and its own enabling silence.

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

In a searing and uncompromising interview with the European Center for PopulismStudies (ECPS), Omer Bartov—Dean’s Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Brown University—offers a stark diagnosis of the ongoing war in Gaza: a deliberate strategy of “slow-moving genocide.” Drawing on decades of scholarship on genocide, historical memory, and the politics of violence, Professor Bartov asserts that Israel’s military campaign is not merely excessive or misguided but rather exhibits clear patterns of intent to destroy Palestinian society in Gaza through starvation, forced displacement, and the systematic destruction of essential infrastructure. “Making life impossible,” he warns, “has become a central strategy—not an accidental consequence—of Israeli policy.”

Professor Bartov’s assessment, rooted in both empirical observation and the legal definitions enshrined in the UN Genocide Convention, challenges conventional narratives that frame the Gaza campaign solely as a response to Hamas’s October 7 attacks. While condemning massacre as a war crime and crime against humanity, Professor Bartov insists that it must be placed within a broader context of occupation, siege, and settler-colonial ideology that predates the current conflict. By May 2024, he argues, the Israeli Defense Forces had clearly shifted from their stated war aims to a policy of intentional devastation aimed at rendering Gaza uninhabitable.

What makes this analysis all the more urgent, Professor Bartov notes, is not only the scale of the destruction, but the active complicity of powerful international actors. He draws particular attention to what he calls the “diplomatic Iron Dome”—a term he uses to describe the protective shield provided by the United States and its European allies, who have continued to supply arms and political cover to Israel despite growing evidence of atrocity crimes. “This is extraordinary,” he says, “because the very countries that present themselves as guardians of international law are those facilitating what may well amount to genocide.”

Professor Bartov does not exempt the Israeli media from this dynamic of obfuscation. He highlights the role of pervasive self-censorship in shaping Israeli public opinion, describing a near-total internalization of the government’s narrative that casts all Gazans as complicit in terrorism. And yet, he also sees hope in first-person Palestinian accounts—testimonies that survive, sometimes only fleetingly, before their authors are killed. These narratives, he suggests, may ultimately reshape our collective understanding of the Gaza war and expose the moral cost of international silence.

In this wide-ranging interview, Professor Bartov unflinchingly dissects the ideological, political, and historical forces behind Israel’s war in Gaza—and calls on the world to reckon with its own responsibility.

Here is the transcript of our interview with Professor Omer Bartov, edited lightly for readability.

Omer Bartov, Dean’s Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Brown University-

Professor Bartov: Making Life Impossible in Gaza Is a Deliberate Strategy of Slow-Moving Genocide

August 2, 2025

by ECPS_admin Authoritarianism Editor’s Choice Extremism & Radicalisation Home Human Rights Interviews

In a powerful interview with ECPS, genocide scholar Omer Bartov argues that Israel’s military campaign in Gaza amounts to a “deliberate strategy of slow-moving genocide.” Drawing on the legal framework of the UN Genocide Convention and field reports from Israeli human rights groups, Professor Bartov contends that the Israeli government is intentionally making Gaza uninhabitable through starvation, displacement, and destruction of civilian infrastructure. He warns of a broader system of international complicity—what he calls a “diplomatic Iron Dome”—shielding Israel from accountability. As he dissects settler-colonial logic, media self-censorship, and the erasure of Palestinian voices, Professor Bartov issues a clear call: it is time for the world to confront both the scale of the violence and its own enabling silence.

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

In a searing and uncompromising interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Omer Bartov—Dean’s Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Brown University—offers a stark diagnosis of the ongoing war in Gaza: a deliberate strategy of “slow-moving genocide.” Drawing on decades of scholarship on genocide, historical memory, and the politics of violence, Professor Bartov asserts that Israel’s military campaign is not merely excessive or misguided but rather exhibits clear patterns of intent to destroy Palestinian society in Gaza through starvation, forced displacement, and the systematic destruction of essential infrastructure. “Making life impossible,” he warns, “has become a central strategy—not an accidental consequence—of Israeli policy.”

Here is the transcript of our interview with Professor Omer Bartov, edited lightly for readability.

The Intent to Destroy Gaza Is No Longer Hidden—It’s Being Systematically Implemented

Professor Omar Bartov, thank you very much for joining our interview series. Let me start right away with the first question: Given your extensive work on the complexities of defining genocide and the centrality of intent, how should we evaluate the Israeli military campaign and mass killings in Gaza through the lens of genocide studies—particularly when patterns of indiscriminate force, dehumanizing rhetoric, and systematic targeting of civilians are framed by the Netanyahu government as necessary and legitimate acts of self-defense?

Professor Omer Bartov: Thank you for that question. First of all, the most important thing to understand when you try to determine whether genocide is happening is that you need to show that there’s an intent—an intent to destroy a particular group, in whole or in part, as such—and that that intent is being implemented.

Now, all regimes or organizations that commit genocide typically employ alternative rhetoric. They claim it is a matter of security, that they have no other choice, that war is inherently brutal, and that terrible actions are sometimes necessary in such contexts. Therefore, it is essential to cut through this rhetoric to determine whether there is a demonstrable intent to destroy a group, and whether that intent is being actively implemented on the ground.

I concluded that that intent was both expressed and then implemented in May of 2024. The reason was that already in October, immediately after the Hamas attack of October 7th, statements were made by Israeli politicians and generals that appeared to have genocidal content—statements that spoke about flattening Gaza, cutting off water, food, and energy; that nobody was uninvolved; and describing people there as human animals. But the government also then declared that its war goals were to destroy Hamas and to release the hostages, and that seemed to be a more limited kind of objective.

By May, it became evident to me that the IDF was no longer pursuing its stated war goals, but rather carrying out precisely what had been declared in the immediate aftermath of October 7th—namely, a systematic and deliberate destruction of Gaza, aimed at rendering it uninhabitable for its population. This became particularly clear when the IDF moved into Rafah, ordering the evacuation of a million people—most of whom had already been displaced at least once or multiple times—and relocated them to the Mawasi area along the coast, which lacked any form of humanitarian infrastructure. Following this forced displacement, the IDF proceeded to destroy Rafah.

That seemed to indicate that the pattern of operations—which is one way to assess whether genocide is occurring—was aimed not only at making Gaza uninhabitable through its physical destruction, but also at systematically eliminating all essential infrastructure. As we now know from a recent report by Physicians for Human Rights in Israel, this included the deliberate destruction of health services, universities, schools, and mosques—effectively targeting everything necessary for a population to care for its health, receive an education, and ultimately reconstitute itself as a community, once the violence ends—if it ever does.

That’s a conclusion I reached as early as May 2024. I wrote about it that August, but since then, of course, we’ve seen much more evidence supporting it, along with numerous additional expressions of intent to carry out ethnic cleansing in Gaza. This is a form of ethnic cleansing that, notably, cannot be fully accomplished—because there is no place for the population to flee. Consequently, we are increasingly witnessing not only the killing of large numbers of people and the creation of conditions that make life unsustainable, but also—as outlined in one of the subsections of the Genocide Convention—the severe diminishment of the ability to give birth or deliver healthy children. This is due, among other factors, to starvation, food shortages, and the collapse of medical services. One striking figure: there has been a 300% increase in miscarriages among women in Gaza since October 7th.

Israel’s Most Far-Right Government Is Mainstreaming Extremism

Billboard reading “The Looting Government,” part of a protest campaign against the conservative coalition’s policies in Ra’anana, Israel, May 2023. Photo: Rene Van Den Berg

In your 2023 Guardian op-ed, you describe the Israeli far right as increasingly theocratic and exclusionary. How does this ideological shift, when coupled with populist rhetoric, justify or normalize indiscriminate violence?

Professor Omer Bartov: I would say that the current Israeli government is the most far-right government the country has ever had. It includes not only Netanyahu—who himself has become much more extreme, while remaining a savvy and cynical politician—but also members of parties that, until the coalition was formed in late 2022, had been anathema to Israeli politics and considered marginal. This includes the party led by Bezalel Smotrich, a settler who promotes an ideology rooted in Jewish supremacy, and Itamar Ben-Gvir, who represents another strain ideologically connected to Rabbi Meir Kahane—a figure often described as a Jewish Nazi. Kahane was banned from running for the Knesset by the Supreme Court, and Ben-Gvir is widely regarded as his ideological descendant.

These two people are now the most powerful ministers in Netanyahu’s government. However, I would add that alongside these figures—who are religious fanatics, anti-democratic, and openly racist—there are also other members of the government who are secular. While they do not belong to the religious camp, they are nonetheless extremely radical in their views. The current Minister of Defense, Israel Katz, for instance, has openly proposed the creation of what he calls a “humanitarian city” over the ruins of Rafah—which, in fact, would function as a vast concentration camp. Into this space, approximately 600,000 Palestinians—those who were displaced last year and sent to the Mawasi area—would be crammed, and they would only be allowed to leave if they exited the Gaza Strip altogether. Figures like Katz, and Levin, the current Minister of Justice, are extremely radical both in terms of their ambitions to transform Israel’s political system and in their approach to the treatment of Palestinians. Yet, they are not part of the religious-messianic faction.

Genocide Is Framed as Justified Retaliation in Israeli Public Discourse

In your article “Israel’s War in Gaza and the Question of Genocide” (2025), you argue that Israeli policies in Gaza are shaped by settler-colonial logic and a dehumanizing view of Palestinians, often perceived by many Israelis as a collective threat. In the light of Hamas’s October 7 massacre, how should we interpret the moral and legal boundaries of state response—especially when that attack is used to legitimize large-scale military campaigns that may constitute genocide?

Professor Omer Bartov: There are two levels here that you need to think about. One is what most people who are trying to defend Israel would like to forget—that the Hamas attack of October 7th, however heinous it was—and to my mind, it was a massacre, a war crime, and a crime against humanity—came within a broader context, which we should not ignore. That context includes, first of all, the siege of Gaza, which has gone on for 16 years by Israel since Hamas took over, and more generally, the occupation of Palestinians since 1967. So, for most of the existence of the State of Israel— I was 12 when Israel won the 1967 War and began the occupation. That’s the occupation.

By the way, most of the Palestinians who were living then in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank were people or descendants of people who had been expelled from Israel in 1948. So, they had already become refugees. Now I’m 71. It’s most of my lifetime that Israel has occupied those people. When you occupy large numbers of people—and there are equal numbers of Jews and Palestinians between the river and the sea—this has a dehumanizing effect on both sides. Obviously, the occupier dehumanizes those they occupy, because that’s the only way they can justify it to themselves. And they, too, are dehumanized by that process. So that’s the broader context that helps explain, in part, why the Israeli public is so indifferent to what is happening in Gaza.

But the second, of course, is the attack itself. The Hamas attack created a sense of trauma, confusion, and insecurity within the Israeli public that seemed to justify any kind of response to such an extent. Now there is more discussion of that—both around the world and even in parts of Israel—to the extent that people were willing to entertain the idea of genocide in response to a massacre—which, of course, is not only illegal under international law but is plainly unethical. So, the situation we find ourselves in now is that, for large parts of the Israeli public over all those months, it appeared that, because of the attack of October 7th, the only guilty party in starving the population, destroying Gaza altogether, and killing large numbers of people was Hamas. And that’s a typical dynamic in these kinds of situations. Usually, organizations carrying out genocide—and the public that supports them—see their victims as the main perpetrators. That’s a very common aspect of genocide. And that is what we’re seeing now in Israel.

A Deliberate Strategy to Render Gaza Uninhabitable Is Unfolding Before Our Eyes

Ramallah, Palestine, surrounded by the controversial Israeli wall that separates the State of Israel from West Bank.
Photo: Giovanni De Caro.

Two prominent Israeli human rights organizations, B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights, recently reported that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza by targeting civilians based solely on their Palestinian identity—causing severe, and in some cases irreparable, harm to Gazan society. As a genocide scholar, could you evaluate how such assessments reinforce or complicate international legal debates surrounding intent, proportionality, and the criteria for defining state violence as genocide?

Professor Omer Bartov: First of all, what is important to point out is that both the report—which I was reading drafts of over the last few weeks—and Physicians for Human Rights in Israel, these are Israeli NGOs. And it’s the first time that Israeli NGOs, made up of Israeli physicians, scholars, legal scholars, have said openly, with a huge amount of evidence, that what they’re seeing is genocide. They make slightly different arguments, but it comes down to the same thing. That as such is very important, because this is coming from within Israeli society itself.

The debate over whether this constitutes genocide has gone on for a long time. As I wrote in The New York Times, I believe there is a growing consensus among both genocide scholars and legal experts that this is, in fact, genocide. It’s true that genocide can be difficult to identify, and it’s also true that if the debate focuses solely on whether this is genocide, there is a risk of overlooking the fact that—even if the classification remains uncertain—clear war crimes and crimes against humanity are being committed on a daily basis. Thus, the ongoing debate may actually divert attention from the criminality of the war itself, as we remain preoccupied with the question: “Is it genocide or not?”

But by now, I think intentionality is clearly there. In fact, one curious aspect of this event is that intentions were declared very early on, and that’s not always the case. The question was whether these declared intentions were being implemented. And as I said, that to me became clear well over a year ago, right in May last year.

And by now, I think it’s clear that what the IDF tried to do between October and January was to ethnically cleanse Northern Gaza and the area north of the Netzarim Corridor. Since breaking the ceasefire in March, its focus has shifted to starving the population—not merely as an unintended consequence, but as a deliberate tactic to force people to move south. That was the objective: first, to withhold food from the North so that people would leave; and second, once distribution points were finally established—four in total—three were located in the South, clearly intended to draw people there and concentrate them in preparation for the next phase, which would be to push them out altogether.

So, I think these reports contribute significantly to the discussion. I would say that the report by Physicians for Human Rights is especially valuable, in addition to the other report, because it clearly demonstrates—for the first time—that there was a deliberate destruction of the entire healthcare system in Gaza. This, even more than the ongoing famine, will have long-term repercussions. It’ll be very hard to rebuild it, if ever, and the consequences for the life and health of the population will be very long term.

And so, it speaks about a sort of slow-moving genocide, among other things, explaining why, as they understand it, the Israeli government refrained from killing larger numbers of people that might have brought more public attention and international pressure on Israel, but rather doing it in a slower version that is more difficult to prove, at least while it is happening. So, you can see a tactic here—and a deliberate one—to make life impossible in Gaza for its Palestinian population.

Israel Is Operating Under a Diplomatic Iron Dome While Advancing Ethnic Cleansing

In your 2021 article “Blind Spots of Genocide,” you critique the Western-centric orientation of genocide studies and call for the inclusion of settler-colonial violence and victim perspectives. How should these frameworks be revised to more accurately reflect the dynamics of Israeli state violence in Gaza? Moreover, how does the international community’s muted response to this violence- especially in contrast to its swift condemnation of Hamas’s October 7 massacre- highlight enduring asymmetries in how global discourse defines and recognizes victimhood and perpetration?

Professor Omer Bartov: There’s a lot in your question, so I’ll focus on at least part of it—perhaps the most crucial part right now, or maybe two aspects. The first is that it is absolutely extraordinary that, since October 7th, Israel has operated with complete impunity in its actions in Gaza—and, of course, also in the West Bank, which we can discuss in a moment. This is not merely impunity in the sense that no one intervenes to stop it, but active facilitation through massive military assistance. The Israeli IDF could not have carried out its operations without a constant supply of arms and munitions from the United States, as well as from European allies—most notably Germany, which is the second-largest supplier of arms to Israel—and substantial diplomatic cover.

You know that Israel is living under a diplomatic Iron Dome—protected by the United States, which, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, vetoes any attempt to sanction Israel for its actions. This is extraordinary, because the countries facilitating Israel’s actions in Gaza are the very ones most strongly identified as defenders of international law and human rights—that is how they describe themselves. And Israel is not Syria, Russia, China, or Somalia; it is a country described by itself and its allies as the only democracy in the Middle East, as a protector of human rights. It is, therefore, an exceptional case that receives exceptional support from the very actors who champion the rules and norms of the international legal order—rules that Israel is now in severe breach of. That’s an extraordinary situation. There are reasons for this, and they are somewhat complex, but that is the reality.

The second issue, of course, is: why is Israel doing what it is doing? Israel is doing this because, I would say, until October 7th, Netanyahu had managed to persuade most of the Israeli public—and, in fact, much of the international community—that Israel could, so to speak, manage the occupation. That there was no need for any territorial compromise or further negotiations, because the occupation was containable. One way he did this was by supporting Hamas. We tend to forget that Hamas was seen by the Israeli right—by figures like Smotrich, and very much by Netanyahu himself—as an asset. Israel persuaded Qatar to provide millions of dollars to Hamas, which were literally handed over in large cash bags by Israelis to Hamas. A fair amount of that money, in fact, was used to build Hamas’s tunnel infrastructure.

The rationale was: it’s advantageous to have Hamas, because Hamas is widely viewed as a terrorist and fundamentalist organization, one that seeks to replace Israel with an Islamic state. Therefore, it is not considered a viable partner for negotiations. In contrast, the Palestinian Authority (PA) is recognized internationally—which is not favorable for Israel—but it is also perceived as weak and corrupt, and thus not a significant threat. Moreover, the PA collaborates with Israel in the West Bank, which further diminishes any urgency for diplomatic engagement from Israel’s perspective.

That all blew up on October 7th, when Hamas launched its attack. Initially, the Israeli government and military were quite shocked by the events, and it took them a few days to recover. Then, figures like Netanyahu, Smotrich, and Ben-Gvir suddenly realized—at least in their minds—that this was an opportunity rather than merely a fiasco. They saw it as a chance to resolve the issue by other means. If the occupation could no longer be effectively managed, then the alternative, in their view, was to ethnically cleanse the population—using the global consensus that Israel had been attacked and that hundreds of Israeli civilians had been massacred as a justification to now “solve” the problem.

But for Netanyahu, of course, there is a dilemma. And the dilemma is this: if, as he claims, he needs absolute victory—total victory—what does that actually mean? If Hamas is eliminated from Gaza, who takes over Gaza? Who would govern it? The IDF does not want to assume that role—for good reason. It would be too costly, both in lives and in resources; it would be unsustainable. So, who would govern? The natural choice would be the Palestinian Authority—perhaps a reconfigured version of it—but ultimately, it would need to be ruled by Palestinians. And that would defeat the entire purpose of this government, which is to maintain the separation between Gaza and the West Bank, complete the operation in Gaza, and then accelerate the creeping ethnic cleansing of the West Bank. This is the situation we find ourselves in now. The dynamic this government is pursuing is the completion of ethnic cleansing and, to the extent possible, the annexation of territories in both Gaza and the West Bank.

Holocaust Memory Has Been Turned Into a License for Extreme Violence

In your New York Times and Guardian commentaries, you warn against the instrumentalization of Holocaust memory as a means of shielding the Netanyahu regime from accountability. How has the Israeli far right- particularly figures like Netanyahu and Ben-Gvir- invoked Holocaust analogies to deflect allegations of war crimes and genocide in Gaza?

Professor Omer Bartov: I want to point out that it’s not only the far right in Israel that uses these analogies. The phenomenon is much broader. In fact, there is almost a consensus in Israeli society—ranging from the left to the far right. This has been a long process. I would argue that the use of the Holocaust as both a unifying memory for Israeli society and a license to exercise extreme violence against anyone perceived to be resisting Israeli rule and occupation, accelerated particularly in the late 1970s and early 1980s. You may recall that Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin—the first right-wing prime minister of Israel and a disciple of Ze’ev Jabotinsky—remarked in 1982, following the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, that Arafat, who was then in Beirut, was hunkering down in his bunker like Hitler in Berlin during World War II. These kinds of associations between Palestinians, the PLO, Hamas—and Nazis—have become embedded in the fabric of Israeli politics.

If you listen to mainstream Israeli media—which never shows images of the horrors in Gaza—they consistently refer to Hamas as Nazis. This triggers, within the Israeli public, a perception that the threat is existential, that Auschwitz is just around the corner. And if Auschwitz is around the corner, then Israel must do everything it can to prevent it and to destroy its enemies entirely. To hell with what the international community says, to hell with international law—we are fighting for our very existence. That’s the kind of rhetorical mechanism that has been perfected.

To this, Netanyahu has added a crucial element: the weaponization of anti-Semitism. Any protest against Israel—regardless of whether it comes from Jewish students on American campuses demonstrating against the atrocities in Gaza—is immediately labeled as anti-Semitism. He has succeeded in doing this to such an extent that, both in Europe—particularly in Germany—and in the United States, there has been a clampdown on these protests in the name of combating anti-Semitism.

This Isn’t Censorship—It’s Self-Mobilization

Israeli newspapers and magazines on display in the streets of Tel Aviv, December 12, 2018. Photo: Jose Hernandez.

In “Blind Spots of Genocide” (2021), you stress the need to center victims’ perspectives. In Gaza, how do Israeli media censorship and the framing of all Gazans as “Hamas” obscure or erase civilian experiences?

Professor Omer Bartov: It does, of course. But again, I want to say—when you say censorship, you’re being kind. Because on mainstream outlets, such as the public TV channel Kan 11, there is no formal censorship. There is military censorship—they can’t reveal certain information—but they have every right to report on what’s happening to Palestinians in Gaza. They choose not to, out of self-censorship. And self-censorship is a much more effective mechanism, one that has existed in the Israeli media for a long time.

My father was a journalist, and I remember that kind of self-censorship since I was a child under the Labor governments. This was not invented today. But now, at this point, it’s extraordinary—the extent of both self-censorship and the mobilization of the entire spectrum of the Israeli media—with two very small but important exceptions: Haaretz newspaper, which is reporting very bravely (in fact, some of the best reporting on the war in Gaza is coming from Haaretz itself), and Local Call or +972, which is an even smaller group of intrepid reporters.

But by and large, this is not censorship; this is self-censorship and self-mobilization. And that’s something much more difficult to fight against. In part, it has to do—as so much does in the world today—with ratings. They don’t want to alienate their own viewers by saying things the audience doesn’t want to hear. But in part, it’s that they themselves have internalized the narrative. And while they may not be particularly supportive of Netanyahu, and certainly not of the far-right elements in his government, they generally view this as a just war, and they tend to regard the killing in Gaza as, at best, lamentable collateral damage. And that’s a far worse situation than the kind of censorship that could be removed simply by changing the government.

First-Person Testimonies Will Redefine How the World Remembers Gaza

And lastly Professor Bartov, in “Between Integrated and First-Person History” (2021), you advocate for incorporating personal narratives. How might first-person Palestinian accounts reshape dominant narratives about the Gaza war and its moral consequences?

Professor Omer Bartov: So, about the Gaza war itself—I think, look, it’s deeply tragic, because so many of the reports that have come out of Gaza are not only heartbreaking; often, they are accounts by people who were themselves killed shortly afterward. But I do think these reports are increasingly having an effect around the world. Clearly, there has been a widespread failure—perhaps not an intentional one, but nonetheless real—on the part of the international media, which, being denied access to Gaza, has largely accepted this absence of reporting. It has not pressed hard enough to provide objective coverage of events inside Gaza and has, in general, paid insufficient attention to what is happening.

This has changed somewhat now because of the widespread starvation. And, as has happened in many past genocides and other forms of war crimes, there often comes a moment when certain images begin to shift public perception and draw global attention. This occurred during the war in the former Yugoslavia, for example, with the photographs of Bosniaks behind barbed wire. It also happened during the Vietnam War with the iconic image of the girl burned by napalm. Similarly, the recent images of starving children have had a profound effect—a different kind of narrative, in a way. At the very least, you see the people themselves. You see what is happening to obviously innocent children. You simply can’t present that as anything other than what it is.

I think in the future—I’ve read several such texts by people who were there and who, fortunately, managed to get out and write accounts. As a strong believer in first-person narratives—which convey what you will never hear or understand if you rely solely on top-down documentation—I believe there will be more of these stories. And I think that, eventually, our understanding of what is going on—and, once it’s over, what had gone on—will deepen significantly, and the horror will be revealed to have been even greater than we could have imagined.

The controversial Israeli separation wall dividing Israel from the West Bank, often referred to as the segregation wall in Palestine. Photo: Giovanni De Caro.

The Psychological Toll of Graphic Content in the Israel-Palestine Conflict

July 29, 2025

by ECPS_admin ECPS Youth Editor’s Choice Home Voice of Youth

As massacre and starvation content floods social media in the wake of Hamas’s October 7 attack, a new generation of users—especially teenagers—grapples with its psychological toll. In this Voice of Youth commentary, 19-year-old aspiring journalist Andrea Castelnuovo explores how platforms like Instagram, X, and TikTok have become both vital sources of information and sources of distress. Drawing on recent studies from Israel and Jordan, Castelnuovo highlights the anxiety, trauma, and emotional numbness that graphic imagery can induce in young viewers. He also shares his own experience of digital overwhelm and the importance of finding alternative, less triggering ways to stay informed. His article raises a crucial question for journalists: Can we raise awareness without harming those who bear witness?

By Andrea Castelnuovo*

Since Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, people have turned to platforms like Instagram, X, and TikTok to stay informed. However, many are struggling with the emotional toll of witnessing violent content.

The Israel-Palestine conflict is one of the most discussed topics on social media – now the main source of information for much of the Western population. Studies show that people prefer following independent journalists on platforms like Instagram and TikTok over reading mainstream outlets like the BBC, Fox, and Sky News – often criticized for a perceived pro-Israel bias. Content on social media is usually more direct as journalists share raw pictures and videos that make the news easier to grasp. However, many viewers – teenagers in particular – are triggered by this approach.

In the article “It matters what you see: Graphic media images of war and terror may amplify distress” by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), two researchers examined how graphic content can pressure governments to act – but also emphasized how often its emotional impact on viewers is overlooked.

Cyber psychology researchers Liat Franco and Meyran Boniel-Nissim studied the psychological, physical, and mental toll – along with coping strategies – among teenagers in northern Israel exposed to war content on social media. Their symptoms included anxiety, sleep disturbances, and shifts in political views. Based on interviews with thirty-one adolescents aged 13 to 15 in northern Israel, the study found that many teens were becoming emotionally numb – a defense mechanism to shield themselves from ongoing trauma.

A similar pattern emerged in research led by Dua’a Al-Maghaireh and colleagues, who studied acute stress symptoms among Jordanian teenagers. Nearly half of Jordan’s population has Palestinian roots, which intensifies the emotional impact of the content they view. All 180 students interviewed said they watched Gaza-related news on social media, with 61% consuming it for more than three hours a day. All of them reported viewing content on YouTube – a platform where footage is especially graphic and unfiltered. As a result, 70% described themselves as highly stressed, and only 11% reported low levels of stress. Common feelings included sadness, shock, and hopelessness.

One teenage boy recalled his first time seeing images of bombings in Gaza: “I was very shocked by the scenes of killing, blood, and destruction of homes – and the people inside them. I have never seen such scenes before.”

Another said the emotional weight had affected his relationships: “After I watched news footage of the Gaza attack on social media and described it to my family and friends, my friends became very sad, and there was no laughter like before. Also, my house became gloomy.”

As a 19-year-old aspiring journalist, I care deeply about staying informed – but also about protecting my mental health. Recently, I deleted Instagram, as its content made me anxious and triggered my dissociation. Being exposed to graphic imagery every day left me feeling hopeless and powerless – too small to make a difference. Since I started listening to podcasts and reading long-form articles, I have managed to stay informed without feeling overwhelmed. This approach may not work for everyone, but for people like me – who want to stay aware without burning out – it is a valuable starting point.

The main question remains: Is there a way journalists and content creators can sensitize their audience without harming them?

(*) Andrea Castelnuovo is a nineteen-year-old aspiring journalist from Italy. He studied languages and literature in high school, with a focus on English, German, and Chinese. In 2024, he attended NHSMUN in New York City, where he gained insight into international law and the importance of journalism. Email: castelnuovo.andrea2006@gmail.com

US President Donald Trump delivers a speech to the people of Poland at Krasinski Square in Warsaw, July 6, 2017. Photo: Dreamstime.

Trump, Trade, and the Fracturing of ‘Western Civilization’

July 29, 2025

by ECPS_admin Commentaries Editor’s Choice Home

Donald Trump once portrayed himself as the guardian of Western Civilization. Yet his second administration has aggressively undermined the very unity it claimed to defend. The recent US-EU trade deal—imposing steep tariffs on European exports while demanding vast investments in American industries—signals a shift from partnership to dominance. This economic blow coincides with a deeper ideological rupture: Trump no longer sees Europe, especially the EU, as a cultural ally but as a bureaucratic adversary. Aligning instead with nationalist and religiously conservative leaders, Trump’s vision of the West excludes liberal, secular Europe in favor of sovereigntist regimes. Civilizational language remains—but it now serves to justify a reordered West where power, not pluralism, defines belonging.

By Nicholas Morieson

The Trump administration’s recent trade deal is the culmination of its economic confrontation with the European Union (EU). However EU leaders choose to frame it, the agreement is hardly a positive development for Europe. It imposes a 15% tariff on most EU exports to the US, while granting zero tariffs on a range of US goods, including aircraft parts, chemicals, and generic drugs. In return, the EU committed to invest approximately $600 billion in the US, along with $750 billion in purchases of American energy products over a three-year period—a concession best described as economic capitulation.

Trump’s aggressive deal-making, which appears deliberately designed to undermine Europe’s industrial base, and his administration’s strong criticisms of the lack of political freedom in several European nations, especially Germany, sit uneasily alongside his earlier rhetoric on defending Western Civilization. For example, in his 2017 speech in Warsaw, Trump surprised many commentators by casting himself not as a narrow “America First” populist-nationalist, but as a defender of the West. Speaking in lofty tones, he warned his Polish audience that Western Civilization was in grave danger, facing threats both within and beyond its borders:
“Our own fight for the West does not begin on the battlefield,” he declared. “It begins with our minds, our wills, and our souls.”

Drawing on Poland’s resistance to Nazism and Communism, Trump framed the US and Poland as cultural allies within a civilizational mission. To preserve that mission, he argued, both nations must keep alive the “bonds of history, culture, and memory.”

“Just as Poland could not be broken,” he said, “I declare today for the world to hear that the West will never, ever be broken. Our values will prevail. Our people will thrive. And our civilization will triumph.”

Among the enemies of the West identified by Trump were “radical Islamic” actors and, more vaguely, immigrants “who reject our values and who use hatred to justify violence against the innocent.” Yet he insisted these forces would fail—because of the West’s unity, strength, and cultural brilliance:

“We write symphonies. We pursue innovation. We celebrate our ancient heroes, embrace our timeless traditions… We cherish inspiring works of art that honor God. We treasure the rule of law and protect the right to free speech… We debate everything. We challenge everything. We seek to know everything so that we can better know ourselves.”

This was civilizational language in a distilled form, and which exalted a shared Western historical mission, moral legacy, and cultural inheritance. In using this language, Trump positioned himself as the defender of a great civilization under siege, one that would endure if it remained unified, and perhaps with Trump himself at its leader.

This was not the only civilizational note struck, so to speak, by the Trump administration. As Jeffrey Haynes noted, the administration explicitly elevated “Judeo-Christian values” in foreign policy, replacing the “more flexible Christocentric approach” of previous US governments. This shift was expressed in the promotion of religious freedom for Christians, the withdrawal of funding from abortion-linked aid programs, and consistent alignment with conservative religious causes internationally. Israel, in this framing, was incorporated into the West not through geography, but because it was understood as an outpost of Judeo-Christian civilization in the Middle East.

However, the second Trump Administration has hardly made civilizational unity with Europe a priority. It has, in fact, adopted an almost implacably anti-European tone. Gone is the soaring rhetoric praising European culture—replaced by direct critique. In Trump’s view, the Europeans do not spend enough on defense, choose not to protect themselves from Russian aggression, and instead free-ride on American military and economic might. Vice President J.D. Vance has been especially critical of Europe, arguing that the region is increasingly undemocratic, and singling out Germany for its attempts to ban the right-wing populist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party. Since returning to power, Trump has disparaged NATO, launched economic attacks on the European Union, and pursued trade policies that harm core European industries. He sought rapprochement with Vladimir Putin, dismaying US allies, although these efforts were not reciprocated, forcing him to backtrack and grudgingly sponsor Ukraine’s self-defense.

Under the second Trump Administration, then, Europe—especially the EU—is seen not as a partner, but rather as an ideological and economic adversary. This may be surprising, given Trump’s earlier stated enthusiasm for civilizational unity. Yet signs of this antagonism were already present in the Warsaw speech, where Trump identified not just radical Islam but also the “steady creep of government bureaucracy” as a threat to the West. This was unmistakably code for Brussels and the wider liberal technocratic architecture of the EU. In Trump’s conception, the authentic West is not embodied by the EU or the secular, liberal nations of Western Europe, but by Hungary and Poland: nations that defend sovereignty, tradition, and Christian identity.

This helps explain Trump’s selective alliances.

Although Trump spoke of Western unity in Warsaw, his closest allies while in office have not been Europe’s liberal democracies, but rather a cohort of populist and nationalist leaders who share his disdain for globalism, technocracy, and liberal norms. In Europe, this included Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party in Hungary and the Law and Justice (PiS) government in Poland, who both claimed to be defending Christian civilization against Muslim migrants and Brussels bureaucrats. But the pattern extended globally. Trump cultivated ties with Narendra Modi, whose Hindu nationalist project reimagines Indian identity in explicitly civilizational terms. He praised Jair Bolsonaro, who framed himself as a religious crusader against globalism and cultural Marxism. He supported Benjamin Netanyahu’s vision of Israel as a Jewish ethnostate and a bulwark protecting Western Civilization from radical Islam. What unites these figures is not cultural proximity or geopolitical strategy, but a shared political discourse that is nationalist, anti-liberal, often religiously framed, and contemptuous of international institutions.

Trump’s vision for international politics might be predicated on the protection of Western civilization, but in practice it constructs a loose front of ideologically aligned regimes that reject liberal universalism and prioritize ethnic or religious identity, sovereignty, and security. Viewed in this light, the Warsaw speech takes on a different meaning. Its invocation of “our civilization” may have sounded like a call to Western unity, but in hindsight it was a call to reorder that unity to displace Brussels with Budapest, liberalism with traditional values, and multilateralism with national sovereignty.

But not all of this is purely tactical. A clearer ideological logic emerges from the growing influence of post-liberal thinkers within the administration.

Around Trump, a group of advisers and public intellectuals, including Patrick Deneen, Rod Dreher (who now lives in Hungary), Adrian Vermeule, and most importantly Vice President Vance, possess a coherent civilizational vision of ‘the West.’ Their argument is not that Western civilization should be abandoned, but rather rescued from liberalism, which they see as having hollowed out Christianity, dismantled moral authority, and opened the gates to unchecked migration, especially from Muslim-majority countries. For these post-liberals, Europe’s embrace of secularism, technocracy, and progressive norms represents a betrayal of the West’s true civilizational inheritance. As a result, they do not see Western Europe and the EU as authentically ‘Western,’ but rather agree with Viktor Orban, who once told an American audience that “the Democratic Party and President Obama were ‘globalists’” who oppose Christian values, and who along with “Brussels” represent the enemies of Western civilization.

This vision marks a decisive break from the postwar consensus that linked Western civilization with liberal democracy, secularism, pluralism, and transatlantic solidarity. Trump’s EU trade deal, with its punitive tariffs and lopsided concessions, demonstrates the depth of this rupture. It is less an economic agreement than a demonstration of American power and signals that Washington now sees Brussels as an economic and ideological rival, not a member of the same civilization.

For Europeans, the implications are stark. Trump’s idea of “the West” is very different to the EU leaders’ idea of the West. Furthermore, Trump’s Warsaw rhetoric of Western unity is now largely absent, replaced with a transactional, often hostile, posture toward the EU and its liberal-democratic and technocratic core values.

Europeans, Aris Roussinos has observed, now face an unavoidable choice between embracing a specific set of ‘European’ values, and attempting to unify as a cultural and economic bloc in order to protect themselves from American power, or resign themselves to a subordinate role in a West utterly dominated by the United States. Emmanuel Macron has given this dilemma explicit political form, calling for Europe to become a civilizational power in its own right. Whether Europe can realize this ambition remains uncertain. But the trade deal imposed by Trump leaves little doubt: whatever the language of Warsaw once promised, there will be no simple civilizational unity between Europe and the United States.

Voters wait in line at Mary Rose Cardenas Hall North on the University of Texas at Brownsville campus during the 2008 US presidential election on November 4, 2008. Photo: Dreamstime.

Does Representative Democracy Still Make Sense?

July 29, 2025

by ECPS_admin Commentaries Editor’s Choice Home

The rise of populism has exposed the fragility of representative democracy, particularly in an era of rapid technological change. The digital age has blurred the lines between the personal and the political, as social media platforms empower populist leaders to claim direct representation of the people. As the public’s trust in institutionalized forms of democracy wanes, this has led to a recalibration of what representation should entail. Beyond mere vote casting, representation is increasingly about ensuring a broader, more inclusive range of voices within political discourse. However, as Peter Mair (2013) and others have noted, this expansion often leads to fragmentation rather than cohesion, making the task of political representation more complex and urgently in need of reinvention in the face of emerging global challenges.

By João Ferreira Dias

Social media have become the contemporary embodiment of democracy’s broader promise: not only that every citizen holds one vote, but that each voice carries equal value. When this illusion of equal voice meets the populist perfume of a leader who claims to be “the voice of the people,” representative democracy—an invention of over two centuries ago—starts to feel stale.

James Madison, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, argued that the public voice, articulated by representatives, would more likely align with the public good than if expressed directly by the people themselves (Madison, 1788). This idea, by its very nature, raises questions about one of liberal democracy’s foundational pillars: representation.

Since the rise of representative institutions—cortes, parliaments, and a wide array of mediating bodies—citizens have accepted that, in a complex and plural world, they cannot participate directly in the life of the polis. Hence, professional associations, unions, and political representatives have become the legitimate “voice” of the people. This pathway led to the modern construct of representative democracy.

However, representative democracy has long struggled between two competing approaches: authorization and accountability. As Hannah Pitkin (1967) noted in her seminal work The Concept of Representation, authorization theories ignore the substantive content of representation—who represents, what is represented, and how—while accountability models focus narrowly on control mechanisms, disregarding substantive political action.

With the end of the Cold War and the global expansion of liberal democracy, representation transcended both the consent implicit in the social contract and mere accountability. It evolved into a dynamic social process, marked by innovations such as participatory budgets, grassroots movements, and NGOs (Fung, 2006).

Demands for representation acquired a new momentum under the concept of representativeness. It no longer suffices that votes reflect diverse political tendencies; politics must now mirror the broader social spectrum. This raises the fundamental question of whether representation should be merely “acting on behalf of” or rather “acting as if one were” the represented.

Consequently, representative democracy is no longer the simple translation of votes into preselected politicians. It increasingly encompasses the demand for pluralism that reflects society’s diversity, with growing calls from various sectors for a seat at the table. In this sense, democracy has become more vibrant—thanks in large part to social activism.

Yet while historically marginalized social groups have gained ground and accelerated social integration after decades (and centuries) of exclusion, the so-called “silent majority” awoke in resentment, particularly after the 2008 crisis cast millions into uncertainty, reviving the category of the “have-nots.”

Alienated and angry, many fell prey to populist and demagogic narratives that promised to give them voice amidst a complex world of interdependent economies, international institutions like the IMF and the European Central Bank, distant political elites, and feelings of abandonment in peripheral regions (Mounk, 2018; Crouch, 2004).

Representative democracy—where people vote every four years for MPs they rarely see—started to seem like the enemy. Into this void entered radical right populism, promising direct democracy, dismantling liberal institutional checks and balances, and restoring order by targeting elites, immigrants, minorities, and the progressive media (Müller, 2016).

At the same time, young people are increasingly disenchanted and radicalized. Some polls show a growing preference for authoritarian or even military solutions among younger generations (Norris & Inglehart, 2019). The intergenerational gap in political expectations is widening, driven by feelings of economic stagnation, climate anxiety, and a perception that conventional politics lacks urgency and authenticity.

A crucial dimension of this crisis is the perceived irrelevance of political parties. Once central instruments of representation and social integration, parties are now often seen as closed ecosystems, dominated by professional politicians disconnected from everyday life. As Peter Mair (2013) argued in Ruling the Void, parties have increasingly withdrawn from civil society, becoming instruments of state management rather than democratic mediation. This erosion of intermediary structures has left citizens politically orphaned—searching for identity and belonging outside traditional institutions.

Compounding this, political elites frequently reproduce themselves through dynastic networks and clientelistic logic, further alienating citizens from the institutions that claim to represent them. Bernard Manin (1997) described the shift from party democracy to audience democracy, where visibility, media skills, and personal charisma often trump ideological coherence or programmatic depth.

Another factor intensifying the strain on representative democracy is the digital environment. While social media platforms initially promised to democratize public discourse, they have in fact created fragmented and polarized spheres of communication (Sunstein, 2017). Algorithms amplify outrage, misinformation spreads faster than correction, and filter bubbles isolate users from dissenting views. Zeynep Tufekci (2017) rightly warns that networked protest, though powerful in mobilization, often lacks the institutional leverage to produce durable change.

In this ecosystem, affect often supersedes argument. Political discourse is increasingly shaped by emotional resonance rather than factual coherence. Trust in institutions collapses, not merely because of poor performance, but due to a structural shift in how authority is perceived and contested.

Thus, representative democracy now finds itself under pressure from both sides: historically marginalized groups demanding a more inclusive society, and alienated majorities demanding a return to simplicity, order, and identity. In this dual crisis, democracy is pulled between the imperatives of inclusion and the backlash of exclusion.

Still, the core question remains: does representative democracy still make sense?

Paradoxically, the answer may be yes. But only if it undergoes deep reform. It must break with dynastic politics and party machinery, and become a truer mirror of society’s pluralism. It needs to reconnect with its purpose—not as a relic of Enlightenment rationalism, but as a living framework to mediate conflict, ensure fairness, and guarantee freedom (Rosanvallon, 2008; Mouffe, 2005).

Renewal must also involve institutional innovation. Mechanisms such as deliberative assemblies, civic juries, and participatory budgeting are no longer utopian experiments but necessary adaptations to rebuild trust. Likewise, the integration of minority voices and the opening of spaces for youth political engagement must become structural priorities, not merely rhetorical gestures.

Representative democracy should not be discarded as a decaying ruin, but renewed as an indispensable horizon—a system capable of withstanding both the tyranny of elites and the tyranny of the crowd.

References

Crouch, C. (2004). Post-Democracy. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Fung, A. (2006). “Varieties of participation in complex governance.” Public Administration Review, 66(s1), 66–75. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6210.2006.00667.x

Madison, J. (1788). The Federalist No. 10. In: A. Hamilton, J. Madison, & J. Jay, The Federalist Papers. New York: Independent Journal.

Mair, P. (2013). Ruling the Void: The Hollowing of Western Democracy. London: Verso.

Manin, B. (1997). The Principles of Representative Government. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Mouffe, C. (2005). On the Political. London: Routledge.

Mounk, Y. (2018). The People vs. Democracy: Why Our Freedom Is in Danger and How to Save It. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Müller, J.-W. (2016). What Is Populism? Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Norris, P., & Inglehart, R. (2019). Cultural Backlash: Trump, Brexit, and Authoritarian Populism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Pitkin, H. F. (1967). The Concept of Representation. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Rosanvallon, P. (2008). La légitimité démocratique: Impartialité, réflexivité, proximité. Paris: Seuil.

Sunstein, C. R. (2017). #Republic: Divided Democracy in the Age of Social Media. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Tufekci, Z. (2017). Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Gaza Is a Litmus Test for the Credibility of International Justice

US and European Devotion to Israel Has Undermined International Law

Israel Cannot Invoke Self-Defense While Acting Unlawfully in Gaza

Evidence of Genocidal Intent in Gaza Goes Beyond Circumstantial Patterns

The ICJ Is Becoming a Forum for Issues Once Left to Politics

Western Inconsistencies Expose a Two-Tier System of International Justice

Populist Incitement Can Mobilize Mass Support for Atrocities

Article III Makes Enablers Responsible: US and Germany Face Legal Exposure

European Hypocrisy on Gaza Undermines Decades of Human Rights Advocacy

Restoring Trust in International Justice Depends on Enforcing the Law

Research Problem and Background

From Discourse to Pragmatic: What the Post-Laclauian Approach Leaves Unsaid

Pragmatics and Implicit Language: A Cooperative Activity

Empty Signifiers: A Philosophical-Linguistic Detour

Beyond the Signifier: Toward a Voter-centred Linguistic Turn in Populism Studies

Conclusion

References

Fascist Rhetoric and Violence Are Reemerging Across Democracies

We’re Witnessing the Rise of Techno-Fascist Capitalism

Fear of Losing Control and Status Fuels the Far Right’s Rise

Authoritarianism Thrives on Silence; Intellectuals Must Refuse It

Slogans Like MAGA Obscure Regressive Agendas Through Nostalgia

Meloni’s Soft Fascism Balances Between Brussels and Trump

The Intent to Destroy Gaza Is No Longer Hidden—It’s Being Systematically Implemented

Israel’s Most Far-Right Government Is Mainstreaming Extremism

Genocide Is Framed as Justified Retaliation in Israeli Public Discourse

A Deliberate Strategy to Render Gaza Uninhabitable Is Unfolding Before Our Eyes

Israel Is Operating Under a Diplomatic Iron Dome While Advancing Ethnic Cleansing

Holocaust Memory Has Been Turned Into a License for Extreme Violence

This Isn’t Censorship—It’s Self-Mobilization

First-Person Testimonies Will Redefine How the World Remembers Gaza

References

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