This analysis by Yacine Boubia challenges the dominant economic explanations of populism by foregrounding the central role of cultural transformation. Drawing on Ronald Inglehart’s “silent revolution” and the cultural backlash thesis, it argues that immigration has become the most visible and politically charged symbol of broader shifts in identity, values, and social order. Populism, in this account, is not simply a reaction to material deprivation but a response to perceived cultural displacement and status loss. By linking economic disruption with identity-based anxieties, the article demonstrates how immigration functions as a focal point for wider conflicts over belonging, representation, and democratic legitimacy in contemporary Western societies.
The dominant narrative surrounding the rise of populism in Europe and the United States has long been grounded in economics. Globalization, automation, and trade shocks are often said to have produced a class of “left behind” voters who turned to populist leaders out of material deprivation. While this account captures an important dimension of structural change, it ultimately misdiagnoses the core political dynamics at work. Populism is not simply a reaction to economic hardship. It is, more fundamentally, a response to cultural transformation—one in which immigration has become the most visible and politically salient symbol of broader social change.
To understand this shift, it is necessary to return to the long arc of value change identified by Ronald Inglehart. Beginning in the postwar decades, advanced industrial societies underwent what he termed a “silent revolution,” as rising prosperity and educational expansion reshaped public priorities. Survival-oriented values gradually gave way to self-expression, autonomy, and cosmopolitan openness (Inglehart, 1977; Inglehart & Norris, 2019). Over time, these shifts became embedded in institutions, elite discourse, and policy frameworks, particularly within urban, highly educated populations.
Yet this transformation was never evenly distributed. Large segments of the population—often older, less formally educated, and more rooted in national or local traditions—did not merely lag behind this shift; they experienced it as a form of displacement. What appeared to some as progress appeared to others as erosion: of authority, of social cohesion, and of a familiar moral order. The political consequences of this divergence became increasingly visible after the late 1960s, when cultural liberalization accelerated across Western democracies and elite consensus around multiculturalism and individual autonomy solidified.
It is within this context that immigration assumes its central political role. Immigration is not merely one issue among many; it is the issue through which broader cultural transformations are rendered visible, tangible, and politically immediate. Debates over borders, asylum, and integration are simultaneously debates about national identity, social trust, and the pace of cultural change itself. The European migration crisis did not create these tensions, but it crystallized them, transforming diffuse anxieties into direct political conflict across the continent.
The differential reception of refugee populations further illustrates how cultural categorization shapes political responses. The Ukrainian refugee crisis, following Russia’s 2022 invasion, was widely framed in Europe as a conventional interstate war producing displaced populations that were more easily incorporated into existing asylum systems. By contrast, earlier inflows of refugees from Syria and parts of the Middle East were more frequently politicized through debates over long-term integration, welfare capacity, and security concerns. Material conditions alone cannot explain these differences. They reflect processes of perceived cultural proximity, geopolitical framing, and institutional response mechanisms within the European Union.
Scholars of migration and political psychology have long noted that public attitudes toward migration are structured not only by economic calculations but also by perceived cultural distance and social trust. Emmanuel Todd’s recent work, La Défaite de l’Occident (2024), contributes to this discussion by emphasizing that societies interpret geopolitical and demographic change through deeper assumptions about cultural cohesion and civilizational identity. From this perspective, differential refugee reception reflects not simply policy design but underlying social narratives about similarity, belonging, and national self-understanding.
The framework developed by Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart captures these dynamics with particular clarity. Their “cultural backlash” thesis argues that support for populist parties is driven less by absolute economic deprivation than by perceived status loss among groups once embedded within dominant cultural hierarchies (Norris & Inglehart, 2019). Immigration, in this context, functions not merely as a policy issue but as a symbolic focal point through which broader anxieties about identity and social change are expressed. It becomes the terrain on which struggles over cultural authority are fought.
The United States exhibits a parallel trajectory. The rise of Donald Trump cannot be fully understood through economic grievance alone. Empirical studies of the 2016 election have consistently shown that attitudes toward immigration, cultural change, and racial identity were among the strongest predictors of support for Trump (Sides et al., 2018). His appeal lay less in policy detail than in his ability to articulate a sense of loss—of border control, national coherence, and institutional trust. Immigration functioned as the central issue through which these concerns were politically mobilized.
This mobilization was amplified by changes in the digital information environment. Scholars of political communication have highlighted how social media platforms and data-driven campaigning enabled more granular targeting of affective and identity-based grievances. While the precise influence of firms such as Cambridge Analytica is debated in the academic literature, broader research on “computational propaganda” and social listening suggests that political actors increasingly adapt messaging to pre-existing online sentiment patterns rather than shaping them from above (Bennett & Livingston, 2018).
None of this implies that economic factors are irrelevant. On the contrary, the structural effects of globalization have played a crucial role in shaping the terrain on which cultural conflict unfolds. Trade exposure, deindustrialization, and regional inequality have increased perceptions of economic insecurity in many Western societies (Autor et al., 2013). However, these economic disruptions do not translate mechanically into political outcomes. Their salience is mediated through cultural interpretation. Economic decline becomes politically consequential when it is embedded within narratives of identity, recognition, and perceived neglect.
In this sense, globalization operates as a force multiplier rather than a primary cause of populism. Communities experiencing economic stagnation are more likely to interpret immigration through lenses of competition and cultural threat, and more likely to view political elites as detached from their lived realities. Populist movements succeed precisely because they fuse economic anxiety with cultural grievance into a single coherent narrative—one that pits “the people” against both external pressures and internal elites (Mudde, 2004).
Across Europe, parties such as the Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the National Rally (RN) in France have institutionalized this synthesis. While differing in national context, these movements share a common structure: opposition to immigration, skepticism toward supranational governance, and a broader critique of liberal elite consensus. Their success underscores the extent to which cultural backlash has become embedded within contemporary political competition.
The policy implications are significant. If populism were driven primarily by economic inequality, then redistribution and growth-oriented policies might be sufficient to mitigate its rise. But if it is rooted in cultural backlash, such measures will prove insufficient on their own. Economic policy cannot resolve conflicts over identity, belonging, and social norms. Nor can these conflicts be dismissed as irrational without further deepening political polarization.
A more realistic approach begins by recognizing that populism emerges from genuine, if conflicting, experiences of social transformation. The “silent revolution” identified by Inglehart has reshaped Western societies in profound ways, but it has also produced new forms of cultural stratification. In the United States, this process was accelerated by the political economy of the 1980s and 1990s, where deregulation and neoliberal convergence under both Republican and Democratic administrations coincided with the rise of cosmopolitan urban centers and multicultural policy frameworks. These developments, reinforced during the Clinton and Obama eras, contributed to a perception among some voters that cultural and institutional change was occurring without adequate democratic mediation.
Immigration, as the most visible manifestation of these broader transformations, will therefore remain central to political conflict in advanced democracies. Understanding populism requires moving beyond the false dichotomy between economics and culture. It is the interaction between structural change and subjective perception that drives political behavior. Until this interplay is fully acknowledged, explanations will remain partial, and policy responses will continue to fall short.
References
Inglehart, R. (1977). The Silent Revolution – Changing Values and Political Styles Among Western Publics, Princeton University Press.
Inglehart, R. & Norris, P. (2019). Cultural Backlash: Trump, Brexit, and Authoritarian Populism, Cambridge University Press.
Autor, D., Dorn, D., & Hanson, G. (2013). “The China Shock: Learning from Labor Market Adjustment to Large Changes in Trade,” ANNUAL REVIEW OF ECONOMICS, Vol. 8:205-240 (Volume publication date October 2016) https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-economics-080315-015041
Sides, J., Tesler, M., & Vavreck, L. (2018). Identity Crisis: The 2016 Presidential Campaign and the Battle for the Meaning of America, Princeton University Press.
Bennett, W. L. & Livingston, S. (2018). “The disinformation order: Disruptive communication and the decline of democratic institutions.” European Journal of Communication, 33(2), 122–139. https://doi.org/10.1177/0267323118760317
Todd, E. (2024). La Défaite de l’Occident, Gallimard.
In an interview with the ECPS, Sheri Berman challenges dominant crisis narratives by arguing that democratic backsliding is “neither unexpected nor, in many cases, recent in origin.” Situating current turbulence within long-term structural and historical trajectories, she emphasizes that democratic instability reflects the enduring difficulty of building and sustaining democratic institutions. Critiquing post–Cold War optimism, she characterizes today’s moment as “a kind of natural correction” to overly teleological expectations. Berman further conceptualizes populism as both symptom and driver of democratic dysfunction, rooted in representation gaps, economic insecurity, and institutional decay—dynamics that continue to reshape both domestic politics and the global liberal order.
Giving an interview to the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Sheri Berman, Professor of Political Science at Barnard College, Columbia University, argues that contemporary democratic erosion should not be understood as an abrupt rupture or an unprecedented crisis, but rather as the outcome of deeper structural, historical, and institutional processes long in the making.
At a time when democratic backsliding, populist mobilization, and institutional erosion are reshaping political landscapes across regions, Professor Berman’s intervention directly challenges prevailing interpretations that frame democracy’s troubles as sudden or exceptional. Instead, she insists that the current conjuncture must be situated within longer-term transformations affecting political representation, institutional trust, and the social foundations of democratic governance. As she puts it, these developments are “neither unexpected nor, in many cases, recent in origin.”
At the center of her argument lies a powerful critique of post–Cold War democratic optimism. The expansion of democracy in the late 20th and early 21st centuries fostered what she identifies as overly teleological assumptions about liberal democracy’s inevitability. Yet, drawing on historical patterns of democratic “waves” and their inevitable reversals, she emphasizes that “building stable, well-functioning democracies is extraordinarily difficult.” What many interpreted as linear progress was, in fact, always vulnerable to reversal. In this sense, today’s turbulence is best understood as “a kind of natural correction” to earlier expectations.
A central analytical contribution of Professor Berman’s framework is her insistence that populism should be understood simultaneously as symptom and driver. It reflects deep dissatisfaction with political institutions and representation—citizens do not support anti-establishment actors unless they believe existing systems are failing them. At the same time, once in power, populists can intensify polarization and further undermine democratic norms. As she notes, while populism begins as “a symptom of democratic dissatisfaction,” it can also “actively deepen the erosion of support for democracy” once it acquires political authority.
This dual perspective is closely tied to her emphasis on structural transformations, particularly the emergence of representation gaps and the long-term consequences of neoliberal economic change. Rising inequality, economic insecurity, and technological disruption—alongside cultural tensions around identity and migration—have combined to produce a multifaceted crisis of democratic legitimacy. Importantly, these forces do not operate in isolation but reinforce one another, generating a political environment marked by both widespread dissatisfaction and a striking absence of coherent ideological alternatives.
Extending her analysis to the global level, Professor Berman offers a sobering assessment of the liberal international order. In one of her most striking remarks, she observes that “the American-led international order, at least for now, is pretty much dead.” Yet even here, she resists simplistic explanations: the disruptive impact of Trumpism, she argues, reflects not only leadership choices but also preexisting structural vulnerabilities within both American democracy and the broader international system.
Taken together, Professor Berman’s reflections offer a historically grounded and analytically nuanced account of democratic decline. Rather than treating the present as an anomaly, her assessments invite a deeper reckoning with the long-term political, economic, and institutional dynamics that have made contemporary democratic backsliding both possible—and, in many respects, predictable.
Here is the edited version of our interview with Professor Sheri Berman, revised slightly to improve clarity and flow.
From Democratic Waves to Undertows
Two rows of stones embedded in Berlin’s streets mark the former path of the wall dividing East and West Berlin. Photo: Ine Beerten / Dreamstime.
Professor Berman, welcome. In your recently published article “Democracy’s Troubles Should Be No Surprise,” you argue that current democratic backsliding reflects long-term structural and historical dynamics rather than a sudden rupture. In light of ongoing crises, how does this perspective challenge prevailing “crisis narratives” that frame democratic decline as unexpected or recent?
Professor Sheri Berman: I would say that the most obvious way is that these developments are neither unexpected nor, in many cases, recent in origin. Let me begin by differentiating between two types of cases. The first involves backsliding in recently transitioned countries. By this, I mean those that moved from authoritarianism to democracy during what we now refer to as the third wave—that is, the large set of countries that democratized during the late 20th and early 21st centuries. These are relatively recent transitions, meaning that democracy in these contexts is still comparatively young.
Then we have a second set of countries—those with long-standing democracies, including the country I am currently in, which is at the forefront of this not very auspicious group—where we have also seen significant democratic problems, even democratic backsliding.
It is important to distinguish between these two types of cases because the nature and causes of backsliding in recent versus more established democracies differ. However, in neither set of cases should these developments be considered surprising.
Let me explain why. With regard to recent cases, when we look back at history and examine previous democratic waves—such as those following the First and Second World Wars in the 20th century, as well as in Europe in 1848—we see that all of them were followed by undertows. This is precisely why we use the term “wave”: every wave has an undertow, referring to the failure or reversal of some of these new democratic experiments. Thus, the very concept of a wave should have reminded scholars and observers that such reversals are to be expected.
This is not simply a matter of history repeating itself; there is a causal logic at work. Building stable, well-functioning democracies is extraordinarily difficult. While it may seem that the hardest task is removing an authoritarian regime—and that is indeed difficult—it is, in fact, even harder to construct a stable democracy afterward.
We can observe this in the historical record: there are far more examples of democratic transitions than of successful democratic consolidations. Therefore, we should have anticipated that many countries undergoing transitions during the third wave would struggle or fail to consolidate democracy. This should not have come as a surprise.
What is more unusual—and what we were less theoretically and historically prepared for—is the extent of the problems now facing long-established democracies such as the United States. These countries were long considered “consolidated,” a term implying that they were stable and secure. That assumption has proven incorrect.
In my recent article in the Journal of Democracy, I outline some of the reasons for this. I argue that if we had paid closer attention to the social and economic foundations upon which scholars believed democracy rested, we would have seen that these foundations had been eroding for quite some time. As a result, the institutional weaknesses and political dissatisfaction currently affecting long-established democracies should not be regarded as particularly surprising.
Today’s Democratic Turbulence as a Correction, not a Collapse
Your work suggests that earlier waves of democratic optimism—especially after the Cold War—rested on overly teleological assumptions about liberal democracy’s inevitability. To what extent is today’s turbulence, including rising geopolitical conflict and democratic polarization, better understood as a correction of those expectations rather than a systemic breakdown?
Professor Sheri Berman: They are definitely a correction of those earlier, overly optimistic expectations. The advantage of being a scholar is that you get to study both history and contemporary events. Anyone familiar with the history of democracy would have understood, based on previous democratic waves, that the idea that all the countries transitioning in the late 20th and early 21st centuries would, within a generation or two, become something like Sweden was clearly unrealistic.
At the same time, the optimism is understandable. The late 20th century was, in many ways, a remarkable period. In some respects, I wish we were still living in it. It is better to be surrounded by optimism than by pessimism, which is now quite pervasive, particularly across the West. But while that optimism reflected genuine democratic progress and the expansion of freedom and liberty in formerly authoritarian societies, it was also bound to fade.
So, on one level, what we are experiencing today is a kind of natural correction. The specific trajectories—how newer democracies have backslid or how older democracies are encountering difficulties—are hard to predict in detail. But the broader shift away from the extraordinary optimism of the late 20th century—the belief that liberal democracy would not only succeed in the short term but also consolidate over the long term, bringing freedom and prosperity to all parts of the globe, even those not yet reached in that period—was always likely to be followed by significant disappointment. Anyone with a solid understanding of history, and of what it actually takes to make democracy work, should have recognized that.
Populism as Both Symptom and Accelerator of Democratic Decay
Labour Day celebrations at Old Town Square in Prague on May 1, 2017, featuring a banner depicting democracy as a leaf eaten by caterpillars labeled Putin, Kaczyński, Orbán, Babiš, Trump, and Fico. Photo: Jolanta Wojcicka.
You have famously argued that populism is a symptom rather than a cause of democratic dysfunction. In the current conjuncture—marked by inflation, migration pressures, and governance crises—how should scholars distinguish between populism as a reactive phenomenon and as an active driver of democratic erosion?
Professor Sheri Berman: I think populism is both of those things, as you suggest. It is definitely a symptom.At the same time, once populist parties or politicians gain a certain degree of power, they acquire the ability to intensify dissatisfaction, polarization, and related dynamics. Let me unpack that a bit. Populism is a symptom in the sense that people will not vote for anti-establishment parties if they believe the establishment—that is, existing mainstream parties and political institutions—is doing a good job. That is simply a truism.
So, when politicians and parties begin to gain support by criticizing existing parties, politicians, and institutions as corrupt, ineffective, or unrepresentative, they are doing so because a significant portion of the population believes this to be true. In that sense, such parties should be understood as a symptom of dissatisfaction among a not insignificant number of citizens with the establishment and the existing order. They are, as you noted, clear indicators of democratic dysfunction.
However, once these actors begin to gain power—once they have a voice within the system, participate regularly in the political process, and perhaps even enter government or coalitions—they can further deepen this dissatisfaction. The most obvious way they do so, though not the only one, is through rhetoric. By persistently portraying the system as corrupt, demonizing opponents, and framing both rival politicians and voters not merely as people with different policy preferences but as actors opposed to the common good—people who do not have your best interests at heart or who would threaten you if they gained power—they amplify polarization and democratic discontent.
This dynamic operates alongside the policies that populists implement when in power, which, as numerous studies show, are often counterproductive. Thus, while populism originates as a symptom of democratic dissatisfaction, it can also actively deepen the erosion of support for democracy and broaden dissatisfaction once it gains voice and power within the system.
When Mainstream Parties Drift, Populists Fill the Void
How does this “symptom” framework reshape our understanding of the rise of the populist radical right in Europe and Trumpism in the United States, particularly in relation to declining trust in institutions and widening representation gaps?
Professor Sheri Berman: This is another way of getting at the same issue. It is absolutely correct for both scholars and concerned citizens to view populist parties—on both the left and the right—and actors like Trump as drivers of polarization and potential undermining of democratic institutions. However, if we fail to recognize that they are also symptoms of widespread dissatisfaction, frustration, and discontent with existing parties and political institutions, then we will never be able to, so to speak, “solve” the problem of populism.
You mentioned representation gaps, which I and many other scholars have examined closely. If we look at Europe—since this is an ECPS interview—there is no doubt that establishment parties, both center-left and center-right, have developed significant representation gaps, even with their own voters, on key issues. Center-left parties, for instance, moved away from their traditional, broadly defined left-wing economic profile in the late 1990s, which alienated many of their former working-class and otherwise disadvantaged supporters.
At the same time, both center-left and center-right parties drifted away from voters more broadly on a range of social and cultural issues, most notably immigration in the European context. Studies of party positions in the early 21st century show that these parties were often quite distant from the preferences of the median voter on this issue.
As a result, they opened up political space not only for new or challenger parties to advance positions that mainstream parties had effectively abandoned, but also for the perception to take hold that these established parties had lost either the willingness or the capacity to represent voters’ preferences.
Beyond Monocausal Explanations: The Complex Roots of Populism
In your review of populism’s causes, you emphasize the limits of monocausal explanations. In today’s context of digital campaigning, algorithmic amplification, and economic insecurity, how should we conceptualize the interaction between demand-side grievances and supply-side political entrepreneurship?
Professor Sheri Berman: This is a difficult issue, sometimes more so for scholars than for concerned citizens. When people look around today, in what feels like a world of pervasive pessimism, they see a wide range of problems. If you were to ask the proverbial man or woman on the street why Trump has been so popular, or why he was able to get elected twice, they would likely point to broad economic grievances—a sense that the economy is not doing well, that people’s futures are uncertain, and that they are worried about their children’s prospects. They might also point to perceived breakdown and dysfunction in their communities, concerns about illegal immigration and uncontrolled borders, anxieties about tech companies being out of control, and social media “frying” their children’s brains while making everyone more polarized and angrier.
In other words, the average person intuitively understands that multiple factors are contributing to dissatisfaction with the existing order and, in turn, feeding into populism. Scholars, however, tend to look for a single explanatory variable—an independent variable that allows for a clear causal account. The difficulty is that the world we are dealing with is simply too complex for such simplification.
There are clearly many forces driving the current moment, including support for populism and, more broadly, the democratic dissatisfaction and dysfunction we see today. These include significant economic challenges; the serious consequences of rapid demographic change in American and European societies, often—though not exclusively—linked to unprecedented levels of immigration; and, as you noted, technological transformations such as automation, social media, and now AI.
All of these are substantial challenges, and it would be difficult for any party or government to address them effectively. While one can imagine more effective responses than those we have seen, these pressures are nonetheless real and complex. They are shaping the current conjuncture, particularly in the West.
Democratic Erosion as the Product of Both Agency and Structural Decay
Figure from the V-Dem Institute Democracy Report 2026.
Given your skepticism toward rigid structure-versus-agency dichotomies, how can we better theorize elite responsibility in democratic backsliding—especially in cases where political leaders actively challenge electoral norms or judicial independence—without neglecting broader structural transformations?
Professor Sheri Berman: There is absolutely no doubt that we need, as both scholars and citizens, to focus closely on political actors who are playing fast and loose with the democratic rules of the game. If leaders pack or ignore the judiciary, sideline the legislative branch, or undermine the independence of civil society and the media, these are clear causes and drivers of democratic backsliding, and they deserve sustained attention.
Political actors who actively seek to undermine democracy are, therefore, a legitimate focus of scholarly analysis. We need to understand the processes of democratic erosion carried out by populist, illiberal, and anti-democratic politicians and parties. Citizens, too, should remain attentive to these developments, since democracy is what enables societies to function—at least potentially—in a peaceful way, to resolve conflicts, and to address collective challenges.
That said, this is the agency side of the story: the actors who are undermining norms and institutions. But we also need to recognize, as we have discussed, that widespread frustration with establishment parties, political elites, and democratic institutions is equally important. In other words, we need a kind of two-level analysis, recognizing that the actions of populist politicians and parties often represent the final step in a broader causal chain.
Donald Trump, for example, sought political office earlier, in the 2000s and again in 2012, but received virtually no support. He rose to power in 2016 when the broader context had deteriorated, and even then, the damage he caused was more limited compared to what we have seen more recently. The ability of politicians and parties to undermine democracy depends not only on their agency, but also on the strength of the institutions and norms they confront. When those institutions and norms have weakened, actors are able to exercise their agency far more effectively.
We therefore need to understand not only the multi-causal nature of democratic backsliding, but also the broader structure–agency dynamic that underpins political life in general and is especially visible in processes of democratic erosion.
Democratic Collapse Begins Long Before It Becomes Visible
Building on your engagement withHow Democracies Die, how do you assess the relative importance of formal institutional weakening versus the erosion of informal norms—such as mutual toleration—in highly polarized democracies like the United States?
Professor Sheri Berman: That is, in a way, a follow-on question to the previous one. How Democracies Die, the seminal book by Dan Ziblatt and Steve Levitsky, helped both political scientists and concerned citizens understand that we had reached a point where politicians like Donald Trump and others were beginning to undermine norms and institutions in ways that were pushing democracies toward backsliding, or even autocratization.
To my mind, what they were doing—tracing these developments historically and highlighting their dangers—was identifying the end stage of a broader process. We had reached a point where politicians and parties were coming to power and actively engaging in democratic erosion. At the same time, we are now at a stage where we understand much more about how this process unfolds. Scholars like Ziblatt, Levitsky, and many others have done an excellent job of tracing what is now often referred to as the authoritarian playbook: how democratic backsliding occurs. In the West, this typically does not happen through coups, as it often did in the past, but through a gradual process in which norms and institutions are weakened from within.
However, this should be understood as the endpoint of a longer causal process. It is a crucial stage—one at which intervention is still possible—but by the time a system reaches this point, its norms and institutions have already weakened to a degree that makes them vulnerable. In that sense, we are now moving beyond the dynamics highlighted in How Democracies Die toward a broader recognition that the processes described in that book are rooted in deeper structural conditions.
Gradual Backsliding Is Harder to Recognize—and Resist
Do you see today’s pattern of democratic erosion—often gradual, legalistic, and electorally legitimated—as fundamentally different from earlier authoritarian breakdowns, or as part of a longer historical continuum that includes past democratic crises?
Professor Sheri Berman: These questions are helpful because they build on one another. As I mentioned, and as many scholars have emphasized, coups and immediate ruptures—quick authoritarian takeovers—were quite common in the past. What we are experiencing in the West today, less so than in other parts of the world, is different. We still see coups and rapid democratic breakdowns elsewhere, but in the West, the kind of post–third wave decay we are discussing has largely occurred through what is often called the authoritarian playbook—through a much more gradual undermining and hollowing out of democracy from within.
This pattern is therefore more common today, particularly in the West, than what we have seen historically. In a way, this also makes it more difficult to respond effectively, because there is often debate about how serious the erosion really is. Are we truly facing democratic backsliding? Is any particular move decisive in either accelerating or stopping the process? This creates a kind of puzzle for both scholars and citizens.
Many people do not fully recognize what is happening until it is too late, and this dynamic also generates significant divisions within the small-d democratic camp. For example, in the United States, while most within the Democratic Party believe that Trump and the Republicans pose a threat to democracy, there are very different views about how to respond—what the appropriate strategy is and where the core problem lies.
By contrast, when there are troops in the streets, it is clear to everyone that the priority is to get them back into the barracks. In a situation like this, however, where erosion is gradual and incremental, it becomes much harder to generate consensus and to coalesce around an effective strategy for resisting democratic decline.
Why Economic Insecurity Amplifies Cultural Grievances
Dutch farmers protest against measures to reduce nitrogen emissions in the city centre of The Hague, the Netherlands, on June 28, 2022. Photo: Dreamstime.
Your work links democratic instability to the long-term consequences of neoliberal capitalism. In light of current cost-of-living crises and inequality debates, to what extent should contemporary populism be understood as a political economy crisis rather than a cultural backlash?
Professor Sheri Berman: I think it’s both. As we have discussed before, there are a number of causes. On the demand side, both economic challenges and the grievances they generate are absolutely crucial.But social and cultural grievances are also important, along with, as we noted earlier, technological changes that are increasing polarization and dissatisfaction in our societies. It is very difficult to understand the democratic dissatisfaction that is feeding populism—and, partially through populism, democratic decay—without looking at economic grievances. That is to say, without considering rising inequality, growing insecurity, and disruptions stemming from automation, trade, and, potentially in the not-too-distant future, AI.
These are all factors creating a great deal of dissatisfaction among citizens. In turn, we know from strong scholarship that in such contexts it becomes much easier to increase the salience of social and cultural grievances, which are also central to contemporary democratic dysfunction. It becomes easier to direct attention to the perceived downsides of immigration when people believe that immigrants may be taking their jobs or using scarce public resources. Why, they might ask, should their tax money go toward housing for immigrants when there is not enough public housing for them? Why should they support a welfare state that can barely respond to their own needs, rather than helping those who have come from outside? These dynamics are therefore very difficult to disentangle, and they feed off each other in deeply pernicious ways.
From Grand Ideologies to Fragmented Discontent
You describe ideological transformation as a two-stage process requiring both the de-legitimation of existing paradigms and the emergence of alternatives. Are we currently in an “interregnum” where dissatisfaction is high but coherent ideological replacements—whether on the left or right—remain underdeveloped?
Professor Sheri Berman: I would say that this is indeed true. Part of this is that, as a historically minded social scientist, when I look back at previous eras of ideological ferment—the 1930s, for instance, the interwar period, or even the post-war period—we had real ideological alternatives. In the interwar period, we had fascism, National Socialism, and communism. These were ideologies—entire Weltanschauungen, or worldviews. They were not only opposed to liberal democracy—both clearly were—but also aspired to remake society and the economy.
What we have today are rather grievance-based movements on both the right and the left that share some similarities with their predecessors. On the left, we see anti-capitalist, anti-elite rhetoric, often accompanied by a degree of illiberalism. On the right, we see strong elements of nativism, xenophobia, and racism, as part of a broader illiberal backlash, along with, in some sectors, a kind of idealization of the past—the idea that society can return to a more traditional, often implicitly Christian, social order.
But these currents are much more inchoate than their predecessors. They draw on bits and pieces of earlier ideologies without the same coherence or power. I would also say they are more negative than positive on both the left and the right. They consist largely of grievances that have been brought together: dissatisfaction with capitalism on the left, anger about geopolitical issues such as Israel and Gaza, and on the right, resentment toward social change and elites.
It is important to remember, however unattractive it may seem to us now, that communism, fascism, and National Socialism also offered what I would carefully call positive visions. They articulated a sense of what a new future would look like. They did not only seek to destroy the old order but to create something new. I do not see that today.
That does not mean that these contemporary movements are not dangerous—they are, in many ways, very dangerous—but we are not dealing with the same kind of ideological conflict that characterized what Eric Hobsbawm and others have called the ideological twentieth century.
Why Exclusion of Populists Becomes Impossible
How does your framework help explain the persistence and normalization of far-right actors within democratic systems, even in relatively stable economies, and their increasing presence in mainstream coalition politics?
Professor Sheri Berman: To some degree, this is simply a result of their electoral success. It is very hard to keep out parties in proportional representation systems, as in Europe, that are getting 20–25% of the vote. The parties that have come to power in Europe have done so simply because they have won elections—not majorities, but enough that it is not possible to keep them out of power.In that sense, it is fairly straightforward to understand why they have gained the power and influence that they have. And it creates a number of knock-on effects, returning to the idea we discussed earlier about symptom and cause. If we look at a situation like the one that currently exists in Germany, the AfD is polling so high that it is almost impossible in many German states—and may very well soon be impossible at the national level—to put together a coalition government that does not include them.
You are therefore facing a situation in which the alternatives are either incoherent or minority governments, both of which have difficulty putting together coherent policy packages capable of solving society’s problems, thereby driving dissatisfaction further, or including in your coalition—especially in the German case, because the AfD is among the more radical right-wing parties in Europe today—a party that is clearly illiberal and potentially even anti-democratic.
This is a very difficult situation, simply from a mathematical perspective, in many of these countries. In other European countries, we have seen right-wing populists come to power, and, honestly, they have not had that much impact on democracy. We have had right-wing populists in power in the Netherlands, in Finland, and now, obviously, in Italy, and there, I would say that while they may be problematic in some ways, we have not seen the kind of democratic erosion that some predicted would occur.
So, you really have to look at these developments on a case-by-case basis. The AfD in Germany is something most observers are watching closely, because it is a much more radical right-wing party than its counterparts in places like the Netherlands, Finland, Denmark, or even Italy.
Trumpism as a Symptom of Deep Structural Divisions
Donald Trump’s supporters wearing “In God We Trump” shirts at a rally in Bojangles’ Coliseum in Charlotte, North Carolina, on March 2, 2020. Photo: Jeffrey Edwards.
In the case of Trumpism’s influence on US politics, should it be interpreted primarily as an expression of long-standing structural cleavages, or as the result of contingent elite strategies and institutional vulnerabilities?
Professor Sheri Berman: For me, Trump is very much a symptom. He has now caused a significant amount of democratic backsliding—an unprecedented amount, I would say—but there is simply no way to understand the Trump phenomenon without looking back, as I mentioned and as I discussed in the article you referenced at the beginning in the Journal of Democracy, at very deep structural problems in American society and the American economy.
There is no way to understand why people would, first, vote for him, and second, be so frustrated with the Democrats, without considering what are now decades of social decay and economic division. This is clearly a situation in which Trump was a symptom of underlying social, economic, and political problems and, once in power, has intensified all of the above—not only for the United States but for the rest of the world as well.
Trump and the Unraveling of a Fragile International System
Given your argument that democracy’s troubles are historically rooted, how should we interpret current claims about the “collapse” of the global liberal order—especially amid rising authoritarian powers and weakening multilateralism?
Professor Sheri Berman: That is downstream of many of the things we have been discussing here—most notably, but not exclusively, the rise of Donald Trump. Trump, as a key progenitor of democratic backsliding in the United States, has, since coming to power—particularly over the past year, but also since 2016—undermined democratic norms and institutions in a very significant way. He has also taken an axe to the liberal democratic order. But, again, that liberal democratic order was not particularly healthy beforehand.
I have used, in other writings—and I am sure others have as well—the idea of an immune system. If two people are standing in a train car and one has a compromised immune system, and someone coughs, that person might get sick, while the other simply leaves the train and continues with their life. The fact that Trump has been able to cause so much damage reflects the existence of significant structural weaknesses in the liberal democratic order to begin with.
This is a kind of iterative or cyclical process. At the same time, there is no doubt that the decay we have seen in the liberal democratic order over the past year, in particular, is very much the result of conscious choices made by the Trump administration—to increase divisions with allies, to attack institutions that had long been part of this order, and to form alliances with actors such as Russia that have been fundamentally opposed to it. All of these are clearly deliberate actions—agency, so to speak. But, again, his ability to come to power and to pursue this course reflects deeper structural weaknesses that he has been able to exploit.
Can Middle Powers Rebuild What US Leadership Abandoned?
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney attends a joint press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Ukraine’s Independence Day in Kyiv, Ukraine on August 24, 2025. Photo: Vladyslav Musiienko / Dreamstime.
As transatlantic divergence becomes an observable reality—particularly under Trump’s renewed leadership—how should we interpret the effective “de-coupling” of the United States and Europe and its effect on the legitimacy and authority of international institutions? Does this fragmentation mark a structural erosion of the liberal international order, or the emergence of a more pluralized and contested system of governance with competing centers of norm-setting?
Professor Sheri Berman: I think it would be very hard to maintain, or to return to, some version of that liberal international order without American commitment and, alongside that, some kind of renewed alliance between the United States and Europe.I do not see that happening, even if Trump leaves, simply because at this point there is so much water under the bridge. If I were a European, even if a Democrat came to power in the next election, I would be very wary about hitching my horse to the United States, knowing that right around the corner there could come another version of Trump—Vance, Rubio, or someone similar. So, I think it is going to be very hard to recreate that, although I do think that if a Democrat comes to power, we will see some attempts to do so.
The alternative, as you mentioned, and as several people have been discussing—including Macron and Mark Carney in Canada—is to replace this American-led liberal international order with something new, potentially better, constructed by middle powers. My response to that is: more power to you. I hope you can do that. I think it would be good for those countries and for the globe. Historically, however, it is very difficult to construct an international order without some kind of hegemon, both pushing that project forward and willing to absorb some of the collective costs.
So, this is where we are right now. The American-led international order, at least for now, is pretty much dead. Whether middle powers can step in to patch things up enough to prevent further fragmentation remains to be seen. I hope they can, for the good not only of their own citizens but of the globe, but it concerns me greatly.
Rebuilding Representation as the Key to Democratic Stability
Finally, looking ahead, what are the most critical variables shaping democracy’s future in this context of geopolitical rivalry and domestic polarization: the renewal of representation, economic restructuring, or the restoration of democratic norms—and how might these interact to stabilize or further strain democratic systems?
Professor Sheri Berman: That is a very large question to end on. Let me say something broad and perhaps not particularly profound, which is that I actually think the domestic level is the key driver here. That is to say, the central challenge is figuring out how to get mainstream political parties—it does not necessarily have to be the old ones; again, some people may be fed up with social democratic, Christian democratic, and conservative parties—but parties that are committed to democracy need to figure out how to address, as we have discussed, the economic challenges their societies are facing, the social and cultural challenges they are confronting, and the technological changes that are driving so much disruption.
Can they do that? If they can, then we will see support for these anti-establishment, disruptive populist parties decline, and these political systems stabilize. I firmly believe that more stable democracies—not only in the West but also in other parts of the globe—will be in a much better position to address international challenges, whether civil wars, interstate wars, or climate change. They will also be better positioned to deal with international challenges and to recreate, as we discussed in the previous question, some form of viable international cooperation, including international institutions and organizations.
If we can reconstruct some degree of democratic stability, not just in the West but also elsewhere, the benefits would be significant. Turkey, for example, is a major actor and a bridge between the West and the Middle East. A stable, well-functioning democratic regime there would be a major boon, most importantly for Turkey’s own citizens, but also an important contribution to addressing a wide range of global challenges. So, again, I am hopeful that parties committed to liberal democracy can somehow manage to get their act together and become more effective and responsive to their citizens.
Please cite as: ECPS Staff. (2026). “ECPS Virtual Workshop Series / Session 15 — From Populism to Global Power Plays: Leadership, Crisis, and Democracy.” European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). April 8, 2026. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp00146
Session 15 of the ECPS Virtual Workshop Series offered a timely and theoretically rich interrogation of how populism, personalized leadership, and systemic crisis are reshaping the horizons of democratic politics. Bringing cybernetics, political sociology, and democratic theory into productive dialogue, the session illuminated the deep entanglement between emotional mobilization, institutional fragility, and global governance under conditions of accelerating complexity. Dr. Robert R. Traill’s systems-theoretical analysis of “populist panic” and Professor Lorenzo Viviani’s political-sociological account of “manipulated resonance” together revealed populism not as a peripheral disruption, but as a central mode through which legitimacy, leadership, and “the people” are being redefined today. Enriched by incisive discussant interventions and a conceptually fertile Q&A, the session underscored the need for new democratic vocabularies capable of confronting both exclusionary affect and global instability.
Reported by ECPS Staff
On Thursday, April 2, 2026, the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS) convened the fifteenth session of its Virtual Workshop Series, “We, the People” and the Future of Democracy: Interdisciplinary Approaches,” under the title “From Populism to Global Power Plays: Leadership, War, and Democracy.” Bringing together perspectives from political sociology, economics, and cybernetics, the session explored the evolving relationship between populist leadership, systemic crisis, and the changing architecture of democratic governance in an increasingly complex and unstable global order.
The participants of the session were introduced by ECPS intern Reka Koleszar. Chaired by Dr. Amir Ali (Jawaharlal Nehru University), the session was framed around a central question of contemporary political life: how can democratic systems sustain legitimacy and effectiveness amid intensifying global pressures, including geopolitical conflict, economic uncertainty, climate crisis, and the rise of populist movements that challenge institutional mediation and pluralist norms? As Dr. Ali underscored in his opening remarks, the current conjuncture is marked not only by a crisis of representation but also by deeper transformations in how “the people” are constructed, mobilized, and governed across diverse political contexts.
The panel featured two analytically distinct yet conceptually complementary presentations. Dr. Robert R. Traill (Brunel University) offered a cybernetic and systems-theoretical intervention on the limits of democratic decision-making in the face of global-scale challenges. His presentation examined how complex adaptive systems—from individual cognition to national governance and global coordination—struggle to maintain stability when confronted with phenomena such as climate change and limits to economic growth. By introducing the notion of “populist panic” as a systemic response to perceived breakdown, Dr. Traill’s contribution invited participants to reconsider populism not merely as a political ideology, but as a symptom of deeper failures in collective decision-making.
In contrast, Professor Lorenzo Viviani (University of Pisa) advanced a political-sociological framework centered on the concept of “manipulated resonance” to analyze personalized leadership in populism. His presentation interrogated how populist leaders construct direct, emotionally charged relationships with “the people,” reconfiguring political representation through processes of identification, embodiment, and symbolic power. By foregrounding the role of emotions—particularly resentment—and the strategic bypassing of institutional intermediaries, Professor Viviani illuminated the cultural and affective foundations of contemporary populist mobilization.
The session was further enriched by the critical interventions of its discussants, Dr. Azize Sargin (ECPS) and Professor Ibrahim Ozturk (University of Duisburg-Essen), whose comments deepened the theoretical stakes of both presentations. Their reflections engaged key issues such as the distinction between democratic responsiveness and manipulated resonance, the tensions between technocratic solutions and populist distrust, and the broader challenges of governing complexity in a rapidly changing world.
Together, the contributions of chair, speakers, and discussants generated a rich interdisciplinary dialogue that bridged micro-level analyses of leadership and emotion with macro-level concerns about global governance and systemic stability. Session 15 thus provided a compelling exploration of how populism, far from being a peripheral phenomenon, is deeply embedded in the contemporary reconfiguration of democratic life and global political order.
Dr. Robert R. Traill: “Can Democracy (or Anything Else) Rescue Civilization While the Rules Keep Changing?”
Dr. Robert R. Traill is a researcher in Cybernetics and Psychology at Brunel University.
Dr. Robert R. Traill delivered a conceptually ambitious presentation titled “Can Democracy (or Anything Else) Rescue Civilization While the Rules Keep Changing?” Drawing on cybernetics, cognitive psychology, and systems theory, Dr. Traill advanced a multi-level framework for understanding the limitations of contemporary governance systems in addressing global crises.
At the core of Dr. Traill’s argument lies a diagnosis of what he terms a “problem landscape” defined by systemic challenges—most notably inequality and climate change—that demand coordinated global responses but remain resistant to consensus-based solutions. These structural issues, he argues, exceed the decision-making capacities of existing political systems, particularly when public discourse is distorted by populist dynamics that prioritize proximate symptoms—such as migration—over underlying causes.
To conceptualize governance under such conditions, Dr. Traill employs W. Ross Ashby’s cybernetic model of adaptive systems, notably the metaphor of the “clever thermostat.” In this framework, intelligence is structured hierarchically across meta-levels (MnL), where base-level actions (M0L) are monitored and adjusted by successive layers of oversight (M1L, M2L, M3L, etc.). Crucially, higher levels enable reflexivity: the capacity not merely to act, but to revise the rules governing action. When such adaptive mechanisms fail—due to insufficient options or cognitive limitations—systems may either stagnate or resort to arbitrary “panic” decisions, a dynamic Dr. Traill associates with contemporary political volatility.
Extending this model to political organization, Dr. Traill draws on Stafford Beer’s Brain of the Firmto argue that governments function as collective intelligence systems. Effective governance requires a balance between directive action (M1L), normative frameworks (M2L), and rational, analytical reasoning (M3L). However, he contends that modern political discourse is frequently “dragged downward” by powerful actors who instrumentalize fear-based narratives, thereby suppressing higher-level reasoning and fostering conditions conducive to populist mobilization.
The presentation offers a comparative analysis of democratic and autocratic systems through this lens. Democracies, Dr. Traill suggests, rely on voters as meta-level selectors among competing policy frameworks. Yet, when mainstream options appear inadequate, electorates may “panic,” turning to untested alternatives that can generate either innovation or instability. Autocracies, by contrast, simplify decision-making hierarchies by collapsing advisory functions into command structures. While this may yield short-term stability, it renders such systems brittle, as reform becomes politically dangerous and often triggers repression or systemic breakdown.
A particularly innovative dimension of Dr. Traill’s framework is his integration of three parallel “intelligence hierarchies”: individual cognitive development (via Piaget), organizational governance (via Beer), and global systemic coordination (via Aslaksen). This triadic model highlights a critical mismatch between the complexity of global challenges and the cognitive-institutional capacities available to address them. Dr. Traill argues that effective solutions to transnational problems require decision-making at higher meta-levels (at least M3L), implying the need for enhanced educational, institutional, and analytical capacities across societies.
The presentation identifies two “elephants in the room”—climate change and limits to economic growth—as paradigmatic MtopL (highest-level) challenges. These systemic pressures cascade downward into observable socio-political symptoms, including economic precarity, migration, and political polarization. However, populist movements frequently misattribute causality, focusing on these symptoms rather than the structural dynamics driving them. This misrecognition, Dr. Traill argues, not only exacerbates instability but also undermines democratic problem-solving capacity.
Dr. Traill further underscores the growing influence of transnational “mega-companies,” whose economic power rivals that of nation-states. Existing regulatory frameworks, he suggests, are inadequate for addressing their systemic impact, particularly given their ability to exploit global tax and governance asymmetries. As a provocative institutional innovation, he proposes the creation of a UN-adjacent “House of Mega-Companies” to enhance transparency and facilitate coordination between corporate and political actors.
In concluding, Dr. Traill outlines a series of reform proposals aimed at mitigating what he terms “populist panic.” These include expanding higher-order education, regulating misinformation, leveraging artificial intelligence for complex problem-solving, and introducing institutional reforms such as ranked-choice and compulsory voting. Ultimately, he argues that the survival of democratic governance—and potentially civilization itself—depends on the capacity to develop higher-level collective intelligence capable of adapting to an increasingly complex and rapidly changing world.
Professor Lorenzo Viviani:“The Politics of Manipulated Resonance: Personalized Leadership in Populism”
Lorenzo Viviani is a Professor of Political Sociology at the Department of Political Science, University of Pisa, Italy.
Professor Lorenzo Viviani (University of Pisa) presented a theoretically rich and analytically nuanced paper. His contribution advances a political-sociological framework that moves beyond descriptive accounts of personalization to interrogate the structural, symbolic, and affective mechanisms underpinning populist leadership.
Professor Viviani’s intervention is guided by three interrelated research questions: first, what distinguishes populist personalization from other forms of leader-centered politics; second, how the direct relationship between leader and people reshapes political representation through what he terms “manipulated resonance”; and third, how populist leadership constructs a hegemonic project by signifying “the people” in emotionally charged and politically consequential ways.
A central premise of the presentation is that political personalization is not a uniform phenomenon. While contemporary politics across democratic systems has undoubtedly become more leader-centered, Professor Viviani insists on differentiating between leader democracy and populist leader democracy. In the former, personalization remains compatible with liberal-democratic norms: leaders may become more visible and central, yet they operate within institutional constraints, pluralistic competition, and electoral accountability. Figures such as Barack Obama, Tony Blair, or Gerhard Schröder exemplify this model, where leadership personalization does not fundamentally disrupt representative mechanisms.
By contrast, populist personalization entails a qualitative transformation of political representation. Here, the leader is no longer merely a representative actor but becomes the symbolic locus of political belonging. Drawing on insights from Pierre Bourdieu, Professor Viviani conceptualizes representation as a performative and relational process of claim-making, through which leaders actively constitute the very collective they claim to represent. In populist contexts, this symbolic power is intensified: leaders such as Donald Trump, Viktor Orbán, Marine Le Pen, or Giorgia Meloni claim to embody the “authentic people,” often positioning themselves against liberal institutions, constitutional norms, and pluralist mediation.
This reconfiguration shifts the foundations of representation from delegation and authorization toward identification and embodiment. The leader does not simply “act for” or “stand for” a constituency but becomes the site through which “the people” are imagined, unified, and politically mobilized. As such, populist representation is not anti-representational; rather, it reconstructs representation as a morally charged, direct relationship between leader and people.
A key contribution of Professor Viviani’s framework lies in foregrounding the constitutive role of emotions in this process. Populist leadership, he argues, operates not primarily through programmatic coherence or rational persuasion but through the strategic mobilization of affect. Political emotions are not incidental but foundational to the construction of collective identities. In particular, Professor Viviani highlights resentment as the paradigmatic populist emotion—though he conceptualizes it not as a singular feeling but as a complex emotional cluster encompassing frustration, anger, humiliation, moral alienation, and perceived loss of agency.
This emotional structure is both retrospective and anticipatory. It reflects not only grievances rooted in past experiences of exclusion or injustice but also anxieties about future loss—of status, security, identity, or opportunity. Such dynamics help explain the broad resonance of populist mobilization across diverse contexts, from the American Midwest’s support for Trump’s “Make America Great Again (MAGA)” narrative to the backing of Brexit in deindustrialized regions or the electoral success of the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in eastern Germany. In these cases, economic grievances are intertwined with deeper cultural and existential insecurities.
Professor Viviani further situates these dynamics within a broader cultural-sociological perspective, drawing implicitly on Jeffrey C. Alexander’s concept of cultural trauma. Populist leaders act as “entrepreneurs of emotion,” translating diffuse anxieties and fragmented experiences into coherent political narratives. These narratives not only articulate grievances but reorganize them into a shared interpretive framework that defines both collective identity and political antagonism.
It is within this context that Professor Viviani introduces his central concept of manipulated resonance. Resonance, in his formulation, refers to an affective mode of political connection that makes social reality appear responsive and meaningful to individuals’ lived experiences. However, in populist politics, this resonance is not spontaneous or organic; it is strategically constructed through media performance, symbolic codes, and carefully staged displays of proximity. Leaders present themselves as “one of us,” embodying ordinariness while simultaneously occupying positions of extraordinary power.
This performative proximity is often reinforced through the personification of victimhood. Populist leaders portray themselves as targets of elites, media, or judicial institutions, thereby aligning their personal struggles with those of “ordinary people.” In doing so, they transform individual or collective grievances into political capital. Shame, frustration, and perceived marginalization are rearticulated as sources of legitimacy and mobilization.
Professor Viviani emphasizes that this process operates across multiple registers—strategic, stylistic, and symbolic—but is ultimately anchored in the leader’s capacity to re-signify social reality. Drawing on Stuart Hall, he underscores that politics is fundamentally a struggle over meaning. Populist leadership intervenes at this level by detaching signifiers—such as “the people,” “sovereignty,” or “democracy”—from their established meanings and rearticulating them within new chains of equivalence. This re-signification process enables the construction of a hegemonic project that reorganizes political identities and boundaries.
Importantly, Professor Viviani argues that populism should not be understood as a coherent ideology but as an ongoing hegemonic project—a dynamic process of meaning-making, identity construction, and symbolic struggle. In this process, the leader’s role is pivotal: by naming and defining “the people,” the leader exercises symbolic power that reshapes the political field.
The implications of this framework are far-reaching. Populist resonance, Professor Viviani concludes, constitutes a profound transformation of political representation. The traditional distance between representatives and represented is compressed, replaced by a direct, affective, and symbolically mediated bond. This bond, however, is inherently exclusionary. By defining “the people” in morally homogeneous terms, populist leaders often exclude migrants, minorities, and other marginalized groups from the political community, advancing a form of differential nativism characteristic of contemporary sovereignist movements.
In sum, Professor Viviani’s presentation calls for a reorientation of analytical approaches to populism. Rather than focusing solely on institutional arrangements, party systems, or strategic behavior, he advocates for a political sociology that takes seriously the interplay of symbolic power, emotional dynamics, and performative representation. What is at stake, he suggests, is not merely who governs, but how “the people” are constructed, how political belonging is defined, and how legitimacy is produced in an era of increasingly personalized and affect-driven politics.
Discussants’ Feedback
Feedback by Dr. Azize Sargin
Dr. Azize Sargin is Director for External Affairs at ECPS.
Dr. Azize Sargın offered an analytically rich set of remarks, engaging critically with both presentations while highlighting their broader theoretical implications for the study of populism, political representation, and governance under conditions of complexity.
Focusing first on Professor Lorenzo Viviani’s paper on “manipulated resonance,” Dr. Sargin commended the presentation for moving beyond conventional leader-centric explanations of populism. Rather than treating leadership as an individual attribute or charismatic essence, she underscored the value of conceptualizing it as a relational and symbolic mechanismthrough which “the people” are actively constructed. In this respect, she emphasized that Professor Viviani’s framework departs from the assumption that leaders merely represent pre-existing constituencies, instead positing that populist leadership continuously produces and redefines the collective subject it claims to embody.
Dr. Sargin identified the concept of resonance as a particularly significant contribution. By framing populist leadership as a process that amplifies lived anxieties, cultural codes, and affective experiences into politically meaningful narratives, the paper captures the dynamic interplay between emotional identification and political mobilization. However, she suggested that the notion of manipulated resonance would benefit from further theoretical clarification. Specifically, she called for a more precise distinction between manipulative resonance and democratic responsiveness, noting that resonance inherently implies a two-way relational process. This raises an important question: to what extent are “the people” passive recipients of elite-driven narratives, and to what extent do they actively shape and co-constitute the leader’s discourse?
In this regard, Dr. Sargin encouraged a deeper exploration of the reciprocal nature of the leader–people relationship. Clarifying whether populist resonance operates primarily as a top-down mechanism or as a mutually constitutive process would, in her view, significantly strengthen the analytical framework. Relatedly, she highlighted the importance of the concept of disintermediation, which in the context of populism extends beyond the mere bypassing of parties and media to encompass a broader redefinition of political legitimacy. Disintermediation, she argued, rests on the normative assumption that institutional mediation is inherently corrupting, while direct, unmediated connection is equated with authenticity—an insight that resonates strongly with contemporary populist leadership practices.
Turning to Dr. Robert R. Traill’s presentation, Dr. Sargin praised its ambitious attempt to connect democracy, authoritarianism, and global governance challenges—particularly climate change and limits to growth—within a cybernetic framework of decision-making systems. She identified the notion of “decision-system breakdown” in a populist age as especially compelling, suggesting that the paper opens a productive line of inquiry into populism as not only a crisis of representation but also a crisis of cognitive governability.
At the same time, Dr. Sargin proposed several avenues for theoretical deepening. One key issue concerns the tension between complexity reduction and democratic legitimacy. While all political systems necessarily simplify complex realities to render them governable, she argued that not all forms of simplification are normatively equivalent. The critical question, therefore, is which modes of simplification remain democratically accountable, and which risk drifting toward authoritarian, technocratic, or populist distortions.
She also engaged critically with the reform proposals advanced in Dr. Traill’s paper, particularly the use of artificial intelligence and institutional innovations such as ranked-choice and compulsory voting. While recognizing their potential as responses to evolving decision environments, Dr. Sargin highlighted a fundamental tension: if populism is partly driven by distrust of mediation, the introduction of AI-assisted decision-making may exacerbate rather than alleviate public suspicion—unless embedded within robust frameworks of transparency, accountability, and contestability.
Finally, Dr. Sargin reflected on the paper’s broader theoretical ambition to extend models of individual cognition to collective and global decision-making. While acknowledging this as a bold and innovative move, she cautioned that collective actors cannot be treated simply as scaled-up cognitive systems. Instead, they are inherently asymmetrical and stratified, requiring more careful theorization of what is gained—and potentially lost—when translating cybernetic analogies into political theory.
Thus, Dr. Sargin underscored the shared contribution of both papers in advancing a more nuanced understanding of populism—not merely as rhetoric or ideology, but as a complex configuration of symbolic, emotional, and institutional processes. Her reflections and feedback thus highlighted the need for interdisciplinary approaches capable of grappling with the intertwined challenges of representation, legitimacy, and governance in an increasingly complex political landscape.
Feedback by Professor Ibrahim Ozturk
As discussant at the workshop, Professor Ibrahim Ozturk offered a concise yet incisive set of remarks, raising critical questions that probe the intersection of populism, technocratic governance, and institutional mediation. Framing his intervention as a preliminary engagement pending a full reading of the papers, Professor Ozturk focused on one key question for each presenter, thereby highlighting core tensions within both contributions.
Addressing Dr. Robert R. Traill’s presentation, Professor Ozturk expressed particular interest in the application of cybernetic models—especially the Ashby–Beer “collective brain” framework—to explain populist “panic” in response to structural crises such as climate change and limits to economic growth. From an economic perspective, he found the linkage between systemic instability and environmental constraints especially compelling. However, he raised a critical concern regarding the proposed institutional and technological remedies, including artificial intelligence and ranked-choice voting. Given that populism often emerges as a backlash against expert-led governance and technocracy, Professor Ozturk questioned whether such reforms might inadvertently intensify populist distrust. In a context marked by growing anxieties about “techno-feudalism” and the expanding influence of large digital corporations, he asked whether the integration of algorithmic decision-making risks deepening perceptions that democratic agency is being displaced. Crucially, he challenged Dr. Traill to account for the emotional and irrational resistance that may arise against ostensibly rational, technocratic solutions.
Turning to Professor Lorenzo Viviani’s presentation, Professor Ozturk engaged with the concept of disintermediation and the personalization of leadership in contemporary populism. While acknowledging the analytical strength of the argument that populist leaders construct direct, unmediated bonds with “the people,” he raised a fundamental question about the durability of institutional mediation. Specifically, he asked whether traditional intermediaries—such as the free press, independent judiciaries, and other liberal-democratic institutions—can regain their legitimacy once bypassed by populist leadership. Or, alternatively, whether the politics of proximity and performative identification has permanently reshaped citizens’ expectations toward a more direct, anti-institutional model of governance.
In sum, Professor Ozturk’s remarks foregrounded a shared concern across both papers: whether contemporary transformations in political representation and governance signal reversible disruptions or more enduring structural shifts in democratic life.
Response by Professor Lorenzo Viviani
In his response to the discussants, Professor Lorenzo Viviani offered a clarifying and theoretically grounded elaboration of his framework on populist personalization and “manipulated resonance.” Engaging directly with the comments of the discussants, Professor Viviani reaffirmed the relational and sociological foundations of his approach while addressing key concerns regarding agency, manipulation, and the role of institutions.
At the core of his response was a rejection of overly individualistic or essentialist interpretations of leadership. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu, Professor Viviani emphasized that political representation and resonance necessarily emerge within a social field. Leadership, including charismatic leadership, cannot be understood as an intrinsic quality of the individual leader; rather, it depends on an interactive process of mutual recognition between leaders and followers. Even in populist contexts, resonance presupposes the existence of shared, albeit unstructured, social dispositions that leaders can activate and organize. Without such symbolic and cultural preconditions, the mechanisms of identification—whether authentic or manipulated—would fail.
Addressing the question of manipulation, Professor Viviani clarified that it does not primarily consist in offering concrete solutions to crises, but rather in framing and interpreting those crises in ways that resonate emotionally with individuals’ lived experiences. Populist leaders, he argued, construct narratives that position individuals as victims of systemic injustice, thereby fostering a sense of shared identity grounded in perceived grievance. In this context, “similarity” between leader and people functions as a substitute for traditional forms of representation. However, this similarity is largely performative rather than substantive, constituting what Professor Viviani described as a “functional equivalent” of representation.
Professor Viviani further acknowledged the discussants’ concerns regarding the reciprocal nature of resonance. While affirming that resonance involves mutual recognition, he noted that populist dynamics often weaken the demand for responsiveness. Unlike conventional representative systems, where social demands generate policy responses, populist resonance relies on emotional identification rather than programmatic accountability. This dynamic becomes particularly fragile during moments of acute crisis—such as the COVID-19 pandemic—when symbolic proximity alone proves insufficient, and the limits of disintermediated leadership are exposed.
Expanding on the concept of disintermediation, Professor Viviani situated it within broader processes of societal individualization and the erosion of traditional political cleavages, such as class and religion. In increasingly fragmented and competitive societies, the decline of collective identities creates a vacuum that populist leaders fill through emotionally charged, “catch-all” forms of representation. These bypass intermediary institutions and instead establish direct, affective bonds with individuals. Yet, Professor Viviani cautioned that such populist appeals are often defensive in nature, centered on identity and recognition rather than substantive socio-economic transformation.
Professor Viviani also distinguished populist leadership from classical Weberian notions of charisma. Whereas charismatic authority, in the Weberian sense, rests on the perceived superiority of the leader and their capacity to enact transformative change, populist leadership operates through a performative identification with “ordinary people.” It is, in his terms, a form of “servant leadership,” albeit a strategically constructed and manipulated one, in which the leader claims equality with followers while symbolically embodying them.
Moreover, Professor Viviani addressed the broader normative implications of his argument by contrasting populist resonance with what he termed democratic resonance. While populist resonance is often exclusionary—constructed “against” perceived enemies—democratic systems can also generate forms of resonance grounded in principles of freedom, equality, and pluralism. Institutions such as constitutional courts and the rule of law, he suggested, embody an alternative, “anti-populist” resonance that affirms equal rights and collective belonging within a pluralistic framework.
Thus, Professor Viviani’s response not only clarified the conceptual underpinnings of manipulated resonance but also opened a broader reflection on the possibility of reclaiming resonance as a democratic resource rather than a purely populist mechanism.
Q&A Session
The Q&A session evolved into a rich and multilayered discussion that brought into sharp focus the tensions between populist mobilization, constitutional democracy, and the evolving nature of political representation. Anchored by interventions from participants and responses by Professor Viviani, the exchange moved beyond clarification to engage foundational theoretical debates concerning ideology, emotional politics, mediation, and the future of democratic legitimacy.
The discussion was initiated by Dr. Amir Ali, who reflected on the applicability of constitutional patriotism—associated with Jürgen Habermas—in the context of contemporary populist governance, drawing on the case of India under Narendra Modi. Dr. Ali highlighted a striking contrast between the “sobriety” of constitutional patriotism and the emotionally charged, performative nationalism characteristic of populist politics. While constitutional patriotism relies on mediated institutional frameworks and normative commitments, populism thrives on what he described as a “raw,” unmediated construction of “the people,” often driven by urgency, anxiety, and affective intensity.
This contrast, Dr. Ali suggested, may help explain why constitutional patriotism has struggled to mobilize broad public support in contexts where populism has consolidated power. Invoking Hannah Arendt’s reflections on the alliance between elites and mass mobilization in The Origins of Totalitarianism, he further argued that populism often operates through a volatile fusion of elite strategy and popular sentiment, thereby destabilizing mediated forms of democratic representation.
Professor Viviani’s response acknowledged this asymmetry but sought to reframe constitutional patriotism as a potentially more dynamic and assertive project. Rather than viewing it as a purely procedural or technocratic model, he argued that constitutional patriotism embodies substantive cultural and normative values—freedom, equality, and pluralism—that can themselves generate forms of political resonance. In this sense, he suggested that constitutional democracy may evolve into a more “militant” form, capable of actively contesting populist narratives and reconstructing collective identities around inclusive principles.
Central to Professor Viviani’s intervention was a Gramscian understanding of politics as an ongoing struggle for hegemony, drawing on Antonio Gramsci. Populism, in this view, represents only one hegemonic project among others, rather than an inevitable or irreversible transformation. The contemporary populist moment, he argued, reflects not the end of democratic politics but the re-emergence of ideological contestation following decades marked by the assumption that liberal democracy constituted the “end of history.” The task, therefore, is not merely to defend existing institutions but to articulate alternative democratic projects capable of mobilizing both normative commitment and emotional identification.
The discussion then shifted toward the nature of populism itself, particularly in response to a comment by Dr. Amadeo Varriale regarding whether populism should be understood as an ideology. Drawing on the influential work of Cas Muddeand Michael Freeden, Dr. Varriale suggested that populism may be conceptualized as a “thin-centered ideology,” given its structured set of ideas about the primacy of “the people” and its normative critique of elites.
Professor Viviani, however, rejected this classification, offering a sociological reinterpretation. He argued that populism lacks the comprehensive normative and programmatic architecture characteristic of full-fledged ideologies such as liberalism or socialism. Rather than providing a structured vision of society, populism functions as a political logic or hegemonic project that simplifies social reality into antagonistic categories—“the people” versus “the elites.” While this simplification may resemble the mapping function of ideology, as described by Freeden, Professor Viviani maintained that it remains fundamentally limited: it organizes political perception without articulating a coherent model of social organization.
Importantly, he acknowledged that when populist movements enter government, they often incorporate elements from other ideological frameworks—such as nationalism, nativism, or sovereignism—thereby becoming more ideologically structured. In this sense, populism may serve as an entry point into broader ideological transformations rather than constituting an ideology in itself. His distinction between Donald Trump’s first and second presidencies illustrated this dynamic, suggesting a shift from a primarily populist mode of governance toward a more explicitly ideological, nationalist-authoritarian project.
A further line of discussion, raised by Dr. Azize Sargin, addressed the apparent paradox of populist leadership: namely, that many populist leaders emerge from elite backgrounds while claiming to represent “ordinary people.” Professor Viviani responded by emphasizing the centrality of emotional identification in populist politics. The bond between leader and followers is not grounded in objective socio-economic similarity but in the performative construction of shared victimhood. Leaders such as Trump or Silvio Berlusconi—despite their elite status—successfully position themselves as targets of cultural, political, or institutional elites, thereby aligning themselves symbolically with broader publics.
This dynamic, Professor Viviani argued, reveals a fundamental departure from rational models of political representation. Populist legitimacy is not derived from policy outcomes or material alignment but from affective resonance. Consequently, empirical contradictions—such as policies that disproportionately benefit economic elites—do not necessarily undermine populist support. The emotional bond between leader and followers operates independently of, and often in tension with, rational evaluation.
The discussion further explored alternative modes of political identification, particularly through Dr. Sargin’s suggestion that populist leaders may also be perceived as “heroes” rather than merely as “one of the people.” Professor Viviani acknowledged this possibility but introduced an important distinction between populist and authoritarian forms of personalization. While populist leadership emphasizes similarity and proximity, authoritarian leadership tends to elevate the leader into a superior, heroic figure. This transition, he argued, reflects a shift from populist to autocratic modes of governance.
Drawing on historical examples such as Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, Professor Viviani noted that authoritarian regimes often combine politics of fear with what he termed “dark hope”—a forward-looking, albeit exclusionary and often destructive, vision of collective renewal. In contemporary contexts, he suggested that some leaders initially emerging from populist movements may evolve toward more authoritarian forms of personalization, as illustrated by the trajectory from Hugo Chávez to Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela.
A recurring theme throughout the Q&A was the role of emotion in structuring political allegiance. Professor Viviani contrasted the “politics of fear,” which underpins much populist mobilization, with the potential for a “politics of hope” capable of fostering inclusive forms of identification. Drawing on examples such as Barack Obama’s rhetoric of unity, he argued that democratic politics must also engage affective dimensions if it is to counter populist narratives effectively. Hope, as a positive and inclusive emotion, offers an alternative basis for political belonging that does not rely on the construction of enemies or exclusionary identities.
At the same time, the discussion highlighted the challenges inherent in such an endeavor. As Dr. Sargin observed, many supporters of populist leaders may perceive their alignment not as a choice but as a necessity, shaped by structural conditions and limited alternatives. This raises important questions about agency, constraint, and the socio-political contexts that sustain populist appeal.
Overall, the Q&A session underscored the need for a multidimensional approach to populism—one that integrates insights from political sociology, political theory, and cultural analysis. It revealed populism not merely as a set of political strategies or ideological claims, but as a complex process involving the construction of collective identities, the mobilization of emotions, and the reconfiguration of institutional relationships.
In doing so, the exchange also pointed toward a broader normative challenge: how democratic systems can reconstruct forms of political resonance that are both emotionally compelling and normatively inclusive. As the discussion suggested, the future of democracy may depend not only on institutional resilience but also on the capacity to articulate alternative narratives of belonging, identity, and political community in an increasingly fragmented and contested political landscape.
Conclusion
Session 15 of the ECPS Virtual Workshop Series demonstrated with particular clarity that contemporary populism must be understood not as an episodic disturbance of democratic normalcy, but as a revealing expression of deeper transformations in political representation, collective identity, and the governance of complexity. Across the two presentations, the discussant interventions, and the extended Q&A, the session illuminated how populism operates at the intersection of affect, symbolism, institutional erosion, and systemic instability.
Dr. Robert R. Traill’s contribution situated populism within a wider crisis of cognitive and political governability, showing how democratic systems struggle to respond adequately to global problems whose scale exceeds inherited frameworks of decision-making. Professor Lorenzo Viviani, by contrast, traced the micro-foundations of populist leadership, emphasizing how “manipulated resonance” reconfigures representation through emotional identification, symbolic power, and the performative construction of “the people.” Taken together, these perspectives offered a valuable synthesis: populism emerges both from failures of institutional adaptation and from the affective reorganization of political belonging.
The discussants’ critiques and the subsequent discussion further sharpened the normative and theoretical stakes of the session. Questions concerning the democratic limits of simplification, the ambivalent promise of technocratic remedies, the durability of institutional mediation, and the distinction between populist and democratic forms of resonance revealed the analytical richness of the session’s interdisciplinary approach. Particularly significant was the recurring recognition that democracy cannot be defended through procedure alone. If populism succeeds in mobilizing fear, resentment, and immediacy, democratic actors must also grapple with the emotional and cultural dimensions of legitimacy.
In this sense, the session pointed toward a broader conclusion: the future of democracy depends not only on preserving institutions, but on renewing the social, symbolic, and normative bonds that make democratic life meaningful. To confront populism effectively, democratic politics must offer more than resistance; it must articulate compelling alternatives capable of reconnecting freedom, equality, pluralism, and collective agency under conditions of global uncertainty. Session 15 thus made a significant contribution to ongoing debates on how democracy might still be reimagined—and sustained—in an age of crisis, personalization, and escalating power struggles.
As Hungary approaches the April 12 elections, Viktor Orbán’s long-standing rule faces a critical test shaped by both domestic discontent and geopolitical realignments. In this interview, Associate Professor Attila Antal characterizes the regime as a “constitutional dictatorship,” arguing that the election is not about democratic legitimacy but about securing “public support for its own dictatorial turn.” He highlights how authoritarian legality, sustained through a “dual state” and permanent emergency governance, has hollowed out democratic competition. At the same time, the rise of Péter Magyar and mounting generational and material grievances signal growing resistance. Situated within broader transnational authoritarian networks, Hungary’s election emerges as both a domestic referendum and a geopolitical fault line for European democracy.
As Hungary approaches its pivotal parliamentary elections on April 12, 2026, the country stands at a defining juncture in the trajectory of European populism. After more than a decade and a half of rule by Viktor Orbán, the electoral contest no longer centers merely on party competition, but on whether an entrenched authoritarian-populist regime—characterized by institutional asymmetries, constitutional engineering, and the continuous production of political enemies—can still be meaningfully challenged through democratic means. At the same time, the emergence of Péter Magyar and the Tisza Party has introduced new uncertainty into a system long sustained by what Attila Antal describes as a “hegemonic power bloc,” raising the stakes of what increasingly resembles a systemic referendum.
In this context, Attila Antal, Associate Professor at Eötvös Loránd University, offers a sobering interpretation of the current moment. In his view, the Orbán regime has evolved beyond conventional electoral authoritarianism into what he terms a “constitutional dictatorship,” where formal legality coexists with substantive domination. Most strikingly, Assoc. Prof. Antal argues that “the Orbán regime is not seeking democratic legitimacy in the 2026 elections, but rather public support for its own dictatorial turn.” This diagnosis reframes the election not as a mechanism of accountability, but as a plebiscitary instrument designed to consolidate power under conditions of managed legality.
Crucially, Assoc. Prof. Antal situates Hungary’s electoral moment within a broader geopolitical reconfiguration. He underscores that Orbán has increasingly treated foreign and European policy “as a kind of geopolitical playing field,” cultivating alliances with both Eastern and Western authoritarian actors. The alignment with figures such as Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin reflects not only ideological affinity but also strategic positioning within an emerging transnational authoritarian network. As Assoc. Prof. Antal notes, Hungary has come to function as a “Trojan horse” for Putinist influence within the European Union, transforming the election into “a European and Western geopolitical issue and interest.” This external dimension is mirrored internally by a deepening social cleavage, as segments of Hungarian society remain firmly oriented toward the West while the regime consolidates a pro-Russian political base.
This external dimension intersects with internal tensions, including growing social discontent and a generational divide that reflects what Assoc. Prof. Antal describes as “a very strong generational revolt against Orbán’s authoritarian populism.”
At the core of Assoc. Prof. Antal’s analysis is the concept of authoritarian law and the “dual state,” where a formally normative legal order coexists with a politically driven prerogative structure. Under prolonged states of emergency and rule by decree, Hungary has become, in his words, “a contemporary example of dual state,” raising profound questions about whether elections can still function as instruments of democratic alternation. The opposition’s strategy of contesting the regime “by its own rules” thus reflects a deeper dilemma: whether authoritarian systems can be dismantled through participation in the very institutional frameworks they have reshaped.
Assoc. Prof. Antal’s assessment is stark. The durability of Orbánism, he suggests, lies in its capacity to adapt, radicalize, and survive through escalating authoritarianism. As he warns, the regime “can only survive by becoming increasingly dictatorial,” a trajectory that poses not only a domestic challenge but “a grave danger to both Hungarian and European societies as a whole.”
As Hungary approaches the April 12 elections, Viktor Orbán’s long-standing rule faces a critical test shaped by both domestic discontent and geopolitical realignments. In this interview, Associate Professor Attila Antal characterizes the regime as a “constitutional dictatorship,” arguing that the election is not about democratic legitimacy but about securing “public support for its own dictatorial turn.” He highlights how authoritarian legality, sustained through a “dual state” and permanent emergency governance, has hollowed out democratic competition. At the same time, the rise of Péter Magyar and mounting generational and material grievances signal growing resistance. Situated within broader transnational authoritarian networks, Hungary’s election emerges as both a domestic referendum and a geopolitical fault line for European democracy.
As Hungary approaches its pivotal parliamentary elections on April 12, 2026, the country stands at a defining juncture in the trajectory of European populism. After more than a decade and a half of rule by Viktor Orbán, the electoral contest no longer centers merely on party competition, but on whether an entrenched authoritarian-populist regime—characterized by institutional asymmetries, constitutional engineering, and the continuous production of political enemies—can still be meaningfully challenged through democratic means. At the same time, the emergence of Péter Magyar and the Tisza Party has introduced new uncertainty into a system long sustained by what Attila Antal describes as a “hegemonic power bloc,” raising the stakes of what increasingly resembles a systemic referendum.
In this context, Attila Antal, Associate Professor at Eötvös Loránd University, offers a sobering interpretation of the current moment. In his view, the Orbán regime has evolved beyond conventional electoral authoritarianism into what he terms a “constitutional dictatorship,” where formal legality coexists with substantive domination. Most strikingly, Assoc. Prof. Antal argues that “the Orbán regime is not seeking democratic legitimacy in the 2026 elections, but rather public support for its own dictatorial turn.” This diagnosis reframes the election not as a mechanism of accountability, but as a plebiscitary instrument designed to consolidate power under conditions of managed legality.
Crucially, Assoc. Prof. Antal situates Hungary’s electoral moment within a broader geopolitical reconfiguration. He underscores that Orbán has increasingly treated foreign and European policy “as a kind of geopolitical playing field,” cultivating alliances with both Eastern and Western authoritarian actors. The alignment with figures such as Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin reflects not only ideological affinity but also strategic positioning within an emerging transnational authoritarian network. As Assoc. Prof. Antal notes, Hungary has come to function as a “Trojan horse” for Putinist influence within the European Union, transforming the election into “a European and Western geopolitical issue and interest.” This external dimension is mirrored internally by a deepening social cleavage, as segments of Hungarian society remain firmly oriented toward the West while the regime consolidates a pro-Russian political base.
This external dimension intersects with internal tensions, including growing social discontent and a generational divide that reflects what Assoc. Prof. Antal describes as “a very strong generational revolt against Orbán’s authoritarian populism.”
At the core of Assoc. Prof. Antal’s analysis is the concept of authoritarian law and the “dual state,” where a formally normative legal order coexists with a politically driven prerogative structure. Under prolonged states of emergency and rule by decree, Hungary has become, in his words, “a contemporary example of dual state,” raising profound questions about whether elections can still function as instruments of democratic alternation. The opposition’s strategy of contesting the regime “by its own rules” thus reflects a deeper dilemma: whether authoritarian systems can be dismantled through participation in the very institutional frameworks they have reshaped.
Assoc. Prof. Antal’s assessment is stark. The durability of Orbánism, he suggests, lies in its capacity to adapt, radicalize, and survive through escalating authoritarianism. As he warns, the regime “can only survive by becoming increasingly dictatorial,” a trajectory that poses not only a domestic challenge but “a grave danger to both Hungarian and European societies as a whole.”
Here is the edited version of our interview with AssociateProfessor Attila Antal, revised slightly to improve clarity and flow.
Geopolitics and Domestic Change Reshape Orbánism
From Left: Hungary PM Viktor Orban, Poland PM Beata Szydlo, Czech PM Bohuslav Sobotka and Slovakia PM Robert Fico pose prior their meeting in Prague on February 15, 2016.
Professor Antal, in your work you describe Hungarian authoritarian populism as a system that fuses political identity construction, executive aggrandizement, and the legal-institutional reorganization of power. In the 2026 campaign, do you see Orbánism still functioning as a hegemonic political project, or has it entered a phase of ideological exhaustion in which its capacity to define “the people” and monopolize popular sovereignty is beginning to weaken?
Associate Professor Attila Antal: This is a key issue for understanding the Orbán regime as a whole and the current situation. Indeed, Orbán has built an authoritarian regime in which the ruling parties have reigned as a kind of hegemonic center—or, to use Antonio Gramsci’s terminology, as a hegemonic power bloc. However, the transformation of the opposition has changed the situation and shaken this hegemonic project. This is, however, a complex situation: in recent years, Orbán had become so confident that he increasingly focused on geopolitics; more precisely, he treated foreign policy and European policy as a kind of geopolitical playing field, where he built power and political alliances with both Eastern and Western authoritarian regimes. It is no coincidence that the two most significant imperialist powers, Trump and Putin, have both assured Orbán of their support. So, I see the collapse of Orbán’s hegemonic project as only partially attributable to domestic political factors: we are witnessing that Orbán’s downfall has become a European and Western geopolitical issue and interest, and this resonates with the anger of Hungarian society, which, for the most part, remains oriented toward the West.
Enemy Narratives Persist but Face Social Limits
You have argued that authoritarian populism in Hungary relies on permanent enemy-production. In the current election, where Kyiv, Brussels, liberal elites, and domestic opponents are again being woven into a single antagonistic narrative, how should we understand this strategy: as a sign of discursive resilience, or as evidence that the regime has become trapped in repetitive forms of mobilization?
Associate Professor Attila Antal: The enemy creation of the Orbán regime is a highly complex story. There is no doubt that the constant creation of enemy images is one of the most prominent components of the authoritarian populist toolkit. Since 2010, the Orbán regime has operated with the following main enemy images: migrants, George Soros, civil society, Brussels, the gender politics, and the domestic political opposition.
From this perspective, 2022 marks a turning point, as Putin’s aggression required the construction of a new enemy image – an incredibly difficult task, given that the attacked Ukraine must be transformed into the new enemy. All of this is connected to the “Putinization” that has taken place within the Orbán regime. The propaganda and discursive framework are thus in place, yet creating this new enemy image also means that Orbán and his allies face the reality that a significant portion of Hungarian society is quite averse to Russians due to Hungarian history. At the same time, Orbán and his allies have succeeded in turning their own camp into a pro-Russian faction, which has resulted in an incredibly deep social cleavage.
Anti-Orbánism Unites a Fragmented Opposition
Tisza leader Péter Magyar begins a symbolic “one million steps” march to Nagyvárad, Romania, addressing reporters with supporters in Budapest, Hungary on May 14, 2025. Photo: Istvan Balogh / Dreamstime.
To what extent should the April 12 vote be interpreted not simply as a contest between Fidesz and Tisza, but as a referendum on whether a mature authoritarian-populist regime can still be electorally displaced despite media asymmetries, constitutional engineering, and patronage entrenchment?
Associate Professor Attila Antal: As I mentioned earlier, the Orbán regime itself and the new opposition forming against it can be understood within a geopolitical context. One could also say that, in many respects, the European Union has had enough of the Putinist influence that the Orbán regime represents as a “Trojan horse.” At the same time, this dissatisfaction is just as true of Hungarian society: at the moment, the opposition is held together by anti-Orbánism and the fact that the Orbán regime has seriously neglected governance and the basic needs of the Hungarian people. In this sense, the Hungarian election can indeed be interpreted as a referendum on the political system.
Dual State Logic Structures Political Competition
Your recent work on authoritarian law suggests that contemporary autocratic projects do not abolish legality so much as repurpose it. In the Hungarian case, how should we conceptualize the election itself: as a democratic mechanism still capable of producing alternation, or as a legally managed arena whose formal openness coexists with substantive authoritarian constraint?
Associate Professor Attila Antal: I think this is a very important question. When I analyzed the legal system of the Orbán regime, I drew on the “dual state” approach developed by Ernst Fraenkel, who studied the nature of National Socialist law in the interwar period. In this authoritarian state, there exists a legal system that is totally influenced by politics (which Fraenkel calls the Prerogative State), while at the same time there is the Normative State, which is less defined by political influence.
The Orbán regime has effectively been operating under a state of emergency since 2015, and since 2022, the prime minister has essentially been governing by decree. So, we are facing a contemporary example of dual state.
In my view, there is a very strong dilemma: can this system be overthrown by accepting its rules of the game and participating in the election, or can we overthrow the system as a result of a collective popular decision and establish new democratic electoral rules? It now appears that the opposition side of Hungarian society is choosing the former solution, that is, it wants to defeat the authoritarian system by its own rules. At the same time, it is certain that in the event of a possible change of government, we will have to face the problem posed by authoritarian law.
Enemy Logic Embedded in Governance Structures
Campaign poster of Viktor Orbán ahead of the April 12, 2026, parliamentary elections. Photo: Bettina Wagner / Dreamstime.
You have written about the “Constitutionalized Image of Enemy” embedded in the Hungarian Fundamental Law. How central is this constitutionalized enemy logic to the present campaign, especially in Orbán’s efforts to portray Tisza, Brussels, and Ukraine not as legitimate competitors, but as existential threats to the political community?
Associate Professor Attila Antal: The most recent amendment to the Fundamental Law took place in April 2025. The Hungarian Fundamental Law has indeed been used to create the prevailing political enemy images: certainly, with regard to migration and gender politics. I have termed this as the “Constitutionalized Image of the Enemy.” In this sense, therefore, the image of the enemy enshrined in the constitution did not play a role in the current campaign. At the same time, the 12th Amendment to the Fundamental Law established the Office for the Protection of National Sovereignty in December 2023, which played a very significant role in enabling the Orbán regime to essentially begin using state and bureaucratic tools against its political opponents and Hungarian society. In other words, the “dual state” mentioned earlier operates at the constitutional level as well.
Geopolitical Counterweight Shapes Opposition Rise
From the standpoint of your theory of authoritarian populism, is Péter Magyar best understood as a democratic challenger to Orbánism, or as a post-Fidesz corrective emerging from within the same political and ideological ecosystem?
Associate Professor Attila Antal: This is a very difficult question, and it would be too early to give any definitive answer at this stage. I would rather point out that the Hungarian election has a very strong geopolitical context. The Péter Magyar phenomenon and the European support structure behind it can also be understood as a geopolitical counterweight to Hungary’s shift toward Orbán and Putin. At the same time, there is no doubt that Orbán’s challenger was socialized within the Orbán regime and, in many respects, is attempting to correct the right-wing conservative politics that Orbán has betrayed. Here, however, it is worth noting once again that the vast camp behind the Tisza Party is far more complex and is currently held together by the constraints of the electoral system and anti-Orbánism.
Youth Revolt Meets Rural Entrenchment
Independent polling and current reporting suggest that younger voters are disproportionately aligning with Tisza, while Fidesz retains stronger support among older and more rural constituencies. Do you interpret this as a generational realignment against authoritarian populism, or merely as a contingent reaction to economic stagnation and elite scandal?
Associate Professor Attila Antal: This is also a key issue. There is no doubt that the authoritarian populism of the Orbán regime has, intentionally or not, created a generational and regional divide. A significant portion of rural and elderly Hungarian voters is far more susceptible to the enemy stereotypes and messages manufactured by the regime’s propaganda. Thus, there is a very strong generational revolt against Orbán’s authoritarian populism, particularly because Orbán is effectively blackmailing not only the EU but also Hungarian society: the former with constant vetoes, and the latter with constant threats of leaving the EU.
Middle-Class Erosion Fuels Political Backlash
Given your emphasis on the relationship between neoliberal restructuring and authoritarian populism, how important are material grievances—stagnant growth, inflation, deteriorating public services, and corruption fatigue—in weakening the regime’s capacity to maintain consent? Can economic deterioration disrupt a system whose legitimacy has long depended on symbolic conflict rather than policy performance?
Associate Professor Attila Antal: From a political-economic perspective, the Orbán regime was based on a class consensus in which the (upper) middle class and national big business formed an alliance. This was underpinned by pre-COVID-19 economic prosperity and massive amounts of EU funding. During this period of economic prosperity, however, a neoliberal state emerged that systematically dismantled public services, particularly in the healthcare and education sectors. When the polycrisis emerged (EU crises, pandemic, war), the dismantled Orbán state proved unable to handle the crisis: alongside the groups in the worst situations, the declining Hungarian middle class is the biggest loser of the Orbán regime. In other words, the rebellion against the Orbán regime is, in many respects, also of a material nature.
War Narrative Enables Democratic Suspension
How do you interpret Orbán’s continued “peace versus war” framing in light of your broader work on the politics of exception? Is this campaign discourse best seen as a contemporary form of emergency politics—one that converts geopolitical uncertainty into a justification for executive concentration and democratic suspension?
Associate Professor Attila Antal: As I mentioned, since 2022 the prime minister has essentially been governing by decree, encroaching even on areas of public policy where a state of emergency has no place. Meanwhile, political propaganda has constantly claimed that the Orbán regime is the only guarantee of peace. This has come to a head in the current campaign, with the Orbán machine conveying the message that the opposition is on the side of the Ukrainians and is dragging Hungary into the war. Governing through extraordinary measures is thus a political and communicative reframing: the Orbán regime has essentially suspended parliamentary democracy and portrayed the Ukrainian side (including the EU and the Hungarian opposition) as wanting war. I believe that this is not just some kind of fake news campaign, but the pure and frightening manifestation of an authoritarian state.
Sovereigntist Rhetoric Masks Strategic Dependence
Hungary’s pro-Russian posture has become a major campaign fault line. In your view, does Orbán’s Moscow-friendly stance still function as a coherent ideological expression of sovereigntist anti-liberalism, or is it increasingly becoming a liability as the war in Ukraine reshapes the moral and geopolitical boundaries of European politics?
Associate Professor Attila Antal: Orbán’s pro-Russian policy is a complex phenomenon. At least three aspects are worth highlighting. On the one hand, there is no doubt that, with regard to the international authoritarian right, there exists a kind of ideological coalition whose political-theoretical foundation is an anti-liberal conservative approach dating back to Carl Schmitt. Second, the Orbán regime has radically relinquished energy sovereignty in favor of Putinism. Third, there is also no doubt that Orbán and his regime are personally dependent on Putin’s system. Here, then, lies a radical contradiction: the Orbán regime, which is sovereignist at the level of propaganda, has deliberately renounced the sovereignty of the Hungarian state and is weakening European sovereignty in favor of Russia. The deeper implications of this can only be revealed after the election.
Militant Democracy as a Possible Path
You have shown how exceptional governance can become normalized. If Tisza were to win without a constitutional supermajority, would Hungary enter a phase of partial alternation without regime transformation—in other words, a situation in which a new government governs through institutions still structured by the old exception-centered order?
Associate Professor Attila Antal: I believe this is one of the main consequences of the dilemma I mentioned earlier: namely, how to dismantle an authoritarian system – either by adhering to its own rules or through more revolutionary means. If there is a change of government and a two-thirds majority is achieved, dismantling the authoritarian power of the Orbán regime will be a challenge. If, however, the change of government occurs with a simple majority, it may become inevitable to consider how the authoritarian system can be dismantled using the tools of militant democracy.
EU Influence and Domestic Revolt Intersect
Tisza Party volunteer collecting signatures in Mosonmagyaróvár, Hungary on June 5, 2024 during a nationwide campaign tour ahead of the European Parliament elections. Photo: Sarkadi Roland / Dreamstime.
What would a Tisza victory actually reveal about the Orbán system: that authoritarian-populist rule remains vulnerable to democratic challenge, or that only an insider-led revolt from within the regime’s broader political class can break such a system electorally?
Associate Professor Attila Antal: Based on what we’ve seen so far, I believe a potential victory for Tisza would have two implications. On the one hand, it would signal that the EU has had enough of Putinism directly influencing European politics. On the other hand, it would mean that authoritarian populism has become completely detached from social reality, and that Hungarian society has had enough of a political agenda built on constant hatemongering and the suspension of normality.
Authoritarian Consolidation Beyond Legitimacy
Conversely, if Fidesz were to retain power despite signs of economic strain, ideological repetition, corruption exposure, and opposition momentum, what would that tell us about the resilience of contemporary populist rule in Europe? Would it suggest that once authoritarian populism successfully constitutionalizes its power, elections alone become insufficient to dislodge it?
Associate Professor Attila Antal: I believe this is the most important issue of our time. Unfortunately, my grim assessment is that the Orbán regime is not seeking democratic legitimacy in the 2026 elections, but rather public support for its own dictatorial turn. I have long regarded the Orbán regime as a constitutional dictatorship, which means, on the one hand, that contemporary autocracies have a constitutional framework, and on the other hand, that certain segments of society have renounced democracy and accept the exercise of authoritarian power. Overall, therefore, the Orbán regime can only survive by becoming increasingly dictatorial, a trend that poses a grave danger to both Hungarian and European society as a whole.
Competing Visions of European Sovereignty
From the perspective of European integration, do you see this election as a struggle between two models of sovereignty: Orbán’s confrontational, anti-imperial, anti-Brussels sovereigntism and a more cooperative, rule-of-law-based claim to national interest that Tisza is trying to articulate? Or is that dichotomy too neat for the political realities of contemporary Hungary?
Associate Professor Attila Antal: First of all, the Orbán regime is indeed imperialist, and it pursues policies that serve Russian imperialist interests. The Hungarian election is crucial from the perspective of European integration, as the dilemma is whether there exists a European sovereignty that can be relied upon to stand up against authoritarian tendencies such as Trumpism and Putinism. I am committed to the idea, as Karl Loewenstein put it, that democracy must develop its own self-defense mechanisms and fight back – in our case, at both the member state and EU levels.
External Validation Meets Internal Resistance
Matryoshka dolls featuring images of Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump displayed at a souvenir counter in Moscow on March 16, 2019. Photo: Shutterstock.
Hungary has become a reference point within transnational right-wing networks, and Orbán continues to attract symbolic support from US and European conservative actors. In analytical terms, how much does this external validation matter domestically? Does it strengthen the regime’s legitimacy, or does it mainly reinforce Orbán’s self-image as a global ideological entrepreneur?
Associate Professor Attila Antal: From the perspective of ideological and political networking, the Orbán regime truly acts as a mediator between Western and Eastern authoritarian tendencies. This is why organizing the European far right is of key importance to Orbán. All of this undoubtedly has an impact on his own camp. At the same time, Orbán’s status as a “global ideological entrepreneur” represents the very project against which the Hungarian opposition has been able to unite and become committed to a change of government.
De-capture vs. Persistence of Orbánism
Finally, through the lens of your work on authoritarian law and exceptional governance, what would be the most theoretically significant post-election question for scholars to watch: whether electoral alternation occurs, whether institutional de-capture proves possible, or whether the deeper legacy of Orbánism survives regardless of who forms the next government?
Associate Professor Attila Antal: This is also one of the most important dilemmas of our era from both a Hungarian and a European perspective, as the political and legal consequences of the Orbán regime are toxic to European integration as a whole. On the one hand, just as happened after World War II, we must once again grapple with the question of how to take democratic action against authoritarian legal and political systems. On the other hand, and even more importantly: we must finally prevent the distortion of liberal democracies toward authoritarianism not only through constitutional institutions but also through effective economic and cultural means. In my view, it is crucial to examine how global capitalism and neoliberalism have distorted liberal constitutionalism and how they have eroded the social foundations of democracies through austerity measures and the dismantling of welfare systems.
In this commentary, Dr. Oludele Solaja introduces the notion of “survival populism” to capture how environmental crisis and material insecurity are reshaping democratic politics in the Global South. Moving beyond conventional ideational approaches, the article foregrounds lived experiences of hardship—linking fuel price shocks, flooding, energy insecurity, and inflation to moral claims about fairness, state responsibility, and distributive justice. Through the case of Nigeria, Dr. Solaja demonstrates how climate-related disruptions and policy reforms converge to erode institutional trust and reconfigure political contestation. Rather than rejecting climate policy per se, citizens contest its unequal burdens. The article thus reframes democratic distress as rooted in distributive conflict, offering a compelling framework for understanding how ecological crisis fuels new forms of populist mobilization and legitimacy crises.
In much of the Global South, the politics of survival and the politics of environmental crisis have become deeply intertwined. What were once distinct policy domains—the politics of fuel prices, flood mitigation, food inflation, waste accumulation, and energy insecurity—have converged into a single, lived experience of persistent hardship. For millions of citizens, the environmental crisis is not primarily defined by climate reports, international negotiations, or adaptation frameworks, but by submerged homes, rising transport costs, prolonged electricity outages, disrupted livelihoods, and escalating prices for basic goods.
Within such contexts of livelihood insecurity, ecological degradation takes on political meaning. Citizens come to see hardship not just as the result of misfortune or climatic fluctuation, but as an instance of unequal protection, institutional neglect and democratic distance. Under such conditions, public politics enters a new phase: a populism of survival emerges.
“Populism of survival” names a distinct mode of political interpretation that links environmental and economic distress to moral claims about state responsibility, fairness, and sacrifice. It departs from classical theories of populism by foregrounding the lived experience of hardship. Unlike the variants often associated with populist mobilizations in the Global North and East—typically structured around a binary opposition between “the people” and “the elite”—populism of survival is rooted in citizens’ experiences of material insecurity. Fuel becomes political when rising prices constrain mobility and limit access to basic goods; flooding becomes political when relief is inadequate or unevenly distributed; waste becomes political when its unequal management deepens social inequalities and disproportionately endangers already vulnerable populations.
In such contexts, public anger arises not only from opposition to environmental policy reforms but also from citizens’ everyday moral intuitions about who bears the costs of environmental disruption, who is required to pay, and who is protected. The relationship between climate policy and democratic legitimacy begins to erode when policies are perceived as non-distributive or unfair. Increasingly, the roots of climate populism lie in conflicts over how the costs and benefits of environmental transition are allocated. As Harrison (2025) observes, “across many settings, opposition to environmental reforms may stem not from a rejection of climate policies per se, but from opposition to the inequities of how their costs are distributed.”
An illustrative example of these dynamics can be found in Nigeria, where the government removed fuel subsidies in May 2023 and framed the resulting increase in fuel prices as a necessary macroeconomic adjustment. Public discourse surrounding the policy quickly became highly politicized, as rising fuel costs contributed to significant inflation and tightened household budgets. While state officials justified the reform in terms of fiscal discipline and economic rationalization, many citizens interpreted it through a moral lens: why should those at the bottom struggle to make ends meet while those with access to power remain insulated from such burdens? As Gbadebo (2025) argues, public responses to subsidy removal were shaped not only by the material consequences of economic hardship but also by concerns over governmental credibility and the plausibility of promised developmental outcomes.
These processes were intensified by other long-standing environmental and structural vulnerabilities and crises that now affected a wider portion of society than in past years. Following the floods that devastated numerous states—destroying livelihoods, homes, and arable lands—rising costs merged with food insecurity and frequent blackouts to form an inseparable social and ecological predicament. The state could no longer frame this predicament as exclusively “natural” or solely as the outcome of a natural disaster or poor market conditions. The experience was one of combined, cumulative crisis, and the credibility of the state in addressing such predicaments is tied to its performance on both fronts.
Flooding has, in particular, emerged as a major site of citizen dissatisfaction and a potent factor driving democratic distress. Displaced communities that have lost homes and productive capacity immediately feel cheated when the amount or distribution of government aid seems to reproduce and reinforce existing patterns of social inequality, and they begin to ask why state assistance appears uneven across communities and is not delivered to them preferentially. Climate policy has entered a phase in which state legitimacy is judged not solely in terms of its objectives or rationale, but also in terms of the effectiveness and fairness of its management of combined environmental and social threats.
Studies such as those by Okonkwo and Ezenwegbu (2024), which find that subsidy removal in Nigeria sparked significant concern among citizens who lacked a clear understanding of mitigation strategies or social protection, as well as analyses of the success and failure of fossil-fuel subsidy reform across various settings by Droste et al (2024), indicate that, when it comes to distributing the burdens of adjustment policies effectively, “technical argumentation alone has rarely been able to overcome such deeply seated mistrust.” The need for state institutions to earn citizens’ confidence through fairness, reciprocity, and demonstrable competence is therefore crucial in contexts with lower levels of public trust.
These issues are exacerbated in countries such as Nigeria, which suffer from chronic failures in infrastructure provision. Hussainzad and Gou (2024) show, for instance, that informality places the burden of adapting to ecological threats onto already existing socio-ecological inequalities. The populism of survival therefore cannot be interpreted solely as a product of irrational or ideological anti-state discourse, but as a request for a visible display of state competence. It requires public recognition from the state that it is aware of how these crises disproportionately affect ordinary citizens and is therefore prepared to demonstrate fairness and protection when such crises occur.
It may or may not amount to explicitly anti-government discourse; but at its core, it expresses a demand for visibility. What citizens seek is not just state intervention, but a demonstration of its commitment to justice when addressing both economic pressures and the demands of adapting to the climate crisis. These developments are interpreted by populists as a crucial and opening field of study centered on real, survival-oriented daily experiences, rather than on the ideologies and leaders of state actors. The main dilemma for democratic governments in the coming decade will be less about acknowledging that an environmental crisis is underway than about fairly distributing the costs of confronting it.
References
Droste, N.; Chatterton, B. & Skovgaard, J. (2024). “A political economy theory of fossil fuel subsidy reforms in OECD countries.” Nature Communications, 15, 5452.
Gbadebo, A. D. (2025). “The political economy of fuel subsidy removal: Governance and sustainable development in Nigeria.” Journal of Governance and Administrative Reform, 6(1), 1–18.
Hussainzad, E. A., & Gou, Z. (2024). “Climate risk and vulnerability assessment in informal settlements of the Global South: A critical review.” Land, 13(9), 1357.
Okonkwo, A. E., & Ezenwegbu, J. C. (2024). “Removal of petrol subsidies and its impact for democratic governance in Nigeria.” Nnamdi Azikiwe Journal of Political Science, 9(3), 38–47.
Assoc. Prof. Robert Csehi argues that Hungary’s April 12 election represents a critical test of whether entrenched populist rule can be electorally challenged. While he notes that “it will definitely be a test of incumbency survival,” he emphasizes that deeper dynamics—“ideological adaptation, state resource asymmetries, and narrative control”—remain decisive. Assoc. Prof. Csehi highlights growing limits in Orbán’s populist discourse, which “has lost its novelty,” alongside shifting political conditions marked by economic grievances and the rise of the Tisza Party as a credible challenger. Yet, even in the event of electoral turnover, he cautions that deeply embedded institutional structures may persist, potentially leading to “a prolonged struggle over state capacity.” Hungary thus offers a crucial case for assessing the resilience and limits of populist governance in Europe.
Giving an interview to the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Dr. Robert Csehi, Associate Professor and Program Director of the Political Science Doctoral Program at the Corvinus University of Budapest, offers a nuanced and theoretically grounded assessment of Hungary’s evolving political landscape on the eve of a pivotal electoral contest.
As Hungary approaches its parliamentary elections on April 12, 2026, the country stands at a critical juncture. After sixteen years of rule under Viktor Orbán, the election has come to signify more than routine democratic competition. It represents a broader test of whether entrenched populist governance—characterized by institutional consolidation, discursive dominance, and asymmetrical resource control—can be meaningfully challenged through electoral mechanisms. The campaign unfolds amid deep polarization, intensifying geopolitical tensions, and mounting concerns over democratic resilience, media pluralism, and institutional fairness. At the same time, the emergence of Péter Magyar and the Tisza Party has introduced a new dynamic into Hungary’s political competition.
Against this backdrop, Assoc. Prof. Csehi underscores that “it will definitely be a test of incumbency survival,” while emphasizing that the stakes extend beyond electoral turnover to questions of “ideological adaptation, state resource asymmetries, and narrative control.” In his view, the durability of Hungary’s populist system is no longer assured. He identifies emerging cracks within the governing discourse, noting that “the supply of the populist worldview… has become less creative” and “has lost its novelty,” with the government increasingly relying on repetitive narratives—particularly around the war in Ukraine—to sustain mobilization.
At the same time, structural shifts on both the supply and demand sides of politics are reshaping the electoral terrain. The rise of the Tisza Party, Assoc. Prof. Csehi observes, has created “a new channel for people to express their grievances,”while also reactivating political engagement at the grassroots level. Concurrently, worsening economic conditions have intensified public discontent, as “people’s everyday grievances are rising,” and the government finds it increasingly difficult to externalize responsibility for inflation, corruption, and declining public services.
Assoc. Prof. Csehi’s analysis situates Hungary within a broader comparative framework, highlighting the uncertain trajectory of mature populist regimes. While electoral defeat could mark “the end of the Orbán regime” in formal terms, he cautions that deeply embedded institutional structures may persist, generating “a prolonged struggle over state capacity and institutional de-capture.” Conversely, a renewed victory for Fidesz would signal that such regimes retain significant resilience, even under conditions of economic strain and ideological fatigue.
Ultimately, as Assoc. Prof. Csehi concludes, the Hungarian case offers a critical empirical test: whether “a mature, populist-authoritarian regime can still be changed… in an electoral process.” In this sense, Hungary’s 2026 election stands as a defining moment not only for the country itself, but for understanding the resilience—and limits—of populist rule across Europe.
In this interview with ECPS, Dr. Thomas Carothers offers a nuanced reassessment of contemporary democratic backsliding, challenging dominant explanations that prioritize socioeconomic grievances over political agency. He argues that elite opportunism and institutional permissiveness are central drivers of democratic erosion, cautioning against overgeneralizing from Western experiences. Emphasizing that “when institutions fail, protest becomes the last line of democratic defense,” Dr. Carothers highlights the enduring role of civic mobilization in constraining authoritarian drift. At the same time, he resists declinist narratives, noting that democratic “guardrails” continue to hold in many contexts. The interview ultimately frames global democracy as entering a new phase of contested resilience, shaped by the dynamic interplay of elites, institutions, and citizen action.
At a time when democracies across the globe face mounting pressures—from intensifying polarization in the United States and Europe to the growing assertiveness of authoritarian powers—the question of how democratic systems erode, endure, and renew themselves has taken on renewed urgency. In this context, Dr. Thomas Carothers, Director of the Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program and Harvey V. Fineberg Chair for Democracy Studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, offers a timely and nuanced intervention. Speaking to the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Dr. Carothers challenges prevailing explanatory frameworks and calls for a more differentiated understanding of democratic backsliding and resilience.
Central to his analysis is a critique of the widely invoked “democracy-not-delivering” thesis. As he observes,“democratic backsliding has been spreading around the world for over 20 years, but we’re still struggling to figure out why it’s occurring,” urging “a bit of humility” from both scholars and policymakers. Rather than attributing democratic erosion primarily to socioeconomic grievances, Dr. Carothers emphasizes the role of “power holders—elites and elite agency” in actively constraining democratic choice. He cautions against generalizing from the American and European experience, noting that in many contexts, citizens are not opting for extremist alternatives but are instead “not being allowed to make those choices” due to authoritarian interventions.
This analytical shift foregrounds the importance of political agency and institutional dynamics over structural determinism. Dr. Carothers expresses skepticism toward rigid dichotomies, arguing that the “structure-versus-agency framework… is not a particularly useful way” to understand contemporary democratic crises. Instead, he advocates for context-sensitive analysis that recognizes the interplay between institutional vulnerabilities and strategic elite behavior.
It is within this framework that Dr. Carothers advances one of his most compelling claims: “When institutions fail, protest becomes the last line of democratic defense.” In settings where courts, media, and civil society are systematically undermined, public protest emerges as a residual yet powerful mechanism of accountability. While acknowledging that even protest can be violently suppressed—as in cases like Tanzania or Nicaragua—he underscores that, in many democracies, mass mobilization continues to function as a critical constraint on executive overreach.
At the same time, Dr. Carothers resists overly pessimistic narratives. While democratic backsliding persists, he notes that “the rapid wave of backsliding has slowed somewhat,” and that in numerous cases institutional “guardrails have been holding up.” Drawing on comparative examples from Brazil, Senegal, and beyond, he highlights the capacity of civic mobilization and institutional resilience to counteract authoritarian drift.
Taken together, this interview situates contemporary democratic challenges within a broader landscape of contestation, adaptation, and uneven resilience. Rather than signaling an inevitable decline, Dr. Carothers suggests the emergence of a more complex equilibrium—one in which democratic erosion and renewal coexist, and where the future of democracy will depend on the dynamic interaction between elites, institutions, and citizens.
In this interview with the ECPS, Professor Tomaž Deželan offers a sobering assessment of Slovenia’s post-2026 electoral landscape, portraying it as a microcosm of broader European democratic tensions. While the election outcome reflects a degree of democratic resilience, it simultaneously reveals deepening fragmentation, rising anti-establishment mobilization, and the normalization of populist political styles. Professor Deželan argues that Slovenia is undergoing a structural transformation in political competition, marked by leader-centric mobilization, evolving campaign strategies, and the growing influence of digital communication. Most strikingly, he contends that mainstream and center-left actors are increasingly adopting populist tactics themselves, thereby weakening their normative advantage. In this sense, Slovenia exemplifies a wider trend in which democratic actors risk eroding liberal-democratic standards while attempting to counter populism.
In the aftermath of Slovenia’s closely contested 2026 parliamentary elections, the country has emerged as a revealing case for scholars of democratic resilience, party-system transformation, and the adaptive capacity of populism in contemporary Europe. Long regarded as one of the more stable and institutionally consolidated post-socialist democracies, Slovenia now appears to be entering a more uncertain phase marked by electoral fragmentation, ideological polarization, and the growing normalization of political styles once associated primarily with the populist radical right. The narrow result of the election may have prevented an outright illiberal breakthrough, yet it also exposed how fragile the liberal-democratic center has become under mounting domestic and transnational pressures.
In this wide-ranging interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Professor Tomaž Deželan, Chair of Policy Analysis and Public Administration at the University of Ljubljana, offers a nuanced and sobering interpretation of Slovenia’s evolving political landscape. Rejecting simplistic binaries, he argues that the current moment reflects both “a sign of democratic resilience” and the simultaneous emergence of “competitive illiberalism” within a formally democratic order. In his account, the 2026 election did not simply confirm the endurance of liberal democratic forces; it also revealed the strengthening of alternative actors and strategies that challenge the older political equilibrium from multiple directions.
A central theme of Professor Deželan’s analysis is the structural transformation of political competition itself. Slovenia’s fragmented party system, he suggests, can no longer be understood merely through the lens of episodic volatility. Instead, it points toward a deeper reconfiguration in which traditional party collusion, leader-centered organization, new gray zones of funding, and increasingly unregulated campaign practices coexist with novel forms of mobilization through civil society, digital platforms, and technocratic-populist appeals. Particularly striking is his observation that “we are bringing the messy world into Slovenia,” as strategies pioneered elsewhere in Europe and beyond increasingly shape domestic political behavior.
The interview’s central insight emerges most sharply in Professor Deželan’s comparative reflection on the changing repertoire of democratic actors themselves. As right-wing populists gain confidence, sophistication, and digital reach, he argues, mainstream and center-left forces have struggled to articulate a compelling non-populist response. Instead, they have increasingly adopted emotional and adversarial tactics of their own. Hence his stark conclusion: “democratic forces have, to some extent, responded to populism with populism,” and in doing so, they risk ceding further ground rather than reclaiming democratic initiative. This diagnosis is especially important because it shifts attention away from populist actors alone and toward the strategic exhaustion of those who claim to defend liberal democracy.
Professor Deželan also situates Slovenia’s trajectory within a broader European and transatlantic context. He traces the reconceptualization of Europe in more sovereigntist and ethno-national terms, the continued resilience of Janez Janša’s SDS (Slovenian Democratic Party) through leader-centric and affective mobilization, and the rise of anti-establishment formations such as Resnica as symptoms of deeper crises of trust and representation.
Taken together, Professor Deželan’s reflections suggest that Slovenia is not an outlier but a condensed laboratory of wider democratic tensions. This interview therefore offers not only an interpretation of one national election, but also a timely warning about how liberal-democratic systems may erode when their defenders begin to mirror the very logics they seek to resist.
In this insightful ECPS interview, Professor Johannes Andersen offers a sobering diagnosis of Denmark’s evolving political landscape following the 2026 general election. He argues that the country is undergoing a profound structural transformation marked by voter de-alignment, declining trust, and increasingly fragmented party competition. While voters remain loosely anchored within traditional blocs, many no longer feel represented by specific parties, resulting in growing electoral volatility. At the same time, political parties are shifting from long-term representation toward short-term, issue-driven strategies. As Professor Andersen warns, this dynamic creates a paradox: expanded democratic choice coexists with rising confusion and distrust—pointing to a more unstable, yet still functioning, democratic system.
Giving an interview to the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Johannes Andersen, Professor of Political Science at Aalborg University, offers a sobering and analytically rich assessment of Denmark’s evolving political landscape in the aftermath of the 2026 general election. Professor Andersen’s diagnosis captures a deeper structural transformation unfolding beneath the surface of what has long been considered one of Europe’s most stable democratic systems.
In the wake of Denmark’s closely contested 2026 general election, the country stands at a pivotal political moment—marked by fragmentation, the resurgence of the populist radical right, and renewed geopolitical tensions over Greenland. While the campaign was driven largely by domestic concerns such as the cost-of-living crisis and migration, the results also point to deeper shifts in political trust, voter alignments, and the structure of democratic competition. Professor Andersen’s analysis situates these developments within a broader transformation of democratic politics, emphasizing that Denmark is no longer experiencing episodic volatility but a sustained process of structural change.
At the core of his argument lies the claim that both voters and political parties are undergoing simultaneous and mutually reinforcing transformations. As he underscores, “we are witnessing really fundamental changes in this system,” driven by evolving voter attitudes and shifting party strategies. Voters, while still loosely anchored within traditional bloc structures, are increasingly detached from specific party identities – “voters no longer feel represented by a political party”—resulting in unprecedented levels of electoral fluidity. The fact that roughly half of the electorate has changed party allegiance in recent elections, with even higher volatility anticipated, illustrates the depth of this de-alignment.
At the same time, political parties have adapted by moving away from long-term representational commitments toward short-term, issue-driven competition. Rather than defending stable constituencies, they increasingly seek to maximize electoral appeal through targeted policy responses – “we are the best at solving this problem”—thereby reinforcing a political logic in which responsiveness replaces representation. This transformation is particularly visible in the growing centrality of migration politics, which now structures competition across both left and right.
Professor Andersen also highlights the gradual erosion of the welfare state as a unifying political project. Once the cornerstone of Danish social democracy, it has receded from the center of political discourse, replaced by fragmented issue politics and competing populist narratives. In this context, even strong executive performance does not necessarily translate into electoral gains, as demonstrated by the limited political returns from Denmark’s handling of the Greenland crisis.
Taken together, these dynamics point to what Professor Andersen describes as a new and inherently unstable political equilibrium—one defined by expanded voter choice but declining trust. As he cautions, “we are developing a new political culture based on growing confusion among voters,” where democratic dynamism coexists with increasing alienation.
The interview that follows explores these tensions in depth, beginning with the question of whether Denmark’s fragmentation reflects a temporary fluctuation or a more profound transformation of democratic politics.
