Please cite as: Newman, Saul. (2026). “Illiberalism and Democracy: The Populist Challenge to Transatlantic Relations.” In: Populism and the Future of Transatlantic Relations: Challenges and Policy Options. (eds). Marianne Riddervold, Guri Rosén andJessica R. Greenberg. European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). January 20, 2026. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp00135
Abstract The election of the paradigmatic populist Donald Trump to his second term as president of the United States raises serious questions, not only for transatlantic relations but also for the democratic values supposedly shared by the United States and much of Europe. The new Trump administration has not only upended normal diplomatic relations with many European countries and the European Union (EU) – particularly over trade tariffs, its commitment to NATO and its support for Ukraine – but has sought to interfere in internal political debates, and even to call into question democratic procedures, as we saw in the case of Romania. This chapter will seek to understand these developments by exploring the central tension between populism and democracy. While populists claim to speak directly on behalf of the ‘people’ and against the ‘elites’, their understanding of the people is a homogeneous one that excludes not only the elites but also minorities. Moreover, populism proposes an authoritarian model of politics that endangers pluralism, the rule of law, judicial independence and the intermediary procedures and institutions of liberal democracy. Recent and ongoing tensions in transatlantic relations must be seen in the context of a global right-wing populist assault on liberal democratic norms and values.
Relations between the United States and much of Europe have soured under the first, and, particularly, the second Trump administration. The ‘golden age’ of transatlantic relations that emerged after the end of the Second World War and with the establishment of a rules-based international legal and trading order now seems a distant memory. The United States’ imposition of trade tariffs on the European Union (EU) and uncertainties about Washington’s commitment to NATO and its support for Ukraine have caused a major rupture in relations with Europe. The Trump administration has shown an open hostility and contempt for Europe, referring to European countries as ‘freeloaders’ and admonishing European leaders for their abandonment of the principles of ‘free speech’. Trump himself has at times seemed more sympathetic to Putin than to Zelenskyy, and his style of governing is more akin to Viktor Orbán (a self-described ‘illiberal democrat’) than to the leader of the ‘free world.’
These developments – previously unthinkable – have upended normal relations between the United States and Europe, leaving many European leaders questioning the reliability of their once close ally and strategic partner. The post-Cold War international order is fragmenting, and a new global (dis)order is emerging, comprised of competing power blocs – the United States, China and Russia – in which the EU is regarded by the US administration as an irrelevance, or even as a potential enemy. However, this state of affairs is more than simply the consequence of a transactional president with an America First agenda. The fraught state of US–European relations represents a new ‘clash of civilizations’ – to invoke Samuel Huntington’s famous term – between competing visions of democracy. In other words, the recent fracturing of transatlantic partnerships must be understood in the broader context of the global rise of right-wing populism and the particular challenge it presents to the once-hegemonic liberal democratic model.
This chapter will explore the contemporary phenomenon of populism, which has become a defining (and perhaps permanent) feature of political life globally, and the extent to which it opposes liberal democratic institutions, norms and values. Populism proposes an alternative and, as I shall argue, an authoritarian model of democracy, one based on the unmediated ‘will of the people’ and largely hostile to political pluralism, the rule of law and the rights of minorities. My focus here will be on right-wing populism – that is, a populist model of politics allied to far-right ideologies. Right-wing populism might be seen as a form of radical conservatism, combining economic libertarianism, political authoritarianism, nativism and xenophobia, strong religious identity and socially and culturally conservative values; essentially an antiliberalism, which accounts for its hostility to supranational projects like the EU, as well as to what is perceived as the secular permissiveness of many European societies and their tolerance of multiculturalism, open borders and mass immigration.
Of course, populism is a dominant presence on the European political landscape, with right-wing populist and Eurosceptic parties either in government (e.g., in Italy and Hungary) or knocking on its doors (e.g., France, Germany and the United Kingdom). Moreover, there is a growing ideological alignment between these European populist forces and those in other parts of the world, particularly the United States. My chapter seeks to understand the spread of right-wing populist ideology beyond national borders and to see it as part of a global political realignment that has succeeded in disrupting the liberal status quo. This realignment represents a significant shift in transatlantic relations, affecting its basic pillars of security, trade, international institutions, and, especially, democratic values, which will be the focus of my chapter. It is too early to predict whether the ascendancy of nationalist populism – which is opposed to the idea of a liberal global order as the previously shared normative commitment of the United States and Europe – constitutes a permanent break in relations or a temporary moment of instability. But the rise of populist currents on both sides of the Atlantic is already causing major stresses and fractures in the transatlantic framework.
What Is Populism?
Populism is a notoriously slippery concept, and the vast and ever-growing literature on the topic testifies both to its importance and impact on politics, as well as to its conceptual vagueness. Populism has been studied as an ideology (albeit a ‘thin-centred’ one; see Mudde and Kaltwasser 2017); a discourse (see Laclau 2005); a performative style of politics (see Moffit 2017, 2020); an antisystem mobilization (see Canovan 1999); and as a political strategy (Weyland 2017). Some studies have focused on populism as an anti-establishment protest (see Albertazzi, McDonnell and Aslanidis 2024), while others have focused on populism in government (see Albertazzi and McDonnell 2015; Venizelos 2023). Populism can be defined by so many, or so few, characteristics as to render it often either too specific or too general a concept to be useful (see Arato and Cohen 2022, 7). Yet, my aim here is not to present a survey of different theoretical approaches to populism, but to identify some of its core elements.
I take an ‘ideational’ approach to populism, seeing it as a certain way of imaging social relations as being based on a central opposition between ‘the people’ and ‘the elites’ (see Mudde and Kaltwasser 2017). This is a moral opposition, where ‘the people’ are seen as morally pure, authentic, honest, hardworking, etc and as being deceived and exploited by duplicitous elites, who have betrayed their economic interests to a liberal, globalizing agenda. Populists claim to be on the side of the people against these nefarious and corrupt elites and to want to restore sovereignty and self-determination to the people. In this sense, populists claim to affirm a more genuine democracy – based on the unmediated will of the people – in opposition to the elites who provide only the fig leaf of democracy, behind which they pursue their own economic and political interests. The elites, it is claimed, have nothing in common with the people and do not share their values and interests. When Trump complains about the ‘Washington establishment’ whose policies have led to American decline – through ‘unfair’ free trade agreements and mass immigration – and when he promises to restore manufacturing and industry and to bring jobs back to the rustbelt; when he promises to ‘Make America Great Again’ through protectionist policies and trade tariffs, he is essentially playing the populist card. This basic narrative of the people vs the elites is shared by all populisms, from Trump in the United States, Erdoğan in Türkiye, Le Pen in France, to Morales in Bolivia and Lula in Brazil. Indeed, left-wing populism – as typified by the last two examples – also sees the people pitted against financial oligarchies and the political class that serves their interests.
How Does Populism Endanger Democracy?
Why, then, is populism a potential threat to democracy? After all, democracy is all about popular sovereignty and the ‘will of the people’. Populists work within democratic systems, run in elections and even support referendums and popular plebiscites. Populist leaders claim to espouse a more genuine form of democracy by giving the people ‘what they really want’ and expressing their desires in a direct and unmediated fashion, bypassing the usual channels of parliamentary procedure and the mainstream media. However, it is precisely this emphasis on the ‘will of the people’ that makes populism dangerously ambivalent towards democracy. However, the problem with this sort of direct relationship with the people – characteristic of populism – is that it undermines and weakens the mediating functions and procedures central to liberal representative democracy. In a liberal democracy, institutions like parliaments, the independent judiciary, and the media act as intermediary bodies between the people and power; their function is to mediate the popular will into a form of governance that can take into account a diversity of views, opinions, and interests. The will of the people – as articulated by the populist leader – cannot, and should not, be absolute; popular opinion must be limited by the rule of law and filtered through the representative function of political parties. The weakening of these norms – which usually happens under a populist-led government – leads to the ‘disfigurement’ of democracy (see Urbinati 2014).
In populist discourse, ‘the people’ are defined in absolute terms, as a homogeneous identity that necessarily excludes other identities that are seen as not genuinely part of ‘the people’. Such exclusion refers not only to the nefarious elites, who are in any case often vaguely defined – financial and political elites, but also various cultural elites who support a ‘woke agenda’ and who do not share the same values as the ‘real’ people – but also to minorities, with whom the elites are seen to be complicit. These minorities tend to be immigrants, who are seen to weaken national identity, come from different cultures with incompatible values, steal jobs from locals, pose a security threat or become a drain on resources. Indeed, mass immigration and ‘illegal’ border crossing is emerging as the central political issue in the United Kingdom, much of Europe and, under Trump, in the United States. The immigration issue gives rise to populist currents on both sides of the Atlantic. However, in populist discourse, other minorities – such as cultural, sexual and gender minorities – can also be positioned as ‘enemies of the people’. Indeed, there is seen to be a kind of conspiracy between the establishment and the minorities they enable. When right-wing populists condemn the ‘woke agenda’ supposedly pushed by ‘out of touch’ cultural, intellectual and political elites (the mainstream media, academics, Hollywood celebrities, liberal politicians, the judiciary, human rights advocacy groups, ‘leftist’ lawyers, etc) it is in the belief that they unfairly support the interests and rights of minorities over those of the majority. – For populists, the people – usually defined as the natives – necessarilypresupposes homogeneity, as well as supremacy concerning other ‘outsider’ groups. Now, if one’s view of democracy is that the interests and rights of majorities should always be placed above those of minorities, then the populist understanding of the people makes sense and is consistent. However, the liberal democratic tradition – centred around the problematic of the ‘tyranny of the majority’ – believes that democracy involves more than just the popular will, but also a respect for the pluralism of values, interests and identities and that it must defend the rights of minorities as equal to those of majorities.
Not only is populism, in its homogenizing notion of the people, largely hostile to pluralism and minority rights (see Müller 2017), but it is also dominated by the figure of the leader, who is seen to directly embody and channel the will of the people. The populist leader sees him- or herself as the ‘people’s tribune’, who shares their values, understands their suffering and gives them what they really want. Populist parties are not like normal political ‘catch-all’ parties that represent a diversity of interests, views and factions, but rather are entirely leader-centric; the party is the leader and the leader is the party. Think of the one-man political party of Geert Wilders in the Netherlands (the Party for Freedom) and think of the hold that Trump has over the Republican Party, which has essentially become the official arm of his MAGA movement. Indeed, Trump is a perfect example of the populist leader who claims to speak directly for and to the people – which is why he tends to bypass the normal channels of political communication, preferring mass rallies and social media to galvanize his supporters. This close relationship that populism seeks to establish between the people and the leader is what political theorists like Nadia Urbinati have referred to as ‘direct representation’ (see Urbinati 2019). The MAGA–Republican movement is more like a religious cult than a political party, and to his supporters, Trump can do no wrong. Trump once boasted that he could shoot someone in broad daylight and people would still vote for him, and there is no reason to believe he was wrong. The faith invested in the figure of the leader allows him to attack the ‘deep state’ and to promise to cut through the mire of bureaucratic inertia and complexity that obstructs the sovereign will of the people. The populist leader thus presents him- or herself as the ‘strong man’ type who is unafraid to violate the norms and procedures of politics, to say what everyone is really thinking, and to play fast and loose with the democratic rules of the game in order to ‘get the job done.’
There have been many studies over recent years of populism in power. Populism has gone from being an oppositional politics challenging the establishment, to becoming the new establishment. So what do populists do when they get into power? How do they govern? And how do they sustain an anti-establishment position when they effectively become part of the establishment? This tension, between populism as an anti-establishment mobilization and populism as a form of government, partly accounts for the chaos of the first months of the Trump administration, with incoherent announcements over tariffs and foreign policy, the mass sacking (and then rehiring) of federal government employees, and hundreds of executive orders that have been overturned by federal court judges. The tendency of populists in power is to still play the part of the outsider, continue their attacks on the ‘deep state’, the media, the judiciary, and entrenched interests, and to blame their policy failures on ‘the establishment’. Yet, behind the scenes, populist governments meddle with the constitution, undermine the independence of the judiciary, attack journalists and universities, restrict the rights of minorities and seek to establish a form of strong executive rule that is largely unhinged from the rule of law. Populist governments form ‘hybrid regimes’, or ‘democratorships’ (see Rosanvallon 2021; see also Keane 2020): they retain the semblance of democracy in the form of parliaments, elections and an independent media, but behind this veneer, political opponents are harassed, the judiciary and media are intimidated, and power becomes centralized in the executive.
Populism is thus a challenge to the idea of constitutional democracy (see Arato and Cohen 2022). The paradigm cases would be Hungary under Viktor Orbán and Türkiye under Erdoğan. But increasingly the United States is coming to resemble a democratorship, or at least an increasingly contested and ambiguous democracy. Illegal and unconstitutional executive orders, arbitrary arrests and mass deportations by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, attacks on universities – all these are signs that the United States is descending into authoritarianism, and there is real concern about whether the institutions of American democracy will survive this onslaught.
The Global Far Right
Looking at Project 2025 – the ideological manifesto of Trumpism – it is clear that strong executive rule, draconian border control, isolationism, and the return to conservative and patriarchal values all form part of the agenda of the new US administration, constituting a right-wing assault on liberal secularism and pluralism. However, my point is that this ideological agenda is not unique to the United States: ‘illiberalism’ – driven by the forces of populism – is part of a political realignment whose effects are being felt around the world, and particularly in Europe. Orbán’s version of democracy is looked upon as a model to emulate by Trump supporters: Steve Bannon, Elon Musk, and other figures of the US far right regularly address rallies in Europe and find favour with populist parties like Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD); populist parties in Europe form right-wing alliances in the European Parliament; populist views on immigration – driven by fears of the ‘great replacement’ – become part of the political mainstream and gain legitimacy in the eyes of many voters; journalists and media organizations are condemned as ‘fake news’; climate science, net zero policies, and, indeed, scientific expertise generally, are attacked; and far-right populist politicians, political entrepreneurs and influencers – with powerful social media platforms at their disposal – continue to foment political polarization and sow distrust in the establishment.
Such factors do not bode well for transatlantic relations; nor do they bode well for the future of liberal democracy. We need to see these developments as part of a far-right ideological project which – while it is opposed to globalization – nevertheless has global dimensions and projects an alternative, socially conservative vision of the world that is very different from the liberal, rules-based order that we once knew and to which the transatlantic relationship, based on shared liberal values, was central. It may be that a new transatlantic relationship will emerge on the ashes of the old, formed of power blocs led by nationalist-populist governments. Whatever the case, the populist groundswell on both sides of the Atlantic is testing the former liberal democratic settlement to breaking point.
Conclusion and Policy Implications
In a recent book, Anne Applebaum (2024) has argued that autocratic regimes around the world have formed an ideological bloc united against a common enemy: the ‘liberal democratic West’ and its institutions, such as NATO and the EU. My claim would be that the United States’ place within this schema is now, under Trump, highly ambiguous; is it still part of the ‘liberal West’ or is it part of the new ‘illiberal’ authoritarian alliance that targets it? Moreover, I do not propose a clear-cut division between autocracy and liberal democracy. It is more useful to see all regimes on a kind of sliding scale in which the difference between liberalism and authoritarianism is now a matter of degree rather than an absolute conceptual distinction. Many well-established liberal democracies have implemented security, law-and-order and border-control measures that would not be out of place in recognizably authoritarian regimes. In a sense, democracy is an increasingly contested space. Populism is largely a symptom of this democratic dysfunction. While it endangers liberal democracy – for the reasons I have outlined above – it also has an important message for us: that democracy is not (and perhaps never can be) perfect, and that while there is mass citizen dissatisfaction with politics as usual, while many continue to feel under-represented by their elected officials, and while huge inequalities in power and wealth continue to exist (and indeed are becoming worse) populism will always be a feature of the political landscape. The populist challenge to liberal democracy is therefore also an invitation to rethink and reform it.
My work is part of the Horizon-funded ‘Reclaiming Liberal Democracy in the Post-Factual Age’ project, which has explored the central role ‘post-truth’ narratives and disinformation campaigns play in populist politics. This dynamic is regarded as a serious challenge to the resilience of European liberal democracies, and the EU has responded with a series of policy and regulatory frameworks designed to bolster democratic institutions. These have included the European Democracy Action Plan or EDAP (2020) which is committed to the protection of open political debate from malign interference; the creation of a transparent and accountable digital ecosystem; the promotion of an enabling civic space that ensures inclusive and effective engagement between public authorities, civil society organizations, and citizens; and the defence of the EU’s democratic sphere from covert external influence (see García-Guitián and Bouza – forthcoming 2026). Whether regulatory frameworks such as these will themselves be enough to head off the threat from authoritarian populism is doubtful – but they are examples of the kinds of policy innovation needed to bolster liberal democracies on both sides of the Atlantic.
(*) Saul Newman is Full Professor of Politics at Goldsmiths University of London. His research is in the area of contemporary political and democratic theory, including topics such radical politics and anarchism, human rights, political theology, populism and post-truth politics. He is the author and editor of over a dozen books, including Order, Crisis and Redemption: Political Theology after Schmitt (with Peter Langford) (SUNY Press 2022), The Anarchist Before the Law: Law without Authority (with Massimo La Torre) (Edinburgh University Press 2024) and Post-Truth Populism: a New Political Paradigm (with Maximilian Conrad eds.) (Palgrave Springer 2024).
References
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Arato, Andrew, and Jean L. Cohen. 2022. Populism and Civil Society: The Challenge to Constitutional Democracy. Oxford University Press.
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García-Guitián, Elena, and Luis Bouza. 2026. “The European Union Strategy to Fight Disinformation: Democratic Justification, Policies and Regulation.” In Reclaiming Liberal Democracy in the Postfactual Age, edited by Maximilian Conrad and Saul Newman. De Gruyter. (Forthcoming).
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Urbinati, Nadia. 2014. Democracy Disfigured: Opinion, Truth and the People. Harvard University Press.
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Venizelos, Georgios. 2023. Populism in Power: Discourse and Performativity in SYRIZA and Donald Trump. Routledge.
Weyland, Kurt. 2017. “Populism: A Political-Strategic Approach.” In The Oxford Handbook of Populism, edited by Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser, Paul Taggart, Paulina Ochoa Espejo, and Pierre Ostiguy, 48–72. Oxford University Press.
Please cite as: Andersson, Ruben. (2026). “The Illiberal Bargain on Migration.” In: Populism and the Future of Transatlantic Relations: Challenges and Policy Options. (eds). Marianne Riddervold, Guri Rosén and Jessica R. Greenberg. European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). January 20, 2026. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp00136
Abstract Since the 1990s, Western states have pursued a dual migration strategy: economically liberal policies to secure labour supply and hardline measures against ‘unwanted’ migration. The Trump administration has amplified these long-standing tendencies. Across Europe, governments as different as the UK Labour Party and Italy’s Brothers of Italy are cracking down on asylum and maritime arrivals while muddling through on labour migration. Economic and demographic pressures ensure persistent demand for migrant workers, even as short-term politics reward spectacular enforcement campaigns with damaging consequences. What has shifted is the growing centrality of migration as a security domain. Fears of ‘weaponized’ migration in Europe and Trump’s confrontations with origin states show how trade and aid are being deployed to pressure poorer countries into cooperation on control and deportation. Despite hostile rhetoric, the European Union (EU) and the United States are increasingly converging on coercive, illiberal bargains. Whether labour market needs, practical limits or political resistance can soften this trajectory remains uncertain.
After the Cold War, it seemed briefly as if a new ‘borderless’ world was emerging. Yet as the Iron Curtain came down, new barriers appeared at the United States–Mexico border – continuing the ‘securitisation’ of especially Latin American migration pushed by Ronald Reagan’s administration in the 1980s. In the European Union, securitization accompanied the establishment of a shared external border. In both cases, a security approach to migration emerged as the liberal vision of free trade and openness ran into deep contradictions. Yet this ‘security model’ has failed. This failure, in turn, has contributed to rising political fervour – fuelling, in the process, even more demand for border security.
Notably,the ‘security model’ short-circuited ordinary political procedure. Measures were frequently pushed through from the top with little democratic scrutiny. Externally, it involved strengthening the repressive apparatus of ‘partner states’. Rather than bolstering democratic values, ‘border security first’ increasingly eroded their importance – as seen most starkly in the European Union’s (EU) collaboration with repressive regimes.
Domestically, ‘border security first’ hindered a robust democratic debate over the realities of migration. In the United States, border enforcement was a stopgap measure to address a central contradiction of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA): capital and goods moved frictionlessly while workers did not. In the EU, border security similarly rose as a simple ‘fix’ when member states failed to enact a functioning common migration or asylum policy to accompany their new borderless area of free movement and trade.
In the process, a two-faced migration regime was consolidating on both sides of the Atlantic. The promotion of a globalized economy – including for large-scale labour migration – was accompanied by an increased, if selective, securitization of poorer overland migrants and asylum seekers from the south. The two sides of the transatlantic relationship, insofar as migration was concerned, seemed to move as much in lockstep as in other domains such as trade, finance and international security.
These recent historical patterns reveal some remarkable continuities in the politics of migration across the Atlantic. However, in recent years the ‘security model’ against unwanted migration has gained increasing salience despite solid evidence that it has tended to fuel border chaos and stronger smuggling networks while eroding fundamental rights and liberties. The crisis footing over migration has been central to rising ‘populist’ or authoritarian sentiment, to the point where its framing and ‘solutions’ are increasingly mainstream. While this tendency has become especially stark under the second Donald J. Trump presidency, the EU and many of its member states are equally wedded to the security model. Meanwhile, the failure to adequately account for the structural determinants of migration – the supply and demand of labour, deep demographic and economic imbalances, and drivers of forced displacement – will continue to haunt politics on both sides of the Atlantic. The risk is that, on current trends, this ‘unresolved business’ will keep fuelling demand for authoritarian ‘solutions’. Here governments may not simply keep ‘muddling through’ but actively shift towards a renewal of transatlantic relations through hard securitization – including, besides vast investments in rearmament and surveillance, the securitization of mobility on a much wider scale.
The chapter will compare migration politics in the United States and at the EU’s southern external border since the 1990s. We will examine one emblematic case, Spain, which became an important immigration destination around this time. As elsewhere in Europe, both conservative and socialist governments responded to this shift in part by securitizing numerically small movements of African migrants and asylum seekers towards Spanish land and sea borders – a pattern replicated on a much larger scale at the US–Mexico border. The security model has fed further border crises in both cases, while overall migration has continued to fluctuate in response to structural factors, with border security itself providing further impetus for undocumented migration. Next, we shift focus to the present Trump administration and to the increasingly nationalist politics of Europe, showing how the security approach has fed on its own failures while opening a window for radical offerings from the ‘new right’. Throughout, we must understand US and European migration regimes as intertwined: rhetoric, expertise and technology have travelled across the Atlantic while buttressing an increasingly shared political outlook, with one partial exception: Spain itself, which in recent years has opted for a more liberal approach.
Europe’s Two-faced Migration Regime Since the 1990s
A small Spanish enclave at the tip of North Africa is emblematic of the challenges in managing the EU’s external border. At the ‘autonomous city’ of Ceuta, one of the EU’s only two land borders in Africa, Europe erected its first border barriers against migration in the 1990s. Since this time, each new measure at the border has fuelled more dangerous entry methods, as the guards themselves point out. The fences were soon being breached en masse, similarly to the ‘kamikaze runs’ taking place at the San Diego–Tijuana border. When Madrid announced it would reinforce the barrier in 2005, migrants took their chance. The result was one of Europe’s earliest ‘border crises’: an event in which at least fourteen migrants were killed in gunfire, with many more expelled deep into the Sahara desert.
Since that time, crises have periodically recurred. However, this has not stopped Ceuta’s barrier from becoming a prototype for fences that today stretch from Greece to Finland. Spain also provided Europe with a model for ‘externalizing’ controls to African states, first in Morocco and later, when routes shifted due to post-2005 crackdowns, to West Africa.
Meanwhile, Spain pursued diplomatic efforts that fed into the Europeanization of border management. The Frontex agency conducted its first notable operations off the Canary Islands, where the next ‘migration crisis’ occurred in 2006, itself a knock-on effect of the 2005 crackdowns. EU initiatives on border security, development, and even ‘mobility partnerships’ multiplied – a process driven partly by member states such as Spain, keen to offer aid and diplomatic relations in exchange for African states agreeing to patrol migration routes and accept deportees. The carrots-and-sticks approach – articulated by European governments at a 2002 summit in Seville – seemed to offer a ‘solution’ that paired border security with opportunities for cross-regional collaboration.
In the intervening period, the Spanish economy continued to grow at a febrile pace. Amid demographic imbalances and strong labour demand, migrant workers were desperately needed. Madrid ensured a steady supply of workers, especially from Latin America, Eastern Europe and even Morocco. In this context, the spectacle of border enforcement allowed politicians to show a ‘tough’ line on migration while simultaneously encouraging large-scale labour immigration. This disproportionate concern over the external border was a Europe-wide phenomenon: indeed, already in the 1990s, northern European states had been leaning on their southern counterparts to enforce strict measures. Spain also remained emblematic of the wider European ‘muddling through’ on migration as it launched regularization campaigns and released boat arrivals from detention with a deportation order, free to join the informal economy. The two-faced migration regime kept the economy thrumming and the borders ‘secure’ – sending a mixed message picked up in origin states and among European voters.
To critics in politics, advocacy and academia, a small minority of migrants and asylum seekers were seeing their basic rights sacrificed as they faced dangerous expulsions into desert areas by partner forces or extremely risky sea crossings in attempts to evade patrols and radar systems. The heightened salience of a small – and clearly racialized – minority of migrants was, at the same time, channelling right-wing ‘populist’ sentiment towards the borders, fuelling demand for further crackdowns. Meanwhile, deaths owing to ‘Fortress Europe’ policies since 1993 have been estimated at more than 66,000 – a staggering figure (United Against Refugee Deaths 2025).
The United States: A Model of Mismanagement?
A similar trend could be observed in the United States. In 1986, the Immigration Reform and Control Act, similar to Spanish efforts, offered an amnesty to undocumented migrants while paving the way for further crackdowns. President Ronald Reagan hardened rhetoric as he called undocumented migration ‘a threat to national security’ with ‘terrorists and subversives… just two days’ driving time’ from the Texas border – echoing Trump’s later pronouncements (Massey 2015, 288). By the 1990s, army surplus landing mats were stood on their ends outside San Diego to form the first rudimentary border barrier (Harding 2012, 91). Border security operations started multiplying while collaboration deepened with Mexico and Central American states – replicating the ‘externalization’ pattern of Euro–African relations.
Unlike those in Europe, migration flows across the southern US border were of a different magnitude. Very much like in Europe, however, Washington was ‘muddling through’ as it tried at once to satisfy labour needs and project selective toughness. The resulting ‘border game’ (Andreas 2000) offered a stark contrast with the post-Second World War approach. The bracero program – a bilateral agreement between the United States and Mexico that began in 1942 to address wartime US labour shortages and allowed millions of Mexicans to work legally in the United States as seasonal agricultural labourers – had once provided legal pathways for labour migration. Once it ended in the 1960s, irregular migration rose correspondingly as legal routes were replaced by illegal ones (Massey et al. 2015). As border enforcement saw vast sums of investment from the 1980s onwards, migrants still kept arriving – only now, they were easier to exploit.
As in Europe, border security was deployed as a solution to an eminently political problem: it papered over the cracks and contradictions of a ‘free’ transnational market – a market that, through NAFTA, was leading to a ‘migration hump’ as many Mexicans left amid shifting economic opportunities. After 9/11, securitization escalated under the aegis of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. However, the tremendous efforts did not halt deaths or irregular migration. In 1986, there were some two million undocumented migrants in the United States; after years of heavy border security investment, in 2008, there were twelve million (Massey et al. 2015). Many of these were migrants who no longer felt it safe to return to Mexico after the agricultural season, owing to the fences and patrols. Each new border crisis kept feeding demand for more border security, opening further avenues for authoritarian and right-wing forces to propose ways for breaking the stalemate.
Post-2008: Securitization Gains Momentum
After the financial crisis, the path dependency of the security model was strengthened on both sides of the Atlantic. In the United States, immigration reform became increasingly contingent on ploughing even more funding into border security. While the political battles played out along broadly familiar lines, the underlying security model remained bipartisan, as revealed by Senate wranglings over draconian immigration bills or indeed the record three million people removed under the Obama administration (Foley 2013).
Yet in the early 2010s, Mexican immigration was in fact falling due primarily to demographic and economic factors. Migrant apprehensions were at their lowest numbers in about forty years (WOLA 2025). The security model was taking on a momentum of its own, irrespective of actual migration figures or its actual results.
In Europe, the security model received great impetus from the 2015 border crisis, when record numbers crossed the Mediterranean via Türkiye and Libya. Frontex began operations with a modest budget of €19 million in 2006: by 2022, it had reached €750 million. The allocation to Frontex was but a small part of the expenditure on the national level, or the cost of externalizing controls. The security model was building further momentum via attempts by both ‘partner states’ and hostile actors to use irregular migration as a bargaining chip with Brussels and EU capitals. Favours included financial disbursements – such as €1 billion in aid for Niger, the exact sum it had asked for in 2016 ‘to fight clandestine migration’, or the much larger aid deal struck with Türkiye (Financial Times 2016). It also included political favours, such as Spain’s acquiescence to Morocco’s occupation of Western Sahara as quid pro quo for Rabat playing its on-again-off-again role as Europe’s ‘gendarme.’
In sum, politicians on both sides of the Atlantic converged around a two-faced migration regime: feeding migrants into their labour-hungry economies on the one hand, including illegalized workers who could be readily exploited, and launching tough-seeming crackdowns at physical borders and in third countries, on the other. The result was a growing enforcement industry and a self-sustaining spiral of securitization. In this spiral, there was eventually one clear winner: the challengers on the hard or new right, which actively played the two sides of the border regime against one another – using overall immigration figures as an argument for more crackdowns at external land and sea borders, for instance, or using the frequent crises at those borders as a justification for saying the whole migration system (and by implication, its mainstream political architects) was compromised.
2020s: Total Security
Even as political challengers started becoming more vocal – including in the United Kingdom’s Brexit campaign, in the first Trump presidency, or in the rise of right-wing authoritarian forces across continental Europe – one could still see much transatlantic ‘muddling through’ on migration. However, the two-faced migration regime is tilting further towards securitization. The impetus is not only coming from the Trump administration or from Europe’s authoritarian right. Centrist European governments are also adopting similar rhetoric and objectives, while increasingly following the new right’s lead. Instead of sating popular demand for more border control, however, they contribute to an uncontrollable appetite for more security and for more hard-right solutions.
In the EU, policymakers are increasingly painting migration as a security problem. Measures include crackdowns on ‘instrumentalized’ migration – the tactic of using migrants as a bargaining chip, which developed in direct response to Europe’s migration-induced panic. Even so, governments still adhere to the two-faced migration regime in important respects – including Italy’s ‘populist’ right-wing government, which has opened legal migration pathways into sectors with labour shortages paired with harder crackdowns in the Mediterranean.
In the United States, Trump has shifted focus inland. Raids on homes and workplaces have targeted green card holders and blue-chip technology companies (Financial Times 2025). European visitors have been caught up in crackdowns, adding potential transatlantic friction. Overall, the securitization of US cities and workers shows how the security model increasingly ‘trumps’ the economy. In the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ of 2025, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) alone received an estimated $37.5 billion a year while its watchdog was gutted, citizenship-stripping came up for discussion, and the courts and Congress let checks and balances melt away – creating, as one commentator put it, a ‘security state within a state’ (Luce 2025).
On both sides of the Atlantic, there are again some clear winners. First, the hard or far right, which always offers more convincing ‘security theatre’. Second, the defence, security and detention–deportation industries, which are seeing a staggering surge in demand. And third, the human smugglers, who have found themselves with a captive market – a lesson that has consistently been ignored despite clear evidence that criminal syndicates have grown stronger and more predatory on the back of enforcement efforts (Andersson 2024).
Where Next?
The two-faced migration regime has proven remarkably long-lived, as even the most hardline governments struggle to square the circle of economic realities and security politics. However, we may also discern not just a quantitative but a qualitative shift in the security model. Migration is becoming central to how ‘security’ is envisioned, and this is occurring in transatlantic dialogue. We see this, for instance, in the geopolitics of bargaining with migrants played by the Trump administration with origin and ‘dumping’ countries, or in the very similar deals being crafted by the EU and its member states. We see it, notably, in how the earlier emphasis on development and human security, especially in the EU case, has melted away. Even a classical ‘security crisis’ – Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine – has increasingly been framed in terms of ‘instrumentalized’ movements of desperate people.
The Trump administration likes to lecture ‘liberal’ Europe on sleepwalking into an ‘invasion’ – deploying rhetoric not dissimilar to that of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi when he once used racist language to threaten Europe over engineered migration flows. Yet the rhetorical smoke hides the reality of increasing convergence around treating migration as a security domain. The security model is now hitting legal migrants, permanent residents and sometimes even citizens with invasive surveillance and control. Meanwhile, both the United States and European actors engage in lopsided bargaining with poorer states over responsibility for migration and asylum, ‘instrumentalising’ migrants for domestic and geopolitical ends.
Some dampers exist, especially in the EU, where some aspects of the Union and some member states (Spain being one) hold out for a more liberal approach. In fact, one main risk of a breakdown in transatlantic relations comes from the Trump administration’s putting its thumb on the scale in favour of far-right challengers while undermining checks and balances. Yet for now, the transatlantic bargain is developing, much as in the military domain, with Europe enthusiastically following through on further securitization. While we continue to see much ‘muddling through’ domestically, we are also seeing signs of a ‘renewal’ of transatlantic relations around an illiberal bargain that construes migration as a threat and refugees and migrants as bargaining chips in the international arena.
The Path Forward
For those who wish to reverse this trend, a few things should take priority:
1.Establish a civil liberties compact in the interest of citizens and foreigners alike.
As we can start to discern both in the ICE raids in the United States and in various European initiatives of control and surveillance, efforts to securitize migration eventually start hitting the wider social fabric and affecting citizens’ liberties as well, while frequently fuelling an anxiety that benefits the far right.A compact on liberties can ensure that the EU’s ‘area of freedom, security and justice’ becomes concrete and meaningful for all residents. Baking in privacy and civil liberties safeguards into new control proposals is a start, as even some of the architects of the US homeland security state are now acknowledging.Enshrining such safeguards would show that the EU is still keeping some faith in small-l liberal values – a project that may surprisingly appeal to many of the voters flocking to the new right, who, on the whole, are worried about state surveillance and overreach.
2. Rework relationships with ‘partner states.’
The European externalization of controls has led to a ceding of control to neighbouring states, who have consistently used migration fears to extract political or economic concessions (Chebel d’Appollonia 2012). As border guards themselves recognize, it is a game the Europeans are increasingly losing. Here is an opportunity to shift to a more positive, pragmatic footing. It is in the gift of Brussels and member states to shift the equation back towards economic cooperation, humanitarian and peacebuilding support and reaffirmed democratic rights – but this will require some heavy lifting, including a revival of refugee resettlement programmes offering an alternative to displaced people and some goodwill to the world’s largest refugee hosts in Africa and Asia.
3. Foster positive foreign policy coherence.
The EU and its member states can gear foreign policy towards less distress-inducing migration, not more, as is so frequently the case. The 2015 spike in arrivals was in no small part a knock-on effect of NATO’s disastrous Libya intervention. While the chaos spurred large-scale departures from the country, Russia saw the risk of regime change elsewhere and scaled up involvement in Syria’s civil war. Geopolitical bargaining with Syrian refugees followed. Today, EU support for Israeli war crimes in Gaza may not be adding pressure to Europe’s borders – given the particularities of that context, and the lock-in of its bombarded inhabitants – yet the pattern remains: of foreign policy choices fuelling forced displacement rather than addressing it.
4. Strengthen the social model.
The EU could be bold and see migration as an opportunity and a source of enrichment. Instead, it has frequently been handled terribly poorly through the two-faced migration regime – as a security problem on the one hand, and as a source of use-and-discard labour on the other. The security model, in other words, distracts from the need to strengthen labour protections. A smart policy would be to turn this around. In fact, a de-securitization of migration can occur in tandem with a strengthening of social security.
This strengthening would entail adequate labour standards and fair pay for citizens and migrants alike; fortifying the welfare state and so creating attractive jobs; cracking down on unscrupulous employers, not employees; and providing genuine rights for people fleeing persecution through safe routes rather than via the heavily policed borderlands that feed the smuggling economy and partner-state brinkmanship. Such controls would provide pathways to genuine ‘integration’ rather than generating just-in-time labour pools. Paired with targeted funds for local areas where migrants concentrate – as well as sensible policies for ensuring everyone does not end up in the same place – this will reduce costs and increase benefits for citizens. It may well put a damper on international movement as people respond to reduced labour demand. Incidentally, however, this may also help origin countries struggling with large outflows of their working population through unsafe routes. It will also offer migrants a genuine and safe alternative.
It is notable that border guards themselves are alive to the unsustainability of the two-faced border regime and its increasingly illiberal tilt. At Ceuta, the Civil Guard chief presiding over Europe’s first border fences told the author in 2023 that migration had to be returned to the political fold. However, in his view, there was a ‘political cost’ that no government wanted to assume in creating regular labour migration. The EU, he suggested, could recruit workers into seasonal agricultural programmes or develop other pathways that could compete with ‘irregular migration’. At the moment, he noted, there was no competition. Unfortunately, in the political sphere as well, there is increasingly no competing perspective against the disastrous security model, even as it extends its reach ever further into everyday life and into international relations. So far, the only real political winner in the securitization arena is the authoritarian right. For the EU project, and certainly for progressive and liberal actors within it, this should be the time to find a better, more rational, and more humane model that competes with the vision offered by right-wing authoritarian forces and their backers across the Atlantic.
(*) Ruben Andersson is Professor of Social Anthropology at the Department of International Development, University of Oxford. His research has focused on migration, borders and security, with specific reference to the Sahel and southern Europe. He is the author of Illegality, Inc.: Clandestine Migration and the Business of Bordering Europe (California 2014), No Go World: How Fear is Redrawing Our Maps and Infecting Our Politics (California 2019) and, together with David Keen, Wreckonomics: Why it’s Time to End the War on Everything (Oxford 2023). He is currently Principal Investigator on a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship, which will result in the book Age of Security, forthcoming in 2026 with HarperCollins.
References
Andersson, Ruben. 2014. Illegality, Inc.: Clandestine Migration and the Business of Bordering Europe. Oakland: University of California Press.
Andreas, Peter. 2009. Border Games: Policing the U.S.–Mexico Divide. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Chavez, Leo R. 2025. The Latino Threat: How Alarmist Rhetoric Misrepresents Immigrants, Citizens, and the Nation. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Chebel d’Appollonia, Ariane. 2012. Frontiers of Fear: Immigration and Insecurity in the United States and Europe. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Financial Times. 2016. “Niger Asks EU for €1 Billion to Stem Migrant Flow.” May 4.
Financial Times. 2025. “America’s Draconian Immigration Raids.” September 9.
Heyman, Josiah. 1995. “Putting Power in the Anthropology of Bureaucracy: The Immigration and Naturalization Service at the Mexico–United States Border.” Current Anthropology 36 (2): 261–87.
Martin, Philip L., and J. Edward Taylor. 1996. “The Anatomy of a Migration Hump.” In Development Strategy, Employment, and Migration: Insights from Models, edited by J. E. Taylor, 43–62. Paris: OECD Development Centre.
Massey, Douglas S., Karen A. Pren, and Jorge Durand. 2016. “Why Border Security Backfired.” American Journal of Sociology 121 (5). https://doi.org/10.1086/684200
Nevins, Joseph. 2010. Operation Gatekeeper and Beyond: The War on “Illegals” and the Remaking of the U.S.–Mexico Boundary. 2nd ed. Abingdon: Routledge.
Please cite as: Benson, Robert. (2026). “Illiberal international: The Transatlantic Right’s Challenge to Democracy.” In: Populism and the Future of Transatlantic Relations: Challenges and Policy Options. (eds). Marianne Riddervold, Guri Rosén and Jessica R. Greenberg. European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). January 20, 2026. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp00137
This chapter investigates the transatlantic dimensions of far-right political mobilization, tracing the networks linking populist and authoritarian actors across Europe and the United States. It argues that the far right has become increasingly skilled at building cross-border alliances that exchange strategies, legal models, ideological frames and digital tactics to weaken democratic norms. Moving beyond nation-centred analyses, the chapter highlights growing coordination in anti-immigration rhetoric, attacks on ‘gender ideology’, and efforts to delegitimize multilateral institutions. It examines organizational links among US think tanks, European party foundations and online platforms that amplify common messaging, finance convenings and train activists, with particular attention to the language of ‘sovereignty’, ‘tradition’, and ‘civilizational threat’ as a shared rhetorical toolkit. The chapter also analyses the diffusion of legal hardball tactics – such as assaults on judicial independence, academic freedom, media and civil society – and assesses the implications of these transatlantic linkages for democratic resilience and effective counterstrategies.
Keywords: democracy; transnational; populism; far right
For decades, the transatlantic relationship rested on a shared moral and institutional foundation. The United States and Europe defined their partnership through liberal-democratic values – human rights, pluralism and the rule of law. Those principles gave coherence to the Western alliance and legitimacy to its global leadership. Yet that consensus now faces a coordinated and ideologically confident challenge. A network of far-right political actors across the Atlantic has learned to cooperate across borders, fusing rhetoric, strategy and institutional power to erode liberal norms from within.
This chapter investigates the connective tissue of those transatlantic illiberal networks. It argues that the far right’s rise no longer unfolds through isolated national movements but through mutually reinforcing exchanges between American and European actors. These networks trade narratives about ‘sovereignty’, ‘tradition’, and ‘civilizational threat’, and share tactical repertoires – legal activism, institutional capture and digital disinformation – that hollow out democratic checks while preserving a facade of procedural legitimacy in the name of a Western vox populi (Mudde 2004).
The chapter situates this development within the broader trajectory of transatlantic relations. It contends that the liberal consensus has weakened since 2016, replaced by a new normative alignment organized around nationalism and identity. Far-right cooperation no longer merely contests the postwar order; it offers a rival model of democracy based on majoritarian rule, cultural homogeneity and suspicion of technocratic authority. The chapter concludes with concrete policy recommendations to counter these dynamics and rebuild a transatlantic foundation grounded in democratic resilience rather than complacent liberalism.
At a scholarly level, this analysis contributes to an emerging field that examines the internationalization of authoritarian populism – a phenomenon analysed by scholars (Mudde 2020; Müller 2016; and Zürn 2019). The diffusion of illiberal tactics across borders suggests that backsliding no longer unfolds as a domestic pathology but as a transnational process. As authoritarian populists coordinate their respective narratives, liberal democracies face a globalized form of contestation that transcends national institutions and elections. This chapter joins that debate by mapping how transatlantic linkages – once engines of the liberal order – now facilitate its undoing.
The Liberal Consensus and Its Erosion
The transatlantic liberal consensus crystallized after World War II and reached its institutional maturity in the 1990s. NATO’s security guarantees, the European Union’s expansion, and the Helsinki process all reinforced a shared commitment to democracy, free markets and multilateral governance. Washington and Brussels viewed their partnership as the normative core of a rules-based international order. Transatlantic summits revolved around values as much as interests: open societies, free elections, and universal rights served as the moral language of Western cooperation (Ikenberry 2011).
During the post–Cold War moment, this consensus evolved into a doctrine of liberal triumphalism (Fukuyama 1992). The fall of the Soviet Union convinced policymakers that democracy and markets would inevitably spread outwards. The United States expanded democracy promotion programs through USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy, while the EU embedded democratic conditionality in its enlargement policy. ‘Transition assistance’ and civil society funding became instruments of global liberalization. Yet this expansion bred complacency. Liberal universalism hardened into orthodoxy, and many citizens began to see democracy promotion not as solidarity but as ideological export (Chandler 2006).From the Western Balkans to South Asia and beyond, resentment toward externally imposed models began to percolate. In Serbia and Bosnia, local elites portrayed Western conditionality as paternalism, exploiting fatigue with endless reform checklists (Ignatieff 2003). In Türkiye, EU accession delays fed nationalist narratives about cultural intrusion. Across parts of Africa and Latin America, US-backed democracy programs came to symbolize Western hypocrisy (Carothers 2004).
Cracks in that consensus appeared in earnest after 9/11. The United States’ invasion of Iraq divided the alliance and exposed European doubts about American exceptionalism. By the late 2000s, economic crises and migration pressures fuelled domestic disillusionment with globalization. The ‘liberal script’, once a source of pride, became a lightning rod for grievances about lost sovereignty and cultural change (Börzel et al. 2024). Across Europe, populist leaders framed Brussels as an unaccountable bureaucracy and the EU’s rights agenda as an assault on tradition.
Donald Trump’s presidency marked its rupture. His ‘America First’ foreign policy rejected multilateralism and treated alliances as transactional. Trump’s public praise for authoritarian leaders and his attacks on NATO, the EU and the mainstream media emboldened Europe’s far right. Orbán, Le Pen and Salvini hailed him as proof that nationalist populism could capture the world’s most powerful democracy. In turn, American conservatives drew inspiration from European ‘illiberal democrats’, celebrating Hungary, Slovakia, and Poland as models of Christian governance that thoroughly rejected the post-1968 liberal emphasis on secular multiculturalism (Judt 2005; Krastev and Holmes 2019).
The effect was cumulative. By 2020, Trump administration officials such as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo described Hungary as a model of sovereignty, while European populists echoed Trump’s increasingly conspiratorial rhetoric about the ‘deep state’ (Bowman 2019; Le Monde 2025). When President Biden took office, he sought to restore traditional transatlantic language, organizing a ‘Summit for Democracy’. Yet by then, the intellectual current had shifted. The transatlantic right had institutionalized its own moral vocabulary, positioning nationalism as the authentic heir to Western civilization. By the 2024 election and Trump’s triumph at the ballot box, it became clear that Biden – not Trump – had been the aberration.
The postwar ideal of the transatlantic alliance as a moral community gave way to ideological fragmentation. Shared democratic values no longer defined the relationship; instead, competing visions of sovereignty and identity began to dominate. While the Biden administration restored rhetorical commitment to democracy, the structural erosion of shared norms persisted. The far right now operates as a transnational movement that adapts to electoral setbacks and translates domestic victories into global influence.
Mapping the Networks: Actors, Institutions and Mechanisms
The far right’s transatlantic infrastructure spans think tanks, media platforms, political parties and increasingly influential advocacy networks. These actors collaborate through conferences, digital ecosystems and funding flows that sustain a common ideological front.
In the United States, institutions such as the Heritage Foundation, the Leadership Institute, and the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) serve as anchor points. They train conservative activists, produce model legislation, and coordinate messaging on issues from religious liberty to ‘gender ideology’. Their international branches, especially ADF International, operate across Europe, supporting legal interventions and advocacy seeking to restrict abortion rights, challenge LGBTQ+ protections, and expand claims of religious freedom. In Italy, for example, ADF International filed legal briefs opposing same-sex marriage legislation, aligning with Catholic organizations to block broader recognition (Savage 2020; See also Alliance Defending Freedom International 2015).
Across Europe, a parallel network mirrors this architecture. Hungary’s Danube Institute in Budapest functions as a regional hub linking Central European intellectuals, US conservatives and right-wing British Brexiteers. Funded through government-aligned channels, it hosts American speakers and frames national conservatism as the moral defence of Christian Europe. Regular attendees include Nigel Farage, Santiago Abascal, and US commentators from Fox News and Newsmax, who broadcast the message to sympathetic audiences at home (Applebaum 2020; See also Danube Institute 2025). What began as a network of think tanks and training institutes has now evolved into a stage-managed political spectacle designed to project moral legitimacy and global reach. CPAC Hungary operates as the movement’s global showcase. In recent years, it has featured keynote addresses from Donald Trump, Viktor Orbán, and Eduardo Bolsonaro, presenting Budapest as the centre of a global ‘anti-woke’ awakening (CEU CEFAS 2025).
Russian-linked media outlets, although not formally integrated into the network, often amplify the event’s messaging, exploiting its resonance with Kremlin narratives about Western decadence, cultural decay and moral weakness. This convergence is not accidental: both camps share an interest in discrediting liberal democracy and promoting an image of the ‘real West’ as spiritually conservative and geopolitically sovereign. The porous boundary between these movements illustrates how transatlantic illiberalism increasingly overlaps with a broader ecosystem of authoritarian influence that stretches from Moscow to Budapest and beyond (Applebaum 2024).
Digital coordination then extends this ecosystem online, giving it reach and velocity. Platforms such as Rebel News, Epoch Times and Breitbart Europe circulate narratives that fuse European and American grievances – migration, ‘wokeness’, and elite betrayal – into a single story of civilization under siege. Influencers move seamlessly across audiences, translating slogans for local contexts while reinforcing a shared moral panic. This transnational publicity turns regional political experiments into global templates, demonstrating how authoritarian and illiberal actors now learn from, legitimize and amplify one another.
Financial flows and personnel exchanges further institutionalize these ties. US donors such as the Koch network and Christian legal foundations fund European conferences, while European governments sponsor sympathetic American commentators. Researchers tracing nonprofit disclosures have documented patterns of mutual support that blur the line between domestic advocacy and international influence operations (Archer 2020; Datta 2021; Laruelle 2022). Together, these linkages sustain what might be called an illiberal epistemic community – a transatlantic network that produces knowledge, training and legitimacy for antiliberal politics.
Ideological and Rhetorical Alignment
Although Europe’s far right remains nationally diverse, its leaders increasingly speak a common language. That lexicon centres on three core narratives: sovereignty, tradition, and civilizational threat.
The rhetoric of sovereignty casts technocratic governance as a usurpation of the popular will. American conservatives frame Washington bureaucrats, the ‘deep state’, and the federal judiciary as rogue agents. European populists substitute Brussels and Strasbourg for the same role. The parallel is no coincidence; strategists exchange slogans and framing devices through joint forums. The idea of ‘taking back control’, born in Britain’s Brexit campaign, migrated into American Republican discourse, while ‘America First’ became a template for nationalist rebranding in Europe.
The appeal to tradition provides moral ballast. Movements describe themselves as guardians of Christian civilization, opposing secular pluralism and feminism as existential threats. ‘Gender ideology’, once a fringe Vatican term, has become a unifying transatlantic rallying cry (Ayoub and Stoeckl 2024; Cupać and Ebetürk 2020; Korolczuk and Graff 2022). From Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ laws to Hungary’s ‘child protection’ amendment, conservatives share the same rhetorical script. They depict liberal tolerance not as virtue but as decay – a sign of civilizational weakness that invites chaos and migration. Conservative Catholic institutions in Spain and Poland now distribute translated versions of US legal briefs and training materials from ADF, illustrating how moral discourse travels with ease (Corporate Europe Observatory 2024).
Finally, the notion of a civilizational threat binds the narrative together. Far-right discourse positions the West in a cultural war against both internal subversion and external invasion. Migrants, Muslims, and ‘globalists’ occupy interchangeable roles in this story. Leaders like Giorgia Meloni, Marine Le Pen, and Donald Trump portray themselves as defenders of an embattled civilization that must reclaim its purity through moral renewal. The effect is to redefine democracy not as pluralism but as cultural self-assertion.
This ideological alignment does not erase local differences; it creates a shared emotional grammar. Phrases such as ‘real people’, ‘common sense’, and ‘nation first’ resonate on both sides of the Atlantic (Moffitt 2016; Wodak 2021). Conferences like National Conservatism (NatCon) codify this worldview, offering a theological and historical narrative that connects Jerusalem, Rome, and Washington in one ‘civilizational’ arc.
These narratives increasingly infiltrate mainstream conservative parties. The United States’ Republican Party has absorbed much of Trump’s illiberal vocabulary, framing political opposition as betrayal and portraying federal institutions as corrupt elites. In Europe, centre-right parties from Spain’s Partido Popular to Germany’s Christian Democrats (CDU) have echoed sovereigntist language to win back voters (Mudde 2019a; Mudde 2019b). This normalization effect blurs distinctions between democratic conservatives and authoritarian populists, allowing illiberal rhetoric to migrate from the margins into governing discourse.
Strategic Diffusion and Legal Hardball
The collaboration between US and European conservatives extends beyond rhetoric to institutional tactics. What unites these actors is their ability to learn from each other’s experiments in bending democratic rules while maintaining formal legality.
American conservatives pioneered the technique of judicial capture through a process of constitutional hardball, using the letter of the law to violate its intent. The Federalist Society’s vetting of Supreme Court nominees provided a model of long-term institutional strategy. European populists adapted that logic to parliamentary systems. In Poland, the Law and Justice Party restructured the judiciary through legislative manoeuvring and disciplinary chambers that undermined judicial independence while preserving constitutional form. Hungarian authorities replicated the approach by packing the Constitutional Court and taking over judicial administration (Benson 2025). Lawyers in Poland connected to the Ordo Iuris Institute for Legal Culture – a conservative–religious legal organization – openly cite American legal precedents in their briefs, translating US culture-war litigation into European constitutional idioms (Coakley 2021).
Conversely, European examples now inspire American actors. Hungary’s media consolidation – centralizing ownership under pro-government foundations – has attracted the attention of US right-wing strategists who call for a patriotic media ecosystem. Hungary’s regulation of foreign-funded NGOs and universities informed US debates about restricting ‘foreign influence’ and targeting liberal foundations. The flow of ideas thus moves in both directions: elite learning across borders produces a repertoire of ‘legal hardball’ tactics that exploit institutional loopholes to entrench power (Barry 2025; Benson et al. 2025).
Conferences serve as accelerators for this diffusion. CPAC Hungary and the Danube Institute’s seminars invite US jurists and politicians to exchange strategies with European counterparts. The presence of figures such as Tucker Carlson, Mike Pence and members of the Heritage Foundation lends these events a sense of legitimacy and global reach. Speeches often emphasize that the ‘fight for Western civilization’ requires coordination, not isolation. The audience learns that illiberal reform is not parochial but visionary – a model for reclaiming democracy from cosmopolitan elites.
Digital mobilization reinforces these lessons. Online influencers and media outlets document each success story, turning national policies into templates. When Poland’s constitutional tribunal restricted abortion rights, American platforms celebrated it as proof that cultural pushback was possible. When Florida curtailed diversity programs in universities, Hungarian state media showcased it as evidence of global ideological realignment. Each side validates the other, creating a feedback loop of right-wing legitimacy (Dougherty 2021; Knefel 2023).
Implications for the Transatlantic Democratic Order
The rise of transatlantic illiberal networks reshapes the meaning of the West itself. For most of the postwar period, Western identity signified liberalism – rule of law, minority protection and multilateral cooperation. Today, those concepts coexist with their opposites. Leaders who undermine judicial independence or vilify minorities still claim to defend Western civilization. This rhetorical inversion erodes the clarity of the transatlantic project.
The consequences for policy cooperation are profound. Divergent value systems weaken the alliance’s ability to respond to authoritarian threats (Benson 2023a; Benson 2023b). When Washington or Brussels condemns democratic backsliding, illiberal governments frame the criticism as ideological imperialism. Shared values once enabled coordinated responses to global challenges; now they produce internal dispute. This fracture carries direct geopolitical costs. The Kremlin exploits these divisions to erode Western unity on sanctions, aid and military assistance to Ukraine. Russian propaganda outlets actively echo the rhetoric of Western populists, portraying the war as a clash between traditional sovereignty and decadent liberalism. In turn, segments of the European and American right adopt that framing to justify fatigue with Ukraine’s defence or scepticism toward NATO. The result is a feedback loop in which Moscow’s narratives and transatlantic illiberal discourse reinforce one another, blurring the line between domestic dissent and foreign influence.
The result is a transnational ecosystem of distrust that corrodes confidence in electoral integrity, journalism and scientific expertise. In the United States, European talking points about ‘cultural Marxism’ and ‘globalists’ circulate daily on cable news and social media, reframed through American populist idioms. In Europe, US-style conspiracy theories – from QAnon to vaccine disinformation – find new life in far-right Telegram channels and street protests (Schulze 2022). Each side validates the other, portraying democratic institutions as captured by unseen powers. This cross-pollination normalizes cynicism and fuels the perception that politics itself is rigged. The contagion spreads not through formal alliances but through shared emotional affect – anger, humiliation and nostalgia – creating a digital transatlantic common of resentment. As this sentiment seeps into mainstream debate, it weakens the civic trust that underpins democratic governance and ultimately, transatlantic solidarity.
At a structural level, the erosion of shared norms transforms the transatlantic relationship from a moral alliance into a transactional partnership. Security and trade cooperation continue, but the normative glue has dissolved. Instead of universal values, the relationship revolves around selective interests.
The question is no longer whether shared values are weakening – they clearly are – but whether democratic actors can forge a new consensus around defending institutional pluralism itself. The challenge lies not in restoring the Cold War’s moral clarity but in constructing a forward-looking democratic solidarity that acknowledges ideological diversity while safeguarding liberal principles.
Policy Takeaways and Recommendations
Countering transnational illiberalism demands a transnational democratic strategy. Policymakers must recognize that far-right cooperation operates across borders; national responses alone cannot contain it. The following recommendations outline potential interventions. They are necessarily aspirational, given current political realities and would require – at a minimum – a new administration in Washington willing to prioritize democracy promotion and transatlantic coordination.
Increase transparency and accountability.
Governments and the EU should strengthen disclosure requirements for political foundations, advocacy organizations and media outlets that receive cross-border funding. Transparency does not suppress free speech; it clarifies the origins of influence. The United States and the EU could establish a joint registry for political nonprofits engaged in transatlantic advocacy.
Build democratic resilience networks.
Civil society cooperation should mirror that of the far right. Universities, local governments and NGOs need transatlantic partnerships that share best practices in civic education, digital literacy and counter disinformation. Programs like the U.S.–EU Democracy Dialogue, now dormant, could expand into a permanent platform for democratic innovation.
Coordinate digital governance.
The EU’s Digital Services Act offers a model for regulating online platforms that amplify extremist content. US policymakers could align transparency standards and algorithmic accountability with European frameworks. Joint initiatives between the Federal Trade Commission and European regulators would prevent regulatory arbitrage.
Reinvest in public diplomacy and narrative competition.
Illiberal actors win not only through policy but through storytelling. Democratic governments must promote narratives of inclusion and dignity that resonate emotionally. Cultural diplomacy, youth exchanges, and support for independent media should form part of a long-term strategy to restore trust in democratic ideals.
Engage the democratic periphery.
Cities, universities and civil society networks can act as laboratories for democratic renewal. Transatlantic cooperation at the subnational level – mayor-to-mayor partnerships, university consortia – builds social capital that resists illiberal capture. Democracy flourishes through participation; it decays through isolation.
Conclusion
The transatlantic relationship stands at a crossroads. The liberal order that once unified Washington and Brussels no longer commands universal allegiance, even within the West. Illiberal networks have learned to cooperate across borders, translating national grievances into a shared civilizational narrative. Their success lies in coordination: they exchange ideas, tactics and legitimacy faster than liberal institutions adapt.
This chapter has traced how far-right actors transformed the transatlantic space from a community of shared values into a contested ideological arena. It showed how think tanks, conferences, and digital platforms weave an alternative network of power that undermines democratic norms while claiming to defend the West. The result is neither the collapse nor the strengthening of shared democratic values but a strategic weakening – a shift from liberal universalism to national conservative pluralism.
Reversing that trend demands proactive engagement. The defence of democracy cannot rest on nostalgia for a bygone consensus; it must evolve into a deliberate partnership that treats democracy itself as a shared security interest. If liberal actors can match the far right’s strategic clarity and cross-border coordination, the transatlantic relationship may yet renew its moral purpose.
(*) Robert Benson, DPhil., is the associate director for National Security and International Policy at American Progress. Prior to joining American Progress, Benson worked as a global relations consultant at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris and as a research fellow at the Social Science Center Berlin. He holds a Master of Science in global politics from the London School of Economics and a doctorate from the Free University of Berlin.
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Please cite as: Azmanova, Albena. (2026). “Vulnerable Groups, Protections and Precarity.” In: Populism and the Future of Transatlantic Relations: Challenges and Policy Options. (eds). Marianne Riddervold, Guri Rosén and Jessica R. Greenberg. European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). January 20, 2026. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp00138
Abstract This chapter examines how impoverishment, inequality and precarity have become defining features of contemporary societies in Europe and the United States, reshaping domestic politics and altering the foundations of the transatlantic relationship. Poverty persists despite overall affluence, with COVID-19 reversing earlier gains in Europe and entrenched racialized and generational disparities characterizing the United States. Inequality follows divergent patterns: Europe experiences wide variation shaped by austerity and structural barriers facing migrants, while the United States is marked by extreme wealth concentration and systemic racial gaps. Yet inequality alone does not fully explain public discontent. Instead, precarity – politically produced vulnerability across class, gender, age and status – emerges as the central grievance. Expanding temporary and platform work, weakened labour protections and strained welfare systems expose women, youth, migrants and racial minorities to compounding risks. The chapter argues that rising precarity undermines trust in governance and shifts transatlantic cooperation toward transactionalism, requiring renewed social investment and stronger labour and environmental standards.
Over the past decade, Europe and the United States have faced intensifying social vulnerabilities stemming from economic shocks, political realignments and labour market transformations. Transatlantic EU–US relations are increasingly shaped by internal socioeconomic pressures, especially the precarization of labour and the rise of populist politics responding to widespread physical, economic, social and cultural insecurity. These forces are subtly but significantly reshaping cooperation across trade, security and global governance. The domestic pressures driving change have especially to do withdeteriorating employment conditions – marked by low wages, gig work, weakened unions and eroded social protections. This trend is evident in both the United States and the EU, although with different institutional buffers. Economic insecurity – especially post-2008 and post-COVID-19 – has fuelled resentment toward globalization, trade liberalization and perceived elite consensus, which have historically underpinned transatlantic cooperation. To this adds cultural and physical insecurity – including migration anxieties, demographic shifts and perceived threats to national identity – which have intensified populist narratives that challenge liberal internationalism. In what follows, we review three interlinked trajectories in domestic developments – poverty, inequality and precarity – to highlight structural patterns, policy responses and emerging fault lines that are likely to affect domestic political attitudes and, consequently, transatlantic relations.
Poverty: Persistent Risks and Shifting Demographics
Europe: The fragmented landscape of poverty amidst wealth
After the 2008 financial crisis, poverty rates in Europe slowly declined. However, COVID-19 disrupted this trajectory, leading to a renewed increase in poverty risk across many EU countries. The ‘Europe 2020’ strategy aimed to lift 20 million people out of poverty by 2020 – a goal that went unmet, with the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbating vulnerabilities and deepening the scarring effects of poverty across the continent (Mussida and Sciulli 2022). The pandemic increased the risk of poverty, particularly for already vulnerable groups and widened disparities between countries due to differences in policy responses. Southern European countries (e.g., Italy, Spain, Greece) experienced sharper increases in poverty risk due to weaker welfare systems and higher reliance on tourism and service sectors. Northern and Western European countries, with stronger social safety nets, were better able to cushion the impact.
In 2024, 21% of the EU population – approximately 93.3 million people – were at risk of poverty or social exclusion, according to Eurostat’s AROPE indicator, which combines income poverty, severe material deprivation, and low work intensity (Eurostat 2025a). Rates remain highest in Bulgaria (30.3%), Romania (27.9%), and Greece (26.9%). Notably, in-work poverty is rising: 10.9% of employed individuals are still at risk of poverty.
Gender disparities persist: overall, women face a higher risk of poverty (21.9%) than men (20.0%), largely due to wage gaps and disproportionate caregiving responsibilities.
The United States: Structural poverty and policy gaps
According to the OECD, the United States has one of the highest relative poverty rates among member countries, with income inequality and poverty deeply entrenched (OECD 2024). The bottom quintile earns less than 3% of national income, while the top quintile earns over 50%.
Racialized poverty remains a defining feature: Black, Hispanic and Indigenous populations face disproportionately high poverty rates, compounded by housing segregation and educational disparities. Child poverty is particularly acute, with 16.1% of children living below the federal poverty line in 2023 (Guzman and Kollar 2023). Elder poverty is rising due to healthcare costs and insufficient retirement savings (Scott 2024).
Despite solid economic growth, real income gains have been uneven, and intergenerational mobility remains low (Kochhar and Sechopoulos 2023; Kochhar 2024). Impoverishment – both absolute deprivation (inability to meet basic needs) and relative poverty (living below a certain percentage of median income in a given society) – has been on the rise in Europe and the United States. This rising poverty has fuelled grievances about affordability, as households struggle to cover essential costs such as housing, food, utilities and debt repayments. Affordability grievances have been prominent in anti-establishment mobilizations, which have placed cost-of-living issues at the centre of national elections. In Europe, this has led to challenging EU integration, migration policy and austerity legacies – which are perceived as causes of impoverishment. In the United States, public anxiety over purchasing power and declining real incomes have driven support for populist candidates who frame globalization and liberal elites as threats to national sovereignty and working-class dignity.
Inequality: Structural Divides and Policy Responses
Europe: Between convergence and divergence
Income inequality in Europe varies widely. The Gini coefficient ranges from 23.8 in the Slovak Republic to 39.5 in Bulgaria (World Bank Group 2023). Post-2008 austerity widened inequality in Southern and Eastern Europe, with long-term effects on youth and low-income workers (Oxfam 2013).
The protective role of higher education has diminished, while employment stability and childcare provision have become more important in mitigating poverty and inequality (Mussida and Sciulli 2022). Migrant populations often face structural barriers to income parity, with limited access to housing, education, and labour protections (ETUC 2024).
The United States: Polarization and policy stagnation
The United States has seen a dramatic rise in income and wealth inequality. Households in the top 10% of the wealth distribution own 79% in the United States (OECD 2024, 86). Tax expenditures disproportionately benefit high earners, exacerbating inequality and reducing fiscal space for redistribution. Coastal urban centres show high income levels but also high living costs, while rural and post-industrial regions face stagnation. Racial disparities in educational attainment, access to capital, and exposure to environmental hazards deepen inequality (Beard et al. 2024). While impoverishment in absolute terms (i.e., reduced purchasing power) has often been expressed in social discontent, inequality (relative impoverishment) has not been reliably traced to social discontent, even as it has been at the centre of academic research and public debate.
Precarity: Labour Market Insecurity and Social Dislocation
Precarity – politically produced vulnerability caused by social threats to lives, livelihoods, and lifeworlds (Azmanova 2020; 2023) – has recently been identified as a critical condition afflicting contemporary democracies, cutting across class, gender, age, educational attainment, professional attainment and even income levels.
Europe: The rise of precarious work
Precarity has intensified through non-standard employment. Eurostat data show that young workers aged 30 or younger are disproportionately represented in temporary and low-paid jobs (Eurostat 2025b). Women are more likely to be in part-time or informal work, often linked to caregiving responsibilities.
Sectors such as hospitality, retail and care show high levels of precarity, with limited union coverage and weak protections. Platform work has expanded, but regulatory frameworks lag behind. The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) has called for the full implementation of the EU’s directive on platform work and for universal social protections (ETUC 2023).
The pandemic disproportionately affected workers in precarious employment, temporary contracts, and low‑income service sectors. This disproportionate impact has reinforced the link between insecure labour markets and the persistence of poverty (Mussida and Sciulli 2022).
The United States: Fragmentation and Flexibilization
The US labour market is characterized by high flexibility but low security. Gig economy workers often lack health insurance, paid leave, or retirement benefits (Human Rights Watch 2025). Union membership has fallen to historic lows, around 10% (BLS 2023). Frequent job changes, layoffs and contract work contribute to income volatility and psychological stress. Employer-based health insurance ties security to employment, making job loss a significant risk factor for medical debt and coverage gaps. Policy debates over universal basic income, portable benefits and labour classification have gained traction but remain politically contentious.
COVID‑19 intensified poverty in Europe and the United States by exposing the precariousness of households and labour markets, undoing part of the progress made since the Great Recession. It significantly worsened mental health globally, with sharp rises in anxiety, depression, and stress (WHO 2022), while lockdowns and social isolation also triggered a surge in gender‑based violence, often described as a ‘shadow pandemic’ (UN Women 2020).
Overall, even as societies on the two sides of the Atlantic have returned to economic growth, economic and social precarization has persisted. Labour market insecurity and cost-of-living concerns are diminishing public trust in existing systems of governance and driving an upsurge in anti-establishment, populist mobilizations.
Vulnerable Groups: Intersectional Risks and Policy Blind Spots
Across both regions, certain groups face compounded vulnerabilities, resulting from impoverishment and precarization:
Women: Gender pay gaps, caregiving burdens, and exposure to part-time work increase risks (UN Women 2023).
Migrants and refugees: Legal status, language barriers, and discrimination limit access to services and stable employment (ETUC 2023)
The elderly: Fixed incomes, rising healthcare costs, and social isolation contribute to poverty (Tornton and Bowers 2024).
Racial and ethnic minorities: Structural racism, residential segregation, and unequal access to education and healthcare deepen inequality (Bailey et al. 2017; Mirza and Warwick 2024; Clark et al. 2022; Yearby et al. 2022; Kisa and Kisa 2025).
Thus, while precarity is becoming the overarching grievance in Western democracies, it is strongly stratified and is most acutely felt among the poor and socially marginalized. However, as economic and social insecurity are becoming ubiquitous across income levels and educational attainment, precarity is increasingly being identified as the key factor driving social discontent and fuelling anti-establishment, populist mobilizations (Azmanova 2004, 2020, 2023; Apostolidis 2020; Zhirnov et al 2024; Scheiring et al 2024; Rodríguez-Pose 2020).
Protections: Welfare States, Labour Rights and Emerging Models
Europe: Welfare retrenchment and innovation
European welfare states offer a range of protections, but austerity and demographic pressures have strained their capacity. Some of the key developments include:
Minimum income schemes: These vary widely across countries, with some offering robust support (e.g., France’s Revenu de solidarité active (RSA)) and others providing minimal assistance.
Universal healthcare: This remains a cornerstone of European social protection, although access and quality vary.
Labour market policies: Active labour market programs (ALMPs), vocational training and unemployment insurance help mitigate precarity.
EU-level initiatives: The European Pillar of Social Rights and the Recovery and Resilience Facility aim to strengthen social cohesion post-COVID-19.
However, gaps remain in coverage, adequacy and enforcement, especially for non-standard workers and migrants.
The United States: Fragmented safety nets and policy innovation
The United States lacks a comprehensive welfare state, relying instead on a patchwork of federal, state and local programs. Key features include:
Means-tested programs: SNAP (food stamps), Medicaid, and TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) provide targeted support but face eligibility barriers and stigma.
Tax-based transfers: The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Child Tax Credit offer income support, although coverage is uneven.
Healthcare reforms: The Affordable Care Act expanded coverage but left millions uninsured or underinsured.
Local innovations: Cities like New York and San Francisco have piloted guaranteed-income schemes, tenant protections and worker cooperatives.
Despite these efforts, systemic gaps persist and political polarization hampers federal reform.
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted that poverty is not only cyclical but also deeply tied to structural vulnerabilities in employment and welfare systems. It revealed how poverty dynamics are shaped not only by economic shocks but also by institutional resilience. Emergency measures (short‑time work schemes, income support, moratoria on evictions) mitigated some effects, but structural weaknesses in welfare systems left many households exposed. Recent policy shifts in the EU that have placed a higher priority on competitiveness and defence spending risk weakening social investment and deepening employment insecurity.
Comparative Reflections and Policy Implications
Since the turn of the century, the combined effects of labour market liberalization, automation and the radical opening of national economies have generated widespread employment insecurity and wage depression, fuelling fears of real, perceived and anticipated losses of livelihood. More broadly, political attitudes have been shaped by anxieties linked to physical insecurity, political disorder, cultural estrangement and economic precarity driven by flexible labour markets, outsourcing and competition with immigrant workers. Together, these four sources of anxiety constitute the core of a new antiprecarity public agenda centred on demands for order and security. This agenda of public concerns cuts across the left–right divide and tends to replace the left–right vectors of electoral competition with a new risk–opportunity divide shaped by the social impact of the new economy of open borders and information technologies (Azmanova 2020, 68–69, 140; See also Azmanova 2004, 2011).
Although these developments are tangible in both the United States and Europe, the transatlantic comparison reveals that Europe’s welfare states offer more robust protections but face demographic and fiscal pressures. The United States exhibits higher inequality and precarity, with fragmented safety nets and racialized vulnerabilities. Both regions struggle to adapt protections to non-standard work and intersectional risks. Policy innovation is emerging at subnational levels, but national coherence is lacking.
Social exasperation resulting from ubiquitous precarity is fuelling both economic and cultural xenophobia and undermining solidarities within countries and between the EU and the United States. This is expressed in adversarial foreign economic policy and in the undermining of the traditional EU–US political and economic partnership. Populist movements in Europe (e.g. the AfD in Germany, the Rassemblement national in France) and the United States (especially under Donald Trump) often frame transatlantic institutions as out of touch with ‘ordinary people’. These actors tend to be sceptical of multilateralism, critical of NATO and hostile to EU regulatory frameworks, which complicates traditional alliance structures.
Populist governments or pressures can lead to policy volatility, weakening long-term commitments to shared goals such as climate action, digital regulation and democratic norms. Indeed, trade tensions have resurfaced, especially around subsidies, digital taxation and industrial policy. The EU’s Green Deal and the United States’s Inflation Reduction Act have created friction over protectionism and competitiveness. While security cooperation remains strong on Ukraine and NATO, it diverges on China, Middle East policy and defence spending expectations.
Fundamentally, institutional trust is eroding. The EU increasingly hedges against US unpredictability by deepening internal defence and tech strategies, while the United States questions European burden-sharing. Under populist demands for short-term stabilization measures, a shift is underway from normative alliance-building to interest-based transactionalism. This shift means cooperation is increasingly contingent on short-term domestic political gains rather than shared values. The EU is recalibrating its strategic autonomy, while the United States – especially under populist leadership – prioritizes sovereignty and unilateralism.
Countering precarization as the root driver of reactionary populism would require a systematic effort for building a ‘political economy of trust’ (Azmanova 2020) that provides economic and social stability along two trajectories: domestic and global. In terms of domestic policies, this means replacing the current focus on competitiveness in the global economy (which is prompting governments to cut job security and social investment) with an industrial policy that generates good jobs, as well as increased investment in the commons (public services and social insurance). In terms of global market integration, the logic of pursuing competitiveness, which is prompting governments to weaken labour and environmental standards, should be replaced by a more rigorous implementation of labour and environmental standards of production, trade and consumption.
(*) Albena Azmanova is Professor of Political and Social Science at City St George’s, University of London. She has held academic positions at the New School for Social Research, Sciences Po Paris, Harvard University, UC Berkeley, and the University of Kent’s Brussels School of International Studies. Her research spans critical social theory, political economy, democratic transitions, populism, and the rule of law, with a focus on how precarity has become the defining social harm of contemporary capitalism. Her book Capitalism on Edge (2020) is the recipient of numerous awards, among them the American Political Science Association’s Michael Harrington Award for scholarship advancing social justice. Beyond academia, she has served as a policy advisor to institutions including the United Nations, the Council of Europe, and the European Parliament.
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Please cite as: Riddervold, Marianne; Rosén, Guri & Greenberg, Jessica R. (2026). “Conclusion: How Should the EU Deal with Changing Transatlantic Relations?” In: Populism and the Future of Transatlantic Relations: Challenges and Policy Options. (eds). Marianne Riddervold, Guri Rosén and Jessica R. Greenberg. European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). January 20, 2026. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp00139
This concluding chapter synthesizes the report’s core finding: under “Trump 2.0,” transatlantic relations face a systematic populist challenge across all four pillars—security, trade, international institutions, and democratic values. The authors argue that traditional crisis-management reflexes are no longer sufficient, as “America First” policies combine coercive alliance diplomacy, tariff-driven trade politics, and the instrumentalization of international law with an explicit contestation of liberal-democratic norms. While functional cooperation may persist through selective, issue-based “muddling through,” the EU’s most viable response is strategic adaptation without normative retreat. Key recommendations emphasize EU unity, enhanced European defence and industrial capacity, diversified trade partnerships, robust support for multilateral institutions, and renewed commitments to democracy, pluralism, and social cohesion to address populism’s structural drivers.
The transatlantic relationship has always shifted between cooperation and crisis, with tensions rooted in how United States (US) leadership is exercised, the evolution of European integration, and recurring disputes over institutions and burden-sharing. Those strains have usually been contained by shared threat perceptions and a baseline commitment to liberal democracy (Tocci and Alcaro 2012; Smith, this volume).
Under a populist right-wing policy under ‘Trump 2.0’, the authors in this volume depict a sharper, more systematic challenge to transatlantic relations across all four pillars of the transatlantic relationship. In terms of security, strategic interests, and threat perceptions no longer align, and the United States is a less reliable ally. Trump’s ‘America First’ agenda combines a broader rollback of international cooperation (including cuts and withdrawals affecting major bodies and funding streams) with punitive trade tools and more coercive alliance diplomacy, all weakening the relationship. In trade, changing policies under Trump is visible, not least in the use of comprehensive tariffs as well as an increasingly more antagonistic approach to the World Trade Organization (WTO). On the international arena, beyond targeting specific organizations, the shift is one of both practice and principle: international law becomes more openly instrumental, diplomacy more performative and multilateral institutions more readily treated as dispensable. As argued by Smith (this volume), for the European Union (EU), this is not only a difficult partner relationship but an assault on the institutional environment from which the Union derives legitimacy and leverage, while also accelerating a global ‘flux’ in multilateralism as other powers fill spaces left by US retrenchment. And not least, the value basis of the relationship is facing severe challenges, with right-wing populist forces challenging many of the core values on which the EU and the transatlantic relationship have been built.
All chapters in the report conclude that the transatlantic relationship has reached a turning point and is undergoing a significant shift. It is a clear possibility that transatlantic relations might weaken even further now, following a near decade of increased uncertainty. At the same time, several authors also emphasize the many adjustments made to accommodate the challenges to the EU–US relationship. One example is the framework agreement on trade (see Young, this volume). Another is defence and security, where increased European defence spending, the changing role of the EU, and the use of informal networks to bypass collaborative deadlocks indicate functional adaptation to the current impasse (Sus, this volume). ‘Muddling through’ implies that cooperation is issue-contingent. Arrangements are made based on the specific interests of either side rather than a shared ideological platform (Alcaro, this volume). While the relationship clearly is weaker than in previous decades, these various instances of ‘muddling through’ could lead to a redefined and different relationship in areas where interests align. Despite the deterioration of collaboration in international organizations, many of the existing networks of transatlantic relations, both public and private, remain strong and likely to withstand the strain, at least in the short to medium term (Smith, this volume). This form of ‘muddling through’ within a different and less strong relationship is identified as a plausible and likely future path for transatlantic relations, distinguishing it from full renewal or outright rupture.
While this is undoubtedly challenging, the European Union is in a strong position to build on and continue to lead in the areas that made the transatlantic relationship successful for so long, if the political will is there. These include active trade policies and more integrated economic and financial policies, a stronger and more independent European defence, robust commitments to core values, and sustained investment in international cooperation, institutions and coordination mechanisms. Across the chapters, the authors offer recommendations that aim to strengthen the alliance where possible, manage the pressures created by rising isolationism, trade conflict, and the current US political climate, and respond to the causes and effects of populist movements. They also emphasize the need for EU unity, a strengthening of European security and defence through investment in key strategic sectors, reaffirmed commitments to democracy, pluralism, and the rule of law, and a reinforcement of European leadership on global challenges. A further priority is to promote effective multilateralism through new strategic partnerships while also strengthening existing international institutions.
This chapter sums up the report’s main recommendations across the four pillars of the transatlantic relationship – security, trade, international institutions and values. At the end, we also provide a table that summarizes the recommendations of each chapter. Overall, the report argues that a broad coalition of actors is needed to address both the causes and the symptoms of strain in the transatlantic relationship and the impact of populism. Such broad action must include coordination among diplomatic services and international institutions, as well as engagement from citizen groups, civil society and rights advocates, state agencies, legal professionals and judges, teachers, social and health care workers, media literacy experts, academics and EU policymakers and elected officials. Both the EU’s executive institutions and the European Parliament (EP) have important roles to play, not only to create efficient but also legitimate solutions to common challenges. The report also notes that while there are clear areas for action in the state, civil society and the economy, many challenges cut across sectors and require combined approaches. For example, industrial policy can be linked with economic development programmes, environmental regulation and research and development that support new security strategies.
So, What Should the EU Do in Response?
While all the chapters have discussed the changes in transatlantic relations across different policy domains and the direction in which the relationship is moving, they also provide policy advice to the EU on how to respond to these changes. Overall, all the chapters argue for a coordinated and coherent EU response. Several argue that the EU should develop a more unified and firm political line towards Washington, moving away from appeasement and signalling that EU support cannot be taken for granted when US policies damage European security, trade or technology interests. While this is challenging when facing a US administration that links trade and other issues to security guarantees and US support for Ukraine, a coherent and strong EU will put the Union in a better position vis-à-vis its traditional partner and, not least, in a better position to adjust its policies in the face of common challenges. EU strategic autonomy should be strengthened further, and the EU must focus on developing its own security policies, although aligning with the US and cooperating where possible, when interests align.
The EU should also continue to promote international cooperation and trade, in multilateral settings where possible, and with like-minded countries where needed. Several chapters focus on the latter point, highlighting how the EU, in order to reduce its vulnerability, should seek to strengthen its strategic autonomy while deepening bilateral and plurilateral partnerships, both in trade and in other areas of common interests. And not least, the EU should continue to uphold the values that have underpinned the integration project since the beginning. In a changing global and domestic environment, with increased right-wing populism taking place in parallel with war on the European continent, increased geoeconomic and geopolitical conflict and changing transatlantic bond, this will perhaps prove to be the EU’s biggest challenge.
Security: Key Recommendations for the EU
The contributions on security (Alcaro, Pomorska and Morgenstern-Pomorski, Sus, Wong) all point to the same conclusion: the post-war transatlantic relationship is entering a ‘post-American’ phase, in which the EU can no longer rely on stable US leadership and must take much greater responsibility for its own security. Transatlantic ties are weakening, even if they are not collapsing, and US politics has become more volatile and less responsive to European concerns. At best, the relationship is muddling through, but due to developments in the EU, we also see a development towards a different, but redefined relationship where the EU takes a stronger role, and the two traditional partners cooperate in areas where interests overlap.
In this context, Europe has begun to improve coordination of resources and defence capabilities – both inside the EU and through flexible coalitions – but progress is uneven and too slow given the scale of the challenge. The EU needs to reduce its dependence on US military enablers, prepare for a possible weaker US commitment to NATO, and use its potential to strengthen member states’ military, industrial, energy and technological assets. To do so will require a firmer, more unified stance towards Washington, greater solidarity inside the EU, and a coherent long-term strategy: building a stronger European defence industrial base, providing predictable support and security guarantees for Ukraine, and investing in genuine interoperability and European capabilities. At the same time, the EU must manage relations with China and other partners in a way that reinforces – rather than undermines – its strategic autonomy and its ability to act with the United States when interests align.
Trade: Key Recommendations for the EU
The authors in the trade section (E. Jones, K.Jones, Poletti, Young) recommend a strategy where the EU builds its own economic strength and resilience while staying anchored in rules-based trade. The EU should keep prioritizing domestic policy goals, using its market power and regulatory tools to support growth, jobs and security at home. Doing so will form the core of a more competitive strategic autonomy. At the same time, member states need to coordinate enough to avoid pushing the costs of globalization onto one another and to prevent a patchwork of conflicting national measures. The EU should deepen trade and investment ties with partners on all continents, so it is less exposed to pressure from either the United States or China and better positioned as a key player in the multilateral trading system. Strengthening supply chains, technology capacity and the defence-related industrial base are central to this effort. In parallel, the EU should help keep the WTO functioning, work with others to update its rules and use WTO-compatible tools where possible. In the short term, it will often have to muddle through the Trump period with sector-by-sector bargaining, but the long-term goal should be a more autonomous and resilient EU economy that can both defend its interests and uphold an open, rules-based trading order.
International Institutions: Key Recommendations for the EU
The authors in the Institutions section (Drieskens, Fiorino, Smith, Veggeland) are also clear on their advice: under weaker transatlantic relations and more volatile US policies, the EU should approach international institutions as core instruments of European power and legitimacy, not as stable extensions of US–EU partnership. Doing so will require moving beyond a ‘wait and see’ posture and protecting the EU’s agency when US support is uncertain. The EU should be able to sustain institutional functions if the US withdraws, reduce the risks created by retaliation, and work to keep multilateral forums credible as places for rule-setting rather than coercive bargaining. Because internal division is a key constraint, the EU’s influence in the United Nations (UN) system and other bodies depends on stronger member state alignment and more predictable European financial and diplomatic capacity.
More generally, the EU should combine adaptation, selective pushback and long-term institutional strengthening. It should adapt where needed to manage short-term risk, while avoiding dependency or appeasement. It should resist in targeted, coalition-backed ways when core norms and interests are at stake. Over time, it should prioritize ‘reconfiguration’ by strengthening international rules, funding models and coalitions with like-minded states so institutions are more resilient to funding shocks, obstruction and shifting power balances. It should also stay the course on long-horizon agendas, especially climate and health and keep building durable EU leadership that is less exposed to temporary US political swings.
Democratic Values and Climate: Key Recommendations for the EU
Authors in the democratic values section (Andersson, Azmanova, Holmes, Newman) find that there is a clear crisis in the underlying consensus that has structured strong transatlantic relationships for the past 70+ years. The commitment to democracy, the rule of law, pluralism and minority rights is weakening on both sides of the Atlantic. This commitment arguably reached its height in the immediate post-Cold War period. Yet, a series of global shocks, including 9/11 and its aftermath, the 2008 financial crisis, the 2015–2016 migration crisis, anti-internationalist and anti-EU sentiments and finally the COVID-19 pandemic, have shaken those earlier commitments to the core. These factors have shaped the rise of right-wing, populist, xenophobic politics on both sides of the Atlantic. More recently, the second Trump administration has directly undermined the shared values and commitment to the transatlantic alliance. The relationship has gone from one of strong alliance, to growing scepticism, towards what now can be seen as outright antagonism.
At the same time, parts of the population and political elites across the Atlantic converge in the rejection of core liberal principles. This convergence has produced an overall picture in which liberal institutions are muddling through, at best and are being actively dismantled, sometimes from the inside out, by populist forces. Within this context, the EU is called on to be a leader in reestablishing the core values that helped achieve the peace and prosperity of the long twentieth century. Its strength lies in EU institutions as a site for multilateral coordination and a ‘bully pulpit’ for the centrality of democratic and rule of law values. The EU must recommit to robust policy and programmatic ways of modelling inclusive approaches to social solidarity and support for precarious and vulnerable populations; returning to models of social integration and human rights guarantees for people on the move; strengthening institutional responses to populist attempts to destabilize, undermine or co-opt democratic procedures, and rule of law principles. There is also a need to balance the need for investment in European security strategies and economic growth with social cohesion, commitments to environmental stewardship and increased civic and democratic participation.
Policy Recommendations on EU–US Relations
Security
Author
Chapter title
Key policy recommendations
Riccardo Alcaro
Overview and Background: Right-wing Nationalism, Trump and the Future of US–European Relations
– Reduce EU dependence on US defence and prepare for a weaker US commitment to NATO.
– Strengthen EU military, energy, technological and industrial capacities.
– Avoid fragmented national approaches and rely on pragmatic, issue-by-issue cooperation.
Monika Sus
Functional Adaptation Without Much Love: NATO and the Strains of EU–US Relations
– Increase European defence spending and shared capabilities to manage US unpredictability. – Use strong public support for EU defence to justify deeper cooperation. – Accept uneven progress while gradually reducing reliance on US military assets.
Reuben Wong
EU–US–China Security Relations
– Invest in European defence capabilities and the defence industrial base. – Reinforce coordination through NATO, the Strategic Compass and the Trade and Technology Council. – Pursue a pragmatic China policy while diversifying partnerships to reduce vulnerability.
Jost-Henrik Morgenstern-Pomorski and Karolina Pomorska
The Russia–Ukraine War and Transatlantic Relations
– Expand European production and supply chains for weapons, emergency supplies and reconstruction. – Improve military interoperability and develop genuinely European capabilities. – Provide Ukraine with credible, long-term security guarantees if US support weakens.
Trade
Author
Chapter
Key policy recommendations
Erik Jones
Transatlantic Trade from Embedded Liberalism to Competitive Strategic Autonomy
– Keep domestic policy goals at the centre of EU economic strategy. – Coordinate national responses to globalization to avoid burden-shifting. – Use EU regulatory and economic power to shape global trade norms while protecting domestic interests.
Arlo Poletti
EU–US–China Trade Relations
– Prepare to impose credible retaliatory trade measures when EU interests are harmed. – Strengthen trade ties with partners across regions. – Make full use of the EU’s geoeconomic policy toolkit.
Alasdair R. Young
From Trade Skirmishes to Trade War? Transatlantic
Trade Relations during the Second Trump Administration
– Diversify trade and reduce vulnerability to US pressure while supporting the WTO. – Pursue internal reforms to boost competitiveness and defence-related capabilities. – Strengthen supply-chain resilience in strategic sectors.
Kent Jones
Transatlantic Trade, the Trump Disruption and the World Trade Organization
– Expand rules-based trade with non-US partners using the WTO framework. – Muddle through with sector-by-sector bargaining during the Trump period. – Strengthen WTO rules, including through plurilateral agreements.
International Institutions
Author
Chapter
Key policy recommendations
Michael Smith
Overview and Background: International Institutions, Populism and Transatlantic Relations
– Prepare for further weakening of transatlantic cooperation. – Use resistance, adaptation and reconfiguration to sustain institutions. – Focus on institutional resilience rather than restoring past cooperation.
Edith Drieskens
The United Nations
– Acknowledge that EU–US relations at the UN are unequal. – Increase European capacity to fill gaps left by US retrenchment where possible. – Build stronger consensus among EU member states for coherent UN action.
Daniel Fiorino
The Trump Administration and Climate Policy
– Maintain EU climate leadership despite US obstruction. – Continue Green Deal policies such as ETS expansion, CBAM and climate finance. – Frame climate action as supporting jobs, security and democratic resilience.
Frode Veggeland
Turbulence in the World Health Organization: Implications for EU-US Cooperation in a Changing International Order
– Strengthen EU support for the WHO and global health governance. – Build coalitions of willing partners within and beyond the WHO. – Increase EU strategic autonomy in health while deepening cooperation with like-minded states.
Democratic Values
Author
Chapter
Key policy recommendations
Douglas R. Holmes
Overview and Background: Democracy and Populism: The European Case
– Treat populism as a structural political challenge. – Develop anticipatory tools to identify emerging political pressures. – Reinforce democratic engagement, especially through the European Parliament.
Saul Newman
Illiberalism and Democracy: The Populist Challenge to Transatlantic Relations
– Strengthen liberal democratic institutions. – Counter exclusionary populist narratives and protect minority rights. – Improve regulation of digital platforms to limit misinformation.
Ruben Andersson
The Illiberal Bargain on Migration
– Protect civil liberties and limit surveillance overreach. – Rework partnerships with migration host states through broader cooperation. – Frame migration as a social and economic issue rather than a security threat.
Albena Azmanova
Vulnerable Groups, Protections and Precarity
– Address economic precarity as a driver of populism. – Shift industrial policy toward stable jobs and public services. – Govern global markets through labour and environmental standards.
(*) Marianne Riddervold is a research professor at Arena, Centre for European Studies at the University of Oslo and at the Norwegian Institute of international affairs (NUPI). She is also a senior fellow at the UC Berkeley Institute of European studies.
(**) Guri Rosén is Associate Professor of Political Science at the Department of Political Science at the University of Oslo, Norway. She is also a senior researcher at Arena, Centre for European Studies at the University of Oslo, Norway.
(***) Jessica Greenberg is a professor of Anthropology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She is a political and legal anthropologist, with expertise in the anthropology of Europe, postsocialism, human rights, social movements, revolution, democracy and law. Her most recent book is Justice in the Balance: Democracy, Rule of Law and the European Court of Human Rights (Stanford University Press, 2025).
Please cite as: Syvak, Nikoletta. (2026). “Post-Truth Populism: A New Political Paradigm.” ECPS Book Reviews. European Center for Populism Studies. January 19, 2026. https://doi.org/10.55271/br0025
This review assesses Post-Truth Populism: A New Political Paradigm (2024), edited by Saul Newman and Maximilian Conrad, a timely and theoretically ambitious contribution to the study of contemporary populism. The volume advances the argument that post-truth populism is not merely about political lying, but about a deeper transformation in the status of facts, expertise, and epistemic authority in democratic life. Combining political theory, media studies, and comparative analysis, the book conceptualizes post-truth populism as an epistemic struggle in which claims to “truth” are grounded in identity and moral antagonism rather than verification. While the collection’s conceptual breadth sometimes comes at the expense of analytical coherence, it offers valuable insights into how populism reshapes knowledge, trust, and democratic governance in an era of information disorder.
Reviewed by Nikoletta Syvak*
This book review examines the edition 2024 – Post-Truth Populism: A New Political Paradigm, edited by Saul Newman and Maximilian Conrad, which explores the relationship between populism and post-truth in contemporary politics. The book offers an interpretation of post-truth populism (PTP) as a stable political complex in which anti-elitist mobilization logic is combined with a crisis of trust in expert knowledge and institutional sources of information. The review evaluates the central thesis of the collection, its place in political science literature, the quality of its arguments and empirical evidence, as well as its methodological strengths and limitations. It concludes that the book makes a significant contribution to the study of populism and political communication, although a unified conceptual framework is not always maintained at the level of individual chapters.
The main thesis of the collection is that post-truth is not limited to “lies in politics,” but reflects a change in the status of facts and expertise in the public sphere. The editors emphasize that populism has epistemic potential: the opposition between “the people” and “the elites” turns into a conflict between “the truth of the people” and “the manipulation of the elites,” where plausibility is subordinated to political identity (p. 4). In this sense, post-truth populism can be understood as a form of politics that not only ignores facts but actively redefines the conditions under which facts become legitimate in the first place. Particularly important is the idea that post-truth should be understood not as relativism, but as a kind of “truth fundamentalism”: actors can reject verifiable data while offering their own “only true” reality (p. 8).
The book is organized into four sections: theoretical debates about PTP, followed by chapters on political communication and media, counter knowledge and conspiracy narratives, and finally, the consequences for democracy (pp. 11-16). Thus, the collection combines political theory, media studies, and comparative politics, showing that post-truth politics concerns not only information bubbles but also the transformation of democratic institutions.
First, the book clearly positions itself within the political science literature on populism. The editors use an approach in which populism is understood as a “thin-centered ideology” based on a moral division of society into “pure people” and “corrupt elites” (p. 4). However, the collection also draws on the more recent “epistemic turn” in populism studies, which views populist politics as a struggle over knowledge, trust, and authority (p. 1). This allows the book to go beyond interpretations of populism exclusively as an electoral strategy or a reaction to economic crises.
Second, methodologically, the book is an edited volume, which means it includes different approaches. Qualitative methodology dominates conceptual analysis, a discursive approach, and case-oriented argumentation. However, the collection is not limited to theory. For example, the section on communication and media includes a study that uses experimental design to test how populist messages influence the perception of facts and the tendency toward “factual relativism.” This strengthens the book’s evidence base and shows that the PTP framework can be operationalized and tested, rather than just discussed at the level of metaphor.
Thirdly, the quality of writing and clarity of argumentation are generally high. The introduction provides a good introduction to the problem, quickly identifies its empirical relevance, and explains why post-truth populism cannot be reduced to moral condemnation of politicians. At the same time, it should be noted that some chapters in the collection may be theoretically dense and difficult for readers without prior knowledge: this is a typical feature of edited volumes, where a uniform style is not guaranteed.
Finally, the main question is how convincing the argument is and why it is important for us to pay attention to it. The strength of the book lies in its demonstration that PTP is not only about “fakes” and manipulation, but also about the erosion of trust as a resource of democratic governance. If citizens no longer share basic procedures for determining facts, rational public debate becomes impossible, and politics turns into a competition of moral narratives and identities. In this sense, the book raises a fundamentally important topic for contemporary political science
However, there are limitations. The term “post-truth populism” may be too broad and applicable to too many different phenomena, from anti-elite rhetoric to conspiracy theories and platform disinformation.
Furthermore, the claim of a “new paradigm” requires strict criteria: what exactly distinguishes PTP from mere populism plus media scandals? The collection presents a compelling formulation of the problem but does not always offer a single set of verifiable criteria that would allow PTP to be clearly distinguished from other forms of political communication.
Conclusion
Overall, the book makes a significant contribution to political science: it shows that populism should be analyzed not only as an ideology or mobilization strategy, but also as epistemic politics-the struggle for the legitimacy of knowledge and the right to “truth” in the public sphere (pp. 4-8). Despite its methodological heterogeneity and risk of conceptual vagueness, the collection is useful for researchers of populism, political communication, democratic theory, and the crisis of trust. The main merit of the book is its ability to explain why post-truth populism has become not a temporary anomaly but a symptom of structural changes in modern democracies.
(*) Nikoletta Syvak is a Graduate Student, Department of Political Science and International Relations, East China Normal University (ECNU). Email: syvaknikoletta@gmail.com
Newman, Saul & Conrad, Maximilian (eds.). Post-Truth Populism: A New Political Paradigm. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2024. 349 pp. ISBN: ISSN 2946-6016
Please cite as: Ferreira Dias, João. (2026). “Opening the Political Pipeline: Transparency and Civic Access to Party Lists as an Antidote to Populist Distrust.” Policy Papers. European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). January 15, 2026. https://doi.org/10.55271/pop0006
Abstract
The erosion of trust in liberal democracy – and the dynamic, described by Yascha Mounk, of a growing separation between democracy and liberalism – should be understood in a context of hyper-surveillance, that is, hyper-vigilance and intensified scrutiny. The massification of education and the acceleration and fragmentation of the media environment (online news and social media) have made a persistent social and experiential gap between voters and elected officials increasingly difficult to sustain politically—one that previously drew much of its legitimacy from the formal act of voting and from longer electoral cycles. In this setting, the demand for illiberal solutions emerges plausibly from disenchantment with politics, driven by three factors: (i) civic participation reduced to electoral moments; (ii) thin representative linkages that weaken proximity and blur accountability; and (iii) the perception that political parties function as closed recruitment machines, with internal circuits of elite reproduction and low permeability to merit and to extra-partisan social experience. When integrity failures and scandals compound these conditions, a narrative of moralization and “purification” intensifies and broadens populist repertoires, both in bottom-up variants on the radical left and in broad-based variants on the radical right—directed upward against elites and, at times, downward against minorities and immigrants. The paper’s point of departure is that citizens tolerate delegation when liberal democracy is perceived as functional and fair, particularly in the delivery of the welfare state and in the integrity of fiscal governance. Within a European framework, the paper proposes measures to increase transparency in list formation and open political recruitment (including regulated civic pathways into party lists) as a way to reduce the credibility of populist antagonism and strengthen democratic resilience.
Politics and policy – as two sides of the same coin – have become, in the last few decades, increasingly under hyper-surveillance, due to the growth of traditional media and the proliferation of social media. Historically, the media have functioned as the “fourth estate” (after government, parliament, and courts), a long-standing and pervasive concept that translates the social, political, and economic impact of media in modern societies, and that is widely associated with social democratization and political accountability (Schultz, 1998).
But while “citizen journalism” was a foundational idea that dwells in the concept of expanding the role of the citizen as a “watchdog” (Bennett & Serrin, 2005), weblogs and social media became a structural reconfiguration of the information ecosystem. Early blogging ecosystems were often framed as expanding voice and scrutiny beyond traditional gatekeepers, sometimes complementing or contesting mainstream agendas and lowering barriers to agenda-setting (Sánchez-Villar, 2019). However, social media further accelerated the cycle of attention and reward structures around fast, affective engagement, transforming complex ideas into memes, as argued by Yascha Mounk (2023) concerning post-modern theories and their translation into an “identity synthesis.”
The shift from broadcast to participatory media means surveillance is no longer top-down (state over citizens) but multi-directional: citizens monitor elites, and elites monitor public sentiment via data analytics. The hyper-visibility of political life redefines legitimacy and accountability. But social media proved the limits of this participatory media to work as watchdogs as a functional substitute for deliberative scrutiny, promoting slacktivism, a low-cost and symbolic participation (Christensen, 2011), and producing a set of high-cost externalities, including echo chambers, bubbles, misinformation, and hate speech. Importantly, the empirical literature is mixed on whether low-cost online actions crowd out offline engagement; the stronger claim is that platform dynamics can reconfigure incentives, attention, and affect in ways that strain deliberation.
As argued by Cass Sunstein (2017), democracy’s sustainability is at stake due to digital dynamics that undermine the basis of a healthy public sphere. Inspired by Habermas, Sunstein argues that the republic requires different types of citizens to interact and debate, with exposure to diverse arguments, while also prevailing on a common ground. However, the algorithm favors echo chambers and epistemic bubbles that reinforce preconceptions and beliefs, thereby undermining democratic dialogue.
This sketch of the informational ecosystem matters because continuous scrutiny changes how citizens interpret political distance. When everyday monitoring highlights missteps, style, and personal conduct—often detached from policy substance—trust can erode and politics can be read through a moral register. In such settings, accountability is simultaneously intensified (everything is visible) and blurred (responsibility is hard to attribute), creating a demand for clarity that representative institutions rarely satisfy.
This political purity has a strong link to theological backgrounds, since the tension between purity and danger is foundational in Judeo-Christian cultures (Douglas, 1966). Applied to political contexts, the grammar of purity is related to political messianism (Ferreira Dias, 2022) and populist-demagogic leaders (Levitsky & Ziblatt, 2018) who claim to represent the true voice of ‘the pure people’ (v.g., Ziller & Schübel, 2015; Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2017). In practical terms, “purification” narratives convert institutional distrust into a moral diagnosis (“the system is rotten”) and a moral remedy (“clean it up”), which expands the repertoire of anti-establishment mobilisation.
All this context of “algorithmcracy” (Amado, 2024) puts stress on the democratic system, vulnerable to a range of factors such as economic crisis, political radicalization, and international affairs. Yet the key point for this paper is not that digital dynamics “cause” democratic erosion on their own, but that they magnify the political costs of long-standing representational frictions, especially the gap between who elects and who is elected.
Additionally, democracy is experiencing a singular crisis due to the emergence of illiberal responses, producing a split between democracy and liberalism, as argued by Yascha Mounk (2018). According to the author, since the 2008 economic crisis, native-born citizens have been experiencing a combination of emotional reactions to political, social, and demographic changes. First, a lack of hope among youth generations when comparing their welfare to that of their parents at the same age. Second, intense demographic changes – due to migration and refugee inflows and politicised migration debates – are producing emotional responses both in the US and Europe, with a return to nativist claims (Marchi & Zúquete, 2024; Betz, 2017; Marchi & Bruno, 2016; Guia, 2016) and racial working-class ressentiment (Begum et al., 2021; Carnes & Lupu, 2021; Mondon & Winter, 2020a, 2020b; Morgan & Lee, 2018). Third, a rapid progressive consensus in western societies – the so-called “woke culture,” i.e., and “identity-centred progressive agenda” – placed significant challenges, including strong claims about normative change, in terms of language, literature, and art revision based on (i) personal character of the artist/author versus the creation itself, (ii) current morality seen as the ultimate and correct moral. This led to the re-awakening of immaterial culture wars, with a tension between a cultural left and the cultural backlash of the radical right (Ferreira Dias, 2025; Fukuyama, 2018; Hunter, 1991, 1996).
These pressures converge on a structural vulnerability of representative democracy: the gap between who elects and who is elected. Under hyper-surveillance, that gap becomes easier to see and harder to legitimate—especially when (i) civic participation is largely episodic and confined to elections, (ii) representative linkages remain thin, and accountability is perceived as diffuse, and (iii) party recruitment is experienced as opaque or endogamous, privileging internal pipelines over merit and extra-partisan social experience. When integrity failures and scandals are added to this mix, the resulting moral register (“clean-up” and “purification”) increases the plausibility of populist antagonism and demand for illiberal shortcuts. The remainder of the paper, therefore, develops the political recruitment loop as a mechanism linking hyper-surveillance to democratic disenchantment, and proposes a phased, auditable policy toolbox: minimum transparency standards and civic access pathways into party lists, within a European framework, using Portugal as an illustrative case.
The Problem in Europe: Hyper-Surveillance Meets a Representation Gap
Representative democracy has always rested on a tension: citizens govern themselves only indirectly, by selecting others to make decisions in their name (Pitkin, 1967; Urbinati, 2006). This is a consequence of a long-term political process, related to the transition from absolutist monarchy to democracy (Manin, 1997). While the idea that power lies with the people was essential to desacralize the right to rule, the notion that representation seems to be the most effective way to fulfil the will of the majority leads to discomfort, since the will of the people is only indirectly and highly mediated (Manin, 1997; Przeworski, 2018). In stable periods, that tension is often politically manageable because the legitimacy of delegation is anchored in a simple ritual – elections – and in an expectation that institutions will remain broadly functional and fair between electoral moments (Manin, 1997). In other terms, we may say that people accept the rules of democracy – i.e., being set apart from decisions – if they are gaining from it. It is the economy of political satisfaction (Easton, 1965; Scharpf, 1999).
On the other hand, it leads to a recent, however intense, debate: how representation is limiting representativeness, and how representativeness is a political limitation to parties’ independence (Pitkin, 1967; Urbinati, 2006). In more practical terms, demographic changes are demanding affirmative and corrective actions – like quotas – for Parliament to reflect social diversity (Dahlerup, 2006; Krook, 2009; Phillips, 1995). However, while those affirmative actions are producing results, many social movements are claiming that political actors should act like the citizens rather than being independent (Dovi, 2007; Mansbridge, 2003). For instance, it means that it is not enough to have black people in the parliament, government, and other places, but they should act like activist movements expect them to do (Mansbridge, 1999; Phillips, 1995). This is also applied to other visible traits of politicians, despite the racial aspect making this more evident (Young, 2000).
What Changed: Mass Education and the Acceleration of the Information Ecosystem
First, the massification of education increases the baseline capacity to evaluate political claims and the expectation that power must justify itself continuously. Even when information is imperfect, higher educational attainment broadens the social demand for reasons, transparency, and competence. In practical terms, citizens are more likely to notice inconsistency (between rhetoric and action), opportunism (between promises and constraints), and privilege (between ordinary life and elite trajectories).
Second, a more educated public is also very critical of politicians’ abilities, often being cynical towards what seems to be political careers, especially when they start from a young age and involve limited experience of the real world (Bovens & Wille, 2017; Mair, 2013; Przeworski, 2018). In countries where political parties maintain organized youth wings, it is more likely for citizens to see them as “factories of politicians”, i.e., early entry points that socialize and recruit future candidates, producing greater resentment about the gap between electors and the elected (Jalali et al., 2024; Norris & Lovenduski, 1995).
Third, the media environment shifted from periodic broadcast scrutiny to continuous participatory visibility. Traditional media long operated as a “fourth estate,” associated with accountability and the monitoring of power (Schultz, 1998). But the contemporary cycle is faster and more affective: social media ecosystems reward speed, novelty, and emotional resonance, often compressing complex issues into symbolic conflict. In Mounk’s account of contemporary identity politics, the public arena becomes particularly prone to moralized framings and simplified oppositions, an environment in which political legitimacy is judged not only by outcomes but by conduct, language, and symbolic alignment (Mounk, 2023).
European Symptoms: Low Trust, Party Dislike, and Perceptions of Closure
The European symptom profile is consistent: political parties attract among the lowest levels of trust, and citizens frequently describe politics in terms of closed careers and self-serving elites (Mair, 2013; Przeworski, 2018). In the EU-wide Standard Eurobarometer 101 (Spring 2024), only 22% of respondents “tend to trust” political parties (EU27), while large majorities report distrust (European Commission, Directorate-General for Communication, 2024). Even where trust in other institutions fluctuates, parties remain a focal point for scepticism because they control access to representation: they filter who appears on ballots, how political careers progress, and how internal accountability operates (Hazan & Rahat, 2010; Norris & Lovenduski, 1995).
Perceptions of closure are reinforced where party careers are seen as starting early and progressing through organized youth wings and internal staff roles. While parties tend to see it as a symptom of democracy, citizenship, and generational renovation, public opinion goes on the opposite side, being suspicious of a “jobs for the boys” factory.
Evidence from Portugal suggests an “iceberg-shaped” recruitment ladder: youth wings may be visible as entry points, yet their representation compresses sharply at the decisive stages of candidate selection and electable list placement, with informal bargaining between youth organizations and party leadership shaping outcomes (Jalali et al., 2024). In this sense, anti-establishment narratives are not only moral reactions to individual politicians but institutional reactions to party-controlled filters, what Przeworski (2018) summarizes as the perception that elections reproduce “establishment,” “elites,” or even a political “caste.”
This feeds perceptions aligned with the “cartelization” diagnosis in party scholarship: parties may remain indispensable to democratic coordination while becoming less socially rooted and less permeable to external talent, particularly where public funding and state-linked resources reduce reliance on membership and local embeddedness (Katz & Mair, 1995, 2009; Mair, 2013). Whether or not one adopts the cartel thesis in full, it captures a critical policy-relevant intuition: if citizens experience parties as closed recruitment machines, distrust becomes a rational inference rather than mere cynicism (Hazan & Rahat, 2010; Norris & Lovenduski, 1995).
Finally, the moral register of politics – particularly intense in digital environments –amplifies how integrity failures are interpreted. Scandals do not merely signal individual misconduct; they can erode institutional trust and confirm a broader narrative of closure (“they protect their own”), especially where gatekeeping is opaque (Bowler & Karp, 2004). In that sense, hyper-surveillance often functions less as a neutral accountability tool and more as a lens that magnifies the reputational costs of distance, opacity, and perceived self-reproduction.
A useful contrast is provided by single-member constituency systems such as the United Kingdom. Comparative work on electoral incentives suggests that systems encouraging personal vote-seeking strengthen incentives for constituency-oriented behaviour (Carey & Shugart, 1995), and UK evidence indicates that MPs’ constituency communication and service respond to re-election incentives (Auel & Umit, 2018; Cain et al., 1984; Norton & Wood, 1993). However, stronger constituency linkage does not remove party gatekeeping: candidate selection remains an intra-party process, and perceptions of closure can persist when recruitment is opaque or centrally controlled (Hazan & Rahat, 2010; Norris & Lovenduski, 1995). The implication for European reform debates is therefore precise: improving accountability “at the front end” (representative–constituent linkage) helps, but tackling disenchantment requires reforming the “back end” of democracy: how parties recruit, select, and promote candidates.
Bridge Conclusion
This paper conceptualises the gap between electors and elected as a recruitment loop rather than merely a communication failure. Citizens watch politics continuously but can intervene meaningfully only episodically; they observe parties as gatekeepers but cannot see inside the gatekeeping process. Under these conditions, accountability becomes diffuse and trust costly. Portugal illustrates this dynamic in microcosm: party youth wings function as visible entry points but are seldom translated into real candidate diversity (Jalali et al., 2024). The challenge is therefore to open recruitment without undermining parties’ capacity to coordinate democracy, to make delegation intelligible again. The following section proposes a pragmatic policy toolbox for doing so, balancing transparency, civic access, and organizational integrity (Hazan & Rahat, 2010; Katz & Mair, 1995; Mair, 2013).
Policy Toolbox: Opening without Breaking Parties
The central policy challenge is to widen civic access to representation without undermining parties’ coordinating functions. Parties are not merely electoral vehicles; they aggregate preferences, recruit candidates, structure parliamentary majorities, and make responsibility legible in government (Mair, 2013). Yet when parties are experienced as closed recruitment machines, distrust becomes a rational inference rather than a purely moral reaction, especially under hyper-surveillance, where citizens can observe political life continuously but cannot observe how candidacies are actually made (Hazan & Rahat, 2010; Norris & Lovenduski, 1995). The toolbox proposed here follows a simple logic: make recruitment intelligible (transparency), make entry plausible (civic pathways), and make integrity credible (anti-capture safeguards). These reforms are designed to be phased, auditable, and compatible with freedom of association and party autonomy, principles emphasized in European standards on party regulation (OSCE/ODIHR & Venice Commission, 2020).
First Tool
A first tool is a minimum transparency standard for candidate selection. The aim is not to impose a single “best method” of selection, but to require that parties publish the basic architecture of their recruitment decisions in advance: who decides, by what criteria, on what calendar, and with what right of appeal or review. The OSCE/ODIHR and Venice Commission guidelines underline that party regulation should protect pluralism while encouraging democratic internal functioning and clarity of rules (OSCE/ODIHR & Venice Commission, 2020). Translating this into a practical standard means requiring parties to publish written procedures for list formation (including eligibility, stages, and decision bodies) and to report aggregated outcomes after selection (e.g., number of applicants, share coming from outside internal party roles, and basic diversity indicators, reported in non-identifying form). This aligns with the OECD’s emphasis on openness and inclusiveness as trust-relevant “values” drivers: citizens judge not only outcomes, but also whether processes are fair, transparent, and intelligible (OECD, 2017). Crucially, transparency here is not punitive; it is a low-cost infrastructural reform that reduces the informational asymmetry that makes gatekeeping look arbitrary.
Second Tool
A second tool is to create civic access pathways into party lists, designed to reduce the perception that politics is an insiders’ career ladder. Research on recruitment repeatedly shows that who reaches office depends on filters that operate well before election day, such as party selectors, eligibility rules, and informal networks (Norris & Lovenduski, 1995). The policy aim, therefore, is to add a structured “external entry” channel alongside internal recruitment, without delegitimizing internal party work.
One workable design is a phased system of “civic slots” on party lists, limited in share, clearly defined in eligibility, and tied to an open call. Selection can combine a rule-based screening stage (including blind review where feasible for qualifications and experience), and a plural evaluation panel that includes party representatives plus external members with credibility (e.g., retired judges, academics, civil society leaders). This design reflects the core insight of candidate selection studies: openness alone does not guarantee fairness; the rules of selection and the identity of selectors shape capture risks and public legitimacy (Hazan & Rahat, 2010). To address the predictable objection that “amateurs cannot govern,” parties can attach a standardized training and mentoring track for civic entrants, which preserves competence while changing the optics and reality of permeability.
Third Tool
A third tool is a set of anti-endogamy and integrity safeguards that reduce the probability that openness becomes performative or captured. Here, European integrity standards provide a clear anchor: GRECO’s Fourth Evaluation Round explicitly focuses on corruption prevention for members of parliament, including ethical principles, conflicts of interest, restrictions on certain activities, asset and interest declarations, and enforcement mechanisms (Council of Europe, GRECO, n.d.).
Yet, the toolbox does not require reinventing ethics regulation; it requires connecting recruitment openness to integrity credibility. Practically, parties adopting civic pathways should commit to (i) basic conflict-of-interest declarations for candidates, (ii) simple anti-nepotism rules and disclosure obligations for close family ties in politically relevant appointments, and (iii) clear restrictions on incompatible roles where these create perceptions of insider privilege.
Because parties differ legally across European systems, the policy point is not uniform legal transplantation but a minimum package of auditable commitments that makes “purification” rhetoric less plausible by making integrity rules visible and enforceable.
Fourth Tool
A fourth tool is incentives and certification. One reason reforms fail is that voluntary openness is individually costly for a party, especially if competitors remain closed. A practical solution is a transparency certification: an independent audit against a checklist aligned with the minimum transparency standard, civic access design, and integrity safeguards. This can begin as voluntary and reputational, then become scalable if legislatures choose to connect it to permissible incentives (for example, earmarked public funding for training civic entrants, or additional reporting support), always within the constraints recommended in European party-regulation guidance (OSCE/ODIHR & Venice Commission, 2020). The OECD’s trust framework is relevant here: where citizens perceive institutions as open and aligned with public-interest values, trust becomes easier to rebuild; where processes remain opaque, even good outcomes are discounted (OECD, 2017).
Fifth Tool
A fifth, optional tool is participatory selection mechanisms that do not substitute for parties but complement them. Partial primaries or citizen panels (mini-publics) can be used not to choose entire lists, but to evaluate candidates’ competence and integrity claims in a structured, evidence-based setting. The point is to convert hyper-surveillance into functional accountability: create moments where citizens engage substantively with candidate profiles rather than through algorithmic fragments. Because participatory selection can intensify factionalism or media spectacle, it should be deployed cautiously and only with anti-capture rules and clear scope limits (Hazan & Rahat, 2010).
In sum, taken together, these tools aim to change the political economy of distrust by shifting recruitment from an opaque internal practice to a partially visible civic interface. This is particularly relevant in contexts where youth wings function as visible pipelines, yet the decisive stages of list placement remain compressed and informally negotiated, reinforcing the perception that internal circuits dominate political mobility (Jalali et al., 2024). The toolbox is therefore designed to “open without breaking”: to preserve party coordination while lowering the symbolic and practical distance between electors and elected.
Policy Recommendations, Implementation Roadmap, and Metrics
Recommendations
Recommendation 1 —Adopt a European minimum transparency standard for candidate selection. Parties should publish, ex ante, a written procedure for list formation (eligibility criteria; stages and calendar; decision body; complaint/review channel) and, ex post, an aggregated report on the selection process (e.g., number of applicants; number shortlisted; basic non-identifying diversity indicators; and the share of candidates coming from outside internal party roles). This does not impose a single selection model; it makes gatekeeping legible and therefore contestable on procedural grounds (Hazan & Rahat, 2010; OSCE/ODIHR & Venice Commission, 2020). The expected impact is to reduce informational asymmetry and weaken the plausibility of “closed casta” narratives under hyper-surveillance (European Commission, Directorate-General for Communication, 2024; Mair, 2013).
Recommendation 2 — Implement phased civic access pathways (“civic slots”) into party lists. Parties should reserve a limited and gradually expandable share of list positions for candidates recruited through an open call, with eligibility rules that allow genuine external entry (Norris & Lovenduski, 1995). Selection should be rule-based and staged: a first screening phase can be partly blinded where feasible (qualifications, experience), followed by a plural evaluation panel combining party and external members with high credibility. This targets the core driver of disenchantment identified in recruitment research: citizens can vote, but they cannot realistically enter the pipeline (Hazan & Rahat, 2010; Norris & Lovenduski, 1995).
Recommendation 3 — Add anti-endogamy and integrity safeguards that make openness credible. Where recruitment opens, the system must also signal credible integrity boundaries: baseline conflict-of-interest declarations for candidates; simple anti-nepotism disclosure rules; and enforceable incompatibility rules where accumulation of roles creates perceptions of insider privilege. These measures align with European anti-corruption frameworks that emphasize conflicts of interest, codes of conduct, and enforceability for MPs (Council of Europe, GRECO, n.d.). The expected impact is to prevent openness from being dismissed as symbolic and to reduce “purification” dynamics that thrive on scandal amplification.
Recommendation 4 — Create a transparency certification (voluntary first, scalable later). An independent audit against a short checklist (procedural transparency; civic pathway design; basic integrity disclosures) can generate reputational incentives while limiting the collective-action problem where no party wants to “disarm” unilaterally. This is a policy instrument, not a European legal requirement; it is justified by the governance literature on rebuilding trust through competence and values (OECD, 2017).
Recommendation 5 — Publish annual aggregated metrics to track whether pipelines are actually opening. Parties (or an independent public body) should report a small set of comparable indicators annually (see below). This shifts debate from moral accusation to measurable change and allows phased reforms to be evaluated and adjusted (OSCE/ODIHR & Venice Commission, 2020).
Implementation Roadmap (0–48 months)
In months 0–12, implement the minimum transparency standard (Recommendation 1) and launch a pilot civic pathway with a small number of civic slots (Recommendation 2), accompanied by a basic integrity package (Recommendation 3). In parallel, start the voluntary certification scheme (Recommendation 4) and define the common reporting template (Recommendation 5).
In months 12–24, expand civic slots modestly (conditional on applicant volume and audit results), institutionalize the plural panel model, and introduce routine disclosure checks (lightweight, standardized, and auditable).
In months 24–48, consolidate reforms: embed transparency and reporting as stable practice, commission an independent evaluation, and recalibrate thresholds (slot share, screening rules, disclosure scope) based on observed capture risks and legitimacy gains.
Portugal can remain an illustrative benchmark rather than a dedicated section: recent evidence on the translation from youth recruitment to electable list placement shows why “pipeline visibility” does not automatically equal “pipeline openness,” and why reforms must target the decisive stages of selection (Jalali et al., 2024).
Metrics & Evaluation (minimal set)
A compact metrics package should track: (1) the share of elected officials with substantial professional experience outside party/political roles (aggregated); (2) average tenure and rotation rates in elected office; (3) number of applicants per civic slot and selection rates; (4) compliance scores on the transparency checklist (party-level, annually); and (5) time-series trends in trust in parties (national and EU benchmarks, including Eurobarometer) (European Commission, Directorate-General for Communication, 2024).
Conclusion
Hyper-surveillance did not create Europe’s representation gap, but it has raised the political cost of long-standing features of representative government: mediated will-formation, professionalized political careers, and party gatekeeping. When citizens can monitor politics continuously yet cannot observe – or access – the recruitment process, accountability becomes diffuse and trust becomes costly. The policy aim is therefore not moral “purification,” but infrastructural repair: opening the political pipeline while preserving parties’ coordinating capacity. A minimum transparency standard, civic access pathways, and credible integrity safeguards together can transform hyper-vigilance into functional accountability, reducing the plausibility of populist antagonism and strengthening democratic resilience (Hazan & Rahat, 2010; Mair, 2013; OSCE/ODIHR & Venice Commission, 2020).
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On January 8, 2026, ECPS convened Session 9 of its Virtual Workshop Series, titled “Populism, Crime, and the Politics of Exclusion.” The session was chaired and moderated by Dr. Helen L. Murphey, who framed exclusionary populism as a dual process that claims to empower an “authentic people” while simultaneously criminalizing stigmatized “others.” Assoc. Prof. Christopher N. Magno introduced the concept of criminal populism, showing how legal scandal and criminality can be transformed into political capital in the United States and the Philippines. Dr. Russell Foster examined how Austria’s FPÖ and France’s Rassemblement National legitimate anti-migration agendas through securitization and Gramscian metapolitics. Saga Oskarson Kindstrand drew on ethnographic research on the Sweden Democrats to challenge assumptions that populism undermines party organization. Discussants Hannah Geddes and Vlad Surdea-Hernea provided incisive reflections on theory, methodology, and democratic implications.
Reported by ECPS Staff
On Thursday, January 8, 2026, theEuropean Center for Populism Studies (ECPS) convened Session 9 of its Virtual Workshop Series, titled “We, the People” and the Future of Democracy: Interdisciplinary Approaches. Held under the session theme“Populism, Crime, and the Politics of Exclusion,” the session brought together an interdisciplinary group of scholars to explore how populist actors mobilize crime, security, and moral threat to redefine political belonging—deciding who counts as “the people,” who is constructed as a dangerous “other,” and how these distinctions increasingly enter mainstream politics.
The workshop opened with welcoming and technical remarks by ECPS intern Stella Schade, who introduced the session’s structure, speakers, and discussants on behalf of ECPS, situating the event within the Center’s broader commitment to comparative and theoretically grounded research on populism.
The session was chaired and moderated by Dr. Helen L. Murphey (Postdoctoral Scholar, Mershon Center for International Security Studies, The Ohio State University), whose introduction provided the session’s conceptual frame. Dr. Murphey emphasized that exclusionary populism operates through a dual logic: empowering an “authentic people” while simultaneously stigmatizing “others” as criminal, threatening, or disorderly. She highlighted how populists present themselves as reluctant political actors pushed into action by crisis and elite failure, while claiming exclusive authority over law and order. Importantly, she noted that these narratives are no longer confined to populist outsiders but increasingly circulate within mainstream party competition. Her framing raised core questions about the evolution of exclusionary discourse, its entanglement with crime and popular culture, and its implications for democratic norms and party organization.
Dr. Christopher N. Magno, who is an Associate Professor in the Department of Justice Studies and Human Services at Gannon University, presented “From Crime Shows to Power: The Rise of Criminal Populism,” introducing criminal populism as a framework for understanding how leaders transform criminality into political capital. Moving beyond penal populism, Dr. Magno showed how indictments and scandals are reframed as proof of authenticity and persecution, strengthening affective ties with supporters while eroding accountability. Drawing on cases from the United States and the Philippines, he demonstrated how criminal identity becomes a political asset.
Dr. Russell Foster, Senior Lecturer in British and International Politics at King’s College London, School of Politics & Economics, Department of European & International Studies, delivered “The Legitimization Process of the FPÖ’s and the NR’s Migration Policies,” examining how radical right parties in Austria and France mainstream anti-immigration positions through securitization and cultural adaptation. Using a Gramscian lens, he argued that migration is increasingly criminalized by being linked to anxieties over housing, welfare, and identity, while stressing that radical right trajectories vary across national contexts.
Saga Oskarson Kindstrand, PhD candidate at Centre for European Studies and Comparative Politics, Sciences Po, presented “Anti-Party to Mass Party? Lessons from the Radical Right’s Party Building Model,” challenging the assumption that populism rejects mediation. Based on ethnographic research on the Sweden Democrats, she argued that populist discourse can sustain dense party organization by moralizing membership, valorizing “ordinary people,” and cultivating urgency—re-legitimating the party as a representative vehicle.
The presentations were followed by engaged interventions from Hannah Geddes (PhD Candidate, University of St. Andrews) and Dr. Vlad Surdea-Hernea (Postdoctoral researcher at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna). Their critiques highlighted shared strengths in challenging established assumptions while probing issues of novelty, case selection, class, and internal party power. Together, the session offered a cohesive examination of how populism reshapes crime, exclusion, and democratic representation.
Moderator Dr. Helen Murphey: The Adaptive Politics of Populist Exclusion
Dr. Helen L. Murphey is a Postdoctoral Scholar at Mershon Center for International Security Studies, The Ohio State University.
Dr. Helen Murphey opened Session 9 of the ECPS Virtual Workshop series by situating the panel within both a timely political moment and an evolving scholarly debate. Beginning with acknowledgements to ECPS, the presenters, and the audience, she framed the session—Populism, Crime, and the Politics of Exclusion—as an interdisciplinary conversation addressing one of the most pressing intersections in contemporary populism research.
From the outset, Dr. Murphey emphasized that exclusionary populism, the unifying focus of the three papers, is defined by a dual logic of empowerment and marginalization. While such movements claim to restore political voice to what they portray as the “authentic people,” they simultaneously construct stigmatized “others,” frequently associating these groups with crime, insecurity, and social disorder. Within this framework, exclusionary populists present themselves as the guardians of law, order, and security—values they argue have been abandoned by political elites and mainstream parties.
Dr. Murphey further highlighted a recurring feature of populist self-representation: the claim to reluctant political engagement. Populists, she noted, often depict themselves and their constituencies as driven into politics by crisis rather than ideology. Importantly, she observed that exclusionary narratives are no longer confined to overtly populist actors. Instead, themes of identity, securitization, and exclusion have increasingly migrated into the political mainstream, raising urgent analytical and normative questions.
Against this backdrop, Dr. Murphey outlined several core challenges for scholars. These included understanding how exclusionary populism evolves over time, how it becomes entangled with issues such as crime, security, and popular culture, and what consequences these developments hold for democratic norms and institutions. She also underscored the need to examine how populist claims to represent “the people” shape internal party structures and collective self-perceptions.
The session’s papers, Dr. Murphey argued, respond directly to these questions through diverse case studies, methodologies, and theoretical approaches. Together, they illuminate understudied dimensions of exclusionary populism, particularly its emotive, affective, and cultural dynamics. She stressed that exclusionary boundaries are often deliberately vague and malleable, allowing populist actors to recalibrate identities and grievances as they become embedded within formal political systems.
Concluding her remarks, Dr. Murphey invited participants to reflect on the democratic implications of these shifting contours of exclusion and passed the floor to the first presenter, signaling the start of a discussion aimed at deepening understanding of populism’s complex and adaptive nature.
Assoc. Prof. Christopher N. Magno: “From Crime Shows to Power: The Rise of Criminal Populism”
Christopher N. Magno is an Associate Professor, Department of Justice Studies and Human Services, Gannon University.
In his presentation titled “From Crime Shows to Power: The Rise of Criminal Populism,” Associate Professor Chris Magno of Gannon University offered a provocative and theoretically ambitious account of how crime has been transformed from a political liability into a powerful resource within contemporary populist politics. Drawing on more than two decades of comparative research on the Philippines and the United States, Assoc. Prof. Magno advanced the concept of criminal populism as a novel analytical framework for understanding the convergence of populism, spectacle, and criminality in democracies under strain.
Assoc. Prof. Magno began by situating his scholarly trajectory, noting that his doctoral research at Indiana University Bloomington examined crime as a form of political capital in the Philippines. Upon encountering the concept of penal populism—most notably developed by John Pratt—he initially understood it as a phenomenon largely confined to “crime warrior” politicians in liberal democracies. Penal populism, as Dr. Magno summarized, rests on punitive political agendas framed through wars on drugs, immigration, terrorism, and communism, all of which rely on the symbolic criminalization of racialized and marginalized “others.” This logic, he argued, reinforces a rigid division between a supposedly threatened, morally upright “people” and a dangerous, criminalized “them.”
However, Dr. Magno emphasized that this framework became insufficient to explain emerging political developments, particularly following the electoral success of Donald Trump. Trump’s rise, despite—or rather through—his extensive legal controversies, revealed a critical shift: criminality itself had become a political credential. What was once disqualifying was now openly embraced and weaponized. This realization prompted Dr. Magno’s ongoing book project with New York University Press, which conceptualizes criminal populism as a distinct political formation in which legal transgressions, indictments, and scandals are transformed into sources of legitimacy, authenticity, and mass mobilization.
At the core of Dr. Magno’s argument is the claim that contemporary populist leaders increasingly use criminal records and legal persecution as political assets. Rather than denying or concealing wrongdoing, criminal populists reframe themselves as victims of corrupt elites and politicized justice systems. Through this performative inversion, courts, arrests, and trials are converted into stages of political theater. Indictments become “badges of honor,” reaffirming outsider status and strengthening emotional bonds with disillusioned publics. Dr. Magno argued that this pattern is no longer exceptional but increasingly normalized across democratic systems.
Empirically, Dr. Magno illustrated this trend through comparative electoral data. In the United States, multiple candidates facing criminal investigations secured victories during the 2018 midterm elections, while Trump retained strong electoral viability amid multiple felony indictments. In the Philippines, the pattern was even more pronounced: a majority of candidates facing trials, investigations, or prior convictions won office in both the 2019 and 2025 elections. These developments, Dr. Magno argued, signal a broader transformation in democratic norms, where accountability no longer weakens political authority but may actively enhance it.
To systematize these dynamics, Dr. Magno introduced four ideal-typical categories of politicians who use crime as political capital. The first type, crime warrior politicians, derive legitimacy from aggressively positioning themselves as defenders of law and order. Importantly, Dr. Magno challenged the assumption that this model is exclusive to the political right, pointing to Bill Clinton as a key example. Clinton’s embrace of tough-on-crime rhetoric and legislation, Dr. Magno showed, coincided with rising incarceration rates—particularly among African Americans—even as crime rates declined. This illustrated how penal populism operates through fear amplification, crime propaganda, and the mobilization of state institutions to produce political popularity.
The second category, criminal politicians, consists of leaders who openly acknowledge their own criminal acts and convert them into claims of authenticity. Here, Dr. Magno highlighted Rodrigo Duterte, who repeatedly confessed to killing individuals and promised further extrajudicial violence as part of his war on drugs. Duterte’s electoral success, Dr. Magno argued, rested on his unapologetic embrace of criminality, which resonated with voters seeking decisive, transgressive leadership. Dr. Magno underscored that thousands of documented drug war killings—now under consideration by the International Criminal Court (ICC)—form part of this broader pattern of fascistic criminal governance.
The third type, political criminals, refers to figures whose acts of protest, rebellion, or resistance are criminalized by authoritarian or corrupt regimes. While Dr. Magno acknowledged historical examples such as Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King Jr., his focus remained on the Philippine context, where dissidents and “coup leaders” have repeatedly transformed criminalized identities into electoral success. These actors, he argued, exploit state repression and the weaponization of law to build political legitimacy grounded in defiance.
The fourth and most extreme category, fascist criminal politicians, combines elements of crime warrior and criminal politician archetypes. These leaders both fight crime and commit it, openly violating legal norms in the name of order. Duterte again served as Dr. Magno’s paradigmatic case, as did Trump in the US context. Fascist criminal politicians, Dr. Magno argued, exceed constitutional limits, normalize extrajudicial violence, and blur the boundary between legality and criminality, thereby hollowing out democratic institutions from within.
Throughout the presentation, Dr. Magno emphasized that criminal populism operates through spectacle, emotion, and selective victimhood. Crime narratives overwhelmingly focus on street crime and marginalized populations, while elite crimes—such as corruption, environmental destruction, and corporate abuse—remain conspicuously absent. By exploiting public anxieties around crime, criminal populists redirect grievance away from structural inequalities and toward racialized or impoverished “others.”
In concluding, Dr. Magno stressed that criminal populism represents a profound challenge for democratic accountability and the rule of law. As criminality becomes normalized—and even celebrated—as political capital, the moral foundations of democratic legitimacy are fundamentally altered. His framework, grounded in long-term comparative research, offers scholars a critical lens for understanding how crime, populism, and power increasingly converge in contemporary political life.
Dr. Russell Foster: “The Legitimization Process of the FPÖ’s and the NR’s Migration Policies”
Dr. Russell Foster is a Senior Lecturer in British and International Politics at King’s College London, School of Politics & Economics, Department of European & International Studies.
In his presentation, Dr. Russell Foster (King’s College London) delivered an unsparing account of how radical-right actors in Europe have helped convert anti-immigration positions—from once-fringe commitments into increasingly mainstream political common sense. Dr. Foster framed the topic as “depressingly apt” for the opening of 2026, situating the discussion within an atmosphere of accelerating radical-right momentum across multiple democracies. The talk unfolded as both an analytical map of party evolution in Austria and France and a conceptual argument about how exclusionary politics gains legitimacy not only through party strategy, but through deeper shifts in political culture.
Dr. Foster began by crediting his co-author, Professor Murat Aktas, for extensive work on the paper, and then outlined the study’s two guiding angles. The first angle concerns variation: while the literature often treats the “European radical right” as a coherent phenomenon, Dr. Foster argued that cross-national similarities can be superficial. Beneath shared slogans and familiar tropes lie national, regional, and local differences that shape how exclusionary policies are narrated and why they resonate. The second angle concerns explanation: to understand why criminalizing narratives about migration become broadly accepted, the paper draws on a Gramscian lens of hegemony and metapolitics. This approach shifts attention away from a purely top-down reading of party manifestos and campaign rhetoric toward the cultural conditions and everyday anxieties that make certain claims feel plausible and politically actionable.
A key motif running through Dr. Foster’s remarks was the rejection of singularity. Just as his earlier work on Euroscepticism emphasized that there are “multiple Euroscepticisms,” he suggested there are likewise multiple radical-right narratives across Europe. These narratives do not operate as simple copies of one another, nor do they necessarily mirror developments in the United States or other global contexts. The implication is methodological as well as political: comparative scholarship must resist flattening diverse trajectories into a single model, especially when trying to explain “mainstreaming”—the process by which exclusionary frames seep into the broader political field.
To clarify what sort of “right” is under examination, Dr. Foster offered a three-part typology. First, the “old right” was described as traditional Burkean conservatism: authority, tradition, continuity, and a largely upper-middle-class politics of maintenance—an establishment conservatism he suggested is increasingly in retreat. Second, the “extreme right” was characterized as overt neo-Nazism—an imagery of violent subcultural extremism that persists but remains socially stigmatized. Third, and central to the paper, the “radical right” was presented as a hybrid formation—what he noted has been dubbed “hipster fascism”: a politics that borrows flexibly from across the ideological spectrum, including the center, segments of the left, and even environmental themes, while retaining an exclusionary core. This radical-right formation, in Dr. Foster’s telling, is defined less by crude nostalgia than by adaptability, presentation, and the strategic recalibration of stigma.
Within this conceptual frame, migration served as the primary policy domain through which Dr. Foster traced legitimization. He argued that the framing of immigration has shifted over time: from earlier narratives that treated immigration as a cultural or even “medicalized” threat (suggesting contamination or societal illness) toward a securitized and criminalized framing in which migration becomes a question of law, disorder, and public safety. This shift is not presented as a sudden invention of the 21st century, but rather as an intensification—an acceleration in the last two decades as radical-right parties have learned to link migration to broader anxieties over housing, employment, education, healthcare, and welfare. Migration, in this storyline, becomes a “master key” issue: a flexible explanatory device used to connect disparate social grievances into one coherent politics of blame.
The comparative heart of the talk focused on two parties: Austria’s Freedom Party (FPÖ) and France’s Rassemblement National (RN). Dr. Foster treated them as parallel case studies—both emerging in the postwar period, both marginal for decades, both rising sharply in the late 20th and early 21st centuries—yet he emphasized meaningful divergences in origins, strategy, and their relationship to governing power.
The FPÖ’s trajectory was presented as beginning nearer to the extreme-right pole. Founded in the mid-1950s after Allied withdrawal, the party was described as having been established by former National Socialist members, with its early leadership tied directly to the political structures of the Nazi era. Yet by the 1980s, Dr. Foster argued, internal shifts began to reposition the party toward respectability. The election of Norbert Steger in 1980 signaled an attempt at liberalization—an effort to appear more acceptable within democratic competition. That repositioning accelerated, paradoxically, with the rise of Jörg Haider in 1986, who pushed the party toward a sharper radical-right orientation and expanded anti-immigration messaging amid rising public anxieties. Dr. Foster described the 1990s as a further pivot point: as the Cold War ended, the party moved away from overt anti-communism and leaned more heavily into Euroscepticism and immigration. The critical marker of political breakthrough arrived in October 1999, when the FPÖ entered government in coalition with the Austrian People’s Party—an early European example of a radical-right party moving from protest to power.
Dr. Foster highlighted that, by the mid-2000s, the FPÖ’s anti-immigration rhetoric hardened again, especially under Heinz-Christian Strache, who intensified a discourse less rooted in older ethnic nationalism and more structured around a contemporary anti-immigrant logic. This repositioning proved politically advantageous as large-scale migration to Europe increased after the Arab Spring in 2011 and during the 2014–2016 migration crisis. Austria’s role as a transit country enabled the FPÖ to translate transnational events into national alarm. Dr. Foster stressed a recurring populist technique here: deliberate vagueness. By keeping categories of threat flexible, parties can “capitalize upon external events they did not cause,” retrofitting those events into an already-available narrative of invasion, insecurity, and criminality. Migration, in the FPÖ’s rhetoric, was reframed not simply as economic pressure or cultural change, but as Islamic threat—and, by extension, as a security and crime issue.
RN’s trajectory was presented as both comparable and distinct. Unlike the FPÖ’s immediate postwar origins, RN’s predecessor emerged in the 1970s, shaped by different historical sediments—anti-communism, antisemitism, and the aftershocks of imperial collapse. Under Jean-Marie Le Pen, it was positioned firmly within the idiom of the old extreme right. Yet, as with the FPÖ, Dr. Foster identified a major strategic shift from the late 1990s into the early 2000s, as the party began to pursue broader acceptability.
Where RN diverged, Dr. Foster argued, was in its relationship to governing responsibility. The FPÖ’s entry into coalition government created exposure: it had to bear consequences for policy and compromise, and it suffered popularity losses—before later recovery. RN, by contrast, had often gained influence without holding national executive power. This produced a distinct mode of mainstreaming: rather than governing directly, RN shaped the agenda indirectly by exerting pressure on mainstream parties, pushing them to adopt securitized, criminalized migration narratives. Dr. Foster characterized this as a metapolitical accomplishment: a capacity to move the boundaries of what can be said and proposed, even from opposition. He invoked the logic of “sniping from the sidelines,” where radical-right actors influence policy while evading the accountability costs of implementation.
Across both cases, Dr. Foster located a shared acceleration after major systemic shocks: the 2007–2008 global financial crisis, the migration crisis from 2014 onward, and—most sharply—the post-pandemic period. These moments, in his framing, expanded the “demand side” for exclusionary narratives. Economic insecurity, housing pressures, fraying trust in institutions, and general disillusionment with traditional politics created a receptive environment for frames that depict migration as the cause of scarcity and insecurity. The parties’ “supply side” strategy—softening overt extremism, abandoning some older tropes, and adopting a “veneer of civilization”—was presented as the enabling condition for legitimacy. But the deeper engine of mainstreaming was cultural: anxieties already present in society, which radical-right actors interpret, amplify, and bind into a coherent story.
Gramsci’s metapolitics served as the theoretical hinge connecting these observations. Dr. Foster treated the radical right less as the creator of public anxiety than as a highly skilled reader of it—an actor adept at sensing “where the wind is blowing socially” and attaching grievances to a politics of exclusion. This is where transnational movements and digital communication enter the account: social media, he argued, has made metapolitics easier by enabling the circulation of narratives, images, and everyday performances of relatability. He pointed to RN’s “de-demonization” efforts and the cultivation of ordinary, lifestyle-based authenticity—politics staged as casual normality rather than elite ritual—as a key mechanism in making radical-right actors seem socially acceptable even as exclusionary policy content remains.
Dr. Foster closed by returning to two concluding claims. First, both parties demonstrate a broad shift from medicalization toward criminalization of immigration—recasting migrants less as cultural outsiders and more as threats to social order. Second, both parties illustrate an evolution from hard Euroscepticism toward what he termed “Euro-alternativeism”: not seeking exit from the European project, but seeking to reshape it into a fortress logic of securitization, sometimes articulated through “great replacement” imaginaries. Ending on what he called a “delightfully cheerful note,” Dr. Foster left the audience with a bleak but analytically precise picture: legitimization is not a single act but a process—built through national histories, cultural anxieties, strategic moderation of style, and the steady normalization of criminalized boundary-making as everyday political reason.
Saga Oskarson Kindstrand: “Anti-Party to Mass Party? Lessons from the Radical Right’s Party Building Model”
Saga Oskarson Kindstrand is a PhD candidate at Centre for European Studies and Comparative Politics, Sciences Po.
In her presentation, Saga Oskarson Kindstrand (Sciences Po) offered an analytically focused intervention into a familiar assumption in populism studies: that populist politics rejects mediation and therefore tends to weaken or bypass party organization. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork with members of the Sweden Democrats, she proposed a more paradoxical reading. Rather than treating populism as the enemy of party-based linkage, her account suggested that populism can actively enable dense organizational ties—reviving, in certain respects, the relational grammar of the mass party.
Kindstrand opened by positioning the paper as an article-in-progress, shaped through multiple presentations as she refined its framing and contribution. Her starting point lay in the “older” literature on crisis of representation and party linkage—work that diagnoses how political parties attempt to sustain relationships with constituencies under altered social conditions. Within that debate, populism is often treated as either an endpoint of party decline or as a form of democracy that can function without parties. She pointed to formulations—such as Peter Mair’s notion of “populist democracy” as popular democracy without parties—as emblematic of a broader scholarly tendency to presume that populism seeks immediacy: direct, unmediated expression of “the people’s will” rather than representation through institutional intermediaries.
From this theoretical backdrop, Kindstrand sketched a synthetic map of how populism is commonly described across different schools. In an ideological register, populism is frequently opposed to constitutionalism: pluralism, minority rights, checks and balances, and procedural mediation are depicted as constraints on popular sovereignty. In a strategic register, populism is often associated with charismatic leadership and the circumvention of established party channels. In organizational accounts, populism appears as personalization, weak institutionalization, “anti-party” self-presentation, memberless structures, and publicity-driven linkages that privilege direct communication over internal deliberation. Across these literatures, she argued, distinct approaches converge on a shared conclusion: populism tends toward the rejection of mediation.
She then introduced the empirical puzzle that motivated her research. In recent years, a number of radical right populist parties in Europe have moved against this expectation by investing heavily in local organization: building branches and party offices, recruiting fee-paying members, and creating structured opportunities for activism and advancement. Some scholarship has even suggested these parties are “reviving the mass party.” This development, she noted, is puzzling not only because it appears to contradict the theoretical image of populism as anti-intermediary, but also because it defies a standard cost–benefit logic used in membership studies. Membership in stigmatized radical right parties can carry high social costs and limited career returns; yet membership has expanded nonetheless. The persistence of this pattern, she argued, signals that something beyond material incentives is sustaining attachment.
Against this backdrop, Kindstrand proposed a perspective shift: to understand contemporary radical right party-building, one must look at linkage—and crucially, from the viewpoint of members themselves. Her question was not merely whether these parties have organizations, but how they construct and sustain relational bonds with members and supporters, and how members perceive their own role in democratic representation. Do members believe in the party’s mediating power? Do they experience the party as a vehicle connecting “ordinary people” to decision-making, akin to classic mass-party imaginaries?
To answer these questions, Kindstrand presented findings from an ethnographic study conducted in Sweden with Sweden Democrat party members across different levels of engagement. Her research design combined interviews with participant observation of meetings and local activities, treating the party as a discursively constituted institution—one whose meaning and authority are continually produced through language, practices, and shared self-understandings. She briefly contextualized the Sweden Democrats as Sweden’s radical right party: long present as an organization since the 1980s, but relatively new as a parliamentary actor after entering the Riksdag in 2010, and widely discussed as having attracted segments of former Social Democratic and working-class support.
The presentation’s central claim was deliberately counterintuitive: the Sweden Democrats’ ability to cultivate mass-party-style linkage was not despite their populism, but because of it. Kindstrand organized this argument around three recurring themes that emerged in her fieldwork—each a familiar populist motif, but reinterpreted through the lens of party-based representation.
The first theme concerned representation through resemblance. Members repeatedly described the party as constituted by “ordinary Swedes,” an identity portrayed as self-evident yet rarely defined with precision. This vagueness, rather than weakening the category, appeared to strengthen its adhesive power: “ordinary” became an inclusive boundary marker for those who felt socially and politically unseen. Members articulated a belief that because the party was made up of ordinary people, it knew what ordinary people wanted. Political competence was grounded not in expertise or institutional experience, but in proximity to everyday life—being “close to life” and therefore able to “see the problems.” In this narrative, mainstream parties were represented as detached elites—physically and symbolically located in Stockholm, distant from the lived consequences of political decisions, especially on immigration. Populism’s anti-establishment stance thus operated as an epistemology: it claimed that social truth is accessible primarily through lived experience, and that ordinaryness is itself a credential.
Within this representational frame, Kindstrand observed a notable moral grammar: the party was described less as a career ladder and more as a citizen duty. Members frequently rejected careerism, portraying involvement as an obligation to society rather than a self-development project. This moralization of participation aligned with the second theme: the centrality of formal membership. For her respondents, political engagement was not primarily defined as online activism, symbolic support, or loose affinity. The preferred—and valorized—form was formal membership: paying dues, attending meetings, doing paperwork, and participating in the internal rhythms of party life. Joining was narrated as an act of courage, precisely because it entailed stigma. Members spoke of losing friends, encountering hostility from relatives, and feeling threatened—especially those who had joined earlier, when social sanctions were reportedly stronger. Paradoxically, these costs intensified meaning rather than deterring engagement: stigma functioned as a purification mechanism that distinguished insiders from outsiders and reinforced loyalty.
Kindstrand suggested that exclusion from mainstream legitimacy did not only consolidate identity; it also shaped the form of participation. When open political identification carried risk, members became less reliant on visible online expressions and more dependent on in-person networks and local organizational spaces. In her telling, this dynamic inadvertently strengthened local party structures, creating a participatory ecology resembling older mass-party models. She gestured toward Duverger’s “bullseye” model of affiliation—layers of involvement and commitment radiating outward—as a better descriptor of what she observed than the flatter, looser organizational patterns often attributed to contemporary parties.
The third theme was efficacy: a strong belief in the party as a vehicle for change. Here, populism’s crisis narrative did substantial work. Members frequently described Sweden as being in decline and framed politics as urgent, even existential. Mainstream parties were cast as self-serving and unresponsive, and this perceived abandonment strengthened the conviction that only the Sweden Democrats could correct national trajectory. Members described their engagement in future-oriented moral terms—securing safety for children, protecting the country, and restoring order. These narratives produced an affective intensity that made membership meaningful even when individual influence seemed limited. A single member might not “make change,” but being a small part of a collective project was experienced as politically consequential.
In this sense, Kindstrand’s presentation reframed populist anti-establishment discourse as an engine of organizational reproduction. By narrating crisis, betrayal, and urgency, the party could present itself as a historically necessary instrument—echoing, in form if not in content, the early 20th-century mass party described by political scientists Richard S. Katz and Peter Mair as the vehicle through which underrepresented groups gained access to state power. The difference in Kindstrand’s account was that the Sweden Democrats’ linkage was not built on class-based identity in the classic sense. Although class references sometimes surfaced, “ordinary people” functioned as a more flexible identity—portable across occupational categories and capable of absorbing multiple grievances.
Across the presentation, Kindstrand revealed an underlying argument about populism’s relationship to mediation. While populist theory often equates populism with immediacy and hostility toward intermediaries, Kindstrand’s material suggested that populism can also re-sacralize the party as a mediator—so long as the party is imagined not as an elite institution but as an extension of “the people.” In that configuration, the party does not appear as a barrier between citizens and decision-making; it appears as the people’s own organizational body, an authentic conduit into the state. The party becomes legitimate precisely because it claims to negate the distinction between representatives and represented.
Kindstrand concluded by returning to the initial puzzle: why radical right populist parties can sometimes build membership organizations that mainstream parties struggle to sustain. Her findings suggested that the answer may lie less in incentives and more in meaning—specifically, in how populist narratives transform membership into moral duty, stigma into solidarity, and organizational routines into evidence of authenticity. In that sense, the Sweden Democrats’ organizational strength did not contradict populism’s representational claims; it operationalized them. Rather than dissolving party mediation, populism—under certain conditions—can rebuild it on the basis of resemblance, loyalty, and crisis-driven efficacy.
Discussants’ Feedback
Hannah Geddes
Hannah Geddes is a PhD Candidate at the University of St. Andrews.
In her role as discussant, Hannah Geddes (PhD Candidate, University of St. Andrews) offered a thoughtful and analytically generous set of reflections on the three papers, emphasizing their shared strength in challenging entrenched assumptions within populism research. Her feedback moved sequentially through the presentations, combining close engagement with constructive questions that opened space for further theoretical development.
Geddes began with Saga Oskarson Kindstrand’s paper, which she described as particularly compelling in its formulation of a clear and persuasive puzzle. She highlighted the strength of the paper’s core move: juxtaposing dominant expectations about populism—especially the assumption that populist politics is inherently immediate, anti-institutional, and resistant to party organization—with empirical evidence that complicates those claims. Geddes praised the way the paper reframed what appears, at first glance, as a contradiction into a productive analytical insight. Rather than presenting the findings as merely “filling a gap,” she noted, the paper demonstrated that the assumed contradiction between populism and party mediation may not exist in the way the literature presumes.
A central point of appreciation concerned Kindstrand’s constructivist and interpretivist approach. Geddes emphasized that treating parties as discursively constituted institutions was not a limitation but a key strength of the research. She suggested that this perspective allows the analysis to move beyond causal explanation toward a richer understanding of what parties mean to members, and how those meanings reshape assumptions about organization, representation, and linkage. In this respect, Geddes encouraged the author to lean more explicitly into this epistemological stance, arguing that the paper’s contribution lies precisely in unsettling dominant theoretical categories rather than establishing linear causal relationships.
Turning to the presentation on the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) and France’s National Rally, Geddes expressed strong interest in the analysis of immigration and its linkage to broader social concerns. She noted that the discussion of how migration is connected to housing, welfare, and security anxieties was particularly illuminating. Drawing on her own context in Scotland, she raised questions about the demand side of radical-right politics—specifically whether economic grievances are the primary driver, or whether cultural and securitized frames take on autonomous force. She also queried how economic discontent becomes translated into cultural or criminal narratives, describing this transformation as one of the most intriguing aspects of the presentation.
Geddes further reflected on the argument that radical-right parties employ deliberate vagueness in their rhetoric. She questioned whether this vagueness should be understood as intentional strategic ambiguity or as a more structural feature of how such parties operate and adapt to shifting grievances. While not pressing for a definitive answer, she highlighted the analytical value of interrogating intention versus structure in explanations of mainstreaming and legitimation.
In her comments on Chris Magno’s presentation on criminal populism, Geddes again returned to the theme of challenging assumptions. She commended the paper for moving beyond the familiar figure of the “crime warrior” politician and for demonstrating how criminal identity itself can be transformed into political capital. Particularly striking to her was the idea that political actors can simultaneously embody both crime-fighting authority and criminal transgression—an apparent contradiction that the empirical material showed to be politically viable. Geddes posed a key question here: whether this duality represents a contradiction that politicians consciously exploit, or whether they have succeeded in fusing these identities into a coherent populist performance.
Finally, Geddes raised questions about the role of class across the presentations, especially in relation to crime and migration. While acknowledging the emphasis on race and immigration, she suggested that class dynamics—particularly their apparent reconfiguration or blurring—deserved further exploration, especially in European contexts where traditional class cleavages appear increasingly unsettled.
Concluding her remarks, Geddes praised all three presenters for clearly articulated puzzles, empirical richness, and a shared willingness to rethink core assumptions in the study of populism. Her feedback framed the session as a cohesive and intellectually stimulating exchange that advanced both theoretical and empirical debates.
Dr. Vlad Surdea-Hernea
Dr. Vlad Surdea-Hernea is a Postdoctoral researcher at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna.
In his role as discussant at the session, Dr. Vlad Surdea-Hernea, a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna, offered a set of analytically probing and methodologically oriented reflections on the three papers. His feedback emphasized their shared ambition to unsettle established assumptions in populism research, while also pressing presenters to clarify conceptual scope, empirical grounding, and causal claims.
Dr. Surdea-Hernea began by endorsing Hannah Geddes’s earlier observation that all three papers were united by a willingness to challenge dominant frameworks. Turning first to Assoc. Prof. Chris Magno’s paper on criminal populism, he described the conceptual intervention as innovative and intellectually stimulating, particularly in its move beyond penal populism toward criminality as political capital. At the same time, he raised a historical question about novelty. Drawing attention to early twentieth-century precedents—such as socialist candidates in the United States who campaigned explicitly as convicted prisoners—he questioned whether criminal populism should be understood as an entirely new phenomenon or as a contemporary reconfiguration of a longer-standing strategy. He suggested that tracing such antecedents could strengthen the framework by clarifying what is genuinely novel and what represents continuity.
A second point concerned the relationship between theory and evidence. While praising the conceptual originality of the argument, Dr. Surdea-Hernea cautioned that some empirical illustrations risked appearing adjacent rather than integral to the theoretical claims. He encouraged a tighter integration, arguing that the empirical material should serve as the backbone of the conceptual innovation rather than as illustrative side notes. In his view, the project’s real potential lay not in assembling compelling anecdotes, but in advancing a coherent framework for understanding how crime, populism, and legitimacy intersect—one that could anchor broader debates.
Moving to the paper on the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) and France’s National Rally (RN), Dr. Surdea-Hernea focused on comparative scope and framing. He questioned the logic of case selection by asking how the argument might travel to contexts where radical right parties have become mainstream despite the absence of large immigrant populations, such as parts of Eastern Europe. Exploring such “deviant cases,” he suggested, could illuminate whether the criminalization of migration operates similarly where migration is more imagined than experienced.
He also reflected on the paper’s discussion of responsiveness. While agreeing that radical right actors are adept at sensing social anxieties and adapting their messaging, he cautioned against formulations that might be misread as implying that responsiveness itself is normatively problematic. He encouraged clearer differentiation between democratic responsiveness and the strategic reframing of grievances through exclusionary narratives. Additionally, Dr. Surdea-Hernea suggested that the role of mainstream center-left and center-right parties during and after the 2014–2015 migration crisis deserved greater attention. Within a Gramscian framework, he argued, it would be valuable to clarify whether radical right narratives emerged “downstream of culture” or whether mainstream parties played a more constitutive role in shaping that culture through their responses to crisis.
In his comments on Saga Oskarson Kindstrand’s paper, Dr. Surdea-Hernea raised two interconnected questions. First, he queried whether populist parties that emphasize membership and internal participation actually grant members greater power in practice. If they do, he suggested, this would imply a genuinely distinct organizational form—one that may require rethinking what is meant by a “party” as an institutional vehicle. Second, he pointed to the empirical status of members’ claims. Assertions that populist parties are composed of “ordinary people,” he noted, are at least partially testable through demographic data on class, education, and age. Whether such claims are accurate or not would not undermine the argument, but each outcome would carry different theoretical implications—either confirming real organizational distinctiveness or revealing the power of belief and persuasion within party discourse.
Concluding, Dr. Surdea-Hernea emphasized that these questions were offered in a constructive spirit. Across all three papers, he saw strong foundations for further development and praised the session as a rich and engaging contribution to ongoing debates on populism, representation, and exclusion.
Questions from Participants
Chair Dr. Murphey opened the floor to audience participation by inviting collective reflection on the discussants’ feedback and the presenters’ arguments. She also highlighted a written comment from an audience member, Dr. Heidi Hart, who echoed Hannah Geddes’s earlier question to Chris Magno regarding the paradox of anti-crime rhetoric advanced by actors who themselves engage in or normalize criminality. Dr Hart noted the timeliness of this issue in light of a recent shooting of a US citizen in Minnesota and encouraged reflection on how such events intersect with the performative dimensions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) rhetoric and enforcement practices. Her intervention underscored how criminal populism operates not only discursively but also through real-time securitized performances by state actors.
Dr. Murphey then directed a question to Dr. Russell Foster concerning his typology of right-wing politics—distinguishing between the “old right,” the “extreme right,” and the contemporary radical right. While the old right was described as grounded in Burkean notions of tradition, she observed that today’s radical right also mobilizes appeals to “tradition,” albeit in reconfigured forms. Citing cultural battles over gender roles and family structures, Dr. Murphey asked whether this suggested a transformed, rather than abandoned, relationship to tradition—raising the possibility that tradition itself has become a more flexible and strategically redeployed resource within radical right politics.
Dr. Bulent Kenes followed with a question addressed to Saga Oskarson Kindstrand, drawing on his close observation of Swedish politics. He asked whether the organizational and discursive strategies identified among the Sweden Democrats were mirrored by mainstream parties, particularly in light of the Tidö Agreement, which has drawn center-right and even Social Democratic actors closer to radical right framings. Dr. Kenes queried whether similar narratives on criminality and migration were diffusing across the party system, suggesting a broader process of normalization and contagion beyond the populist radical right itself.
Responses by Presenters
Assoc. Prof. Chris Magno’s Response
In his response to the discussants’ feedback and audience questions, Assoc. Prof. Chris Magno offered clarifications that further situated his concept of criminal populism within a longer historical and comparative arc, while also addressing questions of class, identity, and apparent contradiction.
Dr. Magno began by engaging directly with Dr. Surdea-Hernea’s question regarding novelty. He agreed that the use of criminal identity as political capital is not a recent invention, stressing that his book project explicitly traces its roots to the colonial period. In the opening chapter, he examines how state power itself emerged through crime during the US colonization of the Philippines, arguing that many of the core elements of criminal populism—eugenics, racial othering, criminalization, propaganda, militarized policing, and surveillance—were forged in imperial contexts. He introduced the idea of a “colonial feedback loop,” whereby techniques developed in colonial governance later return to the metropole and are redeployed in contemporary democratic politics. This historical framing, he explained, is central to his comparative analysis of the Philippines and the United States, and challenges the assumption that criminal populism is a phenomenon confined to the Global South.
Responding to questions raised by Hannah Geddes on contradiction and class, Dr. Magno emphasized that criminal populists actively manipulate identities associated with poverty and marginalization. He illustrated this with examples from the United States, noting how Donald Trump transformed his mugshot into a fundraising and mobilizing tool, intentionally aligning his criminalized image with populations historically subjected to criminalization, particularly African Americans. Similarly, in the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte maintained extraordinarily high approval ratings—including among lower-income groups—despite conducting a violent “war on drugs” that disproportionately targeted the poor.
Dr. Magno further extended this logic to Bill Clinton, observing that Clinton retained strong African American support even amid scandal, underscoring how representation often operates symbolically rather than materially. Across cases, he argued, criminal populism thrives on irony and contradiction: leaders claim to embody marginalized identities while simultaneously enacting policies that harm those very groups.
Concluding, Dr. Magno reiterated that while criminal populism has deep historical roots, it is in the present moment that it has crystallized into a distinct political formation—marking a shift away from traditional penal populism toward the strategic weaponization of criminality itself as a source of legitimacy and power.
Dr. Russell Foster’s Repsonse
In his response to the feedback and questions, Dr. Russell Foster offered a wide-ranging and clarifying reflection that reinforced the conceptual ambitions of his paper while acknowledging areas for further refinement. Speaking from a comparative and theoretically self-aware position, Dr. Foster addressed questions of typology, tradition, case selection, responsiveness, and intentionality in the politics of the radical right.
Beginning with Dr. Murphey’s question on typology and tradition, Dr. Foster emphasized that the distinction between the old right, extreme right, and radical right should not be understood as rigid or mutually exclusive. While the old right is often associated with Burkean appeals to tradition, he argued that both the old and radical right rely on what Eric Hobsbawm famously termed “invented traditions.” In this sense, the contemporary radical right does not abandon tradition but actively manufactures new ones. Dr. Foster illustrated this through the example of gender politics, noting the emergence of highly stylized and exaggerated gender roles—hyper-masculine men and submissive “trad wives”—that would have been largely absent from radical right discourse a decade or two ago. These narratives, he suggested, exemplify how tradition is strategically reconstructed rather than inherited.
Addressing Hannah Geddes’s and Dr. Surdea-Hernea’s questions on supply and demand, Dr. Foster stressed that radical right narratives only gain traction where there is an underlying social appetite for them. While such parties may supply exclusionary frames, these frames resonate because they align with existing anxieties. Economic grievances remain central, but they are often experienced indirectly—through housing insecurity, job precarity, limited educational opportunities, and broader political disillusionment. Foster also pointed to cultural fatigue, including backlash against what some perceive as “peak woke,” as another source of demand that the radical right is adept at exploiting.
On case selection, Dr. Foster explained that Austria and France were chosen precisely because they offer contrasting yet complementary trajectories: a large state where the radical right has not governed nationally and a smaller one where it has entered government twice and rebounded electorally after failure. Responding to questions about countries with limited immigration, he argued that similar patterns can be observed in places such as Poland, Hungary, and the United Kingdom. Here, digital media and transnational narratives allow radical right actors to mobilize fear and civilizational rhetoric even in the absence of direct exposure to migration.
Dr. Foster also clarified a potential misreading of the argument on responsiveness. He stressed that the paper does not condemn responsiveness per se; rather, it critiques the framing of grievances as existential and criminal threats. When migration is securitized and criminalized, he argued, legitimate policy debates can slide into exclusionary politics with severe real-world consequences, as illustrated by the UK’s “hostile environment” policies and the Windrush scandal.
Finally, on the question of whether radical right vagueness is deliberate, Dr. Foster acknowledged the epistemic limits of intent. While it may be impossible to prove conscious strategy, he suggested that vagueness functions politically by allowing adaptability. Whether intentional or structural, this ambiguity enables radical right actors to remain relevant across shifting contexts—an adaptability that, in his view, remains one of their most consequential strengths.
Saga Oskarson Kindstrand’s Response
In her response to the feedback and questions, Saga Oskarson Kindstrand offered a focused clarification of her argument, addressing issues of intra-party power, social composition, and the broader diffusion of populist practices within Swedish politics. Her remarks reaffirmed the analytical intent of her study while drawing clear boundaries around what the article seeks—and does not seek—to explain.
Responding first to questions about whether populist radical right parties genuinely empower their members, Kindstrand emphasized that this varies across cases. In the Swedish context, she noted, the Sweden Democrats do not grant members greater internal influence than mainstream parties and, in some respects, offer even less internal democracy. This limited empowerment is, she argued, typical rather than anomalous. Importantly, she suggested that this does not weaken her argument; instead, it deepens the puzzle. Conventional theories would expect strong incentives—such as internal influence—to drive membership. Yet high levels of commitment persist despite centralized control, indicating that other mechanisms sustain organizational loyalty.
Kindstrand linked this centralization to stigma and exclusion. Because the party is subject to intense public scrutiny and reputational risk, tight control over messaging and behavior is framed as necessary. Granting extensive autonomy to local members is perceived as dangerous, particularly as the party has moved closer to governing power by supporting a coalition. As political influence increases, she observed, efforts to discipline the organization and manage public image intensify rather than recede.
Turning to questions about whether members’ claims of being “ordinary people” are empirically accurate, Kindstrand acknowledged the legitimacy of the concern. Existing studies, she noted, suggest that Sweden Democrat politicians tend to have lower levels of education and income prior to entering politics compared to representatives of other parties—patterns that may reflect both the party’s rapid growth and its outsider status. However, she stressed that adjudicating the truth of these claims is not the primary aim of her article. Instead, her focus lies on how such claims function discursively to sustain a particular organizational form and sense of belonging.
Finally, addressing the diffusion of populist rhetoric across the party system, Kindstrand agreed that mainstream parties in Sweden increasingly echo Sweden Democrat frames, particularly on migration and criminality. This agenda-setting role, she argued, powerfully reinforces members’ sense of efficacy. Observing other parties adopt their positions is interpreted internally as evidence that the party is reshaping politics—further strengthening organizational cohesion and belief in its transformative capacity.
Closing Remarks by Dr. Helen Murphey
In her closing assessment, Dr. Helen Murphey offered a synthetic reflection that drew together the panel’s core themes while highlighting their broader implications for the study of populism, crime, and exclusion. Thanking the presenters, discussants, and audience, she characterized the session as both intellectually engaging and conceptually enriching, particularly in its collective contribution to understanding the exclusionary dynamics at the heart of contemporary populism.
Murphey identified the construction of identity—alongside practices of inclusion and exclusion—as a unifying thread across the presentations. Central to this, she argued, was the differentiated treatment of crime within exclusionary populist narratives. Drawing on Chris Magno’s intervention, she emphasized how certain forms of criminality are attributed vertically to elites—through discourses of corruption and “draining the swamp”—while other forms are attributed horizontally to marginalized groups, who are cast as threats to social order. At the same time, she noted the paradoxical tolerance, and even valorization, of particular transgressions when they are framed as necessary tools to challenge an unjust status quo. This selective moralization of crime, she suggested, resonates strongly with criminological insights into how illegality is socially coded and unevenly sanctioned.
Murphey further underscored the adaptability of exclusionary populism, highlighting how shifting circumstances allow movements to recalibrate narratives of crime, security, and grievance. This adaptability, she argued, plays a key role in the mainstreaming of exclusionary ideas. Building on insights from scholarship on diffusion, she pointed to how legitimate socio-economic grievances—such as austerity, housing shortages, and affordability crises—become linked to politics of exclusion, thereby creating pathways through which non-populist actors adopt populist frames.
Concluding, Murphey emphasized that the session’s discussions demonstrated not only the mutability of exclusionary populism but also its capacity to reshape broader political discourse. She thanked ECPS for convening the workshop and closed by passing the floor back to the organizers, marking the session as a fitting and reflective start to 2026.
Conclusion
Session 9 closed with a clear analytical takeaway: “crime” operates less as a neutral policy domain than as a political grammar through which exclusionary populism makes boundaries appear natural, urgent, and democratically defensible. Across the three papers, crime and security functioned as elastic categories—capable of being redirected toward elites (as corruption and betrayal), toward marginalized groups (as disorder and threat), and toward institutions themselves (as politicized justice). In this sense, the session illuminated how populism’s promise of protection is inseparable from its capacity to moralize inequality and translate social conflict into hierarchies of belonging.
The discussion also underscored that exclusionary politics is simultaneously discursive, organizational, and institutional. Dr. Magno’s framework emphasized how legal jeopardy can be recoded as authenticity and persecution, turning accountability mechanisms into stages of political spectacle. Dr. Foster’s comparative analysis showed how the securitization of migration becomes “common sense” through metapolitical work: linking everyday grievances—housing, welfare, jobs—to civilizational narratives that render exclusion as prudence. Kindstrand’s ethnographic findings, meanwhile, complicated the assumption that populism merely bypasses intermediaries. Instead, populist discourse can re-legitimate party organization by moralizing membership, intensifying solidarity under stigma, and narrating participation as civic duty.
The discussants sharpened the session’s implications for research design and theory-building. Questions about historical antecedents, case selection beyond high-immigration contexts, the role of mainstream parties in producing cultural “demand,” and the empirical status of members’ claims collectively highlighted a shared methodological challenge: how to distinguish novelty from recombination, strategy from structure, and perception from measurable social composition—without reducing populism to either elite manipulation or voter pathology.
With Dr. Helen Murphey’s moderation providing conceptual continuity, the session ultimately positioned exclusion as an adaptive political technology: strategically vague, emotionally resonant, and increasingly portable across arenas and actors. The broader conclusion for scholarship is that the politics of exclusion cannot be studied only through rhetoric or electoral outcomes. It requires tracing how moral categories of criminality circulate through institutions, organize collective identities, and normalize new thresholds of coercion—thereby reshaping democratic accountability from within.
Please cite as: Andits, Petra. (2026). “Alcoholic Mobsters and Welfare Criminals: Xenophobia, Welfare Chauvinism and Populism in Gyurcsány Ferenc’s Facebook Posts on Ukrainian Citizens Prior to the War.” Journal of Populism Studies (JPS). January 5, 2026. https://doi.org/10.55271/JPS000122
Abstract This article examines how anti-Ukrainian sentiment was mobilized within Hungarian opposition politics prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Focusing on Gyurcsány Ferenc’s 2018 parliamentary election campaign, it analyzes two widely circulated Facebook posts that portrayed Ukrainians as welfare abusers and criminal outsiders. The article demonstrates how xenophobia, welfare chauvinism, and populist political style were combined through visual and narrative strategies to generate moral panic. By situating these representations in relation to Gyurcsány’s post-2022 pro-Ukrainian positioning, the study shows how Ukraine-related narratives function as strategically redeployable political resources rather than stable ideological commitments.
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the publication of academic articles, books, and policy briefs focusing on Ukraine has proliferated. In this paper, I discuss the campaign of Gyurcsány Ferenc, the most prominent figure of the Hungarian opposition in 2018, leading up to the 2018 parliamentary elections and I argue that anti-Ukrainian sentiment constituted a significant building block of the campaign. In particular, I examine two infamous Facebook posts on Ukrainians posted by the politician. I investigate how Ukrainians were perceived outside the Russian–Ukrainian context and analyze the historical, cultural, and political references that they evoked. Specifically, I shall investigate three elements of the campaign: xenophobia, welfare chauvinism, and, above all, populism.
The campaign was not only deeply xenophobic but also deployed well-worn welfare-chauvinistic criticisms against Ukrainian citizens: ‘Do you agree that Ukrainian citizens who have never paid pension contributions in Hungary should not be allowed to receive pensions in Hungary?’ Gyurcsány asks voters, having announced in 2018 at the enlarged inaugural meeting of the DK National Council that a petition to this effect would be launched. He stated that hordes of Ukrainians enter Hungary and illegally claim pensions and, subsequently, citizenship rights.
The campaign – and the Facebook posts, in particular – also echoed essentially populist undertones. Interestingly, to date, Gyurcsány’s populist rhetoric has gone entirely unexamined, highlighting a key shortcoming of populist research, whereby the heterogeneity in what may be categorized as ‘populist’ rhetoric is underexplored (Kovács et al., 2022). I argue that ‘populism’ can take various shapes and often operates in accordance with a place-based logic that does not necessarily echo official political discourses (ibid). The Facebook posts reveal a populist moral struggle in which the popular hero (Gyurcsány himself) defeats the devil (Ukrainian welfare criminals backed by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán), and features urgency, crisis, and simplistic solutions – well-known ingredients in populist rhetoric.
The Demokratikus Koalíció’s narrative about Ukrainian pension fraud began to surface near the end of the 2018 election campaign A particularly striking aspect of the campaign is its intentional merging of two wholly distinct issues: first, the planned citizenship rights for minority Hungarians in Ukraine and, second, the pension benefits that some Ukrainians receive from the Hungarian state. Around that time, Orbán was engaged in initial negotiations with the Ukrainian authorities concerning the question of whether dual citizenship should be granted to minority Hungarians. These negotiations were sensitive, given that Ukraine does not allow dual citizenship, and the alignment between Orbán and Russia’s Vladimir Putin further overshadowed the talks. Hungary also has a treaty with Ukraine, based on a 1963 intergovernmental agreement with the Soviet Union, according to which retired Ukrainian citizens who reside permanently in Hungary can apply to have their pensions paid there in Hungarian forints (HUF) (Caglar et al., 2011).
The Hungarian pension system does not simply convert their Ukrainian pensions into HUF but rather determines the amount on the basis of the beneficiary’s former employment using Hungarian mechanisms, as if they had worked in Hungary throughout their lives. This special pension entitlement is associated with residence and ostensibly has nothing to do with Hungarian citizenship,[i] given that any Ukrainian citizen with a permanent address in Hungary is eligible to receive it. Nevertheless, the opposition has intentionally blurred the two issue and incited an anti-Ukrainian hysteria.
In this paper, I have selected for analysis two consecutively published Facebook posts from the campaign in which Gyurcsány disseminated visual materials pertaining to Ukrainian migrants in Hungary. The first is a fact-finding video, entitled ‘In search of the 300,000 Ukrainian pensions’ and featuring Gyurcsány in the guise of a private detective[ii]; the other is a short educational cartoon.[iii] The posts sparked controversy and criticism both in Hungary and from Ukrainian officials, who accused Gyurcsány of spreading false information and promoting anti-Ukrainian sentiment in Hungary.[iv]The incident proved highly significant, as the first video became the second most-watched Hungarian political video of all time on social media,[v] surpassing, for instance, any video made by Orbán.
(*) Dr. Petra Andits is MSCA Seal of Excellence Fellow at the Free University of Bolzano where she leads a project on the emergence of sexual populism in Hungary in the context of migration. Petra is cultural anthropologist by training and holds a Ph.d. in Political and Social Inquiry from the Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. She was research fellow at various universities, among them Universidad Pompeu Fabra in Spain, Tel Aviv University, University of Granada, Ca’Foscari University in Italy as well as the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. She is also an experienced ethnographic and documentary film maker. Email: anditspetra@gmail.com; ORCID ID: 0000-0001-9448-7611
Please cite as: ECPS Staff. (2025). “Virtual Workshop Series — Session 8: Fractured Democracies — Rhetoric, Repression, and the Populist Turn.” European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). December 13, 2025. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp00120
On December 11, 2025, the ECPS convened Session 8 of its Virtual Workshop Series under the theme “Fractured Democracies: Rhetoric, Repression, and the Populist Turn.” Chaired by Dr. Azize Sargin, the session examined how contemporary populism reshapes democratic politics through affect, moral narratives, and strategic communication. Assoc. Prof. Paul Joosse explored charismatic populism, focusing on suffering, moral inversion, and ritualized transgression in Trumpism, while Artem Turenko analyzed the evolving rhetoric of AfD across the 2019 and 2024 European Parliament elections. Discussants Dr. Helena Rovamo and Dr. Jonathan Madison offered critical reflections on theory, methodology, and causality. A lively Q&A further addressed economic grievance, cultural representation, and the politics of knowledge production, underscoring the session’s interdisciplinary depth and relevance.
Reported by ECPS Staff
On December 11, 2025, the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS) convened Session 8 of its Virtual Workshop Series, titled “We, the People” and the Future of Democracy: Interdisciplinary Approaches. Held under the session theme “Fractured Democracies: Rhetoric, Repression, and the Populist Turn,” the workshop brought together an international and interdisciplinary group of scholars to examine how contemporary populist actors reshape democratic politics through rhetoric, affect, moral narratives, and strategic communication. The session formed part of ECPS’s broader effort to advance critical, comparative, and theoretically grounded scholarship on populism and its implications for democratic governance.
The workshop opened with brief welcoming and technical remarks by ECPS intern Stella Schade, who introduced the session’s structure, participants, and moderation on behalf of ECPS.
The session was chaired and moderated by Dr. Azize Sargin (Director for External Affairs, ECPS), whose introductory framing provided the conceptual backbone for the discussion. Dr. Sargin situated the session within contemporary debates on democratic fragmentation, emphasizing that populism should be understood not merely as a rhetorical strategy or electoral phenomenon, but as a broader cultural and moral project. She highlighted how populist actors mobilize fear, resentment, and perceived crisis to reorganize political meaning, construct antagonistic identities, and legitimize increasingly exclusionary or punitive forms of governance. Importantly, Dr. Sargin underscored the adaptive nature of populism, noting its capacity to draw on diverse ideological resources, to shift across contexts, and to respond strategically to changing political opportunities. Her framing positioned the session’s papers as complementary explorations of how populism operates at the levels of leadership, discourse, and electoral competition.
The session featured two main presentations. Dr. Paul Joosse (Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Hong Kong) delivered a theoretically innovative paper on charismatic populism, focusing on the roles of suffering, moral inversion, and ritualized transgression in sustaining populist authority. Drawing on Weberian sociology, cultural theory, and ethnographic insights from Trump rallies, Dr. Joosse demonstrated how charismatic leaders transform victimhood and norm-breaking into sources of legitimacy, thereby destabilizing democratic norms.
The second presentation, by Artem Turenko (PhD Candidate, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow), offered a comparative analysis of the Alternative für Deutschland’s (AfD) rhetoric during the 2019 and 2024 European Parliament election campaigns. Employing a mixed-methods approach combining sentiment analysis and discourse-historical analysis, Turenko examined how AfD rhetoric adapts to electoral expectations while maintaining a stable populist grammar centered on crisis, sovereignty, and exclusion.
The presentations were followed by in-depth feedback from the session’s discussants, Dr. Helena Rovamo (Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Eastern Finland) and Dr. Jonathan Madison (Governance Fellow at the R Street Institute). Their interventions critically engaged both papers, raising questions about methodology, conceptual definitions of populism, the relationship between charisma and populist mobilization, and issues of causality and moral paradox. The session concluded with an open Q&A, further extending the discussion to questions of economic grievance, cultural representation, and the political conditions of knowledge production.
Together, the session offered a multifaceted and theoretically rich examination of populism’s role in contemporary democratic transformations.
Assoc. Prof. Paul Joosse: “Charismatic Populism, Suffering, and Saturnalia”
Dr. Paul Joosse is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Hong Kong.
In his thought-provoking presentation, Associate Professor Paul Joosse (University of Hong Kong) offered an analytically rich exploration of the affective and performative mechanisms through which populist leaders cultivate authority, mobilize followings, and enact moments of political rupture. Drawing from his extensive research on charisma, deviance, and political communication, Dr. Joosse located contemporary populism within deeply rooted sociological traditions, while simultaneously illuminating its specific manifestations in digitalized, hyper-mediatized democracies.
The presentation formed part of the broader inquiry into how rhetoric, emotion, and repression reshape democratic life under populist pressures. Dr. Joosse’s intervention focused on three intertwined dimensions—charisma, suffering, and Saturnalian dynamics—and traced how these elements collectively produce the moral and emotional architecture that sustains populist movements.
Charismatic Authority and the Populist Style
Dr. Joosse began by returning to Max Weber’s classical conception of charisma, underscoring its relevance for understanding populist phenomenon. Charisma, in Weber’s formulation, does not reside solely in individual traits; it is a relational, socially conferred status that emerges through recognition by followers. Populist leaders—from Donald Trump to Jair Bolsonaro, from Nigel Farage to Javier Milei—embody this dynamic through the cultivation of an anti-institutional persona that claims direct, unmediated connection with “the people.”
According to Dr. Joosse, populist charisma is characterized by: i) Transgressive communication styles that break norms and dramatize authenticity; ii) Moral binaries that differentiate “the people” from corrupt elites; iii) Performative storytelling that situates the leader as both savior and victim
This last dynamic—the leader as a suffering figure—became a central axis of the presentation. Dr. Joosse argued that charisma is amplified when leaders frame themselves as persecuted champions, unjustly targeted by the state, media, or global conspiracies. This suffering narrative strengthens affective bonds, deepens identification, and transforms personal grievances into collective ones. In this sense, charismatic populism thrives not simply on policy dissatisfaction but on shared emotional worlds—particularly resentment, humiliation, and righteous indignation.
Suffering as Political Currency
A key theoretical intervention of the talk was Dr. Joosse’s insistence that suffering is not merely an effect but an active resource in populist mobilization. Drawing on both sociological and anthropological literature, he argued that suffering has historically served as a legitimizing device, one that enables leaders to claim moral high ground and portray themselves as martyrs of the people.
Dr. Joosse identified three modalities through which suffering functions: i) Victimization narratives, where leaders claim persecution by courts, the “deep state,” or globalist elites. ii) Redemptive suffering, where hardships encountered by leaders are portrayed as sacrifices undertaken on behalf of the people. Iii) Shared suffering, where leaders mirror or echo the injuries of their supporters—economic precarity, cultural displacement, or political marginalization.
This dynamic, Dr. Joosse suggested, is especially potent in digital ecosystems. Persecution—real or imagined—spreads rapidly through partisan outlets and social media networks, reinforcing the conviction that the leader’s fate and the people’s fate are intertwined.
Dr. Joosse emphasized that this logic can escalate political tensions. When suffering becomes a performative spectacle, it invites supporters to interpret legal accountability or institutional checks as proof of elite conspiracy, thereby undermining democratic legitimacy itself.
Populism and the Saturnalian Inversion
One of the most original contributions of the presentation was Dr. Joosse’s application of the concept of Saturnalia—the ancient Roman festival marked by role reversals, carnivalesque transgression, and temporary suspension of social hierarchy—to the study of populism.
Drawing on the work of Mikhail Bakhtin and on sociological accounts of ritual inversion, Dr. Joosse argued that populist mobilization often takes the form of a Saturnalian eruption in democratic politics. During such moments: i) Norms of decorum, expertise, and civility are overturned; ii) Taboo-breaking becomes a marker of authenticity; iii) Power relations appear symbolically reversed, with “the people” momentarily enthroned over elites.
This logic helps explain why populist rallies, online forums, and protest events frequently feature humor, ridicule, spectacle, and deliberate vulgarity. These aesthetic practices work not only to entertain but to destabilize the symbolic order—mocking institutions, lampooning experts, and challenging conventional authority.
In Dr. Joosse’s reading, charismatic populists are uniquely skilled Saturnalian performers. Their rhetorical excesses, anti-elite insults, and affective provocations create temporary spaces where ordinary constraints dissolve, generating feelings of liberation among supporters. However, he warned that this inversion, while framed as emancipatory, can also harden into authoritarian sentiment: when Saturnalia ceases to be temporary, democratic norms risk lasting erosion.
The Interplay of Emotion, Ritual, and Media
Throughout the presentation, Dr. Joosse emphasized that charismatic populism is not merely ideological but ritualistic and affective. It depends on i) Co-present gatherings (the rally as ritual); ii) Digital echo-chambers that amplify transgression; iii) Symbolic dramatization of conflict. Media infrastructures—traditional and digital—serve as essential amplifiers of populist charisma. They broadcast Saturnalian moments, circulate symbolic violence, and feed narratives of leader-centric suffering.
Dr. Joosse noted that the current media ecosystem is fertile ground for such dynamics: fragmented attention, algorithmic escalation, and polarizing news cycles intensify the emotional resonance of populist performances. As a result, charisma becomes mass-mediated, creating parasocial intimacy between leaders and followers who may never meet. This, he argued, distinguishes contemporary populism from earlier forms: it is both personalized and distributed, rooted in individual charisma but sustained by networked amplification.
Implications for Democratic Fragility
Dr. Joosse concluded by situating his analysis within the broader theme of “Fractured Democracies.” The interplay of charismatic authority, symbolic suffering, and Saturnalian rupture presents several dangers for democratic governance: i) Delegitimization of institutional checks when leaders portray legal accountability as persecution; ii) Normalization of political transgression, weakening norms needed for democratic stability; iii) Emotional tribalization, which reduces politics to moralized conflict; iv) Acceleration of epistemic fragmentation as suffering narratives circulate unchecked.
He argued that liberal democracies must take seriously the emotional and ritual dimensions of political life. Technocratic or procedural responses alone cannot counteract populist charisma; rather, democratic actors need to cultivate alternative forms of affective engagement, narrative-building, and civic ritual.
In sum, Assoc. Prof. Paul Joosse delivered a conceptually rich and theoretically innovative account of how populist charisma operates through suffering and Saturnalian inversion. His presentation illuminated the mechanisms by which populist leaders harness emotional energies, disrupt symbolic orders, and generate powerful moments of political transgression. By situating these dynamics within a broader sociological and historical frame, Dr. Joosse provided participants with an analytical vocabulary capable of explaining both the appeal and the democratic risks of contemporary populism.
Artem Turenko: “The Evolution of the Rhetoric of the ‘Alternative for Germany’: A Comparative Analysis of the Election Campaigns for the European Parliament in 2019 and 2024”
Artem Turenko is a PhD Candidate, Political Science at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow.
The presentation delivered by Artem Turenko also offered a rigorous comparative analysis of the rhetorical evolution of the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) across two European Parliament election campaigns—2019 and 2024. Situated at the intersection of political linguistics, populism studies, and European politics, Turenko’s research interrogates a widely held assumption in the literature on populism: that populist parties strategically soften their rhetoric when electoral success is uncertain and radicalize it when victory appears likely. Through a mixed-methods approach combining quantitative content analysis, sentiment analysis, and discourse-theoretical insights, the study provides a nuanced, partially counterintuitive answer.
The analytical strength of the presentation lies not merely in its empirical findings, but in how it captures the AfD’s rhetorical balancing act as a populist actor transitioning from peripheral challenger to semi-mainstream contender within both German and European political spaces. The AfD’s participation in the Identity and Democracy (ID) faction—and later its exclusion and reconfiguration into the “Europe of Sovereign Nations” group—forms a crucial contextual backdrop shaping its discursive strategies.
Methodological Architecture and Analytical Scope
Turenko’s research is grounded in a systematic comparison of two core textual corpora: the AfD’s European Parliament election programs (2019 and 2024) and accompanying campaign posters. Employing ATLAS.ti software, the author conducts sentiment analysis at the paragraph level while also mapping thematic clusters and key lexical markers associated with right-wing populism. Complementing this quantitative layer is a qualitative discourse-theoretical lens inspired by the concept of topoi, particularly as developed in the discourse-historical approach (DHA). This allows the study to trace recurring argumentation schemes such as crisis, threat, sovereignty, and decline.
Crucially, the analysis does not treat rhetoric as a static ideological artifact but as a strategic instrument shaped by electoral expectations, factional alliances, and shifting political opportunity structures at the European level.
Continuity Beneath Change: Thematic Stability Across Campaigns
One of the central findings emphasized in both the presentation and the underlying paper is the remarkable thematic continuity in AfD rhetoric across the two campaigns. Migration, Islam, sovereignty, and skepticism toward supranational governance remain the party’s rhetorical backbone in both 2019 and 2024. Even as the European and domestic political environments changed dramatically—marked by pandemic aftermath, energy crises, war in Ukraine, and geopolitical instability—the AfD’s core narrative of a threatened nation embedded within a dysfunctional EU persisted.
According to Turenko, this continuity suggests that the AfD’s populism is less reactive than structurally embedded. Rather than reinventing its agenda, the party selectively recalibrates emphasis while maintaining a stable ideological grammar. This is particularly visible in the sustained dominance of negative emotional tonality across both election programs. In absolute terms, the 2024 manifesto contains even more negatively coded paragraphs, although this increase is partly attributable to the expanded length of the document.
Rhetorical Radicalization Without Emotional Escalation
The study’s most analytically significant contribution lies in its challenge to the expectation that greater electoral success necessarily produces harsher rhetoric. While Turenko demonstrates an increased frequency of lexical markers associated with right-wing populism in 2024—such as “danger,” “threat,” “ban,” and “reject”—the overall emotional tone of the rhetoric changes only marginally. Negative sentiment remains dominant, but not dramatically more intense.
This apparent paradox becomes intelligible through a third-eye reading: the AfD radicalizes not by amplifying emotional hostility, but by broadening the semantic ecology of crisis. In 2019, crisis discourse was relatively narrow, focused primarily on migration and the euro. By 2024, the crisis topos expands to encompass energy, gas, climate, gender, public health, and global finance. The party thus multiplies perceived threats without fundamentally altering its emotional register. Crisis becomes omnipresent, normalized, and structurally embedded rather than rhetorically explosive.
Strategic Softening and Discursive Moderation
Equally revealing is what disappears from the AfD’s rhetoric. The complete absence of the term “Dexit” in the 2024 program—after its notable presence in 2019—signals a tactical softening on the issue of EU withdrawal. From a third-eye perspective, this omission reflects strategic moderation rather than ideological retreat. The AfD reframes its Euroscepticism from exit-oriented rupture to internal resistance and sovereignty reclamation, aligning more closely with the broader ID faction’s stance as articulated in documents such as the Antwerp Declaration.
At the same time, the emergence of “gender ideology” as a distinct thematic field in 2024 indicates an effort to expand the party’s cultural conflict repertoire. This shift mirrors transnational right-wing populist trends and suggests a strategic attempt to mobilize new constituencies without abandoning core voters.
Visual Rhetoric and Populist Simplification
The comparative analysis of campaign posters reinforces these conclusions. While the 2019 visuals were narrowly focused on border security and migration control, the 2024 posters display a significantly broader issue spectrum, including family policy, energy security, freedom of speech, and EU power limitation. Yet, the emotional architecture remains consistent: short imperatives, exclamatory slogans, and stark binaries. The substitution of “crisis” with “chaos” in visual rhetoric exemplifies how the AfD preserves affective intensity while updating its symbolic vocabulary.
In sum, Turenko’s presentation demonstrates that the AfD’s rhetorical evolution between 2019 and 2024 is best understood as adaptive recalibration rather than linear radicalization or moderation. The party intensifies populist markers and expands its crisis narrative while simultaneously avoiding discursive moves that could alienate broader electorates or constrain coalition possibilities at the European level. The AfD emerges as a populist actor increasingly skilled in managing the tension between ideological rigidity and strategic flexibility. The study thus offers valuable insights not only into German right-wing populism, but also into the broader dynamics of populist normalization within contemporary European politics.
Discussant Feedback and Responses
Dr. Helena Rovamo’s Feedback on Dr. Paul Joosse’s Presentation
Dr. Helena Rovamo is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Eastern Finland.
Session’s first discussant Dr. Helena Rovamo’s feedback on Assoc. Prof. Paul Joosse’s presentation constituted a thoughtful and methodologically attentive intervention that both affirmed the scholarly value of the work and pushed its conceptual boundaries. Positioned within the broader framework of the ECPS workshop, her remarks underscored a shared recognition among presenters that populism must be understood not merely as a strategic or rhetorical phenomenon, but as one deeply embedded in affect, morality, and social relations.
Dr. Rovamo’s engagement unfolds along three analytically distinct yet interconnected axes: methodology, theory, and empirical generalization. First, her methodological inquiry into Dr. Joosse’s ethnographic practice at political rallies foregrounds the often-overlooked relational dynamics of fieldwork. By asking how rally participants experienced being approached by a researcher, Dr. Rovamo implicitly raises questions about reflexivity, power, trust, and emotional negotiation in politically charged environments. This intervention situates populism research within broader debates in qualitative sociology concerning the co-production of data and the affective dimensions of knowledge generation.
Second, Dr. Rovamo’s theoretical questioning targets the conceptual interface between charisma and populism. Rather than accepting their linkage as self-evident, she presses Dr. Joosse to clarify whether charisma constitutes the essence of populism, a parallel phenomenon, or an underlying social mechanism that populist rhetoric mobilizes. This line of questioning reflects a concern with analytical precision and signals the risk of conceptual conflation. Her comments invite a deeper theorization of whether populism should be understood primarily as discursive performance, moral framing, or charismatic social bonding.
Finally, Dr. Rovamo’s reflections on Donald Trump and the apparent durability of his support introduce a critical temporal dimension. By asking whether anything can weaken Trump’s charisma or the broader MAGA movement, she challenges static understandings of charismatic authority. This question opens space for considering erosion, routinization, or transformation of charisma under conditions of scandal, failure, or institutionalization.
Assoc. Prof. Joosse’s Response
Assoc. Prof. Paul Joosse’s response to Dr. Rovamo’s feedback offered a theoretically rich and reflexively grounded clarification of his methodological choices and conceptual commitments. His intervention can be read as an effort to reposition charisma theory as an indispensable, yet insufficiently integrated, component of contemporary populism studies—while simultaneously demystifying the empirical mechanics of researching charismatic movements in situ.
On the methodological plane, Dr. Joosse addressed concerns regarding fieldwork at Trump rallies by reframing such spaces as inherently dialogical rather than hostile research environments. He emphasized that MAGA rallies function as political forums in which participants are not only ideologically motivated but socially primed for interaction. The combination of extended waiting periods, strong collective identity, and expressive political culture renders rally-goers unusually accessible to qualitative inquiry. This response implicitly challenges assumptions about populist publics as suspicious or closed off, instead portraying them as actively seeking recognition and discursive engagement. From an analytical standpoint, Dr. Joosse thus normalizes populist spaces as legitimate sites of sociological encounter rather than exceptional or epistemically compromised arenas.
The theoretical core of Dr. Joosse’s response lies in his articulation of charisma theory and populism theory as complementary rather than competing frameworks. He conceptualizes populism as a relational dynamic centered on the people–elite antagonism, while charisma theory foregrounds leadership and authority grounded in popular legitimacy operating outside institutional norms. Importantly, Dr. Joosse resists reductive equivalence: not all populism is charismatic, and not all charisma is populist. Yet, he argues that each framework addresses the blind spots of the other—charisma theory often under-theorizing collective authorization, and populism theory under-specifying leadership dynamics. His response positions this synthesis as a broader scholarly project aimed at rebalancing agency between leaders and followers.
Dr. Joosse’s reflections on Donald Trump further extend this synthesis through a Weberian lens. Drawing on Max Weber’s concept of routinization, he suggests that charismatic power rarely collapses due to external critique or scandal. Instead, it dissipates internally as followers transform revolutionary authority into ritualized tradition. Trump’s future, in this reading, hinges less on opposition strategies than on whether his movement eventually converts his exceptionalism into reproducible form—akin to the symbolic afterlife of figures such as Ronald Reagan.
Dr. Joosse also underscores the destabilizing nature of charismatic authority. By redefining political rules and defying normative expectations, charismatic leaders render conventional democratic “playbooks” ineffective. This, he argues, explains why institutional actors historically resort to coercive measures when legitimacy contests fail. Dr. Joosse’s response situates Trumpism not as an anomaly, but as a classic instance of charismatic disruption—one whose resolution remains structurally indeterminate rather than strategically manageable.
Dr. Rovamo’s Feedback on Artem Turenko’s Presentation
Dr. Helena Rovamo’s feedback on Artem Turenko’s presentation offered a constructive and analytically focused engagement that both affirmed the scholarly value of the study and probed its core assumptions. Her intervention can be understood as an invitation to strengthen the explanatory architecture of the research by sharpening its theoretical logic and methodological transparency.
Dr. Rovamo began by recognizing the contribution of Turenko’s work to the study of populist rhetoric, particularly highlighting its emphasis on temporal change. She framed this diachronic perspective as a significant strength, noting that tracing how populist communication evolves across electoral cycles enriches existing understandings of populism as a dynamic rather than static phenomenon.
At the same time, Dr. Rovamo raised a fundamental theoretical challenge to the study’s central assumption: that populist parties soften their rhetoric when electoral success is uncertain and harden it when victory appears likely. Drawing on intuitive and strategic reasoning, she suggested an alternative expectation—namely, that parties with little to lose might radicalize more aggressively, while those nearing electoral success might moderate their tone to consolidate broader, centrist support. This question did not dismiss the proposed hypothesis but called for a clearer articulation of its underlying causal logic.
Her critique then shifted to methodology. Dr. Rovamo queried how Turenko inferred the AfD’s expectations of winning or losing across different campaigns, implicitly pointing to the difficulty of operationalizing party perceptions and strategic calculations. She suggested that other explanatory variables—beyond electoral anticipation—might account for rhetorical shifts, thereby encouraging a more pluralistic causal framework.
Finally, Dr. Rovamo turned to the analysis of campaign posters, proposing that future research might benefit from incorporating systematic visual analysis. She implied that visual rhetoric could reveal affective and symbolic dimensions of populism not fully captured through textual analysis alone.
Artem Turenko’s Response
Artem Turenko’s response to Dr. Helena Rovamo’s feedback constituted a reflective and forward-looking clarification of his theoretical assumptions and research design. His intervention can be read as an attempt to situate his findings within an ongoing scholarly debate while acknowledging both the provisional nature of his conclusions and the broader trajectory of his doctoral research.
Addressing the central theoretical challenge, Turenko defended his hypothesis concerning the relationship between electoral expectations and rhetorical intensity by situating it within an existing, though contested, body of literature on populist strategy. He emphasized that scholarly findings on rhetorical “softening” and “hardening” are not uniform and often vary depending on whether populist parties operate in government or opposition. By invoking comparative cases—such as governing populist parties in Hungary versus opposition populists in Western and Central Europe—he underscored the importance of positional context in shaping rhetorical behavior. From an analytical standpoint, this response reframed his assumption not as a deterministic rule but as a context-sensitive proposition.
Methodologically, Turenko clarified that his inference regarding the AfD’s expectations of electoral success was grounded in longitudinal polling data, regional election outcomes, and observable trends in voter support—particularly the party’s sustained gains in eastern German Länder and its expanding appeal in western regions. He acknowledged, however, that the literature offers no definitive consensus on how electoral anticipation translates into rhetorical strategy, thereby implicitly accepting Dr. Rovamo’s call for theoretical openness.
Finally, Turenko addressed the suggestion to incorporate visual analysis by situating the current study within the constraints of an article-length publication. He explained that while posters were included as supplementary material, a systematic visual analysis exceeds the scope of the present article. Importantly, he positioned this limitation as temporary, outlining plans for a more comprehensive, multi-level and multimodal analysis in his doctoral thesis, encompassing regional, federal, and European elections.
Dr. Jonathan Madison’s Feedback on Dr. Joosse’s Presentation
Dr. Jonathan Madison is a Governance Fellow at the R Street Institute.
Dr. Jonathan Madison’s feedback on Assoc. Prof. Paul Joosse’s presentation constituted a dense and multi-layered scholarly intervention that simultaneously affirmed the contribution of the research and pressed it toward greater conceptual and explanatory depth. Madison’s remarks can be read as an effort to situate Dr. Joosse’s analysis of charismatic populism within broader debates on moral order, religious symbolism, and ideological asymmetry.
Dr. Madison began by foregrounding a foundational concern shared across populism studies: the contested nature of the concept itself. By encouraging presenters to clarify their operative definitions of populism, he implicitly highlighted the stakes of conceptual framing for empirical interpretation. This move positioned Dr. Joosse’s work within a wider methodological conversation about what, precisely, scholars are identifying when they analyze populist movements—style, ideology, moral narrative, or social relation.
Turning specifically to Dr. Joosse’s paper, Dr. Madison expressed strong appreciation for its treatment of victimhood as a constitutive element of charismatic populism. He underscored the value of Dr. Joosse’s analysis in showing how narratives of persecution forge an intimate, morally charged bond between leader and followers. Yet Dr. Madison’s feedback was not merely confirmatory; it pivoted toward a series of probing questions that exposed internal tensions within this framework.
A central paradox Dr. Madison identified concerns Christianity. He questioned how Donald Trump can successfully mobilize a sense of Christian oppression when Christianity itself remains a dominant moral framework in American society—and when Trump routinely violates its ethical norms. This question destabilizes simple oppositions between hegemonic morality and populist rebellion, suggesting instead a more complex moral inversion in which norm violation becomes a source of authenticity and solidarity.
Relatedly, Dr. Madison invited Dr. Joosse to reflect on the role of liberalism, neoliberalism, and capitalism as perceived antagonists within Trumpist rhetoric. He proposed that these abstract systems may function as the true objects of rebellion, allowing Christianity to be reframed as a victimized tradition rather than a ruling moral order. This line of inquiry situates charismatic populism within a broader ideological backlash against modernity and abstraction.
Dr. Madison also drew attention to Dr. Joosse’s brief mention of physical suffering, asking whether moments such as Trump’s assassination attempt—and the symbolic solidarities that followed—should be more fully integrated into the analysis. Finally, he raised a critical asymmetry: why condemnation from Trump’s opponents strengthens in-group cohesion, while Trump’s own insults fail to alienate his supporters. This question challenges conventional theories of moral offense and reciprocity.
Assoc. Prof. Joosse’s Response
Assoc. Prof. Paul Joosse’s response to Dr. Jonathan Madison’s feedback offered a nuanced and reflexive elaboration of the moral, religious, and sociological paradoxes embedded in contemporary charismatic populism. His intervention can be read as an effort to theorize contradiction not as a weakness of Trumpism, but as one of its constitutive sources of power.
Addressing Dr. Madison’s question concerning Christianity, Dr. Joosse began by disentangling two analytically distinct issues: Christianity as a hegemonic moral framework and Christianity as a site of internal contestation. While acknowledging that American civil religion is historically rooted in Christianity, he emphasized that hegemonic status does not preclude intense intra-Christian struggle. Competing interpretations of moral authority, decline, and authenticity allow segments of Christianity to frame themselves simultaneously as historically dominant and presently dispossessed. In this sense, Trumpism draws on a narrative of loss rather than marginality, positioning Christianity as a tradition under siege that must be restored rather than defended.
Dr. Joosse then confronted the apparent contradiction of Trump as a Christian figure. Rather than denying the tension, he theorized it as central to charismatic legitimation. Drawing on interview material, he highlighted how supporters distinguish between moral perfection and divine instrumentality. Trump is not venerated as a moral exemplar but accepted as a flawed vessel—often analogized to biblical figures such as King Cyrus—through whom a higher purpose is enacted. This framing allows supporters to bracket Trump’s personal transgressions without undermining his perceived mission, reinforcing rather than weakening charismatic attachment.
On the question of modernity and ideological backlash, Dr. Joosse cautiously acknowledged the relevance of global order, nationalism, and resistance to transnational governance. Yet he underscored a methodological asymmetry between macro-level explanations and micro-level meaning-making. From his ethnographic standpoint, supporters rarely articulate their grievances in abstract ideological terms such as neoliberalism or globalization. Instead, these structural forces are translated into experiential narratives of cultural displacement and moral erosion, suggesting that charismatic revolt operates through lived affect rather than formal ideology.
Dr. Joosse’s reflections on physical suffering further deepened the analysis. He interpreted Trump’s public emphasis on bodily harm—particularly following the assassination attempt—as a powerful act of sacralization. The visual and symbolic replication of injury by supporters, including comparisons to Christian iconography of sacrifice, transforms vulnerability into proof of devotion. Suffering thus becomes a resource for charismatization, dramatizing personal risk as evidence of moral commitment.
Finally, Dr. Joosse addressed Dr. Madison’s question about asymmetric moral judgment. Rather than treating the double standard as a puzzle to be solved, he reframed it as a defining feature of charismatic authority. Operating outside conventional moral and institutional rules, charismatic figures are granted exceptional latitude by their followers, who reinterpret norm violations as authenticity, strength, or combativeness. From this perspective, Trump’s immunity to disqualification is not anomalous but exemplary of charisma’s capacity to suspend ordinary evaluative frameworks.
Taken together, Dr. Joosse’s response advanced a compelling sociological insight: charismatic populism thrives not despite moral contradiction, but through its capacity to absorb, reinterpret, and weaponize it.
Dr. Jonathan Madison’s Feedback on Artem Turenko
Dr. JMadison’s feedback on Artem Turenko’s presentation and paper constituted a careful and theoretically oriented intervention that both affirmed the empirical quality of the research and pressed for greater conceptual rigor. Dr. Madison’s comments can be read as an effort to sharpen the analytical foundations upon which claims about populism and rhetorical change are built.
Dr. Madison began by commending the methodological strength of Turenko’s study, particularly the systematic analysis of campaign messaging and the careful handling of empirical material. He framed the paper as a valuable contribution that other scholars could readily build upon, thereby situating it positively within the broader field of populism research.
At the core of his feedback, however, lay a sustained concern with conceptual clarity. Dr. Madison emphasized that while “populism” is frequently invoked, it remains a deeply contested concept, and he noted that the paper does not sufficiently define how populism is understood or operationalized. He questioned the implicit assumption that references to danger, threat, or crisis can be treated as inherently populist, pointing out that such language may equally characterize ideological projects grounded in nationalism, authoritarianism, or even fascism. From this perspective, Dr. Madison challenged the paper to explain what distinguishes populist rhetoric from other forms of radical or right-wing political communication.
Relatedly, Dr. Madison cautioned against treating “radicalization” and “populist rhetoric” as interchangeable terms. He argued that increasing rhetorical intensity does not automatically equate to populism and that the analytical distinction between these phenomena must be made explicit. Without such clarification, claims about the evolution of populist rhetoric risk conceptual slippage.
Finally, Dr. Madison revisited the issue of causal directionality in Turenko’s argument. He questioned whether rhetorical moderation or radicalization should be understood as a response to anticipated electoral outcomes, or alternatively as a causal factor shaping those outcomes. By highlighting this ambiguity, Dr. Madison invited greater methodological reflexivity and encouraged consideration of competing causal explanations. Overall, Dr. Madison’s feedback underscored the importance of definitional precision and causal clarity in transforming strong empirical research into a robust theoretical contribution.
Artem Turenko’s Response
Artem Turenko’s response to Dr. Madison’s feedback unfolded as a reflective and conceptually attentive clarification of his analytical choices. His intervention can be read as an attempt to reconcile empirical findings with the conceptual ambiguities that pervade the study of populism, while openly acknowledging the limits of explanatory certainty.
Addressing the definitional critique, Turenko began by situating his work within the plurality of scholarly interpretations of populism. He emphasized that his article does not advance a singular or exhaustive definition but instead draws on two widely used conceptualizations: populism as a thin-centered ideology and populism as a political style. In this sense, populism is understood both as an ideological formation that attaches itself to host ideologies—such as nationalism or authoritarianism—and as a mode of political communication characterized by emotional appeal, moral polarization, and simplified antagonisms. From an analytical standpoint, this hybrid approach reflects a pragmatic effort to capture the multidimensional nature of AfD rhetoric rather than to impose rigid categorical boundaries.
Turenko further responded to concerns about conflation between populism and radical right ideology by foregrounding the AfD’s internal heterogeneity. He highlighted the party’s long-standing tension between a more moderate, economically liberal wing and a more radical nationalist faction rooted primarily in eastern Germany. This intra-party struggle, he argued, is visibly encoded in the party’s official programs, which function as negotiated compromises rather than ideologically coherent manifestos. This insight reframes AfD rhetoric as a balancing act between competing internal constituencies rather than a linear trajectory toward radicalization.
On the issue of distinguishing populism from nationalism or fascism, Turenko conceded that lexical markers such as “danger,” “threat,” or “ban” are insufficient on their own to identify populism. Instead, he pointed to argumentation schemes derived from the discourse-historical approach, particularly the topos of danger and crisis, which link perceived threats to calls for extraordinary political action. In this view, populism emerges not from isolated vocabulary but from patterned narratives that construct “the people” as collectively endangered.
Finally, Turenko addressed the challenge of causal directionality regarding rhetorical softening or hardening. He acknowledged that the relationship between electoral expectations and rhetoric remains unresolved in the literature and admitted the possibility that his initial assumption may require revision. His empirical finding—that AfD support increased without significant rhetorical change—was presented as an invitation for further research rather than definitive proof.
The Q&A Session
The Q&A session also functioned as an important analytical extension of the workshop, drawing together core themes of cultural grievance, economic representation, and the politics of knowledge production. The exchange revealed how empirical findings on populism are shaped not only by theoretical frameworks but also by positional contexts—both of researchers and of the actors they study.
The first intervention, raised via the chat by Nikola Ilić and addressed to Assoc. Prof. Paul Joosse, probed the relationship between economic grievance and cultural disrespect in Trumpist mobilization. Ilić’s question implicitly challenged culturalist accounts of populism by asking whether material deprivation operates as a precursor to the moral and symbolic injuries identified in Dr. Joosse’s analysis.
Dr. Joosse’s response offered a nuanced clarification: while economic concerns—especially inflation and the cost of living—were frequently articulated by rally participants, these concerns were expressed through culturally mediated narratives rather than through technical economic reasoning. Trump’s tariff proposals, for example, were embraced less as policy instruments than as symbolic promises of restored fairness and national strength. From an analytical standpoint, Dr. Joosse reframed economic grievance as a representational resource rather than a causal foundation, emphasizing that objective wealth indicators do not align neatly with subjective experiences of loss. His response reinforced the broader argument that populist appeal operates through meaning-making processes rather than material conditions alone.
The second intervention, posed by Dr. Bulent Kenes and directed to Artem Turenko, shifted the discussion toward epistemic and institutional constraints. Dr. Kenes raised a pointed question regarding the feasibility of studying far-right populism in Europe from within Russia, given the Kremlin’s widely alleged instrumental support for radical-right movements across Europe and beyond. His inquiry foregrounded the political conditions under which academic knowledge about populism is produced, implicitly questioning issues of autonomy, censorship, and selectivity.
Turenko’s response offered a candid and context-sensitive account of Russian academic practice. He argued that, paradoxically, the study of European far-right parties—particularly the AfD—is relatively unproblematic within Russian political science. Far-right populism in Europe is widely covered in Russian media and extensively analyzed in academic institutions such as the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences. According to Turenko, this openness contrasts sharply with the difficulties scholars face when studying sensitive domestic or progressive topics, including left-wing movements or LGBTQ-related politics. His remarks highlighted an asymmetry of academic freedom: external cases of populism are treated as analytically legitimate objects, while internal or normatively challenging subjects remain constrained in Russian case.
Conclusion
Session 8 of the ECPS Virtual Workshop Series offered a theoretically sophisticated and empirically grounded contribution to contemporary debates on populism and democratic fragility. Bringing together sociological theory, discourse analysis, and comparative political research, the session demonstrated that populism cannot be adequately understood as a singular ideology, rhetorical tactic, or electoral strategy. Rather, it emerges as a multifaceted political phenomenon that operates simultaneously at the levels of emotion, morality, symbolism, and institutional contestation.
Taken together, the presentations by Assoc. Prof. Paul Joosse and Artem Turenko highlighted two complementary dimensions of the populist turn. D. Joosse’s analysis foregrounded the affective and ritual foundations of charismatic authority, showing how suffering, transgression, and Saturnalian inversion enable populist leaders to suspend normative constraints and reconfigure legitimacy itself. Turenko’s comparative study, by contrast, illuminated the strategic and discursive adaptability of populist parties within electoral competition, demonstrating how populist rhetoric can remain structurally stable while selectively recalibrating its thematic focus in response to shifting political opportunities.
The interventions by discussants Dr. Helena Rovamo and Dr. Jonathan Madison played a crucial integrative role in sharpening the session’s analytical stakes. Their feedback underscored the importance of conceptual precision, methodological reflexivity, and causal clarity in populism research. By questioning the boundaries between populism, radicalism, nationalism, and charisma, they highlighted enduring tensions within the field and pointed toward the need for more theoretically explicit and dialogical scholarship.
The Q&A session further expanded the discussion by linking populist mobilization to broader questions of economic representation, cultural grievance, and the politics of knowledge production. These exchanges revealed that populism operates not only through material claims or ideological positions, but through culturally mediated narratives that translate structural anxieties into moralized political meaning.
In sum, the session reinforced a central insight of the ECPS workshop series: that understanding the populist turn requires sustained interdisciplinary engagement with the emotional, symbolic, and strategic dimensions of democratic life. By bridging micro-level meaning-making with macro-level political dynamics, the session offered valuable analytical tools for assessing both the appeal of populism and its profound challenges to democratic norms and institutions.
