Hundreds of migrants attempt to cross the US-Mexico border as the Texas National Guard works to prevent irregular crossings in Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico on March 21, 2024. Photo: David Peinado Romero.

The “Awkward Alliance” of the Left and the Right

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The politics of immigration in the U.S. reveal peculiar alliances on both sides of the aisle. For Democrats, the coalition spans ethnoracial diversity, balancing ideals of equality with the economic and cultural concerns of immigration. This tension often leaves the Left grappling with its own contradictions. For Republicans, an equally uneasy partnership emerges. Grassroots voters, driven by ethnonationalist anxieties, align with capitalist elites who benefit from cheap immigrant labor. This “awkward alliance” pits anti-immigrant rhetoric against the economic realities of business reliance on immigration, fueling policies that prioritize elite agendas while alienating vulnerable voters.

By Sanne van Oosten*

Politicians of Populist Radical Right Parties (PRRP) often cite material scarcity faced by the populations of receiving countries as arguments against immigration. Whether the argument is that ‘they’ are stealing ‘our’ jobs, public services, or housing; materialist concerns are central to their arguments against immigration. The mobilisation of perceived economic injustice has proven to be an effective strategy for attracting voters, with the most recent U.S. elections serving as yet another example.

The U.S. Republican Party now also champions strong anti-immigration narratives, though this has not always been at the top of the party’s political agenda. This shift occurred during the Obama-era. Despite Obama’s first campaign and term being predominantly focused on healthcare reform, beneath the surface of the Republican Party, anti-immigration sentiments swelled, with many voters perceiving Obama as a symbol of immigration. While he didn’t, in reality, let more immigrants in than his Republican predecessors, Bush or Reagan. Although voters are generally positive about Black politicians, Obama’s African roots invigorated the Tea Party, a grassroots movement, leading them to turn to immigration as a response to the latent, smouldering old-fashioned racism his presidency stirred.

Even in the most conservative corners of the U.S., openly admitting to being racist is stigmatised, prompting many to mask such views. Concerns over economic justice often serve as a justification for racism by pointing to the scarcity of ‘our’ jobs, public services, housing; or whatever scarce economic resource is the challenge of the moment. By invoking these appeals to economic justice, one can pull off xenophobic claims without the stigma attached to more explicit expressions of xenophobia. These forms of strategic masking not only help avoid stigma in everyday life and political discourse, Republicans also can leverage these strategically against Democrats. After all, weren’t Democrats the ones who were supposed to protect ‘our’ jobs, public services, and housing? Didn’t they claim to care about the people and economic justice? Well, with all the immigrants they’re letting into our country, I guess they don’t!

Besides materialist masking, ‘civilisationist‘ masking serves to destigmatise racist and xenophobic claims while simultaneously dividing Democratic voters. Trump’s call to protect ‘our’ women from Latino immigrant rapists is a prime example of contemporary U.S. femonationalism. His calls to protect American gay people from dangerous Muslims illustrate homonationalism. Amid student protests against the war in Gaza, Trump also invoked the need to protect Jewish safety—what I refer to as Judeonationalism. Essentially, the infamous U.S. election campaign quote, ‘they are eating the pets,’ was also a form of civilisationist masking—what I call animeauxnationalism. These arguments follow the same logic and purpose as materialist justice: they not only serve to avoid stigma in everyday life and political discourse, but they also act as a wedge to internally divide the Democratic electorate.

And the truth is, in Western countries, the Left represents a much more ethnoracially diverse voting coalition, creating an ‘awkward alliance’ as I call it. White Leftists often support the Left out of ‘conviction’ for equal rights for all, including women and gay people, as well as animals and nature, while non-white Leftists tend to stay with the Left out of ‘necessity:’ the opposition denies their identities, yet, they often prioritise other concerns over equal rights and individual freedoms. This uneasy coalition unsettles political elites of the Left, leaving them uncertain about how to navigate this political catch-22.

Indeed, there is an inherent awkwardness in the Democratic claim to champion individual freedoms and equal rights while also supporting (or at least tolerating) immigration of people who do not necessarily hold the same core national values. This awkwardness mirrors the one found in materialist concerns: the Democrats advocate for workers, stronger public services, and affordable housing, yet they also support immigration, which some believe jeopardises jobs, strains public services, and drives up housing prices. Very awkward indeed.

Yet, the alliances on the other side of the aisle might be even more awkward. The Republican Party unites forces from the top-down and the bottom-up. From the bottom-up, Republicans represent an ethnonationally anxious voting base unsettled by ‘demographic panic’ due to immigration, grown from the grass roots Tea Party movement. From the top-down, the Republican alliance consists of large business elites (such as the Koch-network) who benefit from immigration by relying on workers willing to take jobs that many white Americans won’t, such as hard agricultural labour. These forces—both top-down and bottom-up—create another ‘awkward alliance,’ or an ‘uneasy marriage,’ or even ‘strange bedfellows,’ between a voting base riled up by anti-immigration sentiment and capitalist elites who profit from cheap labour and the economic growth that immigration fuels. The racist views that are often masked by arguments of economic justice serve as a ‘godsend’ for capitalist plutocrats, enabling them to mobilise an ethnonationalist electorate. Meanwhile, top-down forces prefer concealing the fact that their voters might not be voting in their own best interest through expressing and fuelling anti-immigrant sentiment by keeping unsettling news about immigration on the national agenda and the back of people’s minds.

These top-down capitalist elites are, however, most interested in boosting business, cutting back on regulations, and shrinking government social spending by, ironically, courting a voting base that is often reliant on Social Security and Medicare. ‘Anti-Obama anger,’ fuelled by racist undertones, proved to be a ‘godsend.’ For instance, by dubbing universal healthcare ‘Obamacare,’ opposition to government spending was built with the help of racism-driven xenophobia, even among those most dependent on the exact same public services, and those who are positive about the policies when not named after the first Black president, but Clinton. Even though immigration helps their businesses grow, these capitalist elites accept Trump’s strong anti-immigration stance as ‘unpleasant ransom’ to advance their libertarian agenda, which benefits capitalism and large corporations to the detriment of the lesser-educated voters riled up by anti-immigration rhetoric. This may be the most ‘awkward alliance’ of all.

(*) Dr. Sanne van Oosten is a postdoctoral researcher at Centre for Migration Policy and Society (COMPAS), University of Oxford.

Muslim women wearing hijabs walking on the streets of Paris, France, June 15, 2012. Photo: Shutterstock.

The Importance of In-group Favouritism in Explaining Voting for PRRPs: A Study of Minority and Majority Groups in France, Germany and the Netherlands

by ArticlesHomeMigrationPopulism & Politics (P&P)

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Please cite as: 

van Oosten, Sanne. (2025). “The Importance of In-group Favouritism in Explaining Voting for PRRPs: A Study of Minority and Majority Groups in France, Germany and the Netherlands.” Populism & Politics (P&P). European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). January 12, 2025. Doi: https://doi.org/10.55271/pp0046

Please find all replication materials including data, code and appendices here: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/T7G5N

 

 Abstract

The voting behaviour of racial and ethnic minorities is a topic that attracts much speculation, with some claiming that racial and ethnic minorities do vote for Populist Radical Right Parties (PRRPs) and some claiming they do not. In the European Union, where saving data on individual’s race and ethnicity is prohibited, it is very difficult to contribute to these conversations with real facts. Do ethnic minorities and majorities tend to vote for PRRP and what explains their (lack of) support? Thanks to a novel yet costly sampling method, I surveyed racial/ethnic minority and majority voters in France, Germany and the Netherlands and asked them about their propensity to vote for Rassemblement National (RN) in France, Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in Germany, and Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV) in the Netherlands. I compare racial/ethnic minority groups, including Muslims, with majority groups and test the mechanisms that might predict their support for PRRPs. My findings indicate Muslims are among the least likely to vote for PRRPs, though the difference with voters without a migration background is only significant in the Netherlands. When testing what explains the propensity to vote for PRRPs, I find that indicators of in-group favouritism usually explain support to larger extent than out-group hate. Though anti-immigration attitudes predict PRRP voting in all three countries, in-group favouritism explanations explain PRRP voting to a slightly stronger extent. In France and Germany, the ethnocentrism scale predicts voting for RN/AfD more than immigration attitudes do. In the Netherlands, feeling accepted as belonging in the Netherlands explains voting for the PVV the most. Amongst Muslim French, German and Dutch voters, in-group favouritism, or the lack thereof, explains voting for PRRPs as well. French Muslims who feel more attached to France are more likely to vote for RN. German Muslims who do not believe in religious freedom for Muslims are more likely to vote for AfD. This also applies to Dutch Muslims, though immigration attitudes also predict voting for the PVV: the more a Dutch Muslim is against immigration, the more likely they are to vote PVV. Generally, this study makes a case for expanding the standard predictors of PRRP voting towards more indicators of in-group favouritism for the majority in-group, while for Muslims PRRP voting is more driven by policy attitudes. Feeling close or distant towards ethnic in- or out-groups does not predict PRRP voting in any of the cases. These findings contribute to our understanding of PRRP voting in Europe.

Keywords: Populism, Muslims, race, ethnicity, voting behaviour, France, Germany, Netherlands, RN, AfD, PVV.

 

By Sanne van Oosten (Postdoctoral Researcher at Oxford University, sanne.vanoosten@compas.ox.ac.uk)

Introduction

Political pundits and strategists have long believed that increasing diversity and gender equality would naturally expand the US Democratic voting base, assuming racial and ethnic minorities would reject ethnonationalist extremism in the Republican Party and have nowhere else to turn (Judis & Teixeira, 2002; Skocpol & Tervo, 2020). While this view has been challenged over time (Judis & Teixeira, 2023; Lee, 2008), the 2024 US elections highlighted the complexity of racial and ethnic minority voting behaviour, with racial and ethnic minority voters shifting from Democrat to Republican, though still leaning Democrat (ANES, 2021).

In Europe, studying minority voting behaviour is more challenging due to privacy regulations, yet it remains crucial as the “Replacement Theory” — a conspiratorial claim that immigrants are brought in to vote for political elites — has shaped far-right rhetoric across France, Germany, the Netherlands (Bracke & Aguilar, 2020) as well as the US (Skocpol & Williamson, 2011). Despite this, some pundits suggest that racial and ethnic minorities are increasingly inclined to vote for Populist Radical Right Parties (PRRPs), with figures like Geert Wilders[2] and Donald Trump[3] claiming that Muslim and Black voters support them. However, all of these claims remain underexplored in Europe. This paper investigates whether Muslims and ethnic minorities in France, Germany, and the Netherlands vote differently from their white counterparts, and what factors drive any differences in their voting behaviour.

Answering these questions in the European Union is more difficult than in the US or UK (as shown by the wealth of data in Sobolewska & Ford, 2020). Standard sampling strategies do not yield enough minority participants for statistical analyses (Font & Méndez, 2013). Moreover, strict European privacy regulations limit the availability of sampling frames for racial/ethnic and religious minorities in the European context (Simon, 2017). To overcome these challenges, I surveyed a large sample of Kantar-panellists and used a mini-survey to oversample voters from France, Germany, and the Netherlands with a migration background in Turkey (France, Germany, and the Netherlands), North Africa (France), Sub-Saharan Africa (France), the Former Soviet Union (Germany), Surinam (the Netherlands), and Morocco (the Netherlands). I sampled a high number of minority respondents, with 1889 out of a total N of 3058 respondents having a migration background, of which 649 self-identify as Muslim.

In this paper, I test how likely Muslims or other minority groups are to vote for PRRPs compared to majority groups, and why. I find that Muslim voters are much less likely to vote for the PVV in the Netherlands, though they are just as likely to vote for RN or AfD in France or Germany, respectively. I also explore what predicts the likelihood of Muslims voting for PRRPs. The literature on minority voting is not focused on voting for PRRPs, but explanations vary from issues, belonging and in-group favouritism, or the lack thereof, in this case. I find that issues explain PRRP voting, or the lack thereof, the most amongst the Muslims in France, Germany and the Netherlands.

Amongst majority groups, voting for PRRPs is generally often explained by economic and cultural factors, or their level of education and attitudes towards immigration. In-group favouritism is generally not studied, despite the longstanding evidence that in-group favouritism operates independently from out-group hate (Brewer, 1999). My various indicators of in-group favouritism indeed predict voting for PRRPs more strongly than immigration-attitudes and the impact of level of education disappears when including policy positions and in-group favouritism in the models.

In essence, this research advocates for broadening the conventional factors used to predict PRRP voting to encompass a greater emphasis on affinity towards the dominant in-group. Conversely, among Muslims, PRRP voting tends to be influenced more by policy stances. Whether one feels a sense of closeness or detachment from ethnic in-groups or out-groups doesn’t seem to have any bearing on PRRP voting outcomes in any scenario examined. These discoveries deepen our comprehension of PRRP voting patterns across Europe.

Theory

It has long been believed that increasing racial and ethnic diversity and gender equality would naturally lead to an expansion of the US Democratic voting base (Judis & Teixeira, 2002), as racial and ethnic minorities are put off by ethnonationalist extremism in the Republican Party (Skocpol & Tervo, 2020; Sobolewska & Ford, 2020) and, therefore, have nowhere else to go (Judis & Teixeira, 2002). Though this thesis had been questioned for a longer time (Judis & Teixeira, 2023; Lee, 2008), the most recent US elections drove the point home that reality is more complicated than the “demography is destiny” thesis claims it is[4]: The 2024 US elections saw a significant swing of racial and ethnic minority voters from voting Democrat to voting Republican[5], though the latest most robust data still indicate that the majority of Latinx voters prefer the Democrats[6], just as in 2020 (ANES, 2021). Studying the voting behaviour of racial and ethnic minorities is relatively easy in the US and UK, yet the more stringent privacy regulations in the European Union (EU) make sampling European racial and ethnic minorities more costly and, therefore, rare. In this paper, I use a novel sampling method and study to what extent and why racial and ethnic minority and majority voters in France, Germany and the Netherlands vote for Populist Radical Right Parties (PRRP).

In Europe, the influential conspiratorial “Replacement Theory” claims that immigrants are imported by political elites so they will vote for the political elites who imported them[7][8], as recently propagated by Elon Musk in an effort to promote Trump in the US election campaign[9], this narrative shapes the “demographic imagination”[10] on both sides of the Atlantic. In France, the Great Replacement theory was introduced by writer Renaud Camus in 2011 (Bracke & Aguilar, 2020: 685-686), while similar claims were being made in the US before that (Skocpol & Williamson, 2011: 79-80). Promoted by right-wing figures like Marine Le Pen, it has become central to nationalist rhetoric, suggesting that French culture and identity are at risk due to immigration. This conspiracy theory has influenced political discourse, especially within far-right parties, fuelling xenophobic fears of cultural “submersion.”[11] In Germany, similar views gained traction through the works of Thilo Sarrazin, who claimed that mass immigration would lead to the decline of ethnic Germans. The theory has also been propagated by figures from the Alternative for Germany (AfD), who argue that immigration policies are designed to replace native Germans. Meanwhile, in the Netherlands, populist politicians such as Geert Wilders and the current chair of Dutch Parliament, Martin Bosma, have embraced the theory as well.[12][13][14]

However, pundits and PRRPs also sometimes claim the opposite: that racial and ethnic minority voters are actually very much inclined to vote for PRRPs. For instance, when Geert Wilders’ Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV) won the Dutch general elections on November 22, 2023 (van Oosten, 2023b), Geert Wilders gave a speech in which he thanked all of his voters, especially the many Muslims who had voted for him.[15] Pundits weighed in by giving anecdotal evidence of Muslims voting for Wilders.[16][17] Were these claims an effort to legitimize Geert Wilders as a potential prime minister of all Dutch people, or was it really true? Given the lack of research on the voting behaviour of minority groups, these claims remained unsubstantiated.

In summary, the voting behaviour of Muslims, ethnic minorities and immigrant origin individuals is speculated about wildly. As seen above, in an effort to gain perceived legitimacy, some pundits and PRRP leaders will argue minorities vote for them. Conversely, to amplify “demographic anxiety,”[18] PRRP leaders will argue minorities vote for the pro-immigrant Left. So, which one is it? Do Muslims and ethnic minorities in France, Germany, and the Netherlands vote differently than their white majority counterparts? And what drives the differences?

In this theoretical framework, I first discuss the literature on minority voting which is mostly based on policy positions held by minority voters and discrimination they have experienced. Then, I discuss the most frequent explanations of PRRP voting amongst majority groups. I conclude with a discussion about in-group favouritism and how the dynamics of in-group favouritism differ amongst majority and minority groups.  

Cultural and Economic Issues as Explanations of Minority Voting

I do not know of any literature on PRRP voting amongst minorities in Europe, though there is literature on the tendency for minorities to vote for left-wing parties. In general, claims that ethnic minority voters vote for Left-wing parties because of their tendency to prefer redistributive policies (Bird et al., 2010: 10–11) have been debunked (Baysu & Swyngedouw, 2020; Bergh & Bjørklund, 2011; Sobolewska, 2006: 206–207; van Oosten et al., 2024e). Cultural issues play a much larger role in explaining voters’ choices than economic issues do (Otjes & Krouwel, 2019: 1159, 1152; Vermeulen et al., 2020: 445, 448). Many of these issues directly influence the way racial and ethnic minority voters see their place in society (Loukili, 2021a, 2021b), and the discrimination that they have experienced (Grewal & Hamid, 2022; Nandi & Platt, 2020; Phalet et al., 2010), or the discriminatory rhetoric they hear coming from politicians on the Right, making them side with the Left, not out of conviction, but out of necessity (Sobolewska & Ford, 2020) or circumstance (Rovny, 2024).

Though racial and ethnic minority voters align with the Left in their views on immigration, integration and Islam, they are less likely to do so on issues such as gender equality (Spierings & Glas, 2022), Lesbian Gay, Bi and Trans (LGBT)-rights (Geurts et al., 2023) and anti-Semitism (Koopmans, 2013). These differences between racial and ethnic minority and majority voters within the Left-wing voting coalition (Sobolewska & Ford, 2020) are used to drive the Left-voting coalition apart (Brubaker, 2017; Farris, 2017; Puar, 2007; van Oosten, 2024e). The general assumption is that racial and ethnic minority voters make the trade-off between aligning with the Left on issues such as immigration, integration and Islam on the one hand, and making compromises on gender and sexuality issues on the other hand (Sobolewska & Ford, 2020). The extent to which this is true, remains under researched, but the rhetoric of this “awkward alliance” (van Oosten, 2025) has influenced political narratives and has rendered party strategists on the Left anxious about how to deal with cultural issues such as gender equality, immigration, and LGBT-rights (Dancygier, 2017; van Oosten, 2022a, 2022b, 2023a).

The awkwardness of the assumed diverse voting coalition of the Left has led to some similar civilisationist forms of nationalism (Brubaker, 2017). Homonationalism, femonationalism, and judeonationalism are examples of these forms of nationalism that instrumentalize vulnerable groups such as women, LGBT individuals, and Jewish people to justify exclusionary practices, particularly against Muslim immigrants. Homonationalism, coined by Puar (2007), refers to the use of LGBT-rights, particularly in Western countries, to contrast “civilised” Western values against perceived intolerance in non-Western groups, particularly Muslims. Femonationalism, introduced by Farris (2017), involves the strategic use of gender equality, often framing Western interventions as a means to liberate women in non-Western countries, such as the justification for the war in Afghanistan.

Homonationalism and femonationalism are not the only forms of civilisationism. For instance, Judeonationalism, recently coined by me (van Oosten, 2024c, 2024d, 2024e, 2024f), refers to the instrumental use of antisemitism to discredit immigrants and justify anti-immigrant rhetoric. Animeauxnationalism (van Oosten, 2024h) is a term I coined to describe the infamous US election campaign quote, ‘they are eating the pets,’ as another form of civilisationism that leverages the idea that racial and ethnic minorities do not believe in animal rights, especially the rights of pets, not so much farm animals, to the same extent as white majorities do. These, and many other, forms of nationalism are often mobilized to promote xenophobia by framing vulnerable groups as symbols of Western values under threat from outsiders, contributing to the marginalization of immigrants and minorities. However, because the literatures on homonationalism and femonationalism are much more developed, I will focus on the impact of these narratives on voting.

Homonationalism first emerged in the Netherlands in 2002 with populist radical right leader Pim Fortuyn, as a response to perceived threats to the country’s liberal values. This was particularly in reaction to Moroccan and Turkish immigrants, coinciding with the Netherlands’ legalization of same-sex marriage in 2000, the first in the world (Brubaker, 2017). This unique context juxtaposed a traditionally progressive stance on LGBT-rights with an alleged Islamic intolerance (Mepschen et al., 2010). In contrast, around the same time, femonationalism gained more traction in the United States, where it was initially used to gather support for the war in Afghanistan by framing it as a mission to liberate oppressed Afghan women (Farris, 2017). This strategic instrumentalization of gender equality has since spread to other Western countries, particularly in Europe (Rahbari, 2021). Meanwhile, Judeonationalism—the use of antisemitism to discredit newcomers—has been especially prominent in Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, and the US, particularly following the Palestine protests in the spring of 2024 (van Oosten, 2024c, 2024d, 2024e, 2024f).

Civilisationism is frequently leveraged during political crises or when national identity is perceived to be under threat, particularly from cultural outsiders (Brubaker, 2017; Farris, 2017; Puar, 2007; van Oosten, 2024c, 2024d, 2024e, 2024f). Conceptual work on these narratives indicates they are primarily elite-driven, top-down efforts aimed at stoking xenophobia, particularly Islamophobia (Khalimzoda et al., 2025), to scapegoat minorities and distract from failing policies (de Haas, 2023). Politicians and media elites, however, frame civilisationist narratives as reactive responses to imminent threats particularly following high-profile acts of violence against women or LGBT-individuals (e.g. Frey, 2020).

Existing research demonstrates that civilisationist rhetoric affects public opinion amongst majority populations (van Oosten, 2022a, 2022b, 2023a), but it remains unclear whether this extends to racial and ethnic minority voters and Muslims. Might views on gender and sexuality impact whether racial and ethnic minority and Muslim voters vote for PRRPs? Or are minority voters more influenced by their views on immigration, integration and Islam?

Indeed, immigration policy and discrimination do impact the everyday lives of racial and ethnic minority voters. Immigration policies play a key role in determining the opportunities for family reunification, while Islamophobia and anti-discrimination laws affect access to the job market, and so on. It is therefore logical that these matters would influence the voting behaviour of racial and ethnic minorities. Furthermore, Muslims endure particularly high rates of discrimination in their day-to-day experiences (Awan, 2014; Fernández-Reino et al., 2023; Mansouri & Vergani, 2018), and witness their inclusion in society be mobilized for electoral purposes (Schmuck & Matthes, 2019: 739). This research will analyse the extent to which racial and ethnic minority voters and Muslims trade-off economic, gender and sexuality-related cultural issues, as well as immigration and Islam-related cultural issues influence voting for PRRPs.

Cultural and Economic Issues as Explanations of Majority Voting

There are two main schools of thought on how to explain why majority groups vote for PRRP: cultural and economic explanations. Just as is the case with minority voters, popular claims that voters are attracted to PRRPs because of economic insecurity instead of cultural issues are largely debunked with cultural issues being the most explanatory of all (Abou-Chadi & Helbling, 2018; Abou-Chadi & Wagner, 2019; van der Brug & van Spanje, 2009). However, economic factors also continue to explain PRRP voting, when the scarcity created by the arrival of immigrants is thrown into the argument.

Although migration experts agree that the economies of receiving countries benefit from immigration (de Haas, 2023; Kustov, 2024), economic challenges and the perceived injustice faced by the populations of receiving countries are often cited as arguments against immigration: whether the argument is that ‘they’ are stealing ‘our’ jobs (Thom & Skocpol, 2020), public services (Cremasci et al., 2024), or housing (Fernández-Reino et al., 2024; Ghekiere & Verhaegen, 2022), material concerns rooted in scarcity lie at the core of the debate. The mobilization of perceived economic injustice has proven to be an effective strategy for attracting voters, with the most recent U.S. elections serving as yet another example.

The US Republican Party now champions the strongest anti-immigration narratives, though this has not always been at the top of the party’s political agenda (Skocpol, 2020). This shift occurred during the Obama-era. His first campaign and term were predominantly focused on healthcare reform (idem). However, beneath the surface, anti-immigration sentiments swelled, with many voters perceiving Obama as a symbol of immigration (idem). While he didn’t, in reality, let more immigrants in than his Republican predecessors, Bush or Reagan (Thom & Skocpol, 2020). Although voters are generally positive about Black politicians (van Oosten et al., 2024a), Obama’s African roots invigorated the Tea Party, a grassroots movement, leading them to turn to immigration as a response to the latent, smouldering old-fashioned racism his presidency stirred (Tesler, 2013).

This puts into question whether concerns over economic issues are not actually concerns over cultural issues, in other words: immigration and racism. Even in the most conservative corners of the US, openly admitting to being racist is stigmatized, prompting many to mask such views (Creighton, 2023). Concerns over economic justice often serve as a justification for racism by pointing to the scarcity of ‘our’ jobs, public services, housing, or whatever scarce economic resource is the challenge of the moment (idem). By invoking these appeals to economic justice, one can pull off xenophobic claims without the stigma attached to more explicit expressions of xenophobia (idem). Putting into question, once again, whether claims of economic injustice are real, or masks to justify anti-immigration views, racism and Islamophobia.

Anti-immigration views and Islamophobia are also not one and the same dimension that can be studied interchangeably. Views towards Muslim predict voting behaviour in the US (Jardina & Stephens-Dougan, 2021; Weller & Junn, 2018). Even those with more positive attitudes towards immigrants are far more critical towards Muslims (Helbling & Traunmüller, 2018), suggesting that discrimination based on religion is much more accepted than discrimination based on ethnicity. The study at hand also sets out to answer whether views towards immigration on the one hand, and Islam on the other impact PRRP-voting differently. This research I am conducting here, will compare and contrast all of these cultural and economic explanations of PRRP-voting for both majority and minority groups. On top of this, I will also include how in-group favouritism compares to the explanations we already know.

The Differential Impact of In-group Favouritism Amongst Minorities and Majorities

According to Social Identity Theory, humans strive towards a positive self-image, and a central strategy to achieve this is in-group favouritism, which is the tendency to prefer members of one’s own group (Tajfel & Turner, 1979). In-group favouritism is an effort to achieve, what Social Identity Theory calls, positive distinctiveness (Tajfel & Turner, 1979), the tendency to seek a favourable comparison of one’s self (positive distinctiveness) through preferring members of one’s own group (in-group favouritism) (Haslam, 2001, 21). Many people mistakenly assume that in-group favouritism is a universal phenomenon, despite the pioneers in Social Identity Theory specifying specific conditions under which this occurs (Tajfel & Turner, 1979: 36). I highlight how individuals can be incentivized to consider alternative strategies to achieve positive distinctiveness without in-group favouritism and the role social status plays in these dynamics.

Social Identity Theory proposes that individuals use three possible strategies to achieve positive distinctiveness: individual mobility, social creativity, and social competition. The choice of strategy depends on various factors such as the group’s social status, belief in social mobility or change, the permeability of group boundaries, perceived security of group relations, and the perceived homogeneity/heterogeneity of the out-group.

Low-status groups, such as racial and ethnic minority or Muslim voters, can use the three strategies to achieve positive distinctiveness in different ways. Some groups may perceive their boundaries as permeable, for instance because they have a name or appearance that makes them pass as part of the high-status out-group. This could be the case amongst German citizens with a migration background in the Former Soviet Union or Maghrebi French with fair skin and a French name. If that is the case, they will be likely to strive for individual mobility to join the high-status group, leading to out-group favouritism through accepting the out-group’s superiority. Other groups may perceive their boundaries as impermeable, possibly due to having an ethno-racially distinct name or black skin. This may be the case amongst citizens with a migration background in Turkey or French citizens from Sub-Saharan Africa. In that case, boundaries are impermeable. If group relations are seen as legitimate and stable, individuals will try to achieve positive distinctiveness through social creativity by redefining the dimensions of group comparison or attributing different meanings to current comparative dimensions (Haslam, 2001: 25), think of Muslim women in Europe countering common stereotypes of themselves as complacent and docile (van Es, 2019). This redefinition of group membership coincides with avoiding a direct challenge to the out-group’s superiority. If group boundaries are perceived as impermeable and status differences as illegitimate and/or unstable, low-status groups are more likely to choose social competition, leading to direct and open in-group favouritism (Haslam, 2001: 25), also known as “fighting fire with fire” in the case of Muslim voters voting for a political party advocating for and run by Muslims in the Netherlands, DENK (Loukili, 2021a, 2021b). In summary, not all low-status groups favour their in-group.

For high-status groups, the same three strategies exist, but they always lead to in-group favouritism. If group boundaries are perceived as permeable, high-status groups expect low-status groups to exert individual mobility and join them. If not, high-status groups may argue that low-status groups are guilty of causing their own inferiority. If group boundaries are perceived as impermeable, legitimate, and stable, high-status group members may exhibit “magnanimity” while engaging in latent discrimination and covert repression (Haslam, 2001: 26), which may be the case amongst high-status groups claiming to be colour-blind (Tiberj & Michon, 2013). If a high-status group perceives group relations as unstable and threatening, they may resort to “supremacist ideologizing, conflict, open hostility, and antagonism” by directly promoting the out-group’s inferiority (Haslam, 2001: 26), as is the case with some members of populist radical right parties (Kešić & Duyvendak, 2019; Kortmann, Stecker, & Weiß, 2019). For high-status groups, all strategies lead to in-group favouritism, as already demonstrated for voting behaviour (Nadler et al., 2025; van Oosten, 2024g).

Comparing France, Germany, the Netherlands and their PRRPs

I conducted this research in France, Germany and the Netherlands, three countries with key differences. In France, there is a strong emphasis on citizenship, secularism and a strong division between church and state, there are no religious parties in the political landscape of France (Kuru, 2008). In Germany, Christian political parties have had a longstanding presence (Schotel, 2021) and the approach towards Muslims is characterized by the history of integration of guestworkers (Yurdakul, 2009). The Netherlands has a host of PRRP and Christian parties in Parliament (Kešić & Duyvendak, 2019), and a history of guest workers from Turkey and Morocco and immigrants from former colonies such as Surinam and Indonesia (Vermeulen et al., 2020). All three countries have a history of parliamentarians from mainstream and PRRPs espousing Islamophobic rhetoric, with France and the Netherlands having a longer and more vociferous history of PRRPs and Germany being relatively new to the game and taking on a comparatively less strident tone (Brubaker 2017).

In France, secularism (laïcité) tends to frame debates on Islam more than in Germany and the Netherlands (Kuru, 2008). For decades, French discussions on the headscarf have more often been related to religious neutrality of the state than to gender equality (Korteweg & Yurdakul, 2021). Although Marine le Pen, leader of France’s PRRP Rassemblement National (RN) mixes civilisationist weaponization of gender equality and LGBT-rights with Christian conservatism championing traditional gender roles and the abolition of marriage equality (Scrinzi, 2017: 5; Snipes & Mudde, 2020: 455–456), gay French voters are still attracted to RN more than their straight counterparts (Dancygier, 2017: 188). Nevertheless, the supposed binary between gender equality/LGBT-rights on the one hand and Islam on the other remains a powerful civilisationist argument against Islam in France (Brubaker, 2017: 1201; McGlynn, 2020). 

In Germany, the first Populist Radical Right Party (PRRP) emerged relatively late in the Bundestag, compared to France and The Netherlands (Albertazzi & Mcdonnell, 2008; Althof, 2018). Germany has relatively conservative policies on homosexuality, such as not yet adopting marriage equality (Schotel, 2021). Germany’s PRRP Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has a more conservative Christian nature and following than their French and Dutch counterparts. AfD propagates traditional gender roles and opposition to marriage equality and to homosexual couples adopting children (Althof, 2018: 341), although examples of German homonationalist rhetoric do exist (Ayoub, 2019: 25). The rare instances of a civilisationist backlash against Islam are more often framed in feminist than homonationalist terms (Choi et al., 2021; Dancygier, 2017: 188).

The Netherlands is considered the most striking example of a country that uses civilisationist rhetoric in combating Islam (Brubaker, 2017: 1194). While France and Germany’s PRRPs need to navigate between civilisationist rhetoric and courting of conservative Christians (Marzouki et al., 2016), Dutch PRRPs have not been nearly as inhibited by constraints posed by conservative Christian electorates. Therefore, the weaponization of gender equality and LGBT-rights in combating Islam are more common, more ingrained and more virulent than in France and Germany (Brubaker, 2017: 1193–1197; Mepschen et al., 2010). Islamophobia is by far the highest in The Netherlands, compared to France and Germany (Heath & Richards, 2019: 29). Nonetheless, of the three countries, the Netherlands is the only one to recognize Islam as a state religion (Saral, 2020: 5). 

The electoral systems of France, Germany and the Netherlands could help explain the different flavours of PRRPs we see in the three countries. Germany knows mixed-member proportional representation, with a first vote for a direct candidate of their constituency and a second vote for a party list. The threshold of five percent for a political party to enter the Bundestag and elements of a single-member district system and the sizable Christian population make it necessary to court conservative Christian voters, partially explaining why AfD chases conservative Christians in the way they do.

France belongs to a completely different family of voting systems with single-member districts and a two-round runoff for national elections, making it even more necessary for new parties to enter politics with a broad coalition of voters. Despite France’s strong history of secularism, exacerbating civilisationist rhetoric, RN needs to woo conservative Christian electorates in order to make it first past the post. This means that civilisationist rhetoric is less likely to be visible.

The Netherlands knows party list proportional representation and a very low voting threshold: a mere one seat in parliament. This system allows for many parties who each have their own flavour of populism and Christian conservatism separately. Indeed, the Netherlands has four PRRPs in parliament at the time of writing and three separate Christian parties as well. Dutch PRRPs are therefore less likely to need to court Christian conservatives. This explains, in part, why civilisationist rhetoric pitting Dutch secular liberal values against a regressive Islam did not need to be combined with pursuing Christian conservative voters as much as we see in France and Germany, making Dutch civilisationism “strikingly” (Brubaker, 2017: 1194) different and all the more virulent.

Methods

I oversampled respondents with specific migration backgrounds to make group-specific statistical inferences (Font & Méndez, 2013: 48) and chose minoritized groups: numeric minorities that state experiencing discrimination to the largest extent (FRA: European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, 2017: 31). In France, the oversampled groups of ethnic minority citizens consist of French citizens with a North-African (Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria), Sub-Saharan African (Niger, Mauritania, Ivory Coast, French Sudan, Senegal, Chad, Gabon, Cameroon, Congo) and Turkish background. In Germany, I oversampled German citizens with a Turkish and Former Soviet Union (FSU) background. In the Netherlands, I oversampled Dutch citizens with a Turkish, Moroccan and Surinamese background. Some groups have come to France, Germany or the Netherlands as a result of the colonial ties between host and home country, some came as guest workers (FRA: European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, 2017: 93). I also oversampled French citizens with a Turkish background and German re-migrants from the FSU. Some, but not all, of the oversampled migration backgrounds are countries with Muslim-majority populations (Phalet et al., 2010; Verkuyten & Yildiz 2009; Dangubić et al., 2020), making it possible to disentangle whether effects are either religiously or ethnically/racially driven.

After running pilots and obtaining the ethics approval, see Appendix, I gathered data between March and August of 2020 and surveyed 3.058 citizens of France, Germany and the Netherlands, administered by survey agency Kantar Public. One important challenge in surveying ethnic/racial minority groups comes from the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a European law legally restricting saving data on race and ethnicity (European Commission, 2018). I overcame this challenge by employing a large-scale filter question to the representative Kantar-panels in all three countries. I asked a very large sample to participate in a mini survey. The first and only question of this mini survey asks where their mother and father were born. If either one of their parents were born in a country of origin I wanted to oversample, we redirected this respondent to the full survey. If not, we either terminated the survey or redirected a small percentage to the full survey. This enabled me to form sizable groups of minority citizens for my final survey, ensuring ample diversity, a feature so often missing from survey research (Coppock & McClellan, 2018; Krupnikov & Levine, 2014; Mullinix et al., 2015). Though there is still a chance of selection bias, I have variables to weight the data on gender, migration background, education, age, urbanization and region, and the findings are broadly the same with and without weights. All data, survey questions, information about the sampling strategy implemented, pre-registration details, and ethical review documentation can be found on Harvard Dataverse for France (van Oosten et al., 2024b), Germany, (van Oosten et al., 2024c) and the Netherlands (van Oosten et al., 2024d). I ended up with the following number of respondents in each group:

I asked all respondents about their ethnic and religious identification. For ethnic identification I asked: “In terms of my ethnic group, I consider myself to be… (max. 2 answers).” I presented the respondents a list of 13 answer categories, including French, German, Dutch, Turkish, Maghrebi, Yoruba, Former Soviet Union, Kazakh, Moroccan, Surinamese, and Hindustani, see the full list on Harvard Dataverse (van Oosten et al., 2024b, 2024c, 2024d). The last questions of the survey were about religious identification. I asked: “Do you consider yourself as belonging to any particular religion or denomination?” If the respondent answered yes, I followed up with “Which one?” allowing respondents to answer “Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, Other, [specify].” Respondents were able to indicate that they identified with a max of two ethnic groups, of which one could be French, German or Dutch and one religion. Table 1 shows the exact number of each group of respondents based on their migration backgrounds, and the percentage of which identified as Dutch, an ethnic minority group or belonging to a religion.

For each ethnic group and religion respondents selected, the respondents then received a list of four statements with answers ranging from 0 (disagree) to 10 (agree), which together form an ethnic in-group favouritism scale (Bizumic et al., 2009). Respondents received this battery of four statements between zero and three times, depending on how many ethnic or religious groups they identified with. I measured levels of ethnic and religious in-group favouritism on a scale from 0 to 10. I asked respondents to answer the following questions:

  1. In general, I prefer doing things with [ethnic or religious group] people.
  2. The world would be a much better place if all other groups are like [ethnic or religious group] people.
  3. I don’t think it is good to mix with people from other groups.
  4. We should always put [ethnic or religious group] interests first and not be oversensitive about the interests of others.

I conducted principal component analysis and the Chronbach Alpha for the ethnic scale was 0.87 and for the religion scale it was 0.80.

I measured issue stances in both the cultural and economic dimensions, split into eight issues: taxing the rich, social benefits, climate change, fuel prices, immigration, Islam, equal pay for men and women, and Lesbian, Gay, Bi (LGB, I did not measure attitudes towards trans rights)-rights. I standardized all independent variables to run from 0 to 1. For the exact measurements of issues, belonging in the Netherlands and experiences with discrimination, age, gender and level of education, see the full list of survey questions on Harvard Dataverse (van Oosten et al., 2024b, 2024c, 2024d).

As the dependent variable, I measured propensity to vote (PTV) for RN, AfD and PVV by asking respondents: “Please indicate the likelihood that you will ever vote for the following parties. If you are certain that you will never vote for this party then choose 0; if you are certain you will vote for this party someday, then enter 10. Of course, you can also choose an intermediate position” (as formulated in LISS, 2018). I also measured the PTV for all other parties in parliament at the time of gathering data, see the data and appendix on Harvard Dataverse (van Oosten et al., 2024b, 2024c, 2024d).

In figure 1a, 1b, and 1c, I analyse and present the data using marginal means where I compare different subgroups because I wish to avoid confusing readers with different reference categories (Leeper et al., 2020). I present marginal means of PTV-scores for all racial, ethnic and religious groups sampled separately. I do not use weights. I ran robustness checks with weights for the general population and didn’t find differences between the outcomes with and without weights, see code. Weighting the data for the minority and majority groups separately is impossible because France and Germany do not have population data of educational attainment, gender, age, urbanization, or region of ethnic minority and majority citizens, let alone Muslims. I analyse the underlying mechanisms using linear models. I prepared the data using R-package “tidyr” (Wickham, 2020), analysed it using linear models with R-base, and visualized it with R-package “ggplot2” (Wickham et al., 2020).

Findings

Intergroup Voting Differences

How likely are the racial, ethnic and religious groups to vote for PRRPs? In Figure 1a, I present the mean PTV-scores of RN in France and show that voters with a Turkish background in France are most inclined to vote for RN, followed closely by Christian and non-migrant French voters. Conversely, Muslims exhibit the lowest likelihood of supporting RN, significantly less than Turkish-background voters. In Figure 1b, I present the mean PTV-scores of AfD in Germany and show that voters from the Former Soviet Union are most likely to support AfD, with no significant difference in Muslim voters’ likelihood to support AfD compared to other groups. Finally, in Figure 1c, I present the mean PTV-scores of PVV in the Netherlands and find that Dutch voters without a migration background are most inclined to vote for PVV, while Muslim, Turkish, and Moroccan voters are significantly less likely to support PVV compared to other groups, with Muslims showing the lowest likelihood.

Based on Figure 1a, voters with a background in Turkey are the most likely to vote for RN in France, with a score of 3.26 (SD = 0.34). This is closely followed by Christian voters, with a score of 2.78 (SD = 0.19), and French voters without a migration background, with a score of 2.78 (SD = 0.30). Voters with a background in North Africa come next, scoring 2.66 (SD = 0.37), followed by non-religious voters, scoring 2.56 (SD = 0.24). Muslims have the lowest likelihood of voting for RN, scoring 2.25 (SD = 0.45). When considering confidence intervals, there is overlap between all groups except for voters with a background in Turkey and Muslims. This suggests that the difference in voting likelihood between only these two groups is statistically significant, indicating that voters with a background in Turkey are more likely to vote for RN than Muslims in France. Although the group of French citizens with a background in Turkey is small (N=87) and mostly secular. It is important to note that Muslims are just as likely to vote for RN as non-religious and Christian voters, as their confidence intervals overlap with those groups. This suggests that there’s no statistically significant difference in the likelihood of Muslims voting for RN compared to non-religious or Christian voters in France.

In the German case, voters with a background from the Former Soviet Union (FSU) are the most likely to vote for AfD, scoring 2.42 (SD = 0.39). This is followed by Christian voters, with a score of 2.34 (SD = 0.37), and German voters without a migration background, scoring 2.08 (SD = 0.34). Non-religious voters come next, scoring 1.97 (SD = 0.27), while voters with a background in Turkey score 1.72 (SD = 0.43). Muslims have the lowest likelihood of voting for AfD in Germany, scoring 1.50 (SD = 0.53). Notably, there is no significant difference between Muslims’ likelihood to vote for AfD and any other group, as the confidence intervals for all groups overlap. This suggests that there is no statistically significant difference in voting likelihood between these groups when it comes to supporting the AfD in Germany.

In the Netherlands, Muslim, Turkish, and Moroccan voters are significantly less likely to vote for PVV (Party for Freedom, Partij voor de Vrijheid) compared to non-religious voters and Dutch voters without a migration background. Dutch voters without a migration background have a score of 1.99 (SD = 0.33), followed by Surinamese voters at 1.60 (SD = 0.29), non-religious voters at 1.67 (SD = 0.24), and Christian voters at 1.62 (SD = 0.24). Turkish and Moroccan voters have lower scores, 0.99 (SD = 0.26) and 0.63 (SD = 0.13) respectively, while Muslims have the lowest likelihood of voting for PVV, scoring 0.66 (SD = 0.20).

What Explains PRRP Voting Amongst Muslims?

Figure 2a, 2b, and 2c provide insights into the factors influencing the voting behaviour of Muslims in France, Germany, and the Netherlands regarding PRRPs. In France, attitudes towards fuel prices, social distance towards Maghrebi individuals, and attachment to France significantly impact voting for RN. In Germany, level of education, attitudes towards social benefits, Islam, perceived social distance towards FSU individuals, and in-group favouritism towards Muslims are significant predictors of AfD support. In the Netherlands, attitudes towards taxing the rich, immigration, and Islam, along with social distance from Dutch Moroccans, influence the likelihood of voting for PVV among Dutch Muslims.

What predicts whether French Muslims vote for RN? The adjusted R-squared for the model is 0.08931. Among the predictors, significant variables include the perceived social distance towards the ethnic minority group Maghrebi (Estimate = 1.67036, p-value = 0.03644), and attachment to France (Estimate = 2.58745, p-value = 0.00703), indicating that these factors have a significant impact on predicting whether French Muslims vote for RN. However, other variables such as education, taxing the rich, social benefits, climate, fuel prices, immigration, Islam, equal pay, LGB-rights, and several measures of social distance and group favouritism were not found to be statistically significant predictors in this analysis.

The adjusted R-squared for the model is 0.4062. Among the predictors, significant variables include level of education (Estimate = -2.2044, p-value = 0.00763), attitudes towards social benefits (Estimate = -1.9359, p-value = 0.03729), Islam (Estimate = -3.2628, p-value = 0.00124), perceived social distance towards FSU individuals (Estimate = 2.2490, p-value = 0.00566), and in-group favouritism towards Muslims (Estimate = 2.1648, p-value = 0.04216). However, other variables such as taxing the rich, climate, immigration, equal pay, LGB-rights, perceived social distance towards Turkish, German, Christian, and non-religious individuals, Belonging, attachment, and self-identified ethnic group were not found to be statistically significant predictors in this analysis. In addition to the significant variables mentioned earlier, some predictors came close to meeting the threshold for significance. These include attitudes towards fuel prices (Estimate = 1.4701, p-value = 0.08188), equal pay (Estimate = 1.3387, p-value = 0.06756), and German in-group favouritism (Estimate = 2.6970, p-value = 0.06304).

The adjusted R-squared for the model is 0.1914. Among the predictors, significant variables include attitudes towards taxing the rich (Estimate = -0.6797338, p-value = 0.038547), immigration (Estimate = -1.1692163, p-value = 0.003246), and Islam (Estimate = -1.3668919, p-value = 0.000557). The more positive at Dutch Muslim is about taxing the rich, immigration and Islam, the less likely a Dutch Muslim is to vote for PVV. The more distant one feels from Dutch Moroccans, the more likely one is to vote for the PVV (Estimate = 0.7867001, p-value = 0.051232). These results suggest that perceptions of immigration, attitudes towards Islam, and social distance from Moroccans significantly influence the likelihood of Dutch Muslims voting for PVV. However, other variables such as education, social benefits, climate, fuel prices, equal pay, LGB-rights, perceived social distance towards Surinamese, Turkish, Dutch, Muslim, Christian, and non-religious individuals, feeling accepted as belonging in the Netherlands, attachment to the Netherlands, self-identified ethnic group, and favouritism towards Dutch and Muslim in-groups were not found to be statistically significant predictors in this analysis.

In-group Favouritism

The analysis of in-group favouritism amongst ethnic minority and majority groups, as well as Muslims and Christians in France, Germany, and the Netherlands, reveals differences in in-group favouritism scores. Amongst the majority ethnic group voters, in-group favouritism emerges as notably higher compared to minority ethnic groups. Muslim and Christian in-group favouritism are comparable.

In-group Favouritism as a Stronger Predictor to Voting for PRRPs

The findings across Figures 3a, 3b, and 3c underscore the significance of measuring in-group favouritism when examining voting behaviour for PRRPs. In each case, a substantial portion of the variance in the likelihood to vote for these parties is accounted for by factors related to in-group favouritism and attachment. Notably, French and German in-group favouritism emerge as the strongest predictors of voting behaviour for RN and AfD, respectively, outweighing other variables such as immigration attitudes. In the Netherlands, feeling accepted as belonging in the Netherlands was the strongest indicator of voting PVV, with those who feel less accepted being more likely to vote PVV. While negative attitudes towards immigration remain a potent predictor across all cases, views that pertain to the in-group predict PRRP voting more strongly.

The adjusted R-squared for the model predicting whether French voters without a migration background vote for RN is 0.1626, indicating that approximately 16.26% of the variance in likelihood to vote for RN is accounted for by the predictor variables. Among the predictor variables, statistically significant predictors include attitudes towards immigration (estimate = -1.727, p < 0.01), feeling accepted as belonging in France (estimate = -1.363, p < 0.05), French in-group favouritism (estimate = 2.731, p < 0.001), and feelings of attachment to France (estimate = 1.360, p < 0.05). These results suggest that negative attitudes towards immigration and a strong sense of French identity are associated with a higher likelihood of voting for RN, while positive attitudes towards France and attachment to the country are associated with a lower likelihood of voting for RN. Conversely, variables such as education, taxing the rich, social benefits, and others are not statistically significant predictors of voting for RN in this model. The indicator with the highest impact was French in-group favouritism. Having a stronger preference for the French in-group is associated with a substantially higher likelihood of voting for RN.

The adjusted R-squared for the model predicting whether German voters without a migration background vote for AfD is 0.2739, indicating that approximately 27.39% of the variance in likelihood to vote for AfD is accounted for by the predictor variables. Among the predictor variables, statistically significant predictors include attitudes towards immigration (estimate = -1.905, p < 0.01), feelings of acceptance as belonging in Germany (estimate = -0.744, p < 0.05), German in-group favouritism (estimate = 3.862, p < 0.001), and Christian in-group favouritism (estimate = 3.25373, p < 0.001). These results suggest that negative attitudes towards immigration and a strong sense of German and Christian identity are associated with a higher likelihood of voting for AfD, while positive attitudes towards Germany and attachment to the country are associated with a lower likelihood of voting for AfD. Conversely, variables such as education, taxing the rich, social benefits, and others are not statistically significant predictors of voting for AfD in this model. The indicator with the highest impact was German in-group favouritism. Having a stronger preference for the German in-group is associated with a substantially higher likelihood of voting for AfD, amongst Germans without a migration background.

The adjusted R-squared for the model predicting whether Dutch voters without a migration background vote for PVV is 0.2732, indicating that approximately 27.32% of the variance in likelihood to vote for PVV is accounted for by the predictor variables. Among the predictor variables, statistically significant predictors include attitudes towards immigration (estimate = -2.463, p < 0.001), concern about climate change (estimate = -1.579, p < 0.05), raising fuel prices (estimate = -1.246, p < 0.05), feelings of acceptance as belonging in the Netherlands (estimate = -2.616, p < 0.05), and preference for the Dutch in-group (estimate = 1.784, p < 0.05). These results suggest that negative attitudes towards immigration are associated with a higher likelihood of voting for PVV, while positive attitudes towards the Netherlands and attachment to the country are associated with a lower likelihood of voting for PVV. Conversely, variables such as education, taxing the rich, social benefits, and others are not statistically significant predictors of voting for PVV in this model. The indicator with the highest impact was feeling accepted as belonging in the Netherlands. Feeling less accepted is associated with a substantially higher likelihood of voting for PVV.

Conclusion

This paper has focused on the likelihood of minorities and majorities to vote for PRRPs and what explains the voting likelihoods. In France and Germany, there are remarkably few differences in the likelihood of voting for minority and majority groups. In France, voters with a Turkish background exhibit the highest inclination to support RN, followed closely by Christian and non-migrant French voters. Conversely, Muslims show the lowest likelihood of supporting RN. In Germany, voters from the Former Soviet Union are most likely to support AfD, with no significant difference in Muslim voters’ likelihood to support AfD compared to other groups. In the Netherlands, Dutch voters without a migration background are significantly more inclined to vote for PVV, while Muslim, Turkish, and Moroccan voters are significantly less likely to support PVV compared to other groups, with Muslims showing the lowest likelihood.

I also discuss the factors influencing the voting behaviour of Muslims in France, Germany, and the Netherlands regarding PRRPs. Generally speaking, issues are the biggest predictor of Muslim voting for PRRPs. In France, attitudes towards fuel prices, social distance towards Maghrebi individuals, and attachment to France significantly impact voting for RN. In Germany, level of education, attitudes towards social benefits, Islam, perceived social distance towards FSU individuals, and in-group favouritism towards Muslims are significant predictors of AfD support. In the Netherlands, attitudes towards taxing the rich, immigration, and Islam, along with social distance from Dutch Moroccans, influence the likelihood of voting for PVV among Dutch Muslims.

Moreover, when it comes to majority voters, I find in-group favouritism predicts voting more than issues do. French and German in-group favouritism emerge as the strongest predictors of voting behaviour for RN and AfD, respectively, outweighing other variables such as immigration attitudes. In the Netherlands, feeling accepted as belonging in the country was the strongest indicator of voting PVV, with those who feel less accepted being more likely to vote PVV. Overall, negative attitudes towards immigration remain a potent predictor across all cases, while views related to the in-group predict PRRP voting more strongly.

Lastly, the examination of in-group favouritism among ethnic minority and majority groups, alongside Muslims and Christians in France, Germany, and the Netherlands, reveals that in-group favouritism is much higher among racial and ethnic majority voters. Meanwhile, the analysis shows remarkably low levels of in-group favouritism within minority groups. This trend underscores that groups with more power and privilege tend to uphold and reinforce their social dominance through favouring their own group, while the groups with less power and privilege do not favour their in-group to the same extent and might benefit more from siding with the dominant out-group.

I argue that in-group favouritism can be extended towards voting for PRRPs because the analysis reveals that French, German and Dutch in-group favouritism and PRRP voting are strongly related for racial and ethnic majority groups in France, Germany and the Netherlands. The relationship between majority group in-group favouritism and PRRP voting is stronger for majority voters compared to minority voters due to the dynamics of social identity and power asymmetry. For majority voters, who typically hold higher social status and enjoy dominant societal norms, in-group favouritism serves as a reinforcing mechanism of their perceived superiority and control over resources. In-group favouritism not only bolsters their positive self-image but also reinforces their position of privilege within the social hierarchy. I argue this extends to PRRP voting. Moreover, for majority voters, in-group favouritism and PRRP voting is intricately linked with the preservation of their cultural and political hegemony. Supporting policies or political parties aligned with their group interests not only reinforces their social identity but also serves to protect and advance their collective interests within society. In-group favouritism as well as voting for PRRPs becomes a means of maintaining the status quo and resisting challenges to their dominance from minority groups.

In contrast, minority voters often face systemic barriers and discrimination that limit their access to resources and opportunities. Sometimes their situation leads to in-group favouritism, but in some situations it is more beneficial to favour the dominant out-group. This is most visible in France and Germany, where racial and ethnic minority and Muslim voters are just as likely to vote for PRRPs as their majority counterparts. In France, the Turkish group of voters is even most likely to vote for PRRPS, possibly because they are only a very small part of the population and do not have a very large in-group community to favour, unlike in Germany and the Netherlands where there are larger Turkish communities. Thus, siding with the out-group through PRRP voting might reveal an inclination towards favouring the dominant out-group to navigate existing power structures. In the Netherlands, the strong focus on multiculturalism historically, might have bolstered the Muslim, Turkish and Moroccan communities leading them to be much less likely than other groups to vote for PRRPs. However, this could also be due to the relatively explicit nature of the PVV in their opposition against Muslims, especially those of Turkish and Moroccan descent.

In conclusion, the significance of in-group favouritism varies between majority and minority voters due to the differential distribution of power and privilege within society. For majority voters, in-group favouritism reinforces their social dominance and cultural hegemony, whereas for minority voters, it may be one of many strategies employed in the pursuit of equality and social change. In-group favouritism is also more important compared to immigration attitudes in predicting PRRP voting. While negative attitudes towards immigration remain a significant predictor across most cases, I show that in-group favouritism often outweighs immigration sentiments, especially among majority voters. This suggests that for majority groups, the allegiance to their in-group holds greater sway in shaping their electoral choices than attitudes towards immigration, arguably the out-group.

Conversely, among minority voters, policy positions, especially regarding issues relevant to their community, such as immigration policies, play a slightly more decisive role in guiding their voting behaviour. This relationship between in-group favouritism, immigration attitudes, and policy preferences underscores how important it is to consider in-group favouritism in future research, recognizing its relationship with power dynamics. By doing so, we can deepen our understanding of the factors shaping electoral behaviour and contribute to a more inclusive and equitable democratic process.

 

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Footnotes

[1] Please find all replication materials including data, code and appendices here: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/T7G5N

[2] https://www.nu.nl/formatie-2023/6292199/moslims-stemmen-helemaal-niet-massaal-op-de-pvv.html

[3] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-08-01/donald-trump-suggests-kamala-harris-suddenly-became-black/104167996

[4] https://www.theamericanconservative.com/is-demography-still-destiny-after-2024/

[5] idem

[6] idem

[7] https://apnorc.org/projects/immigration-attitudes-and-conspiratorial-thinkers/

[8] https://apnorc.org/1-in-3-fears-immigrants-influence-us-elections-ap-norc-poll/

[9] https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2024-musk-x-election-influence-immigration/

[10] https://europeanstudiescentre.blogspot.com/2024/06/democracy-of-last-man-politics-of.html

[11] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/18/technology/replacement-theory.html

[12] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/18/technology/replacement-theory.html

[13] https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2018/01/22/kasteelheer-slaat-alarm-over-cultuur-van-europa-a1589332

[14] https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2024/06/21/de-diepe-racistische-wortels-van-de-omvolkingstheorie-a4857248

[15] https://www.telegraaf.nl/video/45024727/geert-wilders-bij-overwinningsspeech-nederland-bedankt

[16] https://www.ad.nl/politiek/switchten-moslims-in-nederland-massaal-naar-de-pvv-dit-zeggen-de-cijfers~afea4f90/?referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F

[17] https://www.nu.nl/formatie-2023/6292199/moslims-stemmen-helemaal-niet-massaal-op-de-pvv.html

[18] https://europeanstudiescentre.blogspot.com/2024/06/democracy-of-last-man-politics-of.html

Emirati men perform the traditional Al Ayala dance in Abu Dhabi, UAE, on December 23, 2019. Photo: Shutterstock.

Populism and Autocracy in the Gulf Countries

by ArticlesEditor’s ChoiceEnvironment & ClimateExtremism & RadicalisationHomeReports

Please cite as:

Shewan, Molly. (2025). “Populism and Autocracy in the Gulf Countries.” European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS).January 10, 2025. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp0094

 

On December 19, 2024, ECPS hosted the 18th session of the Mapping Global Populism (MGP) Panel Series, titled “Populism and Autocracy in the Gulf Countries.” This session examined a number of key contemporary dynamics at the intersection of populism and authoritarianism in the Gulf region. A distinguished panel of experts presented on a wide range of topics, including the evolution of social contracts in Gulf states; autocratization processes; the environmental dimension of authoritarian leadership; and the role of religion in shaping both domestic and international politics. The session thus offered many key critical insights into both the nebulous features of populism itself and the importance of bringing the Gulf region into scholarly conversation regarding populism’s impact across the globe. 

Report by Molly Shewan

The European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS) hosted the 18th session of the Mapping Global Populism (MGP) Panel Series, “Populism and Autocracy in the Gulf Countries,” on December 19, 2024. The session explored the complex dynamics surrounding populism and authoritarianism across the Gulf region. Bringing together a distinguished panel of scholars and practitioners, the discussion focused on a number of key developments, including the environmental and religious dimensions of autocratic leadership in the Gulf States, as well as the evolution of the social contract, in order to examine the diverse causes, manifestations and impacts of populism and authoritarianism in the region.  

Moderated by Dr. Courtney Freer, Assistant Professor at the Department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies-Emory University, the panelists included  Dr. Thomas Demmelhuber, Professor of Middle East at the Friedrich Alexander University, Erlangen-Nürnberg-Germany; Dr. Gail Buttorff, Hobby School of Public Affairs-University of Huston;  Dr. Tobias Zumbraegel, senior researcher and lecturer at the Department for Human Geography at Heidelberg University-Germany; Mr. Kardo Kareem Rached, University of Human Development-Iraq, and  Dr. Kristin Smith Diwan, senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. 

The panel made a multidisciplinary, wide-ranging, and insightful contribution to the scholarly exploration of populism and autocracy in the rapidly evolving social and political context of the Gulf region. Therefore, this session constitutes a significant and timely addition to the panel series overall, aiding in its goal of generating a more complete understanding of the diverse impact of populism and authoritarianism across the globe. 

Panel Overview 

Dr. Thomas Demmelhuber opened the panel with his presentation on “Key Drivers of Autocratization in the Gulf Region.” Dr. Demmelhuber began by arguing that Gulf regimes are often much too complex to be neatly categorized into a binary division between democracy and authoritarian governance. Rather, he regards autocratization as a fluid, multifaceted process which can occur within a variety of regime types in notably different ways. Dr. Demmelhuber argued that autocratization is primarily driven through the actions of prominent elites at the domestic, regional and international levels. 

At the domestic level, populist discourses can be utilized as a means of consolidating regime power, utilizing affective appeals to the citizenry as a united collective in order to strengthen the legitimacy of the regime. At the regional level, regimes often learn from one another and adapt their political strategies to mirror their neighbors, which is linked to the emergence of authoritarian gravity centers. On the international level, norm diffusion can occur through transnational networks, promoting authoritarian practices across the globe. Dr. Demmelhuber concluded his insightful presentation by flagging the need for greater scholarly interrogation of the non-material dimension of populist appeals, as well as of the populism which emerges “from below.”

Our second speaker, Dr. Gail Buttorff, a researcher of gender and political participation in the Middle East, followed with an engaging talk titled “The Evolving Social Contract in the GCC” with a particular focus on gender as a key factor. Dr. Buttorf began by offering a succinct overview of the social contract in the GCC up to the 2000s, which was heavily reliant upon strong wealth redistribution and a generous welfare state in exchange for limited political participation by the citizenry. She then went on to note a variety of factors that have put pressure on this institutional arrangement since then: declining oil rents, lower revenue, and growing populations, which led Gulf states to embrace austerity while unemployment was rising. 

In an effort to renegotiate their social contracts in this new contemporary context, Gulf regimes have deployed policies of labor renationalization, which in turn resulted in a significant increase in female employment, as well as “vision statements” which explicitly emphasize “mutuality” between state and citizen responsibility. The gendered impact of these adjustments was particularly visible during the COVID-19 outbreak, as a number of states – including the UAE and Bahrain – passed legislation which illustrated the intersection between labor nationalization and women’s participation in public life. 

Overall, Dr. Buttorff effectively explored the ways in which Gulf states have attempted to retain legitimacy in uncertain economic conditions by adjusting their social contracts, with particularly significant implications for women across the region.  

Dr. Tobias Zumbraegel, who has written extensively on the environmental dimension of state power in the Gulf, turned to focus on the environmental dimension in his presentation: “The New Green Autocrats: How Saudi Arabia and the UAE Redefine Environmental Leadership.” He, too, began by examining the social contract in the Gulf, emphasizing the enhanced role of provision and protection by regimes—made possible through the vast income generated by the oil and gas industries—in exchange for a lack of participation by their citizens. In the wake of growing pressures to lessen their dependence on fossil fuels, Dr. Zumbraegel argued that the emerging “Green Gulf Model” is characterized by strong, personalistic leadership, a techno-utopian vision which perhaps over-exaggerates the potential for new technologies to reverse environmental harm, strong emphasis on the continuing importance of fossil fuels; and a close alignment of environmental goals with other economic diversification projects, such as in sports and entertainment. Dr. Zumbraegel further sought to locate the role of these “green autocrats” in influencing global environmental governance, supported by a strong alliance of transnational corporations whose goals align with those of the Gulf regimes. 

To conclude, Dr. Zumbraegel argued that autocratic regimes in the Gulf have embraced a top-down approach to sustainability. By gradually pivoting towards green energy yet continuing to protect their oil and gas interests, Gulf states are attempting to maintain the rentier welfare state system whilst neglecting the environmental and social justice dimensions of sustainability altogether.  

Mr. Kardo Kareem Rashed, an expert on the intersection between religion and politics in the Middle East, discussed the intersection between religion and authoritarianism in his talk: “The Role of Salafism in the National and International Politics of Gulf Monarchies.” Taking a historical-analytical approach, Mr. Rashed began by tracing the roots of Salafism back to Saudi Arabia, emphasizing its complex role in shaping Saudi Arabian domestic and international politics since 9/11 due to links with Jihadism. He went on to note the relevance of the political decision-making process in Saudi Arabia, a strictly patrimonial regime, wherein power flows downwards through a hierarchical model of authority from the King to tribal sheikhs and army leaders. 

As Saudi Arabia evolved into a rentier state, Mr. Rached argues, Salafism became institutionalized; post-World War II, Salafism was a powerful tool used by Saudi King Faisal to oppose and suppress Arab nationalist movements, bolstered through the establishment of new educational institutions. The Gulf War marked a key turning point, however, as the Salafist movement rejected the presence of US troops on Saudi soil. As a result, the Saudi state began to tighten control over religious institutions and strengthened alliances with other nations on the basis of shared Islamist ideology. Overall, Mr. Rached argued, in a supposedly post-Salafi era, a complex relationship remains between the Saudi state and transnational religious dynamics.  

Finally, Dr. Kristin Smith Diwan, a leading scholar on the politics of Arab Gulf States, presented on the topic “Populism in Gulf Monarchies: Suppression, Cooptation, Adoption,” concluding our discussion with a more direct interrogation of populism itself, its varying definitions and its contemporary manifestations across the Gulf region. 

Dr. Diwan began by discussing salient conceptualizations of populism as a theory of international relations, an approach to economic policy, and a style of political leadership before arguing that populism appears particularly prominently as a discursive form of rhetoric in the Gulf region. Populist rhetoric frequently features direct appeals to “the people” as a virtuous citizenry and depicts a cultural, economic or political elite as a corrupt “establishment.” Dr Diwan aptly noted that populist rhetoric is also often tightly entwined with nationalism, as it punches both downwards, outwards the “undeserving” unproductive class, as well as outwards, targeting migrants and non-citizens too. 

While it might be surprising to see populism emerge in the Gulf states, considering their strong track record of resource distribution, Dr. Diwan argued that both increasing wealth inequality and the emergence of communication technology – e.g. social media – are both important factors in explaining the emergence of populism from below. Detailing a number of examples of populist rhetoric by opposition figures, Dr. Diwan argued that different Gulf Monarchies have responded with varying strategies of suppression, cooptation and adoption. In a particularly interesting case, she noted that Saudi Arabian elites have deployed populist rhetoric from above in an attempt to consolidate their state power, emphasizing the fluid nature of populist discursive strategies.  

Conclusion 

The 18th session of the Mapping Global Populism (MGP) Panel Series provided an engaging examination of some of the key contemporary features of populism and authoritarianism in the Gulf region. Each speaker presented an insightful contribution to this theme, from conceptualizing autocratization to gendering the social contract to the intersection between autocracy, environmentalism, and religion. Overall, the panel highlighted the pressing need for greater scholarly attention on the region within the field of populism studies, owing largely to the rapidly evolving social, political and environmental landscape of the Gulf states. In particular, scholars emphasized the need to consider both the material and non-material causal factors at play in furthering populist or autocratic trends. For instance, changes in wealth redistribution and affective emotional or discursive appeals were both highlighted as particularly relevant. 

The highly engaging and insightful analysis shared throughout the panel was, therefore, not only successful in representing a number of key developments within current scholarship on the region but also in signposting important avenues for further research. 

Overall, this session constituted an effective contribution to ECPS’s broader goal of advancing our understanding of populism across the globe. It will undoubtedly prove a valuable resource for those looking to enhance their understanding of the way in which populism and autocracy manifest and interact within the Gulf region today.  

In this AI-generated image, US presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump appear. Photo: Shutterstock.

What Do the US Election Results Tell Us about the Global Trajectory of Populism?

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Please cite as: 

Sithole, Neo. (2025). “What Do the US Election Results Tell Us about the Global Trajectory of Populism?” European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). January 8, 2025. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp0093

 

The ECPS panel provided an in-depth exploration of how the 2024 US Presidential Election reflects and impacts global populism. Experts analyzed key dynamics, including economic grievances, cultural shifts, and political polarization. Moderated by Ali H. Aslan, the discussion highlighted the role of evangelical populism, Trumpism’s transatlantic influence, and global democratic erosion. Distinguished panelists emphasized the need for liberal democracies to counter autocratic trends by offering compelling solutions and reinforcing institutions. This timely dialogue shed light on the interplay between economic, cultural, and institutional forces shaping contemporary populist movements worldwide.

Report by Neo Sithole

The European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS) convened an insightful panel discussion to analyze the implications of the 2024 US Presidential Election on the global trajectory of populism. This critical event, held on Thursday, November 14, 2024, featured leading scholars and experts exploring how the election results reflect shifting political dynamics in the United States and their ripple effects worldwide.

Moderated by Ali H. Aslan, a seasoned Washington-based journalist and former Washington correspondent for Zaman Daily, the panel brings together prominent voices in political science and sociology to dissect key themes shaping contemporary populism. Dr. Alan Abramowitz, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Emory University, delves into the economic underpinnings of the election with his presentation, “It Was (Mostly) the Economy, Stupid: Explaining Trump’s Victory.” Dr. Jennifer McCoy, Regent’s Professor of Political Science at Georgia State University and Research Affiliate at CEU’s Democracy Institute, examines the broader implications of the election for global populism in her talk, “Explaining the US Election Outcome and Its Implications for Global Populism.”  Dr. Marcia Pally, a scholar at New York University and Humboldt University-Berlin, sheds light on the pivotal role of white evangelical voters in shaping the 2024 electoral landscape in her presentation, “The Role of White Evangelicals in the 2024 US Presidential Election: What We Know So Far.”  Dr. Mabel Berezin, Distinguished Professor at Cornell University and Director of the Institute for European Studies, extends the discussion to transatlantic populist trends with her analysis, “Does Trumpism Cross the Atlantic?” Dr. Marina Nord, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the V-Dem Institute at the University of Gothenburg, explores the long-term implications of Trump’s return to power for global democracy in her presentation, “The Return of Trump and the Future of Global Democracy.”

This timely panel offered a comprehensive examination of the US election’s domestic and international implications, emphasizing how populist movements and ideologies influence governance, democracy, and political discourse across the globe. Attendees gained valuable insights into the interplay of economic, cultural, and religious factors shaping contemporary populism and its global manifestations.

Mr. Aslan: ‘Trump’s Campaign Successfully Leveraged Anti-establishment Rhetoric, Economic Promises, and Nationalist Appeals’

Moderator Ali H. Aslan began by providing an overview of the constitutional, federal, and governmental structure of the United States, emphasizing that, while minor parties exist, the US predominantly functions as a two-party democracy, with the conservative-leaning Republican Party and the liberal-leaning Democratic Party as the primary contenders. He noted that the recent US elections marked a significant political shift, with voters replacing Democratic President Joe Biden with Republican nominee Donald Trump. 

Mr. Aslan recounted growing concerns about Biden’s age and health, which led him to withdraw from the race months before the election and endorse Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic candidate. Trump’s victory over Harris was decisive, securing 312 Electoral College votes and winning the national popular vote by over 3 million. His campaign successfully leveraged anti-establishment rhetoric, economic promises, and nationalist appeals, expanding support among traditionally Democratic groups, including Hispanic, African American, and Muslim voters. The election also saw the Republican Party flipping the Senate with 53 seats and narrowly regaining control of the House of Representatives, consolidating significant political power.

Mr. Aslan noted that this consolidation raises concerns about the potential erosion of democratic institutions, given the Supreme Court’s conservative majority and Trump’s anti-establishment approach. He highlighted that critics warn of authoritarian risks, while others express confidence in the resilience of US constitutional traditions. Trump’s unpredictable leadership style adds further uncertainty as his administration begins shaping policies and making key appointments.

Professor Abramowitz: ‘Democrats’ Electoral Loss Was Primarily Driven by Economic Concerns’

The first contribution to this session was made by Professor Alan Abramowitz who analyzed how the 2024 US Presidential Election underscored critical dynamics shaped in part by Incumbent President Joe Biden’s low approval rating, with a net disapproval of -20%. He argued that the decisive factor in the Democratic Party’s defeat was largely economic, encapsulated in the phrase, “It was (mostly) the Economy, Stupid.” Professor Abramowitz pointed out that the Democrats’ electoral loss was primarily driven by economic concerns, particularly the high inflation that persisted throughout Biden’s term. This followed historical trends in which unpopular presidents often lead their parties to electoral defeats. While recent improvements in job growth, easing inflation, and a resilient labor market offered positive economic indicators, these developments failed to alter public perceptions of economic instability, which were deeply entrenched among key voting blocs and created fertile ground for demands for change.

Professor Abramowitz illustrated how President-elect Donald Trump effectively tapped into this discontent, narrowly winning the national popular vote by 1–2% and flipping pivotal swing states by razor-thin margins. His victory highlighted the enduring polarization of the American electorate, with turnout patterns reflecting deep demographic and geographic divides. While both parties continued to dominate their respective strongholds, competition in battleground states showcased the intensity of partisan loyalties. The election results reflected broader challenges in bridging ideological divides and navigating an electorate fractured along economic and cultural lines. Despite significant policy debates and contrasting visions for the country, economic perceptions and presidential approval ratings remained the dominant forces driving voter behavior, ultimately shaping the trajectory of this closely contested election.

Professor McCoy: ‘Economic Stress and Cultural Disruption Drive Political Shifts’

Professor Jennifer McCoy was the second panelist who explored how sustained duress—whether in the form of threats, economic hardship, or perceived loss—often fosters an “us vs. them” mentality. Professor McCoy highlighted that this psychological shift is a common human response, where the perceived source of harm becomes the target of suspicion and blame. Consequently, individuals may distance themselves from outsiders to protect their own group. This dynamic is particularly evident in populist movements, where economic stress and cultural disruption drive political shifts. She referenced a study of 800 elections across 20 democracies from the 1870s to 2014, demonstrating how financial crises have consistently resulted in significant gains for both far-right and left-wing populist parties. Under such conditions, people often turn to leaders who promise to restore security and address their fears, especially when threats are perceived as originating from outsiders.

Professor McCoy addressed the global trend of anti-incumbent voting, observing that in the US, this phenomenon has skewed rightward due to narrow electoral margins and the structure of the two-party system. She emphasized the need to distinguish between campaign rhetoric and actual policies, raising questions about who benefits from Republican agendas: upper-income earners or working-class voters. She characterized the Republican coalition as a mix of wealthy elites, middle-class supporters, and the religious right. In conclusion, Professor McCoy argued that the same anti-authoritarian and community-focused principles that once contributed to America’s vibrancy have, under current pressures, evolved into suspicion, division, and polarization.

Professor Pally: ‘Anti-authoritarianism, Theological Distrust of Government, and Perceived Cultural Losses Intensify White Evangelicals’ Alignment with Right-wing Populism’

Professor Marcia Pally delivered the third presentation and examined the historical, cultural, and political forces shaping American and white evangelical populism. Professor Pally explained that white evangelicals in the US are influenced by historical and doctrinal frameworks, such as Covenantal Political Theory, Aristotelian Republicanism, and Liberalism, which emphasize skepticism toward government, elites, and outsiders. These traditions, coupled with cultural and economic distress, have fostered deep distrust of authority. The Puritan and covenantal ideals brought to the US emphasized community governance and personal responsibility, with a strong reluctance to depend on external authorities. This perspective has been compounded by a sense of cultural and religious loss in the face of increasing secularism, leading white evangelicals to adopt a defensive “us vs. them” worldview, often perceiving secular government and liberal society as antagonistic.

Professor Pally identified economic stress, technological changes, demographic shifts, and cultural anxieties as key drivers of populism among white evangelicals. She highlighted their struggle with declining cultural dominance in an increasingly secular society, noting that legal changes, such as the legalization of same-sex marriage, have heightened fears of marginalization. For white evangelicals, a mix of anti-authoritarianism, theological distrust of government, and perceived cultural losses has intensified their alignment with right-wing populism. Professor Pally also pointed out the irony that evangelical values, once a force for community and anti-authoritarianism, now contribute to divisive rhetoric in a polarized political climate, further exacerbating challenges to American democracy.

Professor Berezin: ‘Trumpism Emboldened Paramilitary Groups, Fostering a Culture of Intimidation and Fear’

Following Professor Pally was Professor Mabel Berezin who delivered a presentation titled “Does Trumpism Cross the Atlantic?” Acknowledging the evolving nature of the discussion, Professor Berezin noted that the recent US election results had reframed many issues, leaving several aspects too early to fully assess. Reflecting on previous presentations, she traced the rise of anti-democratic, right-wing nationalist trends in Europe while emphasizing the distinct dangers posed by the American context.

Professor Berezin highlighted the global trend of democratic backsliding, where skepticism toward democracy is growing, but she pointed out that the US faces unique “dangerous pulse points.” These include the rise of paramilitary groups, judicial realignments, and intellectual movements advocating for social authoritarianism. She particularly emphasized the concerning legitimization of paramilitary groups under Trump, which had previously been relegated to the fringes of society. Trumpism emboldened these groups, fostering a culture of intimidation and fear. Recalling personal experiences in campaign areas marked by gun culture and economic hardship, Berezin underscored the growing normalization of such groups.

In addition, Professor Berezin warned about the rise of intellectual and institutional movements aimed at dismantling regulatory frameworks and traditional family structures. These movements, she argued, pose an even greater threat than paramilitary groups due to their organized and legally entrenched influence. She also highlighted the weakening of democratic protections and the erosion of international institutions. She cited Marine Le Pen’s call for Europe to defend its interests as an example of the broader challenges posed by Trump’s presidency, warning of its implications for global democratic stability.

Dr. Nord: ‘Many Countries Experience Rising Political Polarization, Disinformation, and Weakening Democratic Standards’

The final presentation was delivered by Dr. Marina Nord who discussed the decline of democracy in the United States, comparing it to global trends and the Liberal Democracy Index. She highlighted that while the US once ranked above the Western European and North American average for democracy, it now falls below, particularly after the Trump presidency. The sharp drop in democratic accountability since 2016 has not been fully reversed under Biden’s administration. Dr. Nord showcased declines in key indicators such as deliberative processes, electoral integrity, and the spread of misinformation, illustrating the significant challenges facing US democracy. She explained that globally, many countries—including the US—are experiencing rising political polarization, disinformation, and weakening democratic standards, all of which contribute to a broader trend of democratic erosion.

This shift aligns with the growing influence of autocracies, with countries like those in the BRICS bloc gaining economic and political power. Dr. Nord concluded by emphasizing the need for liberal democracies to counter populist and autocratic narratives by offering more persuasive solutions. She cited research on the dividends of democracy, particularly in areas like security and media freedom, underscoring the necessity for democracies to adapt to global challenges and strengthen their institutions to prevent further decline.

This ECPS panel highlighted how the 2024 election reflects broader global trends in populism, polarization, and democratic erosion. Through insightful presentations, scholars dissected the interplay of economic, cultural, and institutional factors shaping contemporary populist movements. From economic grievances driving political shifts, as Dr. Abramowitz explained, to the complex role of cultural identity and evangelical populism discussed by Dr. Pally, the event underscored the multifaceted nature of populist influence. The panelists collectively stressed the urgency for liberal democracies to adapt and counter autocratic narratives to safeguard democratic institutions worldwide.

Photo: Shutterstock.

Gouveia e Melo and the Military Messianic Zeitgeist in Portugal

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Vice Admiral Gouveia e Melo’s rise from COVID-19 vaccination leader to potential presidential contender reflects Portugal’s cultural heritage of military messianism. His disciplined leadership, amplified by media narratives, crafted a savior image transcending political divides. This phenomenon taps into Portugal’s historical archetypes, where military figures with messianic undertones captivate public imagination. While appealing to a public seeking stability, his trajectory highlights the tension between democratic governance and charismatic authority. This case underscores the risks of media-driven political personas overshadowing pluralism and institutional accountability in democratic systems.

By João Ferreira Dias 

We are living in the age of populism (v.g. Kaltwasser et al., 2017; Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2017). The dichotomic distinction between the “good people” and the “corrupt elite” is an old concept, perpetually relevant and adaptable to different historical and political contexts. The division rests on a potent narrative that appeals to collective identity and moral superiority, where the people are depicted as inherently virtuous and the elite as inherently corrupt or self-serving. This framing, though simplistic, resonates deeply with human societies, reflecting a timeless unease with concentrated power and authority. Discomfort in the face of “power,” whether embodied in a monarch, a state, or other ruling structures, has been a persistent theme throughout history. This is particularly significant given that the rule of law, liberal democracy, and pluralism—foundations of modern governance—are relatively recent achievements, fragile in their existence and often under siege.

In this light, the enduring impulse to give “voice” to the voiceless, to free the oppressed, or to emancipate marginalized groups has been a driving force of revolutionary thought and action across eras. Figures such as Jesus Christ, Karl Marx, Zumbi dos Palmares, and the architects of the French Revolution embody this ethos in vastly different contexts yet share the common thread of striving against perceived systems of domination or exploitation. These examples illustrate the universality of the struggle against oppression, transcending specific cultural or economic systems.

Indeed, the concept of “oppression” is not the exclusive domain of capitalist or Western paradigms, as some postmodern critiques suggest. Rather, it reflects a fundamental aspect of human societies—an observable dynamic of dominance and resistance that appears across diverse geographies and historical periods. This suggests that the drive for justice and liberation is an intrinsic part of human behavior, rooted in our collective desire for fairness, equity, and autonomy. As such, the discourse of populism, while modern in its form, taps into an ancient and deeply embedded narrative that continues to shape our political and social realities.

But today, the zeitgeist has shifted, and the narrative of “the will of the majority” has been co-opted by radical right populists, who position themselves as the champions of “the people” against “the elites,” thereby deepening societal divisions. As Mudde (2017) articulates, populism is characterized by four “core concepts”: ideology, the people, the elite, and the general will. These elements form the backbone of populist rhetoric, creating a binary opposition that fuels polarization. However, this polarization has expanded beyond the classic dichotomy of “people vs. elites,” evolving into a broader confrontation of “people vs. democracy” (Mounk, 2018). In this redefined landscape, the struggle manifests as a “culture war” against progressivism, driven by what Norris and Inglehart (2019) describe as a “cultural backlash,” where the illiberal tendencies of radical right movements and parties gain momentum.

This cultural conflict not only pits traditionalism against progressive ideals but also allows radical right populists to portray themselves as defenders of the people’s will. They adopt a performative stance, positioning themselves as the true voice of the people while simultaneously framing their ideological adversaries—progressives and the left—as disconnected elites or as perpetrators of societal decay. This reversal of roles further intensifies societal rifts. Those once perceived as the oppressors claim the mantle of representing popular sovereignty, while the “left,” in their focus on identity politics and critiques of systemic inequality—dismissively labeled as “cultural Marxism” (e.g., Dworkin, 1997; Kellner, 2013; Jamin, 2014)—is portrayed as elitist and divisive.

In this context, radical right populists leverage grievances about cultural and economic change, presenting themselves as custodians of traditional values in the face of perceived threats from globalism, multiculturalism, and liberal progressivism. This strategy not only mobilizes support but also weaponizes nostalgia for a past where societal roles and cultural norms were allegedly more stable. The resulting dynamic is a volatile reconfiguration of populist discourse, where claims of defending “the people” serve to legitimize illiberal practices and undermine democratic norms.

The Charismatic-Messianic Leader and Military Uniforms in Portugal

The association between charismatic leaders and military symbolism has long shaped political narratives in Portugal. The notion of the authoritarian populist, as described by Canovan (1981, 1999), centers on a leader who positions themselves as distinct from traditional elites, embodying anti-elitism (Taggart, 2000). Such leaders often portray themselves as the singular representatives of “the people,” channeling frustrations and grievances while presenting themselves as truth-tellers against a corrupt establishment. This narrative intersects with messianism, rooted in religious traditions. The figure of the Messiah—whether as the warrior-king David or the redeemer Jesus—has laid the groundwork for the Messiah-politician, a charismatic leader claiming to lead the “chosen people” toward peace and justice (Negrão, 2001). In Portuguese and Brazilian cultures, this messianic ideal deeply influences political imaginaries, particularly through Sebastianism, a mythological construct that has left a lasting legacy.

Sebastianism emerged after the disappearance of King Sebastian at the Battle of Alcácer-Quibir in 1578, which triggered a dynastic crisis. The myth of the king’s return, mounted on a white horse amidst the fog, intertwined notions of national salvation with religious messianism. As Oliveira Martins (2014) described, Sebastianism was a “posthumous proof of nationality,” while Lourenço (1978) saw it as emblematic of Portugal’s “irrealistic existence.” Later, Fernando Pessoa associated it with the Arthurian legend, while Teixeira de Pascoaes connected it to the Portuguese sentiment of saudade—a complex mix of absence, longing, and hope (Barros Dias, 2017). Under the Estado Novo regime (1933–1974), Salazar appropriated Sebastianism as a political tool. His leadership, steeped in authoritarianism, was often framed through a messianic lens, consolidating his charismatic authority (Plo, 2006).

Charismatic leadership persists in democratic societies, adapting to contemporary needs. Ferreira da Cunha (2015) notes that Portuguese society’s disillusionment with electoral systems fosters susceptibility to leaders blending personal charisma with symbolic unity. Portugal, historically considered resistant to populism and radical right movements (Carreira da Silva & Salgado, 2018; Santana-Pereira & Cancela, 2020; Valle, 2020), nevertheless exhibits subtler forms of populism. Zúquete (2022) highlights “soft populism” in figures such as Sidónio Pais, Humberto Delgado, and Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho. Sidónio Pais, as president in 1918, symbolized military populism, often appearing in uniform and on horseback, claiming to unify the “good people” against partisan elites. Humberto Delgado, running for president in 1958, used his military background to challenge Salazar, portraying himself as a moral alternative to the regime’s corruption. After the 1974 Revolution, Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho became a socialist populist figure, advocating for direct democracy and opposing capitalist and imperialist forces (Zúquete, 2022).

These examples illustrate how charismatic military figures resonate within Portuguese political culture, leveraging historical and cultural archetypes to establish authority. Military symbolism, intertwined with messianic undertones, remains a potent element in the public imagination, particularly during crises, reflecting the enduring interplay of history, myth, and leadership.

The Vice-Admiral Gouveia e Melo

Vice Admiral Gouveia e Melo’s rise to prominence during Portugal’s COVID-19 vaccination campaign was undoubtedly shaped by his disciplined leadership and problem-solving approach. However, his transition from a public health figure to a potential presidential contender highlights the significant role of media in constructing political personas. The media’s portrayal of Gouveia e Melo not only amplified his public image but arguably fabricated his emergence as a viable political figure, providing him with disproportionate coverage and framing him as a savior in a time of crisis.

From the outset, media narratives emphasized his charisma, military efficiency, and straightforward communication style, crafting an image of stability and trustworthiness. Frequent headlines lauded his achievements and speculated on his political future, often portraying him as a unifying, non-partisan figure capable of navigating the complexities of national leadership. This excessive attention contributed to a sense of inevitability around his potential candidacy, aligning with the archetype of the charismatic leader rooted in Portugal’s cultural tradition of messianism and military populism (Zúquete, 2022).

Despite his avoidance of explicit political rhetoric or anti-elitist positioning, the media filled this ideological void, elevating his military credentials and projecting him as a figure above the political divide. This media-driven fabrication can be seen as both a response to public demand for strong, competent leadership during a period of uncertainty and an active shaping of public opinion. By consistently spotlighting Gouveia e Melo, news outlets contributed to the perception of his indispensability in the political sphere, even before he expressed any clear intention to run for office. However, the anticipation of his retirement from military functions in the Navy paved the way to make very clear his intentions to run for the presidency, becoming a hot topic in political debate programs, and making the mainstream parties to avoid presenting an early candidate, especially considering that public surveys are giving him a most likely win.

Conclusion

Vice Admiral Gouveia e Melo’s trajectory from a public health figure to a potential presidential contender epitomizes the interplay between charismatic leadership, media-driven narratives, and Portugal’s cultural heritage of (military) messianism. His disciplined leadership during the COVID-19 vaccination campaign, amplified by media narratives, crafted an image of a savior capable of transcending political divides. This phenomenon is deeply rooted in Portugal’s historical and cultural archetypes, where figures associated with military symbolism and messianic undertones have long captured the public imagination.

Gouveia e Melo’s rise highlights the fragile boundaries between democratic governance and the allure of charismatic authority. While his candidacy may appeal to a public yearning for stability and strong leadership in times of crisis, it also underscores the risks of media-fueled political personas overshadowing democratic pluralism and institutional accountability. This case serves as a contemporary reflection of Portugal’s historical relationship with populism, messianism, and the enduring tension between tradition and progress.

 

References

Canovan, M. (1981). Populism. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Canovan, M. (1999). Trust the people! Populism and the two faces of democracy. Political Studies, 47(1), 2–16.

Carreira da Silva, F., & Salgado, S. (2018). Why no populism in Portugal? In Changing societies: Legacies and challenges. Vol. 2. Citizenship in crisis (pp. 249–268).

Dworkin, D. (1997). Cultural Marxism in postwar Britain: History, the New Left, and the origins of cultural studies. Duke University Press.

Jamin, J. (2014). Cultural Marxism and the radical right. In The post-war Anglo-American far right: A special relationship of hate (pp. 84–103).

Kellner, D. (2013). Cultural Marxism & cultural studies. Critical Quest.

Kaltwasser, C. R., Taggart, P. A., Espejo, P. O., & Ostiguy, P. (Eds.). (2017). The Oxford handbook of populism.Oxford University Press.

Lourenço, E. (1978). O labirinto da saudade. Lisboa: Publicações D. Quixote.

Mounk, Y. (2019). The people vs. democracy: Why our freedom is in danger and how to save it. Harvard University Press.

Mudde, C. (2017). Populism: An ideational approach. In C. R. Kaltwasser, P. A. Taggart, P. O. Espejo, & P. Ostiguy (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of populism (pp. 27–47). Oxford University Press.

Mudde, C., & Kaltwasser, C. R. (2017). Populism: A very short introduction. Oxford University Press.

Negrão, L. N. (2001). Revisitando o messianismo no Brasil e profetizando seu futuro. Revista Brasileira de Ciências Sociais, 16, 119–129.

Norris, P., & Inglehart, R. (2019). Cultural backlash: Trump, Brexit, and authoritarian populism. Cambridge University Press.

Oliveira Martins, J. P. (2014). História de Portugal. Edições Vercial.

Plo, A. R. R. (2006). Elecciones presidenciales en Portugal: cavaquismo, sebastianismo e ilusiones colectivas. Análisis del Real Instituto Elcano (ARI), 10(1), 1696–3466.

Santana-Pereira, J., & Cancela, J. (2020). Demand without supply? Populist attitudes and voting behaviour in post-bailout Portugal. South European Society and Politics, 25(2), 205–228.

Taggart, P. (2000). Populism. Buckingham: Open University Press.

Valle, A. L. R. M. N. D. (2020). Populismo nos programas eleitorais dos partidos portugueses para as legislativas de 2019: Uma questão de grau? (Doctoral dissertation).

Zúquete, J. P. (2022). Populismo: Lá fora e cá dentro. Lisboa: Fundação Francisco Manuel dos Santos.

Illustration: Shutterstock.

The Resilience of Multiculturalism: Ideas, Politics and Practice — Essays in Honour of Tariq Modood

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Kenes, Bulent. (2024). “The Resilience of Multiculturalism: Ideas, Politics and Practice — Essays in Honour of Tariq Modood.” ECPS Book Reviews. European Center for Populism Studies. December 26, 2024.https://doi.org/10.55271/br0024

 

Tariq Modood’s groundbreaking work on multiculturalism is celebrated in this volume, highlighting his transformative contributions to the field. Through the concepts of “multicultural nationalism” and “moderate secularism,” Modood offers a sophisticated framework that harmonizes diverse identities with a cohesive sense of national belonging. Edited by Thomas Sealy, Varun Uberoi, and Nasar Meer, the book tackles pressing challenges such as populism, globalization, and transnationalism, while situating Modood’s legacy within global debates on identity and citizenship. Although the collection’s depth and interdisciplinary scope are impressive, its Western-centric focus somewhat limits its comparative applicability. Nonetheless, this volume is an indispensable resource for advancing multiculturalism as a counter to the populist radical right in both theory and practice.

Reviewed by Bulent Kenes

The connections between populist radical right ideologies and racism, nativism, nationalism, welfare chauvinism, anti-immigration sentiment, Islamophobia, and anti-minority discourses, actions, and policies are undeniable. One potential countermeasure to this form of homogenizing cultural and racial populism is the establishment of a robust framework for multiculturalism, cultural hybridity, and heterogeneity. This framework should uphold and guarantee individual and collective rights and freedoms, both to and from, for minority groups and peace and comfort for dominant majority culture.

In this context, the contributions of Tariq Modood have garnered significant attention. The European Centre for Populism Studies (ECPS) has recognized the relevance of his work and decided to publish a review of the book The Resilience of Multiculturalism: Ideas, Politics and Practice: Essays in Honour of Tariq Modood. Edited by Thomas Sealy, Varun Uberoi, and Nasar Meer, this volume explores and celebrates Modood’s influential ideas on multiculturalism and its practical implications in contemporary society.

The book serves as a tribute to Tariq Modood’s substantial contributions to the theory and practice of multiculturalism. It offers a wide-ranging exploration of multiculturalism as a concept that continues to evolve, addressing contemporary issues of identity, inclusion, and diversity in diverse societies. Divided into four thematic sections—philosophical orientations, diversity and inclusion, nationalism and transnationalism, and secularism—the book includes contributions from eminent scholars across these fields.

The chapter “Introduction: Modoodian Multiculturalism,” co-authored by the book’s editors, explores Modood’s influential contributions to multiculturalism, situating his ideas within global debates on identity, citizenship, and diversity. It emphasizes Modood’s interdisciplinary approach, blending political theory with sociology to address evolving multicultural challenges. Contextualizing critiques and the perceived decline of multiculturalism, particularly amid populist narratives, cultural “wars,” and political skepticism, the editors highlight its resilience as both a policy and theoretical framework. They underscore multiculturalism’s relevance in tackling racial and ethnic justice, as reflected in movements like Black Lives Matter and indigenous rights debates.

The chapter delves into Modood’s key contributions, particularly his formulation of “Modoodian multiculturalism,” integrating sociological insights with normative political theory. Central concepts include ethno-religious identities and cultural racism, addressing gaps in traditional anti-racism and secularist paradigms. Modood’s advocacy for plural anti-racism and “multicultural nationalism” is pivotal, proposing an inclusive reshaping of national identities to foster minority belonging. By articulating Modood’s innovative approaches to recognition, inclusion, and national belonging, the chapter situates his work as vital to advancing multiculturalism in theory and practice. It effectively introduces the volume, tracing Modood’s intellectual legacy and global relevance, while setting the stage for thematic explorations of multiculturalism’s enduring significance.

In the chapter “Invoking the Idealist World of Ideas,” David Boucher explores Modood’s intellectual engagement with British idealism, particularly the philosophies of Michael Oakeshott and R.G. Collingwood. Boucher highlights how Modood’s grounding in idealist traditions informs his conception of multicultural citizenship, shaping his interdisciplinary synthesis of political theory and sociology. Boucher argues that Modood’s work embodies a “world of ideas” rooted in Collingwood’s hierarchical and overlapping forms of experience and Oakeshott’s philosophical skepticism toward rigid abstraction. Modood’s rejection of the categorical separation between theory and practice, derived from Collingwood, becomes central to his critique of Oakeshott’s anti-essentialism and his emphasis on identity as dynamic and contextual rather than fixed. This conceptual orientation allows Modood to address the practical challenges of multiculturalism while remaining philosophically rigorous.

Boucher demonstrates how Modood adapts the idealist framework to contemporary issues of multiculturalism, such as identity, cultural continuity, and anti-racism. The author also situates Modood’s contributions within a broader philosophical revival, emphasizing his alignment with the idealist principles of “identity in difference” and “continuity through change.” Ultimately, Boucher’s analysis underscores the enduring influence of British idealism on Modood’s theoretical and practical engagement with multicultural citizenship, offering valuable insights into the philosophical underpinnings of his work.

In chapter titled “Intimating or Iterating? Modood on Contextualism and the Danish Cartoons of Muhammad,” Sune Lægaard critically evaluates Tariq Modood’s iterative contextualist methodology through the lens of the Danish Cartoon Affair. Lægaard examines the tensions between Modood’s stated commitment to contextual sensitivity and the practical application of this methodology in his writings on the controversy. Lægaard acknowledges Modood’s contextualism as a theoretically rich approach, particularly in its sensitivity to local norms and iterative refinement of general principles. However, he raises concerns about the selective nature of Modood’s contextual engagement. For instance, Modood’s interpretation of the cartoons, particularly the “bomb-in-the-turban” cartoon, is critiqued for privileging one interpretation—Muslims as targets of racism—while neglecting the cartoonists’ stated intentions, such as criticizing extremism. Lægaard argues that this selective framing undermines Modood’s broader claim to contextual neutrality.

Further, Lægaard challenges Modood’s use of analogies, such as Holocaust denial laws, to justify restrictions on speech targeting Muslims. He points out inaccuracies in Modood’s application of Danish blasphemy and hate-speech laws, which already protected religious groups, including Muslims, thereby questioning the relevance of Modood’s arguments in this specific case. While Lægaard commends the adaptability of Modood’s contextualism, he highlights methodological inconsistencies that weaken its application. These critiques underscore the challenges of balancing context-sensitive analysis with normative commitments in political theory. Lægaard’s analysis reinforces the need for greater precision in contextual methodologies, even as he acknowledges the enduring value of Modood’s broader theoretical contributions.

Simon Thompson’s chapter, “Tariq Modood and the Politics of Recognition,” provides a critical exploration of the role of recognition in Modood’s theory of multiculturalism. The chapter positions recognition as a cornerstone in Modood’s intellectual framework, especially in understanding and addressing the dynamics of multicultural societies. Thompson organizes his analysis around four themes: equality, identity, struggle, and inclusion. He commends Modood for his dual conception of equality—equal dignity and equal respect—and his emphasis on the interplay between individual and group recognition. Thompson also highlights Modood’s nuanced focus on ethno-religious identities, which distinguishes his work from traditional liberal multiculturalist theories. Further, he underscores Modood’s dynamic understanding of identity as a dialectical process shaped by insider self-ascriptions and outsider perceptions, framing struggles for recognition as central to addressing misrecognition and exclusion.

However, Thompson raises critical concerns about Modood’s framework. He critiques the lack of practical guidance on when and how to apply equal dignity versus equal respect and calls for a more robust metric to navigate this distinction. Additionally, he notes Modood’s relative neglect of socio-economic inequalities, arguing that a comprehensive theory of justice should integrate both multicultural and economic dimensions. Thompson also challenges the ambiguity in Modood’s conceptualization of group recognition, urging greater clarity about whether groups deserve recognition for their intrinsic value or for the sake of their members. Nevertheless, Thompson’s critique is constructive, acknowledging Modood’s valuable contributions while suggesting areas for further refinement. 

In chapter titled “What’s to Be Done? Reuniting the People,” Charles Taylor engages with the divisive impact of exclusionary populism, proposing inclusive frameworks to reconcile societal divisions and foster cohesion. Taylor’s chapter is a robust examination of how modern democracies, fractured by inequalities and identity politics, might navigate towards unity through redefining national identity and embracing multicultural and intercultural narratives. Taylor’s analysis is compelling in its multi-faceted approach, identifying the dual fissures in contemporary democracies: the elite-populist divide and the tensions arising from cultural or ethnic differences. He underscores the need for democracies to craft inclusive political identities that honor both equality and historical narratives of national identity. His advocacy for interculturalism, particularly as a counterpoint to misinterpretations of multiculturalism in Europe, provides a roadmap for societal integration, emphasizing dialogue, collaboration, and a rejection of exclusionary policies. However, the chapter is not without shortcomings. Taylor’s solutions, while idealistic and principled, lack concrete mechanisms for implementation, particularly in polarized contexts where identity politics dominate public discourse. His reliance on examples like Canada and Quebec, while illustrative, may not translate seamlessly to societies with entrenched histories of racial and cultural strife, such as the US or France. Furthermore, his critique of exclusionary populism occasionally underplays the structural forces that sustain such ideologies.

In the chapter titled “The Unfinished Tasks of Multiculturalism: Thinking of Multiculturalism, Thinking with Tariq Modood,” Gurpreet Mahajan presents a thorough exploration of Modood’s contributions to multicultural political theory, with a specific focus on the interplay between multiculturalism, religion, and secularism. Mahajan highlights Modood’s approach to integration, which emphasizes the positive recognition of diverse identities, and his advocacy for reframing secularism as compatible with multicultural principles. This chapter stands out for its systematic articulation of “unfinished tasks” within multicultural discourse, inviting further scholarly and public engagement.

Mahajan effectively foregrounds the complexity of Modood’s argument that religion should be seen as a “public good,” thus challenging rigid secularist frameworks and pushing for inclusive policies that integrate minority religious perspectives into public life. However, this proposition raises critical questions regarding the balance between accommodating religious identities and maintaining secularism’s neutrality, especially in contexts where religious orthodoxy may conflict with liberal values. A notable strength of Mahajan’s analysis is her critique of multiculturalism’s perceived alignment with religious resurgence, which has alienated left-liberal allies. She also underscores the need for deeper engagement with intra-group inequalities and the homogenizing tendencies of identity-based discourses. While Mahajan successfully identifies pressing challenges for multiculturalism—such as inter-minority conflicts and the methodological tensions of de-essentializing communities—the chapter could benefit from more concrete proposals to address these gaps. 

In her chapter titled “From the Race Relations Act 1968 to the Great Repeal Act 2018: Back to Square One in 50 Years?” Maleiha Malik presents a deeply analytical and historically grounded examination of the evolution of race relations in the UK, juxtaposing the promise of legislative progress with the regressive realities that culminated in Brexit. Malik’s work underscores the enduring influence of Britain’s imperial legacy on contemporary racial hierarchies, connecting colonial governance to modern racialized exclusion. Her critique of the Race Relations Act (RRA) 1968 reveals its limitations in addressing structural racism, focusing instead on individual acts of discrimination, a pattern that persists through subsequent legal frameworks.

Malik’s critique of Brexit as a racially charged political project is particularly compelling. She argues that populist rhetoric glorifying the British Empire masked the exclusionary nationalism that defined the Leave campaign, fueling a backlash against migrants and minority communities. Her analysis highlights how cultural and religious discrimination—especially Islamophobia—has evolved, amplifying new forms of racialization beyond traditional categories of color or ethnicity. While Malik’s historical framing is powerful, her portrayal of race relations legislation as consistently undermined by nativist anxieties invites further exploration of successful counter-movements. Moreover, her reliance on Brexit as a focal point risks overshadowing broader trends in global populism and anti-immigrant sentiment. Overall, Malik’s chapter is a robust critique of Britain’s struggle to reconcile its imperial past with a truly inclusive multicultural future, urging renewed efforts to combat the structural legacies of racism.

In “Multicultural Nationalism as an Ethics of Social Membership,” Will Kymlicka offers an exploration of the interplay between multiculturalism and nationalism, presenting a potential reconciliation through the concept of “multicultural nationalism.” Drawing from T.H. Marshall’s citizenship framework, Kymlicka contends that national solidarity and multicultural inclusion can coexist by redefining shared societal membership in pluralistic terms. His argument builds on empirical data, highlighting both opportunities and challenges in fostering an inclusive national identity. Kymlicka’s analysis is commendable for addressing the perceived incompatibility between nationalism and multiculturalism. His argument that membership rights can act as a vehicle for inclusivity resonates with Modood’s advocacy for multicultural nationalism. However, the chapter also critically acknowledges the risks inherent in Marshallian politics, particularly its historical tendency to marginalize minorities and reinforce societal hierarchies. The discussion on majority perceptions of minority commitment adds a critical dimension, revealing how perceptions influence support for minority rights. However, this approach risks oversimplifying minority identities and aspirations by framing their inclusion primarily in terms of majority acceptance. Populism surfaces implicitly, as Kymlicka critiques nationalism’s potential for exclusion while emphasizing its capacity for solidarity. 

In chapter titled “Integrating Modood and Kymlicka on National Inclusion,” Geoffrey Brahm Levey undertakes a critical analysis of Modood’s multicultural nationalism and Kymlicka’s liberal nationalism, arguing for a synthesis that leverages the strengths of both approaches to foster inclusive democracies. Levey critiques Kymlicka’s dismissal of significant differences between the two frameworks, as well as Modood’s assertion of the superiority of multicultural nationalism, ultimately advocating for an integrative model. Levey highlights Kymlicka’s recalibration of his cultural rights framework to emphasize minority contributions to society as a means of fostering solidarity. However, he critiques this shift for placing undue responsibility on minorities while neglecting structural adjustments required from majority groups. Similarly, he challenges Modood’s reliance on top-down transformations of national identity, arguing that such efforts often provoke resistance and caricature rather than fostering inclusion. The chapter engages with populism indirectly, critiquing majoritarian tendencies to frame minorities as undeserving or disloyal, which underpins populist rhetoric. Levey’s proposed integration of liberal and multicultural nationalism emphasizes concrete protections for minorities alongside a gradual reshaping of national identity through inclusive symbols and narratives. Levey’s analysis offers valuable insights into multicultural theory, though it underscores the challenges of balancing theoretical ideals with pragmatic strategies for fostering social cohesion.

Riva Kastoryano explores the complexities of transnationalism and its implications for nationalism and multiculturalism in her chapter titled “Transnational Experiences: Redefining Solidarity and Nationalisms.” She critiques state-centric multicultural policies, arguing that transnational belonging fundamentally reconfigures traditional nationalist paradigms by fostering non-territorial solidarities that challenge bounded national identities. Kastoryano draws on historical frameworks, such as Randolph Bourne’s concept of a “transnational America,” to contextualize modern transnational dynamics. She contrasts the civic integration goals of multicultural nationalism, as articulated by Modood, with the deterritorialized identities emerging from transnational networks. This juxtaposition highlights a tension: while multicultural nationalism seeks to integrate diverse groups within a nation-state framework, transnationalism transcends borders, creating new, imagined communities and solidarities based on shared identities or causes.

A key criticism is that state-driven multicultural nationalism may fail to address the non-territorial and fluid identities fostered by globalization. Kastoryano underscores the rise of “diaspora politics,” where states and transnational actors negotiate identities and allegiances, sometimes reinforcing exclusionary or populist discourses. She critiques the resurgence of ethno-cultural nationalism, often rebranded as populism, for exploiting migrants’ transnational solidarities as perceived threats to national sovereignty. Kastoryano’s chapter is a significant contribution to understanding the intersections of globalization, identity, and nationalism. 

Anna Triandafyllidou’s chapter “What Can Migration and National Identity Look Like in the Mid-Twenty-First Century? Transnational Diasporas and Digital Nomads” examines the interplay of migration, digital technologies, and national identity, projecting forward into the mid-21st century. By bridging physical and virtual mobility, she explores how these evolving dynamics redefine notions of belonging, identity, and citizenship. The chapter reflects on theoretical frameworks like Modood’s multicultural nationalism, plural versus neo-tribal nationalism, and everyday nationhood, questioning their applicability in an era shaped by augmented reality and digital nomadism. 

Triandafyllidou identifies a dichotomy between “cosmopolitan nomads,” who navigate globalized systems with ease, and “vagabonds,” marginalized by restrictive migration policies. She underscores the challenge of integrating virtual mobility into theories of migration and identity, noting its potential for both fostering transnational solidarity and amplifying socio-political exclusions. Particularly compelling is her discussion of neo-tribal nationalism, which thrives in the echo chambers of social media, reflecting the populist exploitation of mobility-induced anxieties. While the chapter is innovative in situating digital and physical mobility within broader global transformations, criticisms arise from its speculative tone and lack of empirical substantiation regarding the identity negotiations of digital nomads. Furthermore, the potential environmental and ethical implications of such mobility remain underexplored. Nevertheless, Triandafyllidou’s work opens critical pathways for rethinking nationalism and migration in an increasingly digitized and interconnected world.

Cécile Laborde’s chapter “Rethinking Race and Religion with Rawls and Modood” engages in a critique and synthesis of John Rawls’s and Modood’s perspectives on race and religion, proposing an interpretive framework that seeks to reconcile their divergent approaches. Laborde highlights the limitations of Rawls’s “bifurcated view,” which treats race and religion as separate normative categories rooted in distinct sociopolitical contexts. While Rawls centers religion within his political theory due to its epistemic and moral complexities, he relegates race to the realm of contingent injustice, underestimating its structural and enduring sociopolitical significance. Laborde effectively critiques Rawls for his intellectualist and decontextualized treatment of race, noting its inadequacy in addressing racial inequality and the historical interplay of race and religion.

Conversely, Modood’s integrated view, informed by his British context and the concept of “religio-racial” identity, is presented as a richer framework. Modood’s recognition of the intersectionality between race and religion and his advocacy for extending anti-discrimination protections to Muslims exemplify an inclusive approach to multiculturalism. Laborde deepens this perspective by introducing a dual “First-person” and “Third-person” framework to address individual agency and structural discrimination. While Laborde’s framework is compelling, critics might argue that it remains largely theoretical, with limited engagement with empirical case studies. Furthermore, the application of her dual perspective to real-world conflicts requires further elaboration, particularly in navigating populist discourses targeting religious minorities. Nevertheless, her chapter provides an invaluable contribution to debates on identity, justice, and multiculturalism.

Rajeev Bhargava’s chapter, “On Modood’s Moderate Secularism,” offers a comparative analysis of Modood’s “moderate secularism” and the Indian model of “principled distance,” critically examining their adaptability in addressing religious diversity in modern states. Bhargava acknowledges Modood’s significant contribution in theorizing moderate secularism as a model that accommodates religious pluralism while maintaining the autonomy of political authority. This framework, rooted in European traditions, challenges the rigid binaries of American and French secularism, advocating for an inclusive and multicultural approach.

Bhargava, however, critiques moderate secularism for its limited flexibility, particularly in accommodating deeply diverse societies. He highlights the entrenched biases in European secular frameworks that privilege Christianity, arguing that these models often fail to account for the structural inequities faced by Muslim minorities. Bhargava calls for a shift from mere institutional adjustments to broader conceptual reforms, aligning more closely with the Indian model, which integrates positive and negative engagements with religion to promote equality and mitigate inter- and intra-religious domination. The chapter’s populism-related insights emerge in Bhargava’s critique of European secularism’s inability to counter Islamophobic discourses, exacerbated by populist politics. While his proposal for adapting Indian principles to European contexts is compelling, critics might argue that the complexities of Western secular traditions and socio-political dynamics make such transplantation challenging.

In chapter titled “Secular State: Its Importance and Limits,” Bhikhu Parekh critiques rigid and dogmatic secularism, advocating for a nuanced and pragmatic approach that accommodates the complex interplay of religion and state. He emphasizes the instrumental nature of secularism, whose value lies in fostering liberty, equality, and common belonging in multicultural polities, rather than in adhering to an abstract ideal. Parekh aligns with Modood’s pluralist approach to secularism, commending its flexibility in recognizing religion’s potential contributions to public life. He highlights that secularism must balance the need for separation with the practical realities of mutual influence between religion and state, arguing against an absolutist interpretation. This is particularly significant in multicultural contexts where religion plays a vital role in cultural and communal identity. However, Parekh critiques secularism’s tendency to overreach, potentially alienating religious communities and fostering populist backlash, as seen in the rise of Hindutva politics in India. His critique extends to the failure of rigid secular models, like France’s laïcité, to equitably address diverse religious expressions, suggesting they inadvertently privilege majority traditions. Parekh’s proposal for context-sensitive, relational secularism is compelling, though critics may challenge its reliance on subjective interpretations of cultural and religious practices. 

Tariq Modood’s chapter, “From Then to Now: Some Friendly Responses,” offers a reflective engagement with the contributions to the volume while advancing his key themes of multiculturalism and moderate secularism. This response consolidates Modood’s intellectual trajectory and his pluralist methodology, blending personal narratives with theoretical critiques. Modood adeptly addresses critiques of his contextualism, particularly Sune Lægaard’s challenge regarding its application in the Danish Cartoons affair. While acknowledging the shortcomings in execution, Modood underscores his iterative approach, emphasizing the dialogical and evolving nature of contextual analysis. Similarly, he engages Simon Thompson’s deconstruction of the concept of recognition, embracing its multidimensional framing—equality, identity, struggle, and inclusion—while expanding its relevance to majority identities.

A recurring strength of Modood’s responses lies in his openness to constructive critique. For instance, he engages with Maleiha Malik’s historiography of racial equality in Britain, connecting it to Brexit’s implications for multiculturalism. Yet, Modood avoids reductive binaries, advocating instead for the mutual recognition of majorities and minorities. However, the chapter is not without limitations. Modood’s defense of multiculturalism as a “democratic constellation” is compelling but raises questions about its applicability in non-Western contexts. Similarly, his critique of Charles Taylor’s Quebecan interculturalism as “majoritarian” invites further elaboration on balancing national identity and minority accommodations. Anyway, Modood’s chapter enriches the volume by weaving together critical reflections and advancing his theory of multiculturalism as an inclusive, dialogical framework. It exemplifies a balance of self-critical humility and scholarly rigor, making it an invaluable contribution to the discourse on diversity and inclusion in democratic societies.

Overall, this volume highlights Modood’s transformative contributions to multiculturalism, framing it as a vital and evolving approach to managing diversity in today’s societies. By advocating for “multicultural nationalism” and “moderate secularism,” Modood offers a cohesive model that balances the recognition of distinct group identities with the promotion of a shared sense of national belonging. The book engages with critiques of multiculturalism, demonstrating its resilience in addressing challenges such as globalization, transnational affiliations, and the rise of populist movements. Modood’s work is contextualized within global debates, showcasing the strength of his framework in uniting diversity and fostering collective identity—a cornerstone of his idea of “multicultural nationalism.”

While the volume stands out for its philosophical depth and theoretical insights, some chapters—particularly those on secularism—are heavily centered on Western contexts, offering limited comparative perspectives on non-Western experiences. Furthermore, its focus on philosophical discourse may leave practitioners seeking more tangible policy recommendations. Despite these limitations, the book is an essential resource for scholars in political theory, sociology, and public policy. It underscores Modood’s groundbreaking role in redefining multiculturalism as a versatile and sustainable framework for diversity and inclusion in pluralistic societies. Beyond commemorating Modood’s legacy, the book fosters meaningful scholarly dialogue, ensuring that his ideas continue to shape and influence the ever-evolving discourse on multiculturalism.

Thomas Sealy, Varun Uberoi &Nasar Meer (eds.). (2024). The Resilience of Multiculturalism Ideas, Politics, Practice. Edinburgh University Press. 328 pp. Hardcover $110, Paperback  $23,71, ISBN-13: 978-1399537261

Demonstrators of the Austrian Identitarian movement form a guard of honor of flags in Vienna, Austria on June 11, 2016. Photo: Johanna Poetsch.

Discourse and Ideologies of the Radical Right

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Sargi, Islam. (2024). “Discourse and Ideologies of the Radical Right” ECPS Book Reviews. European Center for Populism Studies. December 25, 2024. https://doi.org/10.55271/br0023

 

Teun A. van Dijk’s book explores how radical right parties adapt their discourses to cultural, economic, and historical contexts in Chile, Spain, Sweden, and the Netherlands. Integrating discourse studies with social cognition theories, van Dijk reveals how nationalism, anti-globalism, and sociocultural backlash drive these narratives. With a focus on populism as a strategic discourse rather than ideology, the book underscores the dynamics of ingroup/outgroup rhetoric and its role in mobilizing support. While highlighting ideological clustering, the work offers valuable insights for scholars of political communication, critical discourse studies, and international relations.

Reviewed by Islam Sargi*

Teon A. van Dijk, a prominent scholar in linguistics, discourse analysis, and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), is the founder of renowned journals such as Discourse Studies and Discourse and Communication. He also established the Center of Discourse Studies in Barcelona in 2017. Van Dijk’s book, Discourse and Ideologies of the Radical Right, part of the Critical Discourse Studies series, examines the political ideologies and discourse of radical right parties. It explores how these parties adapt their rhetoric to the unique economic, cultural, and historical contexts of four countries: Chile, Spain, Sweden, and the Netherlands. The book bridges the gap between political science and discourse studies, providing a theoretically grounded analysis of radical right ideologies. Highlighting the limited research on the discourse of radical political parties, van Dijk incorporates a theoretical framework linking ideology as a form of social cognition to discourse and social structures.

By examining four cases—Chile, Spain, Sweden, and the Netherlands—the book highlights the primary configurations, divergent ideologies, contextual impacts, populism, and the significance of national contexts. It argues that each country showcases distinct ideological stances. For example, while abortion is a central theme in the radical right discourse in Chile, it plays a less significant role in the Netherlands and Sweden. However, nationalism and anti-immigration sentiments appear to be common across European contexts.

The author employs a mixed-methods approach, incorporating both quantitative and qualitative analyses, to investigate election programs from the four countries. Through this lens, the book explores language and discourse, emphasizing ideological positioning and political strategies. The findings reveal reactionary stances against social change, liberalism, and political correctness, framing these as part of a broader cultural backlash.

Through comparative analysis, van Dijk argues that radical right discourse and ideologies are shaped by country-specific contexts. For instance, in Chile, radical right discourse is rooted in Catholic ideologies, emphasizing traditional family values, such as opposition to abortion, and intertwining with the authoritarian historical narratives of the Pinochet era. The radical right in Chile also avoids engaging with the multicultural identities of the Mapuche people in their rhetoric.

In Spain, particularly in the case of the Vox Party, the focus shifts to nationalism, marked by a strict anti-separatist stance opposing the autonomy of Catalonia and the Basque regions. This approach also embodies a strong rejection of modern globalist ideologies.

In the Netherlands, one of Europe’s prominent radical right parties, Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom (PVV), centers its discourse on Islamophobia, embedding it within broader national themes. Wilders portrays a struggle against liberal elites, who are perceived as eroding Dutch cultural identity and integrity.

In Sweden, the Sweden Democrats (SD) emphasize the preservation of culture, framing it as a social issue linked to crime and immigration. This case exemplifies a broader European pattern, where immigration is associated with security concerns and the preservation of national cultural hegemony.

Van Dijk’s analysis highlights how the radical right adapts its narratives to local contexts while sharing overarching themes such as nationalism, anti-globalism, and opposition to multiculturalism.

The author emphasizes that the electoral strategies of radical right parties in these four countries are shaped by their unique national contexts, cautioning against broadly categorizing them under the blanket term of populism. Populism, as a discursive phenomenon, requires an analysis rooted in discourse strategies rather than mere ideological critiques. This approach encourages a deeper exploration of ideological clustering and its role in fostering the radical right’s broader acceptance and integration within democratic systems.

Regarding the interplay between populism and discourse, the book highlights populism primarily as a strategic use of language by political parties rather than a cohesive ideology. This framework reveals that populist discourse often constructs narratives centered on the dichotomy between “the pure people” and “the corrupt elites.”

Moreover, the book examines the socio-cultural backlash against modern liberal ideologies, demonstrating how the radical right skillfully employs discourse to reassert traditional values. It underscores how radical right narratives leverage this backlash to challenge liberal norms and promote their vision of cultural and societal order, ultimately highlighting the ideological and cultural underpinnings of their discourse strategies.

The book makes a significant contribution to scholarship by offering a fresh perspective on ideological clusters, particularly the interplay of nationalism, racism, and political dynamics within radical right parties. It provides an insightful introduction to understanding how radical right ideologies are constructed, communicated, and situated within broader socio-political contexts, shedding light on their increasing influence.

By integrating discourse studies with social cognition theories, the book appeals to those interested in exploring the psychological and linguistic foundations of political ideologies. Scholars and students in political science, sociology, and international relations will find value in the comparative case analyses, which illuminate the global patterns and localized adaptations of radical right parties and their discourses.

The author effectively integrates theories from discourse studies and social context, providing a comprehensive framework for understanding how political ideologies are constructed and communicated. This approach offers valuable insights into the tactics and strategies employed by radical right movements. By embedding his analysis within a well-articulated theory of ideology, van Dijk explores the cognitive foundations of radical right discourse, adding depth to the study and establishing a clear structure for his investigation.

Through comparative analysis, the author demonstrates how these movements adapt their rhetoric to cultural, economic, and historical contexts, offering readers a nuanced understanding of global patterns and local variations. The book sheds light on the pragmatic role of distinct national contexts in shaping political communication strategies, emphasizing how language is used to construct ingroup/outgroup dynamics. These dynamics are crucial for understanding the populist appeal and the ways radical right parties mobilize support locally.

Van Dijk further illustrates the interconnectedness of various ideologies within the radical right framework, showcasing their ideological composition and adaptability. This comprehensive approach underscores the role of language and context in shaping political narratives, making the book a valuable resource for scholars and students of political communication and ideology.

Although the book provides a broad comparative framework, its specific discourse analysis is somewhat limited. A more in-depth linguistic examination of concrete examples could better substantiate claims regarding the effectiveness or variability of discourse strategies. Additionally, the study’s focus on only four countries, while diverse, does not fully capture the global spectrum of radical right discourses or address the dynamics of emerging movements in other regions.

Methodologically, the book would benefit from greater transparency in its approach to discourse analysis. Clearer details on data collection and the analytical process would enhance the replicability and robustness of its findings. While the book persuasively argues that populism should be viewed as a discourse strategy rather than a fixed ideology, it does not thoroughly investigate the practical implications of this distinction in political behavior and communication.

Despite these limitations, van Dijk’s study remains a well-structured and significant contribution to critical discourse studies of radical right ideologies, offering valuable insights into the intersection of language, ideology, and political strategy.

 

(*) Islam Sargi holds a Ph.D. in Contemporary Comparative History from the University of Szeged. His doctoral thesis examined the Kurdish question and Turkish modernization. iszeged509@gmail.com

van Dijk, Teon A. (2024). Discourse and Ideologies of the Radical Right. Cambridge University Press, London, pp. 95, Paperback £17.00, Hardback £49.99, ISBN 978-1-009-54993-6 Hardback, ISBN 978-1-009-54991-2, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009549929, Online ISBN: 9781009549929, Print publication: January 2, 2025.

Professor Michael Kazin from Georgetown University, a renowned historian and expert on American politics and social movements.

Professor Kazin: Right-Wing Populism Is a Morbid Symptom of Political Transition

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In a compelling interview with the ECPS, renowned historian Professor Michael Kazin explores the rise of right-wing populism as a “morbid symptom” of today’s political transition. Drawing on Antonio Gramsci’s theory of interregnum, Kazin analyzes Donald Trump’s presidency, highlighting its profound impact on American and global politics. From galvanizing his MAGA base by aligning economic grievances with cultural conservatism to forging ties with far-right leaders abroad, Trump’s leadership reflects the challenges of this transitional era. Kazin also envisions the potential for a progressive populism rooted in economic justice to counterbalance these dynamics.

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

Renowned historian and scholar of American politics and social movements, Professor Michael Kazin of Georgetown University, offers a thought-provoking analysis of right-wing populism in the context of Donald Trump’s presidency in a comprehensive interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). Framing contemporary politics as an “interregnum”—a period of transition—Professor Kazin draws on Antonio Gramsci’s observation that such times often produce “morbid symptoms,” which he associates with the global rise of right-wing populism. He explores how Trump’s leadership embodies this phenomenon, highlighting its implications for both domestic and international politics.

In the interview, Professor Kazin delves into Trump’s unique ability to sustain a populist movement despite his focus on personal popularity over policy. He discusses how Trump has galvanized his base by aligning economic grievances with cultural conservatism, creating a potent political force that continues to shape American political discourse. Professor Kazin critiques Trump’s approach to governance, describing his first administration as “wretched,” marked by policy ignorance and self-serving actions. However, he acknowledges that Trump’s movement, particularly the MAGA base, has no parallel within the Democratic Party, providing him with a solid foundation of unwavering support.

Professor Kazin also examines the potential global ripple effects of Trump’s second term, noting his alignment with leaders like Viktor Orbán and the admiration he garners from right-wing populist movements in Europe. While Trump’s “America First” stance complicates the formation of international alliances, Professor Kazin suggests that his presidency could embolden far-right leaders worldwide. However, he tempers this with cautious optimism, emphasizing the resilience of American democratic institutions and the structural limits of Trump’s power.

Finally, Professor Kazin explores the broader dynamics of populism, contrasting left- and right-wing variants. He argues that left-wing populism, rooted in economic justice and social democracy, offers a constructive path forward. As global demands for equitable governance grow, Professor Kazin envisions the potential for a revival of progressive populism that challenges elite power while addressing urgent issues like economic inequality and climate change.

The interview with Professor Kazin offers a nuanced perspective on Trump’s presidency, the resilience of democratic institutions, and the evolving role of populism in shaping both domestic and global politics.

Here is the transcription of the interview with Professor Michael Kazin with some edits.

Populism in America: Bridging or Deepening Divides?

Donald Trump’s supporters wearing “In God We Trump” shirts at a rally in Bojangles’ Coliseum in Charlotte, North Carolina, on March 2, 2020. Photo: Jeffrey Edwards.

Professor Kazin, thank you so much for joining our interview series. Let me start right away with the first question. In your book titled The Populist Persuasion, you discuss how populist rhetoric has evolved in the U.S. What role does populism play in bridging or deepening the divide between cultural and economic grievances today?

Professor Michael Kazin: As you know, populism is both a language and, some would argue, a governing philosophy. I focus on it as a language in American history, with ramifications for populism in other countries, of course. Historically, I think there has been a distinction in the United States—which is really all I can speak about with authority—between left-wing populism and right-wing populism.

Left-wing populism tends to focus on an economic elite—the 1% versus the 99%, the robber barons, the plutocrats, the monopolists. Many terms have been used to critique those with significant wealth and economic power. Left-wing populists aim to unite a large majority, regardless of gender, race, or national origin.

In contrast, right-wing populists in the US—and to some degree in Europe—view “the people” as a broad middle segment of the population, primarily native-born individuals. According to right-wing populists, this group is being exploited and oppressed by two forces: a small elite at the top (both economic and cultural, and sometimes perceived as controlling the state, such as the European Union in Europe or the federal government in the US) and a small but growing group at the bottom, often composed of non-white and immigrant populations.

Historically, this group at the bottom has included Latinos, Asian Americans, and African Americans. More recently, undocumented or illegal immigrants have been the focus. Right-wing populists argue that these groups are used by the elite to drive down wages and erode the cherished culture of the native-born middle class.

Generally, this is how left-wing and right-wing populists operate in the US, with similar analogs in Europe.

Currently, in American politics, left-wing populists—such as Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and other progressives within and outside the Democratic Party—are striving to emphasize the tradition of left-wing populism. However, they face challenges because Democrats and progressives also prioritize cultural issues, such as more lenient immigration policies, transgender rights, and racial equality. This creates some tension with economic left-wing populists, who prefer to focus narrowly on issues like corporate greed, wealth inequality, and combating the power of the very rich, including figures like Donald Trump.

On the right, as most people are aware, Donald Trump exemplifies the continuity of right-wing populism from the 19th century to today. Right-wing populists argue that a “Hollywood elite” or “woke elite” in universities and cultural institutions seeks to impose its values on the hardworking, native-born majority. Additionally, they claim that undocumented immigrants take jobs from native-born Americans, drive down wages, and increase crime in cities.

This is how the two traditions of left-wing and right-wing populism are playing out in contemporary American politics.

Populist Rhetoric and Its Impact on Economic Inequality and Social Justice

How has populist rhetoric shaped the policy priorities of modern political parties in the US, particularly regarding economic inequality and social justice?​

Professor Michael Kazin: Social justice is a term that’s hard to define. It’s been used by both the left and the right throughout American history, so I’ll set that aside for the moment. In terms of economic inequality, this has been a longstanding issue in American politics, but it has especially risen to prominence as a major concern for both right-wing and left-wing populists since the Great Recession of 2008–2009. Following the well-publicized but relatively small Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011–2012, progressive Democrats have increasingly focused on this issue. They argue that neoliberalism—which many view as the dominant ideology in American politics and economics since the 1970s, especially after Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980—has exacerbated economic inequality.

Progressive Democrats have supported programs like those championed by Joe Biden, albeit with moderate success, to help unions organize, provide childcare benefits to all American families, and implement other measures aimed at narrowing economic inequality.

On the other hand, conservative populists, including figures like Donald Trump and J.D. Vance, argue that the primary issue with economic inequality lies with corporations that they claim are “too woke” and favor individuals with the “right” cultural politics over ordinary Americans. Some very conservative Republicans have embraced a form of anti-corporate politics.

For example, Josh Hawley, a Senator from Missouri, has supported the Teamsters Union, one of the largest unions in America. Additionally, some right-wing Catholic thinkers have drawn on the Catholic Church’s social justice tradition, referencing papal encyclicals like Rerum Novarum (1891) and others to argue that unions are essential for improving the lives of ordinary people and to criticize practices like excessive rents and interest rates that harm workers and the poor.

This trend has given rise to a form of “Catholic populism,” which uses these religious principles to legitimize arguments against corporate power. An interesting book on this topic, Tyranny, Inc., by a conservative journalist, critiques corporations for engaging in behavior that harms workers, such as union-busting, charging excessive credit card interest, and denying healthcare coverage.

There is, to some extent, agreement between right-wing and left-wing populists in the US on reducing corporate power and supporting private-sector unions. Currently, only 6% of private-sector workers in the US are unionized—a historically low figure.

However, significant disagreements remain between right-wing and left-wing populists, particularly on cultural issues, which are deeply entrenched and difficult to reconcile. For example, debates over abortion—whether it is a fundamental right for women or equivalent to the killing of babies—highlight how cultural arguments are often intractable and resistant to compromise.

In one of your interviews, you argue that ‘if the political and economic elites in our society and others around the world were more effective at living up to their ideals, populist talkers would likely be less popular.’ What do you mean by ‘ideals of political and economic elites?’

Professor Michael Kazin: Perhaps I should have said the ideals of the nation led by these elites to be more accurate. In the United States, especially—and to varying degrees in Europe—the stated ideals include equality, democracy, majority rule, and a government that promotes the common welfare, as referenced in the preamble to the American Constitution. These ideals are echoed in other historical documents, such as the Declaration of the Rights of Man in Europe.

As a social democrat, I would say that if social democracy were practiced more widely and people were guaranteed a decent life in their societies, populism would likely be less popular. For example, in the United States between the late 1940s and the mid-1960s, despite many challenges, it was generally a prosperous time. Unions were very powerful, Social Security was extended to nearly every working American, and the beginnings of health insurance coverage for older and poorer individuals under Medicare and Medicaid were implemented. During that period, populist rhetoric was not particularly influential, and populist movements were relatively subdued. While there were significant social movements, such as the Black freedom movement, they were primarily advocating for the inclusion of an oppressed minority in American life rather than claiming to represent the great majority. Of course, there were radical elements within some movements, but they were not the mainstream.

In my recent book, What It Took to Win: A History of the Democratic Party, I argue that “moral capitalism”—a phrase I borrow from a fellow historian—was the governing promise of the Democratic Party during these years. Democrats were the majority party, and most Americans, including working-class citizens, believed that things were improving. When people believe their lives are getting better, populist leaders and movements struggle to gain traction.

Trump’s Leadership Defined by Self-Interest and Controversy

Donald Trump with a serious look as he delivers a speech at a campaign rally held at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Wilkes-Barre, PA – August 2, 2018. Photo: Evan El-Amin.

In one of your articles, you characterize Donald Trump’s first administration as ‘one of the most wretched president and administration in living memory.” What factors have contributed to your defining of Trump’s administration as the most wretched?

Professor Michael Kazin: Well, of course, “wretched” is a loaded, emotional term, and here I’m speaking from my own preferences. There’s no scholarly objectivity possible in this context. I could also talk about why he won again last November, but first, let me focus on the question.

As a leader, I think Trump is someone primarily interested in his own popularity and not particularly interested in policy. He wants to be the center of attention at all times and is committed to no ideal or policy unless it benefits him personally. He’s also unwilling to take risks, particularly when it comes to policy decisions, which I believe was evident during his first term and will likely remain true during his second term—though, of course, we’ll have to wait and see.

His personal behavior also contributes to this characterization. He has been credibly accused of actions that would be considered rape in many nations, though he wasn’t convicted of rape but rather of defaming someone who accused him. His statements about immigrants and what he referred to as “shithole countries,” among other things, reflect his character. As an individual, I find him to be a rather wretched person—someone I wouldn’t want to associate with or have anyone I know associate with.

That said, his administration itself was more cautious than I expected, in part because he leads a party that still includes more traditional, cautious members. Many corporate executives and traditional Republicans influenced his policies. For instance, his Cabinet included several conventional Republican figures, and the Speaker of the House for much of his term was Paul Ryan, a Reaganite libertarian Republican focused on cutting the size of government rather than pursuing anti-immigrant crusades.

The major accomplishment of his administration aligned with a long-standing conservative Republican agenda: cutting taxes, especially for wealthier Americans, though all Americans received some form of tax cut. This is something Ronald Reagan might also have done.

In that sense, while his administration had the potential to be wretched, it was less so than I expected. However, Trump’s statements and actions on immigration were deeply problematic. His attempt to build a wall across the southern border wasted significant funds and was ultimately easy to evade. This demonstrated not only ignorance about policy but also a lack of genuine concern for it.

Unlike other American presidents, as the leader of the most powerful state in the world, Trump showed very little interest in the actual workings of the state unless they directly benefited him personally. In that sense, I would still describe him as a wretched leader.

You argue that ‘like most adherents of left egalitarian politics, I believe the only path to such a future (the more egalitarian and climate-friendly society) lies in adopting a populist program about jobs, income, health care, and other material necessities, while making a transition to a sustainable economy? What exactly do you mean by ‘populist programs?’

Professor Michael Kazin: Well, by that, I mean majoritarian—programs that genuinely benefit the majority of people. When governments are popular, that’s typically what they do. So, in this sense, being “popular” and being “populist” can overlap, though they are not always synonymous.

As I mentioned before, I believe an honest social democracy, or what I would call “moral capitalism” in the US, is the best approach. Such programs would include housing allowances, universal health care that is well-administered and provides good working conditions for healthcare workers, unions to protect the majority of people against workplace abuse, and, critically, a vigorous transition to a sustainable economy—because without that, the entire world is in trouble.

Now, using the term “populist” might seem to betray my own definition of populism, which in American history refers primarily to a discourse or rhetoric. But I don’t subscribe to the simplistic view of “populism bad, liberalism good.” As I argue in my book, The Populist Persuasion, populism can be a way for ordinary people—and movements aiming to represent them—to highlight the gap between a society’s stated ideals and the actual performance of its elites, whether cultural, political, or economic.

Populism can play a very positive role by pointing out these shortcomings and harking back to a society’s ideals, including those rooted in religion, like charity and comfort for the afflicted. It doesn’t necessarily demand, as socialism often does, a completely different kind of society—although socialists can also adopt populist rhetoric. Instead, it appeals to the ideals of the existing society, challenging elites to live up to them.

This is why I think populism has an important role in producing a decent society. Unlike some critics, like Jan-Werner Müller, who argue that populism always fuels movements that lead to authoritarian leaders, I believe populism doesn’t have to serve that role. While it certainly has done so in some parts of Europe, where we see leaders with authoritarian tendencies in and out of office, I think left-wing populism can play a vital and constructive role.

Trump’s Second Term: The Future of Populist Politics in the US and Beyond

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

How do you explain Donald Trump’s victory for a second term, given his open and aggressive endorsement of populist policies both in the US and globally? Additionally, how might his administration reshape the populist narrative domestically, particularly in aligning economic grievances with cultural conservatism?

Professor Michael Kazin: That’s an important question, obviously, and one we won’t really be able to answer until he’s been several years into his term. Let me address the first part of your question.

Again, you’ve probably read, and your viewers have likely heard and read, many analyses of why Trump won. The most important reason he won—and this is usually why anyone unseats an incumbent party in this country, and probably in others as well—is that most Americans believed the performance of the Biden administration, or the Biden-Harris administration, wasn’t good. This perception was based on several factors, including inflation, a more open immigration policy than most Americans preferred, and, I think, Biden himself, who is a very poor communicator.

Biden used to be a mediocre communicator when he was younger, but in the last couple of years, he became very bad at selling his own programs. Some of those programs, I believe, could have been quite popular if Americans had known more about them, but they didn’t.

This was an election that was actually rather close. For instance, if 232,000 voters in three key states—Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania—had voted differently, with slightly more in Pennsylvania than the other two states, Harris would have been elected, even though she would have won fewer popular votes than Trump. As everyone watching this knows, we don’t have a national popular vote in this country. We have state-by-state elections that determine the presidency.

Trump, on the other hand, is a charismatic figure. While he doesn’t have the majority of Americans on his side, a significant portion—perhaps 30%—strongly supports him. He has a movement, the MAGA movement, which the Democrats don’t have anything comparable to. Even though the Democrats had more people on the ground to get voters to the polls, Trump had more solid support.

As a result, he won somewhat more votes than he did in 2016—about 2 million more popular votes. However, Harris won 10 or 11 million fewer votes than Biden had in 2020. Trump’s victory was largely due to many Democrats deciding not to vote. They were disenchanted enough with the Biden-Harris administration’s performance but not sufficiently motivated by Trump to come out and vote against him.

Now, regarding what Trump will do in terms of reshaping the populist narrative—let me remind myself of the second part of your question here…

How much his administration reshapes the populist narrative domestically.

Professor Michael Kazin: Well, again, it depends on how well he performs, right? This is a question of contingency—how he navigates his role as president during the second term. Trump is a much better politician than he is a policymaker, so he will certainly try to maintain support from both the more traditional Republicans and the cultural populists within his coalition.

On the traditional side, he will aim to keep corporate Republicans on board—those who favor lower taxes, less regulation, and smaller government in general. Simultaneously, he’ll also work to retain the cultural populists who want to drastically cut immigration, both legal and illegal, and who oppose transgender rights and certain aspects of gay and lesbian rights.

Trump will likely attempt to strengthen US manufacturing, pushing for more products to be made domestically. However, this will be challenging given that final manufacturing in the US relies heavily on parts sourced from around the globe. Reducing this dependency and producing those parts domestically, which are currently made more cheaply elsewhere, will be difficult. Nevertheless, he will likely focus on this rhetorically.

As always, much will depend on the state of the economy, the presence or absence of scandals within his administration, and the outcome of the midterm elections. In 2026, Democrats are well-positioned to potentially take back the House of Representatives. If that happens, anything Trump aims to achieve would have to be done through executive actions. While some of these actions may be popular, others might not resonate as well with the public.

Additionally, the 2028 presidential campaign will overshadow the final years of Trump’s term. In fact, the campaign will likely begin even before the 2026 midterm results are fully processed. This means Trump might have only two effective years to accomplish his goals, including efforts to satisfy both the traditional and cultural populists in his coalition.

Trump’s Return: Shaking but Not Breaking American Democracy

Jake Angeli or QAnon Shaman was among those who participated in the riots initiated by former US President Donald Trump at the Capitol, Washington D.C. on January 6, 2021. Photo: Johnny Silvercloud

How concerned are you about the second Trump administration in terms of the resilience of American democratic institutions? There are those pundits who argue that American democracy will not survive another Trump term.

Professor Michael Kazin: Here I part ways with some others on the left. I don’t think that American democratic institutions are in serious trouble. I believe they will be shaken—and are already being shaken—by Trump’s reelection and his return to power next month.

First of all, Congress is still fairly evenly divided between the two parties, even though Republicans are in charge. Many large states, such as New York, California, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Illinois, are governed by Democrats, and most of these states have Democratic majorities in their legislatures as well. These state governments can act and bring cases to court to challenge some of Trump’s policies.

Civil society in the United States remains relatively strong. There are significant non-governmental organizations, like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which will likely file lawsuits against some of Trump’s actions—particularly those related to immigration. For example, if he tries to deport children born in the US to immigrant parents (who are American citizens by birthright), the ACLU and others will step in.

Even though the grassroots left is somewhat dormant and exhausted since the election, there are still key groups on the left, including unions like the American Federation of Teachers and the United Auto Workers. These organizations were supportive of Kamala Harris and will mobilize opposition against Trump’s administration.

As always, Trump’s ability to act depends on how popular he remains. If his popularity holds, he will have more freedom to pursue his agenda. However, the court system remains a check on his power. While the Supreme Court leans conservative, with three justices appointed by Trump during his first term, other courts are more balanced, with progressives or liberal judges presiding over lower courts.

I anticipate chaos and turmoil, but that doesn’t necessarily mean democratic institutions are in existential danger.

One area of concern is Trump’s apparent eagerness to sue media organizations he disagrees with. For instance, he already sued ABC News over a comment made by anchor George Stephanopoulos, and ABC settled for several million dollars. He might pursue similar legal actions against other media outlets, particularly legacy institutions like The New York Times, The Washington Post, and major networks. While this could intimidate some of these institutions, he won’t be able to silence the Internet or prevent people from organizing protests.

The military, which served as a check on him during his first term—particularly during the protests of 2020—will likely play a similar role this time. He won’t be able to call on the military to suppress peaceful demonstrations, even if he expresses the desire to do so.

I wouldn’t call myself optimistic, but I am hopeful. Also, as I mentioned earlier, he only has four years in this term and likely only two effective years to implement policies. So, I’m not as fearful as some others I know.

Implications for Global Populism and Far-Right Alliances

And lastly, Professor Kazin, right-wing populism continues to rise across Europe despite the liberal European Union’s success story. How do you think populist parties and movements will be influenced globally after Trump begins his second term? Could his presidency embolden far-right leaders abroad and foster new alliances among far-right populist governments?

Professor Michael Kazin: Well, that’s certainly a possibility. As you know, he’s been very close to Viktor Orbán. Orbán has been invited to National Conservative Conferences, and there was even one held in Budapest, which I believe was the first time an American conservative organization hosted its conference overseas. Clearly, right-wing populist leaders, including those of parties like the Rassemblement National (RN) in France, are likely very pleased with Trump’s reelection. This is probably true for right-wing populist parties and movements across the continent.

At the same time, if you emphasize “America First” and express suspicion toward European institutions such as the EU or NATO, it becomes very difficult to form any kind of operationally powerful alliance between Trump and his counterparts in Europe.

Structurally and historically, I believe we’re in what could be described as an interregnum—a period of transition. My friend Gary Gerstle, in his excellent recent book, describes the end of the neoliberal order, which has concluded in many ways and in some places entirely. As the Italian Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci famously said, during such an interregnum, “many morbid symptoms appear.” From my perspective, right-wing populism is one such morbid symptom.

However, as demands grow for the state to provide a decent living for a majority of its citizens—and as governments actually fulfill those demands—I think there could be a revival of left-wing populism or social democracy, even if it’s not labeled as such. People will demand that the government deliver on its promises to improve living standards for the majority, ideally in collaboration with private capital.

I am somewhat heartened by the fact that Trump is limited to four years. He cannot serve more than that without a constitutional amendment, which is extraordinarily difficult to achieve in this country—far more so than in many others.

Additionally, most Americans who support Trump are not particularly enthusiastic about alliances between the United States and other countries. They prefer the US to remain independent of such alliances, especially if those alliances are perceived to be costly. So, we’ll have to see how this unfolds.

MGP18

Mapping Global Populism – Panel XVIII: Populism and Autocracy in the Gulf Countries

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Moderator

Dr. Courtney Freer (Assistant Professor, Department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies, Emory University, Atlanta, GA).

Speakers

“Key Drivers of Autocratization in the Gulf Region,” by Dr. Thomas Demmelhuber (Professor, Chairholder, Institute of Political Science, Chair of Middle East Politics and Society, the Friedrich-Alexander-University of Erlangen-Nürnberg).

“The Evolving Social Contract in the GCC,” by Dr. Gail Buttorff (Associate Director of the Center for Public Policy and Assistant Professor at the Hobby School, University of Houston).

“The New Green Autocrats: How Saudi Arabia and the UAE Redefine Environmental Leadership,” by Dr. Tobias Zumbraegel (Postdoc at Geography Institute, the University of Heidelberg).

“The Role of Salafism in the National and International Politics of Gulf Monarchies,” by Kardo Kareem Rached (Assistant Professor at University of Human Development, Sulaymaniyah, Kurdistan Region of Iraq).

“Populism in Gulf Monarchies: Suppression, Cooptation, Adoption,” by Dr. Kristin Smith Diwan (Senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington).

Easter festival in the folklore village of Hollókő, Hungary: On April 18, 2022, as part of the tradition, men sprinkle water on women in celebration. Photo: Shutterstock.

Diasporas Intertwined: The Role of Transborder Hungarians in Hungary’s Diaspora Engagement

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Please cite as:

Molnar, Judit. (2024) “Diasporas Intertwined: The Role of Transborder Hungarians in Hungary’s Diaspora Engagement.” Populism & Politics (P&P). European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). December 20, 2024. Doi: https://doi.org/10.55271/pp0045

 

Abstract

In the Hungarian context, the term ‘diaspora’ can refer to two types of communities: those formed through emigration and those emerging from the Treaty of Trianon redrawing borders in 1920. While emigrant-diasporas increasingly adopt migration as a political stance, transborder Hungarians’ strong desire to uphold their national identity aligns them with Fidesz’s nationalist narratives. It highlights their potential as agents of Hungary’s emigrant-diaspora outreach. In this paper, I explore how and to what results the two remarkably different experiences of national identity are bridged by Hungary in attempts to revive the historic nation through emigrant-diaspora engagement.

Keywords: nationalism, diaspora politics, transborder Hungarians, emigrant-diaspora outreach, state-led transnationalism

 

By Judit Molnar*

Introduction

“Fidesz received 94% of the votes of Hungarians outside the borders,” reported the 24.hu online portal after the 2022 Hungarian elections. This statistic might seem surprising for those familiar with recent emigration from Hungary. In response to the autocratic and populist government, which increasingly infringes on democratic principles, politically motivated emigration has slowly but steadily replaced the economic emigration of Hungarians first triggered by the 2008 financial crisis (Sampson, 2021; Örkény, 2018; Moreh, 2014; Ayodele, 2018). Hallmarked by events such as the expulsion of forward-thinking educational institutions like Central European University, the aggressive campaign pushing women into traditional childbearing roles, and severe limitations placed on the LGBTQ community, many Hungarians opted to start a new life abroad driven by a yearning for a more liberal political environment. For this reason, recent Hungarian migrants can be increasingly interpreted as having ‘voted with their feet’, a concept Triandafyllidou and Gropas (2014) used to describe resistance to the regime underlying the decision to leave. As such, the Hungarian communities forming in Western Europe can be seen as counter-diasporas, as highlighted by Szily’s 2018 report, which shows that only 7% of those living in London would vote for Fidesz. Similarly, a 2022 poll by the 21 Research Center involving 5000 Hungarians abroad found that only 11% supported the governing party (Rutai, 2022).

Therefore, it is vital to understand the people behind the 94%. According to Brubaker (1996), there are two types of diasporas: those that result from people crossing borders and those that emerge from borders crossing people. When the Treaty of Trianon that closed World War I in 1920 detached two-thirds of Hungary’s territory and attached them to surrounding countries, many ethnically Hungarian people found themselves under the sovereignty of another state overnight. As Feischmidt (2020: 130) argues, memory politics fuelled by the Trianon cult “became the engine of new forms of nationalism.” In 2004, a national vote was held on whether transborder Hungarians[1] should be granted Hungarian citizenship but failed due to low turnout. Despite this, when Fidesz came to power in 2010, they passed legislation granting dual citizenship to transborder Hungarians, followed by voting rights in 2011. The intergenerational trauma of being separated from Hungary, despite a strong Hungarian identity, made people living on these territories keen to support Fidesz’s nationalist agenda. As such, they became allies of the Orbán government’s nation-building efforts, not least when Fidesz turned its attention to the recently emigrated population through large-scale diaspora outreach.

The past decades have seen growing interest among social scientists in how home countries exert control over their emigrated populations transnationally. State-led transnationalism is defined by Goldring (2002: 64) as “institutionalized national policies and programs that attempt to expand the scope of a national state’s political, economic, social, and moral regulation to include emigrants and their descendants outside the national territory.” While the forms, goals, and extent of such involvement may vary (Levitt, 2001), Portes (1999) emphasizes that state-led transnationalism is driven by economic and political gains from the diaspora, leveraging emigrants’ feelings of belonging to encourage remittances, investment, voting, or lobbying in favour of their home state. According to Margheritis (2007), state-led transnationalism is typically implemented through political discourse that reinforces national ties and recognizes those living abroad as part of the nation. Gamlen (2008) further notes that diaspora narratives empower migrants by constructing transnational collective identities, elevating people who once saw themselves as minorities to being part of a global network.

With half of the world’s states estimated to engage in some form of diaspora outreach (Gamlen et al., 2013), research on diaspora engagement has become a key area of enquiry for the social sciences, which has been conducted with the primary aim of analyzing the contributions emigrants make within such frameworks. However, less attention has been paid to the micro-level implementation of these schemes, including the role of facilitators and the affective responses evoked in the targeted population. These responses are crucial in understanding how autocratic systems relying on populist narratives achieve their goals, as populism depends on provoking relevant emotions. In my ethnographically inspired paper, I focus on incorporating transborder Hungarians in Hungary’s emigrant-diaspora outreach. I am interested in how their cultural identity is used to promote Hungary’s nation-building efforts, what narratives accompany their presence from the side of the home state, and what response this prompts in the emigrant-diasporas. I undertake the enquiry to uncover how the two remarkably different experiences of ethnic identity and connectedness to the homeland amongst transborder Hungarians and emigrants from Hungary are bridged by Hungarian populist discourse in the country’s attempt to govern its diasporas across borders and reconstruct the historic nation. The data used in this paper was collected in London, UK, in 2022/23 and Dublin, Ireland, in 2016/17. All proper names, including those of organizations, are pseudonyms.

‘Hungarians Can Only Be Replaced by Hungarians’

It was my first visit to the Hungarian House, one of London’s longest-standing and most prestigious Hungarian diaspora institutions. The occasion was Whit Sunday, for which a ball with a three-course dinner, folk dancing, and live music had been organized. As I did not know anyone, I booked a randomly assigned seat. Once everyone arrived, we took our places and did a round of introductions. When it was my turn, my short monologue prompted one of my tablemates to jokingly comment: “We can hear from your accent that you are not from beyond the borders, but don’t worry, we will still talk to you.” It was then that I realized that on my table of 14, I was the only person who had migrated from within the current borders of Hungary. As my research unfolded, it became somewhat of an ethnographic commonplace to find transborder Hungarians dominate Hungarian events in London, even though most of them had never lived in Hungary. Some did not even hold Hungarian citizenship. While I initially found their overwhelming participation surprising, it can be explained by the place they have historically occupied in their respective home countries as ethnic minorities. Since the Treaty of Trianon attached two-thirds of Hungary’s territories to surrounding countries in 1920, transborder Hungarians cultivated their Hungarian identity under often oppressive regimes of the bordering countries, which have limited their freedom to practise their culture, most notably through restrictions imposed on the use of their mother tongue. Seeking out the company of other Hungarians for cultural preservation activities has thus become a crucial aspect of their lives. Moreover, they have been the beneficiaries of Hungary’s outreach for much longer than the emigrant population, with many schemes aimed at emigrant-diasporas modelled on initiatives successful in transborder communities.

At the core of diaspora politics is a concept shaped by the state that defines which groups constitute the nation, how co-nationals are connected, and what role the state fulfils in their lives. Verdery (1994) explains that the term ‘nation’ can refer to citizenship comprised of shared sovereignty rooted in political participation. However, it can also denote an ethnic connectedness, whereby a nation consists of individuals sharing a common language, history, or culture. In an ethnic understanding of the nation, political identity is defined by shared language and culture, while in a civic one, by shared citizenship and loyalty to political institutions. Verdery (1998) claims that unlike democratic constitutions in the West, where sovereignty resides with individual citizens, Eastern European constitutions often grant sovereignty to an ethno-nation. Although no state’s borders contain an ethnically uniform population, nations in Eastern Europe have historically been imagined around ethnocultural homogeneity, which members of the nation are expected to maintain. These expectations have often led to political measures, with Hayden (1992) proposing ‘constitutional nationalism’ to describe legal processes that privilege members of an ethno-nation.

Hungary is a clear example of a state that assigns national belonging on an ethnic basis. Since the turnover, there has been a strong emphasis on ethnic similarity as the organizing principle of the nation, with transborder Hungarians playing a crucial role. This was reflected in the 1989 amendment of The Fundamental Law of Hungary, which included a new section on the state’s commitment to them: “Bearing in mind that there is a single Hungarian nation that belongs together, Hungary shall bear responsibility for the fate of transborder Hungarians, and shall facilitate the survival and development of their communities; it shall support their efforts to preserve their Hungarian identity, the assertion of their individual and collective rights, the establishment of their community self-governments, and their prosperity in their native lands, and shall promote their cooperation with each other and with Hungary” (Article D of The Fundamental Law of Hungary).

After Fidesz came to power in 2010 with a clear nationalist agenda, the Constitution and The Fundamental Law of Hungary were amended again to reflect a stronger sense of interconnectedness with Hungarians outside the borders, including transborder Hungarians and emigrants. While the old Constitution already stated that the president of Hungary represents the voice of all the world’s Hungarians inside and outside Hungary (Verdery, 1994), the new documents went further, emphasizing a ‘single Hungarian nation’ that transcends borders. The new Constitution includes the oath “to preserve the intellectual and spiritual unity of our nation torn apart in the storms of the last century” (Körtvélyesi, 2012).

As illustrated by Hungary’s severe response to the refugee crisis of 2015, despite the alarming decrease in Hungary’s population due to outmigration, ageing, and declining birth rates, Hungary seeks to compensate for these numbers exclusively through ethnically Hungarian people. As Viktor Orbán stated at the 9th plenary session of the Hungarian Diaspora Council in 2019, “Hungarians can only be replaced with Hungarians” (kormany.hu). Joppke (2005) argues that right-wing nationalist parties engage co-ethnic populations abroad to counterbalance growing immigration and sustain the dominant national group’s claims over the state. Since 2010, 1374 billion HUF has been spent on national politics (kormany.hu). Notable schemes include the Bethlen Gabor Fund, which provides financial support for transborder and emigrant communities (Kántor, 2014); the Rákóczi camps organized to provide an opportunity for young people in the diaspora to visit the homeland; the Balassi Programme that enables Hungarian language training in Hungary; the Diaspora Scholarship, which brings talented young people of Hungarian roots to Hungary for study; ReConnect Hungary, the Hungarian birthright program; and the Julianus and Mikes Kelemen Programmes, which focus on preserving material culture in the diasporas.

Exemplary Communities of National Consciousness

In 2013, the Hungarian State Secretariat for Nation Policy introduced a new scheme called the Kőrösi Programme, which soon evolved into the flagship project of Hungarian diaspora engagement. Aimed at strengthening national identity in Hungarian emigrant-diasporas worldwide and consolidating ties between Hungary and its population abroad, young intellectuals have been delegated to locations with significant Hungarian populations. The Hungarian state had previously mapped independently emerging ethnic organizations to offer them state-affiliated status, which the facilitators would support. They would be in charge of organizing the community, disseminating knowledge, and conducting educational activities, which include teaching language classes, folk dancing and traditional instruments, facilitating scouting, and organizing events to commemorate national holidays. Facilitators are recruited through a competitive selection process and are required to “possess outstanding professional expertise relevant for the Hungarian diasporas and to have actively engaged in community organizing, traditionalist activities” (website of the Kőrösi Programme, 2018).

Transborder Hungarians have played a crucial role in the Kőrösi Programme. A quick look at the profiles listed on the programme’s website highlights that since its inception, around 60% of facilitators have been from transborder territories each year. Some had never lived in Hungary before their assignment and may struggle to provide in-depth knowledge about contemporary life in Hungary. However, their expertise in traditional cultural forms has often been prioritized, because, as described in the Policy for Hungarian Communities Abroad: Strategic Framework for Hungarian Communities Abroad (2013), transborder Hungarians “to the universal Hungarian culture is invaluable.” Amongst the detached territories, Waterbury (2023: 32) underlines explicitly the role of Transylvania in the nation’s cultural identity, describing the region as having a ‘mythical significance’ to Hungary, considered the ‘cradle’ of Hungarian civilisation […] and the Transylvanian rural Hungarian populations as the makers and carriers of ‘real’, ‘archaic’ and ‘authentic’ Hungarian culture.” 

Their adequacy for these tasks was widely acknowledged. In a conversation with the first Kőrösi facilitator sent to Dublin in 2015, she confided in me her sentiment that she would never be as good at the job as transborder Hungarians, although she noted that some of these feelings stemmed from how the state labelled the two groups: “In my opinion, the ideal candidate was [mentions the name of the delegate sent to a different location in the same year of the programme], because on the one hand, she is from Transylvania, so that is somehow important. These days those who are not from Hungary are often considered more Hungarian than us, excuse me for my honesty. But yes, her identity is different from mine as somebody from Budapest. For me it is like I am Hungarian and then what? I am that and full stop. But for her, she and her parents and grandparents all had to fight for it. To keep it alive. So, it is crucial to her identity.”

Pogonyi (2015) argues that, unlike most diaspora schemes globally, Hungary’s outreach to its emigrated population was not devised to mobilize people for political or economic gain but to folklorize the emigrated population to strengthen Fidesz’s nationalist image. Analysing diaspora as a claims-making tool (Brubaker, 2005), Pogonyi defines Hungarian diaspora outreach as a non-instrumental identity project. Its principal goal is to reverse assimilatory tendencies, prevent intermarriage, and promote Hungarian national identification through education programs and a network of institutions reinforcing national identity. This is echoed in the Policy for Hungarian Communities Abroad: Strategic Framework for Hungarian Communities Abroad (2013), which claims that “the borders of the nation stretch as far as the influence of the national institutions, which help maintain the national identity”.

To incentivize Hungarians to (re-)cultivate their Hungarianness, the state has identified transborder Hungarians as indispensable. According to Fidesz’s discourse, transborder Hungarians are the exemplary communities of national consciousness and the kind of ideal citizens that emigrants should aspire to become. While historically, emigrants’ treatment by the Hungarian state went from “fascist criminals, class enemies, and useless, workshy rabble” (Kunz, 1985: 102) in the 1950s and 60s to traitors who placed their well-being above that of the homeland after 1989 (Herner-Kovács, 2014), transborder Hungarians have stayed framed as loyal victim communities. Placing them at the centre of diaspora schemes thus applauds them for preserving national consciousness for over a century despite often repressive circumstances. Hence, their presence communicates the Hungarian state’s expectations to all its citizens abroad.

As Kiss and Barna (n.d.) highlighted in the early 2010s, transborder Hungarians increasingly fail to consider Hungary as the primary destination of their emigration projects and, instead, tend to venture further afield. For people in the transborder territories without European Union membership when Hungary joined the EU in 2004 or under labour movement restrictions like Romanians after accession in 2007, Hungarian citizenship served as a passport to the West. Consequently, a growing number of transborder Hungarians decided to migrate to countries that they perceived as economically more viable than Hungary. Still, once in the country, they often sought out Hungarian diaspora organizations to join for sentimental reasons. It is therefore essential to highlight that while the involvement of transborder Hungarians in diaspora communities generally occurred out of their own will and enthusiasm, their presence is often interpreted through the lens of dominant Fidesz narratives, which influences not only their reception and integration opportunities in the community but also the extent to which their views are welcomed.

My fieldwork revealed that their presence often exacerbated resistance from the emigrant community against the government. On the one hand, they played a cultural revitalization role that was appreciated by families with young children and sensitized Hungarians to the fact that the ability to practise one’s identity, language, and culture should not be taken for granted. However, precisely the fervent practice of culture and strong national identity repelled emigrant Hungarians. Outbursts of appreciation for being Hungarian often made Hungarians from Hungary cringe, with critical remarks about what was commonly perceived as ‘magyarkodás.’ ‘Magyarkodás,’ a word that means the active cultivation of being Hungarian, denotes an overly zealous attitude towards expressing one’s Hungarian cultural identity. My informants saw ‘magyarkodás’ as irritating and something to be avoided, mainly due to its close association with the Orbán government and its expropriation of national symbols.

Such sentiments frequently translated into discriminatory remarks from Hungarians. While they welcomed the transborder Hungarians’ efforts to ensure the continuity of events, they complained that they were pushing them out of an organization that was supposed to be theirs. When I inquired into such feelings, I found that many had held resentment towards transborder Hungarians since their time in Hungary. Common reasons included the feeling that they were taking jobs and opportunities meant for locals, with many believing transborder Hungarian networks were strong and helped them get ahead quickly. Additionally, a large part of the resentment stemmed from the perception that these people received priority treatment from the Hungarian state, which seemed to care more about them than its citizens. For example, when the Hungarian state replaced the beloved priest of the community with a Csángó [ethnic Hungarians of Roman Catholic faith mainly living in the Romanian region of Moldavia] priest, it resulted in tangible resistance from the community, who complained about his unusual choice of Hungarian words, but most of all, his incorporation of nationalist sentiments in his sermons.

During my fieldwork, the Hungarian House was undergoing a slow but steady transition. Originally a refuge for all Hungarians who left their homeland after the World Wars, it became a vibrant place for Hungarian social and religious life since 1956, with the arrival of refugees fleeing the revolution against Soviet occupation. To this day, the leadership primarily consists of people who left Hungary during that time. They hoped to pass on roles to Hungarians who arrived post-accession. Still, since this group enjoyed a transnational lifestyle involving frequent trips home, they did not feel a strong need to cultivate their culture through diaspora organizations. Eventually, the group that took the initiative were transborder Hungarians, much to the dismay of the older generation. According to a transborder Hungarian committee member, the biggest challenge they faced was creating peaceful coexistence with older members, who viewed transborder Hungarians with growing suspicion. Despite this, the Hungarian House inevitably shifted towards becoming a predominantly transborder Hungarian organization, which ensured its continuity and gave it a cultural character that many of my informants from Hungary found hard to identify with.

Tapping the Diaspora’s Political Remittance Potential

On 2nd October 2016, the new Kőrösi facilitator in Dublin organized a memorial walk in the Glendalough mountains to honour Áron Márton, the bishop of Transylvania who dedicated his life to promoting Hungarian culture despite the oppressive Romanian government. As the facilitator came from a region of Serbia with a large ethnic Hungarian population, everybody understood that this commemoration was a project of personal importance to her. However, few understood why the meeting point was in front of the Hungarian Embassy in Dublin. As we later discovered, it was the day of the referendum on vetoing Brussels’ proposal to distribute incoming asylum seekers across the EU. As soon as the cars started arriving, the facilitator would quickly usher everyone into the Embassy, emphasizing that it was the duty of everyone with any national feelings to cast a vote.

Transborder Hungarians and the European Union (EU) represent two opposing poles in Fidesz’s thinking. According to Mudde and Kaltwasser (2017), populism divides society into two homogenous groups: the ‘pure people,’ associated with the nation, and the ‘corrupt elite,’ which hinders the nation’s unity. Populism’s belief that the people’s will is clear fosters authoritarianism and illiberal attacks on perceived threats to national homogeneity. Populist leaders argue that real power lies not with democratically elected officials but with illegitimate forces like organizations and bureaucracies undermining the people’s will. Hungarian populist discourses stem from a fear of external threats to national unity, often framed through the memory of Trianon. Anti-elite sentiments target foreign or supranational institutions, like the EU, frequently blamed for promoting a globalized outlook that conflicts with the national one. Like other xenophobic populists in Europe, Hungary views the EU as representing the interest of ‘aliens’ that threaten the nation’s purity, from which ‘the people’ must be protected. In this logic, if the EU is the villain, transborder Hungarians are glorified as the ‘true’ people who can save the nation.

The Orbán government has long relied on transborder Hungarians for support in national elections and referenda by making voting significantly easier, effectively allowing them to tilt the results. As Herner-Kovács (2020) explains, transborder Hungarians have come to represent a potent political remittance potential to the state as “politically active and organized communities with strong and effective ties to Hungary” (1161). Since they represent a predictable voter base, those with non-resident Hungarian citizenship – and thus the right to vote – have been granted access to letter voting. After Fidesz enabled ethnic Hungarians abroad to apply for citizenship, nearly half a million have benefitted from the opportunity. Patakfalvi-Czirják (2017) argues that this created a moral obligation, and transborder Hungarians’ overwhelming support can be seen as a ‘vote of gratitude.’ Their perceived duty to defend Fidesz became especially evident during the 2022 campaign when the opposition leader was rejected by local representatives of several transborder territories (Bereznay, 2022).

Recent Hungarian emigrants to Western Europe, often perceived as critical of the Orbán regime and likely to vote for the opposition, face limitations in their election participation. In 2022, Hungarians in the United Kingdom were restricted to only three polling locations despite the 15 that the community lobbied for (Czinkóczi 2022), which meant a 1000-kilometre journey for some voters. Outraged by these arrangements, the Hungarian diaspora self-organized itself to fundraise money to support the travel costs of those who wanted to vote but could not afford to travel. The discrepancy between the opportunities given to transborder communities and emigrant-diasporas to exercise their democratic rights is apparent. This led Waterbury (2023: 1) to assert that the “2022 Hungarian parliamentary election highlights the phenomenon of competing external demoi, a situation that emerges when an incumbent government differentially enfranchises and mobilizes different external national communities for electoral purposes, thus triggering a competing mobilization of external voters by nonincumbent political actors.” 

Incidents of transborder Hungarians incentivizing emigrant-diaspora members to vote have not been well received among the emigrant-diasporas. The unequal arrangements have generated feelings of jealousy and a sentiment that the Hungarian state prioritizes transborder Hungarians’ preferences about the direction in which the country is headed. Hungarians from Hungary find it unfair that people who may have never lived in Hungary would decide on issues affecting those living there. Among the emigrant-diaspora in London, three attitudes emerged toward voting. Some stated that they did not want to impact the outcome since they had committed to the UK. Though not planning to return, others felt responsible for the fate of their families and friends still in the country and found it important to vote. The third group insisted on voting, emphasizing that they would consider the return if Fidesz lost power. As such, to make sense of Fidesz’s overwhelming victory in the 2022 elections, a frequently uttered evaluation amongst emigrant Hungarians was that ‘Hungarians had no chance as the transborder Hungarian allies of Orbán decided the outcome,’ even if, their numbers are too small to have a significant impact.

‘The Carpathian Basin Coming Together’

Frigyes was impossible to miss in the Hungarian community in Dublin, not only because his manners were reminiscent of early 20th-century Hungarian novels – a literary period that inspired him greatly. Having initially migrated for economic reasons from the Hungarian-speaking region of Slovakia, Frigyes spent nearly a decade in low-paid service jobs, but eventually, he decided it was time to reap the benefits of his hard work: he registered as unemployed and committed himself entirely to the diaspora community. His enthusiasm was driven by a sense of finally being recognized as Hungarian after having experienced repression as a minority in Slovakia and as inferior in Hungary: “Borders have disappeared. It is a huge thing that for example at the [mentions specific event in Dublin] there are almost as many people from the transborder territories like from the mother country. […] Here, the fact that everybody is Hungarian is so natural that it is not even a question. Just like it is evident for you that you are Hungarian, not a question and is something that you take for granted. For me, it is a huge thing to see the Carpathian basin coming together, that the nation has come together and to see that this is not something unimaginable, but something that can actually function.”

Once facilitators began arriving in his community, Frigyes recognized himself as a Kőrösi facilitator: having dedicated years to supporting the diaspora community in Dublin, he was confident that he could excel at the task and thus decided to apply for the position. The application process was not straightforward, as it required first acquiring Hungarian citizenship, which posed a challenge. Slovakia, in opposition to Hungary’s policy of granting citizenship to transborder Hungarians, did not recognize dual citizenship. Despite this, Frigyes was determined and, in a bold move, gave up his Slovakian citizenship. Although he hoped to be assigned back to Ireland, he was open to taking on the role in any Hungarian diaspora community worldwide, indicating that his commitment was ultimately not to his host country but to the newfound freedom to be Hungarian fostered by emigrant-diaspora spaces. Shortly after, another transborder Hungarian from the Dublin diaspora followed suit and stayed in the job with her assigned community ever since.

Transborder Hungarians thrived in every diaspora community I studied, often attributing their success to the emigrant-diaspora space, which allowed them to express their Hungarian identity fully. Placing a great emphasis on national identity and cultural practices, they regularly attended diaspora events, which they described as giving them a sense of integration into the nation for the first time. Although some had spent much of their lives in Hungary, they described facing xenophobia and resistance from locals. One participant explained that identities are born out of people’s need to differentiate themselves from the people around them based on the ‘us vs them’ formula. Nonetheless, as the population of Hungary is relatively homogenous, there is not much option to create such distinctions. Therefore, as he put it, discrimination is often not based on fundamental differences but on perceptions that “paint one with the colours of the nation and the other one with the colours of distance.” In Ireland, however, where all Hungarians became a minority, it was a natural instinct to come together to maintain their identity, forming a unified community. While many transborder Hungarians initially arrived in Ireland to return to Hungary, their participation in the diaspora led them to reconsider that intention, as their connection to the home community conflicted with the fulfilment that emerged from being part of a cohesive Hungarian group abroad.

Rooted in this experience, in Ireland, transborder Hungarians felt that with their presence, they were actively contributing to a new definition of national unity, which involved the spreading of irredentist ideologies. As one of my participants explained, she had plans to bring her experience back home to Transylvania, but she often felt side-tracked by feelings experienced in her diaspora community. She explained, “They seem to like the thought of big Hungary and appreciate people from these territories a lot. And I find it fantastic to get this feeling. I always get goosebumps”—such processes aligned with Fidesz’s agenda. As Lowe and Peto (2013) emphasize, irredentist narratives are forever present in modern Hungarian politics. While Orbán has never specifically claimed to intend to re-attach the lost territories to Hungary, he consistently peeves neighbouring countries with the close ties he maintains with transborder Hungarians, not least by designating 4th June – the anniversary of the Treaty of Trianon – as a ‘day of national unity.’ Lowe and Peto also note that Hungarian everyday life is scattered with allusions to the detached territories inherently belonging to Hungary, including the generalised use of the term ‘mai Románia területén’ [on the territory of current-day Romania] and weather forecasts showing temperatures for the detached territories. As Sava (2020) further illustrates, since 2018, Hungary has also opposed Europe’s celebration of the end of the two World Wars as moments of reconciliation and European integration, instead hoarding resentment against Western states for letting the Trianon Treaty happen.

At the New Year’s Eve ball at the Hungarian House, as the clock struck midnight, three anthems played to usher in the New Year: The Hungarian national anthem, the British national anthem, and finally, the anthem of the Székely people, an ethnic Hungarian group primarily living in Harghita, Covasna, and Mureș counties of Romania. I was already accustomed to hearing this anthem at Hungarian church services, so I did not question its inclusion in such an event. However, a fellow participant was visibly confused and asked, “What is this? Is this something from here? I’ve never heard it before!” When another person explained what it was, the first person sighed and made a face, clearly disapproving of the choice. When I inquired with the operating director of the event, he explained that the decision was personal, as he felt the anthem was meaningful and dear to many attendees. Other transborder Hungarian attendees justified the inclusion by referring to Fidesz’s decision to replace the European Union flag with the Székely flag on the National Parliament—an act many Hungarians from Hungary saw as provocative and irredentist. The incident highlighted the complex dynamic that Hungarian diaspora members often faced. By practicing their culture at the Hungarian House, they were forced to navigate the delicate balance between balancing a cosmopolitan European identity, which had helped their integration into the UK, and the growing nationalist and irredentist sentiments within the diaspora community, which suddenly seemed like a pre-condition to keeping their traditions alive.

Conclusion

Populism is a tool of isolation that works well with the restrictive ideologies of nationalism as illustrated by the recent political processes unfolding in Hungary. Nationalism centres on the nation as a community with shared values, culture, and identity and emphasizes the importance of sovereignty and independence. It frames the country as being threatened by external or internal forces, such as immigration, foreign influence, or globalization, to which the antidote is people loyal to the nation-building process through their insistence on the practice and preservation of the authentic culture pertinent to the nation. In the Hungarian context, Fidesz has identified transborder Hungarians as key allies for their patriotic feelings regarding Hungarian culture that evolved due to a century’s worth of being a minority. 

In this paper, I enquired into one specific context in which their help in promoting nationalist narratives was relied on, namely the diaspora outreach programmes of the Hungarian state targeting recently emigrated Hungarians to the West of Europe. In line with the goals of diaspora engagement, their involvement was aimed to boost nationalist pride and cultivate Hungarian culture, incentivize voting behaviour on the side of Fidesz, and an irredentist approach. Further to the government being invested in mobilizing transborder Hungarians for such purposes, what enhanced their collaboration was that these people found a unique haven of identity preservation in emigrant-diasporas. In London and Dublin, transborder Hungarians thrived in emigrant-diaspora communities, primarily due to the deterritorialised nature of diaspora spaces. The territorial detachment from their country of origin and from Hungary rid them of the resistance of the states whose territories they used to reside on and the resistance of Hungarians in Hungary, who often perceived them as unwanted migrants. While, on the one hand, this new space empowered them to cultivate their Hungarian identity without limitations, at the same time, it reinforced their alignment with the Hungarian state’s goals: regardless of whether they supported Fidesz, their participation took places within dominant Fidesz narratives and as such, through their presence, Fidesz found a way to penetrate emigrant-diaspora spaces.

Nonetheless, the response was mixed. While the two communities studied were geographically not too far apart, the context differed: the Irish diaspora community in 2016/17 consisted of recent emigrants who were only trying to find their feet in the country. Most of these emigrants identified as economic migrants with plans to return. Thus, they were keen to stay in touch with their Hungarian roots and identified membership in the community of compatriots as a pre-condition to their success in the country. As such, the atmosphere in diaspora spaces was more community-oriented and forgiving of differences. However, in the case of the Hungarian House in London, which principally emerged out of political migration, people were less welcoming of state narratives and often penalized individuals who were seen to represent the home state’s ideologies. Nonetheless, in a community where most people lived transnational lives and felt equally invested in their host country, transborder Hungarians were often the only people motivated enough to invest time into keeping the community of Hungarians alive. By taking on such roles, they were transforming the very texture of what being part of an emigrant-diaspora meant: spaces of political resistance transformed into venues expressing nationalistic sentiments, reproducing Fidesz’s narratives. While on the surface, aligning transborder Hungarians with Hungarian diaspora outreach highlights a clever political move, it remains to be seen what impact this strategy can achieve. From the evidence gathered, it seemed that the long-term effect might be counter-productive and might result in the withdrawal of Hungarians from spaces dedicated to the preservation of Hungarian culture as they increasingly fail to identify with the state-led processes unfolding in them, thus undermining the very goal of diaspora outreach.

 

(*) Judit Molnar is a PhD researcher of Anthropology at the University of Oxford, where her research focuses on the correlations between home state ideologies and the cultivation of diaspora subjectivity amongst first-generation Hungarian and Venezuelan migrants to London, the United Kingdom. Judit holds a research Master’s in Cultural and Social Anthropology from the University of Vienna and another Master’s in Cultural Studies from the University of St Andrews. Judit has engaged with Hungarian diasporas in Ireland, Argentina, and the United Kingdom. Before coming to Oxford, she was a diaspora facilitator of the Hungarian State Secretariat for Nation Policy. She has also worked with the UN’s International Organization for Migration, focusing on the Venezuelan migration crisis, and the European Commission’s Cabinet for Education, Culture, Youth and Sport, researching ways to foster a pan-European identity.

 

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[1] In academic literature, the term ‘kin-state minorities’ is also frequently employed.