In this analytically rich commentary, ECPS Youth Group member Saurabh Raj examines how direct welfare delivery is transforming electoral politics in India. Focusing on the recent Bihar assembly election, Raj shows how visible and targeted benefits—especially cash transfers to women—have become a powerful political language shaping voter participation and choice. Conceptualising this shift as “freebie populism,” the article argues that welfare now operates not only as a developmental tool but as a mode of political mobilisation, mediated through digital infrastructures and personalised state–citizen encounters. While caste, religion, and ideology remain influential, Raj highlights the growing importance of the individual beneficiary as a new axis of political belonging. Situating Bihar within broader interstate patterns, the article raises critical questions about democratic accountability, political reasoning, and the future trajectory of Indian democracy.
The recent Bihar state[1] assembly election provides a useful lens to examine how welfare-centred mobilisation is reshaping contemporary electoral politics in India. Bihar recorded its highest ever voter turnout at 66.9 percent. The gender pattern was even more striking. Women voted at 71.6 percent while men voted at 62.8 percent. In 130 of the 243 constituencies, more women than men participated. These are not small variations or one time anomalies. They represent a structural shift in who participates and who determines electoral outcomes (Basu 2021).
The pattern of results closely mirrors this shift. The incumbent governing coalition won 114 of the 130 seats where women led the turnout which is close to 88 percent of all such constituencies. This alignment coincided with the scale and timing of welfare measures that reached women directly, warranting closer analytical attention. A direct cash transfer equivalent to approximately USD 120 to over twelve million women shortly before the election was only one part of a wider package that included pension increases, electricity bill relief and higher payments for frontline workers. The opposition responded with guarantee booklets, registration drives and promises of future support, as well as cards distributed by Jan Suraj[2] that signalled an alternative welfare imagination. Welfare was not an accessory to the campaign. It was the central axis around which political mobilisation occurred.
This election therefore makes visible a broader phenomenon that has been unfolding across India. Welfare centred electoral strategies are transforming political communication, voter reasoning and the emotional structure of democratic belonging. The rise of freebie populism, a term used here to describe the combination of populist rhetoric with highly visible and personalised welfare delivery, marks a distinct shift in how the state is imagined and how voters evaluate political actors. The term “freebie populism” is used here as an analytic category rather than a normative judgement. It refers not to the undesirability of welfare provision but to a specific political logic in which competitive electoral incentives privilege immediacy, visibility, and personalisation of benefits. This logic differs from rights-based or institutionalised welfare regimes, where entitlements are routinised and less directly tied to electoral cycles. The distinction is important, as the argument advanced here concerns the mode of political mobilisation rather than the legitimacy of welfare itself.
Methods Note
This commentary draws on publicly available data from the Election Commission of India (Election Commission of India, 2024), state budget documents, press releases, field reporting in Hindi and English media and academic literature on populism, welfare delivery and voting behaviour. Interpretive arguments build on comparative work on populism (Mudde, 2004; Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2017) and on scholarship that links welfare delivery to political participation (Khemani, 2022; Kruks Wisner, 2018). Additional reference is made to studies on gendered political engagement, digital welfare architecture and direct benefit transfer systems. The purpose of this article is analytical rather than predictive. It aims to situate the Bihar experience within a wider conceptual and empirical framework that illuminates the changing nature of electoral politics in India.
Classic Understandings of Populism
Cas Mudde defines populism as a thin centred ideology that imagines society as divided between “the pure people” and “the corrupt elite” and insists that politics must directly express the general will (Mudde, 2004). Because it is thin centred, it can attach itself to a range of ideological projects including right wing, left wing or regionally specific imaginations of welfare, nationalism and identity. Mudde and Kaltwasser note that populism becomes powerful when leaders present themselves as direct protectors of ordinary citizens and construct emotional and symbolic shortcuts that bypass institutions and complex policy debates (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2017).
Comparative research from Latin America demonstrates how populist leaders frequently combine emotive rhetoric with selective welfare delivery to cultivate direct affiliation with the masses (Hawkins, 2010; Roberts, 2015). These transfers are not incidental. They are political instruments through which belonging is reinforced and legitimacy is sustained. In India, populism has historically relied on religious mobilisation, symbolic gestures, charismatic leadership or caste-based appeals. Material transfers existed but did not shape political identity in the pronounced way witnessed today.
The current moment therefore extends rather than replaces classic understandings of populism. It adds a strong material and bureaucratically mediated dimension that is deeply embedded in the digital public infrastructure of the state. This dimension is responsible for the heightened immediacy with which political commitment is experienced.
Conceptualising Freebie Populism
Freebie populism represents a contemporary variant of populist mobilisation in which the primary bridge between leaders and citizens is constructed through direct material transfers rather than symbolic or rhetorical appeals alone. It does not replace classic definitions of populism but operationalises the promise of protection and recognition by making it tangible through targeted benefits. Cash transfers, subsidised electricity, expanded pensions, and free travel serve as visible proof of political commitment. These benefits act as recurring reminders that the state, often personified through political leadership, acknowledges the immediate material needs of citizens. Three features distinguish freebie populism from broader welfare politics.
Immediacy is central, as transfers are often timed close to elections and their effects are felt within household budgets almost immediately. Voters therefore perceive the state not as a distant bureaucracy but as a source of immediate relief.
Visibility is another critical feature. Digital transfers generate SMS alerts and bank notifications, and these alerts themselves function as instruments of political communication, turning a routine bureaucratic act into a concrete political moment.
Personalised recognition is a third characteristic. Scholars note that direct transfers create a strong sense of being acknowledged by the state, particularly among women who manage household finances (Khemani, 2022). This personalisation transforms welfare from a bureaucratic entitlement into a more intimate political relationship between the individual and the state.
Freebie populism does not erase caste or religious identities, which remain significant in shaping expectations and voting behaviour (Jaffrelot, 2021). However, welfare delivered directly to individual bank accounts establishes a new axis of political belonging. A woman from the Yadav or Paswan community may continue to retain group-based preferences, but her voting choices are also influenced by whether the state has reached her personally. The digital architecture of Aadhaar-linked transfers deepens this individualisation, making the relationship between the voter and the state more immediate, measurable, and experientially reliable.
Bihar and the Emergence of the Individual Beneficiary
The Bihar election demonstrates the mechanics of freebie populism with unusual clarity because the scale of targeted transfers was unprecedented. The distribution of ten thousand rupees to more than one crore twenty lakh women created a widespread perception that the state was acknowledging their economic vulnerability. This was part of a larger environment that included electricity bill relief, increased pensions and higher remuneration for frontline workers. These measures were repeatedly communicated through public meetings, local level messaging and digital outreach, ensuring that beneficiaries associated them with the ruling leadership.
The opposition attempted to counter this by centring women in its own campaign. Guarantee booklets, self-registration drives and targeted promises sought to build an alternative welfare narrative. Jan Suraj’s cards, for instance, attempted to construct a future oriented welfare claim. Yet the immediacy of actual deposits seemed to carry greater weight than future promises. Voters were able to verify receipt of benefits in the most tangible sense.
Turnout and voting patterns align closely with this political strategy. Women led the turnout in 130 constituencies, and the incumbent governing coalition won 114 of these. The fact that this alignment occurred during a period of intense welfare messaging suggests the strong influence of direct benefits on electoral behaviour. The political message materialised not as an abstract claim but as a verified deposit received through a mobile phone alert. Politics was increasingly experienced through the position of the individual beneficiary.
This alignment does not imply that welfare purchases votes. Rather it indicates that welfare is functioning as a channel through which political recognition, credibility and responsiveness are evaluated. Voters appear to be rewarding the government for delivering measurable relief and penalising actors whose promises remain untested.
Shifting Political Behaviour
The Bihar data indicates that freebie populism is reshaping political behaviour in ways that build on and extend earlier research. Scholars have noted that low-income voters are highly strategic and responsive to welfare delivery, often making reasoned decisions based on evidence of state performance (Khemani, 2022; Kruks Wisner, 2018). The Bihar experience reinforces this insight and highlights three important dimensions of change.
First, welfare is increasingly becoming the primary language of political recognition. Women voters demonstrated exceptionally high turnout and a strong preference alignment in constituencies where welfare delivery was both visible and recent, suggesting that direct transfers and other targeted benefits have emerged as key instruments through which citizens assess the state’s commitment.
Second, citizenship itself is being experienced through the household economy. This does not reduce political engagement to a transactional exchange but instead reflects a new democratic imagination in which the state operates as a direct economic actor within the household. For many women, welfare programmes provide relief from domestic pressures, enhance financial independence, and support caregiving responsibilities, thereby strengthening political agency. At the same time, political reasoning is increasingly grounded in immediacy.
Third, freebie populism shifts the focus from abstract or long term developmental claims toward the voter’s immediate lived experience. Citizens evaluate political actors on the credibility, timing, and scale of benefit delivery and the responsiveness they witness in practice. This approach does not indicate passivity; rather, it reflects active and informed political calculation based on tangible outcomes and personal experience (Chauchard, 2017).
Taken together, these patterns suggest that political loyalty is increasingly shaped by repeated and recognisable acts of recognition rather than broad ideological or identity-based appeals, signalling a profound shift in how democratic engagement is conceptualised and practiced.
These patterns resonate with findings from other democracies where targeted welfare provision has become central to electoral competition, including parts of Latin America and Southeast Asia. In such contexts, welfare delivery increasingly functions as both policy and political communication, blurring the boundary between governance and mobilisation. The Indian case therefore contributes to a growing comparative literature on how material distribution reshapes democratic participation under conditions of economic precarity.
Patterns Beyond Bihar
The pattern observed in Bihar is not an isolated development but part of a broader transformation in electoral politics across multiple Indian states. Welfare centred strategies have become essential elements of political competition, and their design increasingly reflects the logic of freebie populism, where visible and immediate benefits shape political belonging and voter behaviour. Each state offers a slightly different model, yet all demonstrate the growing centrality of targeted welfare in shaping electoral outcomes.
Jharkhand provides a clear example of this shift. The state expanded support for low-income women through age linked educational transfers and targeted assistance schemes that reached households directly. These interventions were not presented merely as development initiatives but became central to political communication, especially in rural districts where economic insecurity remains acute. The emphasis on young women and first-generation learners created a perception that the state was intervening meaningfully in the life chances of vulnerable households. Political actors highlighted these measures during election campaigns, illustrating how welfare has become a key electoral asset.
Maharashtra further demonstrates the consolidation of welfare centred politics. The Ladki Bahin Scheme placed women at the centre of the electoral narrative by offering regular financial assistance and presenting the state as an active participant in household welfare. The scheme was supported by recognisable branding, sustained outreach and continuous communication that associated the ruling leadership with direct support for women. This combination of financial transfers and symbolic visibility strengthened the perception that welfare was both a right and a political commitment, reinforcing the link between beneficiaries and the state.
Telangana presents another version of this emerging trend. Successive governments have relied heavily on targeted welfare, particularly through agricultural support schemes, marriage assistance programmes and community specific initiatives. These policies created strong emotional and material incentives for distinct social groups and demonstrated that welfare could be used strategically to cultivate enduring political alliances. Welfare delivery in Telangana has become an essential component of electoral mobilisation rather than a supplementary tool and continues to play a decisive role in shaping partisan loyalty.
Tamil Nadu offers one of the longest running traditions of welfare linked mobilisation in India. The contemporary phase builds on earlier frameworks but introduces new elements such as free bus travel for women, expanded meal schemes, higher pensions and targeted relief for vulnerable households. Welfare delivery is deeply integrated into political identity and party narratives. Campaigns consistently highlight the immediacy and continuity of state support, reinforcing the idea that welfare programmes are expressions of political care rather than bureaucratic entitlements.
Across these states, welfare is framed not merely as development but as a direct political relationship. This relationship is mediated through digital systems that enable individual bank transfers, local mobilisation networks that translate policy into political communication, frontline workers who act as intermediaries between the state and beneficiaries and the emotional resonance generated when citizens experience state recognition in concrete and material form. Together, these elements show how freebie populism has become a national phenomenon shaping political participation and redefining the meaning of electoral competition.
However, important differences remain across states. In Tamil Nadu and other states, welfare programmes are embedded within long-standing party institutions and ideological narratives, reducing their electoral immediacy. In contrast, states such as Bihar and Jharkhand exhibit a more episodic and election-timed deployment of benefits, intensifying their political salience. These variations suggest that freebie populism operates most strongly where welfare delivery is newly individualised and weakly institutionalised.
Limits of Attribution and Scope of Argument
This article advances an interpretive rather than causal argument between welfare transfers and electoral outcomes. Voting behaviour is shaped by multiple overlapping factors, including caste alignments, candidate credibility, party organisation, and broader political narratives. The observed alignment between women-led turnout and electoral outcomes in Bihar should therefore be read as indicative rather than deterministic.
The argument advanced here is that welfare delivery has acquired heightened political salience under conditions of digital transfer, electoral competition, and economic precarity. Direct benefits function as signals of state responsiveness that voters incorporate into broader political reasoning. This does not imply political passivity or vote-buying; rather, it reflects strategic and experiential evaluation by citizens based on verifiable state action. Future research using booth-level data or longitudinal beneficiary tracking would allow for more precise estimation of causal effects.
Conclusion
Welfare centred mobilisation has become a central feature of contemporary electoral competition in India. The Bihar assembly election provides a useful illustration of how direct and visible welfare delivery is reshaping patterns of political participation by foregrounding the individual beneficiary as a significant site of democratic engagement. High female turnout and the alignment of women dominated constituencies with electoral outcomes underline the growing importance of welfare as a medium through which citizens experience and evaluate state responsiveness.
This shift does not indicate a decline in political reasoning or a reduction of citizenship to transactional exchange. Instead, it reflects a reorientation of democratic judgement in which voters increasingly rely on observable and verifiable state action to assess political credibility. Welfare delivery, mediated through digital and bureaucratic systems, functions not only as policy intervention but also as a communicative practice that signals recognition, reliability, and proximity between the state and citizens.
At the same time, the increasing centrality of welfare in electoral mobilisation raises important questions for democratic accountability. An emphasis on immediacy and visibility may encourage short term distributive competition at the expense of institutional consolidation and sustained policy debate. As electoral legitimacy becomes more closely tied to the timing and scale of benefits, political contestation risks narrowing to questions of delivery rather than deliberation.
The broader challenge for Indian democracy therefore lies not in the expansion of welfare itself but in the political logic through which welfare is mobilised. Understanding how welfare delivery reshapes political participation, voter reasoning, and experiences of citizenship is essential to assessing the evolving character of democratic practice in India. The Bihar case suggests that future electoral outcomes will increasingly be shaped by how convincingly the state makes itself present in the everyday lives of citizens, alongside enduring influences of identity, ideology, and organisation. Beyond India, the analysis highlights how welfare delivery can reconfigure democratic engagement in contexts where citizens encounter the state most directly through material transfers.
(*) Saurabh Raj is a core team member at the Indian School of Democracy and is associated with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). He has a decade of experience in Indian politics and elections.
References
Aiyar, Y., and Walton, M. (2015). “Rights, accountability and citizenship: Examining India’s social welfare architecture.” Accountability Initiative.
Basu, P. (2021). “Women and electoral participation in India: Changing patterns of turnout and political engagement.” Economic and Political Weekly, 56(12), 34 to 42.
Chauchard, S. (2017). Why representation matters: The meaning of ethnic quotas in rural India. Cambridge University Press.
Election Commission of India. (2024). State Assembly Election Data: Bihar.
Hawkins, K. A. (2010). Venezuela’s Chavismo and populism in comparative perspective. Cambridge University Press.
Jaffrelot, C. (2021). Modi’s India: Hindu nationalism and the rise of ethnic democracy. Princeton University Press.
Khemani, S. (2022). “Political economy of welfare delivery in India.” World Bank Research Observer, 37(2), 245 to 270.
Kruks Wisner, G. (2018). Claiming the state: Active citizenship and social welfare in rural India. Cambridge University Press.
Mudde, C. (2004). “The populist zeitgeist.” Government and Opposition, 39(4), 541 to 563.
Mudde, C., and Kaltwasser, C. R. (2017). Populism: A very short introduction. Oxford University Press.
Roberts, K. M. (2015). Changing course in Latin America: Party systems in the neoliberal era. Cambridge University Press.
Footnotes
[1] Bihar, one of India’s most populous and economically disadvantaged states, has historically exhibited lower levels of state capacity and social welfare penetration, making recent shifts in voter participation particularly significant.
[2] A recently formed political party in Bihar positioning itself around governance and welfare reform.
In this wide-ranging interview with the ECPS, Dr. Matías Bianchi offers a powerful diagnosis of contemporary illiberalism. Moving beyond regime-centric explanations, Dr. Bianchi argues that today’s defining shift is normative: “illiberal actors no longer need to pretend they are liberal.” He shows how illiberalism now operates through transnational networks embedded within liberal democracies, sustained by funding, coordination, and discourse originating largely in the Global North. Highlighting the erosion of liberal legitimacy, the normalization of illiberal language, and the structural weakening of the nation-state, Dr. Bianchi underscores why democratic institutions struggle to respond—and what is at stake if they fail to adapt.
In an era marked by democratic backsliding, geopolitical fragmentation, and the global diffusion of illiberal norms, understanding the evolving nature of authoritarian and illiberal politics has become an urgent scholarly and policy task. In this in-depth interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Dr. Matías Bianchi, Director of Asuntos del Sur in Buenos Aires and co-author of “The Illiberal International,” offers a compelling diagnosis of contemporary illiberalism—one that departs decisively from regime-centric and state-centric explanations.
At the heart of Dr. Bianchi’s analysis lies a striking observation captured in the interview’s headline: “Illiberal actors no longer need to pretend they are liberal.” For Dr. Bianchi, the defining feature of the current moment is not the novelty of illiberal ideas themselves, but rather a profound normative and cultural shift that has lifted the constraints once requiring authoritarian or illiberal actors to cloak their agendas in liberal rhetoric. As he explains, “What we aim to show is that there is a set of actors working together and collaborating at different levels—geopolitical, institutional, and interpersonal—for whom liberal practices and ideas are no longer the goal.”
This “shedding of pretense,” as Dr. Bianchi describes it, represents a critical marker of the contemporary illiberal turn. Practices that were once “forbidden, punished, or had to be concealed are now openly articulated.” The symbolic need to maintain democratic façades—what Dr. Bianchi recalls through Fidel Castro’s claim that “we are a real democracy”—has eroded. “That veil is no longer necessary,” he argues, signaling a transformation not only in political behavior but also in the boundaries of legitimacy and civility within democratic publics.
Crucially, Dr. Bianchi situates illiberalism not as a discrete regime type but as a networked, relational political formation that increasingly operates within liberal democracies themselves. He emphasizes that many illiberal actors are embedded in ostensibly democratic systems—“in the European Union, the United States, or other contexts”—and that a major novelty of the past decade is that “much of the financing, support, and networking now originates from the US and Europe,” regions once seen as the pillars of the liberal international order.
Throughout the interview, Dr. Bianchi traces how cross-border coordination, transnational funding, and shared discursive strategies—exemplified by platforms such as The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) or slogans like “Make Europe Great Again”—have accelerated the normalization of illiberalism. These networks thrive amid what he identifies as a deeper crisis of liberalism itself: declining legitimacy, shrinking human rights cooperation, and the inability of liberal institutions to deliver material security, social inclusion, and credible governance in an increasingly unequal and digitally mediated global order.
Here is the edited transcript of our interview with Dr. Matías Bianchi, slightly revised for clarity and flow.
Illiberal Actors Now Operate Openly Within Liberal Regimes
A banner depicts democracy as a leaf eaten by “caterpillars” named Putin, Kaczynski, Orban, Babis, Trump, and Fico on Labour Day, May 1, 2017 in Old Town Square, Prague. Photo: Jolanta Wojcicka.
Dr. Matías Bianchi, thank you very much for joining our interview series. Let me start right away with the first question: How do you conceptualize illiberalism in distinction from classical authoritarianism and competitive autocracy? In“The Illiberal International,”illiberalism appears neither reducible to established authoritarian rule nor fully captured by frameworks of competitive authoritarianism or democratic erosion. What core institutional and normative markers define this “illiberal international,” particularly in terms of its relationship to legality, electoralism, and claims to popular sovereignty?
Dr. Matías Bianchi: In our article, we do not engage in a fine-tuned conceptualization of each of the concepts you mentioned. Rather, what we aim to show is that there is a set of actors working together and collaborating at different levels—geopolitical, institutional, and interpersonal—for whom liberal practices and ideas are no longer the goal. Our liberal order, already weakened, is being challenged, and we are not entirely certain about the motivations behind this challenge. Some actors may be seeking greater financial resources, others may wish to control their political space, while others pursue more ideological objectives, such as creating a new order, as in the case of Javier Milei in Argentina. They may have different aims, but what they share is that liberal practices—such as the Woodrow Wilson–style liberal global order—are no longer central.
Traditionally, autocratic or authoritarian frameworks focus primarily on regimes. What we show, however, is that many of these illiberal actors are often operating within liberal regimes—such as those in the European Union, the United States, or other contexts. That is precisely what we seek to demonstrate. A key feature of the current situation is that much of the financing, support, and networking now originates from the US and Europe, which were once the primary sustainers of the liberal global order. This represents a major novelty of the past decade.
As for the practices or markers we observe, one of the most significant is a cultural shift that enables ideas and practices that existed before but are now expressed more openly. In a sense, there has been a shedding of pretense surrounding liberal ideas, allowing actors to operate more freely. This is an important marker. Practices that were once forbidden, punished, or had to be concealed are now openly articulated. Even in Cuba, Fidel Castro used to say, “We are a real democracy.” There was always a veil that needed to be maintained. I believe that this veil is no longer necessary, and that in itself is a telling marker.
Illiberalism Has Gone Transnational
What explains the shift from predominantly domestic processes of democratic backsliding to increasingly coordinated, cross-border illiberal networks? In your article, illiberalism appears less as a discrete regime type than as a relational, networked political formation. How does this reconceptualization challenge state-centric and regime-centric approaches in comparative politics and international relations?
Dr. Matías Bianchi: Many of the things I am going to say are not directly related to the article and are more my own ideas, and not necessarily shared with my co-authors. What we are witnessing is a contested situation. The world order we are living in still includes a liberal order, but it is lacking both legitimacy and power. At the same time, other actors are gaining momentum; they have more financial resources and greater cooperation across many areas, including technology and the military.
This operates at different levels, which is a crucial point. The key dimension here is the network—that these actors are collaborating more than ever before. If you look back a decade or two, these networks were far more limited. The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), for instance, was something quite restricted. “Make Europe Great Again” was either very limited or did not exist at all. Now, however, these spaces are becoming global. You have CPAC in Latin America, CPAC in Europe, and these platforms are expanding and increasingly sharing resources.
I think this development is related to the loss of pretense—that these ideas no longer need to be hidden. This, in turn, changes the game. There is more funding, while at the same time the liberal camp is lacking resources, lacking investment, and experiencing less cooperation. So, while this dynamic operates at different levels, the networks functioning simultaneously are particularly important.
For example, Tucker Carlson making Milei a global phenomenon, with hundreds of millions of viewers for his interviews, allows people across the United States to become familiar with this phenomenon. All of this network-based collaboration, to me, is absolutely crucial.
Illiberal Power Reveals Itself Through Discourse Before It Acts
Drawing on V-Dem data, the Authoritarian Collaboration Index, and your own empirical research, which indicators most effectively capture the qualitative transformation—not merely the quantitative expansion—of authoritarian cooperation in recent years? Which measures best reveal the growing organizational capacity, coordination, and strategic coherence of illiberal actors at the global level?
Dr. Matías Bianchi: Again, this goes beyond our analysis. I would say, once more, that the key element is the normative shift. There has been a change in what can be said at the level of language. Insults and the demonization of adversaries or other political actors have become more acceptable; at the level of discourse, the line of civility has shifted. This normative change is crucial, and it is followed by action. Language comes first.
When you start making statements such as “women are this,” or when Muslims or immigrants are targeted, you begin naming things, and then actions follow—ICE raids and other measures come afterward. So, the normative shift, in terms of what is allowed without penalties, is essential. In the past, if actions like those taken by Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil or by others had occurred, there would have been phone calls from the White House or Brussels. There would have been at least threats involving investments, financial support, or other consequences.
I am not sure those calls exist anymore. All of these shifts occur, again, at the level of language, which has penetrated civic discourse within societies, but also at the global level, where the normative environment itself has changed. There is a fundamental normative shift at work.
When No One Enforces the Rules, Illiberal Networks Move Faster
This editorial image, captured in Belgrade, Serbia, showcases an array of novelty socks featuring the likenesses of Vladimir Putin, Aleksandr Lukashenko, Viktor Orban, and Donald Trump in Belgrade, Serbia on December 12, 2024. Photo: Jerome Cid.
Why have authoritarian and illiberal networks become more agile and effective than democratic alliances, despite the latter’s historical institutional advantages? To what extent do procedural neutrality, consensus-based decision-making, and legal formalism within liberal institutions create structural vulnerabilities that illiberal actors exploit?
Dr. Matías Bianchi: That is a very good question. I see liberal practices as a kind of social contract and a global contract. However, they need to be sustained by power. At some point, someone imposed those rules and others complied. I am not sure there is still sufficient power sustaining that liberal order at the international level, or in many cases at the national level. As a result, there is little punishment for violating it. So I am not sure this is primarily a question of institutional design; rather, it is a question of legitimacy. It is also about the fact that these regimes have not been delivering—both within countries and at the level of the global order.
International cooperation on human rights is shrinking. By 2026, it is estimated to be 50 percent lower than it was three years ago. Support for independent journalists, NGOs engaged in strategic human rights litigation, and networks of young leaders seeking to promote democratic practices have declined dramatically. At the same time, other arenas have gained resources and visibility, with social media playing a major role in amplifying influence and reach. That is part of a different discussion, but the bottom line is that there is no longer sufficient power sustaining that contract. So, again, I am not sure this is a question of design; it is more fundamentally about power.
Illiberal Networks Exploit 21st-Century Tools While Democracy Speaks in 20th-Century Language
Your analysis highlights how liberal institutions’ commitment to proceduralism and neutrality can be exploited from within. Is this best understood as an institutional design flaw, a crisis of political will, or a deeper contradiction within liberal constitutionalism itself?
Dr. Matías Bianchi: This partially relates to what I just said: the lack of legitimacy and the lack of power. At the same time, I want to emphasize that the global arena is contested. There is no clear winner. It has always been contested, but there was once a clear predominance of liberal, pro-democracy, and human-rights–oriented international regimes, while alternative models were weaker.
Today, the illiberal camp is growing, and illiberal networks and actors are increasingly effective in using 21st-century tools—misinformation, the manipulation and circulation of information, and the construction of conspiracy theories that support their worldview and preferred version of facts. A particularly important turning point was the pandemic, which exposed how nation-states and the international order lacked sufficient capacity to respond effectively. This moment acted as a major trigger; for instance, it coincides with the period when Milei entered politics.
These actors have been highly effective in exploiting digital communication, narratives, and misinformation, which have proven especially appealing. In particular, they have successfully mobilized people’s disappointment and anger. When populations became frustrated by real-life experiences—lockdowns, unemployment, children being forced into online learning, and the collapse of healthcare systems—these grievances were skillfully leveraged to generate resentment toward democracy and politics more broadly.
They have also been effective in promoting narratives such as “we are outsiders,” “we are going to drain the swamp,” or, as Milei puts it, attacking la casta, the political elite portrayed as the worst. Meanwhile, the democratic camp continues to rely on 20th-century tools—narratives that resonated in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s but are no longer persuasive today.
Why should I pay my taxes if education continues to deteriorate? Why should I contribute to my pension fund if I will receive very little when I retire? We continue to invoke narratives of the social contract, welfare, and liberal rights when lived realities no longer fully align with them, or at least do so far less than before. Illiberal actors have been very effective at exploiting this anger and loss of legitimacy. As we all know, when people are angry, those who manage to tap into that emotion can manipulate their will.
Illiberalism Grows Where the Nation-State Loses the Power to Set Boundaries
To what extent should the rise of the illiberal international be understood as the product of structural transformations in the global political economy—such as shifts in GDP distribution, energy interdependence, and technological capacity—rather than ideological convergence alone?
Dr. Matías Bianchi: This is part of my own research, so I will not bring my co-authors into this. My work is precisely about this issue. I am fully convinced that the crucial challenge lies in the weakening power of the nation-state. As we know, democracy flourished only when there was a strong nation-state—institutions capable of placing boundaries on de facto powers, whether capitalist entrepreneurs seeking to maximize profits, illegal actors, large media conglomerates, or other forms of concentrated power. Democracy functioned more effectively when the state was able to exert some control over these forces.
What we have witnessed is a long-term erosion of this capacity since the 1970s, driven by the deregulation of the financial sector and neoliberal policies that diminished the role of the state. This was followed by a series of crises—from the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the household debt crises of 2008 and 2013 to, most significantly, the COVID-19 pandemic, which marked a profound transformation. Today, inequality is no longer defined by the top 1 percent; rather, it is the top 0.01 percent, whose wealth has grown by a thousand percent over the past decade, while the bottom 50 percent of the world’s population has seen living standards stagnate or even decline.
This also raises the issue of sovereignty—the ability to regulate transnational commerce and transnational information flows. With the rise of social networks, we now face an unprecedented situation: privately owned platforms such as Twitter or X, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram function as their own media ecosystems, reaching billions of people worldwide. The lack of effective regulation means that these actors determine what is acceptable in public discourse, which voices are amplified, and which are marginalized.
All of these developments point to structural factors affecting sovereignty, the provision of public goods, and civic discourse—three key arenas of stateness. The problem is that nation-state institutions were designed for national boundaries, analog societies, and national markets, whereas today we inhabit digital, globalized societies. The central challenge, then, is how to rebuild political capacity—to recreate forms of stateness capable of regulating de facto powers in the current context.
Illicit Networks Spread as States Lose the Power to Enforce Rules
Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission arrives for a EU Summit, at the EU headquarters in Brussels, on June 30, 2023. Photo: Alexandros Michailidis.
How central are illicit financial flows, money laundering, and transnational corruption networks to the reproduction of illiberal politics within formally democratic systems? To what extent should these networks be understood not merely as enabling mechanisms but as constitutive pillars of contemporary illiberalism, shaping political competition, institutional capture, and democratic hollowing from within?
Dr. Matías Bianchi: This is part of the same answer. These dynamics have always been present in liberal systems. Money laundering, drug trafficking, and weapons trafficking have long existed. What has changed is our capacity to control them. There is now less power to set and enforce rules.
As a result, these practices have, in a sense, spread. This is something we show in our article. There is no longer a clear “axis of evil” overseeing what were once perceived as isolated authoritarian or illiberal practices. Instead, these dynamics have become far more widespread. We now see even middle powers, such as Turkey or Hungary, exercising influence—for example, Hungary funding the Vox political party in Spain, or Vox supporting Kast in Chile.
This points to a broader diffusion of such practices and, at the same time, to fewer constraints, fewer penalties, and weaker deterrents against this kind of behavior.
When Norms Shift, Language Turns into Action
Events such as The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) and “Make Europe Great Again” blur boundaries between conventional conservatism and authoritarian narratives. How does this discursive hybridization accelerate the normalization of illiberalism within democratic publics?
Dr. Matías Bianchi: There is a widespread diffusion of these practices that, again, were present before. Many of these ideas existed previously, but now they operate without constraints. The change—the normative shift in these cases—is crucial. It is crucial for redefining the boundaries of civic space and for determining what is considered acceptable or unacceptable in public debate.
These dynamics generate cultural change, and that cultural change is central in these arenas. It allows actions to follow that have meaningful impact. Although we might initially see this as merely a matter of language or narratives—about women, about feminists being labeled as fascists, and similar claims—there are people who act upon these narratives.
One striking example from a couple of months ago in Argentina involved a political activist of Milei who killed all the women in his family and was constantly mobilized by anti-feminist narratives. A similar dynamic can be observed in the United States with ICE and immigration, where many volunteers actively work for ICE.
That is what is changing. These networks, again, existed before, or at least similar networks existed, but they were marginal and could not operate so openly. Now they are visible, awarding prizes and running their own news outlets, and that represents a major change.
The Global Order No Longer Polices Illiberal Behavior
How do authoritarian or illiberal middle powers—such as Turkey, the UAE, Hungary, and Saudi Arabia—operate as brokers or hubs within transnational illiberal networks, and how does their intermediary role complicate binary distinctions between “core” and “peripheral” autocracies in the global authoritarian ecosystem?
Dr. Matías Bianchi: I have already touched on this, but I want to return to the issue of the erosion of the global order. In the past, at least, a middle power selling weapons had to ask for permission. Today, there is a much freer flow of such activities. For example, the Emirates selling weapons to rogue regimes, or Hungary funding Vox, as I mentioned earlier. There is far less control over these actions. As a result, it is no longer just the “axis of evil” that we used to think about 20 years ago. These dynamics are now widespread at different levels, and this reflects a broader shift in the balance of the global order.
Russia Disrupts, China Builds—and Democracy Must Respond Differently
The Indian Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, is pictured with the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, and the President of the People’s Republic of China, Xi Jinping, in Goa, India on May 25, 2019. Photo: Shutterstock.
How do Russia and China differ in their modalities of illiberal influence—financial, ideological, technological, and diplomatic—and where do their strategies converge? How should we analytically distinguish Russia’s coercive and disruptive practices from China’s more institutionalized, developmental, and techno-governance–oriented approaches, and what do these differences imply for the design of effective democratic counter-strategies?
Dr. Matías Bianchi: That is a very good question. Russia has less soft power and relies more heavily on hard power, particularly through cyberattacks and arms sales. This calls for a specific set of responses, including stronger cybersecurity measures, better control over weapons distribution, and more effective countermeasures against disinformation.
China, by contrast, is more complex. It is the second-largest economy in the world and the largest foreign investor in roughly half of the world’s countries. Its influence operates largely through development investments, as you noted—building bridges, infrastructure, highways, and nuclear plants. This requires a different kind of response. The problem is that the United States and the European Union have been retracting from development investment. This is not only about recent USAID cuts; it has been happening for a long time. Meanwhile, China has been expanding the Maritime Silk Road through investment and trade, even in countries that are not particularly sympathetic to China’s political ideas, such as Chile under its new government, which nevertheless maintains very strong commercial ties with China.
This form of influence demands a different response—one based on greater investment and more credible policies. During the Pax Americana, the United States and Europe, in their hegemonic roles, often acted “under the table.” We should recall that the US funded many military coups in Latin America in the second half of the twentieth century, and that Europe has had deeply problematic practices in Africa for decades. This duality has always existed; it is not a simple story of good and bad actors. However, as Western actors retract and offer less, these contradictions become more visible and more damaging.
In this context, the risk is that some regimes are openly calling out what they perceive as the hypocrisy of Europe and the United States: “You are not offering as much as they are. They are building schools and infrastructure, and you are not.”As a result, democratic strategies must be different and more complex. It is not only about money; it is also about credibility—being credible in contracts and in international agreements. Credibility itself is central.
Democracy Must Be Made Attractive Again—Across All Levels
Are existing global and regional institutions reformable enough to confront the illiberal international, or do we need entirely new organizational forms?
Dr. Matías Bianchi: Political scientists are trained more to analyze past events than to forecast the future. But I would say that we need to look at the larger picture and think strategically. If we want to restore the strength of a liberal order based on human rights, respect for people, economic development, and a sense of equality and inclusion, we need to rethink how we build the political muscle to sustain it.
As I said before, in my opinion, the major crisis is that the institutional framework we have—the nation-state—lacks power. And it is not simply about going back to the nation-state. We need to restore ideas of stateness, sovereignty, the provision of public goods, and the creation of a civic community. The question is: what institutional frameworks, powers, and financial resources can sustain that? I feel that the nation-state alone is no longer sufficient. So the broader strategic challenge—the forest, not just the trees—is how we rebuild democratic power.
At the same time, we need to think about tactics. We need to make democracy more attractive, not by relying on the narratives of the 1950s and 1960s, but by speaking the language of our time and developing more appealing communication strategies. We need to strengthen networks of people who want to live in democracy, who still believe in it, and who want to defend it.
We need also to work at the geopolitical level, at the level of institutional networks, but also at the community and even individual levels. For example, in schools, we see emerging practices in different countries focused on critical thinking—teaching people to recognize when they are being exposed to misinformation or manipulation strategies, and to take a step back. At the same time, we need to think carefully about how we treat our neighbors, how we speak to our peers, and how we engage with our political opponents. I feel that, tactically, we need to think across these different levels where we can act, while at the same time conceptualizing and building new political power to sustain a rules-based, rights-based society.
Without a More Honest Global Order, Polarization and Conflict Will Deepen
UN Security Council meeting on the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo, New York, August 25, 2016. Photo: Ognjen Stevanovic.
And lastly, Dr. Bianchi, under what conditions could democratic coordination regain momentum, and what do you see as the most plausible best- and worst-case scenarios for liberal democracy over the next decade?
Dr. Matías Bianchi: I think the next decade will be highly contested. I feel that things could go very wrong. We currently have several wars underway, any of which could escalate at any moment. We also face irresponsible global leadership. In Washington, for example, the language toward China shifted four or five years ago; policymakers no longer speak of an adversary but of an enemy. With that mindset, things can indeed go very wrong.
We could face a severe scenario marked by war and increasing societal polarization—developments we have experienced before and that we do not want to return to. At the same time, the desire for order has not disappeared. Clearly, we need to build a better one: a more honest order, one in which the Global South has greater influence and in which power and resources are more equitably distributed.
The United States and Europe still have an opportunity to help shape the rules of this order. However, they need to understand that these rules can no longer be based on hegemonic dominance, or on the United States acting as a hegemon in particular. Instead, the focus must be on designing rules that meaningfully include emerging powers, especially China.
If this does not happen, current trends will continue: China will further distance itself from liberal institutions and expand its own alternatives—such as the BRICS and other trade and financial frameworks. This will only deepen a bifurcated global order. There is much that could be done with greater generosity and a stronger commitment to inclusion, particularly toward the Global South and Asia.
In this commentary, Dr. Hafza Girdap offers a compelling comparative analysis of populism, law, gender, and freedom across two authoritarian contexts. Bringing Shirin Ebadi’s “The Golden Cage” into dialogue with transnational feminist theory, Dr. Girdap examines how populist regimes in Iran and Turkey moralize “the people,” narrow citizenship, and weaponize law to discipline dissent—particularly women’s dissent. Drawing on her original framework of contextual gendered racialization, she shows how gender governance operates through both patriarchy and racialized belonging. The article foregrounds women’s resistance as a form of epistemic, legal, and care-centered praxis, redefining freedom not as order or security, but as memory, accountability, and collective struggle beyond the confines of the “golden cage.”
This piece offers a condensed commentary drawn from a broader, ongoing project of mine that seeks to trace a coherent trajectory bridging sociology, feminist theory, and human rights practice. Centering the experiences of racialized and marginalized women, my project examines how women actively reclaim voice, produce knowledge, and build solidarities across borders. By integrating scholarship with activism, it aims not only to interpret structures of oppression but also to intervene in them—amplifying marginalized women’s voices, reshaping public discourse, and contributing to justice-oriented social change at both local and global levels.
Within this framework, the article examines populism, gendered repression, and resistance in Iran and Turkey by bringing Shirin Ebadi’s The Golden Cage into dialogue with transnational feminist theory and my conceptual framework of contextual gendered racialization.
Across both cases, populism constructs a moralized vision of “the people,” narrows plural citizenship, and weaponizes law to discipline dissent, particularly women’s dissent. Read together, Iran and Turkey reveal a shared trajectory from revolutionary or reformist promise to authoritarian consolidation, where legality becomes an instrument of domination, intimacy is reorganized by fear, and women’s resistance redefines freedom not as comfort or order, but as accountability, memory, and collective care (Shabnam, 2016).
Populism and the Moral Community
In post-1979 Iran, Islamist populism intertwined anti-imperialism with religious moralism, deifying state power as the authentic voice of the ummah and framing dissent as moral deviance or foreign betrayal. Hardship, repression, and top-down governance are justified as ethical sacrifice, while sovereignty is equated with the regime itself (Qaderi et al., 2023; V for Human, 2025; Bottura, 2024).
In Turkey, the populism of ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan evolved from counter-Kemalist majoritarianism into a religio-nationalist project that performs unity through slogans such as “one nation, one flag, one religion,” increasingly centralizing authority in the figure of the leader. While initially framed as democratizing, this project narrowed citizenship through moral conformity, loyalty, and cultural homogeneity (Yalvaç & Joseph, 2019; Yabancı, 2022).
Ebadi’s metaphor of the “golden cage” captures the populist bargain in both contexts: material security, national pride, and moral certainty are offered in exchange for silence. Belonging becomes conditional, and pluralism is redefined as threat. Populism thus does not merely mobilize “the people”; it redraws their boundaries.
From Rule of Law to Rule-by-Law
Ebadi’s central assertion, “law without justice is violence,” resonates powerfully across both cases. In Iran, juridical language legitimates repression through moralized penalties, surveillance, and gender policing. Courts, decrees, and security forces recode dissent, especially women’s défiance, as disorder, immorality, or national betrayal. Following the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising, intensified surveillance technologies and punitive legislation targeted women’s everyday presence in public space (V for Human, 2025, Makooi, 2025).
In Turkey, a shift from institutional reform to rule-by-law recalibrated the judiciary, media, and religious institutions to executive power. Gender governance became a central showcase of this transformation. The withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention via presidential decree exemplified how formal legality can be used to hollow out rights while projecting a moralized policy turn. In both contexts, legality masks authoritarian consolidation, transforming law into a technology of control rather than protection (Girdap, 2021; Sarac et al., 2023).
Family, Fear, and Everyday Life
The Golden Cage demonstrates how authoritarianism penetrates the most intimate spaces of life. Ebadi’s family narrative traces siblings forced into divergent ethical trajectories; revolutionary idealism punished by imprisonment or execution, loyalist complicity pursued for survival, exile chosen at the cost of belonging. Love and loyalty become calculations of risk under surveillance.
Ebadi’s family members function as ethical projections under coercion: the revolutionary idealist destroyed by the system, the loyalist navigating compromise at psychological cost, and the exile living with safety and loss. Ebadi herself stands as the ethical center, a jurist-witness insisting that memory is a civic duty and that law must be reclaimed for justice. Her feminism is not abstract; it is anchored in accountability, testimony, and refusal to forget.
Contemporary Turkey echoes this intimate violence. Employment bans, travel restrictions, stigmatization of dissidents, and criminalization of speech ripple through households. Families become sites of risk management; ordinary communication is shaped by caution. The political becomes domestic, and repression is lived not only through spectacular events but through everyday self-censorship and fractured trust.
Gender as the Authoritarian and Democratic Measure
Gender emerges as both the primary target of authoritarian control and the most sensitive measure of democratic erosion. In Iran, women led the Woman, Life, Freedom movement following the death of Mahsa (Jina) Amini. Despite lethal repression, mass arrests, and intensified surveillance, women’s everyday practices, particularly in urban spaces, signal irreversible shifts in presence, visibility, and refusal (European Parliament, 2022; Blout, 2025).
In Turkey, women’s citizenship is increasingly restricted into motherhood, family duty, and moral loyalty. Feminism and LGBTQI+ activism are framed as moral and foreign threats, while patriarchal governance is legitimated through religious and nationalist discourse. The Istanbul Convention withdrawal galvanized resistance, making gender a central site through which democratic backsliding and civic resilience are simultaneously revealed.
My framework of contextual gendered racialization sharpens this analysis by showing how Sunni Turkishness is privileged through an ethno-religious “Turkishness Contract,” producing double marginalization for Kurdish, Alevi, Armenian, and dissenting women. Gendered governance thus operates through both patriarchy and racialized belonging (Unlu, 2023).
Transnational Racialization and Migration
Racialization travels across borders. In Turkey, difference is marked through proximity to dominant Sunni Turkish identity rather than skin color; minority women are symbolically racialized as deviant or suspect. In the United States, Muslim women become hyper-visible within Islamophobic regimes of surveillance, legally white, socially brown (Aziz, 2020). Hijab, accent, and names trigger institutional scrutiny across immigration, healthcare, education, and labor.
Women respond through strategic identity management: negotiating visibility, silence, and speech; altering dress or disclosure; cultivating selective belonging. These practices constitute feminist praxis rather than mere adaptation, resisting both authoritarian repression and reductive Western feminist frames. Situated feminisms emerge from lived negotiation rather than abstraction (Girdap, 2025).
Law, Memory, and Care as Resistance
Across Iran and Turkey, women deploy diverse resistance strategies that transform opposition from episodic protest into durable institution-building. Ebadi’s ethic of defending rights even within captured institutions finds parallels in feminist lawfare and documentation practices in Turkey. Litigation, femicide databases, survivor testimonies, and non-enforcement audits preserve public memory and sustain accountability even when legal victories are limited. As national protections erode, opposition-led municipalities expand shelters, hotlines, training, and care infrastructures, producing constituent feminism beyond electoral cycles. Campaigns such as #İstanbulSözleşmesiYaşatır(#IstanbulConventionSavesLives) and recurring protests after femicides sustain public scrutiny and agenda pressure. Groups like Mor Dayanışma link gender violence to labor precarity, militarism, ethnic repression, and anti-LGBTQI+ moral panics, expanding coalitions and articulating care-centered, class-conscious feminist praxis (Mor Dayanışma, 2025; Najdi, 2025; Şeker & Sönmezocak, 2021).
Conclusion: Freedom Beyond the Golden Cage
Bringing Ebadi’s ethic of law, memory, and freedom together with a transnational feminist analysis clarifies the stakes of the Iran–Turkey comparison. In both contexts, populism narrows [established] citizenship into a moral community, and gender becomes the key nexus of belonging. Yet women’s epistemic and practical resistance, through legal advocacy, documentation, care spaces, migration, and transnational solidarity, takes a huge step to widen citizenship back into rights, pluralism, and accountability.
Freedom, in this sense, is not comfort or order. It is collective remembering, feminist institution-building, and sustained struggle against normalization. The golden cage is broken not by silence, but by women who insist on memory, justice, and shared political futures across borders.
References
Aziz, Sahar F. (2020). “Legally White, Socially Brown: Racialization of Middle Eastern Americans.” In: Routledge Handbook on Islam and Race (ed. Zain Abdullah), Rutgers Law School Research Paper No. Forthcoming, https://ssrn.com/abstract=3592699 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3592699
Bottura, Beatrice. (2024). “Theocracy, Radicalism and Islamist/Secular Populism in Iran, Afghanistan & Tajikistan.”European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). October 18, 2024. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp0089
European Parliament. (2022). Protests in Iran over the death of Mahsa Amini.https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/ATAG/2022/733671/EPRS_ATA%282022%29733671_EN.pdf
Girdap, H. (2025). “Racialization and Response Through Embodied Identification.” In: From a Shadow to a Person: A Gender Studies Assessment of Women in the Middle East, edited by Shilan Fuad Hussain, Routledge, manuscript in preparation.
Holliday, Shabnam J. (2016). “The legacy of subalternity and Gramsci’s national–popular: populist discourse in the case of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” Third World Quarterly, 37:5, 917-933, DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2015.1113872
Qaderi, H.; Delavari, A. and Golmohammadi, A. (2023). “Populism and Politics in Iran after the Islamic Revolution: Content Analysis of Presidential Speeches from 1989 to 2017.” Political Strategic Studies, 12(44), 9-58. doi: 10.22054/qpss.2022.66333.3002
Sarac, B. N.; Girdap, H., & Hiemstra, N. (2023). “Gendered state violence and post-coup migration out of Turkey.” Women’s Studies International Forum, 99, 102796. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2023.102796
Şeker, Berfu and Sönmezocak, Ezel Buse. (2021, June). “Withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention: War on Gender Equality in Turkey.” Freedom House. https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/2021-06/06292021_Freedom_House_Turkey_Policy_Brief-2-Withdrawal-from-the-Istanbul-Convention.pdf
Unlu, B. (2023). “The Turkishness contract and the formation of Turkishness.” In: F. M. Gocek & A. Alemdaroglu (Eds.), Kurds in Dark Times. Syracuse University Press.
Yalvaç, F. & Joseph, J. (2019). “Understanding populist politics in Turkey: a hegemonic depth approach.” Review of International Studies, 45(5), 786–804. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26843268
In his incisive analysis, Dr. Amir Ali, examines how the 2025 Bihar Provincial Assembly elections have reinvigorated Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s populist dominance in Indian politics. Situating Bihar’s results within India’s shifting electoral landscape, Dr. Ali shows how the BJP-led coalition’s victory undermines expectations of anti-incumbency following the party’s 2024 parliamentary setback. He critically engages controversies surrounding the Election Commission of India, welfare-driven electoral strategies, and the shrinking space for opposition politics. Drawing on his broader scholarship on populism, democracy, and sovereignty, Dr. Ali warns that the consolidation of power from “Parliament to Panchayat” raises serious concerns for institutional autonomy and democratic accountability in what V-Dem has termed an “electoral autocracy.”
Amir Ali*
The recently concluded election in the eastern Indian province of Bihar in early November 2025 was a shot in the arm for Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Bihar is one of the poorest provinces of the country with a per capita income that is a mere fraction of richer provinces. High unemployment levels result in outflux of unskilled workers. Among the controversies that plagued the Bihar assembly elections was the running of special trains carrying Bihari workers from the northern province of Haryana that abuts the national capital Delhi, back to their native province, to ensure they could vote.
Despite its economic backwardness, Bihar is politically very important. The ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is today the dominant political party in the country. It has replaced the earlier one-party dominant system of the Indian National Congress, that led India’s freedom struggle against British colonial rule. The BJP is at the center of the ruling coalition called the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). In the province of Bihar, the coalition partner of the BJP is the Janata Dal United JD(U) whose party boss, Nitish Kumar has been Chief Minister since 2005. Nitish Kumar is a leader whose political origins lie in samaajwaad or Indian socialism. Mr. Kumar is also known for his constant political flip-flops as he has constantly switched sides to continue in power. Back in 2015 he successfully fought the election in alliance with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). This time the RJD was competing against him, winning only 25 seats.
The alliance between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Janata Dal United JD(U) performed surprisingly well, winning together with other smaller allied parties, 202 seats in the 243-seat legislative assembly. The result was a major blow for the opposition I.N.D.I.A alliance that includes the once powerful Congress Party. The resounding victory of the ruling BJP led alliance means a further political consolidation, captured in a stated desire to prevail over Indian politics from ‘Parliament to Panchayat’ (the lowest tier of local self-governance at the level of the village). The ruling BJP has also expressed an intent to rid the country of the supposed baleful presence of the Congress that is captured in the Hindi expression of a Congress mukt Bharat (India/Bharat rid of the Congress).
The shrinking of the opposition becomes a cause for concern, especially as India has been characterized by the V-Dem institute as an ‘electoral autocracy.’ The provincial assembly election in Bihar needs to be seen in the backdrop of the 2024 parliamentary elections in which the ruling BJP suffered a setback as its numbers declined from 303 in 2019 to 240, forcing it into relying on significant support from coalition partners. This was viewed by the opposition as signaling a waning of the electoral dominance of the BJP.
Two Developments in the Run-up to the Election
The run up to the Bihar assembly election in early November 2025 was marked by two developments. The first was the announcement by the Election Commission of India (ECI) to conduct a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, four months prior to the elections. This became controversial on account of the onerous demands of documentation put on voters to ensure their names were on the voters’ list. The opposition immediately protested and appealed to the Supreme Court of India, which did not stop the SIR exercise, but demanded lenient consideration in terms of the documents that voters were required to produce. The opposition had hoped to make the revision of electoral rolls an issue in the elections, suggesting in their campaigns that the ruling BJP was conniving with the Election Commission of India to ‘steal’ votes.
The aspersions cast on the Election Commission of India are unfortunate. It is a constitutional body that under Article 324 of the constitution is guaranteed autonomy from the executive to conduct free and fair elections. The Election Commission of India has generally been above board in terms of its conduct with a succession of Chief Election Commissioners, who head the institution, taking independently assertive positions against ruling governments. If the opposition’s allegations about lack of autonomy of the Election Commission are true, then this would tend to underline the anti-institutional element, characteristic of much populist politics that while exaggeratedly elevating the purity of the people, excoriates the very institutions that mediate the people’s will. The leader of the opposition, Rahul Gandhi of the Congress party has conducted a series of explosive press conferences where he has displayed proof of the Election Commission of India’s ‘conniving’ with the ruling BJP to ensure the latter’s electoral victory.
The second significant development in the run up to the elections was the decision taken by the Nitish Kumar government in Bihar to announce the disbursal of ten thousand rupees (95.75 Euros) for women voters under a scheme to promote women’s self-employment. Analysts felt that this was decisive in terms of winning the elections for the ruling NDA coalition. Opponents of the ruling coalition cried foul at the decision announced in late September 2025. This was just before the model code of conduct came into place. Such announcements are seen as an infringement of the model code of conduct as they may induce votes in favor of the ruling party.
Whither Anti-incumbency?
The election results from Bihar impart momentum to the ruling BJP led coalition as the year 2025 closes. Next year in early 2026, provincial assembly elections are due in two more states further to the east of Bihar, in the provinces of West Bengal and Assam. The elections result in Bihar, especially considered in the light of the electoral setback that the BJP suffered in the parliamentary elections at the federal level in early 2024, seem to put paid to the phenomenon of anti-incumbency which refers to the uphill task that an incumbent party experiences as it seeks re-election. The BJP’s dominance seems to defy what in India is called the law of anti-incumbency.
(*) Dr. Amir Ali is a faculty member at the Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. Prior to this he taught at the Department of Political Science, Jamia Millia Islamia University. He was Agatha Harrison Memorial Visiting Fellow at St. Antony’s College, Oxford between the years 2012 to 2014. He has authored two books South Asian Islam and British Multiculturalism (Routledge, 2016) and Brexit and Liberal Democracy: Populism, Sovereignty and the Nation-State (Routledge, 2022). His areas of teaching, research and writing are political theory, multiculturalism, group rights, British politics and political Islam. His regularly written political commentary on Indian and global politics has appeared in the Economic and Political Weekly, Al Jazeera English, the Indian periodical Outlook and in Indian broadsheet newspapers such as The Indian Express, The Hindu, and The Telegraph.
In this interview with the ECPS, Dr. Robert Butler, Senior Lecturer at the University of Lorraine, examines how far-right actors in France and the UK construct legitimacy amid crisis and geopolitical uncertainty. Drawing on critical and multimodal discourse analysis, Dr. Butler explores authorization, crisis narratives, and moral evaluation in the rhetoric of Marine Le Pen, Jordan Bardella, and Nigel Farage. Reflecting on Trump’s return to power, he cautions against simplistic readings of transatlantic influence, arguing that framing Europe as “weak and vulnerable” may have concrete political effects. As Dr. Butler strikingly notes, “non-intervention itself becomes a form of intervention,” reshaping sovereignty, responsibility, and counter-mobilization across Europe.
Giving an interview to the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Dr. Robert Butler, Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Arts and Languages at the University of Lorraine (Nancy) and editor of Political Discourse Analysis: Legitimisation Strategies in Crisis and Conflict, offers a nuanced comparative analysis of far-right discourse in France and the United Kingdom. Drawing on critical discourse analysis and multimodal approaches, Dr. Butler examines how contemporary populist and far-right actors seek legitimacy in what he characterizes as a “de-legitimized political world.”
Across the interview, Dr. Butler emphasizes that far-right actors such as Marine Le Pen, Jordan Bardella, and Nigel Farage rely heavily on authorization as a legitimization strategy, combining appeals to the personal authority of leaders with increasing references to impersonal authority, particularly “the rule of law.” As he notes, “we see authorization at work: the personal authority of leaders, alongside reliance on impersonal authority.” This dual strategy allows far-right actors to distance themselves from overt radicalism while positioning themselves as credible governing alternatives.
A central theme of the interview is the discursive construction of crisis. In the UK context, Dr. Butler explains that Reform UK frames crisis as systemic collapse, encapsulated in the slogan “Britain is broken,” while in France, the National Rally (NR) increasingly portrays crisis through the lens of economic sovereignty, borders, and protection of domestic production. These crisis narratives are not only rhetorical devices but also serve to justify policy claims that move “beyond moral evaluation” toward what Dr. Butler calls “the realm of substance.”
The interview’s headline theme emerges most clearly in Dr. Butler’s reflections on international crises and Donald Trump’s return to power. Addressing whether Trump acts as a catalyst for far-right normalization in Europe, Dr. Butler cautions against linear assumptions. Instead, he highlights how Trumpian discourse increasingly frames European leaders as “weak and vulnerable,” raising fundamental questions about sovereignty, protection, and authority. Crucially, Dr. Butler argues that a politics of disengagement may carry unintended consequences, noting that “non-intervention itself becomes a form of intervention.”
This insight anchors the interview’s broader contribution: far-right legitimization does not rely solely on overt alignment with radical allies but often involves strategic distancing, ambiguity, and moral labeling. As Dr. Butler puts it, describing states as weak may function as “a form of moral evaluation” that lacks substance yet reshapes political expectations and responsibilities.
By combining close discourse analysis with comparative political insight, this interview sheds light on how far-right actors navigate legitimacy, crisis, and authority—both domestically and internationally—at a moment when the boundaries between intervention, sovereignty, and normalization are increasingly blurred.
Here is the edited transcript of our interview with Dr. Robert Butler, slightly revised for clarity and flow.
Delegitimizing Elites, Authorizing Leaders
Nigel Farage speaking in Dover, Kent, UK, on May 28, 2024, in support of the Reform Party, of which he is President. Photo: Sean Aidan Calderbank.
Dr. Robert Butler, thank you so very much for joining our interview series. Let me start right away with the first question:From your perspective as editor of“Political Discourse Analysis: Legitimisation Strategies in Crisis and Conflict,” how would you characterize the dominant legitimization strategies used by Marine Le Pen and Nigel Farage when they present themselves as defenders of “the people” against distant elites? Do these strategies converge across France and the UK, or are they embedded in quite distinct national political cultures?
Dr. Robert Butler: I haven’t done specific research on the situation in France, so I’ve looked, to some extent, at developments in the UK, particularly Reform UK. What I would say is that there is a clear delegitimization of the establishment and the parties in power in both countries.
In terms of the actual legitimization strategies used, I think they do, in both contexts, draw on what Theo van Leeuwen refers to in his seminal 2007 article on legitimization and legitimation—namely, authorization. There is a strong emphasis on the personal authority of leaders: Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella in France, and Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform UK, in the UK.
There is an appeal to personal authority, but I also think there is a growing appeal to impersonal authority, particularly the rule of law—emphasizing the need to respect the law and to operate within its parameters.
So, very much in terms of legitimization strategies, and following Van Leeuwen’s approach, we see authorization at work: the personal authority of leaders, alongside reliance on impersonal authority, namely the rule of law.
Performing Insecurity Through Multimodal Authority
In your work on authority and multimodal discourse, you stress how gesture, intonation, and visual framing help construct political identity. How do you see these multimodal resources operating in the performances of Farage and Le Pen (and now Jordan Bardella) when they dramatize insecurity, crisis, or loss of control?
Dr. Robert Butler: I would say that, again, my focus has been on Reform UK rather than on the Rassemblement National in France, the National Rally. That said, what we can observe in both cases is a significant use of gesture, with gestures playing an important role alongside discourse.
In particular, with Farage, we see frequent use of what we call open-hand supine gestures, where the hands are held with the palms facing upwards, often accompanied by outward and upward movements. These gestures can serve a pragmatic function, signaling uncertainty—conveying a sense of “I don’t know” or “what is there?”—and suggesting that the situation is difficult to interpret.
This is a significant gesture because it contributes to the audience’s impression that the situation is politically untenable, that there is a broader social situation that needs to be managed. Accordingly, open-hand gestures appear frequently, often with a wide space between the hands.
From what I have observed, we also see this with the National Rally in France: broader gestures and extensive use of the hands. Visually, this reinforces the audience’s impression that something needs to be done, that there is uncertainty about what that should be, and that the situation they face is untenable.
From Slogans to Substance in Far-Right Legitimation
Marine Le Pen, from the Front National, a national-conservative political party in France in meeting for the presidential election of 2017 at the Zenith of Paris on April 17, 2017. Photo: Frederic Legrand.
One of the core themes of your edited volume is the challenge of sustaining legitimacy in a “de-legitimized political world.” To what extent has the far right in France and the UK successfully exploited this legitimacy deficit—especially the erosion of trust in parties, media, and expert authority—and what limits do you see to this strategy?
Dr. Robert Butler: There has been a significant challenge to the legitimacy of established political parties—particularly catch-all parties—in power in both the UK and France. Again, drawing on Van Leeuwen’s 2007 article on legitimization and legitimization strategies, the challenge has been to move beyond what he calls moral evaluation—that is, the use of words or slogans that carry little meaning beyond statements such as “we are democratic” or “we believe in freedom,” where values are not supported by substantive action. The parties—what we refer to as the far right—have themselves moved beyond moral evaluation and are increasingly operating in the realm of substance when justifying their positions.
This can be seen, for example, in an interview Bardella gave several months ago, in which he called out the Ministry of the Economy and Finance’s claims that businesses should be patriotic. He frames this as a form of moral evaluation—without stating it explicitly—suggesting that it amounts to little more than words. Here, we see something that can be assimilated to moral evaluation being directly challenged by the National Rally.
So, I think they are attempting to expose moral evaluation strategies, move beyond them, and instead rely on authorization.
In Power or In Office? Leverage Without Government
Comparative research has often treated the Rassemblement National (RN) in France as a party on the cusp of governmental power, and Reform UK—despite its recent surge in influence—as an “outsider” shaping the agenda from the margins. Using the distinction between being “in power” and “in office,” how would you assess the current leverage of Le Pen and Farage over mainstream parties and policy in their respective systems?
Dr. Robert Butler: In France, the National Rally has not obtained an absolute majority in the Assembly. There was some discussion about waiting and only seeking to govern with a majority; that is how I understood the situation. There has also been discussion about whether there might be a primary across the right in French politics. However, certain parties further to the left within the right have indicated that they do not share common ground with the RN, the National Rally. So, in terms of being in office and in power, the RN is seeking new elections in order to try to secure that majority.
In the UK, various opinion polls have suggested that Reform UK would, if an election were called today—even though one is not due immediately—emerge as the largest party. It might not secure an overall majority, and this could result in a hung parliament. There is a portrayal of Reform UK as being on the outside, looking in at a UK that is collapsing or imploding, reflected in the slogan “Britain is broken” and in its emphasis on public services being unable to cope and being overwhelmed. In terms of being empowered in office, Reform UK is neither in office nor in power, but it is positioning itself around what is needed to take power. However, it is doing so very much from the outside, observing those in power and a situation that it portrays as collapsing and imploding.
When ‘Britain Is Broken’ Meets Economic Sovereignty
Your work highlights how crisis narratives are central to legitimization. How do far-right actors in France and the UK differently construct “crisis”—migration, cost of living, Europe, Islam, climate—and what does this tell us about the socio-economic and historical specificities of each case?
Dr. Robert Butler: Following on from what I’ve just said, I think that in the UK, Reform UK frames crisis in terms of systemic failure, emphasizing that Britain is broken. At his conference last year, Mr. Farage, for example, asked the audience, “Who has an NHS dentist in the room?” So, the crisis is constructed around the idea that Britain can no longer cope and that the system is under strain.
By contrast, from what I have followed with the National Rally in France, and from what I have observed in their speeches and interviews over the past few months, the situation is portrayed more as one in which France is seen as a system that needs to change—particularly a system of exchange in which goods are produced abroad rather than in France, and which must be reoriented to favor domestic production. Accordingly, crisis is increasingly framed as the need for barriers, especially to protect French goods and their quality. In an interview, Marine Le Pen refers to frontiers or borders as a means of protecting the quality of products coming into the country.
Populism as Process, Not Outcome
In recent years, French and British political language has seen an inflationary use of the term “populist” as a weapon of de-legitimation. Building on contributions in your volume that ask “who calls whom a populist?”, how has this labelling battle shaped the public perception and normalization of Le Pen’s RN and Farage-style projects?
Dr. Robert Butler: The term populism is better understood as a process—a means rather than an end in itself. I see it as a way of working toward a different political outcome in the future, rather than as an end product. Populism, in this sense, is not the outcome but the process. It is a process of placing more people on the side of “us” as opposed to “them,” where elites—frequently identified as such in interviews given by the National Rally—are positioned as “them,” and “the people” are increasingly placed on the side of “us,” meaning those who support these political parties.
I also think—and this is something I may not have mentioned earlier—that the concept of moral outrage plays an important role. This is another legitimization strategy identified more recently. An article published about five years ago by Rebecca Williams addresses moral outrage, and I think populism is closely linked to a certain degree of social outrage, where particular actions can be justified by expressions of disgust or dissatisfaction with the current situation.
In this sense, the term populism functions as a means of bringing people onto “our” side, presenting the United Kingdom and France as countries that need to do better, while simultaneously associating the nation and the people with the party. Populism, then, is a process of mobilizing support by drawing people in, rather than aligning them with the opposing side, which is constructed as those currently in power or other parties seeking power.
Moral Outrage, Media, and Knowledge Claims
Stop Trump Coalition march, Central London, United Kingdom, September 17, 2025. Protesters dressed as Musk, Farage, Vance, Putin, Trump, and Netanyahu. Photo: Ben Gingell.
You emphasize “epistemic vigilance” and post-truth conditions in contemporary politics. How do far-right entrepreneurs in France and the UK negotiate this environment—do they primarily undermine factual authority (“fake news,” “media system”), or do they also try to re-establish alternative epistemic authorities such as patriotic experts, “common sense,” or online influencers?
Dr. Robert Butler: I haven’t done much work on influencers as such; my focus has been more on YouTube as a social media outlet. I think certain media outlets have popularized the idea of common sense, and this notion has, in effect, become a form of legitimization—legitimizing actions when they can be framed as common sense. This is an area where more work needs to be done and further research is required.
With Reform UK, in particular, it is less about the issue of fake news and more about adding a certain level of moral outrage to claims that the NHS, the National Health Service, cannot cope, and that certain social mechanisms appear to be broken. In terms of common sense, I am not entirely sure; I think there is still much more work to be done on this notion, and further research is needed.
Mainstream Right Parties in a Reactive Phase
Looking at internal party dynamics, what similarities and differences do you see between the ways in which the French Republicans and the British Conservatives have responded discursively to the rise of the far right? Have their legitimization strategies tended to contain, converge with, or further empower RN and Reform-style actors?
Dr. Robert Butler: Thank you for your question. There has been some splintering of the traditional right in French politics toward the far right. In the UK, there have been several defections, mainly of former Conservative MPs, to Reform. There has been a noticeable number of such defections. I think there has been quite a lot of delegitimization of the policies of Reform UK and the National Rally by both the French Republicans and the British Conservatives.
Reform UK is often seen as having an alternative agenda, whereas the National Rally is perceived as having little or nothing in common with other mainstream political parties. That appears to be the prevailing view. In recent days, there was discussion, as I mentioned earlier, of a large primary ahead of the 2027 elections—either presidential, legislative, or both—but this seems to have been ruled out, suggesting that there is limited common ground with the RN, the National Rally.
Overall, there has been a strong emphasis on delegitimization. However, over time—perhaps over the next year or two—I expect we will see both the Conservatives and the Republican Party develop alternative legitimization strategies to justify their own positions. At present, they appear to be in a reactive phase in response to the rise and growing success of the RN and Reform UK.
From Negation to Affirmation
In your multimodal analysis of Farage and Reform UK, you show how negation and modality help define what a party “is” and “is not.” If we apply this lens to Le Pen/Bardella, how do denial, distancing, and disavowal (“not extreme right,” “not racist”) function in their efforts to render the RN a credible party of government?
Dr. Robert Butler: Again, my work has focused on Reform UK rather than on the RN, the National Rally. However, based on what I have observed, I think there is a growing emphasis on asserting what the party stands for. There appears to be less focus on defining what the RN is not, and more on clearly articulating what it represents. In a recent interview, Le Pen acknowledged that for around 30 years there had been considerable emphasis on the negative way the party was treated by the media and by other parties. I think there is now a shift toward emphasizing what the party stands for, rather than relying on negation—denying that it is this or that. There is a reason for this shift.
The context is different from that of Reform UK, where Nigel Farage stepped back from mainstream politics for a period and then, over the last 12 to 18 months, had to explain why he was returning. This is why, in my recent article, I observed extensive use of negation by Farage, as he justified his return to mainstream politics by explaining what he could not do or why he rejected certain principles.
By contrast, the situation is somewhat different for Le Pen and Bardella. They appear to be in a phase of asserting, through affirmative terms, what they actually stand for.
Re-Legitimizing Europe: Borders, Sovereignty, and Reform
Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella are seen at the conclusion of a political meeting for the Rassemblement National party in Marseille on March 3, 2024. Photo: Obatala-photography.
At the European level, how do you interpret the far right’s attempt to re-legitimize the EU not as a technocratic polity but as a vehicle for “civilizational” or “sovereigntist” politics? Do you see France and the UK as following parallel or diverging trajectories in this respect, given that one is inside and the other outside the Union?
Dr. Robert Butler: The notion of Frexit—France leaving the European Union—has been present in public debate over the last two or three years. More recently, the plight of farmers, allegedly linked to Mercosur, has become a topic of debate and is very much in the news in France this week. In contrast, the UK has focused more on controlling borders, particularly on who is coming into and going out of the country, and especially who is entering the UK. As a result, the European Union has become less of a direct feature in Reform UK’s discourse, with greater emphasis placed on fixing the UK’s infrastructure and protecting its borders. By contrast, the RN, the National Rally, appears more concerned with reforming the EU, first and foremost in ways that it argues would benefit France.
Your editorial work stresses the importance of multimodal critical discourse studies. How have social media formats—short clips, memes, influencer-style videos—transformed far-right communication in France and the UK, and are there noteworthy differences in platform use or visual rhetoric between Le Pen/Bardella and Farage/Tice?
Dr. Robert Butler: As I mentioned earlier, I haven’t focused specifically on the RN in my research, so it is difficult for me to provide a detailed answer with regard to the National Rally. However, if we take YouTube as an example, there are currently many clips of Mr. Farage commenting on the situation in the UK, for instance on immigration.
In some of his own clips, he also incorporates footage from other users’ videos to illustrate his points. This creates a kind of mise en abyme, if you like—a clip within a clip.
In several instances, the Union Jack flag is visible, either behind him in a car or on the screen, and there are also many clips of him seated at a desk. This produces a very formal, official setting, which again connects to the idea of being in power or in office—not actually holding office, but simulating a scenario in which one might be looking at a future leader in office.
By contrast, if we look at Marine Le Pen’s YouTube account—having discussed Farage’s account—you see many clips of her speaking in the Assemblée Nationale or being interviewed by mainstream media outlets. This is a key difference. There are many more clips of Le Pen in clearly official settings, such as major media interviews or parliamentary contexts. This points to a clear difference in the use of context.
From ‘Britain Is Broken’ to Paths to Power
Looking ahead to the next decade, what scenarios do you consider most plausible for the far right in France and the UK: full governmental incorporation, permanent “blackmail” power over center-right parties, or gradual demobilization as issues and generations change? What indicators should researchers monitor to distinguish among these trajectories?
Dr. Robert Butler: Thank you for asking this question, because one of the main slogans—or narratives—of Reform UK is “Britain is broken.” At some point, it will need fixing, and I think it is important to pay attention to metaphors related to rebuilding, fixing, and redoing. From a linguistic perspective, in addition to metaphors, we should also look for what are known as force-dynamic strategies, where interaction between entities involves overcoming difficulty and crisis, and observe whether these strategies are actually put into practice. In terms of language it will be particularly interesting in the UK to see how Britain is discursively framed as moving from being “broken” to being “fixed,” and how problems are presented as being overcome.
In France, the far right’s objective is to win the Assembly and secure a majority in 2027, as well as to win the presidential elections that year. It will also be important to observe the results of the municipal elections scheduled for 2026.
Focusing on the UK, a coalition involving Reform UK and another party—most likely the Conservatives, if it were to be any party—would probably be more attractive to Reform UK than holding an overall majority. We have a precedent for this in the Liberal Democrat–Conservative coalition from 2010 to 2015, in which the Liberal Democrats were the junior partner.
In that situation, the Conservatives were able to take advantage of certain Liberal Democrat policies, such as raising the tax threshold, while also seeking to maximize credit for the junior partner’s policy initiatives. At the same time, there was an abstention campaign for changes to the electoral system which was put forward. Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats were largely left to deal with the fallout from the rise in tuition fees, which, as we can agree, was not a particularly popular policy.
If Reform UK were in a hung Parliament but emerged as the main coalition partner, it would be in a position to offload some responsibility for policy outcomes. Then, perhaps in ten years’ time, it could aim for full majority power.
Overall, I think we could see some very interesting political as well as discursive strategies. It is quite conceivable that Reform UK could be involved in a coalition arrangement similar to that of 2010, with both political and discursive strategies unfolding in parallel.
Legitimizing Authority Through Strategic Distancing
Donald J. Trump, the 47th President of the United States, at his inauguration celebration in Washington, D.C., on January 20, 2025. Photo: Muhammad Abdullah.
Given your interest in how authority is discursively constructed, how do international crises—Russia’s war in Ukraine, the US democratic crisis, or Middle East conflicts—influence the legitimization strategies of far-right actors in France and the UK? Are these crises used mainly to normalize their positions, or also to distance themselves from more radical allies?
Dr. Robert Butler: I think that at conferences held by Farage last year, in 2024, there was some clear distancing from the leader of Russia. This distancing was definitely observable in the discourse.
In France, more recently this year, interviews with the RN have reflected an acknowledgement of US sovereignty in relation to what is unfolding there, alongside an emphasis that US priorities are not necessarily France’s priorities. This again represents a defense of France’s national interest. There also appears to be support for the rule of law.
I’m not sure I have much more to add to this question, but I think there is an acknowledgement of other countries combined with a certain degree of distancing, allowing both the UK and France to assert and defend their own national policies.
Trump, Europe, and the Politics of Non-Intervention
In light of the recently released Trump National Security Strategy, to what extent has the Trump presidency provided ideological validation or strategic inspiration for far-right actors in France and the UK? Do you see Le Pen, Bardella, or Farage consciously drawing on Trumpian rhetoric, political style, or governing practices, or is the transatlantic influence more diffuse and symbolic?
Dr. Robert Butler: From what I have observed, there appears to be some distancing from Trumpian rhetoric. Again, this reflects what I have noted previously. In France, the emphasis is very much on defending national interests at the level of the nation-state and on asserting France’s sovereignty. The RN, in particular, places strong emphasis on the rule of law. In the UK, the picture is perhaps more complex. There does seem to be some aversion to the language used in the US context, but I am not sure I have observed enough to comment on this in greater detail.
And lastly, Dr. Robert Butler, looking beyond national cases, do you see that the Trump presidency accelerates a broader European shift toward sovereigntist and civilization-based politics, or do European systems remain resilient and path-dependent? In other words, might Trump act as a multiplier for far-right normalization across the EU—or does his return instead provoke counter-mobilization among mainstream parties and institutions?
Dr. Robert Butler: Thank you for your question. I think it is difficult to know and much depends on what the remainder of the Trump presidency offers to European leaders. If European leaders are framed as weak and vulnerable—and we have seen some of this in recent discourse—and if they continue to be framed in this way, then there may be a tendency to seek protection, perhaps in exchange for greater influence or possibly reduced sovereignty. The notion of weakness in European leadership does appear to be entering Trumpian discourse at the moment. Again, the question is whether this framing is simply a moral label—a form of moral evaluation—where countries are described as weak. What does that actually mean, and is it backed up by substantive claims?
In terms of counter-mobilization, I think it depends on what, exactly, is being countered. If the discourse emphasizes non-intervention—leaving countries alone and withholding the financial, logistical, or other forms of support that may be required—then it becomes difficult to mobilize against any particular actor or policy.
The question then becomes how other countries—such as Russia, China, or other states—respond in relation to Europe. There is therefore a broader issue of whether non-intervention itself becomes a form of intervention. If one ceases to intervene, even rhetorically, and frames this as “leaving countries alone,” there is a risk that such a stance could weaken or undermine potential counter-mobilization.
In this timely and powerful Voice of Youth (VoY) essay, Emmanouela Papapavlou reframes migration not as a crisis or threat, but as a defining human reality of the twenty-first century. Moving beyond populist slogans and fear-based rhetoric, the piece exposes the gap between political discourse and the lived experiences of migrants—marked by legal precarity, exclusion, and everyday vulnerability. It critically interrogates the selective use of “legality” in public debates and highlights how populism redirects anger away from power and toward the powerless. Importantly, the article identifies Generation Z as a potential counterforce, emphasizing its everyday engagement with diversity and its rejection of xenophobic narratives. Published on the occasion of International Migrants Day, the essay is a compelling call to restore dignity, humanity, and ethical responsibility to migration politics.
By Emmanouela Papapavlou*
In an age of global instability, migration is not an exception and not some marginal social phenomenon, it is a defining feature of the modern world. Wars, political persecution, economic collapse, environmental disasters and inequality push millions to leave their homes in search of safety, opportunity, and a sense of dignity. Within this reality, the 18th of December, International Migrants Day, is not just another “awareness day,” it is a powerful reminder that migration is one of the most central human experiences of the twenty-first century, and that the way we talk about it in public spaces has real consequences on real lives.
Despite its profoundly human dimension, migration has become one of the most polarized subjects in global politics. Populist rhetoric, flourishing across Europe, the United States, and beyond, finds in the “migrant” the perfect target, an “other” onto whom fears, insecurities, and imagined threats can be projected. Migrants are framed as a faceless mass, as an economic burden, as a cultural threat, or even as enemies of national security. Yet the reality of migration is dramatically different from these oversimplified narratives.
For millions, migration is not a choice, it is a necessity. And for those who manage to reach countries of arrival, the journey does not end, it begins. Access to legal documents, endless visa backlogs, the slow and often arbitrary asylum process, and the requirements for work authorization create a system that is frequently insurmountable. In the United States, for example, hundreds of thousands of people live for years without papers, not because they refuse to comply, but because the system is designed to delay, discourage, and exclude. Even proving that you qualify for asylum often requires documents that no one could possibly rescue while fleeing a bombed home or a collapsing life.
While political discourse focuses obsessively on “flows” and “invasions,” what almost never gets discussed is the actual everyday reality of migrants, the labor exploitation, the lack of access to healthcare or education, the constant uncertainty of “will I be allowed to stay tomorrow,” the threat of deportation, the social stigma, the ghettoization, the absence of meaningful integration. Many states treat migration as a problem that must be “controlled,” not as a social fact that must be understood, integrated, and addressed with humanity.
International Migrants Day exists precisely because of this gap, the gap between rhetoric and reality, between what is said and what people live. It is a day dedicated to rights and dignity, to the fundamental right to move and to the right to live without fear. It is also a reminder that societies do not show their humanity in how they treat the powerful, but in how they treat the vulnerable.
Here we see another dimension of populism, the selective invocation of “legality.” Public debate suddenly fills with people who appear deeply committed to the rule of law when the conversation turns to migrants. “They came illegally,” they say, as if respect for the law were a consistent personal value and not something invoked only when convenient. Because the same people who express moral outrage at a refugee are often the same people who consider underage drinking normal, who speed on the highway, who drive under the influence, who use recreational substances, who pirate movies, music, and games without a second thought. In those cases, the law becomes a “technicality,” and strictness evaporates.
Yet when the “offender” is someone who ran from war, when it is a mother holding a child in a boat, when it is a young person who left everything behind just to survive, then suddenly the law becomes absolute and unforgiving. And even worse, we almost never see the same outrage when the offenders are powerful, corrupt politicians who steal public funds, evade taxes, exploit systems for personal gain, or embezzle compensations. In those situations, anger disappears. Outrage fades. “Illegality” becomes almost invisible.
This contradiction has nothing to do with the law. It has everything to do with control, with fear, and with the political function of populism, which is to divert collective anger away from those who cause injustice, and direct it instead toward those who are least able to defend themselves.
Yet within this landscape, there is a source of hope, and it comes from Generation Z. Gen Z is the first generation in history to grow up fully online, exposed every day to the lives of people across the world, from every background and every context. Diversity is not perceived as a threat; it is an intrinsic part of reality. For this generation, multiculturalism is not an ideological position, it is the texture of daily life in schools, universities, neighborhoods, and digital spaces.
Young people do not see migrants as outsiders, they are classmates, friends, coworkers, neighbors. They are the stories shared on social media, the voices heard without intermediaries, the people facing the same universal anxieties, work, education, safety, rights. Take the example of someone like Zohran Mamdani, who arrived in the United States as a child refugee and eventually became an elected representative in New York. His story is not an exception, it is a sign of a new era in which identity is shaped not by where you were born, but by who you are and what you contribute to your community.
What becomes clear is that Gen Z, through everyday contact with diverse cultures and people, rejects fear based rhetoric. They are not easily persuaded by politicians who weaponize xenophobia, and they do not accept narratives of “threat” without question. They see migration as a human reality, not as a tool for propaganda. And this generational shift carries enormous political weight for the future.
If we truly want to honor International Migrants Day, it is not enough to acknowledge its existence. We must promote policies that allow for safe, legal, and humane migration, support integration programs that go beyond survival and lead to participation and dignity, reform asylum and legalization systems so they do not trap people in bureaucratic limbo, and build societies that recognize diversity not as a danger but as a collective strength.
Because at the end of the day, the question we must ask is simple, and its simplicity is what makes it so revealing: How can a human being be considered “illegal” on an earth we were all born into? How can anyone be treated as worthless simply because they were born a few kilometers away?
If we cannot answer that clearly, then perhaps International Migrants Day exists to remind us that before borders, politics, and identities, we are, above all, human.
(*)Emmanouela Papapavlou is a high school student from Thessaloniki, Greece, deeply passionate about social and political issues. She has actively participated in Model United Nations and other youth forums, serving as a chairperson in multiple conferences and winning awards in Greek debate competitions. Writing is her greatest passion, and she loves using it to explore democracy, civic engagement, and human rights. Her dream is to share her ideas, inspire action, and amplify the voices of young people who want to make a difference. Email: emmanpapapavlou@gmail.com
Please cite as: ECPS Staff. (2025). “Virtual Workshop Series — Session 8: Fractured Democracies — Rhetoric, Repression, and the Populist Turn.” European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). December 13, 2025. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp00120
On December 11, 2025, the ECPS convened Session 8 of its Virtual Workshop Series under the theme “Fractured Democracies: Rhetoric, Repression, and the Populist Turn.” Chaired by Dr. Azize Sargin, the session examined how contemporary populism reshapes democratic politics through affect, moral narratives, and strategic communication. Assoc. Prof. Paul Joosse explored charismatic populism, focusing on suffering, moral inversion, and ritualized transgression in Trumpism, while Artem Turenko analyzed the evolving rhetoric of AfD across the 2019 and 2024 European Parliament elections. Discussants Dr. Helena Rovamo and Dr. Jonathan Madison offered critical reflections on theory, methodology, and causality. A lively Q&A further addressed economic grievance, cultural representation, and the politics of knowledge production, underscoring the session’s interdisciplinary depth and relevance.
Reported by ECPS Staff
On December 11, 2025, the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS) convened Session 8 of its Virtual Workshop Series, titled “We, the People” and the Future of Democracy: Interdisciplinary Approaches. Held under the session theme “Fractured Democracies: Rhetoric, Repression, and the Populist Turn,” the workshop brought together an international and interdisciplinary group of scholars to examine how contemporary populist actors reshape democratic politics through rhetoric, affect, moral narratives, and strategic communication. The session formed part of ECPS’s broader effort to advance critical, comparative, and theoretically grounded scholarship on populism and its implications for democratic governance.
The workshop opened with brief welcoming and technical remarks by ECPS intern Stella Schade, who introduced the session’s structure, participants, and moderation on behalf of ECPS.
The session was chaired and moderated by Dr. Azize Sargin (Director for External Affairs, ECPS), whose introductory framing provided the conceptual backbone for the discussion. Dr. Sargin situated the session within contemporary debates on democratic fragmentation, emphasizing that populism should be understood not merely as a rhetorical strategy or electoral phenomenon, but as a broader cultural and moral project. She highlighted how populist actors mobilize fear, resentment, and perceived crisis to reorganize political meaning, construct antagonistic identities, and legitimize increasingly exclusionary or punitive forms of governance. Importantly, Dr. Sargin underscored the adaptive nature of populism, noting its capacity to draw on diverse ideological resources, to shift across contexts, and to respond strategically to changing political opportunities. Her framing positioned the session’s papers as complementary explorations of how populism operates at the levels of leadership, discourse, and electoral competition.
The session featured two main presentations. Dr. Paul Joosse (Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Hong Kong) delivered a theoretically innovative paper on charismatic populism, focusing on the roles of suffering, moral inversion, and ritualized transgression in sustaining populist authority. Drawing on Weberian sociology, cultural theory, and ethnographic insights from Trump rallies, Dr. Joosse demonstrated how charismatic leaders transform victimhood and norm-breaking into sources of legitimacy, thereby destabilizing democratic norms.
The second presentation, by Artem Turenko (PhD Candidate, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow), offered a comparative analysis of the Alternative für Deutschland’s (AfD) rhetoric during the 2019 and 2024 European Parliament election campaigns. Employing a mixed-methods approach combining sentiment analysis and discourse-historical analysis, Turenko examined how AfD rhetoric adapts to electoral expectations while maintaining a stable populist grammar centered on crisis, sovereignty, and exclusion.
The presentations were followed by in-depth feedback from the session’s discussants, Dr. Helena Rovamo (Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Eastern Finland) and Dr. Jonathan Madison (Governance Fellow at the R Street Institute). Their interventions critically engaged both papers, raising questions about methodology, conceptual definitions of populism, the relationship between charisma and populist mobilization, and issues of causality and moral paradox. The session concluded with an open Q&A, further extending the discussion to questions of economic grievance, cultural representation, and the political conditions of knowledge production.
Together, the session offered a multifaceted and theoretically rich examination of populism’s role in contemporary democratic transformations.
Assoc. Prof. Paul Joosse: “Charismatic Populism, Suffering, and Saturnalia”
Dr. Paul Joosse is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Hong Kong.
In his thought-provoking presentation, Associate Professor Paul Joosse (University of Hong Kong) offered an analytically rich exploration of the affective and performative mechanisms through which populist leaders cultivate authority, mobilize followings, and enact moments of political rupture. Drawing from his extensive research on charisma, deviance, and political communication, Dr. Joosse located contemporary populism within deeply rooted sociological traditions, while simultaneously illuminating its specific manifestations in digitalized, hyper-mediatized democracies.
The presentation formed part of the broader inquiry into how rhetoric, emotion, and repression reshape democratic life under populist pressures. Dr. Joosse’s intervention focused on three intertwined dimensions—charisma, suffering, and Saturnalian dynamics—and traced how these elements collectively produce the moral and emotional architecture that sustains populist movements.
Charismatic Authority and the Populist Style
Dr. Joosse began by returning to Max Weber’s classical conception of charisma, underscoring its relevance for understanding populist phenomenon. Charisma, in Weber’s formulation, does not reside solely in individual traits; it is a relational, socially conferred status that emerges through recognition by followers. Populist leaders—from Donald Trump to Jair Bolsonaro, from Nigel Farage to Javier Milei—embody this dynamic through the cultivation of an anti-institutional persona that claims direct, unmediated connection with “the people.”
According to Dr. Joosse, populist charisma is characterized by: i) Transgressive communication styles that break norms and dramatize authenticity; ii) Moral binaries that differentiate “the people” from corrupt elites; iii) Performative storytelling that situates the leader as both savior and victim
This last dynamic—the leader as a suffering figure—became a central axis of the presentation. Dr. Joosse argued that charisma is amplified when leaders frame themselves as persecuted champions, unjustly targeted by the state, media, or global conspiracies. This suffering narrative strengthens affective bonds, deepens identification, and transforms personal grievances into collective ones. In this sense, charismatic populism thrives not simply on policy dissatisfaction but on shared emotional worlds—particularly resentment, humiliation, and righteous indignation.
Suffering as Political Currency
A key theoretical intervention of the talk was Dr. Joosse’s insistence that suffering is not merely an effect but an active resource in populist mobilization. Drawing on both sociological and anthropological literature, he argued that suffering has historically served as a legitimizing device, one that enables leaders to claim moral high ground and portray themselves as martyrs of the people.
Dr. Joosse identified three modalities through which suffering functions: i) Victimization narratives, where leaders claim persecution by courts, the “deep state,” or globalist elites. ii) Redemptive suffering, where hardships encountered by leaders are portrayed as sacrifices undertaken on behalf of the people. Iii) Shared suffering, where leaders mirror or echo the injuries of their supporters—economic precarity, cultural displacement, or political marginalization.
This dynamic, Dr. Joosse suggested, is especially potent in digital ecosystems. Persecution—real or imagined—spreads rapidly through partisan outlets and social media networks, reinforcing the conviction that the leader’s fate and the people’s fate are intertwined.
Dr. Joosse emphasized that this logic can escalate political tensions. When suffering becomes a performative spectacle, it invites supporters to interpret legal accountability or institutional checks as proof of elite conspiracy, thereby undermining democratic legitimacy itself.
Populism and the Saturnalian Inversion
One of the most original contributions of the presentation was Dr. Joosse’s application of the concept of Saturnalia—the ancient Roman festival marked by role reversals, carnivalesque transgression, and temporary suspension of social hierarchy—to the study of populism.
Drawing on the work of Mikhail Bakhtin and on sociological accounts of ritual inversion, Dr. Joosse argued that populist mobilization often takes the form of a Saturnalian eruption in democratic politics. During such moments: i) Norms of decorum, expertise, and civility are overturned; ii) Taboo-breaking becomes a marker of authenticity; iii) Power relations appear symbolically reversed, with “the people” momentarily enthroned over elites.
This logic helps explain why populist rallies, online forums, and protest events frequently feature humor, ridicule, spectacle, and deliberate vulgarity. These aesthetic practices work not only to entertain but to destabilize the symbolic order—mocking institutions, lampooning experts, and challenging conventional authority.
In Dr. Joosse’s reading, charismatic populists are uniquely skilled Saturnalian performers. Their rhetorical excesses, anti-elite insults, and affective provocations create temporary spaces where ordinary constraints dissolve, generating feelings of liberation among supporters. However, he warned that this inversion, while framed as emancipatory, can also harden into authoritarian sentiment: when Saturnalia ceases to be temporary, democratic norms risk lasting erosion.
The Interplay of Emotion, Ritual, and Media
Throughout the presentation, Dr. Joosse emphasized that charismatic populism is not merely ideological but ritualistic and affective. It depends on i) Co-present gatherings (the rally as ritual); ii) Digital echo-chambers that amplify transgression; iii) Symbolic dramatization of conflict. Media infrastructures—traditional and digital—serve as essential amplifiers of populist charisma. They broadcast Saturnalian moments, circulate symbolic violence, and feed narratives of leader-centric suffering.
Dr. Joosse noted that the current media ecosystem is fertile ground for such dynamics: fragmented attention, algorithmic escalation, and polarizing news cycles intensify the emotional resonance of populist performances. As a result, charisma becomes mass-mediated, creating parasocial intimacy between leaders and followers who may never meet. This, he argued, distinguishes contemporary populism from earlier forms: it is both personalized and distributed, rooted in individual charisma but sustained by networked amplification.
Implications for Democratic Fragility
Dr. Joosse concluded by situating his analysis within the broader theme of “Fractured Democracies.” The interplay of charismatic authority, symbolic suffering, and Saturnalian rupture presents several dangers for democratic governance: i) Delegitimization of institutional checks when leaders portray legal accountability as persecution; ii) Normalization of political transgression, weakening norms needed for democratic stability; iii) Emotional tribalization, which reduces politics to moralized conflict; iv) Acceleration of epistemic fragmentation as suffering narratives circulate unchecked.
He argued that liberal democracies must take seriously the emotional and ritual dimensions of political life. Technocratic or procedural responses alone cannot counteract populist charisma; rather, democratic actors need to cultivate alternative forms of affective engagement, narrative-building, and civic ritual.
In sum, Assoc. Prof. Paul Joosse delivered a conceptually rich and theoretically innovative account of how populist charisma operates through suffering and Saturnalian inversion. His presentation illuminated the mechanisms by which populist leaders harness emotional energies, disrupt symbolic orders, and generate powerful moments of political transgression. By situating these dynamics within a broader sociological and historical frame, Dr. Joosse provided participants with an analytical vocabulary capable of explaining both the appeal and the democratic risks of contemporary populism.
Artem Turenko: “The Evolution of the Rhetoric of the ‘Alternative for Germany’: A Comparative Analysis of the Election Campaigns for the European Parliament in 2019 and 2024”
Artem Turenko is a PhD Candidate, Political Science at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow.
The presentation delivered by Artem Turenko also offered a rigorous comparative analysis of the rhetorical evolution of the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) across two European Parliament election campaigns—2019 and 2024. Situated at the intersection of political linguistics, populism studies, and European politics, Turenko’s research interrogates a widely held assumption in the literature on populism: that populist parties strategically soften their rhetoric when electoral success is uncertain and radicalize it when victory appears likely. Through a mixed-methods approach combining quantitative content analysis, sentiment analysis, and discourse-theoretical insights, the study provides a nuanced, partially counterintuitive answer.
The analytical strength of the presentation lies not merely in its empirical findings, but in how it captures the AfD’s rhetorical balancing act as a populist actor transitioning from peripheral challenger to semi-mainstream contender within both German and European political spaces. The AfD’s participation in the Identity and Democracy (ID) faction—and later its exclusion and reconfiguration into the “Europe of Sovereign Nations” group—forms a crucial contextual backdrop shaping its discursive strategies.
Methodological Architecture and Analytical Scope
Turenko’s research is grounded in a systematic comparison of two core textual corpora: the AfD’s European Parliament election programs (2019 and 2024) and accompanying campaign posters. Employing ATLAS.ti software, the author conducts sentiment analysis at the paragraph level while also mapping thematic clusters and key lexical markers associated with right-wing populism. Complementing this quantitative layer is a qualitative discourse-theoretical lens inspired by the concept of topoi, particularly as developed in the discourse-historical approach (DHA). This allows the study to trace recurring argumentation schemes such as crisis, threat, sovereignty, and decline.
Crucially, the analysis does not treat rhetoric as a static ideological artifact but as a strategic instrument shaped by electoral expectations, factional alliances, and shifting political opportunity structures at the European level.
Continuity Beneath Change: Thematic Stability Across Campaigns
One of the central findings emphasized in both the presentation and the underlying paper is the remarkable thematic continuity in AfD rhetoric across the two campaigns. Migration, Islam, sovereignty, and skepticism toward supranational governance remain the party’s rhetorical backbone in both 2019 and 2024. Even as the European and domestic political environments changed dramatically—marked by pandemic aftermath, energy crises, war in Ukraine, and geopolitical instability—the AfD’s core narrative of a threatened nation embedded within a dysfunctional EU persisted.
According to Turenko, this continuity suggests that the AfD’s populism is less reactive than structurally embedded. Rather than reinventing its agenda, the party selectively recalibrates emphasis while maintaining a stable ideological grammar. This is particularly visible in the sustained dominance of negative emotional tonality across both election programs. In absolute terms, the 2024 manifesto contains even more negatively coded paragraphs, although this increase is partly attributable to the expanded length of the document.
Rhetorical Radicalization Without Emotional Escalation
The study’s most analytically significant contribution lies in its challenge to the expectation that greater electoral success necessarily produces harsher rhetoric. While Turenko demonstrates an increased frequency of lexical markers associated with right-wing populism in 2024—such as “danger,” “threat,” “ban,” and “reject”—the overall emotional tone of the rhetoric changes only marginally. Negative sentiment remains dominant, but not dramatically more intense.
This apparent paradox becomes intelligible through a third-eye reading: the AfD radicalizes not by amplifying emotional hostility, but by broadening the semantic ecology of crisis. In 2019, crisis discourse was relatively narrow, focused primarily on migration and the euro. By 2024, the crisis topos expands to encompass energy, gas, climate, gender, public health, and global finance. The party thus multiplies perceived threats without fundamentally altering its emotional register. Crisis becomes omnipresent, normalized, and structurally embedded rather than rhetorically explosive.
Strategic Softening and Discursive Moderation
Equally revealing is what disappears from the AfD’s rhetoric. The complete absence of the term “Dexit” in the 2024 program—after its notable presence in 2019—signals a tactical softening on the issue of EU withdrawal. From a third-eye perspective, this omission reflects strategic moderation rather than ideological retreat. The AfD reframes its Euroscepticism from exit-oriented rupture to internal resistance and sovereignty reclamation, aligning more closely with the broader ID faction’s stance as articulated in documents such as the Antwerp Declaration.
At the same time, the emergence of “gender ideology” as a distinct thematic field in 2024 indicates an effort to expand the party’s cultural conflict repertoire. This shift mirrors transnational right-wing populist trends and suggests a strategic attempt to mobilize new constituencies without abandoning core voters.
Visual Rhetoric and Populist Simplification
The comparative analysis of campaign posters reinforces these conclusions. While the 2019 visuals were narrowly focused on border security and migration control, the 2024 posters display a significantly broader issue spectrum, including family policy, energy security, freedom of speech, and EU power limitation. Yet, the emotional architecture remains consistent: short imperatives, exclamatory slogans, and stark binaries. The substitution of “crisis” with “chaos” in visual rhetoric exemplifies how the AfD preserves affective intensity while updating its symbolic vocabulary.
In sum, Turenko’s presentation demonstrates that the AfD’s rhetorical evolution between 2019 and 2024 is best understood as adaptive recalibration rather than linear radicalization or moderation. The party intensifies populist markers and expands its crisis narrative while simultaneously avoiding discursive moves that could alienate broader electorates or constrain coalition possibilities at the European level. The AfD emerges as a populist actor increasingly skilled in managing the tension between ideological rigidity and strategic flexibility. The study thus offers valuable insights not only into German right-wing populism, but also into the broader dynamics of populist normalization within contemporary European politics.
Discussant Feedback and Responses
Dr. Helena Rovamo’s Feedback on Dr. Paul Joosse’s Presentation
Dr. Helena Rovamo is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Eastern Finland.
Session’s first discussant Dr. Helena Rovamo’s feedback on Assoc. Prof. Paul Joosse’s presentation constituted a thoughtful and methodologically attentive intervention that both affirmed the scholarly value of the work and pushed its conceptual boundaries. Positioned within the broader framework of the ECPS workshop, her remarks underscored a shared recognition among presenters that populism must be understood not merely as a strategic or rhetorical phenomenon, but as one deeply embedded in affect, morality, and social relations.
Dr. Rovamo’s engagement unfolds along three analytically distinct yet interconnected axes: methodology, theory, and empirical generalization. First, her methodological inquiry into Dr. Joosse’s ethnographic practice at political rallies foregrounds the often-overlooked relational dynamics of fieldwork. By asking how rally participants experienced being approached by a researcher, Dr. Rovamo implicitly raises questions about reflexivity, power, trust, and emotional negotiation in politically charged environments. This intervention situates populism research within broader debates in qualitative sociology concerning the co-production of data and the affective dimensions of knowledge generation.
Second, Dr. Rovamo’s theoretical questioning targets the conceptual interface between charisma and populism. Rather than accepting their linkage as self-evident, she presses Dr. Joosse to clarify whether charisma constitutes the essence of populism, a parallel phenomenon, or an underlying social mechanism that populist rhetoric mobilizes. This line of questioning reflects a concern with analytical precision and signals the risk of conceptual conflation. Her comments invite a deeper theorization of whether populism should be understood primarily as discursive performance, moral framing, or charismatic social bonding.
Finally, Dr. Rovamo’s reflections on Donald Trump and the apparent durability of his support introduce a critical temporal dimension. By asking whether anything can weaken Trump’s charisma or the broader MAGA movement, she challenges static understandings of charismatic authority. This question opens space for considering erosion, routinization, or transformation of charisma under conditions of scandal, failure, or institutionalization.
Assoc. Prof. Joosse’s Response
Assoc. Prof. Paul Joosse’s response to Dr. Rovamo’s feedback offered a theoretically rich and reflexively grounded clarification of his methodological choices and conceptual commitments. His intervention can be read as an effort to reposition charisma theory as an indispensable, yet insufficiently integrated, component of contemporary populism studies—while simultaneously demystifying the empirical mechanics of researching charismatic movements in situ.
On the methodological plane, Dr. Joosse addressed concerns regarding fieldwork at Trump rallies by reframing such spaces as inherently dialogical rather than hostile research environments. He emphasized that MAGA rallies function as political forums in which participants are not only ideologically motivated but socially primed for interaction. The combination of extended waiting periods, strong collective identity, and expressive political culture renders rally-goers unusually accessible to qualitative inquiry. This response implicitly challenges assumptions about populist publics as suspicious or closed off, instead portraying them as actively seeking recognition and discursive engagement. From an analytical standpoint, Dr. Joosse thus normalizes populist spaces as legitimate sites of sociological encounter rather than exceptional or epistemically compromised arenas.
The theoretical core of Dr. Joosse’s response lies in his articulation of charisma theory and populism theory as complementary rather than competing frameworks. He conceptualizes populism as a relational dynamic centered on the people–elite antagonism, while charisma theory foregrounds leadership and authority grounded in popular legitimacy operating outside institutional norms. Importantly, Dr. Joosse resists reductive equivalence: not all populism is charismatic, and not all charisma is populist. Yet, he argues that each framework addresses the blind spots of the other—charisma theory often under-theorizing collective authorization, and populism theory under-specifying leadership dynamics. His response positions this synthesis as a broader scholarly project aimed at rebalancing agency between leaders and followers.
Dr. Joosse’s reflections on Donald Trump further extend this synthesis through a Weberian lens. Drawing on Max Weber’s concept of routinization, he suggests that charismatic power rarely collapses due to external critique or scandal. Instead, it dissipates internally as followers transform revolutionary authority into ritualized tradition. Trump’s future, in this reading, hinges less on opposition strategies than on whether his movement eventually converts his exceptionalism into reproducible form—akin to the symbolic afterlife of figures such as Ronald Reagan.
Dr. Joosse also underscores the destabilizing nature of charismatic authority. By redefining political rules and defying normative expectations, charismatic leaders render conventional democratic “playbooks” ineffective. This, he argues, explains why institutional actors historically resort to coercive measures when legitimacy contests fail. Dr. Joosse’s response situates Trumpism not as an anomaly, but as a classic instance of charismatic disruption—one whose resolution remains structurally indeterminate rather than strategically manageable.
Dr. Rovamo’s Feedback on Artem Turenko’s Presentation
Dr. Helena Rovamo’s feedback on Artem Turenko’s presentation offered a constructive and analytically focused engagement that both affirmed the scholarly value of the study and probed its core assumptions. Her intervention can be understood as an invitation to strengthen the explanatory architecture of the research by sharpening its theoretical logic and methodological transparency.
Dr. Rovamo began by recognizing the contribution of Turenko’s work to the study of populist rhetoric, particularly highlighting its emphasis on temporal change. She framed this diachronic perspective as a significant strength, noting that tracing how populist communication evolves across electoral cycles enriches existing understandings of populism as a dynamic rather than static phenomenon.
At the same time, Dr. Rovamo raised a fundamental theoretical challenge to the study’s central assumption: that populist parties soften their rhetoric when electoral success is uncertain and harden it when victory appears likely. Drawing on intuitive and strategic reasoning, she suggested an alternative expectation—namely, that parties with little to lose might radicalize more aggressively, while those nearing electoral success might moderate their tone to consolidate broader, centrist support. This question did not dismiss the proposed hypothesis but called for a clearer articulation of its underlying causal logic.
Her critique then shifted to methodology. Dr. Rovamo queried how Turenko inferred the AfD’s expectations of winning or losing across different campaigns, implicitly pointing to the difficulty of operationalizing party perceptions and strategic calculations. She suggested that other explanatory variables—beyond electoral anticipation—might account for rhetorical shifts, thereby encouraging a more pluralistic causal framework.
Finally, Dr. Rovamo turned to the analysis of campaign posters, proposing that future research might benefit from incorporating systematic visual analysis. She implied that visual rhetoric could reveal affective and symbolic dimensions of populism not fully captured through textual analysis alone.
Artem Turenko’s Response
Artem Turenko’s response to Dr. Helena Rovamo’s feedback constituted a reflective and forward-looking clarification of his theoretical assumptions and research design. His intervention can be read as an attempt to situate his findings within an ongoing scholarly debate while acknowledging both the provisional nature of his conclusions and the broader trajectory of his doctoral research.
Addressing the central theoretical challenge, Turenko defended his hypothesis concerning the relationship between electoral expectations and rhetorical intensity by situating it within an existing, though contested, body of literature on populist strategy. He emphasized that scholarly findings on rhetorical “softening” and “hardening” are not uniform and often vary depending on whether populist parties operate in government or opposition. By invoking comparative cases—such as governing populist parties in Hungary versus opposition populists in Western and Central Europe—he underscored the importance of positional context in shaping rhetorical behavior. From an analytical standpoint, this response reframed his assumption not as a deterministic rule but as a context-sensitive proposition.
Methodologically, Turenko clarified that his inference regarding the AfD’s expectations of electoral success was grounded in longitudinal polling data, regional election outcomes, and observable trends in voter support—particularly the party’s sustained gains in eastern German Länder and its expanding appeal in western regions. He acknowledged, however, that the literature offers no definitive consensus on how electoral anticipation translates into rhetorical strategy, thereby implicitly accepting Dr. Rovamo’s call for theoretical openness.
Finally, Turenko addressed the suggestion to incorporate visual analysis by situating the current study within the constraints of an article-length publication. He explained that while posters were included as supplementary material, a systematic visual analysis exceeds the scope of the present article. Importantly, he positioned this limitation as temporary, outlining plans for a more comprehensive, multi-level and multimodal analysis in his doctoral thesis, encompassing regional, federal, and European elections.
Dr. Jonathan Madison’s Feedback on Dr. Joosse’s Presentation
Dr. Jonathan Madison is a Governance Fellow at the R Street Institute.
Dr. Jonathan Madison’s feedback on Assoc. Prof. Paul Joosse’s presentation constituted a dense and multi-layered scholarly intervention that simultaneously affirmed the contribution of the research and pressed it toward greater conceptual and explanatory depth. Madison’s remarks can be read as an effort to situate Dr. Joosse’s analysis of charismatic populism within broader debates on moral order, religious symbolism, and ideological asymmetry.
Dr. Madison began by foregrounding a foundational concern shared across populism studies: the contested nature of the concept itself. By encouraging presenters to clarify their operative definitions of populism, he implicitly highlighted the stakes of conceptual framing for empirical interpretation. This move positioned Dr. Joosse’s work within a wider methodological conversation about what, precisely, scholars are identifying when they analyze populist movements—style, ideology, moral narrative, or social relation.
Turning specifically to Dr. Joosse’s paper, Dr. Madison expressed strong appreciation for its treatment of victimhood as a constitutive element of charismatic populism. He underscored the value of Dr. Joosse’s analysis in showing how narratives of persecution forge an intimate, morally charged bond between leader and followers. Yet Dr. Madison’s feedback was not merely confirmatory; it pivoted toward a series of probing questions that exposed internal tensions within this framework.
A central paradox Dr. Madison identified concerns Christianity. He questioned how Donald Trump can successfully mobilize a sense of Christian oppression when Christianity itself remains a dominant moral framework in American society—and when Trump routinely violates its ethical norms. This question destabilizes simple oppositions between hegemonic morality and populist rebellion, suggesting instead a more complex moral inversion in which norm violation becomes a source of authenticity and solidarity.
Relatedly, Dr. Madison invited Dr. Joosse to reflect on the role of liberalism, neoliberalism, and capitalism as perceived antagonists within Trumpist rhetoric. He proposed that these abstract systems may function as the true objects of rebellion, allowing Christianity to be reframed as a victimized tradition rather than a ruling moral order. This line of inquiry situates charismatic populism within a broader ideological backlash against modernity and abstraction.
Dr. Madison also drew attention to Dr. Joosse’s brief mention of physical suffering, asking whether moments such as Trump’s assassination attempt—and the symbolic solidarities that followed—should be more fully integrated into the analysis. Finally, he raised a critical asymmetry: why condemnation from Trump’s opponents strengthens in-group cohesion, while Trump’s own insults fail to alienate his supporters. This question challenges conventional theories of moral offense and reciprocity.
Assoc. Prof. Joosse’s Response
Assoc. Prof. Paul Joosse’s response to Dr. Jonathan Madison’s feedback offered a nuanced and reflexive elaboration of the moral, religious, and sociological paradoxes embedded in contemporary charismatic populism. His intervention can be read as an effort to theorize contradiction not as a weakness of Trumpism, but as one of its constitutive sources of power.
Addressing Dr. Madison’s question concerning Christianity, Dr. Joosse began by disentangling two analytically distinct issues: Christianity as a hegemonic moral framework and Christianity as a site of internal contestation. While acknowledging that American civil religion is historically rooted in Christianity, he emphasized that hegemonic status does not preclude intense intra-Christian struggle. Competing interpretations of moral authority, decline, and authenticity allow segments of Christianity to frame themselves simultaneously as historically dominant and presently dispossessed. In this sense, Trumpism draws on a narrative of loss rather than marginality, positioning Christianity as a tradition under siege that must be restored rather than defended.
Dr. Joosse then confronted the apparent contradiction of Trump as a Christian figure. Rather than denying the tension, he theorized it as central to charismatic legitimation. Drawing on interview material, he highlighted how supporters distinguish between moral perfection and divine instrumentality. Trump is not venerated as a moral exemplar but accepted as a flawed vessel—often analogized to biblical figures such as King Cyrus—through whom a higher purpose is enacted. This framing allows supporters to bracket Trump’s personal transgressions without undermining his perceived mission, reinforcing rather than weakening charismatic attachment.
On the question of modernity and ideological backlash, Dr. Joosse cautiously acknowledged the relevance of global order, nationalism, and resistance to transnational governance. Yet he underscored a methodological asymmetry between macro-level explanations and micro-level meaning-making. From his ethnographic standpoint, supporters rarely articulate their grievances in abstract ideological terms such as neoliberalism or globalization. Instead, these structural forces are translated into experiential narratives of cultural displacement and moral erosion, suggesting that charismatic revolt operates through lived affect rather than formal ideology.
Dr. Joosse’s reflections on physical suffering further deepened the analysis. He interpreted Trump’s public emphasis on bodily harm—particularly following the assassination attempt—as a powerful act of sacralization. The visual and symbolic replication of injury by supporters, including comparisons to Christian iconography of sacrifice, transforms vulnerability into proof of devotion. Suffering thus becomes a resource for charismatization, dramatizing personal risk as evidence of moral commitment.
Finally, Dr. Joosse addressed Dr. Madison’s question about asymmetric moral judgment. Rather than treating the double standard as a puzzle to be solved, he reframed it as a defining feature of charismatic authority. Operating outside conventional moral and institutional rules, charismatic figures are granted exceptional latitude by their followers, who reinterpret norm violations as authenticity, strength, or combativeness. From this perspective, Trump’s immunity to disqualification is not anomalous but exemplary of charisma’s capacity to suspend ordinary evaluative frameworks.
Taken together, Dr. Joosse’s response advanced a compelling sociological insight: charismatic populism thrives not despite moral contradiction, but through its capacity to absorb, reinterpret, and weaponize it.
Dr. Jonathan Madison’s Feedback on Artem Turenko
Dr. JMadison’s feedback on Artem Turenko’s presentation and paper constituted a careful and theoretically oriented intervention that both affirmed the empirical quality of the research and pressed for greater conceptual rigor. Dr. Madison’s comments can be read as an effort to sharpen the analytical foundations upon which claims about populism and rhetorical change are built.
Dr. Madison began by commending the methodological strength of Turenko’s study, particularly the systematic analysis of campaign messaging and the careful handling of empirical material. He framed the paper as a valuable contribution that other scholars could readily build upon, thereby situating it positively within the broader field of populism research.
At the core of his feedback, however, lay a sustained concern with conceptual clarity. Dr. Madison emphasized that while “populism” is frequently invoked, it remains a deeply contested concept, and he noted that the paper does not sufficiently define how populism is understood or operationalized. He questioned the implicit assumption that references to danger, threat, or crisis can be treated as inherently populist, pointing out that such language may equally characterize ideological projects grounded in nationalism, authoritarianism, or even fascism. From this perspective, Dr. Madison challenged the paper to explain what distinguishes populist rhetoric from other forms of radical or right-wing political communication.
Relatedly, Dr. Madison cautioned against treating “radicalization” and “populist rhetoric” as interchangeable terms. He argued that increasing rhetorical intensity does not automatically equate to populism and that the analytical distinction between these phenomena must be made explicit. Without such clarification, claims about the evolution of populist rhetoric risk conceptual slippage.
Finally, Dr. Madison revisited the issue of causal directionality in Turenko’s argument. He questioned whether rhetorical moderation or radicalization should be understood as a response to anticipated electoral outcomes, or alternatively as a causal factor shaping those outcomes. By highlighting this ambiguity, Dr. Madison invited greater methodological reflexivity and encouraged consideration of competing causal explanations. Overall, Dr. Madison’s feedback underscored the importance of definitional precision and causal clarity in transforming strong empirical research into a robust theoretical contribution.
Artem Turenko’s Response
Artem Turenko’s response to Dr. Madison’s feedback unfolded as a reflective and conceptually attentive clarification of his analytical choices. His intervention can be read as an attempt to reconcile empirical findings with the conceptual ambiguities that pervade the study of populism, while openly acknowledging the limits of explanatory certainty.
Addressing the definitional critique, Turenko began by situating his work within the plurality of scholarly interpretations of populism. He emphasized that his article does not advance a singular or exhaustive definition but instead draws on two widely used conceptualizations: populism as a thin-centered ideology and populism as a political style. In this sense, populism is understood both as an ideological formation that attaches itself to host ideologies—such as nationalism or authoritarianism—and as a mode of political communication characterized by emotional appeal, moral polarization, and simplified antagonisms. From an analytical standpoint, this hybrid approach reflects a pragmatic effort to capture the multidimensional nature of AfD rhetoric rather than to impose rigid categorical boundaries.
Turenko further responded to concerns about conflation between populism and radical right ideology by foregrounding the AfD’s internal heterogeneity. He highlighted the party’s long-standing tension between a more moderate, economically liberal wing and a more radical nationalist faction rooted primarily in eastern Germany. This intra-party struggle, he argued, is visibly encoded in the party’s official programs, which function as negotiated compromises rather than ideologically coherent manifestos. This insight reframes AfD rhetoric as a balancing act between competing internal constituencies rather than a linear trajectory toward radicalization.
On the issue of distinguishing populism from nationalism or fascism, Turenko conceded that lexical markers such as “danger,” “threat,” or “ban” are insufficient on their own to identify populism. Instead, he pointed to argumentation schemes derived from the discourse-historical approach, particularly the topos of danger and crisis, which link perceived threats to calls for extraordinary political action. In this view, populism emerges not from isolated vocabulary but from patterned narratives that construct “the people” as collectively endangered.
Finally, Turenko addressed the challenge of causal directionality regarding rhetorical softening or hardening. He acknowledged that the relationship between electoral expectations and rhetoric remains unresolved in the literature and admitted the possibility that his initial assumption may require revision. His empirical finding—that AfD support increased without significant rhetorical change—was presented as an invitation for further research rather than definitive proof.
The Q&A Session
The Q&A session also functioned as an important analytical extension of the workshop, drawing together core themes of cultural grievance, economic representation, and the politics of knowledge production. The exchange revealed how empirical findings on populism are shaped not only by theoretical frameworks but also by positional contexts—both of researchers and of the actors they study.
The first intervention, raised via the chat by Nikola Ilić and addressed to Assoc. Prof. Paul Joosse, probed the relationship between economic grievance and cultural disrespect in Trumpist mobilization. Ilić’s question implicitly challenged culturalist accounts of populism by asking whether material deprivation operates as a precursor to the moral and symbolic injuries identified in Dr. Joosse’s analysis.
Dr. Joosse’s response offered a nuanced clarification: while economic concerns—especially inflation and the cost of living—were frequently articulated by rally participants, these concerns were expressed through culturally mediated narratives rather than through technical economic reasoning. Trump’s tariff proposals, for example, were embraced less as policy instruments than as symbolic promises of restored fairness and national strength. From an analytical standpoint, Dr. Joosse reframed economic grievance as a representational resource rather than a causal foundation, emphasizing that objective wealth indicators do not align neatly with subjective experiences of loss. His response reinforced the broader argument that populist appeal operates through meaning-making processes rather than material conditions alone.
The second intervention, posed by Dr. Bulent Kenes and directed to Artem Turenko, shifted the discussion toward epistemic and institutional constraints. Dr. Kenes raised a pointed question regarding the feasibility of studying far-right populism in Europe from within Russia, given the Kremlin’s widely alleged instrumental support for radical-right movements across Europe and beyond. His inquiry foregrounded the political conditions under which academic knowledge about populism is produced, implicitly questioning issues of autonomy, censorship, and selectivity.
Turenko’s response offered a candid and context-sensitive account of Russian academic practice. He argued that, paradoxically, the study of European far-right parties—particularly the AfD—is relatively unproblematic within Russian political science. Far-right populism in Europe is widely covered in Russian media and extensively analyzed in academic institutions such as the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences. According to Turenko, this openness contrasts sharply with the difficulties scholars face when studying sensitive domestic or progressive topics, including left-wing movements or LGBTQ-related politics. His remarks highlighted an asymmetry of academic freedom: external cases of populism are treated as analytically legitimate objects, while internal or normatively challenging subjects remain constrained in Russian case.
Conclusion
Session 8 of the ECPS Virtual Workshop Series offered a theoretically sophisticated and empirically grounded contribution to contemporary debates on populism and democratic fragility. Bringing together sociological theory, discourse analysis, and comparative political research, the session demonstrated that populism cannot be adequately understood as a singular ideology, rhetorical tactic, or electoral strategy. Rather, it emerges as a multifaceted political phenomenon that operates simultaneously at the levels of emotion, morality, symbolism, and institutional contestation.
Taken together, the presentations by Assoc. Prof. Paul Joosse and Artem Turenko highlighted two complementary dimensions of the populist turn. D. Joosse’s analysis foregrounded the affective and ritual foundations of charismatic authority, showing how suffering, transgression, and Saturnalian inversion enable populist leaders to suspend normative constraints and reconfigure legitimacy itself. Turenko’s comparative study, by contrast, illuminated the strategic and discursive adaptability of populist parties within electoral competition, demonstrating how populist rhetoric can remain structurally stable while selectively recalibrating its thematic focus in response to shifting political opportunities.
The interventions by discussants Dr. Helena Rovamo and Dr. Jonathan Madison played a crucial integrative role in sharpening the session’s analytical stakes. Their feedback underscored the importance of conceptual precision, methodological reflexivity, and causal clarity in populism research. By questioning the boundaries between populism, radicalism, nationalism, and charisma, they highlighted enduring tensions within the field and pointed toward the need for more theoretically explicit and dialogical scholarship.
The Q&A session further expanded the discussion by linking populist mobilization to broader questions of economic representation, cultural grievance, and the politics of knowledge production. These exchanges revealed that populism operates not only through material claims or ideological positions, but through culturally mediated narratives that translate structural anxieties into moralized political meaning.
In sum, the session reinforced a central insight of the ECPS workshop series: that understanding the populist turn requires sustained interdisciplinary engagement with the emotional, symbolic, and strategic dimensions of democratic life. By bridging micro-level meaning-making with macro-level political dynamics, the session offered valuable analytical tools for assessing both the appeal of populism and its profound challenges to democratic norms and institutions.
In this incisive analysis, political scientist Professor Cengiz Aktar examines Ankara’s latest initiative toward the Kurds, arguing that what has been presented as a peace process is instead a populist performance of reconciliation. Professor Aktar shows how Turkey’s government frames “brotherhood,” “national unity,” and “terror-free Turkey” as harmonious goals, even though such populist language masks structural inequalities and omits democratic guarantees for Kurdish identity. With Abdullah Öcalan’s call for dissolution of the PKK left unreciprocated, and no mechanisms for Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR), truth-seeking, or legal reform, Professor Aktar warns that the process risks being symbolic rather than transformative. He suggests that populism here functions not as conflict resolution, but as political containment — strengthening autocratic power while offering no durable settlement.
Turkey’s long-running conflicts with its ethnic and/or religious groups have been on the permanent agenda for more than a century. Various attempts by successive rulers to suppress or resolve these conflicts have drawn the attention of Turkey watchers and international public opinion throughout this period.
Interestingly, the latest initiative by the Ankara regime toward the Kurds—although seemingly ground-breaking at first glance—has largely gone unnoticed by global media outlets, and even more so by the wider public abroad. Only Western governments have, rather unenthusiastically, welcomed the developments.
Why such a lack of interest? Most likely because there is no serious or lasting peace perspective visible at the end of the process.
The genocide in Gaza, Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, and the massacres and famine in Sudan are now almost entirely dominating the headlines. Nevertheless, a genuine “Kurdish peace” would normally contain—at least partially—the seeds of region-wide normalization. Yet no one seems to detect such a dynamic in Ankara’s initiative, and rightly so.
Let us briefly recall the background.
Since the surprise launch of the so-called “process” on October 1, 2024, a highly unusual modus operandi has been underway to address this decades-old military conflict.
First, contrary to well-established conflict-resolution practices, the parties involved are not on equal footing. The Kurdish leader remains in prison and is not free in his movements or actions. That asymmetry alone speaks volumes about the genuineness of the process.
Since his capture and imprisonment twenty-five years ago, Ankara has approached Abdullah Öcalan three times with the same objective: to pressure him to end the armed struggle and push for the PKK’s dissolution. This time, it appears to have worked.
Indeed, on February 27, Öcalan declared that the rebel group had “completed its life cycle” and called for its dissolution, potentially signaling the end of a decades-long conflict that claimed at least 50,000 lives—around 40,000 of them Kurdish.
His “Call for Peace and a Democratic Society” was broadcast to the public at a hotel in Istanbul. In return, the plea for “legal and political regulations for dissolution and disarmament,” which was not included in the written call, was later added verbally.
Compared to the previous “peace” initiative of 2013, there is a clear regression. At that time, Öcalan linked the resolution of the Kurdish issue to the PKK’s demobilization, while proposing a broader, holistic framework. Today, there is no longer any connection between the dismantlement of the PKK and a lasting political solution to the Kurdish question. Öcalan’s major unilateral concession thus clearly signals that the entire scenario is being crafted by the authorities.
Second, in line with this fundamental imbalance, the scenario assumes that the Kurdish issue will be resolved within a vague framework of “national solidarity, brotherhood, and democracy,” falling far short of the structural changes required for equal citizenship and the recognition of Kurdish identity. Yet it aligns perfectly with a populist rhetoric that casually pairs concepts that in fact cancel each other out, such as “brotherhood” and “democracy.”
In the regime’s daily populist rhetoric, the process is laconically labeled “terror-free Turkey”—and nothing more. Worse, Öcalan now seems to echo this line by consistently promoting a “brotherhood” narrative in which Turkishness clearly takes precedence.
Within this framework, the regime may make symbolic gestures of goodwill but will never undertake ground-breaking reforms that would establish the constitutional, legal, and political foundations of an equal citizenship.
Kurds, under this logic, can only become full-fledged citizens on the condition that they dissolve into the Turkish magma. Accordingly, since the Öcalan call on late February, not a single meaningful step has been undertaken by the regime toward the Kurds.
Third, established conflict-resolution mechanisms and expert involvement are entirely absent from the Turkish process—whether in the form of joint commissions or specialized bodies within relevant public institutions.
Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR)—the return of ex-combatants to civilian life through weapons collection, disbandment of armed groups, and social and economic reintegration—is not part of the process. Likewise, no provision has been made for truth and reconciliation.
All in all, within this unusual conflict-resolution architecture, the only concrete step taken by Ankara has been the establishment of an advisory parliamentary commission until the end of 2025, which meets behind closed doors and in which regime parties hold an absolute majority. Its agenda does not include, for example, a crucial Kurdish demand: the official recognition of the Kurdish language.
As for the opposition—including the main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP)—the prevailing view seems to be that the process would automatically trigger broader democratization. As if history had ever shown a non-democratic regime transforming into a democracy through the smooth management of peacebuilding with an ostracized people—in this case, the Kurds. Simply because such a management requires as a pre-condition, a functioning democracy.
The negative consequences of this clumsy process are already looming. While PKK circles have complied with the call of their “supreme leader” Öcalan, the Kurdish street remains profoundly skeptical. People welcome the official end of the armed struggle for its potential to spare the lives of their children—but no more than that.
Overall, the process is likely to strengthen Erdoğan and the regime bloc, allowing it to reap the political benefits of a “terror-free Turkey,” while weakening if not dismissing the Kurdish Political Movement. This carries the risk of a violent rejection of Kurdish “surrender” by radical—or less radical—segments of Kurdish polity.
Beyond this unfolding drama, Ankara’s ultimate objective remains the dissolution of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) in Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava), led by Syrian Kurds and backed by a 100,000-strong, NATO-trained and equipped military force.
Nevertheless, the integration of this force into the nascent Syrian army appears to be the only realistic option for Damascus, for the AANES, and for the international coalition supporting the entity, which includes the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Saudi Arabia. Negotiations among all actors are underway despite Turkey’s stubborn opposition.
The Turkish state has never viewed the Kurdish issue as anything other than a security problem—whether inside Turkey or in neighboring countries. That reflex will not change unless Ankara is forced to accept the Rojava fait accompli, thereby swallowing both the empowerment and the legitimacy of a Kurdish-led polity in its immediate neighborhood and across the wider region.
In this in-depth interview for ECPS, Professor Tim Bale offers a sharp assessment of Reform UK’s rise and Nigel Farage’s polarizing leadership. Farage, he argues, is “a Marmite politician — people either love or hate him,” making him both Reform’s engine and its constraint. Professor Bale suggests that Farage exemplifies “a classic populist radical-right leader” who channels anti-elite sentiment, yet risks alienating voters beyond his base. He links Reform’s surge less to ideological realignment than to Conservative decay, marked by Brexit fragmentation, leadership churn, and “over-promis[ing] and under-deliver[ing] on migration.” While Reform may reshape the political terrain, Professor Bale warns its ceiling remains visible—especially if questions of competence, Russia, and generational change intensify. Reform’s future, he concludes, is possible, but far from inevitable.
Giving an interview to the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Professor Tim Bale—Professor of Politics in the Department of Politics and International Relations at Queen Mary University of London—offers a wide-ranging analysis of Nigel Farage, Reform UK, and the structural realignments reshaping British party politics. His insights are grounded in decades of scholarship on party evolution, populist rhetoric, and leadership psychology, making his perspective essential for understanding the United Kingdom’s shifting electoral landscape.
Throughout the interview, Professor Bale situates Nigel Farage as both emblem and engine of Britain’s contemporary radical right. As he puts it, “Nigel Farage is, in many ways, a classic example of a populist radical-right leader,” one who mobilizes support through a moralized confrontation between “the people” and supposed elite betrayal. Yet Farage’s strength is also his constraint. Professor Bale memorably describes him as “a Marmite politician,” a figure voters “either love or hate,” noting that this polarization “probably places a limit on Reform’s appeal.” Farage, therefore, embodies both populist vitality and electoral risk—“the ideal leader” in the eyes of his base, yet “a figure of suspicion” for many beyond it.
This duality frames Professor Bale’s central contention: that Reform UK’s rise must be understood not only in ideological terms but as an artefact of Conservative decay. Years of intra-party conflict, Brexit-driven fragmentation, and “over-promis[ing] and under-deliver[ing] on migration” have opened political space for Farage’s insurgency. Yet Professor Bale cautions against assuming an irreversible realignment. The Conservative Party remains “rooted in the middle-class political culture of the UK,” with institutional depth and internal veto points that make any “reverse takeover” more difficult than populist narratives imply.
Focusing on the structural and sociological conditions that shape political possibility, Professor Bale further highlights a widening generational divide. While education and age have become stronger electoral predictors than class, cultural conflict alone cannot explain support for Reform. If public priorities shift back from national issues to personal ones—from immigration to “the cost of living, [and] the state of public services”—Reform’s momentum may plateau. Moreover, its perceived softness on Russia remains “an Achilles’ heel,” one that stalled its surge when public attention sharpened in 2024.
Across this interview, Professor Bale neither exaggerates inevitability nor discounts volatility. Instead, he offers a sober framework for evaluating whether Reform represents a durable transformation or a protest cycle with a ceiling. Britain, he suggests, now faces a future where polarization, demographic turnover, institutional vulnerability, and charismatic leadership converge—precariously. This conversation, therefore, is not only timely, but analytically consequential.
Here is the edited transcript of our interview with Professor Tim Bale, slightly revised for clarity and flow.
Farage Is a Classic Populist Radical Right Leader
Nigel Farage speaking in Dover, Kent, UK, on May 28, 2024, in support of the Reform Party, of which he is President. Photo: Sean Aidan Calderbank.
Professor Tim Bale, thank you very much for joining our interview series. Let me start right away with the first question: In your work with Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser on the mainstream right’s strategic squeeze between Inglehart’s “silent revolution” and Ignazi’s “silent counter-revolution,” how should we interpret the rise of Reform UK? To what extent does Nigel Farage embody a classic mobiliser of counter-revolutionary sentiment, and to what extent do the Conservative Party’s specific organizational, ideological, and reputational vulnerabilities make the UK an outlier in the broader pattern of West European party-system transformation?
Professor Tim Bale: I think you would have to say that Nigel Farage is, in many ways, a classic example of a populist radical-right leader. He constantly draws a distinction between the wisdom of “the people” and their alleged betrayal and condescension by elites. As for the Conservative Party, there has always been a strain of populism and nationalism—indeed, some would say jingoism—within its tradition. In recent years, particularly under Boris Johnson and during the Brexit campaign, this tendency has come to the surface. In that sense, the party has reached back into its more populist and nationalist heritage as a way of competing with Farage and the political space he has claimed.
The Tories Are Hard to Capture — But Not Impossible
Farage’s rhetoric about a prospective “reverse takeover” foregrounds questions of party permeability and factional capture. Drawing on your analyses of Conservative factionalism and recurrent leadership crises, what structural, ideological, and organizational conditions render the Conservative Party susceptible to colonization by a radical-right challenger? Conversely, what features of party culture, elite networks, or institutional veto points might inhibit such a takeover?
Professor Tim Bale: When you look at the Conservative Party, there are features that, while not necessarily inoculating it from the challenge Farage poses, do make such a takeover more difficult than some people imagine, in the sense that it is a party rooted in the middle-class political culture of the UK. It is a party that has existed for 200 years, and it has a strong sense of entitlement, as it were, and a strong belief that it is the natural party of government, and therefore will be able to resist, in some ways, any challenge from a newcomer.
Having said that, however, one feature of the Conservative Party that always has to be borne in mind is that it is very strongly a leadership-driven party, and that should a leader take over who is more receptive to the kinds of overtures that Nigel Farage and others are making, then it would be quite easy for that person to convert the party to taking a much more hospitable attitude to that development. So, on the one hand, the fact that the Conservative Party is old, has a brand, and has an infrastructure makes it quite difficult for somebody to take it over. On the other hand, it can be taken over quite easily from within, because it is so reliant on the leader to show it the way in terms of policy and organization.
Farage Is Reform’s Greatest Asset and Its Weakest Link
Stop Trump Coalition march, Central London, United Kingdom, September 17, 2025. A protester holds a sign reading “No to fascists — Trump, Musk, Farage.” Photo: Ben Gingell.
Your recent interview on Reform UK emphasizes Farage’s dual status as both the party’s central mobilizing force and its principal liability. How does this tension map onto broader theories of charismatic leadership, affective polarization, and “anti-system” appeal? In an increasingly fragmented multi-party context, does Farage’s polarizing image constrain the party’s governability narrative to the point of limiting its credible path to No. 10?
Professor Tim Bale: Nigel Farage is what we call, in England, a Marmite politician, which refers to a yeast-based spread that people put on their toast in the morning. People either love or hate that particular spread, and that’s very true of people’s attitudes to Nigel Farage. I think the fact that he is such a polarizing figure probably places a limit on Reform’s appeal. At the moment, it seems to be polling around 30% in the opinion polls, and I think that reflects the fact that he finds it difficult to appeal to voters who hate him, obviously, but also that ambivalent voters may be wary of the polarization he represents. So, I do think that is something of an obstacle to Farage’s progress. The anti-system appeal you mention is clearly attractive to some voters — people fed up with the two mainstream parties who want to smash the system. Anyone like Nigel Farage, who seems to offer a more radical alternative, is an appealing option for them. However, there is still a strong streak of small-c conservatism in the British electorate that would regard that as too radical, and that would like change — but not at the cost of dismantling a parliamentary, liberal, representative democracy that, in many ways, has served Britain well over the last couple of hundred years.
Reform’s Rise Is Built on Tory Collapse as Much as Ideology
Your research on Conservative leadership instability highlights the compounding effects of leader unpopularity, policy incoherence, and internal disunity on electoral performance. How much of Reform UK’s current momentum should be understood through the lens of “opportunity structures” created by Conservative decay, rather than any substantive ideological realignment toward radical-right policy demand?
Professor Tim Bale: As always, what we’re seeing is a combination of both. I mean, there is some genuine appeal of Reform UK’s policies and pitch to the electorate. But obviously, what has gone wrong with the Conservative Party has opened up avenues for Reform in a way that we haven’t seen before. In particular, the fact that the Conservative Party has really, since 2010, over-promised and under-delivered on migration has made it much easier for Farage to suggest that somehow it has failed voters and that it has not been able to, as it were, live up to their expectations.
Also, you would have to say that the way the Conservative Party has lost its organizational coherence, the way Brexit, for example, tore the party apart and made parliamentary discipline something of a fiction, hasn’t helped—nor has the party’s tendency to cycle through leaders so quickly. That has led to a feeling that the Conservative Party, oncea sort of solid, respectable governing party, has to some extent lost its way, even lost its mind, according to some voters. And I don’t think that has helped the Conservative Party, but I do think that’s helped Nigel Farage and Reform UK.
Many Tory MPs Would Be Comfortable in a PRR Party
In “Populism as an intra-party phenomenon,” you analyzed how Corbynism reconfigured Labour’s organizational dynamics and membership incentives. Do you observe analogous intra-party populist dynamics emerging within the Conservatives today—particularly in the struggle between traditional conservatives, post-liberal cultural conservatives, and those advocating rapprochement or fusion with Reform UK?
Professor Tim Bale: There are definitely, if not factions, then certainly groups within the Conservative Party who are battling it out for the party’s soul. You can see that there is very clearly a bunch of MPs who, if not wanting a merger with Reform UK, would actually be quite open to the idea of some kind of electoral pact with Farage’s party. I think that partly is instrumental opportunism on their part, in the sense that they think the Conservative Party is in trouble, and it needs an alliance of some kind with Reform UK to recover its fortunes.
But, there are MPs within the Conservative Party who, to be honest, would be quite comfortable belonging to a populist radical right party. They believe that Britain needs shaking up economically, and that the only way for that to happen is actually to get a greater level of support from the electorate, based on cultural concerns—concerns around immigration, woke issues, and green policies. That’s the only way of getting the kind of government that they want to actually dismantle some of the welfare state and some of the regulation that they think is holding Britain back. So, you have a strange situation in the Conservative Party where there are many advocates of a much more neoliberal conservatism who are prepared to adopt a more authoritarian stance on cultural concerns in order to get into government and implement the kinds of economic policies that they think are absolutely vital.
The Tories Are Now Moving on Migration in Farage’s Direction
Photo: Dreamstime.
Your comparative work on UKIP/Brexit Party and Australia’s One Nation highlights how radical-right “outsiders” can generate policy payoffs without executive power by reshaping the strategic environment of mainstream parties. How is Reform UK already influencing Conservative rhetoric, agenda-setting, and internal factional alignments—especially on immigration, welfare, and ECHR withdrawal?
Professor Tim Bale:You put your finger on a phenomenon that occurs throughout the world, and we’ve seen it all over Western Europe, when parties with little hope of actually governing—and certainly of joining a coalition—are capable of, as it were, moving the center of gravity in a system towards the populist radical right. When you look at the Conservative Party’s policy-making since 2024, and even actually before that, in response to the threat that Nigel Farage’s various parties—be it UKIP, be it the Brexit Party, be it Reform UK—you can clearly see that the Conservative Party has moved very much in his direction.
So, on migration, we now have a Conservative Party that has suggested—though there is some debate over whether it was intended seriously—withdrawing the indefinite right to remain granted to some non-citizens, and even opening up the possibility of them eventually being encouraged or indeed deported. That kind of mass-deportation approach is something previous Conservative governments would never have considered, and it reflects a direct response to some of Nigel Farage’s arguments.
Welfare is more complex. Farage is very aware that many of his supporters rely on the welfare state, and certainly on the National Health Service, so the Conservative Party must be cautious not to move too far toward his ambivalence on those issues. Instead, it tends to fall back on its more familiar low-tax, low-spend reputation.
On migration, that is the obvious one, where we’ve seen the Conservative Party move, just as we’ve seen parties, whether they be Christian Democrat or Conservatives across the continent, move very much towards a rather more kind of radical policy. You’d also have to look at environmental politics here, and it’s very clear that over the last few years, a Conservative Party that actually pioneered the move towards net zero—when Theresa May was Conservative Party Premier—is now really talking about winding back that commitment. I think, again, that is in response to Nigel Farage and Reform, and their promotion of the fossil fuel industry and its arguments.
Local Failures Might Not Dent Reform as Much as Opponents Hope
Reports of dysfunction in Reform-run local authorities raise questions about statecraft and institutional capacity. Given your longstanding argument that perceived competence ultimately constrains populist breakthroughs in Britain, do you anticipate that these governance shortcomings will erode Reform’s credibility? Or, alternatively, might anti-establishment narratives inoculate the party from such accountability?
Professor Tim Bale: That is a great question. We have seen Reform take over local authorities since spring of this year, and many of those councils have made rather a mess of things. They’ve fallen out with each other, they’ve found it much harder to make savings than they originally suggested, and in fact, they’re going to have to raise taxes rather than reduce them for local people. While the problems in those local authorities actually gain quite a lot of amused coverage in the media, I’m not sure how much the electorate in general pay attention to them if they’re not happening in their particular part of the country.
You raise a very good question here about the extent to which, if you criticize Reform UK, you actually strengthen, in some ways, the support for it among its die-hard advocates and voters. So, one would like to think that the example of local councils actually gives people pause for thought about whether it would be a good idea to elect Reform to the government of the country as a whole. But I rather doubt that it will have as big an impact as some of Reform’s opponents hope.
Hardline Accommodation Risks Alienating Supporters While Boosting the Radical Right
Your scholarship has shown that center-right parties often pre-empt or accommodate radical-right positions under competitive pressure. Should we expect Labour or the Conservatives to adapt their stances on immigration, welfare conditionality, or international legal obligations in response to Reform’s pressure? What do cross-national patterns suggest about the risks and limits of such accommodation?
Professor Tim Bale: We are already seeing in the UK the Labour government take a much harder line on migration than many of its supporters would like. It’s clear that that is a response by the government to losing votes to Reform. Current polling suggests that around 10% of people who voted for Labour in 2024 are now intending to vote for Reform, and Labour is desperate to get some of those people back, and by pursuing a more authoritarian stance on migration, they hope to do that.
You also point, however, to the fact that this has gone on all over the European continent. We’ve seen center-left parties as well as center-right parties pursuing a harder line on migration, and Denmark is often the country pointed to in this respect, perhaps as a successful example. But when we look across the continent as a whole, we don’t find that it is a particularly useful response for center-left parties to take. It ends up doing two things: first, alienating many of their more obvious supporters—in other words, people who have more liberal or left-wing values; and second, it tends to prove counterproductive or futile, in the sense that all it does is raise the salience of issues like migration in the minds of most voters, causing elections to be fought and debate to be conducted on terrain that actually favors populist radical right parties.
So, I personally wouldn’t advocate that as a response by the center-left, but it’s one that is still often mooted and taken by center-left parties, unfortunately.
Farage’s Sympathy for Putin Is an Achilles’ Heel
Stop Trump Coalition march, Central London, United Kingdom, September 17, 2025. Protesters dressed as Musk, Farage, Vance, Putin, Trump, and Netanyahu. Photo: Ben Gingell.
Your work on leadership perception underscores how trait attributions shape political choice. How electorally damaging is the perception that Reform UK is “soft on Russia,” particularly given polling indicating its unusually high association with pro-Russia sentiment? Does this reputational liability limit its potential to broaden its coalition beyond anti-establishment voters?
Professor Tim Bale: Reform’s support, Reform’s support, and certainly Farage’s apparent sympathy for Putin’s justification of the invasion of Ukraine, is something of an Achilles’ heel for him. To be clear, Farage has been careful not to appear as a superfan of Vladimir Putin, but he has repeatedly suggested that Russia’s invasion has been influenced by NATO “poking the Russian bear” and extending its influence into Ukraine in ways that allegedly threatened Moscow.
Polling from the 2024 election shows that the moment public attention focused on Farage’s more accommodating stance toward Putin and Russia, Reform’s upward trajectory stalled. This position is deeply unpopular in Britain, and it is something Farage will have to address seriously, especially ahead of the next election. After all, the country will be choosing a government and prime minister in a highly unstable geopolitical moment, and Russia is viewed by the overwhelming majority of Britons as the aggressor.
So, I think it is a limit to his appeal unless he begins to resile from it. At the moment, however, it doesn’t look as if he wants to do that. I should add a caveat here: when we look at other populist radical-right parties, and indeed more extreme variants of the radical right in Europe, there does not appear to be anything like the same level of enthusiasm for Russia and for Putin within Reform as we see in some of their continental counterparts.
Reform Voters Favor Leaders with ‘Dark Triad’ Traits
Your “What Britons Want in a Political Leader” study reveals stark divergences between the traits valued by Reform/Conservative members and those preferred by the broader electorate. What does this asymmetry imply about Reform’s sociological and psychological ceiling of support, and what does it reveal about the electorate segments most susceptible to Farage’s appeal?
Professor Tim Bale:What we find in our research is that supporters—and certainly members of Reform—have much more positive views about leaders who exhibit what psychologists would call dark triad qualities. In other words, those are Machiavellianism, for example, psychopathy, for example. That is a marked contrast with the supporters of other parties, although slightly less so with supporters of the Conservative Party, who are rather more like Reform.
I think this comes down, once again, to Nigel Farage’s appeal. For his supporters, he is, in some ways, the ideal leader: he exhibits the kind of ruthless and sometimes manipulative, clever qualities that they so admire. But those very same qualities are actually quite off-putting to a large segment of the British electorate. So once again, if we’re talking about limits to Nigel Farage’s appeal, the kind of leadership qualities that he has—the leadership that he demonstrates—make him intensely popular with his own supporters, because they are psychologically predisposed to like that kind of leadership. Whereas for many in the electorate, they make him a figure of suspicion rather than someone they would like to see leading the country.
The Greens, Not Corbyn, Pose the Greater Danger to Labour
Jeremy Corbyn, former Labour leader, during a visit to Bedford, United Kingdom, May 3, 2017. Photo: Dreamstime.
Reform appears to be peeling off older, culturally conservative, economically insecure voters, while recently founded socialist Your Party seems poised to attract younger, urban, progressive activists disillusioned with Labour. How vulnerable is Labour to a “two-front erosion,” and do Starmer’s strategic concessions on immigration and public order risk replicating the center-left dilemmas seen elsewhere in Europe?
Professor Tim Bale: You’ve seen recently Your Party try to get its act together. This is the party being set up by, among others, Jeremy Corbyn, who used to be the very left-wing leader of the Labour Party, and Zara Sultana, an ex-Labour MP. There is an extent to which this does threaten Labour’s hegemony on the left. There are many left-wing voters who are very disappointed with the Labour government, not least on its attitude to migration, but also on its attitude to tax and spend.
What I would say, however, is that I’m not sure Your Party is actually the biggest threat to Labour on that front. I think what we’ve seen recently is that the difficulties that Your Party have had in actually getting its act together, as I said before, mean that the Green Party has seized the moment. It’s elected a new so-called eco-populist leader, Zach Polanski, who appears to be saying and doing the kinds of things that people disillusioned with Labour would actually like—so, for example, wealth taxes, and a much more aggressive attitude to Nigel Farage and Reform UK.
So, if there is a kind of two-front war being fought by Labour—Reform on the one hand, and then a left-wing party on the other—it’s probably not Your Party; it’s probably the Greens that are the biggest threat on its left flank.
First-Past-the-Post May Save Labour
Drawing on your prior analyses of organizational dysfunction within left-of-center parties, how serious a threat is Your Party’s emergence—given its early factional disputes and resource constraints—to Labour’s ability to consolidate progressive voters? Might it institutionalize a structural cleavage on the British left akin to Podemos–PSOE or Mélenchon–Socialist Party dynamics?
Professor Tim Bale: There is a risk. There We talked about some of the problems that Your Party have had. There is a risk that if they can actually surmount some of the early difficulties that they have, then we do see a party on the left—whether it be Your Party or the Greens—actually draining support from Labour. Current opinion polling does suggest that around 10–15% of former Labour voters have drifted off and might drift off in that direction.
However, there’s always the constraining factor of our electoral system. It is always going to be possible for Labour, successfully or unsuccessfully, to argue that under a first-past-the-post system a vote for either the Greens or Your Party is a wasted vote, particularly if they are able to conjure up the possibility of a Reform government under Nigel Farage, which may frighten sufficient numbers of people who might otherwise be tempted to use their vote expressively and to vote for Your Party or the Greens. They may wonder whether that is a good idea and, actually, in the end, come back home to the Labour Party. Probably that is the Labour Party’s strategy at the moment.
Keir Starmer, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, attends a joint press conference with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Kyiv, Ukraine, on January 16, 2025. Photo: Vladyslav Musiienko.
Conservatives Misread 2019 as Permanent Shift, Ignoring Voters’ Economic Priorities
In “Hopes Will Be Dashed,” you argued that Brexit negotiating strategies were deeply shaped by a pervasive “Merkel myth.” Do you see contemporary Conservative or Reform elites relying on analogous political myths—such as a presumed majority demand for “uniting the right,” a belief in the inevitability of populist realignment, or a misreading of public appetite for hard-liner sovereignty politics?
Professor Tim Bale: That is a great question. I think one of the problems that the Conservative Party in particular had was a misreading of the 2019 election result as proof of what they called the realignment. In other words, the sense that working-class voters in this country had moved very much to the right on social questions, on cultural questions, and therefore there was some kind of permanent change of which the Conservative Party would be the beneficiary—when in fact that election was, in some ways, a rather more contingent affair, influenced very much by Brexit, influenced very much by the personality of Jeremy Corbyn, and indeed, Boris Johnson.
That myth—the idea that somehow there has been this incredibly profound change, and that cultural politics is now the dominant factor in elections—is still something that the Conservative Party holds onto, much to its detriment. It’s very interesting when you look at the leadership election in the Conservative Party following the 2024 general election. All the talk was about the Conservatives’ failure on migration, rather than the Conservatives’ failure to provide the country with adequate economic growth and adequate public services.
So, there is a kind of fixation on cultural politics and on this so-called realignment that the Conservative Party still has, which makes it actually quite difficult for it to realize that there is more to life than migration and woke, and indeed net-zero—that, in fact, the British public are not that different in the sense that they still want a government that hopefully provides them with peace, prosperity, and public services that actually work.
Britain Is Slowly Becoming More Liberal
You have frequently noted the role of media ecosystems in amplifying or constraining radical-right actors. To what extent is Reform’s surge a product of media-driven agenda-setting, and to what extent does it reflect deeper structural and sociological realignments within British politics? How should we disentangle these forces analytically?
Professor Tim Bale: That is a great question, but it’s also a very complicated one. Having shed doubt on this idea of a realignment, it is definitely the case that class features much less as a driver of people’s voting in this country, and that, in fact, education and age, to some extent, now seem to be the best predictors of which way people are going to vote. I do think cultural questions have come up in the mix, but I would want to say that the economy—while it’s not the only thing, the only game in town—is still actually very important as a driver of the way that people vote.
If you step back and look at cultural change in this country, clearly there are many voters who are uncomfortable with that, but they tend to be in older generations and, of course, will eventually disappear from the electorate. Now, that’s not to say that the center-left will somehow come into a kind of inevitable inheritance, because younger voters are rather more liberal and more tolerant in their attitudes. But it is to say that the center-right has to be very careful that it doesn’t end up on the wrong side of history, to coin a cliché, and fails to recognize that, for all the turmoil going on in British politics, underneath that, voters are becoming rather more liberal, more tolerant, and—despite media-driven polarization—more comfortable with a multicultural, multi-ethnic Britain.
So how long politics and political parties can thrive by exploiting differences, concerns, and anxieties is an open question.
If Living Costs Top Immigration, Reform Could Stall
UK economic crisis concept illustrated with the Union Jack and forex market data trends (AI-generated). Photo: Yuliya Rudzko.
And finally, you have cautioned that a Reform-led government is “not inevitable.” What empirical indicators—electoral, organizational, reputational, or demographic—would persuade you that (a) Reform UK is on a trajectory toward executive power, or (b) its rise represents a cyclical protest mobilization likely to dissipate before the next general election?
Professor Tim Bale: You have to look at support for Nigel Farage in particular, and the extent to which people think he will or won’t make a good Prime Minister. In the end, people know that they are voting not just in protest against something but are actually having to elect a government that’s going to make some very important decisions, and Nigel Farage is so central to Reform’s appeal that what people think of him is extremely important.
You also have to look at the extent—and obviously this, to some extent, involves prediction as to which issues are going to be most important for people at the next election. At the moment, immigration seems to be top of the list, but it’s only top of the list when you ask people what is the most important problem facing the country. When you ask people what’s the most important problem facing you and your family, immigration drops down the list, and the cost of living, the state of public services, comes right up.
So, I would probably look at the extent to which that is changing. If people think that migration is making a difference to them and their family, then perhaps that bodes well for Reform. But if the current disjunction between what people think is important to the country and what people think is important to them and their families continues, Reform is less likely to gain in strength.
Then, you’d have to take account of the kind of geopolitical situation, given we’ve already talked about Russia being something of an Achilles’ heel for Reform UK. If you were to see any extension of Russia’s aggression in Europe, then that would make it very difficult for Reform UK to make a convincing case for government.
I’d also look at what’s happening to the Conservative Party to bring it full circle. If the Conservative Party continues to stay in the doldrums—in other words, if it can’t recover itself and it can’t get anywhere near 25–30% of the vote—then there are many people who would normally vote Conservative who might be prepared to vote Reform, and that would give Reform a chance of government.
One final thing to throw into the mix is that our electoral system is not really very well suited to the party system that we now have. We now have a five-party—maybe six, seven, eight-party—system in this country, operating alongside an electoral system that is suited only to two parties, which means that it could be possible that a party on just under 30% of the vote could get a majority in Parliament next time around, and that would be a very unstable situation for the UK.
Trump’s National Security Strategy marks a sharp break from post-Cold War US diplomacy: it portrays Europe, not rival powers, as the core site of Western civilisational decline. Warning of “civilisational erasure” through migration, demographic change and secularisation, it urges support for “patriotic European parties” resisting this shift. In this framing, the danger to the West is internal, not external, and the US becomes guardian of authentic Western identity—aligning more closely with Orbán, Meloni and PiS than with many elected governments. This leaves Europe facing a strategic dilemma: remain reliant on Washington or assert its own civilisational narrative. Europe must choose—adapt, resist, or define itself.
The release of its National Security Strategy shows the Trump Administration to be especially concerned with the decline of Western civilization. One passage in the document drew considerable international attention. It warned that Europe now faces the risk of “civilisational erasure” driven by migration, cultural and religious change, low birthrates and the loss of historical identity. Unless Europe “corrects its current trajectory,” the document claims it could become “unrecognisable in 20 years or less.” The United States, it argues, should help by supporting the “patriotic European parties” resisting this shift.
This language marks a significant break with post-Cold War US diplomacy, and signals that Washington intends to treat its relationship with Europe as an arena of ideological struggle. Throughout the document, Europe appears both as an ally and as a civilisation in decline. Moreover, European governments are portrayed as having adopted values and migration policies that undermine the foundations of the West itself. As a result, the document implies, the United States has no choice but to ‘correct’ Europeans and essentially force them to reconnect with their traditional and authentic Christian-based civilization.
Fears of Western decline are not new. Even in the year 2000, which may have been the high point of Western power and influence, American writer Jacques Barzun argued in his surprise bestseller From Dawn to Decadence that the West had entered a period of decadence. Barzun meant cultural exhaustion and the fading of artistic and intellectual ambition, not geopolitical weakness. He was not concerned with demography or the strategic balance of power. A generation later the picture is different. The sense of Western decline is no longer limited to cultural pessimists. Analysts now describe American relative decline, a stagnant Europe, and a China confident enough to present its rise as civilizational renewal.
This raises an important puzzle. The National Security Strategy presents Europe as a civilisation in decline but does not treat Russia, China or India in the same civilizational terms, even though these states are the United States’ principal strategic competitors. This is especially surprising insofar as those nations often position themselves as ‘civilization-states’ at odds with Western culture and avowed enemies what of what they view as American imperialism. Yet the document reserves its sharpest language for European societies that, in its view, have abandoned the cultural and religious foundations of the West. Why, then, should the Trump Administration attack allies in explicitly civilizational language while avoiding it with rival powers? The answer is that the Trump administration sees the main threat to Western civilisation as internal rather than external. In their view, the West is being weakened by its own governments and its own cultural choices. Europe therefore becomes the object of correction. The United States, as they understand it, must pressure Europe to return to the values that once defined Western civilisation rather than treat Europe as an equal partner in managing global competition.
The National Security Strategy places the United States at the centre of Western civilisation. In this narrative America becomes the core state responsible for restoring the cultural confidence that Europe has supposedly lost. Trump and Vance describe themselves as defending the West, however what is immediately obvious in the document is that the object of defence is not the geopolitical order that linked the United States and Europe throughout the Cold War. Rather, it is a set of cultural and religious markers that they believe Europe has abandoned. Civilisational rhetoric therefore becomes a tool for a nationalist project. The document justifies pressure on European governments, portrays right-wing populist parties as cultural allies, and reframes transatlantic relations as a struggle over the meaning of the West rather than as a partnership between democratic states.
While we should not overstate its importance, it is significant that an American strategic document now aligns the US more closely with Europe’s populist right than with many of Europe’s elected governments. Indeed, the Trump Administration appears to divide Europe in two. One Europe consists of liberal governments, EU institutions and political leaders committed to secular cosmopolitanism. The other Europe is defined by Christianity, firm borders, and inherited Western values and is represented above all by Viktor Orbán’s Hungary, Giorgia Meloni’s Italy, and Poland’s PiS opposition, right-wing populists who share the Trump Administration’s concerns over Europe’s civilisational decline. In their National Security Strategy, the Trump Administration presents the former as pushing Europe toward collapse and the latter as Western civilisation’s last remaining defenders.
Although the Trump Administration positions itself and America as the arbiter of authentic Western values, the National Security Strategy contains an unresolved tension insofar as many of the social and cultural trends it critiques in Europe also exist within the United States. The United States is itself experiencing demographic change, declining Christian affiliation, and widening cultural diversity, which complicates claims that Europe alone is departing from the Western tradition. This raises a definitional problem because if the West is understood in civic terms Europe and America remain Western despite cultural change, but if it is defined by racial or religious identity, then the pressures described in the National Security Strategy are shared on both sides of the Atlantic. Moreover, several of the identity debates the administration portrays as corrosive in Europe originated in American academic and activist contexts, suggesting that the cultural dynamics it attributes to Europe are partly American in origin. This is why the Macron government in France ‘wages war’ on ‘wokeness,’ something they perceive to be a form of unwanted American cultural imperialism spreading throughout French institutions.
The National Security Strategy therefore confronts Europe with a strategic and conceptual dilemma. Should Europe define Western culture on its own terms, and can it articulate a political and cultural identity that differs from the one now promoted by Washington? European governments speak of strategic autonomy, but their nations remain dependent on American security guarantees, particularly in defence and intelligence. European publics remain divided on migration and identity, which complicates any attempt to articulate a coherent cultural and political narrative. Furthermore, EU institutions prefer to define Europe as a legal and political project grounded in universal rights rather than as a civilisation with a particular religious or ethnic foundation. This makes it difficult for Europe to respond to the NSS, which casts it as a civilisation in decay and implies that its renewal requires a return to Christian cultural markers.
This tension has led some analysts, such as Aris Roussinos, to argue that Europe must either consolidate around its own values or accept a subordinate position in a Western order increasingly defined in Washington. Emmanuel Macron has attempted to present Europe as a civilisational actor capable of independent strategic judgement, yet it remains unclear whether this project can succeed given institutional fragmentation and the absence of a shared European cultural story. The National Security Strategy highlights that uncomplicated civilisational unity with the United States is no longer plausible. Such unity would require Europe to adopt a civilisational narrative aligned with American right-wing populist thought, something most European governments are unwilling to do.
The future of transatlantic relations may depend on the outcome of the next American Presidential election. A J.D. Vance victory would almost certainly deepen civilisational language in US strategy, increase pressure on the EU project and expand American support for right-wing populist parties in Europe. Europe shows little capacity to respond to this approach because it remains structurally dependent on American security and politically divided on issues of identity. Continued subordination would leave European governments reacting to American preferences rather than shaping their own strategic environment.
A Democratic victory would return the United States to its traditional support for the European Union. Civilisational rhetoric would recede, and Washington would again treat Europe as a partner in a rules-based and liberal international order. Yet this scenario also carries risks for Europe. A return to the status quo would still leave Europe reliant on American power and vulnerable to future political shifts in Washington. In the long term, Europe may need to assert greater strategic and political autonomy if it wishes to avoid oscillating between two competing American visions of the West.
