In an in-depth interview with the ECPS, Dr. Koen Vossen, political historian and lecturer at Radboud University, analyzes the ideological evolution and endurance of Geert Wilders’s Party for Freedom (PVV). He stresses that “The anti-Islam core is absolutely the most important part of this party,” noting that despite tactical moderation, its fundamental worldview remains unchanged. According to Dr. Vossen, the PVV’s “one-man structure” and lack of internal democracy make it both flexible and fragile. Wilders’s “clash of civilizations” narrative, rooted in his early attachment to Israel, continues to shape his politics. As Dr. Vossen observes, media normalization, cultural anxieties, and declining institutional barriers have allowed the PVV to become a lasting—though polarizing—force in Dutch politics.
In a wide-ranging interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS) following the Dutch general elections of October 29, 2025, Dr. Koen Vossen, a political historian and lecturer in political science at Radboud University, offers a nuanced analysis of the ideological evolution, strategic positioning, and organizational structure of Geert Wilders’s Party for Freedom (PVV). Dr. Vossen, a leading scholar on Dutch populism and right-wing movements, situates the PVV within a broader European radical-right context while emphasizing its distinctly Dutch trajectory.
As Dr. Vossen underscores, “The anti-Islam core is absolutely the most important part of this party.” While the PVV has, over time, expanded its platform to include positions on welfare, housing, and law and order, these remain secondary to its central ideological fixation. The PVV, he explains, “is really basically one man… It is purely a matter of what Wilders wants, what he does, and what he likes.” This personalization of power, combined with the party’s lack of internal democracy, explains both its tactical flexibility and its chronic difficulty in governance.
Dr. Vossen traces Wilders’s ideological consistency to what he calls a “clash of civilizations” worldview, deeply informed by his “special connection with Israel.” Having worked on a kibbutz as a young man, Wilders came to see Israel as “the main buffer against Islamization.” This perspective not only anchors the PVV’s foreign policy but also shapes its domestic narrative of cultural defense. According to Dr. Vossen, Wilders’s “absolute core ideology is this anti-Islam ideology,” while his steadfast pro-Israel stance serves as both a symbolic and programmatic pillar in PVV discourse.
On the domestic front, Dr. Vossen attributes the PVV’s durability to a combination of structural and contingent factors: the decline of pillarized institutions, the fragmentation of the Dutch party system, and the normalization of far-right rhetoric through media amplification. “Over the last ten years,” he notes, “we’ve seen the clear emergence of a very right-wing media… strongly conservative and very much anti-left. ‘Left’ as a word, as a concept, has almost become an insult in the Netherlands.” The weakening of social intermediaries and the culturalization of political conflict, he argues, have made space for a stable radical-right electorate of roughly 30%.
Despite periodic moderation—what Wilders once called putting his ideas “in the freezer”—Dr. Vossen believes the PVV’s ideological substance remains intact. Even temporary participation in government, he argues, only suspends rather than transforms its radicalism. The 2025 elections, he concludes, show both the limits and persistence of Dutch populism: a movement still revolving around one man, one message, and one enduring enemy.
Dr. Koen Vossen is a political historian and lecturer in political science at Radboud University.
Here is the edited transcript of our interview with Dr. Koen Vossen, slightly revised for clarity and flow.
Dutch Voters Long for Stability After Polarization Fatigue
Professor Koen Vossen, thank you very much for joining our interview series. Let me start right away with the first question: The recent Dutch election produced a dramatic reversal for the PVV, whose brief coalition participation ended in collapse, while D66 surged to the top of the polls. To what extent should we interpret this outcome as evidence of a structural electoral realignment favoring centrist, pro-EU forces—or as a temporary recalibration following the PVV’s troubled spell in government? In other words, are we witnessing a durable shift in voter preferences or merely the electoral consequences of perceived misgovernance?
Dr. Koen Vossen: I think both. Interpreting Dutch election results is always tricky because we are a country of minorities, so there are always more stories than one story in an election result.
What you saw in the last election was a longing for more stability—for a more stable coalition among a part of the electorate. People were fed up with the old polarization and longed for more centrist politics. That was absolutely there.
At the same time, you have also seen in the Netherlands that the border between the radical right and the center-right has somehow been blurred, especially in the conservative-liberal VVD, the party once led by Mark Rutte and now by Dilan Yeşilgöz. It has moved very much to the right and wanted an exclusively center-right coalition without Wilders’s party.
So, one could also interpret the result as support for this center-right coalition or as support for a more centrist coalition. At the same time, Wilders’s party still had about 17 or 18 percent of the vote. He lost some votes but remains the second-largest party in the Netherlands, so there are different stories here.
The Radical Right’s 30% Support Shows Structural Stability
Despite near-parity in seat totals, Geert Wilders appears politically isolated, as most mainstream parties again refuse coalition cooperation. Does this effective ‘cordon sanitaire’signal the enduring resilience of Dutch party-system norms against radical-right institutionalization? Or does the continued aggregate strength of far-right parties (including FvD and JA21) indicate a deeper, longer-term transformation in the ideological landscape that may eventually erode such exclusionary practices?
Dr. Koen Vossen: The radical right maintained its position with about 30% of the vote. So, it’s still there—this 30%. They did not really lose in the last elections, but their support was divided among different parties, maybe even 35% in total. Previously, Wilders had the largest share of this radical-right vote—around 25%. The rest went to smaller radical-right parties, but now these smaller parties have grown, and most of the voters that Wilders lost went to them. So, there’s been more of a transfer of votes within this bloc than an overall loss. A small portion, maybe, went to the VVD—the conservative liberals who also tried to attract votes in the radical-right sphere. But in the end, there remains a fairly stable 30% of the Dutch electorate that supports these parties.
The PVV’s Core Is Anti-Islam
An elderly man holds a protest sign during a PEGIDA demonstration against the perceived Islamization of Europe in Enschede, the Netherlands on September 17, 2017. Photo: Dreamstime.
You argue that Wilders cannot be understood solely within the populist frame. How has the PVV’s ideological trajectory shifted from anti-establishment protest toward a more coherent political project, and what classifications better capture this evolution?
Dr. Koen Vossen: Populism has always been a thin ideology, so it needs other ideologies. In the case of the PVV, that has always been a strong nationalism and nativism, anti-immigration, and an anti-Islamic stance based on a “clash of civilizations” type of ideology, combined with a conservative law-and-order orientation. Since around 2010, you can see some tactical changes, but overall, the ideology has become quite clear and crystallized. Its main pillars are populism—with a very strong anti-elite sentiment—anti-immigration, welfare-state chauvinism, anti-Islam, and conservatism on law and order.
It should also be noted that the party is relatively progressive on some immaterial issues, such as gay marriage, abortion, and euthanasia policy—more so than many other parties. But on most other issues, it is quite conservative, particularly anti–climate policy. In that sense, the PVV is a fairly classic radical-right populist party, comparable to Rassemblement National (RN), Farage’s movement, Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), or the Swedish Democrats (SD). Some of them even sit together in the European Parliament.
What distinguishes the PVV, however, is its very strong focus on Islam—this is quite specific to the party—and Wilders has been a pioneer in this regard. The party is also pro-Israel and relatively progressive when it comes to issues such as gay marriage, women’s emancipation, and abortion. These are the main ideological characteristics of the PVV.
Right-Wing Media Have Made the Radical Right the Only Alternative
You have written that the PVV has become increasingly normalized in Dutch politics. Which institutional mechanisms—parliamentary collaboration, media treatment, coalition signaling—have most contributed to this mainstreaming?
Dr. Koen Vossen: Media treatment is very important. Over the last ten years, we’ve seen the clear emergence of a very right-wing media. One could even compare it to Fox News–type outlets—strongly conservative and very much anti-left. The left wing has become the main enemy. “Left” as a word, as a concept, has almost become an insult in the Netherlands. “Leftist people” and similar terms are not neutral—they never were, of course, but this tendency has grown stronger.
The media treatment means that if the right-wing parties did not deliver in coalitions, the left was not seen as an alternative. Then the radical right became the alternative. If the radical right proved not to be the alternative, people looked to other right-wing parties—never to the left. The left has been out of the race, especially in these media. So, the radical right has become the alternative.
This also has to do with the fact that, in 2023, after eleven years of cordon sanitaire, the VVD decided to open the door again for collaboration with Wilders’s party, the PVV—purely strategically. They thought, we always have to go into coalitions, we always have to look to left-wing parties; now they wanted to look to a right-wing party, even an extreme right-wing party, to have more options. This proved to be a strategic blunder because now, for many parties, Wilders became an option. Before, they could always say, “Well, that’s a wasted vote because he will never govern.” But now it was not a wasted vote anymore—it became an option, and for a lot of these voters, even a better one.
So, helped by the media and by the end of the cordon sanitaire, one could say that the PVV emerged as the winner in 2023.
A newspaper rack displaying several Dutch newspapers, including De Telegraaf, Trouw, AD, and regional papers. Photo: Dreamstime.
Anti-Islam Is the Core; Everything Else Is Secondary
Anti-Islam alarmism remains central to the PVV. Do recent policy expansions toward welfare and housing reflect ideological maturation, tactical vote-seeking, or merely cosmetic adjustment that leaves the anti-Islam core intact?
Dr. Koen Vossen: The anti-Islam core is absolutely the most important part of this party. I say party, but the thing is, with the PVV, it’s really basically one man. Although he has more than 2.5 million votes, talking about the PVV—especially on a national level—is talking about one man: his considerations, his thinking, and his decisions. The rest is not really relevant. So, one has to look into his head to find out what he thinks, as there are no public discussions or debates in this party. There’s no party organization, no conferences, no party manifesto, or party newspaper. It is purely a matter of what Wilders wants, what he does, and what he likes. Wilders’s absolute core ideology is this anti-Islam ideology. The rest of it—maybe calling it purely tactical is a little too cynical—but it is certainly not the main issue for him.
PVV Support Is Driven by Cultural Fear, Not Economic Anxiety
To what degree has the erosion of pillarized structures and intermediary institutions created the social fragmentation necessary for PVV success? Do cultural anxieties outweigh economic grievances in explaining the party’s appeal?
Dr. Koen Vossen: I think it’s mainly a cultural matter—it’s all about immigration. These voters’ main concern is immigration, absolutely. Housing is second, but it’s connected to immigration. If you look at the socioeconomic profile of the PVV voter, one cannot say that these are the less fortunate ones economically. Of course, you also see them in the lower-income classes, but also in the middle- and higher-income classes, where people do not really experience economic anxiety. Economically, the Netherlands is doing quite well.
So, it is mainly a cultural thing—a fear of immigration, fear especially of asylum seekers, which has become a very big issue in the Netherlands. Incidents involving asylum seekers have attracted a lot of attention in the media, and as a result, these issues became the most salient in the election campaign. Immigration was the issue people talked about, and Wilders benefited from this. So, if you see immigration more as a cultural issue, then I would say it was more on a cultural level than on an economic one.
Wilders’s ‘People’ Are Defined Against the Leftist Elite
How does the PVV’s construction of ‘de volk’differ from earlier Dutch nationalist discourses? Is the imagined community increasingly defined through civilizational frames—especially Judeo-Christian identity—rather than ethnic or civic nationalism?
Dr. Koen Vossen: That’s an interesting one. The main difference is that, first of all, until the 1960s or 1970s, the Netherlands was a pillarized country. You had these different minorities—the Catholics, the Protestants, the Socialists, the Liberals. These pillars have disappeared, and in a way, we have now become one big population, without this idea anymore of four different groups.
There is actually a majority culture—secular, quite progressive in many ways, but also liberal in an economic sense. So, there has been a kind of majority culture. What has now become the new cleavage for many people is between the elite, which is often associated with the left, and the people—and that is what Wilders capitalizes on.
This imagined community of Wilders is very much an anti-elite community, especially anti–cultural elites. In the Netherlands, we call this the Amsterdam Canal District—that’s the center of Amsterdam—and that’s where, in this imagined community, live the elites who disparage the common people. A little bit like the Rive Gauche in Paris, or similar places elsewhere—these left-wing people who, in his narrative, look down on ordinary citizens. That has mainly become his imagined community: a “good people” who have been betrayed by a leftist elite. So, it’s an anti-elitist conception of the people. That is the main difference between now and the past.
In Dutch Elections, Two or Three Percent Can Decide Everything
Billboard featuring the main candidates in the Dutch elections on June 9, 2010, in Amstelveen, the Netherlands. Photo: Dreamstime.
Was the PVV’s 2023 electoral breakthrough driven primarily by long-term ideological convergence between party and electorate, or did short-term crises—housing, asylum pressure, inflation—create an episodic opportunity?
Dr. Koen Vossen: What happens in the Netherlands is that election campaigns matter a lot. We are a country with many parties—very fragmented, without any single dominant one. So, you usually have three or four major contenders—it’s almost like a cycling tour. In the end, a few escape the peloton, race toward the finish, and then there’s a sprint where two or three percent makes the difference. Sometimes, a small push at the end—some luck, a sudden event, or a strong debate performance—can deliver those few extra percentage points.
So, the PVV this time, because of what I already mentioned—the end of the cordon sanitaire, the VVD signaling that the PVV was now an option, immigration becoming a hot topic, and Wilders presenting himself as a bit more moderate—these factors, combined with a few strong debate performances, especially one widely watched debate where he clearly came out as the winner, gave him that final two, three, or four percent that made him the victor in these elections.
Had this not happened, it might just as well have been the centrist liberals who caught that last bit of momentum—with a good campaign and a little luck—and made the final sprint to become the largest party.
It’s a One-Man Party—And That’s Its Greatest Weakness
The PVV’s unique one-member structure creates tactical agility yet hinders institutionalization. How does this model shape accountability, policy competence, and the party’s ability to govern?
Dr. Koen Vossen: The main problem for the PVV is absolutely the fact that they lack personnel. They lack good people. And that should not have been a problem, except that Wilders is a very distrustful man. He does not trust anyone outside his very small circle of people. So, if he needs ministers, junior ministers, or people he can send to do a job, he has to rely on this small circle of people who have been around him for 10 to 15 years. These are people without any experience in governing. Their only experience is helping Wilders in his opposition work. So, they are not people who can govern a whole ministry.
This is the main problem—and he does not want to recruit people from outside because he does not trust them. He’s also afraid that other people could become more popular than he is, and all these kinds of things. So, that’s really the main problem of the PVV, and that’s why he basically failed in government—because he lacks both people and quality within his party.
Wilders’s Longevity Is Partly a Matter of Luck
Compared with LPF and FvD, the PVV has exhibited remarkable longevity. Does this durability reflect ideological clarity, organizational discipline—even if minimal—or simply an absence of credible far-right competition?
Dr. Koen Vossen: I think there’s even a fourth option—and that’s luck. For instance, the FvD seemed to be a really good competitor, but then the coronavirus hit suddenly. At the moment when the FvD made its breakthrough and was really campaigning across the whole country, the pandemic broke out. Everybody had to go into lockdown. For Wilders, this was nothing new, because he’s basically been in lockdown for the last 20 years, living under strong security measures. But for Thierry Baudet, for Forum voor Democratie, this proved to be a real disaster, because he got tangled up in all kinds of conspiracy theories about the coronavirus and vaccination. So, Wilders was just lucky that Baudet made a mess of things in his own party and made himself impossible.
Having said that, the story of the FvD isn’t over. They won again with a new leader—a young female leader, 28 years old—and became more attractive again for some voters. But for Wilders, what also matters is that he’s a political professional. He knows how to play the game. He’s very experienced in debates and in how to attract media attention—not too much and not too little. He knows exactly how to do these things. So, it’s also a skill that plays a role here.
Wilders Has Returned to His Old Anti-Islam Routine
The collapse of the most recent governing arrangement highlighted constitutional constraints on Wilders’ maximalist proposals. Has the forced “freezing” of radical positions substantively moderated the movement, or merely deferred ideological confrontation?
Dr. Koen Vossen: I think they lost. Since they are out of government, he’s kind of back to his old anti-Islam routine. He moderated his viewpoints for a while—he always said, “I put them in the refrigerator for a while, in the freezer.” But now the refrigerator is open again, and all the old viewpoints are back. One could even say that, in a way, he contaminated the conservative liberals and the Farmers Party, his partners in the coalition. He influenced them with his ideology because they also became more anti-Islam and very much pro-Israel. There’s, maybe, not a clear answer here, either.
Wilders Is the Ultimate Insider Who Plays the Outsider
Geert Wilders (PVV) in House of Representatives during a debating at the Tweede Kamer on April 5, 2023 in Den Haag, Netherlands. Photo: Jeroen Meuwsen.
You note that Wilders seems most effective in opposition. If the PVV returns to government, might governance responsibilities erode its anti-system identity, or does the “Schrödinger’s populism” phenomenon enable Wilders to frame himself as both insider and outsider simultaneously?
Dr. Koen Vossen: I didn’t know the Schrödinger’s paradox, so I’ll have to look it up. Wilders has been an insider from the very beginning. He’s been in politics since 1990—first working for the conservative-liberal parliamentary group as an assistant, then becoming a member of the parliamentary group in 1998. He started his own party in 2004. So, he’s always been there. He’s an insider as much as one can be an insider in politics in The Hague, in the Netherlands.He has the longest tenure of all parliamentarians in the Netherlands, absolutely. But he has always managed to give himself an outsider profile by provoking and making these harsh statements. So, in that sense, he can really play with these elements. I don’t know the exact article about this Schrödinger’s populism, so I’m hesitant to go deeper into it, but at first glance, I would say yes—he plays this insider–outsider role very well.
Wilders’s Anti-Islam Discourse Grew from His Pro-Israel Stance
PVV foreign policy is heavily filtered through a clash-of-civilizations narrative. How does this framing shape its positions on Israel-Palestine, NATO, Russia, and Ukraine, and does it distort pragmatic assessment of national interests?
Dr. Koen Vossen: He’s very much pro-Israel, pro-Netanyahu. He doesn’t allow any criticism of Israel, and all the victims there—that’s just part of a war. So, in that sense, he’s very much pro-Netanyahu. When he was 19 years old and had just left school, he went to work on a kibbutz. He’s not Jewish himself, but he went there to spend a gap year. Before starting his studies, he wanted to do something different, so he did this. And since then—this was 1980 or 1981—he has had a special connection with Israel. One could even say that this special connection with Israel shaped his worldview early on. Already in the 1990s, he really saw the enemies of Israel as Islamic enemies. So, his whole anti-Islamic discourse partly comes from this pro-Israel stance, and he still sees Israel as the main buffer against Islamization. This whole story is still very much there.
With regard to Ukraine and Russia, the story is more complicated. Around 2017–2018, for a while, he made some remarks that were more pro-Russia. He even went to Moscow, but never as much as the Front National, Salvini, or Orbán. When Russia invaded Ukraine, he really distanced himself from Russia. But at the same time, he was not a very enthusiastic supporter of Zelensky or of Ukraine either. So, he tries to keep a little bit of distance there.
It’s the same with NATO. On the one hand, he’s very pro-Trump. On the other hand, Trump demands the 5% expenditure on defense, and that’s also something that for Wilders is problematic—that’s quite a lot, in his opinion. So, in foreign policy, does it sometimes hurt national interests? Yes, sometimes it does. In trade with Arab countries, with Islamic countries, Wilders can really be a problem for the Netherlands with all his remarks. For him, it’s not a reason to say, “Okay, I’ll tone down my voice a little bit.” No, he just says, “We should not deliver any weapons to Islamic countries,”for example, and things like that. So, he’s quite principled on these matters.
Israel Is Seen as the Vanguard Against Islamization
You have argued that the PVV positions Israel as the civilizational vanguard of the West. Is this symbolic architecture primarily a theological-civilizational justification for its anti-Islam platform, or does it carry genuine programmatic implications for Dutch foreign policy?
Dr. Koen Vossen: It did. The last government, which is still there now as a caretaker government, was also quite pro-Israel—one of the most pro-Israel governments in the European Union for a long time. So, there was not much criticism of Netanyahu for a long time. They were very much against sanctions. For example, when there was the question of some sick children going to the Netherlands for treatment, the PVV was very much against it, and this government was also against it. So, in that sense, it really had programmatic implications, absolutely.
But does it have theological roots? That’s difficult to say. It’s this whole idea of “Israel first” as well—there are different reasons for supporting Israel. There is this historical feeling of guilt toward the Jewish population in the Netherlands. The Netherlands was one of the countries with the highest percentage of Jews deported during the war, so there’s this lingering feeling of guilt. Then there’s the idea of Israel as the vanguard against Islamization, as part of this clash-of-civilizations narrative. There’s also a specific Christian motive in supporting Israel—you see this among Orthodox Christians. There’s a whole Christian theory behind that, similar to what you see in the United States. So, these are the three main reasons to support Israel in the Netherlands, and you see this reflected in the programmatic policy toward Israel.
Wilders Learned That Nexit Was an Unwinnable Battle
Concept illustration with road sign reading “Nexit.” Photo: Dreamstime.
And lastly, Professor Vossen, the PVV has oscillated between advocating Nexit and merely proposing a referendum. Does this reflect strategic ambiguity intended to broaden its electorate, internal ideological uncertainty, or recognition that Euroscepticism is increasingly cultural rather than institutional?
Dr. Koen Vossen: Here you can really see a tactical motive. Nexit is not really popular in the Netherlands. It has never, in any poll, come even close to a majority. At most, 20–25% of the Dutch electorate favors some kind of Nexit. Because it’s such a trading country, it would be economically very stupid to have a Nexit. We are completely dependent on Germany economically. And people saw what happened in the UK with Brexit. So, Wilders thought, “Maybe with Nexit, I will never win this battle.” Like Le Pen did in France, he said, “I’ll drop the whole Nexit idea.” He mentioned something about a referendum, but in his last program for the European Parliament elections, he was quite vague and moderate about the European Union. He’s not a fan—he will never be a fan of the European Union—but Nexit is also a bridge too far for him.
In a period of deepening global democratic recession Zohran Mamdani’s ascent as mayor of New York City poses an important question: Can municipal socialism provide meaningful resistance to authoritarian and oligarchic drift? Mamdani’s redistributive agenda—rent freezes, universal childcare, fare-free transit, public groceries, and a $30 minimum wage—seeks to decommodify basic needs and challenge monopoly power. His platform echoes broader critiques of financialized capitalism and “techno-feudalism,” offering a localized experiment in restoring democratic control over markets. Yet structural constraints—capital mobility, state-level authority, and limited municipal capacity—risk reducing his project to a palliative rather than transformative intervention. Still, Mamdani’s rise signals renewed potential for democratic agency within advanced capitalism and highlights the symbolic power of left urban governance.
In an era marked by the ninth consecutive year of global democratic decline—with more autocracies than democracies worldwide—the question of whether municipal socialism can serve as a meaningful counterweight to authoritarian drift has acquired renewed urgency. In my earlier analysis, Trump and the New Capitalism: Old Wine in a New Bottle, I argued that the rise of populist-authoritarian tendencies represents not an aberration but an outcome of structural transformations within capitalism. The fusion of excessive neoliberal deregulation, financialization, and techno-feudal monopolies has produced a regime in which power is concentrated in networks of rent-seeking elites while democratic accountability erodes. Within this global configuration, figures such as Donald Trump exemplify a politics of reaction, harnessing social discontent to reinforce rather than transcend capitalist contradictions.
The newly elected mayor of the New York municipality in the US, Zohran Mamdani, represents another countermovement that is evolving. Having an Indian lineage, born in Kampala, Uganda, in 1991 and educated at the Bronx High School of Science and Bowdoin College in the US, Mamdani is a community organizer and politician representing a new generation of democratic socialists in New York City politics. His family background reflects a distinguished intellectual lineage: his father, Mahmood Mamdani, is a renowned Ugandan academic and political theorist at Columbia University, while his mother, Mira Nair, is an internationally acclaimed Indian filmmaker. This cosmopolitan and intellectually engaged upbringing informs his perspective on justice, diversity, and structural inequality. Before his mayoral campaign, he served as a state assembly member for Queens, gaining recognition for his advocacy on housing, transport, and labor rights.
The emergence of Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist and now mayor-elect of New York City, raises a critical question: Can left municipalism, operating within the framework of advanced capitalism, achieve more than temporary relief? Can it open pathways toward structural transformation, or does it risk serving merely as a palliative to capitalism’s crises? This commentary examines Mamdani’s project as a potential alternative within the confines of globalized urban capitalism and explores whether it constitutes a genuine rupture or a managed reform.
Mamdani’s Program and Its Socialist Premise
Mamdani’s platform centers on affordability—housing, transit, groceries, childcare—labor empowerment, anti-monopoly measures, and public-sector revival. His proposals include rent freezes, universal childcare, fare-free buses, city-owned grocery stores, and a minimum wage of $30 by 2030. The program is explicitly redistributive—funded through higher taxation on the wealthy, municipal bonds, and redirected public investment—and endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America. Reports from The Nation and The Guardian emphasize his focus on social affordability and economic justice.
Taken together, these policies articulate a coherent vision of municipal socialism that seeks to reconcile equity with feasibility. They represent not merely an electoral program but a normative statement about how value creation and distribution should be reorganized in an era of inequality and urban precarity.
Alignment with Structural Critiques of Capitalism
While Mamdani’s proposals emerge from the immediate material pressures of urban life—housing unaffordability, wage stagnation, and public disinvestment—they also speak to deeper theoretical concerns. His platform implicitly challenges the dominant accumulation regime that has shaped advanced capitalism since the 1980s.
Decommodification of social goods: By making housing, transport, and care public responsibilities, his program challenges financialized rent extraction.
Fiscal re-politicization: Expanding municipal investment and debt capacity revives the Keynesian principle of democratic capital allocation, countering the austerity logic.
Labor empowerment: Raising wages and curbing algorithmic exploitation of gig workers directly addresses the erosion of collective bargaining in the digital economy
In essence, Mamdani’s local socialism represents a municipal-scale experiment in reversing the disembedding process. It seeks to restore social control over markets without dismantling the capitalist framework entirely.
Structural Constraints and the Risk of Palliative Reform
Despite its radical rhetoric, Mamdani’s agenda faces formidable structural limits:
Jurisdictional dependency: Many proposals—such as rent control, wage laws, and tax reform—require state-level approval. Dependence on higher-tier institutions (Albany, Congress) restricts municipal sovereignty.
Financial constraints: Global capital mobility enables landlords and investors to circumvent local regulations through capital flight or pre-emptive rent inflation.
Administrative capacity: Rebuilding the state apparatus after decades of privatization demands resources, expertise, and political endurance. Global market discipline: As I noted elsewhere, cities embedded in global capital circuits cannot easily alter systemic rules of accumulation.
Thus, while progressive, Mamdani’s project risks acting as a palliative: It might ease inequality, precarity, and housing shortages without actually transforming the fundamental regime of accumulation. In this way, it resembles the New Deal paradox—reforms that saved capitalism from itself by institutionalizing social compromise.
Theoretical Implications: From Populism to Municipal Socialism
In contrast to populist movements such as Trumpism that weaponize social anger for authoritarian consolidation, Mamdani represents a left-populist or socialist response oriented toward redistribution and participation.
Drawing on thinkers such as Shoshana Zuboff, Yanis Varoufakis, and McKenzie Wark, genuine transformation would require dismantling the global rentier system based on data extraction, monopolistic control, and financial dominance. Mamdani’s measures operate largely at the level of urban welfare and infrastructure, not at the structural nexus of digital and financial capital.
This suggests that while municipal socialism can create breathing space for democracy, it cannot, alone, displace capitalist command over value creation. Nevertheless, its symbolic power is significant: It demonstrates that political agency still exists within capitalist democracies and that redistribution, social housing, and decommodification are viable public policies.
A Short Reminder from the Obama Experience
While Mamdani’s rise has generated enthusiasm among progressive circles, historical experience counsels caution regarding the transformative potential of reform within existing institutions. The election of Barack Obama in 2008 offers a revealing precedent. His campaign, built around the populist slogan “Yes We Can,” unleashed one of the most powerful waves of civic mobilization in modern US history.
A signature pledge—the creation of a single-payer healthcare system—was quickly abandoned amid intra-party resistance. Even with a unified government, centrist Democrats refused to support the plan. The resulting Affordable Care Act represented a policy milestone but fell short of structural transformation.
Simultaneously, the conservative backlash was immediate and fierce. The Tea Party movement– funded by corporate networks and amplified through right-wing media—redefined the Republican Party and laid the groundwork for Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) insurgency.
The political consequences were swift. In the 2010 midterms, Democrats lost both houses of Congress. Even vacancies in the Federal Reserve Board and the Supreme Court remained unfilled, enabling the next administration to reshape the judiciary decisively.
A Constraint Hope for the Future
Zohran Mamdani at the Dominican Heritage Parade on 6th Ave in Manhattan, New York City, August 10, 2025. Photo: Aleksandr Dyskin.
Mamdani’s rise signals a generational shift toward pragmatic socialism—a reassertion of collective goods amid a cost-of-living crisis. His program offers hope within limits: Hope that governance can be reoriented toward equality and sustainability; limits because the city remains bound to global circuits of capital and data.
If such movements scale upward—through cooperative federalism, trans-urban alliances, and progressive taxation—the Mamdani experiment could prefigure a new model of democratic socialism adapted to the 21st century. Otherwise, as warned in Trump and the New Capitalism, the system will continue oscillating between neoliberal authoritarianism and fragmented reform.
“Anti-gender discourses are very interlinked and interconnected; we see these floating narratives repeated across countries like Latvia, Poland, and Russia,” says Dr. Monika de Silva. She explains that populist actors strategically exploit linguistic ambiguity around concepts such as gender, transforming technical legal terms into polarizing political symbols. “Language is never neutral… this linguistic openness is used to argue that because gender replaces the word sex, we can no longer talk about men and women,” she notes. The Istanbul Convention—intended to prevent violence against women—has thus been reframed as an LGBTQ+ threat or “radical feminist project.” Yet Dr. de Silva stresses the importance of civic resistance: Latvia’s mass protests “undoubtedly shaped” the president’s decision to return the withdrawal bill to parliament.
In recent weeks, Latvia has become a focal point in Europe’s ongoing struggle over gender equality, human rights, and democratic resilience. On October 31, 2025, the Saeima (Latvian Parliament) voted 56–32 to withdraw from the Council of Europe’s Istanbul Convention—only a year after ratifying the treaty designed to prevent and combat violence against women. The move relied heavily on claims that the Convention promotes “radical feminism” and “gender ideology,” echoing narratives with well-documented transnational origins. President Edgars Rinkēvičs soon returned the bill to parliament for reconsideration, warning that overturning ratification within a single legislative term would send “a contradictory message… to Latvian society and Latvia’s allies internationally.” He urged postponement until after upcoming elections, noting that Latvia risked becoming the first EU member state to renounce a human-rights treaty.
The backlash triggered the country’s largest civic protests since the 1990s. On November 6, 2025, more than 10,000 demonstrators gathered in Riga under the slogan “Let’s Protect Mother Latvia,” signaling a groundswell of civic resistance. At stake is not only the institutional integrity of gender-equality policy but also the credibility of Latvia’s constitutional and international commitments, especially given that the EU itself acceded to the Convention in 2023, making certain provisions binding regardless of national withdrawal.
It is against this turbulent backdrop that the European Center for the Study of Populism (ECPS) spoke with Dr. Monika de Silva, a political scientist at the University of Gothenburg. Her research, situated at the intersection of international relations and EU studies, examines how contested normative frameworks travel across borders. Her 2025 doctoral dissertation, “‘Gender Wars’ in Europe: Diplomatic Practice under Polarized Conditions,” traces how bilateral diplomacy and Council of the EU negotiations have been reshaped by conflicts over gender equality and LGBTQ+ rights. She is also affiliated with the Gender and Diplomacy project (GenDip) and the Centre for European Research (CERGU).
In the interview, Dr. de Silva argues that anti-gender discourse is best understood as a transnationally circulating narrative rather than merely a domestic reaction: “Anti-gender discourses are very interlinked and interconnected… we see manifestations of that as floating narratives that are very similar, whether we look at Latvia, Poland or Russia, etc.”
She identifies both supply and demand factors driving the spread of “gender ideology” rhetoric across Europe, noting that populist radical right actors strategically translate technical legal language into ideologically charged frames, exploiting linguistic ambiguity: “Language is never neutral… this linguistic openness is definitely used to advance such narratives.”
Dr. de Silva further highlights how withdrawal debates are reframing the Istanbul Convention away from its core purpose—preventing violence against women—toward narratives that depict it as an LGBTQ+ threat or “radical feminist project.” These interpretations, she warns, are not new; similar tropes have circulated across Europe for nearly a decade.
Yet her analysis also highlights agents of democratic resilience. Civil society mobilization, she observes, has already influenced decision-making: “The president… decided to return the law to parliament, and I am sure that seeing the largest protests in Latvia helped shape this decision.”
Finally, she issues a clear warning about governance consequences. Withdrawal would remove Latvia from GREVIO’s monitoring regime, generating critical transparency and implementation gaps: “A state not part of the Convention would not report to GREVIO… whatever it does is therefore less transparent, especially internationally.”
This interview thus offers rich insight into how legal, discursive, and geopolitical forces converge to shape contemporary anti-gender mobilization—and how democratic institutions and civil society may yet respond.
Here is the edited transcript of our interview with Dr. Monika de Silva, slightly revised for clarity and flow.
Latvia’s Withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention Signals Deep Democratic Trouble
Demonstrators in Riga on April 25, 2023, demand accountability after a woman’s murder, calling for political responsibility over Latvia’s years-long failure to ratify the Istanbul Convention. Photo: Gints Ivuskans.
Dr. Monica de Silva, thank you very much for joining our interview series. Let me start right away with the first question: Latvia became the first EU state to vote to withdraw from the Istanbul Convention—just a year after ratifying it. The move, driven by the right-wing Latvia First party and backed by a governing coalition partner, relied on claims that the treaty promotes “gender ideology,” echoing Kremlin-style narratives. It triggered Latvia’s largest civic protests since the 1990s, despite the country having the highest femicide rate in Europe; President Edgars Rinkēvičs has since sent the bill back to parliament for review. How do you interpret this backlash—primarily as a cyclical conservative reaction, a structural anti-gender countermovement, or a strategic tool of PRR mobilization?
Dr. Monika de Silva: Of course, the fact that populist radical right parties like Latvia First mobilized around the Istanbul Convention and now seek to withdraw from it is not surprising; it is a continued strategy of populist radical right parties. What is different—and concerning—in this case is that a conservative party, the Union of Farmers and Greens, has joined these radical right actors in pursuing withdrawal from the Convention.
The Union has always had reservations about the Convention, which is typical not only of radical or far-right parties but also of more mainstream conservative parties. However, what distinguishes this situation is that the Union is part of the government, and, as such, agreed to a coalition deal in which the Latvian government committed to ratifying the Istanbul Convention. Now they are backing away from a commitment they made to the Latvian public and to their coalition partners, which is deeply troubling for the state of our democracy.
It has been a very long process from Latvia’s signing of the Istanbul Convention to its ratification just last year. During this period, we saw extensive democratic debate in parliament, as well as a case before the Constitutional Court, which confirmed that the Convention complies with the Latvian Constitution. Upon ratification, Latvia also adopted an interpretive declaration affirming that it would not replace the word “sex” with “gender” in national legislation, and so on. Many voices participated in this process, and concerns—for example, about the legal implications of the Convention—were duly assessed.
It is therefore very worrying that, at this stage, we still face efforts to retract this commitment. This raises questions not only about Latvia’s commitment to its own citizens—particularly women—but also to other states that are parties to the Convention.
The Supply and Demand of Anti-Gender Politics in Europe
In your view, what explains the political salience of “gender ideology” narratives in opposition to the Istanbul Convention across such varied contexts as Latvia, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Hungary?
Dr. Monika de Silva: I like to think about the gender ideology narrative as having a supply side and a demand side. On the supply side, we have in all of these countries very strong populist radical right parties, but also other political movements that are very effective at mobilizing against the Convention and transnationalizing this issue. So this is the supply side of the narrative.
But what is even more interesting is the demand side. This strategy would not work without the resonance of this argument among a certain part of the population. What is similar in all of these countries—you mentioned Latvia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Hungary—is that they all participate in European integration but are not at the core of this project. They are not Western European countries; they are Central and Eastern European countries, or even countries on the boundary between Europe and other continents.
There are also many interlinkages between European identity and gender equality norms. We see that adopting certain norms or laws gives states a certain status within European integration. The case of Turkey is illustrative. The Istanbul Convention is named the Istanbul Convention for a reason. It was adopted in Turkey, and Turkey gained a lot of status points by hosting the conference; it was able to brand itself as European, liberal, etc.
But let’s remember that this was over 10-15 years ago, and now we live in a different moment. Today, Turkey’s accession to the European Union is much less likely. We also live in a moment where the European Union does not have as much power as it used to. So, this linkage between Europeanness and gender equality does not work as well as it once did, and it creates backlash.
Gender equality norms are very dear to people; they are part of people’s social identity, whether on the left or on the right. So, it is not something that can be easily changed. People also do not want to feel that something is being imposed on them, so it is very easy to mobilize against this narrative in these countries—arguing that this is Western Europe, or the EU, or the Council of Europe, etc., or the elites forcing them to change their core norms.
Women and LGBTQ+ activists in İzmir, Turkey, rally for the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, highlighting femicide and the withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention. Photo: Idil Toffolo.
Populism, Geopolitics, and the Cross-Border Spread of Gender Backlash
To what extent is anti-gender discourse a domestic phenomenon, and to what extent is it borrowing transnational scripts, including Kremlin-linked rhetoric that frames the Convention as destroying “traditional family values”?
Dr. Monika de Silva: Of course, anti-gender discourses are very interlinked and interconnected, and we see manifestations of that as floating narratives that are very similar, whether we look at Latvia, Poland or Russia.
In the Latvian case, for example, I have not seen any new tropes in the anti-gender discourse, even though we have had this conversation since 2015–2016. So now, almost ten years on, there is nothing new. The Istanbul Convention is presented as a threat to the family, sneaking in certain gender-equality or feminist or LGBT norms that states did not initially think were in the Convention, or that it will make states allow for non-binarity in their legal systems, or make more lenient laws regarding transgender rights.
We see this over and over again, across time and space. What is the reason for that? To some extent, it is coordinated. We have coalitions of states that cooperate with each other in venues like the United Nations—traditional-values coalitions and so on—and they exchange and build their discourses together. We also have non-state, transnational organizations like the World Congress of Families that do this.
Regarding the link between these narratives and Russia or the Kremlin: we definitely see why there would be an incentive for Russia to stir up the conversation around the Istanbul Convention in Latvia and other Baltic states. This creates a lot of mistrust between countries like Latvia and other Western European countries and the EU, especially in a situation where we have this aggression on the eastern border of Europe. This is a problem that can steer the fate of this country one way or another.
We have elections in Latvia next year, and the Istanbul Convention will surely be a significant part of the campaigns. Hopefully, it will not steer the political scene in this country toward a pro-Russian direction. I hope we will see well-informed, democratic debate on the Istanbul Convention. But of course, since this is such a polarizing topic, there are certain risks involved.
Populist Actors Exploit Linguistic Ambiguity in EU Gender Debates
How do PRR actors transform technical legal language into ideologically charged rhetoric, especially around contested terms like “gender,” which your work has shown can be strategically mistranslated or emptied of meaning in EU negotiation spaces?
Dr. Monika de Silva: The discussion around the term “gender” shows us that language is never neutral. It is always politically charged, whether it is adopted as technical or legal. In the case I studied, several EU member states at some point decided that they did not want to use the word “gender” in EU-adopted documents. This, of course, stirred a lot of contestations around what gender even means for the EU, and so on. The fact is that what gender means, or what gender equality means for the EU, has never been a settled issue.
As you know, all EU languages have equal legal value. In different languages, gender equality is translated basically as equality between men and women. This had not been an issue for a long time because it did not spark as much discussion as it does now, with many states being very attached to the idea that gender should include more than men and women, and some countries being attached to the idea that it should not.
So, there is this discursive openness in what gender means for the EU. It existed before the so-called gender-language crisis. Populist parties, populist governments, are very skilled at using this discursive openness. Because if we do not know what the exact boundaries of a certain word are—and this is not atypical in political discourse—it is very easy to argue that this word means something essentially ridiculous. For example, because gender replaces the word sex, we can no longer talk about men and women. This is, of course, not what the word “gender” means, but this linguistic openness is definitely used to advance such narratives.
Why Some States Avoid Ratification: The Limits of EU Influence
European Union flags against European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium.
In your research, you explore “language bargaining” and diplomatic-legal talk. How have these dynamics influenced EU-level negotiations on the Istanbul Convention, and how did they enable states such as Hungary or Slovakia to avoid ratification?
Dr. Monika de Silva: Definitions and decisions in the EU are always outcomes of negotiations. There are diplomacy and negotiation involved in reaching a jointly acceptable outcome. That, of course, is a good, healthy thing if we have parties that are not always expecting to arrive at their maximalist outcome. This is not possible in an organization with 27 member states.
The ability to make these compromises and negotiate was something that enabled the European Union to accede to the Istanbul Convention, even though several member states decided that they themselves would not accede to the Convention. But they accepted the fact that, within a legitimate process and based on the rule of law—with also a case in the Court of Justice of the EU confirming that the EU can accede to the Istanbul Convention—yes, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.
So, there is very little that the EU can do to make other member states ratify the Convention. This is their sovereign decision; they are not obliged to ratify the Convention under EU law. Even given the narratives that we talked about—the imposition from the EU and so on—this may actually have a reverse effect, a backlash against this sort of narrative of imposition.
So, I think the way to go is to maintain a culture of compromise, which assures these governments and their populations that this is the way we work in the EU, including in cases like the Istanbul Convention.
How a Women’s Protection Treaty Became a Culture-War Symbol
Could you reflect on how the Istanbul Convention became symbolically detached from its core purpose—preventing violence against women—and reframed instead as an LGBTQ+ threat or “radical feminist” project?
Dr. Monika de Silva: Of course, this is very unfortunate—what we see is that a convention intended to protect women from violence, gender-based violence, and protect domestic-violence victims, not only women, suddenly becomes a token in political discussions.
Even if some political movements would like the Istanbul Convention to stand for LGBT rights and feminist projects to a larger extent, it does not do so, as populist parties would like us to believe. That is why it is very important to counter misinformation around the Istanbul Convention and always go back to what it actually stands for and what it actually says. This is how movements across Europe will succeed in ensuring that the Convention is a successful tool—by returning to its true purpose, which is largely consensual. If we look at public opinion across Europe, most people agree that violence against women is not something they want to see in their societies.
We may have different ideas about the scope of the problem and how to tackle it, but returning to this core purpose is something that can mobilize support for the Convention. Bringing the Convention back to its purpose and localizing that purpose—not as something imposed or defined by other countries on Latvia, for example, but as something important within Latvian society itself—is very important.
We see civil society learning to do that—to focus on these two things. When we look at the protests in Latvia, I have seen a lot of Latvian flags; the protest itself has this motto of protecting Mother Latvia. So, it gives you the idea that this is about the citizens and population of Latvia. It is not about the EU; it is not about how we look in the eyes of EU bureaucrats. This is a local issue.
People Power Matters: Protest as a Deterrent to Anti-Gender Politics
Women protest in Warsaw, Poland, against the abortion ban and new laws restricting the right to contest fines or penalties. Photo: Eryk Losik.
What role does civil society mobilization play against gender backlash? Latvia has seen some of its largest protests since independence—can such mobilization create durable political resistance?
Dr. Monika de Silva: Of course it matters, and we have seen this in the case of Latvia. The president of Latvia decided to return the decision about the Istanbul Convention to parliament, and I am sure that seeing the mobilization of people and witnessing the largest protests in Latvia helped shape this decision.
We have other cases as well. Poland is a very good example of how civil society mobilization really works. Think about the Women’s Strike in Poland, and the fact that even though Poland had a populist government for over eight years, very much threatening gender equality, Poland has not withdrawn from the Istanbul Convention. This was, to a large extent, the success of civil society mobilization, acting as a deterrent to incumbents—showing that if you take a decision that is against our core values and beliefs, we will not continue supporting you.
At the end of the day, people want to stay in power, and civil society mobilization shows them that they can only do so if they take into account what civil society wants. This mobilization has to continue until the elections in Latvia next year, and hopefully in a way that mobilizes a large part of society rather than polarizing it.
Can EU-Level Binding Offset National Withdrawal?
How has EU legal accession to the Istanbul Convention (2023) shaped the political field? Does EU-level binding partially compensate for national withdrawals or refusals to ratify?
Dr. Monika de Silva: This is a complex legal issue—really an issue for legal nerds—but it is important for the public to understand it, too. Some parts of the Istanbul Convention are ratified by the EU, and the majority of the Convention can be ratified by EU member states, depending on who has competence in a given issue.
So, the EU—regardless of whether member states ratified the Convention or not—will have a certain part of the Convention apply, for example in the case of Latvia, just because the EU ratified it. But this is a very limited scope: it includes transnational cooperation between national court systems on violence against women and domestic violence.
A second area is asylum and refugee policy, because the EU has competence over this policy. And third, the EU has to implement the Convention within its own institutions.
So, this is a limited scope—this is one thing. Another issue is that although in theory it may sound all well and good, a division of competences, in practice this is a bit of a mess. Even though the EU is legally responsible for asylum policy, it is actually member states that implement it. It is states that run asylum-seeking centers, states that receive asylum requests, and so on. So, in practice, it may be difficult to differentiate who is responsible for what, and we have yet to see how this will work in practice.
The Real-World Costs of Leaving the Istanbul Convention
Women and LGBTQ+ activists in İzmir, Turkey, rally on November 25 for the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, highlighting femicide and the withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention. Photo: Idil Toffolo.
And lastly, Dr. de Silva, from a governance-effects perspective, what are the tangible consequences of withdrawal or non-ratification for women’s lives, particularly in terms of monitoring gaps and legal reform trajectories?
Dr. Monika de Silva: In the case of Latvia specifically, the Istanbul Convention is still in force and will be so until the parliament votes otherwise. But this will likely not happen until the next parliamentary elections in Latvia next year. So, in the case of Latvia, we are so far safe.
But what would happen if Latvia withdrew from the Convention? Let’s think about this. Many provisions of the Convention are already implemented in this case, and then we would have to focus on keeping these provisions in place. This is also a strategy in countries where it is very clear that they will not ratify the Convention in any foreseeable future. Think about Hungary. This is where civil society should focus on national law on domestic violence and violence against women being as strong as possible and perhaps reflecting the provisions of the Convention to the largest extent possible.
Latvia has already reported to GREVIO, the expert body of the Convention that monitors its implementation, and from this report we know that there are still gaps. The government itself says, for example, that it does not yet have assistance centers for rape victims. Now the government is legally obliged to establish them in the foreseeable future. If Latvia were not a member of the Convention, it would not have a legal obligation to do so.
There are situations like that. But the biggest and most immediate difference we would see is that a state not part of the Convention would not report to GREVIO. Whatever it does is therefore less transparent, especially internationally. There is less scrutiny, because once a state reports to GREVIO, it is evaluated by this body of experts—experts on violence against women and domestic violence who know what the Convention requires and how it should be implemented. States outside the Convention would also not face scrutiny from other member states or from international civil society.
In an interview with the ECPS, Associate Professor Erica Frantz warns that the growing rise of personalist leaders worldwide is undermining democratic institutions and increasing the risk of international conflict. Personalist systems—where power is concentrated around a single dominant figure—erode checks and balances, distort party structures, and heighten foreign-policy miscalculation. Reflecting on the United States, she notes that Donald Trump has transformed the GOP into a “personal political vehicle,” enabling rapid consolidation of executive power. As domestic constraints weaken, Dr. Frantz cautions, “we are increasingly setting the stage for more volatile and unpredictable conflict behavior in the international arena.” She identifies leader-created parties and media-driven mobilization as critical warning signs of emerging personalist capture.
In a wide-ranging conversation with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Associate Professor Erica Frantz of Michigan State University offers a penetrating analysis of the global resurgence of personalist politics and its destabilizing implications for democracy and international security. A leading scholar of authoritarianism, democratic backsliding, and strongman rule, Dr. Frantz situates recent developments in the United States within broader cross-national trends, underscoring how personalist leaders erode institutions, centralize power, and elevate the risk of domestic and international conflict.
Reflecting on recent US electoral outcomes in New Jersey, Virginia, California, and New York, Dr. Frantz stresses that it is “too soon to tell whether this trend will last,” though she notes the results offer “at least a small glimmer of hope for the Democrats” after months of erosion under Trump. Yet she cautions that such gains do not signify a reversal of democratic decline. Personalist rule—defined by her as governance backed by leader-centered parties—has advanced markedly under Trump. His second administration, she argues, is marked by consolidated control over the executive and a legislative majority, patterns “consistent with what research would anticipate” in cases of democratic erosion.
Personalism, Dr. Frantz warns, not only weakens democratic institutions but also escalates international danger. She emphasizes that leaders who face minimal domestic constraints are more prone to foreign policy miscalculation, explaining that “the absence of domestic constraints makes it very difficult for the two sides to figure out what the real red lines are. That potential for miscalculation elevates the chance of conflict.” Drawing on international relations scholarship, she identifies audience-cost dynamics as critical to crisis stability—factors severely undermined under highly personalized regimes. As she concludes, “as we see personalism on the rise globally, we are increasingly setting the stage for more volatile and unpredictable conflict behavior in the international arena.”
Dr. Frantz underscores that Trump’s transformation of the Republican Party represents a paradigmatic shift toward personalist structure. Though he did not found the GOP, by 2024 the party had become “fully under his control,” with elites aligning themselves behind his false election narratives. Trumpism has thus reshaped partisan dynamics in ways that may outlast his tenure.
Looking to the future, Dr. Frantz identifies leader-created parties as a key early warning sign of personalist capture—now increasingly visible in democracies and autocracies alike. She argues that the changing media environment has dramatically lowered the cost of personalist mobilization, enabling wealthy outsiders to build movements rapidly and bypass organizational constraints.
Taken together, Associate Professor Frantz’s insights illuminate how personalism—far from a regional aberration—is now a global pattern, with the United States neither insulated nor exceptional.
Erica Frantz is an Associate Professor in Political Science at Michigan State University.
Here is the edited transcript of our interview with Associate Professor Erica Frantz, slightly revised for clarity and flow.
Democratic Gains Offer Hope, But 2026 Remains the Real Test
Professor Erica Frantz, thank you very much for joining our interview series. Let me start right away with the first question: In the wake of recent Democratic victories—such as in New Jersey, Virginia, and California, as well as Zohran Mamdani’s win in New York—do you interpret these outcomes as early signs of public pushback against personalist-populist politics in the US, or are they better understood as cyclical fluctuations within a still-fragmented party system?
Assoc. Prof. Erica Frantz: That is a great question, and one that I don’t think we have a solid answer for. On the one hand, it certainly should give room for optimism that the Democrats did fairly well last week, in the November 4th elections. But at the same time, it is very possible that this was just a blip and an outlier. The real big test will be in the 2026 midterm elections. From my perspective, this was an important outcome for the Democrats in that there had been very little good news for the party since the 2024 election. So, for the first time, there was some indication that the tide of public opinion may be shifting a little bit against Trump. So, it is too soon to tell whether this trend will last, but it certainly offered at least a small glimmer of hope for the Democrats.
Small Victories Amid Deep Democratic Vulnerability
Do these electoral results indicate that institutional resilience and civic counter-mobilization remain robust in the US, or do you see them as temporary and insufficient to counter deeper trajectories of democratic erosion?
Assoc. Prof. Erica Frantz: Again, it is a little bit too soon to know what the ultimate meaning of this election result will be. From my perspective, a really big test is going to be the 2026 midterm elections.
We know a couple of things about the factors that escalate the chance of democratic erosion, and my colleagues and I have written a lot about personalist parties: when leaders come to power backed by personalist parties and the party has a legislative majority, the chance of democratic erosion increases. That is precisely what we’ve been witnessing with the second Trump administration—he now governs amid this personalist party, and the party has legislative majorities. All of that set the stage for him to consolidate power in the executive fairly rapidly in the US. So, the patterns that we’ve seen in 2025 are consistent with what research would anticipate.
To be clear, there are opportunities for citizens to push back against these efforts and signal their displeasure. This election was certainly one such opportunity. Again, the big one will be the 2026 midterm elections. It is not always the case that these leaders are able to consolidate control and destroy democracy from within; in some instances, they’re voted out of power. A good recent example would be Bolsonaro in Brazil. He was elected, did things that were harmful for Brazilian democracy, but ultimately lost his re-election bid. Slovenia would be another example. So, there is an opportunity for citizens to vote these leaders out.
But at the same time, it is not guaranteed that the 2026 midterm elections will be free and fair. Historically, US elections have been free and fair, despite allegations of fraud. The widespread consensus among experts is that we have very solid democratic elections in the US. However, there have been subtle indications that the Trump administration might try to fiddle with things in ways that threaten the integrity of the process in 2026. That is something to keep an eye on as well. Whether through gerrymandering or the disenfranchisement of key sectors of the electorate, there are certain things they could do that might not sound the alarm bell among citizens but would still threaten the integrity of the process.
Is Personalism the New Global Normal?
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan watching the August 30 Victory Day Parade in Ankara, Turkey on August 30, 2014. Photo by Mustafa Kirazli.
Given your comparative work on strongmen, how significant are these recent US elections at a global level—might they signal renewed democratic resistance, or are they isolated exceptions in a broader worldwide pattern of backsliding?
Assoc. Prof. Erica Frantz: We know that there is a broader pattern of backsliding happening, as you alluded to, and scholars debate to some degree how serious it is. But the reality is that regardless of the measure used to capture backsliding, we know that it’s occurring in places that have historically been robust to this sort of threat. Usually, wealthier democracies—democracies that have been in place for a really long time—tend to be protected from this kind of erosion.
What’s alarming about today’s backsliding wave is the ways in which countries like the United States, Poland, Hungary, and Turkey have been threatened by these sorts of incumbent takeovers. So, we know that there is a broader pattern underway, and from my own research perspective, we think that personalism is playing a very big role in fueling this dynamic.
That’s the broader global landscape. At the same time, as I mentioned earlier, just because we see a leader elected by a personalist party with a legislative majority does not mean there are no windows of opportunity for the opposition to vote these leaders out before they win re-election. I mentioned the cases of Brazil and Slovenia as examples where leaders that fit the model of what you don’t want to see, in terms of risks of incumbent takeover, did not win re-election.
So, the fact that we have this positive result for the Democratic Party—not only in terms of Mamdani, who is further to the left, winning office, but also the governors in New Jersey and Virginia, who were centrist—signals that perhaps there is some pushback against Trump’s agenda. However, it’s unclear whether that pushback is because of Trump doing things that are harmful to democracy and people not liking it, or—more likely, in my opinion—because they don’t like the direction of his economic policies. So, it would be unlikely that this result reflects frustration with what Trump has done to democracy, and far more likely that it reflects disagreement with his economic policies and the direction he has taken the economy.
From Institutional GOP to Personalist Machine
Your recentNew York Timesarticle argues that Donald Trump has transformed the GOP into a personal political vehicle. What empirical markers—organizational, ideological, or behavioral—most clearly signal the evolution of the Republican Party from a programmatic institution into a personalist structure?
Assoc. Prof. Erica Frantz: That’s a great question as well. We do a lot of research on personalized parties, and we’ve gathered a lot of data on how to capture personalism in a political party. And usually, the best indicator that a party is going to be personalist is that the leader created the party themselves—so Bukele with Nueva Ideas in El Salvador, or in Hungary with Orbán and Fidesz. Trump is unusual in that he did not create the Republican Party. This party has been around for a long time. But one indicator that his tenure as president was going to be different vis-à-vis the Republican Party was that he did not rise up within the ranks of the party to get the 2016 nomination. Instead, what happened was he was somewhat of an outsider. He, at one point, had been a Democrat, so he was not the classic candidate that the Republican Party had tended to field in their presidential campaigns.
At the time, the Republican Party happened to be divided. There were a variety of other people who were potential frontrunners for the 2016 candidacy, and Trump surprised many by virtue of winning. A lot of people at the time thought it was somewhat of a joke that he would be running for president. It was the right place at the right time for him to take over the Republican Party.
During his first term, he did not have the same control over the Republican Party that he did since 2020. And a clear indicator that the party was becoming personalized was after the insurrection on January 6, 2021. We see this really blatant, horrific episode of violence—essentially political violence—where a mob is trying to keep a democratically elected leader from taking power. That should have been a moment where Trump was completely sidelined from the Republican Party.
In the early days, a lot of Republican elites were somewhat unsure of how to respond. Should they get in line behind Trump’s false narrative that the election was stolen, or should they speak out against what happened and how much of a departure it was from our democratic norms? Slowly over time, however, Trump was able to get all of these elites to get in line with his false narrative. And so, by the time he ran for office in 2024, the Republican Party was fully under his control.
He’d gotten all of the key players within the party to support his narrative that the election was stolen, and by this point, it was pretty clear that Trump became synonymous with the party. When he would have different Republican Party events, there would be a statue of Trump or an image of Trump. Rather than promoting the party’s ideas, it was more a situation where we were seeing Trump as a person dominate. Clearly, elites started to sense that they were unlikely to maintain their political careers if they did not get in line behind Trump. So, by the time he ran for president in 2024, the party was very much one that we would consider personalist, where most elites were fearful of speaking out against Trump, and instead, he basically governs the policy agenda.
Structural Conditions Behind Trump’s Party Takeover
Elephant symbol of the Republican Party with the American flag in the background. Photo: Chris Dorney.
Which structural conditions—party decay, institutional fragility, or shifts in public demand—have been most important in enabling Trump to centralize authority and weaken intra-party constraints?
Assoc. Prof. Erica Frantz: I don’t have a solid answer to that, because it would really be my best guess. My best guess in terms of what enabled Trump to personalize the party. I do think that the party was somewhat divided in 2016, and that was a real momentous occasion in terms of Trump being able to leverage this window of opportunity, as I mentioned. That said, the party was not fully behind Trump during his first term. Again, I can’t point to a specific cause of why he was able to fully take over the party in 2021. But we do know that slowly over time, key individuals in the party started to see themselves as not electorally viable unless they got in line behind Trump’s agenda.
In terms of the broader global landscape of why we’re able to see these sorts of things, there is some evidence that the changing media environment is enabling leaders to personalize their parties. Rather than having to build a party from the ground up, leaders can now build parties on social media. They don’t need the same organizational grassroots effort to construct a group that backs them. I mentioned earlier El Salvador with Nayib Bukele. He really is the new mold for how leaders can build movements that are personalized very rapidly and win office. He created his own political party and was very savvy in his use of social media to directly connect with voters, bypassing the need for a traditional party organization to launch his candidacy. These sorts of direct connections with citizens enable leaders to gain a following without having to rely on an established traditional party. There is some evidence that new media is facilitating the rise of personalism and personalist parties, enabling these leaders to bypass traditional institutions to gain political influence.
How Trump Hollowed Out Democratic Guardrails
Strongmen typically engage in institutional hollowing from within. Under Trump, which forms of institutional capture—of the courts, the DOJ, the Federal Reserve, or security agencies—pose the greatest long-term threat to liberal-democratic resilience in the US?
Assoc. Prof. Erica Frantz: Trump has been somewhat of an outlier in terms of the speed with which he has consolidated control. Typically, when we see these leaders come to power backed by these hollow organizations, personalist parties; it takes longer for them to get rid of executive constraints. Oftentimes, it’s strategic to do this slowly, because it’s more difficult for opponents to express alarm and mobilize against these fragmented takeovers. What has been surprising in the case of the US is the speed with which Trump has gone after multiple institutions of power and been able to do it without much pushback.
In terms of which institution is the most dangerous, in many cases we see the courts as particularly important in protecting democracy from an executive takeover. The fact that we have a Supreme Court that has seemed at least sympathetic, or willing to consider a new vision of the executive as very powerful, is particularly alarming, in that it’s possible the courts will open the door for Trump to do things like pursue a third term in office, because we have a conservative court that is not only conservative in terms of its agenda, but particularly pro-Trump. The current Supreme Court hearing over the case on tariffs and whether his tariffs are legal is going to be a very big case in terms of determining whether the courts will open the door for Trump to bypass traditional norms of behavior regarding executive power.
This is not to say that what Trump has done to gain control over other institutions is not also a problem. We ideally would like to see a bureaucracy that has people who are competent in major positions of power. Instead, what we’ve seen is that the bureaucracy has been both hollowed out—now very thin—but also staffed with his loyalists. This is going to have downstream consequences for all sorts of policy outcomes in the US. Even when we’re thinking about things like childhood vaccinations, we might see a public-health crisis on the horizon because of the ways in which Trump has appointed people in the health sector who do not have appropriate credentials for these positions.
The other domain that is also one to keep in mind is what’s going on with the military. Early on in Trump’s term, basically on a Friday night, when most people were not reading the news or maybe were asleep, he purged the top military brass of many officials. This is not the sort of thing that we are used to seeing. In a healthy democracy, the military is kept separate; it’s kept out of some of these civilian political debates. Trump seems very open-minded to trying to politicize the military. It’s been very unusual and alarming to see the ways he has deployed the National Guard to Democratic strongholds. This is not the sort of thing you’d like to see in a healthy democracy, because in theory the military is supposed to stay out of domestic political debates. The ways in which he’s used ICE to go after immigrants is also indicative of a shift where he is trying to use the security forces for political purposes in ways that are unprecedented.
Personalism and the Creation of Internal Enemies
Personalist rulers commonly manufacture “internal enemies” to justify extraordinary coercive measures. How does Trump’s rhetoric about the “deep state,” immigrants, and political opponents align with this broader strategy of threat construction?
Assoc. Prof. Erica Frantz: The ways in which Trump is fabricating a domestic enemy are very similar to what we see in dictatorships. The two cases that come to mind for me are Russia under Putin and Iran under its theocracy. In Iran, the regime very much benefits from promoting an image of the US as the enemy. It tries to get a rally-around-the-flag sort of boost in domestic support by saying that the regime is under attack from America, and that the United States is the cause of all of the country’s problems. In Russia, we’re seeing something similar with Putin’s rhetoric, saying that the United States is the cause of all of these challenges, and so forth.
Trump is not necessarily targeting a specific foreign enemy, but he likely would, at any given moment, blame a foreign country for some sort of problem that might be happening here. But he is stating that immigrants are a problem, and that immigrants are responsible for crime. He has made a number of statements completely absent any evidence about crime. In particular, he is saying false things about crime rates in Democratic cities. For people who live in these cities, this is somewhat surprising, because in many of them, they’ve actually seen their crime rates go down. So, the fact that he is deploying the National Guard to fight crime in Democratic strongholds is troubling.
It’s also his effort to rally his base. It was clear to him early on that his supporters were concerned about crime—that this was an issue he could get people to rally behind. If he paints a portrait of the United States as full of crime, as D.C. full of crime, then he can again create and craft a narrative that helps support him—an us-versus-them mentality, something that we’ve seen in many other political contexts, where leaders leverage these divides for their own political benefit.
Militarization as a Red Flag
District of Columbia National Guard soldiers patrol the National Mall after Trump activated the Guard and assumed control of the Metro Police to fight what he calls a crime epidemic, near Union Station, Washington, DC. Photo: Harper Drew.
Trump’s deployment of the National Guard and increasingly militarized immigration enforcement raises concerns about domestic coercion. Should we understand this as the early normalization of militarized rule within a democratic setting?
Assoc. Prof. Erica Frantz: In most cases of incumbent-led democratic backsliding, leaders usually first go after institutional constraints; they first go after the judiciary, or the bureaucracy, the media. Then they ultimately target elections. That’s the typical process that we see with incumbent-led backsliding. Trump’s ability to, or decision to, try to go after the security forces—and by that, I mean two things: promote loyalists, get rid of dissenting voices in the security forces, and then also politicize them by deploying them against his opponents—is not something that is typically part of the classic playbook. Usually, it’s something that we see after the democracy has transitioned to dictatorship.
The US is still a democracy by all accounts right now, because the 2024 presidential election was free and fair. That’s the most basic indicator of a democracy: the free and fairness of elections. We’re still a democracy. However, usually we don’t see these leaders militarize and politicize the security forces until after they’ve autocratized. It’s a very common tactic that they try to rely on multiple different security forces; we hear about coup-proofing and balancing the different security forces against one another. The fact that Trump is doing all of these things is both inconsistent with democratic norms in the United States and also a red flag in that healthy democracies require militaries that are not used for political purposes, particularly against domestic opponents.
Personalism and Economic Vulnerability
Photo: Shutterstock AI.
Your work suggests that personalist leaders politicize economic institutions and often embrace transactional economics. How might Trump’s pressure on the Federal Reserve, discretionary trade tactics, and patronage-based allocation threaten long-term economic stability?
Assoc. Prof. Erica Frantz: I keep mentioning personalist parties, but there’s a lot of research related to party personalism and its harmful consequences. We, my colleagues and I, just published a paper that shows that when leaders are backed by personal parties, they are more likely to attack central bank independence. This is not just something that is observed in the United States. There is a global pattern that these leaders, in their effort to ensure that no institutions can push back against them, go after the central bank as well. So, the fact that Trump has tried to interfere in the ways in which the Federal Reserve sets interest rate policies is consistent with global trends.
There is a huge body of research that shows that you want central bank independence, that this is something that political leaders should try to preserve because it’s in the country’s long-term best economic interests. So, when we have this sort of behavior, it signals that we’re likely to see disruptions in terms of inflationary policy. We are likely to have more unpredictable inflationary policy in the US. It is likely to lead to more inflation for ordinary people, and that’s already a concern among Americans. If you go to the grocery stores, prices are higher in everything. So, when I talk to my students, they can list a lot of different products that they no longer can afford because of inflation.
So, Trump’s eagerness to lower interest rates and fiddle with central bank independence is going to have long-term economic consequences. On top of this, these sorts of leaders are also likely to reward their loyalists with corruption. They’re likely to give them access to corruption and corrupt deal-making. That’s something very common, that these inner-circle elites are profiting from illicit deals. They send their money overseas to offshore bank accounts, try to hide things, and this is the way that these personalist leaders, like Trump, are able to maintain some inner-circle loyalty, by giving these sorts of kick-backs.
Corruption is not good for ordinary people. So that is another way in which these sorts of leaders, in their prioritization of their cronies and of staying in power, disrupt economic stability. So, the economic outlook for the United States does not look good. That’s not just because of the tariffs, which run counter to most economists’ advice, but because of these other layers of what’s happening with inflationary policy, interest rates, and corruption.
After Trump: Continuity or Collapse?
Former US President Donald Trump with a serious look as he delivers a speech at a campaign rally held at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Wilkes-Barre, PA – August 2, 2018. Photo: Evan El-Amin.
Personalist systems are especially fragile at succession. If the US continues along a personalist trajectory, what are the most plausible succession scenarios—heightened autocratization under loyalists, elite fragmentation, or institutional pushback?
Assoc. Prof. Erica Frantz: We don’t have a lot of research that gets into succession in personalist democracies. It’s somewhat unknown territory, what might happen if Trump were to decide not to go for a third term. That’s a big if, because he is certainly trying to put out feelers about how people would react to him going for a third term. It’s possible that he will try to stay in office beyond his term limits.
That said, in autocratic settings, we know that personalism makes it more difficult for succession to run smoothly, as you mentioned, but still, most of the time—when we have research on when leaders die of natural causes in office, for example—even in personalist places, most of the time there is a smooth succession process, at least to observers, and the regime survives it.
With personalist leaders, they can often survive even when ordinary people are doing horribly economically, because so long as they have bought off the security services and their inner circle of elites with corruption, they can maintain power.
The case I often think of when people ask what might happen next—such as whether everything would fall apart if Trump were to leave power—is Venezuela under Maduro. You know, Hugo Chávez had governed that place, autocratized it, and transformed what was once a very healthy democracy into an authoritarian system. He dies; it was around 2011. Maduro takes over, isn’t very popular, people don’t think this is going to last very long, and even though he lacks the same popularity that Chávez had, he has been able to stay in power amid an economy that’s performing disastrously. So, it would be foolish to assume that should Trump leave power—whether he dies of natural causes or whether he retires voluntarily—it’d be foolish to anticipate that that means the end of the destruction that he’s done to democracy in the United States.
Will Trumpism Outlive Trump?
Your scholarship shows that personalist parties can destabilize political competition even after their founders depart. Could Trump’s reconfiguration of the GOP generate enduring structural disruption in the US party system beyond his tenure?
Assoc. Prof. Erica Frantz: There are two points to mention here. On the one hand, because Trump did not create the Republican Party—because he took it over and co-opted it—I’m somewhat optimistic that the party could rebound and return to its former self, where it was a traditional conservative party with a conservative agenda, and where elites rose up the ranks of the party to get those positions. I think that it’s possible that we could see a reversion to the Republican Party of the past.
However, it’s also important to note that we have a lot of evidence that when these leaders lose power—let’s say they lose power in democratic elections—democracy does not necessarily rebound very quickly. Two recent examples of this would be Poland with the Law and Justice Party (PiS) losing elections. There was a lot of optimism that the democratic backsliding there had come to an end, but it has still been difficult for Polish democracy to fully rebound. There are challenges that persist in the judiciary, for example, and its ability to be independent.
The same thing could be said of Brazil with Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro loses re-election, Lula takes over, but there are really long-lasting divisions in Brazilian society that have persisted. A lot of this is because of the ways in which these leaders use polarization as a political tactic. So, it’s not that they are just voted out of office and suddenly, the 50% or so supporters that they genuinely have go away.
From that perspective, on the one hand, I am more optimistic than I would be with other places that the Republican Party could rebound and return to a more programmatic party. But at the same time, there is lasting damage that has been done to the fabric of democracy here.
Unbound Executives, Unstable Worlds
Photo: Shutterstock.
Your NYT article notes that Trump and Xi of China operate with few domestic constraints, increasing unpredictability. Why does diminished institutional constraint heighten the risks of international miscalculation and conflict, particularly among major powers?
Assoc. Prof. Erica Frantz: There is a well-established body of research in international relations that underscores the importance of domestic constraints in preventing conflict. The idea is that if leaders face domestic constraints—meaning they would face some kind of consequence for not following through on their threats—their adversaries recognize this and can interpret those threats as credible. So, if I say there is a red line—if you don’t do X, Y, or Z, we’re going to invade—and I know I face constraints at home, my adversary knows that I mean what I say.
If, however, I face no domestic consequences for making empty promises or issuing vague or meaningless threats, then my adversary no longer knows what I really mean. The absence of domestic constraints therefore makes it very difficult for both sides to discern where the real red lines are. That uncertainty increases the likelihood of miscalculation and, in turn, the risk of conflict.
As I mentioned, there is a large literature on this—called audience-cost theory—and while it is somewhat complex, it helps explain why, when personalist leaders come to power, we tend to see more conflict. Research on authoritarian systems shows that personalist leaders are the most likely to start wars; they are the most likely to escalate conflicts with democracies in particular; and they are more prone to foreign policy miscalculation.
Taken together, this suggests that as we see personalism on the rise globally, we are increasingly setting the stage for more volatile and unpredictable conflict behavior in the international arena.
Why Leader-Made Parties Signal Democratic Peril
And lastly, Professor Frantz, given rising polarization, institutional distrust, and party hollowing globally, do you expect personalist leadership to become more common across both democracies and autocracies? What early warning indicators should scholars monitor to detect incipient personalist capture?
Assoc. Prof. Erica Frantz: I mentioned this earlier, but we do think the changing media environment has facilitated the rise of personalism in both autocratic and democratic contexts. This means that all signs point toward increasing top-heavy institutional emergence. Until there is some sort of concerted effort to return to party building and grassroots organization, we are likely to continue seeing more personalism globally.
A classic red flag is when a leader creates a party. Party creation is becoming increasingly common. Many of these leaders are billionaires, leveraging their personal wealth to fund these political vehicles. So, the biggest warning sign, I would say, is when the leader on the ballot has created their own party. That usually spells trouble for democracy—and for autocracy as well.
Populists rise to power by claiming outsider status against a corrupt elite. Yet many—from Erdogan and Modi to Trump—retain legitimacy long after becoming establishment actors. How? Yilmaz and Morieson argue that populist leaders occupy a dual identity they term “Schrödinger’s Elite”: simultaneously insiders and outsiders. They convert privilege into moral performance—projecting humility, purity, and sacrifice while governing as entrenched elites. This performance is not hypocrisy, but strategy. Whether through Trump’s theatrical diplomacy, Imran Khan’s pious nationalism, or judicial populism in Pakistan and the United States, authority is reframed as service to “the people.” The paradox reveals why populism persists despite policy failure: emotional authenticity eclipses institutional accountability, transforming power into virtue.
One problem populists face when they enter government is that, by definition, they become the very thing they claim to despise: elites. Populist legitimacy is always predicated on their status as outsiders intent on cleansing a corrupt system. However, once the populist outsider becomes part of the governing elite, then it naturally becomes very difficult for them to present themselves as outsiders. One should expect that, once populists begin governing, they should lose their legitimacy. Yet this does not always occur.
Indeed, this notion has been exploded by a generation of populist leaders who, despite making promises they could not keep and becoming insider elites, have retained their popularity and governed in some cases for more than a decade.
The long reigns of populists such as Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey, Narendra Modi in India, and the re-election of Donald Trump in the United States, demonstrate that populists can survive in power despite appearing to lose their outsider status. Moreover, many populist leaders are themselves part of the very elite they condemn. They are educated, wealthy, and deeply embedded within existing institutions. Some populist leaders have emerged from within state institutions, from the judiciary and the military, and cannot therefore be considered in any way outsiders.
However, if populists are supposed to be outsiders battling ‘elites’ on behalf of ‘the people’, why do we see so many populist leaders emerging from, and remaining inside, the most elite sectors of society, including from state institutions and from the super-wealthy?
We call this paradox Schrödinger’s Elite. Like the famous cat in Erwin Schrödinger’s thought experiment that exists in two states at once, populist elites are both insiders and outsiders. They inhabit positions of privilege while performing rebellion. They rule as establishment figures but speak as insurgents. They preserve elite power while transforming it into a moral drama of virtue, authenticity, and at times sacrifice.
Schrödinger’s Elite
Populism, as theorist Benjamin Moffitt notes, does not destroy elite rule. Instead, it dramatizes crisis, performs outrage, uses ‘bad manners’ to present itself as authentic and ‘of the people, and ultimately presents power as service. Leaders appear both powerful and humble, dominant yet close to “the people.” This emotional theatre renews legitimacy without real change.
The idea of Schrödinger’s Elite helps explain everything from Donald Trump’s rallies to former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s pious nationalism, and even the moral language of judges in Pakistan and the United States who claim to speak for “the people.” In each case, insiders perform as outsiders and power survives through spectacle.
Illustration of Schrödinger’s cat inside a cube surrounded by neon scientific symbols and formulas, representing quantum physics, superposition, and science education. Photo: Yana Lysenko.
The Paradox of Populist Elites
Populism pits “the pure people” against “the corrupt elite.” However, its champions are often wealthy, famous, or institutionally entrenched. For example, US President Donald Trump, a billionaire celebrity, plays the rebel in order to portray himself as an outsider in Washington and a man of the people. His crude humor and defiance convince supporters he is authentic and unfiltered. His wealth – whether real or not – is reframed as proof of independence from the effete Washington elite, which cannot buy him.
Imran Khan performs a similar balancing act. Oxford-educated and once adored as a cricket hero, he recast himself as a pious Muslim and moral crusader against corrupt, insufficiently religious elites. He promised a “New Pakistan” guided by Islamic values, blending humility with righteousness amid promises to save “the people” from corrupt rule.
This combination of purity and power is not hypocrisy but better described as a strategy. Within this strategy, populist leaders turn privilege into moral capital. Their appeal rests less on policy than on emotion, and contra Mudde, less on ideology than on the performance of sincerity.
When Bureaucrats and Judges Turn Populist
Populist performance is not limited to politicians. Bureaucrats and judges can play the same role, posing as the conscience of the nation. Pakistan’s judiciary offers a clear example. For decades, judges have justified coups and interventions under the “Doctrine of Necessity,” claiming to act for “the people.”
In 2007, Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry became a folk hero after defying President Musharraf. The Lawyers’ Movement celebrated him as a defender of democracy, yet it expanded the judiciary’s political reach. Courts later used moral language to disqualify Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. One judgment compared him to a mafia “Godfather,” casting legal authority as moral and national purification.
The courts presented these rulings as virtue rather than law, appearing humble while exercising vast power. This can be described as a form of judicial populism, in which authority is framed as populist representation of the will of the ‘pure’ people.
The Supreme Court’s Populist Turn
The same pattern arguably surfaces in stronger democracies. For example, when the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson (2022), the majority framed the decision as restoring democracy, saying “the people” should decide. In doing so, the Court claimed moral authority even as it arguably concentrated power.
American justices are familiar public figures, and now speak publicly more than ever, often presenting themselves as moral figures rather than distant experts on law. As a result, the line between law and storytelling begins to blur, and in an already politicized court, procedure gives way to conviction. And like populist politicians, judges adopt the language of authenticity to build a direct connection between themselves and the public, increasing their own power.
Trump in Cairo
Trump’s October 2025 appearance in Cairo showed how populist performance travels. At a peace ceremony marking a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, he turned diplomacy into entertainment. He joked with Viktor Orbán and Giorgia Meloni, calling Meloni “beautiful” and boasting that even if nobody liked Orbán, he did, and “I’m the only one that matters.”
To his followers, this vulgarity was truth-telling. His refusal to play by elite rules made him seem both powerful and free. He was the most influential man in the room and the only “outsider.” This was Schrödinger’s Elite in pure form: authority disguised as rebellion.
Imran Khan’s Moral Stage
Imran Khan’s career shows how this paradox works in a postcolonial setting. Khan embodies privilege and once was regarded as a playboy, yet he built his politics on piety. He invoked Riyasat-e-Medina, the ideal early Islamic state, and urged citizens to show moral discipline. His Oxford education became proof of competence and incorruptibility.
Each statement arguably turned politics into moral theatre. His suffering, including dismissal from power, arrests, court battles, and subsequent imprisonment only reinforced his image as a truth-teller persecuted by corrupt elites.
Emotion Over Structure
The figure of Schrödinger’s Elite shows that populism does not end hierarchy but rather reshapes it. Populist elites thrive by performing virtue, and in doing so, turn their dominance into service, their power into purity, and self-interest into sacrifice for “the people.”
This helps explain why populism persists even when it fails to deliver positive results. Accusations of hypocrisy become proof of authenticity. Challenges to legitimacy become attacks by corrupt elites. Through these reversals, leaders convert their own failings into legitimacy and authenticity.
Digital media amplifies the cycle. Outrage, alas, spreads faster than rational argument, while visibility online replaces accountability. Trump’s tweets, Khan’s livestreams, and activist judges’ speeches all use the same grammar of feeling. They create intimacy between elite and follower while bypassing institutions that might check power.
The Theatre of Power
Across regimes and ideologies, populism redefines what it means to be elite. It replaces expertise with emotion and legality with morality. The populist elite, in this way, claims to represent the people while keeping control.
In Pakistan, judges act as the nation’s conscience while consolidating power. In the US, the Supreme Court claims to restore democracy. In Cairo, Trump mocked his peers to show he was above them. Each act sustains authority through performance.
The danger of all this lies not in populism’s attacks on elites, but in its ability to moralize populist domination of politics and law. It turns power into a spectacle of virtue, and in doing so, keeps citizens powerless while making them feel morally included and thus represented.
A Paradox That Endures
Populism’s strength lies in its contradictions. Its leaders inhabit both rebellion and authority, humility and dominance. Across democracies and hybrid regimes alike, the populist governing powers claim to speak for “the people” while reinforcing control. And that is perhaps why populism endures. Its elites have learned not to abolish hierarchy but instead found ways to perform populism while entrenching themselves in power.
“We Need the GOP to Reclaim Its Role as a Check on Trump,” argues Associate Professor Rory Truex of Princeton University in a wide-ranging interview with ECPS. He warns that the United States is “in the middle stages of democratic backsliding,” driven by Trump’s effort to “capture the referees” through loyalist appointments across the DOJ, FBI, and Department of Defense. Dr. Truex cautions that framing opponents as “enemies from within” is a classic precursor to authoritarian repression, even as recent mass protests—“the largest in American history”—underscore civic resilience. While electoral results in New Jersey, Virginia, California, and New York signal public fatigue with Trumpism, Dr. Truex maintains that meaningful reversal hinges on Republican elites: “We need the Republican Party to come back to its senses.”
“We Need the GOP to Reclaim Its Role as a Check on Trump” — this stark warning from Associate Professor Rory Truex of Princeton University underscores the fragility of institutional constraints in the United States amid the continued rise of Trumpist politics. In an extended conversation with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Dr. Truex situates the contemporary US experience within a comparative framework, drawing on scholarship on democratic backsliding, authoritarian power consolidation, and the erosion of norms.
An expert on authoritarian governance—particularly in China— Dr. Truex argues that the United States is currently “in the middle stages of a process political scientists call democratic backsliding,” a trajectory in which formally democratic institutions are gradually transformed into mechanisms of asymmetric competition that systematically disadvantage opponents. While he stops short of declaring the US an autocracy, Dr. Truex emphasizes that Trump should be seen as “a proto-autocrat—someone with authoritarian ambitions whose ability to realize them remains uncertain.”
The most distinctive and dangerous dimension of the current moment, Dr. Truex suggests, is Trump’s systematic personalization of power—particularly his effort to sweep aside neutral bureaucratic oversight in favor of loyalists. Appointments at the DOJ, FBI, and Department of Defense reflect what Dr. Truex calls a classic strategy of “capturing the referees.” As he notes, “You really can’t have people around you who are going to stand up to you and check your power.” These dynamics have intensified under a second Trump administration.
The danger, however, is not limited to institutional subversion. Dr. Truex identifies a rhetorical shift that strikes at the heart of democratic culture: the demonization of political opposition. He warns that branding rivals “enemies from within” constitutes a foundational step toward authoritarian politics: “Anytime you see a phrase like ‘enemies from within’ or ‘enemy of the people,’ this is usually a precursor to some form of political violence or authoritarian crackdown.”While mass demonstrations in response—remarkably “the largest protest in American history”—have illustrated the resilience of civil society, the stakes remain high.
Against this backdrop, Dr. Truex underscores the critical role of Republican elites in determining the country’s democratic trajectory. The 2024 elections in New Jersey, Virginia, California, and New York (notably Zohran Mamdani’s victory) demonstrate, in his view, public “dissatisfaction with Trump and the Trump policy agenda.” These results also raise the possibility of a strategic recalibration within the GOP. As Dr. Truex puts it, the key question is “at what point [Republican members of Congress] will begin to try to distance themselves from Trump.” His appeal is unambiguous: “We need the Republican Party to come back to its senses. We need people to begin to check Trump.”
Whether such realignment will occur remains uncertain. But as Dr. Truex stresses, US democracy’s fate hinges not only on electoral outcomes but also on whether the institutional and normative guardrails that once constrained executive overreach can be rebuilt—and restored.
Here is the edited transcript of our interview with Associate Professor Rory Truex, slightly revised for clarity and flow.
A Proto-Autocrat in the White House?
Donald Trump delivers a victory speech after his big win in the Nevada caucus at Treasure Island Hotel & Casino, flanked by his sons Eric (right) and Donald Jr. (left) in Las Vegas, NV. Photo: oe Sohm.
Professor Rory Truex, thank you very much for joining our interview series. Let me start right away with the first question: How would you characterize the Trump administration’s current trajectory in comparative perspective—does it resemble a transition toward competitive authoritarianism, or does it constitute a novel form of “autocracy” adapted to US institutions?
Assoc. Prof. Rory Truex: I would characterize the US right now as being in the middle stages of a process political scientists call democratic backsliding. This is when the level of democracy erodes in some meaningful direction toward autocracy. Typically, in a case like the United States—where you have a well-consolidated democracy—the backsliding would be toward what we would call competitive authoritarianism, competitive autocracy, or electoral autocracy. There are different labels, but it essentially refers to a non-democratic system that nevertheless maintains elections. The key issue is that the ruling party uses the tools of power to make those elections fundamentally not free and fair—tilting the electoral playing field and using other instruments of power to erode the opposition in fundamentally anti-democratic ways.
I think the Trump administration is moving in this direction, and there is debate in political science over how exactly we should label it. On the one hand, this is a leader who did try to overturn the results of a democratic election in 2020, so we know he has authoritarian impulses and ambitions. On the other hand, we continue to have vocal opposition in the United States. We had elections last week that went off without a hitch. We saw large-scale protests. So there is a substantial degree of pushback.
Thus, I would characterize him as a proto-autocrat—someone with authoritarian ambitions whose ability to realize them remains uncertain. As for whether this is novel, I would say this process unfolds differently in every case; there is no single path. We can look at analogs—Hungary is a common example—but many other countries, roughly 30 in the last 20 or 30 years, have gone through some version of this process. So while there are aspects unique to the United States, I don’t think the overall process is especially unusual.
Purging the Referees: A Classic Authoritarian Strategy
Recent actions targeting the DOJ, civil service, and military leadership suggest an attempt to dismantle institutional autonomy. To what extent do these moves reflect classic authoritarian strategies of purging neutral bureaucracies and creating personalist control?
Assoc. Prof. Rory Truex: In general, what we observe in the authoritarian world is that checks and balances erode pretty darn fast, and these leaders’ style of governance does not really tolerate independent centers of power. That might manifest in the military, the judiciary, or the civil service. There just needs to be a tight relationship between the leader and all aspects of the bureaucracy. And we’ve observed that personalization of power under Trump. More so than any other president, you could argue that he’s really prioritized political loyalty, and the people he’s appointing to key positions—whether it’s in the DOJ, or Kash Patel in the FBI, or Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense—are individuals who have essentially pledged loyalty to him. This contrasts with the first Trump administration, where there were more independent centers of power around him.
So yes, I think this is a fairly well-defined, non-democratic strategy. It’s particularly important in institutions that would reasonably check his power and that are central to coercion. To be more precise, the judiciary is really important—the Department of Justice, anything associated with the legal apparatus—but also the military and police apparatus as well. This is a well-established authoritarian strategy that they’ve been quite successful at implementing over the last several months.
Managed Participation Without Democracy: Mobilizing Support, Marginalizing Dissent
Torn American flag with Democratic and Republican party symbols, representing political division in the United States. Photo: Dreamstime.
Your research on consultative authoritarianism shows how regimes create participation channels to consolidate legitimacy. How does Trumpism employ similar “managed participation”—e.g., rallies, online mobilization—to consolidate loyalty while delegitimizing dissent?
Assoc. Prof. Rory Truex: That’s a great question. I’m a China scholar by trade, so most of my research is on the Chinese case, and one thing we’ve observed in China is that the CCP, over time, has created channels for public participation—things like mayor’s mailboxes, the petition system, the parliament—that fall well short of democracy and real, meaningful democratic channels, but nevertheless allow the CCP regime to learn something about the population and respond. That allows them to keep things stable and stay in power. This is an example of what we would call a closed authoritarian system with no elections, no opposition parties, creating some mechanisms to be just slightly more responsive. Now, in the US setting, I wouldn’t actually say that these are terribly comparable, because we have a robust democracy and civil society that is going through this authoritarian moment.
What’s happening is, unfortunately, the political system has become so bifurcated into two different communities that the overlap between them has really diminished. In political science, we talk about something called affective polarization, which is the difference between how someone feels about their own party versus the other party. Over the last three decades, people have increasingly loathed the other party and are now operating in different media ecosystems and increasingly different social ecosystems. They are living in different parts of the country; they’re not socializing across party lines. That’s how I view what’s happening. Obviously, the far right or the American right has its own media ecosystem centered around a lot of different platforms and podcasters, and there is a high degree of mobilization. Trump has a personal charisma for a lot of people in the United States, and he’s able to captivate audiences, and did that a lot on the campaign trail. So, that’s part of it, but I would say it’s quite different from what I would call consultative authoritarianism.
Labeling Rivals ‘Enemies’ as a Prelude to Crackdown
Trump and senior advisers have framed political opponents as “enemies from within.” How significant is this reframing in eroding the democratic norm of loyal opposition, and does it constitute a foundational step toward autocratic rule?
Assoc. Prof. Rory Truex: This language—“enemies from within” is deeply troubling. Again, I’m a China scholar, so anytime you see a phrase like “enemies from within” or “enemy of the people,” this is usually a precursor to some form of political violence or authoritarian crackdown. So it’s really problematic language.
In a democracy, parties need to recognize each other as legitimate opposition and treat one another with a degree of respect, even if there is some underlying disdain. The minute you start talking about people as enemies of the American population, or link them to terrorist groups—using words like “terrorist” or “foreign government”—that’s a significant escalation in rhetoric. What we saw in the US was that this escalation occurred just prior—it’s been ongoing, but it really ramped up—in the lead-up to the No Kings protest of mid-October.
What was notable is that, in turn, those protests wound up being overwhelmingly peaceful—and the largest protest in American history. I don’t think people fully grasp that. The estimates are anywhere from 5 to 7 million people; whatever number you use, it’s the largest protest in American history. It wasn’t a bunch of violent Antifa people running around throwing Molotov cocktails. It was a bunch of normal people out with signs, wearing costumes, playing guitars, and it was quite beautiful. I was there with my family in Connecticut, and it was quite a striking moment.
So, one notable development is that the Trump administration is trying to paint the opposition as anti-American, disloyal, an enemy of the people—and trying to paint them as violent. The reality is quite different, and the protest event just a couple of weeks ago revealed the Trump narrative to be fundamentally off-base, and hopefully that was a turning point.
Emergency as Strategy: How Autocrats Exploit Chaos
Memorial for Charlie Kirk outside Turning Point USA Headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona, on September 13, 2025, following his fatal shooting while speaking at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah. Photo: Dreamstime.
The administration’s weaponization of crises—such as the assassination of Charlie Kirk—as pretexts for expanding executive power evokes comparisons to the Reichstag Fire. How does this align with historical and theoretical models of emergency-driven authoritarian consolidation?
Assoc. Prof. Rory Truex: We know that instability is good for a would-be autocrat. This is a general historical pattern where a lot of these guys try to create, foment, or exploit some form of instability or threat to justify crackdowns. And crackdowns are usually done in the name of national security, peace and stability. Anytime violence emerges, or a foreign conflict emerges, it really plays into the hands of these leaders, because they appeal to a broader feeling among some of the population that you need a strong ruler to keep the peace and maintain law and order. That’s a very classic authoritarian trope. We’ve seen this play out, as you alluded to.
Nazi Germany—I don’t think that’s the best comparison for the United States—but we saw it this past year in South Korea, when there was a brief declaration of martial law on the grounds that the country had been infiltrated by communists and other groups. And in El Salvador, the drug war provided the pretext for Bukele’s consolidation of power. So it is a very common strategy.
I think the killing of Charlie Kirk was a national tragedy, not because I particularly agree with Charlie Kirk on many issues, but because once we start to see violence really emerge, violence tends to spiral. I was quite worried, in the aftermath of that event, that we would see retaliatory killings going back and forth, leading to greater violence and potentially consolidation of control through Trump. Surprisingly, to date, we have not seen that emerge. In fact, the protests—their overwhelmingly peaceful nature—and then the election result, which is also a bit of a rebuke to Trump, may have broken the cycle and poked a hole in this narrative, and that is noteworthy.
So anyway, it’s something to keep an eye on. I worry about Venezuela and the kind of emerging security narrative there. I worry about the use of the National Guard in our cities and how that’s being deployed. Then, of course, the big foreign threat they’ve been discussing is illegal immigration, which has been used to justify the augmentation of ICE and other measures. So there are plenty of threats to go around for this administration to use. I don’t think they’ve been 100% successful quite yet on this front.
Can Institutional Resistance Survive Political Militarization?
The politicization of the US military or militarization of US politics, including calls to deploy troops domestically against supposed internal enemies, signals erosion of military neutrality. Based on your work, how likely is institutional resistance to remain effective under escalating partisan pressure?
Assoc. Prof. Rory Truex: This is really important, and what we know, again, about authoritarian governments is they need to have a tight relationship with the military to be able to control domestic opposition, especially when it spills out into the streets. The US military is a very highly respected organization in American society, and it has a long tradition of neutrality and staying out of politics. This is not a military that stages coups like we see in much of the world. This is a military that does its job and has extremely high standards of professionalism. We’ve seen pretty dramatic efforts to bring them to heel. We saw this meeting with Pete Hegseth and basically the top military brass from all over the world, which was unprecedented, bringing them all into one space. And he gave them a talking-to about fitness and DEI issues and many other things. So I think there is an effort to rein the military in. The fact that you have someone like Hegseth in charge, who’s a tried-and-true loyalist, is notable.
There’s a difference between that and the really dirty stuff of putting down a protest, potentially using violence against the people. You see these images in American streets where you have these National Guard people deployed in places like D.C. or other places. They’re normal people; they don’t really want to be there. They’re maybe away from their families, and then you see normal Americans interacting with them, telling jokes and stuff. So I don’t think there is that sense that this is an authoritarian military force that’s going to crack down on the American people. I don’t see that in the National Guard in particular.
ICE is slightly different, because ICE has been deliberately augmented under the Trump administration. There’s an ideological component to working for ICE. I don’t mean to disparage the integrity of the folks working for ICE—I’m sure it’s an extremely hard job, and there are many dedicated civil servants. But I also think there’s a deliberate effort to recruit folks into that organization right now who are loyal to Trump, and that is a little bit more concerning to me.
But in general, I don’t think we’re quite there yet, where the American military is going to do Trump’s bidding, especially if it does come to putting down mass mobilization like we’ve seen militaries do in other parts of the world.
Capturing the Referees: Purges as a Path to Power
To what extent do recent attempts to purge “disloyal” military officers, federal prosecutors, and civil servants reflect a broader effort to replace professional staff with patronage networks typical of personalist authoritarian regimes?
Assoc. Prof. Rory Truex: We’ve already talked a little bit about this. I think there’s a well-established pattern—what Steve Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, in their book How Democracies Die, call “capturing the referees.” And again, if you’re going to be engaging in norm-violating behavior, potentially even illegal behavior, you really can’t have people around you who are going to stand up to you and check your power.
Trump has been very deliberate in firing large numbers of lawyers from the military. He fired a lot of JAGs from the military. He fired a lot of lawyers in the DOJ, and then has either not rehired those folks or put people into power like Kash Patel or Pam Bondi, or many of these other figures who are fully loyal to him. So I do think they’ve been successful on that front.
The other thing to note is, of course, with the advent of the Trump administration, we saw this massive effort to downsize the federal bureaucracy and spending in a very haphazard way. I know folks who work for the US government, and that type of capacity isn’t rebuilt overnight. I think part of the purpose of those moves was just to destroy.
So if you destroy the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), or if you destroy the Department of Education, and all these people who have been working there for decades leave, they’re not coming back in four years—or if they do, it’s going to take a while for them to come back online and rebuild. So I do think part of the underlying goal of Project 2025 and the broader conservative movement with respect to government is just to destroy. So, it didn’t matter, really, that it was so haphazard. That was, in some sense, part of the point.
A Two-Tier State: Punishing Blue America
How do you interpret the Trump administration’s systematic punitive strategies—such as withholding federal funds from Democratic states—as a mechanism to cultivate a two-tiered partisan state? Could this accelerate democratic fragmentation?
Assoc. Prof. Rory Truex: I think it’s disgusting. I tend not to use hyperbole, but the fact that if a disaster occurs in your state and your state voted for Biden, that could affect whether you get relief from FEMA is disgusting, and it’s a completely inappropriate use of power.
I do think there’s an undercurrent in American society right now of, as I said, polarization, but the more extreme version of that would be: can the system hold together at all? And if you have blue states, which are feeding a lot of tax dollars into the federal government, and those funds are now being withheld and funneled elsewhere—and being withheld as a punishment—that’s not a sustainable equilibrium.
I personally think that quite a lot of what’s going on under the Trump administration is revealing fundamental issues within the American political system. It’s revealing the role of money in politics, the ease with which we can politicize the judiciary and other institutions, and how broken our two-party system really is.
So my hope, perhaps irrational, is that when this chapter is over—it might be over in three years, it might be over in 15 or 16; these spells often last longer than people think—there will be a period of rebuilding and reform. The practice you just referenced is obviously heinous and inappropriate, and the American people will see that and hopefully put better institutional guardrails in place to prevent this type of behavior moving forward.
Threats, Fear, and the Future of Free Expression
Members of the Writers Guild of America protest the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel outside ABC headquarters in New York City on September 19, 2025. Photo: Dreamstime.
You have written on self-censorship under repressive systems. Do current patterns in the US—media intimidation, citizen fear, legal retribution—suggest the emergence of similar dynamics of preference falsification?
Assoc. Prof. Rory Truex: “Preference falsification” is a very academic word, and it’s basically the situation where people don’t feel comfortable saying how they really feel about politics. For that reason, they would not speak out, or they might even affirm the regime or the government, even if they don’t really feel it in their heart of hearts. That disconnect between what you say in public and what you feel in private—that’s preference falsification or self-censorship.
We know that in authoritarian systems, this behavior can take hold. I often think of authoritarianism as a chill, where people learn that speaking up about politics and criticizing the leader of the government gets you in trouble. Once that chill takes hold, it can be hard to reverse, and it can spread quite quickly.
What I’ve noticed, though—and I find it very inspiring—is that this is America. We have a long tradition of democracy. We are an unruly people, and we don’t like to be told what to do or think. We’ve seen efforts by the administration to intimidate the American people. You could interpret the National Guard deployments as a form of intimidation.
We’ve seen prominent people—they’ve tried to silence people like Jimmy Kimmel, who’s a very prominent comedian here. It’s backfired. People rallied behind Jimmy Kimmel, they put pressure on Disney, he’s back on the air. I don’t see many comedians on late-night TV self-censoring about what they think about what’s going on. Then you saw the largest protest in American history—normal people out there, and they weren’t wearing masks. They were out there with their friends and family in full view, and I was really inspired by that. There has been an attempt at intimidation. Because we have such a vibrant democracy, our people don’t know that, and they reacted the other way, becoming more vocal and more critical. That’s not to say it will forever be that way.
The other thing I would keep an eye on is violence. There’s an undercurrent, as we talked about, of political violence in the US, where a lot of judges, congresspeople, prominent writers, thinkers are being threatened with violence on a regular basis. We don’t observe it because the violence doesn’t usually come to fruition. But the fact that if you speak out, if you oppose Trump, you might be subjected to violent threats—and your family might have to spend Thanksgiving in a hotel—that is noteworthy, and that is actually the more likely force that would create self-censorship.
But to date, I would say there’s pretty darn vibrant opposition, and that’s been really inspiring, frankly.
Trumpism Without Borders: The Making of a Far-Right Network
The global diffusion of authoritarianism often takes place through ideological and strategic alliances. How is Trumpism embedding itself within a transnational far-right ecosystem—collaborating with illiberal leaders in Europe, Russia, China, and elsewhere?
Assoc. Prof. Rory Truex: This is a big story, and people like Anne Applebaum have written about this network of authoritarian leaders that are becoming more assertive on the global stage. It’s important to remember, Trump is a certain type of proto-autocrat, whatever we want to call him, and he naturally has affinity for people like Viktor Orbán, Jair Bolsonaro, or Nayib Bukele in El Salvador. Even Vladimir Putin—obviously, we know there has been an unusually close relationship between Putin and Trump over the years. That doesn’t extend all the way to Xi Jinping; their relationship is more fraught, for many reasons that I’m happy to talk about. What I’m trying to say is that there is a natural affinity here, and what is interesting is this diffusion of tactics across the backsliding world. We know that there was a close relationship between Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz Party and Project 2025. Orbán has spoken at CPAC in Hungary. It’s noteworthy that these illiberal leaders are operating out in the open with their friendship and affinity. We know that Trump has extended support to Bolsonaro while he faces his own criminal investigations.
These guys are learning from each other, and they’re providing moral support for each other. That’s the shortest way to say it. That matters and that leaves the democratic world—in much of Europe, and I spent time in Taiwan this summer, places like Japan, Korea, Australia—wondering what to do here. Who can we count on? Can we count on the United States in particular? What is the normative commitment of the Trump administration to helping the democratic world, helping traditional allies and partners? So there’s a bigger-picture foreign policy implication there.
Flooding the Zone: Trump’s Most Notable Innovation
Donald Trump appears on Eyewitness News at the ABC Times Square studio in Manhattan, NY, promising: “I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will have Mexico pay for it.” Photo: Mira Agron.
In your view, does Trumpism export an actionable governance model—expanding beyond rhetoric to institutional templates—that could assist foreign autocrats in consolidating power?
Assoc. Prof. Rory Truex: That’s a great question. I think he’s using the model of others. So it’s not the Trump model; it’s a model that your institute studies quite well, which is this sort of populist authoritarian model, where these leaders project masculinity, charisma, strength, talk in the language of “enemies of the people,” fight against some corrupt elite, and speak the language of nationalism and national rejuvenation. That’s a compelling pitch, and it tends to take hold in a lot of different places, in a lot of different historical moments. So, Trump could be understood as just one of many leaders in that mold.
But then there’s also the question of what he has innovated—what he has done differently that could be used elsewhere. So, for some would-be Trump in another country 10 or 15 years from now, what could they learn from him? We’ll see how the story unfolds, but I think one thing we’ve noticed in political science—I run a small podcast called The Civic Forum, and I had Steve Levitsky, Daniel Ziblatt, Sue Stokes, and Adam Sheingate on, who are some of the most significant scholars of authoritarianism and democracy—is the pace at which this is unfolding in the United States.
We are only 10 months into this thing, and the rapid, blitzkrieg nature of what the Trump administration has done is deliberate. This is not an accident. Steve Bannon, among others, has talked about “flooding the zone,” the idea that you overwhelm the opponent by doing so many different things at once that they don’t know how to respond. So, they’ve been quite brazen. If you had asked me a year ago, “Are we gonna see troops in the streets by November?” I’d have said we probably won’t. “Are we going to see them attempt to take prominent comedians off the air?” No, we’re not going to see that. But they’ve been quite brazen, going on all these different fronts at once.
I do think there’s a degree to which it has overwhelmed folks. The opposition and the institutional checks are starting to kick in. What Garry Kasparov has called the “democratic immune system” is starting to fire up, so we’ll see. But, if I were to point to one thing the Trump administration has really been innovative about, it’s just the pace and the boldness of what they’re doing. Maybe it’s because this is not his first time in office. He was in office for four years; he had four years to prepare for this. So, in some sense, it’s part of a longer arc.
Strongmen in Parallel: A Cooler US–China Rivalry?
How do you foresee a second Trump administration shaping US-China relations? Could intensified ideological confrontation—coupled with domestic authoritarian drift—produce a more unstable bilateral equilibrium, or might mutual illiberal tendencies paradoxically enable pragmatic coordination?
Assoc. Prof. Rory Truex: This is actively unfolding. So whatever I say could be irrelevant in the next few days. But, there have been a few notable developments. The first is that the Trump administration hasn’t prioritized the China issue overall like it did in the first go-around. When the Trump administration first came in, there was a concerted effort to shift US-China relations in a very new direction. That direction has largely remained constant, even under the Biden administration, so there’s not the same need to break—or disrupt—US-China relations as there was the first time. Now, they view China as just another thing to be dealt with—another object of this trade war. So that’s one notable development.
The second notable development is that they haven’t really been effective in doing this, and China has pushed back in a much stronger way. The Chinese government learned from the first go-around and figured out how to target the Trump administration politically, whether through soybeans or the more extreme measure of rare earths. So I don’t think the trade war has gone well for Trump, and he’s trying to get out of it now—minimize damage to the economy but still claim a win.
On the other side, it’s not as if Xi Jinping is doing particularly well. He’s getting older; there are rumors about health issues; he’s got a party congress coming up; and the Chinese economy is fine, but it’s not doing particularly well. Reports say youth unemployment is upwards of 20%, and the Communist Party does not like large numbers of angry young people.
So, in some sense, both of these leaders have this nationalistic, strongman style, which means there’s an upper bound to how much they can cooperate—they have to represent their respective nations. But they’re also both in a pinch, and they probably both just want to be done with each other and focus on domestic issues. Both governments are very focused on domestic stability and power consolidation.
So I actually would expect, especially given the last couple of weeks, that US-China relations stabilize a little bit. I don’t think there’s going to be war; I don’t think there’s going to be an invasion of Taiwan. I know many people are worried about that—and I care a lot about Taiwan—but I’m more confident that general stability will hold and the relationship will just muddle through. I don’t think it’s going to be some grand friendship between Trump and Xi. There’s too much skepticism among both national security communities and the people around those leaders. But I’m more confident that things will stabilize and we won’t see that level of global conflict.
How Far Will Democratic Erosion Go?
National Guard troops on standby during a downtown protest against expanded ICE operations and in support of immigrant rights in Los Angeles, US on June 8, 2025. Photo: Dreamstime.
Looking ahead, what scenarios do you see for US political institutions? Are we observing a temporary democratic recession, a stable competitive-authoritarian equilibrium, or a longer-term path toward democratic disintegration? What factors could reverse the current trajectory?
Assoc. Prof. Rory Truex: The answer is we don’t know yet. We don’t know how this story will unfold. It’s clear that we’re in the middle stages of democratic backsliding or erosion, and the question is: how deep does that go, and how long does it last? That will depend on events; it will depend on the strength of the opposition. The Democrats had a good week. They got multiple electoral results they wanted, including governorships in New Jersey and Virginia.
So, it will depend, and a lot rides on the upcoming midterms—whether those go off without a hitch, and whether the Democrats are able to regain a bit of footing in Congress. And then, of course, there’s a presidential election two years later. So, we will see.
In general, it’s quite difficult to heal in this type of setting. Some people might think, if Trump leaves power, it’s all over. No, not really. You have a political party that has embraced a fundamentally authoritarian figure; you have large numbers of people who deny the legitimacy of the 2020 election at the mass level and among Republican politicians. And they’ve learned a governance style and practice that’s going to be hard to unwind. We know that democracies rely on civility, forbearance, respecting the other side—how do we come back from this?
So, my hope—and maybe we can end on an optimistic note—is that this moment teaches us something about the issues with our system: the level of corruption, the influence of money in politics, the problems of polarization, the toxicity in our discourse. And that there’s a healing in American society, and by extension in our political system, that unfolds over the next decade. Maybe that will be what the next decade holds—this kind of rejuvenation—and that will require some political reform.
I will say, people are more engaged in politics than they’ve ever been right now, at least among the centrist and progressive side. It has re-energized our civil society. You could argue that that had been in decline, and people were becoming more and more atomized because of social media. But people care about politics again and are doing things. They’re protesting, they’re voting, they’re getting more involved—and that’s a good sign.
So, we have a long road back to being a fully functional, healthy democracy. I hope it’s a short road—but we don’t quite know yet.
Election Results Show Growing Backlash Against Trumpism
And one last question, Professor Rory Truex: what does the election of Mamdani, together with the election results in New Jersey, Virginia, and California, tell us about the trajectory of Trumpist policies?
Assoc. Prof. Rory Truex: It’s definitely a rebuke for Trump, and the margins of victory in all of these places—especially New Jersey and Virginia are much higher than people expected. And then, of course, Mamdani winning. New York politics are different than the rest of the country. But it’s definitely a sign that there’s real dissatisfaction with Trump and the Trump policy agenda.
Then the question is, among the Republican Party establishment—congresspeople running for re-election—at what point will they begin to try to distance themselves from Trump? Frankly, that’s what we need. We need the Republican Party to come back to its senses. We need people to begin to check Trump. Congress is not really checking Trump. The Republicans in Congress are not a meaningful check on his power, but if they realize that their electoral fates are getting worse and worse because Trump is so incompetent and corrupt and authoritarian, maybe they will turn.
People are already basically going to be campaigning in the next few months. The elections are coming up in a year, and so that means the electoral cycle is already starting to begin. So we’ll see. The last three weeks have been a shift in momentum back toward the opposition, and that’s been good. My guess is the pendulum will swing back; we’ll see more counter-moves from the Trump administration, but the economic costs are mounting. The pain that is being inflicted by this administration, and the cruelty being inflicted by this administration, is really front and center.
If you’re a Hispanic voter—these voters swung toward Trump in the last election—and then we’ve seen American citizens of Hispanic descent detained by ICE. We’ve seen communities destroyed by ICE. So that’s just one example, but the kind of cruelty inflicted by the Trump administration is becoming harder and harder to deny. And I do have confidence that the majority of the American people understand that and don’t want to live this way, and so hopefully we’ll see some swing back.
In an in-depth interview with the ECPS, Professor Sarah de Lange of Leiden University cautions that “D66’s victory in Dutch elections cannot be presented as a victory over populism.” While the liberal centrist D66 led by Rob Jetten revitalized the political center, Professor de Lange stresses that “the total size of the radical right-wing bloc has not diminished—it’s just more fragmented.” She argues that Dutch politics is shaped less by populism than by nativism, which has “seeped so much into the mainstream.” Despite the PVV’s exclusion from government, Professor de Lange warns that illiberalism remains a significant threat, while the defense of liberal democracy has only recently become “more salient for mainstream parties and more visible to citizens.”
In a wide-ranging interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Sarah de Lange, Professor of Dutch Politics at Leiden University’s Institute for Political Science, offers a sharp and nuanced interpretation of the 2024 Dutch elections, warning that “D66’s victory in Dutch elections cannot be presented as a victory over populism.” While the liberal centrist D66 emerged as the largest party, Professor de Lange argues that this outcome reflects both a revival of the political center and the continuing normalization of populist discourse within Dutch democracy.
According to Professor de Lange, the election results underscore a complex duality: “We can conclude that both things are happening at the same time.” Although centrist and Christian Democratic parties gained ground, the radical right bloc remains as strong as before—only more fragmented. This persistence, she notes, illustrates not the decline of populism but its adaptation: “The total size of the radical right-wing bloc has not diminished; it’s as strong as it was in the 2023 elections—it’s just more fragmented.”
Professor de Lange cautions against the view that the PVV’s losses signal a populist retreat. Instead, she interprets them through “traditional political science theories about governing and negative incumbency effects.” Geert Wilders’ participation in government, she explains, produced electoral backlash, but his influence on mainstream parties remains unmistakable—particularly regarding migration and national identity, now central themes even for the conservative-liberal VVD. “The VVD moved so close to the PVV in the campaign that it even supported some proposals by the radical right that had anti-constitutional implications,” she observes, underlining how populist narratives have reshaped the Dutch mainstream.
What truly defines this political transformation, Professor de Lange insists, is not merely populism but nativism. “It is this nativism that has seeped so much into the mainstream, rather than the populism,” she explains, pointing to the xenophobic nationalism that has become a structural feature of Dutch political discourse.
Reflecting on the broader European context, Professor de Lange rejects the notion that populism has been “domesticated.” Despite Wilders’ exclusion from coalition talks, she warns that illiberalism remains deeply entrenched. “There is still clearly a threat of illiberalism,” she notes, citing violent demonstrations and political intimidation during the campaign. Yet, she also detects a countermovement: “Defending liberal democracy and the rule of law has become more salient for mainstream parties… making citizens more aware of how vulnerable liberal democracy actually is.”
Ultimately, Professor de Lange’s analysis situates the Dutch case within the wider European struggle between liberal resilience and populist endurance, emphasizing that the current equilibrium represents neither populism’s decline nor liberalism’s triumph—but rather, a tense coexistence shaping the future of democratic politics in Europe.
Sarah de Lange is a Professor of Dutch Politics at Leiden University’s Institute for Political Science.
Here is the edited transcript of our interview with Professor Sarah de Lange, slightly revised for clarity and flow.
The Radical Right-Wing Bloc Has Not Diminished—Only Fragmented
Professor Sarah de Lange, thank you very much for joining our interview series. Let me start right away with the first question: The October 29 Dutch elections resulted in a striking balance between D66’s liberal centrism and Wilders’ populist radical right. From a comparative perspective, how should we interpret this outcome—does it mark a recalibration of Dutch democracy or the normalization of populism within it?
Professor Sarah de Lange: I think we can conclude that both things are happening at the same time. On the one hand, we’ve seen in the Dutch elections a revival of the center. Not only has the social-liberal D66 gained a lot of seats, but so have the Christian Democrats, and the two parties will be needed for any coalition government that will be formed. At the same time, we also see that Geert Wilders’ PVV has lost seats due to its government participation, but it has lost those seats to other radical right-wing populist competitors, namely JA21 and Thierry Baudet’s Forum for Democracy. So, the total size of the radical right-wing bloc has not diminished; it’s as strong as it was in the 2023 elections—just more fragmented.
Do you view the PVV’s losses as evidence of a populist retreat, or rather as a transformation of its discourse into the mainstream—particularly given the centrist parties’ increasing emphasis on migration and national identity?
Professor Sarah de Lange: The loss of the PVV should really be seen from the perspective of traditional political science theories about governing and negative incumbency effects. Geert Wilders’ PVV governed together with three other parties in the cabinet, and all four parties have lost to some extent in these elections. The loss of the PVV was significant, but perhaps not as large as one would expect for a party that participated in government. There’s a saying in politics that “the breaker pays,” and in this case, Geert Wilders did indeed pay—he did lose voters—but most of those he lost were voters who had joined his party only in 2023, when the VVD opened the door to the PVV.
Many previous non-voters turned out to support the PVV, given that there was finally a chance that the party would govern. So, it’s the newest voters of the PVV who have left again. But interestingly, although some of them came from the mainstream in 2023, few have returned to the mainstream in these elections. Some have—for example, to the conservative-liberal VVD—but in relatively small numbers, which explains why the radical right populist bloc is as strong as it was in 2023.
There’s also a second way in which Geert Wilders’ PVV has had a significant impact on these elections. All mainstream parties, and especially the conservative-liberal VVD, have taken up migration as the core theme of their campaigns and have advocated for a clear reduction in immigration, meaning stricter immigration regulations.
That has especially been the case for the conservative-liberal VVD of former Prime Minister Mark Rutte, now NATO Secretary General. The party moved so close to the PVV during the campaign that it even supported some proposals by the radical right with anti-constitutional implications. For example, Forum for Democracy, a smaller radical right-wing populist party, proposed during the campaign in Parliament that there should be a motion to designate Antifa as a terrorist organization—very much inspired, of course, by Donald Trump’s proposal to do the same. Even though Dutch legislation is very clear on this point—namely that it is up to the judiciary to designate organizations as terrorist organizations and not to Parliament—the conservative-liberal VVD nevertheless supported this proposal.
So, in that way too, the influence of radical right-wing populist parties in the Netherlands remains significant. What I’ve seen in much of the international press is that the victory of D66 has been presented as a victory over populism, but I certainly do not think it should be interpreted that way.
Nativism, Not Populism, Defines the Radical Right in the Netherlands
Photo: Dreamstime.
To what extent does the Dutch experience illustrate the idea of a “stabilized populism,” where populist rhetoric persists even as its organizational strength fluctuates?
Professor Sarah de Lange: It’s a clear case where we see a potential for the populist radical right that cannot be easily accommodated by the mainstream parties, in the sense that it’s very difficult for mainstream parties to win back voters who, at some point, have turned to the radical right. But I would also highlight that we tend to discuss this very much in terms of populism, while what has really been key to the transformation of Dutch politics—more than populism—is nativism.
What truly defines Geert Wilders’ political platform, as well as those of other radical right parties in the Netherlands, is their nativism, their xenophobic nationalism, and their othering of groups perceived as non-native—which, in the Dutch context, for the PVV, refers mostly to Muslims but more broadly includes anyone with a migration background, even extending to the third generation now living in the Netherlands.
It is this nativism that has seeped so deeply into the mainstream, rather than the populism. In fact, in this particular campaign, populism was not as pronounced in some of the radical right parties. Take, for example, JA21, which picked up a significant number of former PVV voters and could be involved in the coalition negotiations. The party remained clearly nativist in the campaign but was far less outspokenly populist, as a way to be more acceptable as a coalition partner—a serious partner—to mainstream parties.
Populism in Europe Has Not Been Domesticated or Contained
Looking beyond the Netherlands, what do these results reveal about the broader European and global trajectory of populism? Are we witnessing its institutional domestication or the emergence of a new post-populist equilibrium?
Professor Sarah de Lange: What we’re seeing is not its domestication. What was also very clear, already from the start of the campaign, was that Geert Wilders would not be acceptable as a coalition partner to mainstream parties for the next government. Some Dutch mainstream parties have said they don’t want to work with him on principle, because his program contains proposals that are not in line with freedom of religion and that conflict with the rule of law.
Other parties don’t want to work with him again because they don’t find him a trustworthy coalition partner, as he has now toppled two Dutch governments—the last one from which he withdrew, as well as the minority government that ruled the Netherlands from 2010 to 2012 with PVV support. It was therefore very clear to him that he would not be included in the government coalition again, and he immediately reverted to his strong populist and nativist rhetoric. Any moderation that existed during the coalition government—and there was very little of it—disappeared as soon as the coalition collapsed. So, certainly no domestication.
I also don’t necessarily think that we’re in a post-populist age. As I indicated, the radical right in the Netherlands remains as strong as ever, and what was particularly notable in the first survey data from the election is that the group of voters considering support for one of the radical right parties in the Netherlands has actually grown. The potential for the radical right to expand even further in future elections is therefore certainly there.
Wilders’ Personal Control Over the PVV Is Both His Strength and His Weakness
Election posters near the Binnenhof featuring Geert Wilders of the PVV in the foreground, The Hague, the Netherlands, October 12, 2025. Photo: Dreamstime.
Building on your research on party agency and leadership, how do you assess the contrasting political performances of Rob Jetten and Geert Wilders—one mobilizing optimism and inclusivity, the other polarization and grievance?
Professor Sarah de Lange: These are two very different parties, of course, in terms of ideology but also in terms of party organization, and this is a very important part of the story for the Netherlands—one that sets it apart from other countries in Western Europe when it comes to the radical right.
Geert Wilders’ PVV joined the government in 2024, having had no significant experience with governing at the local or regional level. Why is that the case? For two reasons. First of all, Geert Wilders’ party does not have a traditional membership base. It is organized exclusively around the figure of Geert Wilders, who runs the party himself. It doesn’t have a membership base or a cadre. Even the representatives in the national parliament are not members of the party.
This means, first, that it is very difficult for him to participate in many municipal elections. He only participates in a select number of municipal elections, so there is very little opportunity for him to gain experience there. Secondly, it also means that people within the party have no executive experience—no experience with heavy management functions, etc.—and that there is no support staff within the party to assist those who need to take up government responsibility.
It was very evident in the cabinet that the PVV ministers, in particular, performed quite poorly on average. They didn’t know what their role was as ministers or junior ministers, how to deal with the bureaucracy, or how to bring legislation to a successful conclusion—meaning legislation that would be accepted by parliamentary parties and would actually be feasible, without including any anti-constitutional elements. So overall, quite poor performance.
That contributed to the early collapse of the government, because Geert Wilders saw that voters noticed this, and it is plausible that he withdrew from the government to avoid further electoral losses that might occur if voters became even more aware of how weak his pool of ministers was.
This really sets the Netherlands apart from other countries where the radical right can actually govern quite successfully because they have a trained cadre and local or regional experience. In that respect, if we compare the Netherlands to Italy, it is a completely different case.
Jetten’s Positive Campaign Reclaimed Hope and Unity
Rob Jetten attends the New Year’s Reception hosted by the King of the Netherlands in Amsterdam on January 3, 2025. Photo: Robert van T. Hoenderdaal.
Jetten’s campaign drew on emotionally resonant, populist-style messaging—“het kan wél” (“yes, we can”)—without embracing populist antagonism. Does this signal that centrist liberalism is learning to compete in the emotional arena that populists once dominated?
Professor Sarah de Lange: Yes, this is a very interesting development that we’ve seen. D66 ran a campaign that was very positive in tone, speaking of hope and unity, and even went so far as to reclaim the Dutch flag as a symbol—quite surprising for a party that, in its stances, is extremely cosmopolitan and progressive, very pro-European Union, for example. It seems that this approach worked, as it drew voters from other left-wing, progressive, and centrist parties. One explanation for this is that research shows having a genuinely positive atmosphere around a party can be beneficial in electoral campaigns.
Has Wilders’ long-standing personalistic leadership become both a strategic advantage and a constraint—particularly in terms of coalition-building and sustaining voter trust?
Professor Sarah de Lange: Yes, as I already explained, it’s certainly a disadvantage in one sense, as it makes it very difficult for the party to be ready for government—to have qualified and experienced people who can take up ministerial and junior ministerial positions. However, at the same time, it also offers him an advantage, in that he has full control over his members of parliament. So even though his parliamentary group grew significantly, since he controls which parliamentarians can speak to the media and on what topics, and in which debates they participate and in which they don’t, his parliamentary group didn’t experience any major scandals despite this massive growth in its size. Of course, one important element made this possible: Geert Wilders was not an acceptable prime minister to the parties with which his PVV governed, and he was therefore forced to stay in parliament as leader of the parliamentary group. Had that not been the case, it would have been much more difficult for him to control his members of parliament.
Current Exclusion of Wilders Is Pragmatic, not a Principled Cordon Sanitaire
In“New Alliances,” you analyze why mainstream parties sometimes collaborate with the populist radical right. Given the refusal of other parties to govern with Wilders, do current coalition negotiations represent a reinvigorated ‘cordon sanitaire’ or a temporary tactical alignment?
Professor Sarah de Lange: This is a very good question, because my research in the past showed that once radical right parties are large enough to help mainstream right parties achieve a majority, those mainstream parties are often inclined to govern with them, even if they might have said in advance that they were not interested or thought the radical right was too extreme to govern with.
What we’re seeing now in some countries—and that’s not only in the Netherlands but also, for example, in Austria—is that, on the basis of previous coalition experiences with the radical right, the picture has become more complex. There are a number of mainstream right parties that have had such bad experiences governing with the radical right that they are no longer willing to do so.
However, I think this is very different from a cordon sanitaire, because a cordon sanitaire is motivated by a principled rejection of the radical right on the basis of its stances—because the manifestos of the radical right contain nativism and proposals that are anti-constitutional or in conflict with the rule of law. What we see here, in both the Austrian and Dutch cases, is that the reluctance is based more on the fact that previous experiences have shown that radical right parties are unreliable partners. And of course, that is a more pragmatic argument, which can also be abandoned—for example, if the radical right gets a new leader who is believed to be more trustworthy, or if the mainstream right changes leadership and feels differently about cooperating with the radical right.
So, in that sense, we should really keep these pragmatic reasons separate from the more principled exclusion represented by a cordon sanitaire.
Exclusion Strengthens Wilders’ Anti-Elite Narrative Among Supporters
Election posters of all Dutch political parties displayed at the Binnenhof in The Hague, the Netherlands, in March 2017. Photo: Dreamstime.
What are the long-term risks and benefits of excluding the PVV from coalition governance? Could such exclusion paradoxically reinforce its anti-establishment narrative, as observed in other European contexts?
Professor Sarah de Lange: This is a very valid question. Of course, the advantage is that there will be no negotiations about plans that are anti-constitutional. If we look at the previous cabinet, of which the PVV was part, that cabinet tried to declare an asylum crisis in order to introduce emergency legislation that would partially circumvent Parliament. That would have been a clear sign of democratic backsliding if it had happened. Luckily, some of the government parties changed their minds at the last minute, and it never came to fruition—but the idea was clearly on the table. Without the radical right in government, there is, of course, far less likelihood of these kinds of plans being implemented.
The downside, however, is equally clear. Excluding the PVV makes the rhetoric of the radical right more believable—namely, the idea that there is an elite governing the country that is out of touch with what citizens want because it excludes the radical right, which also represents a part of the population. In the Netherlands, this risk is particularly real, because the only four-party coalition capable of securing a majority would be a very broad ideological alliance, ranging from the Green Labour Party to the social-liberal D66, the Christian Democratic CDA, and the conservative-liberal VVD. Such a coalition, both on socio-economic issues and on matters like immigration, would have very different positions and would need to compromise extensively—only reinforcing the PVV’s narrative that it alone stands outside an isolated political elite.
The Netherlands Could Learn from Scandinavia’s Clear Left–Right Blocs
How might a centrist, multi-party coalition led by D66 influence the structure of competition in Dutch politics? Could it serve as a model for containing populist disruption in fragmented systems elsewhere?
Professor Sarah de Lange: I don’t think it’s a model to be emulated; it’s a model that exists only because the Dutch parliament is so fragmented. The largest parties are very small— even D66, which became the largest party in the elections, holds less than 20% of the votes and seats. The same applies to the other parties likely to join the coalition, each of which has around 15% of the vote. This makes the structure of the Dutch party system highly untenable in the long term, as it requires four- or five-party coalitions, which would have been necessary even if the PVV had not been excluded. Such coalitions are very likely to be unstable, leading to short-lived governments and limited policy output.
So, I think it’s actually the other way around. Looking across Western Europe, the Netherlands could benefit greatly from having a structure more like a Scandinavian party system, with a clear left-wing and right-wing bloc, rather than the highly fragmented system it currently has to manage.
Your work on party–civil society linkages shows that strong organizational ties stabilize voter support. Does D66’s success suggest that centrist parties can rebuild civic connections that were eroded by decades of depoliticization? Conversely, how does the PVV sustain long-term voter loyalty despite its limited organizational infrastructure and weak civic embedding?
Professor Sarah de Lange: Let’s start by observing that in the Netherlands, political parties generally have weak linkages to civil society organizations, and this partly explains why Dutch elections are so extremely volatile—they are among the most volatile in Europe. What’s interesting is that the two largest parties in the elections, D66 and the PVV, are both known for lacking many of these traditional ties. This indicates that while they may be very successful in a given election, they could just as easily lose that support again. This applies especially to D66, which has always been a party marked by very high highs but also very deep lows. It has an extremely volatile electorate that also considers many other left- and right-wing progressive parties at election time.
The PVV is slightly different. It has no ties to civil society organizations at all, yet it has a remarkably loyal electorate that remains faithful to the party for several reasons. First, PVV voters genuinely believe that Wilders is the only person who can change immigration policy in the way they want. Election surveys show that 90% of PVV voters view immigration as the biggest social challenge the Netherlands faces, and they see Geert Wilders as the most competent and trustworthy politician to act on that issue. Second, these voters tend to have relatively high levels of political distrust, which makes them unlikely to return from the PVV to mainstream parties.
PVV Support Is Strongest Outside the Cosmopolitan Randstad Region
Women cycle through the historic Kerkebuurt (Church District) in Soest, Netherlands, known for its old farms and streets such as Eemstraat. Photo: Inge Hogenbijl.
How much of the PVV’s enduring appeal still stems from regional and class-based resentment, and how much from broader cultural anxieties related to immigration and demographic change?
Professor Sarah de Lange: I think both are connected. We see that Geert Wilders’ PVV is more successful outside the big cosmopolitan cities in the Randstad—the central area enclosed by major cities such as Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Utrecht. The PVV performs better beyond that region. This is partly due to a sense of regional resentment—the perception that people in areas where the PVV is strong are not being taken seriously by the political, economic, and cultural center of the Netherlands; that they are not adequately represented; and that there is little respect for their norms, values, and traditions.
These feelings are also partly rooted in real developments in these regions, such as economic decline, the out-migration of young citizens, and the erosion of public and private services. So, even though there may not be many migrants in these areas, these socio-economic developments feed into anti-immigrant sentiment—not least because Wilders consistently draws links between immigration and other social problems.
Jetten to Become the Netherlands’ First Openly Gay Prime Minister
In your co-edited volume“Gender and Populist Radical-Right Politics,” you highlight the gendered dimensions of populist leadership. How do you interpret the symbolic contrast between Wilders’ assertive, masculine populism and Jetten’s inclusive liberal masculinity?
Professor Sarah de Lange: That’s a very interesting question, because the Netherlands will, with Rob Jetten, have its first openly gay prime minister, who is about to marry his male partner. He has always been very open about this, and it was an important element in the campaign, where he frequently spoke about his upcoming wedding. This stands in stark contrast to the traditional masculinity promoted by Wilders, and even more so by Forum for Democracy’s Thierry Baudet.
Interestingly, in terms of voter base, we see that the PVV—now that it has become such a large party—is actually quite representative of the Dutch population as a whole, including in terms of gender. We don’t see a strong gender gap among its voters, unlike with the more extreme Forum for Democracy led by Baudet. It therefore seems that female voters are not put off by Wilders’ masculine leadership style, nor by a party program that is not particularly outspoken on gender issues.
LGBTQ Acceptance Is Central to the Dutch National Self-Image
Does the normalization of openly gay political leadership in the Netherlands challenge the gendered and heteronormative foundations of populist radical-right discourse, or does it reflect a uniquely Dutch liberal exceptionalism?
Professor Sarah de Lange: This is quite an interesting question. During the campaign, it was clear that Geert Wilders could not realistically attack Jetten on the basis of his sexuality or the fact that he is marrying his male partner. This is because a core part of the Dutch national self-image is its perceived tolerance toward the LGBTQ community.
That does not mean, however, that PVV supporters share this perspective. They have very mixed attitudes when it comes to LGBTQ issues. Of course, since same-sex marriage has been legal for a long time, there is little resistance to it. But when questions turn to more contemporary sexuality issues—such as trans rights or stances on non-binarity—you can see that these voters tend to hold a very heteronormative outlook.
Radical Right Strength Shows Illiberalism Remains a Persistent Threat
Anti-Islam demonstration in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, on January 20, 2017. Protesters carry signs opposing “Islamization.” Photo: Jan Kranendonk.
And finally, Professor de Lange, does the Dutch election signal that liberal democracies are learning to integrate populist affect without embracing its illiberal impulses—or are we entering a phase of hybrid politics where the emotional grammar of populism becomes a permanent feature of democratic life?
Professor Sarah de Lange: The elections show that, because the radical right remains so strong, illiberalism is still present—and it was very visible in the campaign as well. There were incidents involving extreme-right demonstrations that turned violent, and numerous cases where politicians were threatened by political opponents or ordinary citizens with different political opinions. So, in that sense, there is still clearly a threat of illiberalism.
At the same time, this particular campaign also demonstrated that defending liberalism—or liberal democracy, and the rule of law has become more salient for mainstream parties, especially among more progressive forces. The issue is now more openly discussed, making citizens more aware of how vulnerable liberal democracy actually is, and that it is something that must be safeguarded rather than taken for granted.
In an in-depth interview with the ECPS, Dr. Simon P. Otjes, Assistant Professor of Dutch Politics at Leiden University, argues that the 2025 Dutch elections signaled not the decline but the reconfiguration of populism. “What was previously very strongly concentrated on the PVV has now dissipated into three different parties, representing three different ways of doing politics,” he notes. While JA21 seeks governmental influence and FvD appeals to conspiratorial electorates, the overall radical-right bloc remains stable. Dr. Otjes warns that a broad centrist coalition could “reproduce the very disaffection it seeks to contain,” fueling further populist resurgence. Far from a post-populist era, he concludes, “we’re still very much inside this populist moment.”
In a wide-ranging interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Dr. Simon Otjes, Assistant Professor of Dutch Politics at Leiden University, offers a penetrating analysis of the evolving dynamics of populism, centrism, and democratic governance in the Netherlands and Europe. His reflections, delivered in the aftermath of the 2025 Dutch elections on October 29, illuminate the cyclical nature of populist mobilization and the institutional resilience of liberal democracy in an era of fragmentation and recalibration.
For Dr. Otjes, the Dutch political landscape exemplifies a persistent alternation between “almost technocratic, centrist governments… being interrupted by brief periods of radical right-wing governments,” a pattern visible over the past three decades. He observes that while populist radical-right parties such as PVV, JA21, and FvD have become structurally entrenched, their participation in government remains precarious and short-lived. “Populists enter government, those governments prove to be unstable, and then there’s a response from the center,” he notes, emphasizing that this oscillation does not represent a post-populist phase but rather “an enduring populist moment.”
The 2025 elections, in Dr. Otjes’s view, marked not the decline but the reconfiguration of populism. “What was previously very strongly concentrated on the PVV has now dissipated into three different parties, representing three different ways of doing politics,” he explains. While JA21 seeks policy influence within coalition frameworks, FvD appeals to conspiratorial electorates “in news environments very different from the mainstream media.” This diversification, Dr. Otjes warns, “is the key explanation of why [the radical right] remains so stable—their ability to attract very different electorates by diversifying their offerings.”
At the same time, Dr. Otjes cautions that a centrist grand coalition—combining GroenLinks–PvdA, D66, VVD, and CDA—could inadvertently deepen democratic alienation. Such an arrangement, he argues, would lead to “quite centrist compromises that lack the change these parties promised,” thereby driving dissatisfied voters back to the populist right. While this centrist stability may project pragmatism, it risks “reproducing the very disaffection it seeks to contain.”
On the European front, Dr. Otjes underscores that despite D66’s pro-European rhetoric under Rob Jetten, Dutch European policy is unlikely to shift dramatically. “The Netherlands won’t necessarily be a particularly progressive government on this issue,” he remarks, given the enduring influence of conservative fiscal and migration stances within the coalition.
Ultimately, Dr. Otjes’s analysis situates the Netherlands within a broader European pattern: an ongoing alternation between pragmatic centrism and reactive populism, rather than a linear progression beyond it. In his words, “We’re still very much inside this populist moment.”
Here is the edited transcript of our interview with Dr. Simon P. Otjes, slightly revised for clarity and flow.
Dutch Populism Has Stabilized, Not Declined
Geert Wilders (PVV) during an interview at the Plenary Debate in the Tweede Kamer on June 4, 2024, in The Hague, Netherlands. Photo: Orange Pictures.
Professor Simon Otjes, thank you very much for joining our interview series. Let me start right away with the first question: The October 29 elections produced a near tie between D66 and the PVV—symbolizing not a populist collapse, but a recalibration of its appeal. From your perspective, does this outcome signify a stabilization of populism within an institutionalized party system, or rather its transformation into a normalized mode of political contestation across Europe?
Dr. Simon Otjes: What I think is very important to note about the election results is that although the PVV lost more than 10 seats, the other populist parties that we have in the Netherlands—we have two other populist radical right-wing parties in the Dutch parliament—both won. So, if you look at the combined share of seats for the populist parties, they have really stabilized. In the previous elections, the votes were heavily concentrated on one party, the PVV, but now they are more evenly spread among the PVV, the radical right-wing populist JA21—which in some respects is more right-wing on economic issues but more moderate in its use of anti-Islamic and anti-elite rhetoric—and Forum for Democracy, a party that, according to specialists, is an extreme-right party bordering on anti-democratic. Some of its members have been sanctioned for inciting violence within parliament, and others have recently been found to be involved in plots to assassinate politicians. In that sense, we can see overall stabilization, but with movements both toward more moderate versions of the radical right and toward more extreme ones.
You have described the Dutch system as one of “fragmented pluralism.” How does this structural fragmentation affect both the endurance and the moderation of populist actors such as the PVV and JA21? Could the Dutch case exemplify how fragmentation simultaneously limits and sustains populist influence?
Dr. Simon Otjes: In the Netherlands, we had a government with populist parties between 2024 and 2025, which fell because of internal instability. But that doesn’t mean populism won’t play a role in the new government formation. There are two possible coalitions that people are discussing. One would be a coalition of all the parties in the center, from the Green Left Labour Party on the center-left to the VVD on the center-right. The other alternative would be what the Liberal Party calls a center-right government, which would involve Jason Sester, a center-left party, the CDA, a center-right party, the VVD, also a center-right party, and then JA21, the more moderate radical right-wing populist party in the Netherlands.
That option is a serious contender—it’s a question of whether they can secure 75 or 76 seats. It’s the first preference of the Liberal Party, their favored option. And that means that even though Rob Jetten proudly declared on election night that he had beaten Geert Wilders and that this was the end of the Wilders era, in reality, there is a strong chance that another radical right-wing populist party will enter government, even governing alongside the social liberals who so proudly claimed to have defeated the populists on election night.
Jetten’s Success Was Built on Progressive Patriotism, Not Populism
Rob Jetten attends the New Year’s Reception hosted by the King of the Netherlands in Amsterdam on January 3, 2025. Photo: Robert van’t Hoenderdaal.
As mainstream parties increasingly adopt affective, emotionally resonant campaign styles—such as Rob Jetten’s “positive populism”—do we witness the diffusion of populist communication logics into liberal centrism, and what might this imply for the future boundaries of populism as a concept?
Dr. Simon Otjes: I would note that I don’t think Jetten is a populist, nor did he really operate with populist rhetoric. What was striking was that he adopted a “yes-we-can” kind of orientation from the Obama campaign, which still resonates deeply with a segment of Dutch voters. But what he did do was position his party much more conservatively on the division between cosmopolitans and nationalists, taking a far more centrist stance compared to his party previously—a change that was more rhetorical than policy-based.
You could see him speaking out against asylum seekers who break the law, while also positioning himself in debates between the far left and the far right on this issue. On election night, the room celebrating his success was filled with little Dutch flags. So, you can see that the system felt the need to adopt a more nativist tone—a less extremely cosmopolitan tone—in its positioning. It’s not necessarily nativist, but more akin to a kind of progressive patriotism.
That was instrumental in how they won, because they were able to appeal to center-right voters by no longer positioning Jetten’s party as a very extreme representative of the cosmopolitan side, but rather as a party that’s centrist on this dimension. This shows that the discussion about immigration and the importance of cultural dimensions in the Netherlands have not been swept away by the defeat of the populists. In fact, the only way the social liberals were really able to win the elections was by co-opting part of the flag-waving and the more anti-immigration rhetoric, particularly when it comes to asylum seekers.
Excluding the PVV Risks Deepening Democratic Dissatisfaction
In your work on government alternation and satisfaction with democracy, you argue that meaningful alternation underpins democratic legitimacy. Given the repeated exclusion of the PVV and its allies from governing coalitions, could this exclusionary dynamic paradoxically reinforce perceptions of elite closure and deepen democratic alienation?
Dr. Simon Otjes: When it comes to the voters of the PVV, they’ve been able to access government only twice in the last 20 years—that is, between 2010 and 2012, when the PVV tolerated a center-right government, and between 2024 and 2025, when they were part of a radical government. In that sense, these voters are largely excluded from government participation, and we know that this is not good for their satisfaction with democracy.
We also know that this means the PVV increasingly attracts people who are dissatisfied with how democracy functions, which, from the perspective of the future of democracy, is seen by political scientists as a very important variable in sustaining legitimacy.
On the other hand, we saw that when they governed, they didn’t necessarily undermine institutions like the courts, but they did undermine coalition cooperation. So, in that sense, it is a very difficult bargain. On one side, co-optation of the radical right into government is a way to signal to their voters that their choice matters, but on the other, their involvement in government also risks undermining democratic principles.
A Grand Centrist Coalition Could Drive Frustrated Voters Back to the Radical Right
Relatedly, your research on coalition governance and “frustrated majorities” suggests that complex multiparty arrangements can generate their own legitimacy deficits. Might a centrist, D66-led coalition risk reproducing the very disaffection it seeks to contain, despite its pluralist intentions?
Dr. Simon Otjes: A centrist government—a government that would include GroenLinks–PvdA, D66, the VVD, and the CDA—although on substance they might be able to negotiate very well, because these are all parties with government experience, carries a danger in terms of what it would mean in the long term for where dissatisfied voters can go.
These parties will need to make compromises, and because they’re so broad, those will end up being quite centrist compromises that lack the change these parties promised in their coalition manifestos. In turn, that would mean that voters will grow frustrated, and in the Netherlands, given that the largest opposition party will be the PVV, frustrated voters will likely flock to the PVV.
So, in many ways, a large government of the center might seem promising now—and it’s certainly what D66 wants, because they want both left-wing and right-wing parties in government—but it’s very unattractive in the long term, because dissatisfied voters can only flock toward the radical right under those conditions. Rather, you would want a situation where at least one of the traditional parties of government is in opposition, because that can attract some of the voters dissatisfied with the government.
An Endless Cycle of Centrist Compromise and Populist Backlash
Dick Schoof attends the New Year’s Reception hosted by the King of the Netherlands in Amsterdam on January 3, 2025. Photo: Robert van ’t Hoenderdaal.
Drawing on your findings on anti-elitism and local political space, do the 2025 elections reveal a contest between technocratic centrism—embodied by D66—and localized anti-elitism, expressed through populist and regionalist currents? How do such competing modes of representation reshape the Dutch democratic fabric?
Dr. Simon Otjes: It’s important to note that in the study about localism and populism, we didn’t find—at least at the party manifesto level—that those two were necessarily strongly related. I didn’t find that. So, I want to stay away from a picture where anti-elitism is concentrated in some regions. Rather, what we find is that there is political dissatisfaction both in major cities and in more rural areas. While we do find evidence for specific forms of regionalized dissatisfaction, what seems much more likely now is that general political dissatisfaction played a major role in why voters supported the PVV.
In that sense, I would want to avoid an image where one is more local and one is more national. However, I do agree with the idea that we are seeing two different modes of governance in the Netherlands. One is the centrist governments that end up being quite technocratic, making compromises—quite gray compromises—where all the different colors are mixed together, leaving no clear political expression or policy choices made by the government. These are then alternated by brief periods of radical right-wing populist government.
That would be a good way to describe the Netherlands over the last 30 years: a centrist coalition between 1994 and 2002, followed by a populist moment in 2002 with the LPF (Pim Fortuyn List), which couldn’t govern and fell apart. Then we had different centrist governments until 2010, when the VVD was willing to govern with the PVV in the 2010–2012 minority government, which also collapsed. It was followed by the centrist Liberal–Labour coalition, and then more centrist governments until 2024, when we had the Dick Schoof government.
So, basically, what we have are periods of rather gray, technocratic, centrist government, alternated by radical right participation in 2002, 2010–2012, and 2024–2025—very short periods, because they have so far proven to be unreliable partners. This seems to be the pattern the Netherlands is caught in: an alternation between uninspiring centrist governments and brief bursts of radical right-wing dissatisfaction, which fail to make lasting changes because of their inherent instability.
Voters Shift from PVV to JA21 for Real Policy Impact on Migration
Your research with Green-Pedersen shows how party competition drives issue salience. Have the 2025 elections further diffused the immigration debate across the party spectrum, eroding the PVV’s ownership of the issue? If so, what new issues might sustain populist mobilization going forward?
Dr. Simon Otjes: Although I don’t really have the numbers right now, because students are only going to start coding manifestos for 2025, I don’t think the PVV has lost its issue ownership on migration. Rather, if you asked voters, a large share of them would still say that the PVV has the most credible and promising positions on migration.
Instead, voters shifted to different parties mainly because the PVV was excluded from government, and therefore, voters who wanted to influence government policy could no longer vote for the PVV—it became more of an expressive vote on immigration. That meant that, in particular, JA21, which is much more likely to enter a government coalition than the PVV, was a good alternative for voters who, on one hand, wanted a change in migration policy, and on the other, wanted to have a chance to influence government policy.
So, that is essentially why that party gained support—because of its ability to attract voters dissatisfied with migration policy but still eager to have a real impact on government decisions, something the PVV currently seems unlikely to achieve.
Populism Persists by Adapting to Different Electorates
Election posters near the Binnenhof featuring Geert Wilders of the PVV in the foreground, The Hague, the Netherlands, October 12, 2025. Photo: Dreamstime.
You have observed that populism adapts rather than disappears. Does the simultaneous decline of the PVV and rise of smaller radical-right parties like JA21 and FvD represent ideological splintering, or a strategic diversification ensuring the persistence of the populist bloc?
Dr. Simon Otjes: It would be difficult to really assign a strategy to it, but what we can see is that what was previously very strongly concentrated on the PVV has now dissipated into three different parties, representing three different ways of doing politics. There is JA21, which still has radical right-wing positions, but we can really debate to what extent this party is populist. Does it really use the logic of populism? Does it really appeal to this idea of a united, virtuous population versus a corrupt elite? Rather, these groups want to be part of the government, so they don’t really use this kind of anti-elite rhetoric, but they have very clear anti-immigration stances.
So, that is a party that at least appeals to voters who want to influence government policy. That’s still a large segment. It’s still the second party of the Netherlands, despite their inability to govern. In many ways, that party performed well among voters who were dissatisfied with migration and politics, mobilizing a very traditional radical-right electorate.
And then the third party is FvD, which is much more extreme, as I pointed out at the beginning, and also appeals to a different segment of the electorate—one that has ended up in news environments very different from the mainstream media, where conspiracy theories are much more common. It’s particularly notable and worrying from a democratic perspective that FvD grew this much. They were shunned by traditional media under their previous leader, Thierry Baudet, and then they changed their leadership without changing their manifesto or distancing themselves from, for instance, the MP who was sanctioned for inciting violence. When they changed their leader to a more acceptable face, suddenly the media cordon that Baudet had faced disappeared. That is really worrying. This party has now more than doubled its seat total, despite taking very extreme positions and harboring a membership that seeks to undermine democracy.
So, in that sense, I wouldn’t necessarily talk about strategy here, but I would emphasize that there are different parties on the radical right that appeal to different groups, and that is the key explanation of why they remain so stable—their ability to attract very different electorates by diversifying their offerings.
Religious and Cultural Attitudes No Longer Align in Dutch Politics
In light of your work on religious parties and immigration attitudes, how do you interpret the enduring moral and cultural anxieties that underpin populist narratives in an increasingly secular and urbanized Netherlands?
Dr. Simon Otjes: So, the question is, what is the relationship between religion and these cultural attitudes? And there, I have to be a little bit skeptical, in the sense that in the Netherlands, religious attitudes and cultural attitudes aren’t strongly coherent, and we can also see that in the party landscape. There are three Christian democratic parties currently in Parliament—that is, the SGP, which is a very conservative Protestant party; the CDA, the mainstream Christian democratic party that did quite well in the elections; and the ChristenUnie, a more center-left Christian party, particularly when it comes to environmental and economic issues.
On migration, the SGP isn’t really differentiable from the radical right. They take very clear radical-right positions without being populist—very strongly anti-immigration, anti-Islam, and believing that Christianity is superior to Islam. Then the CDA takes much more centrist positions. They favor measures against migration, particularly citing that the Netherlands can’t really handle that many migrants, without veering into nativist territory, but they are quite conservative when it comes to migration. They, for instance, supported the principles of the far-reaching migration bill that was introduced by the previous government. They voted against it for a few amendments, but not because they disagreed with the principles in it.
And then there’s the ChristenUnie, which is much more progressive on migration. It really is a party of the kind of churches that want to help refugees in this country. So, this diversity shows that in the Netherlands, there isn’t necessarily a strong relationship between migration attitudes and voting for different Christian democratic parties. Rather, Christian democracy shows different shades.
The Netherlands Won’t Necessarily Be a Particularly Progressive Government on EU Issues
In“From Eurorealism to Europhilia,”you trace D66’s evolution toward a more assertive pro-Europeanism. Does Rob Jetten’s victory reflect a genuine societal re-legitimization of the EU in Dutch political discourse, or is it a contingent reaction to populist overreach?
Dr. Simon Otjes: We have to really note here that Jetten didn’t win the election because the population in the Netherlands changed its opinion. Public opinions about migration or about the European Union in the Netherlands are surprisingly stable, and rather, if anything, we can see that Jetten appealed to voters by becoming more centrist on this issue. This traditionally very pro-European party decided to have a big Dutch flag during their party conference, signaling that they wanted to move away from the cosmopolitanism that was associated with them. So, I wouldn’t necessarily see his victory as a change in opinion about the European Union or even about migration. Rather, it’s about a party strategically positioning itself on these issues to appeal to a larger segment of voters.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that Dutch policy on the EU won’t change. We’ve had a very Eurosceptic government—also a government that was really unable to influence European policy because the Prime Minister wasn’t tied to one of the major party families and was an unknown in Brussels. And so, the Netherlands will play a more active role in the European Union.
Depending on how the government formation turns out, it could also play a more positive role, particularly on issues where the Netherlands has been quite conservative, such as budgetary expansion. At the same time, despite D66’s entry into government, it seems very likely that the VVD will also be in government. And a government with the VVD will mean a government that inevitably moves against too large an increase in European budgets or too expansionary policies. They are fighting a rearguard battle against an increasing role for the EU in these matters. So, in that sense, the Netherlands won’t necessarily be a particularly progressive government on this issue.
Your study of Volt highlighted the rise of transnational “Europhile populism.” Could D66’s success, with its emotionally charged yet pro-European message, indicate a broader continental trend toward the hybridization of populism and cosmopolitanism?
Dr. Simon Otjes: I really want to emphasize that both in the study about Volt and in the study about D66, I did not claim that these parties are populist. I wouldn’t necessarily call them populist. They don’t make this differentiation between “the people” and “the elite.” D66 is rather a traditional party of government that was able to mobilize dissatisfaction with the current government, but not necessarily by appealing to broader dissatisfaction with democracy. So, no, I don’t think there’s any basis for calling these parties populist. These parties are—I mean, D66 was quite good at running its campaign and adopted a more patriotic, progressive patriotic message—but there’s nothing about them that makes them populist. The same is true for Volt.
D66’s Appeal Is Governmental, Not Populist
Billboard of D66 featuring Rob Jetten with the slogan Het Kan Wel in Amsterdam, the Netherlands on October 28, 2025. Photo: Robert van ’t Hoenderdaal.
How might the Dutch election reshape the EU’s political equilibrium—particularly in debates over migration, democratic reform, and responses to illiberalism? Is the Netherlands now positioned to play a normative role in defending liberal democratic values within the Union?
Dr. Simon Otjes: We really have to differentiate migration from the debate about liberalism. When it comes to migration, all the parties in Parliament, perhaps with the exception of very small ones, support the European Migration Pact, and that is even seen by the parties of the left, such as D66 and PvdA, as a solution to their migration problem. They really make it a European problem. So, there’s broad support for those kinds of measures, including dealing with refugees in third countries and making deals with third countries—although legal scholars seriously doubt whether those measures comply with refugee conventions. But that’s what they see as a solution to the migration problem.
When it comes to the discussion about illiberalism, the Netherlands doesn’t really play any major role, because the issue is largely shaped by the fact that several countries, particularly in Eastern Europe, are willing to tolerate each other’s illiberalism, and moves against illiberalism within the EU require unanimity. So, in that sense, the change of government in the Netherlands hasn’t really changed anything.
I think the Schoof government might perhaps be a little more accepting of illiberalism than previous governments, but it’s important to note that both NSC and VVD, which are in that government, are parties that favor maintaining the rule of law and supporting actions against illiberalism. So, in that sense, I don’t think a change in government will mean much for these discussions—particularly because this debate really centers on Hungary, Slovakia, and soon also Czechia, and increasingly Poland, which continue to allow an area of illiberalism within the European Union. So, in that sense, I don’t think the change in government will necessarily affect this issue at the EU level.
No Major Democratic Changes Expected
Building on your research with Bedock et al. (2022) on the populist challenge to democracy reform, how do you interpret the PVV’s brief period in power? Has it intensified mainstream reflection on the tension between majoritarian responsiveness and liberal constraint in Dutch democracy?
Dr. Simon Otjes: No, I don’t think that the PVV’s participation in government has really changed views about democracy. What we can see is that the NSC, which was one of the government parties, pushed an agenda of government reform, including changes to the electoral system. The previous government was quite open to the introduction of a referendum in the Netherlands.
The interesting question now is what will happen with those portfolios, particularly because the PVV and the VVD are quite skeptical—especially about freezing the introduction of a referendum. There was quite an ambitious reform agenda that was stalled because the government lasted such a short time, and it really is uncertain what kind of reform agenda they will adopt.
What you can see in the centrist part of Dutch politics is an understanding that democracy needs reform, but there isn’t a clear or united agenda around how to do it. What is notable, particularly about the participation of NSC in the previous government, is that they had a very clear reform agenda, but it is now closely associated with them. So, I don’t expect that the next government will do anything in terms of major changes like electoral reform.
I have sincere doubts about whether the referendum bill that had already progressed to Parliament will move forward—it’s likely to be stalled even longer. So, I don’t think this will lead to any major changes in the way democracy functions in the Netherlands.
Centrist Governments and Radical Right Experiments Will Keep Alternating
Billboard featuring the main candidates in the Dutch elections on June 9, 2010, in Amstelveen, the Netherlands. Photo: Dreamstime.
Across Europe, we observe a convergence between adaptive liberal centrists and fragmented populist right formations. Do you see this dynamic producing a long-term hybridization of democratic politics—where populist affect and centrist rationality coexist as dual pillars of contemporary representation?
Dr. Simon Otjes: This description, where you have an alternation between almost technocratic centrist governments—often including parties from the center-left and the center-right—having to govern together, leading to compromises where you can’t really see the course of the party anymore, being interrupted by brief periods of radical right-wing governments because the radical right has become governable, is quite accurate. That is a pattern we can now see, at least for the last 30 years. And that seems—I can see no basis for another path than that. You would continually have these centrist governments that try to deal with the issues, but because of their breadth inside the coalition, aren’t really able to deliver very clear either left- or right-wing policy solutions, and then being interrupted by different forms of government with the radical right. We saw the government with the LPF in 2002, the tolerated government in 2010, and now this whole experiment, and we’ll just continue to have this alternation between these two options.
The Netherlands Remains in an Enduring Populist Cycle
And finally, Professor Otjes, when viewed globally—from Trump’s America to Milei’s Argentina and Meloni’s Italy—do the Dutch elections signify the emergence of a post-populist phase characterized by ideological diffusion and strategic normalization, or do they mark merely another turn in populism’s enduring cycle of reinvention?
Dr. Simon Otjes: I don’t think we can talk about a post-populist phase. What we see here fits a pattern that we’ve observed before: populists enter government, those governments prove to be unstable, and then there’s a response from the center, which seeks to govern together again. They do that for a while until, once more, the populists become so large that they can’t be ignored. That’s the pattern I’m seeing, so I wouldn’t call this a post-populist phase—we’re still very much inside this populist moment.
When it comes to diffusion, I really don’t think that populism has spread very strongly among mainstream parties. You could argue that mainstream parties have moved to the center, or sometimes to more conservative positions—as with the VVD on migration. So, we can clearly see that populism, and particularly the radicalizing influence of populist parties, is shaping how other parties make policy.
But that doesn’t mean we’re now in a post-populist phase. Rather, we’ll continue to see this alternation—radical right-supported governments briefly interrupting a more general pattern in which the parties at the center have to govern together.
ECPS Staff. (2025). “Virtual Workshop Series — Session 5: Constructing the People: Populist Narratives, National Identity, and Democratic Tensions.” European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). November 3, 2025. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp00117
Session 5 of the ECPS–Oxford Virtual Workshop Series examined how populist movements across different regions construct “the people” as both an inclusive democratic ideal and an exclusionary political weapon. Moderated by Dr. Heidi Hart, the session featured presentations by Dr. Amir Ali, Dr. Yazdan Keikhosrou Doulatyari, and Andrei Gheorghe, who analyzed populism’s intersections with austerity politics, linguistic identity, and post-communist nationalism. Their comparative insights revealed that populism redefines belonging through economic moralization, linguistic appropriation, and historical myth-making, transforming pluralist notions of democracy into performative narratives of unity and control. The ensuing discussion emphasized populism’s adaptive power to manipulate emotion, memory, and discourse across diverse democratic contexts.
Reported by ECPS Staff
On October 30, 2025, the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), in collaboration with Oxford University, convened Session 5 of its Virtual Workshop Series, titled“We, the People” and the Future of Democracy: Interdisciplinary Approaches. This ongoing series (September 2025–April 2026) explores the cultural, economic, and political dimensions of populism’s impact on democratic life across diverse global contexts.
Titled “Constructing the People: Populist Narratives, National Identity, and Democratic Tensions,” the fifth session brought together scholars from political science, sociology, and linguistics to interrogate how populist movements construct and mobilize “the people” as a moral, cultural, and emotional category. The discussion illuminated the multiple ways in which populist discourse reshapes collective identity, redefines sovereignty, and challenges democratic pluralism.
The session was moderated by Dr. Heidi Hart, an arts researcher and practitioner based in Utah and Scandinavia, whose expertise in cultural narratives and affective politics enriched the workshop’s interpretive lens. Three presentations followed, each approaching the notion of “the people” from a distinct analytical angle. Dr. Amir Ali (Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi) examined the paradox of austerity populism, arguing that fiscal conservatism has become a populist virtue masking economic dispossession. Dr. Yazdan Keikhosrou Doulatyari (Technische Universität Dresden) turned to the linguistic life of democracy in Germany, tracing how words like Volk, Leute, and Heimat encode competing visions of community, inclusion, and exclusion in the contemporary public sphere. Andrei Gheorghe (University of Bucharest and EHESS, Paris) presented a comparative analysis of Romanian and Hungarian populisms, exploring how leaders from Viktor Orbán to Traian Băsescu construct national identity through historical memory and moral dualism.
The session also featured two discussants whose critical reflections deepened the dialogue: Hannah Geddes (PhD Candidate, University of St Andrews) offered comments that emphasized conceptual clarity, methodological coherence, and the comparative breadth of the papers. Dr. Amedeo Varriale (PhD, University of East London) provided incisive observations connecting the economic, cultural, and linguistic dimensions of populism, situating the presenters’ work within wider debates on ideology, nationalism, and discourse.
Throughout the session, Dr. Hart guided the discussion and er moderation fostered an interdisciplinary dialogue among presenters and discussants, drawing attention to the intersections of economy, discourse, and collective memory. Ultimately, Session 5 revealed that the populist construction of “the people” is not merely a rhetorical act but a performative process—one that transforms democratic ideals of equality and representation into instruments of control and exclusion.
Dr. Amir Ali: “Ripping Off the People: Populism of the Fiscally Tight-Fist”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is showing victory sign with both hand to supporters at Bharatiya Janata Party office amid the results of the Indian General Elections 2024 in New Delhi, India on June 4 2024. Photo: Pradeep Gaurs.
In his insightful and intellectually charged presentation, Dr. Amir Ali of Jawaharlal Nehru University examined the paradoxical relationship between populism and austerity in contemporary politics. With comparative references to India, the United Kingdom, and Argentina, Dr. Ali argued that modern populist regimes—despite their pro-people rhetoric—engage in policies that effectively “rip off” the very constituencies they claim to represent.
Dr. Ali began by framing the core paradox of his paper: while populism ostensibly celebrates and empowers “the people,” its economic manifestations often culminate in policies of fiscal restraint, austerity, and redistribution away from the lower classes. To conceptualize this tension, he introduced the evocative metaphor of “ripping off the people,” signifying the betrayal of the populist promise through the simultaneous glorification and exploitation of the masses.
From Geddes’s Axe to Milei’s Chainsaw: The Genealogy of Austerity
In his introduction, Dr. Ali employed a historical lens to trace the evolution of austerity politics—from the early twentieth-century “Geddes Axe” in Britain to the brutal symbolism of Argentine President Javier Milei’s “chainsaw.” The former, referencing post–World War I budget cuts under British Chancellor Sir Eric Geddes (1921), marked the institutionalization of austerity as a state virtue. The latter, Milei’s notorious use of a chainsaw as a political prop, epitomizes the contemporary radicalization of austerity—an aggressive, performative politics of cutting state expenditure to the bone.
This imagery, Dr. Ali suggested, captures a broader transformation in global political economy: austerity has shifted from being a technocratic policy of restraint to a populist spectacle of destruction. Under this regime, “cut, baby, cut”—echoing Donald Trump’s “drill, baby, drill”—becomes a rallying cry of fiscal violence dressed in popular legitimacy.
Three Faces of Populism: Anti-Elite, Anti-Establishment, Anti-Intellectual
Dr. Ali conceptualized populism through its tripartite oppositional structure: it is anti-elite, anti-establishment, and anti-intellectual. Yet, these negations coexist with an exaggerated pro-people posture, creating what he termed a “caricature of the people.” Drawing from Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), he observed that when “the people” are caricatured, they quickly transform into a mob—a collective easily manipulated by demagogues and complicit elites.
In Dr. Ali’s analysis, populism’s anti-elitism is thus inherently deceptive. It dismantles one elite only to enthrone another, often more corrupt and authoritarian. This “frying pan to fire” dynamic exemplifies the central irony of contemporary populism: in purporting to empower the people, it reconstitutes new hierarchies of domination.
Historical and Conceptual Distinctions: Populism Then and Now
A key contribution of Dr. Ali’s presentation was his distinction between twentieth-century populism and twenty-first-century populism—both historically and conceptually.
The populisms of the twentieth century, particularly in Latin America, were fiscally profligate and redistributive. Leaders such as Juan Perón in Argentina or Indira Gandhi in India engaged in state-led welfarism and social inclusion. In contrast, contemporary populism, as witnessed in the regimes of Narendra Modi, the Brexit Conservatives, and Javier Milei, is fiscally conservative. It espouses austerity while deploying populist rhetoric to justify inequality.
In Dr. Ali’s words, the “populism of the fiscally tight-fist” marks a conceptual rupture: it moralizes austerity and sanctifies fiscal prudence, transforming economic cruelty into civic virtue.
Case Studies: India, Britain, and Argentina
To substantiate his argument, Dr. Ali developed a comparative triad of case studies—India, the United Kingdom, and Argentina—each exemplifying a unique variant of austerity-driven populism.
India under Narendra Modi, he argued, exemplifies fiscally conservative populism. Modi’s government, while maintaining strict fiscal discipline, employs targeted welfare schemes—such as direct cash transfers—to cultivate an electorate of Labharthi (beneficiaries). These schemes, though presented as welfarist, are not redistributive in nature; rather, they create a beholden class whose dependence on state largesse ensures political loyalty.
Dr. Ali drew an instructive comparison between India’s Labharthi and the descamisado (“shirtless ones”) of Peronist Argentina. While Perón’s descamisados represented a mobilized working class empowered through redistribution, Modi’s Labharthi are atomized dependents sustained by piecemeal welfare. The former embodied class inclusion; the latter reinforces clientelism. This distinction, he argued, underscores the moral inversion of populism under neoliberal austerity: generosity becomes a tool of subordination.
In the United Kingdom, Dr. Ali turned to the work of economist Timo Fetzer (2019), whose empirical study in the American Economic Review demonstrated a causal link between austerity policies under David Cameron’s government and the 2016 Brexit vote. Fetzer’s data, Dr. Ali noted, reveal how regions most devastated by austerity were disproportionately likely to vote “Leave.” Hence, the populist revolt against elites was, paradoxically, the political offspring of elite-engineered austerity.
Finally, Argentina provided what Dr. Ali termed “the brutal extreme” of austerity populism. Drawing on research by Jem Ovat, Tisabri Anju, and Joel Rabinovich (Economic and Political Weekly), he noted that Milei’s shock therapy has slashed central government expenditure by 27.5% within a single year, producing a budget surplus of 3.3% of GDP—the first in fourteen years. This dramatic fiscal contraction, celebrated as economic salvation, has simultaneously deepened inequality and social precarity.
Together, these cases illustrate Dr. Ali’s thesis that austerity is the economic face of populism’s deceit: it claims to save the people from excess while impoverishing them through scarcity.
Austerity as Virtue and Violence
Dr. Ali engaged critically with two major works on austerity: Mark Blyth’s Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea (2013) and Clara E. Mattei’s The Capital Order (2022). From Blyth, he borrowed the notion of austerity as an ideological weapon masquerading as prudence. From Mattei, he adopted the argument that austerity originated as a political technology to discipline labor and preserve capitalist order.
Extending these insights, Dr. Ali argued that austerity today functions as virtue signaling—a moral performance by governments and elites who equate fiscal restraint with righteousness. While austerity may be an admirable personal trait, he warned, its translation into public policy is catastrophic. As a state doctrine, it penalizes the already austere working classes, weaponizing virtue into violence.
The Indian Trajectory: From Anti-Corruption to Authoritarian Populism
Dr. Ali traced the genealogy of India’s populism to the 2011 anti-corruption movement, which, under the guise of civic purification, delegitimized the political class and paved the way for Modi’s ascent. Like Brazil’s anti-corruption crusade that felled Dilma Rousseff, India’s movement transmuted moral indignation into reactionary populism.
Interestingly, Modi’s 2014 campaign was not overtly populist but technocratic—promising efficiency and reform. However, as Dr. Ali observed, over time his regime adopted increasingly populist tactics: emotional appeals, symbolic nationalism, and welfare clientelism. These, combined with austerity policies, have produced a paradoxical populism—economically neoliberal but culturally majoritarian.
Free Speech, Anti-Intellectualism, and the Politics of Hate
Dr. Ali also addressed the anti-intellectual dimension of contemporary populism. In India, institutions such as Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) have been vilified by the media as “anti-national.” He likened this to Viktor Orbán’s assault on the Central European University in Hungary—an effort to delegitimize critical thought and replace it with populist orthodoxy.
Linked to this is what he called the fetishization of free speech—exemplified by Elon Musk’s acquisition of X (formerly Twitter). In the guise of free speech absolutism, populist regimes weaponize communication platforms to normalize hate speech and suppress dissent. The result is a paradoxical public sphere: loud with propaganda, silent on inequality.
Silence on Inequality and the Rhetoric of the People
Despite their loquacity, populist leaders share a striking silence on one issue: inequality. Dr. Ali invoked Thomas Piketty’s recent work on the “billionaire raj” to highlight the deepening disparities in wealth and power. While populism mobilizes resentment against elites, it rarely challenges structural inequality; rather, it reconfigures resentment into cultural or religious antagonism.
In India, this silence is particularly pronounced. The populist narrative celebrates national pride and market success while masking the precarity of millions living below subsistence levels. The rhetoric of “the people” thus becomes, in Dr. Ali’s words, “a political caricature”—a manipulated portrait of the masses, drawn by leaders who claim to represent them but instead exploit their vulnerability.
The Populist Caricature and the Politics of Ripping Off
Dr. Ali concluded with a vivid metaphor. The populist leader, he suggested, resembles an artist who asks the people to pose for a portrait—only to render them grotesquely, as a caricature. When the people object to their distorted image, he tears up the paper and discards them. This, for Dr. Ali, encapsulates the moral economy of contemporary populism: it elevates the people rhetorically only to discard them materially.
Drawing on Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, he cited the line: “He will scorn the base degrees by which he did ascend.” Once the leader rises to power, he abandons the very people who lifted him. Similarly, Dr. Ali evoked King Lear: “Tis the time’s plague when madmen lead the blind.” The metaphor aptly captures a global moment where demagogues, propelled by economic despair, guide nations into deeper crisis.
Ultimately, Dr. Ali’s presentation offered a sobering reflection on the moral contradictions of contemporary populism. The populism of the fiscally tight-fist, he argued, redefines austerity as virtue, dependency as empowerment, and domination as democracy. Beneath its pro-people veneer lies a politics of dispossession—a systematic ripping off of the people in the name of serving them.
Dr. Yazdan Keikhosrou Doulatyari: “The Living Language of Democracy: Folk and Leute in Contemporary Germany”
PEGIDA supporters demonstrate in Munich, Germany, on February 15, 2018. Photo: Thomas Lukassek.
In his thought-provoking presentation, Dr. Yazdan Keikhosrou Doulatyari explored the emotional and political dimensions of two fundamental German words—Volk (“the people” as a symbolic national collective) and Leute (“people” in the everyday, social sense). His research investigates how these linguistic categories shape the lived experience and imagination of democracy in modern Germany, particularly amid the resurgence of right-wing populism in the country’s east.
Dr. Doulatyari opened his talk by situating his research within the long tradition of German philosophical anthropology and sociology, referencing his collaboration with Siegbert Rieberg—one of the last academic assistants to Arnold Gehlen, a founding figure of twentieth-century philosophical anthropology. Drawing on this lineage, he posed a central question: How do Germans today use and feel the words “Volk” and “Leute” when they talk about nation, belonging, and democracy?
Both terms, he argued, carry deep emotional and historical weight. Volk represents a vertical, symbolic notion of unity—“one people, one nation”—while Leute expresses a horizontal sense of community grounded in daily coexistence: neighbors, friends, and ordinary citizens. These linguistic currents embody two distinct emotional orientations of democratic life. The Leute current is inclusive, open, and social, corresponding to everyday democracy; the Volk current is cohesive, symbolic, and often exclusionary, evoking the idea of an authentic or “true” people.
Language, Emotion, and the Grammar of Belonging
Dr. Doulatyari emphasized that these words are not merely lexical choices but emotional and political signifiers. Each term, he explained, constructs a “grammar of belonging” that defines who is included in or excluded from the democratic “we.” By studying how Volk and Leute appear in political speech, popular media, and street demonstrations, his research illuminates how collective identities are linguistically produced and contested in contemporary Germany.
His methodology combines field observation—being present in demonstrations, public gatherings, and social forums—with digital corpus analysis using the Leipzig Corpora Collection. This dual approach allows him to examine both the embodied use of language in real-life contexts and its broader semantic trends in contemporary German discourse, particularly during 2024.
By searching for instances where Volk and Leute occur alongside the pronoun wir (“we”), Dr. Doulatyari identified how Germans imagine collective identity through language. The recurring question, he observed, is not simply who are the people? but who are “we”?
From “Wir sind das Volk” to “Wir sind mehr”
A key part of his analysis focused on two powerful slogans that have defined Germany’s recent political discourse. The first, “Wir sind das Volk” (“We are the people”), emerged in 1989 as a democratic cry during the protests that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall. However, in recent years, this same phrase has been appropriated by right-wing populist movements—most notably the Pegida demonstrations—to advance exclusionary and nationalist agendas. What was once a rallying call for democratic inclusion has been transformed into a slogan of cultural homogeneity and xenophobia.
In contrast, the counter-slogan “Wir sind mehr” (“We are more”) arose in response, expressing solidarity with diversity, inclusion, and democratic pluralism. It embodies the same emotional energy as “Wir sind das Volk” but redirects it toward openness rather than closure. For Dr. Doulatyari, this semantic struggle over we-ness lies at the heart of Germany’s democratic tensions today.
Populism Between Folk and Leute
Dr. Doulatyari observed that right-wing populist politicians have become adept at navigating between these two registers of language. They speak the language of Leute—informal, familiar, and seemingly ordinary—to appear close to everyday citizens. Yet simultaneously, they invoke the symbolic power of Volk to claim moral and political authority, suggesting they alone speak for “the real people.” This rhetorical oscillation allows populists to naturalize exclusion while sounding democratic.
He further noted that in everyday expressions—such as die normalen Leute (“the normal people”)—the term Leute carries emotional warmth and authenticity but is increasingly co-opted by populist discourse to draw boundaries against supposed elites or outsiders, including the European Union or migrants. Thus, populism instrumentalizes linguistic intimacy (Leute) and symbolic unity (Volk) to sustain a politics of division.
The Missing Bridge: Democracy’s Structural Challenge
At the heart of Dr. Doulatyari’s argument lies a structural diagnosis. Beneath both Volk and Leute, he suggested, exists a “hidden wish”—a desire to be seen, to belong, and to participate meaningfully in collective life. Volk seeks stability and rootedness, while Leute seeks recognition and inclusion. The democratic challenge, therefore, is not the existence of emotion but the absence of institutional structures capable of linking these two desires.
Drawing on Siegbert Rieberg’s notion of Raum der Bedeutung—the “space of meaning”—Dr. Doulatyari argued that modern democracies face a profound crisis of meaning-space. When institutions fail to connect the symbolic (unity) and the social (participation), the linguistic field fractures. The result is polarization: emotional belonging turns into frustration, and nationalism replaces solidarity.
Reclaiming the Language of Democracy
Dr. Doulatyari concluded by emphasizing that language itself remains one of the strongest symbolic institutions of democracy. In cultural life, new efforts are emerging to reimagine Volk and Leute in inclusive ways. He pointed to artistic and civic examples such as the Volksbühne theater in Berlin, which has sought to reappropriate Volk through multicultural performances, and to the growing use of Leute in music and popular media that emphasize everyday connection and plural belonging.
Ultimately, he argued, the struggle over these two words mirrors the struggle over democracy itself. Whoever controls the meaning of “we” controls the moral legitimacy of the political order. To revitalize democracy, societies must rebuild trust not through ethnic or cultural homogeneity but through constitutional loyalty and civic inclusion.
In his concluding reflection, Dr. Doulatyari proposed a metaphor of reconciliation: Volk and Leute are not opposites but complementary forces—two sides of the same human story. Democracy thrives only when symbolic unity and social diversity remain in dialogue. Language, therefore, is not a mere reflection of democracy—it is its living heartbeat.
Andrei Gheorghe: “Constructing ‘the People’ in Populist Discourse: The Hungarian and Romanian Cases”
Viktor Orban, Hungary’s prime minister arrives to attend in an informal meeting of Heads of State or Government in Prague, Czechia on October 7, 2022. Photo: Alexandros Michailidis.
In his presentation, doctoral researcher Andrei Gheorghe explored the evolving concept of “the people” in contemporary populist rhetoric, focusing on Hungary and Romania. His analysis examined how populist leaders in both countries, responding to the 2008–2009 financial crisis, redefined the people as a moral and cultural community opposed to liberal elites and supranational structures such as the European Union.
Gheorghe began by recalling the paradox that inspired his study. After joining the European Union and benefiting from substantial economic aid and development funds, Hungary and Romania should have experienced greater trust in European institutions and liberal democracy. Instead, both countries witnessed the rapid rise of national populism. Populist movements began portraying Brussels not as a partner in reconstruction but as a foreign power threatening national sovereignty and identity. To Gheorghe, this paradox—prosperity accompanied by populist rebellion—signaled a deeper crisis of legitimacy rooted in the intersection of globalization, economic vulnerability, and post-communist transformation.
From Economic Transition to Populist Disillusionment
In both Hungary and Romania, the economic crisis exposed the limits of neoliberal reform and the fragility of the newly established democratic institutions. Gheorghe observed that privatization, market liberalization, and dependency on foreign investment constrained the ability of these states to protect citizens from economic shocks. The resulting unemployment, declining public services, and emigration eroded trust in liberal elites and created fertile ground for populist narratives that denounced both domestic and supranational actors as betrayers of the national interest.
This context, Gheorghe argued, explains why populist leaders could claim to speak in the name of the people even in societies that had only recently embraced democracy and European integration. Populism’s success, he suggested, lies not only in economic grievances but also in the symbolic redefinition of the people—from a plural civic community into a morally and culturally homogenous entity.
Theoretical Foundations: Who Are “the People”?
Turning to theory, Gheorghe drew on the works of Pierre Rosanvallon, Jan-Werner Müller, Cas Mudde, Carlos de la Torre, and Ernesto Laclau to situate his analysis within the broader field of populism studies. Rosanvallon famously noted that populism lacks programmatic texts defining its vision of society; instead, it operates through emotional and moral claims about representation. Mudde’s minimalist definition—a thin-centered ideology that divides society into two antagonistic groups, “the pure people” and “the corrupt elite”—provides the foundation for Gheorghe’s conceptual framing.
For populists, Gheorghe explained, the people are not the civic collective of citizens found in liberal democracy. Rather, they are imagined as an organic, pre-political community bound by tradition, religion, and moral virtue. This “monolithic people” is contrasted with an alien elite—cosmopolitan, immoral, and detached from the national culture. Populist discourse, he noted, turns cultural alienation into political antagonism: elites are portrayed not merely as corrupt but as traitors serving foreign interests, “globalists,” or external powers such as Brussels or Washington.
Following Carlos de la Torre and Ernesto Laclau, Gheorghe emphasized the centrality of the populist leader in constructing this imagined community. The leader both embodies and defines the people—deciding who belongs, which grievances are legitimate, and what values constitute the national essence. The people, in this framework, do not pre-exist the leader’s discourse; they are performed and imagined through it.
This process, Gheorghe argued, is both inclusionary and exclusionary. While populist rhetoric unites diverse groups under the banner of a shared national identity, it demands conformity—participants must abandon plural identities in favor of a single, purified “we.” The populist people are thus inclusive in rhetoric but exclusive in practice, denying dissent and diversity.
Emotions, Memory, and the Construction of Unity
A major part of Gheorghe’s argument focused on the role of emotion in populist politics. While emotions are integral to all political communication, populists weaponize them to create a permanent sense of urgency and insecurity. The threats they invoke—loss of freedom, identity, sovereignty, or national dignity—are often vague yet omnipresent, mobilizing a collective fear that demands decisive action from the leader. This emotional climate reinforces dependence on the leader as protector and savior.
A second critical strategy is the manipulation of history and collective memory. Drawing on theoretical insights from memory studies, Gheorghe argued that populist leaders reconfigure the past to legitimize their present political projects. By reinterpreting historical traumas or glorifying national struggles, they produce a narrative of continuity between the “true people” of the past and the “authentic nation” of the present. Such myth-making not only strengthens community identity but also positions the leader as the inheritor of historical missions—defender of the nation, guardian of faith, or restorer of sovereignty.
Methodology and Empirical Focus
Gheorghe’s research is based on a qualitative discourse analysis of approximately seventy speeches and interviews by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and sixteen by Romanian populist leaders between 2010 and 2020. This comparative approach seeks to reveal both the shared logics and contextual differences in how Hungarian and Romanian populists construct “the people.”
One challenge he encountered, Gheorghe noted, was the difference in political stability. In Hungary, Orbán’s continuous rule since 2010 provided a coherent and evolving populist discourse. In contrast, Romania’s frequent leadership changes—between the Social Democrats and Liberals—produced a fragmented populist rhetoric that shifted with each election cycle. Nonetheless, both contexts shared a common reliance on emotional mobilization, historical distortion, and anti-elitist moral dichotomies.
The Hungarian Case: National Salvation and Christian Identity
In Hungary, Orbán’s speeches consistently portrayed the 2008 financial crisis as a civilizational rupture comparable to the First and Second World Wars or the fall of communism. He described the event as a “Western financial collapse” that revealed the decadence of liberal capitalism and the moral corruption of the West. In this narrative, Hungary is recast as a moral beacon—a Christian nation destined to defend Europe’s spiritual heritage against both neoliberalism and migration.
Gheorghe highlighted Orbán’s recurring themes: the “changing world,” the erosion of stable traditions, and the necessity of unity under a strong national leader. The populist discourse of Christian Hungary, he noted, transforms economic insecurity into a moral crusade. By positioning Hungary as the “shield of Europe” against external threats—Muslim immigrants, liberal globalists, or EU bureaucrats—Orbán constructs a homogenous people defined by faith, history, and obedience to the national mission.
The Romanian Case: Sovereignty and Anti-Corruption
In Romania, Gheorghe found a similar moral framing, though less coherent due to political turnover. Populist rhetoric depicted Brusselsand Washingtonas distant centers of control manipulating Romania’s political elites. The European Commission and anti-corruption campaigns launched after 2004 were reframed as tools of domination, undermining the sovereignty of “the Romanian people.”
Leaders accused domestic institutions—such as the Constitutional Court or the judiciary—of serving foreign interests. Gheorghe noted how some populist figures even compared anti-corruption investigations to the repressive tactics of Nicolae Ceaușescu’s communist regime, portraying themselves as victims of political persecution and defenders of national freedom. This rhetorical inversion—turning accountability into tyranny—allowed populist leaders to present themselves as moral saviors resisting external and internal conspiracies.
The Monolithic People and the Populist Savior
Gheorghe concluded that in both Hungary and Romania, populist discourse constructs a dichotomous world divided between the true people and their corrupt enemies. Through emotional manipulation, historical revisionism, and symbolic appeals to sovereignty, populist leaders transform plural democracies into moral theaters where only one voice—the leader’s—can claim authenticity.
The leader’s self-presentation as the savior of the people is central to this process. In Gheorghe’s analysis, the populist leader not only represents the people but creates them—defining their boundaries, their fears, and their identity. This monolithic construction of “the people” legitimizes authoritarian tendencies and weakens democratic pluralism.
Ultimately, Gheorghe’s research underscores how the concept of the people—once the foundation of democratic sovereignty—has been reappropriated as a tool of exclusion and control. In both Hungary and Romania, populism’s emotional and historical narratives reveal not the empowerment of citizens, but their transformation into instruments of moralized political power.
Discussant’s Feedback: Hannah Geddes
As the discussant for Session 5, Hannah Geddes offered a series of insightful, constructive reflections on the three presented papers, focusing on their conceptual clarity, methodological coherence, and potential contributions to the broader study of populism. Her interventions demonstrated both attentiveness to theoretical nuance and an appreciation for the diversity of approaches within the session.
Geddes began by commending the first paper for its eloquence and ambitious scope. The presentation traced the evolution of populism across different temporal and geographical contexts, juxtaposing the populist movements of the twentieth century with contemporary global manifestations. Geddes praised the richness and narrative breadth of this comparative approach but advised caution in managing its analytical scale. She observed that the project’s very strength—its temporal and spatial expansiveness—also posed a risk of diffuseness. To enhance conceptual focus, she encouraged the presenter to identify a single, clear narrative thread or central conceptual relationship to anchor the argument. While she interpreted the paper as a story about austerity and the shifting nature of populism from the last century to this one, Geddes urged the author to articulate explicitly what they wished audiences to take away as the paper’s core insight. She further recommended greater justification for the selection of case studies—given the movement between diverse contexts such as Argentina, the United States, India, and the United Kingdom—suggesting that more explicit criteria would clarify both the comparative logic and the contrasts being drawn.
Turning to the second paper, which explored populism in contemporary Germany through the linguistic lens of Folk and Leute, Geddes found the approach highly innovative. She praised the focus on specific words as a prism for understanding how citizens perceive the nation, democracy, and belonging. This, she noted, provided a compelling bridge between sociolinguistics and political sociology. Drawing from her own background in migration studies, Geddes found the discussion of social integration particularly resonant. She also drew an interesting parallel to civic nationalism in Scotland—an inclusive, left-leaning nationalism that offers a counterpoint to exclusionary nationalisms elsewhere. Methodologically, she encouraged the author to reflect further on how the micro-level linguistic analysis connects to the macro-level story about nationalism and democratic identity.
In her comments on the third paper, which examined the populist construction of “the people” in post-2008 Hungary and Romania, Geddes highlighted the analytical richness of comparing two national cases with differing political dynamics. She noted that while the author regarded Viktor Orbán’s long tenure as a challenge for comparative consistency, it might instead serve as an analytical advantage. The contrast between Hungary’s continuity of leadership and Romania’s frequent leadership changes, she argued, offers a unique opportunity to explore how the cult of personality—a recurrent theme in populism studies—shapes the formation of political legitimacy. This contrast could deepen the study’s comparative contribution by illuminating how populism functions both with and without a stable charismatic figure.
Geddes concluded by commending all three presenters for their originality and intellectual rigor. She emphasized that, collectively, the papers illuminated the many ways populism negotiates identity, representation, and belonging across diverse linguistic, cultural, and political terrains.
Discussant’s Feedback: Dr. Amedeo Varriale
Serving as discussant for the session, Dr. Amedeo Varriale offered a set of insightful, critical, and comparative reflections on the three papers. His comments were characterized by a deep engagement with the economic, ideological, and cultural dimensions of populism and by a commendable openness to perspectives beyond his own regional expertise.
Dr. Varriale began by commending the overall quality of the session, noting that it provided him with an opportunity to engage with case studies situated outside his primary area of specialization, particularly those concerning Romania, Hungary, and India. His observations combined a critical analytical lens with an appreciation for the diversity of methodological approaches and the empirical richness that each presentation offered.
Dr. Varriale’s most detailed feedback concerned Dr. Amir Ali’s paper, which examined the evolution of populism through an economic lens. He praised the work for its originality and relevance, noting that while recent decades have seen a shift from economic explanations of populism toward ideational and discursive frameworks, Ali’s intervention restored analytical balance by foregrounding the economic underpinnings of populist politics.
He summarized the central argument as a contrast between twentieth-century populisms, which tended to be fiscally expansive, and twenty-first-century populisms, which are ostensibly more fiscally prudent and even pro-austerity. According to Dr. Varriale, Dr. Ali compellingly argued that today’s right-wing populists, through appeals to budgetary discipline and ordoliberal rhetoric, have paradoxically expanded inequality under the guise of responsibility. This “save now, spend later” ethos—borrowed from household economics and applied to the state—has, in Dr. Ali’s view, “ripped off the people,” undermining the egalitarian promises populism claims to defend.
Dr. Varriale praised the empirical rigor of the paper, which drew on multiple country examples—Argentina, Britain, and India—and incorporated statistical evidence alongside theoretical insight. He also commended its engagement with leading economists such as Thomas Piketty and political scientists of populism. However, he offered several critical reflections.
He questioned the neat historical division between “fiscally profligate” twentieth-century populisms and “fiscally prudent” contemporary ones. Citing examples such as Alberto Fujimori in Peru, Carlos Menem in Argentina, and Fernando Collor de Mello in Brazil, Dr. Varriale noted that some twentieth-century populists also embraced neoliberal reforms, privatization, and deregulation. Conversely, contemporary populists—both left and right—have often pursued expansive fiscal policies. He cited Italy’s Five Star Movement, whose universal basic income program resulted in massive unaccounted costs, and Matteo Salvini’s League, which simultaneously advocated higher spending and tax cuts. Likewise, Giorgia Meloni’s government has funded large-scale projects—such as repatriation centers in Albania and the proposed bridge between Sicily and mainland Italy—illustrating that fiscal restraint is hardly a defining feature of right-wing populism.
For Dr. Varriale, these examples reveal that populist economic behavior transcends simple ideological categories. Both left- and right-wing populists can be fiscally extravagant or interventionist depending on the political utility of such policies. He observed that many contemporary European populists—including Marine Le Pen and Viktor Orbán—combine leftist economic nationalism with right-wing cultural conservatism, producing a hybrid form of economic populism marked by protectionism, state interventionism, and resistance to supranational fiscal constraints.
Turning to Dr. Yazdan Keikhosrou Doulatyari’s linguistically oriented paper on the German concepts Folk and Leute, Dr. Varriale highlighted its originality and the subtlety with which it linked language, culture, and politics. He found the exploration of these terms as emotional and symbolic markers of inclusion and exclusion within German democracy both innovative and methodologically rich.
Dr. Varriale expressed particular interest in Dr. Doulatyari’s attention to the word Heimat (homeland), noting that the concept carries heavy political and ideological weight in contemporary Germany. He connected it to the far-right’s appropriation of Heimat discourse, citing the emergence of the ultra-nationalist Heimat Party, which draws on neo-fascist traditions inherited from the National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD). In this regard, he suggested that Doulatyari’s linguistic analysis could shed light on how far-right actors strategically reclaim emotionally resonant terms to naturalize exclusionary identities.
In his reflections on Andrei Gheorghe’s comparative study of Hungarian and Romanian populism, Dr. Varriale commended the research for its historical and empirical depth. He appreciated the focus on post-2008 developments and the analysis of how political leaders in both countries manipulated collective memory to construct “the people” as a moral and cultural category.
Dr. Varriale’s central question to Gheorghe concerned the comparative framework. While Gheorghe had described Hungary’s political continuity under Viktor Orbán as a challenge for comparative consistency, Dr. Varriale suggested that this apparent limitation could instead be an analytical strength. The juxtaposition of Hungary’s stable populist leadership with Romania’s fragmented and frequently changing political elite, he argued, offers a valuable opportunity to explore the relationship between charismatic leadership and populist legitimacy.
He noted that such a comparison could illuminate broader questions within populism studies: namely, how populist movements sustain emotional and ideological coherence in the absence of a singular leader, and how the “cult of personality” functions differently across national contexts.
Dr. Varriale concluded his discussant remarks by commending all three presenters for their intellectual rigor, methodological diversity, and capacity to advance the interdisciplinary study of populism. Their combined contributions—spanning economics, linguistics, and comparative politics—illustrated the multiplicity of populist expression across time, geography, and ideology. His reflections underscored a unifying insight: that populism, in its economic, cultural, and discursive forms, remains a fluid and adaptive phenomenon whose contradictions reveal as much about democratic societies as about its self-proclaimed defenders of “the people.”
Presenter’s Response: Dr. Amir Ali
Responding to Hannah Geddes’s question regarding the principal takeaway of his paper, Dr. Amir Ali emphasized that the heart of his research lies in diagnosing the dramatic decline of democracy across both established and emerging democratic systems. He pointed to the erosion of democratic norms not only in countries historically considered stable—such as the United Kingdom and the United States—but also in nations like India and Argentina, where populist politics have increasingly undermined institutional checks and balances.
Dr. Ali situated this decline within a broader pattern of populist-driven democratic backsliding, arguing that the populist invocation of “the people” has been used to justify anti-institutional behavior and to erode procedural democracy. In countries like India, he noted, populism has shifted from mobilizing marginalized groups toward consolidating majoritarianism, producing an authoritarian populism that paradoxically weakens the very democratic institutions it claims to defend. His succinct yet powerful intervention reframed the economic discussion of his earlier presentation within the political consequences of populism’s global ascent.
Presenter’s Response: Andrei Gheorghe
Andrei Gheorghe responded at length to the comments from both Hannah Geddes and Dr. Amedeo Varriale, clarifying how political instability in Romania complicates comparative analysis with Hungary. He acknowledged Geddes’s observation that Hungary’s sustained leadership under Viktor Orbán contrasts with Romania’s revolving-door politics, where party leaders are frequently replaced after electoral losses. This instability, Gheorghe explained, stems from fragmented party structures, internal factionalism, and volatile coalitions that prioritize electoral expediency over ideological continuity.
He described this dynamic as a form of “duplicity”—where Romanian leaders often adopt divergent tones depending on context. For instance, figures like Victor Ponta, the former prime minister and leader of the Social Democratic Party, presented one discourse in official capacities and another in televised populist appeals. This rhetorical inconsistency, Gheorghe noted, reveals the opportunistic and performative nature of Romanian populism, which often relies on theatrical rather than substantive engagement with “the people.”
In response to Dr. Varriale, Gheorghe elaborated on his selection of Traian Băsescu as a central case in his PhD research, rather than newer populists like George Simion of the AUR (Alliance for the Union of Romanians). While acknowledging that AUR represents a rising anti-establishment force, he explained that his project focuses on the 2010–2020 period, examining earlier waves of populism that set the stage for contemporary developments. He drew parallels between Liviu Dragnea’s populist strategy and Orbán’s, noting that Dragnea sought to imitate the Hungarian leader’s anti-globalist and anti-Soros rhetoric. However, unlike Orbán, Dragnea’s approach was largely theatrical and self-serving, aimed primarily at obstructing anti-corruption reforms rather than establishing an enduring populist regime.
Gheorghe concluded by distinguishing between Hungary’s transformational populism, which sought to reshape the political order, and Romania’s performative populism, which functioned as an electoral instrument. His reflections demonstrated a nuanced understanding of populism’s diverse modalities within post-communist Europe.
Presenter’s Response: Dr. Yazdan Keikhosrou Doulatyari
Finally, Dr. Yazdan Keikhosrou Doulatyari responded warmly to the discussants’ observations, expressing appreciation for their engagement and particularly for Dr. Varriale’s comments on the semantic and political weight of the German term “Heimat.” He clarified that in his analysis, Heimat represents not merely a geographical or familial attachment but an emotionally charged concept that encapsulates both belonging and fear of change.
He elaborated that in contemporary Germany, Heimat has reemerged as a politically contested symbol—often invoked in far-right demonstrations by groups such as PEGIDA in Dresden or by nationalist parties seeking to preserve an idealized “German way of life.” The term thus functions ambivalently: for some, it expresses nostalgia and cultural continuity; for others, it becomes a vehicle for exclusion and xenophobia.
By linking this semantic field to collective memory and personal narratives, Dr. Doulatyari underscored how everyday language mediates the boundaries of inclusion in democratic societies. His response deepened the audience’s understanding of how linguistic symbols operate as repositories of national emotion, bridging sociology, linguistics, and political philosophy.
In their collective responses, the three presenters reaffirmed the intellectual depth and interdisciplinary scope of the session. Each, in their own way, illuminated how populism—whether expressed through fiscal policy, historical narrative, or linguistic identity—reshapes democratic life by redefining who “the people” are and what democracy itself means in the twenty-first century.
Q&A Session
The question-and-answer segment that followed the presentations reflected a rich exchange of ideas connecting nationalism, transborder identities, and the populist construction of “the people.” Dr. Bulent Kenes opened the discussion by situating the presenters’ work within a broader transnational frame. He observed that many populist movements across the world invoke the notion of a “greater nation”—an expanded vision of the homeland that transcends current state borders. This rhetoric, he noted, has deep historical roots: from the idea of a Greater Hungary under Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz to parallel visions such as Greater Romania, Greater Serbia, and even the historical Greek Megalidea. Kenes highlighted how these ideological constructs often blur the distinction between national and transnational belonging, with populist leaders positioning themselves as protectors of an imagined community that extends beyond formal state boundaries. He then asked Andrei Gheorghe and Dr. Yazdan Keikhosrou Doulatyari to elaborate on how the idea of transborder nations operates in their respective cases—Hungary and Romania for Gheorghe, and Germany for Doulatyari—and how such rhetoric might extend to the diasporic sphere.
Andrei Gheorghe responded by affirming the centrality of transborder nationalism in Hungarian populist discourse. He explained that Viktor Orbán’s political project draws heavily upon the concept of the Carpathian Basin, a symbolic space encompassing all territories historically inhabited by Hungarians. This notion, he noted, remains deeply rooted in the Hungarian national consciousness, particularly through the trauma of the Treaty of Trianon (1920), which redrew Hungary’s borders after World War I.
According to Gheorghe, Orbán has strategically revived these memories of betrayal by the West—referring to the 1848 revolutions, the Trianon settlement, and the 1956 anti-communist uprising—as recurring episodes in which Hungary was “abandoned” by its Western allies. This narrative of victimhood, he observed, plays a vital role in Orbán’s populist self-image as the defender of the Hungarian nation against foreign interference, whether from Brussels, global capitalism, or multiculturalism.
Gheorghe further noted that Orbán’s 2010 policy granting citizenship rights to ethnic Hungarians abroad exemplifies this symbolic reconstruction of a transborder Hungarian community. This move, while politically strategic, also reinforces a form of exclusionary nationalism grounded in cultural and ethnic homogeneity. In Orbán’s rhetoric, the European Union and its liberal policies are often portrayed as existential threats that “dilute Hungarian blood” and undermine traditional values.
By contrast, Gheorghe explained that Romanian populism during the 2010–2020 period was less preoccupied with territorial nationalism. Instead, Romanian populist leaders focused on anti-liberal and anti-corruption narratives, framing the European Union and domestic liberal elites as agents of foreign control. Figures such as Traian Băsescu and Liviu Dragnea employed populist rhetoric to claim defense of the “Romanian people” against external imposition, but the Greater Romania idea itself was largely marginal during this decade.
Nonetheless, Gheorghe acknowledged that earlier nationalists like Corneliu Vadim Tudor, founder of the Greater Romania Party, had openly propagated territorial revisionism and anti-Western sentiment. His discourse—marked by hostility toward the EU and NATO—served as an early prototype for later nationalist populism. Gheorghe concluded that while Orbán’s project represents a systemic populism of transformation, Romanian populism has been largely performative and reactive, invoking national identity primarily for electoral gain.
Dr. Yazdan Keikhosrou Doulatyari addressed Dr. Kenes’s question by reflecting on how the German concept of Heimat (homeland) functions as both a unifying and divisive symbol within populist discourse. He explained that while many Germans and migrants alike use Heimat positively—to express emotional attachment, memory, and the sense of home—right-wing populist movements have instrumentalized the term to evoke fear of change and resistance to cultural diversity.
Groups such as PEGIDA in Dresden, he noted, have repurposed Heimat as a slogan to defend a mythologized “German way of life” against perceived external threats, especially immigration. Thus, Heimat has become a site of symbolic conflict—a word that simultaneously embodies hope for belonging and anxiety about identity loss.
Speaking from his own perspective as an Iranian member of the diaspora, Dr. Doulatyari added that his personal engagement with German culture and philosophy has given him an empathetic understanding of Heimat as an inclusive emotional category. Yet he acknowledged that for many migrants, the term remains fraught with exclusionary overtones. Some prefer the more neutral Land (“country”) to avoid the nationalist implications of Heimat.
Dr. Doulatyari’s reflections illuminated how linguistic symbols like Heimat mediate the tension between inclusion and exclusion—revealing how populism transforms shared cultural words into battlegrounds of identity politics.
Conclusion
Session 5 of the ECPS–Oxford Virtual Workshop Series illuminated the intricate mechanisms through which populism reshapes democratic imaginaries by redefining “the people.” Across the presentations and subsequent discussions, a unifying insight emerged: populism operates simultaneously as an affective narrative, an ideological strategy, and a performative act that fuses moral claims with political exclusion. Whether expressed through fiscal austerity, linguistic symbolism, or historical reimagining, the populist invocation of “the people” serves as both a promise of inclusion and a technique of control.
Dr. Amir Ali’s examination of austerity populism revealed how economic restraint is moralized as civic virtue, transforming the rhetoric of empowerment into a politics of dispossession. Dr. Yazdan Keikhosrou Doulatyari’s linguistic inquiry demonstrated that words such as Volk and Leute carry profound emotional weight, shaping democratic belonging through competing grammars of unity and diversity. Andrei Gheorghe’s comparative study of Hungary and Romania traced how post-communist populisms mobilize collective memory and moral dualism to construct homogenous national communities opposed to liberal pluralism. Together, these analyses highlighted populism’s ability to blend economic anxiety, cultural nostalgia, and emotional resonance into a coherent—yet exclusionary—vision of the social order.
The discussants, Hannah Geddes and Dr. Amedeo Varriale, underscored the interdisciplinary strength of the session, situating its findings within broader debates about representation, identity, and democratic resilience. Their reflections drew attention to the elasticity of populism as both discourse and practice—a phenomenon that adapts fluidly across linguistic, economic, and political contexts while sustaining its central dichotomy between “the pure people” and “the corrupt elite.”
Ultimately, the workshop underscored that populism’s greatest challenge to democracy lies not in its opposition to elites alone but in its capacity to redefine the meaning of democracy itself. By appropriating the language of popular sovereignty, populist actors transform inclusion into hierarchy and belonging into boundary, reminding scholars that the defense of democracy requires continuous vigilance over the words, emotions, and memories through which “the people” are imagined.
In an exclusive interview with ECPS, Professor Juan Bautista Lucca of the National University of Rosario (UNR) analyzes Argentina’s shifting political landscape under President Javier Milei. He argues that Milei’s project represents “a radicalized hybrid—ultra-neoliberal in economics but ultra-populist in rhetoric.” For Professor Lucca, Milei has transformed neoliberalism into a moral crusade, “sacralizing the market” while turning politics into “a permanent apocalyptic theater.” He views Milei’s alliance with Donald Trump as part of a broader “geopolitics of Trumpism in the Global South,” where sovereignty is redefined through ideological, not strategic, ties. Following Milei’s sweeping midterm victory—with La Libertad Avanza winning 41% of the vote—Professor Lucca warns that Argentina stands in a Gramscian “interregnum,” facing both consolidation and disillusionment.
In an in-depth interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Professor Juan Bautista Lucca, a leading political scientist at the National University of Rosario (UNR) and Independent Researcher at CONICET, offers a comprehensive analysis of the Javier Milei phenomenon, situating it within Argentina’s longer populist tradition while revealing its radical departures from the past.
Reflecting on Milei’s sweeping midterm victory, Professor Lucca rejects the idea that the results represent a referendum on economic policy. Rather, he sees them as “an expression of the president’s capacity to maintain a narrative of radical rupture and moral regeneration.” For Professor Lucca, Milei’s strength lies not in delivering material results but in sustaining an affective narrative of moral renewal, one that continues to mobilize polarized sectors of society while leaving centrist voters disengaged. “People in the center,” he observes, “are not very motivated to vote… participation was one of the lowest in the last 40 years of democracy in Argentina.”
Professor Lucca identifies a deeper “normalization of populist discourse” in Argentina’s political mainstream, in which neoliberal orthodoxy is now “celebrated as an act of moral courage.” Unlike past neoliberal leaders such as Carlos Menem or Mauricio Macri, who concealed their economic programs, Milei “doesn’t want to hide this economic agenda; he even sacralizes it.” This, Professor Lucca argues, represents the sophistication of neoliberal populism, where austerity and moral regeneration are fused into a coherent political language.
Asked whether Milei’s libertarian project fits within existing typologies, Professor Lucca insists it marks a qualitative rupture: “He is ultra-neoliberal in economics but ultra-populist in rhetoric.” Milei’s “libertarian populism,” he explains, blends market maximalism and anti-establishment radicalism with “messianic performativity.” His leadership, characterized by a “rock-star persona and apocalyptic imagery,” transforms politics into what Professor Lucca calls “a permanent apocalyptic theater,” where representation depends less on programs than on emotional intensity.
From a geopolitical perspective, Professor Lucca sees Milei’s alliance with Donald Trump and symbolic alignment with Israel as evidence of a “geopolitics of Trumpism in the Global South”—a transnational ideological coordination that redefines sovereignty through shared cultural codes rather than strategic alliances. In this worldview, “external financial dependence is reframed as liberation,” an inversion of Argentina’s traditional narratives of autonomy and self-determination.
Looking ahead, Professor Lucca warns that Argentina stands “in an interregnum—what Gramsci called the time when monsters appear.” Whether Milei’s Leviathan endures or gives rise to “a Behemoth from populist Peronism” remains uncertain. Yet, he notes, the greatest danger lies in a growing “third Argentina”—a disenchanted electorate that “simply doesn’t want to participate in politics.”
Milei’s midterm triumph underscores the urgency of Professor Lucca’s diagnosis. With La Libertad Avanza capturing nearly 41% of the vote, securing 13 of 24 Senate seats and 64 of 127 lower-house seats, Argentina’s president has consolidated his grip on power. The landslide—hailed by supporters as a rejection of Peronism and condemned by critics for deepening inequality—marks a pivotal moment in Argentina’s democratic experiment: one where chainsaw economics meets populist spectacle, reshaping both the country’s political grammar and its social contract.
Professor Juan Bautista Lucca is a leading political scientist at the National University of Rosario (UNR) and Independent Researcher at CONICET.
Here is the edited transcript of our interview with Professor Juan Bautista Lucca, slightly revised for clarity and flow.
Milei’s Victory Is Not an Economic Referendum, but a Moral One
Professor Juan Bautista Lucca, thank you very much for joining our interview series. Let me start right away with the first question: In light of Javier Milei’s surprising midterm victory, how do you interpret this result as a referendum on two years of libertarian governance amid economic contraction, corruption scandals, and low turnout? What does it reveal about the resilience and transformation of right-wing populism in Argentina?
Professor Juan Bautista Lucca: It’s a complex question, so I’ll try to answer as much as I can. First of all, I have to say that it’s not surprising—the number of people who support Milei. But even if I say that, I could also say that this is a kind of referendum for them, or a referendum on concrete economic results. I would say that the result of the last election is more an expression of the president’s capacity to maintain a narrative of radical rupture and moral regeneration.
Even if in the 2023 election he didn’t campaign against Kirchnerism as much, he opposed the idea of la casta. But now, he incorporates the idea of anti-Kirchnerism, and it was very effective in nationalizing the election—turning what was essentially a provincial or local contest into a national one. He was able to make it a national debate. So, it’s not a referendum on economic policy.
I also have to add that the low electoral turnout, in a way, shows that those who went to vote are mostly the highly polarized ones. People in the center, who don’t agree with either side of Argentina’s antinomic populist politics—with Peronism and Kirchnerism on one side, and La Libertad Avanza or Mileism on the other—are not very motivated to vote. People in the center of the ideological spectrum, or those distant from this cleavage, tend to stay home. That’s why participation was so low—one of the lowest in the last 40 years of democracy in Argentina.
Argentina Is Witnessing the Normalization of Neoliberal Populism
To what extent does this electoral outcome signal the normalization of populist discourse within Argentina’s political mainstream—especially when neoliberal prescriptions are wrapped in anti-elitist and moralizing rhetoric?
Professor Juan Bautista Lucca: We are facing an unsettling but truly effective normalization. This normalization started more or less three years ago, when the mainstream right accepted that Milei is not just an outsider, and their debate, discourse, and programmatic perspective—or their ideological propositions on policies—were no longer as radicalized as they had been maybe ten years ago. So, the normalization of Milei’s discourse really began three or four years ago.
During the pandemic period, this discursive operation represented the sophistication of neoliberal populism as we knew it in Argentina with Menem or Macri in the past, because they no longer need to hide their economic program. In the past, we could see that Macri and Menem tried to conceal their programmatic preferences. They didn’t openly express the idea that we were in the midst of a new or renewed Washington Consensus. But now, Milei doesn’t want to hide this economic program; they even celebrate it as an act of moral courage, perhaps.
This is important for Argentina’s political imagination, where Washington Consensus prescriptions were always very unpopular but are now gaining more and more popular legitimacy. That’s why we are witnessing the normalization of this radical discourse. We could see it in the last two elections, this year and in 2023, when the idea of controlling debt and the state deficit was celebrated by all participants in the election—even the Peronist candidate, Massa.
Right now, other candidates on the Peronist side have decided to accept the idea of controlling the deficit and reducing not only social policies but also other kinds of spending—the amount of money wasted on unproductive policies, especially at the provincial and subnational levels. Governors have decided to accept Milei’s neoliberal restrictions on spending for policies, infrastructure, and other kinds of initiatives. And when they accept these ideas and policies, they are normalizing the programmatic perspective of our president.
Milei and Trump Share a Cultural, Not Just Political, Alliance
Protesters march through the streets of Argentina’s capital during demonstrations against the G20 summit in Buenos Aires, Nov. 30, 2018. Photo: Gabriel Esteban Campo.
Given the US bailout and Donald Trump’s open political intervention, how do you evaluate this episode as an instance of transnational populist coordination? Does it point to a new geopolitical articulation of Trumpism in the Global South?
Professor Juan Bautista Lucca: It’s a complex question. Of course, there is a strong link between Trump’s administration and Milei’s administration, but I also have to note that it is a strong relationship between both individuals, not merely an administrative connection. This shows that Trump is not supporting Milei as a conventional geopolitical ally, since in Latin America there are other countries that are more powerful or geopolitically significant—perhaps nations in the Caribbean or Brazil. The link between Trump and Milei is more about companionship within a global and established movement that shares certain cultural codes, symbolic enemies, and a specific vision of the world—particularly the defense of Western civilization.
We could see this in Milei’s administration when he chose Israel as the first country to visit as president, breaking a long-standing tradition in Argentine administrations since the return of democracy. Traditionally, the first country an Argentine president visited was Brazil. Milei broke with that, and this reflects not only his stance toward Israel but also his affinity with Trump. This is not a geopolitical expression but rather a relationship rooted in cultural codes and a shared worldview.
This effectively points toward geopolitics of Trumpism in the Global South, where national sovereignties are paradoxically redefined through transnational ideological alliances. In this case, the alliance is supported not only by ideological affinities but also by shared cultural representations of how they enact their policies. For example, the recent government shutdown in the Trump administration is more or less the same as what has been experienced since the beginning of the Milei administration with the shutdown of the budget—used as a political strategy.
If we look not only at the link between Trump and Milei’s administrations but also at the policies they are implementing in both countries, they are largely similar. This convergence shows how they choose to express their alliance not only at the geopolitical level but also in domestic politics.
Milei Redefines Dependence as Liberation and Sovereignty as Submission
How might such external dependencies—both financial and ideological—reshape Argentina’s historical narrative of sovereignty and national autonomy, central tropes within both Peronist and anti-Peronist imaginaries?
Professor Juan Bautista Lucca: That’s a fantastic question, because it can be answered through the lens of the Milei administration, which is presenting—or perhaps performing—a radical act of resignification. With Trump’s support and the effort to stabilize the financial system, Milei frames external financial dependence as a form of liberation. It’s a contradiction in terms, but it’s highly effective in gaining support from the electorate. He has also reframed integration into the global neoliberal order as an authentic expression of individual sovereignty. It’s a deeply paradoxical move: he presents liberty where there is dependence and defends sovereignty while effectively handing over the keys to the Trump administration on one of Argentina’s most critical issues—the financial question, debt control, and inflation rates.
Milei Doesn’t Defend the Market—He Sacralizes It
Javier Milei casts his vote in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on November 19, 2023. Photo: Fabian Alberto De Ciria.
In your studies of ideological structures in Argentine and Latin American politics, you have discussed how right-wing projects often recode neoliberal rationality through affective populist idioms. How does Milei’s “anarcho-capitalism” fit within, or rupture, that ideological tradition?
Professor Juan Bautista Lucca: We see both continuities and ruptures in the idea that Milei is an anarcho-capitalist. How can we analyze that in relation to your question? It represents continuity because it effectively reintroduces neoliberal rationality through an affective populist medium. Sometimes we saw this in more moderate forms with Menem and Macri. However, the Argentine right has traditionally expressed anti-populism in its discourse while employing populism in its strategy. For example, Macri opposed the populism of Kirchnerism, yet in his strategy, he created a sharp distinction or cleavage between one side and the other—constructing a Manichean narrative that was entirely populist, even if he never admitted to being one.
If we use Pierre Ostiguy’s framework, for instance, Macri’s administration was led by elites at the top, but at the subnational level—in the provinces—it relied heavily on “low culture,” which Ostiguy defines as populist.
In Milei’s case, however, there is a rupture with this tradition because he takes the operation to an unprecedented extreme. He radicalizes it. He doesn’t merely defend the market; he sacralizes it. He doesn’t simply criticize the state, as Macri or Menem did; he demonizes it. He presents a more apocalyptic vision. His anarcho-capitalism functions less as a coherent economic doctrine and more as a political mythology. That’s why he promises redemption through the destruction of the existing order. He often says that we need to “burn Rome once again”—in this case, Argentina.
The idea is to push this populist narrative to its limits, portraying society as living in hell, with him as the only one capable of leading it to paradise. It is framed in a far more apocalyptic and radicalized way than in previous expressions of the right in Argentina, such as those of Menem and Macri.
Milei’s Libertarian Populism Blends Market Maximalism with Messianic Performativity
Can we analytically conceive Milei’s project as a form of neoliberal populism, or does its radical libertarianism, combined with moral anti-statism, constitute a novel ideological hybrid that transcends earlier typologies such as the “New Right” of Menem or Macri?
Professor Juan Bautista Lucca: It is, once again, a very complex question, and I think we need more time—or at least we need to see the full picture of Milei’s administration—to provide a more conceptually precise answer. But if I had to give a quick one, I would say that while the neoliberal populism of Menem and Macri sought a certain pragmatic balance between market logic and popular demands, in Milei’s case, he radicalizes both poles simultaneously. He is ultra-neoliberal in economics but ultra-populist in rhetoric.
His libertarianism is not merely technical; he moralizes it. As I mentioned in the previous question, he presents it as a religious issue. This kind of libertarian populism—if I may use that term—is an ideological configuration that combines market maximalism and anti-establishment maximalism with messianic performativity.
It’s like old wine in a new bottle served in a new kind of cup: something broadly familiar but with a completely different flavor. It is presented as a revelation, almost mythological—something that doesn’t fit easily within earlier categories like the New Right or neoliberal populism. It is genuinely new in the sense that Milei adds this messianic, performative, almost religious dimension to the mix of market ideology and anti-establishment maximalism in his politics.
Milei Reverses the Latin American Populist Tradition
Murals of Eva Perón and Juan Domingo Perón in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on October 30, 2016. Photo: Dreamstime.
Considering your engagement with Torcuato di Tella’s work on national-popular coalitions and Bonapartism, how might Milei’s project be situated within—or against—that lineage of Latin American populisms that sought to reconcile mass incorporation with elite hegemony?
Professor Juan Bautista Lucca: The comparison with di Tella is very productive, because di Tella knew the Peronist strategies intimately and how they evolved over time. He was present at every table where Peronism sought to articulate its power, at least during the last democratic period.
The classical national-popular populism that di Tella analyzed aimed to build coalitions under charismatic leadership that mediated between elites and the masses. It was a kind of reinterpretation of Maurice A. Finocchiaro’s idea of leadership. Di Tella saw this leadership in a positive light, while Finocchiaro viewed it as something negative for democracy.
In Milei’s case, however, he inverts this logic. He builds an anti-distributive coalition under charismatic leadership. He takes di Tella’s framework and completely reverses it—turning it upside down, so to speak. Milei not only inverts the logic that di Tella described but also preserves the Bonapartist structure characterized by concentrated power and a direct, plebiscitary relationship with the people. In this context, he relies heavily on new technologies like social media, which played a far greater role in the 2023 election than in this one.
This is partly because we are now in a midterm election where President Milei himself was not a candidate, so each candidate had to express their allegiance to Milei’s narrative through their own social media channels. As a result, the power and potential of social media became fragmented across multiple actors.
To conclude, Milei’s rise represents both an appropriation and a distortion of the traditional Latin American populist model that di Tella described—pushed toward radically opposite ends, the ultimate outcome and final shape of which remain uncertain.
Milei Turns Politics into a Permanent Apocalyptic Theater
The performative excess of Milei’s leadership—his rock-star persona and apocalyptic imagery—has become central to his political grammar. From your theoretical perspective, how does this form of charismatic performativity reconfigure the populist relation between representation, spectacle, and crisis?
Professor Juan Bautista Lucca: Milei is an outsider from the political elites in Argentina, but he’s also someone who came from the media, and he realized very quickly that in the era of spectacularized politics, representation is not based on programs but rather on affective intensity. The performativity that Milei embodies is not ornamental—it is constitutive of Milei and Mileism itself.
The insults, the rock aesthetic, the apocalyptic references—even the hair, in a kind of Boris Johnson or The Cure singer (Robert James Smith) way—are not simply part of a communication strategy. They are the cornerstone of his political force. His charismatic performativity produces what we could call a politics of permanent event, and he uses social networks to sustain it every day. He sends more tweets and posts than the time he spends sleeping.
He reconfigures populism away from institutional constraints into a logic of pure messianic events. It is a populism—a permanent apocalyptic theater. And Milei, more than anyone, understood that very quickly and very clearly. That’s why it was so effective during the election period.
Milei’s Leviathan May Soon Face a Behemoth from Populist Peronism
The colorful facade of a building in the iconic neighborhood of El Caminito in Buenos Aires, Argentina, featuring figures of Maradona and the Perón couple. Photo: Alexandre Fagundes De Fagundes.
And the last question is: Looking ahead, do you foresee Argentina entering a phase of libertarian-populist consolidation, or are we witnessing the incipient exhaustion of a political model whose moral and economic contradictions may soon reinvigorate a re-articulated Peronism or left-populist alternative?
Professor Juan Bautista Lucca: It’s not easy. If I could see the future, I would say that we are in the middle of a transitional period—an interregnum, as Antonio F. Gramsci might say. And, Gramsci said that in these transitional moments, monsters tend to appear, and Milei is one of those monsters. But the question is what will come after—I don’t know. And whether Milei will be the only monster in town, maybe, I don’t know either. I think we are entering a future where this kind of Leviathan that Milei is now creating will be confronted by a Behemoth from populist Peronism. They are trying to reorganize their forces and establish new leaderships in the absence of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.
From my perspective, the only critical scenario we could foresee in the near future is if the policies that Milei has presented, expressed, and implemented produce bad results and outcomes. At the moment, there is no antagonistic opposition capable of confronting and defeating Milei. The only one who could defeat Milei is Milei himself. But this is not an unrealistic scenario, because Milei is an outsider. He is not part of la casta, so he must go through a long and complex process of learning—how to debate, how to build consensus, and how to uphold the informal institutions of Argentine political culture. He needs to understand this background and learn to engage with the other elites who have governed Argentina for maybe twenty or more years in every province. The territorial power of governors in Argentina is very strong, so he needs to negotiate and reach consensus with them.
So, I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I don’t anticipate a simple return of traditional Peronism. It’s more likely that we will see the emergence of a new political articulation—perhaps a renewed form of left-wing populism that learns from Milei’s capacity to connect affectively. Because this is key in Argentina right now: polarization is not ideological—it’s affective. People are divided by emotions and feelings that bring them closer to or further from Milei. That’s why, as I said before in your first question, this election expressed a position of fear that is not linked to either pole of this antagonistic populist divide. There is a third Argentina that is not represented in this election. And it is not expressed because these people don’t want to show their hatred or opposition to Milei’s policies—they simply don’t want to participate in politics. This is something completely new in Argentina. Even during the pandemic, when people were angry or opposed to Alberto Fernández’s government and its policies, they still voted for new parties. But now, more than 30% of people don’t want to participate; they don’t want to belong to either pole of Argentina’s polarization. This is a completely new phenomenon that we must interpret and analyze carefully when the time comes.
