Campaign poster for the Chega party in downtown Lisbon ahead of the national elections on March 9, 2024, in Lisbon, Portugal. Photo: Lars Hoffmann.

The 2024 European Elections and Right-wing Populism in Portugal

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Please cite as:

Biscaia, Afonso & Salgado, Susana. (2024). “The 2024 European Elections and Right-wing Populism in Portugal.” In: 2024 EP Elections under the Shadow of Rising Populism. (eds). Gilles Ivaldi and Emilia Zankina. European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS. October 22, 2024. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp0080

 

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Abstract

Unlike previous European elections, the 2024 European election brought the discussion of European issues to the media and political agendas in Portugal, a country where most voters hold a positive image of the EU. Despite managing to elect its first two MEPs, the European election was not fertile terrain for Chega, as it stopped Chega’s continuous electoral growth since 2019 and its objectives were not fully achieved. Poor candidate selection, overambitious goals, a disconnect between Chega’s soft Euroscepticism and its supporters’ mostly enthusiastic view of the EU, ambiguity about which European party group it would join, and intermittent support from its popular leader, André Ventura, were relevant factors influencing Chega’s campaign and ensuing results. A relatively low turnout and overrepresentation of constituencies that are unlikely to vote for the populist radical right compounded the scenario.

Keywords: Portugal; Chega; populism; European elections; António Tânger Corrêa; André Ventura.

By Afonso Biscaia* & Susana Salgado** (University of Lisbon)

Introduction

The 2024 European election represented the first setback for right-wing populist politics in Portugal after five years of growth. Just three months previously, a snap general election gave the largest-ever representation for right-wing populist Chega (Enough). In this context, Chega publicly set its sights on winning the European elections outright, but poor candidate selection, a lacklustre campaign, a lack of clarity about Chega’s preferences regarding European party groups, and a manifesto that did not conform to its own supporters’ preferences contributed to hampering its goals. Thus, on 9 June, the dominant right-wing populist party in Portugal received around 783,000 fewer votes than it had in March while still electing its first two MEPs.

Growth and reorganization of right-wing populist politics in Portugal (2019–2024)

In the 2019 European elections, the National Renovation Party (Partido Nacional Renovador, PNR) and the Basta coalition (‘Basta’ is a synonym of Chega) were the right-wing populist options. PNR is older and more radical, while Basta was a coalition of small conservative parties and movements led by André Ventura, the leader of Chega, then a splinter group from the centre-right Social Democratic Party (Partido Social Democrata, PSD). Both candidacies were unsuccessful, garnering a combined tally of around 65,000 votes.

Nevertheless, 2019 would turn out to be a pivotal year for Portuguese right-wing populism. In the general election held in October, Chega became the first right-wing populist party to achieve a parliamentary breakthrough, attaining 1.29% of the vote. Chega enhanced its position in two subsequent (snap) elections, in 2022 and 2024, increasing its vote share to 7.18% and 18.07%, respectively, becoming the dominant radical right-wing populist party and third largest overall.

Chega’s agenda has focused on typical radical right-wing populist issues, such as corruption, immigration and security (Biscaia & Salgado, 2022; Mendes, 2022), as well as on the rhetorical construction of an in-group of ‘righteous Portuguese’ in opposition to out-groups and the political elite (Biscaia & Salgado, 2022). Foreign policy has not been Chega’s priority. Its stances on the matter are often instrumental. Regarding the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Chega adopted a pro-Ukraine position, aligned with most mainstream parties (Biscaia & Salgado, 2023). On the Israel-Palestine conflict, it was clearly pro-Israel, claiming Netanyahu’s government was entitled to ‘neutralize the threat’, and was the only parliamentary party that declined to join calls for a ceasefire (Agência Lusa, 2024a).

The sovereign debt crisis of the 2010s and subsequent austerity policies drove some voters out of the electoral market and cleared the way for smaller parties to make gains by bringing new issues to the fore (Lisi et al., 2020). Chega was the most successful party in capitalizing on these opportunities and managed to mobilize voters who had abstained in previous elections and maintain their vote, but also attracted voters who had previously voted for PSD and the Socialist Party (Partido Socialista, PS) in previous elections (ICS–ISCTE Surveys, 2024b). Anti-Roma sentiment and welfare chauvinism were key issues in Chega’s growth even before its official founding, as Ventura’s first run for local office, still with PSD, leant heavily on Romaphobia (Bugalho, 2017). Similarly, Afonso (2021) has found that electoral support for the radical right in the 2021 presidential election in Portugal was disproportionately higher in those localities with greater concentrations of Roma populations and welfare beneficiaries. However, as concerns about immigration have intensified in Portugal, with support for restrictive migration policies reaching a slight majority (55%) in 2023–2024 (ICS–ISCTE Surveys, 2024c), migrants – especially Muslims – have become a more prominent target in Chega’s rhetoric (e.g., Matos, 2024).

Other parties tried to emulate Chega’s quick growth. The PNR rebranded as Ergue-te (Rise Up) shortly after Chega’s success in 2019, but the move proved ineffectual, as it received a paltry 0.09% of the vote in the 2024 general election. The Democratic Republican Party (Partido Democrático Republicano, PDR), a centrist populist party (Salgado & Zúquete, 2017), also rebranded, taking on the name Democratic National Alternative (Alternativa Democrática Nacional, ADN) and establishing connections with ultra-conservative Brazilian evangelical groups (Vasco, 2024). The ADN baffled pundits in the 2024 general election by multiplying its previous election tally tenfold and qualifying for state funding despite narrowly failing to elect a single MP; the result was interpreted as a product either of influential political evangelicalism (Henriques, 2024) or confusion between its name and that of the Democratic Alternative (AD), a centre-right coalition composed of the PSD, the CDS–People’s Party and the People’s Monarchist Party (PPM) (Camilo, 2024).

European election: candidates, manifestos and the campaign

Chega’s lead candidate in the European election was António Tânger Corrêa, a party vice president and former diplomat. A month before the election, 71% of poll respondents said they did not know who he was (CESOP Surveys, 2024a), and a few days before the election, 22% of survey respondents who had voted for Chega in March said they were still undecided about the European election (CESOP Surveys, 2024b). The candidate was perceived as eccentric, which was reinforced by his endorsement of conspiracy theories such as ‘the great replacement’ and use of antisemitic tropes, like accusing the Mossad of forewarning American Jews of terrorist attacks on 9/11 (e.g., Chagas, 2024; Malhado, 2024). Ventura, much more popular among Chega supporters, seemed not to prioritize the European election, spending significant time campaigning for regional elections in Madeira; he only joined Tânger Corrêa in the last stretch of the campaign, trying to ensure improved media coverage.

Tânger Corrêa was also ambiguous about Chega’s membership in European political groups, refusing to address the issue and, at one point, saying voters did not need to know how the party would behave in the European Parliament (Oliveira Martins et al., 2024). Nevertheless, Chega had been a member of the Identity and Democracy group (ID) since 2020. Its views on European issues were generally aligned with those expressed on ID’s program, such as its opposition to ‘any supranational construction’ and demand for stricter immigration control (Identity and Democracy Party, n.d.) as well as in drawing a ‘sharp distinction between Europe and the European Union’ and emphasis on intergovernmental cooperation mechanisms, as advocated for in ID’s ‘Declaration of Antwerp’ (Identity and Democracy Party, 2022). However, only 5% of Portuguese Eurobarometer respondents have a negative image of the EU (Public Opinion Monitoring Unit, 2024), and Chega supporters are only slightly less enthusiastic. On average, they express positive views of EU and Eurozone membership, as well as further European integration. They differ from the mainstream mainly in expressing more disillusionment about the bloc’s democratic nature: 46% of surveyed Chega supporters were ‘reasonably’ or ‘extremely’ satisfied with it, compared to 56% of PS supporters and 67% of those who identify with PSD (ICS–ISCTE Surveys, 2024a).

Aware of the EU’s popularity in Portugal and among its supporters, Chega articulated some soft Euroscepticism in its European election manifesto: ‘A Europa Precisa de uma Limpeza’ (Europe Needs a Clean Up). Thus, the document conceded that EU membership had ‘served the [Portuguese] national interest’ (Chega, 2024: 3) but defined Chega as ‘a deeply sovereigntist, pro-European, and Atlanticist’ party (Chega, 2024: 3) and claims that European institutions have been ‘overtaken by a narrow bureaucratic oligarchy that disregards member states’ identities and history and meddles in practically every dimension of life (Chega, 2024: 3–4). The manifesto envisioned intergovernmental cooperation guided by an ‘uncompromising’ defence of each member state’s national interest as the main policy mechanism and dismissed further integration (Chega, 2024: 6–7). Migration was presented as the foremost policy priority, arguing that it threatened ‘member states’ identity and security’ by pointing at ‘the situation in Germany, Italy, Greece, France, and Sweden’ (Chega, 2024: 7–8). Other stated priorities were expanding member states’ military capabilities to end ‘military reliance on the United States’ (Chega, 2024: 10) while urging that Portugal meet the minimum NATO commitment of 2% of GDP for annual defence spending (Chega, 2024: 10), and fighting corruption.

However, reinforcing the second-order nature of European elections in Portugal, Chega’s manifesto proposals were mostly focused on domestic policy, like abandoning the UN’s Global Compact for Migration, revoking the CPLP (Community of Portuguese Language Countries) mobility agreement, and establishing stricter rules for Portuguese naturalization. European-level proposals were scarce but included reinforcing the Frontex mechanism (Chega, 2024: 8), ending assistance for ‘NGOs that support illegal immigration’ and, vaguely, the ‘generalized adoption of the [immigration] models the UK has been implementing’ (Chega, 2024: 8). Despite Ventura having called for further sanctions on Russia in the past (Biscaia & Salgado, 2023), no specific course of action was proposed regarding ongoing wars.

Regarding the other populist parties’ lead candidates in the European election, ADN’s lead candidate was Joana Amaral Dias, a well-known former MP of Left Bloc (Bloco de Esquerda, BE), and Ergue-te selected Rui Fonseca Castro, a controversial former judge. ADN’s European election manifesto articulated what could be described as a denialist ideology. It urged peace between Russia and Ukraine, lamenting the loss of access to ‘cheap Russian energy’ (ADN, 2024: 4) and urging an end to sanctions (ADN, 2024: 25), opposed green transition initiatives as ‘turning science into a dogma’ and ‘making life impossible for European businesses’ (ADN, 2024: 7). ADN castigated ‘the failure of integration’ and demanded restrictive migration policies (ADN, 2024: 39). Ergue-te’s hard Eurosceptic manifesto ‘Libertar a Europa da União Europeia’ (Freeing Europe from the European Union) predicted and advocated for the ‘inevitable implosion’ of the EU (Ergue-te, 2024: 4), but recognized that Portugal’s exit from the bloc was ‘for now, impossible’ (Ergue-te, 2024: 2). It denounced migration, including of ‘so-called refugees’ (Ergue-te, 2024: 5) and proposed the reversal of same-sex marriage laws (Ergue-te, 2024: 7). Regarding national defence, Ergue-te stance is akin to Chega’s, advocating for European ‘military emancipation’ from the United States, through the creation of a more robust defence industry (Ergue-te, 2024: 7).

Debates provided opportunities to set the agenda. In past European election campaigns, the media had been criticized for focusing excessively on domestic issues, but that was not the case in 2024, as debates focused on issues like immigration, defence, EU enlargement, and the potential nomination of the former prime minister, António Costa, as president of the European Council (Ribeiro, 2024; Ribeiro Soares & Martins, 2024). Apart from Costa’s – at the time putative – nomination, the issues roughly corresponded with the electorate’s assessment of the most important issues facing the EU, of which the war in Ukraine, the internal situation, immigration, and the economy came out on top (Public Opinion Monitoring Unit, 2024). Tânger Corrêa participated in the mainstream televised debates but did not prove appealing to TV audiences, as his appearances were estimated to be the least watched (Borges Ferreira, 2024), and his assertions frequently fact-checked (e.g., Leal, 2024) and derided as too weird. ADN and Ergue-te participated in a single debate between smaller parties without parliamentary representation. However, these parties failed to seize the opportunity to reverse their image as fringe candidates.

The election

In Portugal, as in other member states, European elections are considered second-order elections, and the 2024 European elections came at the uncertain beginning of a new political cycle in Portugal. PS, led by António Costa, had governed since 2015 and remained fairly popular throughout most of its long tenure, but several scandals deteriorated its image, and the AD coalition, led by PSD, narrowly won the 2024 snap general election. Its slim parliamentary plurality – 80 MPs to PS’s 78 and Chega’s 50 – means the new government must negotiate in parliament, including over the state budget. Pointing to similarities between PS and PSD, Ventura designated himself as ‘the real leader of the opposition’ and announced that Chega would not vote AD legislation through (Carrapatoso & Figueiredo, 2024). Tânger Corrêa’s candidacy was launched at this time, which partly explains Ventura’s statement of Chega’s objectives: to win the election, avoid a centrist majority in the European Parliament and Ursula von der Leyen’s re-election, and spearhead a ‘grand European coalition, from Hungary to Lisbon’ (Figueiredo, 2024).

The aftermath of the general election was still an important topic during the European Parliamentary election campaign and despite a slight increase in participation from the previous two elections (2014: 33.84%; 2019: 30.73%), only 36.47% of eligible voters deposited ballots on 9 June, compared to 59.84% in the March general election. Ultimately, PS, whose lead candidate, Marta Temido, owed her popularity to having been health minister during the COVID-19 pandemic, reversed the earlier results, narrowly beating AD, whose list was led by TV pundit Sebastião Bugalho. Both achieved vote shares of around 30% and fewer than 40.000 votes separated them. Similarly, left-wing parties’ results were akin to those in March, and the Portuguese Communist Party (Partido Comunista Português, PCP), the BE, and Livre (Free) all tallied at around 4%. However, only the former two managed to elect an MEP.

The most significant differences in results happened on the right: despite lower participation, Liberal Initiative (Iniciativa Liberal, IL) gained nearly 40,000 votes more than in the general election, up to 9.08%, and elected two MEPs. Conversely, Chega lost nearly 783.000 votes from its general election tally despite holding on to third place and also electing two MEPs, with 9.79% of the total vote. Chega’s losses were greater than any other party’s, and, unlike in the general election, it failed to capture first or second place in any electoral district in Portugal. However, it did repeat wins in constituencies abroad, like Switzerland or Brazil.

Chega’s loss can also be partially explained by a more challenging context in this election, namely concerning voter demographics, since older and more educated voters, who are more likely to vote in low-turnout elections and less likely to vote for the right-wing populist party, were estimated to have been overrepresented (Magalhães, 2024). On the night of 9 June, Tânger Corrêa described the day as ‘not good’, and Ventura admitted Chega ‘did not achieve its goals’ but found comfort in obtaining more votes than in 2019 and electing MEPs (Camilo, 2024b). The ADN and Ergue-te failed to elect any MEPs, attaining 1.37% and 0.16% of the total vote, respectively. Despite the ADN’s similar vote share compared to March, it lost nearly half of its votes, reigniting the debate over its previous result. Additionally, Ergue-te’s marginal result seems to confirm its fringe status once again, but also that of hard Euroscepticism.

Conclusion

The 2024 European election capped a cycle of uninterrupted growth for Chega that started at its launch in the 2019 European elections. During that period, Chega managed to go from parliamentary breakthrough to 50 MPs, sparking the reorganization of its area of the political field, namely the rebranding of extant parties that Chega overtook and the appearance of new players interested in replicating its success in mobilizing non-voters. Chega’s expectations were high in the 2024 European elections, and Ventura publicly set the win as Chega’s goal.

Nevertheless, the nomination of the eccentric António Tânger Corrêa and enhanced media scrutiny weakened the campaign. For the first time since its foundation, Chega received fewer votes than in the previous election despite electing its two first MEPs, Tânger Corrêa and Tiago Moreira de Sá. It is too early to predict whether this result will have any lingering effects on the party at the national level, as Ventura’s popularity among Chega supporters and media visibility remain undiminished.

Similarly, it is not straightforward to predict what the Chega MEPs’ main legislative priorities will be. The party joined the new Patriots for Europe (PfE) group along with other right-wing populist mainstays like France’s National Rally (RN) and the Freedom Party of Austria (both formerly in ID), as well as Spain’s Vox, part of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group until July 2024, and Fidesz, which left the European People’s Party (EPP) in 2021. The new group’s manifesto advocates for similar principles as the ID’s, asserting that the EU has ‘turned against Europeans and now pursues interests contrary to the will of the Nations, Regions, and small communities that constitute our European home’ (Patriots for Europe, n.d.), while pledging to ‘prioritize sovereignty over federalism’ (Patriots for Europe, n.d.). Chega MEPs will likely join initiatives designed to restrict immigration and bolster European military–industrial capacity, as both were presented as priorities in Chega’s manifesto.

However, it is less clear how Tânger Corrêa’s views on the invasion of Ukraine will influence his voting record. On 17 July, he abstained on a resolution recommitting the EU to ongoing support for Ukraine (Antunes & Figueiredo, 2024). However, attempts to block further financial and military aid to Ukraine would put him at odds with Chega’s official position. Regardless, Chega’s MEPs will almost certainly not prove decisive in defining PfE’s priorities. Despite Tânger Corrêa’s nomination as one of its vice presidents, the group looks set to be steered by more influential players in the European right and the radical right-wing populist milieu.

 

(*) Afonso Biscaia is a PhD candidate in Comparative Politics at the Instituto de Ciências Sociais–Universidade de Lisboa. His main research interests include radical right-wing populism and digital political communication.

(**) Susana Salgado (PhD, 2007) is a political communication scholar. She coordinates research projects, teaches, and publishes on democracy, populism, disinformation, hate and online extremism, and political polarization. Salgado is currently Principal Research Fellow at the Instituto de Ciências Sociais–Universidade de Lisboa and the principal investigator of externally funded research projects, including “(The Matrix of) Populist and Denialist Attitudes towards Science” (PTDC/CPO- CPO/4361/2021) and “Depictions and Politicization of the Truth in Democratic Politics (2020.04070.CEECIND/CP1615/CT0007).

 

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Right-wing political rally in Zagreb's main square, featuring men dressed in black waving Croatian, black and anti-EU flags Croatia on June 23, 2019. Photo: Shutterstuck.

Between ‘Kingmakers’ and Public Indifference: Croatia’s National Conservative Right in the European Elections of 2024

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Please cite as:

Petsinis, Vassilis. (2024). “Between ‘Kingmakers’ and Public Indifference: Croatia’s National Conservative Right in the European Elections of 2024.” In: 2024 EP Elections under the Shadow of Rising Populism. (eds). Gilles Ivaldi and Emilia Zankina. European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS. October 22, 2024. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp0064

 

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Abstract

This chapter focuses on Croatia and deals with the national conservative Domovinski Pokret/Homeland Movement (DP) party. In the latest European elections, the DP garnered a percentage of 8.82% (65,383 votes and one seat), taking third spot after the ruling (centre-right) Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) and the ‘Rivers of Justice’ coalition spearheaded by the (centre-left) Social Democrat Party (SDP). I begin the present chapter by sketching a typology of the constituent segments along the broad spectrum of the European right wing and situate the DP within it. I then offer a summary of the DP’s founding principles vis-à-vis further European integration and clarify the extent to which these principles were reflected in the party’s stances and active engagement in the latest European elections. I then identify the main catalysts behind the DP leadership’s success in mobilizing target groups and galvanizing electoral support for the party.

Keywords: Radical Right, National Conservatives, European Elections, Euroscepticism, Croatia, Ukraine

 

By Vassilis Petsinis* (Institute of Global Studies, Corvinus University of Budapest)

Introduction

The results of the European elections (6–9 June 2024) have generated diverse political repercussions on the national, European and global levels. On the one hand, the parties of the centre-right, grouped under the European People’s Party (EPP), and the parties of the centre-left, rallying behind the banner of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) group, succeeded in maintaining the top and the second spot, respectively, at the European level. On the other hand, the landscape became hazier concerning the political forces clustered along the broader right-wing spectrum beyond the EPP – namely, the parties of the national conservative as well as the populist and radical right in the European Parliament (EP).

One catalyst that has complicated the precise assessment of those parties’ performance is that the political forces beyond the conservative centre-right were scattered among different coalitions such as the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) and Identity and Democracy (ID) groups – also including powerful non-attached (NA) political actors including Hungary’s Fidesz party. Nevertheless, it appears that these parties succeeded in one of three ways in the latest European elections. First, some consolidated their already preeminent positions in the domestic politics of their respective states, such as the National Rally (RN) in France, or enhanced their positions significantly, as in the case of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in Germany, the Freedom Party (PVV) in the Netherlands, and the Law and Justice party (PiS) in Poland. A second set expanded and augmented, to varying degrees, their public appeal, including Vox in Spain, Chega in Portugal, and the Hellenic Solution (EL) in Greece. A third, smaller group saw their support erode due to the emergence of new contenders, most notably the ruling Fidesz party in Hungary, which has ceded popularity to the centre-right Respect and Freedom party (Tisza).

In Central and Southeast Europe, the voter turnout in the latest European elections ranged from relatively high (e.g., Hungary, 59.46%) to relatively low (e.g., Poland, 40.65%; Slovakia, 34.38%) and meagre (e.g., Lithuania, 28.35%) (European Parliament, n.d.). This article casts its lens on Croatia, one of the new member states where the turnout rate was the lowest in the EU (21.35%) (Ibid).

Despite the lack of voter interest, the EU is a significant benefactor for Croatia, which has been heavily dependent on financial support from Brussels since it joined the Union in 2013. In particular, the EU’s Structural and Cohesion Funds have been of crucial significance in upgrading the local infrastructure in the less-developed regions of the country (e.g., certain parts of Eastern Slavonia and Dalmatia). Moreover, especially following the country’s accession to the Schengen Area (1 January 2023), employment opportunities within the EU have provided both ‘white collar’ and ‘blue collar’ professional categories with a vital ‘lifeline’. As an aggregate of these sociopolitical realities, the primary concerns and expectations of the Croatian electorate during the latest European elections predominantly revolved around the economy, and public Euroscepticism was not noticeably high. At the same time, global and regional crises generated shockwaves within the Croatian public and among the country’s political elites. The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 is a particular case in point, with several political actors across the political divide seeking to draw tentative analogies between this weighty geopolitical moment and Croatia’s Domovinski Rat (‘Homeland War’) from 1991 to 1995.

As a consequence of the Domovinski Rat, Croatia has several parties that oscillate between the categories of the radical and the extreme right. While formed between the early 1990s and the early 2000s, these parties – including the Croatian Party of Rights (HSP), the Croatian Pure Party of Rights (HČSP) and the Autochthonous Party of Rights (A–HSP) – tend to claim roots in the same nineteenth-century nationalist Hrvatska Stranka Prava or Croatian Party of Rights.

Nevertheless, since not one of these older parties has been represented either in the Croatian Sabor (national assembly) or the EP for longer than a decade, this article focuses on the national conservative party, the Domovinski Pokret (Homeland Movement, DP), which in the short period since its formation has become the most vocal opposition party of the right. In the 2024 European elections, the DP garnered 8.82% of the vote, taking one seat and securing the third spot after the ruling, centre-right Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) and the ‘Rivers of Justice’ coalition spearheaded by the centre-left Social Democrat Party (SDP) (Table 1). Launched on 29 February 2020, the DP has set its principal objective to antagonize the ruling HDZ from the right. This aim acquires a greater significance, considering that roughly one month earlier, under the leadership of Ivan Penava, the DP secured third place in the Croatian parliamentary elections (17 April 2024) with a percentage of 9.56%, taking 14 seats (Table 2). This result, in turn, upgraded the party’s leverage in the negotiations for the formation of a new government after the elections and rendered the DP a ‘kingmaker’ until its official inclusion in the governing coalition with the HDZ in May 2024 (Tesija, 2024; Hajdari, 2024).

I begin the present chapter by sketching a typology of the constituent segments along the broad spectrum of the European right wing and situate the DP within it. I then offer a summary of the DP’s founding principles vis-à-vis further European integration and clarify the extent to which these principles were reflected in the party’s stances and active engagement in the latest European elections. I then identify the main catalysts behind the DP leadership’s success in mobilizing target groups and galvanizing electoral support for the party.

Situating the Homeland Movement within the European populist and radical right

This schematic categorization pays primary attention to political origins, evolutionary trajectories, and patterns of (active) political engagement (Petsinis, 2019: 166–167). Parties of the populist and radical right tend to scrutinize constitutional order while striving to promote their political cause(s) principally via parliamentary and democratic institutions and procedures. Populist and radical right-wing parties may often be by-products of top-level formation processes (so-called ‘cadre’ parties) that have come into being after (a) the reformation or merger of already existing parties, as with the Sweden Democrats (SD), the Finns Party in Finland, and the Conservative People’s Party (EKRE) in Estonia; or (b) the secession of ‘splinter groups’ from larger parties such as the cases of the Independent Greeks (ANEL) and, more recently, EL in Greece.

Attention must also be paid to one more subcategory of right-wing parties beyond the centre right – the national conservatives. The political platforms of such parties maintain ethnonationalist and nativist components, as well as occasional pledges to protect ‘naturally ascribed’ gender norms and religious values, but their populist and anti-establishment tones appear somewhat less intense. A few representative examples from Central and Eastern Europe are (to a certain extent) Fidesz in Hungary, PiS in Poland and the National Alliance in Latvia.

By contrast, parties of the extreme right may actively challenge (or even attempt to temporarily substitute) the operation of state institutions (e.g., by organizing party militias or youth wings into self-styled ‘street patrols’). Such parties have usually come into being due to processes spearheaded by a grassroots nucleus often aided by semi-paramilitary groupings, therefore regularly opting for a more militant engagement. Parties of this subgroup with a non-negligible public appeal have become active across Central and Southeast Europe – notable cases during the last 10–15 years include the ‘old’ Jobbik in Hungary, ‘Our Slovakia’ (ĽSNS), Bulgaria’s ‘Ataka’, and the Golden Dawn in Greece (Ellinas, 2015; Sygkelos, 2015; Drábik, 2022).

‘Uncompromising opposition’ from the right: Where does the Homeland Movement stand on the issues?

As early as 2020, the DP leadership has set as top priorities: (a) safeguarding of national and Christian values; (b) stricter control of immigration and tougher ‘law and order’ measures, and; (c) revision of certain clauses in legislation protecting minority rights (Domovinski Pokret, 2020a). Regarding the ethnonationalist component of its political agenda, the party objects to the adoption of the ‘fixed’ quota arrangement toward the representation of ethnic minorities in the Sabor (i.e., the so-called ‘electoral district 12’), the ethnic Serb minority in particular (Domovinski Pokret, 2020b: 32). In addition, DP contends that ‘this arrangement has mostly enabled certain individuals and groups to serve their private interests’ (Ibid.: 31) and calls for this model to be abolished (Ibid).

Regarding gender-related issues, DP pledges to ‘respect and safeguard traditional family values’ (Domovinski Pokret, 2020a: 2), whereas the full party manifesto defines ‘marriage as the union between a man and a woman, as stipulated by the Constitution … [T]his guideline must be respected by the Croatian institutions’ (Domovinski Pokret, 2020b: 20). As far as the DP’s nativist principles on immigration are concerned, the party holds that ‘the protection of borders and citizens from potential threats must be assigned primarily to the authorities of sovereign states within the European Union’ (Domovinski Pokret, 2020b: 29).

In their rhetoric, the leader Ivan Penava and other high-ranking members have regularly accused political opponents of ‘incompetence and irresponsibility’, including in attacks on the HDZ for its ongoing cooperation with the ethnic Serb Independent Democratic Party (SDSS) as well as the ‘relentless promotion of pro-LGBT agendas and woke culture’ by the SDP and above all the Green-left coalition of Možemo (‘We Can!’). Nevertheless, the speed with which the current governing coalition between the HDZ and the DP was concluded and the relative flexibility with which any noteworthy obstacles were bypassed hint at a party ostensibly keener on engaging from within the halls of power instead of uncompromisingly opposing the mainstream establishment. Therefore, despite the occasional display of paraphernalia associated with the wartime fascist Ustaše (‘Insurgents’) regime (1941–1945) in public events co-ordinated by the DP (Hajdari, 2024; Novakov & Čolić, 2024), based on top-level decision-making and political values, the DP seems to fit more closely the prototype of a national conservative party. This observation is reinforced by the DP’s joining the ECR group in the EP after the European elections.

The Homeland Movement and the process of European integration

Soon after it was founded and against a backdrop of soft Euroscepticism and concerns over interethnic relations, the DP began expressing discontent with longstanding external pressures from the Venice Commission (Council of Europe) and the EU. This discontent centred on the pre-accession push (in 2000–2002) for Croatia to adopt the ‘fixed’ quota arrangement for ethnic minority representation in the Sabor (Domovinski Pokret, 2020b: 32).

On a macropolitical level, the soft Eurosceptic stance of the DP leadership is reflected in its framing of the European Union as ‘a confederal union of sovereign states and not as a supranational, federal, state with the prospects of becoming unitary’ (Domovinski Pokret, 2020a: 3). Along the same lines, the DP prescribes that Croatia must develop closer relations with the Visegrad Four (Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic) because of ‘the shared historical experiences, as well as the similar positions and outlooks on the European and global developments’ with this group of countries (Domovinski Pokret, 2020b, p. 30). Herein, it should be underlined that, despite its soft Eurosceptic orientation, the DP never advocated for the development of more extensive relations between Croatia and ‘alternative partners’ in global politics, like Russia, China or the BRICS. In this light, the DP seems to align with the staunchly and idiosyncratically sovereigntist stances regarding relations with both the West and non-Western powers that characterize parties to the right of the HDZ in Croatian politics (Petsinis, 2024).

Seizing the geopolitical moment: The Homeland Movement’s reaction to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

The DP leadership has been quick to seize the geopolitical moment occasioned by Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. Aligning with a more general tendency across Croatia’s political divide, the party’s leader, Ivan Penava, and other high-ranking members have drawn (at times oblique) links between the legacies of Croatia’s Domovinski Rat (1991–1995) and Ukraine’s struggle to resist Russian aggression.

On 24 February 2022, Penava stated, ‘Our party expresses its firm solidarity with Ukraine and the Ukrainian people … we hope that this conflict will last as shortly as possible with as few human and material losses as possible’ (Ibid.). He also urged the state authorities to organize the accommodation of Ukrainian refugees in Croatia and efficiently allocate the material resources required. In addition to highlighting the commonalities between the Homeland War and the developments in Ukraine, Penava cast doubts on the competence of the government to manage a migration crisis in Croatia (Ibid.). More emphatically, on 6 April 2022, the party’s MP Stipo Mlinarić praised Volodymyr Zelenskyy for dealing with the ‘fifth column’ in Ukraine and deplored the fact that ‘the HDZ-led government has not done the same with the ‘fifth column’ that operates from within the Serb Democratic Independent Party’ (Domovinski Pokret, 2022b).

Nevertheless, between Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022 and the end of 2023, the DP suffered a plateauing, if not a significant decline, in its popularity vis-à-vis the HDZ and other minor contenders on the right. As indicated in several public surveys conducted by the Promocija Plus, 2X1 Komunikacije and Ipsos polling agencies between March and December 2022, the DP had been lagging behind both Možemo and the centre-right, conservative Most (‘The Bridge’) party (Europe Elects, 2024). Therefore, to reverse this decline in popularity, the DP started putting greater stress on the rapidly increasing cost of living and the government’s alleged incompetence in dealing with galloping inflation (Domovinski Pokret, 2022c).

Due to this change of course and the party’s gradual adoption of a strategy more focused on domestic policy, which persisted until the Croatian parliamentary and the European elections, no extensive or concrete references were made to the war in Ukraine. On the contrary, the DP’s Ustani i Ostani! (‘Stand Up and Remain!’) political program, which the party launched for both the national and the European elections, cites Ukraine only on one occasion: in the section about national defence and the need to upgrade the equipment of the Croatian armed forces – the navy, in particular. In greater detail, the program stresses that: ‘Ukraine demonstrated how the use of new military technologies, such as drones, can paralyse even the naval forces of global superpowers (namely, Russia)’ (Domovinski Pokret, 2024a: 23). Otherwise, any references by DP to the EU during its campaign for the European elections concentrated on more general aspects of European politics in accordance with the party’s founding principles regarding the process of European integration.

The Homeland Movement’s campaign in the 2024 European elections

Right at the beginning of the Ustani i Ostani! policy document, the DP underlines its fundamental stance on state sovereignty within the EU: “Many types of crises during the last years (e.g., the financial crisis, Brexit, the migration crisis, and the COVID-19 crisis) have demonstrated that the EU reacts in a slow and non-coordinated manner whereas, at the same time and under these irregular circumstances, the member states prioritize their own interests exclusively. This is why Croatia must prioritize its own interests, too (Croatia comes first!)” (Domovinski Pokret, 2024a: 26).

At a later point in the same policy document, the DP leadership reiterates that it is a sovereigntist party which primarily views the EU as ‘a community of equal and sovereign states and nations rooted in Christian foundations and principles … the detachment of the EU from its Christian roots has resulted in great identity confusion’ (Ibid). Furthermore, the party contends that ‘decisions about Croatia should be taken by Croatian politicians in Zagreb and not by Brussels-based officials’ (Ibid). With specific regard to the area of national defence and the prospects for the EU’s strategic autonomy, DP holds that any projects designed to bolster EU defence policy must not be misused by Brussels in order to weaken further the sovereignty of nation-states (Domovinski Pokret, 2024a: 26).

In addition, DP adamantly opposes Serbia’s accession to the EU, in no small part due to the legacies of the wars of the 1990s in which Serbia is seen as the aggressor against Croatia. Contrarywise, the party underlines that ‘the things that Croatia must demand without compromise from Serbia, which committed aggression on Croatian territory, are payment of war reparations, a thorough search for disappeared persons, and the return of cultural treasures that were stolen during the war’ (Domovinski Pokret, 2024a: 28). At the same time, the party accuses the Serbian government of ‘promoting the ideology of Greater Serbia and openly endorsing Russian aggression against Ukraine’ (Ibid).

Apart from Ustani i Ostani!, individual MPs reiterated these standpoints concerning major policymaking areas on the EU level, both in the Croatian and the European Parliaments, on numerous occasions. Regarding immigration, in the aftermath of a knife attack in Mannheim, Germany, in May 2024, Ivo Čaleta-Car, a DP deputy in the Sabor, warned in a speech that:

The EU is slowly turning into a unitary supranational state. The EU is trying to create an unnatural federation of states that will be held together by migrants and their descendants through mixing with the indigenous populations (Domovinski Pokret, 2024b).

In the same speech, he stressed: ‘Yes to the EU as a community of sovereign nations! No to the EU as a superstate!’ (Ibid.). Moreover, DP concisely but effectively publicized and summarized its main standpoints on European politics through the party’s official pages on social media (e.g., X and Instagram). On the party’s Instagram page, for instance, its main slogans for the European elections feature as follows: “‘Croatia comes first!’, ‘We stop the extension of the Brussels’ jurisdiction!’, ‘For a counteraction to the globalist agendas!’, ‘No to the propagation of gender ideology! We do not want gender ideology in our schools!’, ‘For the protection of national borders!’, ‘For the demographic rebirth of Croatia and Europe!’, ‘Rebirth of the village for the rebirth of Croatia and Europe!’, ‘For a Europe that respects its Christian foundations!’” (Domovinski Pokret, 2024c).

Here, it should be noted that several party candidates incorporated slogans related to policies on the EU level into their campaigns for both the national and the European elections. Stipe Mlinarić, for instance, reiterated that ‘Serbia cannot join the EU before it pays Croatia war reparations for the villages and towns that it destroyed’ (Domovinski Pokret, 2024d), Meanwhile, other party candidates pledged to fight for ‘a Europe that respects its Christian foundations’ (Domovinski Pokret, 2024e), reiterated that ‘Croatia must retain its sovereignty in Europe’ (Domovinski Pokret, 2024f), and underlined that ‘Christianity is the foundation of the EU’ (Domovinski Pokret, 2024g).

Embedding the European in the national: A contextual analysis of the Homeland Movement’s political strategy in the European elections of 2024

With a turnout rate of 21.35%, Croatia had the lowest voter participation among all EU member states in the most recent European elections. Croatians’ lack of interest is underscored if we compare this turnout with the much higher rate of 62.30% in the Croatian parliamentary elections that took place on 17 April 2024 (Republika Hrvatska, n.d.). With European elections held shortly after the parliamentary ones, it is clear that Croatia’s major political leaders prioritized the latter. This was especially true for DP, which emerged as a ‘kingmaker’ after the national elections. Faced with a choice between continuing its role as a perennial gadfly berating the HDZ establishment from opposition or seeking real power on the inside, DP leader Ivan Penava chose the latter, aligning his party with the HDZ and joining it in a governing coalition. 

Considering the relatively more ‘parochial’ outlook of the Croatian electorate on global and European politics, the DP’s leadership has since 2020 been rather eclectic and places primary stress on those developments that, due to sociocultural catalysts, might resonate more directly with the ‘collective subconscious’ of the party’s target groups. This appears to have been a fairly commonplace practice for right-wing political actors in Croatia. For instance, between 2018 and 2019 (two years prior to the formation of the DP), the ‘right-wing faction’ within the ruling HDZ extensively capitalized on public grievances vis-à-vis the guidelines of the ‘Istanbul Convention’ for LGBTQ+ rights and gender equality (Milekic, 2018). Along comparable lines, the DP sought to capitalize on the shockwaves that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine generated across Croatian society by drawing tentative links between Ukrainian resistance and the Croatian Domovinski Rat in the 1990s. However, after 2023, the party leadership switched to a more domestic-focused strategy, emphasizing the rapidly increasing cost of living and Croatia’s galloping inflation as part of the endeavour to reverse its declining popularity.

Consequently, in its political program and the individual campaigns of its candidates and the party’s social media, the DP adopted an even more eclectic pattern of engagement for the European elections that consisted of (a) frequent and repetitive use of ‘catchphrase’ slogans (e.g., ‘Croatia comes first!’) and (b) a paramount, yet synoptic, stress on these aspects of European politics that resonated the most with the party’s founding principles and the dominant trends on identity politics among its target groups in the electorate. Therefore, primary importance was placed on (a) the purported need to safeguard Croatia’s state sovereignty from any extension of the EU’s jurisdiction; (b) calls to veto Serbia’s accession to the EU; (c) opposition to the alleged propagation of ‘gender ideology’ and counter-proposals in increase birthrates in Croatia and the rest of Europe, and; (d) the effective protection of national borders and stricter regulation of immigration from ‘third’ countries outside of Europe.

In the long run, it appears that this more eclectic strategy, which prioritized the embedment of the European in the national, facilitated the DP’s galvanizing of the groupness of its electorate, especially in the strongholds of Eastern and Western Slavonia (i.e., the IV. and V. electoral districts) and claim the third spot behind the HDZ and the SDP (but ahead of Most and Možemo) in both the parliamentary and European elections. Slavonia, as a whole, is a region that was heavily scarred by protracted warfare during the first half of the 1990s. In particular, Vukovar, an Eastern Slavonian town on the border with Serbia along the western bank of the Danube, has been established as a ‘master symbol’ of resistance to the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) in Croatian nationalist imagery. Most importantly, Vukovar is the town of which Ivan Penava has been the local mayor since 2014. The long-term evolution of the HDZ–DP coalition will demonstrate whether the party leadership is keener on (a) alleviating its stances on Euroscepticism and identity politics to secure its status more firmly inside the halls of power or (b) seeking a ‘new’ pact with the ideologically compatible ‘right-wing faction’ within the ruling HDZ in an attempt to trigger a more decisive swing of the governing coalition towards the right.

 

(*) Vassilis Petsinis (PhD Birmingham UK) is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the Corvinus University (Institute of Global Studies) in Budapest, Hungary. He is a political scientist with expertise in European Politics and Ethnopolitics. His Marie Skłodowska-Curie (MSCA-IF) individual research project at the University of Tartu (2017–19) was entitled: ‘Patterns and management of ethnic relations in the Western Balkans and the Baltic States’ (project ID: 749400-MERWBKBS). Vassilis Petsinis is a specialist in the politics of Central and Eastern Europe. He is the author of the monographs National Identity in Serbia: The Vojvodina and a Multiethnic Community in the Balkans (Bloomsbury, 2020) and Cross-regional Ethnopolitics in Central and Eastern Europe: Lessons from the Western Balkans and the Baltic States (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), as well as other academic publications that cover a range of countries as diverse as Serbia, Croatia, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia and Greece.

 

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March of a Million Hearts. Hundreds of thousands march in anti-government protest to show support for democracy in Warsaw, Poland on October 1, 2023. Photo: Shutterstock.

Dashed Hopes and the Success of the Populist Right: The Case of the 2024 European Elections in Poland

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Please cite as:

Lipiński, Artur. (2024). “Dashed Hopes and the Success of the Populist Right: The Case of the 2024 European Elections in Poland.” In: 2024 EP Elections under the Shadow of Rising Populism. (eds). Gilles Ivaldi and Emilia Zankina. European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS. October 22, 2024. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp0079

 

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Abtstract

The European Parliament elections of 9 June 2024 were the next stage in the electoral marathon started by parliamentary elections in 2023 and local elections earlier in 2024 and ended with a good result for the populist Law and Justice Party (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, PiS) and the radical-right Confederation of Freedom and Independence (Konfederacja Wolność i Niepodległość), confirming the relevance of right-wing populist parties in Poland. The combined electoral outcome of both PiS (36.16%) and Confederation (12.08%) is only slightly below 50%. The hopes of all those who treated the 2023 parliamentary elections in Poland as a victory over populism, paving the way for more victories, were thus dashed. The report aims to highlight the political and social context that led to these results and offer arguments supporting the classification of PiS and Confederation as populist communicators. The subsequent sections analyse the political communication strategies employed by both parties, emphasizing the intricacies of their discursive articulations concerning national and European themes. Lastly, the report explores the correlation between the political agendas of PiS and Confederation and the thematic preferences of their electorate, offering a comprehensive understanding of the dynamics at play.

Keywords: Law and Justice; Confederation; populism; EP elections; right wing

By Artur Lipiński* (Department of Political Science and Journalism, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland)

The European Parliament elections on 9 June 9 2024, the next stage in the electoral marathon started by last year’s parliamentary elections and this year’s local elections, ended with a good result for the populist Law and Justice Party (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, PiS) and the radical-right Confederation of Freedom and Independence (Konfederacja Wolność i Niepodległość) usually referred to simply as Confederation (Konfederacja). The hopes of all those who treated the 2023 parliamentary elections as a victory over populism, paving the way for more victories, were thus dashed. Although Prime Minister Donald Tusk and the ruling Civic Platform (Platforma Obywatelska, PO) framed this election as a contest between his coalition and all parties – including PiS – over the fate of the EU, PiS was still able to secure 36.16% of the vote despite low turnout in the countryside, where voters disproportionately favour PiS.

The elections also confirmed several findings by researchers that consider the EP elections to be ‘second-order’ elections. First, these elections are assumed to be less salient for voters as they do not influence national government formation. In fact, in Poland, the high turnout from the 2023 elections, mainly due to young people coming out to vote, led to the success of the liberal opposition at the time, was not repeated and mainly a hardcore electorate went to the polls. Second, the assumption that these elections favour parties of the radical right was confirmed, as they provide a credible and adequate context for articulating Eurosceptic and nationalist views. In the case of Poland, this meant the relative success of the radical-right Confederation, which has made explicit criticism of the European Union its hallmark. Third, there is the question of whether national themes predominate over pan-European ones in elections for the European Parliament. The assumption is that EP elections tend to reflect conflicts and rivalries within the domestic political arena rather than issues dealt with by the European Parliament. However, as this report details, it was not necessarily so in the 2024 EP elections in Poland, as national and European issues were articulated together, contributing to the larger discourse on Europe, its institutions, values and policies.

The main populist actors and their results

 The results of the 2024 EP elections confirmed the relevance of right-wing populist parties in Poland. The combined electoral result of both PiS (36.16%) and the Confederation (12.08%) is only slightly below 50%. Out of these two, PiS constitutes a ‘quintessentially populist’ party (Stanley, 2023), not only with respect to its discourse but also in promoting and subsequently implementing policy solutions. If one adopts the widely shared view that populism is a kind of discursive logic that pits the people against immoral and corrupted elites, then PiS definitely has a populist character. PiS constructs a moralized dichotomy by positioning the traditional Christian nation against the ‘post-communist’ or ‘liberal’ elites (Bill, 2022). A significant element of PiS’s agenda includes anti-migration themes, which have contributed to the politicization and discursive shift in the public sphere since the so-called ‘migration crisis’ of 2015. This shift has led to the normalization of racist discourse and the securitization of migration issues (Krzyżanowska & Krzyżanowski 2018; Krzyżanowski 2020).

At the level of political action, populism combines colonization of the state with mass clientelism and discriminatory legalism (Müller 2016). Accordingly, after taking power in 2015, PiS immediately started dismantling institutional checks and balances, including the Constitutional Tribunal and Supreme Court and transformed the public broadcaster into the government’s mouthpiece (Sadurski, 2019). At the economic level, the party promoted generous social transfers, which not only allowed it to garner the support of beneficiaries but also to accuse political opponents of neglecting the people’s interests.

Such a populist formula allowed PiS to win a number of elections. In 2015, the party gained 37.5% of the votes, translating into 235 seats in the 460-member parliament, enabling the party to form a majority government that introduced all the changes it promised during the campaign. The expensive social transfers made after 2015 and further financial promises, as well as the rhetoric of threats targeted against LGBTQ+ people, secured PiS very good electoral results in the European Parliamentary elections in 2019, namely 45.4% of votes and 27 seats in the EP. The parliamentary elections held the same year brought PiS another victory; the party secured 43.6% of the votes and took 235 seats. It was exceptional not only in terms of the vote share, the highest for any political actor after 1989, but also in terms of the reelection for the second term with the overall majority (Szczerbiak, 2023). The ruling of the Constitutional Tribunal, an institution widely perceived as fully controlled by PiS, to introduce further restrictions into already harsh abortion law coupled with the series of financial and legal irregularities of PiS’s politicians systematically revealed by the media as well as the growing inflation contributed to the visible drop in public opinion polls. Although in the next parliamentary elections held on October 2023, PiS obtained 35.4% of the votes, it did not translate into the majority of the votes in the Sejm (the lower chamber of parliament), and the party was not able to form a government.

The second of the relevant right-wing actors is Confederation. Its classification poses decisively more challenges. Although The PopuList (Rooduijn et al. 2019) classifies the grouping as far right and Stanley (2023) adds that it is of libertarian rather than populist orientation, two caveats should be made here. Formally, the Confederation is a coalition of several parties that represent diverse views and target different segments of the population. New Hope, led by Sławomir Mentzen, is a libertarian party with a strong focus on economic issues, advocating for tax system simplification, tax cuts and neoliberal economic freedoms. Confederation also includes the National Movement, led by Krzysztof Bosak and the Confederation of the Polish Crown, founded by Grzegorz Braun. These groups combine (ethno)nationalism with moral and cultural conservatism, Euroscepticism, antisemitism and anti-Ukrainian sentiments. At least the latter two promote a nationalistic vision that merges anti-establishment rhetoric with the demonization of various groups. Additionally, as strategically calculating organizations, these political groupings adapt their communication strategies to the evolving political landscape and emerging challenges (Van Kessel & Castelein, 2016).

Since 2019, Confederation has slowly and consistently moderated its agenda, foregrounded free market aspects of its identity and economic discourse, dropped its antidemocratic messages and backgrounded or removed its most controversial figures. One crucial step was replacing the controversial leader Janusz Korwin-Mikke with Mentzen, a 35-year-old businessman and lawyer, and changing the name of one of the coalition parties ‘KORWiN’ to New Hope. Moreover, broadening the palette of the party communication with populist themes combined with populist performative strategies (like ‘beer with Mentzen’, a series of events organized across Poland when one of the leaders takes the stage with a mug of beer and talks about his political views emulating relaxed convention of stand up comedy genre) plus the skilful usage of the social media (with his 40 million views and 700,000 followers, Mentzen was the most popular Polish politician on Tik Tok) allowed the party to cross electoral threshold and to slowly build its popularity, particularly, among youngest cohorts of the electorate.

Confederation’s initial attempts to win public support through radical and controversial messages underpinned by antisemitism (Mentzen’s so-called Five Points: ‘we don’t want Jews, homosexuals, abortion, taxes and the EU’) did not bring the party satisfactory results in the 2019 EP elections. The grouping fell below the electoral threshold, receiving only 4.6% of the votes (see Figure 1 below). That led to significant moderation in the October 2019 parliamentary elections and 2020 presidential elections, with communication that emphasized the economic agenda and radical background content, which enabled Confederation to get 6.8% of the vote and win 11 seats in the 460-member Sejm. In the middle of 2022 the party experienced a slump in public support due to its implicit anti-Ukrainian agenda, manifested in references to the dramatic and sensitive aspects of Polish–Ukrainian history (the Volhynian massacre, in particular) and emphasis on the differences in the two states’ national interests. Confederation also chided the PiS government for its overly generous aid for Ukraine. This stance – alongside the extreme polarization between PiS and PO that left no space for smaller actors and the (social) media activity of critical journalists that exposed the radically conservative and exclusionary programmatic assumptions of Confederation – may have influenced the lower-than-expected double-digit result in the 2023 parliamentary elections, which ultimately saw Confederation take 7.2% of the vote (see Figure 1 below).

Confederation nearly doubled its support in the subsequent 2024 European Parliament elections. This increase was attributed not only to the ‘second-order’ nature of the elections, which in many countries bolsters the radical right, but also to the favourable opportunity structure created by various contextual events related to European and domestic affairs in Poland.

Campaign communication, populism and 2024 European Parliamentary election

The international and domestic context

At the international level, a few key issues have been heavily politicized and used as campaign themes by PiS and Confederation. First is the European Green Deal, introduced in 2019, which aims to achieve climate neutrality in the EU by 2050. This policy package is ripe for political exploitation due to its likely uneven impacts on the budgets of households, businesses, industries, regions and member states. Secondly, the European climate and energy agenda might be easily represented as led by the European elites against the sovereign decision of the member states. Additionally, being the result of very complex decision-making based on even more complex scientific expertise makes it even more vulnerable to political exploitation and populist argumentation.

Another important issue which affected the Polish public debate was the European Council’s approval in May 2024 of the EU Pact for Migration. The most controversial aspect of that was the so-called ‘solidarity mechanism’, which Poland’s populist right framed as a false choice between accepting an unspecified number of immigrants or paying €20,000 per immigrant. This framing ignored the option of negotiating alternative forms of support.

The backlash was further fuelled by the tense situation at the Polish–Belarusian border, where Belarusian President Alexandr Lukashenko’s regime transported foreigners from Africa and Asia to the border and forced them to cross. Both attempted and actual illegal crossings were met with a harsh and legally questionable response from the previous PiS government, a policy continued by the PO-led government after October 2023. This response included pushbacks, the introduction of the state of emergency, but also the idea of building the 187-kilometre-long physical wall and the electronic barrier equipped with cameras and motion detectors. These measures were justified by a strong anti-Muslim and orientalist discourse, introduced and normalized by PiS during the 2015’ migration crisis’, which reduced refugees to stereotypes of illegal Muslim migrants intent on imposing their values or posing a terrorist threat.

The outbreak of the war in Ukraine in February 2022 and the resulting influx of refugees, of which approximately 1.5 million have stayed in Poland, constitutes another dimension of context for the campaign communication (Duszczyk, Górny, Kaczmarczyk & Kubisiak, 2023). First, the populist right-wing government expressed a welcoming attitude towards Ukrainian refugees, granting them temporary protection, including access to the Polish healthcare system, schools and the job market, which stands in stark contrast with the Islamophobic and anti-migration discourse targeting refugees from the Polish–Belarusian border. Secondly, however, with the lapse of time, sociologists have observed some signs of growing compassion fatigue towards refugees staying in Poland yet in the second half of 2022, which makes the Ukrainian issue extremely vulnerable to politicization by radical populist parties (Sadura & Sierakowski, 2022; Baszczak, Winckiewicz & Zyzik, 2023).

Finally, two events preceded election day and strongly affected the discourse of the opposition. First, Onet, a leading news website, reported on 5 July that at the end of March and early April, three soldiers were detained after firing warning shots around a group of 50 people who were trying to cross the Polish–Belarusian border (Wyrwał & Żemła, 2024). The media information about detention coincided with the death of a Polish soldier on the same border, stabbed through the border fence with a knife attached to a pole and thrust in the direction of the soldiers by an unidentified man from the Belarusian side. The incident was part of a series of attacks and a surge in attempts at illegal crossings by migrants supported and forced by Belarussia and Russia. It created the discursive opportunity for the right-wing opposition, which accused the Tusk government of detaining the Polish soldiers responsible for the protection of the border and creating the freezing effect regarding the use of firearms for self-defence, which allegedly led to the death of the soldier.

The political communication of PiS

PiS was consistent in keeping its ambivalence towards the EU, which was determined by the still strong popular support for EU membership, but on the other hand, it was blackmailed by the Eurosceptical, if not Eurorejectionist, agenda of Confederation. The tone of the campaign was set at the party convention on 27 April 2024, during which Jarosław Kaczyński declared that: “We are Poles, and we have Polish responsibilities. Our red and white team is entering this election, this great undertaking, with full conviction and full determination that we must defend Polish values, Polish interests and the Polish raison d’etat. This means taking up the issues of the Green Deal, the migration pact, the change of treaties, the euro, the protection of the Polish countryside, security and, finally, what is the essence of Polishness – freedom” (Kaczyński 2024).

It clearly reveals the basic premise, lists the key issues of the campaign and informs about the master frame, providing the angle from which each of the listed issues was to be perceived. The contradictory relationship between national and European interests was perceived as a threat to freedom, which in the majority of contexts was understood as a right to absolute, exclusive sovereignty. During the convention inaugurating the campaign, the party presented a declaration containing a series of negative slogans exhibiting its attitude toward the EU: “We will cancel the Green Deal, stop the migration pact, stop the new treaty, defend the zloty, defend the interests of the Polish countryside in the EU, strengthen Poland’s security and armaments, and defend Polish freedom. […] The most important values to us are the welfare of the Fatherland and a better life. We are going to the European Parliament to defend the Polish national interest’” (aja/X, 2024).

At the forefront of the listed issues was the European Green Deal, which the party portrayed in its communication as an ideological project of the EU elites aimed against ordinary citizens. As the party has argued, higher energy and transport prices will raise costs for ordinary Poles as well as for businesses and housing construction. Further, it will have a substantial impact on agriculture: ‘Imposing so many different burdens on agriculture will lead to it first being in a very deep crisis, and in the long run, it will simply disappear’ (Tak dla polskiego rolnictwa, 2024).

The construction of crisis and the politics of fear, discursive mechanisms typical for the populist right, were also employed to represent the Pact on Migration, which was labelled as a ‘Trojan horse introduced to Europe’, a ‘particularly dangerous’ solution, and an ‘ideological project’ that would allow the EU elites to impose any number of migrants or punish Poland with financial penalties. It was further claimed that the Pact on Migration would lead to uncontrolled, massive immigration that would eventually change the demographic structure of Europe, destroy national cultures and adversely affect the security of Poles. As Kaczyński claimed: “Wherever this phenomenon of illegal immigration appears, but also where this immigration has been legal for many years, we are dealing with such zones where basically no law applies, where one is afraid to leave his house even during the day” (PiS, 2024a).

Moreover, campaign communication also contained many warnings regarding European treaty changes, which, if implemented, would lead to the centralization of the EU (conceived as German domination), complete erasure of Polish sovereignty and a threat to the national security and personal freedoms of ordinary people. Occasionally, the communication adopted a hyperbolic tone with the supposed adverse developments represented as part of the large plan of Western states, elites, ideologues, bureaucrats and lobbyists in collaboration with national elites to control weaker states in order to change their culture and exploit their economy: ‘Poland will no longer be a state, but simply an area of inhabitation of Poles. An area of inhabitation of Poles managed from outside’ (PiS, 2024d).

Interestingly, being aware that such communication exposed the party to the accusations of merely negative campaigning and planning to withdraw Poland from the EU, PiS attempted to reframe its message in a positive way. In particular, in the second part of the campaign, it promoted a series of ‘Yes’ slogans, for example: ‘#Yes for Poland!’, ‘#Yes for the Polish countryside’, ‘#Yes for investments’ or ‘‘#Yes for the defence of Polish borders’ (PiS, 2024b).

The party also explicitly declared its attachment to the EU and distanced from the Eurorejectonist slogans by emphasizing its vision of the Europe of Fatherlands as opposed to the populist perception of Europe as the elitist project targeted at the sovereignty and freedoms of ordinary people. Interestingly, although the security issue was an important part of the agenda, the war in Ukraine did not feature prominently in the campaign. In the end, the party used the incidents on the Polish–Belarusian border to articulate this issue together with the anti-migration discourse, legitimize its decision to build a fence and attack Civic Platform for criticizing this idea when it was in opposition.

The political communication of Confederation

The electoral agenda of Confederation is best captured by the Facebook message posted two days before the elections, which deploys the visual metaphor of war to portray the relationship between the grouping and the EU and its policies (see Figure 3). The list of the issues mentioned in the picture to be fought with includes the European Green Deal, Fit for 55 (the EU’s plan to reduce carbon emissions), the Pact for Migration, banning combustion engine cars, European taxes, restricting the use of cash, and the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive.

The post neatly captures the Eurorejectionist attitude towards the EU, which is represented as a structure inimical to the national interests and the interests of ordinary Poles. Similarly to PiS, the main focus of attention was the European Green Deal, conceived as a prominent example of the madness of the EU elites driven by the socialist inclination to overregulate and the ideology of ‘climatism’. The EU is a bureaucratic structure with the tendency to go beyond its legal treaty limitations and is conceived as detached from normal people. As the grouping claimed, ‘We are going to the Europarliament to stop these absurd and harmful crazies coming from Brussels, because #WeWantToLiveNormally!’ (Konfederacja, 2024a).

The essence of the grouping’s stance is neatly captured by one of its leaders, Krzysztof Bosak: “I don’t know if you’ve noticed the new platitude promoted by the Eurofederalist lobby in Poland: they call the principle of unanimity in the EU by the term ‘liberum veto’ and suggest that it is some kind of systemic gangrene. Thus, they admit that it is the EU and not Poland that is the new state reference point for them. It’s power and decisiveness they care about. What they don’t add is that the more prerogatives in Brussels, the less in Warsaw. This is a zero-sum game. The sovereignty being shifted to Brussels, Strasbourg and Luxembourg is being lost in Poland. Our influence on the vector of the evolution of EU policies oscillates around zero, and the veto is the last hard tool that can influence anything in this organization. Instead of further strengthening the Eurocracy, we need to regain control!” (Konfederacja, 2024b).

Such a vision of European relations underpins the radically anti-establishment discourse of the Confederation, which allows the presentation of all the political elites as traitors of the Polish national interests. Contrary to the PO, which was conceived as representative of the interests of Germany, PiS’s agenda was attacked for its hypocrisy or for stealing programmatic ideas from the Confederation.

The EU environmental policy solutions were attacked for detrimental effects on the development of the economies of EU member states and led to the drastic deterioration of the standards of living for ordinary Poles: “The entire policy of the European Union will lead to the poor becoming even poorer, and the process of weakening nation-states will gain even more momentum! That’s why I’m going to the European Parliament to stop this madness and stand up for the interests of ordinary citizens!” (Zajączkowska, 2024).

Populist strategies were used to articulate other ideological themes. In line with the libertarian currents of the Confederation’s profile, the EU policies were also framed as illegitimate, ideological interference in ordinary people’s lives. According to the Confederation, poor people will be forced, for example, to conduct costly renovations of their houses to fulfil energy standards of the EU’s Energy Performance of Buildings Directive.

Another key issue on the campaign agenda was the rejection of the EU Pact on Migration. Confederation did not shy away from using racist and Islamophobic rhetoric, portraying migrants as a dangerous threat to security, demographics and culture and as a burden on welfare systems. They not only supported strengthening existing borders but also advocated for amending laws to permit more liberal use of firearms against migrants. Although less prominent, they also criticized the so-called ‘privileges’ granted to Ukrainian refugees, portraying them as undeserving. Additionally, Confederation leveraged the incidents at the Polish–Belarusian border to promote its hardline stance on migration.

The resonance of the campaign issues and the electoral support

The results of the European Parliament’s Spring 2024 Eurobarometer sheds some light on the list of campaign topics of particular significance to Polish voters. According to the survey, the EU’s defence and security policy and public health ranked highest, 37% and 36%, respectively, among Polish voters. Support for the economy and creating new jobs (28%) and agricultural policy (22%) are of secondary interest. There is also a potential disconnect between the migration issue, one of the most potent topics for the political communication of the right-wing populists, and the interests of the voters. As the survey shows, migration and asylum scored only 16% despite extreme politicization of the issue and extensive media coverage, particularly just before the elections when the incidents on the Polish–Belarusian border took place. The timing of the survey might provide some explanation; in Poland, it took place in February, long before the campaign started. Second, the migration issue was embedded in the larger security narrative, a topic the voters recognized as the most important one. Interestingly, support for the actions against climate policy ranked at 16%, whereas at the EU level, the score was at 27%, which might explain why populist actors paid so much attention to the rejection of the European Green Deal and the Fit for 55 package.

The elections confirmed the structure of support for the right-wing populist electorate. First, PiS confirmed its support in rural areas (46.36% of voters) than in cities (30.67% of voters), among the elderly (only 16.2% of votes of those aged 29 and over and 46.1% of those over 60) and among less educated voters (TVN24, 2024). The Confederation was different, with as many as 30.1% voting for the group in the 18–29 age bracket. The breakdown by gender was also important: 16.5% of male eligible voters and 8.1% of female voters voted for the Confederation (very significantly, in this case, 0.3% more than for the Left). It is also worth noting the high loyalty of the PiS electorate, with only 8% of its 2023 voters supporting other groups. In the case of the Confederation, it was 16% (Katkowski, 2024). Interestingly, Confederation gained the support of the 165,000 PiS supporters (Machowski, 2024). Finally, the electoral turnout was significantly lower than during previous national elections (40.65% to 74.38%) but still relatively high if compared to the elections before 2023.

Conclusions

Although the elections confirmed the strength of polarization and the importance of the PO and PiS divide, with the two largest parties winning a combined 73.22% of the electoral vote, this did not prevent the Confederation from gaining an important third place in the electoral competition. Discursive structures of opportunity related to the dramatic situation in the east resonated with the Confederation’s securitized, anti-immigrant message. Moreover, as the oppositional actor, the grouping has greater credibility in proclaiming radical slogans than PiS, who previously held power.

Second, it appears that both parties will seek to slow down (PiS) or undermine (Confederation) the process of European integration and use the issues of immigration and environmental EU policies as important parts of the Eurosceptic agenda. Yet during the campaign, The Confederation announced that it would seek to establish a special commission in the European Parliament to investigate illegal immigration.

Third, the division on the right side of the political scene and the competition over the conservative electorate is also reflected at the European level as two actors joined different political groups in the European Parliament. Being part of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, PiS was courted by Viktor Orbán to join his new alliance called Patriots for Europe (PfE). Initially, it seemed a very probable option for PiS if one takes public declarations of its politicians at face value.

Yet at the end of June, former Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki suggested in an interview with Politico that the option of joining Viktor Orbán was 50/50. As he declared, ‘It’s quite obvious that we could be united on a geographical platform and not [an] ideological platform. I’m less and less interested in all those ideological elements of the jigsaw’ (cited in Wax, 2024). Nevertheless, it turned out it was part of the protracted negotiation strategy over the distribution of the posts in the group. Ultimately, the longstanding relations between PiS and Fidesz were not translated into an alliance with the party, which adopts an entirely different stance on Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, the effectiveness of sanctions and the significance and scale of assistance for Ukraine. On 3 July 2024, it was announced that PiS would remain within ECR and renew its alliance with Giorgia Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia.

The decision of which EP group to join was equally difficult for the Confederation, leading finally to internal divisions within the grouping. Only three out of six of the Confederation MEPs decided to join the Europe of Sovereign Nations (ESN) group led by the pro-Russian Alternative for Germany (AfD). Stanisław Tyszka, one of the MEPs who joined the group, admitted the differences but also listed commonalities: ‘opposing the EU’s crazy climate policy, the immigration policy that threatens the stability of our countries and Europe, and attempts to build a European superstate’ (Tyszka, 2024). Interestingly, all three politicians come from Sławomir Mentzen’s New Hope, one of the groups that form part of the Confederation alliance. Two other MEPs from the National Movement (Ruch Narodowy) refused to join the group and started negotiations with PfE.

(*) Artur Lipiński is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and Journalism, at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland. He has participated in several international and Polish research projects and networks related to the representation of migrants in discourse (MEDIVA) and populist political communication (COST Action). From 2019 to 2022, he was a leader of the Polish team within DEMOS ‘Democratic Efficacy and the Varieties of Populism in Europe’, a collaborative H2020 Research & Innovation project. Currently, he is the leader of the Polish team within the Horizon Europe project MORES ‘Moral emotions. How they unite, how they divide.’ His research interests are focused on political communication and Polish right-wing politics. He has published on the uses of the historical past in political discourse in Poland and populist and right-wing political communication in Problems of Post-Communism, American Behavioral Scientist and the Journal of Contemporary European Studies.

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Populism and Polycrisis in Bulgaria on the Eve of the 2024 European Parliament Elections

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Please cite as: 
Zankina, Emilia. (2024). “Populism and Polycrisis in Bulgaria on the Eve of the 2024 European Parliament Elections.” In: 2024 EP Elections under the Shadow of Rising Populism. (eds). Gilles Ivaldi and Emilia Zankina. European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS. October 22, 2024. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp0063

 

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Abstract

The 2024 European Parliament election in Bulgaria took place amidst a prolonged political crisis and economic uncertainty. The EP elections, for the first time, coincided with national legislative elections – the sixth parliamentary elections in just three years. This two-in-one vote led to a complete overshadowing of the debate on Europe by domestic issues and concerns over the composition of the next national parliament and the likelihood of forming a stable government. The centre-populist GERB convincingly won the elections, although the populist radical right increased its representation by one MEP. Like many European countries, Bulgaria has had to contend with the rise of populism and nationalism, in addition to its continued struggle against corruption and, as a result of the war in Ukraine, with a population divided in attitudes towards Russia. This polycrisis has led to continued political fragmentation and polarization with little prospect of stable government and a growing disillusionment among voters.

Keywords: European Parliament elections; populism; polycrisis; Bulgaria; new parties

 

By Emilia Zankina* (Temple University, Rome, Italy)

Introduction

The 2024 European Parliament election in Bulgaria took place amidst a prolonged political crisis and economic uncertainty. The EP elections, for the first time, coincided with national legislative elections – the sixth parliamentary elections in just three years. This two-in-one vote led to a complete overshadowing of the debate on Europe by domestic issues and concerns over the composition of the next national parliament and the likelihood of forming a stable government. The centrist populist GERB convincingly won the elections, although the populist radical right (PRR) increased its representation by one MEP. Like many European countries, Bulgaria has had to contend with the rise of populism and nationalism, in addition to its continued struggle against corruption and, as a result of the war in Ukraine, with a population divided in attitudes towards Russia. This polycrisis has led to continued political fragmentation and polarization with little prospect of stable government and a growing disillusionment among voters.

Anatomy of a polycrisis: Between economic uncertainty and political turmoil

The past four years in Bulgaria have been characterized by political instability, turmoil and never-ending electoral campaigning. A string of caretaker governments, six parliamentary elections (with a seventh one scheduled for October 2024), a presidential election and a local election have led to politicizing every issue in society for electoral gain. During this period, a number of new parties have appeared with varied success dramatically changing the configuration of political actors and patterns of voter support, while voter turnout has steadily decreased (Figure 1). This political uncertainty is unfolding in the context of multiple pressing issues: 1) economic downturn and slow recovery from the pandemic, coupled with lack of political consensus on economic priorities; 2) geostrategic uncertainty as a result of the war in Ukraine and the escalating conflict in the Middle East with the war in Israel, Gaza, and now also in Lebanon; 3) deepened divisions among political actors and voters along the long-standing pro-Russian/anti-Russian divide; 4) rising nationalist sentiments stirred by deteriorating relations with Russia and North Macedonia (Zankina 2024b). 

With the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Bulgaria plunged into a period of economic uncertainty and political turmoil. Four years later, Bulgaria still struggles with economic recovery and is unable to effectively absorb and utilize funds from the European Recovery and Resilience Facility. Prolonged anti-government protests that started in July 2020 unleashed a never-ending cycle of parliamentary elections and a mushrooming of new political formations. 

Between April 2021 and June 2024, Bulgaria held six parliamentary elections and had two short-lived regular governments. Interim governments appointed by President Radev became the norm while a series of parliaments failed to agree on a governing formula. Thus, early elections were held in July 2021, November 2021, October 2022, April 2023 and June 2024. The leading parties have changed significantly compared with just a few years ago. Although Citizens for European Development (GERB), which has dominated domestic politics since 2007 and has led three governments, still attracted the most votes in the elections of October 2022, April 2023 and June 2024, it lost over half a million votes (or more than half of the voter support it had in 2017). The centre-left Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), the oldest political party in the country and the heir to the former communist party, saw its vote share drop to 7% in June 2024 compared to 28% in 2017. 

In the meantime, new parties emerged as dominant political forces—namely Prodalzhavame Promyanata (PP—We Continue the Change), a new anti-corruption and pro-European party, and Vazrazhdane (Revival), a starkly nationalist and pro-Russian party. More new parties have come and gone, with some managing to register momentary success, such as the populist party headed by prominent folk-pop singer and television showman Slavi Trifonov, Ima Takav Narod (ITN—There Is Such a People), which won the July 2021 early elections with 24% of the vote, but failed to form a government and has since oscillated around the parliamentary threshold. Others, such as, Izpravi se! Mutri vŭn! (Stand Up! Mafia, Get Out!) led by a former ombudswoman, Maya Manolova, managed to pass the threshold in April and July of 2021 but then disappeared altogether. The democratic centre-right witnessed yet another reconfiguration in a new collation called Demokratichna Balgariya (Democratic Bulgaria, DB), bringing together Demokrati za Silna Balgariya (Democrats for a Strong Bulgaria, DSB) and Da Bulgariya (Yes, Bulgaria) and a new nationalist formation called Velichie (Glory) surprised political analysts with 4.65% at the national elections in June 2024. 

Within this period, Bulgaria had two short-lived regular governments. A new coalition government was formed in December after the November 2021 elections, under the premiership of Kiril Petkov, uniting the winner of the election PP (25.67%) with three coalition partners—BSP, ITN and the DB alliance. The government survived until June 2022, when it was removed by a parliamentary vote of no confidence initiated by GERB after ITN ended its support for the government and withdrew its members from ministerial posts. The Petkov government had the difficult task of dealing with the war in Ukraine, which erupted in February 2022 and divided public opinion in Bulgaria. With a large pro-Russian population, the war enabled parties like Vazrazhdane to thrive while constraining the government to maintain a delicate balance between the country’s commitment to its Euro-Atlantic partners and pressure from pro-Russian groups. Although Bulgaria enforced EU sanctions on Russia, phased out Russian oil deliveries, and provided military support for Ukraine, there has been continuous opposition from both inside and outside the National Assembly to these actions (Zankina, 2023).

The second regular government was formed following the April 2023 elections. In these elections, GERB placed first, with 26.5% of the votes and 69 seats, closely followed by an alliance between PP and DB, which obtained 24.6% of the votes and 64 seats. GERB sought to form a coalition government with PP–DB. After several rounds of difficult negotiations and a second mandate granted by President Radev, the two alliances agreed on a technocratic government with a rotating prime minister. Despite the strong antagonism and competition between the two leading blocs in parliament, GERB and PP–DB recognized as a greater threat the continued rise in electoral support for Vazrazhdane and the growth in pro-Russian sentiments in the country. Hence, a government headed by Nikolai Denkov of PP–DB was approved by the National Assembly. Denkov was to be replaced by the Deputy Prime Minister and minister of foreign affairs and former European Commissioner, Mariya Gabriel of GERB, after a period of nine months. As expected, the rotation did not take place, and the coalition partners slid into political bickering and mutual accusations. The government collapsed in March 2023, and two-in-one elections (European parliament plus early parliamentary elections) were scheduled for June 2024. 

Populism in Bulgaria

Populism has been a permanent feature of Bulgarian political life since the early 2000s, expressing itself both in the centre and the radical right. While there have not been left populist parties in Bulgaria, both centre and radical-right populists have been noted for advocating various left and extreme left policies, from significant increases in pensions to nationalization of entire industrial sectors. In addition to the PRR, which has had a permanent presence in the national parliament since 2005, Bulgaria is also notable for having populists in government who have held power almost uninterruptedly between 2009–2021 and, most recently, in 2023–2024. 

Centre populism

Centrist populists have had much greater success than radical-right populists in Bulgaria, all of them having led or participated in governing coalitions. This participation makes the Bulgarian case rather unique. Unlike radical-right populists who represent varying combinations of authoritarianism, nativism and nationalism, centrist populists in Bulgaria have been decidedly pro-European. The main mobilizing factor in their success has been a mix of charismatic leadership and anti-corruption appeals. 

Populism made its grand entrance on the Bulgarian political scene in 2001 when the former Bulgarian king, Simeon Sakskoburggotski (King Simeon II from 1943–1946), who had been in exile for nearly six decades, made a dramatic reappearance. Heading the National Movement Simeon the Second (NDSV), the former king convincingly won the 2001 parliamentary elections and became prime minister. A typical personalist and populist party, NDSV had loose structures based on circles of associates, proclaiming itself to be not a party but a “coalition of like-minded individuals”. Capitalizing on disillusionment with the transition and established elites, NDSV relied on a vague platform and ambitious promises such as “fixing the country in 800 days” (Gurov and Zankina, 2013). The NDSV government firmly pushed the country towards the Euro-Atlantic alliance and oversaw Bulgaria’s entrance into NATO. Despite such success, in the subsequent 2005 elections, NDSV lost its leading position, taking part instead in a BSP-led coalition government. By 2009, NDSV had all but disappeared from the political scene, only to be replaced by another personalist and centrist populist party – GERB. The short-lived success of NDSV marked the birth of populism in post-communist Bulgarian politics and legitimized the personalist party model, which dominates politics to the present day.

GERB was formed in late 2006 by Boyko Borisov, while he was mayor of Sofia. Shortly after its establishment, GERB gained the endorsement of the European People’s Party (EPP) at the first European Parliament elections in Bulgaria after the country joined the EU in 2007 and secured 5 of the 18 Parliament seats allocated to Bulgaria. By the time of the July 2009 Bulgarian legislative elections, GERB had established itself as a major political force and received over 40% of the votes. Boyko Borissov became the dominant figure in Bulgarian politics, serving as prime minister three times (Spirova and Sharenkova-Toshkova, 2021).

Replicating Sakskoburggotski’s formula, GERB at first lacked an established party structure and ideological coherence. GERB’s program consisted of elusive and symbolic issues, such as ‘corruption’ and ‘crime’, which appealed to a discontented electorate, while its party officials represented a hastily and often apparently randomly selected group of experts and people from Borisov’s personal circle. In the course of its long and successful rule, GERB developed dense structures throughout the country, penetrating the national, regional and local governments and establishing a loyal electoral base. These structures have been crucial in securing GERB’s almost uninterrupted hold on power for over a decade and the party’s continued success in every parliamentary and European election since 2007.

GERB’s rule ultimately became associated with the corrupt status quo, provoking prolonged anti-government protests on several occasions. The 2020–2021 anti-government protests posed the greatest challenge to GERB’s hold on power, with demands that Borissov and the prosecutor-general, Ivan Geshev, resign, calls that were backed by President Radev. The protests gave birth to a string of new political formations, the most notable of which was ITN.

Electorally, the most significant party to emerge and achieve success from the anti-government protests was founded and led by the prominent singer and long-standing television showman Slavi Trifonov: Ima Takav Narod (There Is Such a People, ITN). Although his party was new, Trifonov was not new to politics; most notably, he had been a driving force behind the 2016 referendum on reform of the electoral system. Trifonov used his media appearances, including his own TV station and virtual concerts, to spread his anti-corruption and anti-status quo message to voters at home and abroad alike, striking a chord of homeland undertones (Haughton, Neudorfer and Zankina, 2024). In the July 2021 elections, ITN garnered 24.1% of the votes and 65 seats and succeeded in narrowly defeating GERB, which only managed to attract 23.5% and 63 seats, marking the first time since 2007 that GERB or a GERB-led coalition had not been placed first in elections. ITN failed to form a government and was eclipsed by yet another populist party from the centre, Prodalzhavame Promyanata (We Continue the Change, PP). Formed by entrepreneurs and Harvard graduates Kiril Petkov and Assen Vassilev, PP reaped the popularity its leaders had gained as ministers in the outgoing caretaker government. PP placed first in the November 2021 legislative elections with 25.7% of the vote and 67 seats. Running on an anti-corruption platform and declaring to “promote left politics with right instruments”, PP managed to undercut other new protest parties, including ITN. A new coalition government was formed, headed by Kiril Petkov, with three coalition partners – BSP, ITN and DB. Since its appearance in the fall of 2021, PP has already lost more than half of its electoral support, although its coalition with DB has managed to remain among the top three political formations in the national parliament. Most importantly, the PP–DB alliance managed to return to government in coalition with GERB in 2023 on a pro-European and reform-oriented platform. Coalescing with GERB proved disastrous for the PP–DB coalition, which lost over half of its support in the concurrent national and EP elections of June 2024.

Radical-Right Populism

In 2005, Bulgaria witnessed the firm establishment in politics of the populist radical right (PRR), which since then has been represented in parliament as well as in the European Parliament. Radical-right populism in Bulgaria emerged relatively late compared to other East European countries. Since 2005, various configurations of nationalist populist radical-right parties have been represented in parliament and, between 2017–2021, even in government. Those include Ataka, the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (VMRO), the National Front for Salvation of Bulgaria (NFSB), and, more recently, Revival (Vazrazhdane) and Greatness (Velichie). In the decade and a half before 2021 and the cycle of early parliamentary elections, around one in ten voters cast their ballots for nationalist parties (Haughton, Neudorfer and Zankina, 2024). 

Most recently, the PRR vote has significantly increased, reaching over 18% in the June 2024 elections, a function also of the historically low voter turnout (Figure 1). The PRR vote has been extremely volatile and shifting between various PRR parties and new protest parties. In the July 2021 election, for instance, IMRO–Bulgarian National Movement, the Volya Movement and NFSB came together under the umbrella of Bulgarian Patriots. But during the November 2021 election, all three of those parties and Ataka ran separately, yielding no seats for any of them, at the expense of Vazrazhdane, which increased its support tenfold from March 2017 to April 2023 (ibid., 2024).

PRR parties rely on the usual repertoire of dividing issues. Bulgaria’s sizeable ethnic Turkish and Roma minorities, as well as a string of migration crises in Europe, have provided fertile ground for nationalist rhetoric and mobilization. Most of those actors are clearly anti-elite, anti-West, and even antidemocracy (Zankina, 2023). PRR parties have cashed in on the overall discontent with politics and political elites, as well as on particular issues such as ethnic minorities, LGBTG+ rights, social provisions and welfare chauvinism, as well as criticism of NATO and EU memberships. With 58% of the population reporting positive attitudes towards Russia and Putin before 2022, the war in Ukraine has provided a fertile ground for PRR parties who have been pronouncedly pro-Russian (Zankina, 2023). Vazrazhdane has been particularly successful in benefiting from the polycrisis, combining anti-vax, anti-NATO and anti-EU rhetoric. 

The war in Ukraine provided an unprecedented opportunity for Vazrazhdane’s leader, Kostadin Kostadinov, to broadcast his pro-Russian views and stage eccentric activities, attracting ever more votes with each subsequent early election (Zankina, 2024a). In the combined June 2024 elections for the national parliament and the European Parliament, Vazrazhdane scored close to 14%, becoming the third largest party in the Bulgarian parliament with 38 MPs, coming in fourth in the European Parliament elections and sending 3 MEPs to Brussels. While most parties have adopted a cordon sanitaire towards Vazrazhdane, the party has become a key factor in Bulgarian politics and an actor to reckon with. Just like Vazrazhdane managed to steal the votes from early PRR formations, Velichie has managed to grab enough votes to enter parliament. Its party group dissolved only a couple of weeks after entering parliament, and the party is unlikely to pass the threshold in the October 2024 election. Velichie’s success illustrates what we observe at the European level – that the radical right has a permanent and growing presence, yet it is highly divided.

The 2024 European Parliament elections

Centrist and radical-right populists have been represented at the European Parliament since the first EP elections in Bulgaria in 2007 (See table 2). GERB is considered an important partner for the EPP, sending five to six MEPs in each parliament. Populist radical-right parties, in turn, have been represented among the Non-attached (NA), the ECR and now also the ESN. 

The 2024 EP elections are the first EP elections in Bulgaria to coincide with national legislative elections. Analysts expected a higher voter turnout due to the mobilizing effect of national elections. While voter activity in 2024 was about 1% higher than in 2019 (33.78% and 32.64%, respectively), the voter turnout for the national elections dropped to 34.41% from 40.69% in April 2023. This record-low voter turnout due to the multiple early parliamentary elections in the past three years did not have the expected mobilizing effect. Of those who did not vote, 40% indicated a lack of trust in politics as their reason to abstain – almost double the EU average (Eurobarometer, 2024). Yet, Bulgaria was not the one with the lowest voter turnout, as Lithuania and Croatia registered the lowest figures at 28.97% and 21.35%, respectively. 

More importantly, the two-in-one elections significantly shifted the debate towards domestic issues. Opinion polls indicated corruption (59%), low income (57%), and healthcare (45%) to be the top three issues of voter concern (Alpha Research 2024a), while poverty and equality were singled out as the top priorities the EU should focus on (Trend 2024). Rising prices and increased cost of living (56%) along with the economic situation (53%) were the main motivators for Bulgarian voters – much more so than the EU average of 42% and 41%, respectively (Eurobarometer 2024). 

In the context of six national legislative elections and a string of caretaker governments, the European debate was completely overshadowed by preoccupations over the composition of the future national parliament and the likelihood of forming a stable government. Even pressing topics such as expanding Schengen to land borders and joining the Eurozone remained in the background. The former coalition partners GERB and PP–DB, the two most pronouncedly pro-European parties in the country, were caught in political bickering and mutual accusations, failing to effectively articulate their priorities for the next European Parliament. In the meantime, Vazrazhdane ran an aggressive anti-EU campaign with the slogan “Out of the EU and NATO”. Less Eurosceptic parties like ITN advocated for national sovereignty and energy security, opposing the European Green Deal and the closing of coal electric plants. The Green Deal is strongly criticized by Vazrazhdane as well. The war in Ukraine prominently featured in the campaign, dividing political parties over support for Ukraine (GERB, PP–DB, and DPS) vs. maintaining neutrality and spending the money on other priorities (BSP, Vazrazhdane and ITN). The division perfectly aligns with the anti-Russian and pro-Russian attitudes of the respective parties and their supporters – one of the key dividing issues in Bulgarian society for the past two centuries. 

Although there was little debate about Europe, Bulgarian voters remain starkly pro-European, with over 60% approving EU membership and only 16% having negative attitudes (Figure 2), while 60% are optimistic about the future of Europe (Eurobarometer, 2024). A study by Trend further indicates that 41% of respondents think that Bulgaria has benefitted from EU membership, with free travel and EU funds being singled out as the top benefits (Trend, 2024). The same study found that 45% of respondents feel safer in the current geostrategic situation thanks to EU membership, and 41% think membership also contributes to greater economic and social stability. 

GERB convincingly won the 2024 European Parliament elections with 23.55% of the votes and five seats. Second came Dvizhenie za Prava i Svobodi (Movement for Rights and Freedoms, DPS) with 14.66% of the votes and three seats, closely followed by the PP–DB alliance, with 14.45% and the same number of seats, and Vazrazhdane (Revival) with 13.98% and also three seats. While pro-EU parties received the majority of the votes in the election, the results of Vazrazhdane and the increase of radical-right MEPs from 2 to 3 are a cause for great concern amidst an overall rise of the populist radical right in the European Parliament. 

Similarly, GERB won the national elections with 24.7% of the votes, which made little difference in terms of forming a government. Parties in the fragmented and polarized parliament failed to agree on a governing formula, and subsequently, a seventh legislative election is scheduled for 27 October 2024. Early forecasts predict seven political formations in the subsequent parliament with little prospect for a governing coalition. In fact, 53% of voters do not believe that the new parliament will be able to produce a regular government (Alpha Research 2024b). Who benefits from yet another round of early elections, although, is Vazrazhdane who will have more opportunities to broadcast their pro-Russian, anti-EU and anti-NATO rhetoric and attract more disillusioned voters. Bulgaria’s future remains uncertain – politically, economically and geostrategically.

 

(*) Emilia Zankina is an Associate Professor in political science, Dean of Temple University Rome Campus and Vice Provost of Global Engagement at Temple University. Her research focuses on populism and political parties, politicization and public administration reform, gender representation and East European politics.

 

References

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Haughton, Tim, Natascha Neudorfer and Emilia Zankina. (2024). “There Are Such People: The Role of Corruption in the 2021 Parliamentary Elections in Bulgaria”. East European Politics, 40(3), pp. 521–546.

Spirova, Maria and Radostina Sharenkova-Toshkova. (2021). “Juggling Friends and Foes: Prime Minister Borissov’s Surprise Survival in Bulgaria”. East European Politics 37 (3): 432–447. https://doi.org/10.1080/21599165.2021.1883589. 

Trend. (2024). Attitudes towards EU policies at the forenight of EP elections [Нагласи на българите спрямо политиките на ЕС в навечерието на изборите за Европейски парламент]. April 2024. https://rctrend.bg/project/attitudes 

Zankina, Emilia. (2023). “Pro-Russia or anti-Russia: political dilemmas and dynamics in Bulgaria in the context of the war in Ukraine”. In Ivaldi and Zankina (eds.), The Impacts of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine on Right-Wing Populism in Europe. European Center for Populisms Studies. Brussels, pp. 48–63. 

Zankina, Emilia. (2024a). “The Consequences of the War in Ukraine in Bulgaria: Political, Economic, and Cultural Divides”. In Mörner, Ninna (ed.), A World Order in Transformation? A Comparative Study of Consequences of the War and Reactions to These Changes in the Region. CBEES State of the Region Report 2024, pp. 82–90. https://sh.divaportal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A1846696&dswid=1173 

Zankina, Emilia. (2024b). “Bulgaria: History”. In Europa Publications (ed.) Central and South-Eastern Europe 2025 (25th Edition), Routledge, pp. 115–120.

 

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Former U.S. President Donald Trump and vice-presidential nominee J.D. Vance at a rally in Atlanta, GA, on August 3, 2024. Photo: Phil Mistry.

Anticipating the Trump Effect: Strengthening the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum Amid Populist Pressures

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Please cite as:
Bottura, Beatrice; O’Keeffe-Johnston, Paris; Gkampeta, Pinelopi; Malai, Ludmila; Lynch, Matt; Park, Joon & Gräf, Leon. (2024). “Anticipating the Trump Effect: Strengthening the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum Amid Populist Pressures.” Policy Papers. European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). October 24, 2024. https://doi.org/10.55271/pop0001

 

This policy paper analyzes the potential effects of the 2024 US presidential election on EU politics, particularly the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum. A Trump victory may intensify Euroscepticism and lead to more restrictive migration policies among his European allies. Conversely, a Trump defeat could fuel distrust in electoral processes, potentially triggering events similar to the 2021 Capitol attack. The paper recommends regular in-depth country reviews (ICRs) to develop tailored migration strategies, anticipating that either election outcome could increase fragmentation and populist influence within EU member states, though with varying degrees of impact.

Authored by Beatrice Bottura, Paris O’Keeffe-Johnston, Pinelopi Gkampeta, Ludmila Malai, Matt Lynch, Joon Park & Leon Gräf

Edited by Beatrice Bottura & Paris O’Keeffe-Johnston

Executive Summary

As the “Common Implementation Plan” for the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum was adopted by the European Commission in June 2024 (European Commission, 2024a), the European and international political landscape was changing. The results of the EU 2024 parliamentary elections revealed a rise of Right-wing populist parties (RPP) on the European scene, a trend which mirrors recent national electoral results (Europe Elects, 2024; Europe Politique, 2024). This right-wing shift is causing a tightening of migration policy across EU countries and affecting the viability of the EU Pact on Migration, with almost half EU countries openly contesting its initiatives and some countries even considering an opt-out, following the Netherlands’ recent opt-out request (Carlson, 2024; Liboreiro, 2024). Simultaneously, former president Donald Trump is running for office once again. 

This policy paper examines how the results of the 2024 presidential election might affect EU politics, especially in regard to the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum. Though a horizon scanning methodology, the paper found that Trump’s previous presidency coincided with a period of increased Euroscepticism within member countries (Langlois, 2021; Löfflmann, 2019). Additionally, Trump has built strong connections with RPP leaders which, in the past, have become more vocal as Trump gained power (Fusiek & Marconi, 2021). Given Trump’s stance on political elites, supra-national organizations and migration, the paper predicts that:

– in the case of Trump’s victory: Eurosceptic sentiments and restrictive migration policies might increase across the EU, especially among Trump’s European supporters

– in the case of Trump’s loss: events similar to the 2021 Capitol attack might occur (Abramowitz, 2024) which could further distrust in electoral processes both in the US and the EU. This could be leveraged by populist actors, which, to a lesser extent compared to a Trump victory, could still increase fragmentation across EU member states

Finally, given these findings, the paper provides policy options for the European Commission to take into consideration for a successful implementation of the plan. Among these, the paper focuses on the introduction of regular in-depth country reviews (ICRs) which are aimed at creating country-tailored implementation strategies for the Pact. In practice, by shedding light onto nation-specific issues when it comes to migration and asylum, these ICRs would allow national leaders to have more control over the actual implementation of the Pact. This should increase the willingness to cooperate of RPPs as it brings together both national sovereignties, an important value to these parties, and European policy.

 

1. Introduction

Migration is one of the most discussed political and security challenges today. Worsening conflicts, natural disasters, and the hopes of better economic opportunities bring people from across the world to migrate to other areas that are deemed more prosperous or can offer something their homeland cannot. The nature of migration is transboundary, often exacerbating geopolitical issues among countries that are expected to share the burden. This can be illustrated by Trump’s abandonment of the EU during the refugee crisis, leaving Europe alone in dealing with the issue (Koppa, 2017). 

As of 2022, there are 46.1 million migrants in the US (Geiger, 2024). Anti-migration and its link to nationalism are core aspects of Trump’s political campaigns and of his past presidency (Löfflmann, 2019). Indeed, during his past campaigns, Trump had made promises for stricter migration policies. Quotes such as “America First” and “Make America Great Again” were commonplace in his speeches and rallies (Lacatus, 2021; Löfflmann, 2022; Magcamit, 2017; Mirza et al., 2021). Unlike other populists, Trump succeeded in passing several anti-migration policies while in office (Table 1).

Europe has also faced difficulties controlling the increasing numbers of its migrant population. According to the International Organization for Migration (McAuliffe & Oucho, 2024), there are approximately 87 million migrants living in Europe. In the context of migration crises, which often disproportionately impact EU member states, balancing European cohesion has fragmented the Union. Additionally, in recent years, Western politics has witnessed a trend of a right-wing shift (see Figure 1) and increased support for populist leaders, which exacerbates this fragmentation (Europe Elects, 2024; Europe Politique, 2024).

Trump’s US presidency coincided with a period of EU instability which saw the rise of right-wing populist parties (RPP) in Europe and the significant decision for Britain to leave the EU, with migration a core topic for the Leave campaign (Langlois, 2021; Löfflmann, 2019). Authors such as Fusiek & Marconi (2021) argue that the popularity of a nationalistic populist in the US gave confidence to populist political actors in Europe to become more vocal and gather support. In the face of EU fragmentation, the Union must be prepared for leniency with its Pact on Migration and Asylum if it wishes to maintain cohesion. 

Note: Data sourced from European parliament election 2024, by Europe Elects, 2024 (https://europeelects.eu/ep2024/). Data sourced from Parliament Européen (2019, 2014, 2009, 2004, 1999, 1994, 1989, 1984, 1979), by Europe Politique, 2024.(https://www.europe-politique.eu/parlement-europeen.htm).

This paper delivers policy suggestions for the successful implementation of the Pact, especially in the context of the 2024 US Presidential elections and of its possible repercussions. To do so, the paper briefly delves into the 2024 EU Pact on Migration and Asylum, focusing on its strengths, its weaknesses, and how it is perceived by EU member states. Following, the paper conducts a horizon scanning methodology to discuss the possible outcomes of the 2024 US elections and how they could affect international politics and the implementation of the Pact. Finally, the paper provides recommendations to the European Commission to ensure readiness and resilience in the implementation of the Pact in any scenario deriving from the result of the upcoming US elections.

2. The EU and Migration

The EU has faced difficulties in dealing with migration, especially as the issue disproportionately affects certain member states. In dealing with this issue, the EU has developed the EU Pact on Migration, for all EU member states to adhere to.

2.1 The Pact on Migration and Asylum

The 2024 EU Pact on Migration and Asylum establishes a comprehensive and flexible framework that addresses border management, asylum processes, and migrant integration while introducing a mandatory yet adaptable solidarity mechanism (European Commission, 2024b). This framework, as shown in Figure 2, aims to distribute responsibilities more fairly among member states, allowing contributions through relocations, financial support, or alternative measures (Ibid.). However, the Pact faces significant challenges, including bureaucratic complexity, varying political will, and potential conflicts with member states resistant to migration, such as those of the Visegrád Group (V4: Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, and Hungary), which will be discussed in section 2.2 of the paper. 

Note: From Pact on Migration and Asylum, by European Commission, 2024b. (https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/policies/migration-and-asylum/pact-migration-and-asylum_en). Copyright 2024 by the European Union.

A SWOT analysis of the Pact (Figure 3) was made by the authors which found that the resource-intensive nature of the Pact may strain member states’ capacities, particularly amid shifting political priorities. Nonetheless, it offers opportunities for enhanced cooperation, stronger external partnerships, and economic benefits through managed migration. These potential gains are counterbalanced by threats such as geopolitical instability, rising anti-immigration sentiment, legal disputes within the EU, and the risk of migrants resorting to more dangerous routes due to increased border controls. The success of the pact will depend on its ability to navigate these complexities while ensuring the protection of human rights and fair distribution of responsibilities.

Note: Authors’ creation.

2.2 Backlash from Member States

The Pact has received severe backlash from a number of actors within the EU for very different reasons. On the one hand, due to its attempt at regulating and partially restricting immigration, many on the political left view the Pact as giving too many concessions to the far right, and failing to protect fundamental rights (Griera, 2024). For example, the German Left MEP Cornelia Ernst called the pact “a pact of shame and disgrace,” while other MEPs from Left and Green parties considered the Pact to be a model for a fortress of Europe and a victory for the far-right (Ibid.). Many NGOs also criticized the Pact, with Amnesty International attesting a “surge in suffering” for asylum seekers, if the Pact was to enter into effect (Nattrass, 2024). On the other hand, right-wing governments and parties across the EU also greatly criticized the Pact.

However, contrary to the above-mentioned examples, their main concern is that the Pact is not strict enough on immigration regulation and forces every EU member state to contribute and show solidarity, hence overruling national sovereignty (Nattrass, 2024). The Visegrád countries in particular – namely: Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, and Hungary – heavily criticized the Pact and its solidarity mechanisms, with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk promising that Poland will “find ways so that even if the migration pact comes into force in a roughly unchanged form, we will protect Poland against the relocation mechanism” (Nattrass, 2024), while the Hungarian government also pledged to find ways to avoid taking in immigrants and called the Pact “another nail in the coffin of the European Union” (Nattrass, 2024). 

In addition to the Visegrád Group, an increasing number of member countries is expressing its discontent with the Pact, a trend tied to the rise of RPPs throughout Europe (Vinocur et al., 2024). In particular, this is manifesting through a push for tighter deportation and border control measures across Europe (Vinocur et al., 2024). 17 countries in the Schengen area – Austria and the Netherlands and endorsed by Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Slovakia and Sweden. Norway, Switzerland and Liechtenstein – have recently signed an appeal to the EU executive to toughen return policies when asylum applications are rejected as well as increasing European coordination when it comes to deportations (Carlson, 2024; Liboreiro, 2024). Additionally, numerous countries in the Schengen area – i.e. Austria, Denmark, France, Italy, Norway, Slovenia, and Sweden (Dell’Anna, 2024) – are increasing border controls, which hinders the right to freedom of movement. In addition to these general trends, in countries where RPPs are gaining executive positions, the stance on migration policy is toughening even more (Carlson, 2024; Stekić, 2024; Vinocur et al., 2024). Recent examples of this trend – including the extreme example of the Netherlands’ request to opt-out of the Pact – are shown visually in Figure 4 and a full table is available in Appendix A.

Note: Authors’ creation.

This restrictive stance appears also at the European level where, as illustrated in section 1, right-leaning groups have gained more influence (Vinocur et al., 2024). In particular, members of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) and of the European People’s Party (EPP) support the toughening of deportation mechanisms, the increase of asylum-seeker reception centers outside of the EU, and the funding for extra EU border control (Ibid.). 

In sum, the Migration Pact, which is supposed to offer a compromise, is seen negatively by both sides of the political spectrum for respectively leaning too much into the opposite political spectrum, a trend that has led countries to push for a re-draft of the pact (Vinocur et al., 2024). In this context, the main challenge to the successful implementation of the Pact remains to satisfy parties and voters on the left-wing and pro-immigration side and on the right-wing anti-immigration side concurrently. This challenge will be addressed in section 5 of this policy paper, where policy options and recommendations are provided. 

3. Methodology

Horizon scanning is used by building on early warning signs and predictions based on current events, by analyzing political discourse. Geopolitical issues are increasingly complex and interconnected. With such challenges, the use of horizon scanning is crucial to prepare and inform policymakers and decision-makers about potential opportunities and threats (Amanatidou et al., 2012). There are two core aspects of horizon scanning: alerting and creating. Alerting includes the early identification of emerging issues, whereas the creative aspect refers to the reassembly of current issues into a prediction for what might develop into a policy problem. Current political discourse in Europe has centered around a migration debate and discontent towards failing solutions to handle the issue, simultaneously the US Presidential debate has Donald Trump potentially returning for a second term. 

4. Examinations of Findings: The US 2024 Presidential Elections

As a two-party system, there exists only two possible results of the US Presidential election – a Trump victory, or a Harris victory. Regardless, there shall be a possibility of outcomes in either scenario. Having conducted horizon scanning, there are two possible scenarios that may impact European politics on migration: whether Trump should achieve victory, or whether Trump reacts poorly and encourages disruption in the event of a loss.  

4.1 A Trump Victory

In the event that Trump achieves victory, there are two core aspects that will shape the political landscape around migration. Trump has demonstrated an ability to influence and encourage populists in the EU to be more vocal and gather support, as illustrated in Figure 5 (Fusiek & Marconi, 2021). In this regard, it can be expected that the political landscape in Europe will continue to favor populism during a revival of right-wing shift while Trump would have his second term. A second Trump presidential term would likely embolden European populist leaders such as Viktor Orbán, Marine Le Pen, Matteo Salvini, Jarosław Kaczyński, and even populist parties such as the Alternative for Germany (AfD) or Austria’s Freedom Party (FPÖ) by validating their nationalist, anti-EU, and illiberal policies (Naughtie, 2024). During his first presidency, Trump openly praised some of these leaders, especially Viktor Orbán, Trump was quoted saying “Let me just say about world leaders, Viktor Orbán, one of the most respected men, they call him a strong man” and undermined multilateral bodies, sending a clear signal that illiberal governance and nationalist policies are able to thrive without any significant repercussions from the US (Euractiv, 2024).

Note: Authors’ creation. Purple shows the Visegrád Group countries and yellow shows Western European states.
Politicians who have a direct link or friendship with Trump are highlighted in red.

Trump’s alignment with right-wing ideologies would also likely embolden these leaders to promote policies that further marginalize minority groups, restrict immigration, and consolidate political power by undermining judicial independence and press freedoms. In a second term, Trump’s open disdain for international organizations like NATO and the EU would likely reduce pressure on these populist leaders to adhere to democratic norms (Stekić, 2024). By downplaying concerns over democratic backsliding and encouraging isolationist policies, Trump would create an EU environment where these leaders and parties continue to push their nationalist agendas further, almost completely free from the fear of diplomatic or economic consequences. 

Further issues that may surface from a Trump victory is the implementation of Project 2025: a Republican policy mantra with strict consequences for migration (The Heritage Foundation, n.d.). Core proposals of the project include continued and increased funding of the ‘Border Wall’, the deportation of migrants, and the removal of visa categories for victims of crime and human trafficking (Wendling, 2024). The project calls for the dissemination of the Department of Homeland Security to be replaced with stronger immigration enforcement bodies for stricter border control (Ibid.). Legal migration would also face stricter measures, through increased fees for visa applications (Ibid.). Donald Trump, as a form of populism, has been linked to the Brexit debate and fueling the “politics of anger”, a concept which some believe has contributed to euroscepticism across the Union (Smorag, 2020; Wind, 2017). If Trump were to be re-elected, it could be expected such sentiments may become prevalent in European political discourse again.

Should Trump win and implement Project 2025, the EU could mirror a restrictive stance again. This prediction is increasingly plausible (Vinocur et al., 2024), especially given the latest trends highlighted in section 2b. Overall, Trump’s influence has the power to destabilize democracies through the use of disinformation which causes greater distrust. Trump may prompt RPP leaders and their parties to entrench their power through policies aimed at curbing media freedom, overhauling the judicial system and the rule of law both at the national and supranational level, and even denouncing opposition parties.

4.2 Reactions to A Trump Loss

On the contrary, should Harris be elected as the first woman President, implications will lead to different roads. It is possible that the post-election events of January 2021 – i.e. the Capitol attacks – could have a sequel (Abramowitz, 2024). Many EU leaders took to the media to condemn the attack on the Capitol, denouncing the use of violence in any form of democratic process. Most were outright with their criticism of Trump’s handling of the situation and the consequences of his words. Common responses from RPP leaders and members – i.e. Marine Le Pen, Giorgia Meloni, and Victor Orbán- were to include a condemning of violence, protecting democracy, whilst simultaneously illustrating Trump in a positive light, often as a ‘peacemaker’ for his limited calls to avoid violent attacks during the protest, whilst others excused Trump of any wrongdoing (Herszenhorn et al., 2021). Should a similar situation arise, where Trump would instigate a protest after losing the election, it is expected that the previously mentioned EU leaders would follow similar actions as before. In this scenario, European leaders are likely to hold a consensus view that democracy is the forefront of our political system, not to be undermined. Likewise, it is expected that Harris would share the same sentiments for democracy and condemn his final attempt at power.

Regardless of the outcome of the 2024 US presidential election, Europe is undeniably fragmented politically, which significantly impacts the practical implementation of the EU Migration Pact. In recent months, in Germany, the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) has been vocal about its opposition to migration. It further supports a “remigration” implementation (Hockenos, 2024) that has surged in federal elections. In Austria, the Freedom of Austria Party (FPÖ) won in the recent election. The FPÖ is expected to push a hardline stance on immigration and resist EU-level initiatives. The FPÖ will likely join forces with other mainstream populist parties (Cameron & and Goldstein, 2024). 

In addition to the success of far-right parties across Europe, the ongoing war in Ukraine continues to drive a wedge between nations more friendly and dependent on Russia to take a harder line on accepting Ukrainian refugees, let alone migrants from the Middle East or North Africa. Nations such as Greece and Italy continue to deal with the Mediterranean migration crisis, which is expected to continue for years. These existing crises continue to be a launch pad for far-right populist parties’ rhetoric. 

5. Policy Options 

At the time of writing, there was around one month remaining until the 2024 US Presidential election would be held. Three policy options were created for the European Commission to consider for a smooth and coherent implementation of the 2024 EU Pact on Migration and Asylum. 

  1. The European Commission must organize a commonly managed and coordinated European asylum system centered around the wellness of human beings: the EU should work on the defense of fundamental human rights, immigrants’ safety and dignity. It is also suggested that the Union ought to use the reservation of migrants as a last resort and try to create other effective solutions, like open reception centers, since prolonged detention results in devastating effects on migrants’ mental health (International Rescue Committee, 2023).
  2. The European Commission should strengthen the resettlement of refugees in the Union Resettlement Framework (URF): this includes timely and just handling of the reception and integration of refugees and immigrants from day one. More specifically, the Union must offer decent reception conditions throughout the EU, such as providing education and healthcare. Moreover, the Union ought to worry about the progress with an organized and transparent mechanism for monitoring the fundamental rights of asylum seekers. 
  3. The European Commission should fund and conduct regular in-depth country reviews (ICRs) to track the impact of the Pact on Migration and Asylum at a national level and allow for country-tailored implementation strategies:similar reviews are already conducted by the Commission such as European Semester reports, the Environmental Implementation Review and economic IDRs annually. These reviews would provide a mechanism for member states to detail the impact of migration in areas that are core concerns for countries. Each country review should conclude with action points and priorities at the member state and EU-level. 

Though all three policy options are of equal importance to ensure the successful and coherent implementation of the plan, this paper proceeds to focus on the last policy option as a strong recommendation to the European Commission, in order to ensure preparedness for the ongoing implementation of the Pact in this time of political uncertainty. The reasons and specifics behind this recommendation follow in the next subsection. 

5.1 Recommendations

The recommendation of ICRs within the context of the implementation of the Pact acts as a preventative method which focuses on three areas and values that are important for European RPPs with the aim of ensuring their increased cooperation in the implementation of the Pact. First, the country-specific analyses yielded by the IDRs would allow national leaders to suggest implementation strategies tailored to each nation’s socio-economic needs and capabilities. These tailored solutions will preserve national sovereignty. Second, through these country-specific analyses and implementation strategies, it would be possible to put a specific attention on a proper cultural integration of migrants, ensuring their wellbeing within society whilst preserving national traditions. This possibility could strengthen social cohesion, hence appeasing any anti-immigration sentiments that are likely to be strengthened by Trump’s influence. Finally, IDRs would strengthen national agency and allow for national interests to be at the heart of policy implementation whilst EU’s core objectives and values are upheld.

In particular, to ensure their above-mentioned purpose, we envision ICRs to present key sections as follows. First, an Economic Contributions and Challenges of Migration section of the review would report statistics relating to the economy, workforce and their welfare states. This will allow member states to further detail shortages in the job market where migration of people with work experiences related to the field are required. For example, countries experiencing shortages of agricultural workers, healthcare, or otherwise may request that their migrant quota includes those able to contribute to those sectors. Migration is often talked about as a burden by RPPs, highlighting the skills and benefits migrants can bring to suffering industries should mitigate this issue.

Second, a section dedicated to reporting on Social Dynamics and Community Integration would allow states to report statistics related to socio-cultural data, such as attendance to language courses, educational attendance, and integration into society through work or social programmed. This would address the common concerns of RPP tied to the erasure of national identity and traditions due to immigration. It is hoped that providing member states an avenue to report on socio-cultural impacts of migration will demonstrate an effort to protect national identity whilst promoting integration  

Finally, a section for Impacts Not Otherwise Stated is proposed. This would allow member states to flag any additional issues they are facing in the implementation of the Pact to EU institutions. Such issues could include difficulties in processing of incoming migrants, including manpower, biometrics, and service availability. Overall, this should help with national governance for the Pact.

All ICRs ought to conclude with a plan for the future. Plans should enable co-working between the Commission and Member States to come up with priorities and action points for each stakeholder going forward with the Pact, as similar EU reports conclude with. With this recommendation, member states can agree with the EU on what is most important and applicable to the individual country, rather than having a “one size fits all” method applied to all EU members. 

Due to the politically sensitive nature of migration, the importance of impartiality was noted. It is recommended that the ICRs are conducted independently, with assistance from the Eurostat peer-review team. The EU has six funding pools that it may draw from that can achieve this recommendation feasibly: (1) Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund, (2) Internal Security Fund, (3) European Social Fund Plus, (4) European Regional Development Fund, (5) Neighborhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument, and (6) Emergency Assistance and Other Ad Hoc Funding.

6. Conclusion

At this stage, the result of the American elections is ambiguous. The scenario of Trump’s re-election to power will bring about unfavorable results both at the overall EU level and on the immigration issue, as a Trump presidency would entail significant disruptions in US-EU relations (Frangeul-Alves & Weber, 2024).  Trump’s troubled relations with the EU and his pursuit of isolationism, as well as his apparent apathy towards immigrants and refugees, mean that the former president will once again leave the Union alone on the issue that plagues it. Therefore, the developments in the field of immigration will differ greatly depending on the US election results.

In any case, the EU should not be complacent, regardless of the election result, as the migrant – refugee crisis plagues Brussels. Migration is one of the most important policy issues (Lovato, 2021) and it has turned into a geopolitical issue. Immigration is a labyrinthine for the EU and a complex problem, thus the solution will not be easy, especially given EU member states’ diverse opinions on the matter (Donceel, 2024). 

To conclude, this policy paper delved into the implementation of this Pact, focusing on how it is susceptible to the rise of populism both in Europe and abroad. In particular, after conducting a SWOT analysis of the Pact and providing an overview of how it is perceived across Europe, the paper focused on how the implementation of the Pact could be affected by the results of the upcoming US presidential elections. Based on previous cases, it is expected that in case of victory Trump will incentivize his EU “allies”, such as Hungary’s Orban, Italy’s Meloni, and Slovakia’s Fico (Naughtie, 2024), resist the Pact in the name of national sovereignty and anti-elitism. In the case of Trump’s loss however, the likely scenario is that the former president would encourage them to challenge the election outcomes and attempt to undermine democratic processes. This could deepen the public’s distrust in representative institutions across the US and the EU, ultimately furthering the disengagement from electoral processes (i.e. increasing voter absenteeism).   

The authors of this paper believe that the recommended introduction of periodic in-depth country reviews (ICRs) would serve as a preventative measure in anticipation of Trump influencing RPPs in Europe. Of course, whilst future outcomes are uncertain due to the vivacity of the electoral campaigns in the US as well as worsening international orders, we are confident that as the European Commission sustains the cooperative nature of the Pact across political spectrums – which we recommend doing by ensuring tailored implementation strategies across member states’ government – its implementation will be successful. 

 

(*) This policy paper is based on research conducted by Beatrice Bottura, Paris O’Keeffe-Johnston, Pinelopi Gkampeta, Ludmila Malai, Matt Lynch, Joon Park and Leon Gräf during the ECPS Case Competition “US Foreign Policy and Populism,” held as part of the ECPS Summer School from July 1-5, 2024. 

Authors’ Biographies

Beatrice Bottura is a Sciences Po master student in Public Policy, specializing in Social Policy and Social Innovation, and a Central European University (CEU) graduate in Philosophy Politics and Economics. Her research interests revolve around the crisis of democracy and how it relates to political attitudes and policymaking. She has explored this in her bachelor thesis “Ethnopopulists’ reaction to crises: the case of Fratelli D’Italia”, from which she derived an article for the Horizon Europe project “AuthLIB – Neo-Authoritarianisms in Europe and the Liberal Democratic Response”, which she is involved in as a research assistant. For this project she has worked with CEU’s Democracy institute and Sciences Po’s Centre d’Études Européennes (CEE). Particularly, she conducted discourse analyses for the working paper “Illiberalism and Social Policy: A Four-Country Comparison”, is authoring an upcoming publication on varieties of illiberalism across policy areas with CEU and has coded speech for the CEE’s work measuring “Ideological configurations”. 

Joon Park is a third-year student at George Washington University, pursuing a bachelor’s in international Affairs and Finance with a minor in Economics. Born to Korean immigrants and raised in Germany, her academic focus spans EU economics, German domestic and foreign politics, U.S. foreign policy, and East Asian geopolitical strategy. She is currently researching the rise of right-wing populism in Europe in collaboration with the Center for Faith, Identity, and Globalization in Washington, D.C. Joon’s passion lies in exploring how global political systems and economic dynamics intersect to shape international relations and policy. 

Matthew Lynch is a Master of Science candidate in Global Studies and International Relations at Northeastern University in Boston. He received a Bachelor of Science in Supply Chain Management from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. With a background in international business, his current research focuses on how populism creates vulnerabilities in EU defense and security, particularly the potential for external actors to exploit these weaknesses. He also researches German foreign and defense policy.

Leon Gräf holds a BA in Political Science and Philosophy, University of Heidelberg, Germany and an MA in Political Science, University of Mannheim, Germany. He is currently working as Research Fellow at the Max Planck Foundation for International Peace and the Rule of Law, and as a Research Assistant at the Chair of Empirical Macrosociology at Heidelberg University. Additionally, is has been working as a researcher at the Heidelberg Institute for International Conflict Research (HIIK) since 2021. His MA thesis focused on mediator characteristics and their effect on ceasefire success across different regions. 

Pinelopi Gkampeta is a graduate student in the Advanced M.Sc. in “European Integration” in Brussels School of Governance (VUB) and she currently lives in Brussels. Furthermore, she has obtained a master’s degree in “International and European Governance and Politics” from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and a bachelor’s degree in “Philosophy” from the same university. She has taken part in the Erasmus+ Program “Maritime Security Common Module “by European Security and Defence College and Hellenic Naval Academy. Moreover, she is a research intern in the Institute of International Relations (Athens, Greece) and also an editor and analyst at the Association of International and European Affairs. Pinelopi worked as a research assistant for the Identity and Conflict Lab (Yale University) for some months. Her areas of interest and research are EU as a Global Actor, EU External Relations, EU Security and Defense Policy, Maritime Security and Immigration Policy.

Paris O’Keeffe-Johnston holds an MA in International Relations, Conflict & Security from Northumbria University. Her research focuses primarily on societal security, with an emphasis on digital threats. Her dissertation explored how EU policy documents framed cybersecurity as an existential threat. Currently, her research interests have expanded to include the societal risks posed by AI. This includes how populists may use generative AI to either gather support or create the illusion of widespread backing, as well as to drive disinformation campaigns. By investigating this area, she aims to uncover how algorithms could be leveraged for early detection and mitigation of polarizing content ahead of elections. 

Ludmila Malai is an experienced EU Project Manager at the Intercultural Dialogue Platform, with a diverse academic background in Economics, Administration, Politics, Diplomacy, and Conflict Resolution. She holds a Master’s in International Law and Security Studies from the Free University of Brussels and is fluent in English, French, Russian, Italian, and Romanian. Over the past six years, Ludmila has specialized in writing and coordinating European projects focused on CVE/PVE, radicalization, combating racism, Antisemitism, Islamophobia, the security of places of worship, women’s empowerment, and youth civic engagement.

 

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Prabowo Subianto sings during a grand campaign at GBK Stadium in Jakarta on March 23, 2014. After four attempts, Prabowo was finally elected President of Indonesia in 2024. Photo: MRNPic.

From Political Pariah to President: Prabowo Subianto and the Perils of Populism in Indonesia

by ArticlesAuthoritarianismEditor’s ChoiceHomeLeadersProfiles

Please cite as:
Watmough, Simon P. (2021). “From Political Pariah to President: Prabowo Subianto and the Perils of Populism in Indonesia.” ECPS Leader Profiles. European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). October 24, 2024. https://doi.org/10.55271/lp0011

 

Prabowo Subianto’s victory in Indonesia’s February 2024 presidential election marks a pivotal moment in the nation’s democratic evolution, echoing a global shift towards nationalist populism. As Indonesia’s eighth president, Prabowo’s political journey and ideological stance have sparked concerns about the future of the country’s democratic institutions. His controversial military past, including allegations of human rights abuses in East Timor and Aceh during the 1990s, continues to raise alarms about the potential for authoritarianism under his leadership. Critics fear his presidency may signal a return to repressive practices, with threats to civil liberties and increased polarization. Prabowo’s background as a former military general adds to concerns about a consolidation of power and the erosion of democratic checks and balances in one of the world’s largest democracies.

By Simon P. Watmough

Introduction

Prabowo Subianto’s[1] stunning victory in Indonesia’s presidential elections in February marks a significant moment in the country’s democratic journey, reflecting a global trend towards authoritarian nationalist populism. As he assumes the presidency of the world’s third-largest democracy, Prabowo’s political career and ideological stance have ignited conversations about the potential implications for Indonesia’s democratic institutions and pluralistic society, prompting observers at home and abroad to scrutinize the trajectory Indonesia might take under his administration. This profile joins that conversation, asking: Who is Prabowo Subianto, Indonesia’s eighth president?

If the “peculiarity of populist discourse is to frame politics as an antagonistic confrontation between the people and the oligarchy” (de la Torre, 2007: 389), then Prabowo hits the mark. Known for his assertive rhetoric and strongman persona, Prabowo – a retired lieutenant general in the Indonesian Armed Forces (Tentara Nasional Indonesia, TNI) – has successfully tapped into a vein of nationalist sentiment in Indonesia, promising robust leadership in the face of mounting economic and security challenges.

It is scarcely surprising that Prabowo embodies all the qualities of a “warrior populist” in the vein of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, as he has publicly declared his admiration for the late Venezuelan general-turned-dictator (Aspinall, 2015: 2). Equally, as the brother of one of Indonesia’s richest men (and a multimillionaire in his own right), we can see him as the paradigmatic “pluto-populist” in the vein of Donald Trump, the late Silvio Berlusconi and of course, Thailand’s Thaksin Shinawatra, whom Prabowo openly admires (ibid.).

The country itself is no stranger to populism, which has “deep roots in Indonesia” (Aspinall, 2015: 3). “Diffuse” forms of populist mobilization have played an outsized role in the country’s mass politics since the beginning, even during the “Guided Democracy” of the founding president, Sukarno, and the authoritarian “New Order” period under Suharto (ibid.). Some have even located the roots of Indonesian populism in the country’s birth as an independent nation (van Klinken, 2020). However, Indonesia’s current “populist moment” reflects conditions that have emerged in the 21st century, not least the attenuation of party functioning in the campaigns of political actors and the rise of “media-based populism,” which is “now the default mode of electioneering” (Gammon, 2023: 442). The allure of authoritarian nationalist populism, with its promise of decisive action and appeal to traditional values, poses questions about the future of Indonesia’s open and inclusive political climate. Critics argue that this could lead to a regression in human rights, freedom of the press and minority protections, elements that are foundational to Indonesia’s democratic framework.

This profile offers a comprehensive overview of the factors that have shaped Prabowo’s outlook and approach, including his early life, his military career (including his close links with the Suharto regime and his role in the transition to democracy in 1998) as well as his subsequent business and political ventures, all of which have led him to the seat of ultimate power. Charting his move from political pariah to perennial contender and now president, it sketches the key influences that have shaped his authoritarian populist outlook and the controversies that continue to devil him and give his critics pause for concern. Ultimately, it suggests he is likely to work to centralize power in the hands of the presidency, undermine Indonesia’s independent institutions, take the country backwards and possibly threaten to ignite conflicts far and wide.

A Cosmopolitan “Third Culture Kid” Forged in Exile

Indonesian presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto greets the public during a 2024 general election campaign in Bengkulu City, Indonesia, on January 11, 2024. Photo: Shutterstock.

Prabowo Subianto Djojohadikusumo was born on 17 October 1951, in Jakarta, Indonesia, into an aristocratic Javanese family “line that goes back centuries” (Connelly & Laksmana, 2018). His grandfather, Margono Djojohadikusumo (1894–1978), a prominent economist and founder of Bank Negara Indonesia (also serving as its first president), was a leading figure in Indonesia’s independence movement, while his father, Sumitro Djojohadikusumo (1917–2001), held key positions as Indonesia’s minister of trade and industry. Growing up amidst this political and economic elite exposed Prabowo to the inner workings of government and economics from a very young age (Purdey, 2016).

In the late 1950s, at just seven years of age, Prabowo was forced into exile with his family, his father and grandfather having been central players in an internal rebellion against Sukarno. Exile took the family first to Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, then Switzerland and later to the United Kingdom, where Prabowo studied, graduating from the prestigious American School in London (ASL) in 1968 (Tanu, 2004). This international journey at a young age had a profound impact on Prabowo, exposing him to a wide range of cultures and shaping him into a “third culture kid” (Pollock & Reken, 2009), one who learned precisely how to navigate elite cosmopolitan circles (Tanu, 2004).

After the fall of Sukarno and the rise of the New Order regime in 1966 (headed by Suharto), the family were no longer political exiles. As Aspinall (2015: 3) notes, Prabowo returned to Indonesia “more comfortable speaking English than Indonesian, yet with powerful ambitions” to make something of himself in the country of his birth. Indeed, from a young age, Prabowo displayed a natural aptitude for strategy and a strong aspiration to the grand exercise of political power – a particular fascination in his youth was the Turkish general-turned-founding father Kemal Mustafa Ataturk (Friend, 2003: 323). Recognizing his teenage son’s leadership potential, Sumitro encouraged Prabowo to attend the military academy and pursue a career in the armed forces.

Military Career and Accusations of Human Rights Abuses

Understanding Prabowo’s military career is central to understanding both his outlook and style and the controversies that have dogged him in politics since 2004. His military journey began in 1970 when he enrolled in the Indonesian Military Academy in Magelang. He graduated in 1974, alongside fellow cadets who would go on to hold senior leadership positions, including Indonesia’s sixth president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (widely known as SBY).

After graduation, Prabowo served in elite regiments of the TNI, first in the Indonesian Special Forces (known as Kopassus), which he joined in 1976 and where he gained experience in counterinsurgency operations (Aspinall, 2015: 6). Indeed, during his several tours of East Timor after the Indonesian invasion in December 1975, he was responsible for many human rights violations. At just 26 years old, Prabowo became the youngest commander of a key commando unit operating in East Timor and was implicated in the execution of East Timor’s first prime minister and freedom fighter, Nicolau dos Reis Lobato, in December 1978 (van Klinken, 2014).

Prabowo’s career took off after his marriage to Siti Hediati Hariyadi (“Titiek”) – the daughter of Indonesia’s strongman President Suharto – in 1983. His marriage to Titiek further elevated his status within the ruling political elite and gave him access to important networks and resources, allowing him to rise through the ranks of the Indonesian military more swiftly than many of his peers.

In the early 1990s, Prabowo, now a Major General, led Kopassus Group 3 in its attempts to suppress the East Timorese independence movement. His methods included using irregular troops, known as “ninja” gangs, and militias directed by Kopassus commanders, leading to a rise in human rights abuses. He has also been implicated in killings in Indonesia’s restive province of West Papua, particularly targeting the region’s independence activists (Nairn, 2024). During the dying days of his father-in-law’s regime, “Prabowo emerged as the leader of a palace guard of generals most willing to use coercion to defend the regime” (Aspinall, 2015: 6). In March 1998, Prabowo was appointed as the head of the 27,000-strong Army Strategic Reserve Command (Kostrad) – a position Suharto himself once held, which he used to topple Sukarno and propel himself to power in 1965.

Just three months into this role, during the May 1998 riots, Prabowo sought to deploy Kostrad units to restore order in Jakarta. This move was met with controversy as it involved hundreds of individuals trained by Kopassus, Prabowo’s former command. Accusations of importing trouble and seeking to discredit rivals were raised, with some arguing that Prabowo was putting pieces in place for a military coup in which he would assume command of Indonesia. These events escalated tensions and played a role in the resignation of President Suharto on May 21, 1998 (Aspinall, 2005: 212).

In the aftermath of the 1998 riots, investigations revealed allegations of human rights abuses and kidnappings involving Prabowo’s troops, including the torture of democracy activists. He acknowledged responsibility for the abductions (although he continues to deny any role in the activists’ deaths), leading to his discharge from military service in August 1998 (Nairn, 2024).

Second Exile and Business Empire

As soon as he was expelled from the military, Prabowo again went into exile (this time self-imposed), residing in Jordan (Prabowo is reportedly close to King Abdullah). During this time, he downplayed involvement in the 1998 riots and maintained that he was not responsible for betraying his country or its leaders (Tesoro, 2000). On his return to Indonesia in 2004, he immediately began to plot a path to the presidency (Aspinall & Mietzner, 2014: 352).

At the same time, Prabowo ventured into the business world, collaborating with his younger brother, Hashim Djojohadikusumo. His business interests reflect a pattern endemic to Indonesia’s “oligarchic” political economy (Winters, 2013). Today, Prabowo’s Nusantara Group oversees an extensive portfolio of 27 companies operating both within Indonesia and internationally. These companies cover a diverse range of sectors, including Nusantara Energy (focusing on oil, natural gas, and coal), Tidar Kerinci Agung (engaged in palm oil plantations), and Jaladri Nusantara (operating in the fishery industry) (Purdey, 2016).

From Political Pariah to Perennial Presidential Candidate

Even as a solider, Prabowo Subianto had established a reputation as a political player, leveraging his connections with President Suharto in the 1990s to engage in efforts to suppress critics in the journalistic and political spheres. In the dying days of the New Order, Prabowo attempted to sway Goenawan Mohamad to sell his controversial Tempo magazine (a leading mouthpiece of popular dissent) and warned various influential figures, including Abdurrahman Wahid (popularly known as Gus Dur, who served as Indonesia’s fourth president from 1999 to 2001) and Nurcholish Madjid, against taking a public stand against the regime (Friend, 2003: 203).

By 2004, Prabowo’s political aspirations led him to vie for the Golkar party’s presidential candidacy, but he received minimal support. He speaks of this campaign as a “trial run” that gave him the experience he needed to move forward. In this period, he also began to create grassroots networks, especially among farmers, small traders, and a wide range of other organizations, including “veterans’ associations, labor unions and organizations of village heads, which could provide him with access to a mass base” (Aspinall, 2015: 9) on which to ground a populist political movement.

In 2008, Prabowo’s inner circle established the Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra), supporting his presidential run in 2009. Hashim Djojohadikusumo serves as party chairman. Despite not winning enough parliamentary seats, Prabowo ran as a vice-presidential candidate alongside Megawati Sukarnoputri, daughter of Sukarno. The pair, known as Mega–Pro, lost to SBY, who succeeded Megawati as Indonesia’s sixth president on 20 October 2004. Unbowed by this failure, Prabowo doubled down on building up Gerindra, his business interests, and his populist networks (Mao, 2024).

The 2014 Presidential Election: The “Battle of the Populists”

President-elect Prabowo Subianto with the 7th President of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, at the 79th Indonesian National Armed Forces Anniversary in Jakarta, Indonesia, on October 5, 2024. Photo: Donny Hery.

By 2014, Indonesian politics had reached a critical juncture, one that was ripe for populist mobilization. While SBY’s ten years in office had seen the country bed down several important reforms, recover fully from the 1997 Asian financial crisis, and resolve some longstanding regional conflicts, they were largely seen as a lost opportunity, mainly due to the vacillating leadership of President Yudhoyono himself (Aspinall et all., 2015: 1–2). The period of political indecision and policy stagnation that characterized the last years of his presidency set the stage for the rise of a “populist challenger” in Indonesian politics, something “political scientists had been predicting for years” (Aspinall & Mietzner, 2014: 351; see also Anugrah, 2020: 5). Indeed, as Aspinall has rightly noted, “The rise of an authoritarian populist challenger like Prabowo was almost overdetermined in contemporary Indonesia” (Aspinall, 2015: 3)

Scholars widely agree that 2014 was a “watershed” and a “turning point” in Indonesian democracy in the post-Suharto era (see, for example, Anugrah, 2020: 6; Aspinall & Mietzner, 2014: 347). It was the year that saw Indonesia join “the new wave of illiberal populist mobilization in both established and newer democracies” (Anugrah, 2020: 11). The result was an epic “battle of the populists” – Joko Widodo (“Jokowi”), the incumbent governor of Jakarta, and Prabowo – in the presidential elections in July. While both were clearly populist, each had a distinctive populist style that contrasted with the other. For his part, Jokowi showcased a provincial “everyman” populist style (he promised to meet Yudhoyono’s do-nothing elitism with workaday governance on a platform of good governance and populist policies like cheap healthcare and education). As Aspinall & Mietzner (2014: 351) have noted: “In Jokowi, Indonesians found someone who possessed a popular touch that was the antithesis of Yudhoyono’s wooden formality.” In stark contrast stood Prabowo, who instead offered “‘firm leadership’ as the antidote to Yudhoyono’s hesitant style of leadership” (Ibid.). Despite his impeccable establishment credentials, Prabowo cast himself in classical populist terms as an “outsider” ready to take on the Indonesian elite.

Prabowo ran a lavish campaign funded mostly by his brother, Hashim, a wildly successful businessman and one of Indonesia’s dollar billionaires. Notwithstanding his claims of wanting to fight a corrupt oligarchy, Prabowo’s campaign was “organized using a pattern of cash-driven informal networking” (Aspinall, 2015: 3) that drew in many constituencies. Despite a campaign levelled at “corrupt elites,” Prabowo managed to perfect the game of “patronage democracy” that Indonesia has become known for (Van Klinken, 2009).

Consistent with a turn to “media-based populism” in Indonesia (Gammon, 2023: 442), Prabowo campaigned “with relentless media advertising and set piece mass rallies all stressing a simple message: Prabowo was the man Indonesia needed to lead it towards a desperately needed national renaissance” (Aspinall & Mietzner, 2014: 357). Prabowo’s appeal was enhanced by a “widespread – though diffuse – mood of nostalgia for the certainties of the New Order” regime of his father-in-law Suharto, Indonesia’s longest-serving president (Aspinall, 2015: 3).

His campaign adopted classic populist discursive frames, and he cast himself as Indonesia’s “savior” with promises to rescue the country from a rapacious elite in cahoots with foreigners seeking to exploit Indonesia’s vast natural resources (Hellmann, 2019: 13). His style was avowedly nationalist and sought to both burnish his credentials as a “strong leader” and draw on the symbolism of the populist Sukarno era: “His campaign appearances had a highly theatrical character, with lots of uniforms, marching, and fiery oratory, and with much of the styling obviously based on that of Sukarno and other nationalist leaders from the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s” (Aspinall & Mietzner, 2014: 352).

Moreover, despite his claims to be the answer to the corruption and money politics of the Indonesian campaign system, Prabowo himself marshalled a wide range of constituencies through vote buying. In this way, he was able to galvanize Islamic groups, small businessmen and other mass constituencies. As Aspinall & Mietzner (2014: 359) note, “like his Thai role model Thaksin Shinawatra,” Prabowo “appealed mainly to the rural poor for support” (although in the end, he garnered as much or more urban support). Despite his mass appeal and backing from the outgoing SBY (the president reportedly held Prabowo “unfit to be president” but bowed to pressure and opinion polling to swing his weight behind the former general at the last minute), Jokowi won with 53% of the vote, after a late scramble to get out his base of his voters to the polls.

In the aftermath of the elections, both candidates declared victory. Jokowi’s claim was backed by most independent quick counts, showing a slight lead over Prabowo. The latter, however, citing different polls, also claimed victory, a strategy he would repeat in 2019. However, he withdrew from the race on the day the official tally was to be announced, citing “massive cheating” and declaring the election unconstitutional, a move that sparked legal and political controversies, culminating in an appeal to the Constitutional Court alleging significant voting irregularities, which the court unanimously rejected.

The 2019 Rematch: Islamic Populism and a Promise to “Make Indonesia Great Again”

Indonesian presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto at a campaign event in Jakarta, Indonesia, on April 4, 2014. Photo: Simon Roughneen.

The 2019 campaign set up a “rematch” between the two populists and was even more divisive than their 2014 contest (Arifianto, 2019: 46). As had been the case in 2014, Prabowo’s participation in the 2019 campaign was contentious. He initially claimed victory despite independent counts favoring Jokowi (he was eventually declared the winner with 55.5% of the vote), who later faced violent protests from his supporters challenging the results, which were ultimately upheld by the Constitutional Court (Jakarta Globe, 2019). During the campaign, Prabowo was accused of emulating the tactics used by Donald Trump in his 2016 bid for the US presidency, particularly in emphasizing economic inequalities and foreigners ripping the country off. In a speech given in October 2018, Prabowo echoed Trump’s infamous slogan by declaring his desire to “Make Indonesia Great Again.”

In a pattern that has recurred across his presidential campaigns, Prabowo reinvented himself going into the election campaign, in this case as a pious Muslim, appearing at religious festivals and Islamist rallies and actively courting Muslims: “Unlike in the 2014 election, when the Islamists were just a small contingent of Prabowo’s mainly ultranationalist coalition, the Islamists had now become an integral part of his campaign team” (Arifianto, 2019: 47). He made much of his connections with hardline Muslim groups, notably exemplified by his relationship with Muhammad Rizieq Shihab of the Islamic Defenders Front. Rizieq, in self-imposed exile in Mecca at the time, was a vocal critic of Jokowi and supporter of Prabowo. The former general pledged to facilitate Rizieq’s return to Indonesia if he won the election. Prabowo’s courting of the populist Islamic vote shifted the entire tenor of the campaign, forcing Jokowi to select the “conservative cleric Ma’ruf Amin” (Arifianto, 2019: 46) as his running mate.

Amidst a rancorous campaign, voter turnout in the 2019 elections reached record highs, fueled largely by the populist mobilization of Islam by the two leading contenders: “Religious-based polarization conducted by both sides during their campaigns helped boost total voter turnout to 154 million—approximately 80% of the electorate” (Arifianto, 2019: 49). This was up from the 69% who turned out to vote in the 2014 presidential poll (Anugrah, 2020: 9).

Rapprochement, Political Reinvention, and “Digital Populism” in the 2024 Presidential Campaign

Despite the bitterly fought campaign and Prabowo’s alleged role in violent post-election riots in Jakarta that killed six people (Soeriaatmadja & Chan, 2019), the ex-general opportunistically sought a rapprochement and approached Megawati and Jokowi to see if Gerindra could be included in the governing coalition (Indonesia’s party system is highly cartelized and parties often bandwagon in exchange for spoils; see Slater, 2018). In turn, and notwithstanding the rancor that had characterized their relations for half a decade, Jokowi appointed Prabowo his defense minister in October 2019 “as a gesture of national unity” (Anugrah, 2020: 1). Moreover, “[d]espite earlier tensions, Prabowo and Jokowi found common ground in a nationalist vision that emphasized sovereignty, defense, food security and energy security” (Utama, 2023).

His appointment as defense minister resurfaced criticisms of his past human rights abuses and comments praising charismatic populists who later became dictators, such as Hugo Chavez. Dogged by these criticisms, Prabowo sought to shed his image as a firebrand strongman (see below) in the run-up to the 2024 campaign, which culminated in a landslide win on February 14 (Prabowo took over 58% of the vote with another record turnout of 82%; Strangio, 2024).

Prabowo’s 2024 triumph after successive failed attempts rested on three central (and interrelated) dimensions, all of which contributed to his landslide win. The first was the backing of President Jokowi and the full force of the Indonesian state, which deployed a mix of “retail corruption” and “wholesale coercion” on a scale not seen in Indonesia since the 1970s (Nairn, 2024). This approach was coupled with a populist policy of offering one free meal to every child of school age in order to address malnutrition and stunting. A laudable policy on the face of it, it remains to be seen whether the US$30 billion price tag can be met from Indonesia’s strained central budget (Lindsey, 2024). Jokowi, who was term-limited, saw in Prabowo a chance to “carry forward his plans for a political dynasty and, with it, continued influence” (Utama, 2023). In late 2023, Prabowo skillfully wooed the president, offering the second spot on his ticket to Jokowi’s eldest son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, whose constitutional ineligibility for the office was overruled by Indonesia’s Supreme Court, headed by none other than Gibran’s maternal uncle, Anwar Usman, in October 2023. Secondly, Prabowo had the backing of Indonesia’s elite, in particular his brother and “an alliance of mining oligarchs and several giant capitalists who … supported the pair behind the scenes” (Hermawan, 2024).

Finally, Prabowo reinvented himself yet again – this time as a “gemoy” (cute) grandpa – and launched a campaign of “digital populism” on social media (primarily the video platform TikTok), featuring him “dad dancing” on campaign stages and adopting an approach vaguely reminiscent of Trump’s rally antics. This “reinvention tour” appealed to thrill Indonesia’s GenZ and millennial voters, who make up the majority of the country’s electorate and have little or no memory of Indonesia’s authoritarian past or Prabowo’s role in the violent end to the New Order in 1998. Here, too, Jokowi’s backing was also critical, not only in furnishing the young Gibran as Prabowo’s campaign sidekick. As Ary Hermawan (2024) has noted, “Prabowo’s new persona as a ‘cuddly grandpa’ [was] manufactured by an army of cybertroopers,” the majority of which were inherited from Jokowi’s political outfit and which the Prabowo camp deftly used to blunt “campaigns targeting the former general’s checkered human rights record—a key issue in the 2014 election” that Prabowo, ironically enough, lost to Jokowi (Ibid.)

Political Style and Controversies

Presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto and vice-presidential candidate Gibran Rakabuming Raka deliver a speech to their supporters in Jakarta, Indonesia, on February 14, 2024. Photo: Prayoga Nugroho.

Prabowo has been famously described as a chameleon, presenting different colors depending on the audience. As one profile put it on the eve of the 2014 presidential campaign, “The pro-business cosmopolitan who can ‘knock Indonesia together’ is the one who shows up to events at posh Jakarta hotels with diplomats and investors. The fist-shaking demagogue is the one who appears in front of the voters” (Tanu, 2004). Prabowo’s past has been a subject of scrutiny, particularly during his presidential campaigns in 2014, 2019 and 2024, with many organizations calling for investigations into his actions during this period. As far as personality is concerned, he is often described as “temperamental,” with “a propensity for outbursts of rage that sometimes involve physical violence, with reports circulating widely of him throwing cellphones, ashtrays, and even punches when angered by his associates or underlings” (Aspinall, 2015: 8–9).

His political style is emblematic of a broader global trend towards authoritarian nationalist populism, a mode of governance characterized by strong leadership, assertive nationalism, and, often, a skepticism towards liberal democratic norms. In Indonesia, Prabowo has cultivated an image of a decisive leader, one who promises to restore order, enhance national pride and protect Indonesian interests from foreign encroachment. This approach has garnered substantial support, particularly among voters disillusioned with the perceived inefficacies of previous administrations.

Despite his impeccable elite credentials (he descends from Javanese aristocracy on his father’s side and is the scion of one of Indonesia’s wealthiest and best-connected families), Prabowo loves to style himself as an “outsider” and a “maverick.” The latter is not actually far from the truth, a personality trait that has been in evidence since his days at the military academy in the early 1970s, where — despite his impressive mastery of military lore and practice — he quickly developed a reputation for independence (his graduation was delayed because he spent some time AWOL), most likely a reflection of his experience as a “third culture kid” in exile around the world in the 1960s.

However, this same political style raises concerns about the potential erosion of democratic principles, including checks and balances, freedom of speech and minority rights. Prabowo’s emphasis on nationalism and sovereignty taps into deep-seated sentiments among the populace, yet it also risks inflaming divisions within Indonesia’s ethnically and religiously diverse society. The manifesto of his Gerindra Party calls for a rollback of the post-Suharto constitutional reforms and a return to Indonesia’s original 1945 Constitution, which Indonesia’s first two presidents, Sukarno and Suharto, had used to establish authoritarian regimes over five decades.

Prabowo’s approach to governance also reflects a skepticism towards liberal internationalism, favoring instead a more insular, Indonesia-first policy. This stance is evident in his critiques of foreign investment and his proposals to reevaluate Indonesia’s participation in international trade agreements, which he argues disadvantage Indonesian workers and compromise national sovereignty. Such positions resonate with nationalist sentiments within Indonesia, promising economic sovereignty and the protection of local industries against global market forces. However, this economic nationalism has sparked debates about the practical implications for Indonesia’s economy, with critics cautioning that protectionist policies could isolate Indonesia from global supply chains and hinder economic growth.

Conclusion: What Can We Expect from a Prabowo Presidency?

After decades of aspiring to lead Indonesia, we can be sure that Prabowo has a clear idea of where he wants to take the country and a clear plan of how to do so. Volatile and mercurial, he is equally pragmatic and will almost certainly be looking to cut deals and build alliances, not least with his major opponent, Megawati’s Indonesian Party of Struggle (PDI–P), which has the largest number of seats in Indonesia’s House of Representatives (DPR). But at 72 years of age and in less-than-robust health, time is not on his side, and he is likely to quickly lose patience with Indonesia’s messy consensus-building approach or overt political opposition, be it in the DPR or on the streets.

Throughout his political career, Prabowo Subianto has faced numerous controversies, many of which stem from his tenure in the Indonesian military, as detailed above. Allegations of human rights abuses during his leadership of the special forces in the 1990s, particularly in regions like East Timor and Aceh, have dogged him, casting a long shadow over his subsequent political endeavors. While Prabowo has consistently denied any wrongdoing, these allegations have been a focal point for critics who argue that his presidency could signal a return to the repressive practices of Indonesia’s past. This history, combined with his current political rhetoric, feeds into fears of an authoritarian drift should Prabowo consolidate power, potentially leading to a curtailment of civil liberties and a crackdown on dissent.

Prabowo’s casual disregard for democracy has also been on display during his successive presidential bids. For example, his 2014 campaign “espoused an authoritarian populist message suggesting he wanted to recentralize power and dismantle key democratic institutions” (Aspinall & Mietzner, 2014: 347). He has also floated the idea that “the country to do away with direct elections of executive government leaders—which he described as a Western product inappropriate for Indonesia” (Ibid.: 352). Before constitutional reforms in the 2000s instituted popular elections of Indonesia’s president and regional governors, they were appointed by their respective legislatures. As Tim Lindsey (2024) has recently pointed out, much of the work of dismantling the reforms of the last 30 years has already been accomplished: “Many of the elements of the New Order are already in place. Much of the work of dismantling Indonesia’s liberal democracy has already been done by the outgoing president” Jokowi, who has overseen an “illiberal turn in Indonesian democracy” over the last decade (Anugrah, 2019).

These points underscore concerns about the erosion of democratic norms and the potential for increased polarization within one of the world’s most diverse countries. Prabowo’s background as a former military general with a controversial record further compounds fears about the centralization of power and the undermining of checks and balances in governance. As this profile shows, these fears are hardly overblown – Prabowo’s record offers clear pointers as to how he is likely to attempt to govern.

Indonesia now stands at a crossroads. President Prabowo’s leadership will test the resilience of the country’s democratic institutions and its capacity to navigate the tension between strongman governance and pluralistic values. Prabowo’s tenure could bring decisive action on issues like economic sovereignty and national security, but at what cost to civil liberties and political freedoms? His legacy will be determined not just by the policies he enacts but by how he handles the delicate balance between authority and accountability, nationalism and inclusivity. The question that now lingers is whether Prabowo’s leadership will unite Indonesia under a shared vision or deepen the divisions that have long shaped the nation’s complex political landscape.

 

References

Anugrah, I. (2020). “The Illiberal Turn in Indonesian Democracy.” The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, 18(8), 1–17.

Arifianto, A. R. (2019). “What the 2019 Election Says About Indonesian Democracy.” Asia Policy, 26(4), 46–53. 

Aspinall, E. (2005). Opposing Suharto: Compromise, Resistance and Regime Change in Indonesia. Stanford University Press.

Aspinall, E. (2015). “Oligarchic Populism: Prabowo Subianto’s Challenge to Indonesian Democracy.” Indonesia, 99, 1–28. https://doi.org/10.5728/indonesia.99.0001

Aspinall, E., & Mietzner, M. (2014). “Indonesian Politics in 2014: Democracy’s Close Call.” Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, 50(3), 347–369. https://doi.org/10.1080/00074918.2014.980375

Aspinall, E., Mietzner, M., & Tomsa, D. (2015). The Yudhoyono Presidency: Indonesia’s Decade of Stability and Stagnation. Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.

Connelly, Evan A., & Laksmana, A. (2024, 14 March). “Jokowi Offers Prabowo a Piece of the Pie.” Foreign Policy. https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/31/indonesia-democracy-general-jokowi-offers-prabowo-a-piece-of-the-pie/

De la Torre, C. (2007). “The Resurgence of Radical Populism in Latin America.” Constellations, 14(3), 384–397.

Friend, T. (2003). Indonesian destinies. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Gammon, L. (2023). “Strong ‘Weak’ Parties and ‘Partial Populism’ in Indonesia.” Contemporary Southeast Asia: A Journal of International and Strategic Affairs, 45(3), 442–464.

Hellmann, O. (2019). “Populism in East Asia.” In: C. Rovira Kaltwasser, P. A. Taggart, P. Ochoa Espejo, & P. Ostiguy (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Populism (pp. 161–178). Oxford University Press.

Hermawan, A. (2024, 19 June). “How Indonesia’s Cyberspace Entrenches Oligarchic Power.” Asialink. https://asialink.unimelb.edu.au/insights/how-indonesias-cyberspace-entrenches-oligarchic-power

Jakarta Globe (2019, 17 April). “Indonesia Sees Record Turnout in Historic Election, Braces for Fallout.” https://jakartaglobe.id/context/indonesia-sees-record-turnout-in-historic-election-braces-for-fallout

Lindsey, T. (2024, 19 October). “Indonesia’s New President, Prabowo Subianto, Finds Democracy ‘Very Tiring’. Are Darker Days Ahead for the Country?” The Conversation. http://theconversation.com/indonesias-new-president-prabowo-subianto-finds-democracy-very-tiring-are-darker-days-ahead-for-the-country-241256

Mao, F. (2024, 15 February). “Prabowo Subianto: The tainted ex-military chief who will be Indonesia’s new leader.” BBC. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-68237141

Nairn, A. (2024, 10 February). “Indonesia State Apparatus Is Preparing to Throw Election to a Notorious Massacre General.” The Intercept. https://theintercept.com/2024/02/10/indonesia-election-results-prabowo-fraud-stolen-election/

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Purdey, J. (2016). “Narratives to Power: The Case of the Djojohadikusumo Family Dynasty over Four Generations.” South East Asia Research, 24(3), 369–385. https://doi.org/10.1177/0967828X16659728

Slater, D. (2018). “Party Cartelization, Indonesian-style: Presidential Power-sharing and the Contingency of Democratic Opposition.” Journal of East Asian Studies, 18(1), 23–46. https://doi.org/10.1017/jea.2017.26

Soeriaatmadja, W., & Chan, F. (2019, 22 May). “6 Killed, 200 Injured in Jakarta Election Protests that Police Say are ‘By Design’.” The Straits Times. https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/security-forces-use-tear-gas-to-disperse-small-groups-of-rioters-in-jakarta

Strangio, S. (2024, 21 March). Indonesian Election Commission Affirms Prabowo’s Landslide Victory. https://thediplomat.com/2024/03/indonesian-election-commission-affirms-prabowos-landslide-victory/

Tanu, D. (2014, 26 June). “Prabowo the Chameleon.” New Mandala. https://www.newmandala.org/prabowo-the-chameleon/

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Utama, V. R. (2023, 15 December). “Prabowo Subianto: Indonesia’s Perennial Strongman Recast as the Adorable Grandpa.” Indonesia at Melbourne. Retrieved 21 October 2024, from https://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/prabowo-subianto-indonesias-perennial-strongman-recast-as-the-adorable-grandpa/

van Klinken, G. (2009). “Patronage Democracy in Provincial Indonesia.” In: O. Törnquist, N. Webster, & K. Stokke (Eds.), Rethinking Popular Representation (pp. 141–159). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230102095_8

van Klinken, G. (2014, 17 April). “Prabowo and Human Rights.” Inside Indonesia. https://www.insideindonesia.org/editions/elections-2014/prabowo-and-human-rights

van Klinken, G. (2020). “The Origins of Indonesian Populism: Public Debate in Java, March–June 1945.” Indonesia, 110(1), 43–72.

Winters, J. A. (2013). “Oligarchy and Democracy in Indonesia.” Indonesia, 96(1), 11–33.

[1] Indonesian naming conventions differ significantly from the Western model of first, middle and last names. Names may consist of one or more words, with one-word names particularly common among the Javanese (e.g., Suharto). Prabowo Subianto is commonly referred to by his first name, “Prabowo,” which aligns with Indonesian naming conventions, where individuals with multiple names are often identified with a single, unique personal name. Thus, he does not generally use the family name “Djojohadikusumo,” in contrast to his father and brother, Hashim. In this profile I introduce each politician with his or her first and second names and refer subsequently to their most commonly used one-word identifier.

 

An Afghan woman in a burqa and locals are seen on the streets of Kabul. Photo: Shutterstock.

Theocracy, Radicalism and Islamist/Secular Populism in Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan 

by Editor’s ChoiceHomeReports

Please cite as:

Bottura, Beatrice. (2024). Theocracy, Radicalism and Islamist/Secular Populism in Iran, Afghanistan & Tajikistan. European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). October 18, 2024. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp0089

 

“Theocracy, Radicalism and Islamist/Secular Populism in Iran, Afghanistan & Tajikistan” was the 15th session of the “Mapping Global Populism” panel series hosted by the European Center for Populism Studies’ (ECPS). The session was held online on the 26th of September and was moderated by Dr. Simon P. Watmough. The panel featured an extensive and diverse analysis on the manifestations of authoritarianism, extremism, and populism from distinguished scholars.

Report by Beatrice Bottura

The 15th session of the European Center for Populism Studies’ (ECPS) “Mapping Global Populism” panel series, aimed at creating a comprehensive understanding of populism worldwide, was held online on September 26, 2024. Titled “Theocracy, Radicalism, and Islamist/Secular Populism in Iran, Afghanistan & Tajikistan,” the session featured insights from distinguished scholars on various manifestations of authoritarianism, extremism, and populism in these countries. This report provides an overview of the topics analyzed, with detailed accounts of each speaker’s contributions.

The panel was moderated by Dr. Simon P Watmough, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Leipzig and a non-resident research fellow in ECPS’ research program on authoritarianism. Dr. Hélène Thibault, Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Nazarbayev University, illustrated the authoritarian nature of Tajikistan’s anti-extremism policies. Dr. Zakia Adeli, former Deputy Minister of Justice of Afghanistan and a professor at Kabul University (2018–2021), explored the Taliban regime’s government structure and impositions in Afghanistan. Dr. Zahoor Ahmad Wani, Assistant Professor in Political Science at Lovely Professional University, focused his presentation on gender issues under Taliban rule. Finally, Amir Hossein Mahdavi, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Connecticut, discussed the potential rise of populist actors in Iran. Originally, Dr. Kathleen Collins, a Professor in the Department of Political Science and a faculty affiliate in Islamic Studies at the University of Minnesota, was scheduled to present on “Radical Islamism vs. Extremist Secular State in Tajikistan.” However, due to her absence, Dr. Thibault covered several key aspects of her colleague’s presentation during the session.

Dr. Hélène Thibault: “Counter-extremism and Authoritarian Governance in Tajikistan”

Having discussed the repressive aspect of counter-extremism policies in Tajikistan, Dr. Thibault then proceeded to cover its performative facet. She described how anti-extremism is used as a tool to promote lifestyles considered “safe” and “in line with national traditions.” To this end, she discussed how the regulation of female clothing is utilized to ensure the secularization of the state. She provided examples such as the ban on the hijab in schools and state institutions, as well as the prohibition of wearing, importing, or selling “foreign clothing” in public places, which international organizations have recognized as a violation of religious rights. She also mentioned restrictions on religious education.

Dr. Hélène Thibault commenced her presentation by addressing the presence and extent of extremism in Tajikistan, with the aim of depicting an accurate picture of the evolution of Islamic radicalization since independence in 1991. She began by demonstrating that the level of radical Islamization in Central Asia is, in practice, less extensive than originally predicted by the media and scholars. Citing works by Edward Lemon (particularly a 2018 report), she highlighted that most recruitment and attacks occur abroad. Based on this information, Dr. Thibault argued that the threat of extremism is exaggerated to create a perception of danger and is used to “eliminate political opponents of all allegiances,” including Islamist parties or other political mobilizations. In other words, the threat of extremism has been used to “sideline all sorts of political mobilization” in a repressive and authoritarian manner, which has become characteristic of politics in Tajikistan.

Dr. Thibault provided examples to support her case. First, the classification of the legally registered Islamic Revival Party as an extremist organization in 2015 led to the imprisonment, persecution, or exile of party members, their families, and lawyers. Second, she cited the harsh repressions and imprisonments during protests in the autonomous region of Gorno-Badakhshan.

Having discussed the repressive aspect of counter-extremism policies in Tajikistan, Dr. Thibault then proceeded to cover its performative facet. She described how anti-extremism is used as a tool to promote lifestyles considered “safe” and “in line with national traditions.” To this end, she discussed how the regulation of female clothing is utilized to ensure the secularization of the state. She provided examples such as the ban on the hijab in schools and state institutions, as well as the prohibition of wearing, importing, or selling “foreign clothing” in public places, which international organizations have recognized as a violation of religious rights. She also mentioned restrictions on religious education. By analyzing these aspects, Dr. Thibault addressed the concept of “authoritarian secularization,” central to Dr. Kathleen Collins’ work, thus connecting her presentation to that of her colleague.

Dr. Thibault concluded her presentation by stating that the exploitation of the concept of extremism, used as a tool for authoritarian and repressive politics, does not address the root causes of extremism—namely unfairness and feelings of exclusion from socio-economic well-being—which she also discussed in one of her 2018 publications.

Dr. Zakia Adeli: “The Taliban’s Totalitarian Regime: Governance, Extremism, and Control”

Dr. Zakia Adeli emphasized how the Taliban’s removal of democratic processes—such as the suppression of elections and political opposition, along with a shift toward decision-making concentrated in the hands of a small religious group—has established a theocratic totalitarian system. This system is characterized by the complete control of the leader, the erosion of human rights, and the restriction of individual and civil freedoms. Examples include the detention, torture, and intimidation of journalists and activists, as well as control over the media and women’s bodies and activities.

Dr. Zakia Adeli introduced her lecture by providing an overview of its core themes, particularly focusing on how the Taliban regime has “systematically centralized power, without any electoral process or legal accountability,” and the consequences of this trend. Hence, the subtitle of her lecture: “Analyzing the Features and Impact of the Taliban’s Rule in Afghanistan.”

The presentation outlined the characteristics of the Taliban’s totalitarian regime: centralization of power, suppression of dissent, the use of ideology to control public and private life, strict censorship, media control, and the homogenization of people. Dr. Adeli expanded on this last point by addressing the enforcement of uniformity through fear and violence, control over institutions (media, civil society, education, and culture), and the imposition of ideological conformity through decrees.

She then described the processes undertaken by the regime to dismantle democratic institutions, including the abolition of:

– Constitutional Law, the core framework of democracy ensuring legal representation and civil rights;

– Parliament, representing the removal of legislative authority;

– The Independent Commission for Overseeing the Implementation of the Constitution;

– The Independent Election Commission of Afghanistan;

– The Ministry of Women’s Affairs;

– Political Parties.

The author explained that, by doing so, the Taliban ensured a lack of checks and balances within the country, which allowed them to centralize power. Under the regime, there are no democratic processes to elect officials, and power is “centralized under the exclusive authority of Hibetullah Akhundzada” (the Taliban’s religious leader), who alone makes and ratifies all political and legal decisions. The institutions and individuals involved in governance—such as ministers—act under the direct orders of the Taliban leader. This structure enforces a “highly centralized and non-electoral regime” with no transparency or accountability, as power is concentrated in one individual, excluding citizens from governance.

Having provided an overview of the Taliban regime’s governance structure, Dr. Adeli focused on the monopolization of power, particularly analyzing the abolition of all political activities. She described how Afghanistan is now a one-party state, with the Taliban controlling media and communication while suppressing political opposition. She noted that in 2022, the Taliban approved a decree banning gatherings not previously approved, leading to the breakup of over 100 peaceful protests, with some individuals disappearing. These practices are enforced with religious justifications, often accompanied by extremist tactics, such as public executions of both previous political actors and individuals not conforming to the Taliban Regime’s ways. 

Following this, the presentation covered the importance of ideology in the totalitarian Taliban regime. Ideology is used as a tool to justify the extreme concentration of power, the elimination of opposition, and the enforcement of obedience from the population. In practice, this destruction of cultural diversity in favor of a singular way of life is executed through:

– Cultural suppression: replacing traditional cultural symbols with their own […];

– Destruction of Historical Heritage: eliminating ancient statues and monuments;

– Ban on Music and Arts: suppressing music, dance, and other forms of artistic expression.

This “homogenization of the people” comprises the core aspects of the Taliban regime, which the speaker carefully outlined throughout the presentation: the enforcement of unity through fear and violence, control of institutions (media, society, education, and culture), and the imposition of ideological conformity. These practices allow the Taliban regime to control both public and private life, depriving people of individual freedoms. In this context, Dr. Adeli highlighted the condition of women under the regime, providing examples such as mandatory dress codes and restrictions on women appearing in public spaces without men.

Dr. Adeli concluded with a brief summary of the main aspects of her presentation. She emphasized how the Taliban’s removal of democratic processes—such as the suppression of elections and political opposition, along with a shift toward decision-making concentrated in the hands of a small religious group—has established a theocratic totalitarian system. This system is characterized by the complete control of the leader, the erosion of human rights, and the restriction of individual and civil freedoms. Examples include the detention, torture, and intimidation of journalists and activists, as well as control over the media and women’s bodies and activities.

Dr. Zahoor Ahmad Wani: “Gender Dynamics and the Plight of Afghan Women under Taliban Rule”

Dr. Zahoor Ahmad Wani emphasized the role of external powers and how their attempts to maintain an imperial presence contribute to understanding the complexity of the region’s cultural, economic, and military heritage. He argued that these external actors destabilized social, tribal, and customary practices in a nearly Manichean manner, leading to decades of conflict, which form the backdrop to the current regime. Dr. Wani continued his historical approach by describing the systematic discrimination faced by Afghan women throughout history, often exacerbated by war and social norms influenced by foreign involvement in national conflicts.

Dr. Zahoor Ahmad Wani’s presentation consisted of a brief history of Afghanistan, aimed at providing context for his analysis, followed by a description of the characteristics of external intervention in Afghanistan and their relation to the current regime, and concluding with an analysis of how language affects the social condition of women. 

Dr. Wani began by discussing Afghanistan’s location, describing it as a crossroads in Central Asia and highlighting how this has given the country a crucial multicultural and multiethnic background. He explained how the high level of cultural and ethnic diversity across regions—intrinsically tied to Afghanistan’s geography—has shaped the complexity of external relations, as outsiders often required different, sometimes conflicting, approaches to connect with various regions. This factor, according to the speaker, has made Afghanistan a frequent site of “geopolitical entanglements” and internal conflicts, evidenced by the presence of different internal and external powers throughout history. 

Dr. Wani emphasized the role of external powers and how their attempts to maintain an imperial presence contribute to understanding the complexity of the region’s cultural, economic, and military heritage. He argued that these external actors destabilized social, tribal, and customary practices in a nearly Manichean manner, leading to decades of conflict, which form the backdrop to the current regime.

Dr. Wani then asserted that, within this political context shaped by “historical diversity and ongoing struggles for power,” one of the most pressing issues has always been the inequality between men and women. He continued his historical approach by describing the systematic discrimination faced by Afghan women throughout history, often exacerbated by war and social norms influenced by foreign involvement in national conflicts. Dr. Wani focused on the importance of terminology, referencing Richard Rorty’s “Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature” (1979), explaining how identity is socially constructed through language. He emphasized how this applies to the current Taliban regime, where both policy and informal institutions (social norms, customs, and discursive narratives) shape the daily lives of women.

Note: Due to connection issues, a more in-depth reporting of Dr. Wani’s presentation was challenging.

Amir Hossein Mahdavi: “The Rise of Populism  in Iran: Inequality, Class Conflict, and Nationalist Authoritarianism”

Mr. Amir Hossein Mahdavi’s presentation began with an overview of how left-wing and right-wing populism can be defined in the Iranian context.He first associated left-wing populism with Iran’s past politics, particularly following the 2005 elections and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s presidency, and right-wing populism as a possibility in today’s politics in Iran. The speaker contends that, given Iran’s current political context, right-wing populism is more likely to develop. Mr. Mahdavi argues that due to the current government’s limited capacity and resources, left-leaning rhetoric on redistribution may be less credible to the public.

Mr. Amir Hossein Mahdavi’s presentation began with an overview of how left-wing and right-wing populism can be defined in the Iranian context. He first associated left-wing populism with Iran’s past politics, particularly following the 2005 elections and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s presidency, and right-wing populism as a possibility in today’s politics in Iran. Mr. Mahdavi then proceeded with an in-depth analysis of both left- and right-wing populism and how they could manifest in the current Iranian context.

Mr. Mahdavi defined left-wing populism as focusing on “anti-austerity measures, social justice, opposition to economic inequality, and the perceived dominance of large corporations and financial elites.” Consequently, its main ideas are economic equality, social justice, opposition to neoliberalism and austerity policies, advocacy for the rights of marginalized groups, and criticism of global capitalism and large corporations.

He then explained how these ideas could manifest in the current Iranian context and how left-wing populists might leverage them:

  1. Economic inequality and social justice: Left-wing populists could exploit the growing socio-economic inequalities in Iran. The combination of economic sanctions, particularly those tied to Iran’s nuclear program that have intensified since Donald Trump’s presidency, and poor domestic management has increased inequality. Currently, the ratio of income in the top 1% compared to the bottom 10% is among the highest in the world. Meanwhile, 25-30% of the population lives in severe poverty, unable to secure 2,000 calories per day.
  2. Opposition to neoliberalism and austerity policies: Left-wing populists could tie the rising inequalities to neoliberalism and austerity measures. The speaker emphasized the skyrocketing inflation, now over 40%, as a potential target for linking mismanagement and government deficit to neoliberal policies.
  3. Advocacy for the rights of marginalized groups: The economic disparities have prompted marginalized groups to form active social movements, such as the “labor and teacher movement,” which seeks greater political representation and rights—potential support bases for left-wing populist rhetoric.
  4. Criticism of global capitalism and large corporations: In Iran, major corporations are government-controlled, but privatization has been on the rise. Left-wing populists could now tie labor issues to capitalist policies and actions, attributing problems to both private corporations and the government.

To conclude on left-wing populism, the author pointed out how the neglect of fundamental rights, such as those of gender and sexual minorities, could increase people’s receptiveness to any form of left-wing populism that may emerge from the current Iranian context.

Concerning right-wing populism, the author defined it as often emphasizing “nationalism, anti-immigration policies, and a strong stance against political elites, globalism, and multiculturalism.” Its main ideas are: “nationalism and anti-immigration sentiments, opposition to political elites and globalism, preservation of traditional cultural values.” 

The speaker then explained how these ideas manifest in the current Iranian context and how right-wing populists might leverage them:

  1. Nationalism and anti-immigration sentiments: The large influx of Afghan migrants and refugees after the Taliban came to power has sparked heated debate in Iran. Many images and videos showing the presence of these immigrants and refugees in public spaces (such as streets, schools, and health settings) have fueled this debate further, especially in the context of employment and tax contributions. Right-wing populists could exploit these fears to fuel anti-immigration sentiments and gain support.
  2. Opposition to political elites and globalism: Public disenchantment with political elites is widespread in Iran, evidenced by the lowest voter turnout in 46 years during the June presidential elections. The speaker argues that in this context, right-wing populists could present themselves as a “new political voice” against established political elites, gaining momentum and power.
  3. Preservation of traditional cultural values: The author suggests that right-wing populists could appeal to the era before the Islamic regime to gather voter support. Instead of upholding the current state-enforced values, they could draw on older traditions to gain influence.

Finally, the speaker contends that, given Iran’s current political context, right-wing populism is more likely to develop. Mr. Mahdavi argues that due to the current government’s limited capacity and resources, left-leaning rhetoric on redistribution may be less credible to the public.

Dr. Mabel Berezin, Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Cornell University.

Professor Mabel Berezin: The People Behind Trump Are Scarier Than He Is

by Editor’s ChoiceHomeInterviews

The potential re-election of Donald Trump on November 5, 2024, raises significant concerns for American democracy, according to Professor Mabel Berezin. While she acknowledges that Trump is a troubling figure, she emphasizes that it is the individuals surrounding him who are especially dangerous. “What makes him even more dangerous is the group of people around him—J.D. Vance, Elon Musk, and the Project 2025 people. I think American democracy will be in serious danger if these people come into power. They are smart, they have a project, and they’re going to push it through,” she explains.

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

The re-election of Donald Trump on November 5, 2024, would pose serious concerns for American democracy, warns Dr. Mabel Berezin, Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Cornell University. In an interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Professor Berezin makes it clear that while Trump himself is concerning, it’s the people surrounding him that she finds truly alarming. “What makes him even more dangerous is the group of people around him—J.D. Vance, Elon Musk, and the Project 2025 people. I think American democracy will be in serious danger if these people come into power. They are smart, they have a project, and they’re going to push it through.”

The interview touches on how populism in the United States differs from its historical and European counterparts. Professor Berezin explains that while American populism has always been defined by class differences, particularly between urban elites and rural populations, there is now a stronger emphasis on white Protestant nationalism. “There’s a much stronger emphasis on white American Protestant nationalism, which has become more public, especially evident at Trump rallies,” she notes.

Fascism and its relation to contemporary populism are key themes in Professor Berezin’s work. She highlights the “epistemic plasticity” of the term fascism and how its application can obscure more than it reveals. However, she emphasizes that what makes today’s political climate dangerous is not just rhetoric but the infiltration of far-right ideologies into American institutions. “What I call an institutional creep has begun, and this concerns me the most—particularly the courts and issues like free speech and social changes, such as abortion laws.”

Professor Berezin also points to the rise of paramilitary groups in the US, noting their similarities to those that fueled fascist movements in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s. “These groups are much more organized and mobilizable today,” she warns, drawing a parallel between historical fascism and current threats to American democracy.

As the conversation turns to the economic and social forces driving populism, Professor Berezin highlights inequality and economic insecurity as fundamental factors. “People don’t think about cultural issues until basic security—like having a place to live or food to eat—is shattered,” she explains. According to Berezin, these economic grievances are often exploited through cultural and racial divisions, further fueling populist movements.

Here is the transcription of the interview with Professor Mabel Berezin with some edits.

The United States Has Always Been Somewhat Exceptional

Crowds at Coney Island, NY, on July 4, 1936. Photo: Everett Collection.

Professor Berezin, thank you very much for joining our interview series. Let me start right away with the first question. How does the contemporary populist movement in the United States differ from historical populist and far-right movements, such as those of the early 20th century, and what continuities, if any, do you observe?

Professor Mabel Berezin: First, I think it’s important to note that when you talk about the early 20th century, people tend to think about Europe—and for good reason. I do think there are significant differences between the movements.

In the American instance, one of the key issues is the focus on significant class differences in the United States, particularly between the so-called elites who live in multi-racial and multi-ethnic cities, and those who live in more rural areas. It highlights those who feel left behind.

Second, the contemporary populist movement has a specific focus, which has grown since Donald Trump first descended his golden elevator—it is hard to remember exactly when that was, in 2015. There is now a much stronger emphasis on white American Protestant nationalism. While that sentiment was always present as an underlying factor, it has become much more public, especially evident at Trump rallies.

Many historians have written about the American neo-Nazi movement in the 1930s, which shared a similar focus. A famous example is the rally at Madison Square Garden in New York, where participants wore Nazi uniforms, and the leader talked about the need for a white Christian America. Some themes from the 1930s are still present today. Trump does not get on television and say those things explicitly, but it’s part of the underlying message.

I think the European case in the 1920s and 1930s was more complex, with multiple factors at play that were distinct to the European context. The United States has always been exceptional. In many European countries of that era, there was less experience with democracy, and distinct cultural features influenced their political movements.

The US has a more consistent narrative, with a strong emphasis on radical individualism, which is not as central to the political culture of Europe. In America, there has always been this idea of the individual moving westward and expanding the nation, which has been a defining feature of American political culture. I think that radical individualism has been an important factor, which is not part of the political culture of Europe.

The Growing Threat of Institutional Reshaping in the US Mirrors Historical Fascism

In recent years, the term ‘fascism’ has been increasingly used to describe certain political dynamics in the US. In your article “Does the Fascism Debate Matter for Understanding 2024 American Politics?” you argue that the term ‘fascism’ has an ‘epistemic plasticity’ that may obscure more than it reveals when applied outside its historical context. How do you suggest scholars navigate this challenge while addressing contemporary threats to democracy in the United States?

Professor Mabel Berezin: First, as events change, a scholar working on the present should also change their view of things, and I have changed my view, or the way I would argue, considering events. So, it is an extremely plastic term, and I think the historiography supports that. Colleagues, whom I respect enormously, have worked on this issue, but I would say there are two things about fascism that need to be noted, and then I will point to the change.

First, there are a series of qualities or characteristics that characterize fascism: violence, paramilitary suppression of speech, performativity, spectacles, and so on. These are qualities that, when taken in isolation, are found in various kinds of politics. Performativity, for example, is not unique to fascist politics. When these qualities come together in different ways, they can lead to anti-democratic forms of politics.

What I think is really important—and I say this in the article and am even more convinced of it now, which is why I am more worried than before—is that there has always been a total institutional synthesis around fascism as it existed in the 1920s and 1930s in Europe. It wasn’t simply performativity or violence; it was the combination of those elements with the ability to control a state. This was the case in both Germany and Italy.

Fascism is a plastic term, and I am old enough to remember when people thought Richard Nixon was a fascist. The concern now, and something I addressed in that article, is that fascism becomes truly dangerous when it infiltrates institutional structures—and that is what we are seeing in the United States today. After January 6th, my alarm grew. Watching those events unfold on television, it was clear to me that this was a crime against the Constitution—an attack on the American state and the Capitol. However, when I saw arguments defending it, with people embracing Trump’s narrative that the election had been stolen, alarm bells went off in my head. This was the point where I began noticing a seepage into institutions, something we had not observed during Trump’s first administration. There had been anti-democratic actions and rhetoric, but nothing that started to coalesce like it did after January 6th.

Since then, what I call an institutional creep has begun, which I find extremely frightening. The areas that concern me most are the courts, particularly the Supreme Court, and the institutional rearrangements happening around them. The second concern is the increasing salience of free speech issues. The third is related to social issues, like the changes in abortion laws. These institutional shifts are rethinking and redefining both social and political life in ways that were not possible before. Trump himself was not able to reshape these institutions, but now we are seeing a body of people willing and capable of doing so—people who are much smarter and more focused on making these changes.

So, I see J.D. Vance as very dangerous because he can think these things through. I see similar traits in people like Elon Musk. Years ago, I had a science fiction fantasy about techno-geniuses taking over, never imagining it would happen because they had the money to make it a reality. And now, who is campaigning in Pennsylvania as we speak? Elon Musk. I believe he just spent $60 million on a super-pac contribution to Trump’s campaign yesterday. This is extremely frightening. I do not want to dwell too much on it, but I have always thought Trump was clearly a racist. He has a history of that—with his real estate dealings and his infamous 1989 ad about the Central Park Five, if I recall correctly.

But Trump does not have the synthetic mind that his new collaborators do. And their synthetic mind is not moving in a democratic direction, in my view, which is frightening. To me, this marks a new stage. It is not just about calling them fascists or pointing to their fascist or violent tendencies, which they certainly have. This is something that has the potential—it is not there yet, but it is on a path to take over the American state.

This is absolutely frightening because these are people with the mental capacity to make it happen, and we must not underestimate their brainpower. There are not really guardrails against this, especially with the current state of the Supreme Court. Maybe some local courts will push back on some of this, but yes, I maintain that fascism is a plastic term. It has flexibility as a concept, but I think it matters when we start seeing how fascism in the 1920s and 1930s reshaped institutions. And I think we are seeing the potential for that to happen in the United States now in a much more real way than eight years ago, when Trump first emerged.

And that, I think, is dangerous.

Religion Is a Major Definer of Americanism

A protester carries a large wooden cross during the annual March for Life at the US Capitol in Washington, D.C. on January 19, 2024. Photo by Philip Yabut.

In the same article, you highlight the differences between American nativism and European fascism, suggesting that the two phenomena should not be conflated. What are the key distinctions between these two, and how do they shape the political landscape in the US differently than in Europe?

Professor Mabel Berezin: I think, as I said earlier, and I know people are using the term “nativism” now to talk about Europe, they tend to think of it as, you know, a “people who are already there” kind of thing. But I do think that the United States is much more racially focused than Europe.

When I say this, I mean it needs to be nuanced. It does not mean that I think different groups don’t live in Europe—different religious groups, etc.—but the focus on race has defined the United States in ways that perhaps haven’t been adequately acknowledged.  If you look at historical books on populism published in the early 1900s,they  focused on ethnic immigrants coming into the country—those from Southern and even Northern Europe, like Irish Catholics. Religion was a big definer of Americanism, and what it meant to be American.

People spoke about nativism in terms of keeping these groups out, or, if they were already here, regarding them as somehow different. These groups may have had white skin, but they were not considered white. They were Catholics, not Protestants. This is a very different situation from Europe, which has a much more complicated religious and ethnic landscape.

I would even argue that race plays out differently in Europe. There is a kind of singular focus to American prejudices, I guess you could say. And then, of course, we have the history of slavery, Black Americans, Indigenous peoples, and so on. Our complications are unique in the sense that America is more singularly focused on the things it rejects.

In your article “Fascism and Populism: Are They Useful Categories for Comparative Sociological Analysis?”  you highlight the importance of examining institutional contexts when analyzing the emergence of populist and fascist movements. Could you elaborate on which institutional factors are most influential in either constraining or facilitating these movements in contemporary democracies?

Professor Mabel Berezin: Well, I think I’ve already touched on this in the first part. You want to look at the courts, freedom of speech, First Amendment issues, and freedom of religion—at least when examining the United States. You also want to look at how the government operates. These are things that, in my imagination when I wrote that article, I never thought would be at risk of breaking down in the US, but now I do think they are extremely important.

These factors vary depending on the country. One thing I have not mentioned yet is the presence or growth of paramilitary groups, which were important in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s. The ability to recruit paramilitary groups was crucial for Mussolini in Italy. In the US, it is well-known that there have always been paramilitary groups in various parts of the country, and today, these groups are much more organized and mobilizable.

These are the kinds of institutional arrangements I would look at. Most of them are constitutive of the breakdown of democracy. You need the Constitution, the courts, the press, freedom of religion, etc. And you do not want organizations that can be mobilized in the same way as the military or police—what Max Weber would call “extra-organizational agents of legitimate violence.” In the 1930s European context, these factors were more prominent.

In terms of populism, specifically in Europe, another key issue is how people perceive and interact with the European Union—whether they see it as doing or not doing enough for its citizens. This has been a major institutional player in the rise of populism, alongside immigration, which is closely tied to perceptions of the EU.

A Lack of Security Can Be Exploited in Various Ways

Old Mailboxes in west United States. Photo: Andrey Bayda.

To what extent do you think economic insecurity and inequality contribute to the rise of far-right movements in the US, and how do these factors intersect with cultural grievances to shape contemporary populist rhetoric?

Professor Mabel Berezin: The rise of inequality is actually key. I do not always like the word “inequality” because sometimes I find it a euphemism for the things people lack—and there are serious lacks in the United States. There are people who cannot find places to live, and the homelessness in some major cities is staggering. Even in Ithaca, where Cornell University is located, which is a rural part of the United States, when you leave the university, the inequality and absence of basic needs are quite astonishing. This has been well documented, and there is a lot of social science data that supports what I am saying.

So, it is absolutely key. People do not think about cultural issues until basic security—like having a place to live or food to eat—is shattered. Security is more than just the absence of threats; it provides stability. You know where you are going to live, what you are going to eat, or that you can afford food. That sense of security has broken in many ways, both in the United States and Europe, and I think it is one of the major driving forces behind these movements.

When there is a lack of security, it can be exploited in different ways, especially through cultural differences. You can tell people, “Those people have what you don’t,” which fuels the feeling of being left behind. This has become a common narrative, but the major driving factor is the absence of basic expectations of stability in the places where people live.

Place is an important part of this equation. People do not need to live in cities to feel secure. We often say cities offer more opportunities, which drove people out of rural areas, but security can exist anywhere if there’s stability. Most people do not have that stability anymore.

One interesting thing I have noticed, based on informal conversations in Ithaca, is how people define happiness. Many people who do not live in Ithaca anymore—because they cannot afford it—work in service occupations and live outside the city. I have had conversations with these people who have told me that, for them, the right to go home at night and work on building their own little wood cabin is what makes them happy. That is not something you hear in an urban environment.

This divide is not just about culture or politics—it is about basic expectations and what makes people feel secure. For instance, I once saw a sign on a car in a parking lot in Ithaca that read, “How many ways will you show contempt for me today?” It was a big station wagon covered in American flags, parked at a food place in Ithaca. I almost took a picture of it, but I did not want to violate that person’s sense of dignity. Instead of tough guys with guns coming out, two middle-aged women, clearly country folk, got into the car.

And I said to myself, you know, this is what we are missing somehow. This is what Trump is tapping into. It is not just about culture, although they obviously believe different things than I do. I believe in the country, too, even though I do not have flags on my car. But there is a gap there, and these are the things we need to pay attention to, I think.

A Dangerous Mix of Misinformation and Inefficacy Could Propel Trump’s Return

Given the rise of populist leaders with authoritarian tendencies, how resilient do you think American democratic institutions are to such challenges, and what measures could be taken to safeguard democracy against far-right incursions?

Professor Mabel Berezin: Well, I do not even think that is the right framing at this moment, in the sense that I think what we have… If you look at Project 2025, which you have probably heard a lot about, I assume—maybe the people who read this know about it. It is basically a 900-page document from the Heritage Foundation about how to completely restructure the American state and political institutions. It is very frightening. These are people with, I would almost say, totalitarian visions rather than authoritarian, in the sense that they want to redefine the entire way of being in the world, in the state, and in the culture.

Now, what would safeguard against that? Well, certainly, we need to reaffirm and convince people that the institutions we have were well-designed, are functioning well, and that people can participate in the political sphere. In other words, there needs to be an emphasis on civic education in schools. People do not understand what the government is for. They think it is only about how their life was better a few years ago, so they vote accordingly—without understanding the larger role of government.

For example, people often do not see the connection between government and their lives beyond immediate concerns. They forget that government provides social security, Medicare, and the right to participate in democracy. There is a lack of understanding, and I believe this is partly due to the deficiency of civic education. If I had the capacity to influence policy, that is where I would focus. And I am not the only one arguing this at the moment.

Local organizing, getting people to vote, and increasing participation are crucial. But restoring a sense of efficacy is also important—people need to believe that if they participate, their actions matter. When you see someone with a car sign that says, “How many ways can you show contempt for me today?” it is clear they don’t feel like they matter. One thing Trump has been particularly good at is convincing people that they matter to him, at least, and that is a political gift.

I do not think we focus enough on that. Policies are important, but they are not what the average person really wants from their politicians. The lack of understanding about what government and civil society are, combined with a feeling of inefficacy, creates a toxic brew. And it is not just Trump’s core supporters who would elect him again; a whole group of other people would push him over the threshold, and that’s another concern.

The Real Threat Lies with the Powerful Figures Behind Trump

Former US President Donald Trump at a rally with VP nominee J.D. Vance in Atlanta, GA, on August 3, 2024. Photo: Phil Mistry.
Former US President Donald Trump at a rally with VP nominee J.D. Vance in Atlanta, GA, on August 3, 2024. Photo: Phil Mistry.

What do you think will happen to American democracy and its democratic institutions if Trump gets elected on November the 5th?

Professor Mabel Berezin: I am deeply concerned. I mean, I am deeply concerned because of the group that he has around him. I am not as deeply concerned about Trump himself.

I do not see him as someone who thinks deeply about politics. I recognize him as a certain type—a criminal type, a con artist—who has seized the moment, as it were. But that does not mean he isn’t dangerous. He is dangerous in multiple ways, primarily because he is more interested in power than politics.

What makes him even more dangerous is the group of people around him—J.D. Vance, Elon Musk, and the Project 2025 people. I think American democracy will be in danger if these people come into power. As I said earlier, they are smart, they have a project, they have an idea, and they are going to push it through. It will be quite different. Look at the recent Supreme Court decisions about the power of the presidency.

There are others who share these concerns. If I were writing this as an academic paper with footnotes, I could cite several people who agree. Project 2025 has a website, and anyone can access it—that alone should scare you. These people are not kidding. This is not the same Trump administration as before. To me, Trump is not the main issue right now. He may get elected, and that is scary, but I’m more afraid of the people behind him.

Dr. Francesco Tamburini, a Professor of Political Science at Department of Political Sciences, Università di Pisa, Italy.

Professor Tamburini: The Absence of Ennahda Is a Bleeding Wound for Tunisian Politics

by Editor’s ChoiceHomeInterviews

The re-election of Kais Saied on October 6, 2024, has sparked debates about the future of Tunisia’s democracy and the legacy of the Arab Spring. With only 28.8% voter turnout, the result reflects a growing disillusionment among Tunisians. Professor Francesco Tamburini examines the wider impact of Saied’s actions, drawing comparisons between Tunisia’s path and other post-revolutionary autocratic regimes in the MENA region. He emphasizes that “the absence of Ennahda is a significant loss for Tunisian politics,” noting that the lack of a moderate Islamic voice has left a deep void in the country’s political landscape.

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

The re-election of Kais Saied on October 6, 2024, has ignited discussions about the future of Tunisia’s democracy and the remnants of the Arab Spring. With a turnout of only 28.8%, the election result signals a growing disillusionment among the Tunisian people. As Dr. Francesco Tamburini, a Professor of Political Science at Department of Political Sciences, Università di Pisa, points out in his interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS) on Thursday, the problem is not necessarily one of legitimacy, but rather a reflection of widespread political disaffection. “The country is in a state of economic suffering, with young people struggling to find proper jobs. Tunisia is being suffocated by a relentless economic crisis that Saied cannot solve and at the moment, no one seems to be able to address it,” Professor Tamburini notes.

A key theme of this interview is the absence of Ennahda, which Tamburini considers a “bleeding wound” for Tunisian politics. Following the 2011 Revolution, Ennahda and its leader, Rached Ghannouchi, had the opportunity to shape a vision of modern Islam combined with democratic principles. Yet, due to internal divisions and lack of experience, the party failed to govern effectively. Today, Ennahda has been sidelined and many of its intellectuals are now excluded from political life, largely due to Kais Saied’s declaration that the party is illegal. “The absence of Ennahda is a great loss for Tunisian politics. The lack of a moderate Islamic voice is a significant wound for Tunisian politics today,” Professor Tamburini asserts.

In this wide-ranging interview, Professor Tamburini delves into the broader implications of Saied’s actions, comparing Tunisia’s trajectory with other post-revolutionary autocratic consolidations in the MENA region. He explores how Tunisia, once an exception in the Arab Spring, now faces the challenge of maintaining democratic institutions amidst growing authoritarian tendencies.

Here is the transcription of the interview with Professor Francesco Tamburini with some edits.

The Colonial Influence Remains Deep in the MENA Region

Professor Tamburini, thank you very much for joining our interview series. Let me start right away with the first question. In your research on African and Middle Eastern politics, how do you see colonial legacies influencing contemporary political structures and governance challenges in these regions?

Professor Francesco Tamburini: The impact of colonial legacies in the Maghreb and Mashreq—that is, Northern Africa and the Middle East (MENA)—is profound and continues to shape the nations in these areas. In many cases, there was a lack of a true watan (nation-state) before colonialism, and this absence has left a mark. To this day, tribal identities often take precedence over national ones, as we see in places like Libya or Iraq. Take Libya, for example: before the Italian invasion during the colonial era, Libya did not exist as a unified state. Later, Muammar Gaddafi attempted to establish a Jamahiriya, but it never became a real state in the traditional sense.

Many countries, after independence, relied on the French Fifth Republic and its semi-presidential form of government. Even Morocco, a constitutional monarchy, heavily relied on French law. The colonial influence is still very deep, even today, starting from the former government structures and, for example, the influence of civil law. This is a fundamental creation of Western culture and Western jurisprudence.

You have examined authoritarian regimes and their role in state stability. In your view, what are the key factors that sustain authoritarian rule in some states while leading to collapse in others?

Professor Francesco Tamburini: I would start by saying that all regimes are very different and have very few common patterns. What is certain is that many regimes use Islam as a source of legitimation and even stability. The fear of anarchy and disorder, instilled by these regimes, works as a deterrent. For example, in Tunisia and Algeria, you have to consider that Algeria has enshrined in its constitution the concept of Fitna—civil strife. Constitutional law in Algeria forbids Fitna, so the government is seen as a protection against civil war and disorder. Islam serves as a way of avoiding this kind of chaos—institutional chaos.

However, sometimes this form of legitimation is not enough. The masses can overwhelm regimes that fail to provide a minimum level of welfare. So, it is very difficult for regimes to rely solely on Islam for their legitimacy.

How do international powers, such as the European Union, the United States and China, influence the political dynamics and conflicts in North Africa and the Middle East, and what are the long-term implications of their involvement?

Professor Francesco Tamburini: Well, each international actor has a different purpose, of course. The European Union, as we all know, does not have a real foreign policy because it was primarily established as an economic union. When the European Union attempts to have a unified foreign policy, it often fails due to the many differing voices within it, which generally lead to chaos. Take, for example, Viktor Orban in Hungary—his concept of the European Union is very different from that of France or northern countries like Sweden or Norway.

The main issue for the European Union is immigration. On the other hand, China is primarily interested in commerce and economic penetration. The United States is gradually retreating from the MENA region, although it remains interested in maintaining stability and preventing foreign enemies from gaining influence in the area.

Long-term foreign policy is now characterized by multiple factors. Western countries will have to face the emergence of new political and military powers, both small and medium-sized, which will reshape international relations not only in the MENA region but globally.

The State of Emergency Legitimizes an Autocratic Regime in Tunisia

In your analysis in the article titled “The Ghost of the Constitutional Review in Tunisia: Authoritarianism, Transition to Democracy, and Rule of Law,” you discuss the historical challenges Tunisia has faced in establishing an effective constitutional review system. What do you believe are the primary obstacles that have prevented Tunisia from building a stable and functional constitutional court, especially in light of its transition to democracy?

Professor Francesco Tamburini: I would divide the question into three periods: before, during and after 2011. During the Bourguiba era, from 1956 to 1987, Tunisia and Bourguiba established a constitutional control that was deemed unnecessary. The Supreme Court was considered the guarantor of the Constitution. This perception also influenced the regime of Ben Ali, who only created a constitutional court in the final period of his rule, but it was merely an advisory body. Its rulings were not binding.

After 2011, the main challenges were the lack of a working majority in the legislative branch and instability in Parliament. I would also point to the lack of a judicial tradition in constitutional control and the political immaturity in handling such a delicate issue. Essentially, Tunisia lacked the legitimacy and maturity to establish effective constitutional oversight. Even today, the Saied presidency does not support the establishment of a constitutional control system.

In your analysis in the article titled “The State of Emergency and Exception in Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia: The ‘License to Kill’ the Rule of Law,” you mention that emergency powers have often been extended indefinitely in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, sometimes becoming the norm rather than the exception. What are the long-term impacts of such prolonged states of emergency on the rule of law and democratic institutions in these countries?

Professor Francesco Tamburini: At the moment, only Tunisia is under the pressure of a state of emergency, which deeply limits its ability to develop a true democratic regime. Under a state of emergency or exception, executive power can easily bypass many of the checks and balances designed to protect citizens. Moreover, civil and political rights are heavily compromised by this state of emergency.

I would recall that the state of emergency originated in France during the Fourth and Fifth Republics, but in France, it was limited by checks and balances within the Republic. Tunisia, however, does not possess these safeguards. As a result, the state of emergency legitimizes an autocratic regime, which will severely impact the country’s ability to develop a true democracy.

Kais Saied Has Free Rein to Act as He Pleases

The President of Tunisia, Kais Saied at the press conference with new Libyan Presidential Council head, Mohamed MenfiTripoli, Libya 17 March 2021

In your article “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Autocracy: Kais Saied’s ‘Constitutional Self-Coup’ in Tunisia,” you describe Kais Saied’s use of Article 80 of the Tunisian constitution as a ‘constitutional self-coup.’ To what extent do you believe this move was justified within the framework of constitutional legitimacy, and what precedent does it set for the future of Tunisian governance? 

Professor Francesco Tamburini: Article 80 is a controversial article because it empowers the President of the Republic to take measures imposing the state of emergency (Istithna’ in Arabic) in the event of an imminent danger threatening the institutions of the nation, the security and independence of the country, or hindering the regular functioning of public powers. The President can take the necessary measures to address this exceptional situation after consulting the head of the government and the president of the Assembly of the Representatives of the People and informing the Constitutional Court. The President must then announce these measures in a statement to the people. That’s the theory.

The aim of these measures is to ensure the return to the regular functioning of public authorities as soon as possible. However, the broad wording of Article 80 has always raised concerns, especially due to the absence of a clear definition of what constitutes “imminent danger.” What exactly is an imminent danger? Even the nature of the measures taken remains unclear.

Moreover, was Tunisia’s political, economic, social and health crisis comparable to an imminent danger? The actions taken by the Tunisian government are difficult to reconcile with the spirit of Article 80, which explicitly denies the President the power to dissolve Parliament. Yet, Kais Saied dissolved the Parliament without any substantial obstacle. According to Article 80, the President should have consulted the Constitutional Court before such actions, but the court was not functioning at the time.

As a result, Saied had free rein to do as he pleased. Even now, without a functioning Constitutional Court, the executive power is unchecked and able to act as it desires. This is why establishing a Constitutional Court is crucial to determining what kind of misconduct can occur in the country.

Given your argument that Tunisia’s state institutions were unable to prevent Saied’s power consolidation, what are the long-term implications for Tunisia’s democratic institutions, and what measures could have been taken to reinforce these institutions against autocratic shifts?

Professor Francesco Tamburini: The legacy will be far-reaching. Tunisia is now experiencing a new form of leadership, which could be translated as “chieftainism,” emulating the regimes of Bourguiba and Ben Ali. It’s a new kind of authoritarian regime, combined with a version of direct democracy that will likely be out of control for the reasons I explored a few moments ago.

Islamic High Councils in the Maghreb Are Part of the Bureaucratization of Religion

In your analysis at your article titled “The Islam of the Government: The Islamic High Councils in Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania and Tunisia,” you discuss how governments in the Maghreb use Islamic High Councils to consolidate power and strengthen national identity. How effective have these councils been in maintaining political legitimacy and control over religious discourse, especially in the face of rising Islamist movements?

Professor Francesco Tamburini: They were and have always been, fundamental in promoting a national form of Islam—the “real Islam,” as they call it. This national Islam is specific to each country, such as the “real Islam” in Algeria or Morocco, for example. These councils are part of the bureaucratization of religion, with their main task being to control religious practices and combat radicalism. They act as the state’s mouthpiece and propagate a moderate form of Islam that controls mosques, imams and religious discourse across the country.

Their primary purpose is to fight radical ideas in the religious sphere, which is crucial for preventing the spread of external religious ideologies like Shi’ism, Salafi movements or the Muslim Brotherhood—ideas seen as a counterculture to the state’s version of Islam. These external influences challenge the state’s national idea of Islam.

The Absence of Ennahda Is a Great Loss for Tunisian Politics

A large group of Tunisians gathered outside the White House in Washington, DC, on February 27, 2022, to protest the erosion of democracy in Tunisia under President Kais Saied’s administration. Photo: Phil Pasquini.

Your article discusses Tunisia’s unique trajectory as an ‘exception’ among Arab countries post-Arab Spring. How does Kais Saied’s releection and recent actions compare to other examples of autocratic consolidation in post-revolutionary contexts, particularly in the MENA region?

Professor Francesco Tamburini: Tunisia’s exception clearly emerges in its use of populism and direct democracy, which were trademarks of the propaganda during the electoral campaign. There was a strong criticism of parliamentarism and an instrumental use of religion, which attracted votes from Islamist parties, such as Ennahda. It is the use of a conservative agenda for the sake of maintaining power. That is the main distinction between Kais Saied’s trajectory and other autocratic consolidations in North Africa.

What does the re-election of Kais Saied on October 6 tell us about the future of Arab Spring? The turn-out at the election was only 28.8% which shows the overwhelming part of the population did not support Kais Saied, do you think this creates a serious problem of legitimacy?

Professor Francesco Tamburini: In my opinion, it’s not a problem of legitimacy. It’s mainly a problem of disaffection towards politics and politicians by the Tunisian population. There is a growing disillusionment with elections as a tool to solve the everyday problems of ordinary citizens. The country is in a state of economic suffering with young people struggling to find proper jobs. Tunisia is being suffocated by a relentless economic crisis that Saied cannot solve and at the moment, no one seems to be able to address it.

How do you view the role of Annahda and Gannushi in Tunisia’s transition to democracy right after the Arab Spring and then in the election of Kais Saied?

Professor Francesco Tamburini: Ennahda and Ghannouchi, immediately after the Revolution, had a very powerful chance to address Tunisia’s problems and to give the country a vision of modern Islam combined with a truly democratic spirit. They proposed the concept of Madania—a civil state that was neither an Islamic state nor a secular state, but something in between. Unfortunately, Ennahda was not able to govern the country properly due to its lack of experience. The party was and still is, very divided.

Nowadays, unfortunately, Ennahda no longer exists as a political force. Many intellectuals who were part of the party are now outside of politics, largely because Kais Saied declared the party illegal. The absence of Ennahda is a great loss for Tunisian politics, in my opinion. The lack of a moderate Islamic voice is a significant wound for Tunisian politics today. It’s a bleeding wound for the Tunisian politics.

Tom Ginsburg is the Leo Spitz Professor of International Law at the University of Chicago, working on comparative and international law from an interdisciplinary perspective.

Professor Ginsburg: The Search for a ‘Strongman’ to Fix Everything Is a Naive Approach

by Editor’s ChoiceHomeInterviews

Professor Tom Ginsburg warns against the simplistic notion that a “strongman” can solve complex political and social problems, arguing that such leaders often weaken democratic institutions by eroding trust. He discusses how authoritarian regimes manipulate international law to shield themselves from scrutiny. Despite these trends, Ginsburg remains cautiously optimistic, believing that well-established democracies can endure with vigilance and strong institutions. However, he emphasizes the need for constant global cooperation to prevent the further erosion of democratic norms and institutions.

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

In an insightful interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Dr. Tom Ginsburg, Leo Spitz Professor of International Law at the University of Chicago, discusses global democratic backsliding and the rise of authoritarianism. He cautions against the simplistic notion that a “strongman” can solve complex political and social issues, emphasizing that such leaders often undermine democratic institutions and erode public trust, ultimately weakening nations rather than strengthening them. Ginsburg highlights the importance of safeguarding democracy and the critical role of strong institutions.

Professor Ginsburg underscores the importance of institutions in preserving democracy, noting that while democracies may experience backsliding, complete breakdowns are rare. He also warns of the manipulation of international law by authoritarian regimes to entrench power and diminish democratic principles. Reflecting on historical examples, Professor Ginsburg points out that many authoritarian regimes, during their first term, often present themselves as relatively moderate, only to erode institutions more effectively once they learn how to wield power. He notes that although democracies, especially established ones like the United States and France, are resilient and unlikely to break down completely, they are vulnerable to backsliding, particularly when polarization intensifies. When political opponents are seen as existential threats, the foundations of democracy can weaken.

In discussing the impact of rising authoritarianism on international law, Ginsburg highlights how authoritarian regimes are increasingly manipulating international institutions to protect themselves from scrutiny and criticism. He warns that authoritarian regimes are using international law strategically to legitimize their rule and repress opposition through tactics like exploiting vague terms such as “extremism” or “separatism.” He also mentions how some authoritarian governments have hijacked institutions like Interpol to target political opponents under the guise of legal protocols.

Despite these troubling trends, Professor Ginsburg remains cautiously optimistic about democracy’s survival in well-established systems. While authoritarianism poses serious challenges, he believes that, with vigilance, democracies will continue to endure and that the resilience of their institutions can help them weather periods of backsliding. Nonetheless, he calls for constant awareness and global cooperation to prevent the further degradation of democratic norms and international institutions.

Here is the transcription of the interview with Professor Tom Ginsburg with some edits.

Rising Polarization Is a Major Cause of Democratic Backsliding

Professor Ginsburg, thank you so very much for joining our interview series.

Professor Tom Ginsburg: It’s my pleasure to be here. I think the work you’re doing is important.

Thank you. Let me start with the first question. You argue that there is a strong possibility that the twenty-first century will be known more as an authoritarian century than a democratic one. What are the reasons for this assumption and what impact rising authoritarianism will have on international law? Additionally, what do you think are the primary factors contributing to the global trend of democratic backsliding and constitutional erosion, and how do you see it impacting the future of global constitutionalism?

Professor Tom Ginsburg: Well, that’s quite a lot of questions! Let me start by saying that over the last three decades, wehave tended to think of democracy as something that naturally emerged through modernization theory. We haveacknowledged that throughout most of human history, governments have been undemocratic and authoritarian. But after the Cold War, it seemed like democracy was on the rise—what Samuel Huntington called the ‘Third Wave of Democratization.’

At the time, democracy appeared to be the only game in town, as people used to say. However, from where we stand now, that seems not only like a naive assumption but also quite mistaken. Democracies now seem more like a historical blip in some sense, as the world appears to be reverting to its more common state of violent conflict and authoritarianism.

Now, I would disagree with the simplicity of that assumption. I still believe that the richest, most powerful, and successful countries—those that deliver public goods to their citizens—are grounded in the will of the people. While there are a few high-performing non-democracies or limited democracies, like Singapore, which would be an excellent place to be born, these are exceptions. In such cases, there exists a kind of responsive authoritarianism.

However, in general, if you had the choice, you would want to be born in a democracy. Despite all their flaws and challenges, democracies allow us to express disappointment in our leaders, which can create a sense of existential crisis. Yet, when we look at most performance indicators, democracies still excel. Sometimes there’s a naive belief that we just need a dictator to “make the trains run on time.” But for every Singapore, there’s a Cambodia in 1975 or something equally disastrous. For every high-performing authoritarian regime, there are plenty of terrible ones. The search for a “strongman” to fix everything is almost always a naive solution, and this ties into your question about populism. The desire for a strongman rarely leads to the outcomes people hope for.

Take Tunisia, for example. It now has a weak strongman—who, ironically, was a constitutional lawyer—who took power following widespread disappointment with the democracy’s economic performance. But the result is stagnation, and people are not better off. So, overall, I support democracy and believe it will persist in countries where it is well-established. However, it is fraying, and there’s a sense of existential concern.

You also asked about the causes of democratic backsliding. There are many factors to consider, but one major cause is rising polarization. When political opponents are seen not just as people with differing opinions but as existential threats, it escalates democratic competition, eroding the institutions necessary to make democracy work. Polarization is a significant factor, fueled in part by social media, which places people into ideological bubbles.

In the United States, for example, I’m encouraged that the public seems less polarized than its leaders. Many areas of policy actually enjoy broad agreement among citizens. So, I’m not one of the more alarmist analysts who predict civil war in the US—that’s not going to happen. Most of us have family or friends on the other side of the political spectrum and we’re not going to kill each other over Donald Trump or something similar.

Finally, you asked about the impact of rising authoritarianism on international law. Indeed, this is changing rapidly before our eyes. A few years ago, I wrote about Authoritarian International Law and published a book called Democracies in International Law. In it, I pointed out that democracies and authoritarians use international law differently. Europe, for example, has built the European Union on an international legal framework that has provided public goods and fostered cross-border cooperation, including the commitment to human rights. Authoritarians, on the other hand, are less interested in these principles because they don’t trust each other and struggle with deep cooperation.

What we see in international law today is a pattern where democracies innovate—through mechanisms like transparency laws, citizens’ assemblies and administrative reforms—while authoritarians copy these innovations and repurpose them for their own ends. This repurposing is happening in international law too. Authoritarian regimes have taken over bodies like the Human Rights Council, where their main goal is to avoid criticism of themselves. Similarly, the General Assembly now has a majority of authoritarian states and this shift degrades some of the highest ideals of international law.

We also see double-speak, like Russia’s claim that its invasion of Ukraine is a defense against genocide by the Ukrainians. These kinds of manipulations are meant to confuse citizens and degrade the potential for genuine international cooperation.

I know I’ve answered many questions quickly, but I hope this provides a useful overview.

Indeed, Professor Ginsburg, thank you. In your article “The Value of ‘Tyrannophobia’,” you mention the blurred distinction between democratic backsliding and breakdown. How important is it for scholars and policymakers to clearly differentiate between the two and what criteria should be used to make this distinction effectively?

Professor Tom Ginsburg: That’s a great question. I think even talking now in 2024 compared to six years ago, our perspective has to shift somewhat. Democratic backsliding, as it turns out, is fairly common. Many democracies experience degradation in the quality of their institutions and their self-perception. However, a full democratic breakdown—meaning the end of democracy—is actually quite rare for countries like yours and mine, those that are wealthy and have long democratic histories.

Adam Przeworski, the great scholar at NYU, calculated that the probability of a wealthy country with a strong democratic history, like the United States, seeing its democracy end is infinitesimally small. And I think he’s right. Democracies like the US and France will persist; the electoral mechanisms will continue to function and the basic components of the rule of law will remain, even if they become degraded. However, the quality of democracy can decline and we may experience what is known as subnational authoritarianism in federal systems like the US.

We have seen this before. Between the end of the Civil War and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the entire southern United States was not a democracy because Black citizens were disenfranchised by various legal mechanisms. So, while the US as a whole may have been a democracy, significant regions within it were not. This kind of subnational authoritarianism could happen again because states are very powerful in our system.

But as for a full breakdown? When we look at history, democracies typically break down due to war, revolution or military coups. I don’t see any of those happening in the US or in countries like France. There are certainly revolutionaries, but they don’t have a social base and military coups are extremely unlikely in countries like ours. Civil-military relations are well-controlled here. Even with all the discussion about figures like Donald Trump, I don’t see any scenario where he or anyone else would order the military to stop an election.

In short, the oldest and strongest democracies are certainly subject to backsliding, but I don’t believe they are at serious risk of breakdown.

European Union Failed to Develop a Demos

By PX Media

In your article ‘How Authoritarians Use International Law,’ you underline that democracies have produced the grandest legal achievements including the European integration and the development of the global trade regime. You clearly see European Union as a great success. How do you explain the rise of far-right parties and their recent successes in elections in the founding members of EU like France, Italy and the Netherlands?

Professor Tom Ginsburg: That’s a great question. By the way, I happened to be living in Europe when the euro was introduced in 2000. It was fascinating because, for most ordinary people, there wasn’t much public discussion about it. I was living in the Netherlands and I found that many ordinary folks didn’t like the euro; it led to inflation and there was a sense of resentment because the decision seemed to have been made by the government without much public input.

A lot of people talk about the failure of Europe to develop a demos—a true sense of a continent-wide polity. The project, in some ways, felt technocratic and elitist. I think that’s right. It doesn’t work to have someone like Valéry Giscard d’Estaing pronounce a constitution from on high; people rejected that and rightly so. It lacked the social base necessary to sustain it.

At the same time, economically, the EU has been massively successful. It is a major global regulatory power and it has made people wealthier than they would have been otherwise. But politically, it hasn’t quite gained the legitimacy it needs. The nation-state, the idea that it would fade away, was naive. I remember reading scholars like Anne-Marie Slaughter in the late 1990s and early 2000s who celebrated the European project and thought it would lead to an ever-closer union, as if it were an unstoppable machine. I was skeptical, especially because I study East Asia, where national consciousness is still very strong. There’s no sense that China or Japan, for example, would ever give up their national identities.

Even in Europe, I was somewhat skeptical. When I visited, I noticed a lack of a European identity—people still identified as Italians, French or Dutch. No one, aside from EU bureaucrats in Brussels, introduced themselves as European.

So, what does that mean? The nationalist backlash we’re seeing is healthy and we need to admit that. It’s not some kind of pathology; it reflects real feelings in society. This is important when studying populism. We shouldn’t view populism as a disease to be cured. It’s a natural political development, particularly when elites are out of touch. That’s why we’re seeing the rise of far-right parties across Europe.

The key thing is not that populist parties are running for office. In fact, in the United States, there’s a long tradition of running as a populist—every politician runs against Washington, DC. George W. Bush did it, Barack Obama did it and of course, Trump did as well. But running as a populist is different from governing as a populist. Once in office, you can’t govern like a populist.

Take Italy, for example. Giorgia Meloni leads a far-right party and she ran as a populist. But from what I see, while she pursues some far-right policies, she isn’t governing as a populist in the sense of trying to dismantle the institutional structure of the country. In fact, Italy’s institutional structure constrains her, as it has constrained every post-war leader. Italy’s constitutional order has many pathologies, and it will constrain her too.

So, the key point here is that we need to distinguish between running as a populist, which is healthy and governing as a populist, which can degrade democratic institutions.

In my book with Aziz Z. Huq, How to Save a Constitutional Democracy (2018), we talk about the forces leading to democratic backsliding. One of those forces is what we call partisan degradation, but the key one relevant to this discussion is charismatic populism. Donald Trump embodies this—the idea that “I alone can fix everything” and that anyone or any institution that stands between me and the people must be eliminated. That kind of rhetoric can lead to actions that destroy institutions and the fact is, for constitutional democracy to succeed, you need strong institutions.

That’s why I’m against governing as a populist.

Authoritarian Constitutional Systems Are Incredibly Diverse

The concept of ‘authoritarian constitutionalism’ has gained traction in the academic literature, describing regimes that use constitutional tools to consolidate power. How do you distinguish between genuine constitutionalism and its authoritarian use and what role do international and domestic actors play in challenging or supporting these regimes?

Professor Tom Ginsburg: Hmm! That’s an interesting question. First of all, I think the term authoritarian constitutionalism is valid. It can represent a genuine form of constitutionalism. For instance, Britain, until the Reform Act of 1832, had a constitutional system, albeit a non-democratic one. So, we shouldn’t assume that constitutionalism only applies to liberal democracies. Just because a system isn’t a liberal constitutional democracy—which is itself a rare phenomenon—doesn’t mean there isn’t constitutionalism. Power can still be constrained in meaningful ways.

Take Thailand, for example. It’s not a strong democracy—certainly not at the moment, with political parties being banned and other such measures. Yet, the military-backed leader stepped down after eight years, as required by the Constitution. This means the text constrained the power holder, which is a form of constitutionalism, even though it’s not liberal constitutionalism. So, I tend to think of authoritarian constitutionalism as a broader category where power is constrained, even in non-democratic settings.

Mark Tushnet wrote about authoritarian constitutionalism, using Singapore as a case. But I wasn’t entirely convinced by that example. What he meant was a regime that is still authoritarian but not too bad. However, true constitutionalism requires a deeper examination of the actual mechanisms in place—such as the role of constraining institutions. It’s fascinating to study because there are so many variations. The famous Tolstoy quote comes to mind: “Every happy family is alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Similarly, authoritarian constitutional systems are incredibly diverse—perhaps even more so than constitutional democracies.

Now, when it comes to the role of the international community, I hold a fairly thin view of international law. I don’t believe there’s a right to democracy under international law. States are required to observe basic human rights, but there’s no legal obligation for them to be democratic. It would be problematic if international law insisted on democracy, as it would render many members of the international community illegitimate. Historically, the majority of governments have not been democratic.

What can international law do, then? There are examples of international efforts to keep backsliding democracies from completely derailing or to hold authoritarian regimes accountable to some degree. One example is Poland under the Law and Justice Party (PiS). Since they took power, they’ve engaged in institutional takeovers, especially of the courts, which created friction with European law. The EU has mechanisms like Article 7 and Article 2 processes, and while they didn’t stop the PiS from consolidating power, they helped prevent things from going too far off the rails. Being part of the EU gave the Polish opposition space to organize, and they eventually won the recent election. PiS may return to power, but the point is that democracy didn’t completely collapse in Poland.

Hungary is a different story. Of course, we don’t really know for sure, but the playing field there seems extremely tilted and it’s plausible that Viktor Orbán may remain in power for the rest of his life. Fortunately, it seems the European Union has become more aware of the situation. However, you also see examples in Latin America and Africa where courts play a role on the margins. While they may not save democracy entirely, they help keep space open for opposition to organize and prevent the worst outcomes, stopping the country from devolving into one of the truly oppressive dictatorships wehave seen too many times throughout history.

Constant Vigilance Needed to Prevent Authoritarian Hijacking of International Legal Institutions

The symbol of United Nations Human Rights Council. Photo: Shutterstock.

In your article “How Authoritarians Use International Law,” you discuss how authoritarian regimes are increasingly using international law to legitimize their rule and shield themselves from criticism. How effective has this strategy been in reshaping international norms and what can democratic states do to counter this manipulation?

Professor Tom Ginsburg: I do think we are seeing the manipulation of international law. One clear example is explicitly authoritarian cooperation, like in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) or the Eurasian institutions that Vladimir Putin set up as counterweights to the European Union.

One of the key tactics these organizations use is cooperation on internal security issues. In my article, I mention the creation of new international norms, such as labeling crimes like extremism and separatism. These terms have been defined by authoritarian regimes in a way that can criminalize anything from advocating for LGBT rights to seeking greater autonomy for regions like Tibet. These are now international norms in those regions, with enforcement mechanisms. If I, as a government, label you an extremist or separatist, other countries in the group are obligated to arrest and extradite you. These terms are vague, but they have real teeth and are being used to reinforce domestic dictatorships while binding them more closely in their shared projects.

Another concern is the degradation of human rights norms, such as the rise of concepts like human rights with Chinese characteristics. I previously mentioned the Human Rights Council and the kinds of cases they focus on. A while back, there was a proposal before the Human Rights Council for a norm against the defamation of religion. Traditionally, defamation is an individual-level crime—if you say something false about me, I can seek legal recourse. But this proposal aimed to extend defamation protections to religions themselves. The driving force behind this was the desire to prevent the denigration of Islam, though it included other religions as well. This is inconsistent with democratic norms of free speech.

Suddenly, the focus of human rights shifts from humans to religions. That’s a profound shift—what does it even mean? Who speaks for the religion? These are subtle but significant changes in international law that deserve close scrutiny.

Another example is the abuse of institutions like Interpol. Authoritarian regimes have been using Interpol’s red notices to target political opponents who haven’t committed any real crimes, forcing them to be arrested internationally under the guise of legal protocol. This is a clear abuse of international systems and it shows just how important it is to pay attention to who controls institutions like Interpol. The Chinese government, for instance, had made significant inroads into influencing Interpo and Western powers were somewhat asleep at the wheel. Fortunately, they have started to wake up to the risk of such institutions becoming politicized and used for authoritarian purposes.

This is why it requires constant vigilance, advocacy, and awareness from democratic states. We need to ensure that international legal institutions are not hijacked by authoritarian regimes for their own ends.

Democracy Will Endure Under Another Trump Administration

How could a possible Trump victory on November the 5th impact American democracy? There are those who are very concerned and there are those who argue that American democracy will survive another Trump administration. Where do you stand at this debate?

Professor Tom Ginsburg: I have two views on this. First, we in the United States tend to not look much at the rest of the world—we’re quite inward-looking and sometimes a bit arrogant in that sense. But if we did pay attention to global experiences, we’d have reasons to be very concerned.

If you look at other countries where democracy has been eroded, many leaders had a first term that wasn’t so bad. Some people say, “We survived Trump once; it’s no problem, the institutions held.” But look at examples like Viktor Orbán in Hungary. His first term was relatively moderate—he governed as a reasonable nationalist. Jarosław Kaczyński in Poland didn’t show clear signs of trying to dismantle the country’s institutions initially. Even Narendra Modi’s BJP had a more normal first term in government under Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

The pattern is that during their second time in power, these leaders learn how to use the machinery of government more effectively to consolidate power and undermine institutions. So from that perspective, I think we should be very worried about a second Trump administration.

But here we have to think about who this character is and what his motivations are. The Supreme Court has been very helpful to Trump. They have given him a very expansive notion of immunity and they allowed him to remain on the ballot despite some efforts by certain states to remove him. They’re not going to be much of a constraint on him.

Now, what exactly is he threatening to do? I think it’s clear he’s going to use the justice system to go after his political opponents. He’s said he will, so we might as well believe him. The key question then becomes: is the justice system capable of withstanding that kind of politicization? In the end, I think it is, but I certainly wouldn’t want to be one of his political opponents.

The way it works here is that Trump can direct national prosecutors. While they have norms of independence, those are just norms. He can tell them, “I want you to prosecute Biden, or I’ll fire you,” and if they refuse, they get fired and someone else is appointed who is willing to do it. I think that’s likely to happen. The question is, will it work? It will definitely cost those prosecuted a lot of money and cause harassment and it will degrade public confidence in the legal system. It’s a terrible situation.

But at the end of the day, in this country, you need judges and a jury to secure a conviction. I don’t see fake charges getting very far. Yes, Trump has appointed a lot of judges, but so has Biden. Biden has been very quick in appointing judges and right now, about half of the appeals court judges are appointed by Democrats and half by Republicans. The lower courts lean more towards Democratic appointees. So, judges are not partisan to the point where they will just do whatever Trump says.

I also don’t expect him to try to stay in power after another four years. He’s old, and he might want his children to run for office. If he tries to stay on, that would ruin their chances, so I don’t see that being part of his motivation.

So, what are my biggest fears? My biggest concerns are policy-related, particularly around immigration. It’s going to be very, very ugly. They have promised to establish large detention camps for immigrants and round people up. That will be terrible to witness. While it’s a human rights issue, it’s not necessarily anti-democratic since it’s a popular policy with a segment of the electorate.

I also worry about the administrative state. They may discourage career bureaucrats, especially those working in agencies like the EPA, to the point where they quit, reducing state capacity. That would be very bad for democracy.

But I don’t see democracy itself ending. So, in some sense, I have a mixed answer. I’m certainly not the biggest Trump fan and I do worry about American democratic institutions. I think Trump is bad for them, but I don’t believe he will end them.

That being said, it still requires vigilance. One last point to mention is that we are a federal country, which means most law enforcement is local and state-run. The states are very divided. For example, California has a bigger economy than France and there’s very little Trump could do to change what happens there in any significant way.

So yes, democracy will survive.

State-Level Prosecutions of a President Can Set a Dangerous Precedent

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.

In your recent article ‘Trump is gearing up for lawfare,’ you argue that Trump, if elected, will instrumentalize and politicize the prosecution. In a system of solid check-and-balance, how can Trump possible achieve his goal?

Professor Tom Ginsburg: That’s a great question. I touched on this a bit earlier, but let me go into more detail.

During President Richard Nixon’s time in office, specifically around the Watergate scandal where he was caught spying on his opponents, he sought to control the prosecutors. Nixon fired people until he found someone willing to follow his orders. Eventually, after Nixon resigned, a new Attorney General came in and aimed to restore dignity to the office, putting in place very detailed internal rules before prosecutions could happen at the federal level. These rules became internal norms at the Justice Department, helping to regulate the prosecution process.

Now, a president like Trump has the authority to hire and fire an Attorney General at will. I believe he will appoint someone willing to overrule some of these norms to carry out certain key prosecutions, for example, going after Biden. However, the law itself still constrains what can be done and there are limits. That said, even though a president has the power to appoint a compliant Attorney General, there are checks in place that would make this difficult to pull off effectively on a large scale.

One of my bigger fears, though, is something we’ve already seen on the Democratic side. In New York State, for example, the Attorney General ran for office on a platform that included prosecuting Trump and she did manage to get a judgment against him. Then, there was Alvin Bragg, the New York City District Attorney, who prosecuted Trump on fraud charges and won. Trump is now a convicted criminal, which is unprecedented for someone running for office.

However, I’m not a big fan of that prosecution. If you ask the average American what Trump was prosecuted for, they likely wouldn’t be able to explain it and even many lawyers would find the legal theory behind the case to be a stretch. Technically, yes, it was a violation of the law, but my concern is that state-level prosecutions, especially involving a president or former president, can set a dangerous precedent. Even when presidents commit wrongdoing, I believe they should be subject to a different standard than the average citizen.

This is controversial to say, but I think presidents deserve a bit more leeway because there is another mechanism of accountability—political accountability. The law should not be a substitute for political accountability, and sometimes pursuing legal accountability can undermine it. If the public wants to elect someone who has committed a crime, like Donald Trump, they will. When prosecutions are poorly understood or seem politically motivated, they can damage public trust in the justice system.

I worry about these state-level prosecutions and if Trump’s attempts to prosecute Biden are unsuccessful, you may still see state-level prosecutions being weaponized. That’s not good. It further politicizes the justice system, and in many countries, once this starts, it’s hard to reverse. So, yes, I do worry about this.