President Javier Milei bans the use of inclusive language and all gender-related terminology in public administration documents, declaring it part of his “cultural battle” against what he calls Marxist indoctrination. Photo: Fernando Petrucelli.

Professor Lucca: Milei Is Ultra-Neoliberal in Economics but Ultra-Populist in Rhetoric

by with No Comment Editor’s ChoiceHomeInterviews

In an exclusive interview with ECPS, Professor Juan Bautista Lucca of the National University of Rosario (UNR) analyzes Argentina’s shifting political landscape under President Javier Milei. He argues that Milei’s project represents “a radicalized hybrid—ultra-neoliberal in economics but ultra-populist in rhetoric.” For Professor Lucca, Milei has transformed neoliberalism into a moral crusade, “sacralizing the market” while turning politics into “a permanent apocalyptic theater.” He views Milei’s alliance with Donald Trump as part of a broader “geopolitics of Trumpism in the Global South,” where sovereignty is redefined through ideological, not strategic, ties. Following Milei’s sweeping midterm victory—with La Libertad Avanza winning 41% of the vote—Professor Lucca warns that Argentina stands in a Gramscian “interregnum,” facing both consolidation and disillusionment.

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

In an in-depth interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Professor Juan Bautista Lucca, a leading political scientist at the National University of Rosario (UNR) and Independent Researcher at CONICET, offers a comprehensive analysis of the Javier Milei phenomenon, situating it within Argentina’s longer populist tradition while revealing its radical departures from the past.

Reflecting on Milei’s sweeping midterm victory, Professor Lucca rejects the idea that the results represent a referendum on economic policy. Rather, he sees them as “an expression of the president’s capacity to maintain a narrative of radical rupture and moral regeneration.” For Professor Lucca, Milei’s strength lies not in delivering material results but in sustaining an affective narrative of moral renewal, one that continues to mobilize polarized sectors of society while leaving centrist voters disengaged. “People in the center,” he observes, “are not very motivated to vote… participation was one of the lowest in the last 40 years of democracy in Argentina.”

Professor Lucca identifies a deeper “normalization of populist discourse” in Argentina’s political mainstream, in which neoliberal orthodoxy is now “celebrated as an act of moral courage.” Unlike past neoliberal leaders such as Carlos Menem or Mauricio Macri, who concealed their economic programs, Milei “doesn’t want to hide this economic agenda; he even sacralizes it.” This, Professor Lucca argues, represents the sophistication of neoliberal populism, where austerity and moral regeneration are fused into a coherent political language.

Asked whether Milei’s libertarian project fits within existing typologies, Professor Lucca insists it marks a qualitative rupture: “He is ultra-neoliberal in economics but ultra-populist in rhetoric.” Milei’s “libertarian populism,” he explains, blends market maximalism and anti-establishment radicalism with “messianic performativity.” His leadership, characterized by a “rock-star persona and apocalyptic imagery,” transforms politics into what Professor Lucca calls “a permanent apocalyptic theater,” where representation depends less on programs than on emotional intensity.

From a geopolitical perspective, Professor Lucca sees Milei’s alliance with Donald Trump and symbolic alignment with Israel as evidence of a “geopolitics of Trumpism in the Global South”—a transnational ideological coordination that redefines sovereignty through shared cultural codes rather than strategic alliances. In this worldview, “external financial dependence is reframed as liberation,” an inversion of Argentina’s traditional narratives of autonomy and self-determination.

Looking ahead, Professor Lucca warns that Argentina stands “in an interregnum—what Gramsci called the time when monsters appear.” Whether Milei’s Leviathan endures or gives rise to “a Behemoth from populist Peronism” remains uncertain. Yet, he notes, the greatest danger lies in a growing “third Argentina”—a disenchanted electorate that “simply doesn’t want to participate in politics.”

Milei’s midterm triumph underscores the urgency of Professor Lucca’s diagnosis. With La Libertad Avanza capturing nearly 41% of the vote, securing 13 of 24 Senate seats and 64 of 127 lower-house seats, Argentina’s president has consolidated his grip on power. The landslide—hailed by supporters as a rejection of Peronism and condemned by critics for deepening inequality—marks a pivotal moment in Argentina’s democratic experiment: one where chainsaw economics meets populist spectacle, reshaping both the country’s political grammar and its social contract.

Professor Juan Bautista Lucca is a leading political scientist at the National University of Rosario (UNR) and Independent Researcher at CONICET.

Here is the edited transcript of our interview with Professor Juan Bautista Lucca, slightly revised for clarity and flow. 

Milei’s Victory Is Not an Economic Referendum, but a Moral One

Professor Juan Bautista Lucca, thank you very much for joining our interview series. Let me start right away with the first question: In light of Javier Milei’s surprising midterm victory, how do you interpret this result as a referendum on two years of libertarian governance amid economic contraction, corruption scandals, and low turnout? What does it reveal about the resilience and transformation of right-wing populism in Argentina?

Professor Juan Bautista Lucca: It’s a complex question, so I’ll try to answer as much as I can. First of all, I have to say that it’s not surprising—the number of people who support Milei. But even if I say that, I could also say that this is a kind of referendum for them, or a referendum on concrete economic results. I would say that the result of the last election is more an expression of the president’s capacity to maintain a narrative of radical rupture and moral regeneration. 

Even if in the 2023 election he didn’t campaign against Kirchnerism as much, he opposed the idea of la casta. But now, he incorporates the idea of anti-Kirchnerism, and it was very effective in nationalizing the election—turning what was essentially a provincial or local contest into a national one. He was able to make it a national debate. So, it’s not a referendum on economic policy. 

I also have to add that the low electoral turnout, in a way, shows that those who went to vote are mostly the highly polarized ones. People in the center, who don’t agree with either side of Argentina’s antinomic populist politics—with Peronism and Kirchnerism on one side, and La Libertad Avanza or Mileism on the other—are not very motivated to vote. People in the center of the ideological spectrum, or those distant from this cleavage, tend to stay home. That’s why participation was so low—one of the lowest in the last 40 years of democracy in Argentina.

Argentina Is Witnessing the Normalization of Neoliberal Populism

To what extent does this electoral outcome signal the normalization of populist discourse within Argentina’s political mainstream—especially when neoliberal prescriptions are wrapped in anti-elitist and moralizing rhetoric?

Professor Juan Bautista Lucca: We are facing an unsettling but truly effective normalization. This normalization started more or less three years ago, when the mainstream right accepted that Milei is not just an outsider, and their debate, discourse, and programmatic perspective—or their ideological propositions on policies—were no longer as radicalized as they had been maybe ten years ago. So, the normalization of Milei’s discourse really began three or four years ago.

During the pandemic period, this discursive operation represented the sophistication of neoliberal populism as we knew it in Argentina with Menem or Macri in the past, because they no longer need to hide their economic program. In the past, we could see that Macri and Menem tried to conceal their programmatic preferences. They didn’t openly express the idea that we were in the midst of a new or renewed Washington Consensus. But now, Milei doesn’t want to hide this economic program; they even celebrate it as an act of moral courage, perhaps.

This is important for Argentina’s political imagination, where Washington Consensus prescriptions were always very unpopular but are now gaining more and more popular legitimacy. That’s why we are witnessing the normalization of this radical discourse. We could see it in the last two elections, this year and in 2023, when the idea of controlling debt and the state deficit was celebrated by all participants in the election—even the Peronist candidate, Massa.

Right now, other candidates on the Peronist side have decided to accept the idea of controlling the deficit and reducing not only social policies but also other kinds of spending—the amount of money wasted on unproductive policies, especially at the provincial and subnational levels. Governors have decided to accept Milei’s neoliberal restrictions on spending for policies, infrastructure, and other kinds of initiatives. And when they accept these ideas and policies, they are normalizing the programmatic perspective of our president.

Milei and Trump Share a Cultural, Not Just Political, Alliance

Protesters march through the streets of Argentina’s capital during demonstrations against the G20 summit in Buenos Aires, Nov. 30, 2018. Photo: Gabriel Esteban Campo.

Given the US bailout and Donald Trump’s open political intervention, how do you evaluate this episode as an instance of transnational populist coordination? Does it point to a new geopolitical articulation of Trumpism in the Global South?

Professor Juan Bautista Lucca: It’s a complex question. Of course, there is a strong link between Trump’s administration and Milei’s administration, but I also have to note that it is a strong relationship between both individuals, not merely an administrative connection. This shows that Trump is not supporting Milei as a conventional geopolitical ally, since in Latin America there are other countries that are more powerful or geopolitically significant—perhaps nations in the Caribbean or Brazil. The link between Trump and Milei is more about companionship within a global and established movement that shares certain cultural codes, symbolic enemies, and a specific vision of the world—particularly the defense of Western civilization.

We could see this in Milei’s administration when he chose Israel as the first country to visit as president, breaking a long-standing tradition in Argentine administrations since the return of democracy. Traditionally, the first country an Argentine president visited was Brazil. Milei broke with that, and this reflects not only his stance toward Israel but also his affinity with Trump. This is not a geopolitical expression but rather a relationship rooted in cultural codes and a shared worldview.

This effectively points toward geopolitics of Trumpism in the Global South, where national sovereignties are paradoxically redefined through transnational ideological alliances. In this case, the alliance is supported not only by ideological affinities but also by shared cultural representations of how they enact their policies. For example, the recent government shutdown in the Trump administration is more or less the same as what has been experienced since the beginning of the Milei administration with the shutdown of the budget—used as a political strategy.

If we look not only at the link between Trump and Milei’s administrations but also at the policies they are implementing in both countries, they are largely similar. This convergence shows how they choose to express their alliance not only at the geopolitical level but also in domestic politics.

Milei Redefines Dependence as Liberation and Sovereignty as Submission

How might such external dependencies—both financial and ideological—reshape Argentina’s historical narrative of sovereignty and national autonomy, central tropes within both Peronist and anti-Peronist imaginaries?

Professor Juan Bautista Lucca: That’s a fantastic question, because it can be answered through the lens of the Milei administration, which is presenting—or perhaps performing—a radical act of resignification. With Trump’s support and the effort to stabilize the financial system, Milei frames external financial dependence as a form of liberation. It’s a contradiction in terms, but it’s highly effective in gaining support from the electorate. He has also reframed integration into the global neoliberal order as an authentic expression of individual sovereignty. It’s a deeply paradoxical move: he presents liberty where there is dependence and defends sovereignty while effectively handing over the keys to the Trump administration on one of Argentina’s most critical issues—the financial question, debt control, and inflation rates.

Milei Doesn’t Defend the Market—He Sacralizes It

Javier Milei casts his vote in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on November 19, 2023. Photo: Fabian Alberto De Ciria.

In your studies of ideological structures in Argentine and Latin American politics, you have discussed how right-wing projects often recode neoliberal rationality through affective populist idioms. How does Milei’s “anarcho-capitalism” fit within, or rupture, that ideological tradition?

Professor Juan Bautista Lucca: We see both continuities and ruptures in the idea that Milei is an anarcho-capitalist. How can we analyze that in relation to your question? It represents continuity because it effectively reintroduces neoliberal rationality through an affective populist medium. Sometimes we saw this in more moderate forms with Menem and Macri. However, the Argentine right has traditionally expressed anti-populism in its discourse while employing populism in its strategy. For example, Macri opposed the populism of Kirchnerism, yet in his strategy, he created a sharp distinction or cleavage between one side and the other—constructing a Manichean narrative that was entirely populist, even if he never admitted to being one.

If we use Pierre Ostiguy’s framework, for instance, Macri’s administration was led by elites at the top, but at the subnational level—in the provinces—it relied heavily on “low culture,” which Ostiguy defines as populist.

In Milei’s case, however, there is a rupture with this tradition because he takes the operation to an unprecedented extreme. He radicalizes it. He doesn’t merely defend the market; he sacralizes it. He doesn’t simply criticize the state, as Macri or Menem did; he demonizes it. He presents a more apocalyptic vision. His anarcho-capitalism functions less as a coherent economic doctrine and more as a political mythology. That’s why he promises redemption through the destruction of the existing order. He often says that we need to “burn Rome once again”—in this case, Argentina.

The idea is to push this populist narrative to its limits, portraying society as living in hell, with him as the only one capable of leading it to paradise. It is framed in a far more apocalyptic and radicalized way than in previous expressions of the right in Argentina, such as those of Menem and Macri.

Milei’s Libertarian Populism Blends Market Maximalism with Messianic Performativity

Can we analytically conceive Milei’s project as a form of neoliberal populism, or does its radical libertarianism, combined with moral anti-statism, constitute a novel ideological hybrid that transcends earlier typologies such as the “New Right” of Menem or Macri?

Professor Juan Bautista Lucca: It is, once again, a very complex question, and I think we need more time—or at least we need to see the full picture of Milei’s administration—to provide a more conceptually precise answer. But if I had to give a quick one, I would say that while the neoliberal populism of Menem and Macri sought a certain pragmatic balance between market logic and popular demands, in Milei’s case, he radicalizes both poles simultaneously. He is ultra-neoliberal in economics but ultra-populist in rhetoric.

His libertarianism is not merely technical; he moralizes it. As I mentioned in the previous question, he presents it as a religious issue. This kind of libertarian populism—if I may use that term—is an ideological configuration that combines market maximalism and anti-establishment maximalism with messianic performativity.

It’s like old wine in a new bottle served in a new kind of cup: something broadly familiar but with a completely different flavor. It is presented as a revelation, almost mythological—something that doesn’t fit easily within earlier categories like the New Right or neoliberal populism. It is genuinely new in the sense that Milei adds this messianic, performative, almost religious dimension to the mix of market ideology and anti-establishment maximalism in his politics.

Milei Reverses the Latin American Populist Tradition

Murals of Eva Perón and Juan Domingo Perón in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on October 30, 2016. Photo: Dreamstime.

Considering your engagement with Torcuato di Tella’s work on national-popular coalitions and Bonapartism, how might Milei’s project be situated within—or against—that lineage of Latin American populisms that sought to reconcile mass incorporation with elite hegemony?

Professor Juan Bautista Lucca: The comparison with di Tella is very productive, because di Tella knew the Peronist strategies intimately and how they evolved over time. He was present at every table where Peronism sought to articulate its power, at least during the last democratic period.

The classical national-popular populism that di Tella analyzed aimed to build coalitions under charismatic leadership that mediated between elites and the masses. It was a kind of reinterpretation of Maurice A. Finocchiaro’s idea of leadership. Di Tella saw this leadership in a positive light, while Finocchiaro viewed it as something negative for democracy.

In Milei’s case, however, he inverts this logic. He builds an anti-distributive coalition under charismatic leadership. He takes di Tella’s framework and completely reverses it—turning it upside down, so to speak. Milei not only inverts the logic that di Tella described but also preserves the Bonapartist structure characterized by concentrated power and a direct, plebiscitary relationship with the people. In this context, he relies heavily on new technologies like social media, which played a far greater role in the 2023 election than in this one.

This is partly because we are now in a midterm election where President Milei himself was not a candidate, so each candidate had to express their allegiance to Milei’s narrative through their own social media channels. As a result, the power and potential of social media became fragmented across multiple actors.

To conclude, Milei’s rise represents both an appropriation and a distortion of the traditional Latin American populist model that di Tella described—pushed toward radically opposite ends, the ultimate outcome and final shape of which remain uncertain.

Milei Turns Politics into a Permanent Apocalyptic Theater

The performative excess of Milei’s leadership—his rock-star persona and apocalyptic imagery—has become central to his political grammar. From your theoretical perspective, how does this form of charismatic performativity reconfigure the populist relation between representation, spectacle, and crisis?

Professor Juan Bautista Lucca: Milei is an outsider from the political elites in Argentina, but he’s also someone who came from the media, and he realized very quickly that in the era of spectacularized politics, representation is not based on programs but rather on affective intensity. The performativity that Milei embodies is not ornamental—it is constitutive of Milei and Mileism itself.

The insults, the rock aesthetic, the apocalyptic references—even the hair, in a kind of Boris Johnson or The Cure singer (Robert James Smith) way—are not simply part of a communication strategy. They are the cornerstone of his political force. His charismatic performativity produces what we could call a politics of permanent event, and he uses social networks to sustain it every day. He sends more tweets and posts than the time he spends sleeping.

He reconfigures populism away from institutional constraints into a logic of pure messianic events. It is a populism—a permanent apocalyptic theater. And Milei, more than anyone, understood that very quickly and very clearly. That’s why it was so effective during the election period.

Milei’s Leviathan May Soon Face a Behemoth from Populist Peronism

The colorful facade of a building in the iconic neighborhood of El Caminito in Buenos Aires, Argentina, featuring figures of Maradona and the Perón couple. Photo: Alexandre Fagundes De Fagundes.

And the last question is: Looking ahead, do you foresee Argentina entering a phase of libertarian-populist consolidation, or are we witnessing the incipient exhaustion of a political model whose moral and economic contradictions may soon reinvigorate a re-articulated Peronism or left-populist alternative?

Professor Juan Bautista Lucca: It’s not easy. If I could see the future, I would say that we are in the middle of a transitional period—an interregnum, as Antonio F. Gramsci might say. And, Gramsci said that in these transitional moments, monsters tend to appear, and Milei is one of those monsters. But the question is what will come after—I don’t know. And whether Milei will be the only monster in town, maybe, I don’t know either. I think we are entering a future where this kind of Leviathan that Milei is now creating will be confronted by a Behemoth from populist Peronism. They are trying to reorganize their forces and establish new leaderships in the absence of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.

From my perspective, the only critical scenario we could foresee in the near future is if the policies that Milei has presented, expressed, and implemented produce bad results and outcomes. At the moment, there is no antagonistic opposition capable of confronting and defeating Milei. The only one who could defeat Milei is Milei himself. But this is not an unrealistic scenario, because Milei is an outsider. He is not part of la casta, so he must go through a long and complex process of learning—how to debate, how to build consensus, and how to uphold the informal institutions of Argentine political culture. He needs to understand this background and learn to engage with the other elites who have governed Argentina for maybe twenty or more years in every province. The territorial power of governors in Argentina is very strong, so he needs to negotiate and reach consensus with them.

So, I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I don’t anticipate a simple return of traditional Peronism. It’s more likely that we will see the emergence of a new political articulation—perhaps a renewed form of left-wing populism that learns from Milei’s capacity to connect affectively. Because this is key in Argentina right now: polarization is not ideological—it’s affective. People are divided by emotions and feelings that bring them closer to or further from Milei. That’s why, as I said before in your first question, this election expressed a position of fear that is not linked to either pole of this antagonistic populist divide. There is a third Argentina that is not represented in this election. And it is not expressed because these people don’t want to show their hatred or opposition to Milei’s policies—they simply don’t want to participate in politics. This is something completely new in Argentina. Even during the pandemic, when people were angry or opposed to Alberto Fernández’s government and its policies, they still voted for new parties. But now, more than 30% of people don’t want to participate; they don’t want to belong to either pole of Argentina’s polarization. This is a completely new phenomenon that we must interpret and analyze carefully when the time comes.

Professor Ivan Llamazares is a leading scholar of political science at the University of Salamanca.

Prof. Llamazares: Authoritarianism Is Very Weak in Argentina, Whose Popular Culture Is Deeply Democratic

by with No Comment AuthoritarianismEditor’s ChoiceHomeInterviews

In this exclusive interview with the ECPS, Professor Ivan Llamazares of the University of Salamanca analyzes Argentina’s shifting political landscape under President Javier Milei, whose recent midterm victory consolidated his power and emboldened his radical austerity agenda. Professor Llamazares argues that while Milei’s libertarian populism intensifies Argentina’s ideological divisions, it does not fundamentally alter them. “It’s a modification, an intensification—but the underlying structure is still there,” he explains. Rejecting comparisons to Bolsonaro’s authoritarianism, he insists that “authoritarianism is very weak in Argentina, whose popular culture is deeply democratic.” For Professor Llamazares, Milei’s experiment embodies an “extreme illustration” of global right-wing populism—yet remains distinctly Argentine, rooted in enduring social cleavages, economic crises, and democratic resilience.

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

Argentina’s President Javier Milei has consolidated his grip on power after his party, La Libertad Avanza, won nearly 41% of the vote in the midterm elections, securing 13 of 24 Senate seats and 64 of 127 lower-house seats. The landslide victory marks a major political endorsement of Milei’s radical austerity program, dubbed “chainsaw politics,” defined by deep spending cuts, deregulation, and free-market reforms. The results will allow him to advance his agenda more easily after facing frequent legislative resistance in his first two years in office. Supporters have hailed the win as a rejection of decades of Peronist economic management, while critics warn of deepening poverty, unemployment, and inequality as a result of sweeping cuts to education, healthcare, pensions, and social programs. Despite stabilizing inflation and restoring investor confidence, Milei’s reforms have sparked widespread hardship and a risk of recession. Meanwhile, a record-low turnout of 67.9% reflects rising public apathy and disillusionment with Argentina’s political class.

Against this backdrop of economic turbulence and populist consolidation, Professor Ivan Llamazares, a leading scholar of political science at the University of Salamanca, reflects on the deeper ideological and institutional dynamics shaping Argentina’s political transformation in an exclusive interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). Known for his research on ideological structuring and party system dynamics in Latin America, Professor Llamazares situates Milei’s rise within Argentina’s longstanding ideological fault lines—the enduring struggle between Peronist interventionism and neoliberal technocracy.

Professor Llamazares cautions against viewing Milei’s ascent as a structural rupture. “It’s a modification, an intensification,” he explains, “but the underlying structure is still there.” In his view, Mauricio Macri’s victory in 2015 marked a more significant political realignment, introducing a coherent center-right, pro-business coalition that shifted the ideological balance of Argentine politics. Milei, he argues, has merely intensified this trajectory, infusing it with “a new rhetoric, a new style,” and a libertarian flair.

While comparisons to Bolsonaro and Fujimori are unavoidable, Professor Llamazares stresses the limits of authoritarianism in Argentina. “Authoritarianism is very weak… even the authoritarian project itself must be very weak,”he observes. This weakness, he suggests, is rooted in Argentina’s deeply democratic popular culture, shaped by the trauma of the last dictatorship and the political learning processes that culminated in the country’s 1983 democratic restoration. Unlike Bolsonaro, Milei “hasn’t taken significant steps toward building authoritarian institutions.”

At the same time, Professor Llamazares acknowledges that Milei represents “an extreme illustration” of a global populist trend that merges moral populism, economic deregulation, and cultural grievance. Yet, he underscores that many aspects of Milei’s project are “very typically Argentine,” reflecting specific socio-economic tensions—between export-oriented elites and protectionist sectors, between dollarization and social protection, and between a cosmopolitan upper class and the working poor.

Ultimately, Professor Llamazares interprets Milei’s moment not as a new ideological paradigm, but as a cyclical populist insurgency within Argentina’s enduring political structure. “Milei represents something new in style,” he concludes, but the deeper ideological foundations of Argentine politics remain intact.

Here is the edited transcript of our interview with Professor Ivan Llamazares, slightly revised for clarity and flow.

Milei’s Victory Reflects Fear, Not Consensus

Javier Milei casts his vote in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on November 19, 2023. Photo: Fabian Alberto De Ciria.

Professor Ivan Llamazares, thank you very much for joining our interview series. Let me start right away with the first question: How would you interpret Javier Milei’s midterm victory in light of Argentina’s ongoing economic downturn, corruption scandals, and record-low voter turnout? What does this outcome reveal about the contemporary resonance and adaptability of right-wing populist discourse within contexts of socioeconomic precarity and institutional distrust?

Professor Ivan Llamazares: It’s a very complex issue; there are many interconnected themes, but one has to interpret this victory in the context of Argentina’s economic and political situation and the dynamics of the last decade. First of all, there is an ongoing and deep division in Argentine society in terms of economic and political projects. On the one hand, we have Peronism and Kirchnerism as a particular and dominant current with internal divisions, and on the other hand, a more market-oriented, right-wing approach that focuses on control, authority policies, favoring market mechanisms, integrating the Argentine economy into the world, less protectionism, and so on. This has been the structural basis of Argentine politics over at least the last decade.

Then there is also the current economic situation. All the problems you mentioned are very acute and very important. In fact, they also led to the defeat of Milei’s party in the Buenos Aires elections a few weeks ago. But, on the other hand, there is also fear—particularly among those sectors that endorse a more liberal economic project. There was fear that the defeat of Milei would entail economic collapse, devaluation, and an uncertain political scenario that could even lead to his removal.

That helps explain the solidification of the coalition in favor of Milei. He received 40% of the vote—40% of the 68% of people who voted—so, in total, it’s probably less than 30% of all eligible voters, about 29% of Argentine society. It’s a majority of votes, but that’s the basic picture. There are, of course, other elements. That doesn’t mean, by the way, that everyone in this coalition is happy about Milei, or likes or trusts him, but they may have preferred the continuation of his project to the uncertainties that would follow his defeat. These, in my view, are the basic elements.

Trump’s Support Boosted Milei’s Momentum, But Interests May Diverge

To what extent might Milei’s electoral resilience be contingent upon exogenous political and financial scaffolding, particularly from Donald Trump and the US Treasury? Could this episode signify the emergence of a transnational populist alliance that fuses neoliberal governance with nationalist rhetoric across hemispheres?

Professor Ivan Llamazares: The answer to the first question is “yes”—it has helped Milei very clearly. It has moved him to the upper bound of the survey projections. It is also clear that the situation of the peso, the chances of devaluation, and so on, improved over the last week due to these commitments by the Trump administration. So it has helped. I don’t know exactly how much, but it must have helped reassure people who perhaps had some doubts yet wanted to avoid the victory of Peronism, and they must have thought ‘at least we have the support of the US, which is the major economic player, and that means the project can continue in this way for a time’. So I think it has been important.

In terms of the alliance, I am not so sure. Of course, there are some ideological, personal, and political affinities—they are close to each other in some respects. But I’m not sure this is going to be so important in the future, in the sense that there are the interests of the US government and the interests of the Argentine government. The Argentine government is dependent, of course, on the US government, not the other way around. But in a situation where US policymakers make a different evaluation in terms of their calculations, they can change. Also, in this case, people refer to ideological proximity, but there are also some economic interests that may have played a role in this support. People close to the Trump political coalition, to the Trump government, also had some interests at stake in the devaluation, investments, and so on. So I would expect some connections and affinities, but I wouldn’t overemphasize them. Each government has its own interests, for sure.

The US Rescue Deepens Argentina’s Ideological Polarization

The US-engineered bailout has been widely interpreted as politically instrumental rather than economically rational. How do such interventions reconfigure Argentine imaginaries of sovereignty, dependency, and anti-elitism, which have long underpinned populist mobilizations from Peronism to Milei’s “anarcho-capitalism”?

Professor Ivan Llamazares: This is complex. On the one hand, this basically reinforces the interpretations that both Peronists and anti-Peronists have about the economic world. In the case of people who are pro-market, export-oriented, and anti-protectionist, who want to integrate the Argentine economy into global capitalism, this confirms that it is better to be associated with the major economic powers of the world, with the US market. So, it works well in that respect.

With regard to the ideological core of Kirchnerism and Peronism, in the same way, this shows that the Argentine government—this anti-Kirchnerist, anti-Peronist government—is just a puppet of international capitalism. So it doesn’t defend the Argentine economy or Argentine society, and it puts Argentina in a situation of total dependency. In fact, they could make the point, and it was a strong one, that this government has increased Argentina’s debt and that we will not be able to pay it. This is just short-term reassurance, but in the end, we face huge problems. We are in a mess.

So, in that sense, it reinforces everything. Perhaps, for people who are doubtful, this is somewhat favorable toward the right because, in this case, they have saved us. Perhaps there are some advantages in being close to these people. And that may be a little similar to the Menem situation. Menem changed Peronist policies, adopted a strategy of being very close to the United States, to international markets, privatization, and so on, and for a while, it worked. Menem won the 1995 elections. So, it works well in terms of Argentine narratives. One has to wait until the end to see how this finishes. Let’s see what happens in a year and a half—what will be the situation of the peso, the economy, whether it will be in recession or not.

Milei Won the Election, but Not ‘the People’

Given the severe austerity measures, deep welfare retrenchment, and widening inequality, how do you account for Milei’s capacity to sustain an affective and symbolic identification with “el pueblo” while advancing a project grounded in radical market orthodoxy?

Professor Ivan Llamazares: He has been successful in solidifying his coalition in order to win against the Peronists and other contenders. I don’t think this means he can portray himself as the leader and representative of a unified Argentine people. I don’t think that is possible. I think the anti-elite populist discourse had more credibility in the presidential elections, to some extent. But right now, the situation is clear. He represents a social coalition that is more middle class. If you look at the electoral results by municipality, he has performed much better in districts where income is higher than in those where income is lower, in contrast to Peronism. He has won, but the idea that “I represent the people, and Peronism represents the elite” cannot work very well right now.

Peronism is weak, but it represents many people—poor people, working-class people, those who have informal jobs, and so on. So I don’t think it works very well in terms of political rhetoric. It worked fine to win the election, but the idea of casta or anti-elite discourse doesn’t work so well right now, actually.

A New Rhetoric, not a New Structure

Crowd of protesters during the cacerolazos—the pots and pans demonstrations—against President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on November 8, 2012. Photo: Dreamstime.

In your earlier work on ideological dimensions and spatial models of Latin American politics, you emphasized the structuring role of ideology in mediating citizen preferences. How does Milei’s “anarcho-capitalist” imaginary, with its libertarian anti-statism and anti-political moralism, reconfigure Argentina’s traditional ideological continuum between Peronist interventionism and neoliberal technocracy?

Professor Ivan Llamazares: What he represents is rooted in the existing structure of ideological and programmatic confrontation. He’s not departing from it; he’s transforming it slightly—rhetorically and in terms of the social coalition. But he draws his strength from this division. In that sense, I don’t think he’s a radical transformer. He hasn’t changed the parameters of these conflicts, which have a long history in Argentina and became particularly solidified under the Kirchner governments—both Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.

He hasn’t altered that dynamic drastically; rather, he has given it a new flavor, emphasizing the freedom associated with the market. He has managed to appeal to young people outside formal markets—self-employed workers, young males. But he hasn’t changed the ideological structuring of the Argentine party system. That’s my impression. In a way, he has intensified everything.

This could also be seen, in a similar way, in the election that Macri won. But Macri had a more moderate profile and was more of an establishment politician or leader. Milei is disruptive, but this also has to do with the depth of the Argentine crisis and the depth of Argentina’s conflicts.

Not a Break, but an Escalation of Neoliberal Populism

Can Milei’s experiment be analytically classified as a form of “neoliberal populism,” or do its discursive, moral, and performative elements constitute a qualitatively distinct libertarian-populist hybridity that challenges conventional typologies of populist economics?

Professor Ivan Llamazares: He fits under the first label, but with a new level of intensity and new rhetorical devices. Clearly, it’s pro-market, pro–export-oriented, and neoliberal in an extreme way, with rhetoric that is much more radical. I don’t think he departs from that, but he gives it a libertarian flavor and a highly ideological tone. He draws on obscure economic theoreticians from the Austrian school, speaks in a vulgar way, is rude and disrespectful, and does not represent the elites—the cultural elites—in that sense.

However, he remains rooted in the same neoliberal populist approach. In some respects, he’s also close to Bolsonaro. So I don’t think it’s a total break with the past. By the way, this trend began before Milei, as during the Néstor Kirchner period there were already segments of the Argentine right clearly moving in this direction.

Global Resonance, Local Specificity: Milei’s Unique Populism

How does the Milei-Trump ideological affinity, which is a fusion of moral populism, economic deregulation, and cultural grievance, reflect broader transformations in the grammar of global right-wing populism, particularly its capacity to reconcile anti-establishment rhetoric with financial globalization?

Professor Ivan Llamazares: He represents this trend in a way; he’s an extreme illustration of it—very powerful in rhetorical terms, for instance. Milei embodies something clear and substantive in international terms. I also have the impression that some of these characteristics are very specific to Argentina. I don’t think this ultra-liberal, pro–financial markets, pro–export-oriented, pro-dollarization approach works as well for the radical right in other contexts. I don’t expect or see anything similar when we look at France, Italy, or Germany and when we focus on the radical right.

In some respects, he reflects a distinctly Argentine situation—for instance, the tension between export-oriented and social protection models, the importance of the dollarization process, and the fact that Argentina is an economy where many Argentines hold billions of dollars and have different concerns. There is also the need for the Argentine upper and upper-middle classes to remain strongly connected to international economic markets in different ways—financially and through exports. That’s very Argentinian.

Some elements are similar—pro-market attitudes, certain liberal ideas, anti-elitism, anti-left sentiment, an emphasis on social order, work ethic, discipline, crime and punishment, and punitive policies. But in terms of economic globalization—anti-tax sentiment, by the way, strongly anti-tax—in this respect, many aspects are very typically Argentine.

A Divided Peronism Searching for Renewal

Large crowds march nationwide in defense of public universities and state education in Argentina — one of the largest demonstrations of President Javier Milei’s government, with attendance estimates ranging from 100,000 to 500,000. The building with the image of Eva Perón can be seen in the background in Buenos Aires on April 23, 2024. Photo: Dreamstime.

Peronism has historically embodied a polyvalent synthesis of populism, nationalism, and social justice. How is the Peronist opposition reconstructing its ideological and discursive identity in the face of Milei’s anti-Peronist moral crusade and his attempt to redefine “the people” as entrepreneurial individuals rather than collective actors?

Professor Ivan Llamazares: A good question. First of all, one has to say that Peronism is in the process of reconstruction. It is deeply divided, and there is no clear national leadership. On the one hand, we have Cristina Fernández de Kirchner; on the other, other possible leaders, in particular Axel Kicillof, the governor of the province of Buenos Aires. And there might be other figures within Argentine Peronism who could move in different directions because Peronism is a very plastic, very flexible political creature. So, we don’t know exactly how it is going to evolve over the next couple of years. It’s clear that it has to change.

Historically, it has been the dominant force in Argentine politics, and it has now suffered a very humiliating defeat. The analysis of why this has happened is very complex. I would say that they will have to stick to the idea of social justice and reject many elements of the Milei platform. They don’t have alternatives in that respect. Otherwise, they will lose their reason for being, because if they are going to defend entrepreneurship and individual economic freedom, for that purpose people already have Macri, Milei, PRO, Libertad Avanza, and others. That is not possible.

They also have to appeal to trade unionists, organized labor, and new social sectors that are now more Peronist than in the past—or to sectors that are close to some elements of the Peronist platform, such as people who work at universities. So, they cannot change dramatically, but they must find a new balance, for sure. And that doesn’t mean that, when the situation is ripe, they won’t win. They could easily win future elections.

It depends on Milei’s economic performance, but it’s also true that they must find an economic platform to make national policy—and that is very difficult. Alberto Fernández totally failed. He was divided between different currents and tendencies and didn’t find an economic balance. It is possible that someone more pragmatic—let’s think, for instance, of Sergio Massa—someone very pragmatic, who might even be close to the center-right in some respects, could eventually win. This person could maintain some elements of Peronism but move in a more orthodox direction. That is possible.

But one must also keep in mind that Argentine economics and politics are highly volatile. We have many experiences of very drastic changes, and Peronism has the structure and the network to build something new on that basis.

Authoritarianism Is Weak in Argentina’s Political DNA

In comparative perspective, do you discern substantive parallels between Milei’s “chainsaw politics” and other neoliberal-populist experiments in Latin America—such as Fujimori’s authoritarian neoliberalism or Bolsonaro’s reactionary anti-globalism? How do Argentina’s institutional legacies and socio-political cleavages inflect these trajectories?

Professor Ivan Llamazares: There are some shared elements, for instance with Bolsonaro, in terms of rhetoric and economic direction. They clearly share certain themes—also with Fujimori, in his attempts to reshape the Peruvian economic framework and redefine the role of the state. On the other hand, there are important differences.

One of them is that authoritarianism in Argentina—and this is just an intuition, as there is not enough empirical evidence to confirm it definitively—is very weak. I would say so. Even the authoritarian project itself must be very weak. In fact, despite all the excesses, problems, and exaggerations, Milei hasn’t taken significant steps toward building authoritarian institutions.

That may have to do with Argentine popular culture, which is deeply democratic. It may also stem from the intensity of the trauma of the last authoritarian experience—the violence, the suffering, and the learning processes that led Argentine society to bid farewell to authoritarianism in 1983. It could also be related to the characteristics of Argentine civil and political society.

So, I don’t think an authoritarian transformation is taking place right now, and I don’t think it’s very likely. Bolsonaro attempted to do this; he failed. He failed, but at least he tried. I don’t imagine Milei doing the same. I’m not sure if he’s powerful enough, structurally speaking, within the broader right. The argument could be made that some social and economic sectors are using him, but they are not very strongly connected to him. The Argentine right is plural—there are other actors operating there—so I don’t see this happening.

A Cyclical Insurgency, Not a Structural Rupture

Inauguration ceremony of President Javier Milei at the National Congress in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on December 10, 2023. Photo: Fabian Alberto De Ciria.

Based on your long-standing research on party system dynamics and ideological structuring in Latin America, does Milei’s ascent represent a critical juncture in Argentina’s cleavage structure—a durable reconfiguration of the left–right and populist–technocratic axes—or rather a cyclical populist insurgency within an enduring Peronist framework?

Professor Ivan Llamazares: I would go for the second interpretation. It’s a modification, an intensification—there are significant changes—but the underlying structure remains the same. In that respect, my impression is that Macri’s victory was more important. Until Macri, you had the Peronists and the Radicals—Alfonsín, a Radical; then the Peronists; then Menem; then De la Rúa, who was a Radical, although he led a broad and plural coalition—and then again, the Peronists. With Macri, you had the emergence of a center-right coalition. It was not Radicalism; it was a new actor, one that was very strongly pro-business, pro-market, and so on.

So, Macri brought about a more important and enduring change, and Milei has intensified this in a way—with a new rhetoric, a new style, representing something different. But the structure of pro-market, pro–export-oriented versus protectionist, social-expenditure-driven, inflationary policies represented by Peronism remains in place. I don’t think that has changed.

Populist Style Loses Credibility Once in Office

How might we interpret the performative and aesthetic dimensions of Milei’s leadership, such as his rock-star persona, symbolic aggression, and social media theatrics, as mechanisms of discursive populist construction, mobilizing affective resonance in a post-institutional political environment?

Professor Ivan Llamazares: They are mechanisms—populist elements, populist styles—and shifts in that direction. I have no doubt about it. These elements are more powerful and usually more effective for politicians who are outside of power. They made much more sense and were more impactful in electoral terms when Milei was an outsider contending for the presidency.

Right now, I doubt that they contribute much to his success. The credibility of these elements tends to erode once a president has been in office for three or four years. So, I don’t think this will add much in the next presidential elections. He represents a different style, but it is not as credible. Now the economic alternatives are clear, and that’s what led to Milei’s triumph—not so much that he gave a concert saying, “I’m the Lion,” and so on. That’s my impression.

And who knows—perhaps in two years we will have a Peronist with a very disruptive style. It’s possible. By the way, in Argentine politics, Peronists are often disruptive in style, while the right and the Radicals tend to be more established figures. Milei has changed that, but Menem was also a disruptor—someone who represented something new in terms of style. Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was as well, in the way she spoke and mobilized. Eva Perón, too, in the past. Peronism has a long tradition in that respect, and it is interesting that Milei has taken it and transformed it in a different way, of course.

Peronism Will Likely Re-Emerge as Argentina’s Next Political Force

Murals of Eva Perón and Juan Domingo Perón in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on October 30, 2016. Photo: Dreamstime.

And the final question is: looking forward, do you foresee a durable transformation of Argentina’s political field toward a libertarian-populist realignment, or will economic contradictions, institutional inertia, and popular backlash catalyze the re-emergence of a renewed progressive or Peronist counter-populism capable of reclaiming “the people” from the right?

Professor Ivan Llamazares: A very ambitious question. We cannot predict the future, for sure. Many things can happen. We could also imagine that Milei is successful—it’s a possibility—that the macroeconomy begins to work in a Chilean way in the future. That’s a possibility. We don’t know.

But if I had to make a bet, I would say that this libertarian coalition will also face strong economic problems. I’m saying that not on the basis of any future anticipation, but on the basis of previous experiences. This might be wrong, but recent experiences since the 1970s suggest that it is very difficult for such complex economic and social systems to function smoothly. That’s why Argentine economists say it is very difficult to find a virtuous balance—a virtuous cycle—in Argentine economics, and that sooner or later governments face imbalances and bottlenecks that lead to reconfigurations.

So, I would expect—though I’m not sure if in two years or in four years—a crucial change, an oscillation. And I would assume that Peronism will play a key role in that change, that it will be able to lead a different coalition, and that coalition will have to represent something quite distinct from Milei’s policies. Will they, in the end, pursue the same policies as Cristina Fernández de Kirchner or Néstor Kirchner? Probably not. They would probably have to find a different policy. But I would expect a change in the next two to four years in Argentina’s economic policy.

Photo: Dreamstime.

What Is the Ideology That Has Attained Social Hegemony? Let Us Call It Simply “Nativism”

by with No Comment CommentariesEditor’s ChoiceEuropean ObservatoryHomeMigration

In this thought-provoking commentary, Dr. João Ferreira Dias argues that the dominant ideology underpinning contemporary right-wing movements is not populism or illiberalism, but nativism—a worldview centered on defending the “native” population against perceived external and internal threats. Drawing on theorists such as Cas Mudde, Ernesto Laclau, and Fareed Zakaria, Dr. Dias shows that while populism offers the form of political antagonism (“the people” versus “the elites”), nativism provides its substance: the protection of cultural and demographic identity against globalization and multiculturalism. Dr. Dias concludes that nativism’s emotional and existential appeal—rooted in fear of the “other” and longing for cultural homogeneity—has achieved social hegemony across much of the West.

By João Ferreira Dias

We often speak of populism, the radical right, or illiberalism. Yet, to truly understand the rise and entrenchment of the contemporary right, we may need to shift our analytical lens toward nativism. What unites right-wing populist leaders with individuals such as Mr. Armando, the bakery owner; Ms. Aurora, a civil servant; Uncle Venâncio, a retiree; or José Maria, a private school student, is not a coherent philosophical conception of the state. It is something more elemental and psychological: the belief that globalization and multiculturalism—especially in the form of immigration—are dismantling national identities.

When radical right-wing populism first emerged, it proved difficult to classify. While it drew from the Nouvelle Droite (Taguieff, 1993), it also contained a performative, mobilizing dimension, and a radicalism based on the division of society into “us” and “them.”

Cas Mudde (2007), a leading scholar in the field, defined this populism as a “thin-centered ideology,” rooted in the binary logic of “the pure people” versus “the corrupt elites.” Ernesto Laclau (2005), in contrast, identified populism as a political logic—a way of constructing the political—rather than a specific ideological content.

Generally, the radical right populism of recent decades rests on a threefold structure: (i) the moral division between the “pure people” and the “corrupt elites”; (ii) the defense of national identity against multiculturalism; and (iii) the combat against the political left, viewed as conspiring against Western values and the traditional family.

From a governmentality perspective, Fareed Zakaria (1997) introduced the concept of “illiberal democracy” to describe regimes that maintain electoral institutions while eroding liberal principles: consolidating power in a charismatic executive, weakening checks and balances, politicizing the judiciary, and overriding constitutional limits in the name of majority will.

However, illiberalism, in my view, is either inextricably tied to the radical right, or it remains conceptually ambiguous. In fact, the radical left also exhibits illiberal tendencies—engaging in practices such as censorship or moral cancellation—but in favor of minorities and a coercive form of progressive social purification, rather than a majoritarian ethos. This suggests that illiberalism is not exclusive to the right, nor is it sufficient to describe its ideological nucleus.

The term nativism, although first used in 19th-century America to describe anti-immigration movements such as the Know Nothings or the Ku Klux Klan, reemerged in modern academic discourse in the 1950s, particularly through John Higham’s Strangers in the Land (1955). In that work, Higham captures the sense of alienation experienced by native populations facing rapid demographic and cultural transformation.

In the 1990s, as scholarly attention to populism intensified, Paul Taggart and Hans-Georg Betz argued that modern right-wing populism was characterized by a fusion of three elements: populism, nativism, and authoritarianism (Betz, 1994; Taggart, 2000). In the following decade, Cas Mudde (2007) identified nativism as the core ideology of these parties, and populism as their political form. Later refinements clarified this conceptual division: populism provides the structure—the antagonism between “the people” and “the elites”—while nativism offers the content, namely the opposition between natives and foreigners (Mudde & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2017).

This clarification substantiates the central argument of this essay: that nativism should be analyzed as an ideology. Let us consider why.

First, the populist discourse of “us” versus “them” is not exclusive to the radical right. It is equally present on the radical left, which often constructs a similar dichotomy between “the people” and “the elites,” or between the “majority” and “minorities.” The difference lies in the subject being defended and the identity politics at play, rather than in the structure of the discourse.

Second, the radical right is not uniformly illiberal. It exhibits significant internal variation. Many such parties and movements are illiberal with respect to morality—advocating traditionalist or exclusionary cultural values—while remaining economically liberal. Others, though equally illiberal in terms of cultural values (a sine qua non), adopt statist economic models, defending welfare policies but restricting their benefits to the native population. Thus, illiberalism is not a constant across the radical right, but nativism is. It constitutes the shared ideological foundation that allows for otherwise divergent policy positions.

This is why it may be more accurate and analytically fruitful to define these movements simply as nativist, and their ideology as nativism. This classification applies to both political elites and voters alike.

At its core, the ideology’s resonance lies in the perceived demographic threat, most radically articulated in Renaud Camus’ “Great Replacement” theory. This idea has circulated widely, in varying intensities and local adaptations, across Western societies. As native populations decline demographically—due to lower birth rates—and immigration brings culturally distinct newcomers, a so-called “perfect demographic storm” is formed: the “demographic winter” of the native population collides with the “demographic summer” of incoming groups.

The result is a growing sense of existential threat, particularly toward Muslim immigrants, who are seen as both culturally incompatible and demographically ascendant. This sense of threat fuels resentment toward multiculturalism and the progressive left, which is often held responsible for promoting it. What emerges is a feeling of estrangement in one’s own homeland—a central affective dimension of modern nativism.

In sum, the ideology that has achieved social hegemony in many Western societies today is best understood not as populism or illiberalism, but as nativism: a worldview centered on the defense of the native population’s perceived interests, identity, and territorial integrity. Those who support nativist movements are not primarily mobilized by economic platforms, but by a profound distrust of the “other.” This “other” is not necessarily blamed for stealing jobs, but for competing for scarce welfare resources—access to schools, healthcare, housing—or even for altering the cultural landscape of spaces that once symbolized familiarity and social cohesion.

Biology reminds us that the presence of the “other” is often the most basic trigger in the formation of the “we.” Thus, what we are witnessing is not merely populism or illiberalism, but nativism at its core—an instinctive social reaction which, when politicized, seeks to defend what is perceived as the homeland (the nation) and protect those considered its rightful heirs.

 

References

Betz, H.-G. (1994). Radical Right-Wing Populism in Western Europe. Palgrave Macmillan.

Higham, J. (1955). Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860–1925. Rutgers University Press.

Laclau, E. (2005). On Populist Reason. Verso.

Mudde, C. (2007). Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe. Cambridge University Press.

Mudde, C., & Rovira Kaltwasser, C. (2017). Populism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press.

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

Taguieff, P. A. (1993). Origines et métamorphoses de la nouvelle droite. Vingtieme siecle. Revue d’histoire, 3-22.

Zakaria, F. (1997). The Rise of Illiberal Democracy. Foreign Affairs, 76(6), 22–43.

Professor Sean Wilentz is one of America’s most prominent historians and the George Henry Davis 1886 Professor of American History at Princeton University.

Professor Wilentz: We’re No Longer Living in a Truly Democratic Regime & the Rule of Law in the US

by with No Comment Editor’s ChoiceHomeInterviews

In an in-depth and sobering interview with the ECPS, Princeton historian Professor Sean Wilentz warns that the United States has moved “beyond a constitutional crisis” into a state of “constitutional failure.” He argues that the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling has “turned the presidency into a potential hotbed of criminality,” effectively dismantling the rule of law. “We’re no longer living in a truly democratic regime,” he cautions. Linking America’s democratic decline to a “highly coordinated global problem emanating from Moscow,” Professor Wilentz calls for a “democracy international” to counter what he terms a “tyranny international.” Despite his grim assessment, he expresses cautious faith that “most Americans will vindicate America itself” before it is too late.

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

In a sobering and wide-ranging interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Professor Sean Wilentz, one of America’s most prominent historians and the George Henry Davis 1886 Professor of American History at Princeton University, delivers a stark assessment of the United States’ political trajectory under Donald Trump’s renewed presidency. “We’re no longer living in a truly democratic regime,” he warns, adding that “we’re no longer living under the rule of law, that’s for sure.”

Tracing the roots of this democratic unraveling, Professor Wilentz argues that the United States has moved beyond a constitutional crisis into what he calls “constitutional failure.” In his words, “The Constitution has failed to withstand the attacks upon it that are undermining certain basic American values and basic American rights.” At the center of this failure, he identifies the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling—an “extraordinary” and “completely invented”doctrine that grants the president near-total impunity for acts committed in office. The decision, he contends, “fundamentally changed the character of the federal government,” turning the presidency “into a potential hotbed of criminality.”

For Professor Wilentz, this crisis is not merely legal or institutional but global in scope. He situates America’s democratic backsliding within a “highly coordinated global problem” emanating from Moscow. “You lift the lid and you see Putin’s influence everywhere—whether it’s Marine Le Pen or others, there he is. And certainly in the case of Trump… there are strong intimations that this is what’s happening.” He describes this network as a “tyranny international”—a transnational front of illiberal collaboration linking figures like Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orbán, and Donald Trump. To counter it, Professor Wilentz calls for a “democracy international” built on solidarity among democratic societies: “We can no longer afford to be divided… We have to think of this as something like an NGO, perhaps—a movement, an expression of something we’ve never needed before, but now, we truly do.”

Throughout the interview, Professor Wilentz situates Trumpism within a long American tradition of minority rule and reactionary politics, connecting today’s populist-authoritarian coalition to the legacies of Reconstruction’s overthrow and the racialized backlash against the Voting Rights Act. Yet, he also stresses the unprecedented nature of the current moment: “What we’re seeing today is unparalleled in American history… the authoritarians, the reactionaries, have actually taken power and are holding it.”

Still, despite his grim diagnosis, Professor Wilentz insists on retaining a measure of faith in the endurance of democratic habits. “It’s an enormous test,” he concedes, “but I still believe most Americans will vindicate America itself.”

This interview stands as one of the most forceful scholarly warnings yet about the erosion of democracy in the United States—and the urgent need for a coordinated, global democratic response.

Here is the edited transcript of our interview with Professor Sean Wilentz, slightly revised for clarity and flow.

What We’re Seeing Today Is Unparalleled in American History

Model of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment (First Black Regiment) Civil War Monument by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, dedicated in 1847. National Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Photo: William Perry.

Professor Sean Wilentz, thank you very much for joining our interview series. Let’s start right away with the first question: As a historian of American democracy who has closely tracked the Trump presidency, how do you assess the current political moment in the United States—particularly the resurgence of Trumpism in 2025—within a broader global pattern of populist and authoritarian movements? What parallels or divergences do you observe between the American case and the democratic backsliding seen elsewhere?

Professor Sean Wilentz: That’s a very good question. First of all, as an American historian, as well as an American, what we’re seeing today is unparalleled in American history. There’s been nothing like it. The closest comparison you could make is the Confederate secession over slavery that led to the Civil War—which is not, of course, a happy example or a happy parallel. But it’s also different, because here you don’t see a secession; you see the authoritarians, the reactionaries, actually taking power and holding it. They don’t have to secede to get it.

And yes, it’s frightening. There are certain direct connections to what’s going on in Europe. Some of the people who have been most instrumental in pushing the authoritarian aspect of this have had very close connections with Viktor Orbán in Hungary—actually spending time in Budapest learning how to transform a country into a kind of authoritarian regime, much like what we’re seeing Trump try to do here, and in many ways succeeding.

What strikes me most is how rapidly this has all occurred. It’s true that Trump had his first administration, which was then interrupted by the Biden interregnum. Nevertheless, since January (2025), it’s been stunning how quickly he has gone about dismantling basic American institutions and the rule of law—with the aid of the Supreme Court of the United States as well.

I can’t think of anything comparable, apart from the generalized populist wave you mentioned—a kind of revolutionary current running through the West. It’s present in every country to some degree. Nevertheless, the United States is different, and it’s happening here with remarkable speed. Because of America’s unique place in the world, that makes it all the more frightening for everyone else.

Trump Has Brought Violence to the Very Center of His Political Machinery

Donald Trump at rally in support of Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach who is the Republican candidate for governor in Topeka Kansas, USA on October 6, 2018. Photo: Mark Reinstein

In your recent comments, you warned that Trump and his circle act as though “provoking and inflicting violence” are integral to their politics. How do you interpret this in light of your historical understanding of political violence as a state and populist strategy in the US?

Professor Sean Wilentz: I mean violence has always been at the forefront of American life and American politics. The best example I can think of is what happened in the 19th century, when the Union had won the Civil War and slavery was abolished. There were efforts to adjust the political system—particularly in the South—to the reality of freedom for the formerly enslaved. A period called Reconstruction was entered into, which was a kind of revolution in American democracy, expanding its possibilities to include people who had been enslaved.

That effort was undone. It was overthrown, and it was overthrown violently by groups—you may know some of the names. The Ku Klux Klan is the most famous of them—but they used violence strategically, in concert with political leaders. It wasn’t just the hoi polloi out there burning crosses and attacking people. It was very much coordinated with political elites. Violence was at the forefront of it, and without it, the effort to destroy Reconstruction would not have succeeded.

Now, we’re not seeing the same kind of systematic violence, but there’s a great deal of it—and it’s mostly being deployed by the government itself. It’s the unleashing of agencies like ICE—the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency—which has been rounding up people on the streets. It’s the presence of national troops, the National Guard, in American cities, which in itself is an act of violence just to have them there. It creates the atmosphere, the feel, of martial law—and that is what the administration is trying to encourage or build up.

So yes, violence is very much present. The climate of opinion is completely permeated by this atmosphere of violence and potential violence, almost all of it coming from the government itself. There was the assassination of Charlie Kirk, which was a very strange episode—because who knows exactly who did it. It doesn’t seem to have been particularly politically motivated, but that, of course, becomes a means for the administration to turn him into a martyr right away—a martyr for their own cause—and to use that as a pretext to further suppress, or threaten to suppress, the opposition in all kinds of ways. So that’s violence of a different kind, but it nevertheless lies at the heart of what’s going on right now. They’ve brought it to the very center of their political machinery.

The Court’s Immunity Ruling Paved the Way for Authoritarian Rule

Your essay “The ‘Dred Scott’ of Our Time” draws parallels between the current Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision and the 1857 Dred Scott case. Could you expand on how this analogy helps us understand the Court’s transformation of constitutional meaning in the Trump era?

Professor Sean Wilentz: Just to fill in, the Dred Scott decision of 1857 was a very important one in American history—perhaps the most important until now, or at least the most notorious. The then–Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Roger Taney, wrote a decision in which he basically said that the government could do nothing to prevent the spread of slavery into the territories of the United States, that slaves were property according to the Constitution, and then went on to declare that Black people had no rights which white people were bound to respect.

It was a notorious decision because it was—ironically—based on the method we now associate with so-called originalism: going back to the framers of the Constitution, interpreting what they said and meant, and then coming up with your own, essentially distorted, idea of their intentions. That was certainly the case with Roger Taney, and it played a fundamental role in hastening the coming of the American Civil War.

So that’s why it was so notorious. Now, what we see in the current Court is somewhat different. It’s interesting—they claim to be originalists, much as Roger Taney was an originalist, which is a kind of bogus judicial theory. But what they have done is to give the president absolute immunity from criminal action for anything he does in office, so long as he can describe it as an official act.

That, in many ways, is a more dangerous decision than Dred Scott, because it grants the president extraordinary power to do all the kinds of things that Trump is doing now. The decision was just as threadbare, just as weak, just as poorly reasoned as Taney’s ruling. But unlike Taney’s decision, it simply invented things—there is no constitutional basis whatsoever for that immunity ruling.

They simply asserted the need for presidential authority and did so in such a sweeping way that it has paved the way for what we’re seeing now. I liken the two because both were dramatic decisions that changed the character of the political situation—decisions that, in the first case, led to Civil War, and in the second, I hope will not, but that have nonetheless had a comparably destabilizing effect.

Both are, to put it plainly, intellectually barren and corrupt—beneath contempt, really—for anyone who studies these matters seriously as a question of law. And the fact that the Supreme Court has gotten away with this is another example of what we’re up against, because it’s not simply coming from the White House—it’s also coming from the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, from a supine Congress and a complicit Supreme Court.

What We’re Seeing Is Not a Crisis but a Constitutional Collapse

The US Supreme Court building at dusk, Washington, DC. Photo: Gary Blakeley.

You have described the immunity rulings and the Supreme Court’s handling of the Fourteenth Amendment as “a historic abdication,” arguing in “The Constitution Turned Upside Down” and “A Historic Abdication” that the Court has effectively inverted the amendment’s logic. Do you believe this moment represents a constitutional breaking point—or a severe but reversible deviation—and what does this inversion reveal about the evolving relationship between federalism, judicial power, and democratic accountability?

Professor Sean Wilentz: I’m a historian and I don’t want to predict, but there’s no question that this is a fundamental break with what constitutional precedent has been. And it’s kind of draped around a particular theory, which is not originalism, which was there before, but this idea of the unitary executive. The unitary executive is another kind of right-wing, fake philosophical or judicial principle, which says that basically the president can do whatever he wants in administering the executive branch, including interfering with agencies that have been established by Congress, not by the executive, to administer the laws that Congress has passed and the president has signed.

This is, again, another break from what has been present in the United States for centuries. This is something completely novel, and it’s something extremely destructive. So, to that extent that originalism helped bring us some of the more cockeyed decisions that we’ve seen over the last 20 years even—this theory now has thrown the Constitution up for grabs as to what the Constitution actually means. It no longer has the stability that it had before. Things are very unstable with this Court.

There was another point that I wanted to make regarding the Fourteenth Amendment. The Fourteenth Amendment is a crucial document in American history. It was one of the Reconstruction Amendments—I was earlier talking about the Reconstruction period in American history—that involved the passage of three basic amendments: the abolition of slavery under the Thirteenth Amendment, the guarantee of equal protection under the laws under the Fourteenth Amendment, and then the guarantee of suffrage rights in the Fifteenth Amendment.

The Fourteenth Amendment came up for discussion when the state of Colorado wanted to keep Trump off the ticket in 2024 because he had engaged in insurrection on January 6th. In the aftermath of the Civil War, in the Fourteenth Amendment, there’s a section that said quite explicitly that anyone who had engaged in an insurrection against the government of the United States should be ineligible for any future office, both state and federal.

It couldn’t have been plainer, couldn’t have been clearer. And the fact that Trump had engaged in the insurrection meant that states control election laws—this gets back to the federalism issue. The states control who gets to be on the ballot in their particular state and who doesn’t. It’s not a national decision. Colorado perfectly had the right to do so. The Colorado courts, the Supreme Court, decided that Trump had engaged in insurrection and therefore he was in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The Supreme Court Has Dismantled the Foundation of American Citizenship

What the Supreme Court did was basically gut the Fourteenth Amendment. It came up with this completely—I won’t go into details; it’ll bore your listeners—but a bogus explanation for why the plain language of the Fourteenth Amendment should not be adhered to, and basically let Trump stay on the ballot. It then went even further in basically saying that in order to have anything like this happen, Congress would have to pass a law to enact the amendment into effect. Because Congress had not done so, therefore the amendment was not in effect.

This is an extremely dangerous way of looking at these important amendments, because by that logic, slavery has never actually been abolished in the United States, because Congress never passed a law to enact the Thirteenth Amendment. Now, that’s an extreme way of looking at it, but we’re in extreme times. Let me make that clear to everyone. I don’t think that slavery is about to be brought back to the United States, but nevertheless, the logic of their decision was one where that would have been possible.

So the Constitution—and especially those amendments, the Fourteenth Amendment in particular, which was kind of the linchpin of what one historian has called the “Second Founding”, the post-slavery founding—involved not just the rights of the freed former slaves being protected and expanded, but, more generally, rights being extended to the American people as a whole, because the revolution that got rid of slavery was revolutionizing the entire idea of American citizenship.

Which brings me to my final point, which is that another feature of the Fourteenth Amendment was what we call birthright citizenship, which stated that anyone who was born in the United States is automatically a citizen of the United States. This was a way to protect the rights of the former slaves, to be sure, but it also—and this was explicitly stated by the people who framed this amendment at the time—meant that anyone from around the world, in this asylum of freedom that the United States is supposed to be, who is born here, is actually a citizen here.

The Supreme Court is on the brink of getting rid of that—of nullifying it, or severely modifying it—to say that if you’re here illegally, or you don’t have the proper papers, therefore you’re not a citizen. This is a complete gutting of what the Fourteenth Amendment was all about.

So, in these ways, yes, it’s a constitutional crisis—but it’s beyond a constitutional crisis. We’re now in a case of constitutional failure. The Constitution has failed to withstand the attacks upon it that are undermining certain basic American values and basic American rights.

The Supreme Court Has Turned the Presidency into a Hotbed of Criminality

White House captured from the south side. Photo: Dreamstime.

In your writings on “The Immunity Con,” you suggest that legal arguments for presidential immunity constitute a deliberate distortion of constitutional tradition. How do you assess the intellectual and political origins of this distortion?

Professor Sean Wilentz: Ideological zealotry and a kind of—I don’t want to say corruption in the sense of people being bought off or something—but a kind of intellectual corruption, aimed at creating a different kind of political order. These are the hard-line conservatives on the Court—Justices Thomas and Alito, and to a certain extent, Justice Gorsuch. They hold a very radical view of what the United States ought to look like—a radical, reactionary view—and they are imposing it. They have enough support from the rest of the Court—Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Barrett and Kavanaugh—to prevail. This is something they believe reflects the framers’ intent, but it is, in fact, a fundamental departure from it.

The immunity decision, as I said, is not based on any constitutional principle whatsoever. It’s completely made up—out of thin air—and it has fundamentally changed the character of the federal government. If you have a three-branch government that’s supposed to be based on checks and balances—in other words, the president is not all-powerful; his powers can be checked by Congress and by the Supreme Court, and vice versa—it’s a system very delicately designed to prevent the kind of tyranny and demagoguery we’re seeing now, to ensure that no one can be all-powerful.

They have found a way because they have a supine Congress—a Congress that will never defy the maximum leader, Trump—and a Supreme Court that’s going along with it for its own reasons. So we end up with something like the immunity decision, which gives the president, as I said, virtually complete power—to the extent that, as came up in opening arguments in the case, if the president deemed it an official action to assassinate one of his political rivals, he could not be prosecuted for that crime. That’s extraordinary by any stretch of the imagination in a Western democracy—that you can literally murder your political opponents because you consider it an official act. That’s giving away the ballgame. We’re no longer living in a truly democratic regime. We’re no longer living under the rule of law, that’s for sure. And that’s the power the immunity decision gave to the president.

So, quite apart from even the checks and balances, just in terms of the basic ideas of the rule of law, it’s turned the presidency into a potential hotbed of criminality. And depending on who is in the White House, we’re seeing right now how criminality, if given a chance, can metastasize like a cancer.

The Cultural Roots of Trumpism Run Deep

Do you see Trump’s authoritarian populism as primarily a legal-constitutional threat, or as a deeper sociopolitical phenomenon anchored in culture, identity, and media ecosystems?

Professor Sean Wilentz: It’s both. But the cultural underpinnings of this have been around for a very long time. This is part of the broad sweep of American history—forever, really, but certainly since the 1960s. What some of us think of as the advances of the 1960s was a sort of second Reconstruction, if you will, which sought to undo what had gone wrong the first time around and give Blacks in particular—but not just African Americans—equal rights. This is a reaction against that. And it has to do most fundamentally with the issue of voting—trying to repeal the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which was a great breakthrough, really an extension of the 15th Amendment, to guarantee Black rights. So the sweep was always there. Those cultural and political aspects have been present for a long time. What’s happened now, though, is that what the Trump people—and the people behind Trump—have done is tap into those resentments, seize power with them, and turn it into a constitutional issue.

Now they’re trying to undermine the Constitution. Before, you had plenty of politicians in the Republican Party in particular—the Democrats had other problems—but the Republican Party especially was tapping into these resentments, which showed up in all kinds of ways: in religious politics, in deregulation politics, in attempts to combine what was a traditional conservative agenda—basically pro-business, low taxes, deregulation, breaking down the New Deal, which was our sort of weak version of social democracy—trying to get rid of that. But now it’s become much more radicalized.

Under Trump, that tapping in is the same; it’s just been heightened because Trump is a demagogue unlike anything we’ve ever had before. We had George Wallace from Alabama, a segregationist racist who ran for president and tapped into similar sentiments, but he didn’t succeed. We’ve had difficult presidents, like Richard Nixon, for example, but even Nixon, for all his excesses, still understood the constitutional order in a very different way than Trump does. Trump has no use for the constitutional order at all. What we’ve seen—just to answer your question again—is that these cultural and social forces essential to Trumpism, though present all along, have now been turned into a true constitutional crisis unlike anything we’ve ever seen.

Minority Rule Is Now the GOP’s Central Strategy

In “The Tyranny of the Minority, from Calhoun to Trump,” you trace a lineage of minority rule in American history. How does Trumpism fit within this long tradition of counter-majoritarian politics, from John C. Calhoun’s antebellum theory to the modern GOP?

Professor Sean Wilentz: The modern GOP has been—this is part of what I was saying earlier about the reaction against the Second Reconstruction. The modern Republican Party managed, under Ronald Reagan, to do an extraordinary thing: to create a national majority that swept to power twice in crushing elections in 1980 and 1984. They believed that they had created a political coalition that would last forever and could never be undone. But it did get undone, and as a result, the Republicans launched a process whereby they realized they were not going to be the majority, so they were going to have to do what they could to install minority rule. In other words, a minority was going to have to rule the country—and how do you go about doing that? In all sorts of ways, even before the current Trump regime, the Republicans had been doing their best to make sure that the minority would rule.

They did so in all kinds of ways, but the most fundamental one was to suppress the vote—by getting rid of the provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and using whatever powers were available to them to redistrict. In the United States, each state gets to draw its own districts—its congressional as well as state legislative districts. And these days, with computers, you can draw those lines very precisely, so that even though a majority might, in fact, be against you, you can draw the lines of the congressional districts and so forth to keep the overall minority in power, having an overwhelming majority of congressional representation. It’s less the case with the presidency, because the presidency is elected in a very different way, but there are ways to suppress the vote there as well. For example, requiring voters to provide all sorts of documentation that they are citizens—something that was never necessary before. Ordinarily, in the United States, you sign up to register to vote, and you get to vote. Now, you’re expected to show all kinds of documents that most students, younger people, minorities, and less well-off people—many of whom are Hispanic and Black—don’t have. They don’t have passports, for example. They don’t have the kinds of documents that are now required in order to vote. These laws have been brought in to make it much more difficult for people to vote, so that, quite apart from redistricting, it’s suppressing democracy. It’s anti-democratic.

These are things that the Republicans have been doing for some time. It’s just that now, under Trump, they’ve been magnified and made even more obvious. In the old days, conservatives running for office would never say they were trying to suppress the vote. Trump is absolutely unashamed about it. He says, “We don’t like Democrats. We think Democrats are communists. We think Democrats are not loyal citizens, and we are against them.” And so they’re not going to make any bones about what they’re doing.

The Normalization of Martial Law Threatens the 2026 Elections

National Guard troops on standby during a downtown protest against expanded ICE operations and in support of immigrant rights in Los Angeles, US on June 8, 2025. Photo: Dreamstime.

What’s truly alarming in the wake of what’s happened recently—we have an election coming up in 2026, what we call our midterm elections: not a presidential election, but the entire House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate, the upper house, are up for re-election. In anticipation of that, there’s been all kinds of wild gerrymandering going on—redrawing of districts to boost the Republican vote. But once you start sending the National Guard into American cities under completely phony pretexts—that crime has gotten out of hand, or that there’s some great mob action going on—it’s all lies. But once you’ve sent troops into American cities, you’re normalizing, in effect, martial law—or the precursor to martial law. 

When you think about the fact that an election is coming down the pike in just about a year’s time, you worry about whether this normalization of a military presence in cities is going to be used to try to suppress the vote. Either through the presence of the National Guard in cities—and these are Democratic cities, with large Black populations and liberal white populations—or through the presence of federal or National Guard troops with guns and all of that, as well as ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is rounding up and pulling Hispanic people off the streets and terrorizing them. And you can imagine what they could do in terms of intimidating people from going to the polls. So this goes beyond the more traditional voter suppression that we’ve been used to for a long time and have tried our best to fight. 

This now becomes a military or violent situation—suppressing the vote in a way that’s not unlike what I was talking about earlier with Reconstruction and the use of violence then. The Ku Klux Klan, those hooded vigilantes, were most effective in trying to suppress the vote. They didn’t want newly freed Blacks to vote, and so they would intimidate them in all kinds of ways. That’s voter suppression in the late 1860s and early 1870s. Now we’re seeing it in a different form in 2025. And if Trump goes through with what I fear he’ll go through with, then we will not have an honest election in 2026. One thing about Trump is—almost psychological—you can always assume that whatever he is doing, he’s going to accuse you of doing. So if he’s accusing you of rigging elections, you can be sure that he’s trying to rig an election. If he’s accusing you of voter suppression, you can be sure that he’s intending voter suppression. This is not just a psychological tic; this is, in fact, how he operates in many ways. He does something and then accuses you of having done it. Which makes me all the more nervous. So, these are not happy times. These are gloomy times, for the most part. I don’t want to sound as if we’re hopeless—not at all. Trump is a very unpopular president.

The Republican Party is not very popular. We’re in the middle of a government shutdown now, basically over healthcare, where the Republicans won’t budge on making major cuts to American healthcare provisions. And most Americans are blaming the administration and the Republicans in Congress for that shutdown, which is affecting people—and will affect them more and more. Those are public opinion polls; that’s not power, but it’s an indication of just how unpopular he is.

If Goebbels Had Fox News, He’d Have Been the Happiest Man Alive

Fox News Channel signboard at the News Corporation headquarters in Manhattan, New York City, July 10, 2019. Photo: Dreamstime.

Now, we all know there have been plenty of unpopular regimes that have been very powerful and have done world-historic damage to Europe in particular—but not just to Europe. And you don’t have to have the majority behind you in order to rule. That is quite true. The United States, however, unlike many of the democracies in Europe—if you go back to the 1930s, say, the Weimar Republic was a very new thing, and democracy was not very well rooted—we do have a 250-year history behind us, and these are institutions that he has shown to be much more vulnerable than people thought they were. But there are still—I don’t want to cite de Tocqueville all the time—but we have “habits of the heart,” as he put it. There are ways in which Americans have certain assumptions about what democracy is and ought to be that I still don’t think have been completely wiped out.

It is true, I’m somewhat amazed, for example, to watch Trump tear down part of the White House—a great symbol to Americans of democracy—and do so arrogantly, installing a kind of dictator chic with this gigantic new ballroom he’s building and all the rest of it. It’s an assault on the American Republic, on the aesthetic of the American Republic, on a building we think of as belonging to the people, not to him. To be doing that in symbolic ways is a wrenching experience. However, there’s no crowd outside, no demonstrations. We have these “No Kings” demonstrations every once in a while, but that’s about it. There’s an eerie kind of acceptance of what’s going on, which is also historically reminiscent of things that have happened elsewhere—where either people just don’t believe what they’re watching, what’s before their very eyes, or they don’t see it. 

They also lack historical understanding. In Europe, you have a much clearer sense of history than we do. Americans are always living in the present, and social media doesn’t help in that respect. So we don’t have an instinctual reaction to all of this. But still, nevertheless, I think that when push comes to shove, I hope and expect that the American people will vindicate America itself. And that things have not become so distorted—either by propaganda media, Goebbels-like media. If Goebbels had Fox News, he would have been the happiest man in the world. There’s nothing better than that—television, social media. Can you imagine if he had more than radio, which the Nazis used so effectively in the 1930s? Imagine what they’d have now.

This is all a gigantic obstacle. Nevertheless, I still have the feeling that most Americans are not going to fall for this stuff when push finally comes to shove. How it’s going to be expressed politically is another issue, and that gets into the Democratic Party and other questions, but I’m still kind of hopeful.

We’re No Longer in Normal Politics—That Illusion Must Be Broken

You’ve written that the events of January 6, 2021, were not aberrations but logical outcomes of institutional structures favoring minority rule. How can historians help the public understand that such crises are systemic rather than episodic?

Professor Sean Wilentz: With January 6th, that was a break in many ways, because what you saw was systemic, but it was more the result of the Trump phenomenon—of Trump’s hold over this very violent and very angry segment of the population that has no respect whatsoever for constitutional norms. So I think of January 6th as having echoes in American history, but it was a defiance of everything we’ve thought of. I mean, what president has ever tried to reclaim power after losing an election? Some may have extended their terms or contested results through legal means every once in a while, but one of the aspects of the genius of American politics has always been that there is opposition, but it’s a loyal opposition—that you’re loyal to the Constitution. 

Even if you are disappointed in your own political efforts, you nevertheless respect the Constitution, and your loyalty remains there. You give way with the expectation that, down the line, you’ll be able to defeat your opponent and take power back. That’s not what’s going on here. The insurrection in 2021 was an indication of how different this was from anything we’ve seen before. So, for a historian, it’s more a question of marking the difference than looking for some sort of similarity or institutional basis for what’s going on here. There is no institution. The norms are broken at every step. The courts were actually completely against what Trump was trying to do, which was to steal an election. Again, it goes back to this: he accuses you of stealing an election because he’s stealing an election.

Yes, it’s different. But the aftermath of that is extraordinary. Now that he has power, now that he took that power, he has pardoned them all. And the court has upheld all of those pardons—an extraordinary use of pardon power, again a perversion of what the framers had in mind. So here’s really the point. I think that there are many Americans—I don’t know if it’s most Americans anymore—but many still think that we’re in normal politics, in normal times. That this is a Republican president who is perhaps a little unorthodox, a little extreme, perhaps, but nevertheless just a normal politician, a normal party. That is a great demobilizing illusion that has to be broken.

By pointing out what January 6th was all about, we can try to break that illusion—to show that, in fact, these people are basically, some of them at any rate—and they’ve actually announced as much—out to overthrow the United States government, period. And that’s what they’re doing, bit by bit, in fits and starts. They’re keeping the Constitution—or their own idea of it—although a Constitution with an immunity decision behind the president is no longer the Constitution we knew. It’s just not. People have to understand that. And to say it the way I just said it, even now, alarms a lot of people—even those who are already alarmed—but to hear that the stakes are that high makes people think I’m kind of nutty or extreme in my own view. I don’t believe I am, at least as far as intentions are concerned. 

I do think there are people in the Trump camp who want to overthrow the government. They won’t call it that. They may have Leninist or Bolshevik techniques, where the end justifies the means, but no one’s going to call themselves Vladimir Lenin—they’re going to call themselves George Washington. But they’re going to overthrow the government in the name of the government. That’s really the key to this kind of authoritarian move: you’re not doing it to destroy anything, but to vindicate what you claim the government actually means. Yet, in doing so, you completely abolish the government as it existed previously.

Trump’s Populism Is a Tool of Oligarchy, Not a Voice of ‘the People’

Anti-Trump protest during the Labor Day Parade in New York City on September 6, 2025. Demonstrators gathered on Fifth Avenue across from Trump Tower during the annual parade in Midtown Manhattan. Photo: Dreamstime.

As you note, Trump’s movement invokes populism yet depends on entrenched minority power. How do you reconcile this paradox—of populism serving oligarchic and exclusionary ends?

Professor Sean Wilentz: It’s exclusionary of certain people, to be sure. It’s classic in terms of authoritarian regimes: you have a despised other, as it were. In this case, it’s the immigrants, particularly Hispanic immigrants. So you focus a lot of popular rage on that group. Now, that group’s very large. But populism here is not about all of the people; it’s about some of the people—and some of the people having advantages over, or directing their anger and rage at, another part of the people. That’s what modern populism is about. It’s not very different from what we might have talked about in the 19th century. 

But there’s also the alliance—this is classic—using populist methods to stir up discontent and anger, some of it quite understandable, even justified. People are not doing so well in many parts of the country. History has not been on their side economically in many parts of the country, and that breeds all kinds of resentments and anger, and that’s perfectly understandable. But the question is, in what direction do you take that? And it’s been exploited. In a more normal situation, it was exploited by certain corporate elites. You see them all the time—the Koch brothers, for example, that deregulation family. Conservative, right-wing businessmen with enormous resources use this populist rhetoric to enrich themselves greatly. That’s an old pattern—the elite use of populist rhetoric to give themselves more power than ever—and that’s what we’re seeing, that’s what we have seen.

The danger, though, is when you have a political manifestation that is not simply interested in increasing inequality, which is a very real problem, but in doing so in a way that will not only entrench an oligarchy—which is what we’re seeing—but also destroy American democracy full bore. And that’s what we’re seeing now. It’s the same kind of alliance. Look at all the people supporting Trump. Someone told me that Kamala Harris expressed surprise that the titans of American industry would throw in with Trump. I’m not surprised at all. 

If you look at the people helping to support, for example, the rebuilding of the White House—Amazon, and you go down the list—it’s just one large corporation after another. They now see in Trump the future for themselves. They may, behind the scenes, be saying, “Oh, this man’s a little bit too much, I’m not really for him.” Nevertheless, they’re going to go along with him because they think their interests are going to be better served. That’s what gets very, very dangerous—when that kind of populist movement of the corporate elite, the very rich, powerful private institutions, taps into what you think of as the demos, the people, in order to destroy democracy. That’s what we’re seeing. I’ve never seen that before.

We Need a ‘Democracy International’ to Counter the ‘Tyranny International’

And finally, Professor Wilentz, as a historian of American democracy, do you believe the American experiment still possesses its self-corrective capacities—or have structural inequities and partisan realignments permanently undermined them?

Professor Sean Wilentz: That’s a good question. I wish I knew the answer. I said before that I have faith, but we might call it a faith-based initiative in some ways. It’s not quite religious, but it’s certainly more spiritual than institutional. Still, it’s not just that. I think the institutions have shown themselves to be far more vulnerable than we ever expected or could have imagined—not just in terms of domestic affairs, but in foreign policy as well. The speed with which the U.S., for example, dismantled the Agency for International Development—the USAID—which did extraordinary work around the world, was shocking. It was destroyed in the twinkling of an eye. So we realize not only that they are more powerful, but that we are more vulnerable as democrats, with a small “d.”

As a historian, I must say this moment reveals vulnerabilities we’ve never seen before in American history. There have been moments—you have to go back, actually, to the 1790s, when the country was just getting started—when there was a question about whether militaristic or reactionary forces would end up controlling the government. But they were beaten back then. It’s interesting—one of the laws that Trump has invoked is among the last of the great repressive laws from 1798, a period Thomas Jefferson called the “Reign of Witches.” The fact that Trump has had to reach that far back is telling. So there have been precedents, but nothing on this scale.

It’s an enormous test. I hate to sound inconclusive—I wish I had a firmer sense of things—but as a historian, I can only say that what we’re facing is something we’ve never seen before. My great hope, actually, is not only with the American people but also with Europe. We’re going to have to find a way to establish a democracy international, it seems to me. The communists had their international—we need one of our own, a democratic international—built on much closer coordination between you in Brussels, in Paris, throughout Europe, and us here. Because this is an international, even global, problem. 

It’s a highly coordinated global problem, and much of it emanates from Moscow. You lift the lid and you see Putin’s influence everywhere—whether it’s Marine Le Pen or others, there he is. And certainly in the case of Trump, while one can’t know for sure, there are strong intimations that this is what’s happening. That’s a kind of tyranny international. We need to establish a democracy international to counter it. It’s something we all ought to be thinking about much more seriously, because there is strength in numbers. We have to coordinate our activities. We can no longer afford to be divided. We can no longer rely solely on our governments. We have to think of this as something like an NGO, perhaps—a movement, an expression of something we’ve never needed before, but now, we truly do.

Dr. Mariana Sendra is a Postdoctoral Researcher in Social and Human Sciences at the University of Deusto.

Dr. Sendra: Milei May See His Victory as a Blank Check to Override Institutions

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In a wide-ranging interview with the ECPS, Dr. Mariana Sendra, Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Deusto, examines the endurance and contradictions of Javier Milei’s populist-neoliberal experiment in Argentina. She interprets Milei’s strong midterm showing as “an endorsement of his government—but not a blank check,” warning that he and his followers “might interpret this electoral support as a green light to override institutional constraints.” Dr. Sendra highlights the exhaustion of Peronism, the influence of US backing, and Milei’s alignment with transnational far-right networks. While his administration remains formally democratic, she cautions that Argentina’s “democratic coexistence” is under pressure from rising intolerance and exclusion, calling on observers to “remain vigilant.”

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

In the wake of Argentina’s pivotal midterm elections—widely regarded as a referendum on President Javier Milei’s two years in office—Dr. Mariana Sendra, Postdoctoral Researcher in Social and Human Sciences at the University of Deusto, offers a penetrating analysis of Argentina’s evolving political landscape in her interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS).

Dr. Sendra explains that Milei’s strong electoral performance, with La Libertad Avanza securing over 40 percent of the national vote, can be seen as “an endorsement of Milei’s government and of the future reforms that at least part of society considers necessary.” Yet, she cautions, “this is not, of course, a blank check for Milei.” According to her, many voters sought to avert economic instability following US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s suggestion that Washington’s financial support might be withdrawn if Milei performed poorly.

In assessing the opposition’s weakness, Dr. Sendra highlights the exhaustion of Peronism and its credibility crisis. After years of alternating rule and recurring scandals, “the movement does not have the legitimacy to point out Milei’s own mistakes,” she notes, arguing that “people simply do not see them as a credible alternative.”

The interview delves into Milei’s fusion of radical market liberalism and populist rhetoric, a dynamic Dr. Sendra explored in her co-authored study “Is Milei a Populist?” She calls this a conceptual “puzzle,” since neoliberalism “dismantles the idea of ‘the people’ as a collective subject,” whereas populism depends on it. Milei, she observes, reframes the shrinking of the state “not as a loss, but as a way to make room for individual initiative.”

Addressing Milei’s international alignments, Dr. Sendra underscores the significance of “the Trump factor” and US financial intervention, which she describes as “a form of foreign interference.” However, she distinguishes Milei from nativist far-right leaders, arguing that “his ideology is not nativist” but rooted in a nostalgic vision of Argentina’s 19th-century prosperity.

At the institutional level, Dr. Sendra warns that Milei’s growing concentration of power and confrontational leadership style could erode democratic safeguards. “Milei and his followers might interpret this electoral support as a green light—or a kind of blank check—to override institutional constraints,” she cautions. Still, she notes that Argentinian civil society and political elites retain “the institutional resources to push back if he crosses certain lines.”

Looking ahead, Dr. Sendra predicts that Milei’s model could endure if inflation continues to decline and middle-class sectors remain shielded from austerity. Yet she foresees long-term risks: “His policies will produce inequality and exclusion,” she concludes, “but we will see that in the long term.”

Here is the edited transcript of our interview with Dr. Mariana Sendra, revised for clarity and flow.

Milei’s Victory Is an Endorsement—but Not a Blank Check

Ultra-right-wing Argentine politician Javier Milei during the PASO elections in Buenos Aires, Argentina on August 13, 2023. Photo: Facundo Florit.

Dr. Mariana Sendra, thank you very much for joining our interview series. Let me start right away with the first question: In Sunday’s midterm elections, widely viewed as a de facto referendum on Javier Milei’s two years in power, La Libertad Avanza secured over 40% of the national vote — defying expectations amid deep economic hardship, rising unemployment, and corruption scandals involving top officials, including Milei’s sister. How do you interpret this surprisingly strong performance? Does it reflect an enduring popular mandate for Milei’s shock-therapy reforms, or a more complex realignment within Argentina’s populist political culture?

Dr. Mariana Sendra: I think these results could indeed be interpreted as an endorsement of Milei’s government and of the future reforms that at least part of society considers necessary. But this is not, of course, a blank check for Milei. I believe there is support for certain reforms that people feel are needed, but it was also partly a response to the US government’s support and an attempt by society to prevent economic chaos after election day. There was considerable fear generated both by the government itself and by public statements from US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, suggesting that if Milei failed to achieve a strong electoral performance, that support could be withdrawn.

As in every election in Argentina, when the incumbent fails to secure the necessary performance to maintain a solid majority in Congress, market indicators — such as interest rates and the dollar exchange rate — tend to rise, which can trigger economic turmoil. So, yes, I think society voted to prevent that scenario and to give Milei a mandate for the second half of his term, though certainly not a blank check.

Peronism No Longer Seen as a Credible Alternative to Milei’s Rule

Despite economic hardship and declining living standards, the Peronist opposition under Fuerza Patria failed to convert public discontent into electoral gains, securing barely a third of the national vote. How do you explain the opposition’s limited capacity to mobilize against Milei’s populist-neoliberal project? Does this signal an ideological exhaustion within traditional Peronism, or a broader crisis of progressive representation in Argentina?

Dr. Mariana Sendra: The poor results of Peronism — around 30% of the vote — can be explained by the fact that, even though they are now in opposition, there is a certain exhaustion among the people. Peronism governed for 12 years under the Kirchners’ administrations, then there was a short alternation with Macri in 2015, and they returned to power in 2019.

The memory of that last administration is still very fresh. It’s important to remember that they were the ones managing the pandemic, and that period left a very negative mark. There were serious mistakes. Even though they did well in some aspects of pandemic management, there were symbolic failures that deeply affected public perception — for example, the VIP vaccination scandal and the president himself breaking lockdown rules within the official residence.

Additionally, by the end of that government, Argentina was on the verge of hyperinflation. In this election, moreover, Peronism did not present new faces, new candidates, or new ideas.

We should also not forget that the movement is still burdened by corruption scandals. Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was recently sentenced to house arrest because of such allegations. So, right now, Peronism as a party and as a movement lacks the credibility to point out Milei’s own mistakes and corruption scandals, because people simply do not see them as a credible alternative. So, yes, that would be the explanation for Peronism’s weakness in opposition.

Washington’s $40 Billion Bailout Gave Milei a Crucial Boost

Argentine peso banknotes in various denominations. Photo: Tetiana Chernykova.

To what extent did Donald Trump’s $40 billion bailout and open endorsement shape the electoral outcome? Do you see this as a case of foreign populist interference or a new model of transnational illiberal collaboration?

Dr. Mariana Sendra: The Trump factor and the bailout were definitely significant. It can certainly be seen as a form of foreign interference. It’s worth noting that this kind of US involvement in Argentina’s domestic politics has only one precedent in the country’s history — in 1945, during Perón’s re-election campaign. But never before had Washington shown such explicit support for a candidate.

By mid-October, the mood within the government was rather pessimistic because of the corruption scandals, the economic recession, and growing public discontent. But everything shifted — or at least partially shifted — after Milei’s visit to the White House, when Trump openly announced a $20 billion financial assistance package, which was, of course, conditional on Milei winning the election.

As I mentioned earlier, the message of “Milei or economic chaos” really resonated with parts of society. Washington’s support also had a tangible impact: it helped stabilize the currency and prevented the dollar from skyrocketing in the final days before the vote. So yes, it had a significant effect and was indeed perceived as a form of foreign interference in Argentina’s domestic politics.

Reconciling Neoliberalism and Populism Remains a Conceptual Puzzle

In your recent work on “Is Milei a Populist?”, you explore the hybridization between libertarian economics and populist discourse. How does Milei reconcile anti-statist neoliberalism with the populist logic of representing “the people” against “the elite”?

Dr. Mariana Sendra: This is a puzzle in my research, which I co-authored with Hugo Marco Marne, and one that we have not yet fully solved, because we need to conduct further research incorporating other cases like Milei. But of course, if we conceive populism as a unique set of ideas where the homogeneity of “the people” is a crucial element, this makes us wonder to what extent neoliberalism and populism can actually be compatible.

Neoliberalism, as we know, is committed to dismantling the idea of “the people,” understood as a form of collective subjectivity that interferes with the natural order created by the market. So, when Milei was a challenger, during his presidential campaign, he occasionally referred to the will of the majority and romanticized the idea of “good Argentinians.” For him, “good Argentinians” are those who are earnest, hardworking, and have been harmed by la casta — the political elites.

However, the key point is that Milei doesn’t try to speak to “the people” as a single or homogeneous group. Even when he romanticizes “good Argentinians,” he does not consistently apply this strategy. In the Argentinian context, addressing “the people” would mean engaging especially with the low-income sectors and explaining why public services are being cut and why they are not benefiting from his policies — which is very difficult.

So, how does he resolve this tension? He tries to frame the reduction of public services not as a loss, but as a way to make room for individual initiative — for people’s effort, their own income, and their personal tools and abilities. His argument is that the state has mismanaged scarcity, and therefore it should be reduced in order to return power and resources to individuals rather than to inefficient bureaucracies.

Each Country Is Now Pursuing Its Own Survival Strategy

Can Milei’s “chainsaw” policies—mass privatization, deregulation, and fiscal shock therapy—be understood as a continuation of the neoliberal wave in Latin America, or do they constitute a qualitatively new populist-neoliberal synthesis?

Dr. Mariana Sendra: Honestly, I wouldn’t say that these policies, even if they are fully implemented, can be understood as a new neoliberal wave in Latin America. In my view, the regional context today doesn’t work like that — it no longer operates in waves or cycles as it once did. For example, in the 1990s there was a clear regional turn toward neoliberalism, and in the 2000s we saw the so-called pink tide. Back then, there was a certain degree of coordination among governments across the region, but that is no longer the case.

Today, each country is more or less trying to survive on its own, pursuing its own domestic strategy. Political systems or governments swing to the left or to the right, but not in a coordinated pattern. Some countries seek to maintain alignment with the United States, while others deepen their trade and economic ties with China.

In Milei’s case, yes, there is a clear ideological alignment with the US and, of course, with the broader global far-right current. But I would be cautious about calling this a neoliberal wave. We’ll have to see what happens in places like Chile and Colombia, where the far right is also gaining ground. Still, I don’t see this as part of a regional trend — rather, it reflects the increasingly fragmented and uncoordinated nature of Latin American politics today.

Milei as a Reloaded Version of Menemism

What similarities and divergences do you see between Milei’s governance and earlier populist experiments in the country and region, such as Menem’s market populism or Bolsonaro’s hybrid of neoliberalism and moral authoritarianism?

Dr. Mariana Sendra: Of course, this combination of neoliberalism and populism is not new. In Latin America, we have several examples from the 1990s, such as Fujimori in Peru, Collor de Mello in Brazil, and Menem in Argentina — and of course, more contemporary examples like Bolsonaro in Brazil.

The thing with those populist leaders in the 1990s was that there was also a deep economic crisis at the end of the 1980s. These leaders managed to win elections by blaming the elite for the country’s dire situation and by claiming that the people were being robbed — though each framed that narrative differently.

However, the main divergence I see between Milei and Menem — because Milei is, in a sense, a reloaded version of Menemism — is that Menem, at the time, did not develop clear programmatic stances on how to confront the economic crisis. He never really said what he was going to do; in fact, he promised some highly redistributive policies and then completely reversed course once in office.

That, for me, as an observer of Argentinian politics, is very striking. This is the first time that a politician openly announces massive cuts and austerity measures during a campaign, wins the election, implements exactly what he promised, displays even a certain cruelty toward those suffering from these cuts — and still manages to retain popular support, at least among part of the electorate.

Of course, the electorate is quite heterogeneous, and we should carefully analyze the distribution of votes by sector, since not all groups are being equally affected by the cuts. Some sectors are actually benefiting from Milei’s policies. But there are still many people willing to endorse him because they have been promised change. Unlike many leaders in the 1990s, this form of populism does not conceal the magnitude of the sacrifice that society will need to make to achieve those changes — and that, for me, is truly remarkable.

Milei’s Neoliberalism Sets Him Apart from Protectionist Peers

The American flag and the Argentinian flag are both made from textures. Photo: Dreamstime.

The ideological and financial linkages between Milei, Trump, Elon Musk, and European far-right actors like Giorgia Meloni or Nigel Farage suggest a coordinated illiberal front. How should scholars conceptualize these transnational populist networks?

Dr. Mariana Sendra: What really connects all these leaders you’ve mentioned is their discursive irreverence — this deliberate rejection, at the rhetorical level, of what is considered, in their terms, politically correct. They employ highly extreme rhetoric when talking about minorities, for example, or when addressing the major challenges the world is facing today.

We are living globally through a time of enormous change — demographic, technological, productive, and environmental. What these leaders do is to offer citizens a sense of orientation in this changing and uncertain world, where it increasingly feels like future generations will have fewer opportunities compared to their parents, in terms of stability or prosperity. They position themselves against those they portray as decision-makers — those they identify as responsible for these transformations — although who is held responsible varies depending on each national context.

At the same time, Milei’s case is quite particular within the Argentinian economic context, which is extremely fragile, marked by economic crisis and chronic inflation. So, his situation is very specific. Ideologically speaking, in the economic realm, he is almost the opposite of what we see in Trump or Brexit. While those movements lean toward economic protectionism, Milei represents the opposite — he embodies an open economy and proposes an uncompromising neoliberalism.

‘Make Argentina Great Again’ Evokes a 19th-Century Nostalgia

Do you see the US bailout and Milei’s pro-Washington orientation as a reconfiguration of dependency—what some have called “illiberal neoliberalism”—in which populist regimes rely on global capital while claiming nationalist sovereignty? How do Milei’s symbolic gestures—such as echoing “Make Argentina Great Again”—fit into the global grammar of far-right populist performativity?

Dr. Mariana Sendra: This is actually a very good question, because Milei’s ideology is not nativist, unlike the radical right in Europe or the US. This means that he’s not trying to embody the idea of sovereignty or defend a national community against an external threat—whether that threat comes from immigration or from the influence of supranational institutions like the European Union over nation-states.

So, when Milei speaks of “Make Argentina Great Again,” I think he’s invoking a nostalgic vision of Argentina that we can trace back to the 19th century, when the country was in the early stages of nation-building. At that time, Argentina was seen as a land of opportunity, welcoming thousands of migrants seeking economic advancement. That was a long time ago, and Milei evokes that period—but not in the nativist way or with the nationalist vision of sovereignty that defines much of the radical right in Europe or the US.

We can identify this nostalgic tone, which is characteristic of right-wing populism, but it’s not the same—it’s not expressed in the same way.

Despite His Style, Milei Still Operates Within Democratic Boundaries

Inauguration ceremony of President Javier Milei at the National Congress in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on December 10, 2023. Photo: Fabian Alberto De Ciria.

Given the concentration of power around Milei and his sister Karina, how do you interpret the institutional dynamics of his presidency? Are we witnessing a shift from populist mobilization toward personalized authoritarianism?

Dr. Mariana Sendra: So far in his administration, Milei has shown some tendencies that push against the rule of law. For instance, there have been attempts to censor the media by prohibiting the publication of material related to the corruption scandal involving his sister, or through the excessive use of presidential vetoes after Parliament approved certain laws to assist people suffering from the financial and fiscal cuts.

That said, Milei is still operating within the boundaries of democratic rule. And now, with these results—having increased his representation from 37 seats to 80 or 82 in the Chamber of Deputies, and from about 8 seats in the Senate to 16 or 18—and with the additional seats that could come from other center-right parties, such as PRO, which holds 24 seats, he could potentially reach a quorum and build a majority in Parliament to advance key reforms.

In that sense, I would say the government is not necessarily moving toward personalized authoritarianism, because now he has the institutional numbers to pursue reforms through the legislative process. However, because of his eccentric and confrontational leadership style, there is reason for concern. Milei and his followers might interpret this electoral support as a green light—or a kind of blank check—to override institutional constraints. So yes, we should remain vigilant.

Argentina’s Institutions and Elites Still Have the Power to Push Back

The judiciary, media, and opposition have faced increasing pressure under Milei. What risks does this pose to Argentina’s democratic resilience compared with other Latin American cases, such as El Salvador under Bukele or Brazil under Bolsonaro?

Dr. Mariana Sendra: On this point, I would say Milei’s influence over the judiciary or the media is much smaller than many people think. It’s true that now, in his cabinet, there are people linked to economic interests, and he’s aligned with Trump, who in many ways represents corporate interests and global financial elites. But in Milei’s case, given his background, I see him more as an outsider who is being used as a vehicle for these interests rather than a political actor with the capacity to influence major power structures.

It’s true that he has recently adopted a very aggressive discourse toward the press whenever he’s criticized. But we can see that even in the past few days, as Argentina has begun facing several economic problems, such as unemployment and new corruption scandals around his party, the main media outlets in the country—the more hegemonic ones—that once treated him favorably have now started to openly criticize Milei.

So, I don’t think his attacks on the media or the opposition will go much further than rhetoric, in my opinion. And of course, this is connected to the fact that Argentinian society and traditional political elites are deeply empowered when it comes to rights and institutional resources to push back if Milei were to cross certain lines.

Economic Faith Turns Into Political Intolerance Among Milei’s Base

In your co-authored work on “Presidential Approval, Tolerant Attitudes and Economic Performance,” you examine how tolerance mediates citizens’ evaluation of executives. How might this framework help explain Milei’s endurance amid economic hardship?

Dr. Mariana Sendra: Indeed, what we are seeing with these results is that those who rate the president’s performance positively—who approve of his leadership and feel he’s doing a good job—continue to support him even when the economic indicators are not particularly strong in areas such as unemployment, consumption levels, or purchasing power. Inflation is coming down, that is true, but objectively speaking, the government’s overall economic performance is far from solid.

That said, this group of people continues to support him. But even beyond their support, they are also starting to show, even before the election, certain intolerant attitudes toward those who disagree with Milei or who do not approve of the government’s performance. This is very dangerous and is highly visible on social media, but also in the streets and daily interactions.

There is a growing tendency among his supporters to delegitimize or discredit anyone who thinks differently. For example, anyone who suggests that the state should take some responsibility in certain key areas is immediately labeled a communist or a collectivist, and their views are dismissed. Even more dangerous is the notion that such ideas should not belong in the country or should be eliminated. That kind of reaction reflects an increasingly intolerant attitude, and it endangers what we call Argentina’s democratic coexistence.

The Social Costs of Milei’s Model Will Become Visible Over Time

And finally, Dr. Sendra, looking ahead, do you foresee Milei’s Argentina as a durable model for the global far right—or as another short-lived experiment in authoritarian neoliberal populism destined for crisis and collapse?

Dr. Mariana Sendra: That’s a difficult question to answer. My view is that if, over the next two years—until 2027—the government manages to bring inflation under control to the point where it is no longer perceived as the major problem, and if the sectors currently benefiting from its policies, or at least those with stable employment who are not being severely affected, remain a majority compared to those who are losing out, it is quite possible that Milei could be re-elected for another term.

However, I also think that the consequences of his policies will become more visible in the long run. Perhaps over the next five years or so, we are likely to start seeing their structural weaknesses—particularly the social costs for segments of the population that are now being excluded from Milei’s model. That could eventually trigger social unrest, manifested in protests and mobilizations. And that, of course, will have an impact. I think Milei’s policies will produce inequality and exclusion, but we will see that in the long term.

Professor Gijs Schumacher is a Professor of Political Psychology in the Department of Political Science at the University of Amsterdam and founding co-director of the Hot Politics Lab.

Professor Schumacher: The Netherlands Is Moving into a Post-Populist Era 

by Editor’s ChoiceHomeInterviews

In an interview with the ECPS, Professor Gijs Schumacher of the University of Amsterdam argues that Dutch politics may be entering a “post-populist era.” As the Netherlands approaches yet another general election, Professor Schumacher highlights growing fragmentation across left, right, and radical-right blocs, noting that “many voters no longer perceive meaningful differences between centrist parties.” While populism’s anti-establishment appeal remains psychologically powerful, he observes that this sentiment is now spreading “more evenly across the political spectrum.” According to Professor Schumacher, the Netherlands’ long tradition of elite cooperation could allow a shift toward “pragmatic governance,” provided that “the mainstream left and right tone down their toxic rhetoric.” The post-populist phase, he suggests, reflects not decline but recalibration.

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

As the Netherlands heads toward its third general election in just five years, the country’s political landscape appears more fragmented and volatile than ever. To understand the deeper psychological and structural undercurrents behind this instability, the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS) spoke with Professor Gijs Schumacher, Professor of Political Psychology in the Department of Political Science at the University of Amsterdam and founding co-director of the Hot Politics Lab. In this wide-ranging conversation, Professor Schumacher reflects on the fragmentation of Dutch politics, the endurance of populist discourse, and what he calls the emergence of a “post-populist era.”

According to Professor Schumacher, the defining feature of contemporary Dutch politics is fragmentation across three major blocs — the left, the right, and the radical right. Yet despite the proliferation of parties, he notes that “people don’t travel much between blocs … the only real possibility for governments is through the middle.” This narrowing of viable coalitional options, he argues, leaves voters disillusioned and searching for alternatives: “Many voters no longer perceive meaningful differences between these centrist parties … and they often end up supporting either other parties within the same bloc or more radical alternatives.”

Populism, Professor Schumacher emphasizes, remains central to understanding this dynamic — particularly its anti-establishment appeal. He observes that this instinct is deeply rooted in human psychology: “It’s a powerful psychological tendency to be skeptical of leadership — to doubt whether those in power are there for your good or their own fortune.” However, Professor Schumacher points out that the Dutch left has largely abandoned its own anti-establishment roots, creating a political vacuum that figures like Geert Wilders have exploited: “Historically, the left had a strong anti-establishment agenda … but in opposing the populist radical right, they’ve completely muted that stance.”

Despite this, Professor Schumacher does not foresee a permanent populist capture of Dutch democracy. Instead, he suggests the country may be entering what he calls a “post-populist era” — a phase in which anti-establishment politics no longer belongs exclusively to the radical right but becomes “more evenly distributed across the political spectrum.” In his words: “The Netherlands has a long history of deep affective polarization — even though we didn’t use that term at the time — but it was never a major problem because, at the elite level, there was greater cooperation. The mainstream left and right don’t need to fight each other; there’s little to gain from it. If their rhetoric were less toxic, there would be no real barrier to a return to pragmatic governance.”

For Professor Schumacher, this shift signals neither a triumph of populism nor its total eclipse but rather a recalibration — a search for equilibrium in a political system that remains both fragmented and remarkably resilient.

Here is the edited transcript of our interview with Professor Gijs Schumacher, revised for clarity and flow.

Non-Policy Issues Now Matter Much More

Geert Wilders (PVV) in House of Representatives during a debating at the Tweede Kamer on April 5, 2023 in Den Haag, Netherlands. Photo: Jeroen Meuwsen.

Professor Gijs Schumacher, thank you very much for joining our interview series. Let me start right away with the first question: As the Netherlands approaches its third general election in just five years, how would you characterize the current political landscape? What structural and psychological factors — fragmentation, voter volatility, or declining partisan loyalty — best explain this ongoing electoral instability?

Professor Gijs Schumacher: The best characterization is indeed fragmentation. If you look at the party system, there are, roughly speaking, three different blocs of parties: the left bloc, the right bloc, and the radical right bloc. The last bloc has grown the most over the past 10 to 20 years, but there’s also a great deal of fluctuation within it.

In fact, there’s a lot of fluctuation across all the blocs. However, on average, people don’t move much between them. In that sense, voters tend to shift from one right-wing party to another, or from one left-wing party to another. Ultimately, the only real possibility for forming governments lies in the middle — between the left and the right.

The problem with that is that many voters no longer perceive meaningful differences between these centrist parties. This frustrates them, and they often end up supporting either other parties within the same bloc or more radical alternatives. Of course, the last government was an exception to this, as it was a right–radical right coalition, but it was so short-lived that, in a sense, it only demonstrated how difficult such a government would be.

If you ask about the psychological characteristics — that’s a very complex question. One key factor is that voter loyalty is very low. In contrast to the 1980s, people identify far less with a particular party and therefore move more easily between them. Voters today are less loyal, which is not necessarily a bad thing; you could also say they’re more critical.

Because there are multiple parties that are ideologically close to each other within each bloc, and because there is competition within blocs, non-policy issues start to matter much more — things like how a particular leader performs in election debates or in the media. Do we like this party because they were in government, or not? These considerations are becoming increasingly important compared to policy-based reasons.

Overall, this calls for a research agenda focused on political psychology — one that specifically studies these non-policy-related factors. I think the leader of D66 put it quite aptly — although I’m not entirely sure whether he meant it ironically — when he said: “Policy is less important; it’s more about the vibe you’re getting with a party.”  That’s exactly the point. But what is this vibe? How can we study it? How can we analyze it?

The PVV Leads a Parade of Dwarfs

Despite Geert Wilders’ authoritarian leadership style and his role in repeated government collapses, the PVV continues to lead in the polls — how do you interpret this enduring voter support, and what does it reveal about Dutch citizens’ tolerance for personalist populism and their affective attachment to strong, anti-establishment leadership?

Professor Gijs Schumacher: Yes, they are the party leading the polls, but it’s basically leading a parade of dwarfs. All the parties are small now. So, the size that the PVV has in the polls — about 30 seats, or 20% of the vote — is actually a very low number for the largest party. I sometimes like to turn it around. I don’t think the question is why the radical right is so large, but why the middle is so small. Because in the middle, the centrist parts of the left-wing and right-wing blocs — there are parties that are very similar. If you added their votes together, they would be much larger than the Freedom Party. It’s just that they choose not to join hands in these elections, and that’s why they end up as the second, third, or fourth party. Now, there’s one footnote to make: for the second time, they are running with a joint list, and also, formally, these parties are on track to merge with each other. Still, there are many other parties they could potentially merge that are ideologically quite close.

Then, more specifically about Wilders. There’s something about populism that is extremely powerful psychologically, and that’s the anti-establishment aspect. There are other things that are also psychologically very powerful about populism, but I want to focus on this one because I think it’s important. An anti-establishment stance is one of the defining features of populism, and this is very firmly rooted in human psychology — to be critical of leadership, skeptical even, doubtful whether the people in power are actually there for your good or for the general good, as opposed to their own personal fortune. That’s a very powerful human psychological tendency, and it’s actually a very good one. It has been an extremely important feature of the survival of humans as groups.

The Left Has Abandoned Its Own Anti-Establishment Agenda

So, the question I want to raise is this: one of the problems of the left and the right blocs — particularly the left-wing bloc — is why they have dropped their own anti-establishment agenda. They have adopted the position of being the power. In the Netherlands, the media continuously speak of the “left-wing media” or the “left-wing church,” as they call it. This “left-wing church” is supposedly so influential, but it doesn’t make any sense — the left barely has a third of the votes. They don’t get more airtime or anything. And the left adopts this narrative, accepting its role as being elitist. That makes for a very strange political dynamic because they’re not the elite, they’re not in government, and they haven’t been in government for a while. They’re not particularly politically powerful. Historically, the left has always had a very strong anti-establishment agenda — for example, critiques of capitalism — and this now seems so muted. In their opposition to populist radical right parties, they have completely abandoned their own anti-establishment stance, and that’s really a pity because it’s a powerful psychological force that really sways voters. Therefore, part of this group of people is really moved by this anti-establishment approach to politics.

Election sign of the Leefbaar Party and statue of its murdered founder, Pim Fortuyn, in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Photo: André Muller.

Now, the other reason why they face large support is through another mechanism — that’s the more authoritarian, anti-immigrant type of agenda. There’s always been strong support for anti-immigration policies in the Netherlands. In that sense, there’s been absolutely no change since the 1990s. The difference is that political parties are now doing something with it. This already started in 2001 with the rise of Pim Fortuyn, so it’s not new at all. The only new thing is the degree to which mainstream parties are also adopting anti-immigration stances. By doing so, they legitimize the radical right and make it more normal, which also affects voters. The party becomes less tainted, and people become more likely to vote for it.

So, it’s really this mix — on the one hand, the anti-establishment stance, and on the other, authoritarianism — that makes the party popular. But it’s not necessarily the same type of people. It’s the combination of one group that finds the authoritarian route appealing and another group that is in the anti-establishment camp. If you want to think about how we can systematically change the distribution of votes across these three blocs, then my suggestion would be to look in the anti-establishment direction.

Affective Contagion Works Differently in Politics

We have seen the normalization of populist rhetoric across the political spectrum — from immigration and national identity to housing and cost of living. To what extent do you think populist narratives now define the terms of political competition in the Netherlands? Are mainstream parties engaging in what you’ve described as “affective contagion” from populist discourse?

Professor Gijs Schumacher: That’s a good question. So, starting with how pervasive populist narratives are in politics — I think they’ve always been there, and they’ve been present on both the left and the right. I’m particularly referring to anti-establishment stances. I mean, D66, one of the most centrist parties in the Netherlands, emerged from a populist agenda — a very strong anti-establishment position. Some of that critique is still there, but much of it has been watered down or disappeared from their platform. Populist narratives are always pervasive, and sometimes also very useful, because they can bring about innovation in the party system — which is a good thing. When we talk about representation, sometimes old ideas need to go, and new ideas need to enter. It also means, of course, that sometimes bad ideas enter the political system — that’s also true.

If we talk about anti-immigration policies, as I already mentioned earlier, the party system has shifted toward a much more critical stance than before. People are associating problems with housing and immigration. But that’s really just the radical right; I don’t see other parties making that argument. It’s interesting in this election that the Farmers’ Party, which started a few years ago really trying to represent agricultural interests, has now completely adopted radical-right rhetoric as well. But, they were already in the radical-right camp, so that’s not surprising. For a while, they looked like a more centrist alternative, but they turned out not to be.

To put it differently, I do think a lot of politicians believe it’s necessary to talk about immigration because there’s a strong idea that it’s the most important topic in the elections. The thing is, though, that this idea is not true. If you ask Dutch citizens what the most important issues are in Dutch politics, you get a whole list of issues — and they are all equally important. The problem is that there’s a lot of fragmentation in the answers. Lots of people find different issues important: cost of living, housing, climate change, the international situation, and immigration, of course. In that sense, the populist narrative around immigration has been extremely successful — in the sense that media and politicians believe they need to talk about it so much.

Now, whether there’s affective contagion — it’s funny that you use this term in this context, because the word affective contagion comes more from interpersonal psychology. It’s about whether the emotion of person A is adopted by person B, who is listening to person A. In politics, the model of affective contagion is very complex because whether I take over the emotion that person A has depends very much on what my beliefs are about person A. So, if person A is a politician from a party I like, I will probably listen more carefully. If person A is a politician from an out-party, I will be incensed, angry, or upset. I will actively try to think about arguments for why this person is talking nonsense.

But there’s also another, slightly different, and older use of the word — one that comes from earlier work on political parties in sociology: “contagion from the left.” The idea was that right-wing parties adopted all kinds of ideas from left-wing parties in the early 20th century. For example, the mass organization of left-wing parties was adopted by right-wing parties as a way to counter the electoral threat of the left.

So, if you interpret contagion in this sense, then without a doubt, the Dutch political system has been very much influenced by the success of different radical-right parties in the Netherlands — LPF, PVV, initially also the so-called Leefbaar parties, and, of course, the latest ones like Forum for Democracy and JA21.

The Debate Fixates on Asylum Seekers Instead of Real Solutions

People on the street near the National Monument in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, on April 14, 2018. Undocumented migrants selling shoes. Photo: Elena Rostunova.

Housing shortages, migration management, and rising living costs dominate the campaign. In your view, how do these issues interact with emotional and identity-based appeals in shaping voter preferences? Are material concerns or cultural grievances more decisive in the current moment?

Professor Gijs Schumacher: Yes — that’s the short answer. In the Netherlands, the traditional left–right economic dimension has effectively collapsed into a largely cultural one.

When it comes to housing, the problem with the immigration debate is that there are many different forms of immigration. Typically, the type that is politically sensitive involves asylum seekers — and that’s what all the fuss is about. People don’t want to have a center in their municipality where asylum seekers are housed.

That’s what the PVV rallies behind: reducing asylum seekers. But this group represents a very small share of total immigration — I think only a few percent. So even if we somehow magically got rid of asylum seekers, we would still have massive immigration.

The point is that other forms of immigration — for example, seasonal immigration — make up a large share. There are many seasonal immigrants in the Netherlands; in fact, the entire agricultural sector essentially depends on them. They’re not politically problematic because the right doesn’t want to make an issue out of them — the companies that support these parties need these workers and can’t do without them. How would our apple farms function — how would those apples be picked — if there were no people from Eastern Europe coming here? The same goes for asparagus and other high-value vegetables.

And then there’s, of course, the more “expat” type — high-profile professionals with high salaries coming in, particularly to Amsterdam for well-paid jobs. Nobody’s complaining about them in any cultural sense, although their impact on the labor market is much greater than that of asylum seekers. Here in Amsterdam, housing prices are also extremely high because of people coming from abroad — people who receive relocation allowances from their companies and can therefore outbid Dutch buyers. But that’s not how the discussion is framed. The focus is on asylum seekers. So, it’s a really strange — or rather, a really striking — discussion in the sense that the way it is shaped isn’t meaningfully directed toward the real solution.

Voters Now Choose Parties Like Beers in a Bar

Given the widespread refusal of other parties to enter a coalition with Wilders, yet his continued dominance in the polls, what does this suggest about the representational capacity of the Dutch party system? Are we witnessing a deepening crisis of coalition politics — or an evolution toward a new equilibrium shaped by populist pressure from the margins?

Professor Gijs Schumacher: There are two things. About 20% — or maybe a bit more — goes to Wilders. But also, something like 20% goes to about eight political parties that each have just a few seats. And then you’re left with 60% of large dwarfs, let’s call them that. That’s where the coalition mostly needs to come from. So that makes it super complicated. It basically means the traditional large Dutch political parties — the Christian Democrats, Labour (now merged with the Green Party), and the Liberal Party, VVD — essentially need to cooperate. So, you get these governments that are well known in Germany as “Grand Coalitions.” But we also know from those experiences that these governments are always very unpopular because people don’t really see differences between the parties anymore. Then again, this gives rise to splinters — or not-so-small parties now, actually — on both the left and the right.

But the question is: what is the representational capacity of the Dutch party system? If we define that as the distance between the party you vote for and what that party stands for, then with so many parties, you actually have excellent representational capacity. In terms of government policy, you would just have something in the middle, which would always be relatively close to a large group of people. The problem lies in the manageability of such large coalitions — large both in terms of the number of parties and the range of policy differences between them.

Secondly — coming back to the point about the “vibes” that I mentioned earlier — Jock Robiette, the leader of D66, once said that vibes are the reason people vote for parties. I agree with him. Vibes are very important, but they’re a distraction from representational capacity because they have little to do with policy, to some extent. In the Netherlands, it sometimes feels like voters are in a supermarket or a bar, handed a list of 25 different kinds of beer. They spend a long time thinking about which specific type to choose — a New England IPA or a double IPA? That’s the kind of choice Dutch voters are making now. But, of course, politics isn’t a bar. You need to combine beers to get a majority. That’s where the real problem lies.

The Party Landscape Has Changed Too Much to Compare Over Time

Election posters of all Dutch political parties displayed at the Binnenhof in The Hague, the Netherlands, in March 2017. Photo: Dreamstime.

Based on your work on affective polarization, do you observe rising emotional hostility between Dutch party blocs — or is the Netherlands still characterized by pragmatic, cross-partisan attitudes?

Professor Gijs Schumacher: I’m not sure whether this is increasing or stable over time. It’s actually a pretty tricky research question because the parties themselves change over time. For example, if you go back to 2010, there was no Forum for Democracy, no JA21, and the PVV had basically just started — it was a very minor party. So, if we had asked in 2010 what people felt about different political parties and compared it to now, when we have all these parties that are much more radical, you can’t really compare the two periods.

That makes it difficult to know for sure whether affective polarization is actually increasing. In general, I don’t think the Netherlands is all that dramatic in this regard. Everybody hates the radical right — that’s almost the uniting factor. What has been more problematic is that the right —mainly the Liberal Party — has been polarizing by labeling Labour–Green as a radical extremist party, which, by any standards, it’s not. By introducing this kind of language — and of course, what politicians say has an effect on people — they may cause voters to become more polarized and more hostile toward the left.

The PVV Relies So Heavily on One Person That It Can’t Grow Strong

Wilders’ one-man party structure is unique in Western Europe. How does this extreme centralization of authority affect voter perceptions of accountability, competence, and representation?

Professor Gijs Schumacher: I think the real problem with the PVV is that, since it relies so heavily on a single person, it struggles to become a genuinely strong and influential party. Essentially, its only way to influence politics is by shouting bizarre things — and, in fact, that works quite well for them. But the party lacks the capacity to effectively propose or implement policies that could actually address the issues it highlights.

This weakness stems from the fact that the PVV is structurally too weak. It has no detailed policy proposals beyond slogans like “all foreigners out.” When they are in government, they basically have to rely on civil servants to come up with plans to execute this — which, of course, is complicated and slow. Then they end up blaming the civil servants for blocking their ideas. But a good political party would not only have a slogan but also a set of coherent policies to realize it. The PVV simply doesn’t have this to any meaningful extent.

The second problem is the training of talent. Traditionally, political parties were expected to develop policy ideas through their connections to civil society, but the PVV doesn’t do that either. When they had ministers for the first time, almost none of them had any executive experience — perhaps none at all — and it was evident. The Minister for Immigration, for instance, had real difficulty even hiring a spokesperson. They couldn’t manage the most basic tasks.

That was really problematic. If you look at Wilders’ list, you’d expect his ministers or vice ministers — the most recognizable figures after him — to be ranked high. They’re not. The most prominent one, Ahmed, isn’t even on the list. De Vries is placed somewhat lower, and Madlener is also very low. This was hardly a vote of confidence in them. We’ve seen many times in the PVV that whenever someone begins to stand out, their head immediately comes off — and that person ultimately leaves the party. So, yes, this is a real problem. The PVV does represent a segment of the Dutch population, but if it cannot effectively formulate and implement policy, then the issues its voters care about will never truly be addressed.

If Rhetoric Were Less Toxic, Pragmatic Governance Could Return

And finally, Professor Schumacher, do you see the Netherlands as entering a post-populist phase where affective polarization stabilizes and institutional pragmatism returns, or are we witnessing a longer-term transformation in the emotional foundations of Dutch democracy?

Professor Gijs Schumacher: I think we’re moving into a post-populist era. If anything, we might be entering a phase where anti-establishment politics becomes more evenly distributed across the entire political spectrum, rather than being concentrated mainly on the radical right.

The Netherlands has a long history of deep affective polarization — even though we didn’t use that term at the time — but it was never a major problem because, at the elite level, there was a greater degree of cooperation. And that’s ultimately where the goal should lie.

The mainstream left and right don’t need to fight each other; there’s little to gain from it. They’re not going to win many more votes that way. If their rhetoric were less toxic toward one another, there would be no real barrier to a return to pragmatic governance.

Chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Imran Khan addresses a press conference in Islamabad on April 20, 2016. Photo: Jahanzaib Naiyyer.

Popular, Not Populist? Imran Khan and the Civil–Military Grammar of Populism in Pakistan

by CommentariesEditor’s ChoiceGenderHomeLeadership & Persona

In this incisive commentary, feminist scholar Afiya S. Zia dissects the myth that Imran Khan is “popular, not populist.” Drawing on theorists such as Laclau, Mudde, and Moffitt, Zia argues that Khan’s politics exemplify moral populism: a performative style that fuses piety, masculinity, and nationalism while eroding democratic substance. His rhetoric of virtue and victimhood, she shows, mirrors the Pakistani military’s own moral lexicon of sacrifice and honor, blurring the line between civilian populism and authoritarianism. From symbolic austerity to digital disinformation, Khan’s rule delivered moral spectacle but little structural reform. Zia concludes that his populism—like its global counterparts—offers redemption without reform, transforming faith into a tool of power and consuming democracy in the process.

By Afiya S. Zia*

Recently, the official X account of Pakistan’s emergent third party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), retweeted a supporter’s claim that its leader, “Imran Khan is popular, not populist – his leadership is based on merit, service, and people’s trust, not division or demagoguery.” The statement came amid a charged political atmosphere following Pakistan’s 2024 general elections, marred by allegations of manipulation, the disqualification and imprisonment of Khan, and the reversal of several victories claimed by PTI-backed independents.

Both domestic and international observers noted that the elections were neither free nor fair. In this context of curtailed democracy and contested legitimacy, PTI’s distinction between popularity and populism must be read not as analytical precision but as political self-defense – a claim to moral authenticity and victimhood.

The denial is itself revealing. Theorists such as Ernesto Laclau, Cas Mudde and Benjamin Moffitt have shown that populism is not a coherent ideology but a moralized style of politics. It divides the world into the virtuous “people” and a corrupt “elite” and performs rather than governs. By this definition, Khan’s rhetoric and political persona are unmistakably populist, even as his followers insist otherwise.

The Populist Grammar of Authenticity

From his entry into politics in the 1990s, Khan crafted an image of moral exceptionalism: a national athlete and hero who transcended Pakistan’s dynastic, corrupt politics but never actually politicked, at either constituency or national legislative levels. His signature slogan of naya Pakistan (a “new Pakistan”) offered a redemptive promise of national purification but based on his self-admitted personal turn from a lifestyle of westernized decadence to pious moral virtue, rather than institutional reform.

Khan’s supporters often cite his philanthropic project of the cancer hospital he founded in 1994, as proof that his politics are altruistic rather than populist. Yet, as Jan-Werner Müller observes, populists do not simply appeal to “the people”; they claim exclusive moral representation of them. Of course, there are many altruistic philanthropists in Pakistan, but Khan’s own rhetoric claims that only he is incorruptible enough to save the country.

The 2018 election that brought PTI to power was no popular revolution. It was shaped by judicial disqualification of a PM, backroom military support, the defection of ‘electable’ politicians from rival parties and, newly propped ones. The same military that Khan would later denounce as tyrannical helped secure his ascent to power. Once in office, he engaged in the same symbolic austerities that typify global populism: auctioning state-owned luxury cars, selling buffaloes from the Prime Minister’s House, and promising to turn colonial-era governor mansions into public parks.

Like Donald Trump’s televised reconstruction of the White House, or Narendra Modi’s ascetic imagery of revivalist Hinduism, or Erdogan’s mosque-conversion paternalism, Khan’s performances were not economic policy but moral theatre – staged to show distance from the ‘corrupt elite,’ ‘legacy media,’ or khooni (bloodthirsty) liberals. In Moffitt’s terms, Khan governed through performative crisis: each political setback became proof of his own virtue and of the system’s moral decay.

The Homo Islamicus Persona

Khan’s charisma models itself on the figure of homo Islamicus – the morally regenerated Muslim leader who derives authority not from democratic process but divine virtue and nationalist purity. Vedi R. Hadiz argues that the rise of the new Islamic populism in the Muslim world is but a mirror image of the rise of populist tendencies in the West. I track how Khan’s moralized masculinity fuses religiosity, nationalism, and populist virtue —a model of leadership also visible in Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who combines piety with patriarchy—but Khan’s version lacks a coherent alternative policy or economic vision.

Khan’s rejection of “Western feminism,” his warnings about “vulgarity” and “sex, drugs, and rock and roll,” and his invocation of an abstract ghairat (honour) are not incidental conservatisms. They are central to a moral populism that imagines the nation as a family, with the leader as its patriarch. Women in this framework are symbols of purity and faith rather than political subjects, an ideal he often upholds in his current fully veiled and pious wife, Bushra Imran.

Like other populists, Khan cultivated a large, devoted, and cross-generational female following, rooted in the intertwining of his athletic masculine charisma and paternalistic image. Many women view him as a moral guide capable of protecting their dignity and rights, often leading to family tensions and highly visible political polarization, especially on social media and within military households. This admiration motivated female supporters to participate in daring street protests, such as the May 2023 Lahore rally, where women boldly confronted police, mocked military generals, and faced repeated arrests with unwavering commitment. They demonstrated political courage even as senior PTI leaders distanced themselves. 

Khan’s transformation from celebrity cricketer to spiritual-political leader exemplifies what Dani Filc describes as the “inclusionary–exclusionary” spectrum of populism: while appealing to urban middle-class women and educated elites, he marginalizes groups like Ahmadis, Hazaras, opposition politicians/constituent holders, critical journalists, and feminists. Critics denounce his patriarchal rhetoric, majoritarian bias, and victim-blaming statements on sexual violence, yet supporters defend him for his moral simplicity and protection of women at political events.

This gendered populism both empowers and constrains women’s political engagement. While it inspires unprecedented acts of defiance against the military establishment, it simultaneously reinforces conservative gender norms, framing governance in terms of Islamic virtue rather than liberal democracy. Urban, middle to upper-middle-class female PTI activists often interpret Khan’s patriotism, piety, and defiance of Western powers as moral leadership, seeing him as a surrogate father or protector. Their allegiance centers more on his persona than policy innovations. 

Unlike Benazir Bhutto’s empathetic, liberal-rights-based appeal, Khan commands female support while reinforcing patriarchal norms – a pattern consistent with male populists globally. Ultimately, Khan’s piety-driven populism reshapes Pakistan’s discourse on women and democracy, combining the empowerment of select women with the reinforcement of traditional, conservative gender hierarchies, marking a post-feminist turn not unlike the Trump supporting, TradWives movement.

Rebranding as Moral Renewal

A central populist tactic is to rebrand existing institutions as moral innovations. Khan’s renaming of Pakistan’s flagship social protection initiative, the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) as Ehsaas, exemplifies this pattern. The rebranding erased the legacy of a female predecessor, taking credit for a recast state policy as a personal act of virtue.

Similar strategies appear elsewhere; Nayib Bukele in El Salvador folded earlier social welfare programs into his “New Ideas” brand; Andrés Manuel López Obrador reframed Mexico’s anti-poverty programs as part of his “Fourth Transformation.” These moves transform bureaucratic continuity into revelation and give the illusion that old policies are purified through the filter of the leader’s sincerity.

In Pakistan, this moralization of governance is amplified through religion. Poverty alleviation becomes an act of zakat (almsgiving), not redistribution; social policy is sanctified through Islamic ethics. In this sense, piety populism does not replace the state, it sacralizes it, for which there is no stable measure nor standard of accountability. 

Populism as Civil–Military Mirror

Khan’s populism has often been cast as the antidote to Pakistan’s entrenched military dominance. Yet the two are not opposites; they are mirror images. Both draw legitimacy from moral spectacle and claims of masculine benevolence and sacrifice. Both substitute masculine charisma for institutional accountability or the deepening of democratic collaboration and norms.

After Khan’s ouster in 2022 through a parliamentary vote of no-confidence, he recast himself as the moral redeemer betrayed by a corrupt establishment and ‘treacherous’ generals who retracted their initial support. This shift turned the civil–military conflict into a populist morality play, complete with pejorative references to traitors in Islamic historical tradition, a contest between rival saviors.

His falling out with Army Chief General Javed Bajwa dramatized this contest for moral and political supremacy, later extending to a confrontation with Justice Qazi Faez Isa, poised to become the next Chief Justice, and then with the ascetic and pietist General Asim Munir, who adopted a “zero-tolerance” stance toward PTI protests. Khan’s political ego, shaped by a messianic sense of virtue, left little room for institutional peers/equals. General Munir’s clampdown after Khan’s ouster in 2022 was rationalized as a defense of order, national dignity, and morale, echoing Khan’s own rhetoric of honor, self-belief, and betrayal. The rivalry has persisted after the 2024 elections and ongoing protests by PTI. This tension reached its symbolic peak in May 2025 when India launched a stealth “Operation Sindhoor,” against Pakistan, named after the Hindu symbol of marital devotion as nationalist metaphor. Pakistan’s military response, led by Munir, was saturated in the usual masculine imagery: shaheed (martyr), izzat (honor), and ghazi (holy warrior) and his televised pledge that ‘the sons of Pakistan will defend the honor of our mothers and sisters’ epitomized how both militarism and populism mobilize gendered virtue as political currency.

Social media in Pakistan, dominated by Gen Z users, mocked India’s media frenzy and celebrated Pakistan’s ‘calm victory’ with younger women enamored by the officers who led the Air Force in downing several Indian planes. Yet, as ever, the outcome was an uneasy one: the military emerged re-legitimized, Khan remained imprisoned, and populism simply migrated from civilian to khaki uniform.

Myths of Popular Not Populist

Consider the PTI’s retweet, which encapsulates five claims central to Imran Khan’s carefully cultivated mythos—portraying him as “popular, not populist.” First, it insisted that Khan is genuinely popular rather than populist. However, his rhetoric consistently divides society into “the pure” versus “the corrupt,” mobilizing moral legitimacy over institutional authority – a hallmark of populism. 

Second, the tweet claimed that Khan was not a creation of the army. In reality, his rise in 2018 was facilitated by judicial manipulation, military engineering, and rogue officers. Even if he later distanced himself from these institutions, this is no different from what rival political leaders have done historically. Rather than erasing such inconvenient histories, civilian leaders who take refuge behind military intervention must be monitored in the future.

Third, Khan is presented as anti-West, yet his critique existed alongside ongoing IMF negotiations and deep engagement with elite global networks, reflecting a selective post-colonial posture. 

Fourth, he is framed as selfless rather than narcissistic, though his populist appeal is replete with iconography, self-aggrandizement, and personal branding (‘I am Democracy,’ ‘I know xxx better than anyone else…’). He also remains guilty of relying on electable elites and the same familial involvement in party matters that are criticized in other parties. There is little tolerance for PTI members who may disagree with Khan or offer any competitive stance which reveals authoritarian tendencies. 

Finally, the unproven claim that he is open to compromise masks the fact that his politics thrive on intransigence—treating all dissent as betrayal (except his own) and viewing negotiation with the opposition or the establishment as weakness (except when dealing with the Taliban, even as it attacks Pakistan and inflicts injustices on the Afghan people). PTI’s mastery of trolling opponents, manufacturing fake news, and leading misinformation campaigns as a new form of politics in Pakistan is also overlooked in such sanitized analyses.

Far from disproving populism, these claims actually reinforce it. As Nadia Urbinati observes in Me the People, populism thrives on contradiction, converting apparent inconsistencies into signs of authenticity. Each denial, each assertion of moral exceptionality strengthens Khan’s narrative, reinforcing the image of a leader whose legitimacy rests less on institutions than on his constructed persona. Ironically, the validity of such claims is often on how he is internationally well-known or accepted by the West.

Populism on Empty

From prison, Khan continues to embody what Moffitt calls the performative style of populism—governing through crisis, redemption, claims of torture, and demands for exceptional treatment, even in the absence of office. His courtroom appearances in a supposed bulletproof bucket over his head, viral statements, and ritualized piety function as forms of affective governance from afar.

Yet his tenure in power offered no structural reform: economic stagnation persisted, media freedoms eroded, and minority persecution continued unchecked. His government extended the Army Chief’s tenure, criminalized dissent, and reinforced the surveillance state. The result is what might be called populism on empty and a politics of moral feeling without material change. It mobilizes faith but not reform and it personalizes virtue but not justice.

Imran Khan’s populism was not the negation of military rule but its civilian extension. Both rely on the same moral lexicon of piety, sacrifice, and masculine honor to assert legitimacy in a fractured polity. His electoral legitimacy in 2024 cannot be denied; he was a democratically elected leader who mobilized genuine discontent. Yet his politics squandered democratic energy because he is driven by claims of individual glory, empty rhetoric and not delivery. Claims of refusing to host US bases with an emphatic ‘Absolutely Not’ to a hypothetical question by a journalist and not as an actual matter of policy reality, exemplifies the kind of mythologizing that only a populist can maneuver. 

In Pakistan, as across the world, populism has become the grammar of both power and resistance. It is not a rupture from authoritarianism but its reinvention through the idioms of faith and virtue. The contest between Khan and Munir is less about democracy than about rival masculinities with each claiming to embody divine authenticity.

In the end, the PTI’s insistence that Khan is “popular, not populist” collapses under its own logic. Popularity is contingent and plural; populism claims moral monopoly. Khan’s “merit” was moral, not technocratic; his “service” symbolic, not structural; his defiance was personal not a questioning of power.

Imran Khan’s populism, like its global counterparts, offers moral redemption without reform—a politics of virtue that feeds on crisis and ultimately consumes democracy itself. At the very least, it recalibrates and compels all politics to thrust towards the Right end of the political spectrum.

For civilian democracy to prevail in Pakistan, all sides must abandon the language of contempt (libtards, patwaris, youthias, and cultists) that sustains populist polarization. A new politics demands both the recognition of PTI’s electoral legitimacy and respect for shifting electoral demographics, and for the ruling coalition to relinquish its reliance on military brokerage. In turn, the PTI needs to temper its cultic populism with constitutional humility, pluralism, and respect for critical media and civil society – starting with more honest political introspection rather than social media driven slurs and insults.

(*) Afiya S. Zia (PhD) is a feminist scholar and author of Faith and Feminism in Pakistan (Liverpool University Press, 2018). She has written extensively on gender, religion, democracy, and populism in South Asia. 

Professor Richard H. Pildes is the Sudler Family Professor of Constitutional Law at New York University School of Law and one of the foremost scholars of constitutional and democratic theory.

Professor Pildes: Effective Government Is the Forgotten Pillar of Democracy

by Editor’s ChoiceHomeInterviews

In an interview with the ECPS, Professor Richard H. Pildes, one of America’s leading constitutional scholars, warns that democracy’s survival depends not only on equality and participation but also on its capacity to deliver effective governance. “Democracy,” he says, “rests on two simple promises: equal voice and better lives. When governments fail in that second task, it profoundly undermines democracy itself.” Professor Pildes argues that excessive focus on participation, coupled with digital fragmentation and weakened political parties, have eroded governments’ ability to act decisively. The rise of “free-agent politicians,” algorithmic outrage, and social media-driven polarization, he cautions, threaten to make democracy less capable of solving problems. “Effective government,” Professor Pildes insists, “is the forgotten pillar of democracy.”

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

In a wide-ranging interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Professor Richard H. Pildes, the Sudler Family Professor of Constitutional Law at New York University School of Law and one of the foremost scholars of constitutional and democratic theory, reflects on one of the most neglected yet urgent dimensions of democratic life: the capacity to govern effectively.

Professor Pildes argues that modern democracies have grown dangerously unbalanced by emphasizing participation and representation—the “inputs” of democracy—while neglecting its “outputs,” namely the ability of governments to deliver results that improve citizens’ lives. As he puts it, “I often think of democracy, and what justifies it, as resting on two simple promises. First, democracy promises to treat citizens as equals—with equal standing, equal voice, and equal moral worth. Second, it promises to make their lives better.” When democratic governments fail at that second task, he warns, “it profoundly undermines the justification and purpose of democracy itself.”

Throughout the interview, Professor Pildes develops this theme of effective government as democracy’s forgotten pillar, linking it to rising polarization, social media dynamics, and the fragmentation of political authority. “Neglecting the value of effective government,” he observes, “is one of the greatest challenges of our time. Perhaps the fundamental challenge for contemporary democracies is to demonstrate that they can once again deliver for their citizens.”

Professor Pildes identifies digital fragmentation as one of the defining forces reshaping democratic governance. The communications revolution, he explains, has made it “incredibly easy to mobilize opposition to whatever government is doing,” eroding the stability of political institutions and making compromise more elusive. Social media and algorithmic amplification have “flattened political authority,” giving rise to spontaneous, leaderless movements but also fueling paralysis in democratic decision-making.

He also traces how the decline of strong political parties has weakened democracy’s capacity to build coalitions and sustain coherent governance. Whereas parties once mediated between citizens and the state, today’s hyper-pluralist media ecosystems and privatized campaign finance systems have encouraged the rise of “free-agent politicians”—performative figures who bypass party structures to cultivate online followings and raise funds directly from polarized small donors.

Looking ahead, Professor Pildes cautions that the structural fragmentation produced by digital media cannot be easily reversed: “The genie is out; you can’t really go back.” Yet, he insists that democracies must learn to manage these forces more effectively if they are to regain public trust and legitimacy. “Democracy,” he concludes, “must prove that it can still deliver—by governing effectively, addressing citizens’ needs, and meeting the great challenges of our time.”

Here is the edited transcript of our interview with Professor Richard H. Pildes, revised for clarity and flow.

Democracy Must Deliver

Photo: Iryna Kushnarova.

Professor Richard H. Pildes, thank you very much for joining our interview series. Let me start right away with the first question: In your recent work, you highlight the “neglected value of effective government” as central to democratic stability. How do disinformation and fragmented information ecosystems undermine the capacity of democratic institutions to deliver effective governance, and how should legal theory integrate these challenges?

Professor Richard H. Pildes: First of all, thank you very much for having me. Let me begin with the first part of your question, which concerns my writings on what I call the neglected value of effective government. The challenge many democracies across the West have been facing over the last 10 to 15 years is that a large portion of their citizens have become increasingly dissatisfied with what government is producing—with its ability to deliver on the major economic and cultural issues that people care most about.

When democratic systems fail to deliver over sustained periods of time on the issues their citizens value most, that creates a very dangerous situation. It breeds anger, alienation, frustration, and withdrawal. Worse still, it can lead people to yearn for strongman figures who promise to cut through paralysis and dysfunction and to deliver what democratic institutions appear incapable of achieving.

In my view, much of legal and political theory focuses on issues like political equality, deliberation, or participation, but pays too little attention to the outputs of democracy—to whether democracy is actually delivering for people. Neglecting the value of effective government is, in fact, one of the greatest challenges of our time. Perhaps the fundamental challenge for contemporary democracies is to demonstrate that they can once again deliver for their citizens.

I often think of democracy, and what justifies it, as resting on two simple promises. First, democracy promises to treat citizens as equals—with equal standing, equal voice, and equal moral worth. Second, it promises to make their lives better. When democratic governments are perceived by many of their citizens as failing in that second task, it profoundly undermines the justification and purpose of democracy itself.

That’s why I believe those of us who work on democratic and legal theory must focus more on how governments can become effective again—just as they were for many decades after World War II—at delivering meaningful results on the issues that matter most to their citizens.

Democracy’s Dilemma: Openness vs. Effectiveness

Your scholarship has long examined how democratic values can come into tension—such as openness versus effectiveness. In the digital era, how do these tensions manifest between free expression online and the state’s ability to govern effectively in an environment saturated with disinformation?

Professor Richard H. Pildes: As an initial matter, one of the points I try to make in emphasizing the importance of effective government as a democratic value is that it helps us recognize the trade-offs between various things we want democracy to achieve—between competing democratic values. For example, some of the reforms introduced over the past 20 or 30 years around political accountability or transparency are, of course, important democratic values. So are participation and voice for citizens. All of these are valuable goals.

But if we push too far along those dimensions, we can make it much harder for democratic governments to deliver. To make this concrete, consider the clean energy transition. There are many things governments need to do to enable a shift to cleaner forms of energy production. In the United States, for instance, we must build many more transmission lines to carry electricity from where there’s abundant sun or wind across multiple states. Yet, that’s extremely difficult because so many local communities and local governments have the ability to veto the passage of power lines through their territory.

What I mean to emphasize by highlighting the value of effective government is that democracy inevitably involves trade-offs. Not all democratic values can always be realized simultaneously. Sometimes, we must balance them, and we’ve given too little weight over the last few decades to the importance of effectiveness in government.

Turning to the second part of your question—how social media has made effective governance more difficult—one of the most striking developments of the last 10 or 15 years, particularly visible in Europe, is the increasing fragmentation of political systems. In many European countries, the traditionally dominant center-right and center-left parties have collapsed. They’ve lost voters in dramatic numbers to new parties—especially those of the far right—which have proliferated across the continent.

This reflects public dissatisfaction with democratic governments, a search for alternatives, and a growing willingness to consider more extreme options. But it also makes it much harder for parliamentary systems to deliver on core issues. Take France, for example. France has become almost ungovernable because its political system is so fragmented. With such a wide range of parties and interests represented in the National Assembly, it’s extremely difficult to form stable majorities to act on major issues.

So one of the perverse dynamics democracies face today is that ongoing dissatisfaction leads people to seek new, often more extreme, alternatives. That breaks down major parties and fragments parliaments, which, ironically, makes it even harder for governments to deliver what citizens demand.

Social media amplifies all of this. The communications and technology revolution—apart from issues like disinformation or hate speech—has made it incredibly easy to generate and sustain opposition to whatever the government is doing. Sometimes that opposition is legitimate; sometimes it’s not. But we now live in a world where groups can be mobilized instantly, new parties can be organized rapidly, and even individuals can wield enormous influence.

Some of that is positive—it encourages engagement and participation—but in a political environment where power can be constantly undermined and opposition endlessly mobilized, it becomes increasingly difficult for democratic governments to deliver on the economic and cultural issues people care most about.

Democracy’s Input-Output Imbalance

You have argued that modern democracies often focus excessively on input legitimacy (participation, representation) at the expense of output legitimacy (governing effectively). To what extent has the rise of social media deepened this imbalance by privileging participatory noise over institutional capacity?

Professor Richard H. Pildes: That’s a very good question. This goes back to our earlier discussion about how democratic theory and political theory tend to focus heavily on values associated with the process of democracy—what we might call its inputs—such as political equality, participation, and representation.

What often receives far less attention is whether democratic governments are actually able to deliver on the issues people care most intensely about, or that large segments of society care most deeply about. As I’ve said before, this imbalance poses a real risk for democracies, and we’re experiencing that risk now. When democratic systems are repeatedly perceived by citizens as unable to address the major challenges of the era—whether economic or cultural—that perception corrodes confidence in the system itself.

Social media, in many ways, has intensified this problem. In the United States, for instance, it has enabled what I call the rise of “free-agent politicians.” Lawmakers today can reach a national audience in a way that was unthinkable even a generation ago. Previously, new members of Congress were virtually invisible; they had to build expertise and move up gradually through the political hierarchy. Now, through social media, even first-year members can cultivate a national following almost instantly.

Because of this, and because campaigns in the US are privately financed, these politicians can raise significant sums of money online without relying on their political parties. The result is that many of them have become independent actors—no longer beholden to party discipline or structure. Unless political parties can assemble enough strength in the legislature to move legislation forward, you end up with hundreds of atomized individuals who are difficult to organize and coordinate.

This dynamic contributes to the paralysis and dysfunction we see in many legislatures today. As a result, more power shifts to chief executives—presidents or prime ministers—because the legislative or parliamentary process has become so gridlocked.

This is a major danger we need to confront. It requires serious reflection on how we can structure democratic processes and institutions in ways that make it more likely they can actually deliver the outcomes that large numbers of citizens are demanding.

The Leveling of Political Authority

French President Emmanuel Macron at the Cotroceni Palace in Bucharest, Romania on August 24, 2017. Photo: Carol Robert.

Scholars like Fukuyama argue that digital technologies have fundamentally reshaped political fragmentation across Western democracies. How do you see algorithmic amplification and social media platforms interacting with existing institutional fragmentation to exacerbate polarization and weaken democratic mediation?

Professor Richard H. Pildes: Francis Fukuyama’s point is very nicely captured by a phrase Emmanuel Macron used a while back. Macron, who is more philosophically inclined than most political leaders, said—translated into English—that there has been a “leveling of political authority.” I think that description captures well what the technological revolution and social media have done.

In both good and bad ways, these changes have made it much harder for political authority to be legitimate, to be marshaled, and to be organized in a way that allows for effective governance. As I mentioned earlier, it is now incredibly easy to mobilize opposition to whatever government is doing. The mobilizations that social media enables are often composed of large groups that are not formally organized, and the demonstrations are frequently spontaneous.

If you look at recent examples—the Canadian Truckers Movement opposing COVID policies, the Yellow Vests in France, the Indignados in Spain, or the Occupy movement in the US—these movements have no clear leaders and are not hierarchically structured. This makes it very difficult for governments to know who to negotiate with, who to engage in dialogue with, or even what some of these movements specifically want.

There are both positive and negative aspects to this. On the positive side, more people are able to express themselves and make their voices heard. But the downside, as I’ve been emphasizing, is that it makes it increasingly difficult for governments to function effectively.

We have to pay close attention to this dynamic because when people begin to feel alienated from democracy itself—when they perceive it as failing to deliver for them—that becomes a very risky situation.

Moreover, in this era, we also have, looming in the background, the example of authoritarian China, which many people believe is delivering more—whether they are right or wrong about that. Things can be built faster in China; they have high-speed rail, massive infrastructure growth, and so forth. President Biden has spoken frequently about this, saying that his goal is to demonstrate that democracies can work again in the face of the challenges posed by China’s rise.

That’s why I keep emphasizing the need to focus not just on whether democracies can deliver, but on how we can structure—or, if necessary, restructure—their institutions and processes to make it more likely that democratic governments will actually be able to do so.

The Economics of Outrage

The rise of digital platforms has dramatically expanded the reach and speed of small-donor mobilization, often through emotionally charged and polarizing content. How do you see the interaction between algorithmic amplification and small-donor dynamics shaping candidate incentives, campaign rhetoric, and party polarization in the medium term?

Professor Richard H. Pildes: This is particularly an issue in the United States because we finance our elections through private funding. That means individual donors—or sometimes very large billionaires who now spend vast amounts of money in elections. It can also be small donors, whom the internet now enables campaigns to reach very cheaply, and who can make donations with almost no transaction costs—very easily.

We went through an era in which the internet was celebrated as the democratization of information—a wonderful new age. But we have since come to recognize the darker side of that transformation: social media rewards outrage. The algorithms, as you mentioned, amplify outrage. The content that gets the most attention is often the most extreme. We’ve learned that lesson well.

The same dynamic applies to political fundraising online, especially from small donors. How do you get attention as a politician—again, this is a particularly American problem—in the attention economy we now live in? The more extreme or outrageous you are, the more likely you are to attract attention. In the United States, that attention translates directly into small-donor contributions.

So, the rise of online fundraising mirrors what we’ve come to understand about the internet more generally: it rewards those who take more extreme positions. This dynamic fuels polarization in the United States. Donations flow in response to viral moments on social media—moments that often depend on outrage or confrontation.

One small example illustrates this point. A number of years ago, when President Obama was delivering his State of the Union address to Congress—which is supposed to be a very dignified, if partisan, occasion—a congressman shouted, “You lie!” It was an extraordinary breach of decorum, and he was rightly criticized by major newspapers and commentators. Yet, in the days that followed, he raised a tremendous amount of money from small donors online.

That episode shows how the amplification and cultivation of outrage can turn on the flow of money. The result is that we get politicians who are more performative—more focused on attracting attention than on governing—and who are encouraged by these dynamics to be more extreme. I do think this has significantly contributed to polarization in the United States.

The Collapse of Democratic Mediation: The Disappearance of Gatekeepers

In this photo illustration, a smartphone screen displays an image of US President Donald Trump’s Truth Social app on July 8, 2024, in Washington, D.C., United States. Photo: Charles McClintock Wilson.

In your broader work on political fragmentation and effective governance, you emphasize the importance of institutions that mediate between citizens and the state. To what extent do current campaign-finance reforms and unregulated social media ecosystems undermine these mediating structures, and what kinds of institutional or legal interventions might restore equilibrium without unduly restricting participation or speech?

Professor Richard H. Pildes: That’s a very hard question. I’ll give you an example of probably the most dramatic change we’ve made to the structures of American democracy in the last 50 years—one that most people in the United States have long forgotten.

For 170 years, presidential nominees for the major parties were chosen primarily by elected party figures from across the country during political conventions. In the 1970s, that system was abandoned in favor of the current one, in which voters, through presidential primaries, effectively decide who each party will nominate for the presidency. 

So, for 170 years, we had this mediating device—call it the political convention—in which elected party figures from throughout the country would choose the nominee. These were often people with direct experience working with the potential candidates; they knew them much better than those without that experience. They sought to find candidates who would best represent the range of factions and interests within the party. 

All of that was eliminated when we shifted to using primary elections to select presidential nominees. That was the removal of a mediating institution—the political convention—and of certain gatekeepers, namely, the elected political figures.

At the time we made this change, some political scientists warned that it would make it easier for demagogic figures—those able to gain popular attention by stirring up hatreds and divisions—to rise to prominence. They cautioned that the new system would reward such candidates. I’ll let people decide for themselves how true that prediction has turned out to be in the United States, but it certainly marked the dismantling of an important mediating structure.

As you know, many democracies in Europe still retain these mediating roles. For example, in the Conservative Party in the UK, members of Parliament first winnow down the possible party leaders to two candidates. Then, it’s those two individuals whom the party’s broader membership votes between to choose the leader. That’s a gatekeeping role—a mediating institution.

We eliminated mechanisms like that, which is why I believe we’ve seen more populist-type figures rise to the presidency in the years since we abandoned the political convention as a meaningful device.

And this is precisely what social media does as well. The main thing social media does is eliminate gatekeepers. It dismantles mediating institutions and bypasses the structures that have long been part of democracy—at least in the US—for more than 200 years. That’s what Macron is referring to when he says the technological revolution is creating a “leveling of authority.” Some of that is good, and some of it is very bad. But that’s the nature of the democracy we are living in today.

When Parties Lose Power, Democracies Lose Direction

In your analysis of political fragmentation, how do decentralized, hyper-pluralist media ecosystems affect coalition-building and compromise, which are traditionally central to democratic governance?

Professor Richard H. Pildes: These are very challenging questions. When you have strong political parties—parties that have real authority in the sense that they can develop policy agendas and communicate those clearly to voters—they can then implement those agendas once in office. If they have a majority, or if they form a governing coalition, they can steer that coalition in a coherent direction. All of that depends on having strong political parties.

A big part of what’s happened across many democracies is that political parties have become much weaker than they used to be. And that’s for a variety of reasons. The parties used to be anchored in institutions—like labor unions on the left or churches on the right—that themselves have lost power over time. As those institutions have weakened, so have the parties.

And although we love to complain about political parties—and we love to hate political parties—strong parties are actually essential to making democracy work effectively. They organize the legislative agenda, craft the messages to voters, structure what people campaign on, and, when they gain political power, they have the cohesion needed to push policies through.

When political parties are weak, it becomes much harder for them to perform all of these functions. That, in turn, makes it harder to build coalitions, harder to sustain compromise, and harder to form stable governing majorities in parliaments. I think this is very much part of the situation we face today.

The Genie Is Out: Social Media and the Future of Democracy

Illustration by Ulker Design.

Given your emphasis on institutional design, do you view the structural fragmentation induced by online media as something that can be mitigated through legal or regulatory reform, or is it now a constitutive feature of contemporary democracies?

Professor Richard H. Pildes: The short answer is that it’s the latter. We’ve had a lot of discussion about social media’s effects on democracy that focus on issues like disinformation or misinformation, as we talked about earlier. But my view is that the challenges social media poses to democracy are much deeper than that.

Even if we could somehow fix those problems—through legal reforms, or if the platforms were to self-regulate—I still don’t think we would have addressed the major ways social media is transforming democracy. The real impact lies in how it contributes to the fragmentation of political power and authority more broadly: the greater ease of creating new political groups and parties, the greater ease of mobilizing opposition to what government is doing, and the greater ease of spreading—not necessarily disinformation—but very different interpretations of what to do with accurate information.

This is constitutive, to use the term you raised, of democracy today. There’s no way to put social media back in the bottle—the genie is out, and we can’t go back. The real question is whether democracies, political parties, and political leaders can learn to manage these forces in a way that still enables government to deliver effectively—so that democracy continues to do what it promises to do: respond to citizens’ needs and address the major challenges they face, as they understand them.

Defending Democracy in the Age of Global Disinformation

And finally, Professor Pildes, given the globalized nature of disinformation operations (e.g., Russia, China, Iran), how do existing US constitutional and regulatory frameworks—designed for domestic actors—struggle to address transnational information threats?

Professor Richard H. Pildes: This is a very big challenge. It’s not, of course, the first era in which foreign actors have tried to influence elections in other countries. The United States did this after World War II when it was trying to prevent countries like Italy or France from electing communist governments.

But in the social media age, all of this can now be done much more cheaply and at a far greater scale. One positive feature in the US is that we have a highly decentralized system for our national elections. That makes it more difficult for a hostile foreign actor to capture control of the election system because it is so dispersed across states and localities.

Still, when it comes to foreign influence and efforts to manipulate public opinion, this is a very difficult challenge. Legally speaking, even with our strong First Amendment, the US government does have significant authority—if Congress chooses to act—to address some of these issues. We already ban foreign contributions in our campaigns because of the fear of foreign influence.

So, I think there is legal authority to do more. The harder question is whether it’s possible, as a practical matter, to implement effective measures in the digital age. That remains a very open question.

Sri Lankan protesters storm the prime minister's office in Colombo on July 13, 2022, demanding the resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. Photo: Ruwan Walpola.

Professor Goldstone: The World’s Descent into Authoritarianism May Trigger a Revolutionary Movement

by AuthoritarianismDigital-populismEditor’s ChoiceHomeInterviews

In this insightful interview, world-renowned revolution scholar Professor Jack A. Goldstone warns that we are witnessing both “a descent into an authoritarian pattern across much of the world” and “the beginning of a revolutionary movement.” Professor Goldstone argues that today’s global instability—rising inequality, elite overproduction, populist anger, and democratic decay—signals the breakdown of the post–World War II liberal order. “The global and national institutions of the last 50 years,” he notes, “are falling apart.” Yet he remains cautiously hopeful: while “the next ten years will be very difficult,” he foresees that by the late 2030s, a new generation will “demand more accountability, more freedom, and use new technologies to build a better world.”

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

In a wide-ranging and thought-provoking interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Professor Jack A. Goldstone—one of the world’s foremost scholars of revolutions and social change—offers a sobering yet ultimately hopeful assessment of the current global order. As the Virginia E. and John T. Hazel, Jr. Chair Professor of Public Policy at George Mason University, senior fellow at the Mercatus Center, and director of Schar’s Center for the Study of Social Change, Institutions and Policy (SCIP), Professor Goldstone brings decades of comparative historical insight to bear on today’s crises of democracy, capitalism, and governance. His diagnosis is clear and unsettling: “We are in a kind of descent into an authoritarian pattern across much of the world. That’s also the beginning of a revolutionary movement.”

According to Professor Goldstone, the present era is marked by the unraveling of the political and institutional order that defined the last half-century. “The global and national institutions of the last 50 years,” he explains, “are falling apart—they’ve come under strain for decades and are now being picked apart by both elite groups seeking advantage and populations deeply dissatisfied with financial crises, cultural clashes, and stagnant mobility.” This confluence of forces, he argues, signals not simply democratic backsliding but the early stirrings of a new revolutionary epoch.

Professor Goldstone situates these developments within the long cycles of political upheaval he has mapped throughout his career. His structural-demographic theory identifies three recurring stressors that produce revolutionary moments: rising government debt, the overproduction of elites, and mass grievances rooted in inequality and declining opportunity. Today, all three are present—governments are overextended, elites are multiplying faster than elite positions, and younger generations across the world are losing faith in social mobility. As he observes, “Failure of mobility is becoming the expectation… and that has huge effects on people’s optimism for the future and confidence in government. It creates the kind of anger that fuels a revolutionary moment.”

Yet, Professor Goldstone warns, the contemporary landscape also differs profoundly from past revolutionary ages. New technologies—from algorithmic media to artificial intelligence—are reshaping how truth, mobilization, and resistance operate. “The internet,” he notes, “was once seen as a tool of democracy, but governments have learned to weaponize it. They don’t shut down dissent; they drown it in misinformation.” In this digital ecosystem, both democratic discourse and authoritarian control are being transformed, deepening uncertainty about the trajectory of change.

Still, Professor Goldstone’s long-view perspective tempers despair with cautious optimism. While he predicts that “the next ten years will be very difficult,” he insists that revolutionary renewal remains possible: “From the late 2030s onward, we will see the next generation demanding more accountability, more freedom, and using new technologies to build a better world for themselves.” For Professor Goldstone, the world’s descent into authoritarianism may, paradoxically, set the stage for its next great democratic transformation.

Professor Jack A. Goldstone, one of the world’s leading scholars of revolutions and social change, holds the Virginia E. and John T. Hazel, Jr. Chair in Public Policy at George Mason University. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Mercatus Center and Director of the Center for the Study of Social Change, Institutions and Policy (SCIP).

Here is the edited transcript of our interview with Professor Jack Goldstone, revised for clarity and flow.

The World Is Entering an Authoritarian Phase—but Also the Dawn of a New Revolution

Professor Jack Goldstone, thank you very much for joining our interview series. Let me start right away with the first question: Throughout your career, you’ve explored how demographic pressures, elite fragmentation, and structural crises shape political transformation. In today’s world—marked by democratic erosion, rising authoritarianism, populist polarization, and a weakening rules-based order—how would you define this historical moment? Are we in a phase of democratic recalibration, a descent into authoritarian consolidation, or the early stirrings of a new revolutionary epoch? And what do these trajectories mean for the future of human rights, freedom, and global democracy?

Professor Jack Goldstone: Well, as a theme I will come back to during several of your questions, I’d say the answer is both—not either/or. That is, yes, we are in a kind of descent into an authoritarian pattern across much of the world. But that’s also the beginning of a revolutionary movement.

Revolutions are long processes. What we are seeing is a situation in which the global and national political institutions of the last 50 years are falling apart. They’ve come under strain for decades and are now being picked apart by both elite groups seeking advantage and by populations deeply dissatisfied with what has happened in terms of global financial crises, economic growth, social mobility, cultural clashes, and global migration.

All these pressures have overwhelmed both mainstream political parties and even the post–World War II liberal consensus institutions. So, yes, it’s the beginning of a revolutionary movement. It’s taking the form of a rejection of democracies increasingly seen as corrupt, self-serving, and ineffective for ordinary citizens.

Where that ends remains to be seen. Revolutions are long processes. We may go through a decade of authoritarian consolidation, but then that may turn around. In the long term, the world is going to move toward democracy—that’s the outcome consistent with growing education and increasing demands for autonomy.

But before we get there, we may experience a period of authoritarian distress, not unlike the 1930s. I hope we avoid wars on the scale of the 1940s, but we’re already seeing conflicts larger than any since that time. So, I do fear we’re entering a phase of authoritarianism and war. Yet, on the other side of that, there’s a good chance the world will emerge on a new path toward greater democracy and prosperity—much as it did after World War II.

Dictatorships Always Appear Stronger Than They Really Are

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara, Turkey on August 30, 2014. Photo: Mustafa Kirazlı.

In some of your recent articles, you argue that democratic breakdowns and the re-emergence of dictatorships have reignited revolutionary cycles. How do you interpret this paradox in an era where regimes such as those in Russia, Turkey, and China appear to have mastered new techniques—digital surveillance, managed populism, and algorithmic governance—to pre-empt revolt and consolidate authoritarian rule?

Professor Jack Goldstone: I’d simply say that regimes have always appeared stronger than they really are. Before the Arab Spring, there was a widespread conviction among Middle East specialists that the region’s autocracies were stable, entrenched, and inherently suited to authoritarian rule. People forgot that the Middle East had been convulsed by revolutions in the 1950s and 1960s. But because from the 1980s to the early 2000s there were stable dictatorships that lasted for decades, many observers thought these regimes had found some key to survival. It wasn’t true. 

The same was said of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. They had crushed multiple uprisings in Hungary, Poland, and Czechoslovakia during the 1950s and 1960s. And yet, in the 1970s, when Gorbachev admitted that the Soviet Union was struggling economically—that the consumer sector was terrible, industries were falling behind, and reforms were needed—nobody imagined that would lead to the total collapse of communism within a decade.

Again, many autocratic regimes appear stronger than they are. They may be strong, but they’re also brittle. And that’s because politics, at the end of the day, is driven by one of two emotions: fear or anger. If people are fearful that the government will come after them if they protest, then protest will be suppressed. That’s how authoritarian regimes survive for decades. But if people become sufficiently angry—if they sense that the government is showing signs of weakness and that collective action might succeed—they can be remarkably courageous. The crowds that filled the streets in Moscow and Leipzig had no assurance they wouldn’t face violence, but they sensed widespread discontent and believed that acting together could bring change. The same thing happened in Cairo’s Tahrir Square.

So yes, there is new digital surveillance, and yes, regimes look tough. But if people truly feel compelled to challenge their government, they will. Digital surveillance is only an incremental advantage. Regimes have been targeting, imprisoning, and torturing dissidents for decades. China was just as harsh on opposition leaders after Tiananmen Square as it is today.

So, I don’t think we can say we’ve entered a fundamentally new era that makes dictators far more powerful. They do have new technologies at their disposal, but those don’t change the game entirely. They’re simply the latest tools in the ongoing struggle between governments and the people—a contest that has been unfolding for centuries.

Populism as a Prelude to Revolution?

Building on your structural-demographic theory, could the surge of populist movements across both developing and advanced democracies be viewed as pre-revolutionary signals of systemic stress? How does elite overproduction and the manipulation of anti-elite sentiment by insiders fit within your model of cyclical instability and regime decay?

Professor Jack Goldstone: The structural-demographic theory points to three major weaknesses or vulnerabilities that precipitate a revolutionary situation. One is government debt. That is, when government is unable to raise revenues because of resistance to taxation or economic difficulties, but expenses keep growing. And in the West, the aging of the population and the demand for retirement and healthcare and so on has kept expenses rising as the population’s gotten older. Meanwhile, the population is not growing as fast as it used to. So, the labor force is stagnating, and tax revenues are stagnating. So, we’ve seen Britain, France, Germany, the United States, China—all of these countries are dealing with problems of financing their government and growing government debt. So that’s one major element that no one seems able to escape, because they can’t find the rapid growth that would be necessary to balance the books against the growth in government spending that the populations demand. Plus, the rich are seeking more tax cuts for themselves wherever they can. That’s one element. 

Second element, what you mentioned, the overproduction of elites. This is something that’s a little hard to understand, because it’s not just that more people are becoming qualified for elite positions. During times of economic growth and population expansion, that can be a good thing. As long as there’s a growing demand for more doctors, lawyers, accountants, financiers, engineers—after all, China blew its economy up four or five-fold increases—part of that was growing population, growing number of college graduates, growing number of engineers.

Overproduction of elites occurs when you have a growth in the number of people who consider themselves entitled to elite positions, but the number of elite positions that society is providing starts to stagnate or decline. And that leads to kind of a pileup, with more and more people hoping to obtain elite positions and unable to do so. So the visible sign of this is a sharp decline in social mobility—the number of people who are able to move from middle or working or lower class into upper-class positions that declines, because the number of upper-class positions starts to stagnate, and those who are already in those positions try and protect that status for themselves and their families.

For example, universities throughout the 1950s, 1960s, and even the 1970s were engines of social mobility. People went to college, earned degrees, secured white-collar jobs in government, finance, or the private sector, and contributed to sustained economic growth. But from the 1980s and 1990s onward, we began to see wealth becoming more concentrated. The elite universities gradually turned into what I call “the elites’ universities.” It became increasingly difficult for ordinary people to gain admission, as applicants were required to navigate meritocratic hoops that were increasingly dominated by families already entrenched in the upper echelons of the elite.

Declining Mobility, Rising Fury

Many Nepali citizens join Gen Z–led protests in Bhojpur, Nepal on September 9, 2025, showing solidarity with nationwide demonstrations. Photo: Dipesh Rai.

It’s the decline of social mobility that’s really the marker of overproduction of elites. And we see this everywhere. Japan, China—you have the hikikomori in Japan, you have the lie-flat phenomenon in China. In Western Europe and in the United States, you have young people who are increasingly frustrated and angry that they’re not seeing the kind of expected gains in quality of life and lifestyle that their parents enjoyed.

We have data for the United States that shows for cohorts that were born in the 1940s and 50s, their rate of social mobility was almost 85% plus. Whereas for the cohorts that were born in the 1990s, early 2000s, their rate of social mobility—that is, earning a higher income in their 20s than their parents did—has dropped below 50%. Now, failure of mobility is becoming the expectation, and that has huge effects on people’s sense of optimism for the future and confidence in government. It creates the kind of anger that fuels a revolutionary moment. With the government continually burdened by excessive finance, financial debt, there’s not much the government can do to expand employment or provide alternatives. Governments are in debt, elites are getting stacked up, and social mobility is declining.

Then the third element is that the labor force grew with the baby boom. That was amplified by a big surge of immigration in the 1960s and 70s, and then again in the 2000s. The result of all of that is that the wage structure has stratified. That is to say, at the high end, professionals have continued to enjoy rising wages, but for the non-college-educated worker, especially non-college-educated men, real wages have stagnated or even declined over the last 30 years. That creates the sense of popular grievances among a majority of the population that is taking their anger out on those dominant elites who are pulling up the ladder and reducing social mobility.

Structural-demographic theory, in a word: government debt, elite overproduction and excess competition, and popular grievances about declining living standards and loss of opportunity. You put those three together, you have a collapse of faith in the existing government and institutions. That creates a revolutionary situation that can be exploited by leaders who want to lead a group of people who are interested in blowing everything up. People who are angry, frustrated, feel the government is not working in their interests, hasn’t done so for a while, and if they don’t create a dramatic change, they see their situation as only getting worse. That’s a revolutionary moment.

AI, Algorithms, and the Erosion of Reality

3D render of an AI processor chip on a circuit board. Photo: Dreamstime.

You have warned that unregulated social media “floods the zone” with disinformation, eroding democratic consensus. How do emerging technologies—especially artificial intelligence and algorithmic content curation—reshape the conditions for mobilization and revolution? Do these tools empower new forms of collective agency or primarily strengthen authoritarian regimes’ capacity for control and pre-emption?

Professor Jack Goldstone: Any new communications method—whether it was the printing press, radio, television, or now the internet—sets off a struggle between popular groups and governments to see who can control that medium more effectively to create and empower communities. In the beginning, radio and TV were hailed as great opportunities for popular education and strengthening democracy. But of course, whether it was in Germany with radio or in the Soviet Union with television, governments quickly figured out how to use those media and turn them into tools of propaganda. This, of course, happened even earlier with print censorship and government control of public publications. Wherever you see governments controlling media—whether newspapers, radio, or television—it inevitably becomes an outlet for propaganda.

Now, the idea behind the internet was that everyone could publish—that there was no way for the government to take it over. Bill Clinton famously said that if China wanted to run the internet, it would be like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall. The Chinese figured out how to use staples and glue guns. They managed to take control of the internet by creating their own workforce and bots so that if something appears online that Chinese authorities dislike, they don’t try to shut it down—since that would trigger backlash. Instead, they flood social media with contradictory or countering stories. Whatever the original truth or complaint was gets buried under waves of conflicting information, making it nearly impossible for the truth to emerge if there’s no trusted source that people believe.

Instead of having one or two major networks or print publications, we now have thousands. Everyone has their own podcast or internet channel, and people can say whatever they like. It’s completely unregulated. Anyone can lie—and have those lies widely distributed. The President of the United States can spread falsehoods on his own platform, Truth Social—ironically named. It’s reminiscent of how the Soviet Union had Pravda (“Truth”) as its flagship publication, and now the United States has Truth Social as the flagship for whatever stories a president wishes to tell.

The fact that AI can now fabricate visuals and stories at zero marginal cost—and spread them instantly—adds to the problem. But even without AI, the internet itself provides countless channels for misinformation. Originally, people thought the internet would be a great tool for mobilizing citizens against governments, a tool for democracy, because you couldn’t stop people from communicating with each other.

Yet communication for mobilization can also be undermined by a flood of false information. Even if the internet can build communities of resistance, it doesn’t provide the flesh-and-blood courage and solidarity that emerge from physical bonds of community, neighborhood, or religion. If you want to see effective resistance to authoritarian regimes, it still comes from those real-world ties, not just online chat groups.

Where the internet is truly dangerous, in my view, is in its distortion of reality. It makes it difficult for people to be certain of what is true and what is not, which in turn undermines the shared foundation needed to say: This is the truth we must defend. This is the goal we all want to work toward. When that shared reality fractures, complacency, passivity, and anxiety take hold. That’s the greatest danger I see in the social media world.

Still, people will overcome it—just as we’re beginning to rebuild real human bonds in schools, for example, with policies that require students to leave their cell phones in lockers during the school day. For eight hours, they must engage with friends, play real sports, read real books, and talk to one another. That’s a big improvement, and people will increasingly hunger for that kind of genuine connection. But over the last 10 or 15 years, we’ve seen real personal connections, genuine bonds, and confidence in truth significantly eroded by the easy access and superficial engagement fostered by social media. Still, I don’t think that’s permanent.

When Winning Becomes Losing

Protest against Bidzina Ivanishvili on Rustaveli Avenue, Tbilisi, Georgia — November 8, 2020. Demonstrators gather to voice opposition to the ruling party and its leader. Photo: Koba Samurkasov.

In “The Paradox of Victory” (with Bert Useem), you describe how movements that achieve short-term success often fail to institutionalize durable change. Could the Arab Spring, Occupy, and various anti-establishment populist movements exemplify this paradox—where mobilization triumphs are followed by democratic regression or authoritarian backlash? What determines whether such moments yield reform or re-entrenchment?

Professor Jack Goldstone: We’ve seen wild swings back and forth in many policy domains, largely because we’ve become so polarized. And by “we,” I mean the West—the United States, Europe, even Japan. When you look at governments today, instead of opposing parties working to hammer out compromises that could serve as the basis for broad, lasting agreement, you have factions trying to win narrow victories—ramming their views down the throats of the opposition and declaring, “We’re in power now, so we’re going to pass this law or push this policy.” The problem is that as soon as power shifts and the other faction takes control, they respond, “We’re going to repeal everything our opponents did and push our own agenda.” But that doesn’t endure either, because there’s no broad consensus to sustain it.

If we look back at the transformative actions of the 1960s in the United States—building the Great Society, advancing the Civil Rights Movement—leaders then tried to bring on board a broad coalition of different actors. For example, Social Security was not presented as a socialist-style welfare state. In the US, Social Security—pension payments to seniors—was framed as something individuals earned through their contributions.

What other countries saw as a welfare state, American politicians presented as a fair return on an individual’s labor. That framing created broad public consent, so much so that people now consider Social Security payments a basic right of American citizenship. Yet those same people will say, “We reject socialism, but Social Security is something I earned.” It was all in the presentation—a deliberate effort to build compromise and a shared foundation.

If you look at other policies, healthcare—Obamacare, for instance—was a narrow Democratic victory, and Republicans have been trying to dismantle it ever since. Affirmative action once had broader support for a few decades, especially in areas like housing, where people agreed that discrimination was wrong. But school integration—especially when it involved busing students far from home—was never widely accepted. Affirmative action, in general, has always been marginal. America never fully embraced the idea of creating broad-based justice for minorities. It was always piecemeal — “a little bit here for this group, a little bit there for that one.” And now, it has become deeply unpopular, to the point that most affirmative action policies have been or are being rolled back.

This kind of policy instability is damaging. It’s hard for people to plan for the future if policy changes radically every four, six, or eight years. It’s hard for businesses, it’s hard for families, and it erodes public confidence in government when governance itself becomes a football kicked back and forth between two opposing teams. It makes it look like each party is just in it for itself. People start asking, “Who’s looking out for me? Who’s watching out for the ordinary citizen?”

If government doesn’t have a widely accepted set of goals to lift everyone up, then what’s the purpose of it? It just becomes my faction versus your faction. So, when I talk about “the paradox of victory,” what I mean is that you can win something by a narrow margin in the short term—but those narrow, short-term victories often turn into long-term failures for society as a whole. Because without stability, consensus, or shared values, each side’s win just breeds more polarization, more backlash, and more chaos. Each victory overturns what came before, creating insecurity and uncertainty. It might feel good in the moment to say, “We won this year,” but that’s not a victory for society.

Capitalism: From Engine of Progress to Source of Revolt

In “The Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century,” you identify global capitalism and corrupt elites as key drivers of revolutionary pressure. How do you interpret the global resurgence of state capitalism—from China’s digital authoritarianism to Western neo-industrialism—as both a mechanism for managing inequality and a source of renewed instability within the international political economy?

Professor Jack Goldstone: In general, I am an enthusiastic supporter of capitalism. By that, I mean there’s no better way than free market competition and the price mechanism for encouraging enterprise and rewarding effort. That is to say, as long as the rules of the game encourage competition, fair dealing, open information, and open opportunity, capitalism can be effective in promoting social mobility, economic growth, higher productivity, and innovation. But, as we all know, capitalism is also prone to control by monopolies and oligopolies.

When oligopolies and monopolies start to dominate, when elites monopolize the key positions in society, you no longer get those benefits for the average person. Instead, you see growing inequality, less social mobility, more difficulties for the average worker, and greater political and economic influence for those who control the largest corporations and main financial institutions. So, while I’m in favor of capitalism, if it becomes too unregulated and allows excessive concentration of wealth and power, it tends to produce revolutionary pressures—fueled by the anger and frustration of those left behind.

During the Cold War, capitalist countries were on the defensive, and capitalist elites tolerated higher taxation on the rich. They accepted stronger unions. All of that was seen as necessary to respond to the challenge of communism, which promised a worker’s paradise and claimed to put workers first. The response to communism since the 19th century has always been to give workers better wages, greater benefits, and more opportunities.

But after the Cold War, when communism seemed defeated and gone, capitalism was unleashed. It was like, “We’ve won this fight—capitalism is clearly the better system—so let it rip.” Globalization accelerated. The market was left to “do its thing.” Profits were good. Greed was good. Unions and regulations were portrayed as obstacles. And what did that bring us? The speculative bubble of the dot-com boom, followed by the unrestrained credit excesses that led to the Great Recession of 2007–2008, which devastated small homeowners.

Those two crises showed that letting capitalism run unchecked leads to instability, wealth concentration, and periodic crises. Look at the United States today: the economy seems to be doing well, but more than half of all private consumption comes from just the top 20% of earners. We’re seeing taller penthouses, bigger yachts, and greater private art collections—but not more investment in public parks, schools, or health systems. Public goods that help ordinary citizens gain security are being weakened, while systems that help the very rich accumulate even more wealth are being strengthened.

At that point, capitalism shifts from being a powerful engine of progress to something that actually undermines the social bonds, confidence, optimism, and shared values that sustain social cohesion and a well-functioning democracy. That’s why I think so many of today’s democracies are in a revolutionary situation that’s opening the way for authoritarian leaders. We’ve allowed capitalism to go too far in the direction of wealth concentration. That’s a normal cycle, but I believe it always has to be regulated to some degree.

From Liberal Order to Ethno-Nationalist Empire

“No Kings” protest against the Trump administration, New York City, USA — June 14, 2025. Demonstrators march down Fifth Avenue as part of the nationwide “No Kings” movement opposing President Donald Trump and his administration. Photo: Dreamstime.

And lastly, Professor Goldstone, your comparative work on historical state crises suggests that revolutionary waves accompany periods of hegemonic decline. Does the erosion of the liberal, rule-based order—through geopolitical fragmentation, trade nationalism, and elite polarization—mark the onset of a new world-systemic revolutionary cycle comparable to those surrounding 1789, 1848, or 1917?

Professor Jack Goldstone: Yes, I think they do. There’s no question that today we are in a worldwide pattern of ethno-nationalist populism. It has already triumphed in Russia and China, where there’s a very strong emphasis on national and ethnic identity as the basis for national cohesion, and that identity is embodied by a strong leader—whether it’s Putin or Xi Jinping. That pattern was once seen as the antithesis of Western democratic values but has actually turned out to be the leading edge of a global ethno-nationalist authoritarian movement.

We see this with the rise of anti-immigration parties. They’ve taken power in Hungary, briefly in Poland, and they’re becoming a larger part of coalitions across European countries. And clearly, in the United States, we now have a government willing to enact authoritarian measures against foreigners—against immigrants if they are suspected of being illegal. We’re bombing fishing boats on the high seas in an act of war to protect our borders from drugs.

The motivating idea now behind the American government is “America First.” “America for Americans”. There’s even a movement to end birthright citizenship and say that you can’t just be born on American territory—you have to be born of American citizens. I don’t know if that will become law or not—it has never been the case—but the fact that we now have a government pursuing that goal, restricting citizenship, becoming more hostile to foreigners, and becoming harshly militarized against suspected illegal immigrants, shows we’re in a worldwide wave of ethno-nationalist populism that has gained power because of the ineffectiveness, turmoil, and collapse of trust in democratic institutions.

Now, you ask, is this like other waves of revolution? Yes—and all waves of revolution are eventually succeeded by a period of consolidation, but then often change. The French Revolution went through phases of republican, authoritarian, and Napoleonic empire—even the restoration of the monarchy. But then, a couple of decades later, there was another revolution to promote constitutional rule. And after several cycles, the French government eventually settled into democracy after 1870.

Across Europe in the 1930s, you had ethno-nationalist authoritarian leaders. This was true of Eastern European states, Germany, of course, and the countries Germany conquered. There were a few exceptions, but for the most part, Europe was given over to dictatorship and ethno-nationalist ideology. After World War II, that reversed.

Hope Beyond the Authoritarian Tide

Now we’re in another wave that reminds me very much of the 1930s—weak democracies accused of being corrupt, elites under attack, and popular strongman authoritarian leaders rising while mainstream parties are cast aside. The mainstream parties have failed in France. Right now, Labour looks very weak in Britain—even after winning a huge majority, they seem ineffective. The ethno-nationalist British Reform Party looks like it’s gaining strength. In France, it looks like the National Rally will be effective.

So, we have a global populist authoritarian movement—and they’re aware of it. These authoritarian leaders meet at The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), share notes, encourage one another, and actively support each other in their quest to create ethno-nationalist authoritarian states.

I’m worried that the 2020s will look like the 1930s in that regard. And, as I say, there may be wars as a result. I don’t rule out the possibility that America and China may go to war over Taiwan. We already see this endless war in Ukraine. I don’t know where others may break out, but ethno-nationalism tends to breed conflict because, by its nature, it’s exclusionary and often hostile.

So, I expect the next ten years to be very difficult. But I’m hopeful that from the late 2030s onward, we will see the next generation of young people demanding more accountability, more freedom, and wanting to use new technologies to build a better world for themselves. So, I remain optimistic in the long run, even though pessimistic, unfortunately, for the next five to ten years.

Dr. Maria Papageorgiou is Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at Newcastle University.

Dr. Papageorgiou: Russia & China ‘Play Both Sides’ on Social Media to Deepen Political Polarization

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In an interview with the ECPS, Dr. Maria Papageorgiou, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at Newcastle University, examines how digital platforms have transformed both domestic politics and international relations. Drawing on her Leverhulme project on Sino–Russian disinformation synergies, she argues that Russia and China have developed a “division of labor” in online influence operations aimed at destabilizing Western democracies. “They have attempted to amplify both sides of political debates through bots and anonymous accounts—using certain elements to appeal to the right wing and others to the left… In short, they play both sides,” she explains. By exploiting emotional content and deepening polarization, these actors are reshaping democratic discourse and testing the limits of resilience in open societies.

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

Giving an interview to the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Dr. Maria Papageorgiou, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at Newcastle University, discusses the complex relationship between digital technologies, political communication, and the global rise of disinformation. Her current Leverhulme-funded project investigates Sino–Russian disinformation synergies during UK and US elections, shedding light on how coordinated influence operations exploit social divisions and challenge democratic resilience.

According to Dr. Papageorgiou, the structural shift introduced by social media represents “a more profound transformation in communication than previous technological advancements.” Unlike earlier forms of mass media that centralized information flows, today’s digital platforms empower a wide range of actors—ordinary citizens, political elites, and state institutions alike—to produce and disseminate content instantly. “It allows real-time responses, travels almost instantly, and reaches audiences across multiple countries and languages,” she explains. Yet this democratization of communication also carries serious consequences: “Online content often contains false or exaggerated claims, leading to more emotional forms of political expression and, ultimately, to polarization.”

These dynamics are not confined to domestic politics. In the international arena, Dr. Papageorgiou notes that states increasingly use social media to construct and project national identity in real time, especially during crises. She points to cases such as Russia’s and China’s digital diplomacy during the COVID-19 pandemic and the Ukraine war, when both countries sought to frame themselves as responsible global powers while amplifying counter-narratives to Western accounts. “Particularly during times of crisis, when information circulates in real time, states amplify their social media presence… to more easily frame and project their national identity,” she observes.

Her research finds that Russia and China have developed a complementary “division of labor” in influence operations, pursuing shared objectives of weakening Western unity and credibility. “They have attempted to amplify both sides of political debates through bots and anonymous accounts—using certain elements to appeal to the right wing and others to the left,” Dr. Papageorgiou explains. “They are particularly focused on exaggerating existing polarization, using these accounts to disseminate emotionally charged content designed to provoke reactions. In short, they play both sides.”

For Dr. Papageorgiou, this pattern highlights a wider transformation in global political communication: the erosion of traditional information hierarchies and the normalization of populist performance in digital spaces. “Digital platforms enable a more populist style of performance, especially when one holds executive authority,” she concludes. “We can now see that it is almost impossible to return to older forms of communication. The public is no longer receptive to them; they have become accustomed to these newer, more direct political practices.”

In a fragmented information landscape, her insights underscore both the promise and the peril of digital politics: greater participation on the one hand, and deeper division on the other.

Here is the edited transcript of our interview with Dr. Maria Papageorgiou, revised for clarity and flow.

Social Media as a Structural Revolution in Political Communication

Social Media

Dr. Maria Papageorgiou, thank you very much for joining our interview series. Let me start right away with the first question: Your work often situates social media within broader transformations of international relations. How would you characterize the structural shift introduced by social media platforms compared to earlier communication technologies (e.g., the printing press, radio), particularly regarding their impact on democratic deliberation?

Dr. Maria Papageorgiou: We need to consider social media as a more profound structural shift in communication than previous technological advancements. It differs in many significant ways. For instance, earlier technologies transformed how information was produced and disseminated, but social media fundamentally altered another key element—who communicates that information. A wide range of actors now participates: traditional media, ordinary citizens, and politicians alike. In this way, social media has transformed who can produce and share information.

Another crucial aspect is the speed at which information circulates. It allows real-time responses, travels almost instantly, and reaches audiences across multiple countries and languages. This has greatly expanded accessibility for the wider population, as the only requirement is an internet-connected mobile phone. In short, social media has drastically transformed the nature of communication.

When it comes to democratic deliberation, social media presents both opportunities and challenges. On the one hand, it has broadened participation in public discourse. Ordinary citizens can voice their opinions, share information, and engage directly with political actors. For instance, they can comment, criticize policies or statements, and more easily participate in debates. This has significantly increased and mobilized political participation.

On the other hand, the sheer volume of online information brings negative consequences. Online content often contains false or exaggerated claims, leading to more emotional forms of political expression and, ultimately, to polarization. We now see distinct ideological camps, creating a kind of chasm—or schism—that did not exist before. As a result, deliberation has become fragmented, with opposing audiences and fewer shared spaces for dialogue.

Although social media has increased political participation—especially among younger generations—the quality of debate has been distorted by the overwhelming amount of information available. Disinformation, often framed to support particular narratives, has encouraged a binary view of politics, where people feel compelled to choose one side over another. Consequently, individuals rarely critique ideas on their merits or acknowledge successful initiatives by opponents. Instead, they remain confined within their ideological camps, reinforcing their group’s narrative. This is a significant drawback for democratic deliberation.

However, we should not focus solely on democracies when evaluating the impact of social media. In more authoritarian states, social media initially created new spaces for civic engagement, mobilization, and even dissent against government policies. It enabled citizens to coordinate collective actions and organize movements. We saw the impact of this, for instance, during the Arab Spring and the protests in Iran. Thus, social media has had a profound influence not only in democratic societies but also in more tightly controlled authoritarian regimes.

How States Perform Power and Identity Online

Illustration: Shutterstock.

Drawing on role theory and your Twitter-based analyses, how do digital platforms reshape state identity and foreign policy roles in real time, especially during crises like COVID-19 or the Ukraine war?

Dr. Maria Papageorgiou: One of the greatest advantages of social media is that they allow policies to be presented in real time. You can offer shorter responses without the need for lengthy diplomatic language. Simple words and concise messages—within 800 characters—make information easily accessible. It becomes much easier to share updates and provide guidance. This was particularly useful in times of crisis; however, it also created several challenges, which I will now unpack.

If we look specifically at role theory, it focuses on how states present themselves to others, and this is very important because we can see how many states actively engage in digital diplomacy. They have established multiple official Twitter (X) accounts, remain highly active, and post continuously—either through ambassadors or ministries of foreign affairs. There is a clear and sustained online presence.

Through their messaging and phrasing, these actors position themselves and seek to construct a particular role for their country, especially during crises. For instance, during COVID-19, many states tried to present themselves as responsible global powers or humanitarians—sharing data, sending messages of solidarity, delivering equipment, and distributing vaccines. They deliberately framed themselves as responsible actors. We saw this particularly with China, Russia, and several other countries adopting this communicative strategy.

They used various communicative acts: videos of airplanes transporting aid and medical supplies, and hashtags such as #RussiaHelps that went viral, increasing engagement, retweets, and likes. These activities helped them project a specific image to the international community.

During the Ukraine war, Ukraine effectively leveraged the advantages of social media to present itself as a country defending its democracy. It sought to engage global citizens, rally support for the Ukrainian cause, and showcase the injustices occurring on the ground. On the other hand, Russia used social media to justify its actions, employing historical narratives about territorial claims—arguing that these areas were part of the Russian Empire or that Crimea had been given to Ukraine during the Soviet period—and portraying itself as acting defensively in response to NATO expansion and grievances in Donbas.

We can see that, particularly during crises when information circulates in real time, states amplify their social media presence. These moments allow them to more easily frame and project their national identity. This is especially significant because countries like Russia and China use platforms that are not widely accessible domestically. For example, Twitter is banned in China and less used in Russia compared to Telegram. This indicates that their communication is primarily aimed at international audiences. From a role theory perspective, this demonstrates how states project themselves and their identities to others—seeking to be perceived in a specific way.

How Social Media Rewired American Campaigns

To what extent were the 2016, 2020, and 2024 US elections shaped by the strategic use of social media by political actors versus structural platform dynamics (e.g., algorithms, network effects)?

Dr. Maria Papageorgiou: The impact of social media on political campaigning, communication, and public engagement actually began earlier. It started with the Obama campaign in 2008, when he utilized Facebook to attract younger volunteers and later to target voters. So, it began then—but 2016 marks a crucial turning point due to Donald Trump’s entry into politics.

Even before officially becoming the Republican nominee, we could see that he fundamentally altered how social media was used for political purposes and how political communication was designed. Particularly during the 2016 election, he relied almost exclusively on Twitter. He posted short, direct messages and frequently retweeted his followers. Many times, he responded to them directly, which was received very positively by the public. Even neutral observers found this approach remarkably new and engaging.

This was also evident in the number of followers he amassed. Compared to Hillary Clinton during the same period, Trump had a double-digit advantage in follower count. He used this informal, personal tone extensively—directly addressing his audience, his voters, and his base. He avoided traditional media channels and the rigid format of reading formal statements.

If we compare the styles of the two campaigns during that period, we can see a clear contrast. Although the Clinton campaign tried to adapt once they recognized the impact of Trump’s strategy in gaining followers and retweets, Trump’s communication style proved far more influential. He used more casual and sarcastic language, as well as humor, which inspired memes, parodies, and skits—helping his campaign content go viral. For example, certain Trump tweets were retweeted up to 6,000 times, compared to Clinton’s average of around 1,000–1,500, showing a significant difference in engagement.

By 2020, social media campaigns had become far more professionalized. They incorporated advanced digital operations, analytics, influencer partnerships, and systematic messaging strategies with targeted content and increased use of video. Campaign communication was far more organized and data-driven.

In 2024, we saw even further advancements. Both candidates used social media systematically—not only to communicate with voters but also to conduct exclusive interviews, raise campaign funds, and coordinate volunteer activities. Social media became a comprehensive campaign infrastructure, not just a communication tool.

While Twitter had been the dominant platform in 2016 and 2020, the 2024 election saw the widespread use of TikTok alongside Twitter, as well as podcasts and YouTube channels. Both major candidates gave interviews to influencers, invited them to record campaign events, and included them in press and official settings.

This evolution has transformed how campaigns—especially in the United States, but also globally—are designed to communicate with the public. Social media have allowed campaigns to adopt more cost-effective strategies, reaching vast audiences without the financial constraints of traditional advertising. This approach has been quite successful for both parties.

A new tool introduced during the 2024 campaigns, used by both candidates, was generative AI. Trump posted memes and cartoons of Kamala Harris, while the Harris campaign reportedly used AI to fill in crowds in certain photos—demonstrating how both sides took advantage of the technology in different ways. This marked a new element integrated into the election process.

Overall, since 2008, we can observe a steady increase in the role of social media in political communication, culminating in 2024, when social media campaigns and communications clearly took precedence over traditional media.

Populism Goes Viral: Trump’s Legacy in Digital Political Culture

In this photo illustration, a smartphone screen displays an image of U.S. President Donald Trump’s Truth Social app on July 8, 2024, in Washington, D.C., United States. Photo: Charles McClintock Wilson.

Do you view Trump’s digital communication strategies as a case of personalized populist leadership leveraging structural media affordances, or as indicative of broader transformations in US political communication?

Dr. Maria Papageorgiou: Trump’s style, we can say, completely changed communication in social media and digital diplomacy. We can see that he managed to bypass traditional media and speak directly to his supporters. He used a particular language and tone that conveyed an urgent sense of crisis or confrontation with his opponents. It became very distinctive. Even after becoming president, the way he addressed both his opponents and allies created an entirely new phenomenon. Other countries even tried to adopt similar forms of what we might call “Twitter diplomacy.”

He truly transformed the way diplomatic communication operated, replacing many previous norms. What he did was important because he bridged domestic issues with international signaling. His messages were performative and highly personalized, centered around himself and his actions.

He also had a particular digital posture toward his critics and opponents. There are, for example, many well-known tweets about the North Korean leader and other political figures whom he directly threatened or criticized. So, we can say that Trump’s presence fundamentally changed communication practices—it was a turning point.

I think this demonstrates how digital platforms enable a more populist style of performance, especially when one holds executive authority, and how they can reshape established norms of political and diplomatic interaction. We can now see that it is almost impossible to return to older forms of communication. The public is no longer receptive to them; they have become accustomed to these newer, more direct political practices.

I’m afraid this trend will continue in the future. Trump truly transformed communication. We cannot say he was merely a populist leader or actor; rather, his approach to social media had a significant impact, particularly in decreasing public trust in traditional media. His repeated criticism of mainstream outlets allowed people to feel they could access information directly—information they might previously have been denied or filtered through traditional media promoting a single narrative or party line.

Even diplomacy and the conduct of international relations and foreign policy have changed. Directly mentioning or addressing specific leaders, making public statements about policies, and using social media to communicate national positions—all of this has profoundly altered the norms of political and diplomatic interaction.

Social Media, Polarization, and Lost Consensus

How has the fragmentation of the US information ecosystem affected democratic resilience, especially when different partisan groups operate with divergent factual baselines?

Dr. Maria Papageorgiou: This is a very important issue, and I believe social media have not only exemplified but also created these highly polarized groups, where both sides operate with very divergent factual baselines. For example, we have long known that certain media—particularly in the US, but also in other countries—lean toward particular political parties and seek to reinforce specific policies. But now, with social media, we see extreme polarization when it comes to supporting one political party or leader over another.

This situation creates many difficulties when we try to have constructive democratic deliberation or solve collective problems. Social media have amplified these divisions by using emotionally charged content. We have seen many people posting videos to express strong views and emotions. This polarization now affects families and friendships; it has expanded far beyond political affiliation and become deeply partisan.

It has also enabled the rapid spread of misinformation because of this emotional tendency. People often do not verify the accuracy of information, even when they suspect something is incorrect. As a result, the repetition of misleading content has created echo chambers where narrow perspectives dominate, further fueling polarization.

It has also deepened distrust in traditional media because, for instance, on social media, people can present an actual event and then compare it with how a particular news channel reported it. At this point, traditional media can no longer bridge this gap.

To address this polarization—which sometimes tends toward extremes—there needs to be broader consensus among political parties and candidates about the appropriate limits of criticism and how opponents should be addressed, focusing, for example, on policy disagreements rather than personal attacks. Unfortunately, I don’t see this kind of consensus emerging. As parties become more ideologically divided, they tend to focus on energizing their bases and emphasizing their differences.

Sadly, the idea of common ground, critical thinking, and collective engagement seems increasingly distant—at least for now.

Sino–Russian Coordination in the Digital Information War

A smartphone displaying the TikTok logo is seen in front of the flag of China. US President Donald Trump banned Chinese apps citing national security concerns. Photo: Dreamstime.

Your Leverhulme project examines Sino–Russian disinformation synergies during UK and US elections. How would you characterize the evolving strategic division of labor between Moscow and Beijing in influence operations? Do you see evidence of complementary tactics, coordinated narratives, or merely parallel but independent efforts—and how might this coordination shape democratic resilience in upcoming electoral cycles?

Dr. Maria Papageorgiou: Both states have heavily invested in information operations. They have even embedded this element in their national security strategy documents and established specific units dedicated to it. Russia, in particular, recognized very early—starting from 2009—the importance of social media and how it would transform political communication. When they began creating official Twitter accounts in 2011, they quickly saw the importance of directly targeting the population, providing them with specific information, and communicating Russian officials’ views without a third party—without, as they put it, allowing other countries to frame Russia’s policies or define what Russia represents.

They have invested extensively in their official presence on social media but also in creating troll farms, as we say. We know about the Russia Internet Research Agency, which controls thousands of social media accounts and creates bots used extensively to promote disinformation and conduct hacking or cyberattacks. So, they have invested significantly in both the technical and diplomatic components of these operations. Moreover, these practices—especially the technical aspects—have been shared with China.

China has also developed its own mechanisms. For example, the PLA Strategic Support Force was established in 2015, two or three years after Russia’s equivalent, showing that they exchanged knowledge and strategies. Later, in 2024, China created the Information Support Force, which places strong emphasis on information-related capabilities. We can see that both countries have committed significant resources to these types of operations.

They share common objectives in what they seek to achieve: creating disunity and social disruption in the West while presenting themselves in a more positive light. Russia wants to avoid appearing isolated, while China seeks to project itself as a great power—even a superpower.

As I mentioned, they have invested not only in technical aspects—how to use bots or conduct cyberattacks—but also in refining how they present and phrase information on social media. For instance, both often emphasize that they were not colonial or imperial powers and promote the idea of a multipolar world where many countries can have equal roles in the international system. They claim to support multilateral cooperation and criticize what they describe as exclusive Western groups such as the G7.

They have thus used converging and coordinated narratives to convey these messages. Regarding elections, they have attempted to amplify both sides of political debates through bots and anonymous accounts—using certain elements to appeal to the right wing and others to the left. They are particularly focused on exaggerating existing polarization, using these accounts to disseminate emotionally charged content designed to provoke reactions. In short, they play both sides.

When it comes to democratic resilience in upcoming electoral cycles, the key challenge lies in public education and better coordination among political campaigns—to help citizens identify official accounts, verify reliable information, and recognize manipulative content. However, it will be very difficult to monitor the influence of these operations because, even if they do not directly change votes or shift support from one candidate to another, they have succeeded—especially since 2020—in deepening polarization.

They tend to emphasize the extremes and keep feeding those divisions through provocative and polarizing operations. This creates disunity within Western societies, generating opposing camps that cannot find common ground. It also fosters doubt about national policies. Many people no longer agree with their country’s foreign or domestic policy and may start to question mainstream narratives—for instance, what China is doing in the South China Sea or whether Russia has valid reasons for the war in Ukraine. This, ultimately, is their goal.

How to Curb Disinformation Without Deepening Distrust

AI, artificial intelligence, and the concept of fake news, misinformation, and disinformation: A man uses his smartphone displaying the red text “Fake News,” surrounded by related keywords. Photo: Dreamstime.

Scholars like Fukuyama and Pildes argue that new technologies have made governance harder by enabling constant mobilization and fragmentation. What regulatory or governance mechanisms do you see as viable for democracies to minimize harm without undermining free speech?

Dr. Maria Papageorgiou: This is a deeply double-edged issue because, on the one hand, we want to limit harmful content or, for example, disinformation and fake news. However, if governments adopt aggressive or poorly designed interventions, these can have the opposite effect. They tend to reinforce public distrust in democratic institutions and mainstream media, and people often claim that such measures are attempts to censor them. We can see examples of this in many countries. For instance, here in the UK, there is a very popular response on social media about the so-called “two-tier justice system,” which has gone viral and become deeply embedded in public discourse.

So, I think that to create viable governance mechanisms, we need to prioritize transparency and ensure accountability that follows from it. Importantly, the process must be bottom-up rather than top-down, involving different levels of governance and public input. When governments impose measures without listening to alternative perspectives or the views of citizens, these actions are perceived very negatively.

The idea of community notes introduced by social media platforms has been quite positive in this regard. Even though they are sometimes added too late—after misinformation has already spread—they still help provide correct information, relevant links, or clarification on how certain content has been distorted. This has been received more positively because it came from public engagement and the platforms themselves, rather than as a direct ban imposed by government authorities.

Another very important element is media literacy and public education. Instead of resorting to censorship, we should emphasize teaching people—whether in schools or universities—how to understand and critically assess information. This kind of literacy helps build societal resilience and critical awareness.

In addition, there should be more direct, coordinated networks that can identify bots and other malicious actors. Governments and social media companies need to collaborate openly and transparently to detect and minimize such activities—but not in a way that silences political opponents.

That is why regulations should avoid appearing partisan or overreaching, especially when they come from the ruling party or government. Often, when governments are struggling in the polls and dislike certain narratives, their interventions risk being perceived as politically motivated. Any regulation must therefore be deliberated collectively—by multiple political parties, organizations, and the social media companies themselves—to create frameworks that do not backfire or further erode public trust in democratic institutions.

How AI Is Rewriting the Playbook of Disinformation

Looking ahead, how do you anticipate AI-generated disinformation—particularly deepfakes and synthetic text—will transform foreign influence operations by Russia, China, and other major or mid-sized actors such as Iran, Turkey, and Israel in upcoming electoral cycles?

Dr. Maria Papageorgiou: I think it will have a significant impact, and we will start seeing this from now on. As I’ve mentioned, in 2024 we already saw AI being used in particular ways by political campaigns—whether to mock opponents or to present one political candidate in a specific light. But as AI technology continues to advance, the implications will become much greater. Until now, many of the images used were clearly identifiable as AI-generated, but as the technology produces increasingly realistic images, videos, and even voices that can mimic public figures or fabricate entire events, new challenges will emerge. It will become much harder to verify authenticity, and this could easily lead to unrest.

For example, people could be drawn into a protest based on fabricated content, only to be confronted by another group—without anyone being able to quickly verify the information. Such content can spread rapidly, while verification often comes later, which can create serious problems.

Other countries—particularly Iran, Turkey, North Korea, and Israel—have also used AI tools to run operations targeting both domestic and international audiences. They have sought to generate more sympathetic views of their governments or movements, presenting themselves in a particular way. They have also tried to discredit opponents or to take tragic events and spin them into specific narratives.

AI allows for highly personalized messaging, tailored to specific demographic audiences, whether one group or another. Fact-checking, however, will become increasingly costly and challenging for social media platforms, as AI-generated content spreads faster and becomes more sophisticated. This raises questions about the willingness of these companies to invest the necessary resources and to engage in responsible practices.

Beyond social media, the more important impact will be on traditional communication channels. For example, during the 2024 campaigns, AI was used in telephone calls to voters to promote certain content or to discredit candidates for the Senate or Congress. Deepfake images and videos of particular leaders addressing the public were also circulated. This shows how widespread and multifaceted the use of AI-generated disinformation can become.

We really need to start thinking proactively about this, because governments, unfortunately, tend to react too late to technological developments. It is crucial that they begin engaging more closely with social media companies to identify the emerging challenges and find the best ways to address these issues.