Le Pen & Bardella

Prof. Marlière: Local Elections Show Polarization in France Amplifies the Mainstreaming of the Far Right

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In an era marked by intensifying polarization and electoral fragmentation, France’s 2026 municipal elections offer a revealing lens into the country’s shifting political equilibrium. In this ECPS interview, Professor Philippe Marlière argues that while mainstream parties retain urban strongholds, the populist radical right continues to consolidate its territorial and sociological base. Crucially, he underscores that “polarization… tends to benefit the far right,” enabling the National Rally to advance its normalization strategy within an increasingly conflictual political environment. Beyond electoral outcomes, the interview highlights deeper structural transformations—from cross-class realignment to the erosion of centrist politics—suggesting that France is not experiencing a rupture, but a gradual reconfiguration that may decisively shape the dynamics of the 2027 presidential contest.

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

Giving an in-depth interview to the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Philippe Marlière, Professor of French and European Politics at University College London, offers a nuanced and empirically grounded assessment of France’s evolving political landscape in the wake of the 2026 municipal elections.

Held against the backdrop of an increasingly polarized European political environment, the elections revealed a fragmented yet structurally revealing electoral map. While mainstream parties retained control of major metropolitan centers such as Paris, Marseille, and Lyon, the populist radical right—anchored by the National Rally (RN)—continued to expand its territorial base across smaller municipalities and peripheral regions. Notably, the RN and its allies consolidated support in medium-sized towns and traditional strongholds in northern deindustrialized zones and the Mediterranean southeast, while also making inroads into previously resistant regions such as western France. At the same time, opinion polls suggest that RN candidates remain above the 30 percent threshold ahead of the 2027 presidential race, underscoring their growing electoral competitiveness.

As Professor Marlière emphasizes, these results must be understood through the dual lens of fragmentation and consolidation. “The French electoral landscape is deeply fragmented and also polarized,” he observes, highlighting the coexistence of institutional instability with the strengthening of ideological blocs. Indeed, he notes a “consolidation of the two blocs at the extremes,” with both the far right and the radical left reinforcing their positions without producing a decisive electoral rupture.

At the core of his analysis lies a striking argument captured in the headline insight: polarization itself has become a structural driver of far-right normalization. “This kind of polarization tends to benefit the far right,” Professor Marlière explains, as it enables the RN to position itself as a seemingly “reasonable, ‘moderate’ political force” within an increasingly conflictual political field. In this context, the long-term strategy of dé-diabolisation appears to be advancing, albeit unevenly. While the RN remains constrained in major urban centers, it has become, in Professor Marlière’s words, “a party that is increasingly on course to become normalized.”

Equally significant is the sociological transformation of the far-right electorate. No longer confined to economically marginalized groups, the RN now draws support across a broader cross-class coalition, including professionals and retirees—a shift he identifies as a critical turning point since the 2024 European elections.

Taken together, the 2026 municipal elections do not signal a dramatic rupture but rather a deepening of structural trends. As Professor Marlière cautions, “the tectonic plates… are aligning in a way that looks favorable for the National Rally,”even as electoral uncertainty persists. In this interview, he unpacks the implications of these developments for democratic resilience, party competition, and the high-stakes trajectory toward 2027 presidential elections in France.

Philippe Marlière is a Professor of French and European Politics at University College London.

Here is the edited version of our interview with Professor Philippe Marlière, revised slightly to improve clarity and flow.

France’s Electoral Landscape Is Fragmenting While Extremes Consolidate Their Ground

Professor Marlière, welcome, and let me start right away with the first question: The 2026 municipal elections seem to have produced a fragmented but revealing map of French politics; the far right advanced in many provincial towns, mainstream parties held key metropolitan strongholds, and the left remained unevenly competitive. From your perspective, what do these results tell us about the current stage of France’s populist realignment?

Professor Philippe Marlière: I think the main lessons of that local election are, first of all, the very high level of abstention. That confirms that, when it comes to voting, the French are voting less and less. Some would call it civic disengagement. It does not necessarily mean that the French are no longer interested in politics; it simply means that they vote less. Turnout was also lower in 2014, which was the last “normal” local election, as the previous one took place during the COVID pandemic and is therefore not really comparable.

The second point, as you mentioned, is fragmentation. The French electoral landscape is deeply fragmented and also polarized. I think we will return to this later.

Thirdly, there is a form of consolidation of previous electoral trends. I am thinking here of the two major elections in 2024—the general election and the European election. There was no major upset or breakthrough, but rather a continuation of existing dynamics. Notably, as you pointed out, there is a consolidation of the two blocs at the extremes: on the far right with the National Rally, and on the far left—the radical, populist left—with Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s France Insoumise. Both camps can claim gains, and their positions appear to have strengthened.

So, overall, that would be my general assessment of this local election.

The National Rally Consolidates Territorially but Still Struggles in Major Cities

The National Rally expanded its local presence but again struggled to convert momentum into decisive victories in major cities. Should this be read as evidence that the populist radical right is becoming structurally embedded in French politics, or do these results still reveal significant sociological and territorial ceilings to its expansion?

Professor Philippe Marlière: I think for the National Rally it is hard to say that this was a bad election. It is not a fantastic election, because a fantastic result would have meant winning a number of large cities, and in France a big city is one with over 100,000 people. They did not manage to do that. They had hoped to win the city of Toulon. That said, they did win one, and, to be fair, that is at least a good result in Nice, which is, of course, one of the bigger French cities. They won in Nice with Éric Ciotti. Technically, he is not a member of the National Rally, but he is the former leader of Les Républicains, who left the party in 2024 and now runs a small party allied with the National Rally. So that is a significant gain.

Apart from that, however, the election highlighted the weakness of the National Rally in big cities and urban areas, which are now strongholds of the left. My assessment, therefore, is that this was not a breakthrough in terms of winning major cities; it did not achieve that. What it did do, however, is to consolidate its power base in medium-sized cities—places with around 20,000 inhabitants or fewer. It is now a party with a solid and territorially widespread base.

There are also three regions where it is particularly dominant: in the north, especially in former mining areas that were once socialist bastions but are now strongholds of the far right; in the southeast, which has long been a strong area for the National Rally; and in parts of the southwest as well. So I would not describe this as a setback, but neither is it a major victory. It is a party that is increasingly on course to become normalized—people in small towns now vote for the National Rally in ways that were not typical before.

At the same time, when you look at opinion polls—which is what ultimately matters for a presidential election in a year’s time—they are very favorable for the National Rally. Any candidate, whether Marine Le Pen or Jordan Bardella, is polling well above the 30% threshold, while all other competitors remain significantly behind.

A Weakening Center and Identity-Driven Politics Reshape French Populism

The crowd and supporters with French flags during the campaign meeting (rally) of French presidential candidate Eric Zemmour, on the Trocadero square in Paris, France on March 27, 2022. Photo: Victor Velter.

In your work, you have emphasized that populist projects must be understood in relation to their national political cultures rather than as interchangeable European phenomena. What, in your view, is specifically French about the current configuration of populism and the populist radical right revealed by these municipal elections?

Professor Philippe Marlière: It is an important point to contextualize the rise, or sometimes the setback, of the populist far right across Europe. You cannot compare all situations; they are not entirely similar. However, there are similar trends. There are differences, but also common patterns.

So, while sharing similarities with other national contexts, the French case may be specific in the sense that it exacerbates some of these trends. One example is polarization. The French political landscape is extremely polarized, and that makes a very significant difference. Polarization means that you have left-wing parties, right-wing parties, and a political center, which in France is weakening—Macron’s party did not perform well in this election, which is not a surprise.

When polarization intensifies, it creates a climate of tension in which debates revolve less around economic and social issues and more around personalities and questions of identity. We have seen a great deal of that. In the end, this kind of polarization tends to benefit the far right. The far right has used this climate to position itself as a reasonable, “moderate” political force, in contrast to other parties that have contributed to this polarized environment. I am thinking here in particular of the populist radical left associated with Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

This dynamic becomes a tool that enables the National Rally to present itself—rightly or wrongly—as a more mainstream party. The mainstreaming of the National Rally is still ongoing. It is a process that could potentially enable the party to win the presidential election in a year’s time.

So far, there has been what is often described as a “glass ceiling” in presidential elections: the far right could not win because it was perceived as too extreme, prompting a counter-reaction from voters. This time, however, if the party succeeds in presenting itself as part of the mainstream—regardless of whether that perception is accurate—it may facilitate its path to electoral victory.

From Peripheral Protest to Nationwide Presence, the RN Vote Is Expanding

The far right’s local breakthroughs were especially visible in smaller towns, deindustrialized areas, and parts of Mediterranean France. How far do these results confirm that support for the populist radical right continues to be rooted in a combination of territorial abandonment, social insecurity, and cultural anxiety?

Professor Philippe Marlière: There are aspects of the National Rally vote which clearly underline what you have just said—social insecurity, anxiety, and a feeling of being abandoned by the central state. There are some strong indicators, such as people feeling that when you live, for instance, in a small town, or in a suburban or peri-urban area, you lack many of the things that make life easier, such as good public transport and good public services. There are issues around that, and studies have shown that this feeds and strengthens the National Rally vote in general. So there is clearly that aspect.

But I think what is new, and something which will worry anyone concerned about a major National Rally victory in France in a year’s time, in the presidential election, is that this vote has not only nationalized. You mentioned the three zones of strength of the National Rally in the north, in the southeast, and the southwest—that is true—but it is also present in other parts of France. Think, for instance, of Brittany in the western part of France, a place where traditionally the National Rally would get very few votes. Now, the party can also get very decent scores in that part of France.

So, there is a nationalization of the vote, but it is also a vote that has spread across different social classes. It is no longer only the vote of the young, unemployed, relatively uneducated working class, or the working class in general. It also includes professionals and retired people, which is a new development. The turning point was the European election of 2024, when, for the first time, retired people—who had been the main supporters of Macron—switched en masse to the National Rally. That is a sign of electoral strength, because retired people tend to vote more than younger people, who abstain more.

All in all, the tectonic plates, so to speak, are aligning in a way that looks favorable for the National Rally. That said, I am not suggesting that the presidential election is a foregone conclusion or that the far right will win. A great deal can happen between now and April 2027, notably a last-ditch reaction from French voters who might prefer to vote for another candidate simply to prevent the far right from winning the highest political office in France. Much will also depend on the candidate who faces the National Rally in the second round.

Education and Class Remain Key Barriers to Far-Right Urban Expansion

French university students.
University teachers, research staff, and students demonstrate against French government reforms to the academic system in Paris, France on April 2, 2009. Photo: Olga Besnard / Dreamstime.

Conversely, the RN’s continuing weakness in many large metropolitan centers suggests that urban France still resists the populist radical right. To what extent is this an effect of class composition, educational attainment, immigration-linked demography, or the continued political toxicity of the far-right label?

Professor Philippe Marlière: There are very strong sociological variables or indicators that explain why some populations and categories of voters support the far right, and why others distrust and resist it. I think there are such sociological variables at play.

Gender is one of them. Women still tend to vote less, in general, than men for the far right. The gender gap has narrowed compared to 20 or 30 years ago, but it remains. Interestingly, among younger voters—the 18–24 age group, for instance—the gender gap is even wider. There is a broader trend, not only in Europe but globally, of young men being more attracted to the far right than young women. Women, in fact, are often put off by the far right and tend to resist it.

The second variable is education, and here again the French case is not particularly unique. It is a pattern observed in many countries. The general sociological rule is that the more educated you are, the more likely you are to vote for the left. Conversely, those with lower levels of education—primary or secondary schooling, possibly the baccalaureate but no university education—are more likely to support the National Rally.

This also applies to younger voters. While Jean-Luc Mélenchon does appeal to the youth, his support is concentrated among more educated young people—those pursuing higher education and living in urban areas—as opposed to young salaried workers who left school early and live in rural areas, who tend to support the National Rally. In this sense, education is an even more decisive factor than age.

This helps explain why France’s major cities are now governed by the left. Paris and Marseille have socialist mayors, while Lyon has re-elected a Green mayor. This reflects the sociological profile of urban electorates, which tend to be more educated and relatively well-off, and therefore more inclined to support left-wing parties. By contrast, in smaller localities across France—where there is a lack of public services and higher unemployment—the National Rally performs more strongly.

The RN’s Normalization Is Aided as Much By Opponents as by Strategy

In light of these municipal results, do you think Marine Le Pen’s long strategy of dé-diabolisation has reached its limits at the local level? Or has it succeeded enough to normalize the RN in parts of France even if it still falls short of full urban legitimacy?

Professor Philippe Marlière: De-demonization is to start with—yes, you are right to stress that—a process. If it is a process, it has been initiated by political forces, and obviously, the forces that want de-demonization to happen are the National Rally, to begin with. Marine Le Pen has been very clear about this in the past. “We have been demonized,” she has said several times, and that has to stop.

So, what do you do about that? You adopt a strategy. First, you try to appear less radical, less far-right in the way you conduct your political activities and in your discourse. You remove the more radical, extremist elements within your party. This has been done.

However, I would say this has mainly been implemented among RN officials—that is, those in elected positions, particularly at the national level. For instance, considerable effort has been made by the National Rally to ensure that, within its group of MPs in the National Assembly, there are no sympathizers of extremist or fascist groups, and that no one makes anti-Semitic or Islamophobic statements. A great deal of work has gone into this. Marine Le Pen herself and Jordan Bardella present a very polished image to the public, unlike Jean-Marie Le Pen, who was repeatedly convicted for racist or anti-Semitic statements. That marks a clear difference.

Nonetheless, there are still, among supporters and even at the local level, elected RN representatives who occasionally—and quite often—make such statements. So the process is not entirely complete. Much has been achieved, but it remains ongoing.

There is also another dimension to de-demonization. It can only succeed if it receives some assistance from opponents, and in France, opponents of the far right have, in fact, contributed to this process. This is not a recent development; it began some time ago. Parties on the center-right and the right have progressively adopted elements of the RN’s discourse, and sometimes even aspects of its policy agenda. By doing so, they contribute to making the RN appear more moderate and more mainstream. If mainstream parties frame issues in similar terms to the far right, then the far right no longer appears as extreme or dangerous.

A certain degree of support has also come from the media. French media, as studies suggest, have shifted to the right. Some private channels, such as CNews, owned by the billionaire Bolloré Family, as well as formerly mainstream radio stations with large audiences, have clearly moved in that direction, if not toward the radical right. In such a context, de-demonization becomes more likely.

However, as you pointed out, there is still resistance, particularly at the grassroots level. We saw this again in 2024. After the first round of the general election, the far right was ahead and appeared on track to secure a possible absolute majority. Then what the French call a “Republican front” emerged, involving significant tactical voting between left-wing parties and also between the left and Macron’s supporters. This tactical coordination led to the defeat of many RN candidates, and in the end, the RN did not win.

So, overall, de-demonization has been underway and has been quite successful for the RN. However, the process is not yet complete. There remains a kind of anti–far-right reflex among the electorate, which has so far prevented the RN from winning major elections.

The Boundary between Mainstream Right and Far Right Is Increasingly Blurred

Les Republicains.
Photo: Dreamstime.

One of the most striking outcomes of the elections was Éric Ciotti’s victory in Nice and the broader sense that parts of the mainstream right are moving closer to the RN. Do you see this as a local anomaly shaped by specific rivalries, or as a more durable sign that the boundary between mainstream conservatism and the populist radical right is eroding?

Professor Philippe Marlière: That is a very important point, and it concerns the future not only of the far right—whether it will eventually win a major election, such as a presidential or general election—but also the future of the mainstream right, the post-Gaullist right, which is what Les Républicains represent, with their legacy of de Gaulle and Chirac. I would say it also concerns the future of French politics in general, because having a far-right president and government would be a major development not only in French politics, but also in European and even global politics.

The mainstream right, notably Les Républicains (LR), plays a pivotal role in this, because figures and studies show that there is a porosity between the LR electorate and the far-right electorate. In some constituencies, voters from both sides support each other’s candidates when needed, for instance in the second round of an election. If the only candidate facing a left-wing contender is from the National Rally, you will often see a significant transfer of votes from LR voters to RN candidates, and vice versa. So it works both ways.

However, the rising and dominant force is not LR. LR is now a shadow of what used to be the dominant party on the right in French politics, particularly until the Sarkozy era. It is a party that has been losing votes and representation with each election.

As a result, LR finds itself in a kind of impossible situation. If it forms an alliance with the far right—which some within the party are now considering—it risks accelerating its own decline. That was Éric Ciotti’s choice in 2024, when he was leader of LR. He argued that the party should form an alliance and work with the far right. This represented a complete break with the tradition of figures like Charles de Gaulle and Jacques Chirac, who were firmly opposed to the far right. When the party rejected this line, Ciotti left, taking with him more than 20 MPs. Yet this has not resolved LR’s dilemma, as there remains a strong temptation among some of its officials and elected representatives to cooperate with the RN.

The problem is that by working closely with the far right, LR further legitimizes it and signals to voters that there is little difference between the two. This could lead to a scenario similar to what happened on the left in the 1970s, when the Socialists, under François Mitterrand, formed an alliance with the Communists and eventually became the dominant force.

In the current context, however, with a de-demonized far right and potentially a figure like Jordan Bardella running a relatively mainstream campaign, not very different from LR on socioeconomic issues, there is a real risk that what remains of the LR electorate could shift further toward the RN.

So, it is a very complex situation for LR. What we may be witnessing is a broader recomposition of the right, with the RN potentially becoming the dominant party and LR relegated to the role of a junior partner. This would represent a complete reversal of the post-war political order, where the far right becomes the main party, and what is considered the mainstream right becomes a junior partner.

The Macronite Center Has Given Way to a Reconfigured Right-Wing Bloc

More broadly, do these elections suggest that the French right is moving toward a process of recomposition in which traditional conservatism, Macronite liberalism, and the populist radical right are being forced into a new and unstable relationship?

Professor Philippe Marlière: Yes, the striking thing about that local election is that it really marks the end—although we already knew this—of the Macronite center. It was, in a way, positioned both on the left and on the right. Macron wanted to strike a balance between the moderate left and the moderate right. That was his project in 2017, when he was first elected. We saw that during his first term there was a shift to the right, and in his second term nothing has changed. The Macron party is now firmly on the right and has been governing with right-wing forces. It has been in power with LR, for instance. So there is no doubt that this marks the end of the attempt to find a kind of centrist position in French politics, where one could combine elements of the center-right and the center-left. That is over. The Macron party is firmly on the right.

Moreover, the local election showed that the electorate of Macron, in general, clearly supports the forces of the right in the second round when their candidate cannot run. So this very original attempt to create a genuine center that synthesizes the moderate left and right has come to an end.

As for the rest of the right, I have already addressed this in my previous answer. LR finds itself between a rock and a hard place. It has tried to cooperate with the Macron party in government, but that has not really helped, as it continues to lose votes. At the same time, it faces the major and direct challenge from the RN. So it is a very complex situation for the right.

Just one more point about LR: it did relatively well in this local election, and the reason is the same as for the Socialist Party—they entered the election from a position of strength. They already governed many cities across France. LR is the party that runs the greatest number of cities. The difference with the Socialist Party is that the latter tends to be strong in large cities with over 100,000 inhabitants, whereas LR is stronger in medium-sized cities with fewer than 100,000 inhabitants, where it governs many municipalities. So it has managed to survive this election and perform relatively well.

This illustrates the paradox of French politics. The two parties that dominated French politics from the 1970s until 2017, when Macron was elected—the Socialists and LR—are no longer in a position to win national elections. However, they remain dominant at the local level, where they still have strong territorial bases.

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

Republican Discourse Now Normalizes Formerly Far-Right Themes

Your work on laïcité and the “islamo-gauchisme” controversy has shown how republican language can be reworked in increasingly exclusionary ways. Do you think the municipal campaign confirmed that themes once associated with the far right have now migrated into broader mainstream discourse, thereby indirectly strengthening the populist radical right?

Professor Philippe Marlière: Yes, you are right on that. It is not only the far right, the National Rally, that has been normalized and mainstreamed; a certain type of racist discourse has also become quite mainstream, particularly around Islamophobia. But that is not new. This is part of the debate on so-called Islamo-gauchisme. Islamo-gauchisme was essentially directed at French academics or intellectuals who were allegedly in cahoots with Islamists in France. That was never demonstrated, but nonetheless it became a central claim. And, of course, when such claims are made, they give a significant boost to the far right, because the far right does not even need to intervene in that debate. That debate was largely carried out by the Macron government and by LR. So this is where we are.

What is interesting is that the election also showed that, in some areas—particularly in the outskirts of major cities, including several cities around Paris—mayors from ethnic minorities were elected. They are French citizens, but they come from minority backgrounds. The most notable example is Saint-Denis, a large city of around 150,000 inhabitants. It was traditionally a communist stronghold, then governed by a socialist mayor for one term, and has now been won by a La France Insoumise candidate who is Black. This is very good news for Mélenchon, who has recently advanced the idea of a “new France.”

What does this “new France” represent? It is a multicultural France shaped by immigration. France has long been a country of mass immigration, and the sons and daughters of migrants—born on French soil and holding French citizenship—are now increasingly involved in political life. Some have been elected as mayors, local councillors, and even MPs, which marks an important shift. Twenty years ago, the French political class was overwhelmingly white. While this remains the case for some parties, others—particularly on the left—have increasingly incorporated this diversity.

This is what Mélenchon has gained. He won a number of cities, I believe up to seven, which is a solid result. It is not a major breakthrough, given that La France Insoumise is a relatively young party that started from scratch, but moving from zero to seven is significant. These include important cities such as Saint-Denis, Roubaix, Vénissieux, Vaulx-en-Velin, La Courneuve, and Créteil—places with substantial populations of ethnic minorities.

What La France Insoumise is doing is quite specific. It reflects Mélenchon’s broader strategy of mobilizing young voters—particularly those pursuing higher education and living in urban areas—alongside ethnic minority communities in the banlieues. He believes that by consolidating this electorate, he can position himself to reach the second round of the presidential election.

Without Alliances, the Far Right’s Path to the Second Round Appears Assured

Torn campaign posters of Jean-Luc Mélenchon during the French presidential election in Bordeaux, France on February 19, 2022. Photo: Jerome Cid / Dreamstime.

And finally, Professor Marlière, looking ahead to the 2027 presidential election, do these municipal results suggest that France is still moving toward a contest structurally shaped by the RN and the populist radical right, or do they also reopen the possibility that broader democratic coalitions—of the mainstream left, center, and moderate right—can still contain that trajectory?

Professor Philippe Marlière: That is an important question. It is also a difficult one to answer, because the situation is so fluid and things can change from one month to another. It will very much depend on the work on the ground by political parties. Can they enter into an alliance? It seems that, if you want to defeat—or to qualify for the second, decisive round of the presidential election, you need to enter into an alliance. If you go it alone, if you do not make an alliance on the left or on the right, you will further split the total vote of your political family. And if you further split the vote, everyone expects the far right to qualify, given how strong it is in the polls.

There are two places in the second round, and it seems that one is already taken by the far right. It used to be a major upset when the far right qualified for the second round; now it would be a major upset if it did not. So, let us assume the far right will be in the second round. The question then becomes: who will face it? I think there are three possible scenarios.

One appears to be a lose-lose scenario, but paradoxically it is quite plausible today. This would be the qualification of Jean-Luc Mélenchon. He is a well-known figure who can appeal to highly mobilized segments of voters—particularly young people and ethnic minorities. In a fragmented electoral landscape, the threshold to qualify for the second round could be relatively low, around 15–17 percent, which he could reach. However, this would be a lose-lose scenario because, despite the de-demonization of the far right, Mélenchon himself has been heavily demonized. According to polls, he is the most disliked political figure in France, even more so than far-right leaders. In such a case, he would likely be defeated, and the far right would have a relatively easy path to victory.

The two other scenarios would involve either a candidate from the center-left or from the right reaching the second round. For the center-left, this would likely require unity, possibly through a primary election to select a common candidate. I am quite pessimistic about this, as the left remains highly fragmented. Some support the idea of a primary, while others oppose it. For instance, former President François Hollande may be considering another run and does not favor a primary.

On the right, a similar question arises: will they unite and organize a primary to choose a candidate? There are significant differences between figures such as Édouard Philippe, a former prime minister under Macron, and Bruno Retailleau, the leader of LR, whose discourse and policies are closer to the RN. So there is a clear gap.

Without such unity, the first scenario remains plausible. In that case, one could say, as a scholar of populism, that the two populisms in France are converging—one on the radical left and the other on the far right. And, unfortunately, it seems that of these two, the one that repels more voters is Mélenchon.

Dr. Frederik Møller Henriksen.

Dr. Henriksen: Strict Migration Policy in Denmark Fails to Contain the Radical Right

by with No Comment Editor’s ChoiceEuropean ObservatoryHomeInterviewsMigration

In this ECPS interview, Dr. Frederik Møller Henriksen offers an in-depth assessment of Denmark’s 2026 general election, highlighting both continuity and change in one of Europe’s most stable democracies. He characterizes the outcome as “a very poor election for the traditional governing parties,” underscoring the historic decline of established actors alongside the emergence of “a highly fragmented parliament.” While domestic concerns dominated the campaign, Dr. Henriksen emphasizes that strict migration policies have not contained the populist radical right, as evidenced by the resurgence of the Danish People’s Party. At the same time, he cautions against overstating democratic crisis, noting Denmark’s enduring institutional trust. Instead, he points to media fragmentation and digital communication as key forces reshaping political competition and voter alignment.

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

In the aftermath of Denmark’s closely contested 2026 general election on March 24, the country stands at a critical political juncture—marked by fragmented blocs, the resurgence of the populist radical right, and renewed geopolitical tensions over Greenland. While domestic issues such as the cost-of-living crisis and migration shaped the campaign, deeper transformations in political communication and democratic contestation are also unfolding. Giving an in-depth interview to the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Dr. Frederik Møller Henriksen, a postdoctoral researcher at Roskilde University working at the intersection of politics, media, and digital society, whose research on digital counter-publics, alternative media ecosystems, and anti-systemic populism, offers important insights into these developments. 

Reflecting on the election outcome, Dr. Henriksen underscores that “this was a very poor election for the traditional governing parties,” pointing to the historically weak performance of both the Social Democrats and the center-right Venstre. He further highlights that “we now have a highly fragmented parliament,” a development that is likely to render coalition-building both complex and protracted. Indeed, the emergence of multiple competitive actors across the political spectrum has produced what some observers describe as “Dutch conditions” of party fragmentation and even “Belgian conditions” of prolonged government formation.

At the same time, Dr. Henriksen draws attention to the resurgence of the populist radical right, particularly the Danish People’s Party, emphasizing that restrictive policy convergence has not neutralized such forces. As he notes, the Danish case illustrates that strict migration policies do not necessarily diminish the electoral appeal of the radical right, but may instead coincide with renewed voter mobilization around issues of identity, economic anxiety, and national direction.

Beyond electoral dynamics, the interview also engages with the transformation of political communication in digitally mediated environments. While cautious about attributing direct causal effects to alternative media, Dr. Henriksen observes that “it has been very difficult to define” the election in terms of a coherent overarching narrative, suggesting that media fragmentation and hybrid communication systems are reshaping how political competition is structured and understood.

Importantly, despite these shifts, Dr. Henriksen does not interpret recent developments as signaling a systemic crisis of democracy. Denmark, he argues, remains a high-trust society with robust institutional foundations. Yet, it is increasingly “no longer isolated from trends we see elsewhere in Europe,” including fragmentation, anti-incumbent voting, and the growing salience of populist communication.

Taken together, Dr. Henriksen’s reflections situate the Danish election within a broader European trajectory, where established party systems are under pressure, populist actors continue to adapt, and democratic politics is being reshaped by both structural and communicative transformations.

Here is the edited version of our interview with Dr. Frederik Møller Henriksen, revised slightly to improve clarity and flow.

Voters Reward Clearer Political Profiles on Both Sides

Denmark votes in parliamentary elections in Copenhagen.
Denmark votes in parliamentary elections in Copenhagen, Kastrup, Denmark, on November 1, 2022. Voters head to polling stations to cast their ballots in the general election. Photo: Francis Joseph Dean / Dean Pictures / Dreamstime.

Dr. Henriksen, thank you very much for joining our interview series. Let me begin with the electoral outcome itself: How should we interpret the 2026 Danish election results, where both the red and blue blocs fell short of a majority? Does this fragmentation signal a structural transformation of Denmark’s party system?

Dr. Frederik Møller Henriksen: Thank you for this question—it is a very broad one. I will try to narrow it down to a few key takeaways, and then we can elaborate further during the interview.

The first takeaway is that this was a very poor election for the traditional governing parties. The Social Democrats, for instance, remained the largest party, but they fell to a historic low—their worst result since 1903. The center-right party, Venstre, as it is called in Danish, also suffered a historically weak result.

The second takeaway is that we now have a highly fragmented parliament. This means that coalition-building will be unusually difficult and potentially lengthy—at least, that is what commentators are suggesting at the moment.

The third point is that overall voter turnout was lower than usual, although still high by international standards. I interpret this as a sign that voters have been dissatisfied with the centrist government we have had over the past four years.

The fourth point is that there were clear winners outside the old or established center. The Danish People’s Party, for example, performed strongly with 9.1%, and the Socialist People’s Party on the left became the second-largest party.

Thus, the election did not simply produce fragmentation for its own sake; rather, it suggests that voters rewarded parties with clearer profiles on both sides of the political spectrum. In this sense, the Danish People’s Party can be seen as one of the main winners.

I also heard a commentator suggest that these are “Dutch conditions,” in the sense that we now have many parties represented in parliament. There is a political science measure for the effective number of parties, and it has reportedly never been higher in the Danish parliament. Another commentator added that we may face “Belgian conditions,” meaning that it could take a very long time to form a government with so many parties involved. I find this framing quite insightful.

Regarding whether this signals a structural transformation, I would say it is important to view the situation in light of the decline of the Social Democrats. They have been in government for an extended period—first leading a left-leaning government and then a centrist coalition. This development should therefore be understood in the context of their weakening position, including their time in power during COVID-19. It appears they have struggled to maintain momentum, which is reflected in the election results. At the same time, we do see clear signs of fragmentation—this is quite evident.

We can also observe that centrist parties, such as the Moderates, have become highly important in the coalition-building phase. Although relatively small, both blocs—the left and the right—depend on their mandates to form a government. As a result, they are likely to play a very prominent role.

Finally, this election also points to the growing importance of person-driven politics rather than party-driven politics. For voters, the election itself has been quite fragmented. It is not entirely clear what the main issues have been; instead, individual political figures have played a central role. We can see that some of the key figures, such as Martin Messerschmidt and Lars Løkke Rasmussen, have attracted a significant share of the vote. This indicates a broader shift toward more person-driven politics and person-driven electoral outcomes.

Unpopular Reforms Cost the Social Democrats Voter Support

Mette Frederiksen
Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen at a press conference during the COVID-19 crisis, Copenhagen, March 17, 2020. Photo: Francis Dean | Dreamstime.

The Social Democrats emerged as the largest party but recorded one of their weakest results in over a century. To what extent does this outcome reflect voter fatigue with incumbency, and to what extent does it point to deeper shifts in political trust and democratic legitimacy?

Dr. Frederik Møller Henriksen: It’s a very good question. There is clearly an incumbency story here. It is important to situate the Social Democrats’ decline in voter support within a broader anti-incumbent mood among voters, which I alluded to, earlier. After nearly seven years in power, the party has been carrying the burdens of office. As we know from political science, this is challenging for governing parties, particularly when they are associated with unpopular reforms. One notable example is the abolition of a national holiday in 2024, known as the Great Prayer Day. This decision appears to have resonated strongly with voters across the political spectrum, and the party has been penalized for it. I think that when the government abolished the holiday, it did not anticipate the extent of its electoral impact. That is an important factor to consider.

At the same time, it would be too narrow to interpret the result solely as voter fatigue. The Social Democrats were squeezed from both sides. Some left-leaning voters felt that the party had become too restrictive on immigration, while some right-leaning voters continued to distrust it on economic issues. In this sense, the outcome reflects both incumbency effects and the limits of a centrist repositioning, which is relatively unusual in the Danish political context. So, while the party remains electorally dominant in relative terms, its broad coalition appears thinner and more fragile than before. 

That said, I do not see strong evidence—at least at this stage—of a more generalized crisis of democratic legitimacy. Denmark still has stable political institutions, and the economy is in relatively good shape compared to some other EU countries. Voter turnout also remained relatively high, and the election process was fair. Therefore, framing this as a general crisis of democratic legitimacy may be an overstatement. However, much will depend on what kind of government ultimately emerges.

The Danish People’s Party Re-Emerges as a Major Force

The election saw a notable resurgence of the Danish People’s Party and other anti-immigration actors. How do you explain this revival in light of your research on anti-systemic populism? Does it indicate that such movements have successfully re-entered the electoral mainstream?

Dr. Frederik Møller Henriksen: That is a good question. There is clearly a strong case to be made that the Danish People’s Party has re-emerged as a significant force. They moved from around 2–3% to 9.1% of the vote, effectively tripling their support compared to the previous election. They have campaigned on issues such as zero net Muslim migration and cost-of-living concerns, including proposals like abolishing petrol taxes. They have been very successful in doing so, and I would also argue that they have run one of the most effective social media campaigns, which likely contributed to their performance.

This revival suggests that anti-immigration politics have not disappeared; rather, they were partially displaced and fragmented. This election indicates that when economic anxiety, migration, and broader questions about national direction become salient again, these constituencies can be remobilized electorally.

In relation to my own research, I have focused less on elections per se and more on anti-systemic movements and forms of mobilization. From that perspective, the Danish People’s Party has been particularly successful in tapping into this kind of anti-systemic mobilization.

At the same time, we also see another far-right party, the Danish Democrats, led by former minister Inger Støjberg. While they share a similar anti-immigration stance, they have not been as successful in converting this into electoral support. To me, this suggests that additional factors are at play. One key element appears to be the effectiveness of social media campaigning, particularly on the part of the Danish People’s Party and Morten Messerschmidt.

A Key Lesson for Social Democratic Parties in Europe

The Danish case has often been cited as an example of mainstream parties absorbing far-right agendas—particularly on immigration. In light of the latest election results, do you see this strategy as containing or, paradoxically, legitimizing populist radical right discourse within mainstream political competition? Do the election results suggest that this strategy has reached its limits—or even backfired?

Dr. Frederik Møller Henriksen: Yes, I definitely think this election lends support to the argument that the strategy of normalizing far-right rhetoric and policies within the center and the center-left has its limits—perhaps even backfiring to some extent. For example, Denmark has maintained one of Europe’s toughest migration policies, and yet the Danish People’s Party still achieved a very strong electoral result.

When we examine the data, particularly in comparison to the 2022 election, we also observe one of the largest estimated voter shifts from one party to another—specifically from the Social Democrats to the Danish People’s Party. This is based on the data currently available, although it will require further analysis. At the very least, this suggests that voters are moving from the Social Democrats to the Danish People’s Party, and that this shift is closely linked to the migration issue.

What this indicates is that a strict mainstream migration policy does not automatically neutralize the radical right or the far right in electoral terms. This is an important lesson for other social democratic parties across Europe that are observing the Danish election and seeking to shape their own positions on migration and anti-immigration policies in light of these developments.

Far-Right Digital Counter-Publics Remain Highly Active

Your work emphasizes the role of alternative news media in shaping political perceptions. To what extent do you think digital counter-publics and alternative information environments influenced the electoral performance of populist and radical right actors in this election?

Dr. Frederik Møller Henriksen: Let me begin with alternative news media. I would say that, in themselves, they do not have a significant impact on electoral outcomes. I have been collecting articles from Danish alternative news media throughout the election, and only one outlet—one that is somewhat close to the Social Democrats, called PUPU—has actively covered the election. I have also followed debates on national television, where at least one editor from a right-leaning outlet was invited to participate in discussions on migration, particularly concerning Muslims and the Danish Muslim population. So, there is certainly something to this, but it is not an impact that we can clearly observe. 

When it comes to digital counter-publics connected to alternative news media, it is becoming increasingly difficult for researchers to obtain reliable data from platforms, which makes this question quite challenging to answer. Based on my intuition, however, these counter-publics—especially those associated with the far right and the Danish People’s Party—are highly active. I am quite confident that the Danish People’s Party’s social media strategy has aimed to mobilize some of these digital counter-publics. How successful these efforts have been, and the extent of their overall impact, remains difficult to determine—particularly given the ongoing challenges of accessing data from different platforms.

No Electoral Impact from the Greenland Issue

Election campaign posters featuring Liberal leader and former Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen displayed on a street during the campaign period in Copenhagen, Denmark on June 15, 2015. Photo: Francis Joseph Dean / Dean Pictures / Dreamstime.

Despite intense international attention on the Greenland crisis, domestic issues ultimately dominated the campaign. How do you interpret this gap between geopolitical salience and voter priorities? Was the so-called “Greenland effect” electorally significant or overstated?

Dr. Frederik Møller Henriksen: As I see it, the only politician who really managed to benefit from the “Greenland effect,” or to gain something from it, was the former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, from the Moderates. There was a documentary film about the days leading up to and during the crisis, when it was at its peak, and Lars Løkke Rasmussen traveled to Washington to meet with American politicians. 

I think he was the only one who really gained something from this in electoral terms, at least. I am not entirely sure why. Mette Frederiksen was certainly in a position to benefit as well, since she played a significant role in managing the situation and coordinating with European counterparts. However, we do not see this reflected in the numbers, at least not in the electoral outcome.

If we consider the Greenland case more broadly, it mattered quite a lot in the run-up to the election. Mette Frederiksen called the election while still benefiting from the visibility and leadership image created by Trump’s pressure over Greenland. During the campaign itself, however, the issue was clearly overshadowed by domestic concerns. These included rising costs of living, the green transition, debates over clean drinking water, healthcare for an aging population, and, of course, immigration. These issues ultimately dominated the campaign. The established parties struggled to mobilize effectively across all of them, although the Social Democrats were more successful on issues such as the green transition and welfare, while the Danish People’s Party mobilized strongly on immigration as well as welfare and healthcare-related concerns.

Potential Spillover into Populist Narratives

At the same time, could the Greenland issue have indirectly shaped the election by reinforcing narratives of sovereignty, external threat, and national unity—particularly within populist communication frames?

Dr. Frederik Møller Henriksen: As I mentioned earlier, perhaps—but not to a very strong extent. I think it is, to some degree, a matter of time. We will have to see whether concerns over Greenland spill over into broader, more classic right-wing populist debates regarding border control, security, national cohesion, and immigration. That said, I would still be somewhat hesitant to answer definitively in the affirmative. It is also a question of timing—we will have to see, especially as the formation of a coalition government will likely take a few months, according to some political analyses. These topics could certainly resurface.

Fragmentation Elevates the Moderates to Kingmaker Status

The Moderates, now positioned as a pivotal kingmaker at the political center, occupy a decisive role in post-election coalition building. From your perspective, does this development represent a stabilizing corrective within Danish democracy, or does it instead point to a deeper fragmentation of political representation?

Dr. Frederik Møller Henriksen: I think it points to a deeper fragmentation of political representation, as you suggest. Today, the left-leaning bloc has chosen the Moderates as the kingmaker, which is entirely new information. However, the left-leaning bloc still needs the mandates from Lars Løkke Rasmussen’s party to succeed, so the most likely scenario is a left-leaning government with the Moderates as part of it—although I would not put my head on the block for that.

It is somewhat striking, because leading up to the election, many expected that Lars Løkke Rasmussen and the Moderates would assume the kingmaker role. However, learning from the last election, the Social Democrats appear to have tried to avoid that situation, as it would have placed considerable pressure on them—even as the largest party—within an increasingly fragmented party system. Time will show what role the Moderates and Lars Løkke Rasmussen—who hold 14 seats in parliament—will ultimately play in forming the government.

One additional point is that Lars Løkke Rasmussen has been the clearest advocate for forming another centrist government. He has maintained this position consistently from the outset. If the government formation process drags on, he may find himself in a particularly strong position, as having a clear and consistent stance can be advantageous in such a fragmented political landscape. There is a great deal at stake, and forming a government will be a difficult political process. It could prove especially interesting for the Moderates.

No Clear Narrative Defines This Election

Danish daily newspapers
Various major Danish daily newspapers in Copenhagen, Denmark, on April 17, 2015 displayed on a table. Photo: Francis Joseph Dean / Dean Pictures / Dreamstime.

Your research highlights how digital environments can foster echo chambers and partisan homophily. Do you see evidence that such dynamics contributed to the electoral polarization—or fragmentation—observed in this election? How might these dynamics have influenced voter alignments in this election, particularly regarding contentious issues such as immigration, economic redistribution, and national sovereignty?

Dr. Frederik Møller Henriksen: The short answer is no, but I think the fact that it was not possible for either political parties or the media to construct a very clear storyline for this election—for voters, at least—really says a lot. It is something that political commentators across the spectrum agree on: this has been an election that has been very difficult to define. It has been unclear whether the election was about policies related to the green transition, immigration, or other issues. It has been highly fragmented, and none of the parties has been able to set the agenda in a decisive way.

My hypothesis—perhaps also from a researcher’s perspective—is that we are witnessing the long-term effects of media fragmentation. Legacy media and social media together are making it increasingly difficult, within this hybrid media environment, for the media to establish a coherent narrative for voters—one that clearly identifies the main dividing lines between parties and presents the election as a unified communicative and political process. Of course, social media is not new to this election, but we may now be seeing its longer-term effects more clearly.

I do not have a definitive answer as to why it has been so difficult for the media. Denmark still has a high-quality, high-trust media system, with outlets that voters generally trust. So it is somewhat puzzling why it has been so difficult to formulate a cohesive narrative about the election.

European Trends Reshape Danish Politics

Denmark is often described as a high-trust, low-polarization society. Yet your work suggests that even such contexts are not immune to the rise of anti-systemic communication. Do the current election dynamics indicate an erosion of this “Nordic exceptionalism,” or rather its adaptation under new digital conditions?

Dr. Frederik Møller Henriksen: I think the fact that the far-right party, the New Right—which we have not discussed—entered parliament in the last election is indicative of this—an erosion of Nordic exceptionalism, at least to some extent. They only entered with 2.1% of the vote, so Denmark remains a high-capacity democracy with fairly high turnout, as we have said—a little lower than in the last couple of elections—and there is still broad institutional legitimacy.

On the other hand, one could argue that Denmark is no longer isolated from trends we see elsewhere in Europe. The fragmentation we discussed, anti-incumbent voting patterns, migration-centered competition, and increased pressure on mainstream, established parties all point in that direction.

However, my analysis is that much of the anti-systemic mobilization and communication has been picked up and channeled very successfully by the Danish People’s Party, particularly through social media campaigns. The Danish People’s Party has been one of the parties that has gained the most from this election. So, it has not been a landslide erosion of democratic trust; rather, it is a sign of an increasingly polarized political landscape. We may also be observing some longer-term effects, particularly the difficulties faced by the media system in providing a clear and coherent narrative of the election for voters.

Nativist Strategies Can Backfire Electorally

Pakistani or Indian migrants in Copenhagen.
Pakistani or Indian migrants in Copenhagen, Denmark, September 22, 2017. Photo: Dreamstime.

In your view, how does the Danish election contribute to our understanding of populism beyond the traditional left–right spectrum? Do we observe forms of “valence” or “anti-systemic” populism that cut across ideological divides, especially in digitally mediated environments?

Dr. Frederik Møller Henriksen: I will have to give a somewhat boring answer to this—and also one that is not particularly favorable for my own research on anti-systemic populism—but I do not see it as the main case here. It is not the central story of this election. There is, however, an interesting argument in how the Social Democrats appropriated a far-right nativist discourse, which appears to have backfired in terms of voter transitions to the Danish People’s Party. I think this is partly because the Danish People’s Party was effective in exploiting the opportunities it was given. What I mean by this is that we do not observe the same voter transition to the Danish Democrats, who did not achieve the electoral success they had anticipated. So, to a large extent, this comes down to the social media campaigning of Morten Messerschmidt and the Danish People’s Party.

Anti-Centrist Voting Defines the Election

The election results indicate gains both for the populist radical right and for certain left-wing actors. Does this suggest that populism in Denmark is increasingly transcending the traditional left–right divide? From a comparative perspective, how does Denmark’s experience relate to broader European trends in populist radical right mobilization? Does the Danish case still represent a distinct model, or is it converging with patterns observed in countries like Germany, Austria, or Sweden?

Dr. Frederik Møller Henriksen: First of all, I would not say that the Danish case shows that populism has fully transcended the left–right divide, at least not in a symmetrical sense. What we do see, however, is a clear revolt against the status quo and the established parties. A more accurate formulation is that this represents a kind of anti-centrist voting, spread across the spectrum on both the left and the right.

On the right, we have the Danish People’s Party, whose recovery was clearly tied to classic populist radical right themes such as immigration, national protection, and related issues. They campaigned on zero net Muslim migration and on cost-of-living grievances. On the left, we see the Socialist People’s Party, which mobilized around classic welfare issues and a stronger green profile.

In comparative terms, Social Democrats in countries such as Sweden, Germany, and perhaps the Netherlands are likely looking at this election and drawing lessons from it—particularly that they should avoid adopting strategies that appropriate nativist tropes from far-right parties. I think that would be my answer to this question.

No Strong Cordon Sanitaire in Danish Politics

A Conservative Party election billboard reading “Stop Nazi Islamism” draws public attention and criticism during the campaign period in Copenhagen, Denmark on April 15, 2015.. Photo: Francis Joseph Dean / Dean Pictures / Dreamstime.

Denmark’s far right has historically been constrained by institutional and cultural factors, including elements of a cordon sanitaire. Do recent developments suggest a weakening of these barriers, particularly through digital mainstreaming processes?

Dr. Frederik Møller Henriksen: Good question. Historically, when we compare Denmark to Sweden and Germany, for instance, we do not have as strong a cordon sanitaire tradition as we see in the German context, where certain parties, such as the AfD, are very actively and explicitly excluded.

The Danish political scene is characterized by a relatively wide spectrum of voices that are allowed in. So, I do not think that the 2% threshold for entering parliament necessarily prevents a broader range of parties from gaining representation; rather, it allows for what one might call a “long tail” of parties. So, I tend to disagree slightly with that premise.

Regarding whether this relates to digital mainstreaming processes, there has certainly been a mainstreaming of nativist discourse. That is quite clear to me. And, as I mentioned before, it is now up to Social Democrats across Europe to consider whether they want to follow the same path as the Social Democrats in Denmark. 

A Left-Leaning Government Is Likely to Emerge

And finally, looking ahead: Based on these election results, what are the key risks and opportunities for Danish democracy? Do you foresee a consolidation of mainstream politics, or further growth of anti-systemic and populist forces in future elections?

Dr. Frederik Møller Henriksen: For this election, and for the government coalition-building process currently underway, I think we will see a left-leaning bloc entering government. As for the long-term effects, this relates more to how difficult it can be to form a centrist government, especially in a political party system that does not have a strong tradition of doing so. I think the three parties that formed the previous government were not very successful in this regard, and we can see that reflected in voter turnout—the voters simply did not like it.

On the other hand, this did not translate into strong anti-systemic mobilization. I think this is more closely related to Denmark being a high-trust society, where people are not concerned about fraud and are not worried about being misinformed by state media, for instance.

I think we need to center our attention on the core pillars of democracy that sustain it, rather than focusing solely on a specific election outcome. Of course, that is also very important, but to understand why we do not see strong anti-systemic mobilization on either the left or the right, we need to look at trust in the media system and the political system.

Professor Jean-Yves Camus.

Professor Camus: The Boundary Between Mainstream and Radical Right in France Is Blurring Locally

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Professor Jean-Yves Camus, a leading scholar of the far right and researcher at the Observatory of Political Radicalities at the Jean Jaurès Foundation in Paris, argues that France’s 2026 municipal elections revealed more than the continued advance of the National Rally (RN): they exposed a deeper reconfiguration of the French right. In this interview with ECPS, Professor Camus shows how the RN’s local gains—57 municipalities and over 3,000 council seats—coexist with persistent weakness in major metropolitan centers. More importantly, he underscores that “the boundary between the mainstream and the radical right is blurring locally,” particularly where segments of Les Républicains and RN voters increasingly converge. The interview offers a nuanced account of electoral realignment, selective republican resistance, and the uncertain road to 2027.

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

Giving an interview to the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Professor Jean-Yves Camus, a researcher at the Observatory of Political Radicalities at the Jean Jaurès Foundation in Paris, underscores that France’s 2026 municipal elections reveal not only the continued advance of the National Rally / Rassemblement National (RN) but, more importantly, a gradual reconfiguration of the right in which the lines separating mainstream conservatism and radical populism are increasingly porous at the local level.

Reflecting on what he calls a “mixed bag” outcome, Professor Camus notes that the RN has achieved “a substantial gain” by winning 57 municipalities and securing over 3,000 council seats, yet “failed in all major cities and metropolises.” This dual pattern—territorial expansion alongside persistent urban resistance—captures the paradox at the heart of contemporary French politics. While the party has consolidated its presence in “small and medium-sized cities”and in economically distressed regions such as Pas-de-Calais and Moselle, it continues to face structural limits in gentrified metropolitan centers like Paris, where “the extreme right is very weak for obvious sociological reasons.”

Yet, the most consequential development, as Professor Camus emphasizes, lies not simply in where the RN wins or loses, but in how it increasingly interacts with the broader right-wing ecosystem. In several regions, particularly along the Mediterranean corridor, “the core voters of the Conservatives… are very close to voters of the National Rally,”facilitating patterns of vote transfer and informal cooperation. This dynamic signals a shift from the once rigid cordon sanitaire toward what Professor Camus describes as a more “selective” Republican front, contingent on local contexts and strategic calculations.

The significance of Éric Ciotti’s victory in Nice further illustrates this transformation. While rooted in the city’s longstanding conservative and post-colonial sociological profile, the result also points to a deeper convergence: “locally… the Republicans and the National Rally have platforms that are very similar.” In this sense, Ciotti’s ascent functions as both a local phenomenon and a symbolic “vitrine,” enabling the RN to present itself as part of a broader conservative continuum rather than an isolated extremist force.

At the national level, however, this convergence remains contested. Professor Camus highlights an unresolved strategic dilemma within Les Républicains, torn between maintaining ideological autonomy and pursuing alignment with the RN. As he cautions, any such coalition would likely be asymmetrical: “the dynamic is on the side of the National Rally… the agenda will be set by the National Rally.”

Taken together, the interview suggests that France is not witnessing a straightforward normalization of the far right, but rather a more complex process of political recomposition. The RN’s rise is embedded in enduring socioeconomic grievances and cultural anxieties, yet its ultimate trajectory will depend on whether the boundaries that once separated it from the mainstream right continue to erode—or are strategically reasserted—in the run-up to 2027.

Here is the edited version of our interview with Professor Jean-Yves Camus, revised slightly to improve clarity and flow.

The RN Has Expanded Locally, but Still Hits a Metropolitan Ceiling

Paris.
Cyclists and pedestrians take over the Champs-Élysées during Paris Car-Free Day, filling the iconic avenue from the Louvre to the Arc de Triomphe under a clear sky. Photo: Dreamstime.

Professor Jean-Yves Camus, welcome, and let me start right away with the first question: The 2026 municipal elections seem to have produced a paradoxical outcome: the National Rally / Rassemblement National (RN) expanded its local footprint yet failed to secure the kind of major urban victories that would have symbolized full normalization. How should we interpret this mixed result—does it confirm the RN’s structural implantation, or does it reveal enduring sociological and territorial ceilings?

Professor Jean-Yves Camus: You’re right to say that the outcome of this election is very much a mixed bag for the Rassemblement National (RN). On the one hand, they significantly increased the number of seats they gained on city councils—up to more than 3,000. They won 57 cities, which is, of course, a substantial gain compared to the 13 cities they secured in 2020. But they failed in all major cities and metropolises, with very significant losses. They expected to win Toulon and secured 42% in the first round, but ultimately did not win. Due to a consolidation of votes against the National Rally, they were also expected to seize Marseille but did not. Paris remains a territory where the extreme right is very weak, for obvious sociological reasons. It is a gentrified city, which is largely alien to the ideology of the party. So, the cities they seized are small and medium-sized. The largest is Perpignan, which they retained in the first round with just over 50%, but this is the only city with more than 100,000 inhabitants that will be in the hands of the Rassemblement National.

So, I would say there is still significant progress to be made. In view of the presidential election, winning 57 cities is a notable achievement, but when it comes to the presidency, you need votes from the main metropolises. It remains to be seen whether, in a presidential contest, the outcome will be more favorable for the party. Let us remember that city council elections are based on proportional representation, which is not the case for presidential elections. These are local votes that rely heavily on the personality of the candidate for mayor, making this a very different mode of voting, with distinct patterns. Most voters in city council elections focus on very local issues, whereas presidential elections operate on an entirely different level.

What I take from this vote is that the party has expanded its reach to many small cities where it already had a number of strongholds. For example, in the département du Pas-de-Calais, one of the former industrial areas in northern France, they were highly successful and captured more than 10 small cities with populations between 3,000 and 10,000—a significant gain. On the other hand, if you look at a department with a similar sociological profile just north of Pas-de-Calais—the département du Nord, at the border with Belgium—they did not seize any towns, contrary to expectations. This suggests that electoral success depends heavily on how well the local branches of the party are organized, the quality and performance of the candidates, and whether there is genuine local momentum.

They also performed very well in the former industrial area of Lorraine, particularly in the département of Moselle, which borders Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany. These are areas where unemployment remains high, where we see multiple generations struggling with long-term economic insecurity, and where many people face difficulties maintaining stable and adequately paid employment. Unsurprisingly, the party performs strongly there. They also did well in the Mediterranean belt, from Perpignan at the Spanish border to Menton at the Italian border—an area where the party has long enjoyed support. However, despite failing to win Toulon or Marseille, they made a very significant gain in Nice, a major city with international appeal.

That said, it was not the Rassemblement National itself that won Nice. Rather, it was a smaller party, Les Républicains, led by Éric Ciotti, now the mayor of Nice, who identifies as a Gaullist and is working toward uniting the right ahead of 2027.

Populism in France Is Deeply Rooted, Not a Temporary Surge

You have long argued that right-wing populist parties must be understood through their specific national histories rather than as a perfectly homogeneous European bloc. In the French case, what do these local election results tell us about the specifically French configuration of populism, nationalism, and anti-elite politics in 2026?

Professor Jean-Yves Camus: This situation tells us, first of all, that in most cases the Rassemblement National is still unable to build a coalition with the mainstream conservative right. In many cities, Les Républicains, the mainstream conservatives, remain strong. I think the main outcome of this election is that both Les Républicains on the right and the Socialist Party—the Social Democrats on the left—retain most of their strongholds. They are still the most important and relevant parties at the local level.

The National Rally has two options. The first is that of Marine Le Pen, who said after the vote: “My party is neither left nor right. I want to call on all people, regardless of their political affiliation, to vote for us in 2027. So, not left, not right.” The second option is that of Jordan Bardella, the new president and chairman of the party, who argues that, if they want to win in 2027, they must work toward a coalition of the right. But this coalition of the right is still very much contested from within among mainstream conservatives. Some of them, like Xavier Bertrand, chairman of the northern region of France, or Valérie Pécresse, chairperson of the Île-de-France region, argue that if they ally with the National Rally solely to defeat the left, they will probably lose their specificity. If they enter into a coalition with the National Rally, the policies of the National Rally will prevail, and they will not be able to act as the driving force in recovery.

That is a very wise analysis of the situation. If the conservative right enters into a coalition with the National Rally, the dynamic is on the side of the National Rally. Politically, the agenda will be set by the National Rally—by Le Pen or Bardella—and the conservatives will become a second-ranked partner in the coalition.

Another specificity of France is that it has a populist far-right party that has been above the 10% mark since 1984—over 40 years. Contrary to what many analysts have suggested, this is not a short-term political phenomenon. It is a structural part of political life, both at the local and national levels.

This also means that the French right, which until the 1980s had been divided between a liberal wing and a conservative wing, is now divided into three segments: a liberal, center-right one; a mainstream conservative one; and an identitarian, populist, anti-EU family. This is a major challenge.

Finally, there were elections in Denmark yesterday (March 24, 2026), and the outgoing Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, stated in her acceptance speech that there is a broad consensus on restricting immigration policy in Denmark, which is true. This consensus ranges from the Social Democrats to right-wing populists. In France, however, this is not the case. Immigration and asylum policies remain highly contentious issues, and there is no way the Socialist Party—the Social Democrats—can find common ground even with the mainstream conservative right. Restricting immigration and limiting the rights of asylum seekers is still associated with a small segment of the right wing of the Conservative Party, within Éric Zemmour’s party, which does not perform very well at the local level. Yet this remains central to the ideology of the National Rally. Any coalition, any cohesion of the right for 2027 will therefore have to confront these policy differences on immigration. No agreement, no coordination.

Marine and Jean-Marie Le Pen.
Marine and Jean-Marie Le Pen rallied during the meeting for the celebration of May 1, 2011 in Paris, France. Photo: Frederic Legrand

Blocking the RN Remains Possible, but No Longer Automatic

Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella framed the elections as evidence of a historic breakthrough, yet the two-round system once again appeared capable of blocking the far right in key urban contests. Does the municipal vote suggest that the so-called “Republican Front” is weakened, resilient, or merely transforming into more selective and local forms?

Professor Jean-Yves Camus: The so-called Republican front has become more selective. Obviously, in the southern part of the country, from Perpignan to Menton, the fan base—the core voters of the Conservative Party, the Republicans—are very close to voters of the National Rally. So they tend to transfer their votes to National Rally candidates in the second ballot because they share common ideas: mostly rejection of the left, even when it is moderate, a desire to curb immigration, and a very strong stance against what they call Islamic fundamentalism. Sometimes, the distinction between fighting Islamism and opposing Islam and Muslim immigrants becomes blurred. So, there is considerable cooperation at both the membership level and among voters between the Republicans and the National Rally.

In other cases, such as Toulon, it seems—although it is still too early to say definitively—that one of the reasons why the National Rally did not win is that the local bourgeoisie and business community had concerns about what the city would look like under National Rally governance. This is a very local situation. Toulon was won by the Front National in 1995, and the way the city was governed at the time was widely regarded as dreadful. It was a total failure, both economically and administratively. There may still be lingering negative memories from that period. You must remember that this whole area of France is heavily dependent on foreign investment and tourism, including mass tourism, with foreigners building and buying homes and condominiums, sometimes for retirement and sometimes for vacation. In such a context, how the city is perceived by outsiders—especially from other countries—is extremely important. I believe that the Rassemblement National is still not seen by these foreign investors as a fully normalized party. There remains a fear of what it might do, a fear of the future, and uncertainty about how things would look under its rule.

But this is only one example; Toulon is a very specific case. In Marseille, it was a completely different story. First of all, turnout was much higher in the second round than in the first. Secondly, the candidate from the radical left chose to withdraw, and it appears that a significant portion of his voter base supported the Socialist Party candidate in the second ballot, thereby limiting the National Rally’s chances of winning. This is particularly interesting because voters from the far left seem to have backed the Socialist candidate, despite Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of the radical left La France Insoumise, being highly critical of the Socialist Party.

It, therefore, appears that left-wing voters still seek to block the National Rally from winning their cities. They may not like the Socialist Party—they may view it as too moderate, too pro-business, too pro–free market, and too strict on immigration—but when faced with a choice between the National Rally and the left, they ultimately vote for the left.

There is, therefore, still a possibility that in 2027, if Jordan Bardella or Marine Le Pen reach the second round, some form of Republican front will re-emerge to block the National Rally from winning the presidency. Why? Because Marine Le Pen remains associated with an embezzlement case involving funds from the European Parliament, and she is expected to stand trial next June. Jordan Bardella, meanwhile, is a 32-year-old, relatively inexperienced politician who has never been a mayor or a member of the National Assembly. He is a Member of the European Parliament but has never served in the National Assembly.

France still sees itself as one of the world’s major powers. It possesses nuclear weapons and plays a role in numerous international negotiations, as seen in both the Ukraine conflict and the Iran–Israel–United States tensions. Many French people may therefore feel that it is somewhat unwise to entrust such responsibility to someone who, while undoubtedly capable, lacks the necessary experience.

In 2017, France elected the youngest president in its history—Emmanuel Macron—who was only 39. By the end of Macron’s second term, many French citizens may feel that he lacked sufficient experience, as he had not been a Member of Parliament and had only briefly served as a minister. He may be seen as one of those figures from the higher administrative elite with limited experience at the grassroots level—someone who had never previously been elected—and that this, in hindsight, may have been a mistake.

Ciotti’s Victory Signals Convergence Between Republicans and the RN

How significant was Éric Ciotti’s victory in Nice for the broader right-wing ecosystem? Should we read it as an isolated local triumph shaped by personal rivalry, or as a more durable sign that the boundary between the mainstream right and the Le Pen camp is continuing to erode?

Professor Jean-Yves Camus: There are two different things here. The first is the Nice election, with Éric Ciotti winning over Christian Estrosi, who had the backing of the center-right and President Macron. And then there is what it represents at the national level.

Nice has always been a very peculiar city. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, the mayor was Jacques Médecin, who was officially a center-right member of the government but was very close to the local extreme right, even before the Front National was founded in 1972. This has traditionally been a stronghold of the arch-conservative right. That was the situation before World War II, and it remained so afterward. The Gaullist movement was never very strong, especially after 1962, when Algeria was granted independence. A large number of what we call repatriés—repatriated people—settled in the area, and they were strongly opposed to de Gaulle for obvious reasons. They were also very right-wing, particularly on the issue of immigration and the Muslim population. That remains an issue to this day.

In addition, Christian Estrosi performed very poorly. You have probably heard about the many controversies that emerged during the campaign, and there are ongoing inquiries into some of them. So he is partly responsible for his own failure.

So, the election of Éric Ciotti aligns very well with the sociology of this city and with expectations for change. It also reflects the fact that, locally, between Nice and Menton, the Republicans and the National Rally have platforms that are very similar, or at least very close to each other.

At the national level, Ciotti’s party is, in a way, a Gaullist formation. Marine Le Pen and Bardella also refer to General de Gaulle when it comes to the idea of France being independent, both from the United States and from other powers. They claim to be Gaullist in their approach to relations with the European Union and in their economic policy, emphasizing a return to strong industry, and so on.

This movement, when it was launched as a splinter group from the Republicans, was both a personal project of Éric Ciotti—he wanted to achieve something he felt he could not achieve within the Republicans—and a reflection of a broader trend within the Gaullist movement to drift toward a more right-wing stance on immigration and on relations with, especially, Muslim immigration.

This group has captured several cities, such as Montauban, Vierzon, and Sablé-sur-Sarthe. These are medium-sized cities. It can serve as what we call in French a vitrine—a kind of showcase demonstrating that there is an ally which is, in fact, part of the mainstream conservative right and not burdened by the controversies that have surrounded the history of the National Front and the National Rally. So Marine Le Pen and Bardella can say: look, we have mayors from a Gaullist party, which shows that we do not belong to the extreme right. We are simply the real conservative right, while the Republicans are no longer truly conservative because they have governed alongside Macron’s ministers and are, ideologically, closer to the center-left than to traditional right-wing ideas.

Republicans Remain Strong Locally but Divided Nationally

Éric Zemmour’s election campaign, meeting in Cannes,France on January 22, 2022. Photo: Macri Roland.

At the same time, Les Républicains retained or regained a number of municipalities. Do these results indicate that the traditional right still possesses a meaningful territorial base independent of the RN, or is it increasingly being forced into a strategic choice between centrism and nationalist realignment?

Professor Jean-Yves Camus: Les Républicains retain a significant base at the local level. The controversy within the Republicans concerns the presidential contest. What we have seen after the city council vote is two leaders from the Republicans, Laurent Wauquiez and Bruno Retailleau, expressing opposing views regarding the presidential election. One explanation is that both of them are, in fact, candidates for the presidency. Retailleau argues that if they retain traditional conservative ideology, and perhaps go a little further on the issue of immigration, they can still win the presidency. Wauquiez, by contrast, argues that if they remain alone as Les Républicains, they will not succeed.

So, he suggests that they already have much in common with the National Rally. What, then, are the differences between them? On this basis, he proposes organizing a primary among all right-wing candidates, from Édouard Philippe on the center-right to the National Rally, to Zemmour’s party and its candidate, who will obviously be Sarah Knafo. They would then rally behind whoever wins the primary election.

Retailleau, however, rejects this approach outright. In other words, he insists that they have nothing in common with Zemmour’s party. So, why hold a primary contest with actors who do not share the same platform and ideology?

In other words, part of the center-right does not want to become hostage to the most right-wing parties in the country, especially since Zemmour’s party stands to the right of the National Rally. Zemmour’s party promotes the idea of the “Great Replacement.” It also advances the view that Islam is not compatible with French citizenship and supports the idea of “remigration,” that is, the compulsory return of all non-European immigrants. This is, therefore, a completely different ideological framework.

My view is that this controversy will continue for many months to come, especially since we do not yet know who the National Rally’s candidate will be. As I mentioned earlier, Marine Le Pen will stand trial on appeal next June, and the outcome will be known then. She may be disqualified from running. If that happens, Bardella will carry the colors of the National Rally. This means that, for the time being, the National Rally faces some difficulty in entering the pre-campaign phase, and this gives the Republicans time to take advantage of the situation and clarify their strategy.

Perceived Cultural Loss, Not Just Reality, Drives RN Support

Islamophobia.
Muslims demonstrating against Islamophobia outside the Grande Mosquée de Paris, France. Photo: Tom Craig.

Your previous work has emphasized the role of cultural insecurity, as well as socioeconomic dislocation, in shaping support for the populist right. Did these local elections confirm that diagnosis, especially in provincial France and smaller towns where the RN performed more strongly than in metropolitan centers?

Professor Jean-Yves Camus: It is absolutely true. When we look at the map of the cities won by the National Rally, what we see are many small and medium-sized cities where there is a strong feeling of cultural loss—a perception that there is more immigration, more mosques being built, and more immigrants and refugees arriving. Many people feel very uneasy about this. It is a perception of insecurity, even in cases where there is no actual crime or insecurity. That is very important to understand.

It is not because you live in a safe city that you do not believe immigration is increasing—10, 20, or even 50 kilometers away in a larger city—and that sooner or later immigrants will come to your own town and change its cultural history, what you consider necessary to be truly French, and what you think is required to live in your community.

I think we still have a problem with immigration from former French colonies, whether from North Africa or West Africa. It is as if we have not fully come to terms with our colonial past, and with the fact that we not only accepted these immigrants but actively encouraged them to come. Large industries and major business interests brought them to this country. So, they deserve recognition for what they contributed and for the role they played in building the country’s industrial base. Yet, they remain disadvantaged, and racism and xenophobia persist.

On the other hand, among native French people—those whose families have lived in the country for generations—especially in today’s unstable international context, there is a growing perception of a clash of civilizations between the West and the Muslim world. This perception plays an important role, particularly along the Mediterranean coast, in shaping support for the National Rally.

The social situation is also very important. As I mentioned earlier, in many parts of France, these areas have been deindustrialized since the late 1970s, and there is no realistic prospect that these jobs will return. You may recall that President Trump, during his campaign in Pittsburgh, told steelworkers that their jobs would come back—but they did not. The same is true in northern France: industrial jobs will not return.

In other words, people feel they have no future, no new forms of employment or specialization for younger generations. There is a strong sense of dispossession, alienation, and abandonment. In some small towns, public services are also disappearing. Public services include the post office, the local school, the railway station—everything that signals the presence of the state. This also includes the presence of police or access to hospitals. Many hospitals have been closing in this country, and when people have to travel an hour to reach emergency care, they understandably feel that the state is no longer taking care of them. So, a protest vote in favor of the National Rally emerges in this context.

Major Cities Favor Stability Over Populist Alternatives

Conversely, how do you explain the RN’s continuing difficulty in major cities? Is this primarily a matter of candidate quality, urban demography, coalition arithmetic, class composition, or the party’s still-incomplete process of dédiabolisation?

Professor Jean-Yves Camus: In major cities, you have to remember that most of them, including Paris, have become gentrified. A gentrified city means a high proportion of people with higher education, better-paid jobs, and incomes above the average wage. There is also a tendency to reject extremes and to seek stability.

If you look at cities like Marseille, Paris, Lille, Strasbourg, and so on, there is also a significant share of the population that comes from an immigrant background and who, obviously, do not want to vote for the National Rally. So the conditions are in place to prevent the National Rally from winning in the largest cities, such as Lyon, Paris, and Marseille.

This is not the case in small or medium-sized cities. There, the population is different, often with incomes below the average and facing many difficulties, including in rural areas where the National Rally has made very significant inroads.

Moreover, the organizational apparatus of the major parties still retains some hold over the electorate in major cities, whereas the electorate in small and medium-sized cities and rural areas is much more volatile.

Municipal Results Do Not Predict Presidential Outcomes

Le Pen & Bardella
Leaflets featuring candidates for the 2024 legislative elections in Versailles, France, on June 28, 2024. Photo: Dreamstime.

Finally, Professor Camus, do these municipal elections offer any reliable indication for the presidential race ahead? More specifically, do they suggest that France is still heading toward a Le Pen– or Bardella-centered contest, or do they reopen the possibility that broader coalitions of the mainstream left, center, and moderate right could yet alter the expected scenario?

Professor Jean-Yves Camus: First of all, in political science, we know that we cannot infer from city council elections what the outcome of a presidential election will be. These are two very different types of elections, not the same mode of scrutiny, and, of course, a very different context—especially in a country like France, where the presidency is very powerful. We are a semi-presidential system.

Second, I would insist that there is still one year to go until the election. The only thing we know for sure is that Emmanuel Macron is not allowed to seek a third term. As for the other contenders, we know quite a few—especially Édouard Philippe, who retained his mayorship of Le Havre last Sunday and is one of the contenders for the center-right—but there are others, and there are many contenders within the Republican Party. We do not yet know who will be the candidate of the Social Democratic left; there may even be several. The only thing we know for sure is that the candidate of the National Rally will be either Le Pen or Bardella, and we know that the candidate of the radical left will be Jean-Luc Mélenchon. So let us wait until we really know who will stand for president, and then look at the first polls.

What the National Rally expects is a second round between Mélenchon and Bardella. Why? Because opinion surveys show that the dédiabolisation of the National Rally has progressed to such an extent that the radical left is now rejected by a higher proportion of voters than Le Pen or Bardella. This is something we would not have said 10 or even 5 years ago. The rejection level of the radical left is around 60%. Fewer than 50% of French people today say that the National Rally is a threat to democracy—49% still see it as such, but that is no longer a majority. So, the hope of the National Rally is a second round between two candidates from the extremes, which would allow it to win.

On the other hand, what I see emerging is what we call the central bloc—that is, Macron’s majority—playing the card of stability: you do not want to vote for one or another extreme, so let us vote for stability. Maybe you do not agree with everything the center-right has done over the past decade, but if you are faced with the National Rally in the second round, please vote for stability—keeping France a democracy and keeping France within the European Union. This kind of strategy may work.

The only problem is that in 2017 and in 2022, the majority of the French did not vote for Macron because they shared his ideas; they voted for him because they rejected Le Pen. And if, in 2027, we again have to vote for a candidate whose policies we do not truly support, only out of rejection of the National Rally, then I would expect very difficult times. Because voting for a president, at least in the French context, should mean supporting his ideology, his project for the country, what he wants to do, and the kind of legislation he wants to pass. If you vote only to avoid what you perceive as a threat, then democracy is not very solid.

Dr. Sanjeev Humagain.

Dr. Humagain: Institutionalized Populism Poses Enduring Challenge to Nepal’s Democracy

by Editor’s ChoiceHomeInterviews

Dr. Sanjeev Humagain offers a nuanced and cautionary reading of Nepal’s post-election moment, arguing that the March 2026 vote should not be seen simply as a democratic breakthrough. While the rise of Balendra “Balen” Shah and the Rastriya Swatantra Party marks a clear rupture in elite continuity, Humagain warns that Nepal’s deeper political logic remains shaped by “institutionalized populism.” He emphasizes that the country is emerging from “a kind of institutionalized gray zone,” yet still faces serious challenges of accountability, parliamentary weakness, and policy incoherence. For Humagain, the election has validated long-standing public questions about corruption, patronage, and ineffective governance—but not yet their answers. Nepal, he suggests, stands at a critical juncture: not at the summit of democratic renewal, but “at base camp,” where the hard work of institutional reform has only just begun.

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

Giving an interview to the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Dr. Sanjeev Humagain, a political scientist at Nepal Open University, offers a nuanced and theoretically grounded assessment of Nepal’s evolving political landscape in the aftermath of the March 2026 general election. While widely interpreted as a rupture driven by Gen Z mobilization and anti-elite sentiment, Dr. Humagain cautions against overly celebratory readings of the electoral outcome. Instead, he situates the moment within a longer trajectory of institutional fragility, elite circulation, and the deepening entrenchment of populist political practices.

At first glance, the electoral victory of Balendra “Balen” Shah and the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) appears to mark a decisive break with the post-1990 political order. As Dr. Humagain notes, “the rise of the Rastriya Swatantra Party… represents a clear break from that pattern,” emphasizing that “for the first time, we are witnessing an overwhelmingly large number of new members in Parliament.” This influx of political newcomers—many lacking prior ministerial experience—signals a disruption of long-standing elite continuity and suggests the possibility of institutional renewal.

Yet, as the interview unfolds, Dr. Humagain complicates this narrative of democratic transformation. He underscores that Nepal’s political trajectory has long been characterized not by linear democratization but by movement across “a kind of institutionalized gray zone,” where “there was a serious erosion of accountability” and persistent threats to democratic consolidation. In this context, the current electoral moment represents less a definitive transition than a “critical juncture”whose direction remains uncertain.

Central to Dr. Humagain’s analysis is the argument that Nepal’s contemporary politics is shaped by a deeply embedded form of populism. While new actors and generational dynamics have reshaped the electoral arena, they have not necessarily displaced the underlying logic of governance. As he warns, “the other side of the coin is that Nepali politics has already been shaped by populism for at least a decade,” characterized by “the personalization of politics” and the marginalization of institutional mechanisms such as parliament and party structures. This personalization, he argues, has rendered “several key institutions dysfunctional,” raising fundamental questions about the durability of democratic accountability.

Importantly, Dr. Humagain highlights a paradox at the heart of Nepal’s current transformation. While voters have clearly rejected established parties and endorsed systemic critique, they have not yet converged around a coherent programmatic alternative. “The questions have been approved,” he observes, noting that citizens have given new political actors “the mandate to find meaningful and democratic answers.” However, “it is not that a clear direction has already been determined”—a condition he captures through the evocative metaphor that “Nepal is at the beginning of a new journey—we are at base camp, not at the top of the mountain.”

It is precisely within this unresolved space that the central challenge emerges. Despite electoral change, Dr. Humagain expresses concern that “the populism that has already become deeply institutionalized will persist in the coming years.”This persistence, he argues, will generate “ongoing challenges for democratic accountability” and hinder efforts to strengthen parliamentary governance. In this sense, Nepal’s post-election moment is not merely a story of democratic renewal, but a test of whether institutional reform can overcome the enduring legacy of populist political logic.

Here is the edited version of our interview with Dr. Sanjeev Humagain, revised slightly to improve clarity and flow.

The Rise of the RSP Marks a Clear Break from Nepal’s Old Elite Pattern

Nepal elections.
Voter education volunteer instructs residents on using a sample ballot in Ward No. 4, Inaruwa, Nepal, February 17, 2026, as part of a local election awareness program led by the Sunsari Election Office. Photo: Nabin Gadtaula / Dreamstime.

Dr. Sanjeev Humagain, welcome, and let me begin with a foundational question: In your work on “exclusive parliamentary politics,” you argue that Nepal’s democratic system has long been dominated by entrenched elites despite formal electoral competition. To what extent does the rise of independent figures like Balendra “Balen” Shah represent a rupture in this elite continuity, or merely a reconfiguration of elite circulation?

Dr. Sanjeev Humagain: I think there are some fundamental questions we need to address at this moment. Since 1990, as I have argued in my academic work, a very limited group of political leaders has circulated within the cabinet—replacing one another over time, with the same prime ministers repeatedly returning to power. In this context, the rise of the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), as well as the emergence of Balendra Shah, represents a clear break from that pattern.For the first time, we are witnessing an overwhelmingly large number of new members in Parliament, which will inevitably shape the composition of the new cabinet. I expect that nearly 90% of ministers will, for the first time, lack prior ministerial experience. In that sense, this election marks a significant departure from the political continuity we have observed since 1990.

Nepal Has Long Moved from One Gray Zone to Another

You have highlighted the persistence of feckless pluralism and weak democratic performance in Nepal’s post-1990 trajectory. Does the recent electoral volatility suggest a deepening of democratic accountability—or a further erosion of institutional stability?

Dr. Sanjeev Humagain: That’s another important question. Not only I, but also the academic literature—for example Thomas A. Marks in 2002—identified Nepal as an example of feckless pluralism. What has happened here is that, since 1990, there have been several political transitions.

Until 1996, we had three elections. Then came the Maoist civil war, followed by the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of a republican state in 2008. Another major transition occurred in 2015. In short, there have been numerous changes. However, these shifts were not from undemocratic to fully democratic systems; rather, they moved from one gray zone to another. In that sense, Nepal experienced a kind of institutionalized gray zone, which is deeply concerning. During this period, there was a serious erosion of accountability, and, as you noted, significant threats to the institutionalization of democracy.

I think Nepali politics has now begun to move out of this zone, but it remains to be seen whether it will evolve into a process-oriented, accountable democratic system or drift into another gray zone. Some signs of populism are already visible. Still, this is a critical juncture, as the country has at least started to emerge from that phase.

Gen Z Movement Is the Result of a Long-Term Shift in Political Discourse

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

Your research on the structural determinants of democratic consolidation suggests that macro-level conditions in Nepal remain unfavorable. How should we interpret the apparent “Gen Z surge” in this context: as a corrective force, or as a symptom of systemic fragility?

Dr. Sanjeev Humagain: I think this reflects a very important particularity of Nepal, which is not common in many countries around the world. When a society undergoes rapid modernization, it typically develops new cities, new media, new educational institutions, and a broad expansion of citizen participation across social and political spheres. This process usually generates social capital and an organized middle class, which can give rise to new political parties and serve as a pillar of democracy. Historically, this pattern has been evident over the last 200–300 years, particularly in Western contexts, as well as in countries such as South Korea and Taiwan.

However, in Nepal, the situation is different. While we do observe key indicators of modernization—improvements in education, strong communication networks, rapid digitalization, and the proliferation of new media—the social base that typically drives democratic consolidation is largely absent domestically. Those who would constitute the middle class in industrialized contexts are often not in the country. Instead, they are working abroad—in places such as Kuala Lumpur, Seoul, and Riyadh.

As a result, these individuals, who contribute economically to modernization, have remained largely absent from direct political participation for an extended period. This has made the Nepali case distinct. As you rightly noted, their engagement is mediated primarily through social media. They express their views not through voting, but through digital platforms, often because they are unable to return home to participate in elections.

At the same time, they are shaping a discourse that tends to prioritize economic development over redistributive or democratic concerns, at least temporarily. Ironically, many Nepalese working abroad are employed in non-democratic countries, and the perspectives they transmit back home often reflect that experience—sometimes questioning the necessity of elections or political contestation.

These dynamics have made them important sources of new political narratives. The Gen Z movement is rooted in this evolving discourse, which has developed over at least a decade. It is not a sudden phenomenon, but rather the result of a long-term shift in how political ideas are formed and circulated in Nepal.

Reform, Not Change, May Be the New Currency of Nepali Politics

In your analysis of party evolution, you identify multiple “waves” of party formation driven by identity, institutional incentives, and political learning. Would you situate the rise of new actors such as the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) and independent candidates as a fourth wave—perhaps defined by digital mobilization and anti-party sentiment?

Dr. Sanjeev Humagain: That is an interesting question—almost like homework for me—because my earlier analysis covered developments up to 2013–15. My concern at the time was that many political scientists tended to place all political parties in the same category. My work aimed to show that they are not the same.

We had strong ideological parties formed in opposition to autocratic rule. At the same time, some parties expanded within parliament during the period when identity politics was prominent in the Constituent Assembly, while others emerged directly from identity-based movements. That was the framework I developed.

You are right that this new party does not fit neatly into those three categories, so it could be seen as a fourth wave. However, we still need to be cautious before reaching a definitive conclusion. I am not entirely certain that we can fully describe it as a completely new party.

There are two points to consider. First, the prime ministerial candidate, Balendra Shah, was previously the mayor of Kathmandu Metropolitan City, the capital of Nepal. Second, the president of the Rastriya Swatantra Party is a former Home Minister and Deputy Prime Minister. Moreover, more than half of the party’s candidates had some form of prior affiliation with other political parties before joining this one. In that sense, can we really call it an entirely new party? This remains a question that requires further observation over time.

That said, you are correct in noting that, until the third wave, political movements were the primary drivers behind the rise of parties. This party, however, did not emerge from such movements or from a broader agenda of systemic change. This is a significant development in Nepalese political history.

Historically, “change” has been the central currency of major political parties in Nepal, dating back to the 1950s. In contrast, this party appears to prioritize reform rather than change. In that sense, for the first time in Nepal’s political history, we may be witnessing the emergence of a kind of conservative party—one that does not emphasize rapid transformation, but instead advocates gradual, step-by-step reform.

If the party continues along this path in government over the next five years, it could generate a new form of political polarization and establish itself as a distinct fourth wave. However, based solely on its formation process and candidate composition, it is still too early to definitively categorize it as such.

A New Polarization Between Reform and Continuity Is Taking Shape

Nepal police during riots in Kathmandu. Photo: Ardo Holts / Dreamstime.

Your Kathmandu Post article questions whether recent elections reflect swing voting or polarization. Given the persistence of party membership networks, is Nepal witnessing genuine dealignment—or simply a reconfiguration of partisan loyalties?

Dr. Sanjeev Humagain: That was the article I wrote two years ago, during the elections, when the Nepalese media were largely suggesting that Nepal had a significant number of swing voters. I argued that this was not swing voting, but rather the emergence of a new kind of polarization. This time, however, the situation appears quite different.

What is notable now is that even the major political parties of the past are questioning why their core members did not vote for them. Connecting this to your earlier question, Nepal seems to be experiencing a high level of dealignment. People are no longer strongly inclined to define themselves through partisan identities, which were quite prominent in the 1990s and the early 2000s.

In that sense, Nepal is undergoing a process of depoliticization. I have recently written in a Nepali newspaper that the results of these elections can be understood through a key lens: the breakdown of party patronage. Party patronage was a central driver of electoral success until the previous elections. Candidates would visit towns and promise tangible benefits—sometimes development projects, sometimes personal favors—in exchange for votes. However, this system now appears to have weakened significantly. At the same time, the fact that nearly half of the voters supported a single party suggests the emergence of a new form of polarization.

As I mentioned earlier, this polarization is structured around reform versus continuity. Established parties argue that they have delivered substantial progress—improvements in infrastructure, healthcare, and education—and that their achievements are underappreciated. In contrast, new political actors contend that existing parties lack sincerity and accountability, and that corruption is pervasive, making reform imperative. So, a new polarization is clearly emerging. Compared to the elections two years ago, there is also a much stronger swing. The deeper implications of this shift are likely to persist, and Nepalese politics may remain unstable for years, perhaps even decades. The long-standing 30-year pattern of competition between communist and liberal forces has now been disrupted.

The key question is how this will evolve into a new form of polarization. In any political system, polarization cannot be eliminated; it tends to develop in cycles shaped by socioeconomic conditions. At times, politics gravitates toward redistribution, while at other times it emphasizes economic growth. In Nepal’s case, the country has moved beyond traditional party patronage, but a new, stable form of polarization has not yet fully consolidated. This will be one of the most important dynamics to watch in Nepalese politics over the coming decade.

Nepal Is at Base Camp, Not Yet at the Summit of Democratic Reform

You note that informal networks remain central to electoral success. How does this reliance on patronage and personalized networks interact with the growing visibility of issue-based, urban, and digitally mobilized voters?

Dr. Sanjeev Humagain: That’s a very interesting aspect of Nepali elections at this time. I think we need to categorize this into three different segments. The first segment is that, from 1990 to the 2022 elections, party patronage dominated. It depended on informal networks; for instance, candidates would count the houses in villages and say, “Okay, I’ll take care of this, I’ll handle this, don’t worry, I will get the votes from there.” These kinds of informal networks were central, and electoral campaigns were mostly based on convincing local allies and influencing voters through them. That remained the norm.

Things started to break down in the last local and parliamentary elections. Balendra Shah himself, as an independent candidate, won the election in Kathmandu Metropolitan City. Similarly, in other sub-metropolitan cities, such as Dharan or Itahari, independent candidates also succeeded. This was the first signal that party patronage would not work in urban areas.

At the same time, the role of new media—particularly social media—became key in shaping voters’ attitudes. The use of social media has become a central strategy for winning votes.

In these elections, another segment has also emerged. The whole of Nepal has, in a sense, accepted fundamental questions about the system. It is not simply about which political party won or who will be the next prime minister. Rather, it is about broader concerns regarding the efficiency, productivity, and accountability of the system, which have been endorsed by voters. However, the important point is that while the questions have been accepted, the answers have not yet been fully articulated. There are no clear solutions so far, even among the new parties. Although they have presented many well-formulated ideas, the broader vision of the new cabinet and the priorities of parliament remain to be defined.

So, my point is that the questions have been approved. Citizens have given the Rastriya Swatantra Party the mandate to find meaningful and democratic answers to the issues that have been on the table for the last three decades. It is not that a clear direction has already been determined. Nepal is at the beginning of a new journey—we are at base camp, not at the top of the mountain. From this base camp, it is now necessary to develop a strategic roadmap to reach the summit.

Institutionalized Populism Will Continue to Challenge Democratic Accountability

Thousands joined a joint morning procession organized by the CPN-UML and Nepali Congress district committees in Inaruwa Bazaar on September 19, 2025, to mark Constitution Day. Photo: Nabin Gadtaula.

In your recent work, you argue that Nepali populism is increasingly characterized by personalization and utility-based politics, with ideology playing a diminishing role. How does Balendra Shah’s political style fit within this framework—does he embody a new form of technocratic populism?

Dr. Sanjeev Humagain: That’s a very important point to consider—the other side of the coin. Until now, you and I have been discussing one side of the coin, the change dimension, and we have been in a position to suggest that there is significant change in Nepali politics. However, the other side of the coin is that Nepali politics has already been shaped by populism for at least a decade.

The key dimensions of that populism, as you mentioned, are twofold. First is the personalization of politics—meaning the marginalization of institutions such as Parliament, the Cabinet, and the central committees of political parties. The Prime Minister increasingly behaves like an elected president. The Prime Minister’s residence, for instance, has become highly visible in daily news, almost like the White House. This personalization of politics has been one of the most serious threats to Nepali democracy. It has rendered several key institutions dysfunctional, including Parliament, which has remained largely ineffective for nearly two decades.

The second dimension relates to how Nepal has addressed socioeconomic inequality. Since 2006–07, there has been a broad recognition that the country faces deep structural inequalities. It has also been acknowledged that addressing these inequalities requires two things: first, inclusive participation in decision-making processes and institutions; and second, a capability-based approach to empowerment, given that discrimination has persisted for centuries.

In theory, Nepal’s political system was designed along these lines. However, in practice, it has diverged significantly. Political leaders have increasingly emphasized utility—focusing on majoritarian gains and immediate benefits—often at the expense of minority rights and long-term structural reforms.

In this context, the rise of the Rastriya Swatantra Party and Balendra Shah does not necessarily signal a departure from these underlying dynamics. It is difficult to assume that Nepali politics has fundamentally changed. The core worldview and governing logic of the state are likely to remain the same.

I am concerned that the populism that has already become deeply institutionalized will persist in the coming years. This will create ongoing challenges for democratic accountability, as well as for strengthening and institutionalizing parliamentary politics. I think that is the central challenge facing Nepali politics today.

Nepal’s Political Shift Closely Reflects the Global Democratic Recession

You describe populism in Nepal as moving toward a more right-leaning, communitarian discourse that balances order and freedom. How does this shift compare with global patterns of populism, particularly in Europe and South Asia?

Dr. Sanjeev Humagain: Yes, that’s true, and Nepal has almost always moved in line with global waves. If you look at the political trajectory of the country, it closely mirrors broader global developments. Nepal experienced democratization in the 1950s, followed by an authoritarian regime beginning in the 1960s that lasted until the 1990s. Since the 1990s, democratic practices have taken root, and from 2006–07 onward, redistributive policies also began to emerge. These developments have largely followed patterns similar to global trends.

More recently, the global shift toward center-right, leadership-driven politics—particularly characterized by strong, charismatic leaders—has also become visible in Nepal. I see clear parallels with developments in both Western and South Asian countries. The emphasis on growth-first approaches, where economic development is prioritized over other concerns, is also very similar.

I think the experiences of countries like Bangladesh and India—where strong economic growth has been associated with charismatic leadership—have had a significant impact on how people in Kathmandu perceive politics. Larry Diamond has described this broader trend as a democratic recession, and many of its features can be clearly observed in Kathmandu and across Nepal. So, Nepal is not following a distinct path; rather, it is part of the same global wave—the rise of center-right populism and charismatic, leader-centric governance.

Nepal’s Anti-Establishment Voice Has Largely Come from Above, Not from Below

A Nepali farmer at work in a rural field during the monsoon season. As the rains arrive, farmers across Nepal become busy in their fields, though most still rely on traditional farming techniques. Photo: Shishir Gautam.

To what extent should Nepal’s current political moment be understood through the lens of “designer populism from above” versus grassroots anti-establishment mobilization?

Dr. Sanjeev Humagain: That’s a tough question—a very tough one. What I do agree with is that I really like the term you used, “anti-establishment.” People were not simply criticizing political parties; their distrust and questions were also directed toward the media, schools, and universities—in other words, the entire establishment. So, you are right in suggesting that people were questioning the whole establishment.

But the key question is: who was expressing this anger, and who was at the forefront of raising these concerns? Interestingly, many of those in the front line were individuals from the major political parties—such as the Nepali Congress, RSP, and The Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist–Leninist- UML). Even within Parliament, they were pointing to various forms of nexus—sometimes political, sometimes bureaucratic—as underlying causes of low accountability and ineffective governance. So, even leaders from parties in government were raising these questions. In that sense, it is more accurate to understand these dynamics as voices emerging from above rather than from below. As I mentioned earlier, people largely approved these questions silently.

This is my main analytical framework for understanding these elections. It was not the answers that were debated—there was no substantial policy debate. Quite frankly, the electoral campaign was rather muted. What people seemed to do was to acknowledge that the questions being raised were valid.

So, the moment we are witnessing is one in which Nepal is being called upon to generate collective wisdom and provide meaningful answers to long-standing questions. These questions—such as weak intra-party democracy and entrenched networks—were raised from within the political system itself. In that sense, the anti-establishment voice has largely come from above, while voters at the grassroots level have silently—again, I would emphasize silently—endorsed these questions.

This Is Not Just a Generational Shift—It Is a Broader Political Shift

The recent electoral cycle has been widely interpreted as a “Gen Z revolution.” In your view, does this generational shift represent a substantive transformation in political participation—or a temporary protest against entrenched elites?

Dr. Sanjeev Humagain: I think both of your assumptions need some modification. What I believe is that there is a strong alliance between the voices of younger generations and those of senior citizens who fought for democracy. The rise of social media is quite significant in this regard, as it has brought all generations onto the same platform.

The questions raised by young people focus on three fundamental spheres. The first is the quality of education they receive. Many of their peers study abroad, and they hear that education systems are quite different there compared to Nepal.

The second is fairness in the job market. Fairness is not fully present in the private sector. Interestingly, public sector jobs are perceived as more fair, while private sector employment is often shaped by informal networks and personal recommendations.

The third issue is the slow development of infrastructure—especially roads and hydroelectricity. People aspire to better roads and stable energy, and these concerns directly affect their future.

These issues were initially raised by young people, but they have been taken up more broadly in society. Older generations have reframed them in terms of justice, arguing that the lack of attention to both physical and social development is turning Nepal into an unjust society.

In that sense, I would not simply describe this as a generational shift. It is more accurate to see it as a political shift. Previously, ideological divisions defined electoral competition, but now questions of justice have moved to the center and brought different generations together. The Rastriya Swatantra Party received close to 50% of the vote, which suggests that its support extends beyond young voters. While young people were the primary drivers and agenda-setters, their concerns were reinterpreted and amplified across society. This has generated something like a new social contract—perhaps not formally articulated, but nevertheless present as a shared understanding.

So, I think this should be seen as a broader political transformation. It is not just a temporary protest or short-term mobilization; rather, it is likely to have a gradual and lasting impact across the country.

The Challenge Now Is to Turn Electoral Legitimacy into Institutional Harmony

Given your findings on the perils of parliamentarism—particularly the role of dynastic politics and weak institutionalization—what constraints is a figure like Balen Shah likely to face when attempting to translate electoral legitimacy into effective governance?

Dr. Sanjeev Humagain: That’s a very important point, because the parliamentary system is, in many ways, a very good system, and I favor it, especially in the case of Nepal. We have significant ethnic and regional diversity, so the representation of each community in parliament—where laws are made—is essential. Having strong coordination among these representatives in the cabinet is also crucial. If the parliamentary system is used properly, this is a very positive feature.

At the same time, however, there are important challenges. The frequent change of governments, and the resulting inconsistency in policies, have been key concerns. In that sense, I argue that Nepal faces the same problems as other less institutionalized parliamentary systems. I think Balendra Shah has certain advantages in overcoming these challenges. First, his party has secured a majority in parliament, which is happening in Nepal for the first time since 1996. After such a long gap, this majority provides a significant advantage.

Another advantage is that, since this is not a coalition government, there is likely to be greater policy uniformity. Over the past two decades, there has often been policy conflict between the Prime Minister’s Office and key ministries—such as Finance or Home Affairs—because they were controlled by different political parties. Now, there is an opportunity to generate greater harmony.

I believe this creates favorable conditions for a more effective implementation of the parliamentary system in Nepal, similar to how it functioned in Japan after the Second World War, where parliamentary governance was accompanied by policy coherence. So, I do believe that this is a significant opportunity for the real implementation of the parliamentary system under this new government. 

Nepal’s Future Depends on Turning Opportunity into Programmatic Reform

Durbar Square in Nepal on April 2011. Photo: Dreamstime.

And lastly, Dr. Humagain, looking ahead, do you see Nepal’s current moment as the beginning of a more programmatic, issue-based democracy driven by new generations—or as another cyclical phase of populist disruption within a structurally constrained political system?

Dr. Sanjeev Humagain: As a citizen of this country, I do believe that the first option should be our path. As a responsible citizen, it is also my duty to raise concerns and encourage the government and parliament to move in that direction.However, looking at the current public discourse and available analyses—and even the responses of the newly elected party—I am not very optimistic so far. There are still unresolved questions regarding the political agenda. Some important issues have been raised, particularly concerning the effectiveness of federal structures, which have been central to political debate over the past decade. I believe it is essential, and also my responsibility, to encourage the government to adopt a priority-based approach to political, social, and economic agendas—focusing first on issues that can be addressed more immediately, before moving on to more complex, long-term challenges.

This is a crucial moment for Nepal’s future, especially as the new government is about to begin its work this Friday. Hopefully, this will lead, for the first time, to more program-based and programmatic discussions, both in parliament and in society. If such public debates emerge, Nepal will have an opportunity to choose the path that best serves its future. It is our collective responsibility to ensure that this opportunity is used in that direction.

Dr. Sanjay Humagain, thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it.

Dr. Sanjeev Humagain: Thank you very much for your time, and I wish you good luck in all the work you are doing. You are undertaking very important efforts, because, knowingly or unknowingly, the whole world has entered a populist era, which is not beneficial for everyone. It is therefore important to return to a rule-based, liberal order. Your efforts will contribute not only to our country but to the world as a whole, and I am truly glad that you have initiated this work.

Professor Marlene Wind.

Prof. Wind: Mainstream Parties in Denmark Have Absorbed, Not Neutralized, the Radical Right

by Editor’s ChoiceEuropean ObservatoryHomeInterviews

Professor Marlene Wind argues that Denmark’s 2026 general election is not only a contest over leadership and crisis management, but also a revealing test of how liberal democracies internalize radical-right agendas. In her interview with the ECPS, Professor Wind contends that mainstream Danish parties have “absorbed, not neutralized, the radical right,” warning that electoral containment has too often meant ideological normalization. Situating the campaign within the wider context of Trump’s pressure over Greenland, Europe’s security crisis, and Denmark’s pragmatic turn toward the EU, she highlights the deeper structural dilemmas facing contemporary democracy: the normalization of restrictive politics, the fragility of liberal institutions, and the growing entanglement between populist forces, geopolitical instability, and weakened democratic boundaries. Denmark, in her view, offers a critical case for understanding these broader European transformations.

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

Giving an interview to the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Professor Marlene Wind—Professor of Political Science at the University of Copenhagen and Director of the Centre for European Politics—offers a penetrating analysis of Denmark’s parliamentary election campaign against the backdrop of geopolitical rupture, institutional recalibration, and the longer-term normalization of radical-right politics. As Denmark heads toward the March 24, 2026 general election, the contest has unfolded under the shadow of Donald Trump’s renewed pressure over Greenland, a crisis that briefly revived Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s standing after months of domestic political weakness. Reuters reported that Frederiksen’s Social Democrats rebounded from a December polling low of 17% to around 22% in recent weeks, while the broader electoral landscape remained fragmented and without a clear majority for either bloc. 

Yet for Professor Wind, the most consequential issue is not simply whether Frederiksen’s crisis management can secure a third term. Rather, the Danish case exposes a more structural dilemma at the heart of contemporary European democracy: how mainstream actors respond when radical-right agendas become embedded within the political center. This concern is captured in the interview’s headline argument: “Mainstream parties in Denmark have absorbed, not neutralized, the radical right.” Professor Wind also cautions that “the argument that we have managed to eradicate the extreme right is simply not accurate,” because “the policies adopted by the majority of politicians and political parties… have effectively incorporated right-wing positions.” The result, she argues, is not democratic containment but ideological normalization.

Professor Wind’s intervention is especially timely because the election has developed at the intersection of two seemingly contradictory dynamics. On the one hand, geopolitics has returned forcefully to Danish politics: Trump’s Greenland posture, Russia’s war against Ukraine, and uncertainty surrounding transatlantic guarantees have elevated questions of sovereignty, territorial integrity, and Europe’s strategic future. On the other hand, the campaign itself has remained anchored in domestic concerns—cost of living, welfare, migration, leadership fatigue, and social trust. As Professor Wind observes, geopolitics has functioned largely as “a background condition for everything else,” not as a fully articulated debate about Denmark’s future in Europe.

Within that setting, her analysis moves beyond the immediate election cycle to a broader diagnosis of European political development. She argues that Denmark’s majoritarian political culture, limited judicial review, and long-standing transactional view of European integration have made it easier to mainstream restrictive agendas without eliminating their social base. Indeed, she notes, aggregate support for right-wing parties remains “roughly 17% to 20%,” even if now dispersed across smaller formations. That continuity leads to her central normative warning: “Adopting the positions of the extreme right is not an effective strategy to counter it.”

In sum, Professor Wind’s remarks present Denmark not as an exceptional success story in containing the far right, but as a revealing case of how liberal democracies may gradually internalize the very forces they claim to resist.

Here is the edited version of our interview with Professor Marlene Wind, revised slightly to improve clarity and flow.

Mainstreaming the Far Right Has Not Reduced Its Support

Pakistani or Indian migrants in Copenhagen.
Pakistani or Indian migrants in Copenhagen, Denmark, September 22, 2017. Photo: Dreamstime.

Professor Marlene Wind, thank you very much for joining our interview series. Let me begin with the broad picture. To what extent should the current Danish election be understood not merely as a domestic contest over welfare, inflation, and leadership fatigue, but as a referendum on sovereignty, geopolitical anxiety, and Denmark’s place in an increasingly post-Atlantic Europe?

Professor Marlene Wind: Thank you very much for having me here. I will try to answer as well as I can. I think there was some anticipation that this election would be largely about geopolitics and Denmark’s place in Europe. However, it has actually turned out to be more of a background condition for everything else. It has not been particularly dominant, even though there have, of course, been questions about who we can trust to run the government in times of crisis, and this kind of very broad framing of the situation. There has not really been any detailed discussion about what kind of Europe we should have if we can no longer trust the US after Greenland, and so on. It has remained in the background. I also think this has to do with the fact that journalists covering national elections tend to be quite narrow-minded in terms of what should be debated and asked about, focusing mainly on healthcare, immigration, and similar issues. So, while the international situation and geopolitics are certainly present, they have not displaced other debates.

Domestic Priorities Prevail Despite Geopolitical Anxiety

In your work, you have explored the tension between national constitutional traditions and European integration. How do you interpret Mette Frederiksen’s transformation from one of Denmark’s most sovereignty-conscious and Eurosceptic leaders into a prime minister who now presents deeper European cooperation as a strategic necessity? Does this reflect ideological conversion, geopolitical realism, or a broader restructuring of Danish statecraft?

Professor Marlene Wind: It is really based on national interests. The current government, and in particular the Danish Prime Minister, has realized that everything Danish foreign policy has relied on since the Second World War has been NATO and our alliance with the Americans. This is also one of the reasons why Denmark has approached the EU in a very transactional way. We often accuse Trump of being transactional, but Denmark has also been incredibly transactional in its EU policy—and this is not limited to the current Prime Minister; it has been the case since we joined in 1973.

Our prime ministers and politicians more generally have viewed the European Union primarily as a market for creating wealth in Denmark—a market where we could sell our products—and little more. Every time we have held referendums on the EU over the years, the public debate has followed the same pattern: this will not become a federation, this will not become a political union. Please vote for this treaty; it will not develop into anything beyond a market. This reflects a consistently skeptical approach toward the more political idea of Europe. There has not really been much engagement with that dimension.

What has changed now is the impact of the illegal full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and, in particular, Donald Trump’s return to the White House—questioning support for Ukraine, questioning who is responsible for the war, and even questioning NATO, including whether the United States would honor Article 5 commitments. In response, the Danish Prime Minister has effectively made a U-turn.

Pragmatically, she has turned to her closest allies in Denmark and to civil servants, asking what the wisest course of action is. Europe is there, and it is the only viable option left. That explains this shift.

It is not driven by idealism or sentiment. It is highly pragmatic and transactional. The United States is no longer a reliable anchor in the same way. Geopolitics has fundamentally changed. And now, after 50 years of EU membership, we are finally beginning to see the EU as a more political entity than before—but this shift has emerged out of necessity and national interest, not out of idealism.

Denmark’s European Reorientation Reflects Geopolitical Realism, Not Ideological Conversion

Photo: Marian Vejcik | Dreamstime.

The Greenland dispute has elevated questions of sovereignty to the center of Danish politics. In your view, has Donald Trump’s revived interest in Greenland merely triggered a short-term “rally around the flag” effect, or has it fundamentally altered how Danes think about territorial integrity, alliance dependence, and the fragility of the liberal international order?

Professor Marlene Wind: I think it is fair to say that there was a distinct Greenland moment, during which many European leaders—until the threat to invade Greenland emerged—had tried to accommodate Trump and please him; I would even say to cozy up to him. We have seen this across many European governments.

However, when the threat to invade an ally and seize part of the territory of an allied kingdom materialized, both Danes and Europeans more broadly began to realize that we need to stand together and rethink our position. This has brought renewed attention to questions of territory, integrity, and sovereignty—but not sovereignty in the narrow sense of protecting only our own borders. We saw clearly that France, Germany, and even the UK, despite being outside the EU, came to Denmark’s support in this moment.

I also think that Danes have become much more aware of the importance of resisting aggressors who threaten territorial integrity. After all, Europe has effectively been in a state of conflict for four years—not only Ukraine in relation to Russia. The prevailing narrative has emphasized that countries must be able to protect their borders and determine for themselves whether they wish to be democracies.

For that reason, when Trump and the United States began threatening an ally, we quickly realized that such threats could also affect us. It is not only Ukraine that can be targeted by external actors; this is a broader phenomenon and a direct challenge to the liberal international order. The principles of territorial integrity and the right of countries to determine their own political systems must not be undermined by threats of force.

All these elements have converged in the Greenland crisis, and the parallels with Ukraine have been striking. After all, what have Ukrainians been doing for the past four years? They have been defending their territorial integrity. That is precisely the principle at stake when Trump threatened Denmark.

Trumpism as Symptom: The Rise of ‘Designer Populism’ from Above

How should we understand Trumpism in this Nordic context? Is Trump best seen as an external disruptor of Danish politics, or as a transnational amplifier of political tendencies that already exist within Europe—such as executive personalization, nationalist rhetoric, distrust of institutions, and the normalization of coercive sovereignty claims?

Professor Marlene Wind: I have written about this myself in my Tribalization of Europe book, which came out in 2020, that Trump, Brexit, and the erosion of democracy in Hungary, and earlier in Poland, are part of the same story. Even the return of Trump 2.0 has been inspired, to a large extent, by the populism and the extreme right that we have seen rising in Europe since 2010. So, I think Trump is a symptom not only of populism and its rise, but also of a new type of autocratic leadership—leaders who manipulate in order to gain and retain power.

Within the academic literature, there has been an ongoing debate. On the one hand, there is a left-wing analysis of populism that attributes it primarily to inequality. On the other hand, newer strands of research suggest that it is not the poorest who support autocrats, but rather segments of the middle classes who are receptive to narratives about external enemies, “draining the swamp,” and immigrants taking over society.

In my view, both Trump and many right-wing populists in Europe represent a largely top-down phenomenon. What we see is what I would call “designer politics”: political actors who deliberately construct narratives and manipulate conditions in order to secure and maintain power. They generate antagonisms by portraying elites as liberal or “woke,” and by identifying external and internal enemies.

This pattern is evident across Europe—in figures such as Nigel Farage, the AfD in Germany, Marine Le Pen, and previously in the Netherlands, as well as in many Central and Eastern European countries. It is, in fact, less about a dissatisfied citizenry rejecting liberal elites and more about kleptocracy and the concentration of power. If we look at the data, for example in Poland, we see that people have become increasingly affluent, yet still vote for right-wing parties.

A similar pattern can be observed in the United States. In 2016, it was not the poorest voters who supported Trump; many of them voted for Hillary Clinton. This suggests that we should be cautious about reducing these developments to questions of inequality alone. They also reflect the strategies of highly cynical political leaders who actively manufacture dissatisfaction, create antagonism, and construct narratives of threat from which they claim to offer protection.

Why the Far Right Persists in Denmark

Denmark, Rasmus Paludan.
Anti-Muslim demonstration by Stram Kurs and Rasmus Paludan, Frederikssund, Denmark, August 26, 2018. Photo: Stig Alenas | Dreamstime.

Denmark has long been seen as a case where mainstream parties absorbed parts of the anti-immigration agenda, thereby containing the electoral breakthrough of the far right. Do you see this as a successful inoculation strategy, or has it instead normalized core elements of far-right politics by translating them into state policy?

Professor Marlene Wind: To a large extent, it has become normalized in the Scandinavian countries. The reason it has been so easy to normalize is that we are not constitutional democracies; we are majoritarian democracies, where there is very little judicial review, and where there is no strong tradition of minorities challenging majority policies in court against a robust constitutional framework. We have a political culture in which the majority decides. In such an environment, it is much easier to normalize right-wing policies than in constitutional democracies, such as Germany, where minority groups can turn to the courts to assess whether policies are compatible with their rights and protections.

So, it has been easier in Denmark, and this process has been ongoing for many years. The argument that we have managed to eradicate the extreme right is simply not accurate. If you look at the policies adopted by the majority of politicians and political parties, they have effectively incorporated right-wing positions. We also see that support for right-wing political parties remains at similar levels as before; it is simply distributed across smaller parties. If aggregated, this support still amounts to roughly 17% to 20%. Moreover, there is currently a competition within Danish politics over who can adopt the toughest stance on these issues.

I believe it is a misconception in many European countries that this challenge has been resolved. I am not suggesting that the discussion itself is not legitimate—it certainly is. We must uphold our liberal values and firmly reject all forms of intolerance toward women, as well as attempts to promote Islamist and other extreme positions. Protecting liberal democracy remains essential. However, adopting the positions of the extreme right is not an effective strategy to counter it. In fact, the overall level of support for these views remains largely unchanged compared to 20 years ago.

Social Democracy at the Edge of Populist Politics

Relatedly, what does the Danish case tell us about the contemporary relationship between mainstream social democracy and populist political logics? Can restrictive migration politics coexist with a democratic center-left project without eroding the normative distinctions between social democracy and the populist radical right?

Professor Marlene Wind: That is a very political question. If you ask the Social Democrats, they would absolutely say yes. Even the Socialists on the left side of the Danish Social Democratic Party fully support this, so they would argue that it can coexist. This is a clear example of how such positions have become normalized. It is entirely legitimate to raise and debate the major questions and challenges associated with immigration, particularly when it comes to differing values. Where I see a problem, however, is when there is no judicial review of political decisions that sometimes approach the limits of what one would consider the rule of law, and where it becomes difficult to obtain a second opinion on the policies being implemented. That, in my view, is where the real issue lies—not in having an open discussion about challenges that certainly exist. So yes, any Social Democrat in Denmark would say that this is fully compatible, but it remains a highly political question.

Crisis Governance Expands Executive Power While Suspending Accountability

Professor Wind, do you think the incoming election demonstrates that external geopolitical crises can temporarily suspend domestic political accountability? In other words, can international confrontation—whether over Greenland, Ukraine, or transatlantic instability—re-legitimate incumbents whose domestic credibility had previously weakened?

Professor Marlene Wind: This is what happens every time there is a crisis. Political leaders go into crisis mode and argue that they need more power and greater competences to deal with the situation, and as a result, other issues are set aside. This is a very common phenomenon. You can see it in Hungary as well, where there has been a state of emergency since the COVID period. As far as I know, it is still in place. I am not entirely sure whether it has been lifted, but you can certainly observe similar crisis rhetoric in Denmark.

We have a Prime Minister who is highly effective in managing crises. However, the concern is always that more fundamental questions of accountability—democratic accountability in particular—as well as reasonable limits, may be overlooked in such situations. It is certainly open to debate whether we are currently in that kind of scenario.

At the same time, I do agree with the Prime Minister that we are, in a sense, in a state of war—and not only in relation to Ukraine. Europe is facing a very dangerous situation, being pressured from both the East and the West, while struggling to act collectively. This is deeply problematic, and it underscores the need for political leaders who are capable of addressing these challenges. So it is always a matter of balance, and something we must continuously reflect upon: has a given political leader gone too far in this regard? But at this moment, I believe that Europe needs strong and decisive leadership in order to endure as a continent.

The Fragile Foundations of Renewed Public Trust

Mette Frederiksen
Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen at a press conference during the COVID-19 crisis, Copenhagen, March 17, 2020. Photo: Francis Dean | Dreamstime.

Much of the current debate revolves around whether Frederiksen’s firmer line toward Washington has restored public trust. But from a democratic-theoretical perspective, how durable is trust that is rebuilt through crisis leadership rather than through institutional responsiveness, social compromise, or policy coherence?

Professor Marlene Wind: That is a big question, which I think can only be answered when we look back in a few years. As citizens and voters, we tend to appreciate when politicians stand up and demonstrate leadership. At the same time, many Europeans were deeply dissatisfied with the initial responses to Donald Trump, when we sought to please him, accommodate him, and turn the other cheek.

The so-called Greenland moment marked a turning point, when we finally rejected his demand to take part of another ally’s territory. This was an important development that fed into a broader European effort to assert itself and say no. We observed a similar dynamic in the Middle East, where European actors emphasized that it was not their war, that they had not been consulted about Iran, and that they could not simply accommodate—even under threats that Trump might withdraw from or dissolve NATO.

In many ways, that phase is over. Europe has, to some extent, been constrained by a sense of inferiority and dependence on the United States. The Greenland crisis made it abundantly clear to many European leaders, and certainly to the Danish Prime Minister, that this approach is no longer sustainable when dealing with an unpredictable partner. A firmer stance became necessary, and we have seen this reflected in the decision to place Greenland within a working group while avoiding further escalation.

It is also worth noting that Mark Carney, the Canadian Prime Minister, was among the first to adopt this approach and openly resist Trump. After being publicly humiliated—referred to as merely a governor, with suggestions that Canada should become the 51st state—and after firmly rejecting such rhetoric, Trump appeared to step back and has not revisited the issue since.

In this context, there is a growing sense that political leaders must be able to stand up to forms of coercion and authoritarian behavior. Such pressures do not emanate from a single source; while they are evident in Russia, similar dynamics can also be observed in the United States at present.

From Opt-Outs to Integration? 

You have written extensively on Europe’s legal and political development. In light of recent events, do you think Denmark is now moving from its traditional status as a semi-detached, opt-out-oriented member state toward something closer to the European core? Or is this shift still contingent, fragile, and driven more by fear than by conviction?

Professor Marlene Wind: As I said in the introduction to this interview, where you asked something similar, that at least initially the turn to Europe has been very transactional and very pragmatic—simply a question of, alright, we lost our ally, now we need to find new friends, and therefore we turn to Europe. But I actually believe that this could develop into a closer attachment, in general, to the European project. In fact, that what we are seeing right now could be a more fundamental shift, where Danish politicians have started suggesting that we could move from unanimity to qualified majority voting in foreign policy, that we could build up a European army, that we could even federalize, take on debt in common, and give the EU a bigger budget to create better conditions for business, innovation, and tech companies in Europe.

All these kinds of measures—removing barriers in the internal market that have grown to a rather extreme level, as illustrated in the Draghi report and the Enrico Letta report as well—would require more Europe.

And the Danes, and Danish politicians in particular, are gradually realizing that if Europe is to survive in a new global context with adversaries all around us, and where we strategically have to avoid excessive dependence on any major power and instead “de-risk,” as von der Leyen has said several times, then Europe simply has to become stronger and more independent. It must also become a power that projects its influence outward—not only a union that defends itself and builds military capabilities, whether within NATO as a European pillar or within the European Union itself, but also one that can project power externally.

Danish top politicians are gradually moving in that direction. I could anticipate it, and I think we have seen some signs of it, but again, I would say that there has not really been much public debate about this during the current campaign. There is still a sense among many political leaders that it is somewhat risky to address these issues openly.

But we will see in the coming years whether we are moving closer to Europe and toward the core, possibly by removing our remaining opt-outs. Denmark still has opt-outs in Justice and Home Affairs and regarding the euro, as it is not part of the euro area, even though its currency is pegged to the euro. If the next step is to remove these opt-outs and fully join the European core and its power center, then that would signal a more definitive shift—should this trajectory materialize.

How Economic Interests Shape Transnational Populism

How do you assess the relationship between today’s European far right and Trumpism? Should we think of them as part of a coherent transnational ideological family, or are they better understood as overlapping but ultimately fragmented projects—united by anti-liberal impulses, yet divided by national interests, geopolitical alignments, and competing visions of sovereignty?

Professor Marlene Wind: My analysis is that something much bigger is at stake here. We are dealing with a rather strange combination of populist leaders who are kleptocrats and, as I said earlier, who are designing populism from above, creating tensions and antagonism among the people they lead. I think that is very dangerous. It represents a very different way of understanding populism than in the past.

What we have seen, particularly in the United States, and increasingly also in Europe, is that many figures from Silicon Valley—J.D. Vance, who was supported by Peter Thiel, Musk, Bezos, and other tech oligarchs—are playing a significant role. They are actors who, in different ways, seek to challenge Europe. We also saw in the American foreign and security policy strategy published before Christmas that there is a willingness to support regime change in Europe and to weaken the European Union.

At first glance, one might think this is simply about supporting Orbán and other right-wing groups, such as the AfD, which Musk has also openly supported. But if you look more closely, it is fundamentally about economic interests. It is about control by major tech companies that want access to a less regulated European market.

What is happening in Europe, and why parts of the American administration appear to support the extreme right, is closely tied to the interests of US-based tech giants that seek access to a wealthy European market while opposing EU regulatory frameworks. They resist European regulation of digital platforms and often frame such regulation as censorship. Yet, in reality, the United States has dropped to 57th place in the Press Freedom Index, suggesting that concerns about censorship are not limited to Europe.

This connects to a broader transformation of populism and autocratic leadership, which is increasingly engineered from above, with “tech elites” playing a central role. Their interest in weakening the European Union and empowering far-right actors lies in the expectation that such actors will renationalize power, undermine EU integration, and create fragmented markets that are easier to dominate.

In that sense, the dynamic is not only ideological but also economic and structural. It may sound conspiratorial, but there is a growing body of research pointing to these linkages. The more one examines the connections between far-right populism and segments of the US tech industry, the more concerning the picture becomes.

Unanimity or Fragmentation: The Existential Choice Facing the European Union

European Commission headquarters with waving EU flags in Brussels. Photo: Viorel Dudau.

Finally, Professor Wind, looking beyond the election itself, what do you see as the most important long-term question for Denmark and Europe: how to defend national sovereignty without collapsing into nationalism, how to deepen European cooperation without reproducing democratic alienation, or how to confront far-right normalization without simply borrowing its political vocabulary?

Professor Marlene Wind: How to strengthen the European Union in the current situation is very difficult because it was built as a market which, over time, developed to 27 or 28 members into a larger and larger union. We want more members; we want Ukraine in the Union. We face many institutional problems in terms of how to ramp up decision-making processes.

Some member states, because they have governments that are very concerned with their sovereignty, including Denmark, have also been very much against transferring further power to the European Union. And you have several countries with nationalist leaders—the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and a president in Poland—so we have had, and continue to have, significant disagreement about how to strengthen the European Union. That is what makes me perhaps not so optimistic in the short run, because we currently have a system in the European Union where unanimity is required. When we want to integrate further, we need unanimity. When we want new members, we need unanimity, as you can see with the loan to Ukraine that Orbán is blocking because he is afraid of losing the election on the 12th of April.

So there are some inbuilt weaknesses that are very strong in the European project. We also have an upcoming election in France, where we may see yet another extreme right party enter the Élysée Palace. We are facing very significant institutional problems, and I am almost tempted to say that it can make or break: either we truly feel the pressure from the global stage—not just from the US and Russia, but also China—and get our act together, or we do not.

We need to move from unanimity to qualified majority voting quickly, or perhaps create a new club for those who are willing. I think we already see signs of that in relation to Ukraine. We have this “alliance of the willing,” and that could become an alternative within or alongside the European Union. We even talk about having Canada join, at some point, some of the structures in Europe.

So either we get our act together—the liberal democracies that are still left in the world—and ramp up our cooperation, or the whole thing risks collapsing. If current political leaders are not able to see the dangers of failing to preserve our way of life in Europe, also for our children and grandchildren—protecting democracy and free speech, and being able to defend ourselves and survive in a very competitive global market, perhaps through a more assertive industrial policy—then I am afraid that the entire European project could fall apart.

We know that there are actors, including in the United States, who would welcome such an outcome. Trump, for instance, prefers to deal with individual leaders rather than with the EU as a bloc. But we also have to remember that we are a very powerful bloc. We are almost 500 million Europeans. We are a wealthy continent. We have some of the highest life expectancies in the world. We have free education, welfare systems, and broad access to public goods.

So we have all the opportunities to become a strong, united power on the global stage. But we need political leaders right now who can see this, recognize its necessity, and act accordingly. That is why, despite all the criticism that can be directed at political leaders in times like these, when they do take leadership, I think that is exactly what we need—because the alternative is much worse.

Professor Madhav Joshi.

Prof. Joshi: Depoliticizing Courts, Bureaucracy, and Police Is Essential to Stabilizing Nepal’s Democratic Renewal

by Editor’s ChoiceHomeInterviews

Professor Madhav Joshi argues that Nepal’s recent political upheaval reflects both “anti-elite” mobilization and “a form of generational democratic renewal,” but also warns that the country’s deeper institutional crisis remains unresolved. In his interview with the ECPS, Professor Joshi situates the rise of Balendra “Balen” Shah and the Rastriya Swatantra Party within Nepal’s longer history of structural inequality, elite capture, and democratic frustration. He underscores that legitimacy must be earned through trust in public institutions, not merely through electoral victory. Stressing the centrality of institutional reform, Professor Joshi contends that “depoliticizing the courts, bureaucracy, and police is essential to stabilizing Nepal’s democratic renewal.” Whether this hopeful moment yields durable transformation, he suggests, depends on translating electoral momentum into credible governance.

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

Giving an interview to the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Professor Madhav Joshi— a Research Professor and Associate Director of the Peace Accords Matrix at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame’s Keough School of Global Affairs—offers a deeply grounded and empirically informed analysis of Nepal’s unfolding political transformation in the aftermath of the landmark electoral victory of Balendra “Balen” Shah and the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP). Anchored in his extensive scholarship on civil conflict, institutional legitimacy, and post-war transitions, Professor Joshi situates the current moment within Nepal’s longer trajectory of democratic struggle, elite capture, and unresolved structural inequalities.

At the heart of his diagnosis lies a stark assessment of continuity amid apparent rupture. While the recent election signals what he terms both “anti-elite” mobilization and “a form of generational democratic renewal,” it is equally, in his view, “a manifestation of unresolved structural grievances within Nepal’s political economy.” Drawing on his research on the Maoist insurgency, Professor Joshi underscores how patterns of exclusion, patron–client networks, and elite domination have persisted despite formal democratic transitions, leaving large segments of the population—especially youth—disillusioned and economically marginalized.

The interview foregrounds a central theme encapsulated in his headline assertion: “Depoliticizing the courts, bureaucracy, and police is essential to stabilizing Nepal’s democratic renewal.” For Professor Joshi, the current legitimacy crisis is not merely electoral but institutional. He cautions that “legitimacy is not something one possesses simply by being in government; rather, it is earned through trust in public institutions,” a trust that has been severely eroded by systemic corruption and partisan infiltration of state apparatuses. The electoral success of Shah, therefore, reflects not consolidated legitimacy but what Professor Joshi calls an “electoral mandate… to build it by fulfilling promises.”

At the same time, Professor Joshi highlights the transformative role of youth-driven and digitally mediated mobilization. The Gen Z movement, he argues, represents a shift away from traditional party structures toward more fluid, networked forms of political engagement, where “parties with a strong social media presence… are better positioned to gain public backing.” Yet, he remains cautious about overestimating rupture, noting that entrenched institutional networks and political patronage systems may continue to constrain reform efforts from within.

Importantly, Professor Joshi frames the current conjuncture as both an opportunity and a risk. The unprecedented parliamentary majority enjoyed by the RSP creates conditions for meaningful reform, but failure to deliver—particularly in areas such as job creation, governance, and institutional accountability—could accelerate “democratic backsliding,”given the “high level of public expectation placed on this government.”

Ultimately, the interview presents Nepal as a critical case in comparative politics: a post-conflict democracy where populist energies, generational change, and institutional fragilities intersect. Whether this moment evolves into durable democratic transformation or reproduces cycles of instability, Professor Joshi suggests, will depend on the state’s capacity to translate electoral momentum into credible, institutionalized reform.

Here is the edited version of our interview with Professor Madhav Joshi, revised slightly to improve clarity and flow.

The Election Outcome Signals Persistent Economic and Social Frustration

A Nepali farmer at work in a rural field during the monsoon season. As the rains arrive, farmers across Nepal become busy in their fields, though most still rely on traditional farming techniques. Photo: Shishir Gautam.

Professor Madhav Joshi, thank you very much for joining our interview series. Let me start right away with the first question: Your research on Nepal’s Maoist insurgency highlighted how structural inequalities and patron–client networks shaped political mobilization and rebellion. In light of the recent election of Balendra “Balen” Shah, do you see this political upheaval as another manifestation of unresolved structural grievances within Nepal’s political economy?

Professor Madhav Joshi: Thank you very much for this wonderful opportunity and for taking the time to have this conversation in light of Nepal’s recent election.

Let me start with the Maoist conflict, and then I will make the connection as to why that is important here. When the Maoist conflict started in 1996, protesters were largely among rural dwellers in the remote parts of Nepal. Support for the conflict was a reflection of structural inequality propagated by elites who were part of political parties and who were elected in all democratic elections since 1996. I would even say since 1991, which was the first multi-party election after the overthrow of the Panchayat regime. They became members of political parties and then went on to win elections.

The Maoist conflict ended in 2006. It began in 1996 and concluded with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. Because of that peace process, a number of institutional reforms were introduced. However, these reforms were again captured by political elites, and they did not deliver good governance. That was one of the major promises of the Maoist conflict, particularly in rural Nepal.

Right now, the gap between the poor and the rich is even wider compared to what it was in 1996. Corruption is widespread, from the health sector to the education sector. Youths have no jobs and no opportunities within the country. Grievances once largely confined to rural areas are now spreading into cities, as young people have moved from villages to urban centers in search of jobs and better opportunities—only to find none. This is largely due to the way the system is run by political parties and elites.

To give you a quick statistic, about 3,000 Nepali youths leave the country every day. An estimated one-third of young people are abroad, doing mostly menial jobs—not even high-paying ones, but basic labor.

So, when you compare the situation during the conflict from 1996 to 2006 with the changes that have taken place since then, it becomes clear that, for many people, nothing has really changed. That is why I personally think the outcome of the election two weeks ago reflects a hope that Nepal can do better.

It is a manifestation of unresolved structural grievances within Nepal’s political economy. There is much that remains unaddressed. Even those who joined the Maoist conflict and served in active combat roles have, in many cases, left the country in search of work abroad. This speaks to the depth of frustration among Nepal’s youth.

This Is Both Populist Revolt and Democratic Rejuvenation

The landslide victory of Shah’s Rastriya Swatantra Party appears to represent a dramatic rejection of Nepal’s long-dominant political elites. From the perspective of comparative politics, would you characterize this outcome as a form of anti-elite populist mobilization, or rather as a generational democratic renewal?

Professor Madhav Joshi: Very interesting question. I would say that it is both anti-elite and a form of generational democratic renewal at the same time. It is not only anti-elite, and it is not only democratic renewal—it is both.

It is anti-elite because Nepal’s politics has been transactional for a long time. A few leaders have found ways to remain in power continuously. If you are not the prime minister and if your party is part of the governing coalition, eventually it becomes your turn to assume the premiership. This position has, in recent years, rotated among three key leaders, which has been deeply frustrating. These days, a term has even been coined-“visual fatigue.” Citizens repeatedly see the same politicians in positions of power, which has created widespread frustration among Nepali society.

There are also elements of populist mobilization, including the nomination of Balen Shah as a prime ministerial candidate by the Rastriya Swatantra Party. Because of the reforms he implemented as mayor of Kathmandu City, many people saw him as a credible candidate to run the country. In populist mobilization, certain public sentiments are captured and translated into political momentum to gain support. You can observe elements of this dynamic in the recent election.

At the same time, it represents a democratic renewal. Nepal’s politics has long been dominated by the same parties and elites over the past 35 years, with little visible change. While the political system is formally democratic—a multi-party democracy—the parties themselves have not been sufficiently democratic in renewing their leadership. The same politicians continue to occupy key positions within parties and government.

This is why the recent election, and its outcome can be seen as bringing youth—who have long been marginalized from Nepal’s politics—closer to the democratic process. This is a significant development, and from that perspective, it represents a democratic renewal.

Performance in Office—Not Pop Culture—Fueled Electoral Success

Nepal elections.
Voter education volunteer instructs residents on using a sample ballot in Ward No. 4, Inaruwa, Nepal, February 17, 2026, as part of a local election awareness program led by the Sunsari Election Office. Photo: Nabin Gadtaula / Dreamstime.

Balendra Shah first emerged as a rapper whose lyrics sharply criticized corruption, unemployment, and political hypocrisy. How significant is the role of cultural figures in translating public frustration into populist political movements, particularly in societies where traditional parties have lost legitimacy?

Professor Madhav Joshi: We do see cultural figures attempting to translate public frustration into populist political movements, as in Uganda, where Bobi Wine ran against Museveni. We also hear of similar developments in other African countries, where cultural figures have been called upon to step in and play significant roles in national politics.

The case of Balen Shah, however, is somewhat different. Of course, he is a rapper, but I would characterize that as a hobby rather than his primary profession. He is, in fact, a structural engineer by training, which is a serious profession. International media tend to focus on his music, which is understandable, but Nepal’s political transformation cannot be attributed to a single rapper or a handful of cultural figures.

Let me explain the strong public appeal surrounding Balen Shah. He had already established himself as a successful mayor before becoming the prime ministerial candidate of the Rastriya Swatantra Party. During his tenure as mayor of Kathmandu, he implemented a series of reforms that had not been achieved by political parties over the previous 35 years. The contrast is quite striking. As the capital city, Kathmandu draws people from across the country, allowing many to directly observe these changes.

To cite a few examples, he introduced simple yet impactful measures: timely garbage collection, improved traffic management, restoration of cultural heritage, reforms in the public school system, and greater transparency in city governance. These changes were implemented in a capital city of 1.7 million people.

Notably, he was elected as an independent candidate and was not affiliated with the Rastriya Swatantra Party at the time. The reforms he carried out as an independent, despite political opposition, were significant. They generated strong public sentiment and fostered trust in his capacity to govern at the national level.

This also indicates the extent of public trust and support he commands. One could argue that he enjoys a higher level of public trust than any other politician in the country. Such trust is crucial in translating public sentiment into a broader social and political movement, as evidenced in the most recent election.

Gen Z Is Redefining Political Participation in Nepal

The recent uprising and election were strongly driven by Generation Z voters. How does this youth-led political mobilization compare with earlier forms of political activism in Nepal, and does it represent a new form of digitally mediated populist politics?

Professor Madhav Joshi: Thank you for this question. I have been reflecting on this quite extensively lately. In 1959, when Nepal held its first democratic election, many young leaders were elected as representatives in parliament. This followed ten years of a successful social movement that overthrew the Rana regime. However, this was followed by 30 years of the Panchayat regime after the democratically elected government was toppled.

In 1990, another social movement overthrew the Panchayat regime and introduced multi-party democracy. This movement was also led by youth, and in the subsequent election, many young representatives entered parliament. A similar pattern can be observed after the Maoist peace process, which brought the Maoists into the democratic fold. In the Constituent Assembly election in 2008, many young representatives from the Maoist party were elected.

After that, however, the Nepalese political system did not renew itself; the same individuals continued to run for office repeatedly. With the emergence of this Gen Z movement, many people—especially young people—became frustrated and took to the streets. In the March election, we again saw a significant number of younger candidates being elected. In fact, particularly within the Rastriya Swatantra Party, the average age of elected officials is around 40, compared to about 53 or 54 in the previous parliament. This reflects a clear generational shift in political mobilization and representation.

At the same time, we need to be cautious. This moment is distinct, as politics is now centered on Gen Z and their future. It is no longer primarily about the struggle for democracy or institutional reform, as those issues were addressed through earlier democratic movements and the peace process. The focus now is on the future of young people—ensuring they have opportunities, so they do not have to leave the country for work, even for low-paying jobs.

This is why the agenda of the upcoming government is likely to prioritize job creation, economic expansion, tackling corruption, and improving governance. These are the central concerns driving current political mobilization.

Regarding your question on digitally mediated politics, I would say that Nepal’s Gen Z voters are highly educated. Access to education has improved, even if the quality remains uneven. They are technologically savvy and know how to use social media for social change.

As a result, I see a decline in membership-based or traditional political parties that rely on active membership networks to mobilize voters. That model is no longer as effective. Politics has changed: parties with a strong social media presence and digital support are better positioned to gain public backing and translate that support into electoral success. This is precisely what we are witnessing.

So yes, the mobilization of digital platforms is already reshaping Nepal’s politics and is likely to do so even more significantly in the future.

The municipality office in Inaruwa, Sunsari, lies heavily damaged after protesters targeted it during the nationwide demonstrations against corruption and the social media shutdown on September 9, 2025. Photo: Nabin Gadtaula

Legitimacy Must Be Earned Through Governance, Not Elections Alone

Your work emphasizes the importance of legitimacy in shaping political authority and civilian compliance. In your view, what does the electoral success of Shah reveal about the depth of the legitimacy crisis facing Nepal’s traditional political institutions?

Professor Madhav Joshi: I often emphasize that legitimacy is not something one possesses simply by being in government; rather, it is earned through trust in public institutions. This is critically important.

In Nepal, the legitimacy crisis is both deep and widespread. It was already so under the previous government. State institutions are highly corrupt and are filled with political party loyalists. They fail to respond to people’s basic needs and services—such as education, healthcare, and environmental protection—or to facilitate opportunities for individuals to establish new businesses, and so on.

Corruption permeates the system. Processes are slow, and without political connections or networks, individuals are often unable to accomplish even basic tasks.

From this perspective, the electoral success of Balen Shah and his political party clearly reflects a profound lack of trust in traditional political parties and the existing institutional framework. This was the platform on which they campaigned, and it resonated with voters.

Ultimately, legitimacy is earned through the practice of good governance. I remain hopeful that the future government will be able to rebuild legitimacy through effective and accountable performance.

Judicial Independence Is Central to Nepal’s Democratic Renewal

In your recent research, you demonstrate how judicial institutions can be mobilized to manage or suppress political opposition before conflict emerges. In the current moment of political transition, how crucial will independent courts and rule-of-law institutions be in stabilizing Nepal’s democracy?

Professor Madhav Joshi: As I demonstrated empirically in the research you referred to, at the district level, where political opposition was prosecuted—implicated in both civil and criminal cases—those districts were more likely to experience the Maoist conflict sooner than others. The reason it worked that way lies in the infiltration of political parties into the state machinery, including the courts, police, and bureaucracy. As a result, the court system and the rule of law in Nepal are highly politicized and politically paralyzed. This is not a new revelation; it is a widely accepted reality in Nepal’s everyday politics. If you were to randomly ask individuals whether they trust the court system, the bureaucracy, or the police force to act independently and provide support when needed, most would likely respond negatively. Indeed, such responses are very common, and people now openly discuss corruption within these institutions.

For this reason, ensuring the independence of the courts and rule-of-law institutions is essential for stabilizing the democratic renewal currently underway in the country. This requires depoliticizing the court system in Nepal and moving away from what is commonly referred to as the political division of appointments. In practice, through backdoor arrangements, one party may nominate two or three judges, while another secures three or four, depending on its strength in parliament. Depoliticizing the court system, along with the bureaucracy and the police force, is therefore crucial for stabilizing democratic renewal in Nepal at this critical juncture.

State Capture Limits the New Government’s Reform Capacity

Many populist movements emerge as reactions to perceived institutional failures but often struggle once they confront the realities of governing. What institutional constraints—bureaucratic, legal, or political—might shape Shah’s ability to implement his reform agenda?

Professor Madhav Joshi: This is a very important and highly relevant question in Nepal’s current context. The Rastriya Swatantra Party and Balen Shah do not have much support or influence, as of now, within the police force, the courts, or the bureaucracy. We hear from the current caretaker government that they did not receive support from Nepal’s bureaucracy, and that indicates the depth of the problem.

As I mentioned earlier, Nepal’s court system, bureaucracy, and police force require reform. These institutions have lost public trust. The older political parties have their supporters embedded within them, and they have strong incentives to resist the Shah government. This is because they benefit from existing arrangements—they support the old political parties and, in return, are part of networks that sustain those parties, including through informal kickbacks. As a result, they have incentives to undermine this government.

Therefore, the new government cannot implement all the reforms on its agenda unless it first reforms these state institutions. That is absolutely crucial. At the same time, while the established political parties are relatively weak, they still retain these institutional connections, which they can use to challenge the Shah government.

Clientelist Networks Are Weakening—but Not Yet Defeated

Your earlier work highlights how rural patron–client networks historically shaped electoral outcomes in Nepal. Does the success of Shah’s movement indicate that these traditional clientelist structures are weakening, or might they continue to shape politics behind the scenes?

Professor Madhav Joshi: I believe they have been somewhat weakened in this election cycle. The traditional patron–client networks are not in a position to shape Nepal’s politics behind the scenes in the same way, at least for now. That is why I am cautiously optimistic. This is the first election in which we have seen that these patron–client networks did not function as they previously did.

However, we need to observe whether this trend continues in the local elections, which will take place in less than two years, as well as over the next five years, when the next parliamentary election will be held. In comparative democratization, we often say that assessing democratic consolidation requires observing at least two electoral turnovers. So, I am waiting for two such turnovers to see whether this pattern holds.

Conflict and Repression Reshape Electoral Outcomes

Nepal police during riots in Kathmandu. Photo: Ardo Holts / Dreamstime.

The youth uprising that preceded the election involved significant violence and state repression. From the perspective of your research on conflict dynamics, how might such episodes affect the legitimacy of both the outgoing political order and the new government?

Professor Madhav Joshi: It has a profound impact on both public psychology and the broader psyche of the nation. This helps explain why, for example, a rebel party won Liberia’s 1997 election, and similarly in Nepal, where the Maoist party emerged victorious in the 2008 Constituent Assembly election. These outcomes are closely linked to conflict dynamics.

The success of the Rastriya Swatantra Party in the most recent election is also connected to the Gen Z protests. The protests that the state attempted to repress are part of this dynamic, although the relationship is complex. At the same time, some argue that the Rastriya Swatantra Party is not the legitimate representative of the Gen Z movement, since it did not organize or mobilize it. The movement itself was largely spontaneous and fragmented, but that is a separate issue that can be explored further.

What the election outcome clearly demonstrates is that the two main parties in the previous government lost the election and are now at their weakest point in the past 35 years. This is a significant development. However, this does not mean that the new government possesses full legitimacy. Rather, it holds an electoral mandate—not legitimacy per se, but the mandate to build it by fulfilling its promises. Gaining legitimacy will take time and will depend on whether the government can successfully implement the reforms it has pledged.

The ‘Balen Effect’ Unified a Fragmented Electorate

Historically, revolutionary movements often struggle to transform protest mobilization into stable electoral politics. What factors allowed the Gen-Z movement in Nepal to translate revolutionary momentum into an overwhelming electoral mandate?

Professor Madhav Joshi: I can offer three key factors. The Rastriya Swatantra Party, which emerged as the largest party, winning almost a two-thirds majority in parliament, is not itself the party of the Gen Z movement, as I mentioned earlier.

Many Gen Z leaders are involved, and they are supported by numerous Gen Z figures who remain outside formal politics. It is a highly diverse group, with participants coming from different parts of Nepal. Some have joined political parties, while others have chosen to remain outside formal politics and act as watchdogs, holding those in power accountable.

Nevertheless, the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) was able to capture the sentiment of the Gen Z movement and mobilize it during the election. They did this very effectively, and that is the first reason for their success.

The second factor is that RSP candidates are successful professionals in their own fields. They do not depend on politics for their livelihood, which distinguishes them from candidates of other political parties, whose lifelong profession is politics. If you ask many Nepali politicians about their profession, they will say politics, but it is often unclear how they sustain their livelihood through it. This is not the case with RSP candidates, who come from diverse professional backgrounds and are successful entrepreneurs in their own right.

This is the first time in Nepal’s politics that we see many individuals entering parliament whose primary purpose is not to pursue politics as a career. They often state that they are there for one or two terms, aiming to contribute to the country, strengthen the economy, address socioeconomic and political challenges, and then return to their professions. This is another reason why the revolutionary movement was able to translate into electoral success.

Finally, as you rightly pointed out, there is what we call the “Balen effect,” referring to the prime ministerial candidate of the Rastriya Swatantra Party. Nepal is a highly diverse country, with divisions between Madhesh and hill populations. The Madhesh refers to the southern part of the country, while the hills refer to the northern regions. Although the southern region has a larger population, state institutions and political narratives have historically been dominated by those from the hill regions.

In Nepal’s political history, it is rare to see a prime minister emerging from a southern, Madheshi background. Balen Shah is a candidate who comes from the southern part of Nepal while also maintaining connections with hill communities. This has positioned him as a unifying figure capable of bridging these divides.

That is why many people rallied behind him. Beyond his record as a successful mayor, he has been widely perceived as an ideal candidate to bring the country together and lead it forward.

A Moment of Hope—But Also a Test of Democratic Resilience

Nepal flag.
Photo: Dreamstime.

Finally, looking ahead, do you believe the election of Balendra Shah signals the beginning of a deeper democratic transformation in Nepal—or could it become another episode in the country’s recurring cycle of political upheaval and institutional instability?

Professor Madhav Joshi: Thank you for this question. I think people have a great deal of hope in him and in the Rastriya Swatantra Party. They hold almost a two-thirds majority in parliament, which gives them the capacity to implement many of the reforms they have promised.

As I mentioned, in the last 35 years of Nepal’s democratic history, the country has not had a government with such a majority in parliament. This is perhaps the first time. There was one in 1974, but it did not last—it was a majority formed when communist parties united as a single entity.

If this government fails to deepen democratic transformation, deliver good governance, and address the underlying grievances of the people—which includes creating jobs and expanding the economy—I would argue that Nepal may further descend into democratic backsliding, given the high level of public expectation placed on this government.

At the same time, this is a moment to recognize and appreciate the sense of hope, rather than focus solely on potential negative outcomes. At present, there is a strong sense of optimism, and people are hopeful that meaningful and significant changes will take place in the country.

Professor Peter W. Klein.

Prof. Klein: Political Transformation in Iran May Come, but Not in the Way the West Expects

by Editor’s ChoiceForeign PolicyHomeInterviews

Professor Peter W. Klein offers a historically grounded warning against simplistic regime-change narratives in Iran. In this ECPS interview, the Emmy Award–winning investigative journalist and University of British Columbia professor argues that political transformation in Iran may occur, but not in ways the West expects. Drawing on cases such as Hungary in 1956, the Bay of Pigs, Iraq, and Afghanistan, Professor Klein shows how external encouragement of uprising without sustained commitment can produce abandonment, repression, and long-term instability. He stresses that Iran’s history with the United States, the entrenched role of the IRGC, and the country’s internal complexity make any externally driven transition deeply uncertain. At the same time, he warns that escalation could trigger wider regional blowback, making caution, historical memory, and strategic realism indispensable.

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

Giving an interview to the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Professor Peter W. Klein, an Emmy Award–winning investigative journalist, documentary filmmaker, and full professor at the School of Journalism, Writing, and Media at the University of British Columbia, offers a historically grounded and sobering assessment of regime change narratives surrounding Iran. Drawing on decades of reporting from conflict zones and his scholarship on media, power, and political transformation, Professor Klein cautions against simplistic assumptions that authoritarian systems collapse once a single leader is removed. As he puts it bluntly, the notion that eliminating one figure will transform an entire political order is deeply misguided: “Removing one leader—whether it is Khamenei or Maduro—is enough… [that] everything else will somehow fall into place. But Venezuela is not Iran.”

Professor Klein situates the current debate about Iran within a longer historical pattern in US foreign policy: Rhetorical encouragement of uprisings without sustained commitment. Reflecting on historical precedents—from the 1956 Hungarian Revolution to the Bay of Pigs invasion and the 1991 Shiite uprising in Iraq—he identifies a recurring cycle in which external actors implicitly encourage rebellion but fail to provide protection once uprisings occur. Recalling the Hungarian case, he notes that revolutionary hopes were fueled by signals from the West, yet “when the revolution happened… there was no cover.” The consequences were devastating: The uprising was crushed, and reformist leader Imre Nagy was ultimately executed. These experiences, Professor Klein argues, highlight the moral and strategic dilemmas that arise when “the words don’t match the actions.”

This historical lens also informs Professor Klein’s skepticism toward contemporary discussions of regime change in Iran. While acknowledging that dissatisfaction with the Iranian regime is real, he emphasizes the structural and historical constraints shaping political change. Iranian public attitudes toward foreign intervention remain deeply influenced by historical memory—especially the 1953 CIA-backed coup, which continues to generate suspicion toward US rhetoric about liberation and democracy. Even where domestic frustration exists, external calls for uprising may produce the opposite effect. As Professor Klein explains, “many Iranians may resist calls for regime change if those calls come directly from the United States.”

Beyond historical memory, Professor Klein underscores the institutional resilience of the Iranian state, particularly the central role of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Far from being an isolated security apparatus, the IRGC is deeply embedded in Iran’s political economy and social fabric. Its integration across military, economic, and political spheres makes the idea of a rapid grassroots overthrow highly improbable. In such contexts, he warns, expectations of swift democratic transition often ignore the realities of authoritarian resilience.

Professor Klein also highlights the dangers of escalation in the broader Middle East. With conflicts already unfolding across Gaza, Lebanon, and other regional arenas, miscalculation could transform localized confrontation into a wider regional war. The stakes, he warns, are immense: “The blowback from a regional conflict would be enormous… the cost of that may simply be too high.”

Ultimately, Professor Klein cautions against confident predictions about Iran’s political future. Transformation may indeed occur, but its direction remains uncertain and may not align with Western expectations. “There may be change,”he concludes, “but it may not be the kind of change that many people in the West would want.”

Here is the edited version of our interview with Professor Peter W. Klein, revised slightly to improve clarity and flow.

The Perils of Promising Liberation Without Commitment

US President Donald Trump applauds from the White House balcony during a welcoming ceremony for the Washington Nationals baseball team on the South Lawn in Washington, D.C., on November 4, 2019. Photo: Evan El-Amin.

Professor Peter Klein, thank you so much for joining our interview series. Let me start right away with the first question: In your article published by the New York Times, you invoke historical precedents—from Hungary (1956) and the Bay of Pigs (1961) to the Shiite uprising in Iraq (1991)—to illustrate the dangers of encouraging rebellion without sustained commitment. In your view, what structural patterns recur across these cases that contemporary policymakers still fail to internalize?

Professor Peter W. Klein: When I saw President Trump making more than one plea to the people of Iran, saying this is your opportunity to revolt and overthrow the regime, there wasn’t—at least as far as I could see—an explicit promise of cover and protection, but it was certainly implicit. And it just resonated for me, which is what led me to write that essay in the Times. It resonated on many levels.

Having been raised by Hungarian refugees, I knew what happened in 1956. I didn’t live through it the way my brother did, but I heard many stories—about listening to Radio Free Europe and the encouragement of revolution, and then what happened when the revolution actually occurred. There was no cover. Of course, you understand the political context. It was the height of the Cold War; the two nuclear superpowers were confronting each other. What followed 1956 was a series of conflicts—both hot and cold—between the United States and the USSR.

But the implication at the time was that if you took to the streets and took over your country, you would be protected. That obviously did not happen. Imre Nagy came in, tried to establish a new government, and the effort was crushed. Ultimately, he was executed.

It also resonated for me because of reporting I had done in Iraq. I was there shortly after the fall of Saddam Hussein and had been sent to report specifically on the Shia population. In 2003, I think for many American audiences the distinctions between Shias and Sunnis, the Baathist system, the subjugation of the majority population, and the complexities of the relationship with Iran were not widely understood.

I went there with my colleague Bob Simon and producer Tricia Doyle for CBS 60 Minutes. We were trying to find the right way to tell the story. We spoke with a number of people. At one point we interviewed the grandson of Ayatollah Khomeini, who had come to Iraq and was saying that it was good America was there. But many people in the Shia community told us he did not have much credibility. They suggested that if we really wanted to understand the mood on the street, we should go on a Friday night to the Imam Ali Mosque in the holy city of Najaf and meet a young cleric named Muqtada al-Sadr.

We met with Sadr, and he was very clear. He said, “Saddam was a small serpent; the United States is the big serpent. You should leave. We don’t want you here.” And this view was rooted in history—specifically the events of the first Gulf War in the early 1990s, when George H. W. Bush had made a very similar appeal to the Shia population, encouraging them to rise up against Saddam. The message was essentially: this is your opportunity to take over your country. And the Shia did revolt.

But they were crushed—brutally crushed. And the Americans essentially watched. They were observing from aircraft as kerosene was poured on people and they were set on fire. It was horrific violence carried out by Saddam’s forces. The pattern of abandonment and betrayal echoed again and again.

I also grew up in Miami among Cuban exiles, so I was familiar with the history of the Bay of Pigs as well. It’s a pattern that we have seen repeatedly. And that is why I thought the historical resonance was worth highlighting.

Why Removing One Leader Rarely Transforms a State

You suggest that rhetorical support for uprisings can become morally problematic when it is not matched by material backing. From an ethical and strategic standpoint, where should the line be drawn between normative support for democratic movements and irresponsible geopolitical signaling?

Professor Peter W. Klein: Powerful countries are always going to try to shape the world and manipulate it to their needs. That is realpolitik. The challenge is that sometimes the words don’t match the actions.

As we have seen in the examples I noted—and many others—I don’t think the intention was necessarily absent. When Eisenhower sent messages to Hungarians suggesting that they should stand up to the Soviet empire and implying that the United States would have their back, I don’t think Eisenhower had ill intentions. He was expressing rhetoric aligned with American policy. But it’s a little like the dog that catches the car: once the revolution actually begins, the question becomes, what are we going to do now? The reality sets in. Are we really prepared to confront another nuclear power?

The same question applies to Iran. If the Iranian people actually listened and launched a full-scale revolution in their country, it is hard to imagine what exactly would happen. Would the United States really intervene, especially after all the rhetoric that this administration is not about regime change and that regime change is not its intention? In this case, it becomes particularly relevant and important to discuss, because the Trump administration has been quite clear from the beginning that regime change is not its philosophy and that it is highly critical of that approach.

Trump has also pointed to what he considers the example of Maduro—removing a bad actor or despotic leader while leaving the broader infrastructure intact. The idea seems to be that if you remove one person, things will somehow fall back into place. But we have seen the opposite in cases like Iraq. When Saddam was removed and deep de-Baathification dismantled the entire governing infrastructure, the country effectively collapsed.

I was in Iraq recently reporting on corruption there. Corruption is so rampant that people often say something striking: Under Saddam there was one corrupt person you had to pay off, but now there are hundreds—hundreds of hands, hundreds of Saddams. People say they don’t even know how to function in the system anymore. You see half-built buildings everywhere, and the oil infrastructure is a mess. The state simply never rebuilt a functioning system to replace what had been dismantled.

Nation-building is extremely difficult to do from the outside. It’s a bit like building a ship inside a bottle—you are trying to assemble something complex from outside the structure rather than letting it develop organically.

Trump has been advancing this idea that removing one leader—whether it is Khamenei or Maduro—is enough, that eliminating one figure will somehow allow everything else to fall into place. But Venezuela is not Iran. The United States can exert influence in places like Venezuela because of economic and political ties. Iran is probably one of the least likely places where the United States can simply step in and impose that kind of outcome, regardless of removing one leader. So, the philosophy itself seems flawed.

Billboard depicting Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei and Imam Sayyid Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini on a building wall in Tehran, Iran, April 2018. The portraits honor the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ruhollah Khomeini (Supreme Leader 1979–1989), and his successor Ali Khamenei (Supreme Leader 1989–2026), whose images frequently appear in public spaces as symbols of the regime’s ideological authority. Photo: Dreamstime.

Why Regime Change in Iran Is Unlikely to Be Imposed from Outside

Your analysis implies that regime change is rarely a spontaneous outcome of external pressure alone. Based on your research into Iran and past US interventions, what conditions would realistically be required for a regime transition in Iran to succeed without producing state collapse?

Professor Peter W. Klein: I’m not an expert on Iran by any means. I’ve reported on Iran, and I have many friends who are Iranian, including Iranian scholars. So, this is very much a cursory view, and if you have audience members with PhDs in political science, my apologies for simplifying this. But my sense is that the grassroots movement of frustration in Iran is, in many ways, more complex than—I’ll compare it to the Hungarian case, which I know better because I grew up among Hungarians, lived in Hungary, and worked there as a reporter.

In Hungary, in 1956, there was genuine frustration with the centralized system and with many of the issues affecting the country. So, when the United States came in and suggested that Hungarians should move in a certain direction, there wasn’t much resistance to that idea. In fact, there was quite a bit of enthusiasm—people felt it was great that America was encouraging them. The United States was also very effective in its propaganda, presenting itself as a place where the streets were paved with gold.

My father believed much of that. When he came to America, he genuinely thought the streets were paved with gold because that was the image people had been given. But he ultimately became a very patriotic American because much of that promise proved true. He was able to buy a house and build a life in ways that would not have been possible for him in Hungary.

In Iran, however, the situation is far more complicated. There is the historical relationship with the United States—going back to the era of the Shah—as well as US support for Israel and the broader conflict between Iran and Israel. So even if many people are frustrated with the regime, and surveys suggest there is widespread dissatisfaction, the United States is not necessarily the actor they want telling them what to do.

It’s a bit like when I tell my kids to do something. Even if it’s a good idea, they might resist simply because it came from me. In the same way, many Iranians may resist calls for regime change if those calls come directly from the United States.

So, it is a very complicated scenario. As you suggested, regime change generally does not come from outside. It can happen if you bomb a country to smithereens, as happened in Iraq, and remove its leader. By definition, that produces regime change. But it is extremely messy regime change—often unsustainable—and it can take decades to rebuild a functioning state afterward.

The IRGC’s Embedded Power and the Limits of Regime Destabilization

You highlight the enduring memory of the 1953 CIA-backed coup in Iran as a source of skepticism toward American intentions. To what extent does this historical legacy still shape Iranian public attitudes toward US rhetoric about liberation and democracy?

Professor Peter W. Klein: It is definitely one of those sore points that continues to linger. So, the idea of the United States coming in and lecturing Iran—after having, in some cases, helped create some of the conditions that contributed to the problems they face today, and given the history of US involvement there—carries a lot of weight. This is not some theoretical issue involving something that happened in Argentina or some distant place. It happened in their own country. So, there is a great deal of sensitivity around it, at least from what I can tell from talking to Iranians. It is clear that there are real sensitivities surrounding that history.

You emphasize the institutional strength of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a central obstacle to regime change. How does the IRGC’s political–economic role within Iran complicate external attempts to destabilize the regime?

Professor Peter W. Klein: That’s a tough and a very good question. I think it’s one that people much smarter than me can answer much better than I can. I spent a lot of time dealing with the Rafsanjani regime years ago in Iran, and I got a glimpse of the complexities and the connections between the business elites and the IRGC. Not just the oil industry—although, obviously, the oil industry is huge. There are so many ties there, and of course there is a lot of corruption. So, this is not a stand-alone militia that is independent of the fabric of the country. While there is a lot of frustration with and fear of the IRGC, they are also integrated in many ways. And they are huge—they are powerful. This is not some small force.

Going back to my Hungary example, it required Soviet tanks and Russian soldiers to come in and crush that rebellion. In Iran, however, this is internal. It is an internal security force that is large, powerful, and integrated into many aspects of the economy and society. So again, it makes it very difficult to imagine a grassroots revolution simply changing that regime.

Escalation Risks: How a Localized Strike Could Ignite a Regional War

Iran-US war.
Photo: Pavel Kusmartsev / Dreamstime.

The current escalation involving US and Israeli strikes against Iranian targets intersects with ongoing conflicts in Gaza, Lebanon, and the broader regional confrontation with Hezbollah. How do you assess the risk that the Iranian theater could evolve into a multi-front regional war?

Professor Peter W. Klein:, That’s the fear that so many people have: where does this go? You think back on how regional or even world wars start—they start small. They begin with some small activity that somehow gets out of control.

I do think that one of the concerns I have is the lack of clear messaging, particularly from the United States. I think Israel’s messaging is quite clear, and their agenda has always been very clear on Iran. The more challenging thing is that the United States’ messaging is very unclear, and part of that may be that Donald Trump and the people around him haven’t aligned their messaging, and Trump himself has been inconsistent in what he has said. In politics and war, messaging is so important. If you are not sending a clear message about what the intention is and where things are going, everyone becomes uneasy. It makes everyone in that region a little bit trigger-happy or gun-shy, depending on which direction they are going in, and it creates the potential for a powder-keg situation.

I’m still hopeful that cooler heads will prevail and that this situation will be quieted down, because I do think that whether some people consciously—or perhaps subconsciously—appreciate it, there is a lot at stake here. This is not, going back to the Venezuela example, one economically powerful country that is somewhat isolated regionally. The implications of what happened in Venezuela carried very little chance of turning into a regional conflict.

Here, however, there is a huge chance of it. So, I’m hoping that the people who are in charge—even including the Israelis—realize that the blowback from a regional conflict would be enormous and that this situation has to be quieted down. As much as there may be aspirations of regime change, the cost of that may simply be too high.

Proxy Networks and the Uncertain Reach of Iran’s Deterrence Strategy

Iran’s strategic influence across the region is often exercised through proxy actors such as Hezbollah, Iraqi militias, and Palestinian groups. In your assessment, how central are these networks to Iran’s deterrence strategy, and how might they respond to intensified military pressure?

Professor Peter W. Klein: That dynamic has been around for a long time. So, I don’t know how much Hezbollah or other proxies factor into this particular conflict. I do know that there are heightened concerns. There are heightened concerns in New York City, and there are heightened concerns elsewhere that the actions being taken in Iran could have broader reverberations. I know people who live in Israel, near the border of the West Bank, and there is genuine concern that there may be activities coming from the West Bank similar to October 7.

Do I think that’s going to happen? Probably not. But I don’t live there, and that’s not my world. The fact that people are genuinely concerned about it is telling. There is a sense that it could have implications and blowback in specific areas and communities. But I don’t know how significant that is on the larger scale when it comes to this war.

Talk Is Cheap: The Political Incentives Behind Rhetoric of Liberation

Your article critically examines the recurring rhetoric of liberation and democratic uprising in US foreign policy. Why does this narrative persist despite repeated historical failures, and what political incentives sustain it?

Professor Peter W. Klein: It comes down to the fact that talk is cheap. Whether it’s telling your partner, your kids, your colleagues, or the people of another country, this is what I want to do, this is what the intention is. If you don’t follow through, you lose credibility. But there can still be a short-term gain from saying you should revolt, or we have your back, or we’re going to protect you.

And it’s also a little bit like one of the challenges of politics. Because if Eisenhower did it, or Kennedy did it, or George H.W. Bush did it, that was a long time ago. People ask, what does that have to do with today? What does that have to do with my administration? So, the sins of the country from the past are often forgotten.

They are also sometimes forgotten by the people who are being encouraged to revolt. The Iranians could have learned lessons from the Cubans and the Hungarians, but they didn’t necessarily look at those historical precedents. Instead, they might think: Great, we’ll just revolt—the United States says it has our backs.

But again, talk is cheap. It’s easy to gain short-term political advantage from it and perhaps even hope that the moment never actually arrives. You can present yourself as a powerful leader who believes in freedom, liberty, and democracy—an American apple-pie version of leadership that projects a positive image.

And then the options are: Nothing happens, and you get credit for your rhetoric without having to act; or something happens and you don’t follow through, in which case you pay the short-term political cost; or, in the rare case, you actually back them up.

Militias, Fear, and Control: The Architecture of Authoritarian Survival

Platoon of Iranian army soldiers carrying the flag of the Islamic Republic of Iran during the international military competition ARMY-2018 in Pesochnoye, Kostroma Region, Russia, June 2018. Photo: Dreamstime.

You argue that authoritarian regimes rarely collapse easily and often respond to threats with intensified repression. In the Iranian context, what mechanisms of authoritarian resilience make the system particularly difficult to destabilize?

Professor Peter W. Klein: This is where the Revolutionary Guard has an advantage. In many of these authoritarian regimes, they are able to maintain their control for a variety of reasons, including ruling with an iron fist.

I’ll give you just a quick sidebar example that I found interesting. Under Saddam, I think it was his nephew who ran the militia there, and he knew that they needed to put considerable effort, money, time, resources, and human power into building a militia—a state militia that could crush rebellions, especially after there had already been a Shia rebellion. So even the fear of that could be enough. People walking around with guns can be enough—you don’t have to shoot people; the threat alone is often sufficient.

What I found particularly interesting was a videotape I obtained after the fall of Saddam. I got it from the palace in Baghdad, in the Green Zone. I had received a number of videotapes that I started going through, and one of them was the strangest thing. It showed Saddam Hussein shortly before the 2003 invasion, sitting with a group of his ministers. They were examining what looked like toys—things like tacks, slingshots, and Molotov cocktails, essentially very low-level weapons.

So, I sat down with a translator and a couple of other people to understand what the conversation was about and what was going on. No one had seen this footage before. I eventually included it in a documentary that aired on the History Channel, and the New York Times did a big story about it. The Daily Show even did a spoof on it.

But what was interesting—the real insight—was that Saddam was essentially telling the people around him that the Americans might invade in 2003 and that there could be another Shia revolt. He said they needed to get the people on their side, but they didn’t want the population to be armed well enough to challenge the regime. So, the idea was to provide low-level weaponry—Molotov cocktails and slingshots—that civilians could use against other civilians, but that would not be powerful enough to challenge Saddam’s forces.

It was somewhat comical. There is a reason The Daily Show used a clip of it, because it was surreal to see Saddam Hussein, this powerful dictator, discussing what looked like toys. But the conversation itself was very serious. The logic was that the regime’s militia could crush civilians armed with low-level weapons, while loyalist civilians—Baathists—could be mobilized to confront and suppress the Shia. And it really gave some insight, at least for me, into how authoritarian regimes think about structuring military power in order to control the public.

The Devil We Know: The Uncertain Consequences of Regime Collapse

You warn that even a successful uprising could produce internal fragmentation or civil conflict. Looking at cases such as Iraq after 2003 or Afghanistan after 1989, what lessons should policymakers draw about the dangers of post-regime power vacuums?

Professor Peter W. Klein: What we keep doing is going into places that are diverse and complex without fully understanding that diversity and complexity. In Iran, I couldn’t even begin to list all the groups—whether it’s the Baluch or others. There are so many different factions within Iran, and you can easily imagine significant factional violence or strife if the whole country were to collapse.

You saw this in Iraq, and Iraq was, frankly, a much simpler place than Iran. You basically had Shias, Sunnis, and Kurds. There were also Turkmen and a couple of other groups, but you still saw huge strife among these different communities. So, this reflects the argument that sometimes it is the devil we know rather than the devil we don’t know. You might have a strongman who runs a country and keeps some of those factions at bay, and at least you know how to deal with that one leader.

Once things break into factional violence, as we saw in Afghanistan, it becomes extremely difficult to control. This is why every world power ends up struggling in Afghanistan, because it’s like trying to fight a marshmallow—you can’t really knock it out. There are so many different factions, and the enemy becomes very undefined. It has been an endless challenge, whether for the Soviets, the Americans, or others.

I’m not saying that Iran is Afghanistan. Iran is obviously a much more organized and economically developed country in most respects. In some ways, that makes the target clearer. But it is still complicated, and if you got rid of the Revolutionary Guard, I honestly don’t know what would happen in that country.

The Fragmented Media Landscape and the Crisis of Trust

London Newspaper stand refects the diverse range of newspapers and languages of modern London. Photo: Dreamstime.

As an investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker, how do you see the role of media narratives and digital information flows shaping global perceptions of the Iran conflict and the legitimacy of calls for regime change?

Professor Peter W. Klein: We have a huge responsibility. Consistently some journalists rise to the occasion and do an amazing job, while many journalists don’t. I mean, it was interesting with Venezuela. All of these journalists who couldn’t find Venezuela on a map before suddenly became experts on Venezuela, and that’s just the reality that many journalists are thrown into: You have to quickly figure out and understand a place that you may never have covered before.

I appreciate the challenge that journalists face. As a journalism professor, it’s something we often talk about—the responsibility, not just the basic ethics, but also the implications of what we do. Journalism has become so bifurcated and complicated. It’s not only that newspaper or that newscast anymore. There’s social media, there are bloggers. Some of the most influential people in media are coming from very non-traditional places, whether it’s Joe Rogan with a podcast or late-night comedians who essentially have journalists on their staff digging in and pushing particular perspectives.

So, it has become even more complicated than just the New York Times, Washington Post, or Guardian reporters shaping the narrative. And the other challenge is that you may try to do a really good job, but obviously we don’t have control over the entire media landscape. There are always going to be people who are either getting stories wrong or pushing false narratives, misinformation, or misguided agendas. And I hear it all the time from the public. Just from talking to people at conferences and presentations I do, people are frustrated and confused. Where should I be getting my news? Who can I trust? Who shouldn’t I trust?

And there isn’t a great solution. One of the solutions we often suggest in the academic world is transparency—being transparent about your positionality and transparent about your political affiliations. There is some real value to that. But then all that means is that we end up having an echo chamber, where people go only to others who share the same political views and values they have, and they’re not exposed to opposing opinions.

So, there really isn’t a great solution, unfortunately. But I think just being aware matters. Your question itself has value, because having these open conversations can have some real, real positive impacts.

Change May Come—But Not in the Way the West Expects

And lastly, Professor Klein, looking beyond the immediate crisis, what scenarios do you see as most plausible for the next decade of Iranian politics—gradual reform, intensified authoritarian consolidation, externally triggered conflict, or eventual systemic transformation?

Professor Peter W. Klein: I’m suspicious of anyone who makes predictions, and I will confess that I am a terrible predictor. I thought Barack Obama would never become president, so I’m not a good person to ask. But I can tell you what my hope is. I hope that gradual transformation happens. I do think there are some very serious problems in Iran that need to be addressed, both internally and externally.

Maybe history will show that this particular attack opened the door for change. But the opposite can happen as well—it could move in the opposite direction. So, there may be change, but it may not be the kind of change that many people in the West would want. There could be a doubling down on the nuclear program, proxy wars, and similar policies.

I personally don’t think there is going to be a huge regional conflict. I don’t think this will open the door to World War III. But it is impossible to know for certain, which is why we really need to be very careful. Policymakers certainly need to be cautious, and in academia and journalism we also need to be careful both in making predictions and in explaining and analyzing the situation, because it is so complicated that most people don’t fully understand it, including myself.

Dr. Amir Ahmadi Arian.

Dr. Arian: Neither Foreign Powers nor Clerical Elites Represent the Iranian People

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In this interview with the ECPS, Dr. Amir Ahmadi Arian offers a penetrating account of Iran at a moment of war, repression, and political uncertainty. As the Israel/US–Iran conflict deepens and succession struggles intensify in Tehran, he argues that the central issue is the systematic erasure of Iranian popular agency. For Dr. Arian, the Islamic Republic has evolved from an ideological revolutionary order into an increasingly militarized system—“basically a killing machine”—while external intervention risks further marginalizing the people in whose name it claims to act. Moving from everyday micropower and censorship to the IRGC’s rise, social humiliation, and the politics of war, he underscores a stark reality: neither foreign powers nor clerical elites genuinely represent the Iranian people.

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

Giving an interview to the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Dr. Amir Ahmadi Arian—Iranian American writer and journalist, and Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Binghamton University—offers a powerful and deeply textured analysis of Iran’s current condition at a moment of extraordinary peril. As the Israel/US–Iran war expands into a broader regional conflict marked by bombardment, civilian displacement, and intensifying regime-change rhetoric, Dr. Arian cautions against narratives that erase the agency of the Iranian people themselves. In a context where President Donald Trump has demanded Iran’s “unconditional surrender,” openly declared an interest in shaping the country’s postwar leadership, and where succession debates have reportedly intensified following the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Dr. Arian’s central warning is stark: “neither of them has anything to do with the Iranian people.”

That insistence on popular agency—and on its systematic denial—runs through the interview as a whole. For Dr. Arian, Iran’s predicament cannot be reduced either to foreign pressure alone or to a simplistic image of “clerical rule.” Rather, he describes a political system that has evolved over 47 years from an ideological revolutionary order into something far more militarized, coercive, and socially corrosive. What began with “a very strong ideological core, surrounded by a security apparatus,” he argues, has gradually become “less and less ideological and more and more militarized.” In his starkest formulation, the regime today is “basically a killing machine,” one whose relationship to society has been reduced to a binary of “friend and enemy.”

Yet Dr. Arian’s account is not confined to the spectacular violence of war and mass repression. One of the interview’s greatest strengths lies in its insistence that authoritarian domination in Iran is reproduced through everyday practices, cultural control, and administrative routines. Recalling his own childhood and youth, he explains that in the 1980s and 1990s one “felt the presence of the state almost on your skin.” From school rituals and anti-American iconography to compulsory hijab and the disciplining of bodies, the regime exercised what he calls a “very Foucauldian kind of presence of power in daily life.” The same logic extended into literature and language: censorship, exile, and the weakening of Persian literary culture did not merely restrict expression but also narrowed the horizons of political imagination itself.

At the same time, Dr. Arian foregrounds the uneven social distribution of repression. The Islamic Republic, he notes, presents itself internationally as a defender of “the poor, the wretched of the earth, the underdog,” yet “nobody has suffered at its hands more than the poor.” Women, Baha’is, workers, and peripheral communities have borne disproportionate burdens of exclusion, persecution, and violence. 

Against this backdrop, his analysis of the current war is especially sobering. If military intervention deepens, he warns, “the will of the people becomes the last thing that counts.” The core question, then, is not simply whether the regime survives, but whether Iranians themselves can recover political agency from both authoritarian rulers and external powers claiming to act in their name.

Here is the edited version of our interview with Assistant Professor Amir Ahmed Arian, revised slightly to improve clarity and flow.

Iran Regime’s Presence Felt Omnipresent

Billboard depicting Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei and Imam Sayyid Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini on a building wall in Tehran, Iran, April 2018. The portraits honor the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ruhollah Khomeini (Supreme Leader 1979–1989), and his successor Ali Khamenei (Supreme Leader 1989–2026), whose images frequently appear in public spaces as symbols of the regime’s ideological authority. Photo: Dreamstime.

Professor Amir Ahmed Arian, thank you so much for joining our interview series. Let me start right away with the first question: Having grown up and begun your literary career inside Iran, how would you describe the everyday texture of life under Iran’s clerical-authoritarian system? At the level of routines—schooling, workplaces, gender norms, religion, and bureaucracy—how do these micro-practices reproduce obedience, negotiation, or subtle forms of resistance?

Dr. Amir Ahmadi Arian: In Iran, one caveat I have to give at the beginning—which will apply to all my answers—is that when we talk about the Islamic Republic, we are talking about 47 years of rule by this political system, and it has evolved and changed a lot over time. So, the practices that you mentioned—the way they were conducted in the 1980s and the 1990s—are very different from those in 2000 or 2010. The rulers have changed a lot as well. Depending on who the president was, society changed dramatically. And even more importantly, Iranian society itself sheds its skin very quickly, generation after generation.

What you see among young people now—this generation—has very little to do with my generation. People who were born around the time of the revolution are now middle-aged, and the twenty-somethings today do not really listen to us or care much about what we think. So, what I am saying is mainly founded on my own personal experience growing up there. I left Iran in 2011, and over the last fifteen years the country has changed quite dramatically. So, what I say is less a comprehensive analysis of what is going on in Iran and more an account based on my own personal experience.

To answer your question, growing up in Iran in the 1980s and the 1990s, you really did feel the presence of the state, because that was the strictest period after the revolution. After the reformist movement in the late 1990s, things began to open up. But in those first two decades, you felt the presence of the state almost on your skin.

It was overwhelming and omnipresent all the time. To give you one example, the way they tried to inculcate their foreign policy in the mind of a child was that throughout my education—during elementary school, high school, and later in college, when I attended the University of Tehran—there were massive flags of the US and Israel painted on the ground in front of the gates of all those institutions.

So, when you walked into the school or through the university gate, you could not even enter without stepping on them. Imagine doing that for twelve years in school and then five years in college—almost every day. Not just me, but millions of children across the country stepped on the US and Israeli flags in order to enter school. Just imagine what that does to your unconscious mind—how it shapes the way you see the world unwittingly, beyond what you consciously know or learn.

For women especially, there was another, much more aggressive layer, which was the compulsory hijab. This started in elementary school. Six-year-old girls had to wear uniforms and maghnaeh, these tight scarves, and they had to keep them on throughout the day. Of course, in public spaces there was also a very strict dress code for women. Women could not appear in the street without complying with it. I do not think anything embodies the aggressive presence of the state in all aspects of daily life as clearly as the compulsory hijab.

These are just two small examples.

The way the system worked was that, instead of relying only on a top-down system of propaganda, there was also the presence of micropower spread throughout society. These mechanisms were designed to strictly control bodies and constantly remind you that the state is here, and the state is watching you. So, it was a very Foucauldian kind of presence of power in daily life.

Iran’s System Is Not Just Clerical Rule—It Is a Militarized Security State

Analysts often reduce Iran’s system to “clerical rule,” yet your work suggests a far more complex configuration of institutions. How should we conceptualize the Iranian regime today—as a theocratic regime, a bureaucratic-security state, or a hybrid authoritarian system combining ideology, patronage networks, and coercive institutions?

Dr. Amir Ahmadi Arian: It’s basically all of the above. From the beginning of the revolution, the system has had a very strong ideological core, surrounded by a security apparatus. And you have the Revolutionary Guards, which constitute a very complicated and vast network of people. Within it, there are individuals who are completely cynical and technocratic, or those who are there to run their own businesses through military means, as well as truly apocalyptic warriors who want to bring about Armageddon and believe they are involved in some sort of end-of-the-world battle.

In between, you have all kinds of government bureaucracies and institutions that try to find a foothold in this network.

But the point is that, as time has gone on—from the beginning of the revolution to now, over these 47 years—the Iranian government has become less and less ideological and more and more militarized. So right now, more than anything, it resembles something like a European fascist regime in the 1930s and 1940s, one that was completely reduced to security forces. It is basically a killing machine. And the last moment when we saw that very clearly was this January.

On January 8 and 9, they opened fire with live ammunition on unarmed protesters all over the country and killed at least 8,000 people. I know that number is very contested, but at this point we have 8,000 names identified without a shadow of doubt. The organization that documented this is also working on verifying 11,000 more names. Many of them are already partially verified, but the process of full verification is ongoing. So even if half of that is true, we are looking at a five-digit death toll in basically 36 hours, which would make it the bloodiest massacre a state has committed against its own population in modern history.

That alone should make it very clear that the ideological façade and the bureaucratic elements are collapsing. The ideological façade is gone, because what they did then cannot be justified by any religious doctrine—or, frankly, by any ideological doctrine other than some form of fascism, perhaps something like Shia fascism. And the bureaucratic veneer is also very thin now; I would even argue that it has largely disappeared. Because no reasonable governing entity—whether a state or any other governing body—would do that simply to control society. You only do that when you see your own people as the enemy. There is really no other explanation.

So right now, the system has been reduced to a very hardcore security corps composed of armed elements of the Basij, the Revolutionary Guards, and parts of the police. And their relationship with the Iranian people is essentially one of friend and enemy. You are either in their camp, or you are not. And if you are not, they are out there to eliminate you. They do not really want you to exist anymore. So, of all the political systems that have existed, from what little I know of European history, they remind me of Franco’s regime in Spain—something that functions in a very similar way or resembles certain forms of 20th-century fascism.

The Revolutionary Guards Have Become a Military–Political–Economic Juggernaut

Platoon of Iranian army soldiers carrying the flag of the Islamic Republic of Iran during the international military competition ARMY-2018 in Pesochnoye, Kostroma Region, Russia, June 2018. Photo: Dreamstime.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps occupies a central position in Iran’s political and economic life. Should the IRGC be understood primarily as a military institution, a security apparatus, a sprawling economic conglomerate, or even a ruling class? What does its economic embeddedness mean for reform, regime durability, or potential transition?

Dr. Amir Ahmadi Arian: So again, that’s another case with the IRGC, or the Sepah. It started off as a military organization at the beginning of the revolution, mainly to help the official army during the Iran–Iraq War. It was almost exclusively military in the beginning. Then, as time went on, it started consolidating power, accruing more and more influence through the decades. This became especially evident during the reformist movement, because the commanders of the IRGC were opposed to Khatami and the reformists in power, as well as to the political elite that came to power in the late 1990s. After that, they decided to become increasingly involved in politics.

Another turning point came later with the economic sanctions imposed after the controversy surrounding Iran’s nuclear program. Following these disputes, Western countries began imposing some of the harshest sanctions in the world on Iran. As we know, such conditions often become a recipe for corruption. In my view, these sanctions cast something like a net over Iran’s economy. They disrupted the natural flow of exports and imports, especially oil exports. However, there was a significant hole in this net: Iran’s access to China. China was simply too powerful to fully comply with the sanctions and follow the United States’ lead, so it continued to purchase oil from Iran. Because China has an enormous and constant appetite for energy, Iran could sell oil to it below market price and still sell large volumes. As a result, even under very harsh sanctions, Iran was still able to generate a considerable amount of revenue through oil sales to China.

The problem, however, was that this revenue flowed through only one channel: the Revolutionary Guards. As a result, large segments of the economy gradually became concentrated in their hands, which almost inevitably led to corruption. Over time, within the ranks of the Revolutionary Guards, you can see an oligarchy beginning to take shape. And not just within the Revolutionary Guards—the broader political elite, especially their children and relatives, also joined this oligarchic network. Perhaps a few thousand people became involved in the export and import of oil with very little accountability. As a result, they began making themselves extremely rich, often at the expense of the well-being of ordinary Iranians and their daily lives.

At that point—perhaps by the mid-2010s—you could see that the Revolutionary Guards, which had started as a military organization and later evolved into a military–political organization, were becoming a military–political–economic juggernaut. It became something like an octopus, with tentacles reaching into almost every aspect of Iranian society, and that has continued to be the case until now.

Humiliation Is One of the Main Engines of Protest in Iran

Your writings frequently evoke emotions such as humiliation, anger, fear, and exhaustion. How do these affective dimensions shape political mobilization in Iran? In particular, how do humiliation and generational frustration interact with social fatigue to influence the timing and intensity of protest movements?

Dr. Amir Ahmadi Arian: I think humiliation is really key, especially if you watch the state media in Iran. It is a relentless and non-stop process of insulting your intelligence through the way propaganda is produced. It is really as absurd as looking at the sky in broad daylight while the TV tells you that it is nighttime. And they say it very aggressively, with zero respect for the intelligence and dignity of their audience.

Iranians are very well aware of the source of their problems. They know that the main source of their misery is their rulers, the Islamic Republic. Yes, sanctions have contributed heavily. The hostility from Israel, all the stories about the nuclear program—some exaggerated, some fabricated—and the accusations coming from a state that possesses far more nuclear weapons than Iran will ever have all contain a degree of hypocrisy. Iranians recognize that. But when you look at the political landscape of Iran, it is very clear to everyone that most of what we have gone through is the responsibility of the Islamic Republic. And the rulers know that too. It is not a secret to them.

But for 47 years, you look at their behavior and see that they have not taken a single step toward the people of Iran. Not one. They have never shown any willingness to make concessions to civil society or to protesters in the streets. They have never demonstrated any real interest in listening to them. Every time people have come out to protest, the regime initially responded with batons, and as protests intensified, with bullets. And we saw just last month what a wholesale massacre was essentially.

Even today, they continue to deny most of their responsibility for the absolute disaster they have inflicted on Iranian lives. So, when you look at this while living inside Iran, you see a government responsible for the immiseration of multiple generations yet unwilling to take even a shred of responsibility for what it has done. They have shown no willingness to change course.

This is the frustration, the rage, and the humiliation that it instills. And it can very easily boil over and drive people into the streets.

Iranians know how brutal their rulers are, how willing the regime is to kill them, and yet protests continue. In fact, you have rarely seen street protests as frequently anywhere in the world as in Iran over the past 10 or 15 years. Every couple of years there is a major wave of mass protest—whether over economic conditions, the compulsory hijab, or other issues.

Each time, people know they will be met with extreme violence, with bullets and batons. Every time they go out into the streets, they know they may never return home. Yet they still do it, because the sense of humiliation and frustration runs so deep that, in their minds, risking death can feel worthwhile simply to express it publicly.

Iranian woman standing in middle of Iranian protests for equal rights for women. Burning headscarves in protest against the government. Illustration: Digital Asset Art.

Women, Minorities, and the Poor Bear the Heaviest Burdens of Repression

For those who challenge the regime—writers, activists, workers, or ordinary protesters—what does the spectrum of repression look like in practice? How are risks such as censorship, economic exclusion, detention, torture, or exile distributed across class, gender, ethnicity, and geography?

Dr. Amir Ahmadi Arian: Probably the biggest irony of the Islamic Republic is that its outward presence to the world—its public face—and unfortunately many in the West buy into that, especially people on the left, is that it presents itself as standing up for the poor, for the wretched of the earth, for the underdog, for the downtrodden, and so on. So, it defines itself as one of the few states in the world that stands with the underdog. But when you go inside Iran, nobody has suffered at its hands more than the poor, working people, and those who do not have the means to make ends meet.

And this has been the case for decades, at least since the 1990s. You could argue that in the 1980s the regime implemented some policies aimed at creating a degree of economic equality. But definitely since the 1990s, after the death of Ayatollah Khomeini, it has essentially operated as an economic system that consistently favors the rich while suppressing the poor. It has only worsened over time, and as I mentioned earlier, the sanctions have also contributed to this dynamic.

So if you are poor—and there is a reason why in more recent demonstrations and protests you see more working people and poor citizens from the margins of society, from smaller towns near the borders where poverty is particularly severe—those are often the people who take to the streets and risk their lives more than people in the major cities. That was not the case back in 2009 during the Green Movement.

Then, of course, there are religious minorities, especially the Baha’is. It is actually a principle of their religion not to engage in political activism, so they have never posed any significant threat to the political order in Iran. Yet, because of the dogmatism and fanaticism of the Shia clerics in power, that community has been persecuted more savagely than almost any other group.

So, you have the persecution of the poor through economic means, the persecution of the Baha’is for religious reasons, and of course the situation of women, who have effectively been treated as second-class citizens since the beginning of the revolution. They have been fighting for very basic rights for a very long time. And just three years ago, during the Women, Life, Freedom movement, they finally managed to force the state to abandon the enforcement of compulsory hijab—though at enormous cost—after months of civil protests across the country.

So, this is also a form of gender apartheid. You have extreme economic discrimination against the poor, religious discrimination against minorities, and what amounts to a flat-out system of gender apartheid from which women have suffered enormously over the last half century.

Iran Regime Is Not a Well-Oiled Machine, It Is Corroded by Corruption

You have often suggested that repression in Iran operates through mundane institutional routines rather than overt ideological fanaticism. To what extent does this resemble Hannah Arendt’s notion of the “banality of evil,” where ordinary bureaucratic practices normalize authoritarian violence?

Dr. Amir Ahmadi Arian: I think there is an important difference there. In Arendt’s articulation of the banality of evil, it emerges from a bureaucratic machine that actually functions extremely well. You have a system whose cogs rotate together very efficiently. The Nazi extermination process was, in that sense, a highly organized and well-oiled machine. Every officer was a small cog within that machine, carrying out their assigned tasks without really reflecting on the consequences of what they were doing.

In the case of Iran, however, what you see is incompetence—sheer incompetence. Part of the problem is that the state has essentially collapsed, and its bureaucratic institutions are no longer functioning properly. There is so much corruption, so much nepotism, and so much discrimination based on factors such as religious beliefs, social background, or political loyalty—especially when it comes to employment in government institutions, even in very basic administrative matters.

Over time, this has corroded the system of governance to such an extent that it simply no longer works effectively. Even very simple things—like renewing a driver’s license or dealing with routine banking procedures—can become extremely frustrating experiences when you live inside Iran.

So, the way government authority grates on people’s nerves stems less from a highly efficient bureaucratic machine and more from pervasive incompetence and corruption, rather than from a system operating smoothly but devoid of moral reflection.

No One Has Damaged Persian Literature More Than the Islamic Republic

Drawing on your own experience with literary censorship, how does the state’s control over cultural production shape not only what can be said publicly but also what can be imagined politically? In other words, how does censorship function as a technology of power over narrative and collective imagination?

Dr. Amir Ahmadi Arian: There is another irony here. The state in Iran has always prided itself on having a kind of nationalist element. They made a great deal out of independence when you go back to the beginning of the revolution. The main slogan was “Independence, freedom, the Islamic Republic.” So, independence came first. There was always a kind of Islamic nationalism embedded within the discourse. And the Persian language was always part of that. Especially Mr. Khamenei, the supreme leader who was recently killed—he was very much into Persian poetry. He was a very skilled orator, a very good speaker, and he knew Persian very well. They were enamored with Persian literature and the history of Persian poetry, and so on. Yet no one has damaged the Persian language or launched such a profound assault on Persian literature as the Islamic Republic has through censorship.

I am just one example. Until I was 30 years old, I was a writer in Iran. I published a number of books and many articles, and I loved writing in my mother tongue. But they basically forced me out of Iran. At some point after the Green Movement, it became impossible to continue living there. So, I had to move out of Iran—first to Australia and then to the United States—and I had to switch to writing in English.

I am just one small example. I could have contributed to that language and to that literary culture. I could have added something to it. I was doing well there as a writer. But over extremely small and trivial issues, the censorship office started banning my books, and they effectively took away my job as a newspaper writer. So, I had to leave. And I am just one example among thousands of writers like me who loved that language and that culture and were more than willing to contribute to it and devote their lives to it. But the state did not want us around.

Through censorship, what has happened is an extreme weakening of the Persian language itself. When you talk about political imagination, language is crucial. When a language is battered for so long—when it has been depleted of its resources through censorship for half a century—it inevitably loses many of its tools. Its toolbox becomes depleted.

Some of those tools have started to return since the emergence of the internet, but it is very different to have a formal written culture in a society than to have a writing culture mainly on social media. These are two very different phenomena.

What the state has done is to erode the abilities and capabilities of the Persian language, which historically has been a very strong force in maintaining the fabric of Iranian society. Through that erosion, they have negatively affected not only Iranian culture and literature but also the broader cohesion of Iranian society as a whole.

Military Intervention Often Pushes the Will of the People to the Margins

Large poster of Mahsa Amini displayed by the Iranian Diaspora Collective in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, November 23, 2022. Photo: Erin Alexis Randolph / Dreamstime.

In the context of the ongoing confrontation between Iran and the US–Israel alliance, how might external military pressure reshape internal political dynamics? Historically, do wars weaken authoritarian regimes by exposing their fragility, or strengthen them by mobilizing nationalism and securitizing dissent?

Dr. Amir Ahmadi Arian: It is very hard to say now. We are right in the middle of the war, and it is very unclear how it will turn out—at least it is unclear to me. Right now, there are so many contradictory accounts and reports about who has the upper hand, whose military is in a weaker position, who is running out of ammunition, and who is running out of defensive shields, and so on. So, it is very difficult to draw conclusions at this point.

But at the end of the day, we have many examples of military intervention, especially in Middle Eastern countries, and none of them have ended well. The way events are unfolding now can already be seen in the recent quarrel over the selection of the next Supreme Leader.

The Assembly—the council of elders, as it is sometimes called in Iran—consists of the people who choose the next leader. There are about 80 very old clerics, all men and all clerics. They are very old and do not represent Iranian society in any meaningful way. In fact, they are about as far removed from Iranian society as possible, yet they are tasked with choosing the next leader. So, whoever they choose will have nothing to do with the Iranian people. It does not matter who it is; it is simply not a democratic process.

On the other hand, you have Donald Trump, who just yesterday said that he wants to have a say in choosing the next Supreme Leader of Iran. He almost sounded as if he meant it, so I will take him at his word. He said something like, “I need to be there when they choose the next Supreme Leader. I want to have a say.”

So, you see two entities talking about selecting the Supreme Leader—the highest political position in Iran—and neither of them has anything to do with the Iranian people. This is often what happens in the aftermath of military intervention. The will of the people becomes the last thing that counts. The agency of the Iranian population is already pushed aside, unless, after this war, they somehow manage to reclaim it.

A Political Vacuum Could Activate Long-Dormant Ethnic Fault Lines

One of the most catastrophic scenarios involves state fragmentation, separatist mobilization, and armed conflict across border regions. Given Iran’s complex ethnic landscape—including Kurds, Baluch, Arabs, Azeris, etc.—how real is the risk of civil conflict if state authority weakens, and what might a pluralistic settlement look like in such conditions?

Dr. Amir Ahmadi Arian: That’s another thing I can’t really say. I have no idea how that will turn out. Iran is a little different from other Middle Eastern countries that have this sort of ethnic tension, in that it has existed within roughly the same borders for about 400 years now. I mean, it has lost some territories over time, but since the Safavid era in the 17th century, Iran has largely remained the same territorial entity that it is today. It is smaller than it was back then, but the core of the country has remained intact.

In this area, all of the ethnic minorities you mentioned have been living together fairly peacefully for hundreds of years. So, Iran is not a colonial construction in the same way that Syria or Iraq are. Because of that, there is more cohesion and a greater possibility of coexistence. Civil war and ethnic conflict are probably less likely in Iran than people sometimes assume, given the long history of these communities living together for many centuries.

But when you have a political vacuum at the center, combined with a deep accumulation of discontent and rage toward the central government, anything can happen. When you bring down a sledgehammer on a society—or a double-stage sledgehammer, both from the government and from a foreign invader—you activate all these fault lines that may have been dormant for centuries, perhaps even millennia. Those fault lines can then produce tremors and earthquakes here and there. How destructive they might become is anyone’s guess. But they could potentially end up destroying this political entity that has existed for many centuries.

When Soldiers Defect, the End of the Regime May Be Near

Lastly, Professor Arian, looking ahead over the next months, what early-warning indicators should observers watch—elite defections, labor strikes, inflation thresholds, prison dynamics, clerical positioning, IRGC cohesion, or international mediation—to determine which trajectory Iran is moving toward? And do you see the emergence of a “fifth scenario,” a hybrid outcome that analysts currently underestimate?

Dr. Amir Ahmadi Arian: I think defection, definitely. Defection—and also what you mentioned about IRGC cohesion, which is kind of synonymous with defection. As I said before, the government in Iran has been reduced to a security force. Right now, more than anything, it is essentially a military entity that is fighting both its own people and the United States and Israel. So, labor strikes are a fantasy at this point. Under bombs, no one can organize a labor strike.

And what the clerics say or think really does not matter anymore. In this situation, you always have to look at the armed forces—the people in uniform. If you see any form of substantial defection in their ranks, both in terms of rank and numbers—meaning defections among high-ranking officers as well as a significant number of personnel—then I think that would be the strongest indication that regime collapse is imminent. But as long as you do not see that, other scenarios should still be considered. I think defection is the key sign we should be looking for.

Dr. Kazi A. S. M. Nurul Huda

Assoc. Prof. Huda: Bangladesh’s Democratic Future Depends on How Political Parties Exercise Power

by Editor’s ChoiceHomeInterviews

In this interview with the ECPS, Associate Professor Kazi A. S. M. Nurul Huda offers a nuanced assessment of Bangladesh’s post-2026 political transition. Reflecting on the first general election after the 2024 uprising that toppled Sheikh Hasina, he argues that a landslide electoral mandate alone cannot resolve the country’s democratic deficit. What matters, he emphasizes, is whether “procedural legitimacy, constitutional legitimacy, and sociological legitimacy are present.” Dr. Huda warns that preventing a “reverse norm cascade” depends less on electoral formalities than on how political actors behave in power—especially the ruling party. Stressing trust, institutional restraint, and freedom of criticism, he argues that Bangladesh’s democratic future will hinge on whether political parties govern responsibly, inclusively, and within genuinely pluralist constitutional limits.

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

Bangladesh’s February 2026 general election marked the country’s first national vote since the Gen Z-led uprising of August 2024 that toppled Sheikh Hasina after fifteen years in power. That uprising, which followed a violent crackdown on protesters that reportedly left around 1,400 people dead, was widely interpreted as a decisive rupture with one of South Asia’s most entrenched hybrid regimes. The election that followed was therefore more than a routine transfer of power: it was a test of whether Bangladesh could move from revolutionary mobilization to institutional politics. With turnout approaching 60 percent and many voters describing the experience as an opportunity to cast ballots “without fear,” the election appeared to signal at least a partial reopening of democratic space.

Yet, as Associate Professor Kazi A. S. M. Nurul Huda from the University of Dhaka makes clear in this interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), electoral change alone does not resolve the deeper crisis of democratic legitimacy. While the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) returned to power with a commanding parliamentary majority and the Jamaat-e-Islami-led alliance emerged as the principal opposition, Assoc. Prof. Huda cautions against equating electoral victory with democratic repair. “A landslide victory helps, but it is not everything,” he argues, insisting that such a result “does not by itself wash away the democratic deficit.” For Assoc. Prof. Huda, what ultimately matters is whether “procedural legitimacy, constitutional legitimacy, and sociological legitimacy are present.”

This emphasis on institutional and relational legitimacy is central to the interview’s broader argument and directly underpins its headline claim: Bangladesh’s democratic future depends less on who wins power than on how power is exercised. In Assoc. Prof. Huda’s formulation, the post-2026 order will be judged not simply by the fact of electoral competition, but by whether political actors—above all the ruling party—act with restraint, responsibility, and democratic seriousness. “Whether Bangladesh avoids returning to previous patterns—or prevents a reverse norm cascade—largely depends on how political parties behave,” he says. Most pointedly, he stresses that “the greatest responsibility rests with the ruling party,” especially in protecting freedom of speech and ensuring that opposition parties can criticize the government.

Assoc. Prof. Huda’s analysis gains further relevance in light of the new political landscape. Alongside the parliamentary vote, citizens endorsed the reform-oriented July Charter, which proposed constitutional reforms including term limits, bicameralism, and stronger judicial independence. At the same time, Bangladesh remains marked by unresolved tensions: the Awami League was barred from contesting the election, Sheikh Hasina remains in exile in India, and debates over justice, accountability, Islamist mobilization, and political inclusion continue to define the fragile post-uprising order. 

Against this backdrop, Assoc. Prof. Huda offers a sober but cautiously hopeful assessment. “If the current political parties—those in power and those in the opposition—behave responsibly, then we do not have to retreat,” he observes. The decisive question, then, is not whether Bangladesh has entered a new era, but whether its political class can transform a moment of rupture into a durable democratic settlement.

Here is the edited version of our interview with Assoc. Prof. Kazi A. S. M. Nurul Huda, revised slightly to improve clarity and flow.

A Landslide Victory Cannot by Itself Eliminate the Democratic Deficit

Bangladesh elections.
A woman casts her ballot at a polling station during Bangladesh’s general election in Dhaka, January 7, 2024. Photo: Mamunur Rashid / Dreamstime.

Professor Kazi Huda, thank you very much for joining our interview series. Let me begin with the first question: After years of competitive authoritarianism and the post-2024 rupture in Bangladesh, how should we evaluate the legitimacy of the new order? Does a landslide electoral mandate reduce the democratic deficit, or is legitimacy contingent on deeper institutional reconstruction and renewed civic trust?

Assoc. Prof. Kazi A. S. M. Nurul Huda: Thank you for having me. A landslide victory helps, but it is not everything, and it does not by itself wash away the democratic deficit that you mentioned. A landslide victory helps a political party—it gives the party a certain level of comfort in ruling or governing. It provides some confidence that people are with them. At the same time, what is actually important is whether there is procedural legitimacy, constitutional legitimacy, or what I would call sociological legitimacy.

When election procedures are fair, we can easily claim that the victory is fair—that is procedural legitimacy. If there is constitutional legitimacy, then we can say that power is structured legitimately. On the other hand, sociological legitimacy concerns the relationship with the opposition and the broader political environment—a kind of politically professional relationship.

So, I do not think a landslide victory resolves everything when it comes to the democratic deficit. It may take you some distance along the path of democratization, but what ultimately matters are whether procedural legitimacy, constitutional legitimacy, and sociological legitimacy are present.

Without Political Trust, Elections Risk Becoming Procedural Rituals

In the post-2026 context, what minimum institutional guarantees are necessary to prevent a “reverse norm cascade”—where elections remain procedurally competitive yet politically hollow, especially under conditions of parliamentary supermajority?

Assoc. Prof. Kazi A. S. M. Nurul Huda: To understand whether the post-2026 election context can prevent what is called a reverse norm cascade, we first need to understand why Bangladesh held an election in 2026 at all.

As you know, Bangladesh experienced a mass uprising in 2024 that ousted an authoritarian regime. After five or six weeks of bloodshed, a government that had been in power from 2009 to 2024 came to an end. During that long period, Bangladeshi people experienced disappearances, killings, and many other abuses that should never have occurred. The mass uprising created a new aspiration among citizens that Bangladesh might finally develop a political landscape that would not revert to authoritarian tendencies—what we often describe as democratic backsliding.

To prevent a reverse norm cascade, it is essential to ensure a relationship of trust among all political parties. Equally important is a trusting relationship between political parties and the general public. Why did people protest in 2024? Because they had lost trust in the existing political parties. As a result, the general public came out into the streets to take matters into their own hands, believing that mainstream political parties had failed for the past 15 years—or at least the past decade.

One of the key reasons the 2024 mass uprising succeeded was that it was led by a non-partisan student body rather than by any political party. Political parties joined the movement in large numbers, but they did not act under their own banners when they took to the streets. Instead, they followed the leadership of the student body that organized and led the uprising.

Now, in the post-2026 election context, if political parties fail to regain people’s trust—or if there is no trust among the political parties themselves—then there is a real possibility of returning to the conditions we experienced before. This includes a lack of trust between the ruling party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), the opposition party, Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, and the student-led National Citizen Party.

So, what is required in this context? The primary responsibility lies with the ruling party, the BNP. As we know, power comes with responsibility. Since they are now in government, they must behave responsibly and in ways that support a democratic and sustainable political environment.

Whether Bangladesh avoids returning to previous patterns—or prevents a reverse norm cascade—largely depends on how political parties behave. Among them, the greatest responsibility rests with the ruling party: whether it seeks to control everything, whether it protects freedom of speech, and whether it ensures that opposition parties have the opportunity to criticize the government—conditions that are fundamental to any democratic environment. If the ruling party, together with other political parties, can uphold these principles and fulfill their responsibilities as they should, then I believe Bangladesh has a very promising future ahead.

Legitimacy in Transition Depends on Both Reform and Timely Elections

Large protests demand the resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government as part of the Anti-Quota Movement and Bangladesh Quota Reform Protests. Thousands took to the streets in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on August 4, 2024. Photo: M.D. Sabbir.

You have cautioned that elections without credible reform can reproduce dysfunction. How would you design a sequenced transition that preserves electoral legitimacy while avoiding the destabilizing vacuum and contestation that prolonged interim rule can generate?

Assoc. Prof. Kazi A. S. M. Nurul Huda: This is a difficult question: how can we design a sequenced transition that ensures a timely election while also guaranteeing that meaningful reforms are implemented?

In my view, what was needed was a time-bound interim government. Initially, when the interim government came to power on 8 August 2024, it was unclear how long it would remain in office or when the election would be held. Many expected that elections might take place within the first six or seven months.

However, as time passed, the interim government realized that this uncertainty was creating confusion among the public. People were in the dark about whether an election would occur at all, and pressure was mounting from major political parties such as the Bangladesh Nationalist Party. At some point they announced that elections would be held in the first half of April (2025). In fact, as you know, the election eventually took place this year on February 12.

A time-bound interim government is therefore essential for the kind of sequenced transition you mention. Such a government should also have a clear agenda—one that specifies what it intends to do, what it will not do, and how it plans to proceed. Because this was an interim administration, people placed a certain degree of trust in it to carry out reforms, and in some respects it did so. It facilitated dialogue among political parties, excluding the Bangladesh Awami League, which had been the previous ruling party.

As a result of these dialogues, what came to be known as the July National Charter was produced and broadly agreed upon by most active political parties in Bangladesh, although there were some dissenting views—something that could be discussed separately.

The key point is that an interim government should have a clear reform agenda. This might include constitutional reform, police reform, or other institutional reforms. At the same time, it must remain strictly time-bound and pursue these reforms within a clearly defined time frame.

Finally, the interim government must organize an election that is widely accepted—both domestically and internationally. In this respect, I think the Bangladeshi interim government was largely successful, and it deserves recognition for arranging an election that was, to a considerable extent, fair.

Public Trust Is the Foundation of Any Neutral Electoral Administration

Bangladesh’s recurring crisis over “who runs the election” seems to reflect a deeper legitimacy problem. What would a constitutionally durable, neutral election-time administration look like—one that cannot be easily abolished, captured, or informally intimidated by incumbents?

Assoc. Prof. Kazi A. S. M. Nurul Huda: A durable and neutral election-time government must, above all, be a government that people can trust. Trust is crucial here. If people perceive that there is an election-time administration—whether it is called a caretaker government, an interim government, or something else—and if they believe that those responsible for organizing the election cannot conduct it impartially, then the system simply will not work.

Therefore, during the caretaker or interim period, the election-time government must be able to command public trust. How can it achieve that? This is where the broader state apparatus becomes relevant.

Individuals appointed to positions within such a government—whether as advisers, election commissioners, or in other roles—are not elected; they are selected. Therefore, it is essential to select individuals from civil society and from different sectors of society who have strong professional reputations, personal integrity, and respected public standing.

The first priority should always be appointing individuals whom the public can trust and rely upon. In situations like this, public perception matters enormously. Second, during the caretaker government period, the administration must have a certain degree of authority over key institutions, including the security forces, the civilian bureaucracy, and the military bureaucracy.

At the end of the day, the caretaker government is responsible for governing the country during the election period. If it lacks authority over these institutions, then its directives will not be taken seriously.

For that reason, an election-time government must consist of strong personalities—individuals who possess both credibility and the capacity to act decisively. At the same time, they must also be impartial.

Bicameralism Only Makes Sense if It Provides Genuine Institutional Balance

Activists of Bangladesh Nationalist Party form a human chain to mark International Human Rights Day as they protested human rights violations against leaders and activist in Dhaka, December 10, 2023. Photo: Mamunur Rashid.

How do you assess the reform proposals (e.g., bicameralism and proportional representation in an upper chamber) as remedies to Bangladesh’s recurrent winner-takes-all dynamic? Under what conditions could these reforms actually constrain executive concentration rather than be circumvented?

Assoc. Prof. Kazi A. S. M. Nurul Huda: The question you just raised will likely become one of the major points of contention in the coming months in Bangladesh. As I mentioned, the July National Charter includes 47 or 48 proposals for constitutional reforms. One of them, as you noted, is bicameralism and the creation of a proportional representation (PR)-based upper chamber.

The basic proposal is that the distribution of seats in the upper chamber should be proportionate to the public votes received in the lower chamber. However, the major political party, the BNP—which is now the ruling party—has expressed its dissent, arguing that the seats of the upper chamber should instead be proportionate to the shares of seats in the lower chamber.

If that position is accepted, then the structure would be quite different. One important point to note is that in the charter, proposals that are not agreed upon by all political parties—such as the proposal regarding the upper chamber—include formal notes of dissent. The BNP expressed such a note.

There is also a provision stating that if a dissenting political party wins the election on the basis of an election manifesto that clearly mentions this dissent, then after winning the election it may proceed according to its own position. In other words, it is not strictly bound by the proposal.

Therefore, the ruling party—the BNP—can potentially argue that it expressed its dissent, included this position in its election manifesto, and after forming the government should now be able to proceed accordingly.

Interestingly, however, the referendum ballot did not mention this dissent. The referendum ballot only stated that there should be a PR-based upper chamber. Because of this, I assume there will be debates and contestation in Parliament—and possibly even in the streets—over how the upper chamber should be formed: whether it should be based on public votes or on lower-chamber seat shares.

If you ask for my own view, I do not agree with the BNP’s position regarding the formation of the upper chamber. In fact, I do not see a strong necessity for bicameralism or for an upper chamber in a country like Bangladesh. We already have around 300 members in our National Assembly. Adding another 100 members in an upper chamber and bearing the associated costs is quite burdensome for a country with Bangladesh’s economic conditions.

However, if one still believes that an upper chamber is necessary, then it should not simply become a replica of the lower chamber. If it merely replicates the lower chamber, there is little point in having it at all.

The BNP has also expressed dissent on several other proposals. Some of those points are understandable, but particularly regarding the PR-based upper chamber, I do not think their position makes much sense.

Collective Blame Risks Undermining Democratic Inclusion

Post-authoritarian transitions often elevate “accountability” into a mandate. How can Bangladesh pursue accountability for past repression while avoiding collective punishment, party bans, or exclusionary practices that risk undermining democratic inclusion and long-term stability?

Assoc. Prof. Kazi A. S. M. Nurul Huda: Accountability is important. It is important in personal life, and it is also important when it comes to governing the state and conducting politics. However, if accountability is interpreted as collective responsibility, then this is something we should question. Collective responsibility—or collective culpability—can exclude an entire political party from the political landscape. What we need instead is individualized culpability. We need fair trials, and we need institutional reforms so that we do not return to the previous situation. As you mentioned, we should avoid a reverse norm cascade.

Therefore, what happened before August 2024 should not be addressed through collective blame. We should not claim that a political party as a whole is responsible for particular crimes. Rather, through fair trials, we should identify the individuals who were involved in these crimes and bring them to justice, instead of stigmatizing an entire political party.

Political Actors Often Convert Grievances into Moral Mandates

In your critique of populist narratives, you emphasize how symbolic indignation can displace problem-solving governance. What are the main discursive mechanisms through which Bangladeshi actors convert grievances (justice, sovereignty, moral renewal) into mandates for exclusion, retribution, or institutional bypass?

Assoc. Prof. Kazi A. S. M. Nurul Huda: The use of discursive mechanisms through which political actors convert grievances into mandates is not unique to Bangladesh. It happens worldwide, as many political actors try to capitalize on grievances in order to garner public support. Bangladesh is no exception.

In Bangladesh, we see such mechanisms in practices like invoking martyrdom—what I would call Shahidhood. Sometimes, when you criticize a particular political party, you may be labeled as anti-nationalist. You might be branded as pro-Pakistani, pro-Indian, pro-American, and so on. Political parties also frequently portray their opponents as traitors while presenting themselves as morally pure. At times, they even act as though they are the sellers of a “ticket to heaven.”

These are the kinds of discursive mechanisms we observe in Bangladesh today. Another important pattern—visible both under the previous regime and even now—is that some political actors try to capitalize on narratives of victimhood. In effect, they market victimhood in order to mobilize public support and secure electoral mandates.

The Post-Uprising Divide Reflects Competing Visions of Justice and Reform

Bangladesh elections.
Voters line up outside a polling station in Feni during Bangladesh’s 13th national election on February 12, 2026. The scene reflects the high voter turnout of approximately 59.44% in this historic “Gen Z-inspired” election held under the interim government led by Muhammad Yunus. Photo: Belayet Hossain / Dreamstime.

Revolutionary coalitions often mobilize around a shared enemy but fragment after victory. How does this dynamic apply to the 2024 student-led uprising, and what risks follow when “people vs regime” narratives persist into the period of institution-building?

Assoc. Prof. Kazi A. S. M. Nurul Huda: In 2024, not surprisingly, Bangladeshi people had only one enemy: the ruling authoritarian regime. After successfully removing that regime, however, the coalition that had formed during the uprising began to show many fractures. We now observe that it has divided into different groups.

This division—or, as you noted, fragmentation after victory—depends on several factors, particularly in the Bangladeshi context. One form of fragmentation is based on ends, specifically the question of justice and how it should be ensured. One group believes that justice can be achieved through reform. If the constitution is sufficiently reformed, they argue, Bangladesh may avoid returning to a regime-like situation in the future. Others believe that those responsible must be brought into the justice system and punished. There is also another group that advocates a mechanism of reconciliation and healing.

Thus, some groups are divided based on ends. At the same time, there are also divisions based on means, and these groups often overlap. Groups defined by their goals and those defined by their strategies frequently intersect. Among those divided by means, some political parties and individuals believe that elections should come first, with reforms following afterward. Another group argues that before holding elections, the constitution and various institutions and sectors of the state should first be reformed.

We also see fragmentation shaped by identity-based narratives—whether someone is labeled nationalist or anti-nationalist, whether they are described as pro-Indian, and so on, as I mentioned earlier.

This fragmentation is therefore quite widespread. The coalition that emerged during the mass uprising has now divided into different groups. I think this is a normal development after a successful movement, because different interest groups pursue different priorities, and people tend to divide according to their interests.

Islamist Parties Can Participate in Democracy if They Respect Constitutional Limits

With Islamist actors gaining unprecedented parliamentary weight, how should we distinguish analytically between (a) democratic inclusion of religious parties, (b) rightward drift of the political center, and (c) programmatic Islamization that constrains pluralism—particularly on gender equality, minority rights, and academic freedom?

Assoc. Prof. Kazi A. S. M. Nurul Huda: Personally, I do not have any problem with the democratic inclusion of religious political parties. Unless they are too extreme, every ideology—whether religious or political—has the right to participate in politics in a liberal democratic system, provided that they operate within constitutional limits, respect equal citizenship, and do not violate human rights.

I also have a particular view regarding the rightward drift of the political center. The political center is never fixed; it shifts depending on circumstances. Sometimes it tilts toward the right, and sometimes toward the left. Therefore, if a leftward drift of the center is not considered problematic, then a slight drift to the right should not necessarily be seen as a problem either.

If we try to analytically identify a rightward drift of the political center in Bangladesh, we can observe that even secular political parties often use religious symbolism when campaigning for votes. We see politicians wearing religious caps or clothing, praying with people, and engaging in similar practices. Even some leftist political figures have done this recently. Bangladesh is a country where about 90 percent of the population is Muslim, so even so-called secular politicians often resort to such symbolism during elections in order to connect with Muslim voters.

Regarding the third issue—programmatic Islamization that constrains pluralism—the rise of religion-based political parties is not unique to Bangladesh. It is a global phenomenon. We see similar developments in Europe and other parts of the world, where religion-based political parties are gaining visibility and influence in political discourse.

In such contexts, both the state and society must play an important role. By society, I mean civil society organizations, other political parties, and the government itself. All of them have responsibilities to ensure that religious political actors do not undermine gender equality, minority rights, or other democratic principles.

If we want to assess whether programmatic Islamization is increasing in Bangladesh, we should examine whether these parties are gaining popularity. Indeed, they are becoming more prominent. For example, a major religion-based political party, Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, received around 32 percent of the vote. However, this outcome was achieved partly through alliances with other political parties—many of which are also religious—and partly through cooperation with the National Citizen Party, a student-led political movement.

One interesting aspect of Jamaat-e-Islami is that it appears to be trying to reshape itself in order to operate within a liberal democratic framework. We can observe changes in its language. In the past, the party frequently used strongly religious terminology, but during the recent election it appeared to adopt more liberal political language rather than explicitly religious rhetoric.

So, we do see some changes within these political parties. If they are allowed to operate within a liberal political sphere, they may gradually adapt themselves to that environment. For this reason, I do not currently see a major risk that Bangladesh will soon experience a sharp rise in extremism or a dramatic escalation of religion-based politics.

Responsible Political Leadership Can Still Secure Bangladesh’s Democratic Future

And lastly, Professor Huda, looking ahead to the next decade, what are the most plausible political trajectories for Bangladesh? Do you envision a pathway toward democratic consolidation anchored in institutional reform and pluralist consensus, or does the current configuration—marked by populist mobilization, Islamist resurgence, and intense polarization—risk entrenching a new hybrid order where competitive elections coexist with ideological majoritarianism and periodic instability? What key indicators should scholars and policymakers watch to assess which trajectory is unfolding?

Assoc. Prof. Kazi A. S. M. Nurul Huda: So, you mentioned three trajectories: one is a consolidation pathway, another is a hybrid order, and the third is a cycle of instability. As a person, I am an optimist. I think that if the current political parties—those in power and those in the opposition—behave responsibly, then we do not have to retreat. This is a moment that we should seize and use to look forward to a better future.

However, to understand whether we are moving forward or backward, we need to look at certain indicators. For example, we need to see whether elections in Bangladesh take place regularly, whether those elections are fair, and how opposition parties are treated by the ruling party. We also need to observe whether security forces behave impartially or whether the government uses security forces to pursue its own political agenda.

Another important factor is whether the bureaucracy functions properly and whether citizens are able to enjoy their fundamental and human rights. If we examine these indicators over the next two or three years, we will be able to predict where Bangladesh is actually heading.

If we see that these indicators are improving and functioning well, then we can hope for and predict a democratic and sustainable future. In that case, Bangladesh may develop into a stable democracy that does not repeatedly slip into instability.

Dr. Samzir Ahmed.

Samzir Ahmed: Institutionalization Is an Acid Test for Populist Politics in Bangladesh

by Editor’s ChoiceHomeInterviews

Bangladesh’s 2026 election—the first since the 2024 uprising that toppled Sheikh Hasina—has been widely framed as a democratic turning point. Yet in this interview with the ECPS,  Samzir Ahmed, a Bangladeshi politics expert, argues that the moment should be interpreted more cautiously. Rather than a democratic restoration, he describes the upheaval primarily as “a restoration of politics itself,” following what he calls a long period of depoliticization.  Ahmed contends that the institutionalization of actors such as Jamaat-e-Islami represents a critical turning point, emphasizing that “institutionalization is an acid test for populist politics.” While populist and Islamist movements often thrive outside formal power structures, their integration into institutional politics may fundamentally reshape their strategies—and expose new constraints on their influence.

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

Bangladesh’s February 2026 general election marked the country’s first national vote since the Gen Z–led uprising of August 2024 that toppled Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina after fifteen years in power. The uprising followed a violent crackdown on protesters that, according to UN reporting, left around 1,400 people dead and precipitated the collapse of one of South Asia’s most entrenched hybrid regimes. Widely viewed as a test of whether Bangladesh could transition from revolutionary protest to institutional politics, the election unfolded largely peacefully. Turnout approached 60%, and many voters described the moment as an opportunity to cast ballots “without fear” after years of elections marred by intimidation and allegations of manipulation.

The results reshaped the country’s political landscape. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), led by Tarique Rahman—who returned to Bangladesh in December 2025 after seventeen years in exile—won a sweeping victory with roughly 212 parliamentary seats, returning the party to power after two decades. The Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami–led alliance secured about 77 seats, marking its strongest parliamentary showing and establishing it as the principal opposition. Alongside the parliamentary vote, citizens also endorsed the reform-oriented “July Charter” in a referendum, which proposes significant constitutional reforms, including term limits for the prime minister, bicameralism, and strengthened judicial independence. Yet the broader political transition remains contested: the Awami League was barred from contesting the election, Sheikh Hasina remains in exile in India following a war-crimes conviction, and debates over justice, accountability, and political inclusion continue to shape Bangladesh’s fragile post-uprising order.

Against this volatile backdrop, the incoming BNP government faces daunting challenges: rebuilding institutions weakened by years of authoritarian consolidation, restoring law and order after a turbulent transitional period, reviving an economy strained by inflation and youth unemployment, and navigating complex regional diplomacy as India, the United States, and Pakistan recalibrate relations with Dhaka. These overlapping pressures raise a deeper question about whether the 2026 election represents a genuine democratic turning point—or merely the beginning of another cycle in Bangladesh’s long history of majoritarian power and polarized politics.

In this interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Samzir Ahmed, Lecturer at the Department of Bangla at Netrokona University, offers a sobering interpretation of this moment. Drawing on his concept of the “compromised strongman,” Ahmed argues that the election should not be interpreted as a democratic restoration. Rather, he situates the upheaval within a deeper historical pattern in which Bangladesh oscillates between depoliticization and renewed political mobilization. As he explains, the country had been experiencing “a long trend of depoliticization,” and the July uprising marked a rupture that represents primarily “a restoration of politics itself.” In his words, “democracy, however, remains far away.”

Ahmed also highlights the structural dynamics behind the BNP’s victory and the reconfiguration of Bangladesh’s ideological landscape. While the election signals a rightward shift in political gravity, he notes that such a development reflects a longer process that accelerated during the final years of Hasina’s rule. At the same time, the institutionalization of Islamist political forces—particularly the emergence of Jamaat-e-Islami as the main parliamentary opposition—signals a transformation in how populist and religious movements operate within Bangladesh’s political system. For Ahmed, this transition is crucial because “institutionalization is an acid test for populist politics.” Populist movements, he suggests, often flourish when they remain outside formal power structures but face new constraints once they become embedded within institutions.

More broadly, Ahmed situates the country’s current uncertainties within the unresolved dual nationalist structure that has shaped Bangladeshi politics since independence. With the Awami League banned and its leadership in exile or imprisoned, the political vacuum raises unresolved questions about representation and polarization. Whether secular constituencies will eventually reorganize under a revived Awami League, find accommodation within the BNP, or generate a new political formation remains uncertain.

Moreover, Ahmed reflects on the generational dynamics unleashed by the student-led uprising that triggered the transition. The protests, he argues, reflected “generational frustration with traditional patronist-centric politics.” Yet the digital hyperconnectivity that enabled rapid mobilization against authoritarian rule may simultaneously complicate the creation of durable political alternatives. In one of the interview’s most striking observations, Ahmed captures this dilemma succinctly: “The present is denied, but the future is not invited either.”

Ahmed’s reflections suggest that Bangladesh is entering another phase of intense political contestation rather than a settled democratic transition. Whether the July Charter reforms, ideological reconciliation, and institutional reconstruction can transform this turbulent moment into genuine democratic consolidation remains, for now, an open question.

Here is the edited version of our interview with Samzir Ahmed, revised slightly to improve clarity and flow.

Strongman Politics Has Always Been a Structural Possibility in Bangladesh

Bangladesh elections.
A woman casts her ballot at a polling station during Bangladesh’s general election in Dhaka, January 7, 2024. Photo: Mamunur Rashid / Dreamstime.

The 2026 election has been described as both a democratic restoration and an ideological rightward shift. In light of your concept of the “compromised strongman,” do you interpret the BNP’s supermajority as a democratic reset—or as the beginning of a new configuration of strongman politics under altered ideological conditions?

Samzir Ahmed: I would not describe it as a democratic restoration. Rather, I would say that Bangladesh has been experiencing a long trend of depoliticization. The July upheaval—or uprising—marked a significant break in that trajectory. In this sense, what we are witnessing is, first and foremost, a restoration of politics itself. Democracy, however, remains far away.

I do agree that a rightward shift is taking place, but it is largely a continuation of a process that began several decades ago and gained considerable momentum during Hasina’s time in power. It was the outcome of the compromise that I discussed in my paper. Strongman politics has always been a structural possibility in Bangladesh. The ban on our military’s political activities has also contributed to this dynamic. At this stage, what matters most is the nature and depth of this new form of re-politicization and how it will shape the future trajectory of politics in the country.

Given your argument that democratic erosion in Bangladesh is rooted in unresolved nationalist fractures, how should we interpret the BNP’s two-thirds majority? Does it risk reproducing the same executive centralization that enabled Sheikh Hasina’s consolidation?

Samzir Ahmed: I think the BNP lacks a strong ideological rhetoric. That is a major problem for the party. Their brand of Bangladeshi nationalism, although it sounds inclusive, has always tilted toward the right. For now, the nationalist structure is dormant—albeit very temporarily. However, with the resurgence of Islamist politics, the factional divide is bound to return with greater force. So that would be my take on this.

The Banning of the Awami League Has Created a Political Vacuum in the Secular Bloc

You argue that split nationalist identity has repeatedly destabilized democratic consolidation. How does the banning of the Awami League reshape that dual nationalist structure? Does exclusion deepen polarization or temporarily suppress it?

Samzir Ahmed: Yes, it is going to deepen polarization. The question is: who is going to represent the secular bloc? In this election, they voted for the BNP, but historically Awami movement—at least on paper or during elections—represented them. Their activities have been banned, and their major leaders are either fugitives or in jail. So, there is now a vacuum. The unresolved question, then, is whether the deepening split will make their return inevitable, whether the BNP will serve as a proxy, or whether a new party will emerge. At this moment, however, I am not very hopeful about the third option. So, we are essentially left to choose between the other two possibilities.

With Jamaat-e-Islami emerging as the principal opposition, do we see a normalization of political Islam and Islamist populism within parliamentary competition—or the institutionalization of the religious pole in Bangladesh’s long-standing nationalist split?

Samzir Ahmed: Yes, we are witnessing a normalization of political Islam and its institutionalization. However, I see this as an advancement in a particular sense. For a long time, Jamaat-e-Islami has practiced politics in a rather unpolitical way. They run school programs and try to influence school students. Even when they ask for votes, they tend to present themselves as some kind of Islamic messiah. In universities, they have run campaigns such as “I Hate Politics” or “We Don’t Want Politics on Campus.” Their success is evident in their clean sweep of student union elections.

Now, as they appear more visibly in an institutional political form, the rhetoric of anti-politics is likely to lose its force. This rhetoric— “I hate politics”—served Jamaat-e-Islami very well for a long time. But as they move more openly into the political arena, that narrative is unlikely to remain effective.

So, as they have now formally entered politics in a more visible way, something interesting is really taking shape. I am not saying that they were not formally present in politics before, but their strategy was largely unpolitical. Now they are losing that strategy, which is why I say that something interesting is unfolding.

The Uprising Was Against Something—Not Clearly for Something

Bangladesh elections.
Voters line up outside a polling station in Feni during Bangladesh’s 13th national election on February 12, 2026. The scene reflects the high voter turnout of approximately 59.44% in this historic “Gen Z-inspired” election held under the interim government led by Muhammad Yunus. Photo: Belayet Hossain / Dreamstime.

The student-led uprising that toppled Hasina seemed to signal generational democratic aspirations. Yet the National Citizen Party’s limited electoral success suggests something more complex. Does this reflect ideological fragmentation, populist volatility, or structural resistance to centrist pluralism?

Samzir Ahmed: I think something more complex is at play. The uprising was against something, but not clearly for something. So, the signal should be read as generational frustration with traditional patronist-centric politics, rather than a straightforward aspiration for democracy.

The NCP’s political trajectory suggests that they were never actually prepared for this moment or for the kind of political opportunity they have enjoyed. In the age of digital hyperconnectivity, which facilitates a new wave of populist politics, it is relatively easier to build consensus against power. But this form of connectivity, at the same time, makes it equally difficult to rebuild or reconstruct our polity. The present is denied, but the future is not invited either.

You note that radical right groups in Bangladesh historically function as “kingmakers” despite limited electoral dominance. In the current context, is Islamism transitioning from pressure politics to institutionalized parliamentary leverage?

Samzir Ahmed: Yes, they have gained leverage, but it may work in their favor—or it may risk their future. I think institutionalization is an acid test for populist politics. Populist politics functions really well when such actors are not in power or not operating within an institutionalized setting.

In Bangladesh, although Jamaat-e-Islami is now positioned as the opponent, we have to keep in mind that it has historically been a close ally of the BNP. So, they are likely to enjoy some share of power. In that sense, they will gain leverage, but that leverage also comes with risks.

Opposing Women’s Empowerment Is Politically Counterproductive

Reports of increasing gender-based anxieties and Islamist rhetoric during the election cycle suggest a societal shift. Do you interpret this as an organic religious revival, a strategic mobilization by political elites, or a symptom of nationalist identity re-negotiation?

Samzir Ahmed: I do not think the increasing gender-based anxiety suggests a broader social shift. Jamaat-e-Islami generated controversy by taking a position against women’s leadership and empowerment. They are ideologically bound to produce such controversies unless they prioritize voting strategy over ideology. But this has already proved counterproductive.

Female participation in education and in the labour market is very high in Bangladesh, and women’s political participation is also rising. So, going against women’s empowerment may prove counterproductive for any political party. I am not forgetting that there are other forms of gender identity, but female identity has found a place in populist rhetoric, while others have not.

Institutional Design Alone Cannot Resolve Political Contradictions

If the July Charter’s constitutional reforms (term limits, bicameralism, judicial independence) are only partially implemented, does this reinforce your thesis that institutional design alone cannot overcome foundational nationalist contradictions?

Samzir Ahmed: That’s an interesting question. The future of the July Charter is very unclear at the moment. Foundational nationalist contradictions are political problems, and they cannot be solved simply through institutional design. I myself proposed a design for police reform. But without political resolutions, these reform initiatives are bound to face difficulties. We have some good laws, but the problem is that we are not in any shortage of ways to bypass them.

For example, faculty recruitment in universities is highly politicized. Previously, recruitment was only merit-based. To ensure better accountability, many universities introduced written examinations, but that has become even more problematic. Delays are often created during the written examination stage. Politically biased recruitment can now even find written evidence in its favor. So, I could give any number of such examples. In that sense, I reassert my position that institutional design alone cannot overcome foundational nationalist contradictions, which is fundamentally a political problem.

Public Support for Both Democracy and Sharia Is an Enigma

Bangladesh politics.
Supporters gather at an election rally of the Jamaat-e-Islami–led alliance in Feni, Bangladesh, on January 30, 2026, ahead of the national elections. Photo: Borhan Uddin Nishan / Dreamstime.

You describe Bangladesh’s democratic oscillation as driven by “anti-incumbency” rooted in split identity. Has the 2026 election broken this cycle, or does it represent another turn in a structurally reactionary political pattern?

Samzir Ahmed: I think it represents another turn in a structurally reactionary political pattern. The BNP-led government has already started receiving serious backlash, at least in the digital sphere. So, I think it is going to be another turn, but it is still early days. We have to wait and see how it unfolds.

In your analysis, strongman leaders have historically sought legitimacy through Islamization. Could the BNP now rely less on populist compromise and more on explicit religious-nationalist consolidation—or would that destabilize its broader electoral coalition?

Samzir Ahmed: It is an interesting scenario. While autocratic leaders have always used varying degrees of Islamic legitimacy, the situation for the BNP is quite unprecedented. Structurally, direct Islamic rule may appear to be the easiest option if they move toward electoral autocracy. However, this time they came to power with substantial secular support. So, this is very new. The future is, therefore, very challenging for the BNP.

Survey data cited in your work suggest simultaneous support for democracy and Sharia-based governance. How should scholars interpret this apparent normative contradiction? Is it cognitive dissonance, layered sovereignty, or alternative conceptions of democratic legitimacy?

Samzir Ahmed: The recent survey by Prothom Alo, the major national daily in Bangladesh, has also shown strikingly similar results, depicting overwhelming support for both Islamic law and democracy. So, this requires serious further research. I would prefer to avoid being speculative here, but it is a kind of enigma that I am genuinely interested in exploring further. Perhaps in the near future.

Bangladesh’s Foreign Policy Direction Remains Unclear

With renewed balancing among India, China, Pakistan, and the United States, how does Bangladesh’s foreign policy reflect its unresolved nationalist duality—particularly between anti-Indian sentiment and pragmatic economic alignment?

Samzir Ahmed: The BNP-led government’s foreign policy is still not very clear. There are some hints, but there are still many things to watch for. At the same time, there is constant pressure from the United States regarding some controversial agreements. However, anti-Indian sentiment has had a rollercoaster trajectory in Bangladesh. It rises whenever the Awami League is in power and declines when its opponent holds power. So, this dynamic is very much connected to the reactionary political pattern.

Comparatively, do you see Bangladesh moving toward competitive authoritarianism, hybrid populism, or another variant of strongman governance? How does your “compromised strongman” framework travel beyond Hasina to the current moment?

Samzir Ahmed: It is still very early to comment on this. I see the election as the institutionalization of another cycle of re-politicization. However, the structural possibility and template for strongman politics are always there. So, autocratic solutions are traditionally available. What a government needs is the right kind of problem. So, yes, I see it in this way.

Democratic Consolidation Requires Reconciliation First

And lastly, your article suggests that the failure to build a cohesive nation of equal citizens underpins authoritarian drift. What would genuine democratic consolidation require in Bangladesh: institutional reform, ideological reconciliation, or a re-founding narrative of national identity?

Samzir Ahmed: Bangladesh needs all three. If I were to rank them, I would put ideological or political reconciliation first. Then, based on that reconciliation, a re-founding narrative of national identity. And finally, institutional reform. Institutional reform, which has been given much emphasis this time, would therefore come last in this order. So, yes, I think Bangladesh needs all three.