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 with No Comment 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 with No Comment 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.

Professor Jeffrey Kopstein.

Prof. Kopstein: Trumpism, Better Understood in Patrimonial Terms, Treats the State as a Family Business

by Editor’s ChoiceHomeInterviewsLeadership & Persona

Professor Jeffrey Kopstein argues that Trumpism is best analyzed not primarily as populism, but as patrimonial rule—where “the state itself becomes an extension of the ruler’s household” and governance turns into “a family business.” In this ECPS interview, Professor Kopstein distinguishes patrimonialism from classic competitive authoritarianism: rather than merely “tilting the playing field,” patrimonial leaders seek to “own the entire field.” He traces how loyalty tests, selective legality, and the “monetization of office” reshape elite incentives and accelerate institutional hollowing. Drawing on Weberian theory, Professor Kopstein warns that irreversibility arrives when career survival depends on pleasing a patron rather than serving an office—and when the line between public and private interests starts to seem “quaint.” The interview also examines selective impunity, conditional judicial autonomy, personalized coercion, and why democratic resistance must target structural vulnerabilities rather than “waiting for collapse.”

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

Giving an interview to the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Jeffrey Kopstein, Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Irvine, offers a conceptually rigorous reinterpretation of Trumpism that moves beyond the familiar vocabulary of populism and competitive authoritarianism. Anchored in Weberian state theory and comparative authoritarianism, Professor Kopstein argues that the most analytically precise framework for understanding the contemporary transformation of American governance is patrimonialism—a form of rule in which the state is treated as the personal domain of the leader. As he memorably puts it, under patrimonial logic “the state itself becomes an extension of the ruler’s household,” collapsing the boundary between public authority and private interest and turning governance into what he repeatedly calls “a family business.”

Professor Kopstein’s intervention challenges dominant scholarly narratives that focus primarily on rhetoric, electoral manipulation, or ideological polarization. While competitive authoritarianism “rigs the game,” he contends, patrimonialism seeks something more radical: ownership of the system itself. In his words, the logic is “not simply to tilt the playing field, but to own the entire field.” This shift, he suggests, captures a deeper transformation from constitutional republicanism toward personalized rule structured by loyalty, selective legality, and the monetization of office. Trumpism, he argues, is best understood through this lens because its defining features—“loyalty tests, public humiliation of subordinates, monetization of office, and the personalization of coercive authority”—are not incidental pathologies but the governing principle of the system.

A central theme of the interview is institutional hollowing. Drawing on Max Weber’s theory of modern bureaucracy, Professor Kopstein explains how privileging personal loyalty over professional expertise erodes state capacity from within. When career advancement depends on pleasing the patron rather than serving impersonal offices, information deteriorates, policy becomes erratic, and public goods provision declines. The critical threshold, he warns, is reached when citizens and elites alike lose the ability to distinguish between public and private interests—when that distinction begins to seem “quaint.” At that point, patrimonial consolidation is effectively complete.

Equally significant is Professor Kopstein’s analysis of elite incentives. When public office becomes a revenue stream, neutrality becomes costly and adaptation becomes rational. Economic success increasingly depends not on market entrepreneurship but on proximity to power, reversing the conventional liberal assumption that wealth generates political influence. In patrimonial systems, he notes, the causal arrow often runs in the opposite direction: political power produces wealth. This dynamic helps explain why scandals, legal controversies, or reputational crises frequently fail to weaken such regimes. Surviving scandal without consequences signals immunity and reinforces an aura of invincibility among supporters.

By reframing Trumpism as a patrimonial project rather than merely a populist movement, Professor Kopstein invites scholars to redirect analytical attention from mass ideology to elite control over institutions, resources, and coercive capacity. The interview thus situates contemporary American politics within a broader comparative perspective on personalist rule, offering a sobering account of how democratic systems can be gradually transformed without the overt dismantling of formal institutions.

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

Not Tilting the Field but Owning It: Trumpism as Patrimonial Rule

US President Donald Trump delivers a speech to voters at an event in Phoenix, Arizona. Photo: Danny Raustadt.

Professor Jeffrey Kopstein, thank you so much for joining our interview series. Let me start right away with the first question: In your Persuasion article, you argue that Trumpism represents a shift from constitutional republicanism toward patrimonial rule. Conceptually, how does this transformation differ from classic competitive authoritarianism, and why does patrimonialism better capture the logic of power under Trump?

Professor Jeffrey Kopstein: First of all, thanks so much for having me. Competitive authoritarianism—I’m not a specialist on exactly that concept, but I’ve read it, and I know Lucan Way very well—refers to regimes that manipulate electoral competition while preserving institutional arenas as sites of contestation. Elections still matter, courts still operate, and opposition exists, albeit under constraints.

By contrast, patrimonialism treats the state itself as an extension of the ruler’s household. It becomes a family business. Offices turn into instruments of personal loyalty, law is applied selectively, and the boundaries—most importantly—between public power and private benefit collapse. The logic here is not simply, to use their language, to tilt the playing field, but to own the entire field. In this view, the state is a family business.

Stephen Hanson and I argue that Trumpism is better understood in patrimonial terms because its defining features are loyalty tests, public humiliation of subordinates, monetization of office, and the personalization of coercive authority. These are not incidental excesses; they are the governing principle. If I could leave you with a sound bite, competitive authoritarianism rigs the game, whereas patrimonialism claims ownership of the stadium.

When Pleasing the Patron Overrides Serving the Office

Drawing on Weberian theory and your work on modern statehood, how does the systematic privileging of personal loyalty over bureaucratic expertise in the US reshape state capacity—and at what point does institutional hollowing become politically irreversible?

Professor Jeffrey Kopstein: Let’s go back to Weber. It’s always the right thing to do. Weber argued that modern statehood depends on impersonal offices and expertise. When loyalty replaces competence, three things happen: information degrades, exits increase, and compliance becomes politicized. Policies become erratic, feedback loops collapse, and public goods deteriorate.

Irreversibility sets in not in a single legal moment, but when expectations shift—when career incentives depend on pleasing the patron rather than serving the office. At that point, even restoration-minded elites begin to hesitate to act.

So, there is no single point of no return, but it arrives when survival in government depends on loyalty rather than competence. We are not in a perfect patrimonial world yet in the United States. The way I would put it is this: our notion of the state depends on a clear separation between the public interest and the private interest. When we are no longer able to understand that difference, when it seems quaint, then we will know that the patrimonial regime has fully consolidated.

From Market Entrepreneurship to Proximity to Power

Caricature: Shutterstock.

You describe the Trump presidency as collapsing the boundary between public authority and private enrichment. How does this blurring alter elite incentives, especially among business, judicial, and security elites who must decide whether to resist, adapt, or profit?

Professor Jeffrey Kopstein: It’s a really important question. Clearly, Trump has been very busy turning the state into a family business, and as we say in the article, business is booming. When public office becomes monetizable, elites shift incentives toward adaptation and profit rather than resistance. And we see that already. We see that with chip makers; rather than economic entrepreneurship, it’s proximity to power that determines whether you are a rich elite. We just saw that this last week with Anthropic and AI.

If you’re out of favor with the government, they can, sort of, crush you. Even in that dust-up between Elon Musk and Trump, it’s super interesting. Here you have the richest man in the world versus the most powerful man in the world, and in that fight, my judgment is Trump crushed him like a bug. It was not close. We’re used to thinking in the United States—and basic political science says—that if you’re rich, that gives you power, that economics determines political power. But in many parts of the world, and at many times in history, it’s actually the reverse: great power yields great wealth. And I think we’re starting to see that in the United States. So, the bottom line is that when office becomes a revenue stream, neutrality becomes a liability.

In Patrimonial Systems, Scandals Create an Aura of Invincibility

How should scholars interpret the political effects of the Epstein files and Trump’s alleged proximity to that scandal—not in moral terms, but as a demonstration of selective impunity within a patrimonial system? Under what conditions do scandals cease to delegitimize power and instead reinforce it?

Professor Jeffrey Kopstein: In patrimonial systems, surviving scandal often reinforces power. Scandals cease to delegitimize authority when media ecosystems are polarized, selective enforcement is normalized, and elites expect law to be wielded strategically rather than neutrally.

So, under these conditions, I think proximity to scandal that produces no consequences signals immunity—that they can’t be punished. And everybody understands this. So, people stop thinking in terms of enforcing the law, or in terms of, is Trump competent? Is he crazy? Is he a pervert? I mean, all of those things become sort of uninteresting. It’s not that people won’t continue to try; it’s that each one of those he survives within a patrimonial regime doesn’t weaken him—it actually strengthens him, because it creates this aura of invincibility.

So, the bottom line is that, in a rule-of-law system, the kinds of things that would have disqualified Trump long ago—in a patrimonial system—succeed, at least for his most ardent followers, in creating, to put it in Weberian terms, for the leader and his staff, a kind of image of strength.

Patrimonial Stability Rests on Ambition, Fear, and Beneficiaries

Comparatively speaking, how does Trump’s apparent insulation from reputational or legal consequences resemble patterns observed in other patrimonial regimes, such as Russia, Turkey, or Hungary? Is this best understood as elite coordination failure or as successful authoritarian learning?

Professor Jeffrey Kopstein: Does it have to be either? It could be both. Insulation from consequences reflects both coordination failure and successful authoritarian learning. The fragmentation of opposition enables consolidation, and we see that with the Democratic Party in the United States right now. It’s somewhat of a mess, although they are trying to find their footing.

In Hungary, we’re going to see what happens. Orban has succeeded, in a sense, in playing the opposition like a fiddle. He appears to be threatened right now, and we will see whether he moves toward a full authoritarian route, as opposed to the competitive authoritarian route, though he may. The same dynamic applies to Turkey as well—though you would know much better than I do. My understanding is that it is also in a similar situation. Over time, rulers manage elites through selective reward and punishment, especially through court-politics dynamics. People at the top, if they begin opposing, either leave—or, if the regime is fully consolidated, as in Russia, they may face physical liquidation.

Now, in most patrimonial regimes, it is not like Russia. You can have patrimonialism in both a democracy and a dictatorship; the line runs orthogonal to the distinction between the two. It is not coterminous with it. Patrimonial stability does not require universal support. It relies on individualized ambition and fear. There are large numbers of distributional beneficiaries of Erdogan, of Orban, of Netanyahu in Israel, and now increasingly of Trump in the United States. So, yes.

Courts Persist Under Patrimonialism but Align in Political Cases

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

You note that courts rarely disappear under patrimonialism but instead become conditionally autonomous. How does the high rate of judicial alignment with Trump administration interests reshape expectations about the judiciary as a democratic backstop?

Professor Jeffrey Kopstein: I think you raise a really important point. Even in a patrimonial regime, even in an authoritarian regime, for the most part courts continue to exist. They handle normal matters—inheritance, ordinary criminal behavior, standard criminal law—but here we are really talking about political cases, cases that deal especially with the power of the executive.

Under those circumstances, the courts begin to align with the patron. You see that somewhat in the United States. There are already things that people on the Court want. Those who, for example, are interested in libertarian ideas hope Trump will deliver them, although Trump is not a pure libertarian. Those interested in Christian nationalism in the United States hope he will give them what they want as well. Those interested in enhanced executive authority—there are some on the Court in that camp too—are also aligned with the Federalist Society and want that outcome. They, of course, expect Trump to deliver it.

That said, there are certain issues on which the Court will resist. We saw that in the case of tariffs, where the Court ruled against Trump. They may still allow him to pursue similar goals by other means. Over time, the Court figures out how far it can contradict the great father figure—which is what patrimonialism actually implies—and where it cannot.

Personalized Coercion Replaces Impersonal Enforcement

From a patrimonial perspective, how does the use of agencies such as ICE—operating with diminished oversight and heightened personal loyalty—alter the relationship between citizens and the state? Does this represent bureaucratic drift or deliberate personalization of coercion?

Professor Jeffrey Kopstein: It could be both, but patrimonialism really highlights the personalization of coercion. If you look at the US budget right now, Trump has, on purpose, cut a huge number of regular bureaucratic jobs, which appears to align exactly with what one would expect Republicans to do. However, the budget has not gone down.

They have actually created this huge new bureaucracy that is personally dependent on Trump, and that’s ICE. And it’s becoming not just a personal empire; it’s becoming something like a real estate empire. They’re acquiring a lot of territory, which, of course, Trump likes—real estate. So this personalization of coercive agencies is deliberate. It takes away not only from legal oversight, but also removes or disempowers people who are not personally dependent on Trump.

Thus, the legal forms remain while the zones of exceptional enforcement expand. When oversight weakens and loyalty is rewarded, enforcement becomes personalized. It becomes somewhat theatrical. The objective is not efficient enforcement, but loyal enforcement. Those two things can overlap, but they can also be very different.

Episodic Force and Symbolic Threat as Tools of Control

Border Patrol agents monitor an anti-ICE protest in downtown Los Angeles, June 8, 2025. Demonstrators rallied against expanded ICE operations and in support of immigrant rights. Photo: Dreamstime.

Unlike 20th-century dictatorships, Trumpism relies less on mass repression and more on episodic coercion and symbolic threat. How much actual violence is necessary for patrimonial consolidation in a mature media democracy?

Professor Jeffrey Kopstein: I’ve written pretty extensively on this. Consolidation does not require mass repression. There has been a lot of discussion of fascism and totalitarianism and all that kind of stuff, Hanson and I worry about it a great deal. But what is probably also true is that selective, visible coercion effectively reshapes expectations. A few exemplary punishments communicate risk pretty broadly. It’s not to say that there won’t continue to be resistance to ICE. We saw that in Minnesota; we’ve seen it in other places. I’m here in California, where we have a pretty active resistance, and our state government—California has 40 million people; it’s a country—has continued to resist. But ICE is still around; it’s in my neighborhood. It doesn’t need to terrorize everyone; it only needs to make everyone calculate as if it could. And that’s the case. It changes expectations.

Succession Anxiety Is the Structural Weakness of Personalist Rule

You argue that succession is the Achilles’ heel of patrimonial regimes. How does Trump’s discourse around a third term function strategically to freeze elite expectations and delay post-Trump realignments?

Professor Jeffrey Kopstein: It’s absolutely crucial. As you said, succession is the Achilles’ heel of a patrimonial regime. Under most circumstances, patrimonialism is the oldest form of government in the world. Under most circumstances, patrimonialism is related to kingship or queenship. It passes on through the royal family. Of course, remaking the state as a family business in the modern world—we don’t have kings or queens anymore—so you would think it would pass through his family. It doesn’t seem all that likely in Trump’s case that the sons are going to be the successors. Interestingly, the daughter Ivanka is probably the most cognitively fit to be the successor. But patrimonial women don’t do very well either.

But the key here is that personalist regimes destabilize when elites anticipate an endpoint. So, signaling negotiable terms that that endpoint may not come freezes expectations and discourages hedging. As the end comes closer, the staff start scrambling like rats on the deck of a sinking ship. And the whole point of this third-term discussion—which he may very well want, and I don’t think he could easily get, but he will try, and it is to be taken extremely seriously as a pressure point against the consolidation of a patrimonial regime—is that it is extremely important that it be opposed, because it’s all about maintaining the leader and his staff. And if the staff see that endpoint, the regime itself becomes destabilized. So, yes, succession anxiety is the Achilles’ heel of a patrimonial regime. All experience shows that.

Populism Explains Mobilization, Patrimonialism Explains Governance

To what extent does labeling Trumpism as “populist” obscure its deeper patrimonial logic? What analytical errors follow if scholars focus too heavily on mass ideology rather than elite control of resources and institutions?

Professor Jeffrey Kopstein: I think it’s really important. On the one hand, populism—most of political science, most scholars, most social science are very interested in this, and populism is part of it—focuses on how people come to power, the rhetoric, the appeal, and how they stay in power. What patrimonialism looks at is something different: it examines what they do when they come to power, how they actually govern. Governance is extremely important, and populism, we think, obscures patrimonial control. It highlights rhetoric.

Patrimonialism highlights elite control over appointments, enforcement, resources—things that populism doesn’t talk about at all. The two aren’t completely contradictory, but they address really different dimensions. So, populism, or dictatorship versus democracy, is part of a discourse concerned with how leaders come to power and stay in power. Patrimonialism is interested in what they do to the state once they come to power. And that’s just something very different.

Foreign Policy as Regime Maintenance by Other Means

US Army.
US Army advances during a demonstration at MCAS Miramar, October 5, 2008. Photo: Anton Hlushchenko / Dreamstime.

How does Trump’s coercive, transactional foreign policy—toward NATO allies, territorial revisionism (as in Greenland), and extraterritorial enforcement—serve domestic patrimonial consolidation rather than traditional strategic goals?

Professor Jeffrey Kopstein: As we’re talking about this, of course, the world’s foreign policies are in great flux and turmoil with what’s going on in the Middle East. One of the things about patrimonialism is that patrimonial leaders, because they have a very traditionalist view, no longer see borders as legal; they view them as historical and traditional—fuzzy, if you will—and that really works at odds with the modern world.

Even more important than that, they view their relations with other countries, as you said, as transactional. Transactional diplomacy dramatizes sovereignty and creates distributable rents for loyalists. So, who’s going to control Greenland? Will it be Donald Trump Jr. creating mines for strategic minerals that university professors will be forced to work in like a gulag? I don’t think so, but that’s the idea.

So, foreign policy becomes a sort of regime maintenance by other means. It’s an extension. Traditional international relations tends to ignore the makeup, the regime type, of domestic politics, but we think that foreign policy—and Trump’s foreign policy in particular—is especially driven by this domestic makeup, by domestic politics.

Patrimonial Stability Depends on Cohesion Between Leader and Staff

From a comparative international perspective, how likely is it that sustained allied resistance and strategic balancing against the United States could feed back into domestic regime instability—or do patrimonial rulers generally externalize such costs successfully?

Professor Jeffrey Kopstein: They can. It’s an excellent question, and we don’t have a great answer to that, to be honest. But, on the one hand, foreign wars—and we’re in one right now—can produce a sort of rally-around-the-flag phenomenon, although in the United States right now my understanding is that the war, the bombing of Iran, is not very popular.

But here’s the point: external resistance destabilizes only if it fractures key domestic elites. That’s the point. Again, Weber and patrimonialism tells us, that you need to look at the relationship between the leader and his staff.

And so it only works—it only destabilizes—if it fractures the elites underneath the leader. And why? Because balancing imposes costs. Destabilization occurs when those costs split the coalition. So, that’s how I would answer that, although our emphasis is really not on foreign policy. But it’s an important question.

When the State Becomes a Family Business, Public Goods Deteriorate

You emphasize that patrimonial regimes are structurally bad at providing public goods. What kinds of policy failures—climate disasters, pandemics, financial crises—are most likely to puncture the aura of inevitability surrounding Trumpism?

Professor Jeffrey Kopstein: What you would expect from a patrimonial regime, as you said quite correctly, is that as a bureaucracy based on merit recruitment is degraded and becomes a plaything of the family business, you would see a systematic under-provision of public goods, or only those public goods that serve the interests of the extended household of the leader being provided. So, you’d expect two things to happen. One—and the one you pointed to—is that when we need the state to respond to disasters, and we saw this with COVID, but you can also see it with financial crises and other kinds of public health breakdowns, there is an institutional halt. When we need the state, what the state represents under those circumstances is a hedge against disaster. And so we need the state, and we may not have it.

I’m living here in California. We get earthquakes. If we need the state after a really bad earthquake, if it has been degraded enough, we won’t have it. But there’s a second type of deterioration that is slower moving, and that is the under-provision of public goods for things like roads, bridges, and airports. Over time, what you should see is public infrastructure decaying, and we already have that in the United States, and it’s going to get worse. I live next to the second-largest city in the United States, Los Angeles, and the airport here is like a third-world airport. It’s not really being built up or maintained. That’s called LAX (Los Angeles International Airport). You should expect to see much of the public infrastructure in the United States start to look more and more like LAX.

Effective Opposition Raises the Costs of Loyalty and Lowers the Costs of Exit

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

And finally, Professor Kopstein, given your critique of “waiting for collapse,” what forms of democratic resistance are most effective against patrimonial rule? Specifically, how can opposition forces exploit structural weaknesses—succession anxiety, declining popularity, and governance failure—without reinforcing siege narratives?

Professor Jeffrey Kopstein: That’s the hardest question you’ve asked yet, but I want to reinforce the assumption we make, and as we wrote in this article, that we should not expect scandal, incompetence, the Supreme Court, nor foreign policy failures to save us. None of those things will probably work. Patrimonial leaders are pretty good at dealing with all of them. The weaknesses of patrimonialism, as we’ve been discussing, are much more structural, as you said quite explicitly. They’re slow-moving. They’re unspectacular. So, we’ve talked about splits, succession failures, institutional hollowing—things that are slow-moving and fly under the radar. That is why it is so difficult for us to deal with this type of regime, to understand it, and to expose it.

So, I think focusing on succession and undermining inevitability is key. That is why each congressional House race matters: if you can show that the Democrats won by more than expected, or that Trump did not win by as much as he expected in a particular district, that punctures the aura of inevitability. Most important is to connect governance failures to institutional hollowing. That is the key weak point here—to connect those two—and to avoid rhetoric that is easily reframed as elite disdain. The bottom line is: don’t wait for collapse. Raise the costs of loyalty, fracture the elite, and lower the costs of exit.

Dr. Soheila Shahriari

Dr. Shahriari: Without Western Recognition, Rojava Lacks Leverage to Secure a Lasting Power-Sharing Deal with Damascus

by Foreign PolicyHomeInterviewsSocial Media

In this ECPS interview, Dr. Soheila Shahriari offers a theoretically grounded diagnosis of Rojava’s most precarious post-ISIS moment. She argues that the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria should be understood not as a wartime improvisation, but as a long-evolving counter-hegemonic project rooted in democratic confederalism, gender equality, pluralism, and social ecology. Yet Dr. Shahriari underscores a stark geopolitical constraint: without formal recognition and enforceable guarantees from Western actors—especially the EU and the United States—Rojava lacks the diplomatic leverage to secure a durable decentralized settlement with Damascus. The interview explores how instrumental Western engagement, Turkey’s securitization paradigm, and Syria’s recentralization drive converge to endanger non-state democratic experiments. It also examines diaspora mobilization, the global resonance of Kurdish women’s politics, and the fragile future of local partnerships in conflict zones.

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

Giving an interview to the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Dr. Soheila Shahriari from École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in France offers a wide-ranging and theoretically grounded assessment of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (Rojava) at a moment of profound uncertainty. As shifting regional alignments, great-power bargaining, and Syrian state consolidation converge to narrow the space for Kurdish self-rule, Dr. Shahriari situates Rojava not merely as a wartime anomaly but as a counter-hegemonic democratic experiment struggling to survive in an international system dominated by state sovereignty, realpolitik, and authoritarian resurgence. The interview is organized around a central warning captured in the headline: Without formal recognition and protection from Western actors, Rojava lacks the diplomatic leverage necessary to secure a durable decentralized settlement with Damascus.

Dr. Shahriari argues that the current crisis stems less from military weakness than from structural diplomatic isolation. Despite their decisive role in defeating ISIS alongside the United States, Kurdish-led forces failed to convert battlefield legitimacy into institutional guarantees. The January ceasefire and negotiations over integration into Syrian state structures illustrate the narrowing options available to the Autonomous Administration under pressure from Damascus, Ankara, and shifting US priorities. In this context, Dr. Shahriari emphasizes that external recognition is not symbolic but constitutive of survival: without enforceable guarantees from actors such as the European Union and the United States, any decentralization arrangement risks becoming a temporary tactical compromise rather than a stable power-sharing order.

At the same time, the interview highlights the distinctive ideological and institutional character of the Rojava project. Dr. Shahriari describes it as an anti-statist political paradigm rooted in democratic confederalism, gender equality, pluralism, and ecological principles—an alternative model of governance emerging amid global democratic recession and Middle Eastern authoritarian consolidation. The conversation also explores how women-led institutions function as a “symbolic infrastructure” of resilience, how diaspora activism and transnational networks have reshaped Kurdish political imaginaries, and how the global visibility of Kurdish women fighters transformed international legitimacy. Yet these achievements, she notes, have not translated into formal diplomatic recognition, leaving the experiment vulnerable to geopolitical bargaining among states.

The interview also examines the structural limits of liberal internationalism and the instrumental nature of Western engagement with non-state democratic actors. Dr. Shahriari contends that Western powers’ prioritization of strategic alliances—particularly with Turkey—over normative commitments has undermined both Rojava’s prospects and the credibility of democratic rhetoric. Consequently, the future of Kurdish self-administration depends not only on negotiations with Damascus but on whether Western governments are willing to move from tactical cooperation to institutional protection.

Ultimately, Dr. Shahriari frames Rojava’s predicament as emblematic of a broader tension in contemporary world politics: the clash between innovative democratic experiments and an international order still organized around sovereign states and security competition. Whether Rojava becomes a model of negotiated decentralization or a casualty of regional power politics, she concludes, will depend on the availability of credible external guarantees—without which even the most resilient non-state democracy faces structural vulnerability.

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

Rojava Should Be Read as a Post-National Political Project, not a Wartime Anomaly

Kurdish demonstrators protest Turkey and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s military operation in northern Syria, expressing support for Rojava and the YPG in Prague, Czech Republic on October 17, 2019. Photo: Dreamstime.

Dr. Soheila Shahriari, thank you so much for joining our interview series. Let me start right away with the first question: Your research frames Rojava as a counter-hegemonic democratic experiment emerging amid global democratic recession and Middle Eastern authoritarian consolidation. To what extent should Rojava be understood as a transformative model of post-nation-state governance versus a context-specific survival mechanism born of state collapse, particularly in a regional environment shaped by authoritarian resilience and populist Islamism and nationalism?

Dr. Soheila Shahriari: Thank you for having me. This is a very interesting question. I think reducing Rojava to a context-specific survival mechanism born of state collapse is analytically insufficient. While the collapse of state authority during the Syrian Civil War created the structural opening for Rojava’s institutional experiment, this was, to use Michel Foucault’s terms, a condition of possibility rather than the cause of Rojava’s emergence. These are two distinct things. Many argue that a power vacuum in Syria, combined with the withdrawal of Bashar al-Assad’s forces, explains Rojava’s emergence. But this was merely a facilitating condition, not the primary cause, and it is a somewhat simplistic way of understanding the issue.

Rojava can be described as post-national in some respects, but it differs from structures such as the European Union due to its distinct sociopolitical development and historical contingencies. It is better understood as an anti-state progressive political project grounded in women’s rights, pluralism, and ecological principles, operating within a hostile and authoritarian Middle Eastern environment.

It represents the institutionalization of a political paradigm that evolved over decades within the Kurdish movement, particularly through the theoretical trajectories associated with Abdullah Öcalan. The shift from Marxist-Leninist national liberation to democratic confederalism reflects a deep epistemological transformation—a move away from state sovereignty toward decentralized, council-based, multiethnic self-governance. Its pillars—radical democracy, women’s liberation, pluralism, and social ecology—are therefore not improvised wartime adaptations, but the product of sustained ideological development.

Rojava Transformed the Kurdish Imaginary from Ethno-Nationalism to Gender-Equal Pluralism

In your dissertation, you analyze how the Rojava revolution reshaped the Kurdish national imaginary in the diaspora, particularly through gender equality and pluralism. How has this transnational reconfiguration fed back into political mobilization within Kurdish regions themselves?

Dr. Soheila Shahriari: When we are talking about the Kurdish diaspora, we have to move beyond the conventional understanding of diaspora because of the particular situation of Kurdistan. Kurdistan has a very distinct dynamism in terms of its diaspora community, marked by intensely reciprocal political, cultural, and social engagement and ties between different parts of Kurdistan and the West. Political developments in one area feed directly and immediately into others. They are highly interconnected, forming a transnational political space shaped by the unique circumstances of the Kurdish question.

So, the Rojava Revolution has fundamentally reshaped the Kurdish national imaginary in my research, shifting it from a traditional nationalist framework toward a radically gender-equal and pluralistic new system of being. This transformation affects Kurds as a whole, not just in the diaspora or in the West. Evidence for this claim includes the women-led uprising in Kurdistan, inspired very directly by the slogan “Woman, Life, Freedom” (Jin, Jiyan, Azadi), which was the very first slogan of Rojava’s gender revolution.

This is one clear example of how developments in Rojava have fed back into Kurdistan itself. The influence from Rojava toward diaspora communities in the West, and the domino effect of Rojava across the Middle East, was visible in the women-led uprising in Rojhelat, or Iranian Kurdistan. It also elevated Kurdish actors as agents of democratization across the region, not just in Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) but more broadly in the Middle East. Politically, this influence is visible in coalition-building and pluralistic alliances.

By coalition-building, I mean Rojava’s alliances with democratic forces—Arabs, Assyrians, Chaldeans, and other minorities—which have inspired Kurdish actors, especially in Iranian Kurdistan, to build coalitions with other national minorities across Iran against authoritarian central regimes. These are two telling examples of Rojava’s domino effect in the Middle East, especially in Iran: the women-led uprising in Iranian Kurdistan in 2022 and coalition-building with other national minority forces inside Iran, inspired by the same experience.

Women-Led Governance Is the Backbone of Rojava

Kurdish demonstrators
Protest by Kurdish demonstrators following attacks on Rojava in northern Syria, Trier, Germany, January 24, 2026.

You argue that women-led governance structures in Rojava function as a “symbolic infrastructure” of democratic resilience. How sustainable is this feminist institutional architecture under conditions of militarization, economic blockade, diplomatic isolation, and the surrounding pressures of authoritarian and autocratic regimes?

Dr. Soheila Shahriari: First of all, the sustainability and mobility of Rojava’s feminist institutional architecture rests on its own radical resilience. Women-led governance structures, as you mentioned, are not merely symbolic but constitute foundational pillars of the political project. This is evident in the practical effectiveness of structures such as the co-presidency system, “Jineology” as an intellectual foundation of Rojava, the metamorphosis of the justice system in Rojava, and women-friendly structures like Mala Jin (Women’s Houses), the eco-feminist village of Jinwar, and women’s self-defense initiatives like the Women’s Protection Units (YPJ). These structures have demonstrated durability over a decade of conflict, yet their long-term viability is constrained by a geopolitical zero-sum game.

Again, the engagement of Rojava with Western allies in the fight against ISIS involved immense sacrifices, with 11,000 or 12,000 lives lost in the fight against ISIS, without securing formal international recognition or protection from Western allies. The problem starts here. When we look at the fragility and vulnerability of Rojava today, the crux of the matter is that Rojava made extraordinary sacrifices against the international threat of ISIS, yet this was a zero-sum game for Kurdish actors in Rojava. They did not succeed in securing international recognition or protection from the West.

As you mentioned in your question, the feminist governance model faces severe existential threats from militarization, economic blockade, and the hostility of neighboring states, particularly Turkey, as well as pressure from the central Syrian state of Ahmed al-Shara. In this context, its stability and durability hinge on sustained engagement with Western democracies, which must be held accountable, as a moral necessity, to defend Rojava’s democratic and gender-progressive structures against broader authoritarian and Islamist dynamics.

Decentralization Requires External Guarantees

With the recent military setbacks and integration pressures from Damascus, do you see the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) transitioning from a de facto autonomous entity toward negotiated decentralization, or facing structural dismantlement within a re-centralized Syrian state increasingly characterized by autocratic restoration?

Dr. Soheila Shahriari: The most viable path to avoid the worst-case scenario—I mean, the worst case is the structural dismantlement of Rojava within a re-centralized Syrian state—is sustained diplomatic engagement. Again, I emphasize sustained diplomatic engagement with Western countries. The preservation of the autonomous administration heavily depends on the political will of key actors, particularly the EU and the United States, to counter Turkey’s hostility, the Syrian state’s push for recentralization, and ongoing power pressures. Crucial and strategic steps have already been taken in this direction in recent months.

This includes the European Parliament resolution of February 2026, which explicitly calls on Turkey not to interfere in negotiations between the SDF and the central government. Another example is the invitation of General Mazloum Kobani, Commander-in-Chief of the SDF, along with Ilham Ahmed, co-chair of the Department of Foreign Relations of Rojava, to participate in the Munich Security Conference in February. A further example is the invitation of Ilham Ahmed and the Commander-in-Chief of the YPG to hold a press conference at the European Parliament on February 25, 2026.

These actions are essential to ensure that the rights of Kurds, as a collective entity, not only as individuals, are recognized within the Syrian Constitution. Without international backing and pressure, Rojava faces the risk of enforced decentralization under hostile conditions or full structural dismantlement in a centralized, autocratically restored Syrian state. Without such international recognition from Western actors, especially the EU or the United States, Rojava possesses limited diplomatic leverage to compel Damascus into a permanent decentralized power-sharing agreement.

War Conditions Distort Democratic Experiments

Aleppo, Syria, war
Destroyed residential building in a rebel-held area of Aleppo, Syria, February 12, 2013; three children collect firewood amid the rubble. Photo: Richard Harvey / Dreamstime.

Some critics suggest that Rojava’s multiethnic model struggled to maintain legitimacy among Arab populations in eastern Syria. To what degree were these tensions structural limits of democratic confederalism versus consequences of wartime governance conditions?

Dr. Soheila Shahriari: I do not think that democratic confederalism as a theory contains a structural flaw. It is a highly progressive and democratic theory. It is not built on Kurdish supremacy or exclusionary nationalism; rather, it is explicitly anti-ethnic in its political logic. It seeks to transcend ethnicity as the basis of sovereignty and instead centers pluralism, decentralization, and participatory government.

Where tensions emerge is not at the level of theory itself but at the level of implementation. The translation of radical, ideologically dense thought into heterogeneous, war-torn territory—particularly among Arab populations who were not socialized into the PKK-led movement’s democratic and feminist paradigm—inevitably creates friction. These communities had lived for decades under authoritarian rule without meaningful experience of democratic institutionalization, gender parity mechanisms, or participatory governance.

The sudden introduction of a transformative political model such as Rojava under militarized conditions naturally produces uneven incorporation of Arab populations. Thus, the issue is less of a structural flaw of democratic confederalism itself and more of a gap between normative ambition and historically shaped political socialization under conditions of war.

Without Recognition, Vulnerability Persists

How do you assess the long-term viability of non-state democratic models like Rojava in an international system still dominated by state sovereignty and realpolitik, where authoritarian and populist governments increasingly shape regional norms?

Dr. Soheila Shahriari: The long-term viability of non-state democratic models like Rojava within an international system still structured by state sovereignty and realpolitik, as you mentioned, depends largely on their capacity to secure external guarantees for survival. In Rojava’s case, this means convincingly persuading key international actors, particularly, as I mentioned before, the EU and the United States, to recognize and protect its status as a de facto autonomous region. If I put it differently, I would say that Rojava must engage in sustained and intensive diplomatic negotiation with Western powers—not regional powers—in order to transform its considerable transnational soft power—by soft power, I mean the radical democratic structures, the feminist institutions that I mentioned before, and pluralism and tolerance among religious, sexual, and linguistic minorities in Rojava.

As I mentioned, this negotiation must focus on transforming this considerable transnational soft power into formal diplomatic recognition as a legitimate de facto political entity. Without such international diplomatic recognition, the democratic experiment of Rojava remains structurally vulnerable within a regional order increasingly shaped by authoritarian consolidation and populist realignment, especially given the hostile stance of Turkey.

Autonomy Without Safeguards Risks Re-Centralization

The new Syrian leadership continues to frame Kurdish autonomy as separatism. In your view, what institutional arrangements—federalism, asymmetrical decentralization, or cultural autonomy—could realistically reconcile Kurdish self-administration with Syrian territorial integrity?

Dr. Soheila Shahriari: The reconciliation of Kurdish self-administration with Syrian territorial integrity seems very complicated. While the Syrian leadership continues to frame Kurdish autonomy as separatism, the Rojava project is grounded in democratic confederalism, an explicitly anti-centralist political project that seeks to decentralize sovereignty through bottom-up popular organization rather than secession. So, you see that the political language is not the same. The political language of the Kurdish actors is completely different here. It is not easily understandable for Arabs in Syria, especially when it comes to talking about the central government.

Among the possible institutional arrangements that you mentioned, Rojava should work toward the consolidation of its de facto self-governance as a form of federalism or democratic confederalism. We can put it differently: a constitutionally guaranteed form of political, administrative, and security autonomy within a unified Syrian state could, in principle, reconcile self-administration with territorial integrity. But cultural autonomy alone would likely be completely insufficient, in my view, as it would not secure institutional or security guarantees.

However, the viability of any such arrangement depends, again—I emphasize this time and again—on formal constitutional recognition and enforceable guarantees. Without concrete international diplomatic backing, federalism or decentralization in Rojava or in Syria risks becoming a temporary tactical compromise rather than a durable political settlement in a context where the central government may seek to reconsolidate autocratic authority once stabilized. Any agreement lacking structural safeguards could devolve into a zero-sum game for Kurdish actors in Rojava. Therefore, reconciliation is not merely a question of institutional design, but of credible guarantees and power-balancing mechanisms capable of preventing the re-centralization of the Syrian state.

Turkey’s Security-Only Framing Blocks Strategic Recalibration

Erdogan
People in London protest against President Erdoğan and alleged war crimes against Syrians and Kurds following the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the area. Photo: Nicoleta Raluca Tudor / Dreamstime.

Turkey’s policy toward Rojava has been shaped by a security paradigm linking the region to the PKK, while unresolved domestic Kurdish issues — despite the ongoing so-called settlement process — reinforce threat perceptions. How might an “ethical-geopolitical repositioning,” combining security with legitimacy, alter Ankara’s strategic calculus, particularly within a political environment marked by populist securitization narratives?

Dr. Soheila Shahriari: A very interesting question. Turkey’s approach to Rojava is anchored in a securitization paradigm, viewing the region as an existential threat because of its structural and ideological link to the PKK. Domestic political imperatives reinforce this framing. The AKP uses the label of terrorism to delegitimize Kurdish political claims and consolidate support among nationalist, ultra-nationalist or jingoistic constituencies.

An ethical-geopolitical repositioning would require Ankara to move beyond this monolithic security-centered view and recognize the legitimacy of the international soft power the Rojava project has generated. This would involve deconstructing the entrenched narrative that equates Kurdish self-governance with inherent terrorism and engaging in political and security arrangements that combine oversight with recognition. But in practical terms, for a state like Turkey, shaped by populist securitization narratives and the persistence of the Sevres syndrome in the mentality and psyche not just of the Turkish state but of the Turkish populace as well, such a shift appears to me highly unlikely, unfortunately.

Nation-State Bias Limits Support for Non-State Democracy

Western, especially American engagement with Rojava has often been instrumental—most visibly during the anti-ISIS campaign—yet politically noncommittal. Does this pattern reflect structural limits of liberal internationalism when confronted with non-state democratic experiments?

Dr. Soheila Shahriari: Western, particularly American engagement with Rojava has been largely tactical and situational rather than strategic or politically committed. This shows the structural limits of liberal internationalism which remains anchored in a nation-state-centric world order and struggles to accommodate or integrate non-state actors, especially democratic experiments like Rojava.

At the same time, Western powers consistently prioritize geopolitical and economic interests over democratic or humanitarian principles. Human rights rhetoric often collapses when it conflicts with the strategic value of allies like Turkey as a NATO member. In practice, realpolitik sets aside commitment to progressive non-state actors, unfortunately.

This pattern also illuminates the broader decline of Western democracies and the rise of populist nationalist leadership. The synergy between, for example, leaders like Donald Trump and regional autocrats like Recep Tayyip Erdogan created an environment in which the law of the jungle replaces internationalist norms, highlighting that even the most progressive and resilient non-state societies like Rojava can be sacrificed very easily for the sake of authoritarian resilience and short-term realpolitik.

Abandonment Erodes Trust in Western Alliances

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.

The perceived abandonment of local Kurdish forces after their decisive role in defeating ISIS — alongside growing concerns about a possible resurgence of the organization in the event of instability in northeastern Syria — has raised questions about the credibility of Western alliances. What implications might this have for future local partnerships in conflict zones?

Dr. Soheila Shahriari: The perceived abandonment of the Kurdish forces in Rojava after their decisive role in defeating ISIS raises serious questions about the credibility of Western alliances and the viability of future local partnerships in conflict zones. Such experiences highlight the transactional nature of tactical cooperation and contribute to a broader erosion of trust in Western democratic commitments.

By allowing an authoritarian and Islamist state to challenge a progressive, non-state democratic experiment, Western powers, particularly the United States and, to a lesser extent, the EU, undermine their own moral authority and global leadership. This pattern may push local actors in future conflicts to seek alternative alliances, prioritize defensive nationalism, or act independently, recognizing that even democracies cannot always be trusted or relied upon to protect human rights or progressive governance.

Diaspora Mobilization Reshapes Western Perceptions

Your research highlights diaspora activism aimed at reshaping international perceptions of Kurdish movements, including efforts to de-list the PKK as a “terrorist organization.” How influential has diaspora lobbying been in shaping Western policy debates on the Kurdish question, particularly amid rising populist politics and securitized migration debates in Europe?

Dr. Soheila Shahriari: The Rojava Revolution, and especially the Battle of Kobani, marked a turning point for the Kurdish diaspora, legitimizing transnational political engagement and reshaping Western perceptions of the Kurdish movement. Diaspora activism has intensified and diversified, with efforts to de-list the PKK as a terrorist organization becoming a central focus. While most Western governments maintain the PKK designation under pressure from Turkey, diaspora lobbying has influenced key legal and legislative debates. For example, the Belgium Court of Appeal ruled that the PKK was a party in a non-international armed conflict rather than a terrorist group.

In Sweden and Germany, Kurdish diaspora actors have leveraged parliamentary and public channels to present the Kurdish movement as a vanguard of democratization in the Middle East, advocating for formal cooperation with Rojava authorities. Yet, these efforts face structural limits, as Western states often prioritize realpolitik and Turkey’s strategic value as a NATO ally, maintaining the terrorist label despite democratic claims.

We have two examples of de-listing efforts. One of them is the Belgium Court of Appeal ruling the PKK not to be a terrorist organization. The other was a similar effort at the EU level, which initially moved toward delaying the PKK’s designation as a terrorist organization but, unfortunately, under pressure from Turkey, reinstated the label. So, there has been a clear dynamism in the post-Rojava revolution era within diaspora communities to de-list the PKK. 

Feminization Transforms Image, Alliances, and Moral Authority

To what extent has the “feminization” of Kurdish politics—symbolized by the global visibility of Kurdish women fighters and leaders—altered international legitimacy and solidarity networks compared to earlier phases of Kurdish mobilization?

Dr. Soheila Shahriari: Since the Rojava Revolution in 2012–13, the feminization of Kurdish politics has dramatically enhanced the movement’s international legitimacy and expanded its solidarity networks. Earlier phases, particularly in the 1990s and the early 2000s, were dominated by male-dominated nationalist frameworks, with the PKK largely criminalized and marginalized in Western eyes, limiting advocacy and framing Kurds primarily as security threats.

The emergence of the YPJ, the Women’s Protection Units, and their decisive role in the Battle of Kobani in late 2014 and early 2015 marked a turning point. The global visibility of Kurdish women fighters aligned Kurdish political claims with the values of gender equality, secularism, and radical democracy, making the continued terrorist designation of the PKK increasingly incoherent and nonsensical in Western public opinion. Being Kurdish is now associated with supporting progressive governance, women’s rights, and secularism, distinguishing the Kurdish movement from other Middle Eastern actors or movements.

This shift has enabled the Kurdish movement to move beyond traditional ethno-nationalist alliances and cultivate broad intersectional solidarity networks. The transition from a male-dominated nationalist movement to a gender-centered revolutionary project has positioned the Kurds as a recognized driving force for democratization in the Middle East, securing global moral authority and institutional support that were absent in earlier decades.

Self-Determination, Not Statehood, Defines the Kurdish Question

And lastly, Dr. Shahriari, looking ahead, do you foresee the Kurdish political movement evolving toward statehood, a post-state transnational network model, a renewed pursuit of territorial autonomy within existing states, or fragmentation into divergent regional trajectories shaped by Turkey, Iran, Syria, and Iraq?

Dr. Soheila Shahriari: I think it is a very good final question. What I can say is that I will not go into great detail, but the crux of the matter is that the Kurdish struggle over the past century has always centered on one fundamental issue: the right to self-determination. Everything else—the form of governance, whether federalism, autonomous self-rule, radical democracy, democratic confederalism, or full statehood of Greater Kurdistan—is epiphenomenal, or a secondary question.

The fundamental issue is the right to self-determination. These forms are largely, as I said, epiphenomenal and contingent, shaped by regional dynamics, international politics, and the balance of power at a given time. The future of the Kurdish movement will therefore be defined less by ideology and more by the practical ability to secure recognition and exercise collective rights within or across existing state frameworks.

Professor Oona A. Hathaway is Gerard C. and Bernice Latrobe Smith Professor of International Law at Yale Law School; Professor of Political Science in Yale’s Department of Political Science; Faculty at the Jackson School of Global Affairs; Director of the Yale Law School Center for Global Legal Challenges; and president-elect of the American Society of International Law.

Prof. Hathaway: A Moment of Peril—and Possibility—to Reimagine the International Legal Order

by Editor’s ChoiceForeign PolicyHomeInterviews

Giving an interview to the ECPS, Professor Oona A. Hathaway reflects on the resilience and fragility of the post-1945 international legal order at what she describes as a moment of both peril and possibility. She identifies the prohibition on the use of force as the “bedrock of the modern legal order,” yet warns that today’s geopolitical climate is marked by “extraordinary instability” and mounting challenges from major powers. International law, she argues, ultimately depends on shared belief: “what makes international law work is that states believe it works.” If repeated unilateral uses of force erode that belief, a “reverse norm cascade” could follow. Yet Professor Hathaway also stresses that crisis can generate renewal—an opportunity to reimagine and reconstruct a more equitable and effective international legal order rather than surrender to fatalism.

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

Giving an interview to the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Professor Oona A. Hathaway—Gerard C. and Bernice Latrobe Smith Professor of International Law at Yale Law School; Professor of Political Science in Yale’s Department of Political Science; Faculty at the Jackson School of Global Affairs; Director of the Yale Law School Center for Global Legal Challenges; and president-elect of the American Society of International Law—reflects on the resilience and fragility of the post-1945 international legal order at a moment she describes as both perilous and generative. The organizing theme of the interview is captured in the headline, “A Moment of Peril—and Possibility—to Reimagine the International Legal Order.” For Professor Hathaway, the contemporary crisis is not simply episodic noncompliance but a potentially systemic turning point—one that tests whether the prohibition on the use of force, which she calls the “bedrock of the modern legal order,” can endure under conditions of populism, geopolitical rivalry, and eroding rule-of-law commitments.

Professor Hathaway situates today’s tensions within a longer arc of normative transformation. The post-1945 order, she argues, was both a “genuine normative revolution that restrained power” and a system sustained by the strategic interests of dominant states. Yet the present moment raises acute questions about its durability. In her view, “what makes international law work is that states believe it works,” and the danger is that repeated unilateral uses of force could tip the system toward a “reverse norm cascade,” in which states “no longer believe that these rules matter and therefore no longer act as if they matter.” The concern is not only erosion, but the possibility of a broader unraveling in which the rules cease to structure expectations.

Several sections of the interview underscore why “today’s instability is unprecedented in the postwar international legal order.” Professor Hathaway emphasizes that in the post–World War II era “we’ve ever been at a moment of such instability and uncertainty” as when the most powerful state appears “clearly willing to use military force in violation of the UN Charter that it once championed.” This connects directly to another theme: “when rule-makers break the rules, the damage is far greater.” As Professor Hathaway notes, US violations are “particularly destructive,” not least because of the “failure of the international community to respond or push back forcefully,” shaped by entrenched assumptions about US stewardship and deep economic interdependence.

Yet Professor Hathaway also insists that breakdown need not foreclose renewal. “It is a moment of extreme challenge,”she concludes, “but it is also a moment of opportunity and creativity.” The task, she suggests, is to resist fatalism and instead “think together about what a more equitable and effective international legal order might look like”—because “it is up to us to decide which it will be.”

Here is the edited version of our interview with Professor Oona A. Hathaway, revised slightly to improve clarity and flow.

A Normative Revolution—and a Strategic Settlement

Photo: Zoia Fedorova| Dreamstime.

Professor Oona Hathaway, thank you so much for joining our interview series. Let me start right away with the first question: Your scholarship traces the historic shift from a world in which war was lawful to one structured by the prohibition on the use of force. How should we understand the post-1945 legal order—as a genuine normative revolution restraining power, or as a contingent equilibrium sustained by the strategic interests of dominant states?

Professor Oona A. Hathaway: I think both, actually. I don’t think they are inconsistent with one another. It was a genuine normative revolution that restrained power. There was the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact, which initially outlawed war. It obviously didn’t succeed—we had World War II—but it began a process of both deconstructing the previous legal order and constructing something new that set in motion the creation of a new legal system. That was then reaffirmed in the United Nations Charter, in the prohibition on the use of force in Article 2(4). It was really restating the prohibition on war from the Kellogg-Briand Pact. But it was created by dominant states because they believed in these ideas. They believed in the prohibition on the use of force and that might doesn’t make right, and they had just fought a war with the Nazis over this principle of non-domination and the rejection of using military force to seize territory from other states.

But it was also in their interests, because they had gone through massive territorial expansion. The United States, of course, had acquired what is now the entire continental United States, plus Alaska and Hawaii, and has a number of other islands that are part of it as well, including Puerto Rico. It was therefore in the interest of these states—and, of course, at the time this was created, Britain still had a major empire, and France still had a major empire. China, of course, dominated a vast territory. It was a good time to say you can’t conquer territory through the use of force. It was a good time for these states to say, “let’s stop moving those borders around, let’s firm up these borders, and let’s say no one can take territory from anyone else.” Once you’ve already completed your accumulation of territory, it’s in your best interest to call a halt to the game.

So, it was in their interests, but it was also in their values; it was consistent with the values they fought the war for. They then sustained it both because they believed in the values of the system and because the system served their interests. It made for a much more peaceful and prosperous world. So, I don’t necessarily see the two as inconsistent with one another.

When the Bedrock Norm Is Strained, the Entire System Is at Risk

You describe the prohibition on force as the “bedrock” of the modern international order. To what extent did its success depend less on legal internalization than on the alignment between US hegemony and rule-based constraints, and what happens when that alignment dissolves?

Professor Oona A. Hathaway: You’re right. I do believe that the prohibition on force is the bedrock of the modern legal order. It’s right at the beginning of the United Nations Charter, and in the book The Internationalists, which I wrote with my co-author Scott Shapiro, we talk about how that is the core norm of the system on which everything else rests.

So it depended on internalization, and that process that I described from 1928 to 1945 was a process of thinking through what it means to shift an order on its axis—to change it from a world order where force is permitted, where might makes right, where states can use military force to resolve disputes with one another, as used to be the case before 1928, before war was outlawed, to a world in which that’s no longer allowed, and then everything else has to flip on its head. Conquest was legal; now conquest has to be illegal. Gunboat diplomacy was legal; now gunboat diplomacy has to be illegal. And that requires a massive shift that I think they didn’t fully appreciate in 1928, but that unfolded from 1928 to 1945 and was internalized through the Charter and all the subsequent rules that were adopted.

But it is also the case, again, that this was in the interest of the United States. The United States both believed in these principles, but these principles also served a hegemonic state. It is a good thing if states are not trying to use military force to take territory from one another if what you want is not to have to be running around as a global power intervening to try to put out wars between states. So it is both the case that these were rules that were internalized and that they served US interests.

Now, what happens when that alignment dissolves? I mean, the US has made clear it doesn’t necessarily adhere to those legal principles any longer and has taken actions that are in violation of the UN Charter, most recently the intervention in Venezuela. We might see a military operation in Iran before long that would also be illegal. I think it puts major stress on the system, to the point that I’m not sure the legal order, as it is, can survive it. You know, it’s not just the US; it’s also Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s seizing of islands, rocks, and reefs in the South China Sea. There are a lot of assaults, but in a way the US, because it has been such a critical supporter of the international legal order, turning on that order in the way that it seems to be is a blow that may be hard to recover from.

A Normative Revolution Forged by Power, Values, and Interest

Donald J. Trump, the 47th President of the United States, at his inauguration celebration in Washington, D.C., on January 20, 2025. Photo: Muhammad Abdullah.

Does the contemporary erosion of the prohibition on the use of force—as exemplified by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the United States’ unilateral military operation against Venezuela under the second Trump administration—reflect primarily a failure of international enforcement institutions, a crisis of belief in the legitimacy of international law among major powers, or a deeper transformation in how states conceptualize sovereignty, security, and permissible violence in an era of populism and geopolitical rivalry?

Professor Oona A. Hathaway: I think it’s just too early to say exactly how deep the transformation we’re seeing really is. I’ve written a bit about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Trump administration’s unilateral military operation against Venezuela, as I mentioned before, as truly fundamental challenges to the modern international legal order.

It is the case that international law relies on collective enforcement. And it’s very difficult for that collective enforcement to work when members of the Security Council are themselves violating the rules, because the institutional structures that are in place to enforce them can’t be used. Russia, the US, and China all have veto power and can block any action by the United Nations to enforce the legal rules. At the same time, the states that have traditionally led the charge in enforcing the rules through other means—through what Scott Shapiro and I have called outcasting—have relied on economic and other measures to respond to unlawful action and to encourage collective action, sanctions, and economic pressure. Russia was kicked out of the G8, which became the G7; Russia was expelled from the Council of Europe; and there are many ways in which Russia has been excluded from international institutions it had benefited from as a response to its unlawful actions, in addition to the economic sanctions that have been imposed and the funding and support provided by Ukraine’s allies to help it stand up to Russia. But it is very difficult to do that against a hegemon and a major economic power.

I think you are beginning to see some response by states that may represent the beginnings of an answer to that question, though it is still a little early to tell.

Power Shifts and Populism Are Eroding Restraints on Unilateral Force

How do shifts in global power distribution interact with ideological transformations—particularly nationalism and populism—to weaken constraints on unilateral force?

Professor Oona A. Hathaway: Yes, there are major shifts in global power distribution. There are changes in economic power and changes in military power. You have the rise of China, both as an economic power and as a military power. It’s building a major navy and has become a more significant geopolitical force in a variety of ways. It’s also investing more in international institutions, which is important to note. So it’s not just building up its military; it has also become more active at the UN and other international institutions. 

Soi it’s hard to say at this moment where that’s going. Is that going to weaken constraints on unilateral force or not? I think what’s weakening constraints on unilateral force is the use of unilateral force by states like the US and Russia. And it’s not just the use of force, but also the response that you receive. Russia has had a pretty forceful response from the international community. So far, the US has not. There was a relatively modest response to the unilateral intervention in Venezuela.

States are frankly scared of Trump. They’re worried that he’s going to slap tariffs on them if they criticize him. I think the only answer is going to be to act collectively—for states to band together to try to shore up the international system and the prohibition on the use of force in particular. It’s going to be hard for any of them to criticize Trump individually, but acting more collectively and building alternative sources of economic power may be possible. So, for example, what Canada is doing in forming alternative economic partnerships and responding to US tariffs suggests one possible path forward. That is an answer to this problem—maybe the only answer to this problem.

Between the Old World Order and a World With No Rules

The headquarters of the United Nations in New York City. Photo: Dreamstime.

Do contemporary developments signal not merely norm erosion but a structural reversion toward an “Old World Order” in which material power once again functions as a source of legal entitlement?

Professor Oona A. Hathaway: In the book The Internationalists, we talk about the Old World Order as the order in which war was lawful and states could use military force to resolve disputes, and what they took, they could keep—so might made right. 

One of the questions is whether we are in a moment of reverting back to that. The book describes both this old legal order and how we rejected it and created a new legal order built on the prohibition on force. And the question that certainly emerges at this moment, where we’re seeing states like the United States unilaterally using force, is: are we going to go back? Are we going to return to a world where military force was lawful and where material power functions as a source of legal entitlement?

It’s possible that we will. It’s also possible that there is something even worse. Scott and I wrote a recent piece in Foreign Affairs that argues there is only one thing worse than going back to something like the Old World Order—a legal order built on the idea that might makes right, where states can resolve disputes and enforce claims through military force—and that is a world with no rules at all, where there is no coherent legal system. The old order, for all its faults, was at least coherent and clear.

One of the problems we see with Venezuela, with the Trump intervention there, is that it was really just about one man’s whim. And that is very disruptive and chaotic, because if it becomes permissible for states to decide to go to war for no clear reason, it becomes very hard for other states to avoid war, because they don’t know what they would need to do to avoid falling afoul of a state that might want to use military force.

I recommend that to your readers if they want to take a look at it. They can find all my work, by the way, on oonahathaway.com. All my work is posted there, so if they want to track down any of these pieces, that’s a good place to go.

Populist Sovereignty Claims Are Challenging International Constraints

How do populist leaders’ claims to embody the “true people” reshape state attitudes toward international law, especially regarding multilateral constraints perceived as external impositions on sovereignty?

Professor Oona A. Hathaway: I think I can speak most authoritatively, perhaps, to the Trump administration’s claims to embody “real Americans” as part of the argument that the United States should resist international law and that these multilateral constraints don’t serve America.

And what people are saying, if you look at his approval ratings, which are in free fall, is that he doesn’t actually represent real Americans. People care about the price of groceries, clothes, and other consumer goods. Those have been going up, and people’s real incomes have not been keeping pace with inflation. He came into office on a promise that he would make things more affordable for people, and he has done the opposite.

People were told at the State of the Union Address that things are better than ever, but most people’s experience is inconsistent with that—they actually feel that things are not better than ever. So, what you’re seeing is a contrast between a claim to speak for a set of people and people’s own experience of the effects of those policies.

I like to believe that, as a result, people are going to see that these policies are not in their best interest—that tariffs are not serving the United States and that wars of choice are not in the best interests of the American people—and reject them. So far, it does seem that people are not approving of what’s happening. I think that strategy is not going to be a winning one for the Trump administration for much longer.

The Impact of Populism Depends on the Resilience of Institutions

Frontal view of the U.S. Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C., on February 10, 2024. Photo: Gualberto Becerra P.

Is populism inherently destabilizing for rule-based international order, or can populist governments operate within legal frameworks when institutional checks remain robust?

Professor Oona A. Hathaway: Gosh, that’s kind of an impossible question to answer. I don’t know if it’s inherently destabilizing; it depends a little on what one means by populism. Can populist governments operate within legal frameworks when institutional checks remain robust? Absolutely—of course they can.

I think they will respond to the incentives they face. And if there is a major cost to acting in ways that are inconsistent with legal frameworks, it is difficult for populist leaders to sustain violations of international law for long in the face of that. But that’s not uniformly true. This is just a hard question to answer. It is more a case-by-case matter, rather than something that lends itself to a general conclusion about the impact of populism on legal frameworks. It all depends on how strong and how robust those institutional checks remain, and on the nature of those checks. That is highly contingent.

When Law Ceases to Constrain Power, the System Cannot Function

To what extent does democratic backsliding within powerful democracies—through executive aggrandizement and weakened oversight—pose a greater systemic threat to international law than the rise of authoritarian states that never fully internalized those norms?

Professor Oona A. Hathaway: I think that democratic backsliding is a real challenge to international law, in part because what we’re seeing is not just democratic backsliding, but threats to the very idea of the rule of law, both domestically and internationally. When law is no longer a constraint on governmental power—again, whether domestic or international—that obviously makes it impossible for the international system to function.

I don’t know that I would fully accept the idea that authoritarian states never internalized those norms—maybe that’s fair—but they internalized them more than is sometimes appreciated, because the international legal order operates in large part by changing expectations about how others will react to what you do. Authoritarian states see that if they invade their neighbors, there are going to be consequences. Saddam Hussein learned that when he invaded Kuwait and attempted to take it over. The international community responded by rejecting his effort to conquer Kuwait and pushing him back. That was an instance in which an authoritarian ruler learned a hard lesson—that this was a norm the international community was willing to defend.

That was a useful lesson for other authoritarians to observe, and it made a difference in reaffirming the prohibition on the use of force and the idea that states can’t conquer territory, even when they have a dispute with a neighbor—that the way to resolve it isn’t to use military force. So, that authoritarian regimes, too, can be constrained by international law.

The important thing to remember about international law is that you don’t have to think you’re obeying it to obey it. International law works by changing the background norms and expectations that states have. You don’t have to be fully cognizant of the ways in which it is shaping your behavior for it to do so. Even authoritarian states are often abiding by international law in ways they may not fully appreciate or understand, and nonetheless international law remains very powerful in shaping their behavior.

When Rule-Makers Break the Rules, the Damage Is Especially Severe

Stop Trump Coalition march, Central London, United Kingdom, September 17, 2025. Protesters dressed as Musk, Farage, Vance, Putin, Trump, and Netanyahu. Photo: Ben Gingell.

When a historically law-creating state violates the rules it helped design, how does that differ from violations by revisionist powers in terms of precedent, legitimacy, and global imitation effects?

Professor Oona A. Hathaway: This is obviously the question of whether US violations are more destructive than those of other states, given that the US has historically been a significant law-creating power. It wrote the first draft of the UN Charter, championed the United Nations system after the Second World War, and has been a key player—though it has not perfectly observed those rules. It’s important to point out that this is not the first time the United States has failed to play by the rules it helped put in place. But yes, I do think it is particularly destructive, especially when coupled with the broader set of assaults on the legal order from Russia.

What really matters, and what has been especially destructive so far, is the failure of the international community to respond or push back forcefully against the United States. That’s partly because people are used to thinking of the United States as a good actor, as a steward of the system. They also have deep economic ties that make any kind of criticism or economic sanctions against the United States almost impossible for them to contemplate. But, we are starting to see states recognize that what might once have seemed unimaginable is now imaginable, and that they have to begin thinking about how to reinforce the legal order in a situation where the United States can no longer be counted on to be a positive partner or actor.

So, we might begin to see some pushback, but we haven’t yet, and that is part of why this has been such a destructive moment.

Repeated Unilateral Force Could Trigger a Reverse Norm Cascade

Could repeated unilateral uses of force by leading powers generate a “reverse norm cascade,” transforming restraint from expectation into exception and thereby reshaping customary international law?

Professor Oona A. Hathaway: That’s the fear. The fear is that these unilateral uses of force will eventually overwhelm the system. You can sustain a certain number of blows, but at a certain point the system becomes so weakened that it begins to fall apart. And the question is: when do you cross that line? When do we reach a point where we have a kind of reverse norm cascade, as you put it, in which states no longer believe that these rules matter and therefore no longer act as if they matter? What makes international law work is that states believe it works.

If they no longer believe in it, then it ceases to function. So, enough unilateral uses of force could, at a certain point, lead states to conclude that the system is not working very well and to ask why they should abide by the rules if others are not. That’s when you begin to see the whole structure start to fall apart. Are we there yet? I think not. Three more years of this? Maybe.

Expansive Self-Defense Claims Are Eroding the Prohibition on Force

How might expansive interpretations of self-defense—particularly against nonstate actors—gradually alter the legal architecture governing the use of force?

Professor Oona A. Hathaway: I have written about this as well, and I think we don’t talk about it enough as a challenge to the international legal order—this expansive interpretation of the Article 51 right of self-defense in the Charter. It allows states to respond unilaterally; you don’t have to go to the Security Council to defend yourself. But the language of the Charter refers to situations in which a state has been subject to an armed attack.

There have been increasingly expansive interpretations of the Article 51 right of self-defense, including, as you mentioned, extending it to attacks by nonstate actors, which was not understood as falling within the scope of Article 51 at its inception. This interpretation has been adopted particularly in the post-9/11 era, and you see more and more states embracing it after 2014 and the rise of ISIS in the Middle East. I do think this is extremely corrosive to the international system. It has really eroded the prohibition on the use of force, because at a certain point everything becomes self-defense.

The Charter defined this right of self-defense very narrowly, as a response to armed attack, and it did so for a reason. The drafters were very aware that defensive wars and offensive wars were sometimes very hard to distinguish. They wanted to establish a fairly narrow right for states to respond. They had to include the right of self-defense because many states insisted on it—you shouldn’t have to wait for the Security Council to act if you are literally under attack. But they intentionally meant for it to be a fairly narrow right, because once you start talking about wars of defense based on the idea that another state might pose a threat down the road, the distinction between offensive and defensive wars begins to collapse.

So yes, I do think this has been a real problem. And again, if your readers are interested, if you search my website for “self-defense,” you will find an article I’ve written on exactly this issue. It’s a real problem, and it predates the Trump administration; it is a bipartisan problem. Both Democratic and Republican presidents have presided over that erosion, so this is not an entirely new phenomenon.

When Dual-Use Becomes a Justification, Civilians Bear the Cost

Your research on the targeting of dual-use objects highlights the blurring of civilian and military categories. Does this evolution risk transforming international humanitarian law from a protective regime into a justificatory framework for expanded violence?

Professor Oona A. Hathaway: I’d point your readers to a piece that I wrote in the Yale Law Journal on dual-use objects, called “The Rise of Dual-Use Objects,” with Azmat Khan and a third co-author, Mara Revkin, my former student and an amazing legal academic. This piece shows that the US has increasingly been targeting objects that it recognizes as dual-use, meaning both military and civilian use.

We argue in that piece that the rise of targeting dual-use objects has significantly eroded protections for civilians in wartime. We discuss this generally, but we also use evidence drawn from post-strike analyses of US counterterrorism strikes. We analyzed the targets of those strikes, which were gathered by Azmat Khan, a reporter from The New York Times, through Freedom of Information Act requests to the Department of Defense—requests she had to sue to obtain. So we have very specific data in the piece about what kinds of dual-use objects are being targeted, and we can show that civilians are really at risk in the targeting of these objects.

The argument we make is that this practice is blurring the distinction between civilian and military targets that is so critical to protecting civilians in wartime, and that we need to take significant steps to better protect civilians and to clarify this distinction between military and civilian objects, taking into account the impact on civilians of targeting such sites—not just the civilians who happen to be present at that moment, but also the long-term reverberating effects. You blow up a water treatment plant, and it’s not just the civilian workers there who are harmed; it’s everyone who now lacks access to clean water. You blow up an apartment building, and it’s not only the residents who are killed or injured, but also those who are deprived of housing. You blow up a bridge, and there may be civilians present on it, but afterward people cannot get to work, school, or their families because there is no access from one place to another. So, this is a really critical part of our thinking about how to protect civilians in wartime.

The Unraveling Order Also Opens Space to Imagine a More Equitable One

And lastly, Prof. Hathaway, are we witnessing the collapse of the post-1945 legal order or its transformation into a plural system of competing legal regimes—and what institutional or normative developments would be necessary to prevent the “gradual and then sudden” unraveling you warn about from becoming irreversible?

Professor Oona A. Hathaway: This is a reference to my piece in The New York Times titled “The Great Unraveling,”which looks at what’s happening to the modern legal order and argues that we might be witnessing its collapse. The question is whether we are in the midst of a collapse, on the precipice of one, or whether it has already occurred—and what is coming next. I don’t know that anybody really knows the answer to those questions. I think we’re in uncharted waters. In the post–World War II era, I don’t think we’ve ever been at a moment of such instability and uncertainty in the international legal order as we are today, where you have the most powerful nation in the world clearly willing to use military force in violation of the UN Charter that it once championed, and the prohibition on the use of force that is core to the normative legal order.

But we don’t know how aggressive President Trump is going to be. We don’t know yet if other states are going to follow in the United States’ footsteps and use force against their neighbors in ways that would previously have been clearly forbidden. And we don’t know whether something is going to emerge in its place if this system is collapsing.

We see some signs. We see Canada, for instance, trying to rally middle powers to work together to create an alternative economic system, because a lot of states are deeply concerned about the threat of tariffs from the Trump administration, and that has led them not to speak up or respond when the US acts in ways they view as inconsistent with the international legal order. This is going to be an important part of the response, but it hasn’t taken shape yet. So, the short answer is that we don’t know where this is headed. We are in a moment of extraordinary instability.

Let me end on a somewhat more hopeful note. Although this moment of instability is scary and concerning—for someone like me who believes that the core norm of the international legal order is the prohibition on the use of military force, and who sees that norm as uniquely at risk—it is also a moment when we can start to think about how to construct a new legal order. What might a new legal order look like? What new possibilities might emerge? What can we hope for, dream about, or imagine? How can we make the legal order more equitable?

So, it is a moment of extreme challenge, but it is also a moment of opportunity and creativity. We should be careful not to give up or assume that everything is lost, but instead try to think together about what a more equitable and effective international legal order might look like, and whether this is a moment in which the opportunity is opening to do something new and different. That new and different future could be bad, but it could also be a profound improvement. It is up to us to decide which it will be.

Professor Elin Bjarnegård.

Prof. Bjarnegård: Gender Will Become a Central Fault Line Between Liberal Democracy and Authoritarian Populism

by AuthoritarianismEditor’s ChoiceGenderHomeInterviews

In this ECPS interview, Professor Elin Bjarnegård (Uppsala University) argues that gender is no longer a side issue but “a useful, malleable concept for authoritarian leaders”—and will become “an increasingly central fault line” separating liberal democracy from authoritarian populism. Moving beyond a simple backlash thesis, she shows how regimes alternate between ‘genderbashing’ and ‘genderwashing’, weaponizing equality talk for legitimacy at home and abroad. Professor Bjarnegård also links democratic backsliding to gendered intimidation, online harassment, and what she calls “sexual corruption.” Noting that the Epstein files revealed abuses “in the corridors of power” in democratic settings too, she warns that personalistic rule heightens risk—especially the “impunity surrounding them.” She urges resisting polarization, scrutinizing symbols, and asking where gender concretely matters in policy.

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

In an era marked by democratic erosion and the global rise of authoritarian populism, gender politics has emerged not merely as a cultural battleground but as a strategic axis of regime competition. In this interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Professor Elin Bjarnegård of Uppsala University argues that gender will increasingly function as a defining fault line separating liberal democratic governance from authoritarian populist rule. Moving beyond conventional explanations that frame anti-gender politics primarily as ideological backlash, Professor Bjarnegård emphasizes the instrumentalization of gender as a tool of political survival, legitimacy, and international signaling. As she explains, “gender becomes a useful, malleable concept for authoritarian leaders—a powerful symbol that can be mobilized for regime purposes,” underscoring how strategic deployment rather than doctrinal conviction often drives contemporary gender politics.

This strategic perspective helps explain why gender rights are likely to intensify as a central arena of geopolitical and normative contestation. Professor Bjarnegård anticipates that “gender rights, or perhaps the strategic use of gender, will become an increasingly central fault line,” not only because of ideological polarization but also because gender provides an “easy, simplistic narrative to deploy strategically” in polarized societies. Such narratives enable regimes to oscillate between exclusionary rhetoric and symbolic inclusion, reinforcing domestic authority while communicating selectively with international audiences.

The interview also highlights the darker governance implications of weakened accountability in populist and authoritarian systems, particularly regarding gendered abuses of power. Drawing on her concept of “sexual corruption,” Professor Bjarnegård reframes such abuses as systemic governance failures rather than isolated misconduct. Referencing the recent release of the Epstein files, she cautions against simplistic regime-type explanations, noting that “these gendered abuses of authority have also proliferated in the corridors of power in predominantly democratic contexts in Europe and the United States.” Yet she stresses that personalistic rule and eroded oversight create heightened risks in authoritarian settings, where such systems are “more at risk both of experiencing these gendered abuses and, perhaps especially, of the impunity surrounding them—of people not reporting them, of them remaining unseen, and of not being addressed.” This dynamic speaks directly to the broader vulnerability of populist authoritarian governance to gendered exploitation and unaccountable power.

More broadly, Professor Bjarnegård situates these patterns within a continuum of gendered violence that includes psychological intimidation, reputational attacks, and digitally mediated harassment—forms of coercion that undermine democratic participation without overt repression. Taken together, her analysis suggests that gender politics is becoming a diagnostic lens through which scholars can assess democratic resilience, institutional integrity, and the trajectory of global political competition. The interview thus positions gender not as a peripheral social issue but as a central structural dimension of contemporary struggles between liberal democracy and authoritarian populism.

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

Gender Is a Strategic Resource for Authoritarian Survival

Gender equality.
Illustration: Dreamstime.

Professor Elin Bjarnegård, thank you so much for joining our interview series. Let me start right away with the first question: In your scholarship, you argue that authoritarian leaders treat gender not primarily as ideology but as a strategic resource for regime survival. How does this perspective revise dominant interpretations of populism’s relationship to gender politics beyond the conventional “backlash against feminism” thesis?

Professor Elin Bjarnegård: Thank you for that question. I would say that what this perspective really adds is a strategic dimension. It is not that we want to suggest there is no ideology involved—of course ideology plays a role. The relationship between populism and gender politics, and the backlash narrative in particular, still has analytical value. However, what is often overlooked is the presence of a very important strategic component. That is what we seek to foreground by adding this strategic dimension to the equation.

So we are not arguing that ideology is irrelevant, but rather that strategy deserves more attention. In this sense, gender becomes a useful, malleable concept for authoritarian leaders—a powerful symbol that can be mobilized for regime purposes.

From an ideological perspective, one must focus on policy positions and attempts to persuade opponents. A strategic perspective, by contrast, emphasizes negotiation and maneuvering. This is why I believe it is an important lens to introduce. It opens possibilities for collaboration in a polarized world and encourages us to see political opponents as actors with whom dialogue remains possible, particularly when we recognize the strategic component of their actions.

Gender Equality as Both Shield and Weapon in Global Politics

Your work distinguishes between “genderbashing” and “genderwashing” as complementary authoritarian strategies. Under what structural and international conditions do regimes oscillate between these tactics, and how does the global bundling of democracy and gender equality norms enable such strategic manipulation?

Professor Elin Bjarnegård: We see this oscillation, as you say, more clearly now and in recent years because we have had a fairly strong global norm of gender equality for the past three decades or so. That norm is now evaporating, or at least stagnating, and we also see alternative norms emerging. As the global order itself is increasingly questioned, the norm of gender equality is likewise being challenged. In a multipolar world, actors may view gender mainstreaming—as promoted by the UN or the EU—as no longer the only legitimate path. This creates space, particularly for authoritarian actors, to use gender equality as an instrument to portray themselves as modern, progressive, or even democratic, especially since gender equality and democracy have long been bundled together in major democracy-promotion efforts.

At the same time, however, this shift opens the door to a different interpretation, in which gender is used to distance regimes from global institutions such as the UN and the EU by rejecting what they frame as the foreign imposition of values in favor of traditional family norms. What was once a relatively stable landscape—where countries knew their allies, audiences, and signaling targets—has become more fluid. States now communicate simultaneously with multiple audiences. As a result, the same country may present itself as supportive of gender equality and committed to combating violence against women on the one hand, while simultaneously promoting homophobic narratives to justify, for example, military engagement with other countries.

Feminationalism Turns Inclusion Into a Weapon

Feminism.
Photo: Dreamstime.

 

Many populist actors claim to defend women’s rights selectively — for instance, against migrants or minorities — while undermining broader gender equality. How does this selective emancipation differ from classical authoritarian gender politics, and what dilemmas does it pose for liberal and intersectional feminism?

Professor Elin Bjarnegård: This type of politics—sometimes called feminationalism, or homonationalism, depending on the target group—is also part of the broader package I mentioned earlier about bringing strategy into gender politics and into authoritarian politics. It is a clear illustration of how highly strategic these dynamics can be, because in these narratives, inclusion is deployed, as you say, only selectively or strategically—and ultimately for the purpose of excluding certain groups.

If the intersectional perspective, as originally conceived, aimed to ensure that we identify the most vulnerable groups and recognize multiple systems of oppression so that people do not fall between the cracks but instead benefit from policies designed to protect them, this type of feminationalism—or the selective defense of women’s rights deployed against minorities, for instance—does the opposite: it pits these systems of oppression against each other.

In a way, it draws on our knowledge about intersectional layers of oppression but turns them against one another, claiming, for example, that gender equality and women’s rights are under threat from migration. The dilemma it poses is quite similar to that of genderbashing and genderwashing. Insofar as there is a solution, it requires caution. We need to scrutinize these narratives carefully and be specific—not simply respond to symbolism or easy answers, but examine what is actually being claimed and who is being favored—in order to look beyond the strategy.

Militarized Masculinity Fuels Authoritarian Appeal

Your research on militarized masculinity suggests that patriarchal norms can coexist with formal democratic institutions and fuel political violence. How does the persistence of such masculinist political cultures help explain the gendered appeal of authoritarian populism across diverse contexts?

Professor Elin Bjarnegård: I think masculinist cultures are both persistent, as you say, and increasingly revealing themselves and being strengthened in many places. We can begin with the fact that they coexist with, and also exist within, democratic settings. Democratic institutions were originally built by men, for men, and are imbued with male norms; studies of feminist institutionalism, for instance, have made this argument for a long time. Patriarchal norms have therefore always coexisted, to some extent, with formal democratic institutions. However, they have been challenged in recent decades, and they certainly vary and take different forms across contexts.

Many of us associate the political with masculinity to such an extent that it becomes difficult to pinpoint. While there has been significant focus on women in politics, there has been far less attention to men and masculinity in politics. Several research projects in Europe are now examining political science questions from a masculinity perspective, reflecting the rise of new forms of hegemonic and militarized masculinities that make clear the need for deeper understanding. “Men4Them” is one such project, examining radicalized young men as well as leadership and the spillover effects between the two. As part of this project, we seek both to understand the masculine ideals that politicians and leaders attempt to embody and, importantly, how these ideals can be transformed. We know change is possible: not long ago, in my country, Sweden, party leaders competed to present themselves as feminists, which is no longer the case.

This shift is likely related to the broader global order. We see geopolitical tensions and increasing militarization, alongside a reversal of the movement from soft power toward hard power. Narratives emphasizing traditionally masculine traits—such as strength over cooperation—are returning. Research shows these cultures have always existed, but what is striking today is that they are once again becoming, if not hegemonic, at least highly prominent.

Protection Narratives and the Return of Strongman Politics

Women rally in Istanbul.
Women rally in Istanbul to protest proposed anti-abortion legislation by then–Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, June 18, 2012. Photo: Sadık Güleç.

Relatedly, how do hypermasculine narratives and honor ideologies shape the emotional and symbolic appeal of strongman leadership, particularly among male constituencies experiencing status anxiety in periods of social transformation?

Professor Elin Bjarnegård: This goes back again to the question we have just discussed, because, of course, it is about leadership and about what an ideal leader is supposed to be in a specific context at a particular point in time. But as I mentioned, it is really important to consider the spillover and interaction between leaders and their constituents. There is a constant interplay between the two.

In this context of status anxiety and social transformation, there is a great deal of fear and uncertainty, which tends to favor the presentation of easy solutions to complex problems. I think one of the easiest sentiments to mobilize is a sense of lost entitlement, and looking back at traditional gender roles can provide a feeling of security.

These honor ideologies often build on an idea of protection, which speaks to a basic need for security. At the same time, we need to scrutinize this and critically examine strongman ideology. Protection may be necessary, but the key question becomes who is positioned to protect whom. It also relies on a separation between genders and assigns different values to them. This reflects a return to hard-power narratives that signal traditional strongman characteristics—protection achieved not through collaboration, but through the display of force, coercion, and strength.

Online Gendered Abuse Threatens Electoral Integrity

You have shown that violence against women in politics often operates along a continuum that includes psychological intimidation and reputational attacks. How does this less visible violence function as an informal mechanism of democratic backsliding even in electoral regimes?

Professor Elin Bjarnegård: Violence against women, as well as violence against political actors in general, operates along this continuum. But we do see that violence against political actors has gendered components.

Specifically, if we look at those gendered components and include the continuum you mentioned, it becomes important to recognize violations that occur not only physically but also psychologically and online, because the types of reputation-damaging slander that women and men encounter are fundamentally different in character. It is not that men are protected online—that is not the case—but if we examine the types of slander campaigns deployed against men and women politicians, we see that, to a much larger extent, women politicians face narratives targeting them as persons, often highly sexualized and directed at their family members, whereas men are more often, sometimes harshly and unfairly, criticized for their policy stances or political positions.

I, therefore, think it is important to demonstrate this continuum and to include psychological intimidation and reputational attacks, because they can be equally damaging to democratic procedures. They reflect a similar readiness to violate democratic integrity as physical forms of violence. Although such actions may not violate bodily integrity to the same extent as physical violence, they certainly violate personal integrity just as much. If we are concerned with threats to democracy and with disrespect for democratic procedures and institutions, I believe that violations occurring online must also be included in that continuum.

Homosocial Recruitment Sustains Male Dominance in Populist Parties

Your feminist institutionalist research highlights how informal party networks and homosocial recruitment reproduce male dominance. To what extent do populist radical right parties intensify these exclusionary mechanisms compared to mainstream parties?

Professor Elin Bjarnegård: It is a difference in degree rather than in kind. In general, what we see in parties and organizations alike is that if you only or primarily network with like-minded people who tend to think, act, and behave like you, and if you mainly recognize competence in those you perceive as similar to yourself, you may be able to shape a very strong and coherent message. Collaboration may be smooth in that group, and you will be surrounded by people who agree with you.

But you will not have broad representation, you will not hear other perspectives, and you will not be challenged by—or learn from—others. Insofar as populist radical right parties tend to build more on loyalties than on representational claims, and more on personal relationships than on bureaucratic recruitment procedures, we can certainly see this type of homosocial recruitment producing male dominance there as well. It becomes a kind of celebration of like-mindedness rather than a reflection of a diversity of ideas. This plays a significant role in the masculine dominance we observe both among constituents and within these parties themselves.

Gender Equality as a Tool of Authoritarian Legitimacy

Giorgia Meloni.
Giorgia Meloni, Prime Minister of Italy and leader of the Fratelli d’Italia party, speaks at an electoral rally ahead of the national elections in Turin, Italy, September 13, 2022. Photo: Antonello Marangi / Dreamstime.

Authoritarian regimes sometimes increase women’s descriptive representation through quotas while simultaneously restricting civil liberties. Does such symbolic inclusion risk legitimizing illiberal rule by projecting an image of progress without substantive empowerment?

Professor Elin Bjarnegård: That is exactly the risk of what my colleague Per Setterberg and I have come to call autocratic genderwashing, especially when this descriptive representation does not lead to substantive representation, or when it is limited and includes only women affiliated with the government, for instance.

In many places, with Rwanda perhaps as one of the clearest examples, we do see that the introduction of gender quotas really boosts the representation of women. But if we take a closer look, we see that it mainly boosts the representation of government-affiliated women. This then leads to an even stronger electoral dominance of an already dominant authoritarian party, at the same time as it generates goodwill and international prestige, because the country is seen as favoring and promoting gender equality and women’s representation. It can present itself as modern and progressive and, interestingly enough, because of this bundling of democracy and gender, even as a democratic country.

All the while, if we look more closely at what happens behind the scenes, we also know that this is a country that keeps jailing opponents, restricting civil liberties, and remains authoritarian. So it is about taking a closer look and considering what kinds of signals they are able to send and who this reform actually favors. It can be that it favors both. We can end up in tricky situations where a gender equality reform improves conditions for women—perhaps for a select group of women, but nevertheless for women—while at the same time strengthening the hold on power of an autocratic regime.

That is, in a way, an impossible conundrum we are faced with, but we nevertheless have to recognize it. That is really what we hope to spur discussion on: not to see it as one thing or the other, or simply accept the image these regimes want to portray, but to recognize these value clashes, these conundrums, and discuss what we should do in such cases.

Democratization Does Not Automatically Deliver Gender Equality

Your work suggests democratization does not automatically produce gender equality and may even coexist with patriarchal power structures. How should scholars rethink linear assumptions linking democratic transitions to women’s rights advancements?

Professor Elin Bjarnegård: In principle, if you ask most scholars, my guess would be that this linear assumption has been rethought. At the same time, it remains a very relevant question, because versions of it still persist in people’s minds. Even when asked explicitly, people may not believe in a strictly linear progression where one development automatically produces the other. As I have often noted, in democracy promotion and in discussions about how to advance democracy, the inclusion of women has become a core component.

While many would define democracy as something that cannot exist without the proper inclusion of all groups—and the inclusion of women is, of course, necessary and important for a genuine democracy—it does not follow that inclusion can compensate for a lack of competition. This is where we have often gone wrong, allowing inclusion to substitute for the absence of political competition in the eyes of the international community, for instance.

Looking back historically, if we examine the issue more closely, some cosmetic gender-equality reforms—for example, in many communist countries where equality was a prominent ideological principle and women were relatively well represented in parliament—did not make those systems democratic. We have also seen in many contexts that women played crucial roles in democratic transition movements, only to be marginalized once parties and institutions were established. The relationship is therefore far more complex than the linear assumption suggests. At the same time, the connection is not entirely absent, because inclusion remains an important principle of democracy; it is simply not the only one.

Sexual Corruption Is a Systemic, Not Isolated, Problem

Jeffrey Epstein
Float featuring a caricature of Jeffrey Epstein and the slogan “Everyone protected the criminals and ignored the victims” at the Rosenmontag carnival parade in Düsseldorf, North Rhine-Westphalia. Photo: Elena Frolova / Dreamstime.

Your concept of “sexual corruption” reframes gendered abuses of authority as governance failures rather than isolated misconduct. Do such practices proliferate under populist or authoritarian rule where institutional accountability mechanisms are weakened?

Professor Elin Bjarnegård: Yes, such practices proliferate anywhere institutional accountability mechanisms are weak. But then again, as the recent release of the Epstein files, for instance, has clearly demonstrated, these gendered abuses of authority have also proliferated in the corridors of power in predominantly democratic contexts in Europe and the United States. So it is not as simple as a matter of them and us when it comes to sexual corruption and this kind of gendered abuse of power. The problem exists everywhere.

Interestingly, it has perhaps received the most attention in areas like Sub-Saharan Africa, where there have been significant campaigns against practices such as teachers handing out grades in exchange for sex. But we have to look at different contexts and recognize that they carry different types of risks in different areas.

Insofar as your question concerns populist and authoritarian rule, these systems generally have a greater propensity to overlook institutional accountability mechanisms in favor of, as we discussed earlier, more personalistic loyalties. They are therefore certainly more at risk both of experiencing these gendered abuses and, perhaps especially, of the impunity surrounding them—of people not reporting them, of them remaining unseen, and of not being addressed.

Digital Harassment as a Tool to Exclude Women from Politics

How are online harassment, disinformation, and gendered hate speech transforming the authoritarian toolkit, particularly as methods for discouraging women’s political participation without overt repression?

Professor Elin Bjarnegård: Yes, we talked a bit about this earlier when we discussed the continuum of violence, which of course includes psychological forms of violence, intimidation, and hate speech that increasingly take place online. The use of technology in this type of harassment, disinformation, and hate speech is making an already effective and efficient authoritarian toolkit even more efficient, because it gives it wider reach, causes more harm than before, and can project images and ideas that are simply not true.

The fact that these violations have increasingly moved online, or are also spread online, means that technology is now used both to spread fear and to disseminate propaganda in new ways. It also represents a move away from ideological discussion, because it often disregards ideological stances entirely, relying instead on targeted messaging and algorithms to influence different groups in a particular direction, making it more like marketing than politics in a sense. It is not about convincing people; it is about moving them in a specific direction, even if it means misinforming them. This is an area where the authoritarian toolkit is clearly expanding. For women’s political participation, as well as participation in general, we see a number of new methods emerging here.

Trumpism Normalized Anti-Gender Rhetoric Globally

MAGA
Woman wearing a red “Make America Great Again” hat prays at a “Stop the Steal” rally in Helena, Montana, on November 7, 2020, in support of Donald Trump and claims that the election was stolen by Joe Biden. Photo: Dreamstime.

From a comparative perspective, how do you evaluate the global impact of Donald Trump’s presidency on gender politics? Did Trumpism normalize gender-based rhetoric and policy rollbacks that other populist leaders subsequently emulated?

Professor Elin Bjarnegård: It is almost hard to overestimate the impact, but nevertheless I think that what we see happening in the US did not come from nowhere. There was already a platform for this kind of discussion. Political leaders like Putin, Orbán, and Erdoğan had already drawn media attention for both sexist remarks and derogatory statements about what they called “gender ideology,” a broad concept often deployed to describe perceived threats to gender equality against traditional family values. So I think that during Donald Trump’s second term in office, he could simply follow these already existing international narratives, and he did so even in his inaugural address. He vowed to dismantle gender mainstreaming and announced an executive order for government agencies to remove statements, policies, and regulations that promote or otherwise incorporate gender ideology.

This is certainly rhetoric he could build on, and we could say that sometimes it functions mainly as a strategy to align himself with certain parts of the population while distancing himself from others. But the potential danger with these narratives, and with genderbashing in general, is that to be a credible leader, one sometimes also has to follow through. We see that in the US: it has not just stopped at rhetoric. We have also seen the dismantling of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives across various sectors.

This shows that he had a platform to build on and could follow suit, but when both this rhetoric and these policy rollbacks occur in the US, they also normalize these types of discussions and narratives, portraying gender not necessarily as something positive but as something potentially dangerous and harmful.

The Rise and Fall of Sweden’s Feminist Foreign Policy

Sweden’s feminist foreign policy was widely seen as a pioneering normative project yet was later discontinued. What does this reversal reveal about the resilience — or fragility — of gender-progressive policies amid shifting political coalitions and populist radical right pressures?

Professor Elin Bjarnegård: Sweden’s feminist foreign policy is an interesting case in point because it vividly illustrates how much the world has changed in just a few years. When the feminist foreign policy was first adopted and launched in Sweden in 2014, it was the first of its kind. It was, as you said, seen as pioneering. We were in a world where being feminist was seen as a good thing and where this was something people competed over in Sweden and elsewhere, and we could also see that a lot of countries followed suit. It is a bit difficult to know exactly what constitutes a feminist foreign policy, but at least 15 or 16 other countries declared, in one way or another, that they also wanted to pursue a feminist foreign policy.

But then, just a few years later, in 2022, when we had a new government, the very first thing they did was to withdraw the feminist foreign policy, claiming that they were not against gender equality but against these labels, which were more about showcasing and using the word feminist than about actually doing things. It is interesting that the first country in the world to adopt a feminist foreign policy was also the first country in the world to withdraw it, and it is very symptomatic of the development we are seeing.

I think it goes back to many of the issues we discussed, particularly the potential danger that gender as a word, and gender equality as a norm, has been so all-encompassing. In gender mainstreaming, for instance, it has been something said to apply to all sectors, all policies, and all genders. In the success story of gender equality over the past few decades, we may have run the risk of not being specific enough, of not saying what matters and why it matters. That leaves the door open for interpretations, misinterpretations, and adaptations of what gender as this big concept actually is and could be.

That is what we are seeing now, and it explains why leaders can juxtapose using gender equality as a good thing with using gender ideology as a bad thing, oscillating between the two, because it is not necessarily clear what it is supposed to mean. That is also why it has been difficult, to some extent, to evaluate policies like the feminist foreign policy. But what we did see is that it was, at least, more than a label. It did change the way things were carried out in Swedish foreign policy, even though it was in place for only a few years.

Gender Rights as the Next Global Fault Line

And lastly, Professor Bjarnegård, looking ahead, do you anticipate that gender rights will become an increasingly central fault line in the global contest between liberal democracy and authoritarian populism — and what forms might meaningful resistance and democratic renewal take?

Professor Elin Bjarnegård: That is the million-dollar question. I do, unfortunately, anticipate that gender rights, or perhaps the strategic use of gender, will become an increasingly central fault line. But I also think that this is why the strategic component we are trying to remind people of is important, because it means that we can find areas where it may not be all about sexism, misogyny, and ideological differences, but also about how gender has become a useful, easy, and simplistic narrative to deploy strategically.

If we try to resist not by increasing polarization but rather by finding spaces for negotiation and discussion, it helps—at least it does for me—to think that part of this is strategy, not only ideological conviction. I really think the first step is to be a bit more cautious whenever we see people speaking about gender, either in the form of potential genderbashing—building this large phantasm of so-called gender ideology—or genderwashing, emphasizing all the good things a country or regime has done for gender equality. We should be careful not to fall into the trap of letting gender become a single, overarching symbol, but instead try to be specific: where and how does it matter in a particular policy area?

Sometimes we also have to be clear about the trade-offs and value clashes that are part of politics. We cannot always have everything that is good, and not everything that is good is compatible. At least for me, looking back at the past decades, it has been an unprecedentedly positive era for women’s rights, and it is in many ways remarkable that gender equality achieved such status as a global norm. But that also means we now need to take a second look in this different era and ask where we need to be more careful and more specific about why it matters, focusing on concrete issues rather than treating gender merely as a symbol, because it is important for many other reasons as well.

Dr. Taro Tsuda.

Dr. Tsuda: Takaichi’s Ascent to Power Represents Continuity Rather Than a Populist Rupture

by Editor’s ChoiceHomeInterviews

In an interview with the ECPS, Dr. Taro Tsuda of Meiji University argues that Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s landslide victory and supermajority mandate signify continuity within Japan’s dominant-party system rather than a populist break. Despite her historic status as Japan’s first female prime minister and her “diligent and tough-speaking” leadership style, Dr. Tsuda stresses that her agenda and career remain rooted in the Liberal Democratic Party’s mainstream. He interprets her electoral success as part of the LDP’s strategy to reclaim drifting conservative voters and preempt challenger movements, with Takaichi herself becoming the party’s central electoral asset. Her rise, he concludes, demonstrates how leadership personalization and institutional resilience can reinforce—rather than disrupt—established structures of governance.

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

In a wide-ranging interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Dr. Taro Tsuda—Assistant Professor at the School of Political Science and Economics at Meiji University, Tokyo, and a scholar of Japanese political institutions, party dynamics, and leadership—offers a nuanced interpretation of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s dramatic rise and governing trajectory. His analysis comes at a pivotal moment: PM Takaichi’s landslide electoral victory delivered a two-thirds supermajority for the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its coalition partner, dramatically consolidating executive authority and granting her administration an exceptional legislative cushion. As Japan’s first female prime minister, combining a programmatic conservative agenda with a leadership style widely perceived as both “diligent and tough-speaking,” Takaichi has reshaped the political landscape—strengthening conservative forces while advancing an ambitious policy program that includes fiscal stimulus, proposed consumption-tax cuts, technological and AI-driven industrial strategy, and a more assertive regional security posture. Yet, as Dr. Tsuda emphasizes, these developments should not be misread as evidence of a populist rupture.

Contrary to narratives portraying her ascent as a transformative break, Dr. Tsuda argues that Takaichi’s premiership represents continuity within Japan’s historically institutionalized dominant-party system. “It is definitely the former rather than the latter,” he explains when asked whether the so-called “Takaichi boom” constitutes personalized leadership rather than populism, noting that she emerges from the LDP, “which has been the dominant party in Japan since 1955.”Because populism typically involves an anti-establishment appeal “pitting the population against a harmful elite,” her leadership—rooted firmly within the ruling party’s mainstream—does not fit that model. Indeed, he stresses that her ideas and career path have remained “very much within the mainstream of the LDP,” making it “very hard…to say that her becoming Prime Minister would constitute a populist rupture.” In this reading, even her decisive electoral mandate and willingness to adopt politically risky positions on issues such as Taiwan and China reflect programmatic assertiveness rather than anti-system mobilization.

Dr. Tsuda further contends that Takaichi’s electoral success should be understood as part of the LDP’s adaptive strategy to reabsorb drifting conservative voters and preempt challenger movements. Faced with defections to newer right-leaning parties, the party leadership sought to reconstruct its electoral “big tent,” successfully drawing many of those voters back. This, he argues, forms “a sort of short-term and perhaps longer-term strategy…to prevent that kind of populist challenge to its incumbency.” Her personal popularity proved central to this effort: Takaichi “became the face of the LDP for this election,” attracting independents and younger voters who had previously been skeptical of the party.

By situating Takaichi’s premiership within longer trajectories of LDP dominance, Shinzo Abe’s legacy, and Japan’s evolving security and economic priorities, Dr. Tsuda’s interview highlights how leadership personalization, ideological clarity, and institutional continuity can coexist. The result, he suggests, is not a populist upheaval but a powerful example of how dominant parties renew authority through strategic adaptation—demonstrating that even historic milestones, such as Japan’s first female premiership and a sweeping supermajority victory, may ultimately reinforce rather than disrupt established structures of governance.

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

Rebuilding the LDP’s Big Tent to Preempt Populist Challengers

Election candidate campaigning with local residents at Yanaka Ginza, Taito City, Tokyo, on March 13, 2019.
Election candidate campaigning with local residents at Yanaka Ginza, Taito City, Tokyo, on March 13, 2019. Photo: Dreamstime.

Dr. Taro Tsuda, thank you very much for joining our interview series. Let me start right away with the first question: You characterize the current moment as potentially a “Takaichi boom.” To what extent might this be conceptualized as a form of personalized plebiscitary leadership within a historically institutionalized dominant-party system, rather than a classic populist rupture?

Dr. Taro Tsuda: I would say it is definitely the former rather than the latter. Prime Minister Takaichi is from the LDP, the Liberal Democratic Party, which has been the dominant party in Japan since 1955. There have been several moments when it has lost power, but throughout this whole period—about 70 years—it has remained the dominant or most powerful party. And she comes from that party, so it is difficult , in my definition of populism, that it implies a sort of anti-establishment or anti-elite stance, pitting the population against a harmful elite or establishment, and that is definitely not what Takaichi is doing. So it is very hard for me to say that her becoming Prime Minister would constitute a populist rupture. All her ideas, policy proposals, and her career path have been very much within the mainstream of the LDP, even if one might say they are on the more right-wing or conservative side of the party. So, I would not characterize it as a populist rupture.

In light of your argument that the LDP must reconstruct its “big tent,” can we interpret PM Sanea Takaichi’s strategy as a mode of preventive populism—absorbing and neutralizing anti-system demands before they crystallize into durable challenger movements such as Sanseito?

Dr. Taro Tsuda: I would say, to some extent, that is part of her strategy, or what the LDP’s strategy as a whole was, especially in this past election, the lower house election that took place on February 8. For the past few years, there has been a group of more right-leaning or more conservative voters who have been drifting away from the LDP because of what they perceive as the past few leaders’ more liberal or more centrist approach. Many of them went to new parties like Sanseito. A major goal of the past election was to bring many of those more right-leaning voters back into the LDP, and the results show that, in many ways, they were successful in doing so. Many of the people who were conservative or who had supported Sanseito in previous elections supported the LDP this time.

So I think that this is a sort of short-term and perhaps longer-term strategy of the LDP leadership to prevent that kind of populist challenge to its incumbency.

Downplaying Gender While Subtly Leveraging It

Takaichi’s leadership style appears to combine the novelty of being a prominent female conservative leader with a strong emphasis on themes such as strength, discipline, and national security. Based on your observations, to what extent does she highlight or downplay her gender in shaping her political image and appeal?

Dr. Taro Tsuda: That’s a very interesting and complicated question. From what I’ve seen so far of her leadership since she became LDP party leader and then Prime Minister, it seems that her approach is a delicate balance between downplaying or not explicitly mentioning the gender aspect and, more subtly, sometimes using her gender to gain a favorable impression or to connect with people in Japan. One interesting example is that after becoming Prime Minister, she was asked by an opposition lawmaker to focus on dressing well and wearing Japan’s best materials or textiles, and that as Prime Minister she should not wear rather drab clothes or something like that. In response, she talked about how she is in a difficult position because she has to wear something good so that people take her seriously as a female leader on the international stage, and that she has to think carefully about what she wears.

That was an episode where she usually does not touch upon gender at all, but by talking about things like that—without really focusing on gender itself—she was still using the gender aspect to connect with people. I think that aspect of her leadership is something many of the people who supported her in the recent election appreciate, especially independent or younger voters. They like this personality-based and relatively ordinary style that she often emphasizes, which at times includes a subtle gender aspect. So, I think it is a very subtle approach, not one that explicitly focuses on gender.

Do you think Takaichi’s rise shows that gender matters less in leadership today, or that she succeeds by adopting traditionally masculine leadership traits?

Dr. Taro Tsuda: I would say that it is neither that gender does not matter nor that she is consciously trying to adopt masculine traits. Her example is simply exceptional. On the first point about gender not mattering, I think it still matters a great deal, since Japan, on many measures of gender parity and gender equality, still ranks lower than other advanced industrial countries. There are many barriers for women to achieve leadership positions in Japan, including in politics. She was able to overcome those, and that is part of her appeal to many people.

At the same time, as I mentioned in relation to the previous question, she is not completely denying her gender. She sometimes subtly appeals to people in ways related to it. So I would say it is neither; the fact that she has been able to break some of those barriers is what appeals to many voters in Japan.

Abe’s Legacy as the Informal Architecture of Takaichi’s Rise

Japan’s former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Photo: Dreamstime.

Your work on Satō Eisaku highlights the stabilizing function of informal authority and elder statesmanship in moments of systemic uncertainty. To what extent does Abe Shinzo’s enduring legacy function as a form of posthumous informal governance structuring Takaichi’s political maneuverability?

Dr. Taro Tsuda: From your question, I think you’re referring to the extent to which Shinzo Abe’s legacy is significant for Takaichi and her politics. I would say that, in many ways, Abe’s legacy and his career contributed to her rise to the leadership of the LDP and to the Prime Ministership. Because Takaichi is a protégé of Abe, while he was alive he supported her past attempts— the first attempt was while he was still alive, before she was assigned to become leader of the LDP and potentially Prime Minister. She wasn’t successful at that time, but his support helped her get relatively close to reaching that position then. In the most recent leadership contest, when she was able to secure the leadership of the party and then become Prime Minister, the support of Abe’s former faction members was very important. Even though she was not officially a member of his faction, she was his protégé, and many people around him are also supportive of her politically and ideologically, so in that sense it is very important.

Many of her policy ideas are also continuations of Abe’s policy agenda, such as building a more assertive Japan on the international stage and maintaining close relations with the US, including Donald Trump, who had a close relationship with Abe while he was alive. So in many ways, that legacy is very important.

We also have to point out, however, that Abe’s legacy contributed to those factors that have caused recent difficulties for the LDP, such as the political scandals relating to the party’s ties with the Unification Church and the slush fund scandal that focused on the former Abe faction. In those ways, these issues created difficulties for the LDP that Takaichi had to overcome in order to succeed in this past election. So in many different and complex ways, Abe’s legacy continues to be important for Japan’s politics.

Executive Dominance Rising Amid Residual Factional Power

Are we witnessing a transition from factional oligarchy to leader-centered executive dominance, or do factional networks remain the latent institutional infrastructure of LDP governance?

Dr. Taro Tsuda: That’s also quite a complicated question. We can definitely say that the influence of factions is much less in Japanese politics than previously thought. In the sort of golden age of LDP rule during the Cold War, especially during the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, factions were involved in many different aspects of LDP politics and Japanese politics: election strategy, fundraising, and choosing the leader of the LDP, who, because the LDP was the leading party, almost automatically became prime minister. Thus, many aspects of factions were the central units of the LDP’s rule.

But that later diminished because of electoral reform in the 1990s, which, as the election system changed, reduced the factions’ influence in election strategy. Further on, with the scandals I mentioned earlier relating to the Unification Church and ties with the LDP, and especially the slush fund scandal, former Prime Minister Fumiyo Kishida led an effort to dissolve the factions. Almost all of the LDP factions stopped existing, at least on paper, in 2024. One major faction of former Prime Minister Aso Taro still exists, but most of the others have dissolved, which has very much reduced the role of factions.

However, there has been a long history of people in the LDP talking about the need to get rid of factions as a source of corruption and division in the party. There have been earlier efforts to weaken the factions, but what has often happened is that the factions are weakened and then able to come back and become stronger again. So this could happen again in the future, and even if the formal factions are mostly no longer existing, there are still strong informal groupings within the LDP. So, for the moment, factions are much reduced in their influence, but it is still hard to say that they are irrelevant or that they will not become stronger again in the future. At the moment, much less.

Managing Scandal Through Leadership Appeal

Given the LDP’s recent decline due to scandals and erosion of public trust, do you think a strategy of proactively addressing these issues could help restore its credibility, or are patronage-based practices too deeply entrenched for meaningful reform?

Dr. Taro Tsuda: That’s also a very interesting question. A few months ago, I wrote an opinion piece in the Japan Times that addressed this very issue. I wrote it very soon after Takaichi became Prime Minister of Japan, and I argued that this was an opportune moment for her, because she was popular, not only to consolidate support among more conservative voters but also to address the political scandals that had damaged the LDP. I thought her position and her closeness to Abe and Abe’s faction put her in a good position to do this, and that it could also stabilize the LDP’s rule. However, what has happened in the subsequent months is not really what I suggested.

Instead, she has focused more on other policy issues and on her personal appeal with the Japanese public, so the issue of political reform has been put to the side to some extent. She has agreed with the coalition partner—or the coalition partner, the Japan Innovation Party, has emphasized this issue as well—but it is no longer at the forefront. At the moment, it seems she has been successful in turning the page on this issue without directly addressing it.

It remains to be seen whether that can continue. There is always a possibility that a similar scandal could emerge again, although I think the likelihood in the near future may be lower because of the lessons some members learned from these past scandals and because the faction system is now, for the moment, defunct. Still, since she has not addressed it directly, it could return in the future. In the long term, this is something that should be addressed for the country itself and for the stability of the LDP’s rule.

Balancing China Through Alliances and Supply-Chain Resilience

Photo: Dreamstime.

Japan’s security posture is evolving amid intensifying US–China rivalry. Would you characterize Takaichi’s foreign policy orientation as a continuation of post–Cold War embeddedness, or as a move toward strategic autonomy within a multipolar order?

Dr. Taro Tsuda: I think that because of the recent dispute between Japan and China, sparked in part by some of Takaichi’s comments about Japan’s response in a hypothetical contingency relating to Taiwan, many assume that she is departing on a very different path in terms of foreign policy. But as I see it, her policy is, at least at the moment, very much a continuation of the path of some of her predecessors, especially starting with Prime Minister Abe. Abe is known for pioneering the idea of the Free and Open Indo-Pacific, bringing together not only the US and Japan in their alliance but also like-minded countries in the Indo-Pacific to work on a range of economic and security issues, in a form of implicit balancing against China. Some of his successors, such as former Prime Minister Kishida, also committed to boosting defense spending and capabilities in light of the Ukraine war.

I think she is continuing along that path, so I would not say there is a major departure from her predecessors. It is still very much reliant on the US–Japan security alliance, but it also involves reaching out to other countries in the region that share interests and values with Japan, such as India, Australia, and South Korea. She has, perhaps more than her predecessors, forged constructive relations with South Korea, which until recently were quite tense. That is generally the path she is following in terms of foreign policy.

How do you see Japan’s recent focus on economic security and supply-chain resilience — mainly as a response to new global risks, or as part of a broader shift in its economic and industrial strategy?

Dr. Taro Tsuda: In terms of economic security, Japan has always had an interest in it because it is a resource-poor island nation that relies heavily on global trade. Securing vital raw materials and natural resources has therefore always been a major concern and an important factor in its foreign policy.

However, there has been a recent and even greater emphasis on this issue because of developments such as the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and now tensions with China. These events have highlighted Japan’s vulnerability and its reliance on sea lanes and supply chains. There has been an even stronger focus on economic security since the 2020s. The position of Minister of State for Economic Security, now one of the important Cabinet posts, was officially created in recent years; it did not exist before. The creation of this position demonstrates the stronger emphasis on economic security.

Leadership Image as the Engine of Electoral Revival

And finally, Dr. Tsuda, to what degree has Takaichi’s electoral success been mediated through narrative construction—her image as a disciplined, uncompromising, and reformist leader—and how central is this symbolic dimension to sustaining the LDP’s renewed legitimacy in the medium term?

Dr. Taro Tsuda: If you’re referring to the electoral success of this past election in the lower house, that it was very much based on Takaichi herself. Her own brand of leadership and her image were a central part of that election and the success of the LDP. If you compare the support rate of Takaichi with the support rate of the LDP before the election, there was quite a big gap. Even today, there is a gap between the actual support of the LDP and Takaichi’s very high approval rating. So basically, she became the face of the LDP for this election, and many people who liked her and approved of her leadership, but who may have had more skepticism toward the LDP itself, were persuaded to vote for the LDP. This included not only the conservative voters that I talked about earlier, but also many non-party-affiliated voters—people who are not strongly aligned with one party and who can shift their support from election to election—as well as a large number of younger voters, who historically did not support the LDP that strongly. This shows that her image and leadership were very important to the success.

For the medium or longer term, I think that depends on whether she can deliver on some of the things she promised in the election, such as improving the economic situation of the Japanese people and addressing other important issues, including concerns relating to immigration or foreigners in Japan, to mention a few issues that were very prominent in that election. If she can address those issues, I think that will help the LDP in the near future. But if she has trouble addressing them, or if some kind of scandal or other problem emerges, then it may be difficult, even if she herself remains popular, to sustain support for the government as a whole.

Dr. Andrés Mejía Acosta.

Assoc. Prof. Mejía Acosta: State Erosion Is Faster Than State Building and Harder to Reverse

by Editor’s ChoiceHomeInterviews

In this interview with the ECPS, Associate Professor Andrés Mejía Acosta (University of Notre Dame, Keough School of Global Affairs) explains why populist leaders often weaken state capacity strategically rather than accidentally. For populists, he argues, “state institutions and agencies get in the way of a more unilateral, discretionary, non-democratic type of governance,” prompting efforts to “ignore, dismantle, bypass, or merge” oversight bodies that constrain executive power. Assoc. Prof. Acosta underscores the asymmetry between construction and destruction: “state building… takes decades and even centuries,” yet “state dismantling… can be done very quickly,” with lasting effects on democratic recovery. He links institutional erosion to patronage politics, discretionary spending, and the weakening of accountability networks—dynamics that make reversals of democratic backsliding harder when “state mechanisms are no longer functioning.”

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

In this wide-ranging interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Andrés Mejía Acosta, Associate Professor at the University of Notre Dame’s Keough School of Global Affairs, offers a sobering analytical framework for understanding how contemporary populist governance erodes state capacity and, in turn, weakens democratic resilience. Anchored in his influential research on “state hollowing,” Assoc. Prof. Mejía Acosta argues that the weakening of bureaucratic institutions is not an accidental byproduct of populist rule but a deliberate governing strategy. For populist leaders, he explains, “state institutions and agencies get in the way of a more unilateral, discretionary, non-democratic type of governance,” making their dismantling instrumental to consolidating power.

Highlighting the core theme captured in the interview’s title, Assoc. Prof. Mejía Acosta stresses the asymmetry between the slow construction and rapid destruction of state institutions. While comparative politics has long recognized the difficulty of building capable states, he warns that their erosion can occur with alarming speed and lasting consequences: “In the case of state building, we have long understood that it takes decades and even centuries to build and strengthen states, but we are now learning that state dismantling apparently does not take long; it can be done very quickly.” This accelerated dismantling, he argues, produces durable institutional damage that outlives the populist incumbents themselves, making democratic recovery far more difficult. Once oversight agencies, regulatory bodies, and accountability mechanisms are weakened or eliminated, the very infrastructure required for democratic renewal may no longer function.

Throughout the conversation, Assoc. Prof. Mejía Acosta situates state erosion within the broader literature on democratic backsliding while distinguishing it from classical authoritarian consolidation. Whereas backsliding targets elections, media freedom, and political competition, state hollowing undermines the administrative and fiscal capacities that sustain governance itself. The result is a mutually reinforcing cycle: weakening representative institutions enables further bureaucratic dismantling, while eroding state capacity deactivates democratic safeguards. As he notes, this dynamic creates long-term structural damage: “This phenomenon of state erosion will have long-term consequences that make reversals of democratic backsliding more difficult. It will be harder to recover democratic practices when state mechanisms are no longer functioning.”

Drawing on empirical examples from Latin America and beyond, Assoc. Prof. Mejía Acosta also emphasizes how populist regimes selectively weaken oversight institutions while expanding discretionary spending, coercive apparatuses, and patronage networks. Agencies responsible for environmental regulation, poverty evaluation, or fiscal monitoring become targets precisely because they constrain executive discretion. In their place emerges a governance model characterized by informality, opacity, and clientelistic redistribution—conditions that entrench incumbents while undermining public accountability.

Yet the interview is not solely diagnostic. Assoc. Prof. Mejía Acosta concludes with cautious optimism about democratic resilience, underscoring the need for cross-sectoral coalitions, institutional reforms, and sustained civic mobilization. As authoritarian tendencies penetrate deeper into governance structures—“as if the authoritarian illness is spreading through the body”—he calls for a global effort to rebuild the institutional foundations of democracy.

Taken together, this interview provides a theoretically rich and empirically grounded account of how populist leaders hollow out states from within—and why the consequences for democracy may endure long after the political moment has passed.

Here is the edited version of our interview with Associate Professor Andrés Mejía Acosta, revised slightly to improve clarity and flow.

Populists Dismantle State Capacity to Enable Unilateral Rule

Labour Day celebrations
Labour Day celebrations at Old Town Square in Prague on May 1, 2017, featuring a banner depicting democracy as a leaf eaten by caterpillars labeled Putin, Kaczyński, Orbán, Babiš, Trump, and Fico.
Photo: Jolanta Wojcicka.

Professor Mejía Acosta, thank you very much for joining our interview series. Let me start right away with the first question: In your article “Why populists hollow out their states?”, you argue that populist leaders often weaken state capacity not accidentally but strategically. Could you elaborate on the causal mechanisms through which populist governance transforms capable bureaucracies into politicized instruments of rule?

Assoc. Prof. Andrés Mejía Acosta: Thank you, Selcuk. I welcome this opportunity to speak more about our article, and I am pleased to share this space with you. With regard to your question, the starting premise is that for populists, state institutions and agencies get in the way of a more unilateral, discretionary, non-democratic type of governance. So, the dismantling or weakening of state capacities is, we argue, a strategy to accomplish these goals.

If you think of different examples of state functions, such as environmental regulation or poverty alleviation programs—their implementation and evaluation—or the role that labor health statistics play in the running of government operations, these would be relatively inconvenient if what populist leaders want is to maximize the extractive sector, use poverty alleviation programs for clientelistic purposes, or misreport what labor health statistics indicate. The strategy, therefore, is to ignore, dismantle, bypass, or merge the institutions in charge of these functions.

For example, we cite the case of Mexico, where one of the most renowned and influential agencies evaluating poverty and deprivation programs, CONEVAL, was first weakened, its funding conditioned, and eventually dismantled. This aligns with the goal of delivering poverty reduction programs that are not accountable, measurable, or verifiable. It is consistent with the logic of removing institutions that stand in the way of achieving other objectives.

States Take Decades, Centuries to Build, and Can Be Dismantled in Years

Your work suggests that state erosion under populism involves both institutional capture and the reconfiguration of accountability networks. How do these processes differ from classic forms of authoritarian consolidation studied in comparative politics?

Assoc. Prof. Andrés Mejía Acosta: Yes, one clarification we make from the beginning is that our work is different from, and we are not trying to understand, full forms of autocratic regimes such as those in Russia or China, but rather the dismantling of the democratic state. These are parallel but distinct processes, and it is probably more useful to follow the line of work on democratic backsliding. Both state dismantling and democratic backsliding aim to capture representative institutions and undermine accountability.

The key difference, we argue, is that state erosion is a much more long-term and hard-to-reverse trend. For example, I could elaborate on whether state erosion is a cause or an effect of democratic backsliding, but one thing we can see is that there is extensive literature discussing whether democratic erosion can in fact be reversed and what kinds of institutional reforms or changes are necessary. In the case of state building, we have long understood that it takes decades and even centuries to build and strengthen states, but we are now learning that state dismantling apparently does not take long; it can be done very quickly.

To what extent is the hollowing-out of the state driven by populists’ need to sustain patronage-based coalitions rather than by ideological hostility to liberal institutions?

Assoc. Prof. Andrés Mejía Acosta: They are complementary, I would say. On the one hand, there is ideological hostility to liberal institutions, and we see the discourse of populists going against these liberal—or what they call “woke”—institutions that preserve individual rights, minority representation, etc.

With that in mind, they build clientelistic coalitions to use or manipulate the state for their own private purposes. One example could be the dismantling of aid agencies, where it is argued that it is not a priority for a country to aid others, thereby undermining the rules-based institutional order, whether in democratic promotion, sustainable energy, or the maintenance of democratic practices. Instead, they shift the discourse and government energy toward arming and strengthening defense budgets.

It becomes problematic when this shift toward securitization, defense, or intelligence is built around sustaining patronage-based coalitions. This reflects a move away from the liberal order in order to justify a turn toward patronage-based politics.

State Erosion and Democratic Backsliding Reinforce Each Other

Israelis protest in Tel Aviv against Netanyahu’s Judicial Coup in Israel. Photo: Avivi Aharon.

 

How does populist state erosion interact with democratic backsliding? Is institutional weakening a precondition for autocratization, or can it emerge as a consequence of already declining democratic norms?

Assoc. Prof. Andrés Mejía Acosta: This is a very good question, and they are interactive but distinct. We have reflected on this, and more empirical work needs to be developed to demonstrate it. But what we are saying is that undermining representative institutions—so, in the democratic backsliding literature, when you weaken elections, intimidate political parties, or undermine freedom of expression—these are democratic attacks that open the way for further state erosion in the manner I described earlier: merging state agencies, ignoring state agencies, dismantling budgets, the bureaucracy, etc.

This is possible when there is less popular freedom or citizens’ freedom to contest, protest, defend, and demand accountability for why these agencies are being undermined. So, certainly, weakening democratic institutions facilitates the dismantling of the state.

But the arrow also goes in the opposite direction: when state institutions erode, such as through compromising the tenure or funding of the judiciary, democratic safeguards are deactivated. If the courts and the judicial system are compromised, accused of corruption, or lack the necessary funding or technocratic expertise, how can they uphold basic democratic values? So, it is a two-way street, in a sense, and one of the issues we are examining more closely is the extent to which there is irreversible damage—how far state erosion produces longer-term harm to the future defense of democracy.

What we argue, therefore, is that this phenomenon of state erosion will have long-term consequences that make reversals of democratic backsliding more difficult. It will be harder to recover democratic practices when state mechanisms are no longer functioning.

Purges in the Name of Efficiency Can Undermine Governance

In several Latin American cases, populist leaders have used anti-corruption rhetoric to justify purges of bureaucratic and judicial institutions. How should scholars distinguish between genuine institutional reform and strategic institutional capture disguised as reform?

Assoc. Prof. Andrés Mejía Acosta: This is a good and difficult question. Reforms are usually justified by these populist leaders who intend to hollow out the state. In the name of government efficiency, you hear these leaders accuse bloated bureaucracy or stress the need to impose austerity regimes and save millions of dollars. You can think of President Javier Milei in Argentina, who began his campaign with a chainsaw in hand, signaling what he intended to do to the state—to institutions he viewed as nonfunctional and unhelpful—and that he wanted to cut bureaucracy and save money.

To determine whether these are genuine institutional reforms, we need to look at the goals and outcomes. Are effective goals achieved, for example, in terms of environmental protections, delivering effective justice, or respecting the rights of minorities? We do not yet have a clear answer, but the state’s capacity to govern, because it is so heavily undermined, will sooner or later affect people when they see that the bureaucracy is not functioning effectively to process their payments, or that judicial institutions are not working properly to hear cases and issue fair sentences.

So, it is in the outcomes and the goals that we will see whether these reforms aimed to enhance government efficiency or were instead a decoy to strengthen, as you said at the beginning, patronage-based networks.

Voters Must Distinguish Performance from Performative Power

Donald Trump.
Donald Trump’s first presidential campaign rally at the Phoenix Convention Center, where thousands gathered to hear him speak as protesters demonstrated outside. Photo: Danny Raustadt.

 

Your research highlights the importance of fiscal and administrative capacity. Do populists hollow out states uniformly across sectors, or do they selectively weaken institutions that constrain executive power while strengthening coercive or extractive apparatuses?

Assoc. Prof. Andrés Mejía Acosta: This is one of the questions that deserves more attention. In the article, we discuss the difference between performative and performance-driven reforms and changes. For example, performative actions could include putting hundreds of immigration enforcement agents on the streets to go after so-called illegal immigrants or deploying the military to patrol the streets and target criminals and drug-dealing networks. This obviously has a very strong performative aspect, because public opinion suddenly says, “Oh, wow, the government is doing something.” But what we need to know is whether these measures actually work and what their performance aspect is.

So, yes, there is a paradox in terms of whether the display of force, the display of state strength to address a problem, is in fact effective or merely theatrical. We argue that these truths will become self-evident when midterm elections, local elections, or the next executive election take place and people assess whether those reforms were justified and needed—whether there are, in fact, fewer illegal immigrants or whether crime rates have dropped. What we are seeing so far is that these major displays of force and state strength are not necessarily moving the needle on actual policy outcomes. In Ecuador, over the past two years, under a government with very strong tendencies to use the military and armed forces to combat crime, this has not only failed to move the needle, but crime and homicide rates have actually increased.

It is at this moment, when the performative does not match actual performance, that I would hope voters become aware of this self-evident truth and become less impressed by theatrics and more interested in actual indicators of performance.

Even Consolidated Democracies Can See Institutions Erode Quickly

Many of your empirical insights come from Latin America. How transferable is the “state hollowing” framework to Western democracies, where bureaucratic autonomy and legal constraints are historically stronger?

Assoc. Prof. Andrés Mejía Acosta: I would love to agree with you, and that is my hope—that certainly Western, more consolidated, older democracies have developed stronger bureaucracies, stronger judicial traditions, and stronger financial safeguards to protect against this dismantling or hollowing of the state. I can tell you two diverging stories. In one case, well-established democracies have suddenly seen foreign aid agencies dismantled within months, if not weeks, while budgetary allocations for independent institutions have been either questioned, frozen, or withdrawn. So that believed resilience of state institutions may turn out to be much weaker than assumed. But I think here an important caveat is the role of, coming back again to the democratic level of analysis, the extent to which elections and parties can provide a meaningful counterweight to prevent the executive from dismantling these institutions.

An interesting transitional example—though I am less familiar with continental Europe—is Britain. It has been the case that Britain’s Reform Party (Reform UK), or variations of it, the populist Farage-type movements, have been trying for a long time, at least 10 years, to take over a much broader policy agenda. Partly, institutions, citizens, and democratic practices have contained this drive of a more extreme populist party from gaining much power in Britain. So, we are seeing a level of state resilience and institutional strength by which voters can make this distinction between performative politics and performance and have put back a more moderate Labour government about two years ago.

So, the fact that we observe some state resilience to these populist temptations is good news, but it is not an assurance. It is not a long-term guarantee, particularly if governments come to power and do not deliver the basic minimal governance reforms that people need. There could again be a backlash. This is something we will see over the coming year—whether Labour or another conventional party is able to maintain and safeguard democratic institutions, or whether Reform UK is going to take over and initiate a process that we anticipate would attempt to dismantle essential state institutions and functions in Britain.

Polarization and Legal Manipulation as Gateways to State Erosion

Photo: Dreamstime.

 

Are contemporary populist movements in Europe and North America reproducing Latin American patterns of institutional erosion, or are they generating a distinct model of democratic decay rooted in polarization and legal manipulation rather than outright state weakening?

Assoc. Prof. Andrés Mejía Acosta: I think there is a similar logic and line of thinking as in the question and in my previous answer. Certainly, this strategy of polarization and legal manipulation serves as an entry point to justify and open the way for further state weakening. So, what we see in Europe and North America is also the temptation to polarize, manipulate legal institutions, weaponize the judiciary, and criticize the media and freedom of expression as a way to entrench power. Whether this leads to outright state weakening will depend on long-standing traditions and on political actors willing to step up and defend the sanctity of the judiciary, the tax bureaucracy, or the defense apparatus.

How do differences in party systems, federalism, and welfare regimes mediate the capacity of populists to capture or erode the state across regions?

Assoc. Prof. Andrés Mejía Acosta: It’s a fantastic question, and it illustrates how much more we need to understand about how, where, and when state erosion works. Certainly, one aspect that we know from the existing literature is that in federal systems, institutional architectures become more resilient than others to state or executive encroachment. State governments, depending on the constitution and their prerogatives and attributions, would have more autonomy to resist. We already saw these dynamics with COVID, when different studies showed how, if the executive had strong policies to prevent the spread of COVID, such as lockdowns and mandatory masks, states would take a different position or opposition. This is different from unitary states, where the reforms and policies adopted by the center ought to be implemented at every step of the way at the local level, and so on.

So, my hope is that strong federalist institutions would be able to withstand and sustain resistance to these temptations of the executive to encroach and further dismantle the state. That is my ideal hope. One thing that we could start observing—and this is an empirical question—is whether we begin to see the formation of vertical coalitions, whereby a populist executive at the federal level combines with a populist executive at the state level. Then you have pillars of state erosion that do not necessarily preserve democracy but rather align with this idea of dismantling state checks and balances and preserving the proliferation of patronage and clientelistic regimes.

Weakened Institutions Enable the Rise of Informal Power Networks

Your broader scholarship emphasizes informal institutions and clientelist linkages. How does the hollowing of formal state institutions reshape the balance between formal governance and informal political networks?

Assoc. Prof. Andrés Mejía Acosta: We argue that state dismantling enhances informality, discretionality, and opacity. So, all the checks, balances, and capacities to oversee, regulate, and ensure representation, etc., are being placed under attack. What we observe with this process of state dismantling is that these trends—dismantling state capacity—further intensify informality, discretionality, and opacity. This has a direct impact on the proliferation of informal political networks. For example, in some countries we can see how tech barons and the owners of the most important technological and media companies have tremendous potential to disrupt and capture any form of regulation in order to maximize profit. So, what I am saying is that when you enhance informality, discretionality, and opacity, the state essentially paves the way for these informal political networks to accomplish their goals and maximize their individual profit, rather than looking out for the common good.

Is there a paradox whereby populist leaders weaken bureaucratic capacity while simultaneously expanding discretionary spending and targeted benefits to maintain political loyalty? What are the long-term developmental consequences of this model?

Assoc. Prof. Andrés Mejía Acosta: Certainly. This is a critical dimension of state capacity that has not received much attention. The literature on democratic backsliding focuses on the dismantling of checks and balances, freedom of expression, and the fairness of political competition, and so forth. But we do not pay enough attention to the fiscal aspect, and one of the instruments used by populists in dismantling state capacity is creating greater discretion in state funding or justifying significant changes in it. For example, I mentioned at the beginning how monies allocated to poverty reduction programs are accounted for and managed. The moment you remove the monitoring and evaluation aspects of that spending; you create a vacuum of discretion where state leaders can allocate those funds for other purposes.

There is a growing trend—one that can be empirically documented—when you look at how much funding for, say, the judiciary has been reduced over time, or how much the state defense apparatus or special police units have discretionary budgets directly connected to the whims of the executive. This is another, less understood mechanism through which spending or targeted benefits can undermine capacity while maintaining political loyalty. Tax exemptions are another case; tax evasion is another. In the book, we mention the case of the current President Daniel Noboa in Ecuador, who not only undermines the capacity of the state collection agency but also creates mechanisms and reforms to secure tax amnesty for his own business group, so that the state revenue-collecting agency forgives the debts of his business groups, and then he appoints one of the top accountants of his business firm to lead the agency.

By the time the executive is handling state collection agencies as if they were the accounting department of his firm, we have come full circle, illustrating how the executive can mismanage spending and benefits to ensure not just political loyalty but the survival of his own coalition.

Performance Failures Can Undermine Hollowed-Out Regimes

Once populist regimes have hollowed out institutional checks, how resilient do these systems become to democratic backlash—whether through elections, protests, or elite defection? Are weakened states paradoxically more durable for incumbents?

Assoc. Prof. Andrés Mejía Acosta: That is certainly the hope—that by weakening the mechanisms for political and democratic participation, state incumbents will become stronger, more embedded, more entrenched, etc. The relevant test here is whether there are scope conditions for stable and durable governance. I go back to the point I mentioned about the performative versus performance-driven type of governance: if the performative outweighs the performance, sooner or later people will feel that their social security checks are not arriving, that they are paying higher prices for the same kinds of goods, or that they feel more insecure on the streets, etc., and this will make incumbent stability much harder to achieve.

So, either populists will need to reconcile this weakening of institutional checks with effective governance, or they will probably go fully autocratic in order to stay in office. But I do not see how this could immediately be a stable equilibrium if leaders continue hollowing out the state and expect to remain in office, unless further action is taken.

Elite Fractures Can Trigger Sudden Regime Collapse

Historical cases show that authoritarian-leaning regimes can collapse suddenly when elite coalitions fracture. What conditions make hollowed-out states vulnerable to reversal versus entrenched in competitive authoritarianism?

Assoc. Prof. Andrés Mejía Acosta: Yes, elite implosion is certainly a possibility, and in a few instances, we have seen countries where top state elites enter into conflict, dispute territories, and dispute alternative versions of budget funding, for example. This would directly undermine the state elite’s ability to survive in office.

My sense is that this has not happened because, collectively, elites have more to gain by sticking together and maintaining the coalition rather than elaborating on their differences. If anything, what could contain this tendency to hollow out states could be outside pressure, as we have seen in the case of Brazilian courts when they issued prison terms for former President Bolsonaro, who aimed to undermine the state, and the courts put a straightforward stop and said this was not feasible. There are also examples from courts in some parts of India, where bureaucracies can offer a containment strategy so that executives find it much harder to encroach on, dismantle, and change institutions.

Another avenue is plebiscites, such as in Ecuador in recent months, where a series of further state reforms to weaken the state were pushed back by voters, who said no in popular consultations, so that these populists could not continue further weakening the state. Internal implosion would be one scenario, but we have to bet on and count on organized pressure from outside to contain this trend.

Democratic Resilience Requires Broad, Cross-Sector Coalitions

A rear view of people with placards and posters on global strike for climate change. Photo: Dreamstime.

 

And lastly, Professor Acosta, looking ahead, what institutional reforms or societal coalitions offer the most promising pathways to rebuild state capacity and democratic accountability after periods of populist erosion? Do you see reasons for optimism regarding democratic resilience globally?

Assoc. Prof. Andrés Mejía Acosta: I do want to remain optimistic. I do want to see the glass half full in the different events of resistance, rebellion, and reconstruction of democratic capacities. I think this is a much-needed condition for development, for political coexistence, for peace, and respect for human dignity and basic values, etc.

I think, in terms of the specifics of your question—what kinds of societal coalitions or institutional reforms—that this is going to take a much more concerted long-term effort. The challenge now, compared to five or ten years ago, when we were talking about the conditions for democratic resilience and how to contain backsliding, is that we are now talking about the next layer down, as if the authoritarian illness is spreading through the body. It is no longer at the skin or organ level but getting into the bloodstream of how our systems are governed. This requires a much more rapid response on the part of academics to produce more understanding, more nuanced knowledge, and a stronger empirical basis.

But also, activism, non-governmental organizations, educational institutions, the teaching of our students, and the development of broader coalitions around basic rights—of ill people, or unfairly treated people in the court systems, or environmental protections. For that, we need to create cross-cutting coalitions so that, for example, a state attempt to undermine the rights of Indigenous people to preserve their lands from further extraction and exploitation is not just a matter for environmentalists or Indigenous communities, but a cross-societal matter. If we do not collectively defend their rights, sooner or later those attacks from the executive will reach each and every one of us.

So, it is both about developing a cross-sectoral, much broader coalition of different actors—some directly affected, others standing in solidarity with them—and this needs to be long-term. How to do that is a very difficult question that will require most of our innovation, creativity, and commitment. The playing field is also tilted against citizens when social media is controlled by fewer and fewer hands, with dominant discourses prevailing and alternative narratives consistently blocked.

The challenge is much bigger, of course, but the need is also much higher for a sustained, global, broad coalition of interests so that democratic resilience—global democratic resilience—is not just a cause for optimism, but a cause for mobilization and sustained action over time.

Dr. Nandini Sundar is a Professor of Sociology at the Delhi School of Economics, Delhi University.

Prof. Sundar: Almost Every Institution in India Has Been Subverted to Advance a Supremacist Agenda

by AuthoritarianismEditor’s ChoiceExtremism & RadicalisationHomeHuman RightsInterviews

In this interview with the ECPS, Professor Nandini Sundar (Delhi School of Economics, Delhi University) delivers a stark assessment of India’s institutional trajectory under the BJP and its ideological parent, the RSS. Her central claim is unequivocal: “Almost every institution in this country has now collapsed, or has been subverted, in order to further the supremacist agenda.” She situates current developments within the longer history of Hindutva ideology, emphasizing the RSS’s founding goal of a Hindu supremacist state. Professor Sundar argues that a narrative of majoritarian victimhood underpins historical revisionism, institutional capture, and restrictions on academic freedom. She also highlights transnational pressures, noting that a “very active Hindutva diaspora” has targeted scholars abroad, constraining research and debate globally.

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

In this wide-ranging interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Professor Nandini Sundar— Professor of Sociology at the Delhi School of Economics, Delhi University, and one of India’s most prominent sociologists and a leading voice on democracy, violence, and state power—offers a stark assessment of the trajectory of Indian institutions under the rule of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its ideological parent, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Her central claim is unequivocal: “Almost every institution in this country has now collapsed, or has been subverted, in order to further the supremacist agenda.” Situating contemporary developments within the longer history of Hindutva ideology, Professor Sundar argues that the BJP cannot be understood apart from the RSS, “an unregistered, secretive organization” founded in 1925 “to establish a Hindu supremacist state in which all others would be second-class citizens.”

At the heart of this project, she explains, lies a powerful narrative of majoritarian victimhood. RSS discourse portrays Hindus as historical victims of “800 years of colonialism,” conflating Muslim rule with British imperialism and mobilizing a sense of lost civilizational pride. This paradox—an overwhelming majority imagining itself as dispossessed—underpins a wide array of policies, from historical revisionism to institutional capture. According to Professor Sundar, the claim to represent a wronged majority translates into concrete restrictions on academic freedom through ideological appointments, funding pressures, surveillance, and curricular transformation. Universities, in particular, have been reshaped to ensure that “only our narrative, only our voice, should count,” transforming spaces once associated with pluralism into arenas of political conformity and patronage.

The interview highlights how Hindutva governance operates not only through formal state mechanisms but also through diffuse networks of affiliated organizations and vigilante actors. Student groups such as the ABVP (the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad) and other RSS-linked formations function simultaneously as political mobilizers and instruments of intimidation, embedding campuses within what Professor Sundar calls a broader “ecosystem of vigilantism.” Meanwhile, democratic institutions—from courts to electoral bodies and media regulators—are portrayed as formally intact yet substantively hollowed out, enabling what she describes as the preservation of democratic form alongside the erosion of democratic substance.

Professor Sundar also draws attention to the transnational dimension of these dynamics. A “very active Hindutva diaspora,” she notes, has targeted scholars abroad, orchestrating harassment campaigns and reputational attacks that restrict academic inquiry on India globally. As a result, she warns, it has become “very difficult for anyone working on India to be able to research, write, and think freely, whether inside the country or outside the country.”

Taken together, her analysis presents Hindutva not merely as a domestic political ideology but as a comprehensive project of institutional transformation, cultural redefinition, and epistemic control. By foregrounding the links between majoritarian resentment, institutional subversion, and the policing of knowledge, this interview offers a sobering account of how democratic systems can be repurposed to sustain exclusionary rule while maintaining the appearance of constitutional continuity.

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

The BJP Cannot Be Understood Apart from the RSS and Its Supremacist Project

A man chanting songs with a dummy cow in the background during the Golden Jubilee
celebration of VHP – a Hindu nationalist organization on December 20, 2014 in Kolkata, India. Photo: Arindam Banerjee.

Professor Nandini Sundar, thank you very much for joining our interview series. Let me start right away with the first question: In your recent work on majoritarian resentment and the inversion of victimhood, how do you conceptualize the BJP’s claim to represent a historically wronged “majority,” and how does that claim translate into concrete restrictions on academic freedom (appointments, funding, policing, curricula)?

Professor Nandini Sundar: The BJP was founded by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), an unregistered, secretive organization that has proliferated into many different fronts—education, labor, and virtually every sector, each with its own affiliated bodies. The BJP is the political wing of the RSS, which was founded exactly 100 years ago, in 1925, to establish a Hindu supremacist state in which all others would be second-class citizens.

If you look at RSS literature, it consistently portrays Hindus as victims suffering from what they call 800 years of colonialism, because they conflate periods of Muslim rule with British colonialism. This reflects a deep sense that India was ruled by Muslim rulers for many centuries and that a lost Hindu pride must now be regained. The past they invoke—often framed as a glorious Vedic age—overlooks the fact that ancient India consisted of many different communities practicing a variety of religions, rather than a unified “Hindu” civilization.

This constructed sense of victimhood, despite Hindus being the overwhelming majority—over 80 percent of the population—translates into efforts to rewrite history, for example by erasing the Mughal period. Yet it is impossible to understand India without considering the Mughal era or the various sultanates that existed from the 12th to the 18th centuries.

It also manifests in demographic anxieties, such as claims that Hindus are being overtaken by Muslims due to allegedly higher Muslim fertility rates—claims that are not supported by empirical evidence, since fertility rates among Muslims have declined sharply and vary across regions. In short, historical narratives, demographic fears, and broader perceptions of victimhood are mobilized together.

As noted, this translates first into historical revisionism. Second, in universities, vacancies have been systematically filled with individuals aligned with their ideology. This is not simply a matter of feeling victimized, because in the past, although the system was not always perfect, there was at least a perception that appointments were based on merit. If their candidates were not selected, it was often due to a lack of scholarly expertise rather than ideological exclusion.

Now, victimhood is invoked to claim that “our people” were neglected while positions were monopolized by the left. In reality, universities have been systematically reshaped to reflect their ideological preferences, and this has also become a source of patronage for their cadre.

Taken together, these developments reveal not only a discourse of victimhood but also a broader assertion of dominance—the belief that they are now the only legitimate force, and that only their narrative and voice should prevail.

Democratic Institutions Have Been Hollowed Out from Within

Shri Narendra Modi.
Indian Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi addressing the Nation on the occasion of 75th Independence Day from the ramparts of Red Fort, in Delhi on August 15, 2021.

In “Inside Modi’s Assault on Academic Freedom,” you trace how formally democratic institutions can be repurposed to discipline dissent. What are the key mechanisms—legal, bureaucratic, and vigilante—through which democratic form is preserved while democratic substance is hollowed out?

Professor Nandini Sundar: Almost every institution in this country has now collapsed, or has been subverted, in order to further the supremacist agenda. If you look at the judiciary—take the Supreme Court, for instance—we have had several BJP chief ministers issuing hate speeches. There was a recent incident involving the chief minister of Assam, which has quite a sizable Muslim minority, putting out a video of him shooting Muslims with a gun, targeting them so that you could see Muslims in the viewfinder being shot at. People took this to the Supreme Court, and the Court refused to intervene, saying that you are only targeting BJP chief ministers, and has basically refused to do anything about hate speech coming from the highest constitutional authorities. If you look at any number of judicial pronouncements in the last decade and a half, they have consistently favored the BJP.

If you look at the Election Commission, which again has been packed with chosen bureaucrats, right now they are conducting a massive exercise across the country to register voters. Historically, everybody who has been living here has been considered a voter, apart from immigrants or others. The onus used to be on the state to find and register voters. Now the onus is on voters to prove that they are citizens of this country and produce birth certificates of their parents, grandparents, their own exam mark sheets, and a whole range of certificates to show that they are indeed genuine citizens. That has led to the disenfranchisement of large numbers—hundreds of thousands of people in each state. For example, about 600,000 in one state. It is just ridiculous, because these are all actual, genuine voters who have not been able to produce the right certificates, often because they are poor, or especially women who migrate. So, you can see that elections, too, are completely controlled by the BJP.

When it comes to the media, if you look at the Modi government’s spending on advertisements, the amount that goes to favored media, and the way that media critical of the government has repeatedly had court cases slapped on them, with independent journalists arrested—every field is under attack. Universities are one major field—higher education in particular, but education more generally—where the BJP and the RSS have been attacking all conventions, all democratic procedures, and installing their own people.

Precarity in Universities Is Undermining Academic Freedom

How do budget cuts, contractualization, and precaritization in higher education function as governance tools—producing compliance not only through ideology, but also through material dependence and career risk?

Professor Nandini Sundar: There’s been a change in the way universities are funded. Many university colleges are being asked to go autonomous, which means that they will be responsible for raising their own funding. This increases fees for students, and at the same time, minority students—say Muslims and Christians who were receiving fellowships—have seen those fellowships cut down. So, there has been a general reduction in student fellowships.

In terms of faculty recruitment, we see that even earlier there were a number of precarious positions—contractual teachers—and that still continues quite widely across private colleges. Precarious teachers, those without fixed contracts, obviously find it hard to be critical of anything that is going on and hard to teach freely. But you also see that now, whenever the precarity issue among teachers has been addressed, those positions have been filled with their own people.

So, in either situation, both among students and among faculty, contractualization and the reduction of fellowships are making it difficult for there to be a strong autonomous voice from students and faculty.

Terror Laws Are Weaponized Against Democratic Protest

Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University (BAMU)
Protest against the CAA and NRC at Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University (BAMU), Aurangabad, Maharashtra, India, as students and citizens demonstrate in defense of constitutional rights. Photo: Imran Shaikh.

Many accounts emphasize arrests, sedition/terror charges, and prolonged pre-trial detention. Analytically, how should we understand “process as punishment” as a populist-authoritarian technique of rule in India?

Professor Nandini Sundar: Absolutely. The whole judicial system is designed for process without punishment. If you take the case of Sharjeel Imam and Umar Khalid, two student leaders who have been arrested for over five years now without the case even coming to trial. The charges relate to their involvement in a movement for equal citizenship. In 2019, the government passed an act that would grant citizenship to refugees from every other country except Pakistan and Bangladesh, and to every other religion except Islam. This was also seen as the first step toward disenfranchising Indian Muslims, and there was a massive protest against it—a huge, peaceful, democratic protest, predominantly led by women in many parts of the country, but especially in Delhi.

These students, both from JNU (Jawaharlal Nehru University) and from Jamia (Jamia Millia Islamia), were involved in this democratic protest, and it was actually a very powerful democratic moment in this country’s history. But many students—predominantly Muslim students—were arrested. There were many people who took part in that protest, Muslims and Hindus, but only the Muslim students were arrested, and they have been in jail for the last five years. We have recorded speeches from them talking about the need for unity, upholding the Constitution, and love, yet they have been accused under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, which deals with terror.

They have been accused of terror conspiracies, which is completely ludicrous. The case has not even come to trial, and the evidence against them is completely flimsy. But everyone knows that they are being kept in jail because they are articulate student leaders who had a democratic vision for this country.

Campuses Are Embedded in a Wider Ecosystem of Vigilantism

How do you interpret the role of affiliated organizations (student wings, vigilante groups, informal “sentiment” enforcers) in expanding state capacity to intimidate universities while maintaining deniable distance?

Professor Nandini Sundar: The RSS has the biggest student wing in the whole country, the ABVP, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, which has been engaged in a number of attacks on other student organizations. It has also attacked various seminars that have gone against BJP ideology. It functions both as a student wing—providing the kind of membership and mobilization for ordinary student activities that any student organization does—and as a vigilante force.

There are also a number of other fronts of the RSS—the Bajrang Dal, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, and various other wings—which intimidate students and faculty on campuses. This is part of a more generalized surge in vigilantism, as vigilantes have been attacking Muslim traders, Muslims transporting cattle across state boundaries, Muslim shopkeepers, and Christian pastors. There is a whole range of vigilante forces that the RSS tacitly supports and grants immunity and impunity. So, the university is not free of this; it is completely embedded in that wider ecosystem of vigilantism.

Universities Modeling Diversity Became Central Adversaries

Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).
Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), a public central university in New Delhi, India. Photo: Mrinal Pal.

Why do institutions like JNU become such central targets in majoritarian projects? Is it their historical role in mass politics, their social composition, their epistemic authority—or the way they model pluralism?

Professor Nandini Sundar: All of the above, I should say. Many universities in India were set up as part of a nationalist project. For instance, Jamia, which was established before independence, was founded by nationalist leaders to provide an alternative form of education to the British colonial model, and it has had a very long, rich tradition of scholarship and student mobilization.

JNU was set up in the 1970s on a very distinct model of higher education, where the effort was to bring in students from all across the country, especially from underserved regions. It had an extremely interesting system of deprivation points, whereby students from backward regions would receive extra marks in addition to whatever they obtained in the entrance test. In this way, it managed to achieve a real plurality of students from across the country. They also had excellent faculty, and some departments were truly the best in the country, known for their academic excellence. Even today, it remains one of the strongest universities academically in India.

Partly because of this academic excellence and the pluralism of its students, JNU also developed a very strong left tradition. It is one place where left student unions have consistently won student elections, and it has had a distinctive style of politics in which debates on a wide range of national issues would continue late into the night, alongside campus concerns such as hostel bills, food, accommodation, and fees. So, it has been a very unusual kind of university, an iconic institution for liberal-left education, and that was something the BJP felt it had to attack and destroy.

Rewriting the Past to Control the Nation’s Narrative

How do textbook “rationalization” and selective historical erasure operate as a struggle over national temporality—who gets to narrate the past, and who is authorized to speak for the nation?

Professor Nandini Sundar: The RSS thinks that it is authorized to speak for the nation, and since it has control over the government and textbooks—because under the Indian system education is a matter both for the central (federal) government and for the states—there are also some boards that operate nationally, in addition to the state boards. So, the major producer of textbooks in India is the NCERT, the National Council of Educational Research and Training, which produces textbooks that are then used by these different boards or even used by state boards as models.

What the BJP has been doing is systematically changing these NCERT textbooks. For instance, removing references to caste, removing all traces of Mughal history from middle school textbooks, and giving more space to certain false narratives that promote Hindu rulers at the expense of others. So, it has huge power. I mean, the central government has enormous power to rewrite historical narratives. It is also, if you look at other fields—archaeology, for instance—it underplays the contributions of the South in historical research.

I don’t know how to put it, but it is enormously powerful in rewriting history and rewriting sociology, rewriting politics—everything, really.

National Security as a Catch-All Tool of Suppression

The state’s framing of “internal affairs,” “sensitive issues,” and “national security” often appears deliberately expansive. What does this elasticity reveal about authoritarian boundary-making in the knowledge sphere?

Professor Nandini Sundar: It also reveals something about authoritarian fragility. Just to give you a very recent example. The Wire, which is a news portal, ran a 52-second clip showing Prime Minister Modi running away from Parliament. This was during a debate in Parliament about how he had not taken a resolute stand when the Chinese were coming into India in 2020, and then he claimed that women MPs were threatening to bite him, and that’s why he didn’t attend Parliament. So, this was just a somewhat humorous video about how Modi was supposedly scared of being bitten by women MPs. The Wire’s Instagram page was shut down, there was a privilege motion against them from Parliament, and it was described as a national security issue. Now, there was nothing remotely related to national security about a small cartoon of Modi running away from women MPs.

But anything and everything can be described as a national security issue. People are being arrested, especially journalists in Kashmir, or students in Kashmir, who are really living under a state of terror. It is such a loosely applied concept, and the problem is that the law puts the onus squarely on the person who is accused under such laws. It is very hard to get bail under UAPA (Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act), which is why people like Umar and Sharjeel and other human rights activists in what is called the BK16 case (the 16 individuals locked up without a trial in the Bhima Koregaon case. S.G.), or across the country more generally, are finding it very difficult to get out of this, because they are accused under national security acts.

So, it is a very expansive definition. It is very, very open to abuse, and these laws should have no place in any democracy.

Food, Caste, and Control under Hindutva Governance

Volunteers of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) on Vijyadashmi festival, a large gathering or annual meeting during Ramanavami a Hindu festival in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh on October 19, 2018. Photo: Pradeep Gaurs.

Beyond overt ideological control, what is the relationship between Hindutva governance and everyday disciplinary practices (food regimes, hostel rules, policing intimacy), and how do these practices intersect with gendered and caste-based hierarchies?

Professor Nandini Sundar: One of the things that the RSS, the Hindutva regime, has been trying to promote is the idea that India is a vegetarian country, and that people who eat meat are in some way inferior or should not be eating meat. They have been trying to associate that with Muslims and use it to target Muslims or Dalits, who were formerly called untouchables and who are still treated very badly and exploited by the system.

In fact, about 80% of India is non-vegetarian. But this has become a big issue in certain hostels. For instance, some of the Indian Institutes of Technology have had separate messes in hostels for vegetarians and non-vegetarians. In the past, people were free to eat whatever they wanted, and they could sit together and eat, but this kind of segregation creates a hierarchical divide in which those who eat pure vegetarian food are seen as somehow superior, because historically it has also been a caste issue.

There have been student movements against this segregation and hierarchy, but they have again been suppressed by the administration. A lot of what the Hindutva regime is doing is feeding into existing caste and religious prejudices, aggravating them, and creating a hierarchy in which Hindu upper-caste voices are seen as representing the whole nation.

Just another example: for some strange reason—because it is inconceivable that this government would do anything that progressive—the University Grants Commission (UGC), which governs the higher education space, issued rules mandating equity for students from historically discriminated backgrounds, such as Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, minorities, and OBCs (The Other Backward Classes). There was a huge protest against this by upper-caste students, who have been coming out on the streets saying that they are under threat and in danger from this equity movement. The Supreme Court has stayed the equity regulations, and the BJP government is really happy, because it has got the Supreme Court to do so. On the one hand, they put out these UGC equity regulations, but they actually did not want to implement them; their constituency of upper-caste people is against it, and fortunately for them, it has been stayed by the Supreme Court.

So, there is a very neat dovetailing between Hindutva upper-caste ideology and the various practices of this government.

Masculinist Power and the Politics of ‘Teaching a Lesson’

How do masculinist styles of leadership and majoritarian “strength” narratives shape state behavior toward universities—especially in the public performance of punishment, humiliation, and “teaching a lesson”?

Professor Nandini Sundar: It is a very masculinist ideology, and historically the RSS did not have room for women as part of its cadre; there was a separate women’s wing.

If you look at the state of Kashmir, for instance, and education in Kashmir—higher education in particular—the entire process has been about this. In 2019, the state of Jammu and Kashmir was stripped of its constitutional autonomy and reduced from a state to a union territory. The whole thing was couched in terms of teaching them a lesson, because it was seen as a source of terrorism, since it is the only Muslim-majority state in India, and there was a conscious effort to show them their place.

When it comes to universities, Kashmiri students in different parts of the country have been especially targeted and victimized, and again this is very much part of showing Muslims their place, showing Kashmiris their place in India. When it comes to women, there are many more subtle ways in which women have been affected. If you look at the entrance exams, thanks to a new system of multiple-choice entrance exams, the number of women entering colleges has dramatically declined. Even if the government officially says that its policy is inclusive of women studying, in fact many of its practical policies discriminate against women.

People wait in queues to cast votes at a polling station during the 3rd phase of Lok Sabha polls, in Guwahati, India on May 7, 2024. Photo: Hafiz Ahmed.

Targeting Scholars Abroad: Hindutva’s Reach Beyond India

To what extent do you see an externalization of repression—through harassment campaigns, institutional pressure, and reputational attacks—aimed at shaping scholarship on India outside India?

Professor Nandini Sundar: There’s a very active Hindutva diaspora that has been targeting academics who work on India in the US, the UK, and Europe. There was this conference called Dismantling Hindutva some years ago, where the active Hindutva diaspora went after the organizers of the conference. They flooded universities with so much hate mail against faculty members who were part of this conference that some of their servers collapsed.

It is really an organized, very virulent Hindutva diaspora, especially in the US, which has links with Zionists and follows the same sorts of procedures as some of the American far right. Unfortunately for them, the American far right, because they are Christian fundamentalists, has no regard for Hindu fundamentalists, so they are not really sure where they stand now. But they are just a very vicious, virulent lot when it comes to attacking people who are working on India.

For instance, there is an American historian called Audrey Truschke, who writes on Aurangzeb, the last Mughal emperor, and she has been relentlessly attacked. One could name various other people who have been singled out and attacked. The Indian government has also denied visas to a lot of academics working on India. This is really kind of inexplicable, because some of these academics have hugely contributed to the understanding of subjects the government itself promotes. For instance, there is a historian who works on Hindi. Now, the BJP government is insistent that everybody in the country should speak Hindi, that everybody should replace their own languages and know Hindi, yet this historian, who has contributed greatly to the understanding and study of Hindi, was denied a visa. There is absolutely no sense in this, even from their own perspective, because it is not like she was studying anything they would consider anti-national; she was studying Hindi literature.

So, it has become very difficult for anyone working on India to be able to research, write, and think freely, whether inside the country or outside the country.

Recasting the Past for Power

How has the language of decolonization and cultural authenticity been retooled to delegitimate critique—both within India and in global academia—while recoding censorship as civilizational self-defense?

Professor Nandini Sundar: That’s a really good question, because if you look at some of these Hindutva ideologues, they’ve adopted the language of decoloniality to claim that whatever has been done in Indian history, for instance, is colonial because it does not go back to ancient Hindu roots or does not adopt an Indic perspective.

In fact, the BJP or the RSS version of history is itself following a completely colonial template. They have adopted a periodization of Indian history based on Hindu, Muslim, and British India, which is a colonial construct, and that is what they have been following in the name of decolonization.

If you look at one major thrust of their programs, it has been to develop what they call Indic knowledge systems. By Indic knowledge systems, they basically mean Hindu and Vedic knowledge systems. This is something they have been pushing in every syllabus revision process, along with organizing a wide variety of seminars on Indic or Indigenous knowledge systems.

They have actually ignored all the work that has been done over the years, because scholars have already been working on different versions of Indian history and Indian society from a variety of perspectives, many of them indigenous. So, to say that they are coming up with some new framework is actually reinventing the colonial wheel while at the same time claiming that they are adopting some kind of great decolonial epistemology.

A Global Crisis of Academic Freedom Requires Collective Resistance

And lastly, Professor Sundar, given the risks of speaking, organizing, and even researching “sensitive” themes, what forms of collective strategy (professional associations, transnational solidarity, union politics, legal defense infrastructures) do you see as most effective—and what ethical obligations do scholars outside India have in confronting these dynamics without reproducing paternalistic frames?

Professor Nandini Sundar: I don’t think it is about scholars outside India or inside India. I think that scholars across the world are now facing similar threats, whether in Turkey, the US, or Europe. We are all being censored. We are all facing the Palestinian exception—nobody can talk about Palestine or teach about Palestine, not just in the US but in Germany and everywhere.

So, I don’t think there are any easy answers as to what can be done. We are all facing similar kinds of issues, so we need to share across countries how people have dealt with this, and work out ways in which we can collectively keep the university going as a space for research and critical thinking, and above all for teaching freely.

And I have hope that students—not the ABVP type, but ordinary students—are keen and curious about what is actually happening in the world, and I have great hope that students will be the ones who keep the university going. That is something that I think we will all have to face collectively, together across the world.