HowardLavine1

Prof. Lavine: The Democrats Are Making Themselves Vulnerable by Using the Socialist Label

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Professor Howard Lavine argues that the Democratic Party’s path to renewal lies less in ideological repositioning than in economic populism, political energy, and credible material outcomes. While MAGA remains rooted in status threat and a revanchist politics of cultural restoration, Professor Lavine sees greater opportunity for Democrats in focusing on affordability, wages, healthcare, and economic security. He cautions that the “socialist” label may create unnecessary electoral vulnerability, even as the Sanders–AOC–Mamdani current helps reorient the party toward working-class concerns. For Professor Lavine, most voters are not moved primarily by ideological sophistication but by whether political leaders deliver tangible improvements. The strategic imperative is therefore clear: Democrats should “pivot purely to economics” and demonstrate what they can concretely achieve for working-class voters.

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

In an interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Professor Howard Lavine, Professor of Political Science at the University of Minnesota and former Director of the Center for the Study of Political Psychology, argues that the Democratic Party’s central challenge is less one of ideological definition than of political branding, economic credibility, and mobilizational energy. His assessment is particularly relevant ahead of the 2026 US midterm elections, as Democrats confront both a weakened but still deeply entrenched Trumpism and the growing influence of figures associated with democratic socialist and economic-populist politics. For Professor Lavine, however, the label itself may be more liability than asset: “The Democrats are making themselves vulnerable to some degree by using the socialist label.”

Professor Lavine draws a sharp distinction between the cultural politics underpinning MAGA and the economic terrain on which Democrats may have greater room to rebuild. MAGA, he argues, remains rooted in status threat and “a revanchist impulse to restore the prior order in which white Christian men feel comfortable in their dominant status.” Yet he does not believe racial and cultural identities necessarily foreclose an economic realignment. Swing voters, he stresses, are generally not those most deeply embedded in MAGA ideology. For Democrats, the crucial question is whether they can translate economic-populist appeals into tangible results: “What matters is the economic outcomes.” Policies themselves are comparatively less important because “most people aren’t going to understand what you say. They’re going to understand what’s happening on the ground.”

This emphasis on economics also shapes Professor Lavine’s interpretation of the Sanders–AOC–Mamdani current. He resists treating it primarily as an ideological socialist project, describing it instead as an effort to rebrand Democrats as more clearly aligned with working-class interests. Indeed, he argues that “the energy is in economic populism. It’s nowhere else.” At the same time, he warns that invoking socialism risks obscuring that advantage: “Too many people don’t like it; it’s not helping Democrats.”

More broadly, Profesor Lavine questions whether ideology itself is what moves most voters. “It’s really not about ideology,” he says of progressive candidates’ recent appeal; what voters are responding to is energy, anger, and a clearer sense of political purpose. In his view, Democrats should therefore move away from cultural issues that animate the academic left and “pivot purely to economics.” The strategic lesson is straightforward: “The more it focuses on economics, the better.” But electoral success ultimately requires more than rhetoric or branding. Once in power, Democrats must demonstrate “what they can do,” and, crucially, “what they can do specifically for the white working class.”

Here is our interview with Professor Howard Lavine, edited lightly to enhance clarity, readability, and overall flow for publication.

 

Imran Bayoumi

Imran Bayoumi: The Decline of Multilateralism Rewards Both Populism and Authoritarian Powers

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In this interview, Imran Bayoumi examines how the weakening of multilateral institutions and the rise of transactional diplomacy are reshaping global power in ways that often favor authoritarian and populist governments. He argues that authoritarian middle powers benefit from greater flexibility to hedge between competing blocs, while democracies remain constrained by alliances, institutions, and domestic accountability. Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan emerges as a key example: Ankara has “managed to play and interact with both realms at the same time,” using populist nationalism to present strategic balancing as the defense of national interests. Bayoumi also warns that weakening Western cohesion benefits revisionist powers, while calling for a “retooled American leadership” capable of rebuilding democratic cooperation in a more fragmented international order.

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

In an era of intensifying geopolitical fragmentation, weakening multilateral institutions, and increasingly transactional diplomacy, authoritarian and populist governments may find themselves unusually well positioned to exploit the emerging international disorder. In this wide-ranging interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Imran Bayoumi, Deputy Director and Resident Fellow with the GeoStrategy Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, examines how the erosion of the rules-based international order is altering the balance between democratic constraints and authoritarian flexibility. His central argument is not that autocracies are inherently stronger, but that a fragmented system can reward governments able to hedge between competing powers, bypass institutional constraints, and personalize foreign policy. As Bayoumi puts it, authoritarian middle powers “have experience with hedging” and are less constrained by the institutions and alliances that shape the choices of democratic states. 

The decline of multilateralism is particularly consequential because it lowers the costs of defying established rules. According to Bayoumi, states increasingly feel comfortable “bypassing multilateral bodies,” ignoring treaties and challenging norms because the prospect of meaningful punishment has diminished. Yet he cautions against reducing this transformation simply to populism: “It’s a mix of both things: populism and power.” At the same time, the personalization of diplomacy associated with contemporary populist politics is becoming increasingly significant, as foreign policy becomes more closely tied to leaders themselves rather than institutions and professional bureaucracies. 

Turkey provides one of the interview’s clearest illustrations of this emerging geopolitical flexibility. Still embedded in NATO and Western institutions, Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has simultaneously cultivated relations across competing geopolitical blocs. Bayoumi describes Turkey as a country that has “managed to play and interact with both realms at the same time.” Populist nationalism, he argues, has been crucial to legitimizing this strategy domestically: “Erdogan has been able to sell this balancing strategy as a way of being able to secure Turkey’s interests first.” The willingness to purchase Russian air-defense systems while remaining within NATO exemplifies how Ankara combines alliance membership with strategic hedging. 

More broadly, Bayoumi warns that weakening Western alliances and institutional cohesion ultimately benefits revisionist authoritarian powers. “Every action that undermines the strong ties between the United States and its allies is a benefit for them,” he argues, pointing to the growing cooperation among Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea. Yet he rejects the idea that authoritarian ascendancy is inevitable. Instead, he calls for “some sort of retooled American leadership” capable of accommodating the growing autonomy of middle powers while rebuilding institutions and democratic cooperation. The challenge, therefore, is not simply to restore the old international order, but to construct a more resilient one capable of reconciling democratic values, strategic power, and an increasingly multipolar world.

Here is our interview with Imran Bayoumi, edited lightly to enhance clarity, readability, and overall flow for publication.

Dr. María José Urzúa Valverde.

Dr. Valverde: Autocracies See Independent Civic Space Itself as a Strategic Threat

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In this interview with ECPS, Dr. María José Urzúa Valverde examines how authoritarianism, populism, and democratic backsliding increasingly intersect with struggles over civil society and international norms. She argues that autocracies view independent civic mobilization as a strategic threat because rights-based movements can generate broader networks of resistance. The conversation also explores how conservative and populist actors use transnational networks to contest LGBTQ+ rights, human rights norms, and the role of international organizations. Dr. Valverde highlights the growing polarization of international civil society, the strategic use of migration as interstate leverage, and the resurgence of sovereignty-based challenges to the liberal international order. Together, these developments reveal how democratic erosion increasingly unfolds across both domestic and international arenas.

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

In an era marked by democratic backsliding, transnational populism, and growing contestation over international norms, the struggle over civic space has become increasingly central to the future of liberal democracy. In this wide-ranging interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Dr. María José Urzúa Valverde, Assistant Professor in the Department of International Studies at ITAM in Mexico, argues that authoritarian governments do not merely resist particular rights claims; they are deeply concerned with the broader political capacity that autonomous civil society can generate. As she puts it, “Any rights-based mobilization becomes a focal point around which other regime opponents can build networks to resist the regime’s power.” 

This insight lies at the heart of Dr. Valverde’s analysis of authoritarian opposition to LGBTQ+ rights. Drawing on her Journal of Democracy research with Gino Pauselli, she emphasizes that conservative ideology alone cannot explain authoritarian behavior. Their argument instead identifies a threefold logic: “repression of civil society, opposition to the liberal international order, and the instrumental use of conservative ideology.” For Dr. Valverde, the civil-society mechanism is especially revealing because rights-based mobilization can create organizational capacities that extend well beyond a single policy issue. Hence her conclusion that “both liberal and illiberal networks and governments understand civic space access itself as a strategic asset.” 

The interview also broadens this argument beyond domestic authoritarianism. International organizations themselves, Dr. Valverde argues, have become arenas of normative competition. Conservative NGOs and governments increasingly use the same institutional channels once associated primarily with progressive advocacy, while seeking to influence judges, commissioners, and policy agendas. What is at stake, she stresses, is “not only outcomes, but also the IO’s function itself.” This process can produce what she calls “neutralization”: weakening an international organization’s capacity to advance norms without formally reversing its previous commitments. 

These dynamics are closely connected to populism. Dr. Valverde rejects the idea that populists simply learn from autocracies; she instead points to “shared transnational infrastructure” linking conservative and populist actors across borders. She also warns against reducing democracy to electoral legitimacy. Populist leaders, she notes, often reason that “If I won the election, then I represent the people, and if I represent the people, I can do no wrong.” Such logic, she argues, can rapidly undermine checks and balances and weaken non-elected institutions essential to democracy. 

Taken together, the conversation presents civic space not as a secondary democratic concern, but as a core arena in which authoritarianism, populism, human rights, and international order increasingly intersect.

Here is our interview with Dr. María José Urzúa Valverde, edited lightly to enhance clarity, readability, and overall flow for publication.

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Prof. Mazzoleni & Dr. Koxha: Demographic Populism Links Cultural Survival to Biological Reproduction

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In this interview, Professor Oscar Mazzoleni and Dr. Klaudia Koxha, editors of the recently published volume ‘The Radical Right and Demographic Populism,’ examine how contemporary populist radical right politics increasingly connects immigration, fertility, gender, family, religion, and national identity through the politics of demographic survival. They conceptualize “demographic populism” as a framework linking cultural survival to biological reproduction and transforming demographic change into an existential political struggle. The discussion explores demographic weaponization, conspiracy narratives, Fratelli d’Italia’s calculated ambivalence, and generational adaptations within the Austrian Freedom Party’s youth organizations. Moving beyond Europe, Professor Mazzoleni and Dr. Koxha also address transnational diffusion, political sovereignty, aging, migration, labor shortages, and AI, highlighting how demographic transformations may create new opportunities for populist radical right mobilization while posing significant challenges to democratic resilience.

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

Contemporary populist radical right (PRR) politics increasingly organizes questions of immigration, fertility, gender, religion, family, and national identity around a common concern: the demographic reproduction of “the people.” In this ECPS interview, Professor Oscar Mazzoleni of the University of Lausanne and Dr. Klaudia Koxha (a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Lausanne), editors of the recently published volume The Radical Right and Demographic Populism, explain how this convergence can be understood through the concept of “demographic populism.” As Professor Mazzoleni puts it, issues conventionally treated as separate increasingly converge on a fundamental political question: “Who is entitled to reproduce the true people?” Demographic populism, he argues, reveals how anti-immigration, anti-gender, and pronatalist claims can share “a single Manichean logic of demographic survival versus extinction.” Dr. Koxha sharpens this argument, explaining that “cultural survival” becomes tied to “the biological reproduction of a specific people with specific characteristics.” 

The interview begins by developing this conceptual intervention and distinguishing demographic realities from their political weaponization. Aging, declining fertility, and migration are genuine policy challenges, Dr. Koxha stresses; what distinguishes populist radical-right politicization is the question of whose reproduction constitutes the desirable demographic future. This is how demographic change becomes “existential and moralized.” Professor Mazzoleni similarly identifies “demographic weaponization” as central to understanding how statistical and social transformations are reframed as political struggles over collective survival. Their approach consequently bridges populism studies and critical demography, treating demography simultaneously “as a set of conditions and as a political frame.” 

The discussion then turns to how demographic populism operates in concrete political settings. Professor Mazzoleni examines Giorgia Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia, arguing that governmental participation has encouraged not straightforward ideological moderation but “more sophisticated strategies.” Through calculated ambivalence, coded references to “demographic winter,” and a division of discursive labor, radical ideas can be maintained while communication is adapted to broader audiences. In this formulation, demographic populism shifts the perceived threat “from political and economic dispossession to biological and cultural survival,” while immigration becomes embedded within a wider master frame encompassing natality, family, welfare, and religion. 

Dr. Koxha’s analysis of the Austrian Freedom Party’s (FPÖ) youth organizations then introduces a generational dimension. While youth branches reproduce core radical-right positions, they adapt them to young people’s concerns and can sometimes “radicalize it further.” Yet Dr. Koxha also identifies greater internal heterogeneity than might be expected, particularly regarding religion, abortion, and LGBTQ+ issues. Crucially, declining religiosity does not necessarily entail rejecting cultural Christianity, which can instead operate “as a marker of national or civilizational identity.” 

Finally, the interview broadens comparatively to transnational diffusion, sovereignty, demographic decline, migration, labor shortages, and artificial intelligence. Professor Mazzoleni argues that these transformations “can create a structure of opportunities for radical-right populism,” while Dr. Koxha highlights the political contradiction whereby migration can simultaneously be a practical response to aging and be reframed as evidence of “demographic displacement.” The democratic challenge, she concludes, is to confront the material consequences of demographic transformation without accepting that demographic change necessarily entails “cultural extinction” or that “one group’s security requires another’s exclusion.” 

Here is our interview with Professor Oscar Mazzoleni and Dr. Klaudia Koxha, edited lightly to enhance clarity, readability, and overall flow for publication.

JustinGest

Prof. Gest: The Way Countries Treat Their Most Vulnerable Is Indicative of the State of Their Democracy

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Professor Justin Gest argues that democratic resilience depends not only on institutions but also on the citizens who remain to sustain them. In this ECPS interview, Professor Gest discusses his concept of “democratic drain”—the depletion of liberal democratic political capital through emigration—and explains how large-scale departures can weaken resistance to populist and authoritarian backsliding. He warns that democracies are “highly susceptible to demographic change” and that the phenomenon is spreading beyond its European “poster child” to countries including Turkey, Israel, India, and potentially the United States. Professor Gest also examines immigration politics, demographic ageing, and populist mobilization, arguing that migration should be framed in terms of the national interest and that “the way countries treat their most vulnerable” is indicative of the state of their democracy.

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

In an era when democratic backsliding is typically diagnosed through institutional erosion—the weakening of courts, legislatures, electoral safeguards, and checks on executive power—Professor Justin Gest directs attention to a less visible but potentially consequential force: the changing composition of the citizenry itself. Professor and Director of the Public Policy Program at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government and the award-winning author of seven books, including Democratic Drain: Global Migration and the Struggle for Democracy, Professor Gest argues that understanding democratic resilience requires taking demographic change seriously. “What I think has been missing is the human dimension,” he tells the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), emphasizing that democracies “are also highly susceptible to demographic change.”

At the heart of Professor Gest’s argument is what he calls a “depletion effect”: when citizens with liberal democratic values leave in large numbers, their departure can diminish the political and civic resources available to resist authoritarianism. Migration remains, he stresses, “an expression of human freedom and human agency,” yet hundreds of thousands or millions of individual decisions to leave can produce “a very significant collective effect.” The result is a provocative reconsideration of emigration not simply as individual mobility, but as a process capable of reshaping the democratic prospects of countries of origin.

This dynamic may also strengthen populist and authoritarian governments. Professor Gest argues that the depletion of democratic human capital can allow “populist governments or authoritarian-leaning governments to get away with the backsliding” that might otherwise have been politically punished. Europe remains “the poster child for democratic drain,” particularly Central and Eastern Europe, but Professor Gest sees the phenomenon broadening to countries including Turkey, Israel, India, and potentially the United States. Indeed, he warns that “we are seeing the beginnings of a democratic drain in the United States,” even as American institutions, civic associations, and the judiciary continue to provide important sources of resilience.

The interview also situates democratic drain within the wider politics of migration, populism, and demographic transformation. Professor Gest argues that immigration politics is “principally driven by political entrepreneurs” and challenges narratives of invasion and chaos, while advocating immigration as a pursuit of the national interest. Most importantly, migration governance itself becomes a democratic test. “The way countries treat their most vulnerable,”Professor Gest argues, including foreigners and ethnic or religious minorities, “is indicative of the state of their democracy”—an observation he says may constitute an indictment of several countries, including the United States.

Here is the revised version of our interview with Professor Justin Gest, edited lightly to enhance clarity, readability, and overall flow for publication.

Professor Danielle Allen.

Prof. Allen: AI Should Strengthen Human Judgment, Not Replace It

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Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming far more than information ecosystems—it is reshaping the constitutional foundations of democracy itself. In this interview with the ECPS, Professor Danielle Allen argues that the central challenge of AI is not merely technological but constitutional, requiring democratic societies to rethink representation, political power, and civic agency. Rejecting technological determinism, she contends that democratic institutions can still shape AI’s trajectory, provided they strengthen rather than diminish human judgment. Discussing populism, democratic backsliding, surveillance, intermediary institutions, digital citizenship, and constitutional reform, Professor Allen presents a compelling vision of democratic renewal grounded in one core principle: artificial intelligence should complement human capacities—not replace the judgment upon which liberal democracy ultimately depends.

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming the institutional architecture of democratic politics. While much public debate has focused on misinformation, deepfakes, automation, and employment, a growing body of scholarship suggests that the more profound implications of generative AI lie elsewhere: in its capacity to reshape political authority, democratic representation, and the constitutional foundations of liberal self-government. As AI systems increasingly mediate public discourse, organize information, influence political preferences, and concentrate unprecedented forms of economic and computational power, the central question is no longer simply how societies should regulate a new technology, but how constitutional democracies themselves must adapt to preserve political equality, civic agency, and democratic accountability.

Few scholars are better positioned to address these challenges than Professor Danielle Allen, James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University, Director of the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation and the Democratic Knowledge Project, and one of the world’s leading political philosophers working at the intersection of constitutional democracy, citizenship, technology, and democratic renewal. In her widely discussed Journal of Democracy essay, “The Real Dangers of Generative AI,” Professor Allen argues that contemporary debates have fundamentally misidentified the nature of the challenge. Rather than treating AI as merely a technological disruption, she contends that it represents a constitutional turning point requiring a fundamental rethinking of democratic institutions themselves.

In this wide-ranging interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Professor Allen offers a remarkably expansive framework for understanding how AI intersects with democratic governance. Rejecting the conventional separation between technology and constitutional politics, she argues that “political institutions are themselves technologies” and therefore cannot be understood independently of technological transformation. From this perspective, AI is not simply another digital innovation but a force capable of altering the institutional mechanisms through which democratic societies organize representation, distribute political power, and preserve constitutional order.

Throughout the conversation, Professor Allen explores the twin dangers confronting liberal democracies: democratic collapse, produced by the erosion of trustworthy informational infrastructures, and democratic singularity, arising from unprecedented concentrations of computational, informational, and economic power. At the same time, she rejects technological determinism. Instead, she insists that democratic societies retain the capacity to shape AI’s trajectory through institutional reform, constitutional safeguards, and renewed democratic participation.

A recurring theme throughout the interview is the centrality of human agency. Professor Allen argues that democratic renewal ultimately depends not upon resisting technological innovation but upon designing institutions that preserve civic judgment and constitutional self-government. As she puts it, “technology always develops out of a moral vision,” making AI fundamentally a political rather than merely technical question. Consequently, she maintains that the essential democratic task is not simply regulating machines but ensuring that “AI should strengthen human judgment, not replace it.” That principle ultimately serves as the interview’s normative anchor, connecting questions of constitutional design, democratic education, AI governance, intermediary institutions, populism, surveillance, and the future of liberal democracy into a single coherent vision of democratic resilience in the age of artificial intelligence.

Here is the revised version of our interview with Professor Danielle Allen, edited lightly to enhance clarity, readability, and overall flow for publication.

Dr. Hanna Folsz.

Dr. Folsz: Even Deeply Entrenched Competitive Authoritarian Regimes Have Vulnerabilities

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For years, Hungary stood as the defining case of democratic backsliding within the European Union. Yet the 2026 election has transformed it into an equally important case of democratic recovery. In this timely interview, Dr. Hanna Folsz discusses why Hungary’s political transformation challenges prevailing assumptions about the durability of competitive authoritarianism. Drawing on her recent Journal of Democracy article, she argues that authoritarian institutional engineering ultimately remains vulnerable when broad civic mobilization, credible political leadership, and innovative opposition strategies converge. The conversation explores the underestimated role of civil society, the limits of media capture and economic coercion, the challenges of rebuilding democratic institutions, and the broader lessons Hungary offers for scholars and practitioners seeking to understand democratic resilience and authoritarian reversal in the twenty-first century.

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

For more than a decade, Hungary occupied a unique place in the comparative study of democratic backsliding. Under Viktor Orbán and Fidesz, it became widely regarded as the paradigmatic example of competitive authoritarianism within the European Union—a political system in which elections continued to exist but were increasingly distorted by constitutional engineering, media capture, economic coercion, and the systematic weakening of institutional checks and balances. Consequently, Hungary became not merely a national case but an international reference point for understanding how democracies erode from within.

Yet Hungary’s 2026 election has fundamentally altered that conversation. The defeat of Fidesz after sixteen years in power has transformed the country into one of the most consequential contemporary cases of democratic recovery. In her recent Journal of Democracy article, How Civil Society Defeated Orbán, Dr. Hanna Folsz —an Academy Scholar at Harvard University’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, where she will begin her appointment in August 2026 before joining IE University in Madrid as Assistant Professor of Political Science in 2027— argues that this democratic breakthrough cannot be explained solely by leadership change or electoral dynamics. Instead, she offers a broader theoretical argument about the hidden vulnerabilities of competitive authoritarian regimes and the underestimated capacity of civil society to reverse authoritarian consolidation.

As Dr. Folsz observes, “Even deeply entrenched competitive authoritarian regimes have vulnerabilities.” While Hungary experienced what she describes as “one of the most extensive and severe episodes of de-democratization or authoritarian consolidation in recent decades,” the very institutions and strategies that sustained Fidesz ultimately proved insufficient to guarantee permanent rule. Institutional engineering, media dominance, financial asymmetries, and intimidation undoubtedly raised the costs of political competition, yet they could not indefinitely substitute for declining public legitimacy. As she argues, “these authoritarian strategies do not guarantee lasting—everlasting—popularity or staying in office.”

A central contribution of Dr. Folsz’s research is her reassessment of the role of civil society. Rather than attributing the opposition’s victory primarily to the emergence of the Tisza Party or the leadership of Péter Magyar, she demonstrates how more than 2,500 decentralized “Tisza Islands” transformed latent civic capacity into effective political organization. In her words, “The role of civil society… is absolutely underestimated,” while “broad civic mobilization, new and fresh opposition challengers… and a credible alternative to voters are definitely a path to democratic reversal.”

In this interview, Dr. Folsz examines the mechanisms that enabled Hungary’s democratic breakthrough and explores their broader implications for comparative politics. She discusses the hidden effects of economic coercion, the limits of media capture, the importance of credible political leadership, and the challenges of democratic restoration after authoritarian rule. She also reflects on the responsibilities facing Hungary’s new government, emphasizing that electoral victory is only the beginning: “Changing governments is definitely only a precondition for democratic recovery.” Together, these insights offer an important contribution to ongoing debates on populism, democratic resilience, competitive authoritarianism, and the conditions under which entrenched illiberal regimes can ultimately be defeated.

Here is the revised version of our interview with Dr. Hanna Folsz, edited lightly to enhance clarity, readability, and overall flow for publication.

Associate Professor Laura Gamboa.

Assoc. Prof. Gamboa: By the Time the Authoritarian Threat Becomes Evident, It’s Usually Too Late

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Drawing on comparative evidence from Colombia, Venezuela, Guatemala, Mexico, and beyond, Associate Professor Laura Gamboa offers a compelling rethinking of democratic resilience in an age of gradual authoritarianism. Rather than viewing democratic backsliding solely through the ambitions of would-be autocrats, she demonstrates that democratic survival depends equally on the strategic choices of opposition parties, constitutional courts, and civil society. Reflecting on Colombia’s 2026 presidential election, Assoc. Prof. Gamboa argues that the results present “a mixed story,” simultaneously revealing institutional resilience and new democratic vulnerabilities. She warns that contemporary authoritarianism advances incrementally—often becoming visible only when “it’s usually too late”—while urging democratic actors to address citizens’ grievances, strengthen institutional legitimacy, reduce polarization, and defend constitutional democracy without abandoning democratic principles.

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

The contemporary crisis of democracy rarely unfolds through dramatic coups or sudden constitutional collapse. Instead, democratic erosion increasingly advances through legal reforms, institutional manipulation, and the gradual concentration of executive power. This slow-moving process has transformed democratic backsliding into one of the defining political challenges of the twenty-first century, raising urgent questions about how constitutional democracies can defend themselves against elected leaders who weaken democratic institutions from within. Few scholars have contributed more to answering these questions than Associate Professor Laura Gamboa of the University of Notre Dame, whose work has fundamentally reshaped our understanding of democratic resilience.

Unlike much of the earlier literature, which focused primarily on aspiring autocrats, Assoc. Prof. Gamboa redirects attention to the democratic opposition itself. In Resisting Backsliding: Opposition Strategies against the Erosion of Democracy and New Forms of Democratic Erosion in Latin America, she argues that democratic survival depends not only on the ambitions of authoritarian leaders but also on the strategic choices of opposition parties, constitutional courts, legislatures, and civil society. By shifting the analytical focus from autocrats to democratic resistance, her scholarship offers one of the most original frameworks for explaining why some democracies withstand authoritarian pressures while others gradually succumb.

The timing of this interview is especially significant. Colombia’s 2026 presidential election has reignited debates about democratic accountability, populism, institutional resilience, and constitutional government across Latin America. While many observers interpreted the election as a straightforward ideological shift to the political right, Assoc. Prof. Gamboa argues that “the 2026 elections give us a mixed story.” She highlights both the resilience of Colombia’s democratic institutions and troubling warning signs, emphasizing that “both the candidate who won the election and the president’s unwillingness to recognize the election results are not good news for democracy.” Her assessment reminds us that electoral alternation alone neither guarantees democratic renewal nor necessarily signals democratic decline.

A recurring theme throughout the interview is the changing nature of authoritarianism. Contemporary autocrats rarely destroy democracy overnight. Instead, they rely on constitutional reforms, elections, plebiscites, and legal mechanisms to weaken liberal democracy incrementally. As Assoc. Prof. Gamboa warns, “by the time the threat becomes evident, it’s usually too late.” Because democratic erosion often proceeds under the appearance of constitutional legality, recognizing the danger of autocratization before institutions are fundamentally weakened has become increasingly difficult.

The interview also challenges conventional assumptions about populism. Rather than treating it as inherently incompatible with democracy, Assoc. Prof. Gamboa describes populism as “a double-sided coin,” capable of expanding political inclusion while simultaneously encouraging personalistic leadership and executive aggrandizement. Equally important, she argues that democratic oppositions must resist dismissing populist voters. “All of these would-be autocrats come to power because they tap into some kind of discontent,” she explains, emphasizing that democratic forces must address underlying grievances rather than simply condemn their political expression. Ultimately, her message is one of strategic democratic resilience: defend institutions, broaden coalitions, reduce polarization, and remember that “doing politics in a society that is not polarized is significantly easier than doing politics in a society that is polarized.” In an era of democratic uncertainty, Assoc. Prof. Gamboa offers a compelling roadmap for understanding—and resisting—the gradual erosion of constitutional democracy.

Here is the revised version of our interview with Associate Professor Laura Gamboa, edited lightly to enhance clarity, readability, and overall flow for publication.

Professor Kim Lane Scheppele.

Prof. Scheppele’s Three Priorities for Hungary: Reform the Constitutional Court, Restore Judicial Checks, and Change the Election Law

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Hungary’s democratic transition has entered a decisive new phase following Péter Magyar’s electoral victory, but, as Professor Kim Lane Scheppele argues, defeating an autocrat is only the beginning of democratic restoration. In this timely interview, Professor Scheppele examines the constitutional dilemmas confronting Hungary’s new leadership: dismantling autocratic legalism without reproducing it, restoring judicial independence, ensuring accountability without political revenge, and rebuilding institutions capable of sustaining genuine democratic competition. Drawing broader lessons for democracies facing executive aggrandizement, she contends that successful democratic recovery requires more than electoral change. Hungary’s experience, she argues, may become a comparative model for constitutional reconstruction—provided that democratic reformers succeed in limiting their own power while rebuilding the institutional foundations of liberal constitutional democracy.

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

For more than a decade, Hungary has occupied a central place in comparative debates on democratic backsliding, constitutional capture, and the rise of legalistic authoritarianism. Under Viktor Orbán, the country became the paradigmatic example of how elected leaders could gradually dismantle liberal democracy not by suspending constitutional order but by systematically reshaping it from within. Through constitutional amendments, judicial restructuring, electoral engineering, and the concentration of executive authority, Hungary demonstrated that democratic erosion in the twenty-first century increasingly proceeds through law rather than outside it. Yet the electoral defeat of Orbán has fundamentally transformed the scholarly conversation. The central question is no longer how democracies decay, but whether they can be successfully rebuilt once authoritarian legal structures have become deeply institutionalized.

In this wide-ranging interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Professor Kim Lane Scheppele, the Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Sociology and International Affairs at Princeton University, examines one of the most consequential constitutional experiments currently unfolding in Europe: Hungary’s attempt to move from autocratic rule toward democratic restoration. Drawing upon decades of research on constitutionalism, judicial independence, autocratic legalism, and democratic resilience, Professor Scheppele argues that Hungary may now become not only the world’s foremost laboratory of democratic backsliding but also an unprecedented laboratory of democratic recovery.

Throughout the interview, Professor Scheppele repeatedly distinguishes democratic restoration from ordinary democratic transition. Electoral victory, she insists, represents only the first step. As she memorably observes, “The real test of democracy is not the first election—but the next one.” The ultimate challenge is whether a new democratic government can dismantle institutions deliberately designed to prevent future political alternation while simultaneously avoiding the temptation to reproduce concentrated executive power.

One of the interview’s central contributions concerns what Professor Scheppele describes as the paradox of autocratic legality. Because Orbán entrenched political domination through constitutional and legal mechanisms, democratic reformers may confront situations in which “when law entrenches autocracy, following it may preserve the regime.” This raises profound constitutional dilemmas concerning judicial reform, constitutional replacement, accountability, and the relationship between legality and democratic legitimacy.

Professor Scheppele also explores the practical architecture of democratic reconstruction. She argues that “power must be limited even during democratic restoration,” advocates a constitutional process in which “the rules of the game” are democratically rewritten, and proposes a broader understanding of the rule of law rooted in European constitutional standards rather than exclusively in national legal continuity. Her discussion of judicial reconstruction, constitutional redesign, and transnational legal constraints offers an important comparative framework extending well beyond Hungary.

Perhaps most significantly, Professor Scheppele identifies the political conditions that made democratic change possible. Hungary’s experience demonstrates, she argues, that successful democratic opposition must “fight corruption, build a big tent, and take people out of fear.”

Looking ahead, she concludes that the durability of democratic recovery will depend upon three immediate institutional priorities: reforming the Constitutional Court, restoring meaningful judicial checks, and redesigning the electoral system. Whether Hungary succeeds or fails, she suggests, will shape how democracies around the world think about rebuilding constitutional government after authoritarian capture.

Here is the revised version of our interview with Professor Kim Lane Scheppele, edited lightly to enhance clarity, readability, and overall flow for publication.

SS2026-Lecture9

ECPS Academy Summer School — Prof. Markus Kotzur: Can the EU lead? Policy Tools, Regulatory Power, and Global Influence

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Professor Markus Kotzur’s lecture explored one of the defining questions of contemporary European integration: can the European Union translate its regulatory influence into genuine geopolitical leadership? Rejecting conventional measures of power centered solely on military capability, he argued that the EU’s comparative advantage lies in its constitutional foundations, legal authority, and capacity to shape global norms through regulatory governance. Examining concepts such as Normative Power Europe, the Brussels Effect, and strategic autonomy, the lecture demonstrated how Europe’s economic strength, legal order, and institutional resilience remain essential assets amid intensifying geopolitical competition. Combining European constitutional law with international relations and political economy, Professor Kotzur offered a compelling vision of an EU capable of reconciling values with strategic responsibility in a fragmented international order.

Reported by ECPS Staff

The concluding lecture of the ECPS Academy Summer School 2026, held under the overarching theme “Europe Between Oceans: The EU in the Age of Geoeconomics, Populism, and Strategic Competition,” addressed one of the most consequential questions confronting European integration today: Can the European Union exercise genuine geopolitical leadership in an increasingly fragmented international order? While much contemporary debate focuses on Europe’s economic competitiveness, military preparedness, or strategic autonomy, the lecture by Professor Markus Kotzur, Professor of European and International Law at the University of Hamburg and Vice Dean for International Relations, invited participants to examine a more fundamental issue. Before asking whether the European Union possesses sufficient power to lead, it is necessary to clarify what leadership itself means for a political entity that is neither a sovereign state nor a conventional international organization. Drawing upon constitutional law, international law, and European integration studies, Professor Kotzur argued that the future of European leadership depends not merely on accumulating material capabilities but on reconciling legal legitimacy, regulatory influence, political integration, and strategic purpose within a rapidly evolving geopolitical environment. 

The session was introduced by Dr. Camille Nessel, who situated the discussion within the European Union’s broader geopolitical transformation initiated during Ursula von der Leyen’s first Commission. Recalling von der Leyen’s ambition to create a “geopolitical Commission” in 2019, Dr. Nessel explained how this initiative fundamentally altered scholarly and policy debates surrounding the European Union’s external role. Whereas previous decades had largely conceived European integration through the lenses of market integration and regulatory governance, recent developments increasingly emphasize economic security, strategic partnerships, critical raw materials, and geopolitical competition. Trade policy, environmental regulation, and technological governance have progressively become instruments of geopolitical influence rather than merely vehicles of economic integration. In this context, concepts such as open strategic autonomy, economic security, and regulatory sovereignty have emerged at the center of European policymaking, raising new questions about how the Union can exercise influence while remaining committed to multilateralism and the constitutional values upon which European integration has historically rested. Dr. Nessel’s introduction effectively framed the lecture by illustrating that Europe’s external policies can no longer be understood independently of broader geopolitical transformations, particularly the rise of China, renewed great-power competition, and increasing skepticism toward globalization. 

Can the European Union Lead? Reconceptualizing Power, Political Community, and Global Actorship

Building upon this context, Professor Kotzur proposed that discussions of European leadership often begin from an inadequate premise. Much contemporary commentary measures geopolitical influence primarily through traditional indicators of state power—military capability, coercive capacity, or hegemonic dominance. Such perspectives, strongly associated with realist approaches to international relations, inevitably portray the European Union as structurally disadvantaged when compared with major powers such as the United States or China. Yet Professor Kotzur argued that this comparison overlooks the Union’s distinctive political character. Rather than attempting to evaluate the European Union as though it were an ordinary nation-state, he suggested conceptualizing it as a political community—a unique form of political organization that transcends the conventional distinction between sovereign state and international organization. This conceptual shift, he maintained, fundamentally alters how European leadership should be understood.

For Professor Kotzur, describing the European Union as a political community emphasizes that European integration extends far beyond economic cooperation or market regulation. The Union embodies an ongoing process of political integrationgrounded in shared constitutional values, institutional cooperation, and collective decision-making. Consequently, Europe’s capacity for leadership cannot be reduced solely to military capabilities or traditional notions of sovereignty. Instead, its influence derives from the interaction of legal authority, regulatory capacity, democratic legitimacy, and institutional resilience. The European Union therefore exercises a form of political leadership fundamentally different from that of conventional great powers—a leadership rooted less in coercion than in governance, coordination, and the production of international norms.

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