Symposium2026-OpeningSession

Symposium 2026 / Opening Session — Professor Staffan I. Lindberg: “The Chicken-and-Egg Dilemma: Systemic Crises and the Rise of Populism”

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The opening session of the ECPS Fifth Annual International Symposium offered a timely and intellectually rigorous entry point into one of the central dilemmas of contemporary politics: how liberal democracy can be defended, renewed, and reimagined amid systemic crisis and accelerating autocratization. Moderated by Professor Ibrahim Ozturk, the session combined normative urgency with empirical depth. In her opening remarks, Irina von Wiese underscored the geopolitical immediacy of democratic strain, while Professor Staffan I. Lindberg’s keynote, grounded in V-Dem data, traced the global scale of democratic erosion and challenged simplistic readings of populism by foregrounding anti-pluralism as a more precise analytical category. The discussion that followed further enriched the session, probing the measurement, lived experience, and reversibility of democratic decline across contexts.

Reported by ECPS Staff

The opening session of ECPS Fifth Annual International Symposium opened on April 21, 2026 within a carefully structured intellectual framework that brought together empirical rigor, normative urgency, and interdisciplinary reflection. Moderated by Professor Ibrahim Ozturk, the opening segment of the symposium set out to interrogate one of the defining challenges of contemporary politics: how liberal democracies can be reformed and safeguarded in an era marked by systemic crises, populist mobilization, and intensifying pressures on institutional resilience.

From the outset, the session positioned itself at the intersection of scholarly analysis and real-world political developments. The framing emphasized that democratic backsliding is no longer a peripheral or regionally confined phenomenon, but a global trend with profound implications for governance, legitimacy, and international order. In this context, the symposium’s thematic focus—linking systemic crises to populism and democratic resilience—provided a coherent lens through which to examine both structural drivers and political responses.

The opening remarks by ECPS Honorary President Irina von Wiese underscored the urgency of the moment, situating the symposium within a rapidly evolving geopolitical landscape. Her reflections highlighted the accelerating pace of political change, particularly in transatlantic relations, and the difficulty of keeping analytical frameworks aligned with unfolding realities. This sense of temporal compression—where events outpace interpretation—reinforced the need for sustained, collective intellectual engagement.

The keynote address by Staffan I. Lindberg, Professor of Political Science, University of Gothenburg, Founding Director (2012–2025) of V-Dem Institute, further anchored the session in empirical analysis, offering a data-driven diagnosis of global democratic decline. By questioning conventional interpretations of populism and emphasizing the role of anti-pluralism, the keynote set the stage for a deeper exploration of the mechanisms underlying democratic erosion.

The discussion segment that followed extended the analytical depth of the opening session by bringing empirical findings, methodological concerns, and lived political experience into direct dialogue. Participants engaged critically with the keynote’s claims, probing the interpretation of data, the pace and nature of democratic decline, and the conditions under which institutional resilience may still operate. The exchange moved fluidly between macro-level indicators and context-specific realities, revealing both the strengths and limits of comparative measurement in capturing complex political transformations. In doing so, the discussion underscored a central theme of the symposium: that understanding democratic backsliding requires not only robust data, but also careful attention to institutional nuance, temporal dynamics, and the contested nature of political change.

Taken together, the opening session established both the analytical foundations and the normative stakes of the symposium. It framed the subsequent discussions around a central tension: while the challenges facing liberal democracy are systemic and far-reaching, the possibilities for resilience and renewal remain contingent on timely, informed, and collective responses.

Read the Full Report of Opening Session of ECPS Symposium 2026

 

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ECPS Virtual Workshop Series / Session 16 — Voices of Democracy: Art, Law, and Leadership in the Era of Polarization

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The final session of the ECPS Virtual Workshop Series offered a rich interdisciplinary reflection on democracy under conditions of deepening polarization. Bringing together legal, historical, and political perspectives, the panel illuminated how “the people” is constructed, contested, and mobilized across different contexts—from defamation law in the United States to institutional legitimacy in Israel, classical rhetoric in Athens, and emotional narratives in contemporary European populism. A central insight concerned the interplay of law, emotion, and symbolic representation in shaping democratic resilience and vulnerability. By foregrounding the cultural and affective dimensions of politics, the session underscored that democracy is not only institutional but deeply interpretive—sustained, challenged, and reimagined through competing narratives of identity, legitimacy, and belonging.

Reported by ECPS Staff

On Thursday, April 16, 2026, the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS) convened the sixteenth and final session of its Virtual Workshop Series, “We, the People” and the Future of Democracy: Interdisciplinary Approaches, under the title “Voices of Democracy: Art, Law, and Leadership in the Era of Polarization.” Bringing together perspectives from legal studies, political science, history, and discourse analysis, the session examined how democratic life is shaped—and at times distorted—through struggles over representation, institutional legitimacy, collective identity, and the symbolic construction of “the people” in contexts marked by deepening polarization.

The participants of the session were introduced by ECPS intern Daniela Puggia, whose introductory remarks on behalf of ECPS set the stage for the discussion and helped situate the panel within the wider aims of the workshop series. Chaired by Dr. Joni Doherty (Kettering Foundation), the session was organized around a broad but urgent set of questions: how are democratic norms defended when truth itself becomes contested? In what ways do institutional arrangements persist under conditions of deep social division? How do political leaders transform grief, fear, or resentment into collective identity and consent? And what role do art, speech, and symbolic representation play in either sustaining or undermining democratic life?

The panel featured four intellectually rich and conceptually complementary presentations. Professor Ciara Torres-Spelliscy (Stetson University) examined the role of defamation law in defending democracy in the United States, focusing on the legal and political significance of the Freeman and Moss case in the aftermath of the 2020 election. Dr. Niva Golan-Nadir (Reichman University), co-authoring with Dr. Michael Freedman (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), explored how religious policy and balanced dissatisfaction shape institutional legitimacy within the Israeli military. Professor Elizabeth Kosmetatou (University of Illinois Springfield) offered a historically grounded reinterpretation of Pericles’ Funeral Oration as a rhetorically sophisticated form of populist mobilization in wartime Athens. Dr. Cristiano Gianolla (University of Coimbra), together with Lisete S. M. Mónico and Manuel João Cruz, analyzed the exclusionary identity of “the people” in radical right populism through a comparative study of emotional narratives in Portugal and Italy.

The session was further enriched by the interventions of its discussants, Dr. Justin Patch (Vassar College) and Dr. Amedeo Varriale (University of East London), whose comments drew connections across the presentations and raised broader questions concerning aesthetics, institutional resilience, populist rhetoric, and democratic contestation. Together, the contributions of chair, speakers, discussants, and moderator produced a wide-ranging interdisciplinary dialogue on the fragility, adaptability, and symbolic politics of democracy in an age of polarization.

Read the Full Report.

Mark Corner

Ten Years on with Brexit / Prof. Corner: With Brexit, the UK Has Lost More Than It Has Gained

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As the tenth anniversary of the Brexit referendum approaches, debate has shifted from slogans to evidence. In this interview, Professor Mark Corner offers a measured but clear conclusion: “the UK has lost more than it has gained.” Drawing on political economy, constitutional analysis, and historical perspective, he revisits Brexit not as a singular rupture but as a dual crisis affecting both the European Union and the internal cohesion of the United Kingdom. Professor Corner highlights the paradox at the heart of Brexit—“taking back control” did not strengthen parliamentary sovereignty, but instead elevated popular sovereignty. At the same time, expectations of global economic freedom have given way to the enduring realities of geography and interdependence. His reflections situate Brexit as a revealing case of the gap between political promise and institutional consequence.

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

As the tenth anniversary of the Brexit referendum approaches, public debate has moved decisively beyond the binary language of Leave and Remain toward a more empirically grounded reckoning with Brexit’s long-term political and economic consequences. In this context, Professor Mark Corner, Emeritus Professor at the University of Leuven, offers a particularly valuable perspective. His work situates Brexit not simply as a rupture in Britain’s relationship with the European Union, but as a dual constitutional and political crisis—one affecting both the European project and the internal cohesion of the United Kingdom. Bringing together political economy, constitutional analysis, historical memory, and populist mobilization, his reflections illuminate how Brexit has reshaped not only policy but also political imagination.

In his interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Professor Corner advances a sober conclusion captured in the headline of this conversation: “With Brexit, the UK has lost more than it has gained.” That judgment is not presented as a dramatic slogan, but as the outcome of a broader reassessment now taking place in British public life. As he puts it, “most economists would agree that the UK has lost more than it has gained,” and if that were not so, “the present government would [not] be trying so hard to move back toward a closer economic relationship with the EU.” In this sense, Brexit appears less as a fulfilled promise of renewed sovereignty than as a strategic rupture whose costs have become increasingly difficult to deny.

Yet Professor Corner’s account is more layered than a narrow economic audit. He draws attention to one of the central ironies of Brexit politics: that a project framed around “taking back control” did not, in fact, restore parliamentary sovereignty. On the contrary, he argues, the referendum “assert[ed] popular sovereignty over parliamentary sovereignty,”since most MPs would have preferred to remain. Similarly, the promise that Britain could flourish once “freed from the shackles of the EU” has, in his view, been undermined by the enduring reality of geography, interdependence, and trade. The fantasy of becoming “Singapore-on-Thames” has largely faded, replaced by the quieter recognition that “a very large share of our trade is conducted with Europe.”

The interview also places Brexit within a broader political and historical frame. Professor Corner shows how populist and radical-right actors have successfully shifted the argument away from economic performance toward sovereignty, border control, and cultural identity. In doing so, they have helped transform British political conflict from an older class-based divide into a more complex terrain shaped by “social and cultural division alongside economic division.” At the same time, he warns that Brexit’s most profound destabilizing effects may ultimately be domestic rather than European. While the feared cascade of exits from the EU never materialized, the United Kingdom itself remains vulnerable to centrifugal pressures, particularly in Scotland and Northern Ireland. In his words, “in the long run, [these] may prove more troubling than the difficulties in the EU.”

In sum, Professor Corner’s reflections offer a penetrating and historically informed account of Brexit’s legacy. Far from vindicating the claims of its proponents, Brexit emerges here as a case study in the gap between populist promise and institutional consequence—one that continues to shape the future of Britain, Europe, and the politics of sovereignty itself.

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

Eszter Kováts

Eszter Kováts: Orbán’s Defeat Doesn’t Mean the End of Illiberal Politics in Europe

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In this ECPS interview, Dr. Eszter Kováts offers a measured reassessment of Viktor Orbán’s electoral defeat and its wider implications for Europe. While the 2026 Hungarian elections mark a major rupture in domestic politics, she cautions against triumphalist readings that treat Orbán’s fall as the collapse of illiberalism itself. “It is something of a liberal dream,” she argues, to assume that the defeat of one leader means the defeat of the entire project. Kováts situates Orbánism within deeper structural, economic, and discursive dynamics, showing how it combined institutional power, culture-war politics, and claims to national sovereignty. At the same time, she underscores Hungary’s enduring polarization, the persistence of Fidesz’s electorate, and the unresolved conditions that continue to sustain illiberal-right politics across Europe.

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

As Hungary enters the post-2026 electoral moment, the defeat of Viktor Orbán has been widely interpreted as a watershed in the trajectory of illiberal governance in Europe. For more than a decade, Orbán’s system stood as a paradigmatic case of what has often been termed “illiberal democracy”—a political formation combining electoral legitimacy with institutional centralization, ideological mobilization, and a sophisticated use of culture wars and transnational alliances. Yet, as this interview with Dr. Eszter Kováts makes clear, such interpretations risk overstating both the rupture and its implications.

In conversation with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Dr. Eszter Kováts—Marie Skłodowska-Curie postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Vienna—offers a careful and analytically grounded reassessment of this moment. While the electoral outcome may appear decisive, she cautions against reading it as a definitive break. As she puts it, “it is something of a liberal dream to treat Orbán’s defeat as the defeat of his entire project.” The persistence of “many Fidesz voters,” alongside the broader constituency of “far-right and illiberal-right parties across Europe,”underscores the continued relevance of the political and social forces that sustained Orbánism.

This insight frames the central tension explored throughout the interview: whether the Hungarian case represents a genuine transformation or a reconfiguration of underlying structural dynamics. Dr. Kováts emphasizes that both the rise and the exhaustion of Orbán’s system can only be understood through a layered analysis that combines structural, contextual, and contingent factors. Economically, the regime rested on a distinctive model—often described as a hybrid of state intervention and market adaptation—which, for a time, delivered tangible improvements in living standards. Politically, it capitalized on what she identifies as “blind spots” within liberal and progressive frameworks, constructing an antagonistic narrative around migration, gender, and geopolitical conflict, each containing a “kernel of truth” but amplified into an “apocalyptic vision.”

At the same time, the interview challenges conventional narratives that frame right-wing mobilization simply as“backlash.” Such interpretations, Dr. Kováts argues, rely on overly teleological assumptions about democratic development and obscure the deeper systemic tensions that shape political contestation. Orbán’s success, in this reading, lay not merely in institutional control but in his ability to articulate these tensions—though this articulation ultimately faltered as economic conditions deteriorated and rhetoric became “increasingly detached from reality.”

The emergence of Péter Magyar introduces a further layer of complexity. Rather than a straightforward democratic reversal, Dr. Kováts describes the transition as, in part, a “democratic rebalancing,” but also as a moment fraught with uncertainty. Hungary remains “deeply divided,” with 94 percent of voters concentrated in two opposing camps, reflecting not only political polarization but competing “perceptions of reality.” Moreover, Magyar’s own political trajectory—rooted in Fidesz—raises questions about continuity as much as change, particularly given his constitutional majority and capacity to reshape state institutions.

Beyond Hungary, the implications for European populism are similarly ambiguous. Illiberal networks, Dr. Kováts notes, are not dependent on a single figure; they are embedded in national contexts and sustained by what she terms a “representation gap.” The assumption that Orbán’s exit signals the broader decline of illiberal politics is therefore, in her words, “a compelling discourse, but… a political one rather than an analytical description.”

In sum, Dr. Kováts’s reflections invite a more measured interpretation of Hungary’s political shift—one that resists both triumphalism and determinism. Rather than marking the end of a political era, the Orbán–Magyar transition may be better understood as a contingent episode within a longer and unresolved contest between competing visions of democracy in Europe.

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

Jonathan Portes

Ten Years on with Brexit / Prof. Portes: Brexit Has Not Solved Britain’s Problems; It Made Them Worse

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As the United Kingdom nears the tenth anniversary of the 2016 Brexit referendum, Professor Jonathan Portes offers a sober, evidence-based reassessment of its economic and political legacy. In this ECPS interview, Professor Portes argues that Brexit did not resolve the structural problems it promised to overcome; rather, “the UK still confronts the same fundamental problems it did 10 years ago,” and, in key respects, they have worsened. Drawing on a decade of research on trade, migration, labor markets, and policy autonomy, he shows how weakened investment, reduced integration, and persistent political tensions have defined the post-Brexit settlement. Moving beyond slogans, Professor Portes situates Brexit within broader debates on sovereignty, interdependence, and populist politics in an increasingly unstable international order.

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

As the United Kingdom approaches the tenth anniversary of the 2016 Brexit referendum, the debate has moved decisively from slogan to scrutiny, from promises of restored sovereignty to the measurable consequences of economic and political separation. In this context, the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS) is pleased to host Professor Jonathan Portes, Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the School of Politics & Economics, King’s College London, whose extensive scholarship has been central to understanding the economic and labor-market consequences of Brexit. Throughout the past decade, Professor Portes has offered one of the most rigorous and evidence-based assessments of how trade, migration, policy autonomy, and public expectations have evolved under the post-Brexit settlement.

This interview is framed by a stark and sobering conclusion that runs through Professor Portes’s reflections: Brexit did not resolve the structural dilemmas it claimed it would overcome. Rather, as he puts it, “the UK still confronts the same fundamental problems it did 10 years ago.” The core promise of Brexit, he argues, was that it would allow Britain to escape the constraints associated with globalization, immigration, and post-2008 economic stagnation. Yet the reality has been quite different. “Rather than solving those problems,” he observes, Brexit “has probably made them worse.” In Professor Portes’s analysis, the UK remains what it always was: “a middle-sized, advanced Western European economy,”still grappling with familiar pressures, but now doing so from a more exposed and less advantageous position.

The interview explores this argument across several interrelated domains. On the economic front, Professor Portes notes that the evidence on growth, trade, productivity, and investment has broadly confirmed the mainstream pre-referendum consensus: Brexit was never likely to produce collapse, but it would impose “significant and material long-term damage”on British economic prospects. Trade, especially goods trade, emerges in his account as the most enduring site of disruption, while weakened investment and reduced integration with the European market suggest an adaptation process that may culminate in a “permanent loss of integration.”

On migration, Professor Portes offers an especially illuminating account of Brexit’s unintended consequences. Rather than simply reducing immigration, Brexit reconfigured it, replacing free movement from within the EU with larger-than-expected inflows from outside it. That outcome, he suggests, exposed a contradiction at the heart of the Leave campaign: the demand for both lower migration and greater economic flexibility under national control. More broadly, the interview shows how the promise of sovereignty often failed to produce meaningful control in practice. As Professor Portes cautions, sovereignty “in the abstract legal and political sense does not necessarily translate into having control.”

Taken together, Professor Portes’s reflections offer a penetrating assessment of Brexit not as a completed nationalist correction, but as a prolonged and costly reconfiguration of Britain’s political economy. His analysis challenges triumphalist narratives from both the sovereigntist and populist right, while posing deeper questions about the limits of national autonomy in an interdependent world.

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

Pepper Culpepper

Prof. Culpepper: Populism Is Democracy’s Way of the People Telling Elites to ‘Listen Harder’

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In an interview with the ECPS, Professor Pepper Culpepper argues that populism should not be treated as inherently anti-democratic. Rather, under certain conditions, it can function as a corrective force that exposes failures of responsiveness and pressures elites to address neglected public demands. Drawing on his work on quiet politics, corporate scandal, and democratic accountability, Professor Culpepper distinguishes between populism rooted in political failure and that driven by economic unfairness. While the former can erode pluralism, the latter may help rebalance distorted relations between citizens, markets, and institutions. The interview offers a nuanced reflection on public anger, corporate power, and the democratic potential—as well as the dangers—of contemporary anti-elite mobilization.

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

At a moment when democratic systems are under strain from two mutually reinforcing pressures—rising populist mobilization and the growing concentration of corporate power—the question of whether public anger can renew democratic accountability has acquired unusual urgency. In this wide-ranging interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Professor Pepper Culpepper, Vice Dean for Academic Affairs and Blavatnik Chair in Government and Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford, offers a careful but provocative answer. Drawing on his influential scholarship—from Quiet Politics to his recent book Billionaire Backlash— Professor Culpepper argues that populism should not be understood simply as a threat to democracy. Under certain conditions, it can function as a corrective force, signaling failures of responsiveness and compelling elites to confront public demands they have too long ignored.

This argument runs directly through the spirit of the interview’s headline: “Populism Is Democracy’s Way of the People Telling Elites to ‘Listen Harder’.” Rather than treating populism as inherently pathological, Professor Culpepper urges a more discriminating view. In his recent Journal of Democracy article, “When Populism Can Be Good,” co-authored with Taeku Lee, he distinguishes between two broad dimensions of anti-elite sentiment: one rooted in political failure, the other in economic unfairness. For Professor Culpepper, this distinction is decisive. A populism centered on political failure—marked by distrust in elections, media, and institutions—can become corrosive to pluralism. By contrast, populist energies organized around economic unfairness may serve as a democratizing counterweight to entrenched power. As he puts it, “there are, of course, many negative aspects of populism, but one positive dimension is its potential to enhance responsiveness.”

The interview shows that this concern with responsiveness is inseparable from Professor Culpepper’s broader work on corporate scandal, media narratives, and regulatory change. Across cases ranging from the Beef Trust and The Jungle to Cambridge Analytica, AI regulation, and Big Tech, he explores how moments of public outrage can disrupt what he famously described as “quiet politics”—those domains in which organized business interests dominate because public attention is weak. Scandals, in his account, operate like “earthquakes”: they release latent pressure, render previously obscure issues politically salient, and sometimes create openings for institutional reform. Yet these openings do not arise automatically. They depend on policy entrepreneurs, compelling narratives of blame, and political actors capable of translating outrage into durable regulation.

What emerges from this conversation is a deeply textured account of the ambivalence of populism in contemporary democracy. Professor Culpepper does not romanticize anti-elite anger; he repeatedly underscores the dangers of polarization, scapegoating, and demagogic capture. Still, he insists that democratic theory must take seriously the possibility that public outrage, when directed at economic concentration and political unresponsiveness, can help rebalance distorted systems of power. The key question, as he suggests, is not whether populism exists, but which grievances it channels and toward what ends. In that sense, this interview is both an analysis of populism and a meditation on democracy’s capacity for self-correction.

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

Jason Anastasopoulos

Assoc. Prof. Anastasopoulos: AI May Transform Populism by Mobilizing Highly Skilled Workers

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Assoc. Prof. Jason Anastasopoulos argues that AI is not merely a tool of efficiency, but a political force that may reconfigure both democratic governance and populist mobilization. In this ECPS interview, he warns that replacing bureaucrats with AI can erode “democratic legitimacy” and produce what he calls “automated majoritarianism,” where average cases are processed efficiently while minorities and outliers are disadvantaged. He also challenges the assumption that AI automatically strengthens authoritarian rule, showing instead how false positives, false negatives, and “threshold whiplash” can generate resistance within authoritarian systems. Most strikingly, he suggests that AI may transform populism itself: unlike earlier technological disruptions centered on manual labor, AI increasingly threatens “intellectual work and highly skilled labor,” potentially broadening the social base of anti-elite backlash and reshaping the future of political discontent.

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

At a moment when artificial intelligence is increasingly presented as a transformative force in governance, public administration, and political control, Jason Anastasopoulos, Associate Professor of Public Administration and Policy at the University of Georgia, offers a far more cautious and analytically nuanced perspective. In this ECPS interview, he argues that the effects of AI cannot be understood through simplistic assumptions of either technological salvation or authoritarian omnipotence. Instead, AI emerges in his account as a politically embedded system whose consequences depend on data quality, institutional incentives, and the broader regime context in which it operates.

A central theme running through the interview is the challenge AI poses to conventional understandings of democratic legitimacy and representation. Anastasopoulos warns that “replacing bureaucrats with AI has the potential to erode democratic legitimacy and decrease the extent to which people not only perceive the legitimacy of the system but also actually receive fair outcomes.” This concern is rooted in his broader claim that algorithmic governance does not merely automate decisions; it subtly transforms the normative foundations of administration itself. Because AI systems rely on “data from the past and on statistical averages,” whereas human officials can apply individualized judgment, the shift toward automation risks creating what he calls “automated majoritarianism,” in which average cases are processed efficiently while minorities and outliers are systematically disadvantaged.

At the same time, Assoc. Prof. Anastasopoulos highlights the political implications of AI beyond democratic administration, particularly in relation to populism and authoritarianism. Against the widespread belief that AI necessarily strengthens authoritarian rule, he emphasizes the “autocrat’s calibration dilemma,” showing how false positives and false negatives generate what he terms “threshold whiplash.” Far from ensuring seamless control, AI can create backlash, misclassification, and resistance, even within highly monitored societies. In this respect, the interview complicates dystopian assumptions about authoritarian omniscience by showing how predictive technologies can also destabilize the very regimes that rely on them.

Most strikingly, however, Assoc. Prof. Anastasopoulos suggests that AI may reshape populist politics in new ways. Whereas earlier waves of technological disruption primarily displaced manual and industrial labor, contemporary AI increasingly threatens “intellectual work and highly skilled labor.” This shift, he argues, may transform the social basis of political discontent. Populist mobilization, long rooted in anti-elite appeals to economically dislocated working-class constituencies, may now expand to incorporate professional and knowledge-sector groups who find themselves newly exposed to technological precarity. In that sense, AI may transform populism not only by intensifying backlash against opaque governance, but also by mobilizing constituencies that have not historically stood at the center of populist revolt.

In sum, Assoc. Prof. Anastasopoulos’s reflections offer a sophisticated intervention into contemporary debates on AI and politics. His analysis underscores that AI is neither politically neutral nor institutionally self-executing. Rather, it is a force that can unsettle democratic legitimacy, complicate authoritarian control, and reconfigure the social terrain of populist mobilization. Far from being merely a tool of efficiency, AI may become a catalyst for profound political realignment.

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

VirtualWorkshops-Session15

ECPS Virtual Workshop Series / Session 15 — From Populism to Global Power Plays: Leadership, Crisis, and Democracy   

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Session 15 of the ECPS Virtual Workshop Series offered a timely and theoretically rich interrogation of how populism, personalized leadership, and systemic crisis are reshaping the horizons of democratic politics. Bringing cybernetics, political sociology, and democratic theory into productive dialogue, the session illuminated the deep entanglement between emotional mobilization, institutional fragility, and global governance under conditions of accelerating complexity. Dr. Robert R. Traill’s systems-theoretical analysis of “populist panic” and Professor Lorenzo Viviani’s political-sociological account of “manipulated resonance” together revealed populism not as a peripheral disruption, but as a central mode through which legitimacy, leadership, and “the people” are being redefined today. Enriched by incisive discussant interventions and a conceptually fertile Q&A, the session underscored the need for new democratic vocabularies capable of confronting both exclusionary affect and global instability.

Reported by ECPS Staff

On Thursday, April 2, 2026, the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS) convened the fifteenth session of its Virtual Workshop Series, “We, the People” and the Future of Democracy: Interdisciplinary Approaches,” under the title “From Populism to Global Power Plays: Leadership, War, and Democracy.” Bringing together perspectives from political sociology, economics, and cybernetics, the session explored the evolving relationship between populist leadership, systemic crisis, and the changing architecture of democratic governance in an increasingly complex and unstable global order.

The participants of the session were introduced by ECPS intern Reka Koleszar. Chaired by Dr. Amir Ali (Jawaharlal Nehru University), the session was framed around a central question of contemporary political life: how can democratic systems sustain legitimacy and effectiveness amid intensifying global pressures, including geopolitical conflict, economic uncertainty, climate crisis, and the rise of populist movements that challenge institutional mediation and pluralist norms? As Dr. Ali underscored in his opening remarks, the current conjuncture is marked not only by a crisis of representation but also by deeper transformations in how “the people” are constructed, mobilized, and governed across diverse political contexts.

The panel featured two analytically distinct yet conceptually complementary presentations. Dr. Robert R. Traill (Brunel University) offered a cybernetic and systems-theoretical intervention on the limits of democratic decision-making in the face of global-scale challenges. His presentation examined how complex adaptive systems—from individual cognition to national governance and global coordination—struggle to maintain stability when confronted with phenomena such as climate change and limits to economic growth. By introducing the notion of “populist panic” as a systemic response to perceived breakdown, Dr. Traill’s contribution invited participants to reconsider populism not merely as a political ideology, but as a symptom of deeper failures in collective decision-making.

In contrast, Professor Lorenzo Viviani (University of Pisa) advanced a political-sociological framework centered on the concept of “manipulated resonance” to analyze personalized leadership in populism. His presentation interrogated how populist leaders construct direct, emotionally charged relationships with “the people,” reconfiguring political representation through processes of identification, embodiment, and symbolic power. By foregrounding the role of emotions—particularly resentment—and the strategic bypassing of institutional intermediaries, Professor Viviani illuminated the cultural and affective foundations of contemporary populist mobilization.

The session was further enriched by the critical interventions of its discussants, Dr. Azize Sargin (ECPS) and Professor Ibrahim Ozturk (University of Duisburg-Essen), whose comments deepened the theoretical stakes of both presentations. Their reflections engaged key issues such as the distinction between democratic responsiveness and manipulated resonance, the tensions between technocratic solutions and populist distrust, and the broader challenges of governing complexity in a rapidly changing world.

Together, the contributions of chair, speakers, and discussants generated a rich interdisciplinary dialogue that bridged micro-level analyses of leadership and emotion with macro-level concerns about global governance and systemic stability. Session 15 thus provided a compelling exploration of how populism, far from being a peripheral phenomenon, is deeply embedded in the contemporary reconfiguration of democratic life and global political order.

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Arash Azizi

Dr. Azizi: The Islamic Republic Will Survive, but in a Less Ideological, More Pragmatic Form

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Dr. Arash Azizi of Yale University argues that the Iran Islamic Republic is likely to survive, but in a transformed form shaped less by ideology and more by pragmatism. In this ECPS interview, he suggests that Iran’s longstanding strategy of “sustained hostility toward the United States and enmity toward Israel… is not sustainable,” pushing the regime toward recalibration. Rather than collapse, Dr. Azizi foresees a shift: the decline of “Soleimaniism,” the rise of a securitized political order, and a growing emphasis on regional integration and diplomatic engagement. While power consolidates around military-security elites, Iran may simultaneously pursue normalization and reconstruction. The result, he argues, is not the end of the Islamic Republic, but its reconfiguration into a more technocratic, less ideological, and strategically adaptive state.

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

Amid an intensifying cycle of confrontation between Iran, Israel, and the United States, the Middle East is entering what can only be described as a structurally transformative moment. Long characterized by proxy conflict and calibrated ambiguity, regional dynamics have now shifted toward direct interstate confrontation, leadership rupture, and accelerating geopolitical fragmentation. The killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader, the subsequent consolidation of power within a narrower elite, and sustained US–Israeli military pressure have together transformed a protracted shadow war into an overt systemic crisis. These developments raise urgent questions about the durability of the Islamic Republic, the reconfiguration of its strategic doctrine, and the broader implications for regional order.

In this context, this ECPS interview with Dr. Arash Azizi, who is a Postdoctoral Associate and Lecturer at Yale University, offers a timely and analytically rich intervention. As a scholar of Iranian politics and regional geopolitics, Dr. Azizi situates current developments within a longer trajectory of ideological evolution, institutional transformation, and strategic recalibration. His central argument—captured in the headline assertion that “the Islamic Republic will survive, but in a less ideological, more pragmatic form”—provides a unifying thread through the discussion.

At the heart of Dr. Azizi’s analysis lies the contention that the foundational logic of Iran’s revolutionary project is undergoing erosion. The model of regional power projection associated with Qassem Soleimani—what he describes as a “collection of militias that functioned very much as a unified multinational army”—has, in his view, reached the limits of its historical relevance. “That era is now largely over,” he notes, emphasizing that even prior to the latest war, “Soleimaniism was already under significant strain.” The cumulative effects of internal dissent in Iraq and Lebanon, combined with Israel’s military campaign and the collapse of allied structures in Syria, have rendered the “axis of resistance… even more out of vogue.”

Yet Azizi resists narratives of imminent regime collapse. Instead, he identifies a process of transformation rather than breakdown. The Islamic Republic, he argues, has come to recognize that its long-standing strategy of “sustained hostility toward the United States and enmity toward Israel… is not sustainable.” In its place, a more pragmatic orientation is emerging—one oriented toward “regional integration,” “a business-like relationship with the United States,” and eventual diplomatic normalization. This shift does not imply liberalization in a conventional sense, but rather a rebalancing of ideological ambition and strategic necessity.

Simultaneously, however, this transformation is unfolding alongside the consolidation of a more securitized political order. The post-Khamenei landscape, Dr. Azizi suggests, reflects “the rise of a security state, a militarized state… with important elements from the IRGC calling the shots.” This dual movement—toward external pragmatism and internal securitization—defines the paradox of Iran’s current trajectory.

Taken together, Dr. Azizi’s analysis points to a hybrid future: a state that sheds elements of its revolutionary identity while preserving—and in some respects intensifying—its coercive core. The result, as he suggests, is not the end of the Islamic Republic, but its reconstitution: less ideological, more technocratic, and increasingly embedded within a shifting regional order.

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

Professor Sheri Berman.

Prof. Sheri Berman: Democratic Backsliding Is Neither Sudden nor Surprising

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In an interview with the ECPS, Sheri Berman challenges dominant crisis narratives by arguing that democratic backsliding is “neither unexpected nor, in many cases, recent in origin.” Situating current turbulence within long-term structural and historical trajectories, she emphasizes that democratic instability reflects the enduring difficulty of building and sustaining democratic institutions. Critiquing post–Cold War optimism, she characterizes today’s moment as “a kind of natural correction” to overly teleological expectations. Berman further conceptualizes populism as both symptom and driver of democratic dysfunction, rooted in representation gaps, economic insecurity, and institutional decay—dynamics that continue to reshape both domestic politics and the global liberal order.

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

Giving an interview to the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Sheri Berman, Professor of Political Science at Barnard College, Columbia University, argues that contemporary democratic erosion should not be understood as an abrupt rupture or an unprecedented crisis, but rather as the outcome of deeper structural, historical, and institutional processes long in the making.

At a time when democratic backsliding, populist mobilization, and institutional erosion are reshaping political landscapes across regions, Professor Berman’s intervention directly challenges prevailing interpretations that frame democracy’s troubles as sudden or exceptional. Instead, she insists that the current conjuncture must be situated within longer-term transformations affecting political representation, institutional trust, and the social foundations of democratic governance. As she puts it, these developments are “neither unexpected nor, in many cases, recent in origin.”

At the center of her argument lies a powerful critique of post–Cold War democratic optimism. The expansion of democracy in the late 20th and early 21st centuries fostered what she identifies as overly teleological assumptions about liberal democracy’s inevitability. Yet, drawing on historical patterns of democratic “waves” and their inevitable reversals, she emphasizes that “building stable, well-functioning democracies is extraordinarily difficult.” What many interpreted as linear progress was, in fact, always vulnerable to reversal. In this sense, today’s turbulence is best understood as “a kind of natural correction” to earlier expectations.

A central analytical contribution of Professor Berman’s framework is her insistence that populism should be understood simultaneously as symptom and driver. It reflects deep dissatisfaction with political institutions and representation—citizens do not support anti-establishment actors unless they believe existing systems are failing them. At the same time, once in power, populists can intensify polarization and further undermine democratic norms. As she notes, while populism begins as “a symptom of democratic dissatisfaction,” it can also “actively deepen the erosion of support for democracy” once it acquires political authority.

This dual perspective is closely tied to her emphasis on structural transformations, particularly the emergence of representation gaps and the long-term consequences of neoliberal economic change. Rising inequality, economic insecurity, and technological disruption—alongside cultural tensions around identity and migration—have combined to produce a multifaceted crisis of democratic legitimacy. Importantly, these forces do not operate in isolation but reinforce one another, generating a political environment marked by both widespread dissatisfaction and a striking absence of coherent ideological alternatives.

Extending her analysis to the global level, Professor Berman offers a sobering assessment of the liberal international order. In one of her most striking remarks, she observes that “the American-led international order, at least for now, is pretty much dead.” Yet even here, she resists simplistic explanations: the disruptive impact of Trumpism, she argues, reflects not only leadership choices but also preexisting structural vulnerabilities within both American democracy and the broader international system.

Taken together, Professor Berman’s reflections offer a historically grounded and analytically nuanced account of democratic decline. Rather than treating the present as an anomaly, her assessments invite a deeper reckoning with the long-term political, economic, and institutional dynamics that have made contemporary democratic backsliding both possible—and, in many respects, predictable.

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