In this incisive conversation, Brookings scholar Professor William A. Galston argues that America’s decentralized system remains a crucial brake on executive overreach. While warning of real risks, he maintains, “We’re not there yet,” distinguishing the US from harder cases of institutional capture abroad. Professor Galston spotlights federalism and the courts as the decisive arena of resistance—urging institutions to defend their prerogatives through litigation, “not street protests but the law.” He assesses the influence of Project 2025, redistricting fights in Texas/California, and the politics of immigration, crime, and DEI, noting potential backlash among centrist voters. The result is a clear-eyed appraisal of democratic resilience—and the legal contests that will shape whether the US moves toward or away from competitive authoritarianism.
Giving an in-depth interview to the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS),Professor William A. Galston — senior fellow and the Ezra K. Zilkha Chair in the Governance Studies program at Brookings Institution and a leading authority on American governance, populism, and institutional resilience — provides a comprehensive analysis of the evolving dynamics of US democracy under President Donald Trump’s second administration. Drawing on his deep expertise in political institutions and constitutional law, Professor Galston examines how federalism, legal contestation, and civil society remain central to safeguarding checks and balances amid mounting executive centralization.
As the title emphasizes, “US. Federalism Slows the Shift Toward Competitive Authoritarianism,” Professor Galston underscores that America’s decentralized political structure continues to serve as a buffer against executive overreach. He stresses that, despite concerns about democratic backsliding, the US is not yet on par with countries such as Hungary, Turkey, or India, where institutional capture has been far more extensive. “We’re not there yet,” Professor Galston explains, “and I am hopeful that we’ll never get there.”
A recurring theme throughout the interview is the growing role of law as the principal arena of political struggle. Professor Galston argues that the resilience of US democracy increasingly depends on institutions defending their legal prerogatives: “Pushing back, using not street protests but the law, will be the most important venue of contestation.”
This dynamic is vividly illustrated in his discussion of a recent legal battle involving Harvard University, which challenged the Trump administration’s attempt to withhold federal research funds. A federal judge sided with the university, ruling that the administration’s actions were unconstitutional. For Professor Galston, this episode demonstrates that institutions “with the will to defend their legal rights can push back — and push back effectively.”
The interview also delves into the strategic influence of Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation in shaping Trump’s second-term agenda. Professor Galston notes that the initiative has successfully translated its ideas into both institutional frameworks and personnel appointments, allowing the administration to pursue expansive interpretations of executive authority while testing the limits of constitutional constraints.
Additionally, Professor Galston examines redistricting battles, such as those in Texas and California, highlighting how federalism enables both parties to counterbalance each other’s maneuvers, thereby slowing the concentration of power at the national level.
Finally, Galston reflects on the broader trajectory of US democracy, warning that the coming years will be decisive in determining whether constitutional norms can withstand mounting pressures. Yet he remains cautiously optimistic, noting that state governments, universities, professional associations, and civil society are “waking up” to the importance of defending democratic principles.
This interview offers a nuanced, scholarly perspective on the complex interplay between institutional resilience and executive ambition, providing crucial insights into America’s democratic future.
Professor William A. Galston is a senior fellow and the Ezra K. Zilkha Chair in the Governance Studies program at Brookings Institution and a leading authority on American governance, populism, and institutional resilience.
Here is the transcript of our interview with Professor William A. Galston, edited lightly for readability.
Executive Power Expands, but the Rule of Law Faces Its Test
Professor Galston, thank you very much for joining our interview series. Let me start right away with the first question: How has Trump’s second-term agenda accelerated the concentration of executive power relative to his first term? Do you see evidence of a shift from ad hoc populist mobilization toward more institutionalized mechanisms of executive aggrandizement?
Professor William A. Galston: I certainly do. There has been a dramatic shift from President Trump’s first term to his second, largely because those around him who share his general worldview used those four years to craft a highly detailed agenda — not only a policy agenda but also an institutional and legal one — aimed at expanding the perimeter of executive power. They are pursuing this through the strategic use of existing laws and mechanisms. They are not coming in and declaring the Constitution invalid or claiming that the laws do not count. Rather, they are saying, “Here’s how we interpret the law,” in order to give the president the authority to do things that previous presidents did not attempt. This has created a legal struggle, which I believe lies at the heart of the current divisions in American politics.
In your statement to the NYT, you argue that Trump has pushed the role of the president far beyond what his predecessors would have ever tried. There are already respected scholars who call Trump ‘a dictator.’ Would you agree with this characterization?
Professor William A. Galston: No, I would not — at least not yet. The president has said that if the Supreme Court rules against him in a particular matter, he will respect that ruling and will no longer do what he is forbidden to do. That promise has not yet been tested. But the moment of truth will come sometime in the next 12 months. The Supreme Court, I believe, is very likely — and I can’t tell you which rulings it’s going to be — to rule against the president in some areas of his assertion of presidential authority. And if that happens, and I think the odds are very high that it will come sometime in the next 12 months, we will see whether President Trump intends to keep his word and respect the holding of the court. If he does keep his word, then I would have to say that, like some presidents before him, he has used every device to try to expand his power, but in the end, he recognizes that he is constrained by the rule of law. If he says, “The Supreme Court has made its decision, but I disagree with it, and I’m not going to obey it,” at that point, he will be asserting non-constitutional powers. And if he gets away with it, at that point, I would be willing to call him — if not a dictator — an authoritarian ruler who is ruling outside the law. That hasn’t happened yet.
Trump Moves to Institutionalize Power and Reshape Electoral Rules
To what extent does Trump’s governance illustrate a transition from charismatic populism to incipient authoritarianism, and which institutional indicators best capture this trajectory?
Professor William A. Galston: Well, this, in a way, extends the first question you posed to me, namely the difference between the first Trump term and the second. There is certainly an effort to institutionalize not only a more powerful presidency but also a stronger Republican Party that has been reshaped in the president’s image. The efforts to change the electoral rules of the game between now and the midterm elections through state-based redistricting represent an attempt to institutionalize an advantage for his party.
Similarly, the president is seeking to reshape the laws that govern elections — who can vote, how they can vote, and what the requirements are for voting — all with the aim of securing an edge over the Democratic Party. These are clear attempts to institutionalize not only his authority as chief executive but also the power of his party. Some of these efforts may succeed, while others will fail. It’s hard to predict.
Certainly, the president has the right to ask a particular state to engage in redistricting, and many, though not all, states will be able to respond to that in one way or another. So that’s certainly within existing political bounds. President Franklin Roosevelt, for example, tried to use an election to purge members of his party with whom he disagreed. His party fought back, and he was rebuffed. So this is not the first time a president has tried to institutionalize greater power and authority for himself and his party. Previous efforts have not succeeded, at least not entirely. For example, Roosevelt attempted in 1935 to do what President Trump is trying to do in 2025 — eliminate independent agencies whose leaders are exempt from firing simply because the president dislikes them or disagrees with some of their decisions. The Supreme Court said no to Roosevelt in 1935, and he respected that. He wasn’t happy about it, he grumbled, but he respected the decision. We’ll see what happens this time. Those of us with some knowledge of American political history recognize aspects of what’s going on now — not all of it, but some of it.
Culture Wars and Power Plays Redefine US Political Fault Lines
A Trump flag waves at a pier on Coden Beach in Coden, Alabama, on June 9, 2024. The flag bears the slogan, “Jesus is my Savior. Trump is my President.” Photo: Carmen K. Sisson.
Trump has repeatedly sought to limit congressional oversight and weaken checks and balances. Do these efforts signal a temporary partisan strategy or a structural erosion of US democratic institutions?
Professor William A. Galston: The erosion of congressional oversight has occurred through political processes rather than institutional changes and, therefore, could be reversed by a president with a different attitude. Just this week, for example, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, was scheduled to conduct oversight at one of the intelligence facilities under the aegis of the Department of Defense, and reportedly, the Secretary of Defense intervened and canceled the site visit that Senator Warner was going to make. That was a clear effort to reduce congressional oversight. However, there was nothing institutional about it.
By the way, I misstated earlier: Senator Warner used to be the chairman of the Intelligence Committee and is now the leading Democrat on a committee chaired by a Republican colleague, with whom he has worked very well. So, I don’t think that the reduction of Congress’s oversight capacity has been institutionalized. I do think it reflects the will of the current president and the unwillingness of members of his own party in Congress to challenge his will. For a very simple reason: they’re afraid of him. They’re afraid of what he can do to them—to damage their political careers—and perhaps for other reasons as well. That’s not an institution; that’s an individual set of relationships.
How do you assess the strategic deployment of culture wars in Trump’s political agenda? Are they primarily an ideological project, or do they function as a power-consolidation tool to reshape voter alignments and institutional priorities?
Professor William A. Galston: Both. And certainly, President Trump, as a candidate and as a president, has been very good at discerning the fundamental fault lines or cleavages in American political culture and defining those fault lines in a way that maximizes the number of people who will be on his side of the line. Part of effective leadership is to define controversies that work to your advantage. In the cultural arena, President Trump has an instinct for those conflicts. I don’t think all of them that he’s picked have worked to his advantage, but certainly, the three that he emphasized in the 2024 presidential election, and again in the early months of his administration—namely immigration, crime, and so-called DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) initiatives—have all worked to his advantage so far.
Having said that, there are signs that voters in the middle of our political spectrum—and yes, there are still many of them—are beginning to conclude that the president may be going too far in the tactics he’s using. That’s demonstrably the case in immigration, where there is widespread disapproval not of the president’s objectives but of the means he’s using to achieve those objectives, which many citizens in the middle of the political spectrum view as unnecessarily cruel and as failing to provide potential candidates for deportation with sufficient legal rights to challenge the grounds of their deportations. And while Americans, generally speaking, align with the president’s goals on crime and some of the measures he’s used to reduce it, there isn’t the kind of mass support for the use of federal troops in American cities that the president imagines. At this point, I would say that probably a narrow majority of Americans believe that’s not the right long-term approach to fighting crime.
Project 2025 Drives Trump’s Institutional Power Agenda
How do you evaluate the role of Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation’s allied networks in shaping Trump’s second-term policy framework? Are these actors contributing to the institutionalization of authoritarian governance through ideologically driven restructuring of federal institutions?
Professor William A. Galston: I believe the Heritage Foundation, through Project 2025, has been enormously successful in shaping the second Trump administration. If you listen to current Heritage leaders — as well as former leaders who now hold senior positions in the administration — their argument isn’t that they’re overturning the Constitution, but rather that they’re correcting what they see as improper interpretations of it.
For example, more than half a century ago, Congress passed a law preventing the president from withholding funds appropriated for specific purposes. In my view, the president has acted in ways inconsistent with that law. Yet his leading budget advisor — the head of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) — has stated flatly that this law is unconstitutional. They are determined to use this controversy to take the matter to the Supreme Court, arguing that the statute improperly restricts presidential authority.
All of this was carefully planned in advance by senior members of the Heritage Foundation. In fact, the current head of OMB was one of the architects of Project 2025. There has been a direct translation of Project 2025’s core ideas into both the institutions and the personnel of Trump’s second term. The Heritage effort has effectively served as a recruitment mechanism: identifying individuals aligned with the president’s agenda, testing their loyalty, and placing them in key policymaking and policy-executing roles.
It has been a tremendous success — we’ve rarely seen anything like this. And speaking as a member of a rival think tank, the Brookings Institution, I must admit: although I disagree with much of what the Heritage Foundation proposed in Project 2025, I have to tip my hat to them. They’ve been enormously effective and have played their cards extremely well.
Comparing Trump with Orbán, Erdoğan, and Modi: Similar Rhetoric, Weaker Grip
Matryoshka dolls featuring images of Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump displayed at a souvenir counter in Moscow on March 16, 2019. Photo: Shutterstock.
In comparative perspective, how does Trump’s reliance on identity-based polarization and his governing style align with global populist-authoritarian trajectories — such as those of Orbán in Hungary, Erdoğan in Turkey, and Modi in India — particularly regarding institutional capture, media control, and judicial weakening?
Professor William A. Galston: I would say that, in his use of identitarian and nationalist policy themes, he is very similar to them. He has not yet, however, achieved the degree of control over the institutions that you just listed that we see in places like Hungary and Turkey, and, to a somewhat lesser extent, but still considerable, in India.
The press right now is not under Trump’s control to the extent that it is in Hungary. You do not have the state owning, either directly or indirectly, the share of the media landscape that Mr. Orbán has been able to create through docile intermediaries.
Nor has Mr. Trump been able to achieve the mastery of the judiciary that, certainly, Orbán and Erdoğan have achieved. The judiciary remains independent, and you can see that that’s the case because of the number of court decisions that have gone against President Trump just in the past few weeks.
Now, it is quite possible that the Supreme Court will end up ratifying the President’s position in some of those cases. Still, it has not been a complete takeover.
If you look at the direction in which the United States is heading, certainly down a very long road yet to be traveled lies the kind of political systems that we now see in the three countries that you listed. But there are many miles to go before this president enjoys that kind of authority, and, frankly, I personally believe that he is unlikely to get to the end of the road. I don’t think the American people or the American legal system will permit him to do so.
Having said that, I think, at the end of his second term — and I’m making the optimistic assumption that he will not violate the Constitution and try to run for a third term — he will leave behind him an enlarged presidency with much more robust executive powers.
Then his successor will have to decide whether to use that expanded authority for purposes of his own or recommend reforms that would create new legal limits on executive authority. So, that issue will be determined by the outcome of the 2028 election, and I expect it to be one of the major debates in that election.
Federalism Acts as a Guardrail Against Competitive Authoritarianism
Given your analysis of the 2026 midterms, how pivotal is the Texas redistricting battle in shaping Republican prospects, and what does it reveal about the role of electoral engineering in sustaining partisan dominance? To what extent might such aggressive gerrymandering strategies erode democratic legitimacy and push the US toward a ‘competitive authoritarian’ model?
Professor William A. Galston: Once again, and I feel I’m giving you versions of the same answer to all of your questions, I am distinguishing between the direction of change that we can discern, on the one hand, and its proximity to full competitive authoritarianism on the other. I don’t think we’re there. One reason we’re not there yet, and I expect won’t get there, is, as you know, the United States has a very strong federal system — unlike, say, countries at the other extreme, like France, where almost all power flows from the center. In the United States, the 50 states have robust powers of their own, and there are constitutional and legal limits on the ability of the national government to direct the states to do things that they don’t want to do. If I had an hour, I could explain all of the details, but the headline is that federalism serves as a check on presidential authority and on the power of the president’s party. So, to take a simple example, Texas, responding to President Trump’s suggestion, has undertaken and has just enacted a redrawing of legislative boundaries that will probably, but not necessarily, lead to a gain of up to five Republican seats in the House of Representatives.
That would make it harder for Democrats to regain the majority because the Republican majority would expand from three seats to eight seats. On the other hand, and in response, the governor of California, a state that’s heavily dominated by Democrats, has said, “Well, if you’re gonna do that, then we’re going to counter with our own redistricting plan that will increase the number of Democratic seats in the state of California going to the House of Representatives by five.”
Okay, so if that effort to counterbalance Texas succeeds in November in California — and the new maps are being submitted directly to the voters for their approval or disapproval — if they’re approved, then California will have nullified what Texas did, and there would be no net gain. Now, the Republicans are trying to expand this redistricting effort to other states, but there the potential gains are smaller. Perhaps one seat or two seats.
But here again, Democrats are countering with outreach to states where they control the governorship and the legislature, such as my home state of Maryland. Right now, Maryland has eight seats in the US House of Representatives, seven of them occupied by Democrats, and one lonely seat occupied by a Republican. Now, it is probably the case that Maryland could redraw its boundaries to eliminate that eighth seat and bring it under Democratic control.
For all sorts of reasons, I’m not sure that the governor of Maryland or the state Democratic Party really wants to go down that road, but they may feel, in a month or two, or three, that they have no choice. So, I think it’s important to see how, at the very least, our system of federalism slows the movement towards competitive authoritarianism.
And let me add one other thing. If you look at the language of the Constitution, who gets to control the time, the place, and the manner of elections, it’s the Congress of the United States and the state governments. The President of the United States has no role whatsoever to play in that.
And so, if President Trump says, “I’m going to issue an executive order forbidding the use of voting machines, forbidding the use of mail-in ballots, or requiring every citizen to show certain kinds of identification before voting,” well, that’s fine — he’s issued that order — but he has no legal authority to enforce it because the Constitution doesn’t give him that power.
So, you know, I read all of the same journals that I suspect you do, and the issue of competitive authoritarianism is very much in the air, and it’s a very real issue. And there are real and important examples of it around the world. But I want the people who will listen to (or read) this interview to understand that, although there are real constitutional risks in the United States today, and many things are drifting in the wrong direction, I don’t think we are as far away from constitutional government or as close to competitive authoritarianism as many people think we are, and as the other nations, like Hungary, Turkey, India, and others, already are.
Economic Pressures Overshadow Trump’s Cultural Appeals
With rising opposition to Trump’s tariffs, even among his base, do you foresee economic discontent weakening his political legitimacy, or will identity cleavages continue to override economic self-interest in voting behavior?
Professor William A. Galston: The single most important issue in the 2024 presidential election was inflation and high prices. I monitor public opinion surveys on a daily basis, and that has not changed. If President Trump thinks that he can use identitarian issues or cultural issues to neutralize public concern about high and rising prices, he’s fooling himself. That won’t happen. He’ll try to make it happen unless prices come down over the next year, in which case he’ll brag about bringing prices down, and the American people will, if those price reductions are real, give him a lot of credit, and they’ll give him their vote. But the economy — the affordability of basic things like housing, transportation, energy, and food — still looms over the entire political landscape.
Defending Democracy Requires Law, Not Street Protests
Frontal view of the U.S. Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C., on February 10, 2024. Photo: Gualberto Becerra P.
And lastly, Professor Galston, what strategies should democratic institutions, civil society actors, and the media adopt to safeguard checks and balances and reinforce democratic resilience in the face of rising executive centralization?
Professor William A. Galston: All of those institutions should use their cultural power and their legal power to defend their integrity and their independence, which goes all the way back to my answer to your first question. I think that the principal venue of contestation in America today is the law. It is the law, ultimately, and the willingness of institutions to use their legal power to contest expansions of executive power that they don’t like. That will make the difference between the preservation of constitutional checks and balances and their erosion.
I’ll give you a very recent example from Wednesday’s newspaper. I think most people in Europe are aware of Harvard University, which is probably America’s most famous and prestigious university, and Harvard, a few months ago, decided that the Trump administration was making some demands that they could not yield to without forfeiting their institutional independence and their raison d’être as an academic institution. So they drew a line and said, “This far and no farther,” and they went to court to try to get legal reinforcement for where they’d drawn the line, and on Wednesday, a federal judge gave it to them and said that most of what President Trump was doing to Harvard was unconstitutional.
The administration was ordered to restore the $2.2 billion in research money that the judge said was arbitrarily and unconstitutionally withheld from them. Now, is that the last word? Absolutely not. Donald Trump believes in litigating everything as high as he can go in the hopes of achieving a more favorable verdict someplace. But that’s an example of how an institution that has the will to defend its legal prerogatives can push back — and push back effectively.
And I think that pushing back, using not street protests but the law, will be the most important venue of contestation. The extent to which the law is used to reinforce constitutional norms will determine the extent to which the United States goes down the road towards competitive authoritarianism. But, to repeat, we’re not there yet. We’re not even close to a decline into competitive authoritarianism. And I am hopeful that we’ll never get there. I can’t promise anybody that we won’t, but I do know that institutions in America outside the federal government — the states, universities, professional associations, civil society — are waking up.
And they are beginning to understand that unless they are willing to assert their legal rights, nobody else is going to protect them. They must act firmly, but legally, for themselves, and if they do, I think the outcome will be a very challenging situation for the adherents of liberal democracy in the United States. Don’t get me wrong. I won’t say it’s an emergency. It’s not quite an emergency, but it is a moment that challenges citizens who’ve taken liberal democracy for granted to realize that it’s not been handed down like the tablets to Moses on Mount Sinai. It’s a human creation, and all human creations are subject to human erosion and human destruction.
We know one of the few lessons from history that I think is impossible to deny and very clear to all who care to read it. And so, the quote that everybody is using, when Benjamin Franklin was asked after the Constitutional Convention, “What form of government have you created, Mr. Franklin?” — and his answer was, “A republic, if you can keep it.”
Well, those words now are a challenge to citizens of the United States today. Can we keep what we inherited? Sometime in the next decade, we’ll find out the answer to that question.
Indonesia is witnessing its largest wave of protests since Reformasi, sparked by the death of Affan Kurniawan during Jakarta’s labor demonstrations. Demands range from fair wages and job security to dismantling elite privileges and revising the controversial Omnibus Law. Drawing on Ernesto Laclau’s theory of populist reason, the article analyzes how heterogeneous grievances converged into a collective identity of “the people” against “the elites,” fueled by widening inequality, institutional distrust, and elite arrogance. It further examines government securitization, social media narratives, and intra-elite rivalries, situating the unrest within Indonesia’s democratic backsliding. Hasnan Bachtiar argues this moment marks a potential turning point — either toward renewed progressive populism or deeper authoritarian entrenchment.
Affan Kurniawan (21) was still wearing the green jacket from his app-based food-delivery job as he stepped out to earn a living. The family’s breadwinner, he was expected to bring home a small bag of rice for everyone to share when he returned from work. But in the middle of a labor protest in Jakarta, he was struck and crushed by a nearly five-ton police armored vehicle.
On the night of August 28, 2025, he died. But his death unleashed a larger, unstoppable wave of populist anger, like a boil about to burst. The protests that day were not limited to Jakarta, they also broke out in cities such as Surabaya, Bandung, Semarang, Yogyakarta, Medan, Banda Aceh, Batam, Palembang, Lampung, Banjarmasin, Pontianak, Samarinda, Makassar, Gorontalo, Ambon, Ternate, and Jayapura, among others, spreading across all 38 provinces of Indonesia.
The protests demanded an end to outsourcing and poverty wages, a halt to layoffs, a higher minimum wage, a higher non-taxable income threshold, the removal of taxes on holiday bonuses and severance pay, limits on contract employment and on foreign labor, and the repeal of the Omnibus Law in favor of a new labor code.
It turned out this wave of protests was the twelfth in a series, preceded by eleven demonstrations throughout 2025, including one organized under the hashtag #IndonesiaGelap. The following day, and continuing to the present, the protests have carried on with even more serious demands. For the record, several others died after Affan, they are Septinus Sesa (West Papua), Iko Juliant Junior (Semarang), Andika Luthfi Falah (Jakarta), Syaiful Akbar (Makassar), Muhammad Akbar Basri (Makassar), Sarinawati (Makassar), Rusmadiansyah (Makassar), and Reza Sendy Pratama (Yogyakarta).
Populis Logics
What is happening appears to align with Ernesto Laclau’s thinking in his work On Populist Reason (2005). He sees populism as a political logic that constructs a collective identity of “the people” in antagonism to the elite by using broad, flexible, and recognizable symbols and discourses to unite disparate demands.
Initially, a scatter of heterogeneous demands kept surfacing. Because the authorities failed to respond adequately, people came to feel they shared a common enemy. They then experienced a shared fate and burden as “marginalized subjects.” This spread, solidifying public sentiment and spurring the formation of “equivalential chains.” They arrived at a collective claim that “the people demand justice,” to be pursued through a movement of resistance as a hegemonic articulation. From a more ontological perspective of “the people,” as suggested by Yilmaz et al. (2025), if the elite prove incapable of governing the country, they should be replaced or even dismantled.
On the surface, it began with reports circulating about pay and benefit increases for officials, especially members of parliament. This came at a time when the public was facing severe economic hardship. On one side, the executive branch was rolling out “efficiency” measures that led to layoffs, service cuts, and heavier tax burdens. On the other, the elite were enjoying higher salaries and perks, access to lucrative projects, and economic rents. For comparison, while officials were set to receive 100 million rupiah (USD 6,092) per month, about 3 million rupiah (USD 184) a day, 68 percent of the population was getting by on less than 50,000 rupiah (USD 3). With incomes roughly sixty times higher than most people’s, this was seen as elite indifference toward the public and the imposition of a harsh double standard.
Moreover, some of those officials even danced in the parliament building when they heard about the pay raise. Others, like Uya Kuya (National Mandate Party/PAN), said that three million a day was a small amount compared to his salary. When the public flooded social media with criticism, lawmaker Eko Patrio (PAN) put out a DJ parody, blasting loud music, dancing, then covering his ears with headphones. This came across not only as a sign that they did not care about the criticism, but as an insult. They were dancing on the public’s suffering. When people grew furious and called for parliament (the DPR) to be dissolved, Ahmad Sahroni (National Democratic Party/NasDem) responded by calling them “the dumbest people in the world.”
The combination of economic hardship (crisis), a deficit of trust in the government, and widespread psychological pressure, especially a collective sense of humiliation, led the public to feel a shared grievance and to move together against a common enemy, the corrupt elite. All of this then manifested in collective protest movements filled with popular anger and even accompanied by violence that seemed inevitable.
Hijacking the Reformasi
Rather than engaging with the substance of public anger, the government responded with a hardline narrative with unproven claims of foreign infiltration. This seemed to be the point when the distance between the state and its citizens felt widest. The public demanded accountability, the state answered by criminalizing dissent. These dueling narratives hardened for a basic reason, that the people no longer believed that their representatives, whether in the executive or the legislature, would take their side, while the state treated criticism as a danger to be crushed. To confront the protesters, the government deployed not only the police but also military troops.
The public’s collective anger is clearly directed at the ruling regime. People see signs of recentralization as a replay of what happened for more than three decades under the military general Suharto. There is now symbolic militarization, increasingly entrenched political coalitions, and the concentration of state assets within a narrow circle, especially among those close to President Prabowo. All of this is viewed as the culmination of the post-1998 Reformasi trajectory. Reformasi, which was expected to open civic space, now seems instead to be in the process of being brutally dismantled.
More ironically, the rhetoric of fiscal efficiency is being wielded downward, squarely at ordinary people. Budgets for the regions have been cut, and the social safety net has shrunk, while luxury perks for parliament (the DPR) and defense spending have ballooned. For the record, the national defense budget rose from 139.27 trillion rupiah in 2024 to 247.5 trillion rupiah. At the start of 2025, the value-added tax (PPN) was raised to 12%, which many fears will significantly weaken purchasing power. Other issues seen as worsening the public’s socio-economic situation include the circulation of adulterated “premium” fuel, shortages of LPG canisters on the market, the nickel case in Raja Ampat, the transfer of four islands from Aceh to North Sumatra, the freezing of 120 million bank accounts by Indonesia’s Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (PPATK), and a rule under which idle land and houses would be seized by the state, among others.
So, for the public, “efficiency” has become a pretext for tightening their own belts, not for reining in elite appetites. Because budget “efficiency” is centralized, local governments that would normally receive transfers from the center have been left scrambling, with little choice but to raise local revenues. On August 13, 2025, residents protested in the city of Pati, Central Java, after the Pati regent, Sudewo (from Gerindra Party), raised the Land and Building Tax (PBB, essentially the property tax) by 250%. Other local governments that faced public backlash included Jombang (a 1,202% tax hike), Cirebon (1,000%), Semarang (441%), Bone (300%), and Lhokseumawe (248%).
In this context, the reform agenda appears to have been hijacked. An alliance of politicians, bureaucrats, and big business interests has deepened the private accumulation of public resources through seemingly democratic institutions. Meanwhile, political parties show almost no real ideological differentiation, they appear to speak with one voice in service of an oligarchic logic. At the same time, freedom of speech exists, and social media teems with criticism, but the distribution of economic and political power remains skewed. When the public pressed its case during the #IndonesiaGelap protests on February 17-20, 2025, the Chair of the National Economic Council and Special Presidential Advisor for Investment, Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, replied: “Darkness lies in you, not Indonesia.”
The People’s Articulation
President-elect Prabowo Subianto with the 7th President of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, at the 79th Indonesian National Armed Forces Anniversary in Jakarta, Indonesia, on October 5, 2024. Photo: Donny Hery.
It cannot be doubted that the spread of protests was the result of many triggers converging at once. Tension in the streets created space for a populist mood to take hold, reinforced by narratives circulating on social media, kitchen-table anxieties, and political symbols that ignited collective emotion. The picture was further muddied by orchestrated messaging from anonymous “buzzers” (paid online amplifiers), making it hard for the public to see who was really behind the unrest.
On the ground, the crowd was heterogeneous (workers, students, online ride-hailing driver communities (ojek), and civil society organizations) pursuing overlapping aims that were not always identical, which often slowed coordination. Under that pressure, crowd psychology amplified emotions. Each new casualty triggered broader solidarity while also opening space for infiltration and provocation. At the same time, intra-elite conflicts (especially Prabowo-military vis-à-visJokowi-police) fueled the escalation. Factions within the ruling bloc competed, some ratcheted up tensions, while others capitalized on the moment for political gain.
The crowd’s anger in these protests was aimed at four main targets they saw as sources of injustice. First, the DPR (parliament) was perceived as a symbol of privilege and a legislature that often produces policies that betray the popular will. Then, the security forces (the police) because repeated violence and impunity have eroded the public’s sense of safety. Political parties were viewed as lacking real ideological differences and serving mainly to reinforce an oligarchic logic. The ruling faction (Prabowo) was criticized for pushing recentralization and was feared to be further narrowing the civic space that should belong to citizens.
From the streets, two tiers of demands rang out loud and clear. First came the urgent demands to be met by September 5, 2025, an independent investigation into cases of police violence against protest victims, an end to the involvement of the Indonesian National Armed Forces (TNI) in civilian affairs, the release of all detained protesters, accountability for security forces, a moratorium on increases to benefits for DPR members (parliament), full budget transparency, ethics sanctions for officials who displayed arrogance, an open public dialogue with the DPR, and comprehensive protections for workers.
Second, there were structural demands to clean up the parliament (DPR) of corruptions, to reform political parties and the system of executive oversight, to build a fairer tax system, to strengthen the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) through an asset-forfeiture law, to make the police professional, to ensure the military returns to the barracks without exception, to bolster the National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM) and other independent bodies, and to review economic and labor policies so they favor the public.
The demonstrations are not just seasonal “riots.” They are a serious sign that the state’s legitimacy is eroding. Indonesia learned in 1998 that when an economic crisis collides with a political crisis and injustice, the result is a multidimensional crisis. Those symptoms are back now, only with a new face, the public is more informed, more digitally connected, and more willing to test the state’s narrative against everyday experience.
Democracy rarely collapses overnight. It usually erodes slowly under the pretext of maintaining order. That is why this moment can be understood as an inflection point, will Indonesia slip back into a new form of authoritarianism hiding behind procedural democracy, or use it as a chance to repair a fractured social contract?
This is where progressive populism becomes relevant. The popular movement, now articulated through anger and concrete demands, opens the door to building a new political bloc committed to economic and social justice, transparency, and accountability. Rather than merely mobilizing emotion, progressive populism can serve as a platform to knit scattered demands into a coherent, measurable collective agenda.
Affan’s death has come to symbolize how a single life from the poor can speak louder than a thousand official speeches. If the establishment chooses to turn a deaf ear, whatever legitimacy remains will only grow more fragile. But if it dares to listen and channel the people’s energy toward a fairer transformation, this tragedy could mark the beginning of renewal.
In an interview with the ECPS, Professor Nic Cheeseman dissects the global resurgence of authoritarian populism and the uneven pathways of democratic backsliding. Warning against the “temporal fallacy,” he argues that crises unfolding simultaneously do not share a single cause—from Europe’s far-right surge to West Africa’s coups. Professor Cheeseman spotlights the twin pillars of democratic defense: resilient institutions and organized civic resistance. “In countries where institutions are weak, mass mobilization becomes absolutely critical—often the only mechanism left to stop populist or authoritarian leaders from consolidating power,” he says. Citing Ghana, Kenya, and Zambia, he urges context-specific democracy support that amplifies local strengths over one-size-fits-all templates.
Giving an interview to the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Dr. Nic Cheeseman, Professor of Democracy at the University of Birmingham, and the Director of the Centre for Elections, Democracy, Accountability and Representation (CEDAR), offers a comprehensive analysis of the global resurgence of authoritarian populism, democratic backsliding, and the vital role of civic resistance in fragile democracies. As a signatory of the June 13, 2025, anti-fascist declaration, Professor Cheeseman warns against the normalization of exclusionary, illiberal politics and highlights the need to rethink strategies for safeguarding democracy in the 21st century.
Professor Cheeseman emphasizes that democratic decline is not uniform but highly context-specific, urging caution against what he calls the “temporal fallacy”—the assumption that simultaneous crises share common causes. While far-right populism is reshaping politics in Europe, democratic erosion elsewhere often follows different patterns, such as military coups in West Africa or institutional capture in Latin America. “What we’re seeing is a highly complex set of processes pushing countries away from democracy, but these processes do not necessarily share a common underlying theme,” he explains.
A central theme of the interview is Professor Cheeseman’s analysis of the relationship between institutional resilience and mass mobilization in resisting authoritarianism. Drawing on Afrobarometer data and recent case studies, he underscores that strong institutions remain the first line of defense against creeping autocracy. However, in contexts where institutional capacity is weak, civic resistance becomes decisive: “In countries where institutions are weak, mass mobilization becomes absolutely critical—often the only mechanism left to stop populist or authoritarian leaders from consolidating power,” Professor Cheeseman asserts.
This argument resonates particularly in African contexts, where frustration with democratic performance—stemming from economic hardships, governance failures, and elite corruption—has fueled coups and populist takeovers. Yet, Professor Cheeseman points to inspiring counterexamples like Kenya, Ghana, and Zambia, where citizens have mobilized successfully to safeguard democratic norms. In Zambia, for instance, “hundreds of thousands of citizens turned out to vote, even believing the election wouldn’t be fully free and fair, because they knew collective action could bring political change—and it did.”
Professor Cheeseman also critiques “one-size-fits-all” democratization strategies, urging international actors to develop context-specific approaches grounded in local realities, civic strengths, and the dynamics of populist narratives.
Overall, the interview highlights Professor Cheeseman’s central thesis: defending democracy requires a dual strategy of institutional strengthening and societal mobilization. Where one falters, the other must rise.
Dr. Nic Cheeseman, Professor of Democracy at the University of Birmingham and Director of the Centre for Elections, Democracy, Accountability, and Representation (CEDAR).
Here is the transcript of our interview with Professor Nic Cheeseman, edited lightly for readability.
Beware the ‘Temporal Fallacy’: Mapping the Varied Paths of Authoritarian Populism
Professor Cheeseman, thank you very much for joining our interview series. Let me start right away with the first question: As a signatory of the June 13, 2025, anti-fascist declaration, how do you interpret the resurgence of authoritarianism and illiberal populism globally? Do contemporary far-right movements represent a new form of “neo-fascism,” or are they better understood as populist-authoritarian hybrids adapted to 21st-century democracies?
Professor Nic Cheeseman: That’s a big question to start with. I’ll begin by reiterating something I often emphasize when discussing the recent phase of global politics and the authoritarian trend: we must be cautious of what I call the temporal fallacy. The temporal fallacy is the assumption that, because many developments are occurring simultaneously, they must be driven by the same underlying causes. For example, if we examine the challenges to democracy worldwide and the rise of authoritarian leaders, we see that some of these leaders fit into a proto-populist, right-wing, exclusionary politics mold.
We can observe the rise of the far-right across Europe, and, of course, we should note that right now, as we speak, far-right candidates or parties are leading in opinion polls in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom—something unprecedented in my lifetime. However, this trend applies only to a certain set of countries. In other contexts, democratic decline has occurred for very different reasons. For example, in West Africa, we’ve seen junta leaders seize power with little connection to right-wing populism. In some cases, there’s instead a pan-African, almost leftist form of old-school populism, modeled more on figures like Ghana’s Jerry Rawlings than on Europe’s fascist traditions. Similarly, in parts of Latin America and elsewhere, we observe yet different dynamics. Overall, what we’re seeing is a highly complex set of processes pushing countries away from democracy, but these processes do not necessarily share a common underlying theme.
So, in that sense, even if we were to agree that some of these cases provide a strong parallel to the fascist movements of the 1930s–1940s, we would, of course, be talking about only a small subset of them. And that brings us to the question of why sign a letter against the rise of fascism. I think what we wanted to do in the letter—and obviously, I can only speak for myself, not for the other signatories—was to raise a warning flag and say: we are beginning to see the early signs of something that increasingly resembles the kind of outright hostility toward other cultures and migrants that we have witnessed before in history.
At present, I think it’s fair to say that we are not yet at that scale. But what we are seeing—and this is what truly concerns me—is that both from senior political figures, like Nigel Farage or Donald Trump, and from below, through social media and conversations among people who share similar views, we now have an almost full legitimization of exclusionary, racist, and hostile discourse happening simultaneously from the top and the bottom. Social media is emboldening people, and the rhetoric of leaders is emboldening people. These two dynamics, unfolding together, mean that things people would not have dared to say 10 or 20 years ago, they now feel confident expressing publicly, believing that others will support them.
Now, the final point I want to make is that we must be very careful not to assume that the values and prejudices we’re hearing today are somehow new. In many cases, people are simply feeling emboldened to express views they have held for a long time. One mistake we must avoid is interpreting these new expressions as evidence that we had previously solved these issues and that they have suddenly reemerged. My sense is that we never effectively addressed many of these underlying problems; instead, they were allowed to fester beneath the surface. What’s different now is that these prejudices are being emboldened and amplified in this particular moment. So, we face a dual challenge: how to confront the current manifestation of exclusionary politics and why we failed to tackle the root causes and reduce these prejudices more effectively over the last 20 to 30 years.
Frustration with Democracy Fuels Support for Military Intervention
Thai military seizes control from Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in a coup in Bangkok, Thailand, on September 22, 2006. Photo: Charlie Milsom.
Drawing on your work in“War and Democracy”in 2018, to what extent do rising authoritarian movements exploit institutional weaknesses and democratic fatigue, particularly in post-colonial states? How might these dynamics explain the erosion of liberal norms both in Africa and globally?
Professor Nic Cheeseman: I think frustration with democracy is a really important factor in many parts of the world. Some people believe that they once had a good-quality democracy and that it was taken away, while others feel that democracy was strong but ultimately failed them. For example, in the United States, many might feel that, on the one hand, they have been told they live in a functioning democracy, but on the other hand, they have seen class mobility decline and their ability to achieve a better life than their parents diminish—leading, in a sense, to the erosion of belief in the American dream. Alternatively, we can look at societies in Africa that have never truly been granted democracy. In that article, we discussed countries like Uganda and Rwanda, where we have essentially seen prolonged periods of authoritarian rule.
Now, today, for example, in Uganda, we have a system that is called a multi-party electoral system; it is described as a democracy by the government, but the opposition has never been allowed to win. We know that the game is systematically stacked against the opposition. There was even a survey that found a majority of Ugandan people did not believe that power could be changed through the ballot box. So, when you reach a situation where most voters don’t believe they can actually remove the government through elections, that creates a very dangerous dynamic. It gives people an incentive to start contemplating and supporting alternative ways of changing power—for example, through armed force. And if we were to ask what conditions led to the coups in West Africa, one of the key factors was that citizens had become frustrated and fed up with democracy, no longer believing that it would deliver, and no longer necessarily believing that democratic systems or electoral processes would enable them to elect better leaders in the future. Under those conditions, support for the military and for military intervention becomes something that people are more willing to contemplate.
So, if we look at the Afrobarometer data, for example—survey data across West Africa—one of the things it shows us is that most people are still against military rule. However, even those who oppose military rule in principle are sometimes willing to say that the military has a right to intervene if civilian-led leaders have abused their power. In other words, what people are telling us is: we don’t want the military to govern, but if civilian leaders undermine their own legitimacy, perhaps the military is necessary to provide a clean break and a new opportunity to rebuild the system. I think some of that frustration with the performance of democracy—in terms of its failure to shield people from economic hardships, provide meaningful jobs, and offer a sense that people’s lives have worth and value—is also at the heart of some of the challenges facing democracy in Europe and North America, today.
When Populism Meets Ethnic Exclusion, the Risk of Proto-Fascism Rises
Entrance to the National Genocide Memorial in Kigali, Rwanda, on March 2, 2017. Photo: Karen Foley.
In your article “Ethnopopulism in Africa” in 2015, you describe how African leaders fuse populist economic narratives with ethnic mobilization. How do you assess the risks of ethnopopulism evolving into proto-fascist politics in fragile democracies, particularly where leaders invoke existential threats to justify state violence?
Professor Nic Cheeseman: I think the threat is really significant. But we have to be very careful about approaching this on a case-by-case basis. For example, we wrote that article with certain parts of sub-Saharan Africa in mind, where, on the one hand, you see leaders trying to mobilize in a more populist fashion using economic issues, but on the other hand, mobilizing along ethnic lines because they also recognize the need to carry their ethnic community with them. This results in piecing together a complex constituency that is, at times, inherently contradictory. If you want to deliver broad populist goals and improve the lives of citizens and the average person, you’re appealing to everyone—the common man. But if you then make an ethnic appeal and promise to deliver primarily to your own ethnic community, you narrow your focus to just that constituency. In that sense, it creates an internally contradictory approach.
And what we tried to address in that article is when this approach holds together and when it doesn’t. We essentially pointed out that it is more likely to hold together when a leader’s own ethnic community—perhaps due to historical experiences or socialization into certain values and ideas—is more inclined toward populism and actually shares populist values. This could involve supporting strong state intervention in the economy to deliver rapid change or desiring a “big man” leader and being willing to sacrifice democratic checks and balances to achieve those goals.
So, there’s a kind of tension there that can be overcome, and leaders can use it effectively. But, where those identifications are different, where the ethnic constituency of a leader wants something very different from what perhaps the common person on the street wants, or when there’s a real tension and polarization around ethnic identity, it can be extremely difficult to make them consistent, and actually, a lot of these strategies don’t end up winning power. They collapse under the weight of their own internal contradictions.
Now, where I think this becomes really dangerous—and we see this clearly in other parts of the world, including parts of Europe and Asia—is when you get that combination of a populist leader mobilizing around ethnicity, an exclusionary version of ethnicity, and using the demonization of either external countries or internal minorities as a way to unify their support base. When that happens, you get a particularly troubling form of proto-fascist mobilization. On the one hand, you are deliberately using that community as the glue holding your coalition together, making it impossible to abandon this strategy since it sustains the regime. On the other hand, the populist nature of this mobilization further erodes checks and balances, making it easier for human rights abuses to occur and putting the targeted community in particular danger. That’s where this exclusionary form of politics risks boiling over into something far more violent and repressive. That said, it’s important to remember that this pattern is not universal: some right-wing populists in power have not yet led to severe attacks on minorities, while others clearly have. There is, in other words, significant variation.
One of the things that’s quite interesting to me at the moment is looking at where we see leaders like this who seem genuinely interested in reshaping multiple levels of society, versus those who don’t. In Italy, for example, it seems to me that the government isn’t particularly interested in controlling what academics think or say, nor does it appear heavily involved in censoring universities or seeking to control society down to the grassroots. I could be wrong, but from talking to friends, that seems to be the case. By contrast, in the United States, you have a government that is actively waging war with some of its own universities—trying to impose forms of censorship, remove certain issues from the agenda, and push its own values onto it.
So, one of the things I think we need to reflect on more carefully is the question: why? Why do we have some movements and leaders who focus primarily on marginalizing communities within an exclusionary narrative, while others are far more invested in intervening directly to reshape society, including academia, universities, and cultural institutions? And why do we have some leaders who seem more focused on controlling the commanding heights of the state without necessarily pursuing deeper social transformation? What drives these different kinds of regimes, and what distinct consequences do they produce for their own societies?
Populists Rise on Anti-Corruption Rhetoric but Often Deepen Clientelism and Corruption
Brazilian citizens take to the streets demanding the impeachment of President Dilma, the arrest of former President Lula, and the fall of the Workers’ Party (PT), amid corruption scandals, in São Paulo, Brazil, on March 13, 2016. Photo: William Rodrigues Dos Santos.
In your 2016 article “Patrons, Parties, and Political Linkages, and the Birth of Competitive-Authoritarianism in Africa,” you highlight the role of clientelist networks in shaping political behavior. How do you see clientelism interacting with populism to facilitate creeping authoritarianism, especially when leaders frame loyalty to the state as loyalty to “the people”?
Professor Nic Cheeseman: It’s a very good question and I think there are two different parts to it. I mean, one is that, in a sense, classic populist leaders face a challenge when it comes to clientelism. Because, of course, if you’re arguing that people should support you because you embody the will of the people, you should be arguing, in a sense, that they should vote for you because they recognize you as the embodiment of the will of the people, and because of your agenda, platform, and personality. And that slightly cuts against the idea that you should, of course, mobilize people through clientelistic models, either by offering them very specific services in order to assist them. For example, the kind of model that we understand in the United States, where we see the government historically delivering specific localized services—for example, for the House of Representatives and so on—in return for votes, or, in sub-Saharan Africa, where we might expect there to be a relationship between leaders and their own ethnic community, exchanging resources in that way. And that, kind of, cuts against the logic of populist mobilization if we think about classic populist thought.
But of course, in reality, we know that these two things have often gone hand in hand, and clientelistic machines have often been the underpinnings of populists who use this kind of rhetoric but actually rely on clientelism to stay in power. Moreover, one of the things that we don’t think about enough is what happens to corruption when populists win power. So, for example, we know that one of the ways that populists mobilize support is that they claim that the state is corrupt. They claim the political elite is corrupt. They make great hay out of any corruption scandals.
Trump, of course, did this. It’s been a current theme in American politics: drain the swamp, reduce the corruption in the government. It’s true more broadly that people have a suspicion about government being corrupt and being inefficient, and so populists have understood that and play on that as a key part of their message. Of course, corruption is a particularly valuable message if you’re a populist leader. Because what you can say to people is: the system is so corrupt, it’s endemic, and it’s pervasive, and therefore, the only way we can deal with it is by electing someone who’s an outsider. And therefore, you have to elect me because I’m the outsider populist. None of those people in the system can be trusted to actually deal with it. So, you get corruption and anti-corruption as one of the key mobilizing messages of populists.
But, of course, when populists are in power, they then often prove to be just as corrupt, or even more corrupt, than the people they’ve replaced. One reason for that, of course, is that populists tend to remove checks and balances, they weaken institutions, they rule in a more spontaneous way, and often in a more individual and personalized way that undermines systems of accounting and systems of audit. Therefore, what you often see is the same populists who get elected on anti-corruption messages then commit greater corruption, partly for personal aggrandizement and wealth, partly to drive the clientelistic networks that were also part of your question. When they leave power, they actually also leave the states and the government more vulnerable to corruption in the future, precisely because they’ve weakened the institutions that were designed to prevent corruption.
So, in some countries, we’ve even seen more corruption when the populist leader has left power and someone else has come in who has been more corrupt-minded but then faces a situation with far fewer constraints. So, corruption and clientelism are fundamental to populism and the rise of populist leaders, both in terms of the mobilization of voters and getting into power, and then in terms of how they sustain power and the legacy they have for political systems.
Mass Mobilization: The Last Defense Against Authoritarianism
Peaceful protests on Niezaliežnasci Street in Minsk, Belarus. Demonstrators rally and march toward Independence Avenue on August 23, 2020. Photo: Shutterstock.
Based on your research on Kenya’s 2022 elections, to what extent can constitutional reforms and decentralization act as safeguards against authoritarian populism? Or do populist leaders inevitably find ways to co-opt democratic institutions?
Professor Nic Cheeseman: I think this depends a lot on how strong the institutions are before a populist leader comes to power, and it also depends on the balance of power. To what extent does the populist leaders get a parliament that is loyal to them? And there are two dimensions to that. One is the extent to which MPs, as part of the populist leader’s party or aligned with them, are elected so that they get an easy ride with Parliament. The other is how easy it is for them to buy over MPs in the context of weak legislatures and weak party systems. So, I think this varies significantly across different places. It seems so far that European countries that have experienced populism—with the exception, obviously, of Hungary—have managed to withstand it to some extent.
Partly because electoral commissions have remained credible, we’ve actually seen democratic institutions withstand some of the challenges, leading to cases of democratic bounce-back. For example, we might think of Poland, where an authoritarian-minded government took power and was later defeated. Similarly, we might expect a more significant prospect of the current government in Italy losing power in the future than in other contexts where institutions have been much weaker and more compromised from the start. Of course, that’s not to say that Italian political institutions are free of corruption or particularly strong.
But if we compare them, for example, to some countries in sub-Saharan Africa that I work on—where legislatures have historically been extremely weak, and presidents have used corruption and patronage to demobilize scrutiny and opposition within the legislature—we see very quickly that institutions there are often far less able to operate as effective checks and balances. And in the cases of the coups we’ve discussed, we often see Parliament dissolved, political parties banned, and constitutions suspended, leaving political institutions with no real capacity on their own to constrain the new government.
So, it’s a very mixed picture, and one that gives us important things to consider when it comes to democratic resilience. Some states are going to have much greater resilience than others because of the institutional strengths they possess.
The other thing that’s important to say briefly about this is that we need to think about both democratic resilience—that is, the extent to which institutions can cope with a shock, deal with a non-democratic leader, constrain them, and ensure the rule of law is followed—and resistance, meaning citizens on the streets, civil society mobilization, and people protesting against the government. Particularly in countries where institutions are weak, it is often this form of civil society mobilization and mass protest that prevents authoritarian takeovers. So, I think it’s really interesting to look at this combination. In some countries, institutions hold power; in others, institutions cannot, but mass mobilization can. And in that context, mass mobilization becomes absolutely critical, because it is almost the only mechanism left to stop populist or authoritarian leaders from consolidating their hold on power.
Democracy Can’t Be Saved with One-Size-Fits-All Solutions
Israelis protest in Tel Aviv against Netanyahu’s Judicial Coup in Israel. Photo: Avivi Aharon.
In your co-authored 2018 article “Ten Challenges in Democracy Support,” you warn against “one-size-fits-all” democratization models. How should international actors adapt their strategies when confronting populist movements with explicitly anti-democratic tendencies?
Professor Nic Cheeseman: One of the things I’ve done with some colleagues at CEDA—the Center for Elections, Democracy, Accountability, and Representation at the University of Birmingham—is to think through the different pathways of autocratization. We’ve identified at least four or five ways in which states can become more authoritarian. One is executive aggrandizement, where the incumbent leader expands their power and weakens checks and balances. Another is military interventions—violent takeovers, such as the Taliban retaking power or coups. A third involves state capture, with pervasive corruption corroding the system, though not necessarily led by a single political figure. Finally, there’s populist takeover, where outsider, anti-system candidates win power and then subvert democratic institutions. Understanding these pathways is essential for assessing the biggest threats to democracy and determining how best to build democratic resilience and support systems that uphold democratic norms.
Those strategies or pathways that I outlined are, of course, often overlapping, so they’re not mutually exclusive. For example, you could have executive aggrandizement occurring alongside state capture. But thinking about them carefully is important because it helps identify the biggest challenge in a given context. For instance, if you believe the primary threat in a particular country is a military coup, then the strategy should focus on coup-proofing: How can we professionalize the military? How can we deter it from seizing power through force? Conversely, if the main threat is executive aggrandizement, the priority becomes strengthening checks and balances—ensuring that legislatures and judiciaries are robust enough to hold the president accountable.
So, the potential solutions, or where you might emphasize investment, depend on assessing the specific threat. One of the risks, however, is that as a global community, we keep repeating the same approaches—supporting elections, legislatures, and civil liberties—without recognizing the need to be more problem-driven, focused, and context-specific. Within the policy community, everyone acknowledges that every reform and program should be tailored to context. But in practice, this is very difficult to achieve. It’s easy to say, “let’s adapt to context,” but much harder to determine what that context actually is and how best to respond to it. Thinking carefully about the most likely pathway of autocratization—and how to insulate against it—is, I believe, one way to encourage a more distinctive and effective approach in different settings.
Of course, you also need to consider other factors, such as identifying the main strengths of the democracy movement in a given country. In which areas is it powerful, and in which areas is it weak? How can we harness these strengths to build a truly effective coalition? That, again, depends on fully understanding which forces on the ground are most influential. In some countries, these might be trade unions, while in many parts of the world, trade unions have been so weakened that they can no longer play this role. In other contexts, religious organizations or other forms of civil society might serve as the driving forces. Ultimately, developing a clear understanding of the local context is critical for identifying the biggest threats and designing the best solutions.
Negative Messaging Can Strengthen Populist Narratives
In your 2024 article “Opening the Door to Anti-System Leaders,” you show how anti-corruption campaigns can paradoxically empower populist outsiders who then undermine democratic institutions. How do you interpret this dynamic in the broader resurgence of authoritarian populism, and are there parallels in Kenya, Zambia, or Tanzania?
Professor Nic Cheeseman: This is one of the things that, in some ways, is the most depressing: some of the things we try to do for good can end up having negative effects. It’s worth taking a step back for a moment from our specific research on corruption to explain why this happens and why it’s so important more broadly. One of the things researchers have started to find is that public awareness messaging—things like “don’t smoke, it’s bad for you,” “don’t drink and drive,” or “follow COVID rules”—can sometimes do more harm than good. One reason, we think, is that by telling people that lots of others are not doing something, you may subconsciously make them think that behavior is more acceptable, easier to get away with, and more socially legitimate.
For example, if I say to you, “lots of people are not following COVID regulations, so COVID is escalating, and we need to follow these regulations,” part of what you may be thinking, perhaps subconsciously, is: “well, if lots of people are not following COVID regulations, then maybe I shouldn’t either, because the norm is not to follow them.” And you might also think, “I won’t get in that much trouble, because loads of other people are already not following them.”
What you need to be really careful about when putting out messages is avoiding language that exacerbates or reinforces people’s sense that the behavior you’re warning against is pervasive, widespread, and normal. This is especially true when it comes to corruption. If you create an advert or message that makes people believe the country is even more corrupt than they already thought, or if you make them focus too heavily on the extent of corruption, you risk encouraging a sense of helplessness and powerlessness. That, in turn, can make people feel they should simply “go with the flow” rather than resist.
We’ve conducted research in a number of countries—Albania, Nigeria, and others—on what happens when this kind of messaging is used, where the focus is on how bad things are, employing what we call a “negative message.” In general, these messages not only fail to encourage people to do what you want—whether following COVID rules, quitting smoking, or, in our case, fighting corruption—but they also often have backlash effects. What we frequently observe is a backfiring effect, where people who receive these messages actually become more willing to engage in corruption rather than less. We believe this happens because such messaging fosters apathy rather than activism and reinforces people’s pre-existing skepticism about the state.
So, what this means is that anti-corruption messages themselves can unintentionally create the very foundations that populists exploit. For example, if anti-corruption messaging makes people more concerned about the extent of corruption but also more apathetic about their ability to change it—feeding a sense that the situation is hopeless—then people may become more willing to accept populist alternatives. In the paper you’re referencing, that’s exactly what we show: people who were exposed to some of these messages—which were intended to encourage anti-corruption activity—actually demonstrated increased support for populist values and attitudes. That’s an unintended and unwanted side effect.
So, we have to be very careful with how we fight, not just in anti-corruption campaigns but across many other areas. If we rely too heavily on negative messaging that focuses on how bad problems are, we may not only fail to achieve positive outcomes but also risk creating backfiring effects—making people more willing to tolerate corruption and other harmful behaviors.
For example, we’ve found associations between negative messaging and declining support for paying taxes, as well as reduced support for other critical elements of the social contract. I think this has significant implications for how we fight back against authoritarianism and sustain democracy. Messages like “everywhere is authoritarian” are ineffective because they reinforce the perception that authoritarianism is pervasive and widely tolerated. Instead, we need to craft messages that highlight how many citizens actually believe in the values we care about—how many support fighting corruption, how many believe their country would be better if it were less corrupt, and how many value democracy. These kinds of positive messages can mobilize people and build solidarity. Negative messaging, however, is really dangerous, and we need to avoid it.
Africa Offers Inspirational Lessons in Democratic Resilience
Two queues of people at a polling station during the 2011 general elections in Zambia. Photo: Dreamstime.
As a follow-up to our discussion on democratic backsliding and a final question, is there, in your view, any notable example of successful democratization across the African continent that offers inspiration amid the rising threats of resurgent fascism, populist mobilization, and authoritarian consolidation? What lessons can ailing democracies—both within Africa and globally—draw from such cases?
Professor Nic Cheeseman: There are a number of really inspirational cases. Ghana, for instance, springs to mind. It is a country that experienced a series of coups and instability in the 1970s and 80s, followed by a period under military leader Jerry Rawlings, and then managed to emerge in the 1990s with a solid constitution that institutionalized a separation of powers. Rawlings then stepped down when his two-term limit came up, leading to a peaceful transfer of power. Since then, there have been a succession of such transfers. Now, that’s not to say Ghana’s democracy is fully consolidated. In some ways, we need to move away from the idea that democracy can ever be fully consolidated and recognize that, in a sense, it is always under threat, always being challenged. But one of the most striking things about Ghana is that it successfully made the transition from military to democratic rule, and the military has returned to the barracks and stayed out of politics ever since. In terms of one of the biggest trends in West Africa, the Ghanaian experience is a particularly valuable one to learn from.
I also think we have really interesting examples elsewhere. For example, two countries very close to my heart—Zambia and Kenya. Kenya, on the one hand, is in the middle of a very intense period right now. On one side, you have a government trying to push through very unpopular economic policies, and on the other, there is mass citizen engagement against them—mass protests led largely by youths—alongside significant human rights abuses and violations in the government’s attempts to repress those protests. And so, again, I’m not for a second saying that Kenya has “got it sorted” or reached a point where democracy is fully protected and safe. But if you think about where Kenya was 40 years ago—as a one-party state dominated by Daniel arap Moi—or then move forward to 2007, when Kenya suffered serious ethnic violence after a controversial election, the progress is striking.
In response to that flawed 2007 election and the violence that followed, Kenya built a new constitution that was more inclusive, devolved power to 47 counties, and created a Supreme Court that not only exists but was one of the first courts in the world to nullify the election of a sitting president on the basis that the election didn’t meet the necessary standards. The fact that Kenya has gone through all of that—and that, in some ways, the multi-party system today could be said to be more robust than it was 20 years ago, with a stronger constitution—means that Kenya has the potential to ride out the current challenges, struggle through them, and move forward by instituting new reforms.
And I think it’s that process that gives me inspiration. It’s not easy. People have fought for it every step of the way. People have risked their lives; many have died, trying to push forward democracy, to build a more accountable and effective system, and to resist authoritarian leaders. But at the same time, that process of struggle has actually generated a situation where, over time, the institutions have become stronger. And while they still need to be strengthened considerably from here on, Kenya is in a much better position than it was—despite all the challenges the country faced in the early 1990s, coming out of its period of strongman rule.
And the same, very briefly, to an extent, applies in Zambia. Zambia, too, is struggling with the question of democracy, the government’s commitment to it, and the challenge of making progressive reforms. But at the last election, Zambia actually managed to remove an authoritarian—or increasingly authoritarian-minded—leader, President Edgar Lungu, and witnessed a peaceful transfer of power as hundreds of thousands of Zambians went out to vote. They did so even though many did not believe the election would be completely free and fair, because they believed that if they came out together in their hundreds of thousands, they could bring about political change—and they did, by voting for a change of government.
It’s also worth keeping in mind, especially for those skeptical about the feasibility of democracy in Africa, that only two countries globally moved toward greater democracy during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to major democracy ratings indices. And those two countries were Malawi and Zambia—both in Africa. So, I do think Africa provides some genuinely inspirational examples where the struggle for democracy is very much ongoing. These are countries that have not lapsed into pure authoritarianism; their institutions are gradually becoming stronger, and citizens are consistently mobilizing to safeguard their rights and liberties.
And that, I think, is a good model for other countries in different parts of the world that are now beginning to face their own democratic difficulties.
In this powerful interview with ECPS, Professor Ruth Wodak warns that “autocracy has become a global economic corporation”—a transnational network where oligarchs, libertarians, and tech barons control discourse, distort truth, and undermine democracy. From Trump’s incitement of violence to Orbán’s fear-based migrant scapegoating, Professor Wodak outlines how authoritarian populists weaponize crises and social media to legitimize regressive policies. Yet she also defends the vital role of public intellectuals, urging them not to give in to “preemptive fear.” With deep insight into the politics of fear, techno-fascism, and discursive normalization, Professor Wodak’s reflections serve as both an alarm and a call to resistance in our increasingly volatile democratic landscape. A must-read for anyone grappling with today’s authoritarian turn.
In a time when liberal democracies are increasingly challenged by authoritarian populism, far-right, disinformation, and escalating political violence, the voice of critical scholars has never been more urgent. In this in-depth interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Professor Ruth Wodak—Emerita Distinguished Professor of Discourse Studies at Lancaster University, affiliated with the University of Vienna, and a member of the ECPS Advisory Board—provides a sobering assessment of our contemporary moment. With decades of pioneering work on discourse, racism, and the far right, Professor Wodak, who is also one of the signatories of the “International Declaration Against Fascism,” published on June 13, 2025, alongside Nobel laureates, public intellectuals, and leading scholars of democracy and authoritarianism, brings both scholarly rigor and moral clarity to an increasingly fraught public debate.
At the heart of this conversation lies a stark warning: “We are facing a kind of global kleptocracy and oligarchy that owns social media and is, in some cases, part of governments,” Professor Wodak says. Drawing on Anne Applebaum’s recent book Autocracy, Inc., she argues that autocracy has evolved into a global economic corporation—one where power, capital, and algorithmic control are intertwined and weaponized against democratic norms. This nexus, she explains, enables “very powerful individuals, libertarians, and oligarchs—supported by governments—to wield enormous influence.”
Professor Wodak also elaborates on what she calls the “politics of fear,” a strategy used by populist and authoritarian actors to exploit or fabricate crises in order to manufacture scapegoats and position themselves as national saviors. “It’s a very simple narrative,” she explains. “There is danger, someone is to blame, I am the savior, and I will eliminate the threat.” From Donald Trump’s MAGA slogan to Orbán’s anti-migrant rhetoric, such narratives are not only emotionally charged but “discursively effective in obscuring regressive agendas while appearing to restore order.”
The interview further explores how fascist traits—particularly state-sponsored or paramilitary violence—are resurfacing even in democratic societies. Professor Wodak points to cases in the United States, Germany, Turkey, and Greece as troubling examples. “We do see that the government in the US is taking very violent actions,” she warns, referring to ICE raids and militia-linked violence under Trump. Similarly, she notes how “Golden Dawn in Greece only became scandalized after the murder of a pop singer—despite its long history of violent attacks on migrants.”
Yet amid these challenges, Professor Wodak emphasizes the indispensable role of public intellectuals. Despite increasing hostility, she insists, “one shouldn’t be afraid to speak out.” Indeed, she urges scholars and citizens alike not to succumb to what she calls “preemptive fear,” which “leads you to accommodate to some kind of danger which you envision—but which is actually not there.”
In this urgent and wide-ranging dialogue, Professor Wodak offers a powerful analysis of how authoritarianism is being normalized—and how it can still be resisted.
Here is the transcript of our interview with Professor Ruth Wodak, edited lightly for readability.
Fascist Rhetoric and Violence Are Reemerging Across Democracies
Border Patrol agents monitor an anti-ICE protest in downtown Los Angeles, June 8, 2025. Demonstrators rallied against expanded ICE operations and in support of immigrant rights. Photo: Dreamstime.
Professor Ruth Wodak, thank you so very much for joining our interview series. Let me start right away with the first question: How do you interpret the contemporary resurgence of fascist traits in democratic societies, especially in light of the anti-fascism declaration you co-signed on June 13, 2025? In your view, what are the key discursive markers we should be most vigilant of, both conceptually and in concrete political communication? Could you provide some recent illustrative examples—from campaign speeches, media discourse, or policy debates—that exemplify these traits in action?
Professor Ruth Wodak: I think that’s a huge question. There are, unfortunately, many examples of what you explained just now and asked about. First, I would like to say that we should be careful when using the term fascism, because it always leads us to associate it with the 1930s, National Socialism, Mussolini, etc. So, we should be aware of what the main characteristics of fascism are, and one important point to mention is the existence of violence and paramilitary movements that support a fascist movement or government.
What we can observe right now is an increasing level of violence. For example, in the US, quite recently, there was violence in Los Angeles, where Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), along with the National Guard, were called in by President Trump to apprehend so-called illegal migrants and deport them to camps in El Salvador and other South American countries. These camps, in some ways, resemble concentration camps. Most surprisingly and disturbingly, Donald Trump had photos taken of himself at one such camp, appearing to be proud of these actions.
Now, when we think back just a few years—if you remember Charlottesville and the riots that took place there due to the attempt to remove the statue of a so-called hero of the Confederacy—the Proud Boys, a truly fascist movement of young, mainly male supporters, killed a young woman. Trump then said, “Well, actually, both the protesters and the Proud Boys were to be seen in an equal way.” So, we do see that currently the government in the US is taking very violent actions. These are still visible as snapshots—yes, they are localized in places like Los Angeles or elsewhere; they’re not yet covering the entire country. But of course, this could be a sign of what is to come. I think it’s very dangerous. And if you look back, you asked me about speeches and rallies—there was a speech by Trump where a protester entered the rally, and Trump just said, “Beat him up.” So, you can really also observe a rhetoric that orders or supports people to implement violence.
But this is not only the case in the US—it’s just a case we are all very aware of. If you look at Turkey, for example, where the Mayor of Istanbul was taken into prison, we again see violence enacted by the government. It’s not as if he was taken to court, there was a trial, and then democratic procedures were followed. No—this mayor was simply taken to prison, and as far as I know, nobody knows how long he will remain there. I depend on the media—you know much more about this.
We also saw violence—though again, very localized—in Germany, where there is no significant fascist mass movement that we can observe, except for very small groups of neo-Nazis and identitarians. But we do see assassinations and attacks on prominent politicians. There was an attack on a Social Democratic politician before the election. There are attacks on Green politicians. A mayor was actually shot. So, this is all very disconcerting.
Moreover, if we look back a little further—if you remember Golden Dawn, which was clearly a paramilitary fascist movement that was very strong in Greece around 2010 and a bit later—they enacted a great deal of violence against migrants. In fact, this only became widely scandalized when they killed a well-known Greek pop singer. Then, suddenly, it was talked about. But Golden Dawn had long used symbols of fascism, and so forth.
So, there is a trend that is leading up to the violence we see enacted today. And of course, I don’t even want to talk about Russia, because there, violence against protesters or opposition politicians has been ongoing for decades.
We’re Witnessing the Rise of Techno-Fascist Capitalism
Elon Musk speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center on February 20, 2025, in Oxon Hill, Maryland. Photo: Andrew Harnik.
The declaration highlights “techno-fascist enthusiasts” among media barons. How do you conceptualize the role of digital platforms and algorithmic governance in sustaining what you call the “politics of fear”?
Professor Ruth Wodak: First, let me explain what the politics of fear is about. It refers to how political groups or parties instrumentalize existing crises—or exaggerate them—and sometimes even create crises artificially through fake news and disinformation. They use these crises to construct scenarios of threat and fear—very dystopian visions of decay, collapse, and terrible events looming ahead.
Then, the leader of the party or group—because there are also women who do this—presents him or herself as the savior. So, there is a kind of link: on the one hand, creating a fearful scenario, and on the other, projecting a vision or utopia where the savior will rescue the country and eliminate those deemed responsible for the crisis.
This strategy also involves the creation of scapegoats, because someone must be blamed—someone must be guilty of the major problems that exist. The identity of these scapegoats depends on the context. Sometimes they are Turks and migrants, sometimes Jews and Roma. It all depends on who is available to be constructed as the scapegoat.
In this way, the narrative becomes very simple: there is danger, someone is to blame, I am the savior, and I will eliminate the threat—then everything will be fine.
It’s a very simple narrative and a very simple argument. But many people who are currently very insecure—because of the polycrisis we are all experiencing—seem to be easily manipulated into believing such a narrative.
And now we come to social media, which plays a very big role in this manipulation and in this propaganda. If we think of the big social media networks—for example, X—and Elon Musk, who is obviously the richest man on earth, we have someone who owns such a vast platform and who can actually manipulate the content.
In this way, dangerous content and disinformation are widely distributed, while evidence and factual counter-narratives are either deleted or not distributed—or at least distributed far less. Beyond that, there are also trolls and bots who amplify this content even further. So the whole—I would say—secondary discourse world of social media is saturated with disinformation.
There isn’t enough counter-information. We do now have Bluesky, for example, which tries to counter X—quite successfully in some ways. Many people have switched from X to Bluesky as a form of protest. But still, X remains more powerful because it is backed by an enormous amount of money.
In that way, I would say, power and money are going hand in hand right now in a really unpredictable way. We haven’t experienced something like this for a long time. I would point to the Russian oligarchs after 1989—but that was more localized. Now we are facing a kind of global kleptocracy and oligarchy that owns social media and is, in some cases, part of governments.
I would also mention a recent and very interesting book by Anne Applebaum, Autocracy, Inc.—yes, “the corporation.” So autocracy has become a big economic corporation, because power is now linked to money and to specific groups of libertarians, very powerful individuals, and oligarchs who are supported by governments and who wield enormous power.
Fear of Losing Control and Status Fuels the Far Right’s Rise
White nationalists and counter protesters clash in during a rally that turned violent resulting in the death of one and multiple injuries in Charlottesville, VA on August 12, 2017. Photo: Kim Kelley-Wagner.
The declaration refers to fabricated enemies and the weaponization of security. How have right-wing populist actors used crisis narratives (e.g., migration, pandemics) to justify authoritarian measures?
Professor Ruth Wodak: We see that happening all the time. I mean, migration has become such an important agenda in this construction of fear. And looking at recent EU barometers, it’s actually quite interesting that other topics also generate a lot of fear but are not instrumentalized in the same way. The statistics show us that, for example, the fear of the cost-of-living crisis, the energy crisis, the climate crisis, and the fear of wars—yes, we have, for the first time since the 1990s and the Yugoslavian wars, a war very close to or even within Europe, namely Ukraine—all of that could also be talked about extensively and used to create fear. But it seems to be migration that is, for the far right, the so-called best agenda to be instrumentalized. And that is the case across the board. I mean, I cover especially the Austrian and German debates, but I also follow the French and British debates.
I just read The Guardian yesterday, where there were reports of anti-foreigner riots in Manchester and another city in the north of England, and I was really disturbed—because, as you know, I’ve lived in the UK for 12 years in the North, and I had never encountered anything like that. I mean, there’s xenophobia everywhere, yes, but to have these riots, which were triggered by far-right groups—this is really very scary in the UK.
And again, if you look at Austria, the extreme right, far-right party—the Austrian Freedom Party—has been leading the polls since 2022 and won the last national election. They are not in government, but right now they are still leading the polls. Their main agenda is constructing the fear of migrants, and it’s really a paradox because, on the one hand, it’s obvious that in all European countries—or all countries of the European Union—specialist workers and people with expertise in various professions are needed. There are special ways of allowing them to enter the various countries—special permits and so on—and, on the other hand, this fear of migration still seems to resonate strongly.
We have to ask why the construction of this scapegoat is so successful. And it’s especially—and again, not only—targeted at Muslim migrants. Because this fear of migrants has already been a huge manipulative device, so to speak, since as early as 1989. If you recall the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989—the end of the so-called Eastern Bloc—you’ll remember that many people from Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Poland entered the West—yes, the so-called West. The Freedom Party in Austria, and especially Jörg Haider—who was quite a charismatic and very clever rhetorician—constructed his entire agenda against foreigners and became very successful.
And that was not during a time of crisis. There was no economic crisis at that time. We did a big study back then, and we found that the discursive patterns used at that time are very similar to those used now—except that at the time, the migrants were white Christian people, and now we have Muslims coming from Syria, Iraq, or elsewhere as refugees. But basically, the discourse of exclusion is very similar.
And if you ask yourself what triggers this enormous fear, I think there are basically two—possibly many more—but two really important points. One is the fear of losing control, which has become salient in the context of the polycrisis, but was also very visible during the Brexit campaign. So, the fear of losing control—because so many people are coming—and then you don’t know what’s happening anymore. The slogan at that time in the UK, “Take back control,” was very successful.
The second big issue is the fear of losing your social welfare—all the benefits, your jobs—they will take things away. So you haven’t lost them yet, but you might lose out. It’s not just the people who have already lost out, as is often discussed. It’s the fear among the middle class and the lower middle class of losing their status, their benefits, their way of living. That also explains why, for example, in very rich countries like Austria, Denmark, Switzerland, and Sweden, the far right is so prominent.
Authoritarianism Thrives on Silence; Intellectuals Must Refuse It
The open letter evokes the historical memory of anti-fascist intellectuals in 1925. How do you see the role of public intellectuals and discourse scholars today in resisting what you have termed “shameless normalization”?
Professor Ruth Wodak: I think it’s a hard job, and it really is difficult to summarize—or even observe—what impact public intellectuals might have, because they are, of course, part of the elite—the so-called elite—that the far right is fundamentally campaigning against. So public intellectuals form a group that is not wanted by the far right.
That said, it’s really important that people speak out. And the more people do so—and are listened to, and their voices are heard in social media, newspapers, and so forth—the more others become aware that there is a different position, a counter-discourse. I believe that to be very important, even if it isn’t widely distributed by platforms like X or other major channels.
So the more people speak out, the better it is—and one shouldn’t be afraid of doing so. Of course, this really depends on where you live. If you are in a dictatorship or a classically authoritarian state, public intellectuals may have a very hard time—they might be imprisoned, as has happened, or even killed, as we see in countries like Russia or China. And if we look at Turkey, they are imprisoned—just like many journalists—so they are forced into exile and speak out from abroad.
But if you live in a country that still allows freedom of opinion and supports human rights and the Human Rights Charter, then it is even more important to speak out—because you have the right to do so. And you shouldn’t be afraid.
Personally, I’ve never been afraid to speak out. Of course, I’ve encountered a lot of opposition. I’m not liked by everyone—but I tell myself, I don’t have to be loved by everybody. I also see many colleagues in the US or in Germany who speak out—not only at conferences and in academic settings, but who also leave the ivory tower and engage with the public, speak in schools or wherever they’re invited.
And I believe that it’s very important not to be frightened preemptively, especially in countries where freedom of opinion exists, where you don’t have to fear imprisonment or worse. There’s no reason to silence yourself out of imagined fear. Preemptive fear is dangerous, because it makes you accommodate to a threat that you envision—but which may not actually be there.
So in that way, I encourage scholars and intellectuals who are able to speak out—to do so.
Slogans Like MAGA Obscure Regressive Agendas Through Nostalgia
A Trump supporter holds up a “Make America Great Again” sign at presidential candidate Donald Trump’s rally in the convention center in Sioux City, Iowa, on November 6, 2016. Photo: Mark Reinstein.
How would you analyze the role of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” narrative and thenarratives of Erdoğan, Putin, Netanyahu, Modi, Orban etc.—not just rhetorically but also in terms of its affective and mobilizing power? What makes such slogans so resonant across diverse audiences, and how do they function discursively to both obscure and legitimate regressive political agendas?
Professor Ruth Wodak: These slogans—and I would say these are really slogans— MAGA, for example, resonates because, as I already said, many people are afraid and feel insecure—legitimately so—because there are existential crises right now. And these slogans construct a past that seems to have been much better. I say “seems” because it never was much better. There were always problems, always crises, etc.
We once conducted a study that looked at all the crises the European Union had experienced up until 2009, and it clearly showed a continuity of crises. There were always crises, so you could say the EU was essentially moving from one crisis to the next.
It’s basically what Bauman calls “retrotopia”—a fantasy, an imaginary past that is perceived as better. Now, we can think about what Trump actually—or what he might—mean when pointing to such a past. And it’s quite obvious that the past being invoked might be the period before the civil rights movement—a time when traditional gender roles were still enforced, when there was no political correctness, and so forth.
So, a past that some people would really like to return to, or at least evoke again. But of course, this is impossible. We cannot turn the clock back, and in that sense, it remains a complete fantasy or imaginary. Yet it resonates—because there is so much nostalgia. There is nostalgia, there is a lot of anger, and there is also, as Eva Illouz puts it, a lot of love and patriotism. This imaginary—where “we all were together” in some kind of imagined white community in the US, where all these values were still upheld—resonates strongly.
The same applies, of course, in other contexts, where one has to look at the specific historical elements that are being invoked.
Meloni’s Soft Fascism Balances Between Brussels and Trump
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen meet in Brussels, Belgium on November 03, 2022. Photo: Alexandros Michailidis.
And lastly, Professor Wodak, you’ve researched the discourse of the European far right extensively. How would you compare the current discourse strategies of far-right and populist actors in Austria or Hungary with those in the United States, Turkey, or India?
Professor Ruth Wodak: I have not researched Turkey and India extensively, because I don’t speak the languages. And it is, of course, for us as linguists and discourse analysts, always important to look at the original texts—visual, written, oral—because we need to understand all the nuances, the intonation, the latent meanings, and so forth. So translation is not enough.
But if I now speak about what is reported, what I can read about, and if I look—as I already cited examples from the US—there is a difference between these authoritarian or neo-authoritarian countries and the still liberal democracies.
So, for example, if we look at Italy, where Giorgia Meloni is leading the government and comes from a fascist movement which she claims to have left completely, we see an example of soft fascism. She balances between the EU—she is still also a friend of Trump—but she wants the EU funds to continue, so she negotiates in a nice way with von der Leyen and with the European People’s Party. She is for Ukraine and against Russia, and so forth. So there are many interesting positions. But in the actual domestic policies in Italy, her party attacks journalists. There are attacks on press freedom, freedom of opinion, freedom of assembly, and so forth.
However, civil society in Italy is very strong, so this is also being resisted. And this marks a difference—at least in some ways—from Hungary, where Orbán has really implemented an authoritarian state. But there too, civil society and the opposition are now growing. So it’s not clear what will happen in the elections next year, because there is a conservative opposition party led by Magyar, which has been leading the polls for several months.
And if we look at Austria and Germany again, this kind of explicit, violent speech would not be possible—or at least, when it occurs, it is scandalized. Certain politicians might say such things, but they are often suspended from their parties, especially if they make statements that invoke the fascist past. There are strict laws against that, and those laws are enforced. You cannot use these symbols or rhetoric freely.
Whereas—and this marks a major difference from the US—Trump openly violates such laws, human rights norms, and taboos, and yet there is comparatively little opposition—not the kind we see here. So I think the difference lies in EU legislation and national contexts, where violence and the breaking of taboos are still scandalized, prohibited, and prosecuted—unlike in countries where the government can break these taboos and act unlawfully, and it seems everything goes.
In a powerful interview with ECPS, genocide scholar Omer Bartov argues that Israel’s military campaign in Gaza amounts to a “deliberate strategy of slow-moving genocide.” Drawing on the legal framework of the UN Genocide Convention and field reports from Israeli human rights groups, Professor Bartov contends that the Israeli government is intentionally making Gaza uninhabitable through starvation, displacement, and destruction of civilian infrastructure. He warns of a broader system of international complicity—what he calls a “diplomatic Iron Dome”—shielding Israel from accountability. As he dissects settler-colonial logic, media self-censorship, and the erasure of Palestinian voices, Professor Bartov issues a clear call: it is time for the world to confront both the scale of the violence and its own enabling silence.
In a searing and uncompromising interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Omer Bartov—Dean’s Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Brown University—offers a stark diagnosis of the ongoing war in Gaza: a deliberate strategy of “slow-moving genocide.” Drawing on decades of scholarship on genocide, historical memory, and the politics of violence, Professor Bartov asserts that Israel’s military campaign is not merely excessive or misguided but rather exhibits clear patterns of intent to destroy Palestinian society in Gaza through starvation, forced displacement, and the systematic destruction of essential infrastructure. “Making life impossible,” he warns, “has become a central strategy—not an accidental consequence—of Israeli policy.”
Professor Bartov’s assessment, rooted in both empirical observation and the legal definitions enshrined in the UN Genocide Convention, challenges conventional narratives that frame the Gaza campaign solely as a response to Hamas’s October 7 attacks. While condemning massacre as a war crime and crime against humanity, Professor Bartov insists that it must be placed within a broader context of occupation, siege, and settler-colonial ideology that predates the current conflict. By May 2024, he argues, the Israeli Defense Forces had clearly shifted from their stated war aims to a policy of intentional devastation aimed at rendering Gaza uninhabitable.
What makes this analysis all the more urgent, Professor Bartov notes, is not only the scale of the destruction, but the active complicity of powerful international actors. He draws particular attention to what he calls the “diplomatic Iron Dome”—a term he uses to describe the protective shield provided by the United States and its European allies, who have continued to supply arms and political cover to Israel despite growing evidence of atrocity crimes. “This is extraordinary,” he says, “because the very countries that present themselves as guardians of international law are those facilitating what may well amount to genocide.”
Professor Bartov does not exempt the Israeli media from this dynamic of obfuscation. He highlights the role of pervasive self-censorship in shaping Israeli public opinion, describing a near-total internalization of the government’s narrative that casts all Gazans as complicit in terrorism. And yet, he also sees hope in first-person Palestinian accounts—testimonies that survive, sometimes only fleetingly, before their authors are killed. These narratives, he suggests, may ultimately reshape our collective understanding of the Gaza war and expose the moral cost of international silence.
In this wide-ranging interview, Professor Bartov unflinchingly dissects the ideological, political, and historical forces behind Israel’s war in Gaza—and calls on the world to reckon with its own responsibility.
Here is the transcript of our interview with Professor Omer Bartov, edited lightly for readability.
The Intent to Destroy Gaza Is No Longer Hidden—It’s Being Systematically Implemented
Destruction in Shejayia, Gaza City, Gaza Strip. Photo: Dreamstime.
Professor Omar Bartov, thank you very much for joining our interview series. Let me start right away with the first question: Given your extensive work on the complexities of defining genocide and the centrality of intent, how should we evaluate the Israeli military campaign and mass killings in Gaza through the lens of genocide studies—particularly when patterns of indiscriminate force, dehumanizing rhetoric, and systematic targeting of civilians are framed by the Netanyahu government as necessary and legitimate acts of self-defense?
Professor Omer Bartov: Thank you for that question. First of all, the most important thing to understand when you try to determine whether genocide is happening is that you need to show that there’s an intent—an intent to destroy a particular group, in whole or in part, as such—and that that intent is being implemented.
Now, all regimes or organizations that commit genocide typically employ alternative rhetoric. They claim it is a matter of security, that they have no other choice, that war is inherently brutal, and that terrible actions are sometimes necessary in such contexts. Therefore, it is essential to cut through this rhetoric to determine whether there is a demonstrable intent to destroy a group, and whether that intent is being actively implemented on the ground.
I concluded that that intent was both expressed and then implemented in May of 2024. The reason was that already in October, immediately after the Hamas attack of October 7th, statements were made by Israeli politicians and generals that appeared to have genocidal content—statements that spoke about flattening Gaza, cutting off water, food, and energy; that nobody was uninvolved; and describing people there as human animals. But the government also then declared that its war goals were to destroy Hamas and to release the hostages, and that seemed to be a more limited kind of objective.
By May, it became evident to me that the IDF was no longer pursuing its stated war goals, but rather carrying out precisely what had been declared in the immediate aftermath of October 7th—namely, a systematic and deliberate destruction of Gaza, aimed at rendering it uninhabitable for its population. This became particularly clear when the IDF moved into Rafah, ordering the evacuation of a million people—most of whom had already been displaced at least once or multiple times—and relocated them to the Mawasi area along the coast, which lacked any form of humanitarian infrastructure. Following this forced displacement, the IDF proceeded to destroy Rafah.
That seemed to indicate that the pattern of operations—which is one way to assess whether genocide is occurring—was aimed not only at making Gaza uninhabitable through its physical destruction, but also at systematically eliminating all essential infrastructure. As we now know from a recent report by Physicians for Human Rights in Israel, this included the deliberate destruction of health services, universities, schools, and mosques—effectively targeting everything necessary for a population to care for its health, receive an education, and ultimately reconstitute itself as a community, once the violence ends—if it ever does.
That’s a conclusion I reached as early as May 2024. I wrote about it that August, but since then, of course, we’ve seen much more evidence supporting it, along with numerous additional expressions of intent to carry out ethnic cleansing in Gaza. This is a form of ethnic cleansing that, notably, cannot be fully accomplished—because there is no place for the population to flee. Consequently, we are increasingly witnessing not only the killing of large numbers of people and the creation of conditions that make life unsustainable, but also—as outlined in one of the subsections of the Genocide Convention—the severe diminishment of the ability to give birth or deliver healthy children. This is due, among other factors, to starvation, food shortages, and the collapse of medical services. One striking figure: there has been a 300% increase in miscarriages among women in Gaza since October 7th.
Israel’s Most Far-Right Government Is Mainstreaming Extremism
Billboard reading “The Looting Government,” part of a protest campaign against the conservative coalition’s policies in Ra’anana, Israel, May 2023. Photo: Rene Van Den Berg
In your 2023Guardianop-ed, you describe the Israeli far right as increasingly theocratic and exclusionary. How does this ideological shift, when coupled with populist rhetoric, justify or normalize indiscriminate violence?
Professor Omer Bartov: I would say that the current Israeli government is the most far-right government the country has ever had. It includes not only Netanyahu—who himself has become much more extreme, while remaining a savvy and cynical politician—but also members of parties that, until the coalition was formed in late 2022, had been anathema to Israeli politics and considered marginal. This includes the party led by Bezalel Smotrich, a settler who promotes an ideology rooted in Jewish supremacy, and Itamar Ben-Gvir, who represents another strain ideologically connected to Rabbi Meir Kahane—a figure often described as a Jewish Nazi. Kahane was banned from running for the Knesset by the Supreme Court, and Ben-Gvir is widely regarded as his ideological descendant.
These two people are now the most powerful ministers in Netanyahu’s government. However, I would add that alongside these figures—who are religious fanatics, anti-democratic, and openly racist—there are also other members of the government who are secular. While they do not belong to the religious camp, they are nonetheless extremely radical in their views. The current Minister of Defense, Israel Katz, for instance, has openly proposed the creation of what he calls a “humanitarian city” over the ruins of Rafah—which, in fact, would function as a vast concentration camp. Into this space, approximately 600,000 Palestinians—those who were displaced last year and sent to the Mawasi area—would be crammed, and they would only be allowed to leave if they exited the Gaza Strip altogether. Figures like Katz, and Levin, the current Minister of Justice, are extremely radical both in terms of their ambitions to transform Israel’s political system and in their approach to the treatment of Palestinians. Yet, they are not part of the religious-messianic faction.
Genocide Is Framed as Justified Retaliation in Israeli Public Discourse
In your article “Israel’s War in Gaza and the Question of Genocide” (2025), you argue that Israeli policies in Gaza are shaped by settler-colonial logic and a dehumanizing view of Palestinians, often perceived by many Israelis as a collective threat. In the light of Hamas’s October 7 massacre, how should we interpret the moral and legal boundaries of state response—especially when that attack is used to legitimize large-scale military campaigns that may constitute genocide?
Professor Omer Bartov: There are two levels here that you need to think about. One is what most people who are trying to defend Israel would like to forget—that the Hamas attack of October 7th, however heinous it was—and to my mind, it was a massacre, a war crime, and a crime against humanity—came within a broader context, which we should not ignore. That context includes, first of all, the siege of Gaza, which has gone on for 16 years by Israel since Hamas took over, and more generally, the occupation of Palestinians since 1967. So, for most of the existence of the State of Israel— I was 12 when Israel won the 1967 War and began the occupation. That’s the occupation.
By the way, most of the Palestinians who were living then in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank were people or descendants of people who had been expelled from Israel in 1948. So, they had already become refugees. Now I’m 71. It’s most of my lifetime that Israel has occupied those people. When you occupy large numbers of people—and there are equal numbers of Jews and Palestinians between the river and the sea—this has a dehumanizing effect on both sides. Obviously, the occupier dehumanizes those they occupy, because that’s the only way they can justify it to themselves. And they, too, are dehumanized by that process. So that’s the broader context that helps explain, in part, why the Israeli public is so indifferent to what is happening in Gaza.
But the second, of course, is the attack itself. The Hamas attack created a sense of trauma, confusion, and insecurity within the Israeli public that seemed to justify any kind of response to such an extent. Now there is more discussion of that—both around the world and even in parts of Israel—to the extent that people were willing to entertain the idea of genocide in response to a massacre—which, of course, is not only illegal under international law but is plainly unethical. So, the situation we find ourselves in now is that, for large parts of the Israeli public over all those months, it appeared that, because of the attack of October 7th, the only guilty party in starving the population, destroying Gaza altogether, and killing large numbers of people was Hamas. And that’s a typical dynamic in these kinds of situations. Usually, organizations carrying out genocide—and the public that supports them—see their victims as the main perpetrators. That’s a very common aspect of genocide. And that is what we’re seeing now in Israel.
A Deliberate Strategy to Render Gaza Uninhabitable Is Unfolding Before Our Eyes
Ramallah, Palestine, surrounded by the controversial Israeli wall that separates the State of Israel from West Bank. Photo: Giovanni De Caro.
Two prominent Israeli human rights organizations, B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights, recently reported that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza by targeting civilians based solely on their Palestinian identity—causing severe, and in some cases irreparable, harm to Gazan society. As a genocide scholar, could you evaluate how such assessments reinforce or complicate international legal debates surrounding intent, proportionality, and the criteria for defining state violence as genocide?
Professor Omer Bartov: First of all, what is important to point out is that both the report—which I was reading drafts of over the last few weeks—and Physicians for Human Rights in Israel, these are Israeli NGOs. And it’s the first time that Israeli NGOs, made up of Israeli physicians, scholars, legal scholars, have said openly, with a huge amount of evidence, that what they’re seeing is genocide. They make slightly different arguments, but it comes down to the same thing. That as such is very important, because this is coming from within Israeli society itself.
The debate over whether this constitutes genocide has gone on for a long time. As I wrote in The New York Times, I believe there is a growing consensus among both genocide scholars and legal experts that this is, in fact, genocide. It’s true that genocide can be difficult to identify, and it’s also true that if the debate focuses solely on whether this is genocide, there is a risk of overlooking the fact that—even if the classification remains uncertain—clear war crimes and crimes against humanity are being committed on a daily basis. Thus, the ongoing debate may actually divert attention from the criminality of the war itself, as we remain preoccupied with the question: “Is it genocide or not?”
But by now, I think intentionality is clearly there. In fact, one curious aspect of this event is that intentions were declared very early on, and that’s not always the case. The question was whether these declared intentions were being implemented. And as I said, that to me became clear well over a year ago, right in May last year.
And by now, I think it’s clear that what the IDF tried to do between October and January was to ethnically cleanse Northern Gaza and the area north of the Netzarim Corridor. Since breaking the ceasefire in March, its focus has shifted to starving the population—not merely as an unintended consequence, but as a deliberate tactic to force people to move south. That was the objective: first, to withhold food from the North so that people would leave; and second, once distribution points were finally established—four in total—three were located in the South, clearly intended to draw people there and concentrate them in preparation for the next phase, which would be to push them out altogether.
So, I think these reports contribute significantly to the discussion. I would say that the report by Physicians for Human Rights is especially valuable, in addition to the other report, because it clearly demonstrates—for the first time—that there was a deliberate destruction of the entire healthcare system in Gaza. This, even more than the ongoing famine, will have long-term repercussions. It’ll be very hard to rebuild it, if ever, and the consequences for the life and health of the population will be very long term.
And so, it speaks about a sort of slow-moving genocide, among other things, explaining why, as they understand it, the Israeli government refrained from killing larger numbers of people that might have brought more public attention and international pressure on Israel, but rather doing it in a slower version that is more difficult to prove, at least while it is happening. So, you can see a tactic here—and a deliberate one—to make life impossible in Gaza for its Palestinian population.
Israel Is Operating Under a Diplomatic Iron Dome While Advancing Ethnic Cleansing
Election billboard showing Netanyahu shaking hands with Trump, with the slogan “Netanyahu. Another League,” in Jerusalem on September 16, 2019. Photo: Dreamstime.
In your 2021 article“Blind Spots of Genocide,”you critique the Western-centric orientation of genocide studies and call for the inclusion of settler-colonial violence and victim perspectives. How should these frameworks be revised to more accurately reflect the dynamics of Israeli state violence in Gaza? Moreover, how does the international community’s muted response to this violence- especially in contrast to its swift condemnation of Hamas’s October 7 massacre- highlight enduring asymmetries in how global discourse defines and recognizes victimhood and perpetration?
Professor Omer Bartov: There’s a lot in your question, so I’ll focus on at least part of it—perhaps the most crucial part right now, or maybe two aspects. The first is that it is absolutely extraordinary that, since October 7th, Israel has operated with complete impunity in its actions in Gaza—and, of course, also in the West Bank, which we can discuss in a moment. This is not merely impunity in the sense that no one intervenes to stop it, but active facilitation through massive military assistance. The Israeli IDF could not have carried out its operations without a constant supply of arms and munitions from the United States, as well as from European allies—most notably Germany, which is the second-largest supplier of arms to Israel—and substantial diplomatic cover.
You know that Israel is living under a diplomatic Iron Dome—protected by the United States, which, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, vetoes any attempt to sanction Israel for its actions. This is extraordinary, because the countries facilitating Israel’s actions in Gaza are the very ones most strongly identified as defenders of international law and human rights—that is how they describe themselves. And Israel is not Syria, Russia, China, or Somalia; it is a country described by itself and its allies as the only democracy in the Middle East, as a protector of human rights. It is, therefore, an exceptional case that receives exceptional support from the very actors who champion the rules and norms of the international legal order—rules that Israel is now in severe breach of. That’s an extraordinary situation. There are reasons for this, and they are somewhat complex, but that is the reality.
The second issue, of course, is: why is Israel doing what it is doing? Israel is doing this because, I would say, until October 7th, Netanyahu had managed to persuade most of the Israeli public—and, in fact, much of the international community—that Israel could, so to speak, manage the occupation. That there was no need for any territorial compromise or further negotiations, because the occupation was containable. One way he did this was by supporting Hamas. We tend to forget that Hamas was seen by the Israeli right—by figures like Smotrich, and very much by Netanyahu himself—as an asset. Israel persuaded Qatar to provide millions of dollars to Hamas, which were literally handed over in large cash bags by Israelis to Hamas. A fair amount of that money, in fact, was used to build Hamas’s tunnel infrastructure.
The rationale was: it’s advantageous to have Hamas, because Hamas is widely viewed as a terrorist and fundamentalist organization, one that seeks to replace Israel with an Islamic state. Therefore, it is not considered a viable partner for negotiations. In contrast, the Palestinian Authority (PA) is recognized internationally—which is not favorable for Israel—but it is also perceived as weak and corrupt, and thus not a significant threat. Moreover, the PA collaborates with Israel in the West Bank, which further diminishes any urgency for diplomatic engagement from Israel’s perspective.
That all blew up on October 7th, when Hamas launched its attack. Initially, the Israeli government and military were quite shocked by the events, and it took them a few days to recover. Then, figures like Netanyahu, Smotrich, and Ben-Gvir suddenly realized—at least in their minds—that this was an opportunity rather than merely a fiasco. They saw it as a chance to resolve the issue by other means. If the occupation could no longer be effectively managed, then the alternative, in their view, was to ethnically cleanse the population—using the global consensus that Israel had been attacked and that hundreds of Israeli civilians had been massacred as a justification to now “solve” the problem.
But for Netanyahu, of course, there is a dilemma. And the dilemma is this: if, as he claims, he needs absolute victory—total victory—what does that actually mean? If Hamas is eliminated from Gaza, who takes over Gaza? Who would govern it? The IDF does not want to assume that role—for good reason. It would be too costly, both in lives and in resources; it would be unsustainable. So, who would govern? The natural choice would be the Palestinian Authority—perhaps a reconfigured version of it—but ultimately, it would need to be ruled by Palestinians. And that would defeat the entire purpose of this government, which is to maintain the separation between Gaza and the West Bank, complete the operation in Gaza, and then accelerate the creeping ethnic cleansing of the West Bank. This is the situation we find ourselves in now. The dynamic this government is pursuing is the completion of ethnic cleansing and, to the extent possible, the annexation of territories in both Gaza and the West Bank.
Holocaust Memory Has Been Turned Into a License for Extreme Violence
In your New York Times and Guardian commentaries, you warn against the instrumentalization of Holocaust memory as a means of shielding the Netanyahu regime from accountability. How has the Israeli far right- particularly figures like Netanyahu and Ben-Gvir- invoked Holocaust analogies to deflect allegations of war crimes and genocide in Gaza?
Professor Omer Bartov: I want to point out that it’s not only the far right in Israel that uses these analogies. The phenomenon is much broader. In fact, there is almost a consensus in Israeli society—ranging from the left to the far right. This has been a long process. I would argue that the use of the Holocaust as both a unifying memory for Israeli society and a license to exercise extreme violence against anyone perceived to be resisting Israeli rule and occupation, accelerated particularly in the late 1970s and early 1980s. You may recall that Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin—the first right-wing prime minister of Israel and a disciple of Ze’ev Jabotinsky—remarked in 1982, following the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, that Arafat, who was then in Beirut, was hunkering down in his bunker like Hitler in Berlin during World War II. These kinds of associations between Palestinians, the PLO, Hamas—and Nazis—have become embedded in the fabric of Israeli politics.
If you listen to mainstream Israeli media—which never shows images of the horrors in Gaza—they consistently refer to Hamas as Nazis. This triggers, within the Israeli public, a perception that the threat is existential, that Auschwitz is just around the corner. And if Auschwitz is around the corner, then Israel must do everything it can to prevent it and to destroy its enemies entirely. To hell with what the international community says, to hell with international law—we are fighting for our very existence. That’s the kind of rhetorical mechanism that has been perfected.
To this, Netanyahu has added a crucial element: the weaponization of anti-Semitism. Any protest against Israel—regardless of whether it comes from Jewish students on American campuses demonstrating against the atrocities in Gaza—is immediately labeled as anti-Semitism. He has succeeded in doing this to such an extent that, both in Europe—particularly in Germany—and in the United States, there has been a clampdown on these protests in the name of combating anti-Semitism.
This Isn’t Censorship—It’s Self-Mobilization
Israeli newspapers and magazines on display in the streets of Tel Aviv, December 12, 2018. Photo: Jose Hernandez.
In“Blind Spots of Genocide”(2021), you stress the need to center victims’ perspectives. In Gaza, how do Israeli media censorship and the framing of all Gazans as “Hamas” obscure or erase civilian experiences?
Professor Omer Bartov: It does, of course. But again, I want to say—when you say censorship, you’re being kind. Because on mainstream outlets, such as the public TV channel Kan 11, there is no formal censorship. There is military censorship—they can’t reveal certain information—but they have every right to report on what’s happening to Palestinians in Gaza. They choose not to, out of self-censorship. And self-censorship is a much more effective mechanism, one that has existed in the Israeli media for a long time.
My father was a journalist, and I remember that kind of self-censorship since I was a child under the Labor governments. This was not invented today. But now, at this point, it’s extraordinary—the extent of both self-censorship and the mobilization of the entire spectrum of the Israeli media—with two very small but important exceptions: Haaretz newspaper, which is reporting very bravely (in fact, some of the best reporting on the war in Gaza is coming from Haaretz itself), and Local Call or +972, which is an even smaller group of intrepid reporters.
But by and large, this is not censorship; this is self-censorship and self-mobilization. And that’s something much more difficult to fight against. In part, it has to do—as so much does in the world today—with ratings. They don’t want to alienate their own viewers by saying things the audience doesn’t want to hear. But in part, it’s that they themselves have internalized the narrative. And while they may not be particularly supportive of Netanyahu, and certainly not of the far-right elements in his government, they generally view this as a just war, and they tend to regard the killing in Gaza as, at best, lamentable collateral damage. And that’s a far worse situation than the kind of censorship that could be removed simply by changing the government.
First-Person Testimonies Will Redefine How the World Remembers Gaza
And lastly Professor Bartov, in“Between Integrated and First-Person History”(2021), you advocate for incorporating personal narratives. How might first-person Palestinian accounts reshape dominant narratives about the Gaza war and its moral consequences?
Professor Omer Bartov: So, about the Gaza war itself—I think, look, it’s deeply tragic, because so many of the reports that have come out of Gaza are not only heartbreaking; often, they are accounts by people who were themselves killed shortly afterward. But I do think these reports are increasingly having an effect around the world. Clearly, there has been a widespread failure—perhaps not an intentional one, but nonetheless real—on the part of the international media, which, being denied access to Gaza, has largely accepted this absence of reporting. It has not pressed hard enough to provide objective coverage of events inside Gaza and has, in general, paid insufficient attention to what is happening.
This has changed somewhat now because of the widespread starvation. And, as has happened in many past genocides and other forms of war crimes, there often comes a moment when certain images begin to shift public perception and draw global attention. This occurred during the war in the former Yugoslavia, for example, with the photographs of Bosniaks behind barbed wire. It also happened during the Vietnam War with the iconic image of the girl burned by napalm. Similarly, the recent images of starving children have had a profound effect—a different kind of narrative, in a way. At the very least, you see the people themselves. You see what is happening to obviously innocent children. You simply can’t present that as anything other than what it is.
I think in the future—I’ve read several such texts by people who were there and who, fortunately, managed to get out and write accounts. As a strong believer in first-person narratives—which convey what you will never hear or understand if you rely solely on top-down documentation—I believe there will be more of these stories. And I think that, eventually, our understanding of what is going on—and, once it’s over, what had gone on—will deepen significantly, and the horror will be revealed to have been even greater than we could have imagined.
Please cite as: Yilmaz, Ihsan; Mamouri, Ali; Morieson, Nicholas & Omer, Muhammad. (2025). “The Transnational Diffusion of Digital Authoritarianism: From Moscow and Beijing to Ankara.” European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). May 12, 2025. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp0098
This report examines how Turkey has become a paradigmatic case of digital authoritarian convergence through the mechanisms of learning, emulation, and cooperative interdependence. Drawing on Chinese and Russian models—and facilitated by Western and Chinese tech companies—Turkey has adopted sophisticated digital control strategies across legal, surveillance, and information domains. The study identifies how strategic partnerships, infrastructure agreements (e.g., Huawei’s 5G and smart city projects), and shared authoritarian logics have enabled the Erdoğan regime to suppress dissent and reshape the digital public sphere. Through legal reforms, deep packet inspection (DPI) technologies, and coordinated digital propaganda, Turkey exemplifies how authoritarian digital governance diffuses globally. The findings highlight an urgent need for international accountability, cyber norms, and ethical tech governance to contain the expanding influence of digital repression.
This research explores the diffusion of digital authoritarian practices in Turkey as a prominent example of the Muslim world, focusing on the three mechanisms of learning, emulation, and cooperative interdependence, covering four main domains: Legal frameworks, Internet censorship, urban surveillance, and Strategic Digital Information Operations (SDIOs). The study covers both internal and external diffusion based on a wide range of sources. These include domestic precedents, examples from authoritarian regimes like China and Russia, and the role of Western companies in spreading digital authoritarian practices.
The study had several findings. The key findings are detailed below:
Learning: Turkey, like other regional countries that experienced public unrest, has learned from previous experience in order to impose power and control on people using different digital capabilities. Countries like China and Russia played significant roles in this learning process across the region, including in Turkey. The research highlights the importance of both internal learning from past protest movements and external influences from state and non-state actors.
Emulation: Authoritarian regimes in Turkey and across the Muslim world have emulated China and Russia’s internet governance models in all four aforementioned domains. The Turkish government has developed its own surveillance and censorship techniques, influenced by the experiences of authoritarian states and bolstered by training and technology transfers from China and Russia, and certain western companies.
Cooperative interdependence: Turkey’s economic challenges have led it to forge closer ties with China, particularly through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This cooperation often comes with financial incentives, promoting the adoption of China’s digital governance practices, including urban surveillance systems and censorship technologies.
Role of private technology companies: Western companies have played a significant role in facilitating the spread of digital authoritarianism, often operating independently of their governments’ policies. Companies like Sandvine and NSO Group have provided tools that support the Turkish government’s digital control strategies, contributing to a complex landscape of censorship and surveillance.
Diffusion of SDIOs: The diffusion process of digital authoritarian practice is not limited to importing and using digital technologies. It also includes the spreading of legal frameworks to restrict digital freedom and also running Strategic Digital Information Operations (SDIOs), including state propaganda and conspiracy theories that China and Russia had a significant role in.
Based on these findings, the study proposes several recommendations to counteract the spread of digital authoritarian practices:
– Strengthening international cyber norms and regulations to define and regulate digital governance, particularly in countries with strong ties to the West.
– Enhancing support for digital rights and privacy protections by advocating for comprehensive laws and supporting civil society organizations in Turkey.
– Encouraging responsible corporate behavior among technology firms to ensure compliance with human rights standards.
– Fostering regional and global cooperation on digital freedom to counter digital authoritarianism through joint initiatives and technical assistance.
– Leveraging economic incentives to promote ethical technology use and partnerships with human rights-aligned providers.
– Using strategic diplomatic channels to encourage Turkey to adopt responsible surveillance practices and align with global digital governance norms.
The research illustrates the dynamics of digital authoritarianism in Turkey, revealing a complex interplay of emulation, learning, and economic incentives that facilitate the spread of censorship and surveillance practices. The findings underscore the need for international cooperation and proactive measures to safeguard digital freedoms in an increasingly authoritarian digital landscape.
Photo: Hannu Viitanen.
Introduction
Research suggests that a significant number of countries in the Muslim world, specifically those in the Middle East, are often characterized by authoritarian governance (Durac & Cavatorta, 2022; Yenigun, 2021; Stepan et al., 2018; Yilmaz, 2021; 2025). The rise of the internet and social media during the late 2000s provided immense capacities to civil society and individual activists in the Muslim world. This development burst into political action during the late 2000s and the early 2010s in the instances of the Gezi protests in Turkey and other examples in the region, including the Green Movement in Iran and the Arab Spring protests across the Arab world (Iosifidis & Wheeler, 2015; Demirhan, 2014; Lynch, 2011; Gheytanchi, 2016).
The fact that the protesters in all these cases have extensively used the internet and associated technologies (e.g., social media, digital messaging, and navigation) has led many observers to declare the latter as ‘liberation technology’ due to their role in facilitating anti-government movements across non-democratic countries (Diamond & Plattner, 2012; Ziccardi, 2012). Advocates of the internet as a liberation tool have also pointed to enhanced social capacity to mobilize and organize through the spread of dramatic videos and images, instigating attitudinal change, and countering government monopoly over the production and dissemination of information (Breuer, 2012; Ruijgrok, 2017). These qualities have been seen as giving the internet an equalizing power between the state and society. In the early 2000s, when the Internet and social media were spreading across the developing world, authoritarian governments were generally unable to control the digital sphere; they lacked the technical expertise and the digital infrastructure to curb the internet. So, they typically relied on completely shutting it down (Cattle, 2015; Gunitsky, 2020).
However, authoritarian regimes gradually learned how to use the digital space for empowering their control on the society and have even started using it for transnational repression and sharp power (Yilmaz, 2025, Yilmaz et al., 2024; Yilmaz, Akbarzadeh & Bashirov 2023; Yilmaz, Morieson & Shakil, 2025; Yilmaz & Shakil, 2024). Scholars such as Sunstein (2009) and Negroponte (1996) have warned against the capacity of the internet to fragment the public sphere into separate echo chambers and thus fundamentally impede ‘deliberative democracy,’ which is supposed to be based on debates of ideas and exchange of views.
Furthermore, the breakthroughs in deep learning, neural network, and machine learning, together with the widespread use of the internet, have accelerated the growth of artificial intelligence (AI), providing more capability to authoritarian regimes to impose control on people. In a Pew poll, almost half of the respondents believed that the ‘use of [modern] technology will mostly weaken core aspects of democracy and democratic representation in the next decade’ (Anderson & Rainie, 2020). This pessimism is driven by an unprecedented degree of surveillance and digital control brought forward by digital technologies, undermining central notions of freedom, individuality, autonomy, and rationality at the center of deliberative democracy (Radavoi, 2019; Stone et al., 2016; Bostrom, 2014; Helbing et al., 2019; Damnjanović, 2015). Tools of the governments to digitally repress democracy include smart surveillance using facial recognition applications, targeted censorship, disinformation and misinformation campaigns, and cyber-attacks and hacking (Feldstein, 2019).
Research as to how digital technologies such as high-speed internet, social media, AI, and big data affect, enable or disable democracy, human rights, freedom, and electoral process is in its infancy (Gardels & Berggruen, 2019; Margetts, 2013; Papacharissi, 2009). Further, most of this scant literature is focused on Western democracies. The existing literature on Muslim-majority countries is mostly focused on traditional social media (Jenzen et al., 2021; Wheeler, 2017; Tusa, 2013). This is despite the fact that extensive digital capabilities, especially AI and big data, offer governments of these countries the capabilities to exert control over their citizens, with disastrous outcomes for democracy. Indeed, we may be facing the rise of a new type of authoritarian rule: digital authoritarianism, that is, ‘the use of digital information technology by authoritarian regimes to surveil, repress, and manipulate domestic and foreign populations’ (Polyakova & Meserole, 2019; see also Ahmed et al., 2024; Akbarzadeh et al., 2024; 2025).
With the expansion of the internet in developing countries, authoritarian governments derive a similar benefit from technological leapfrogging with the capacity to selectively implement new surveillance and control mechanisms from the burgeoning supply of market-ready advanced AI and big-data-enabled applications. As one internet pioneer foreshadowed to Pew “by 2030, as much of 75% of the world’s population will be enslaved by AI-based surveillance systems developed in China and exported around the world” (Anderson & Rainie, 2020). Developing countries often experience technological leapfrogging; they shift to advanced technologies directly, skipping the middle, more expensive and less efficient stages because modern technologies, by the time of their implementation within those countries, become more economical and effective than the initial technology. This leapfrogging is demonstrated via the adoption lifecycle of mobile phones to that of landlines. It took less than 17 years, from the early 2000s to 2017, for mobile phones to be extensively adopted in Turkey, from 25% to 96%. (Our World in Data, 2021).
After the crises of the early 2010s, both democratic and authoritarian regimes worldwide started to invest heavily in sophisticated equipment and expertise to monitor, analyze, and ultimately crack down on online and offline dissent (Aziz & Beydoun, 2020; Feldstein, 2021). In addition to curtailing independent speech and activism online, authoritarian regimes have sought to deceive and manipulate digital environments in order to shape their citizens’ views. They have flooded the digital realm with propaganda narratives using trolls, bots, and influencers under their control (Tan, 2020).
More importantly, thanks to authoritarian diffusion, governments in developing countries are learning from and emulating the experiences of their peers of surveillance technologies such as China and Russia. However, there has been limited research on the political mechanisms through which such digital authoritarian practices spread. Against this backdrop, this report examines the mechanisms through which digital authoritarian practices diffuse in Turkey as an example of authoritarian regimes in the Middle East. We ask: What kind of authoritarian practices have the governments enacted in the digital realm? How have these practices diffused across the region? To address these questions systematically, we develop an analytical framework that examines the mechanisms of diffusion of digital authoritarian practices. Our framework identifies three mechanisms of diffusion: emulation, learning, and cooperative interdependence. We focus on four groups of digital authoritarian practices: legal frameworks, Internet censorship, urban surveillance, and Strategic Digital Information Operations (SDIOs). We aim to show how emulation, learning and cooperative interdependence take place in each of these four digital authoritarian practices. In addition to the above, the report will explore the international dimension of this phenomenon, discovering how Western companies, in addition to totalitarian systems like Russia and China, played a role in empowering the Turkish government to claim the digital space.
We first discuss our analytical framework which integrates the scholarship of digital authoritarian practices and authoritarian diffusion, and explain the concepts of learning, emulation, and as prominent diffusion mechanisms. We then move to the empirical section where we first identify convergent outcomes that are comparable between earlier and later adopters and then we will elucidate the mechanisms through which the diffusion process occurred by showing contact points and plausible channels through which decision-makers were able to adopt from one another.
Analytical Framework
To explore the phenomenon of diffusion, we follow best practices laid out in the literature (see Ambrosio, 2010; Ambrosio & Tolstrup, 2019; Bank & Weyland, 2020). We begin by identifying convergent outcomes that are comparable between earlier and later adopters. As part of this, we will also establish feasible connections between the two parties, which may take the form of physical proximity, trade linkages, membership in international organizations, bilateral arrangements, historical ties, cultural similarities, or shared language. Then, we will elucidate the mechanisms through which the diffusion process occurred by identifying contact points and plausible channels through which decision-makers were able to adopt from one another.
We will follow three good practices that have been advised by scholars (e.g., Ambrosio & Tolstrup, 2019; Strang & Soule, 1998; Gilardi, 2010; 2012). First, we adopt a comparative design that involves four middle powers (see Strang & Soule, 1998). There are important similarities and differences among the four cases that make comparison a useful exercise. Second, we provide extensive data to showcase the workings of diffusion mechanisms despite the challenge of working on authoritarian settings. As Ambrosio and Tolstrup (2019: 2752) noted, “the relevant evidence needed can be hard to acquire in authoritarian settings.” It is much more likely to gain access to strong evidence in liberal democratic settings where much of the current diffusion research has accumulated. Our article contributes to the literature on diffusion in authoritarian settings with Turkey as a prominent example. Finally, we provide smoking gun evidence based on several leaked documents to support our assertions.
In the empirical section, we follow the convention (see Ambrosio & Tolstrup, 2019) and start with identifying convergent outcomes among the major political actors in regard to the practices of restrictive legal frameworks, Internet censorship, urban surveillance and SDIOs. This section involves demonstrating the items that have been diffused between earlier and later adopters. Not only is there a substantial amount of similarity between the practices among these political systems, but also, we show a temporal sequence between earlier and later adopters that point at convergence.
We then move on to explain plausible mechanisms of diffusion, following the model provided by Bashirov et al. (2025): Learning, Emulation, and Cooperative Interdependence. It’s important to highlight from the outset that these three mechanisms functioned together in Turkey settings. As was observed in other settings (see Sharman, 2008), it is not feasible to examine the impact of these mechanisms independently. Instead of existing as separate entities or operating in a simple additive manner, these mechanisms are inherently interconnected, and they do overlap. We follow this understanding in our empirical analysis and discuss how each mechanism worked in tandem with other mechanisms.
Types of Digital Authoritarianism
Illustration: Shutterstock / Skorzewiak.
We identified four main domains of digital authoritarianism in general, and examples of them could be found in Turkey’s case as well.
Restrictive Legal Frameworks
The legal framework includes a variety of practices. We identified the following:
1- Laws that mandated internet service providers to establish a system allowing real-time monitoring and recording of traffic on their networks. These legislations mandated internet service providers to establish a system allowing real-time monitoring and recording of traffic on their networks (Privacy International, 2019). Moreover, all censorship laws refer to national security and terrorism as vague criteria to enforce widespread censorship of undesirable content. In Turkey, a Presidential decree (No 671) in 2016 granted the government extensive power to restrict internet access, block websites, and censor media (IHD, 2017). Under the decree, telecommunications companies are required to comply with any government orders within two hours of receiving them. In recent years, the Turkish government also prosecuted thousands of people for criticizing President Erdogan or his government in print or on social media (Freedom House, 2021).
2- Laws that have converged around penalization of online speech, referring to concepts such as national identity, culture, and defamation. It is hard to miss similarities between the laws in Turkey among other regional countries and those enacted in China earlier. In 2013, China’s Supreme People’s Court issued a legal interpretation that expanded the scope of the crime of defamation to include information shared on the internet (Human Rights Watch, 2013). In 2022, the Turkish Parliament passed new legislation that criminalized “disseminating false information,” punishable by one to three years in prison, and increased government control over online news websites. Article 23 of the law was particularly controversial as it stated that “Any person who publicly disseminates untrue information concerning the internal and external security, public order and public health of the country with the sole intention of creating anxiety, fear or panic among the public, and in a manner likely to disturb public peace, shall be sentenced to imprisonment from one year to three years” (Human Rights Watch, 2022). This clearly shows the pattern of diffusion from China and Russia by leaving vague and broad provisions of what constitutes “national security,” “peace” and “order” (Weber, 2021: 170-171; Yilmaz, Caman & Bashirov, 2020; Yilmaz, Shipoli & Demir, 2023; Yilmaz & Shipoli, 2022).
3- Laws that ban or restrict the use of VPNs following China and Russia’s lead. In Turkey, VPNs are legal, but many of their servers and websites are blocked. China banned unauthorized VPN use in 2017 in a new Cybersecurity Law. Russia introduced a similar ban the same year. The Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK), national telecommunications regulatory and inspection authority of Turkey, issued a blocking order targeting 16 Virtual Private Networks (VPNs). These VPNs, including TunnelBear, Proton, and Psiphon, are popular tools used by audiences seeking to access news websites critical of the government.
While entirely banning VPN access remains a challenge, governments can employ Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) technology to identify and throttle VPN traffic. Countries like Iran, China, and Russia are indulging in such practices. Users in Iran and Turkey, for example, have reported extensive blockage of VPN apps and websites since 2021. Engaging in efforts to access blocked content through a VPN can potentially result in imprisonment (Danao & Venz, 2023). Simon Migliano, research head at Top10VPN.com, acknowledges that blocking VPN websites in Turkey makes it harder to download and sign up for new services. Moreover, individual VPN providers like Hide.me, SecureVPN, and Surfshark confirm technical difficulties for their users in Turkey. Proton, on the other hand, maintains that their services haven’t been completely blocked.
As such, the report “Freedom on the Net 2023” by Freedom House (2023) reflects the aforesaid harsh reality, ranking Turkey as “not free” in terms of internet access and freedom of expression. However, it is worth noting that the Turkish government’s censorship efforts are met with a determined citizenry. Audiences, even young schoolchildren according to Ozturan (2023), have become adept at using VPNs to access banned content. Media outlets themselves sometimes promote VPNs to help their audiences bypass restrictions. Examples abound: VOA Turkish and Deutsche Welle (DW), upon being blocked, directed their audiences towards Psiphon, Proton, and nthLink to access their broadcasts. Diken, a prominent news website, even maintains a dedicated “VPN News” section offering access to censored content dating back to 2014.
4- Laws that tighten control on social media companies. While Western social media platforms remain accessible in Turkey, in recent years the government has introduced similar laws and regulations that increase their grip over the content shared on these platforms. They do so by threatening the social media companies with bandwidth restrictions and outright bans if they fail to comply with the governments’ requests. Moreover, in 2020, the Turkish Parliament passed a new law that mandated tech giants such as Facebook and Twitter (now X) to appoint representatives in Turkey for handling complaints related to the content on their platforms. Companies that decline to assign an official representative have been subject to fines, advertising prohibitions, and bandwidth restrictions that would render their networks unusable due to slow internet speeds. Facebook complied with the law in 2021 and assigned a legal entity in Turkey after refusing to do so the previous year (Bilginsoy, 2021).
Since the early 2010s, many countries in the region including Turkey have enacted a series of legal reforms that converged around similar concepts and restrictions. As Table 1 shows, these laws follow the Chinese and Russian laws in temporal order. The table makes a comparison with some other countries in the region as well, in order to see Turkey’s position in this field.
Internet Shutdown
All governments in the region have resorted to shutting down the internet as a simple solution over the past 20 years, mostly during the times of mass protests, social unrest or military operations. In Turkey, in 2015, access to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube as well as 166 other websites were blocked when an image of a Turkish prosecutor held at gunpoint was circulated online. The internet was also cut off multiple times during the July 15, 2016 coup attempt, as well as during the Turkish military’s operations in the Southeastern regions of the country. In many instances, the government has used bandwidth throttling to deny its citizens access to the internet. However, internet shutdown is costly as it affects the delivery of essential public and private services and has been dubbed as the Dictator’s Digital Dilemma. Therefore, even when it is practiced, the shutdown is limited to a certain location, mostly a city or a region, and would typically last only few days. According to Access Now (2022), an internet rights organization, no internet shutdown has taken place in Turkey in 2021.
Given the high cost of switching off the internet and thanks to the rise of sophisticated technologies to filter, manipulate and re-direct internet content, censorship has become a more widely used digital authoritarian practice over the last decade. Countries have converged on the use of DPI technology. DPI is “a type of data processing that looks in detail at the contents of the data being sent, and re-routes it accordingly” (Geere, 2012). DPI inspects the data being sent over a network and may take various forms of actions, such as logging the content and alerting, as well as blocking or re-rerouting the traffic. DPI allows comprehensive network analysis. While it can be used for innocuous purposes, such as checking the content for viruses and ensuring the correct supply of content, it can also be used for digital eavesdropping, internet censorship, and even stealing sensitive information (Bendrath & Mueller, 2011).
Countries across the Muslim world including Turkey started in the mid-2010s to acquire DPI technology from Western and Chinese companies who have become important sources of diffusion. US-Canadian company Sandvine/Procera has provided DPI surveillance equipment to national networks operating in Turkey (Turk Telekom). This system operates over connections between an internet site and the target user and allows the government to tamper with the data sent through an unencrypted network (HTTP vs. HTTPS). Sandvine and its parent company Francisco Partners emerged at the center of the diffusion of DPI technology in the Middle East. Recent revelations show that the company has played significant role in facilitating the spread of ideas between countries. Through their information campaign, Sandvine contributed to learning by governments. As such, Sandvine and Netsweeper’s prominent engagement in provision of spying technology shows that it is not merely Chinese companies that enable digital authoritarianism. Western companies have been just as active.
Turkey made its first purchase from Sandvine (then Procera) in 2014 after the Gezi protests and corruption investigations rocked the AKP government the previous year. The government later used these devices to block websites, including Wikipedia, and those belonging to unwanted entities, such as independent news outlets and certain opposition groups in later years. The governments in the region including Turkey have gathered widespread spying and phishing capabilities sourced from mostly Western companies. For example, in Turkey, FinFisher used FinSpy in 2017 on a Turkish website disguised as the campaign website for the Turkish opposition movement and enabled the surveillance of political activists and journalists. FinSpy allowed the MIT to locate people, monitor phone calls and chats and mobile phone and computer data (ECCHR, 2023). This could link in with our discussion in emulation more clearly as well regarding private companies being key actors (Marczak et al., 2018).
Urban Surveillance
Three high-definition video surveillance cameras operated by the city police. Photo: Dreamstime.
With the advance of CCTV and AI technology, urban surveillance capabilities have grown exponentially over the past ten years. Dubbed as “safe” or “smart” cities, these urban surveillance projects are “mainly concerned with automating the policing of society using video cameras and other digital technologies to monitor and diagnose “suspicious behavior” (Kynge et al., 2021). The concept of Smart city captures an entire range of ICT capabilities implemented in an urban area. This might start with the simple goal of bringing internet connectivity and providing electronic payment solutions for basic services and evolve to establishing AI-controlled surveillance systems, as we have seen in many Chinese cities (Zeng, 2020). Smart cities deploy a host of ICT—including high-speed communication networks, sensors, and mobile phone apps—to boost mobility and connectivity, supercharge the digital economy, increase energy efficiency, improve the delivery of services, and generally raise the level of their residents’ welfare (Hong, 2022). The “smart” concept generally involves gathering large amounts of data to enhance various city functions. This can include optimizing the use of utilities and other services, reducing traffic congestion and pollution, and ultimately empowering both public authorities and residents.
The rapid development of smart city infrastructures across world has led to controversies as critics argued that the surveillance technology enables pervasive collection, retention, and misuse of personal data by everything from law enforcement agencies to private companies. Moreover, in recent years, China has been a major promoter of the ‘safe city’ concept that focuses on surveillance-driven policing of urban environments – a practice that has been perfected in most Chinese cities (Triolo, 2020). Several Chinese companies have been at the forefront of China’s effort to export its model of safe city: Huawei, ZTE Corporation, Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology, Zhejiang Dahua Technology, Alibaba, and Tiandy (Yan, 2019).
China has been a significant exporter of surveillance technology worldwide, including to countries like Turkey. Chinese firms such as Hikvision and Dahua have supplied surveillance equipment, including facial recognition systems, to various nations. Reports indicate that Turkey has utilized facial recognition software to monitor and identify individuals during protests (Radu, 2019; Bozkurt, 2021).
Holistically, the global expansion of China’s urban surveillance model sparks significant concerns, particularly in relation to its potential to increase authoritarian practices in adopting countries. In the absence of robust counter mechanisms, the adoption of Chinese surveillance model by authoritarian states is only likely to augment.
Strategic Digital Information Operations (SDIOs)
Another interesting aspect of authoritarian regimes is the use of digital technologies in creating and spreading pro-regime propaganda and conspiracy narratives that benefit the regimes. This is happening extensively in the region, including Turkey, as a part of the manipulation of the people in order to impose control on them and silence the opposition. The pro-regime propaganda machine uses conspiracy theories with a dual strategy, defensive and offensive, to shape the public perception of the regime. Defensively, it seeks to portray the regime as a legitimate national authority, emphasising its adherence to the nation’s interests and well-being in a way that no legitimate alternative is imaginable. In these narratives, leaders are portrayed as heroic figures with exceptional qualities, and the system is presented as flawless and well-suited to the country’s needs. On the offensive front, the propaganda machine works to discredit any alternative to the current regime. Opposition figures are either assassinated, arrested or labelled as traitors, criminals, or foreign agents so they can be eliminated politically. To reach to this end, conspiracy theories link opposition figures to nefarious plots or foreign intervention, thus undermining the credibility of opposition narratives.
In recent years, propaganda and conspiracy theories have played a significant role in Turkey’s political landscape, influencing political narratives and public opinion. The Turkish government, particularly under President Erdoğan and his ruling party (AKP), has been known for using state-controlled or pro-government media to push certain narratives. The government’s media strategy includes promoting nationalistic themes, highlighting Turkey’s achievements under AKP rule, and portraying the government as the protector of national interests against both internal and external threats. The government often emphasizes Turkey’s sovereignty and positions itself against perceived Western interference, such as criticisms from the European Union or the United States. By doing so, it strengthens a nationalist image, resonating with citizens who view Turkey as being unfairly targeted by foreign powers. Propaganda often incorporates Islamic and conservative values to appeal to the AKP’s core voter base. Erdoğan’s speeches and media outlets supportive of the government emphasize the defense of Islamic culture and values, framing the AKP as a protector of both religion and national identity. Government narratives frequently depict opposition groups as threats to national stability. This includes not only political rivals but also groups like the Kurdish population, the Gülen movement (which is accused by Erdogan regime of being behind the 2016 coup attempt), and the pro-Kurdish HDP party, who are often associated with terrorism or disloyalty.
Additionally, conspiracy theories have been pervasive in Turkish political culture, often used to explain domestic unrest or justify political decisions. Here, pro-government media often propagate conspiracies about the opposition, portraying them as aligned with foreign powers or terrorist organizations. A persistent theme in Turkish political discourse is the idea that foreign powers or global financial institutions are working to undermine Turkey’s economy and political stability. Moreover, the failed coup attempt in July 2016 became a fertile ground for conspiracy theories. While the Turkish government attributed the coup attempt to Fethullah Gülen, a cleric who lived in exile in the United States for decades until his death, alternative theories continue to circulate. Some claim that foreign powers, particularly the US, were involved in the coup plot, while others suggest that elements within the Turkish government may have allowed the coup to proceed as a means to justify a subsequent crackdown on opposition. In the same vein, many conspiracy theories center around the idea that Western powers, particularly the US and Europe, are conspiring against Turkey to prevent it from becoming a major regional power. These theories often cite Turkey’s geopolitical location, its military interventions in the region, or its aspirations to become an independent economic powerhouse.
A significant portion of the mainstream media in Turkey is either directly controlled by the government or aligned with it. These outlets often echo government narratives, downplaying criticisms, and emphasizing government achievements or conspiracy-laden stories about opposition and foreign interference. Despite the dominance of pro-government media, social media platforms have become spaces for both opposition voices and pro-government voices. The government has sought to control these platforms through legal means, introducing laws to regulate social media and threatening to block access to platforms that do not comply with government requests to remove content.
Mechanisms of Diffusion
We observed that the diffusion of digital authoritarianism occurs in three main mechanisms: learning, emulation and cooperative interdependence.
Learning
It has been widely argued that countries across the globe learned from domestic and foreign experience to adopt various forms of digital authoritarian practices. This is more prominent in countries experiencing public unrest, like Turkey and Egypt. For example, they both have learned lessons from the Gezi Park and Tahrir Square protests, respectively. Despite many indications to this effect, for a long time there was a lack of smoking gun evidence pointing at this type of learning. In 2016, a series of leaked emails from Erdogan’s son-in-law and then Energy Minister Berat Albayrak’s account revealed that in the aftermath of the Gezi Park protests, the Erdogan regime identified its lack of control of digital space as a problem and sought solutions in the form of “set[ting] up a team of professional graphic designers, coders, and former army officials who had received training in psychological warfare” (Akis, 2022). In later years, the regime built one of the world’s most extensive internet surveillance networks on social media, particularly on X, according to Norton Symantec.
In regard to external learning, China (and Chinese companies) and Western private companies have been at the forefront of actors promoting internet censorship practices. China has been not only a major promoter but also a source of learning for middle powers when it comes to internet surveillance, data fusion, and AI. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) has become a key vehicle that drives these efforts. For example, during the 2021 SCO summit, Chinese officials led a panel titled the Thousand Cities Strategic Algorithms, which trained the international audience that included many developing country representations on developing a “national data brain” that integrates various forms of financial and personal data and uses artificial intelligence to analyze it. The SCO website reported that 50 countries are engaged in discussions with the Thousand Cities Strategic Algorithms initiative (Ryan-Mosley, 2022). China has also been active in providing media and government training programs to representatives from BRI-affiliated countries. In one prominent example, Chinese Ministry of Public Security instructed Meiya Pico, a Chinese cybersecurity company, to train government representatives from Turkey, Pakistan, Egypt, and other countries on digital forensics (see Weber, 2019: 9-11).
Moreover, the spread of internet censorship and surveillance technologies points to a highly probable learning event facilitated by western corporate entities. Specifically, Sandvine, NSO Group, and their parent company Francisco Partners, emerged at the center of the diffusion of DPI technology in most Middle Eastern countries except for Iran where the company is not allowed to operate. Recent revelations show that the company has played a significant role in facilitating the spread of ideas between countries. Alexander Haväng, the ex-Chief Technical Officer of Sandvine, explained in an internal newsletter addressed to the company’s employees that their technology can appeal to governments whose surveillance capacities are hampered by encryption. Haväng wrote that Sandvine’s equipment could “show who’s talking to who, for how long, and we can try to discover online anonymous identities who’ve uploaded incriminating content online” (Gallagher, 2022).
The spread of DPI practices in general and Sandvine’s technology in particular is also evidenced by the chronology of acquisition by developing countries. The list of countries contracted to buy Sandvine’s DPI technology includes Turkey, Algeria, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Eritrea, Jordan, Kuwait, Pakistan, Qatar, Russia, Sudan, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, and Uzbekistan (Gallagher, 2022). There is a clear trend here, both in terms of regime susceptibility and chronology of adoption. Turkey purchased Sandvine’s DPI technology in 2014, Egypt in 2016, and Pakistan did so in 2018 (Malsin, 2018; Ali & Jahangir, 2019).
It is highly likely that later adopters of this technology reviewed its performance in early adopters and decided upon their own adoption. We know from previous research that private companies can “influence the spread of state policies by encouraging the exchange of substantive and procedural information between states” (Garrett & Jansa, 2015: 391). Governments are required to understand details about the content of a technology and relevant institutional mechanisms to use it effectively. Corporations facilitate communication about these details. The existence of extensive links between Sandvine and authoritarian regimes, the similarities of how the tech has been used, and the sheer prominence of this company and its technology demonstrate a plausible argument for diffusion.
Using practice framework, we focus on ‘configurations of actors’ who are involved in enabling authoritarianism (Glasius & Michaelsen, 2018). In most instances, these actors are not states, but private companies (see Table 2). Moreover, contrary to perceived active role of Chinese companies, with the prime exception of Iran, it was Western tech companies that provided most of the high-tech surveillance and censorship capabilities to authoritarian regimes in the Muslim world including Turkey. These included, inter alia, US-Canadian company Sandvine, Israeli NSO Group, German FinFisher and Finland’s Nokia Networks.
Emulation
There’s evidence that authoritarian countries in the region like Turkey have emulated major powers, as well as each other, when it comes to internet censorship practices. Among other things, homophily of actors played important role as actors prefer to emulate models from reference groups of actors with whom they share similar cultural or social attributes (Elkins & Simmons, 2005). Political alignment and proximity among nations foster communication and the exchange of information (Rogers, 2010). We observe the influence of this dynamic between China and Russia, and political regimes in the Muslim world who are susceptible to authoritarian forms of governance to varying degrees.
Research noted that states tend to harmonize their policy approaches to align with the prevailing norms of the contemporary global community, irrespective of whether these specific policies or institutional frameworks align with local conditions or provide effective solutions. Notably, since most transfers originate from the core to the periphery, policy transfers to developing regions might be ill-suited and consequently ineffective. There’s evidence that adoption of city surveillance is driven by the desire for conformity rather than the search for effective solutions. China’s CCTV-smart city solutions are considered in the region to be “bold innovations” as they’ve gathered disproportionate attention from the developing countries across the world. However, there’s evidence that the countries adopt this technology because of their apparent promise rather than demonstrated success. For example, there has been a controversy about whether Huawei’s safe city infrastructure actually helps to reduce urban crime. In a dubious presentation in 2019, Huawei claimed that its safe city systems have been highly effective in reducing crime, increasing the case clearance rate, reducing emergency response time, and increasing citizen satisfaction. However, research by CSIS revealed that these numbers have been grossly exaggerated if not completely fabricated (Hillman & McCalpin, 2019).
Emulation and learning appear to be the major mechanisms through which such practices spread. First, by demonstrating the effectiveness of disinformation campaigns and propaganda – such as Russian interference in US presidential elections in 2016 and China’s propaganda around the Covid-19 pandemic – these countries have shown other regimes that similar tactics can be used to control their own populations and advance their interests (Jones, 2022). Second, China and Russia have acted as important sources of learning for authoritarian regimes. China has hosted thousands of foreign officials and members of media from BRI countries in various training programs on media and information management since 2017 (Freedom House, 2022). For example, in 2017, China’s Cyberspace Administration held cyberspace management seminars for officials from BRI countries. Chinese data-mining company iiMedia presented its media management platform which is advertised as offering comprehensive control of public opinion, including providing early-warnings for “negative” public opinions and helping guide the promotion of “positive energy” online (Laskai, 2019).
The governments in the Muslim world learned how to use the social media and other digital technologies for ‘flooding,’ which helps strengthen and legitimize their political regime. This is a part of a broader objective of shaping the information environment domestically and internationally (Mir et al., 2022). At home, these governments are attempting to mold their citizens’ conduct online. They hired social media consultants and influencers to do their propaganda. They learned how to flood the information space with propaganda narratives using troll farms and bots. For example, in Turkey, the AKP government created a massive troll army in response to the Gezi Protests in 2013. A 2016 study published by the cyber security company Norton Symantec shows that among countries in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Turkey is the country with the most bot accounts on Twitter (Akis, 2022). In 2020, Twitter announced that it was suspending 7,340 fake accounts that had shared over 37 million tweets from its platform. Twitter attributed the network of accounts to the youth wing of the ruling AKP.
Through the aforementioned techniques, Turkey moved beyond strategies of “negative control” of the internet, in which the government attempt to block, censor, and suppress the flow of communication, and toward strategies of proactive co-optation in which social media serves regime objective. The opposite of internet freedom, therefore, is not necessarily internet censorship but a deceptive blend of control, co-option, and manipulation. As the public debate is seeded with such disinformation, this makes it hard for the governments’ opponents to convince their supporters and mobilize (Gunitsky, 2020).
Here, the practices appear to be a mixed bag of diffusion, convergence and even innovation on the part of some regional countries. There is some proof of learning on the part of the Turkish regime: Berat Albayrak’s emails reveal the government’s learning from the Gezi protests and intentional establishment of their own troll farms (Akis, 2022). Similarly, the Sisi regime learnt from the Arab Spring protests as well. While it is hard to find a smoking gun evidence of these regimes copying Russian or Chinese playbook, extensive links between some of these countries (such as Pakistan and Turkey), as well as between some of these countries and Russia/China (Turkey and Russia; China and Pakistan/Iran) brings some evidence of diffusion.
Cooperative Interdependence
Nested dolls depicting authoritarian and populist leaders Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, and Recep Tayyip Erdogan displayed among souvenirs in Moscow on July 7, 2018. Photo: Shutterstock.
We have observed that a cooperative interdependence has been at play when it comes to the diffusion of internet censorship practices from China to developing countries. Countries like Turkey are facing serious economic challenges and are in dire need of foreign direct investment. When tracing China’s technology transfer in these countries, a common thread emerges that tie most of the Chinese engagement to various forms of aid, trade negotiations, or grants. Prominently, China uses its Digital Silk Road (DSR) concept under the banner of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to push for adoption of its technological infrastructure and accompanying policies of surveillance and censorship in digital and urban environments (Hillman, 2021). For example, at the 2017 World Internet Conference in China, representatives from Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE signed a “Proposal for International Cooperation on the ‘One Belt, One Road’ Digital Economy,” an agreement to construct the DSR to improve digital connectivity and e-commerce cooperation (Laskai, 2019). The core components of the DSR initiative are smart (or “safe cities”), internet infrastructure, and mobile networks.
We do not argue that China is “forcing” these countries to adopt internet censorship practices. Rather, a cooperative interdependence works through changing incentive structures of BRI-connected states where financial incentives by China, coupled with technology transfer, promote China’s practical approach to managing the cyberspace as well. Indeed, BRI’s digital dimensions include many projects such as 5G networks, smart city projects, fiber optic cables, data centers, satellites, and devices that connect to these systems. In addition to having commercial value in terms of expanding China’s business of information technology, these far-reaching technologies have strategic benefit as they help the country achieve geoeconomic and geopolitical objectives that involve promotion of digital authoritarian practices and Chinese model of internet governance (Malena, 2021; Tang, 2020).
For example, Huawei’s growing influence in Turkey, and other regional countries such as Iran, Egypt, Pakistan, and particularly in the context of building their 5G infrastructure, is tied to these countries’ involvement in DSR projects. As mentioned above, all the abovementioned countries have signed agreements to cooperate with Huawei to build their 5G infrastructure. The latter is not merely an advanced technology, but also a vehicle of promoting an entire legal and institutional infrastructure for China. In 2017 the Standardization Administration of China (SAC) released the “BRI Connectivity and Standards Action Plan 2018-2020” which aims at promoting Chinese technical standards and improving related policies among BRI-recipient states across technologies including AI, 5G, and satellite navigation systems (Malena, 2021).
Cooperative interdependence such as loans, commercial diplomacy and other state initiatives are prominent mechanisms through which China spreads its urban surveillance practices. The Table 2 also demonstrates this process.
In the Muslim world, countries converged on importing China’s smart city platforms in recent years. A close collaboration between Chinese technology companies and authoritarian governments has led to the development of smart city infrastructures in multiple urban settings. Several Chinese companies have been at the forefront of this endeavor: Huawei, Hikvision, ZTE Corporation, Alibaba, Dahua Technology, and Tiandy (Yan, 2019). Huawei is a key source of diffusion of urban surveillance practices.
Huawei has established partnerships with major Turkish telecom companies, Turkcell and Vodafone TR, to implement smart city technologies in Samsun and Istanbul, respectively (KOTRA, 2021). Additionally, Turkey hosts one of Huawei’s 19 global Research and Development centers. In 2020, Turkcell became the first telecom operator outside China to adopt Huawei’s mobile app infrastructure, a system developed by Huawei in response to US sanctions that limited the use of certain Google software on Huawei devices. In 2022, Turk Telekom signed a contract with Huawei to build Turkey’s complete 5G network (Hurriyet, 2022). This infrastructure, known as Huawei Mobile Services (HMS), encompasses a suite of applications, cloud services, and an app store, which Huawei describes as “a collection of apps, services, device integrations, and cloud capabilities supporting its ecosystem” (Huawei, 2022).
Countries have also emulated China as the role model when it comes to urban surveillance practices. Indeed, China’s influence was highly discernible in the area of urban surveillance, where it has emerged as a role model and a key provider of high-tech tools (Germanò et al., 2023). To begin with, there are extensive linkages between sender (mostly China) and adopter countries in political and economic areas. These include the growing presence of China in regional economies, participation in China-dominated organizations such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and cooperation with China on internet governance issues such as the statement in the UN by several countries. Moreover, China has long acted as a laboratory to observe the results of its unique blend of high-tech authoritarianism that combined extensive urban surveillance with control of the internet under the pretext of national security and sovereignty (see Mueller, 2020). The perceived success of Chinese officials in curbing crime, ensuring stability and efficient management of urban settings, including their draconian measures to control the spread of COVID-19, have elevated China as a role model to be emulated by many authoritarian countries, including those in the Muslim world (Barker, 2021).
The table below demonstrates China’s role in the diffusion of digital authoritarianism in the region including Turkey:
Conclusion
This research illustrates how Turkey’s adoption of digital authoritarian practices—encompassing restrictive legal frameworks, internet censorship, urban surveillance, and strategic digital information operations—has been propelled by a combination of learning from domestic unrest, emulating paradigms set by major authoritarian players like China and Russia, and capitalizing on cooperative interdependence forged through economic and strategic partnerships. Despite Turkey’s NATO membership and other Western affiliations, the government has selectively borrowed from authoritarian models, integrating advanced surveillance technologies and normative frameworks that restrict civic freedoms in the digital realm. In this ecosystem, private Western companies, operating with limited oversight, have facilitated the supply of censorship and surveillance tools, challenging conventional expectations that illiberal digital governance is primarily state-driven.
These findings highlight the urgent need to establish robust international cyber norms and regulations that delineate clear boundaries on digital governance, particularly in states with deep ties to the West. Multilateral fora, including the United Nations and the Council of Europe, can take the lead by defining the scope of “digital authoritarianism,” instituting transparent guidelines on surveillance exports, and ensuring that technology providers are held accountable for the potential misuse of their products. Greater emphasis on privacy protections and digital rights is equally critical, calling for comprehensive legislation within Turkey that shields citizens from unwarranted data collection. Support from the international community—through funding, awareness campaigns, and legal assistance—can empower local civil society groups to advocate for these rights, educate citizens on online privacy, and hold authorities to account.
A second imperative is responsible corporate behavior, where companies must be compelled—via legal and reputational mechanisms—to adhere to human rights standards and disclose how their technologies are deployed in countries like Turkey. Establishing an independent monitoring entity to track repressive digital practices, publicize violations, and elevate them to international organizations can reinforce such accountability. Equally important, regional and global cooperation on digital freedom can help counter Turkey’s authoritarian trajectory; governments committed to open societies should launch joint initiatives aimed at improving cybersecurity, combating disinformation, and expanding transparent governance models that respect human rights. Technical assistance and knowledge-sharing will be particularly valuable where Turkey’s domestic institutions seek alternatives to purely repressive tools.
Moreover, economic incentives can be used strategically to steer Turkey away from partnerships that reinforce authoritarian tendencies. By prioritizing trade relationships and development aid tied to ethical technology practices, major economic powers and international financial institutions can encourage Turkey to align more closely with suppliers committed to democratic values. Such an approach has the added benefit of opening the market to innovators developing privacy-enhancing products, thus providing viable alternatives to invasive surveillance systems. Finally, the use of strategic diplomatic channels remains a powerful lever. Dialogue within NATO, discussions at the European Union level, and broader diplomatic engagements allow Turkey’s partners to advocate for transparent, responsible digital practices. Joint resolutions or multilateral condemnations of authoritarian behaviors can further raise the political costs of continued repression.
Taken together, these initiatives underscore that countering digital authoritarianism in Turkey requires a proactive, holistic strategy. While local factors—such as domestic protest movements and longstanding elite interests—play a crucial role, the role of international actors and private corporations is equally significant. Each dimension, whether it be legal reform, corporate accountability, economic leverage, or diplomatic pressure, offers a piece of the puzzle. Coordinated action that weaves these elements into a cohesive approach is essential not only for Turkey but for the broader effort to preserve the open, rights-respecting nature of the global digital landscape. By challenging the unchecked diffusion of repressive technologies and policies, the international community can mitigate the risks posed by an ever-expanding authoritarian playbook and ensure that the internet remains a domain of freedom and democratic possibility.
Funding:This work was supported by Australian Research Council [Grant Number DP230100257]; Gerda Henkel Foundation [Grant Number AZ 01/TG/21]; Australian Research Council [Grant Number DP220100829].
Authors
Ihsan Yilmaz is Deputy Director (Research Development) of the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation (ADI) at Deakin University, where he also serves as Chair in Islamic Studies and Research Professor of Political Science and International Relations. He previously held academic positions at the Universities of Oxford and London and has a strong track record of leading multi-site international research projects. His work at Deakin has been supported by major funding bodies, including the Australian Research Council (ARC), the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, the Victorian Government, and the Gerda Henkel Foundation.
(*) Ali Mamouri is a scholar and journalist specializing in political philosophy and theology. He is currently a Research Fellow at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation at Deakin University. With an academic background, Dr. Mamouri has held teaching positions at the University of Sydney, the University of Tehran, and Al-Mustansiriyah University, as well as other institutions in Iran and Iraq. He has also taught at the Qom and Najaf religious seminaries. From 2020 to 2022, he served as a Strategic Communications Advisor to the Iraqi Prime Minister, providing expertise on regional political dynamics. Dr. Mamouri also has an extensive career in journalism. From 2016 to 2023, he was the editor of Iraq Pulse at Al-Monitor, covering key political and religious developments in the Middle East. His work has been featured in BBC, ABC, The Conversation, Al-Monitor, and Al-Iraqia State Media, among other leading media platforms. As a respected policy analyst, his notable works include “The Dueling Ayatollahs: Khamenei, Sistani, and the Fight for the Soul of Shiite Islam” (Al-Monitor) and “Shia Leadership After Sistani” (Washington Institute). Beyond academia and journalism, Dr. Mamouri provides consultation to public and private organizations on Middle Eastern affairs. He has published several works in Arabic and Farsi, including a book on the political philosophy of Muhammad Baqir Al-Sadr and research on political Salafism. Additionally, he has contributed to The Great Islamic Encyclopedia and other major Islamic encyclopedias.
Nicholas Morieson is a Research Fellow at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University. He was previously a Lecturer at the Australian Catholic University in Melbourne. His research interests include populism, religious nationalism, civilizational politics, intergroup relations, and the intersection of religion and political identity.
(**) MuhammadOmer is a PhD student in political science at the Deakin University. His PhD is examining the causes, ideological foundations, and the discursive construction of multiple populisms in a single polity (Pakistan). His other research interests include transnational Islam, religious extremism, and vernacular security. He previously completed his bachelor’s in politics and history from the University of East Anglia, UK, and master’s in political science from the Vrije University Amsterdam.
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Please cite as: Yilmaz, Ihsan; Mamouri, Ali; Akbarzadeh, Shahram & Omer, Muhammad. (2025). “Authoritarian Diffusion in the Cyberspace: How Egypt Learns, Emulates, and Cooperates in Digital Authoritarianism.” European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). May 9, 2025. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp0097
Egypt has emerged as a key adopter and regional diffuser of digital authoritarian practices. Once limited by weak digital infrastructure, the Sisi regime has transformed the country into a technologically repressive state through sweeping legal reforms, censorship mechanisms, and expansive surveillance networks. Drawing heavily from the models of China and Russia—particularly in urban monitoring and information control—Egypt actively emulates their approaches. Crucially, both Chinese and Western technology firms have facilitated this transformation, revealing a broader pattern of global complicity. This report demonstrates how Egypt’s trajectory illustrates the transnational diffusion of digital authoritarianism through mechanisms of learning, emulation, and interdependence—and offers a stark warning to democracies about the rising threat of state-enabled digital repression.
By Ihsan Yilmaz, Ali Mamouri*, Shahram Akbarzadeh**, Muhammad Omer***
Executive Summary
This report examines the rise and entrenchment of digital authoritarianism in Egypt, spotlighting how the regime systematically reclaims and militarizes the digital space to suppress dissent and erode democratic freedoms. Digital authoritarianism in Egypt spans four key domains: restrictive legal frameworks, internet censorship, urban surveillance, and strategic digital information operations (SDIOs).
Drawing on a wide array of sources—including academic literature, human rights reports, institutional data, and credible news coverage—the report demonstrates how the Egyptian government has aggressively expanded its control over digital life. This control includes deep surveillance tactics, the criminalization of online expression, and state-sponsored manipulation of digital discourse, all contributing to the shrinking of civic space and the violation of fundamental rights to privacy and free speech.
The regime employs advanced tools such as Deep Packet Inspection (DPI), widespread website blocking, and targeted internet shutdowns to neutralize opposition. These repressive tactics are reinforced by an expansive legal arsenal that frames digital expression as a threat to national security—penalizing dissent, limiting VPN use, and compelling tech companies to align with government mandates.
At the urban level, AI-driven CCTV networks and Smart City initiatives—often developed in partnership with Chinese and Western firms—create a pervasive surveillance infrastructure, enabling real-time monitoring of public behaviour. Meanwhile, through coordinated SDIO campaigns, the regime floods social media and state-aligned platforms with pro-government narratives, systematically silencing alternative viewpoints. These operations blend defensive strategies (legitimizing the regime and quelling criticism) with offensive disinformation that delegitimizes opposition groups.
The diffusion of these practices is not solely domestically engineered. Egypt’s digital authoritarian model is transnational in character, built through mechanisms of learning, emulation, and technological dependence. China has emerged as a central enabler, exporting both surveillance infrastructure and governance models. Yet, Western corporations—including Sandvine, NSO Group, FinFisher, and Nokia Networks—have also contributed significantly, supplying critical technologies that bolster Egypt’s repressive digital architecture, often with little regard for ethical implications.
Egypt’s model of digital control illustrates a dangerous global trend: the normalization and globalization of digital authoritarianism, where regimes exploit emerging technologies and international complicity to entrench power, silence dissent, and undermine democratic norms.
Recommendations
To effectively counter the growing threat of digital authoritarianism in Egypt and beyond, a comprehensive, multi-pronged strategy must be adopted. The following recommendations highlight key interventions to safeguard digital freedoms, enhance democratic resilience, and hold both states and corporations accountable:
1. Strengthen International Cyber Norms and Regulatory Frameworks: Establish binding international standards and protocols to govern the use of digital technologies by states. These norms must explicitly prohibit mass surveillance, politically motivated internet shutdowns, and the deployment of spyware against civilians. Multilateral organizations—such as the United Nations, the European Union, and regional bodies—must play a central role in enforcing these norms through treaties, sanctions, and export control regimes that restrict the transfer of surveillance technologies to authoritarian regimes.
2. Defend Digital Rights and Data Privacy at the National and Global Levels:Push for robust data protection legislation that empowers individuals and protects them from arbitrary state surveillance. Promote digital literacy campaigns and citizen awareness programs to strengthen public understanding of online rights and safety. Support grassroots civil society organizations, independent media, and digital rights defenders who expose abuses and advocate for open, secure, and rights-respecting digital environments.
3. Enforce Corporate Accountability and Ethical Tech Governance: Hold technology firms—both domestic and transnational—legally and morally accountable for their role in enabling repression. Establish international watchdog bodies to investigate, name-and-shame, and penalize companies complicit in human rights violations through the export or maintenance of surveillance technologies. Implement mandatory human rights impact assessments for all technology exports to high-risk regimes and enhance supply chain transparency in the tech sector.
4. Promote Strategic International Collaboration to Safeguard Digital Democracy: Strengthen multilateral coalitions of democracies to share intelligence, technological tools, and policy approaches for combating disinformation, propaganda, and transnational repression. Support cross-border investigations into Strategic Digital Information Operations (SDIOs) and develop joint early warning systems to detect digital repression tactics. Extend technical and legal support to countries resisting authoritarian encroachment into their digital spheres.
5. Leverage Economic Incentives to Deter Authoritarian Partnerships: Use trade agreements, investment flows, and development aid as tools to condition engagement with states on the basis of their digital human rights records. Encourage private and public institutions to divest from companies involved in digital repression and prioritize investment in technologies that strengthen democratic institutions, secure communications, and civil society networks.
6. Deploy Diplomatic and Legal Instruments to Challenge Repression:Utilize bilateral and multilateral diplomacy to pressure authoritarian regimes to reform their surveillance laws and practices. Sponsor UN resolutions, global forums, and high-level summits that spotlight digital repression and mobilize international consensus. Support international legal actions against regimes and actors who violate digital human rights, using forums such as the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and regional human rights courts.
7. Build Resilience Through Innovation and Empowerment: Invest in the development of privacy-preserving technologies, secure communication platforms, and censorship circumvention tools. Support the creation of local digital infrastructures that resist surveillance, especially in vulnerable democracies. Back innovation ecosystems that empower civic tech, independent media, and digital rights advocacy to thrive even under authoritarian pressure.
Addressing digital authoritarianism requires more than reactive measures—it demands proactive, coordinated, and sustained global action. The recommendations above provide a roadmap for governments, international institutions, civil society, and the private sector to reclaim the digital domain as a space of freedom, accountability, and democratic possibility.
Photo: Dreamstime.
Introduction
In recent years, scholars have increasingly focused on the diffusion of authoritarianism (Ambrosio, 2010; Bank, 2017), a process where authoritarian institutions, practices, policies, strategies, rhetorical frames, and norms spread from one regime to another (Ambrosio & Tolstrup, 2019). This phenomenon is particularly pronounced in the Middle East and Muslim World, where many countries exhibit authoritarian governance (Durac & Cavatorta, 2022; Yenigun, 2021; Stepan et al., 2018; Ahmed et al., 2023; Akbarzadeh et al., 2024; Yilmaz et al., 2024).
The advent of the internet and social media in the developing world in the late 2000s significantly empowered civil society and individual activists in these regions, creating an equalizing power between the state and society (Breuer, 2012; Ruijgrok, 2017). The extensive use of these technologies by protesters led many to consider them as “liberation technology,” facilitating anti-government movements across non-democratic countries (Diamond & Plattner, 2012; Ziccardi, 2012).
Initially, authoritarian governments struggled to control the digital sphere due to a lack of technical expertise and digital infrastructure. They often resorted to internet shutdowns, as seen in Egypt during the Arab Spring 2011 protests (Cattle, 2015). However, as digital technologies evolved, so did the capabilities of authoritarian regimes. Therefore, despite the internet’s potential as a tool for liberation, its use by authoritarian regimes to disseminate propaganda, conduct surveillance, and control information has led to a new form of authoritarianism (Polyakova, 2019).
This transformation is driven by advancements in artificial intelligence (AI), big data, and the widespread use of the internet, which have enabled unprecedented levels of surveillance and control. As Wael Ghonim, an Egyptian activist, has reminded us: “The Arab Spring revealed social media’s greatest potential, but it also exposed its greatest shortcomings. The same tool that united [people] to topple dictators eventually tore [us] apart through echo-chamber polarization, misinformation, toxic hate speech” (Gardels, 2019).
Such widespread adoption of digital control measures has led to the emergence of “digital authoritarianism” literature (Polyakova & Meserole, 2019; Dragu & Lupu, 2021; Khalil, 2020; Lilkov, 2020; Mare, 2020; Feldstein, 2019; Ahmed et al., 2023; Akbarzadeh et al., 2024; Yilmaz et al., 2024). This literature posits that as regimes leverage AI and other digital tools to monitor and control dissent, the need for policymakers and civil society organizations to counter these practices has become critical. The pessimism surrounding the potential of modern technology to undermine democracy is growing, with concerns about misinformation, data collection, surveillance, spread of conspiracy theories and propagation of authoritarian governance models (Radavoi, 2019; Stone et al., 2016; Bostrom, 2014; Helbing et al., 2019; Damnjanović, 2015; Yilmaz et al., 2025; Yilmaz & Shakil 2025). In a poll conducted by Pew, almost half of participants believed that the “use of [modern] technology will mostly weaken core aspects of democracy and democratic representation in the next decade” (Anderson, 2020).
Extant literature mainly focuses on countries such as China and Russia and their technology companies facilitating and promoting digital authoritarian practices (Khalil, 2020; Taylor, 2022; Zhang, Alon, & Lattemann, 2020). Moreover, the literature has treated policies, norms, and technological tools in a general manner as phenomena analysing authoritarian regimes’ use of tools like filtering and digital surveillance (Hellmeier, 2016; Xu, 2021) and examining policies governing the internet (Kerr, 2018). However, policies, norms, and technologies cannot be separated as they are usually interlinked among government entities, private companies, and international organizations across global networks (Dragu & Lupu, 2021). Therefore, as Adler and Pouliot (2011: 5) stated, practices are “patterned actions that are embedded in particular organized contexts,” this study chose a more holistic analysis, investigating norms, policies, and technologies employed by governments and non-state entities in an integrated manner.
This report examines the digital authoritarian practices in Egypt (see Akbarzadeh et al., 2025) and the diffusion of these practices by investigating the norms, policies, and technologies employed by the Egyptian government. What we mean by diffusion is the process that Gilardi (2012: 454) describes as what “leads to the pattern of adoption, not the fact that at the end of the period, all (or many) countries have adopted the policy.” As such, diffusion refers to the use of digital technologies by authoritarian regimes to surveil, repress, and manipulate populations (Feldstein, 2021). Therefore, diffusion does not necessarily require an absolute convergence of practices; rather, an increase in policy similarity across countries generally follows diffusion processes (Gilardi, 2010; 2012), which we demonstrate here. Egypt, similar to other authoritarian regimes, utilize digital technology—often sourced from abroad, including from Western countries—such as the internet, social media, and artificial intelligence to maintain control and suppress dissent.
We aim to understand how these practices spread and what can be done to counter them. Egypt, like other authoritarian regimes, have become adept at using sophisticated digital tools to monitor and control the internet rather than simply shutting it down. Technologies like DPI, “a type of data processing that looks in detail at the contents of the data being sent, and re-routes it accordingly” (Geere, 2012), allow for comprehensive network analysis and can be used for digital eavesdropping, internet censorship, and data theft (Bendrath & Mueller, 2011). This report will explore these dynamics in detail, providing a comprehensive analysis of the diffusion of digital authoritarianism in Egypt.
Data Analysis of the Digital Space in Egypt
Egypt, with a total population of 116 million by mid-2024 and a USD476.7 billion GDP as of 2022 (Worldometer, 2024), is considered one of the most important countries in the Middle East and has a wide influence on the Arab world. It was among the first countries to witness the Arab Spring Movement and go through dramatic changes in the political system. The internet played a significant role in this period and also in the aftermath of the military’s cope in 2013. The table below shows the rise of internet usage in Egypt.
The brief political openings in the late 2000s and the early 2010s were fuelled by the internet and social media’s empowerment of social mobilization and the authoritarian regimes’ inability to control the digital sphere as they lacked technical expertise and digital infrastructure to rein in on the internet (Cattle, 2015). However, as the use of the internet was on the rise in Egypt, the government’s efforts to control the digital space and impose more surveillance on people have been increasingly on the rise as well. Freedom House has reported a significant rise of government control on digital space in Egypt. The Freedom House Index shows that, on average, internet freedom has declined by about 40% in Egypt.
Freedom House’s World Index shows that Egypt has experienced declines in freedom of expression and belief, associational and organizational rights, the rule of law, and personal autonomy and individual rights (Freedom House, 2022). As a result, Egypt scored 26 on a scale of 0 (least free) to 100 (most free) in 2020, according to Freedom House (2021).
Tracing the pattern of practising digital authoritarianism in the world indicates that China and Russia play a significant role in leading this conduct, setting an effective example for authoritarian regimes in the Middle East, including Egypt, to follow the same pathway. The table in Figure 4 shows how Egypt followed the pathway of Chinese and Russian legislation in imposing digital authoritarianism.
The diffusion of digital authoritarian practice in Egypt is not limited to China. Many Western companies have contributed to providing the Egyptian government with sufficient technologies to impose control on digital space. The table in Figure 5 provides details about the source of technologies used in Egypt.
Digital Authoritarian Strategies, Policies, andPractices
In this section, we explore a variety of strategies and policies the Egyptian government has adopted to impose a digital authoritarian regime in the country. The Egyptian government worked on four domains: restrictive legal frameworks, internet censorship, urban surveillance, and SDIOs. By leveraging these four domains, the Egyptian government has constructed a comprehensive system of digital authoritarianism. This system not only fortifies its grip on power but also serves as a blueprint for other authoritarian regimes seeking to exploit digital technologies to suppress dissent and maintain control.
Restrictive Legal Frameworks
Digital authoritarian regimes implement four main types of legal restrictions, and examples of all of these can be found in Egypt. First, laws that mandate internet service providers to establish systems for real-time monitoring and recording of traffic on their networks. This enables continuous surveillance of online activities. Second, legal frameworks that penalize online speech under the guise of protecting national identity, culture, and preventing defamation. This often results in the suppression of dissenting opinions and freedom of expression. Third, VPN Restrictions, which follow the lead of countries like China and Russia to ban or restrict the use of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs). While VPNs are technically legal in Egypt, many VPN servers and websites are blocked, hindering their practical use. Fourth, control over social media companies in various methods. Although Western social media sites remain accessible in Egypt, the government has introduced laws that increase its control over the content shared on these platforms. This is achieved by threatening social media companies with bandwidth restrictions and outright bans if they fail to comply with government requests. Moreover, Egypt’s 2018 Cybercrime Law requires foreign companies handling personal data within the country to designate a representative located in Egypt (Fatafta, 2020).
Despite the Egyptian Constitution guaranteeing freedom of the internet to some extent (for example, Articles 57, 68, 71, and 72), by prohibiting blocking websites, surveilling digital space, and harassing and prosecuting journalists and activists, the authorities continued to develop legislation in this direction and implement it on a large scale. Multiple legislations have been passed and applied to reach above goals.
The “cybercrime law” in Egypt, signed by President Sisi in 2018, legalizes and reinforces the existing censorship and blocking of websites (Freedom House, 2021). The new law treats all social media accounts with more than 5,000 followers as “media outlets,” making them eligible for censorship (RSF, 2018). The laws also mandated internet service providers to establish a system allowing real-time monitoring and recording of traffic on their networks (Privacy International, 2019). The cybercrime law criminalizes any form of speech that is against ‘national security’ which is defined so broadly that it covers “all that is related to the independence, stability, and security of the homeland and its unity and territorial integrity” and anything to do with the president’s office and all defence and security departments. The law permits the search of citizens’ personal devices and social media accounts can be blocked without judicial authorization, ostensibly for disseminating “false” information or inciting unlawful activities (Manshurat, 2018). Article 2 mandates that service providers retain and store records of their information systems, including all user-related data, for a period of 180 days. This information must be made available to any government agency upon request. Article 7 outlines the procedure for blocking websites that publish content deemed threatening to national security or detrimental to the country’s security or economy. Article 9 grants the Public Prosecutor the authority to issue travel bans and bring individuals accused of violating Article 7 before the Criminal Court.
The cybercrime law has led to increased penalties and harassment of journalists and activists on social media platforms (Freedom House, 2022). Consequently, there is minimal political opposition in Egypt, as expressing dissenting views on social media can lead to criminal prosecution and harsh punishments. Furthermore, there are significant restrictions and harassment of civil liberties, including freedom of expression, assembly, and the press. Security forces also engage in widespread violations against marginalized groups, including homosexuals and minorities, under the guise of national security concerns.
The Anti-Terrorism Law, passed in 2015, encompasses broad forms of criminalization and grants extensive powers to address electronic activities, including the arrest of journalists and activists, digital surveillance, and the closure and blocking of websites (Manshurat, 2020). Article 49 of this law empowers the Public Prosecution or relevant investigative authority to halt or block websites specified in Article 29 or any other aspect of online usage outlined in the legislation, as well as to confiscate devices and equipment used in the commission of such offenses. For instance, the Cairo Court of Urgent Matters issued an order to seize and freezethe assets, accounts, and properties of “Mustafa Mukhtar Mohamed Saqr,” the president of “Business News,” the company that owns the two Daily News Egypt websites.
Moreover, at the end of 2022, the Telecom Law amendments were made to expand telecommunication equipment restrictions (Rezk & Hashish, 2023). Now, not only is the importation, manufacturing, assembly of such equipment prohibited without a permit, but also possession, use, operation, installation, or marketing is prohibited without obtaining permission from relevant authorities like the NTRA (The National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority) and national security agencies. The penalty for violating these requirements has been increased to a fine ranging from 2 million to 5 million Egyptian pounds.
Internet Censorship
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According to Access Now, a leading internet research organization, at least 182 internet shutdowns occurred in 34 countries in 2021 (Access Now, 2022). The Mubarak regime famously switched off the country’s internet during the mass protests in Cairo in January 2011. In recent years, however, internet shutdowns have been rare in Egypt. In 2018, the Egyptian Armed Forces ordered a region-wide shutdown of internet and telecommunication services in the Sinai Peninsula and adjacent areas during the army’s military campaign against ISIS-affiliated insurgents in the region (SMEX, 2018). One reason behind the reduction of internet shutdowns is that they are costly as they affect the delivery of essential public and private services and have been dubbed the Dictator’s Digital Dilemma (Hussain, Howard & Agarwal, 2011). Therefore, even when it is practised, the shutdown is limited to a certain location and typically lasts only a few days. According to Access Now (Hernández et al., 2023), no internet shutdown occurred in Egypt in 2021.
Common methods of censorship, which Deibert et al. (2010) highlighted as “first generation” are filtering and site blocking, which became more common in the late 2000s. IP blocking/filtering and DNS tampering are the common methods of filtering. IP filtering is used to block or filter objectionable content by restricting access to specific IP addresses. Freedom House reported in 2022 that Egypt was a not-free country in relation to the use of digital technologies, ranking it 27 out of 100, identifying three major issues: obstacles to access, limits to contents, and violation of users’ rights (Freedom House, 2022).
Since the imposition of a “state of emergency” in Egypt in 2017 (Atlantic Council, 2019), which directly granted the authorities the power to impose censorship and monitor all forms of online communication, Egypt blocked over 500 websites (AFTE Egypt, 2020). This includes independent news websites that publish articles criticising the Egyptian government, such as Mada Masr, Al-Manassa and Daily News Egypt, in addition to international news websites, such as Al-Jazeera, Al-Arabiya, and Huffington Post Arabic. The blocking also included well-known Egyptian blogs that had previously warned since Sisi took power that he was rebuilding an authoritarian regime. The banned blogs included Fahmi Huwaidi’s blog (including his column in Shorouk News), Jawdell’s blog, Manal’s blog, Alaa’s blog, Bahia’s blog, and Ahmed Gamal Ziada’s personal blog. Manal and Alaa had previously won awards (Welle, 2005) from Reporters Without Borders. The blocking expands websites that provide content related to human rights and civil society, such as the website of Reporters Without Borders, the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI), the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms, the Journalists Against Torture Observatory, and the website of Human Rights Watch, one day after the organisation released a report documenting the systematic use of torture in prisons in September 2017. The blocking was not limited to news sites only but also went on to block 261 VPN and proxy sites, including “Tunnelbear,” “CyberGhost,” “HotspotShield,” and messaging application Signal.
Censorship sometimes occurs via prosecution measures, which come in conjunction with punishing the authors or contributors. Egyptian authorities severely undermined media freedom and the right to access information and punished the publication of opinions on news sites and social media posts. For example, in February 2023, the Public Prosecution referred three journalists (Welle, 2023) from Mada Masr to trial in a case related to publishing a report alleging corruption in the pro-Sisi “Nation’s Future Party,” and in June, the authorities blocked two independent news websites, “Egypt 360” and “The Fourth Estate” (Access Now, 2023). In September 2023, security forces arrested two individuals from their homes in Menoufia and Mansoura governorates after they published tweets on the “X” website, supporting Tantawi and democratic change. In October 2023, the Supreme Council for Media Regulation referred workers (“x.com,” n.d.) at the independent media website “Mada Masr” to the prosecution, with the charge of “practising media activities without a license” and “spreading false news without verifying its sources.”
Authoritarian regimes have tended to use more subtle and insidious forms of censorship, which also use surveillance techniques and rely on quasi-democratic legal mechanisms (Deibert & Rohozinski, 2010). This has included using DPI surveillance technology acquired from Western and Chinese companies, which have become essential sources of diffusion of authoritarian practices. Companies such as Sandvine Corporation, a US-Canadian company, have provided tech to over a dozen countries, including Egypt. DPI is “a type of data processing that looks in detail at the contents of the data being sent and re-routes it accordingly” (Geere, 2012). DPI inspects the data being sent over a network and may take various forms of action, such as logging the content and alerting, as well as blocking or rerouting the traffic. DPI allows comprehensive network analysis. While it can be used for innocuous purposes, such as checking the content for viruses and ensuring the correct supply of content, it can also be used for digital eavesdropping, internet censorship, and even stealing sensitive information (Bendrath & Mueller, 2011).
Urban Surveillance
In addition to digital monitoring, the government has significantly expanded its surveillance capabilities within urban areas. Advanced surveillance systems, including extensive CCTV networks equipped with facial recognition technology, have been deployed. These systems are integrated with AI-powered analytics capable of tracking and identifying individuals, monitoring public gatherings, and analysing behavioural patterns. This pervasive surveillance infrastructure not only deters public dissent but also enables the rapid identification and apprehension of activists and protesters.
Egypt has employed extensive surveillance technologies such as Smart City/Safe City platforms, facial recognition systems, and smart policing, as highlighted in the AI Global Surveillance (AIGS) Index. These technologies have been instrumental in suppressing democratic movements (Wheeler, 2017). During the 2010s, Egypt witnessed increased internet technology adoption and a concurrent decline in democratic practices. Data from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) indicates a dramatic rise in internet usage in Egypt since 2019, which led the Egyptian government to more investment in urban surveillance.
The aforementioned DPI technology acquired from the American company Sandvine/Procera Networks enabled the Egyptian government to monitor citizens’ internet activities, hack accounts, and reroute internet traffic. This technology allows Telecom Egypt to spy on users and block human rights and political content (Marczak et al., 2018). Additionally, Egypt’s General Intelligence Service has conducted sophisticated cyber-spying operations on opposition and civil society activists by installing software on their phones, granting access to files, emails, GPS coordinates, and contact lists (Bergman, 2019).
Safe or smart cities are another policy that Egypt is undertaking in order to increase its urban surveillance capabilities. The “Smart” concept generally involves gathering large amounts of data to enhance various city functions. This can include optimizing the use of utilities and other services, reducing traffic congestion and pollution, and ultimately empowering both public authorities and residents. According to a Huawei report, “Safe cities are an essential pillar supporting the future development of smart cities” (Hillman & McCalpin, 2019). These cities deploy high-speed communication networks, sensors, and mobile apps to enhance mobility, connectivity, energy efficiency, service delivery, and overall resident welfare (Hong, 2022). Becoming “smart” typically involves harnessing troves of data to optimize city functions—from more efficient use of utilities and other services to reducing traffic congestion and pollution—all with a view to empowering public authorities and residents (Muggah, 2021). With the advance of CCTV and AI technology, urban surveillance capabilities have grown exponentially over the past ten years. Dubbed “safe” or “smart” cities, these urban surveillance projects are “mainly concerned with automating the policing of society using video cameras and other digital technologies to monitor and diagnose suspicious behaviour” (Kynge et al., 2021).
Egypt’s most significant smart city project under the Sisi government is the New Administrative Capital (NAC) east of Cairo (Al-Hathloul, 2022). The NAC is designed with a full suite of smart/safe city solutions, including 6,000 CCTV cameras and a surveillance system by American company Honeywell, which monitors crowds, traffic congestion, theft, and suspicious activities and triggers automated alarms during emergencies (Mourad & Lewis, 2021). Honeywell also has contracts for Saudi Arabia’s NEOM megaproject. Huawei’s presence in Egypt has also been growing. In 2018, Huawei signed a memorandum with Telecom Egypt to establish a $5 million data centre for a cloud computing network, aiming to develop one of the five largest cloud networks globally and the first in MENA. Egypt and Huawei are also negotiating to bring Huawei’s 5G infrastructure to the country (Blaubach, 2021). The surveillance infrastructure includes Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure platform, which connects various systems for optimization and sustainability (Egypt Today, 2022).
The development of smart city infrastructures has sparked controversies, with critics arguing that these technologies enable pervasive collection, retention, and misuse of personal data by law enforcement and private companies. The NAC, which is being built by China State Construction Engineering Corporation (CSCEC) (Al-Hathloul, 2022), has been driven by an attempt by the authoritarian Sisi government to isolate and protect itself from a revolutionary scenario that befell the Mubarak regime in 2011. By moving government offices 50 km away from central Cairo and Tahrir Square, the regime aims to ensure its structures are safeguarded even during unrest. All the surveillance capabilities in the NAC will be further helpful in protecting the regime (see Middle East Monitor, 2021; Bergman & Walsh, 2021; Menshawy, 2021).
Strategic Digital Information Operations (SDIOs)
Banners supporting Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi’s bid for a second term during the presidential elections, displayed along the crowded Al Moez Street in the Gamalia district of Cairo, Egypt, on March 25, 2018. Photo: Halit Sadik.
The Egyptian government employs a sophisticated network of SDIOs. SDIOs refer to “efforts by state and non-state actors to manipulate public opinion as well as individual and collective emotions by using digital technologies to change how people relate and respond to events in the world” (Yilmaz et al., 2023). Thus, the Egyptian government does not only rely on randomized acts of internet shutdowns but carefully manipulates and alters the information environment to serve its motives.
Egypt has begun to move beyond strategies of ‘negative control’ of the internet, in which regimes attempt to block, censor, and suppress the flow of communication and toward strategies of proactive co-optation in which social media serves regime objectives. The opposite of internet freedom, therefore, is not necessarily internet censorship but a deceptive blend of control, co-option, and manipulation. Scholars call this phenomenon ‘flooding’ as the governments try to ‘flood’ the informational space with false, distracting or otherwise worthless pieces of information (Roberts, 2018; Mir et al., 2022). As the public debate is seeded with such disinformation, this makes it hard for the governments’ opponents to convince their supporters and mobilize.
The Egyptian government employs a robust propaganda machine to shape public perception and maintain control over the narrative. This involves the strategic use of state-controlled media, social media platforms, and online influencers to disseminate pro-regime content and discredit opposition. The regime propagates conspiracy theories that portray political dissenters as foreign agents or terrorists, thereby justifying its repressive measures. As Akbarzadeh et al. (2025) demonstrates, “President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi frequently talks about conspiracies against the Arab World and Egypt in particular, thanking Egyptians who stood against these conspiracies and prevented the country from falling in the direction of Iraq, Syria, and Libya, all that were intervened by the US and other Western allies.” In the same way “Sisi used the consequences of the Western role in Iraq, Syria, and Libya as a method to promote his rule in Egypt and scare Egyptians from seeking change in their country, which would lead them to get trapped in conspiracies undertaken in other Middle Eastern countries” (Akbarzadeh et al., 2025).
Egyptian officials commonly instil fear among citizens to ensure their loyalty to the current government, often by amplifying concerns about potential conspiracies against the nation. This rhetoric tends to escalate as elections approach (Akbarzadeh et al., 2025). State-run TV channels, newspapers, and online portals play a crucial role in this information warfare, ensuring that the regime’s message reaches a broad audience. The Sisi regime, for example, employs troll armies to be used in political astroturfing operations. In 2020, Twitter banned over 9,000 accounts that were spreading misleading information. Another report found that the Sisi government used automated/bot accounts to promote its popular hashtags on Twitter (DFRLab, 2023).
The regime usually employs defensive and offensive approaches in this regard. The dual strategy, seamlessly blending defensive and offensive tactics, creates a narrative that reinforces the regime’s image and marginalizes any alternatives, fostering an environment of public trust and unity under the existing leadership.
Defensively, it seeks to portray the regime as a legitimate national authority, emphasising its adherence to the nation’s interests and well-being in a way that no legitimate alternative is imaginable. In these narratives, government leaders are portrayed as heroic figures with exceptional qualities, and the system is presented as flawless and well-suited to the country’s needs. Like many examples Igor Golomstock provided in his book Totalitarian Art (1990), Egyptian propaganda presents the head of state as the father of the nation, and any attempt to criticise him or his authority is introduced as a betrayal to Egypt. Egyptian TV channels frequently host Arab leaders praising Sisi and portraying him as the savour of Egypt and the Arab nation.
On the offensive front, the propaganda machine works to discredit any alternative to the current regime. Opposition figures or movements are subjected to character assassinations and labelled as traitors, criminals, or foreign agents. Conspiracy theories are propagated, linking opposition figures to nefarious plots or foreign interference, thereby undermining the credibility of opposing narratives. Additionally, the propaganda machine manipulates national unity sentiments to marginalise dissent, presenting the regime as a unifying force and framing opposition as divisive threats to the country’s unity. This comprehensive approach aims to fortify public support for the current regime while systematically diminishing the credibility of dissenting voices. In conjunction with the magnification and glorification of the president’s image, extensive work has been done to demonise the image of the opposition as a whole, generalising all under the unsightly titles of “traitors” cooperating with foreign enemies, “terrorism,” “riot” and “suspicious calls,” slamming all attempts of demonstrations or criticising the government.
One significant rationale lies in the inherent lack of genuine legitimacy, coupled with a substantial disconnect between the state and society. Consequently, the fabrication of imaginary adversaries becomes a tool for fostering national unity and identity under the regime’s rule. A parallel goal of this strategy is the cultivation of a cult of leadership. Totalitarian regimes craft an image of leaders as defenders against external enemies, fostering a cult of personality that solidifies their control over the narrative and the populace. This narrative, in turn, rallies support for the militarization of both the state and society. Moreover, the identification of enemies becomes a rationale for increased militarization and defence spending. Totalitarian regimes leverage perceived external threats to justify allocating resources to the military, enhancing capabilities, and maintaining control over the security apparatus. Consequently, these regimes effectively maintain fear and control over the population. Ultimately, the perpetual portrayal of an external threat or identification of internal enemies sustains a climate of fear among citizens, discouraging challenges to the regime.
In authoritarian regimes, conspiracy theories play a crucial role in consolidating power by channelling public discontent toward perceived external or internal threats. These narratives function as propaganda tools, allowing governments to justify repression, delegitimize critics, and deflect attention from governance failures. Unlike in democratic contexts, where conspiracy theories are often propagated by fringe actors, authoritarian regimes institutionalize them, presenting them as official truths that shape political realities. A key tactic involves accusing dissidents of affiliations with groups like the Muslim Brotherhood to suppress freedom of speech, protest, and independent media. By framing opposition figures as existential threats to national unity, regimes cultivate public trust and reinforce their own legitimacy while silencing alternative voices (Akbarzadeh et al., 2025).
Collectively, the sophisticated implementation of SDIOs manipulate feelings of national unity to marginalise the opposition, presenting the regime as a unifying force and framing the opposition as a divisive threat to the country’s unity. This comprehensive approach aims to strengthen popular support for the current regime while systematically diminishing the credibility of opposition voices. The dual strategy, which seamlessly blends defensive and offensive tactics, creates a narrative that enhances the regime’s image and marginalises any alternatives, fostering an environment of public trust and unity under the current leadership.
Diffusion of Authoritarian Practices
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Diffusion mechanisms are systematic sets of statements that provide a plausible explanation of how policy decisions in one country are influenced by prior policy choices made in other countries (Braun & Gilardi, 2006; 299). The literature on this topic often highlights areas of convergence and contact points between early and later adopters (see Kerr, 2018). Diffusion is any process where earlier adoption or practice within a population increases the likelihood of adoption among non-adopters (Strang, 1991: 325). It occurs when policy decisions in one country are systematically influenced by previous policy choices in other countries (Dobbin et al., 2007: 787; Gilardi, 2012). Traditionally, research on diffusion has focused on the spread of popular uprisings against autocratic leaders (Koesel & Bunce, 2013; Beissinger, 2007). However, more recently, scholars have shifted their focus to the diffusion of authoritarian practices (Ambrosio, 2010; Bank, 2017). The diffusion process occurs through three main mechanisms: learning, emulation, and cooperative interdependence (Bashirov et al., 2025).
Learning
The process of learning can be driven internally, where actors learn from their own experiences, evaluating and adopting innovations based on the success of prior applications. It can also be externally driven, with an external actor facilitating the learning process. The role of the external actor can range from small, such as selling or installing technological tools, to extensive, involving large-scale activities like seminars and training programs to promote a policy or practice. Using a practice framework, we focus on ‘configurations of actors’ involved in enabling authoritarianism (Michaelsen, 2018). Often, these actors are private companies rather than states.
Contrary to the perceived active role of Chinese companies, it was Western tech companies that provided most of the high-tech surveillance and censorship capabilities to authoritarian regimes in the Muslim world. Notable examples include the US-Canadian company Sandvine, the Israeli NSO Group, German FinFisher, and Finland’s Nokia Networks. Internet surveillance has been facilitated through the cooperation between adopter countries willing to purchase the technology and companies like Sandvine willing to sell it. Sandvine’s willingness is evidenced by the company’s chief technology officer, who stated, “We don’t want to play world police. We believe that each sovereign country should be allowed to set their own policy on what is allowed and what is not allowed in that country” (Gallagher, 2022).
Regarding external learning, China, along with Chinese and Western private companies, has been leading the promotion of internet censorship practices. China has become a major advocate and a learning source for middle powers in internet surveillance, data fusion, and AI. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) has become a crucial platform for these efforts. For instance, at the 2021 SCO summit, Chinese officials led a panel called the Thousand Cities Strategic Algorithms, training an international audience, including many representatives from developing countries, on creating a “national data brain” that integrates various forms of financial and personal data and employs artificial intelligence for analysis. According to the SCO website, 50 countries are involved in discussions with the Thousand Cities Strategic Algorithms initiative (Ryan-Mosley, 2022). China has also been proactive in offering media and government training programs to representatives from countries affiliated with the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). A notable example includes the Chinese Ministry of Public Security directing Meiya Pico, a Chinese cybersecurity company, to train government representatives from Turkey, Pakistan, Egypt, and other nations on digital forensics (see Weber, 2019: 9-11).
Russia is another leading source of diffusion of digital authoritarianism in the Middle East. Russia’s brazen attempts at disinformation and propaganda lend support to the emergence of digital manipulation as an acceptable practice across authoritarian countries. By demonstrating the effectiveness of disinformation campaigns and propaganda – such as Russian interference in US presidential elections in 2016 – the country has shown other regimes that similar tactics can be used to control their own populations and advance their interests (Day, 2022).
The role in the diffusion of digital authoritarian practice in the Middle East is not limited to China and Russia. Western countries, in fact, played significant roles as well. Despite Huawei’s involvement in projects like the $5 million data centre with Telecom Egypt and discussions about 5G infrastructure, Egypt has shown a preference for Western technology in its major smart city projects, like the New Administrative Capital (NAC). The adoption of urban surveillance capabilities in Egypt is thus a result of both internal and external learning mechanisms. The Sisi regime’s strategies, especially in the NAC, reflect an attempt to insulate the government from potential unrest.
US-Canadian company Sandvine/Procera has provided DPI surveillance equipment (hardware and software) to national networks operating in Egypt (Telecom Egypt). This system operates over connections between an internet site and the target user and allows the government to tamper with the data sent through an unencrypted network (HTTP vs. HTTPS). Moreover, recent revelations show that the company has played a significant role in facilitating the spread of ideas between countries. In an internal newsletter sent to employees, Sandvine Chief Technical Officer Alexander Haväng wrote Sandvine’s equipment could “show who’s talking to who, for how long, and we can try to discover online anonymous identities who’ve uploaded incriminating content online.” Through their information campaign, Sandvine contributed to learning by governments. In Egypt, the government has been using Sandvine’s devices “to block dozens of human rights, political, and news websites, including Human Rights Watch, Reporters Without Borders, Al Jazeera, Mada Masr, and HuffPost Arabic” (Marczak et al., 2018: 8).
Emulation
Emulation can be defined as “the process whereby policies diffuse because of their normative and socially constructed properties instead of their objective characteristics” (Gilardi 2012: 467). Research has shown that in complex and uncertain environments, policymakers respond by emulating the structural models of recognized leaders in the domain (Barnett & Finnemore, 2005). This behaviour is primarily driven by the pursuit of legitimacy and harmonization. International organizations, both governmental and non-governmental, play a crucial role in spreading commonly accepted standards of behaviour and organizational structures among countries.
Emulation has been significant in the diffusion of legal norms regarding internet restrictions and, to a lesser extent, in adopting Chinese urban surveillance infrastructures. Chinese corporations have established training hubs and research initiatives to disseminate expertise in artificial intelligence, internet surveillance, and digital space management (Kurlantzick, 2022). For instance, Huawei set up an OpenLab in Egypt in 2017, focusing on smart city, public safety, and smart government solutions. China has been a major promoter of the ‘safe city’ concept, which focuses on surveillance-driven policing of urban environments. This approach has been refined in many Chinese cities (Triolo, 2020). Companies such as Huawei, ZTE Corporation, Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology, Zhejiang Dahua Technology, Alibaba, and Tiandy are leading the export of this model (Yan, 2019).
Moreover, homophily, in the form of cultural and political alignment, as well as China’s emergence as an authoritarian role model, contributed to the emulation process. Homophily among actors played an important role, as actors prefer to emulate models from reference groups with whom they share similar cultural or social attributes (Elkins & Simmons, 2005). Political alignment and proximity among nations foster communication and the exchange of information (Rogers, 2010). This dynamic is observed between China and Russia and political regimes in the Muslim world including Egypt, which are susceptible to varying degrees of authoritarian governance. Loan conditionalities and trade negotiations within the context of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) have also played a role in enabling the spread of censorship and surveillance technologies from China to the Muslim world.
The Egyptian government has gathered widespread spying and phishing capabilities sourced from mostly Western companies. An obscure wing of the General Intelligence Directorate called the Technical Research Department (TRD) has purchased equipment from Finland-based Nokia-Siemens Networks (now Nokia Networks) that permits dial-up internet connection, enabling users to access the internet even if the primary national infrastructure is offline. Furthermore, Nokia Siemens Networks has provided the Egyptian government with an interception management system and a surveillance hub for fixed and mobile networks, granting the government mass surveillance capabilities to intercept phone communications (Privacy International, 2019). Another company involved in Egypt was the Italian surveillance technology company Hacking Team. In 2015, the latter was contracted by both the TRD (Technical Research Department) affiliated with Egyptian intelligence, and the Mansour Group (a conglomerate belonging to the second richest family in Egypt) to provide malware that grants the attacker complete control of the target computer (Privacy International, 2019).
In a brazen example of emulation of the practices of other authoritarian states, the Egyptian government started a widespread phishing campaign called Nile Phish in 2016 against the country’s civil society organizations implicated in the Case 173 crackdown (Scott-Railton et al., 2017). The campaign involved sending predatory emails and text messages to members of civil society to hack into their devices and accounts. An Amnesty International Report (2020) revealed that the Egyptian government used spying technology called FinSpy supplied by German company FinFisher Gmbh. FinSpy is a computer spyware suite sold exclusively to governments to monitor and intercept internet traffic, as well as to initiate phishing attacks against targeted users. FinSpy Trojan has been in use in Egypt to spy on opposition movements and enable the surveillance of political activists and journalists (ECCHR, 2023). In addition, denial-of-service (DoS) or packet injection practices are common in Egypt. For example, between May and September 2023, former Egyptian MP Ahmed Eltantawy was targeted by Cytrox’s Predator Spyware via links sent on SMS and WhatsApp. Eltantawy had announced he would be running in the 2024 presidential elections. Citizen Lab found that the network injection attack could be attributed to the Egyptian government and Sandvine’s PacketLogic product (Marczak et al., 2018).
Cooperative Interdependence
The practice of cooperative interdependence in the context of digital technologies refers to how internet censorship and surveillance are enabled through collaboration among adopting countries and state actors and private companies like Sandvine and NSO Group. Both Sandvine and NSO Group have faced significant controversy in their home countries, the US and Israel, over selling surveillance products to authoritarian regimes in the Middle East and beyond, Egypt in particular as explained in this report. NSO Group has been banned by the Israeli government from selling its products to major clients in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE (Staff, 2021). Similarly, Sandvine ceased operations in Russia following US sanctions after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and was forced to stop selling equipment to Belarus after reports revealed its technology was used by the Lukashenko regime to suppress protests in 2021 (Gallagher, 2022).
The broad process of digital authoritarian diffusion has created cooperative interdependence between the involved parties. Through cooperation with global actors, both corporate and state-level, Egyptian governments have imported sophisticated technologies enabling comprehensive internet and urban surveillance. Cooperative interdependence occurs when the policy choices of some governments create externalities that others must consider, leading to mutual benefits from adopting compatible policies (Braun & Gilardi, 2006). This dynamic incentivizes decision-makers to adopt policies chosen by others, enhancing efficiency and yielding mutual benefits. Here, China leverages its Digital Silk Road (DSR) under the BRI to promote the adoption of its technological infrastructure and accompanying surveillance and censorship policies (Hillman, 2021).
For instance, at the 2017 World Internet Conference in China, representatives from Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE signed a “Proposal for International Cooperation on the ‘One Belt, One Road’ Digital Economy” to construct the DSR, enhancing digital connectivity and e-commerce cooperation (Laskai, 2019). Core components of the DSR include smart cities, internet infrastructure, and mobile networks. Rather than forcing these countries to adopt internet censorship practices, China alters the incentive structures of BRI-connected states. Financial incentives, coupled with technology transfer, promote China’s practical approach to managing cyberspace. The DSR’s digital projects—such as 5G networks, smart cities, fibre optic cables, data centres, satellites, and connecting devices—have commercial value and strategic benefits, helping China achieve its geoeconomic and geopolitical objectives by promoting digital authoritarian practices and its internet governance model (Malena, 2021; Tang, 2020).
Conclusion
Photo: Hannu Viitanen.
This research has demonstrated the mechanisms through which digital authoritarian practices diffuse in Egypt. We found that Egypt has enacted multiple policies, including restrictive legal frameworks, internet censorship, urban surveillance, and strategic digital information operations (SDIOs), to reclaim the digital space from opposition and civil society, thereby entrenching digital authoritarianism in the country. The models adopted by the Egyptian regime closely emulate China and Russia’s paradigms of internet sovereignty and information control. China’s extensive political and economic linkages with Egypt, its strategic role in regional economies, and its leadership in forums like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) have facilitated this trend. Through initiatives such as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China has exported its digital governance model while positioning itself as a global leader in information technology (Ryan-Mosley, 2022; Weber, 2019).
The diffusion of surveillance and censorship technologies also reflects a complex learning process involving both state and corporate actors. While China has played a critical role in promoting internet censorship practices, private Western companies have equally enabled Egypt’s digital authoritarian turn. Companies such as Sandvine, NSO Group, FinFisher, and Nokia Networks have supplied surveillance infrastructure independently of state policy, a departure from conventional diffusion literature that associates such practices with national strategic interests (Gallagher, 2022; Marczak et al., 2018; Privacy International, 2019). For instance, Sandvine’s DPI technology has been used in Egypt to block dozens of news and human rights websites, while its executives openly dismiss responsibility by deferring to national sovereignty (Gallagher, 2022). This corporate-led diffusion challenges the notion that digital authoritarianism is solely state-driven and reveals an under-regulated global market in repressive technologies.
Our findings have three broader implications. First, while Chinese influence is significant, the role of Western technology firms in enabling authoritarian diffusion should not be underestimated. Their operations in Egypt have not been directly aligned with their home states’ policies, contradicting earlier findings that firms facilitating authoritarian practices often act under state guidance (Arslan, 2022). Second, these private firms are not only exporters of tools but are actively involved in implementing government-sanctioned strategies, including malware distribution and interception systems (Appuhami et al., 2011; Teets & Hurst, 2014). Third, the study identifies the mechanisms of diffusion—learning, emulation, and cooperative interdependence—as key to understanding how regimes adapt digital authoritarian tactics to shifting political and technological contexts (Braun & Gilardi, 2006; Dobbin et al., 2007; Gilardi, 2012; Strang, 1991; Kerr, 2018).
Developing states may increasingly adopt practices such as national firewalls, smart city surveillance, and social credit systems modelled on early adopters like China and Russia. As they become embedded in transnational authoritarian networks—whether through SCO summits or Digital Silk Road initiatives—these regimes are incentivized to replicate practices that strengthen regime durability and evade democratic scrutiny (Hillman, 2021; Malena, 2021; Tang, 2020; Laskai, 2019).
Given these trends, addressing the entrenchment and diffusion of digital authoritarianism requires a coordinated, multi-level response. There is an urgent need to institutionalize international cyber norms and regulations that clearly define and prohibit practices such as mass surveillance, politically motivated internet shutdowns, and spyware exports. Multilateral institutions, including the United Nations and the European Union, must lead the effort to develop enforceable standards, promote transparency, and strengthen export control regimes. This would include holding corporations accountable through mandatory human rights due diligence, transparency disclosures, and legal sanctions when they contribute to repression.
Defending digital rights also requires robust national privacy protections and support for civil society organizations operating under authoritarian conditions. These groups need financial resources, digital tools, and international solidarity to resist surveillance, educate the public, and pursue legal redress where possible. Supporting democratic actors in repressive environments is essential for countering the normalization of authoritarian digital governance.
Private companies must no longer operate in a legal and ethical vacuum. Regulatory mechanisms should ensure that firms exporting surveillance technologies are held accountable for complicity in human rights violations. Public pressure campaigns and state-level policy interventions—such as targeted sanctions or procurement restrictions—can help enforce these norms. At the same time, incentives should be offered for ethical innovation and secure technology development that supports open societies.
International cooperation among democracies must deepen through the sharing of intelligence, technologies, and best practices in countering cyber repression and disinformation. Cross-national partnerships can create rapid response frameworks to detect and disrupt strategic digital information operations. Capacity-building programs should support governments seeking to manage their digital ecosystems in ways that uphold civil liberties and protect against authoritarian creep.
Economic leverage should be strategically employed. Trade policies, investment frameworks, and development aid must be conditioned on adherence to digital rights standards. This includes shifting financial relationships away from authoritarian technology providers and toward partners committed to democratic norms. Financial institutions and donor agencies must integrate digital governance benchmarks into their programming.
Diplomacy should play a more assertive role in exposing and isolating regimes that abuse digital technologies. Bilateral engagements, international resolutions, and public diplomacy should be used to condemn repressive practices, promote digital transparency, and advocate for global standards of accountability. Countries like Egypt must be pressured to reform not only through external criticism but through coordinated global action that combines legal, economic, and diplomatic tools.
In conclusion, the diffusion of digital authoritarianism is a multi-dimensional and complex phenomenon driven by both state and corporate actors, operating through networks of learning, emulation, and cooperative interdependence. The Egyptian case exemplifies how these processes work in practice and the urgent need for a sustained, global response. Confronting this challenge will require a blend of regulation and resistance, innovation and accountability, diplomacy and solidarity. Only through such an approach can the digital realm be reclaimed as a space of freedom, rights, and democratic resilience.
Funding: This work was supported by the Gerda Henkel Foundation, AZ 01/TG/21, Emerging Digital Technologies and the Future of Democracy in the Muslim World.
Authors
Ihsan Yilmaz is Deputy Director (Research Development) of the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation (ADI) at Deakin University, where he also serves as Chair in Islamic Studies and Research Professor of Political Science and International Relations. He previously held academic positions at the Universities of Oxford and London and has a strong track record of leading multi-site international research projects. His work at Deakin has been supported by major funding bodies, including the Australian Research Council (ARC), the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, the Victorian Government, and the Gerda Henkel Foundation.
(*) Ali Mamouri is a scholar and journalist specializing in political philosophy and theology. He is currently a Research Fellow at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation at Deakin University. With an academic background, Dr. Mamouri has held teaching positions at the University of Sydney, the University of Tehran, and Al-Mustansiriyah University, as well as other institutions in Iran and Iraq. He has also taught at the Qom and Najaf religious seminaries. From 2020 to 2022, he served as a Strategic Communications Advisor to the Iraqi Prime Minister, providing expertise on regional political dynamics. Dr. Mamouri also has an extensive career in journalism. From 2016 to 2023, he was the editor of Iraq Pulse at Al-Monitor, covering key political and religious developments in the Middle East. His work has been featured in BBC, ABC, The Conversation, Al-Monitor, and Al-Iraqia State Media, among other leading media platforms. As a respected policy analyst, his notable works include “The Dueling Ayatollahs: Khamenei, Sistani, and the Fight for the Soul of Shiite Islam” (Al-Monitor) and “Shia Leadership After Sistani” (Washington Institute). Beyond academia and journalism, Dr. Mamouri provides consultation to public and private organizations on Middle Eastern affairs. He has published several works in Arabic and Farsi, including a book on the political philosophy of Muhammad Baqir Al-Sadr and research on political Salafism. Additionally, he has contributed to The Great Islamic Encyclopedia and other major Islamic encyclopedias.
(**) Shahram Akbarzadehis Convenor of Middle East Studies Forum (MESF) and Professor of International Politics, Deakin University (Australia). He held a prestigious ARC Future Fellowship (2013-2016) on the Role of Islam in Iran’s Foreign Policy-making and recently completed a Qatar Foundation project on Sectarianism in the Middle East. Professor Akbarzadeh has an extensive publication record and has contributed to the public debate on the political processes in the Middle East, regional rivalry and Islamic militancy. In 2022 he joined Middle East Council on Global Affairs as a Non-resident Senior Fellow.
(***) MuhammadOmer is a PhD student in political science at the Deakin University. His PhD is examining the causes, ideological foundations, and the discursive construction of multiple populisms in a single polity (Pakistan). His other research interests include transnational Islam, religious extremism, and vernacular security. He previously completed his bachelor’s in politics and history from the University of East Anglia, UK, and master’s in political science from the Vrije University Amsterdam.
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Marine Le Pen’s conviction for embezzling EU funds might have marked a legal defeat—but politically, it became a narrative victory. In her commentary, Julie Van Elslander explores how France’s far-right leader transformed her trial into a populist spectacle of persecution, mobilizing public anger and institutional distrust. By reframing judicial accountability as elite conspiracy, Le Pen advanced a post-truth strategy that defied factual condemnation and resonated deeply with disillusioned voters. This timely analysis illuminates the broader phenomenon of populist resilience in the face of scandal, showing how legal consequences can be strategically repurposed as political capital by populist actors within Europe’s increasingly contested democratic landscape.
By Julie Van Elslander*
Introduction
On March 31, 2025, Marine Le Pen, long-time leader of France’s far-right National Rally, was convicted by the criminal court of Paris for the misappropriation of an estimated €4.6 million in European Parliament funds (Ledroit, 2025). Sentenced to a heavy condemnation, Marine Le Pen suffered a significant legal and political blow. Yet, instead of weakening her influence or undermining her party’s credibility, the trial became a platform for Le Pen to reaffirm her political narrative. Despite legal conviction and moral discredit, the National Rally maintained political relevance by reframing the sentence as an element of political persecution – raising a question: How does a legal defeat become a populist narrative victory?
At the core, this narrative dynamic is emblematic of what scholars qualify of post-truth populism: The transformation of political culture by the devaluation of factual correctness over emotional appeal (Conrad & Hálfdanarson, 2023). In a context where public discourse is increasingly shaped by the logic of “alternative facts” – a concept introduced by Trump’s counselor in 2017 (Gajanan, 2017) – Le Pen’s trial is another example of the way post-truth populists challenge liberal democracies.
Rather than interrogating the legal dimensions of guilt or innocence, this analysis focuses on the populist discursive strategies through which Marine Le Pen’s trial was reframed in the public sphere, and how those shaped citizens’ political thinking (Aslanidis, 2016). The trial serves not simply as a juridical event, but also as a communicative site where competing narratives about power, legitimacy and truth are constructed.
The Case of Le Pen’s Trial – Facts and Only Facts
Among twenty-four others, nine ex-MEPs and twelve parliamentary assistants from the National Rally were trialed for “embezzlement of public funds” and “complicity in the embezzlement of public funds” from 2004 to 2016 (Maad, 2025). In this case, the court recognized that the European Parliament’s public funds were misappropriated in order to remunerate employees working for the party management under fictitious contracts, rather than related to the European parliamentary activity – as it is normally required for those collaborators (ibid.).
Marine Le Pen was sentenced to a €100.000 fine, two years under house arrest while wearing an electronic ankle bracelet, additional two-year suspended sentence, and five years’ ineligibility for public office with immediate effect. Le Pen’s heavy condemnation was due to what the court’s president as qualified as her “central role” in this case: “at the heart of this system since 2009, Marine Le Pen has signed up with authority and determination in the operation established by her father, in which was participating since 2004” (Dao, 2025).
Le Pen will appeal the verdict, but she will remain ineligible and could be ruled out of the 2027 presidential elections. She won’t serve the house arrest until every appeal is exhausted but the ban on running for office will be implemented immediately despite her legal challenge.
The irony of the case is striking: Marine Le Pen, who used to call for life ineligibility for elected officials convicted of embezzlement or corruption (Brault, 2025), now contests the legitimacy of her own sentence – but how does such a reversal become not a source of discredit, but a tool for reaffirming political legitimacy?
Not Guilty, Just Targeted? Le Pen’s Populist Response to Conviction
Despite her conviction, Marine Le Pen managed to maintain her political standing by discursively reframing the charges into a populist narrative of persecution and resistance. Ever since the trial’s deliberation, Le Pen has not stopped claiming her innocence, repeatedly insisting the judges were “mistaken” and reducing the issue to a simple “administrative disagreement with the European Parliament” that involved “no personal enrichment” (Marchal, 2025). Yet, the tribunal clearly stated that although the actions did not generate direct personal enrichment, they constituted serious breach of integrity and democratic principles, involving deception of both the European Parliament and voters (Sicard, 2025). By providing financial benefits to the National Rally, the stolen funds allowed it to maintain political influence and electoral advantages for over a decade (ibid.).
The judges justified the use of the ineligibility sentence and its exécution provisoire (which allows the sentence to be enforced even before an appeal), emphasizing that the defendants had expressed no recognition of their violation of the law, and the court had a duty to ensure that “elected officials, like any other subject, do not benefit from a preferential regime incompatible with the trust sought by citizens in political life” (France info, 2025). In 2023 alone, around 16.000 ineligibility sentences were issued in France, 639 of which included the exécution provisoire (France info, 2025a). While such measure is applied selectively – and in about 4% of the cases – it is far from exceptional (ibid.). Indeed, several other high-profile political figures in France, such as Nicolas Sarkozy or François Fillon, have been sentenced to ineligibility in recent years (Louis, 2025).
However, in the populist narrative, these precedents are rarely acknowledged. By using terms such as a “tyranny of the judges” (Cossard, 2025), the National Rally reinforced the idea that Le Pen is being unfairly targeted. The rhetoric implies an extraordinary sanction used to silence political opposition: the trial isn’t presented as a neutral legal process, but as the proof of a biased system – with Le Pen denouncing a “political decision,” a practice “we believed to be reserved for authoritarian regimes” (Vignal, 2025). The judiciary becomes just another part of the “elite” that is supposedly trying to stop her from acceding to the Elysée: “the system has released the nuclear bomb. If it uses such a powerful weapon against us, it is obviously because we are about to win the elections” (A.B., 2025). Here, Le Pen’s reframing does not deny the factual events themselves; rather, she strategically reinterprets them because openly acknowledging illegality could undermine her political legitimacy and moral authority.
This discursive approach fits neatly into what researchers call post-truth populism: The idea isn’t just to reject facts but to question who gets to decide what’s true in the first place(Ylä-Anttila, 2018). Populist leaders like Le Pen challenge the credibility and intentions of traditional fact-producers – such as judges, journalists or experts – to position themselves as more trustworthy (Mahmutović & Lovec, 2024). By stating that their version of facts are biased, corrupt or politically motivated, populist leaders construct alternative narratives, in which facts are selectively reinterpreted in ways that support their political agenda. The aim is not necessarily to prove their narrative is objectively true, but rather to undermine opposing ones as suspicious and irrelevant.
This type of rhetoric fits within a common populist logic, where courts and other oversight bodies are seen as tools of an unaccountable elite trying to undermine the will of the “real people” – a homogeneous group not defined by citizenship, but by symbolic alignment with the populist cause (Arato, 2017). By framing her conviction as political persecution, Le Pen not only shields herself from public blame, but also primes her supporters to view the case as of a “stolen election”.
Why Marine Le Pen Wasn’t ‘Cancelled’: Political Loyalty in a ‘Stolen’ Election
Marine Le Pen may have been convicted in court, but in the arena of public opinion, she proved to be remarkably cancel-proof. This resilience is rooted in the post-truth populist strategy that places narrative above norms, and emotional appeal above factual truth. It particularly stemmed among her supporters, for whom the verdict was seen as a symbol of political persecution, and an attempt to steal the 2027 election – a narrative that quickly found concrete expression in public reactions. On March 31, 2025, a few hours after Le Pen’s conviction, a French national news broadcast captured street interviews where multiple citizens reacted with shock and outrage, describing the verdict as “personal” and a way to “take her out” of the presidential race (TF1info, 2025).
An online petition launched by National Rally, titled “Save democracy, save Marine” (Rassemblement National, 2025) rapidly gathered thousands of signatures and rallied support over social media, but its message was not just about supporting Le Pen – it was about defending her voters’ rights. In an open letter promoting the petition, Jordan Bardella, the young president of the National Rally, described the conviction as an attack against voters: “They are trying to prevent a candidacy supported by millions of French people, which is well ahead in all the polls. They deprive millions of voters of their choice and therefore their freedom” (Krupa, 2025). This sense of disenfranchisement was further amplified at a public rally held a week later, during which Bardella addressed the crowd and further defended Le Pen as a candidate of the people, framing her conviction as an attempt to prevent the National Rally from acceding to power (ibid.). The conviction, as he claimed, was not just about her but about the right of French voters to choose their leader. The rally became a platform where Le Pen was portrayed not only as a victim but as a representative of silenced voters.
This narrative fits the typical populist discourse, which emerges from a perceived failure of representation (Rosanvallon, 2020) and frames political reality as a fundamental conflict between a corrupted elite and the common people, “whose mobilization is presented as the only solution” (Aslanidis, 2016) to regain sovereignty. Here, the mobilization efforts are largely symbolic: Neither a petition nor public rally could change the judicial outcome, as courts are not influenced by popularity. However, their aim is to reinforce the idea that the verdict is unjust, judicial independence compromised and that the electors are the true victims of this case. Those efforts function as political and social tools – not legal ones – allowing Le Pen’s supporters to transform outrage into collective action, and to signal strength and solidarity.
This is a key aspect of post-truth populism: The National Rally’s version of events is framed as more authentic because it taps into a deeper, widespread sense of institutional distrust (Harsin, 2024). When ordinary citizens feel that traditional institutions no longer represent them fairly, populist leaders like Le Pen often claim to embody the will of the people directly, calling for diverse forms of direct democracy (ibid.). Within this logic, portraying Le Pen’s sentence as exceptional and biased doesn’t require evidence – it simply needs to fit the broader story that her supporters believe: That she, like them, is being unfairly treated by a system that no longer serves them.
Yet, while this narrative mobilized Le Pen’s supporters within France, the impact of her conviction also reverberated beyond national borders, sparking polarized reactions at the European level.
A European Issue with Global Repercussions
With the National Rally’s discourse focusing on national stakes, the European legal affair was reframed as a national political issue. That is, in part, due to the nature of the European Union’s legal proceedings. Even though the European Parliament’s public funds are distributed through the institutions, MEPs are elected nationally and therefore reside within national jurisdiction. The investigation was first opened by the OLAF – the European Anti-Fraud Office, an independent entity – in 2014 (Bouquet, 2025), but criminal prosecution and sentencing remained the responsibility of national courts. Although the matter originated at the European level, with the European Parliament lifting Le Pen’s immunity following a referral to French authorities, the fact that the trial was handled nationally contributed to the widespread perception that it was a purely domestic affair. This procedural pathway ultimately placed the case within a broader discursive shift, reframing the trial as a French political controversy – judges, media and legal discourse – all nationally situated.
Moreover, the French discourse largely undermined the collective European harm caused by the embezzlement. While the European Parliament – the civil plaintiff in the case – announced it “took note” of the decision and declined to comment further, Le Pen’s conviction quickly gathered support among fellow populist leaders, particularly from far-right figure such as Viktor Orbán, Matteo Salvini, and Donald Trump. Orbán expressed direct solidarity by stating “Je suis Marine!” – a phrase typically used to express support and mourning for victims – while Salvini denounced the verdict as a “declaration of war by Brussels” (Les Echos, 2025). Trump compared Le Pen’s legal troubles to his own, labeling it a “witch hunt” and accusing European elites of using the judiciary to silence political opposition (Le Monde, 2025).
These international endorsements were not merely supportive gesture; they became central elements of the populist narrative surrounding Le Pen’s case. While the trial was framed in France as a part of a broader struggle between national sovereignty and a hostile elite, this international support further cast her as a symbol of resistance against a corrupt system – reinforcing the idea of a national and European political conspiracy targeting her.
The same divisive framing extended into the European Parliament itself. During the plenary session held shortly after the verdict, several Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) from the Patriots for Europe group – Le Pen’s European political family – expressed their support for Le Pen, condemning the conviction as undemocratic and broadly questioning the state of the rule of law in Europe. Hungarian MEP András László notably accused the “Brussels elite” of trying to “legally sabotage a far-right politician” because of her patriotism and opposition to a “globalist elite” (European Parliament, 2025) – aligning with the narrative of persecution. In contrast, MEPs from other political groups welcomed the conviction as a critical step in combating corruption within the institution. German MEP Daniel Freund notably qualified the Le Pen’s actions as “the biggest fraud case in the history of the European Parliament” (ibid.).
This polarized reaction within the European Parliament highlighted the trial’s dual nature: Legally, it was a case of embezzlement involving European funds, but politically, it became a battleground over competing narratives. For Le Pen’s allies, it symbolized a struggle against an oppressive European elite; for her critics, it was a long-overdue act of accountability.
Indeed, Le Pen’s case comes within the broader context of corruption scandals that have been shaking the European Parliament itself. The Qatargate scandal in 2022, involving allegations of bribes paid by Qatar to influence European lawmakers, and the Huawei case in 2023, where Chinese lobbying was accused of seeking favorable policies through financial incentives, exposed the vulnerability of European institutions to corruption. These scandals not only undermined the Parliament’s authority as a democratic institution of EU decision-making but also deepened the citizens’ distrust in EU governance – a distrust that populists are quick to weaponize.
Conclusion
The Le Pen case is more than a legal scandal – it is a test of the resilience of European institutions against populist narratives that thrive on distrust. It is not merely about one politician reframing her conviction as persecution; it is a case study in how a legal process can be transformed into a battleground of competing truths. At its core, this case reveals a deeper conflict between factual accountability and symbolic politics.
Ultimately, the stakes go beyond Le Pen herself. The crisis of trust she has exploited is part of a broader European problem. As Qatargate and the Huawei scandal have shown, European institutions are not immune to corruption, and this vulnerability has fueled perceptions of institutional hypocrisy. It is this perceived hypocrisy that populist leaders weaponize, transforming legitimate accountability efforts into narratives of persecution. Ultimately, the Le Pen case is a message of political legitimacy: In an era of post-truth populism, the verdict in court may matter less than the verdict in public opinion.
(*) Julie Van Elslander is a double master’s student in European Governance (Sciences Po Grenoble) and Politics and Public Administration (Universität Konstanz), with a strong interest in how democracies respond to challenges like populism, post-truth politics, and institutional distrust. She has contributed to European-level research projects on political communication, corruption, and democratic accountability, and currently works as a research intern at the Center of International Relations (University of Ljubljana).
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In this timely and thought-provoking interview, Dr. Ibrahim Al-Marashi explores how authoritarianism has become “the new normal” in the Middle East amid a global retreat from democratic norms. Speaking to the ECPS, Dr. Al-Marashi analyzes the region’s complex landscape shaped by imperial legacies, resource politics, and shifting global alliances. He highlights how populist rhetoric, digital platforms, and transactional diplomacy—especially under Trump-era politics—are empowering authoritarian leaders and weakening democratic institutions. While civil society faces mounting repression, Dr. Al-Marashi suggests that digital activism and “artivism” may offer spaces of survival and resistance. This interview provides essential insight into how populism and authoritarianism intersect in the Middle East—and what that means for the future of governance in the region.
In an era marked by the erosion of liberal democratic norms and the global resurgence of authoritarian tendencies, Dr. Ibrahim Al-Marashi—Associate Professor at Department of History, California State University, San Marcos—offers a timely and incisive analysis of the Middle East’s evolving political landscape. In an in-depth interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Dr. Al-Marashi argues that “authoritarianism has become normalized—it’s now the prevailing norm,” particularly in a world increasingly shaped by populist and transactional leadership.
Drawing from historical legacies and contemporary global shifts, Dr. Al-Marashi underscores how imperial interference and resource wealth have long laid the groundwork for authoritarian populism in the region. “Hydrocarbons enable political elites to generate revenue without relying on taxation,” he explains, allowing regimes to distribute wealth in ways that bypass democratic accountabilityand reinforce autocratic control. He connects this dynamic to broader regional patterns, noting that even militant groups such as ISIS have employed populist strategies by attempting to dismantle colonial-era bordersand mobilize transnational support.
Dr. Al-Marashi highlights the impact of shifting global power dynamics, particularly the rise of multipolarity and the influence of Trumpism, in undermining democratic aspirations. With the US retreating from its rhetorical commitment to democracy, populist-authoritarian leaders find renewed legitimacy. “If the US is adopting these behaviors,” he argues, “this is the new norm—this is the future.” This sets a precedent for regimes that increasingly embrace personalistic and sultanistic rule, with little concern for liberal democratic values.
Transactional diplomacy, particularly under Trump, has also reshaped regional alliances. Dr. Al-Marashi notes that such diplomacy empowers authoritarian actors like Netanyahu, while simultaneously emboldening sectarian militias and weakening traditional state structures. “It’s a double-edged sword—quite literally,” he remarks, especially when it comes to balancing regional power plays and proxy conflicts in places like Syria, Iraq, and Yemen.
While the picture appears bleak, Dr. Al-Marashi also points to the resilience of digital resistance. He suggests that civil society and democratizing efforts may survive—if not flourish—through digital activism and what he terms “artivism.” In a region where the state has often failed to provide basic services, digital spaces may serve as the last frontier for democratic imagination and mobilization.
This interview captures the complexity of a region grappling with entrenched authoritarianism amid a globally permissive environment—and offers critical insights into how populist movements and power politics intersect in the 21st century Middle East.
Here is the lightly edited transcript of the interview with Dr. Ibrahim Al-Marashi.
Imperial Legacies and Oil Wealth Laid the Foundation for Authoritarian Populism in the Middle East
Oil pump jack in the desert of Bahrain. Photo: Dreamstime.
Professor Ibrahim Al-Marashi, thank you very much for joining our interview series. Let me start right away with the first question: What historical and socio-political conditions in Iraq and the broader Middle East have laid the groundwork for the rise of populist authoritarianism in the region?
Dr. Ibrahim Al-Marashi: The obvious factors are imperial interference and hydrocarbons—oil and gas. The involvement of foreign powers, whether Britain or the US, consistently provides a convenient enemy to rally against. Meanwhile, hydrocarbons enable political elites to generate revenue without relying on taxation. This, in turn, enhances populism, as the revenues can be distributed directly through large-scale projects that bolster support for figures like Saddam Hussein—or any other authoritarian leader—not only in Iraq but across the region.
How have legacies of colonialism, militarization, and post-conflict governance contributed to the entrenchment of populist and authoritarian leadership styles in the Middle East?
Dr. Ibrahim Al-Marashi: In the case of Iraq, the British were always a convenient target to rally against. In other states ruled by France, for example, populations could similarly rally against the legacy of the colonial power. Even if you look at ISIS as a kind of populist and terrorist group, its goal of dismantling borders was an attempt to mobilize the masses—not just in the Middle East, but across the entire Muslim world. Saddam Hussein framed the invasion of Kuwait as an effort to erase borders established by British colonialism, making it a similarly convenient rallying point. And then, let’s not forget the United States. In the case of the Houthis, for instance, their appeal extends not only beyond Yemen but throughout the region, as they are perceived as one of the last groups seeking agency in a region largely shaped by US control. This is the legacy: there are concrete historical borders that have divided communities, but there is also, in the collective imagination, a persistent target around which to rally.
Authoritarianism Has Become the New Norm—This Is the Future
From a populism perspective, how are shifting global power dynamics — especially the rise of multipolarity and the return of a nationalist, transactional Trump administration — shaping authoritarian resilience and weakening democratic aspirations in the Middle East? In what ways might these trends bolster authoritarian populist movements across the region?
Dr. Ibrahim Al-Marashi: Authoritarianism has become normalized—it’s now the prevailing norm. Even though the US has often behaved in authoritarian ways, it at least used to pay lip service to the promotion of democratic governance around the world. I think that facade has now been abandoned. As a result, populist leaders can more or less say, “Look, if the US is adopting these behaviors, this is the new norm—this is the future.”
Even in the case of Russia, there appears to be, at the very least, a personalistic rapprochement—a relationship based more on the closeness of individual leaders than shared values. The emerging regime type in this multipolar world is personalistic—what you might call sultanistic—drawing on the term “Sultan,” as used by the academic Houchang Chehabi.
If that’s the case, then there is no longer a democratic model to aspire to. This increasingly looks like the wave of the future—the future of governance.
How has the populist rhetoric of the Trump administrations—particularly their framing of “radical Islam” and their regional double standards—impacted the legitimacy of state institutions and non-state actors in Iraq and the broader Middle East?
Dr. Ibrahim Al-Marashi: In this case, there are two dynamics at play. This ties back to your earlier question about transactional foreign policy. If Trump makes a deal with Iran over its nuclear program—well, the Iraqi Shia militias are essentially mass mobilization forces for the Shia population, and much of that mobilization is supported by Iran. If Iran enters negotiations with the US, it would have less incentive to continue backing those militias. That’s one example involving non-state actors.
Then there’s the other paradox: an escalation of the war against the Houthis in Yemen. Iran might choose to rein them in, but if not, the Houthis may continue attacking Red Sea shipping as a consequence of these ongoing tensions. This illustrates how transactionalism, populism, and non-state actors intersect in the region.
Transactional Diplomacy Fuels Sectarian Populism
Shiite fighters take position in the Shia village of Al-Zahra, Syria, amid intense clashes involving Hezbollah. Photo: Ibrahim Khader / Pacific Press.
Could the Trump administration’s emphasis on transactional diplomacy further embolden sectarian and ethnic populism in conflict zones like Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and how?
Dr. Ibrahim Al-Marashi: Not okay—on two levels. Transactional diplomacy with Netanyahu might embolden him to act unilaterally in Syria and Lebanon, and perhaps even as far as Yemen. Israel’s actions in these areas could fuel sectarianism in several ways: it could lead to a resurgence of Hezbollah in Lebanon, embolden the Houthis, and prompt Israel to use the Syrian Druze minority as a proxy. That’s one pathway through which sectarianism might be intensified.
Israel might also be emboldened to target Iraq’s Shia militias, which are part of the so-called “axis of resistance.”
On the other hand, if this transactional diplomacy were to result in a grand bargain with Iran, those same actors might be reined in.
So it’s a double-edged sword—quite literally—in terms of how this foreign policy could shape the region.
In your view, how does the militarization of politics via militias such as The Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) reflect populist strategies of political mobilization in the Middle East, especially in terms of bypassing traditional democratic institutions and appealing to ‘the people’?
Dr. Ibrahim Al-Marashi: The PMU is really a broad body of militias. A good number of them first emerged to resist the US occupation of Iraq. Initially, I don’t think it was about bypassing democratic institutions. Many were mobilized because Ayatollah Sistani was able to rally the masses in response to the ISIS threat.
The way they later contributed to undermining institutions in Iraq was by becoming a parallel force to the Iraqi military, and eventually by playing a role against the protests that called for better governance and technocratic rule.
So it’s complicated. The Popular Mobilization Units emerged in response to the occupation, later served as Iranian proxies, then fought against ISIS, and eventually remained as a force that prevented the Iraqi military from maintaining a monopoly on violence—borrowing from Max Weber’s concept.
Again, we’re at an inflection point. I think it all hinges on a potential deal with Iran: whether these militias will be reined in and subsumed into the army or the security sector, or whether they will continue to act as spoilers to Iraq’s post-conflict governance structure.
When the State Fails, Militias Become the Security Provider
Mahdi Scouts boys during a funeral ceremony in Jannata, southern Lebanon, on February 9, 2017, for a Hezbollah military commander killed in the Syrian war. Photo: Nabil Kassir.
Considering your work on COVID-19 and militia reinvention, how do crises (like pandemics or conflicts) serve as opportunities for populist-authoritarian actors in the Middle East to entrench power under the guise of serving ‘the people’—and how might this intensify under a second Trump presidency?
Dr. Ibrahim Al-Marashi: Take the case of the pandemic—and I’ll give you an example closer to home, where I am in San Diego. When COVID hit Mexico, you had drug cartels, like those formerly under Guzmán (El Chapo), distributing medical kits—such as masks and water—to people affected by COVID-19. In other words, when the Mexican security sector failed and the health sector also failed, these non-state actors filled the void. They became both the security and health sectors.
That’s exactly what happened with COVID-19 in the Middle East—in places like Lebanon, Yemen, and Iraq. It was the Houthis, Hezbollah, and the Shia militias that were disinfecting public spaces, distributing masks, and so on. What these places have in common is the collapse of the security sector. As Max Weber said, when the state no longer holds a legitimate monopoly on violence, non-state actors step in and become both the security and health providers.
This is ultimately an indictment of the weak health sectors in those societies. But the weak health sector is a reflection of a weak security sector—you don’t have an army capable of enforcing the state’s monopoly on violence. When the state is unable to provide basic services—what we call biopower, the ability to keep the population alive—you get necropolitics instead. That’s when the state is too weak to deliver health services, and violent non-state actors—cartels or militias—step in to fill the void.
How do Middle Eastern regimes employ especially Islamist populist rhetoric domestically to justify authoritarian practices, especially in an international environment increasingly tolerant of illiberal governance?
Dr. Ibrahim Al-Marashi: Islamist rhetoric is by definition an attempt to mobilize the masses through faith. When governance fails, you turn to divine governance to justify authority and appeal to the imagination. That’s how I would see it. It’s similar to using anti-colonial rhetoric—it’s more or less an appeal to the masses. When the public has very little faith in the structures that govern them, this is where Islamist rhetoric steps in to fill the gap.
Every Power Is Backing Proxies—Democracy Is No Longer the Goal
What role do you foresee for regional actors (such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Turkey) playing in either reinforcing authoritarianism or providing openings for democratic movements under these new global conditions?
Dr. Ibrahim Al-Marashi: You know, in that regional mix, I would also add Israel—and this is a post-October 7th development. I’ll tell you why. In 2011, during the Arab Spring, for the first time in the region’s history, the US more or less refrained from intervening in the fate of regimes. It allowed the regime of Hosni Mubarak, a longtime ally, to fall. In that vacuum, Saudi Arabia and Iran engaged in a regional cold war, with Turkey also entering the mix. It became, in effect, a three-way conflict.
What followed was a regional cold war accompanied by counter-revolutionary dynamics. One of those counter-revolutionary tendencies eventually prevailed. Turkey, Iran, and Saudi Arabia each chose sides—supporting different counter-revolutionary or revisionist forces. These rivalries played out through proxy conflicts.
Now, after October 7th, Israel has entered the fray.
So the region today looks very different from the era of Arab Spring optimism. Every major power is backing proxies to serve its own interests. And this is especially evident in Syria.
If you want to understand how four actors are shaping Syria’s future: Turkey is deeply invested in the current Syrian government; Israel is working to expand its presence; Saudi Arabia is wiping away Syria’s debts; and Iran is trying to preserve the influence it has lost. None of these four powers are interested in a transition to democratic governance in Syria. All are focused on maintaining their respective spheres of influence. In that sense, each is likely to reinforce autocratic tendencies. They are more inclined to back warlords as proxies than to support any meaningful democratic transition.
Given the historical reliance of Middle Eastern authoritarian regimes on external patrons, how might a US foreign policy under Trump 2.0 reshape alliances, especially with regimes facing internal legitimacy crises?
Dr. Ibrahim Al-Marashi: I think the best case in point is how close the Trump administration was to Saudi Arabia.So it might try, in a second term, a strategy of offshore balancing—essentially carving out spheres of influence in a multipolar system and telling Saudi Arabia: “We’re not really concerned about your human rights issues, but you maintain order in the Gulf.”
The US would provide as many weapons as needed, and of course, Trump would say, “You have to pay for them,” to boost his standing domestically. But the message would be: it’s your job to be the policeman in the Gulf. That’s what I mean by offshore balancing.
The same approach would likely apply to Israel. That doesn’t bode well for the future of Palestinian governance, and Saudi Arabia would have little incentive to address human rights issues—as long as it continues to receive a blank check from Washington.
Authoritarianism Is Not Just Tolerated—The Masses Are Seen to Want It
Protest march in Beirut against Lebanon bombing by Israel. Photo: Sadık Gulec.
Could the erosion of liberal democratic norms in the West, accelerated by populist leaders like Trump, provide ideological “cover” for Middle Eastern populist-authoritarian leaders? How?
Dr. Ibrahim Al-Marashi: Absolutely—especially now that the US doesn’t even go through the motions of paying lip service to human rights.
From the perspective of international relations theory—specifically constructivism—a new norm has been constructed: not only can authoritarian governance be tolerated, but the masses actually want it. It’s no accident that the masses elected someone like Trump. Or, to go further, take the case of El Salvador—you have another kind of authoritarian-populist leader who is more or less aligned with the Trump administration’s approach.
And I think that’s become a model for the rest of the world. Regimes can now say: not only does the US want strongman leadership, but you—the people—want it too. Because a strong hand gets things done.
In what ways might regional populist movements exploit global discourses of “national sovereignty” and “anti-globalism,” championed by Trumpism, to consolidate authoritarian rule?
Dr. Ibrahim Al-Marashi: When you talk about discourses and global dynamics, there’s an important element here called digital populism. All of this is enabled because politics now also occurs on a digital plane. More or less, digital platforms have become a way for authoritarian regimes to bypass traditional media structures and appeal directly to the masses—especially in cases where traditional media has not yet been fully co-opted by authoritarian leaders. So, to answer your question, digital populism is the key. It’s the mechanism through which these discourses become normalized and reach mass audiences.
Exclusion, Not Sectarianism, Is the Real Threat
Given the weakening of traditional international pressure for democratization, do you foresee populist movements in the Middle East mutating toward more overt forms of sectarianism, ethno-nationalism, or exclusionary politics?
Dr. Ibrahim Al-Marashi: I would say more toward exclusionary politics. And here’s why: if we look at this in terms of ethno-sectarianism, I wonder if the region has been exhausted by those challenges. Let me explain what I mean. At one point, the so-called “axis of resistance” included Persian Twelver Shia Iran; Arab Twelver Shia militias in Iraq; an Arab Alawite regime in Syria; Arab Twelver Shia Hezbollah; Zaydi Shia Houthis in Yemen; and Arab Sunni Islamist groups like Islamic Jihad and Hamas. Of course, that axis of resistance has been dealt a very heavy blow in recent years. But the fact that such an ideologically diverse coalition could form makes me question whether the ethno-sectarian frame has been over-fetishized. There are other, more complex realities on the ground.
I think ethnic and sectarian identities are securitized—that is, they are instrumentalized when convenient for those in power, and then abandoned when such divisions no longer serve political interests. So, if that’s the case, I see the trajectory more in terms of exclusionary politics. Populism becomes a mask to mobilize the masses—but always at the expense of issue-based politics and inclusive governance. Those who are excluded often include civil society actors, journalists, and ethnic minorities, for example.
In a context where Western powers show declining interest in promoting democracy abroad, is there still space for bottom-up democratization efforts in the Middle East, or are we entering a phase of entrenched authoritarianism?
Dr. Ibrahim Al-Marashi: I don’t think they’re mutually exclusive. We are indeed facing entrenched authoritarianism, but I would also say—thinking back to digital populism—that if authoritarianism is being entrenched through digital means, then perhaps bottom-up approaches can also survive through digital spaces.
I’m thinking, for example, of the digital hacktivist collective Anonymous. During the Arab Spring, when various regimes tried to crush protests, Anonymous hacked into state systems in support of the protesters. That’s just one example.
Because, of course, ideas can’t be killed, right? And the one sphere that hasn’t been fully subsumed by the state is still the digital realm. I think that’s where these democratic ideas and efforts can continue to exist.
Does that necessarily translate into on-the-ground resistance? That has yet to be seen. But at this particular inflection point, I believe that’s where the ideas will, at the very least, find refuge.
If Silence Is Spreading in the US, Imagine How Much Worse It Is in the Middle East
And finally, Professor Al-Marashi, considering the weakening of global democratic norms, how can civil society actors in the Middle East adapt their strategies for resistance and survival amid a more authoritarian-friendly international environment?
Dr. Ibrahim Al-Marashi: Again, I refer to my previous answer. I think, at the end of the day, these groups might survive digitally. They’ll be able to organize online. But to be honest, if you look at how the region has been transformed since 2011, it does not look good. So many of these actors are barely surviving.
At the end of the day, the ideas might persist—through digital activism, through art, through artivism.
But I’m speaking from the US, where even here, the ability to speak openly—on campuses, for example—is being threatened. If I can sense a wave of silence coming here, I can only imagine how much worse it must be in the Middle East.
“The more rigid the regime becomes, the more easily it may break,” warns Dr. Spyros Sofos in an illuminating interview with ECPS. Tracing the Erdogan regime’s shift from reformist Islamism to a personalized authoritarianism, Dr. Sofos highlights how the dismantling of institutional checks and grassroots engagement has deepened Turkey’s democratic crisis. He sharply critiques the EU and US for enabling this drift, arguing that their silence—rooted in strategic pragmatism over refugee control and regional stability—amounts to tacit complicity. As Erdogan’s rule grows more centralized and brittle, Dr. Sofos suggests its very inflexibility could be its undoing. Amid repression and international complacency, he insists, spaces for resistance persist—and the next rupture may come from within the regime itself.
In a timely and far-reaching interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Dr. Spyros Sofos—Assistant Professor in Global Humanities at Simon Fraser University—offers a deeply informed and critical analysis of the Erdogan regime’s evolution into an increasingly rigid and personalized form of authoritarian populism. “The more rigid the regime becomes,” Dr. Sofos warns, “the more easily it may break.” Far from being a sign of consolidated power, he argues, the regime’s escalation of repression—most recently with the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu—betrays deep insecurity and structural fragility within a system that has steadily dismantled institutional checks and blurred distinctions between state, party, and judiciary.
Dr. Sofos traces how the AKP’s early reformist stance, driven in part by strategic engagement with European institutions, gave way to a calculated centralization of power following institutional resistance from the military and judiciary. He explores the AKP’s ideological recalibration—through religious nationalism, neo-Ottoman nostalgia, and pan-Turkic outreach—as a tactical means to expand and solidify its coalition amid economic turmoil and intra-Islamist fragmentation.
Yet just as trenchant is his critique of the European Union and the broader West, whose response to Turkey’s democratic backsliding has been marked by passivity and strategic self-interest. “Effectively, what the EU and the US have been doing is wanting Turkey to ensure that the masses of displaced people within its territory would not move towards the West,” he states bluntly. In prioritizing border control, security cooperation, and transactional diplomacy over democratic principles, Western powers have turned a blind eye to the regime’s authoritarian escalation—signaling tacit approval through their silence. Dr. Sofos calls out this hypocrisy, echoing Imamoglu’s own condemnation of European leaders for abandoning not just him personally, but the very idea of democracy in Turkey.
He also warns that the West’s failure to push back meaningfully against Erdogan’s authoritarian turn—driven by domestic electoral concerns and geopolitical calculus—risks normalizing the erosion of democracy, both in Turkey and beyond. With comparative insights from Hungary, India, and Israel, Dr. Sofos situates the Turkish case within a wider global trend of populist-authoritarian drift, but insists that this is not a one-way trajectory. The regime’s internal contradictions, coupled with mounting grassroots resistance and international hypocrisy fatigue, may yet create opportunities for democratic renewal.
This interview is not only a sobering account of democratic decline in Turkey, but also a compelling indictment of Western complacency in the face of it.
Here is the lightly edited transcript of the interview with Dr. Spyros Sofos.
Ottoman Nostalgia as a Tool of Populist Reinvention
Supporters await the arrival of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at a referendum rally in Istanbul on April 8, 2017. Photo: Thomas Koch.
Professor Sofos, thank you very much for joining our interview series. Let me start right away with the first question: How do you interpret the Erdoğan regime’s mobilization of Ottoman nostalgia in both domestic and international contexts as part of a broader populist-authoritarian narrative?
Dr. Spyros Sofos: Thank you for having me. That’s a very interesting question, as there has been considerable discussion about neo-Ottomanism and the broader concept of Ottoman nostalgia. I believe the Erdogan regime needed a narrative that could effectively counter the one developed by the Kemalist regime over the past century. This new narrative serves several purposes.
The first is linked to the regime’s reinterpretation of history—particularly evident in debates around the reconversion of Hagia Sophia and other Christian monuments. Erdogan’s government has framed the Justice and Development Party (AKP) constituency as victims whose sovereignty was denied under the Republic for 100 years. In that context, a return to Ottoman nostalgia becomes a way of reclaiming a past where, ostensibly, there was more sovereignty and the people were heard. This re-imagined past helps construct an alternative vision of popular sovereignty, centered around the AKP’s base—and, I would argue, much of the nationalist constituency as well.
The second reason relates more to the interests the current leadership perceives as central to Turkey’s role both domestically and internationally, as well as to the political elite’s own strategic goals. For example, we see Ottoman nostalgia being used in foreign policy to justify, or at least lend legitimacy to, expanded relationships with countries that Turkey sees as pivotal—not only in its immediate region but also across Africa.
A striking example is Turkey’s presence in the Sahel and West Africa. The invocation of Ottoman-era connections is used to frame Turkey’s involvement in countries like Somalia—not only in humanitarian terms but as part of a broader strategic interest, grounded in a historical narrative of Ottoman reach. This is, of course, a very flexible interpretation of history, but one that the regime has used effectively.
This pattern also applies to Turkey’s outreach in the Balkans—something that began under Turgut Ozal. In countries like Bosnia, North Macedonia, and Albania, there’s a strong emphasis on rekindling historical and cultural kinship, often under the umbrella of shared Ottoman heritage.
Interestingly, the outreach to Central Asia—while unrelated to the Ottoman Empire—is also wrapped into this broader narrative. This connection seems driven either by economic interests or by a pan-Turkic nationalism that predates the AKP. So while neo-Ottomanism features prominently in both domestic and foreign policy, the regime also draws on other strands of historical memory to shape its identity and strategy.
From Reform to Repression: The Strategic Evolution of Political Islam under the AKP
How has political Islamism under the AKP evolved from a reformist or counter-hegemonic force into an ideological tool for authoritarian consolidation and state-led populism?
Dr. Spyros Sofos: I think that’s an important question. Political Islam—broadly speaking—had long been under threat from Turkey’s military, judiciary, and bureaucratic institutions before the AKP’s first electoral victory. In those earlier years, Islamist politicians were cautious in how they criticized the state and its institutions.
In the first five or so years of the AKP government, we saw what some scholars have called a “politics of patience”—a cautious, incremental approach to reform. There were several reasons for this. First, the AKP sought to emphasize its commitment to European institutions and to the broader European integration project. As such, it had to present itself as a genuinely reformist party.
While it may sound a bit cynical to frame it this way, this positioning made it much harder for the military and judiciary to halt the AKP’s political momentum. After all, the AKP was arguably the most pro-European and pro-reform force in Turkish politics at the time. Any attempt to stop it would likely have triggered significant Western backlash, possibly even sanctions. With hindsight, I now see this as a carefully calculated strategy. At the time, I was quite hopeful—thinking that this opening could bridge the divide between the “old regime” and the emerging Islamic-oriented political elite. But in retrospect, it seems it was more about ensuring the survival and viability of Erdogan’s political project.
The so-called “e-coup” during the 2007 presidential election, when Abdullah Gul’s candidacy was being obstructed by military and judicial actors, marked a turning point. This intervention allowed Erdogan and his allies to pivot from their cautious stance to a more confrontational and assertive posture.
So, while the AKP initially positioned itself as reformist out of necessity, the institutional resistance it faced—particularly from the army and judiciary—created an opening for it to strike back sooner than it might have otherwise. And unfortunately, this shift happened at a time when civil society lacked the strength to act as an effective check on power.
Islamist Nationalism Rebranded: Survival Politics in Erdogan’s Turkey
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan watching the August 30 Victory Day Parade in Ankara, Turkey on August 30, 2014. Photo by Mustafa Kirazli.
Do the regime’s increasingly religious-nationalist narratives reflect a deeper radicalization or strategic recalibration—and to what extent do these still resonate with the AKP’s traditional base amid economic hardship and intra-Islamist fragmentation?
Dr. Spyros Sofos: That’s one of the most interesting and challenging questions I’ve had to think about over the past couple of years. I believe we need to complicate the idea of the AKP as simply an “Islamist” party, full stop. It’s something more complex—and its ideology has evolved, largely in response to shifting constituencies that it needs to mobilize for political survival.
Over the years, we’ve seen alliances like the one with the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and Devlet Bahceli, which introduced a significant nationalist component into the AKP’s political orbit. Most recently, in the 2023 presidential elections, we witnessed a major push to win over nationalist voters. While Islam isn’t necessarily incompatible with nationalist currents in Turkey, this required the AKP to recalibrate its discourse in a way that differed substantially from its earlier messaging.
The party continues to promote a form of nationalism infused with Islamic elements, but it’s no longer offering the same vision as in the early 2000s. It’s certainly not a reincarnation of Alparslan Turkes-style nationalism either—but it has shown a willingness to experiment with different formulations of Turkish nationalism in order to appeal to broader political forces and secure electoral dominance.
This ideological flexibility is significant. Some of the intellectual figures in the AKP’s broader sphere of influence now engage with strands of nationalist thought that were previously absent from Islamist political discourse in Turkey.
At the same time, I don’t believe Islam has been displaced from the core of the AKP’s identity. But it has never been the only element. From the beginning, the party positioned itself as a voice for the downtrodden—regardless of their level of religiosity or piety. It’s always sought to build a broader coalition, and I think that remains true today.
In your work on the Gezi Protests, you emphasized the significance of bottom-up resistance. How do the dynamics of current mass protests compare to the 2013 Gezi movement in terms of ideological coherence, regime response, and potential for catalyzing long-term democratic transformation?
Dr. Spyros Sofos: That’s also the million-dollar question. So let me just try to unpack a few things about Gezi. I think Gezi was unique in the sense that it was not a movement that wanted to change a government. It was not aspiring to play a political role in the way, for example, that political parties would. And I think that was the secret behind its success and its failure at the same time. So it was a movement about bringing some sort of freedom into what Habermas would have called the life-world.
It was a movement that was against the policing of everyday life, people’s bodies, people’s relationship with nature, and so on. And of course, it had a political emphasis, which is the element of continuity. So it was a different movement, but there was also an emphasis on change—not necessarily governmental change—that I can see today in the mobilizations that have been taking place, especially after the arrest of Imamoglu recently.
What has changed, I think, and what is quite interesting to bear in mind, is that the mobilizations of today, at least in my reading, have not been as unplanned as the mobilizations of Gezi. You know, most people—I interviewed people—said, “I went there because I felt something was happening, and I needed to be part of it.” Today, many people may be thinking that something is happening and they need to be part of it—but I think Imamoglu himself, who is a very astute politician, had been preparing for this moment, and therefore he had ensured that there would be some sort of planning for what happens after his arrest or incapacitation.
We see that also in the fact that he’s been able to communicate out of jail fairly easily, that he managed to publish in international media quite articulate articles that could not have been scribbled at the last minute. And also, we have a change within the CHP that has allowed the party to be more able to mobilize people in support of democratic change.
I’m not trying to say that there is something sinister about this. I’m trying to say that there is a spirit of Gezi in the air—I can see that—but there is also more of a relationship between the current mobilizations and the political parties of the opposition that want to see democratic change.
Imamoglu’s Arrest Signals the Cracking Façade of Competitive Authoritarianism
To what extent does the arrest of Ekrem Imamoglu mark a definitive rupture in Turkey’s evolution from competitive authoritarianism toward full-fledged autocracy—and does it reflect a broader erosion of political pluralism?
Dr. Spyros Sofos: I was always cautious about Imamoglu, because I really consider him a very astute politician—a politician who is not authoritarian per se, but who has realized that a kind of populism—which I find, I’m always suspicious of populism—was the means of defeating Erdogan. And I was always arguing that Imamoglu may be one of the best hopes of defeating Erdogan, but not populism. But that’s a fine detail we can talk about later.
So, I think that definitely the arrest of Imamoglu, his lawyers, and a lot of his collaborators is an important damage inflicted on the prospects of a more pluralistic political scene in Turkey.
Imamoglu, during his time as Istanbul mayor, has really tried to engage with the grassroots in ways that no other politician has ever done. So I think arresting him is also a kind of condemnation of his political project—of talking with grassroots, of trying to empower and mobilize communities in ways different from the AKP’s.
Therefore, I do believe that it is also an attempt not only at his person, but at the model of politics that could emerge out of a possible victory by Imamoglu. Now we’re seeing a more naked, fully fledged authoritarian move in Turkish politics.
I’ve heard all these discussions about who will succeed Erdogan, and sometimes family appears to be first in these discussions. It indicates that even the fig leaf of competitive authoritarianism is dropping at the moment. But it’s a very fluid situation. The intentions of Erdogan and his advisers may not lead to the results that they want to achieve. I think the regime is the more rigid it is, the more easily it breaks in some ways.
In your view, how has the personalization of power under Erdogan blurred institutional distinctions between the state, the ruling party, and the judiciary? Is the judiciary now operating more as an instrument of regime survival than of rule-of-law governance?
Dr. Spyros Sofos: Let me start from the judiciary, but I will go to the personalization in a minute. We’ve seen that the judiciary was the target of reforms and the target of a lot of meddling. Effectively, what was being planned was to render it less independent. We had all these kinds of promotions of different judges, the retirements of other judges, and so on. There have been pressures from time to time on the judiciary, so definitely the judiciary is no longer a means of checks and balances in the political system.
And this is the problem generally with the hyper-presidential system that Erdogan introduced. In some ways, there is no institution that has the gravitas and authority that the institution of the presidency has. Therefore, it’s not only the judiciary—even the Parliament, in many ways, although there are ways in which it can throw a spanner in the works, as we say—even the Parliament cannot really challenge the presidential dominance in the political system.
Now, if you add the personal charisma and its cultivation by Erdogan, the situation becomes even clearer. It’s not only an institution, but it’s also a president who in the past has spoken out against the courts. When the courts decided against him, he talked about the milletin iradesi—the national will—as superior to the courts’ legal rationale and thinking.
So we can see here that the personalization and the charisma that has been brought into politics is significant, even without the presidential system. But of course, now it is also institutionalized.
A final thought: I had written, when I was writing about Ataturk, that Ataturk had established a two-tier political system, in some ways. I’m simplifying now. One was, of course, the institutions of the Republic—the National Assembly and the party—and then two aborted experiments with the Liberal Party, and so on. And then there was another element—that was his person: the state as a person, and it was the person of Ataturk.
What I meant by this is that whereas the citizen in the villages of the Republic, would be harassed by the jandarma, would be suppressed in a variety of ways, then you would see Ataturk touring the countryside or the cities of the country and being the object or subject of adoration. He would hug kids, and he would talk to people in a charming way. I think Erdogan has done something very similar, and the personalistic element is crucial in that.
So there is a state that is really vicious—it can take passports away, put people into jail—and then you have Erdogan, who cannot do it as well as I think Ataturk did, but on the other hand, he is another facet of the state, unmediated. He talks to people, and he derives authority from this—not from his institutional position only.
Regime Insecurity and Western Complicity Feed Erdogan’s Authoritarian Drift
President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrives at the European Council building in Brussels, Belgium, on May 25, 2017. Photo: Alexandros Michailidis.
Would you frame the current authoritarian escalation as a sign of regime insecurity ahead of critical elections, or as part of a calculated strategy to secure post-electoral permanence through managed democracy and repression?
Dr. Spyros Sofos: I would not distinguish these two because they can work together. So what I would say is that we had seen a calculated attempt already in the autumn, when Bahceli talked about PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan visiting the National Assembly, and he said that he treated him as an interlocutor. At the time, I was arguing—and I had written an article that, however, was published very recently—I was trying to say that this was a sign for me that Erdogan and others were feeling insecurity, as they had seen that the Kurdish movement had supported the opposition tacitly in most elections in the past. Therefore, they needed to ensure that this would not continue—that the Kurdish parties, the Kurdish organizations, the PKK would not continue supporting the opposition—and thus they attempted this Kurdish opening, this attempt to bring Kurdish politicians to the table, while keeping Selahattin Demirtas, who would be a charismatic figure that could challenge this possibility, in jail.
So, I think already at the time we could see that regime insecurity was at the center of the thinking of the current political elite. It’s not only Erdogan, it’s all these people who have made fortunes under Erdogan, and they want to maintain impunity and those fortunes. Therefore, they are also insecure, and they have the ear of people close to Erdogan, maybe Erdogan himself. So that’s the first thing.
The second thing is that this also prompts the political leadership at the moment to think that in order to counter this regime insecurity, a system that would limit the possibility of a challenge—political, electoral challenge—to the current incumbents would need to be in place. And therefore we have this leap from regime insecurity to a more authoritarian system that would allow the durability of the current regime in one way or another, and the impunity of those who have managed to benefit from it.
So both.
Do you interpret the EU’s and US’s muted response to Imamoglu’s arrest as tacit legitimation, strategic pragmatism, or democratic fatigue? To what extent does Western inaction enable further authoritarian entrenchment?
Dr. Spyros Sofos: The West, especially the European Union, has a lot to do with the current situation. Already, in the first decade of the century, they were getting cold feet about engaging with Turkey regarding membership or some sort of closer union with the EU. Now, they are much more cynical. They have been treating Turkey—and Turkey has been treating them—in a transactional way.
Effectively, what the EU and the US have been doing is wanting Turkey to ensure that the masses of displaced people within its territory would not move towards the West. In view of the war in Ukraine and the broader threats coming from Russia, they also want Turkey to be a cornerstone of some evolving security policy. I find it difficult to see how this will happen, but that seems to be the logic within Western political circles.
In this sense, now that Turkey has become strategically important for various aspects of Western European security, there seems to be a willingness to turn a blind eye to what is happening domestically in the country. Imamoglu himself said this very clearly, castigating European leaders for doing nothing—not just for failing to support him personally, but for abandoning the broader hope of democracy in Turkey.
I believe there is a general democratic fatigue in the West, especially as many Western governments are dealing with their own populist challenges. In addition, they are wary of creating a rift with Erdogan. There are several reasons for this, including domestic electoral considerations—such as the influence of Turkish communities in countries like Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium.
Erdogan has also been actively engaging in the Balkans, including meddling in Bosnian affairs. Western leaders want to mute this influence. At the same time, they want Turkey to feel that it can benefit from supporting the security architecture of the EU and NATO, and to distance itself from closer ties with Russia. As a result, they are largely disinterested in democratic resistance inside Turkey.
Erdogan Leverages East-West Tensions to Shield His Regime from Accountability
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made the opening of the Natural Gas Pipeline (Turkstream) in Istanbul, Turkey on November 19, 2018.
How does Erdogan’s external positioning—on migration with the EU, and regional geopolitics vis-à-vis Iran and Russia—insulate the regime from meaningful international pressure despite ongoing democratic erosion?
Dr. Spyros Sofos: Well, it relates to your previous question, but thank you for this, because it allows me to elaborate a bit more. I think that the positioning of Ankara toward Russia, Iran, and even Syria is quite significant, as it clearly reflects a strategy of leveraging different relationships to insulate the regime—from criticism and possibly even from sanctions. I’m not necessarily talking about economic sanctions.
Erdogan—specifically Erdogan, not necessarily Turkey—has been very skillful in cultivating relationships with both the Iranian leadership, including Khamenei and various conservative politicians, and with Putin. He has also played an active role in the Astana process dealing with the future of Syria, in which Iran and Russia have been central players.
So we can observe a two-pronged strategy here. First, Erdogan ensures that every time Turkey feels under pressure from the West, it can leverage one of these alternative relationships. Second, Turkey is simultaneously helping to develop and participate in institutions that undermine Western international influence.
For example, instead of engaging with the Geneva process on Syria, Turkey remains committed to the Astana process—a trilateral format involving three illiberal regimes deciding Syria’s future. More broadly, we now frequently see Turkey participating in efforts to build an alternative international institutional architecture—one that weakens those institutions capable of holding it accountable.
And lastly, Professor Sofos, how does Turkey’s trajectory under Erdogan challenge or confirm existing theoretical models of populist-authoritarian governance? Are we witnessing a uniquely Turkish path or a globally resonant pattern of democratic decay in hybrid regimes?
Dr. Spyros Sofos: Actually, I’m writing a book at the moment on this, and I am trying to argue that we can see similarities in the cases of Modi in India, Orban in Hungary—to some extent, although Hungary is not an emerging power like Turkey—and even in Israel, where very similar developments are taking place. The judicial reform attempt by Netanyahu could have been written by Erdogan, in many ways.
So what I’m trying to say is that, yes, there is definitely a uniquely Turkish way of building populism. I have struggled in the past to find ways in which the Turkish case can be meaningful for understanding populism, particularly authoritarian populism, more broadly. But leaving aside the particularly Turkish elements—like the century-long divide between those who benefited from the Kemalist reforms and those who were left behind—there is a kind of playbook that we can see being repeated or developed simultaneously in other parts of the world.
Turkey is one of the initiators of a number of political developments that are now being copied by other illiberal actors. But I also see a broader attempt to develop scripts of sliding toward illiberalism—what I would describe as an authoritarian version of populism. I should say, I consider populism—regardless of whether it is left or right—authoritarian in character. So I sometimes find it difficult to use the terms authoritarianism and populism together.
But yes, we can see this happening elsewhere, and therefore we are in for a rough ride. It’s not just one individual country that is affected. I think it’s about the way we are now thinking
