Session 7 of the ECPS Virtual Workshop Series offered a compelling interdisciplinary examination of how contemporary populism unsettles the foundations of democratic representation. Bringing together insights from digital politics, the history of political thought, and critical social theory, the session illuminated the multiple arenas—affective, constitutional, and epistemic—through which representation is being reconfigured. Dr. Gabriel Bayarri Toscano revealed how memetic communication and generative AI reshape political identities and moral boundaries within far-right movements. Maria Giorgia Caraceni traced these dynamics to enduring tensions within the conceptual history of popular sovereignty, while Elif Başak Ürdem demonstrated how neoliberal meritocracy generates misrecognition and drives grievances toward populist articulation. Collectively, the session highlighted the necessity of integrated, cross-disciplinary approaches for understanding the evolving crisis of democratic representation.
Reported by ECPS Staff
On November 27, 2025, the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS) convened Session 7 of its Virtual Workshop Series, “We, the People” and the Future of Democracy: Interdisciplinary Approaches. This session, titled “Rethinking Representation in an Age of Populism,” assembled an interdisciplinary group of scholars to interrogate the shifting boundaries of political representation in an era defined by populist appeals, democratic fragmentation, and technological transformation. The workshop opened with a brief orientation by ECPS intern Reka Koleszar, who welcomed participants, provided technical guidance, and formally introduced the moderator, presenters, and discussant on behalf of ECPS, ensuring a smooth and well-structured beginning to the session.
Under the steady and incisive moderation of Dr. Christopher N. Magno (Associate Professor at Department of Justice Studies and Human Services, Gannon University), the session unfolded as a robust intellectual engagement with the crises and possibilities surrounding contemporary democratic representation. Dr. Magno framed the event by situating today’s populist moment within broader transformations affecting democratic institutions, public trust, and communicative infrastructures. Emphasizing that representation must be understood not only institutionally but also symbolically and epistemically, he set the stage for the three presentations, each of which approached the problem of representation from a distinct but complementary angle.
The first presentation, delivered by Dr. Gabriel Bayarri Toscano (Assistant Professor, Department of Audiovisual Communication, Rey Juan Carlos University), examined how memes, short-form videos, and AI-generated images operate as potent vehicles of populist discourse. His talk demonstrated how digital visual cultures simplify complex ideological battles, construct moralized identities, and normalize hostility—revealing the emotional and aesthetic foundations of far-right mobilization in Latin America. By mapping differences in memetic ecosystems across Argentina, Brazil, and El Salvador, Dr. Bayarri illuminated how digital artifacts reshape political communication and reconfigure the representational field.
Next, Maria Giorgia Caraceni (PhD Candidate in the History of Political Thought, Guglielmo Marconi University of Rome; and Researcher at the Institute of Political Studies San Pio V) offered a long-term conceptual genealogy of popular sovereignty, tracing contemporary populism to the enduring tension between monist and pluralist understandings of “the people.” Through a reconstruction of Rousseauian and Madisonian frameworks, Caraceni argued that the conflict between unfettered majority rule and constitutional constraints is not a modern anomaly but a persistent structural dilemma within democratic theory—one that populism reactivates with renewed force.
The final presentation, by Elif Başak Ürdem (PhD candidate in political science at Loughborough University), analyzed populism as a political response to the failures of neoliberal meritocracy. Introducing the concept of epistemic misrecognition, Ürdem argued that meritocratic regimes undermine democratic parity by devaluing non-credentialed forms of knowledge, generating status injury, and closing off channels of political voice. Her synthesis of Nancy Fraser’s tripartite justice framework and Ernesto Laclau’s theory of political articulation offered a novel explanation for why unaddressed grievances increasingly channel into populist mobilization.
The session concluded with deeply engaged feedback given by Dr. Sanne van Oosten (Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Oxford), whose discussant reflections synthesized the thematic intersections among the papers while posing incisive questions that broadened the theoretical and comparative horizons of the workshop.
Dr. Christopher Magno: Framing the Crisis of Representation in an Age of Populism
Session began with an illuminating opening address by Dr. Christopher Magno. Expressing his appreciation to the European Center for Populism Studies and to participants joining from across the globe, Dr. Magno framed the session as an interdisciplinary engagement with one of the most pressing challenges facing contemporary democracies: the erosion, contestation, and reconfiguration of political representation in an age of intensifying populism. As chair of the session, he emphasized that the three featured papers—spanning political theory, digital communication, and the sociology of knowledge—collectively reveal the multifaceted nature of today’s representational crisis.
Dr. Magno began by noting that institutions traditionally associated with democratic representation—parties, parliaments, courts, and the media—are experiencing unprecedented stress. Populist leaders increasingly claim to speak exclusively for “the people,” positioning themselves against bureaucracies, independent institutions, and constitutional checks. Simultaneously, citizens express diminishing trust in political actors and deep frustrations with the perceived distance between decision makers and everyday life. Against this backdrop, Dr. Magno highlighted several foundational questions that today’s scholars must revisit: Who—or what—is represented in modern democracies? What constitutes legitimate political knowledge? How is “the people” symbolically constructed? And in what ways do new communicative infrastructures reshape these dynamics?
Introducing the session’s first paper, Dr. Magno highlighted Dr. Gabriel Bayarri Toscano’s analysis of memetic violence within far-right populist movements in Latin America. He explained that Dr. Bayarri shifts the analytical focus from formal institutions to the emotional and visual terrain of memes, short videos, and AI-generated images. These digital artefacts, he noted, perform serious political work: they simplify complex conflicts into stark moral binaries, normalize hostility through humor, and help forge emotionally charged communities bound by grievance and belonging. In an era of generative AI, Dr. Magno observed, narrative authority increasingly slips away from traditional institutions and into decentralized digital ecosystems where populist movements thrive.
He then turned to Maria Giorgia Caraceni’s contribution, which situates populism within the long intellectual history of popular sovereignty. Dr. Magno explained how Caraceni contrasts a monist Rousseauian conception of a unified general will with a pluralist Madisonian framework grounded in constitutional limits and minority protections. From this perspective, populism reactivates monist understandings of “the people,” illuminating not an aberration but a recurring tension embedded in democratic evolution.
Finally, Dr. Magno introduced Elif Başak Ürdem’s paper, which interrogates populism as a rational response to neoliberal meritocracy’s structural failures. Central to Ürdem’s argument is epistemic misrecognition—the process through which technocratic institutions devalue non-credentialed forms of reasoning, producing profound experiences of exclusion and injury. Dr. Magno noted that this framework invites participants to view representation not only institutionally but also epistemically: as a question of whose knowledge counts and who is recognized as a legitimate political subject.
By weaving together structural, cultural, and conceptual analyses, Dr. Magno concluded, the three papers collectively illustrate that the crisis of representation cannot be reduced to economic grievances, digital disruption, or constitutional design alone. Rather, it emerges at their intersection—and it demands renewed scholarly attention to exclusion, sovereignty, and the contested construction of “the people.” With these reflections, he opened the floor and invited the first presentation.
Asst. Prof. Gabriel Bayarri Toscano: “Memetic Communication and Populist Discourse: Decoding the Visual Language of Political Polarization”
Dr. Gabriel Bayarri Toscano delivered a rich and empirically grounded presentation that examined how far-right populist movements in Latin America strategically deploy memetic communication—particularly memes, short-form videos, and AI-generated images—to mobilize emotions, construct political identities, and shape moral boundaries. Drawing on more than a decade of research in Brazil and three years of fieldwork in Guatemala, Argentina, Uruguay, and El Salvador, Dr. Bayarri’s talk offered an in-depth exploration of the visual and affective infrastructures that sustain contemporary populist politics. His presentation stemmed from a recent Newton International Fellowship undertaken at the University of London, funded by the British Academy.
At the outset, Dr. Bayarri presented three guiding research questions. First, he asked how memes and AI-generated images intervene in far-right populist discourse—not as light entertainment, but as political artifacts capable of translating ideology into immediate emotional resonance. Second, he explored what comparative insights emerge from studying Brazil, Argentina, and El Salvador, three countries with distinct histories yet convergent visual strategies for constructing “the people” and identifying internal enemies. Third, he probed how humor functions as a mechanism of symbolic violence, normalizing hostility toward women, LGBTQ+ communities, racialized groups, and political opponents.
While Dr. Bayarri did not delve deeply into theoretical debates, he situated memetic communication at the intersection of postcolonial studies, political anthropology, and visual analysis. He conceptualized memes as “cultural and affective artifacts”: multimodal, intuitive forms that condense entire worldviews into a single image or short video. Drawing on affect theory, particularly Sara Ahmed’s work, he underscored how emotions structure political recognition, shaping who is perceived as threatening or trustworthy. His concept of memetic violence captured how humor, satire, and exaggeration operate as tools to legitimize aggression. Far from being peripheral, memes constitute a central mechanism through which far-right populism exerts affective force.
From Pixels to Protest: AI’s Role in Shaping Populist Mobilization
A major portion of the presentation focused on the transformative impact of generative AI. Tools like MidJourney, DALL·E, and Stable Diffusion, he argued, have dramatically lowered the barriers to producing high-quality political imagery. Supporters no longer require graphic-design skills; simple textual prompts now generate polished depictions of Javier Milei as a medieval crusader, Jair Bolsonaro as a messianic figure, or Nayib Bukele as a futuristic sovereign. Rather than diversifying the visual field, AI often reinforces authoritarian and nationalist narratives, giving them heightened emotional charge and aesthetic cohesion.
Methodologically, Dr. Bayarri employed a mixed approach combining digital ethnography, visual analysis, and on-the-ground fieldwork. Across Telegram groups in the three countries studied, he collected more than 25,000 images—both manually produced and AI-generated. Equally significant were his ethnographic observations at rallies, demonstrations, and political events. He emphasized that online imagery does not remain confined to screens; instead, it reappears in chants, T-shirts, flags, street art, and casual political conversations. This online–offline loop shows that memetic communication actively shapes political behavior and helps embed antagonistic narratives in everyday life.
Dr. Bayarri then examined each country case in turn. In Argentina, supporters of Javier Milei construct an intensely mythological visual universe in which the libertarian candidate appears as a lion, crusader, or savior. National symbols blend with fantastical elements to portray him as a heroic figure rescuing the nation from the corrupt “political caste.” Although AI use remains moderate, AI-generated images play a significant symbolic role by presenting Milei with heightened coherence and aesthetic polish. Offline discourse mirrors these representations; slogans such as “He will turn lambs into lions” or “He is our Templar” circulate widely.
Divergent Populist Aesthetics Across Latin America
Brazil, by contrast, exhibits relatively low AI use to date but an extremely high volume of manually produced memes. Here, the dominant motifs are Christian morality, national purity, and moralized depictions of innocence. Bolsonaro is frequently shown embraced by Jesus, while rivals such as Lula are caricatured as corrupt, dirty, or monstrous. Telegram groups often include calls for violence framed through moral binaries like “a good bandit is a dead bandit.” Dr. Bayarri suggested that these moralized narratives may evolve significantly as AI becomes more integrated into Brazilian political communication ahead of the 2026 elections.
El Salvador displayed the highest level of AI-generated imagery. President Nayib Bukele is visually reimagined as a king, messiah, or futuristic architect of national modernity. AI-generated skylines, military parades, and stylized heroism reinforce his narrative of decisive, transformative leadership. Manual memes complement this aesthetic by targeting journalists, NGOs, feminists, and other perceived critics, casting them as threats to national security. Supporters often describe Bukele in salvific terms, saying “He saved us” or “He gave us back our country.”
Across these cases, Dr. Bayarri identified three recurring patterns of memetic violence: (1) Moral binaries, which compress politics into a struggle between good and evil; (2) Humor as dehumanization, making aggression appear harmless and fostering group cohesion; (3) The online–offline loop, where images circulate recursively between digital platforms and street politics, blurring boundaries between representation and mobilization.
In concluding, Dr. Bayarri highlighted three broader implications. First, memes profoundly shape how far-right populist identities are constructed and experienced. Humor, affect, and visual storytelling are not peripheral but foundational to populist subjectivity. Second, generative AI intensifies these dynamics by amplifying heroic imagery and accelerating the dehumanization of opponents. Finally, he argued that understanding contemporary populism requires integrating digital research with embodied ethnographic observation. Memetic communication, especially when accelerated by AI, is not simply representational—it actively organizes emotions and behaviors in ways that help far-right populist movements thrive.
Maria Giorgia Caraceni: “Populism and the Evolution of Popular Sovereignty: A Long-Term Theoretical Perspective”
Maria Giorgia Caraceni delivered a conceptually rich and historically grounded presentation that positioned populism within the long and complex trajectory of the modern idea of popular sovereignty. Speaking from the perspective of the history of political thought, Caraceni argued that contemporary debates on populism cannot be adequately understood without recovering the intellectual genealogy from which the modern notion of “the people” and its sovereign authority emerged. Her central methodological commitment—what she described as a history of ideas approach—aimed to situate present-day populist practices within the deeper philosophical tensions that have shaped democratic theory since the eighteenth century.
Caraceni began by reflecting on a longstanding challenge in populism studies: the enduring absence of a single, shared definition of populism. Drawing on Yves Mény, she observed that the root of this conceptual indeterminacy lies in the ambiguity of populism’s primary referent, the people. In democratic systems, “the people” is both omnipresent and elusive—an essential but vague category whose empirical boundaries are contested and whose normative authority is continually invoked but rarely clarified. This ambiguity, she suggested, is not a mere lexical problem but a structural feature of democratic politics itself.
The Deep Tensions Underlying Popular Sovereignty
To illuminate this structural dimension, Caraceni turned to Ernesto Laclau’s influential theory. She highlighted Laclau’s claim that “the people” is not an empirical datum but an “empty signifier”—a political construct capable of being filled with diverse and often incompatible demands. For Laclau, a popular identity emerges when heterogeneous grievances are articulated into an equivalential chain: broadening in scope, but thinning in specificity. Caraceni noted that this process results in a political identity that is extensive yet intentionally impoverished, capable of unifying diverse groups under a simplified symbolic banner.
However, the central theoretical move in her presentation was to show that Laclau’s distinction between the logic of equivalence (unifying demands into a monist identity) and the logic of difference (preserving particularities within a pluralist landscape) is far from a contemporary innovation. Rather, she argued, these two logics mirror the foundational contrast between the political philosophies of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and James Madison—the canonical interlocutors in the conceptual history of modern popular sovereignty.
Caraceni then reconstructed these contrasting intellectual traditions. Rousseau, she explained, theorized popular sovereignty by grounding it in the general will, which for him represented the collective, indivisible will of the people. The general will did not correspond to the aggregation of private opinions, but to their transcendence through the removal of subjective differences. Yet Caraceni stressed that Rousseau’s framework contains an intrinsic and often overlooked tension. While it aspires to unanimity, it ultimately reduces this unanimity to majority rule. Individuals in the minority, Rousseau insists, must recognize (or be compelled to recognize) that they were “mistaken” about the general will, having already submitted themselves to the collective through the social contract. Thus, Caraceni noted, Rousseau’s monist conception effectively authorizes the majority to compel conformity from dissenters, revealing the latent risk of majoritarian absolutism.
The Battle Between Pluralism and Monism
Madison, by contrast, represents the paradigmatic pluralist response. In Federalist No. 10, Madison acknowledges the inevitability of factions arising from divergent interests and unequal faculties. The key political challenge, he argues, is preventing majority factions from using their numerical strength to oppress minorities. Popular sovereignty must therefore be limited—structured through constitutional mechanisms, separation of powers, and institutional checks—to safeguard individual rights and ensure that no majority can consolidate unrestrained power. Caraceni emphasized that Madison’s project was not to deny the legitimacy of popular rule, but to prevent its degeneration into tyranny. The enduring dilemma he identifies—how to reconcile majority rule with minority protection—remains at the heart of democratic constitutionalism.
Caraceni argued that this Madisonian insight shaped the development of modern constitutional systems, particularly after the Second World War. Judicial review, entrenched rights, rigid constitutional amendment procedures, and the elevation of constitutional norms above ordinary legislation were all introduced to prevent the abuses of unbridled majoritarianism. In these frameworks, the people remain the ultimate source of legitimacy, but their power is mediated, structured, and limited by constitutional forms.
This historical account provided the foundation for Caraceni’s interpretation of contemporary populism. She contended that populist movements emerging since the late twentieth century—especially those mobilized in reaction to globalization and technocratic governance—effectively revive a monist conception of popular sovereignty. Populist leaders, she argued, reclaim the Rousseauian imaginary of a unified general will, presenting themselves as the authentic embodiment of the “true people” while depicting institutions such as courts, parliaments, and bureaucracies as illegitimate obstacles to popular expression. This rhetorical strategy enables a fusion between the will of a part of society and the will of the whole, a move mirrored in institutional pressures toward centralizing executive power and delegitimizing dissent.
Populism Against the Constitution
Caraceni highlighted several contemporary examples of this dynamic, referring to cases where populist executives pursue constitutional reforms aimed at weakening checks and balances—most clearly visible, she suggested, in Hungary, but with resonances across Europe and beyond. Such “reformative hyperactivism,” as she described it, enables populist leaders to occupy the institutional field while justifying their actions as the restoration of popular sovereignty against unaccountable elites. Yet, she argued, the true target of this agenda is not merely political opponents but liberal constitutionalism itself.
One of the most compelling contributions of Caraceni’s presentation was her insistence that the tension between populism and constitutionalism is not merely circumstantial, but structural. The modern concept of popular sovereignty, she argued, has always contained an unresolved aporia between singularity and plurality—between the desire for a unified people and the necessity of institutionalized limits. Populism, in her view, is not an aberrant pathology or a transient consequence of current crises. Rather, it is a recurring reactivation of the conceptual contradictions embedded within democratic modernity.
In concluding, Caraceni proposed that a full understanding of populism requires a dual-level investigation. On the one hand, scholars must undertake a genealogical inquiry into the history of popular sovereignty to show how its original ambivalences reemerge in contemporary politics. On the other hand, they must analyze the socio-political conditions that trigger populist waves and shape citizens’ attachments to populist claims. Populism, she suggested, arises when structural tensions converge with contextual catalysts, producing moments in which the unresolved dilemmas of popular sovereignty become politically salient and institutionally disruptive.
Caraceni closed by reaffirming her hypothesis: populism should be understood not only as a contingent response to present crises but as a recurring manifestation of the inherent contradictions of democratic sovereignty. Her future work, she noted, will continue to explore how these conceptual tensions shape the evolution of democratic institutions and the practices of popular rule.
Elif Başak Ürdem: “Beyond Fairness — Meritocracy, the Limits of Representation, and the Politics of Populism”
Elif Başak Ürdem delivered a theoretically ambitious and conceptually innovative presentation that examined the relationship between neoliberal meritocracy, social status, and the emergence of contemporary populist politics. Drawing on her broader dissertation research—an empirical analysis of 29 Western liberal democracies—Ürdem used this presentation to articulate a missing conceptual link in the existing literature: how and why a system ostensibly based on fairness and equal opportunity generates political resentment, status injury, and ultimately populist mobilization. Her presentation sought to resolve an epistemological puzzle within populism research by advancing the concept of epistemic misrecognition, while also bridging the frameworks of Nancy Fraser and Ernesto Laclau to reinterpret populism not as an irrational deviation, but as a political logic emerging from structural failures.
Ürdem began by identifying gaps in the theoretical landscape. While traditional research has often treated populism as a “thin ideology” or an emotional deviation from democratic norms, she argued that this perspective has produced an analytical blind spot. Empirical studies increasingly show that declining subjective social status, rather than objective deprivation alone, is a more powerful predictor of populist support. Yet popular explanations—such as cultural backlash or status anxiety—lack an account of why grievances today are drawn toward populist channels rather than absorbed through traditional left-wing or class-based politics. Here, Ürdem positioned meritocracy as the missing but insufficiently theorized piece.
Populist Articulation in the Age of Neoliberal Meritocracy
Turning to Laclau, Ürdem emphasized the need to shift our ontological stance. For Laclau, populism is not a fixed ideology but a logic of political articulation. Populism emerges when institutions lose their capacity to absorb social demands, creating a backlog of unmet demands that begin to link together through an equivalential chain. These demands, though different in content, share a common blockage—an inability to be processed by existing political and institutional frameworks. What eventually crystallizes is an “empty signifier” such as the people, through which heterogeneous frustrations are expressed.
Laclau, Ürdem argued, gives us the form of populist rupture but not the content. What, she asked, are the specific forces generating unmet demands today? Why do people feel unheard, misrecognized, or excluded? Her answer drew heavily on Nancy Fraser’s tripartite theory of justice and its three mutually constitutive dimensions: redistribution, recognition, and representation. For Fraser, justice requires participatory parity—conditions allowing all members of society to interact as peers. These conditions break down when: Redistribution is undermined through material inequality and economic exclusion. Recognition is denied through cultural hierarchies that devalue specific groups. Representation is distorted when political boundaries and decision-making structures exclude or silence certain voices.
Ürdem’s theoretical innovation was to show how neoliberal meritocracy—far from being a neutral fairness principle—produces systematic failures across all three dimensions. Meritocracy promises equal opportunity and rule by competence, but in practice, she argued, it becomes a justificatory regime that launders privilege, devalues non-dominant cultural repertoires, and delegitimizes democratic participation. She traced these failures in turn.
The Redistributive, Recognitional, and Representational Deficits of Meritocracy
First, redistribution failure occurs because meritocracy conflates procedural equality with outcome legitimacy. Drawing on Claire Chambers, Ürdem explained how the “moment of equal opportunity”—such as a supposedly fair university admissions process—obscures the accumulated advantages embedded in class background. Stratified education systems, far from leveling the playing field, amplify inequalities by rewarding those already endowed with cultural and economic capital. What appears to be the outcome of merit is often the endpoint of a process structured by inherited privilege. Thus, redistribution failure is built not only into welfare regimes but into the very definition of merit.
Second, and central to Ürdem’s contribution, is recognition failure, which she conceptualized as epistemic misrecognition. Meritocracy claims to be an objective measurement of intelligence and effort, yet it privileges middle-class cultural repertoires—such as negotiation skills, verbal expressiveness, and institutional navigation—as if they were neutral indicators of ability. Drawing on Annette Lareau’s distinction between “concerted cultivation” (middle-class childrearing) and “natural growth” (working-class childrearing), Ürdem showed how schools and employers interpret middle-class behaviors as talent while reading working-class dispositions as deficits. This is not merely cultural marginalization; it is an injury to one’s perceived capacity for reason. The working class is not only under-rewarded but rendered unintelligible within dominant rationalities. This epistemic misrecognition then feeds redistribution failure: only certain forms of knowledge are validated and economically rewarded.
Third, representation failure follows from the technocratic turn of neoliberal meritocracy. If political competence is equated with technical expertise, then democratic contestation is framed as inefficient or dangerous. Drawing on Hopkin and Blyth, Ürdem described how key economic decisions in Europe have been insulated from public influence in the name of market stability. Those already suffering from maldistribution and misrecognition are thus doubly silenced: they are deemed economically unviable, culturally irrational, and politically incompetent. Their grievances lack institutional channels for articulation.
Populism as the Consequence of Meritocratic Closure
Ürdem’s argument culminated in showing how these three failures converge to produce the exact conditions Laclau describes. Material insecurity, cultural devaluation, and political exclusion create a reservoir of unmet demands that cannot be expressed within the existing technocratic grammar. These demands—dismissed as resentment, envy, or irrational populist anger—accumulate and link together through the shared experience of being unheard and unrecognized. Populism, she argued, is the return of the political that neoliberal meritocracy tries to suppress.
In closing, Ürdem highlighted the three main contributions of her paper. First, it reframes populism not as a deviation from democratic norms but as a symptom of meritocratic closure. Second, it introduces epistemic misrecognition as a crucial mechanism explaining how meritocracy produces status injury and political alienation. Third, it builds a conceptual bridge between Fraser’s theory of justice and Laclau’s theory of political articulation, offering a relational language for analyzing how neoliberal meritocracy generates populist demands.
Ultimately, Ürdem’s presentation provided a compelling theoretical explanation for why grievances in contemporary democracies increasingly move through populist channels rather than traditional left-wing politics. By demonstrating how neoliberal meritocracy denies material security, cultural standing, and political voice, she argued that populism emerges as a rational—if explosive—response to a system that insists individuals both deserve their suffering and lack the vocabulary to articulate it.
Discussant Dr. Sanne van Oosten’s Feedback
As discussant, Dr. Sanne van Oosten offered an engaged, generous, and analytically sharp set of reflections on the three papers presented by Gabriel Bayarri Toscano, Maria Giorgia Caraceni, and Elif Başak Ürdem. She opened by emphasizing how impressed she was with the intellectual quality and timeliness of all three contributions, stressing that each paper was theoretically sophisticated, empirically grounded, and deeply attuned to current developments in populism research. Her comments combined appreciation with pointed questions designed to push the authors’ arguments further.
Reflections on Gabriel Bayarri Toscano’s Paper
Turning first to Dr. Gabriel Bayarri Toscano, Dr. van Oosten praised his analysis of memes and AI-generated images as more than mere jokes, instead treating them as political artefacts that make complex ideological narratives instantly intelligible. She highlighted how convincingly his presentation showed that these visual forms translate abstract ideas into accessible, emotionally resonant symbols, thereby shaping how people perceive political conflicts and identities.
Dr. van Oosten drew an illuminating historical parallel between contemporary memes and earlier traditions of political cartoons. She noted that, for centuries, cartoons have functioned as dense, highly coded political commentaries that require substantial cultural and contextual knowledge to decode. In her view, Dr. Bayarri’s work sits in continuity with this long history: today’s memes, like past cartoons, demand a broad repertoire of cultural and political references from their audiences. She suggested that future historians are likely to use these memes in much the same way scholars now use historical cartoons—as windows into the emotional, moral, and ideological landscapes of a particular era. She invited Dr. Bayarri to reflect on how he expects these memes to be interpreted in hindsight: What broader narratives will they be seen as part of, and to what extent will their meaning remain legible to those lacking the original context?
Another key theme in her feedback concerned the democratization of image production. Dr. van Oosten underscored the significance of Dr. Bayarri’s observation that, with generative AI, users no longer need technical skills such as Photoshop to create powerful images. She encouraged him to delve more deeply into how this shift may or may not change the political communication landscape. While it seems that “anyone” can now produce striking visual content, Dr. van Oosten raised the possibility that this apparent openness might have limited real impact, depending on who actually controls visibility, distribution, and reach.
Building on this, she asked for more detail on the country comparison. Dr. Bayarri’s research shows notable variation in AI use between Brazil, Argentina, and El Salvador, with Brazil relying more on manually produced memes and El Salvador displaying the highest proportion of AI-generated images. Dr. van Oosten urged him to theorize why this is the case. Do these differences reflect national political cultures, varying levels of digital infrastructure, platform ecosystems, or simply the characteristics of the specific Telegram groups he studied? Exploring these explanations, she suggested, could considerably strengthen the comparative dimension of the paper.
Finally, Dr. van Oosten urged closer attention to authorship and agency in meme production. Drawing on an example from the Netherlands, where a major far-right meme group turned out to be administered by members of parliament rather than anonymous “ordinary” users, she questioned the common assumption that meme-makers are isolated individuals in their bedrooms. She encouraged Dr. Bayarri to investigate who actually produces the content he analyzed—grassroots supporters, organized campaign teams, party professionals, or hybrid constellations—and how their prompts, aesthetic choices, and strategic goals shape the memetic ecosystem.
Reflections on Maria Giorgia Caraceni’s Paper
Dr. van Oosten then turned to the paper by Maria Giorgia Caraceni, which she described as a highly impressive exercise in conceptual and historical synthesis. She commended Caraceni for bringing together Ernesto Laclau, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and James Madison into a rigorous framework that clarifies how monist and pluralist understandings of popular sovereignty inform contemporary populist claims to majority rule. In particular, she appreciated how Caraceni showed that populism’s narrow conception of “the people” as a unified majority has deep roots in democratic thought, rather than being an abrupt contemporary aberration.
Her main invitation was for Caraceni to spell out more explicitly what is normatively and politically problematic about majority rule when it is equated with “the true people.” Dr. van Oosten suggested that while the paper clearly demonstrates how this conception marginalizes minorities, it could go further in specifying what, concretely, is lost when political systems center only the majority voice. Which minority experiences, vulnerabilities, or interests are obscured or silenced? How does this affect the quality of democratic citizenship and equality?
To deepen this point, Dr. van Oosten proposed an intersectional lens. Drawing on intersectional thinking, she noted that almost everyone is a minority in some dimension of their identity: a white man might be less educated, living with a disability, or economically precarious; a member of an ethnic majority might belong to a sexual or religious minority, and so on. From this perspective, minority protection is not about safeguarding a small, isolated segment of the population, but about recognizing that virtually all citizens have dimensions of vulnerability. She encouraged Caraceni to integrate this insight as a way of reinforcing her critique of monist majority rule and showing how the erosion of minority protections ultimately undermines democratic security for nearly everyone.
Dr. van Oosten also connected Caraceni’s theoretical framework to contemporary right-wing populism. She suggested that many actors on the right attempt to marry deeply unpopular economic agendas—such as policies favoring big business—with claims to represent the majority, often framed as the “white” or “ordinary” people. This allows them to appropriate the language of majority rule even when their economic programmes do not benefit most citizens. She encouraged Caraceni to engage with this paradox more explicitly, as it would further demonstrate the political importance of her conceptual work and reveal how appeals to “the majority” can obscure underlying alliances with powerful economic interests.
Reflections on Elif Başak Ürdem’s Paper
Finally, Dr. van Oosten addressed the paper by Elif Başak Ürdem, which she praised for its clarity and for the analytical power of its tripartite framework, drawing on redistribution, recognition, and representation. She found Ürdem’s critique of meritocracy particularly compelling, especially the argument that meritocracy amplifies existing class structures by valuing certain cultural repertoires and parenting styles while devaluing others. She linked this insight to the COVID-19 pandemic, when society sharply distinguished between “essential” and “non-essential” work—often revealing that many of the most necessary jobs were neither the highest paid nor the most prestigious. This experience, Dr. van Oosten suggested, dramatically illustrated the disconnect between meritocratic status and social value.
Her main question for Ürdem concerned what happens after populist radical right parties enter formal politics and even government. Ürdem’s paper convincingly theorizes misrecognition and status injury under conditions in which certain groups feel their views and ways of knowing are excluded from mainstream political representation. But in several countries—such as Italy or the Netherlands—previously marginalized populist radical right forces now hold significant power or participate in governing coalitions. Dr. van Oosten asked how this development affects the dynamics of misrecognition: Do supporters feel less misrecognized once “their” parties are in office, or does the sense of exclusion persist, perhaps redirected toward new enemies such as supranational institutions, domestic elites, or cultural minorities? She suggested that exploring these empirical cases could refine Ürdem’s argument and test its implications under changing political conditions.
Dr. van Oosten closed by linking Ürdem’s work to recent empirical research, such as studies by Caterina de Vries and colleagues on public service deprivation and support for the populist radical right. These studies show that tangible reductions in access to public services and state presence—whether in healthcare, local infrastructure, or everyday administration—significantly increase the likelihood of developing radical right attitudes and voting patterns. Dr. van Oosten argued that these findings resonate strongly with Ürdem’s emphasis on misrecognition and perceived abandonment, and she encouraged her to integrate such evidence more directly, as it would further substantiate her claims about the material and symbolic dimensions of exclusion.
Overall, Dr. Sanne van Oosten’s discussant feedback combined deep engagement with the authors’ arguments, thoughtful connections to broader literatures, and constructive suggestions for future development. Her interventions highlighted the conceptual richness and empirical relevance of all three papers and reinforced the central theme of the session: that understanding populism today requires grappling simultaneously with structures, narratives, identities, and the evolving conditions of democratic representation.
Presenters’ Responses to the Discussant
Following Dr. Sanne van Oosten’s detailed and generous discussant remarks on all three papers presented in Session 7, each of the authors offered thoughtful and discerning responses. Their replies not only clarified core dimensions of their arguments but also highlighted areas for further conceptual and empirical development. Collectively, their reflections underscored the intellectual richness of the session and the productive synergies between their respective approaches to understanding populism, representation, and democratic tension.
Response by Dr. Gabriel Bayarri Toscano
Dr. Gabriel Bayarri Toscano began by expressing deep appreciation for Dr. van Oosten’s insights, noting that her comments resonated not only with his own work but with the broader themes raised by the session. He addressed her first set of questions regarding the historical continuity between contemporary memes and older forms of political cartooning. Dr. Bayarri explained that he is currently preparing an application for a research grant with the British Library to analyze two centuries’ worth of political cartoons—an endeavor that he hopes will illuminate parallels between earlier visual political repertoires and today’s memetic ecosystems. His goal is to identify aesthetic and semiotic patterns that recur over time, particularly within Latin America’s visual construction of political enemies and moral antagonisms. Yet he cautioned that building such a historical bridge is methodologically complex. Unlike more recent comic traditions, older cartoons were produced under different political, cultural, and technological conditions, making direct linear comparison difficult. Nevertheless, he affirmed that Dr. van Oosten’s suggestion had strengthened his resolve to pursue these connections.
Dr. Bayarri then elaborated on the participatory and collaborative dimensions of contemporary meme production, clarifying that one key feature distinguishing memes from classic cartoons is the ability of users to modify, remix, and re-embed visual content. Even when a meme originates from a single creator, its life cycle involves numerous micro-alterations—changing symbols, colors, props, or textual overlays. He described this as a form of “compositional logic” fundamental to understanding the affective bonds and collective identity that emerge within far-right digital communities.
With the rise of generative AI, however, Dr. Bayarri observed a new paradox: while meme-making has become technically democratized, it also risks becoming re-individualized, since AI-generated images typically emerge from a single textual prompt rather than collective layering. This shift mirrors older forms of authorship and centralization found in 20th-century cartooning, thereby complicating assumptions about participatory production in digital environments.
Addressing the question of national variation in meme ecosystems, Dr. Bayarri noted that regulatory frameworks and the timing of fieldwork significantly shape the prevalence of AI-generated content. Brazil, which is gearing up for upcoming elections, has already begun debating and formulating regulations governing AI-produced images. Meanwhile, rapid technological innovations occurring within months of each electoral cycle mean that fieldwork snapshots inevitably capture evolving and uneven dynamics. He stressed that differences between countries often reflect the temporality of technological diffusion rather than stable cultural patterns.
Finally, Bayarri responded to Dr. van Oosten’s questions about authorship. He confirmed that meme producers range widely—from isolated individuals angered by corruption scandals, to organized far-right digital activists, to coordinated troll networks operating as part of broader communication strategies. His findings indicate a layered ecosystem in which spontaneous grassroots contributions coexist with strategically orchestrated propaganda infrastructures.
Response by Maria Giorgia Caraceni
Maria Giorgia Caraceni also conveyed gratitude for Dr. van Oosten’s constructive feedback. She clarified that her use of the term “majority” refers specifically to political or parliamentary majorities, rather than majorities in sociological or demographic terms. In her view, the central danger arises when such majorities operate without constraints, unencumbered by constitutional limits or checks and balances.
Caraceni emphasized two key risks. First, majorities are inherently transient; a group exercising unchecked power today may find itself marginalized tomorrow. Constitutional constraints therefore serve as safeguards not only for minorities but for the political majority itself. Second, in representative democracies, the absence of an imperative mandate means elected representatives may drift from their constituencies. Without institutional limits, citizens—including members of the majority—risk being exposed to abuses of concentrated authority.
She agreed with Dr. van Oosten that public misunderstanding about the function and purpose of constitutional constraints exacerbates this problem. Many citizens perceive constitutional limits as obstacles to popular sovereignty rather than as protections designed to secure democratic equality. For Caraceni, this signals a deeper cultural challenge, rooted in insufficient public knowledge about constitutionalism and democratic institutional design. She noted that dissatisfaction tends to reemerge during moments of economic hardship or geopolitical instability, when populist narratives gain traction by framing constitutional safeguards as elitist barriers to the people’s will.
While she acknowledged the difficulty of resolving this cultural and educational deficit, Caraceni affirmed that her future work aims to continue interrogating the structural tensions between monist and pluralist logics of sovereignty—tensions she believes are recurrent features of democratic life rather than temporary aberrations.
Response by Elif Başak Ürdem
In her response, Elif Başak Ürdem thanked Dr. van Oosten for raising crucial questions that helped refine her conceptual framework. Ürdem explained that her work increasingly focuses on class through the lens of recognition, particularly in relation to what Michael Sandel terms the “dignity of labor.” She reiterated that epistemic misrecognition concerns not merely cultural disrespect but the denial of moral equality—societal messages implying that certain forms of work, knowledge, or reasoning lack legitimacy.
Ürdem addressed the question of what happens when populist radical right parties gain formal representation or enter government. Drawing on Laclau’s notion of the double movement between represented and representative, she argued that once populist figures become institutional actors, their symbolic authority allows them to frame demands, grievances, and identities in powerful ways. This does not necessarily eliminate feelings of misrecognition. Instead, supporters may redirect their sense of exclusion toward new perceived antagonists—technocratic institutions, judicial bodies, EU frameworks, or cultural elites—maintaining a populist logic even after electoral success.
Finally, Ürdem reflected on the political implications of her research. She argued that scholars and political actors who oppose right-wing populism must engage more directly with questions of class, status, and recognition, rather than dismiss populist grievances as irrational. Populism, in her interpretation, signals a return of political contestation that neoliberal meritocracy sought to suppress. She concluded by noting that she intends to further clarify the contours of epistemic misrecognition in subsequent iterations of her work.
The presenters’ responses collectively demonstrated a shared commitment to deepening their theoretical and empirical approaches, while also highlighting the generative impact of Dr. van Oosten’s discussant interventions. Their reflections showcased three distinct yet complementary engagements with populism—as a visual and affective practice, a constitutional and philosophical dilemma, and a response to structural injustice and misrecognition. In doing so, they underscored the richness of Session 7’s contributions and the value of interdisciplinary dialogue in advancing contemporary populism research.
Q&A Session
The Q&A session brought forward a lively, intellectually generous exchange among the panelists, the discussant, and the audience. Moderated by Dr. Magno, the conversation unfolded as an open, exploratory dialogue, allowing participants to deepen key themes emerging from the three papers. The session illustrated how visual politics, democratic theory, and meritocratic misrecognition intersect in shaping contemporary populist dynamics.
Dr. Magno began by drawing historical parallels between Dr. Bayarri’s work on memes and his own earlier research on US colonial caricatures of Filipinos. He noted that early caricatures—produced in an era without radio or television—served as state-driven tools of othering that legitimized colonial domination. By contrast, he observed that today’s digitally generated memes democratize the power to distort, ridicule, or challenge political figures, shifting symbolic control from state institutions to digitally networked publics. This, he suggested, makes Dr. Bayarri’s work crucial for understanding how contemporary othering unfolds outside traditional institutional boundaries.
Dr. Bayarri responded by acknowledging Dr. Magno’s points on the historical legacy of visual stereotyping. He noted that AI-driven meme production has enabled new forms of symbolic violence, normalizing racialized or dehumanizing narratives under the guise of humor. Such normalization, he argued, can seep into public discourse and influence political behavior, including support for exclusionary policies. He affirmed that studying the evolution of these visual forms—both their genealogy and their political effects—remains central to understanding far-right mobilization.
The discussion then shifted to Elif Başak Ürdem’s presentation. Dr. Magno suggested that figures like Donald Trump may operate as examples of “criminal populism,” where political actors capitalize on their own legal troubles to attract supporters—a reversal of penal populism, which targets marginalized groups. He asked whether Ürdem saw Trump’s mobilization strategy as a form of epistemic misrecognition.
Ürdem offered a nuanced clarification. While Trump strategically uses misrecognition narratives, she argued that he does not embody them; rather, he appeals to supporters who feel politically powerless or epistemically dismissed. The issue, in her view, is not the charisma of elite leaders but the inability of existing political frameworks to absorb certain demands, a dynamic rooted in technocratic governance and meritocratic valuation. She stressed that when rational debate becomes circumscribed by elite-defined norms, grievances—however simple or uncomfortable—find alternative, populist outlets.
The final thread of discussion centered on Maria Giorgia Caraceni’s theoretical framework. Dr. Magno invited Caraceni to reflect on the phenomenon of voter regret among supporters of populist leaders such as Trump or Duterte—groups who later experience personal harm under the policies they endorsed. Caraceni acknowledged the complexity of this dynamic, noting that institutional design shapes both the risks and recoverability of populist excesses. Presidential systems, she suggested, are especially vulnerable due to heightened polarization and fewer internal constraints. Ultimately, however, she argued that these cycles underscore the fragility of democratic knowledge: voters often underestimate the protective role of constitutional safeguards until it is too late.
The session concluded with a contribution from Dr. Bülent Kenes, who suggested that Ürdem consider integrating Rawlsian ideas—particularly the “veil of ignorance”—to further illuminate meritocracy as inherited privilege rather than neutral achievement. Ürdem replied that although Rawls was not included in her presentation, his work, alongside Fraser’s and Laclau’s, is extensively engaged within her paper.
Conclusion
Session 7 of the ECPS Virtual Workshop Series offered a vivid demonstration of how interdisciplinary scholarship can illuminate the evolving relationship between populism and democratic representation in the twenty-first century. Across the three papers and the subsequent discussion, a unifying theme emerged: the crisis of representation is not reducible to a single institutional malfunction but is instead the outcome of intersecting structural, cultural, and epistemic transformations reshaping democratic life. By juxtaposing visual political cultures, the conceptual history of sovereignty, and the failures of neoliberal meritocracy, the session revealed that contemporary populism draws strength from multiple sites of dislocation—affective, constitutional, and socio-economic.
Dr. Gabriel Bayarri Toscano’s work showed how memetic communication and generative AI reorganize the emotional infrastructures of politics, enabling far-right movements to mobilize affective communities and reinforce exclusionary narratives. Maria Giorgia Caraceni’s long-term theoretical perspective underscored that the conflict between monist appeals to a unified people and pluralist constitutional constraints is not an anomaly of the present but a recurring tension at the core of democratic sovereignty. Elif Başak Ürdem’s analysis further demonstrated how neoliberal meritocracy erodes participatory parity, generating misrecognition, political silencing, and an accumulation of unmet demands that increasingly crystallize in populist forms.
Equally significant were the insights of discussant Dr. Sanne van Oosten, whose commentary skillfully connected these diverse contributions. Her reflections highlighted how digital aesthetics, constitutional design, and meritocratic ideology collectively shape the representational vacuums in which populism thrives. The presenters’ responses reinforced the session’s central insight: that understanding populism requires attention to both deep structural contradictions and the emergent cultural and technological terrains through which political identities are forged.
Ultimately, Session 7 illuminated how the crisis of representation is inseparable from broader contests over sovereignty, recognition, and the definition of legitimate political knowledge. In doing so, it reaffirmed the necessity of interdisciplinary inquiry for grasping the complexities of democratic life in an age of resurgent populism.
