Voters queue at a polling station in Sendra village near Beawar during the Panchayati Raj elections in India on September 28, 2020, held amid the COVID-19 pandemic, with turnout exceeding 83 percent in the first phase across 25 districts. Photo: Dreamstime.

Voting with Freebies: How Direct Welfare Benefits Reshape Electoral Behaviour in India

by CommentariesEditor’s ChoiceGenderHomeVoice of Youth

In this analytically rich commentary, ECPS Youth Group member Saurabh Raj examines how direct welfare delivery is transforming electoral politics in India. Focusing on the recent Bihar assembly election, Raj shows how visible and targeted benefits—especially cash transfers to women—have become a powerful political language shaping voter participation and choice. Conceptualising this shift as “freebie populism,” the article argues that welfare now operates not only as a developmental tool but as a mode of political mobilisation, mediated through digital infrastructures and personalised state–citizen encounters. While caste, religion, and ideology remain influential, Raj highlights the growing importance of the individual beneficiary as a new axis of political belonging. Situating Bihar within broader interstate patterns, the article raises critical questions about democratic accountability, political reasoning, and the future trajectory of Indian democracy.

By Saurabh Raj*

The recent Bihar state[1] assembly election provides a useful lens to examine how welfare-centred mobilisation is reshaping contemporary electoral politics in India. Bihar recorded its highest ever voter turnout at 66.9 percent. The gender pattern was even more striking. Women voted at 71.6 percent while men voted at 62.8 percent. In 130 of the 243 constituencies, more women than men participated. These are not small variations or one time anomalies. They represent a structural shift in who participates and who determines electoral outcomes (Basu 2021).

The pattern of results closely mirrors this shift. The incumbent governing coalition won 114 of the 130 seats where women led the turnout which is close to 88 percent of all such constituencies. This alignment coincided with the scale and timing of welfare measures that reached women directly, warranting closer analytical attention. A direct cash transfer equivalent to approximately USD 120 to over twelve million women shortly before the election was only one part of a wider package that included pension increases, electricity bill relief and higher payments for frontline workers. The opposition responded with guarantee booklets, registration drives and promises of future support, as well as cards distributed by Jan Suraj[2] that signalled an alternative welfare imagination. Welfare was not an accessory to the campaign. It was the central axis around which political mobilisation occurred.

This election therefore makes visible a broader phenomenon that has been unfolding across India. Welfare centred electoral strategies are transforming political communication, voter reasoning and the emotional structure of democratic belonging. The rise of freebie populism, a term used here to describe the combination of populist rhetoric with highly visible and personalised welfare delivery, marks a distinct shift in how the state is imagined and how voters evaluate political actors. The term “freebie populism” is used here as an analytic category rather than a normative judgement. It refers not to the undesirability of welfare provision but to a specific political logic in which competitive electoral incentives privilege immediacy, visibility, and personalisation of benefits. This logic differs from rights-based or institutionalised welfare regimes, where entitlements are routinised and less directly tied to electoral cycles. The distinction is important, as the argument advanced here concerns the mode of political mobilisation rather than the legitimacy of welfare itself. ​​

Methods Note

This commentary draws on publicly available data from the Election Commission of India (Election Commission of India, 2024), state budget documents, press releases, field reporting in Hindi and English media and academic literature on populism, welfare delivery and voting behaviour. Interpretive arguments build on comparative work on populism (Mudde, 2004; Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2017) and on scholarship that links welfare delivery to political participation (Khemani, 2022; Kruks Wisner, 2018). Additional reference is made to studies on gendered political engagement, digital welfare architecture and direct benefit transfer systems. The purpose of this article is analytical rather than predictive. It aims to situate the Bihar experience within a wider conceptual and empirical framework that illuminates the changing nature of electoral politics in India.

Classic Understandings of Populism

Cas Mudde defines populism as a thin centred ideology that imagines society as divided between “the pure people” and “the corrupt elite” and insists that politics must directly express the general will (Mudde, 2004). Because it is thin centred, it can attach itself to a range of ideological projects including right wing, left wing or regionally specific imaginations of welfare, nationalism and identity. Mudde and Kaltwasser note that populism becomes powerful when leaders present themselves as direct protectors of ordinary citizens and construct emotional and symbolic shortcuts that bypass institutions and complex policy debates (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2017).

Comparative research from Latin America demonstrates how populist leaders frequently combine emotive rhetoric with selective welfare delivery to cultivate direct affiliation with the masses (Hawkins, 2010; Roberts, 2015). These transfers are not incidental. They are political instruments through which belonging is reinforced and legitimacy is sustained. In India, populism has historically relied on religious mobilisation, symbolic gestures, charismatic leadership or caste-based appeals. Material transfers existed but did not shape political identity in the pronounced way witnessed today.

The current moment therefore extends rather than replaces classic understandings of populism. It adds a strong material and bureaucratically mediated dimension that is deeply embedded in the digital public infrastructure of the state. This dimension is responsible for the heightened immediacy with which political commitment is experienced.

Conceptualising Freebie Populism

Freebie populism represents a contemporary variant of populist mobilisation in which the primary bridge between leaders and citizens is constructed through direct material transfers rather than symbolic or rhetorical appeals alone. It does not replace classic definitions of populism but operationalises the promise of protection and recognition by making it tangible through targeted benefits. Cash transfers, subsidised electricity, expanded pensions, and free travel serve as visible proof of political commitment. These benefits act as recurring reminders that the state, often personified through political leadership, acknowledges the immediate material needs of citizens. Three features distinguish freebie populism from broader welfare politics. 

Immediacy is central, as transfers are often timed close to elections and their effects are felt within household budgets almost immediately. Voters therefore perceive the state not as a distant bureaucracy but as a source of immediate relief. 

Visibility is another critical feature. Digital transfers generate SMS alerts and bank notifications, and these alerts themselves function as instruments of political communication, turning a routine bureaucratic act into a concrete political moment. 

Personalised recognition is a third characteristic. Scholars note that direct transfers create a strong sense of being acknowledged by the state, particularly among women who manage household finances (Khemani, 2022). This personalisation transforms welfare from a bureaucratic entitlement into a more intimate political relationship between the individual and the state. 

Freebie populism does not erase caste or religious identities, which remain significant in shaping expectations and voting behaviour (Jaffrelot, 2021). However, welfare delivered directly to individual bank accounts establishes a new axis of political belonging. A woman from the Yadav or Paswan community may continue to retain group-based preferences, but her voting choices are also influenced by whether the state has reached her personally. The digital architecture of Aadhaar-linked transfers deepens this individualisation, making the relationship between the voter and the state more immediate, measurable, and experientially reliable.

Bihar and the Emergence of the Individual Beneficiary

The Bihar election demonstrates the mechanics of freebie populism with unusual clarity because the scale of targeted transfers was unprecedented. The distribution of ten thousand rupees to more than one crore twenty lakh women created a widespread perception that the state was acknowledging their economic vulnerability. This was part of a larger environment that included electricity bill relief, increased pensions and higher remuneration for frontline workers. These measures were repeatedly communicated through public meetings, local level messaging and digital outreach, ensuring that beneficiaries associated them with the ruling leadership.

The opposition attempted to counter this by centring women in its own campaign. Guarantee booklets, self-registration drives and targeted promises sought to build an alternative welfare narrative. Jan Suraj’s cards, for instance, attempted to construct a future oriented welfare claim. Yet the immediacy of actual deposits seemed to carry greater weight than future promises. Voters were able to verify receipt of benefits in the most tangible sense.

Turnout and voting patterns align closely with this political strategy. Women led the turnout in 130 constituencies, and the incumbent governing coalition won 114 of these. The fact that this alignment occurred during a period of intense welfare messaging suggests the strong influence of direct benefits on electoral behaviour. The political message materialised not as an abstract claim but as a verified deposit received through a mobile phone alert. Politics was increasingly experienced through the position of the individual beneficiary.

This alignment does not imply that welfare purchases votes. Rather it indicates that welfare is functioning as a channel through which political recognition, credibility and responsiveness are evaluated. Voters appear to be rewarding the government for delivering measurable relief and penalising actors whose promises remain untested.

Shifting Political Behaviour

The Bihar data indicates that freebie populism is reshaping political behaviour in ways that build on and extend earlier research. Scholars have noted that low-income voters are highly strategic and responsive to welfare delivery, often making reasoned decisions based on evidence of state performance (Khemani, 2022; Kruks Wisner, 2018). The Bihar experience reinforces this insight and highlights three important dimensions of change. 

First, welfare is increasingly becoming the primary language of political recognition. Women voters demonstrated exceptionally high turnout and a strong preference alignment in constituencies where welfare delivery was both visible and recent, suggesting that direct transfers and other targeted benefits have emerged as key instruments through which citizens assess the state’s commitment. 

Second, citizenship itself is being experienced through the household economy. This does not reduce political engagement to a transactional exchange but instead reflects a new democratic imagination in which the state operates as a direct economic actor within the household. For many women, welfare programmes provide relief from domestic pressures, enhance financial independence, and support caregiving responsibilities, thereby strengthening political agency. At the same time, political reasoning is increasingly grounded in immediacy. 

Third, freebie populism shifts the focus from abstract or long term developmental claims toward the voter’s immediate lived experience. Citizens evaluate political actors on the credibility, timing, and scale of benefit delivery and the responsiveness they witness in practice. This approach does not indicate passivity; rather, it reflects active and informed political calculation based on tangible outcomes and personal experience (Chauchard, 2017). 

Taken together, these patterns suggest that political loyalty is increasingly shaped by repeated and recognisable acts of recognition rather than broad ideological or identity-based appeals, signalling a profound shift in how democratic engagement is conceptualised and practiced.

These patterns resonate with findings from other democracies where targeted welfare provision has become central to electoral competition, including parts of Latin America and Southeast Asia. In such contexts, welfare delivery increasingly functions as both policy and political communication, blurring the boundary between governance and mobilisation. The Indian case therefore contributes to a growing comparative literature on how material distribution reshapes democratic participation under conditions of economic precarity.

Patterns Beyond Bihar

The pattern observed in Bihar is not an isolated development but part of a broader transformation in electoral politics across multiple Indian states. Welfare centred strategies have become essential elements of political competition, and their design increasingly reflects the logic of freebie populism, where visible and immediate benefits shape political belonging and voter behaviour. Each state offers a slightly different model, yet all demonstrate the growing centrality of targeted welfare in shaping electoral outcomes.

Jharkhand provides a clear example of this shift. The state expanded support for low-income women through age linked educational transfers and targeted assistance schemes that reached households directly. These interventions were not presented merely as development initiatives but became central to political communication, especially in rural districts where economic insecurity remains acute. The emphasis on young women and first-generation learners created a perception that the state was intervening meaningfully in the life chances of vulnerable households. Political actors highlighted these measures during election campaigns, illustrating how welfare has become a key electoral asset.

Maharashtra further demonstrates the consolidation of welfare centred politics. The Ladki Bahin Scheme placed women at the centre of the electoral narrative by offering regular financial assistance and presenting the state as an active participant in household welfare. The scheme was supported by recognisable branding, sustained outreach and continuous communication that associated the ruling leadership with direct support for women. This combination of financial transfers and symbolic visibility strengthened the perception that welfare was both a right and a political commitment, reinforcing the link between beneficiaries and the state.

Telangana presents another version of this emerging trend. Successive governments have relied heavily on targeted welfare, particularly through agricultural support schemes, marriage assistance programmes and community specific initiatives. These policies created strong emotional and material incentives for distinct social groups and demonstrated that welfare could be used strategically to cultivate enduring political alliances. Welfare delivery in Telangana has become an essential component of electoral mobilisation rather than a supplementary tool and continues to play a decisive role in shaping partisan loyalty.

Tamil Nadu offers one of the longest running traditions of welfare linked mobilisation in India. The contemporary phase builds on earlier frameworks but introduces new elements such as free bus travel for women, expanded meal schemes, higher pensions and targeted relief for vulnerable households. Welfare delivery is deeply integrated into political identity and party narratives. Campaigns consistently highlight the immediacy and continuity of state support, reinforcing the idea that welfare programmes are expressions of political care rather than bureaucratic entitlements.

Across these states, welfare is framed not merely as development but as a direct political relationship. This relationship is mediated through digital systems that enable individual bank transfers, local mobilisation networks that translate policy into political communication, frontline workers who act as intermediaries between the state and beneficiaries and the emotional resonance generated when citizens experience state recognition in concrete and material form. Together, these elements show how freebie populism has become a national phenomenon shaping political participation and redefining the meaning of electoral competition.

However, important differences remain across states. In Tamil Nadu and other states, welfare programmes are embedded within long-standing party institutions and ideological narratives, reducing their electoral immediacy. In contrast, states such as Bihar and Jharkhand exhibit a more episodic and election-timed deployment of benefits, intensifying their political salience. These variations suggest that freebie populism operates most strongly where welfare delivery is newly individualised and weakly institutionalised.

Limits of Attribution and Scope of Argument

This article advances an interpretive rather than causal argument between welfare transfers and electoral outcomes. Voting behaviour is shaped by multiple overlapping factors, including caste alignments, candidate credibility, party organisation, and broader political narratives. The observed alignment between women-led turnout and electoral outcomes in Bihar should therefore be read as indicative rather than deterministic.

The argument advanced here is that welfare delivery has acquired heightened political salience under conditions of digital transfer, electoral competition, and economic precarity. Direct benefits function as signals of state responsiveness that voters incorporate into broader political reasoning. This does not imply political passivity or vote-buying; rather, it reflects strategic and experiential evaluation by citizens based on verifiable state action. Future research using booth-level data or longitudinal beneficiary tracking would allow for more precise estimation of causal effects.

Conclusion

Welfare centred mobilisation has become a central feature of contemporary electoral competition in India. The Bihar assembly election provides a useful illustration of how direct and visible welfare delivery is reshaping patterns of political participation by foregrounding the individual beneficiary as a significant site of democratic engagement. High female turnout and the alignment of women dominated constituencies with electoral outcomes underline the growing importance of welfare as a medium through which citizens experience and evaluate state responsiveness.

This shift does not indicate a decline in political reasoning or a reduction of citizenship to transactional exchange. Instead, it reflects a reorientation of democratic judgement in which voters increasingly rely on observable and verifiable state action to assess political credibility. Welfare delivery, mediated through digital and bureaucratic systems, functions not only as policy intervention but also as a communicative practice that signals recognition, reliability, and proximity between the state and citizens.

At the same time, the increasing centrality of welfare in electoral mobilisation raises important questions for democratic accountability. An emphasis on immediacy and visibility may encourage short term distributive competition at the expense of institutional consolidation and sustained policy debate. As electoral legitimacy becomes more closely tied to the timing and scale of benefits, political contestation risks narrowing to questions of delivery rather than deliberation.

The broader challenge for Indian democracy therefore lies not in the expansion of welfare itself but in the political logic through which welfare is mobilised. Understanding how welfare delivery reshapes political participation, voter reasoning, and experiences of citizenship is essential to assessing the evolving character of democratic practice in India. The Bihar case suggests that future electoral outcomes will increasingly be shaped by how convincingly the state makes itself present in the everyday lives of citizens, alongside enduring influences of identity, ideology, and organisation. Beyond India, the analysis highlights how welfare delivery can reconfigure democratic engagement in contexts where citizens encounter the state most directly through material transfers.

 

(*) Saurabh Raj is a core team member at the Indian School of Democracy and is associated with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). He has a decade of experience in Indian politics and elections.

 

References

Aiyar, Y., and Walton, M. (2015). “Rights, accountability and citizenship: Examining India’s social welfare architecture.” Accountability Initiative.

Basu, P. (2021). “Women and electoral participation in India: Changing patterns of turnout and political engagement.” Economic and Political Weekly, 56(12), 34 to 42.

Chauchard, S. (2017). Why representation matters: The meaning of ethnic quotas in rural India. Cambridge University Press.

Election Commission of India. (2024). State Assembly Election Data: Bihar.

Hawkins, K. A. (2010). Venezuela’s Chavismo and populism in comparative perspective. Cambridge University Press.

Jaffrelot, C. (2021). Modi’s India: Hindu nationalism and the rise of ethnic democracy. Princeton University Press.

Khemani, S. (2022). “Political economy of welfare delivery in India.” World Bank Research Observer, 37(2), 245 to 270.

Kruks Wisner, G. (2018). Claiming the state: Active citizenship and social welfare in rural India. Cambridge University Press.

Mudde, C. (2004). “The populist zeitgeist.” Government and Opposition, 39(4), 541 to 563.

Mudde, C., and Kaltwasser, C. R. (2017). Populism: A very short introduction. Oxford University Press.

Roberts, K. M. (2015). Changing course in Latin America: Party systems in the neoliberal era. Cambridge University Press.

Footnotes

[1] Bihar, one of India’s most populous and economically disadvantaged states, has historically exhibited lower levels of state capacity and social welfare penetration, making recent shifts in voter participation particularly significant.

[2] A recently formed political party in Bihar positioning itself around governance and welfare reform.

Refugee children are helped ashore after arriving by boat from Turkey on the Greek island of Lesbos, capturing a moment where relief and suffering coexist. Photo: Aleksandr Lutsenko.

The Humanity of Migration

by CommentariesEditor’s ChoiceHomeHuman RightsMigrationVoice of Youth

In this timely and powerful Voice of Youth (VoY) essay, Emmanouela Papapavlou reframes migration not as a crisis or threat, but as a defining human reality of the twenty-first century. Moving beyond populist slogans and fear-based rhetoric, the piece exposes the gap between political discourse and the lived experiences of migrants—marked by legal precarity, exclusion, and everyday vulnerability. It critically interrogates the selective use of “legality” in public debates and highlights how populism redirects anger away from power and toward the powerless. Importantly, the article identifies Generation Z as a potential counterforce, emphasizing its everyday engagement with diversity and its rejection of xenophobic narratives. Published on the occasion of International Migrants Day, the essay is a compelling call to restore dignity, humanity, and ethical responsibility to migration politics.

By Emmanouela Papapavlou*

In an age of global instability, migration is not an exception and not some marginal social phenomenon, it is a defining feature of the modern world. Wars, political persecution, economic collapse, environmental disasters and inequality push millions to leave their homes in search of safety, opportunity, and a sense of dignity. Within this reality, the 18th of December, International Migrants Day, is not just another “awareness day,” it is a powerful reminder that migration is one of the most central human experiences of the twenty-first century, and that the way we talk about it in public spaces has real consequences on real lives.

Despite its profoundly human dimension, migration has become one of the most polarized subjects in global politics. Populist rhetoric, flourishing across Europe, the United States, and beyond, finds in the “migrant” the perfect target, an “other” onto whom fears, insecurities, and imagined threats can be projected. Migrants are framed as a faceless mass, as an economic burden, as a cultural threat, or even as enemies of national security. Yet the reality of migration is dramatically different from these oversimplified narratives.

For millions, migration is not a choice, it is a necessity. And for those who manage to reach countries of arrival, the journey does not end, it begins. Access to legal documents, endless visa backlogs, the slow and often arbitrary asylum process, and the requirements for work authorization create a system that is frequently insurmountable. In the United States, for example, hundreds of thousands of people live for years without papers, not because they refuse to comply, but because the system is designed to delay, discourage, and exclude. Even proving that you qualify for asylum often requires documents that no one could possibly rescue while fleeing a bombed home or a collapsing life.

While political discourse focuses obsessively on “flows” and “invasions,” what almost never gets discussed is the actual everyday reality of migrants, the labor exploitation, the lack of access to healthcare or education, the constant uncertainty of “will I be allowed to stay tomorrow,” the threat of deportation, the social stigma, the ghettoization, the absence of meaningful integration. Many states treat migration as a problem that must be “controlled,” not as a social fact that must be understood, integrated, and addressed with humanity.

International Migrants Day exists precisely because of this gap, the gap between rhetoric and reality, between what is said and what people live. It is a day dedicated to rights and dignity, to the fundamental right to move and to the right to live without fear. It is also a reminder that societies do not show their humanity in how they treat the powerful, but in how they treat the vulnerable.

Here we see another dimension of populism, the selective invocation of “legality.” Public debate suddenly fills with people who appear deeply committed to the rule of law when the conversation turns to migrants. “They came illegally,” they say, as if respect for the law were a consistent personal value and not something invoked only when convenient. Because the same people who express moral outrage at a refugee are often the same people who consider underage drinking normal, who speed on the highway, who drive under the influence, who use recreational substances, who pirate movies, music, and games without a second thought. In those cases, the law becomes a “technicality,” and strictness evaporates.

Yet when the “offender” is someone who ran from war, when it is a mother holding a child in a boat, when it is a young person who left everything behind just to survive, then suddenly the law becomes absolute and unforgiving. And even worse, we almost never see the same outrage when the offenders are powerful, corrupt politicians who steal public funds, evade taxes, exploit systems for personal gain, or embezzle compensations. In those situations, anger disappears. Outrage fades. “Illegality” becomes almost invisible.

This contradiction has nothing to do with the law. It has everything to do with control, with fear, and with the political function of populism, which is to divert collective anger away from those who cause injustice, and direct it instead toward those who are least able to defend themselves.

Yet within this landscape, there is a source of hope, and it comes from Generation Z. Gen Z is the first generation in history to grow up fully online, exposed every day to the lives of people across the world, from every background and every context. Diversity is not perceived as a threat; it is an intrinsic part of reality. For this generation, multiculturalism is not an ideological position, it is the texture of daily life in schools, universities, neighborhoods, and digital spaces.

Young people do not see migrants as outsiders, they are classmates, friends, coworkers, neighbors. They are the stories shared on social media, the voices heard without intermediaries, the people facing the same universal anxieties, work, education, safety, rights. Take the example of someone like Zohran Mamdani, who arrived in the United States as a child refugee and eventually became an elected representative in New York. His story is not an exception, it is a sign of a new era in which identity is shaped not by where you were born, but by who you are and what you contribute to your community.

What becomes clear is that Gen Z, through everyday contact with diverse cultures and people, rejects fear based rhetoric. They are not easily persuaded by politicians who weaponize xenophobia, and they do not accept narratives of “threat” without question. They see migration as a human reality, not as a tool for propaganda. And this generational shift carries enormous political weight for the future.

If we truly want to honor International Migrants Day, it is not enough to acknowledge its existence. We must promote policies that allow for safe, legal, and humane migration, support integration programs that go beyond survival and lead to participation and dignity, reform asylum and legalization systems so they do not trap people in bureaucratic limbo, and build societies that recognize diversity not as a danger but as a collective strength.

Because at the end of the day, the question we must ask is simple, and its simplicity is what makes it so revealing: How can a human being be considered “illegal” on an earth we were all born into? How can anyone be treated as worthless simply because they were born a few kilometers away?

If we cannot answer that clearly, then perhaps International Migrants Day exists to remind us that before borders, politics, and identities, we are, above all, human.

(*) Emmanouela Papapavlou is a high school student from Thessaloniki, Greece, deeply passionate about social and political issues. She has actively participated in Model United Nations and other youth forums, serving as a chairperson in multiple conferences and winning awards in Greek debate competitions. Writing is her greatest passion, and she loves using it to explore democracy, civic engagement, and human rights. Her dream is to share her ideas, inspire action, and amplify the voices of young people who want to make a difference. Email: emmanpapapavlou@gmail.com

A survivor of domestic abuse sits in silence, reflecting the fear, trauma, and isolation experienced by countless women affected by violence, harassment, and exploitation. Photo: Dreamstime.

November 25: The Normalization of Violence and the Forgetting That Keeps It Alive

by CommentariesEditor’s ChoiceGenderHomeHuman RightsVoice of Youth

In this compelling VoY essay, Emmanouela Papapavlou confronts the uncomfortable truth behind society’s yearly cycle of remembrance on November 25th. Drawing attention to the gap between public displays of solidarity and the everyday normalization of gender-based violence, Papapavlou argues that symbolic outrage too often gives way to collective amnesia. She highlights how cultural attitudes, institutional responses, and pervasive biases continue to silence women long after the awareness campaigns fade. This powerful reflection challenges readers to rethink what it truly means to remember—and what it would take to break the cycle of forgetting that enables violence to persist.

By Emmanouela Papapavlou*

Every year, on November 25th, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, we collectively remember. Or at least, we pretend to. We speak about statistics, about bruises that never made it to the news, about women whose names became hashtags only after their lives were taken from them. We speak about abuse as if it were an unexpected tragedy instead of a structural reality. And, on this day, we suddenly remember surveys and studies that have been sitting on desks and websites for months. They resurface not because something changed, but because today, the world feels obligated to look at them.

One of these reports, brought back into the spotlight once again, reminds us that one in three women over the age of fifteen has been subjected to domestic or sexual violence. A number repeated so often that it risks becoming meaningless, yet behind every “one” is a life permanently split into “before” and “after.” Tomorrow, not metaphorically, literally tomorrow, this report will be forgotten. We know this cycle. We’ve lived this cycle.We will slide right back into the comforting loop of what we call “normality.” And that is the most devastating truth: the empathy of today, no matter how intense, rarely survives beyond these twenty-four hours. We talk, we post, we condemn. We temporarily allow ourselves to feel. But the next morning the world resets. Outrage fades. Commitment dissolves. And we return to a daily life that quietly, steadily, and consistently tolerates violence against women as a background condition of society.

Politicians will step forward to insist that “progress has been made.” They will talk about panic buttons, shelters, hotlines, protocols, committees, and agencies. They will list every tool created over the past decades, as if the presence of infrastructure were equivalent to the presence of justice. But women know better. You know it. I know it. Every woman who has ever hesitated before speaking knows it. Reality does not change just because systems exist on paper. Reality does not change because a country has a handful of shelters while countless women remain too afraid to simply pick up the phone.

Because violence doesn’t hide in the absence of services. Violence hides in the culture that shapes how those services respond. Violence hides in the judgments whispered behind closed doors. Violence hides in the tone of the questions asked by police, by courts, by the media. Violence hides in our normality.

A normality that allows political representatives to make sexist, demeaning remarks publicly and return to their roles a few months later without consequence.

A normality that allows television panels to sneer at, interrupt, belittle, or humiliate women while the audience laughs or scrolls on. A normality that allows courtrooms to ask, “What were you wearing?” or “Why didn’t you leave sooner?” instead of asking the only question that matters: “What was done to you?” A normality that allows lawyers, people responsible for upholding justice, to be perpetrators of intimate partner violence while society digs for ways to blame the woman. A normality where a terrified woman can call for help and hear the phrase: “A police car is not a taxi.” A normality that teaches women every day, in every small way, that they must endure, justify, or hide what has happened to them.

And so, many women choose silence, not because they lack strength, but because they know exactly what comes next if they dare to speak. They know they will be interrogated, doubted, scrutinized. They know their character, their clothing, their tone, their past relationships, their mental health, their messages, their behavior, everything except the behavior of the perpetrator, will be put on trial. They know he will be offered excuses: stress, alcohol, jealousy, passion, misunderstanding. And they will be offered judgment.

We keep talking about panic buttons as if technology can solve what culture refuses to confront. But violence does not end because a button exists. Violence ends when a society refuses to tolerate the conditions that make that button necessary in the first place. And the truth is uncomfortable: We tolerate these conditions. We normalize them. We teach them, sometimes without noticing.

Every November 25th, we post, we share, we mourn, we “raise awareness.” And then, quietly, predictably, we forget. Reports will continue to be published. More women will become statistics before they become stories. More anniversaries will arrive to remind us of what we collectively failed to address.

The real question, the painful question, is not whether violence will continue. It is whether we will continue to look away. Whether we will continue to allow tomorrow to erase today’s conscience. Whether we will continue to slip back into a normality built on silence, excuses, and selective memory. So the question remains: Will we continue to forget? Or will we finally demand a world where remembering is not limited to a single day?


(*) Emmanouela Papapavlou is a high school student from Thessaloniki, Greece, deeply passionate about social and political issues. She has actively participated in Model United Nations and other youth forums, serving as a chairperson in multiple conferences and winning awards in Greek debate competitions. Writing is her greatest passion, and she loves using it to explore democracy, civic engagement, and human rights. Her dream is to share her ideas, inspire action, and amplify the voices of young people who want to make a difference. Email: emmanpapapavlou@gmail.com

Tractors with posters of farmers protesting against the government's measures at the Ludwig Street in Munich, Germany on January 8, 2024. Photo: Shutterstock.

How European Populists Turn Farmers’ Anger into Political Power

by CommentariesEditor’s ChoiceHomeVoice of Youth

In this ECPS Voices of Youth contribution, Kader Gueye examines how European populist movements are transforming genuine agrarian grievances into political capital. From Dutch nitrogen protests to French mobilizations against the EU–Mercosur deal, Gueye shows how populist actors amplify farmers’ discontent by framing it as a moral struggle between “ordinary people” and “distant elites.” While such narratives generate visibility and significant institutional leverage—as illustrated by the rise of the BBB in the Netherlands and the far right’s support for French blockades—they rarely address the structural drivers of rural hardship, such as volatile markets, supply-chain imbalances, and climate pressures. Gueye argues that without constructive long-term solutions, populist exploitation risks deepening divisions and leaving farmers’ core challenges unresolved.

By Kader Gueye*

Across Europe, images of tractors lining highways have become quite familiar. Farmers block roads, dump manure at ministry gates and brandish placards about survival and “fair competition.” Falling incomes, volatile markets, and increasingly demanding environmental and trade rules have defined their grievances. The political environment that has grown around these protests is not solely about farm policy, but how populist actors have turned agrarian discontent into leverage without offering credible plans to solve the underlying crisis. 

Political farmer mobilization has become politically decisive not simply because of their scale, but because populist parties and their allies translate and diffuse their genuine grievances into a simplistic narrative of “the people” versus “distant rule-makers,” and convert that narrative into institutional power. Notably, the Dutch Farmer-Citizen Movement (BoerBurgerBeweging — BBB) and the French debate over the EU-Mercosur trade deal illustrate this translation and provide an example onto why farmers’ structural problems are often left unresolved. 

Populism and Agrarian Discontent

Political scientists usually describe populism as a “thin” ideology that divides society into two camps: a virtuous people and a corrupt elite, and that insists politics should express the general will of those people (Mudde, 2004). Because it is “thin,” populism needs a host ideology or a concrete issue to attach to. Agrarian discontent has become one of those issues in Europe.

Farmers are often portrayed as the most authentic part of “the people,” especially in countries with a strong rural identity. When farm incomes stagnate, or when new rules arrive from, say, Amsterdam or Paris in the name of environmental protection, it becomes easy to cast farmers as victims of remote decision-makers who may not truly understand life outside the cities.

However, real agrarian grievances are complicated. Farmers face pressure ranging from large supermarket chains, extremely volatile export markets and rising input costs, all while they are being asked to cut emissions, protect biodiversity and adapt to extreme weather linked to climate change (Henley & Jones, 2024). Populist actors rarely talk about all of these drivers at once. They select the parts that fit their story about out-of-touch elites and elevate those parts into a moral conflict. That is the “translation” this article will focus on.

Agrarian Populism in the Netherlands

Dutch farmers protest against measures to reduce nitrogen emissions in the city centre of The Hague, the Netherlands, on June 28, 2022. Photo: Dreamstime.

The BoerBurgerBeweging (BBB) was founded in 2019 by journalist Caroline van der Plas and agrarian advocates. The party initially presented itself as a voice for farmers and rural citizens who felt left behind by the urban political elites. Its platform opposed compulsory farm buyouts and demanded a slower transition on nitrogen regulations, with an increased emphasis on technological solutions and voluntary change (Hendrix, 2023).

During the nitrogen protests, BBB politicians regularly appeared at demonstrations, amplified farmers’ slogans and insisted that ministers and unelected EU bureaucrats did not understand rural life. The core message of the BBB was that the government was threatening food producers, while protecting abstract environmental goals. That narrative connected easily with populist language about “ordinary citizens” versus “climate elites.”

The crucial step came during the 2023 provincial elections. BBB transformed the visibility of road blockades into electoral support and won more seats than any other party across all provinces. Because provincial councils elect the Dutch Senate, the party also became the largest group in the upper house (Reuters, 2023).

In that position, BBB gained significant bargaining power. With its newfound power, it could support, amend or stall national laws, including those related to nitrogen emissions. Analysts at the Clingendael Institute describe this as a shift from street protest to “institutionalized leverage” that changed how the entire party system talked about rural concerns (van der Plas & Candel, 2023).

Yet the deeper policy problem remains. Court rulings still require substantial reductions in nitrogen emissions in sensitive nature areas, and new permits for construction are constrained as long as the problem is not resolved (Candel, 2023). BBB has pushed for looser targets and slower timelines but has not presented a comprehensive plan that both satisfies legal obligations and gives farmers a clear long-term horizon.

In practice, this means farmers continue to face uncertainty about land values, future production levels and investment decisions. Populist framing has helped them obtain more political attention, but it has not delivered a stable settlement that combines environmental goals with rural livelihoods.

Tractor Blockades and ‘Fair Competition’ in France 

In early 2024, French farmers blocked key highways, encircled Paris with tractor convoys and targeted wholesale markets. where they protested low farm incomes as well as complex regulations. Many of the farmers believed they had to follow much stricter environmental and animal welfare guidelines than did many of their international competitors who exported products into the same markets that the French farmers sold into. (Al Jazeera, 2024)

“Fair competition” was the repeating mantra of these protests. French Farmer’s Associations argued that due to strict environmental and animal welfare laws paired with trade agreements signed by the European Union to allow increased imports from countries with looser regulations, French farmers were at a severe competitive disadvantage. 

The main driver of this argument was the European Union-Mercosur Trade Agreement, a proposed deal between the European Union and the Mercosur block composed of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. The agreement would lower tariffs and open markets for crucial goods like beef and various industrial products (European Parliament, 2023). French farmers speculated that the increase in imports of beef, poultry and sugar from South America would put pressure on European farmers to compete with unregulated foreign producers whom they viewed as operating under unfair conditions. 

Here, far-right populist parties saw a chance to expand their rural base. Marine Le Pen, leader of the Rassemblement National (RN) party, openly expressed her support of the farmers’ blockades and argued that the protesters were evidence of how the EU’s “green bureaucrats” and “globalists” were harming the interests of French farmers and ultimately threatening the native French way of life (Harlan, 2024). Le Pen and the RN leadership described themselves as champions of the “Real France,” defending its people against technocratic elites in Brussels and disconnected elite groups in Paris, a theme that is often repeated by populists.

What Are the Consequences? 

Across these two examples, the populist translation of farmer grievances into policy leverage had a number of consequences, the first of which was the simplification of the intricate causes of farmers’ issues. Global market dynamics, domestic policy decisions, corporate concentration, and environmental constraints all contribute to agrarian hardship. Populist narratives, however, focus more on the role of Brussels or environmental regulations and less on the domestic supply chain power or the climate crisis itself (Henley & Jones, 2024; van der Ploeg, 2020). This selective focus makes it easier to mobilize anger, but it restricts the range of solutions that are politically thinkable. 

This phenomenon also makes long-term transition planning more challenging. For instance, populists in the Netherlands claimed that any attempt to establish legally binding emission reduction pathways was evidence that the elites were attempting to “shut down” family farms and any trade agreements are viewed as betrayals of the rural populace in France. These populist portrayals leave little room for negotiated packages that can combine stricter rules with strong support for innovation and major diversification (Hendrix, 2023; van der Plas & Candel, 2023).

The last, and perhaps most apparent effect of this framing is the deepening of social divisions. Here, farmers are pitted against urban consumers and environmental activists, despite the fact that both groups may be interested in a more resilient and sustainable food system. The differences among farmers themselves get blurred as well. Large and intensive operations and small farms have very different capacities and interests, yet populist discourse typically frames them as a monolith, a single, unified “people of the land.”

Towards More Constructive Leverage

Cows grazing on a green pasture in rural Brittany, France. Photo: Elena Elisseeva.

None of this implies that populist parties never raise legitimate concerns or that farmer protests are illegitimate. The demonstrations show genuine worry about rural futures as well as genuine dissatisfaction with the way trade and environmental policies have been presented and organized. The question is how to turn this mobilization into leverage that produces lasting solutions rather than recurring crises. In the current policy discussions, a few options stand out.

Combining comprehensive rural transition contracts with environmental targets is one strategy. For instance, policy analysts in the Netherlands have proposed packages that combine investments in non-agricultural rural jobs, incentives for nature-inclusive farming, and targeted buyouts. The aim being to give farmers a predictable route as opposed to a string of brief shocks (Candel, 2023).

Another approach is to address power imbalances in the food chain. More transparency in pricing, support for producer organizations, and stricter regulations on supermarket purchasing practices could put some pressure on big retailers and processors, who currently hold a significant portion of value added, rather than individual farms (Henley & Jones, 2024).

Lastly, democratic actors require narratives that link rural justice with biodiversity and climate goals. This entails acknowledging that rural areas have historically been neglected, valuing farmers’ knowledge, and incorporating them early in the policy-making process. It becomes more difficult for populists to claim that the countryside can only be protected through complete resistance when transitions are co-designed rather than imposed (European Center for Populism Studies, n.d.; Van der Ploeg, 2020).

As European societies struggle with issues like food security, climate targets, and shifting trade patterns, farmer protests are likely to continue. The key issue is not whether or not farmers voice their dissatisfaction, but rather who uses it as political leverage and for what purposes. Currently, populist actors are adept at turning rage into visibility and temporary power. When it comes to providing reliable, widely accepted roadmaps for the future of European agriculture, they are far less persuasive.

 

(*) Kader Gueye is an IBDP student at Upper Canada College in Toronto and an aspiring diplomat. He has contributed to briefing work in a federal office and organized student programming on global child protection and civic engagement. His current work examines how institutions stay resilient when politics are under strain.

 

References 

Al Jazeera. (2024, January 30). France announces new measures in bid to quell farmers protests. Al Jazeera.

Candel, J. (2023, June 13). Nitrogen wars: How the Netherlands hit the limits to growth. Green European Journal.

European Centre for Populism Studies. (n.d.). Agrarian populism. European Centre for Populism Studies.

European Parliament Research Service. (2024, December 19). EU–Mercosur trade deal: Answering citizens’ concerns.European Parliament.

Farmer–Citizen Movement. (n.d.). Farmer–Citizen Movement. In Wikipedia.

Harlan, C. (2024, April 11). Europe’s farmers are in revolt and the far right is trying to harness the anger. The Washington Post.

Henley, J., & Jones, S. (2024, February 10). ‘They are drowning us in regulations’: How Europe’s furious farmers took on Brussels and won. The Guardian.

Hendrix, T. (2023). The Dutch farmers movement (Master’s thesis). Wageningen University.

Mudde, C. (2004). The populist zeitgeist. Government and Opposition, 39(4), 541–563. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1477-7053.2004.00135.x

Reuters. (2023, March 16). Dutch farmers’ protest party scores big election win, shaking up Senate. Reuters.

Reuters. (2023b, June 29). Macron says current Mercosur deal impossible as is. Reuters.

Reuters. (2024, January 26). Europe’s angry farmers fuel backlash against EU ahead of elections. Reuters.

Reuters. (2024b, January 24). French farmers protest as anger grows over costs and regulations. Reuters.

Rooduijn, M., & de Lange, S. L. (2023, September 28). The resurgence of agrarian populism. The Loop.

van der Plas, C., & Candel, J. (2023, May 6). How Dutch farmers’ protests evolved into political mobilisation: A prologue for Europe?. Klingender Institute.

van der Ploeg, J. D. (2020). Farmers’ upheaval, climate crisis and populism. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 47(3), 589–605. https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2020.1725490

Wikipedia contributors. (2024). 2024 European farmers’ protests. In Wikipedia.

Wikipedia contributors. (2024). 2024 French farmers’ protests

The Athens Polytechnic Monument covered with flowers during the 2019 commemoration of the 1973 student uprising against the Greek junta in Athens, Greece. Photo: Antonios Karvelas.

November 17th: The Rise of the Far-Right as a ‘Youth Trend’

by CommentariesExtremism & RadicalisationHomeVoice of Youth

In this powerful reflection for ECPS – Voice of Youth, high school student Emmanouela Papapavlou warns that the rise of the far right is not a “youth trend” but a symptom of collective amnesia. The memory of the Polytechnic uprising—once a symbol of resistance to dictatorship—has grown hollow through ritual repetition, even as democratic backsliding accelerates across Europe, the US, and Greece. Papapavlou describes how everyday indifference and frustration quietly nourish extremist ideas, while pockets of young people fight back through music, art, and political expression. Her message is urgent: democracy erodes not when violence erupts, but when society forgets what unfreedom feels like. Memory, he reminds us, is not a burden—it is our first line of defense.

By Emmanouela Papapavlou

Every year, the same story unfolds… wreaths, school speeches, the same faded posters we barely notice. A ritual repeated, yet it barely moves us. The Polytechnic uprising, instead of warning us about the fragility of freedom, is often handed down as compulsory material. And so, the deepest wound of modern Greek history becomes just another “anniversary.”

Yet, precisely at a time when democracy worldwide is under threat, the Polytechnic should shake us more than ever.

In Europe, parties with fascist roots are entering governments. In America, authoritarian leaders are gaining unprecedented support. In Greece, the far-right is comfortably returning to public life. And still, the memory of that uprising leaves so many indifferent.

Everyday scenes reveal a harsh truth: indifference, frustration, and social decay fuel the rise of extremes. In quiet, almost unnoticed moments, the past comes alive: forgotten junta supporters chatting in neighborhood barbershops as if no time has passed, fascists and ex-junta members teaching outdated, dangerous ideologies to Greek children. This is not just about contemporary Greeks, nor a “lost segment” of society. It is a collective phenomenon: disillusionment breeds extremes, whether leaning right or left.

Silence in the face of looming threats is not innocent, it is complicity. Yet some young people refuse to stay silent. They turn to music that tackles social and political issues such as rap music, they write lyrics and stories, produce podcasts, murals, exhibitions, or small performances. Through these acts, they revive memory and keep resistance against darkness alive. The generation of the Polytechnic rebelled and showed us the way: how dictators fall, and how united people claim their rights. It is our duty to remember the fallen and the fighters of that bloody uprising and to understand what it takes to keep democracy alive.

Here lies the core message: the rise of the far-right is not “a youth trend.” It is a warning that society has begun to forget. Forgetting what unfreedom means. Forgetting how easily institutions once taken for granted crumbled. Forgetting that democracy does not die suddenly, it dies when we become accustomed to darkness.

The Polytechnic is not merely a monument of the past. It is a test: it will either remind us of what we risk losing, or we will watch history rewrite itself while we only hear the silence around us.

Indeed, memory is not an obligation. It is a shield, a defense against the darkness that threatens democracy. Remaining passive is easy. The hard part is seeing the bigger picture: Europe drifting back toward dark ideas, Greece flirting with amnesia, a world exhausted from losing and still keeping vigilance alive.

Memory is not merely duty. It is our first line of defense.

 

Emmanouela Papapavlou is a high school student from Thessaloniki, Greece, deeply passionate about social and political issues. She has actively participated in Model United Nations and other youth forums, serving as a chairperson in multiple conferences and winning awards in Greek debate competitions. Writing is her greatest passion, and she loves using it to explore democracy, civic engagement, and human rights. Her dream is to share her ideas, inspire action, and amplify the voices of young people who want to make a difference. Email: emmanpapapavlou@gmail.com

Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer speaking and gesturing in the House of Commons, UK Parliament, at Westminster Palace in London, UK, on February 7, 2024. Photo: Tennessee Witney.

How Should Mainstream Parties Respond to Populism? The Internal Debates of Britain’s Labour Party under Starmer

by CommentariesEditor’s ChoiceHomeLeadership & PersonaVoice of Youth

When Keir Starmer denounced populism as a “snake oil charm” in July 2024, he became the first British Prime Minister to attack it so explicitly in a major parliamentary speech. Yet inside Labour, the strategy is contested. Should populism be called out as corrosive to democracy, or quietly disarmed by fixing everyday grievances? Starmer prefers direct confrontation; his strategist Morgan McSweeney stresses delivery — “potholes, not populism.” Luke Malhi’s interviews with MPs, aides, and journalists reveal a party caught between naming the threat and co-opting parts of its language to blunt Reform UK’s rise. The debate echoes dilemmas across Europe, underscoring a central question: how can mainstream parties defend institutions without alienating the voters populists claim to represent?

By Luke Malhi

On a warm July morning in 2024, as parliament resumed for the first time following the election, Keir Starmer stood at the dispatch box and denounced populism as a “snake oil charm” that promised easy answers but could deliver only division (Starmer, 2024a). It was the first time a British Prime Minister had attacked populism so explicitly in a set-piece moment of national politics. For some, it sounded like the steady voice of reason after years of turbulence. For others, it risked reinforcing the image of a detached mainstream elite who scold rather than persuade the most dissatisfied in society.

Behind the scenes, Labour figures admit the party is still working out how best to handle the populist threat presented by Reform UK, a populist radical right (PRR) party which secured 14.3% of the vote in 2024, and is now polling at around 34% (Ipsos, 2025). In January of 2025, I conducted interviews with MPs, strategists, and senior journalists, with the promise of anonymity to encourage them to speak candidly. What emerged was a picture of a party that both fears the corrosive potential of populist politics and struggles with how directly to confront it.

Exploring these tensions matters because Britain is hardly alone. Across Europe, mainstream parties face the same dilemma of how they should respond to populists who thrive on frustration with the status quo. Do they call out populism as dangerous, risking charges of elitism? Do they try to quietly address the grievances that fuel it? Or do they attempt to co-opt aspects of the populist policy platform and rhetoric in an attempt to diffuse their appeal? Labour’s struggle with this balance offers a case study in how mainstream parties might navigate this populist age, and what that means for the future of democracy.

Labour’s Response to Populism

When asked how Labour’s inner core thinks about populism, one party strategist sighed: “It’s the problem we can’t ignore, but we can’t talk about it either.” On the surface, Starmer has not been shy about naming populism. In his New Year speech, he condemned “the politics of the easy answer” and accused right-wing populists of offering “grievances, not solutions” (Starmer, 2024c). In the King’s Speech, he branded populism a “snake oil charm” that divided communities (Starmer, 2024a). On a train to the 2025 party conference, he described a battle with the “populist Right Reform” for “the soul of the country” (Starmer, as quoted in BBC, 2025, 03:00). Several MPs told me this reflected his genuine conviction that populism corrodes democracy. One said: “he really does think it’s dangerous. He sees it as a slide toward US-style democratic backsliding.”

Yet many Labour elites worry that naming populism head-on risks alienating voters. As one backbencher put it: “You can’t just tell people they’ve been conned. That sounds like you’re calling them stupid.” A Labour strategist was even more blunt: “That was the Remain mistake. They shouted about how bad Brexit would be and people told them to sod off. If we repeat that with populism, we’ll lose again.”

These doubts are rooted in recent history. The failure of the “Stronger In” campaign during the 2016 referendum still looms large. Its warnings of economic collapse were dismissed by many voters as fearmongering, and that experience has left strategists wary of repeating the mistake of lecturing voters. Several MPs pointed out that even the term “populist”risks alienating audiences, since it is almost always used in a pejoratively charged manner, often shorthand for “irrational” or “ignorant.”

This tension has produced what insiders describe as a split between Starmer and his chief strategist, Morgan McSweeney. Starmer leans toward confrontation, “naming and shaming” populists in the words of one MP, while McSweeney takes the opposite view. According to a Labour aide, “Morgan thinks delivery is the only answer. Fix the potholes, raise living standards, and you’ll take the wind out of Reform’s sails. That’s the fight.”

But delivery is only part of the story. McSweeney’s strategy was said to increasingly involve borrowing selectively from populists where feasible, adopting their language on issues like patriotism or immigration, and co-opting policy themes that resonate with disaffected voters. One journalist explained: “It’s not just about competence. Morgan’s theory is giving people some of the populist framing but strip out the nastiness. Show them you hear their anger but redirect it.” 

The difference between the two men is not just tactical but stylistic. Starmer prefers sober warnings about the dangers of populism. McSweeney is more interested in whether voters feel their everyday concerns are being met. As one Labour organiser summarised: “Keir wants to talk about democracy. Morgan wants to talk about potholes. And that’s the real debate inside Number 10.”

Journalists I spoke to consistently described Starmer’s style as technocratic. Some called him “prosecutorial,” others “old-fashioned” or “statesmanlike.” Even sympathetic insiders conceded that he can come across as an “enforcer of the status quo.” Several argued that this style is both personal and political: it reflects Starmer’s legal training, but also Labour’s deliberate attempt to ‘detoxify’ after Jeremy Corbyn. One campaign aide said: “We knew we couldn’t win if we looked like we were promising the moon again. Voters didn’t want grand visions. They wanted someone boring enough to fix the basics.”

That instinct shaped the 2024 campaign. Unlike Boris Johnson, who thrived on flamboyant gestures, or Corbyn, who rallied crowds with populist appeals to the “many not the few,” Starmer positioned himself as the steady alternative. His rhetoric avoided spectacle. His speeches focused on detail, compromise, and delivery. A senior journalist put it this way: “The whole pitch was: ‘We’ll be dull but competent.’ After fifteen years of drama, dull sounded good.”

At times, this meant deliberately lowering expectations. Multiple insiders recalled that Starmer instructed the party to avoid language that might create impossible promises. One MP said: “He didn’t want a repeat of 2017 or 2019, when we wrote cheques we couldn’t cash. He genuinely fears that broken promises feed populism.”

Starmer’s Worldview and the Parliamentary Party

Starmer’s instinct to treat populism as a moral threat is rooted in his background. As a barrister and former Director of Public Prosecutions, he was steeped in the idea that rules and institutions hold society together. Starmer’s choice to appoint Richard Hermer as attorney general in July 2024 was a clear example of this, and something which required ‘considerable effort’ according to one political journalist (Rodgers, 2025). Soon after his appointment, Hermer (2024) gave a speech which made clear his concern about populism and his plans to counter it:

‘We are increasingly confronted by the divisive and disruptive force of populism… We face leaders who appeal to the ‘will of the people’ – as exclusively interpreted by them – as the only truly legitimate source of constitutional authority. Their rhetoric conjures images of a conspiracy of ‘elites’ – an enemy that is hard to define but invariably including the people and independent institutions who exercise the kind of checks and balances on executive power that are the essence of liberal democracy and the rule of law… I hope you take some comfort in the fact that the importance of the rule of law and the constitutional balance is embedded in my DNA and that of a Prime Minister who not only rose to the top ranks of the Bar but served his country as DPP.’

Political journalist Ian Dunt correctly observed that it is rare for British politicians, especially attorney generals, to demonstrate “the kind of political and philosophical depth shown in that speech.” Given their shared history, Dunt (2025) claimed Starmer “had clearly authorised him to do the work they both believed in [to counter populism], in a much more robust and outspoken way.”

Labour’s MPs generally echoed Starmer and Hermer’s worldview. In interviews, many brought up Cas Mudde’s (2017) definition of populism unprompted, describing it as a worldview that pits a virtuous “people” against a corrupt “elite.”They consistently rejected this framing as corrosive to democracy. One MP told me: “The idea that politics is just a battle between good, ordinary people and a corrupt elite goes against how democracy really works – I think we’ve tried to push against that.” Indeed, Labour interviewees’ comments echoed many of the inherent dangers of populism for democracy identified by political scientist Jan Werner Muller (2016). They stressed that compromise and pluralism are essential, that it is impossible to distil the will of the people into a single viewpoint, and that institutions such as the judiciary and Parliament are safeguards, not obstacles. One insider remarked: “Respect for institutions is what sets us apart from the populists. I think for everyone here, that is absolutely key.”

This worldview shaped Labour’s stance on contentious issues. When the Conservatives tried to override the Supreme Court on the Rwanda deportation scheme, Yvette Cooper (2024) chastised a party that wanted to “stop all courts.” When Boris Johnson was accused of breaking lockdown rules during Partygate, Angela Rayner (2024) argued that the Prime Minister had “degraded” Britain’s institutions. When Conservative MPs criticised the International Criminal Court (ICC) for issuing an arrest warrant for Benjamin Neteyahu, David Lammy (2025) passionately argued that the UK’s duty was to uphold international law, no matter what.

For MPs, these moments weren’t simply opportunistic attack lines. Rather, they reflect an institutionalist ethos that sets Labour apart from its populist rivals. Several interviewees contrasted this with both right-wing populism and left-wing ‘Corbynism,’ which, at times, they claimed, flirted with a Manichean and binary view of “the people versus the elite”described by the ideational definition of populism (Mudde, 2017). As one journalist observed: “Starmer doesn’t do binaries. He does compromise. That’s his politics.” This rejection of populism runs deep within the identity of the Parliamentary Labour Party. MPs and advisers alike saw their role as defending the structures and norms of democracy against the polarising logic of populism.

A Compromise Strategy

Despite these convictions, Labour’s public-facing stance has been more muted. The compromise between Starmer and McSweeney means explicit attacks on populism are largely confined to Starmer’s speeches, whilst the wider party message stresses competence and delivery. At the same time, McSweeney’s strategy has steered Labour toward selective co-option of populist themes, borrowing rhetoric on sovereignty, fairness, and security when it helps shore up support against the PRR Reform UK.

MPs are divided over this balancing act. Some welcomed Starmer’s willingness to call out populism explicitly, saying it reassured the new intake that the party was willing to “name the problem.” Others warned that in Leave-voting constituencies such rhetoric could backfire.

A similar divergence in opinion appeared when MPs were asked about McSweeney’s push for Labour to co-opt populist policies and rhetoric in certain areas. Some Labour elites felt that, although it was uncomfortable, it was necessary to reduce the electoral appeal of Reform UK. However, others felt it risked legitimising right-wing populists and alienating their voter base on the left.

Indeed, recent research highlights that mainstream parties risk alienating their core voter bases when co-opting populist policies or rhetoric. A 2024 study on mainstream partisans’ responses to populist radical right parties found that even tactical forms of cooperation can provoke feelings of betrayal among core supporters, while outright exclusion may conversely reassure them that democratic boundaries are being defended (van der Brug et al., 2024). In other words, accepting far-right actors as legitimate competitors may backfire by alienating loyal voters, reinforcing the dilemma that ignoring populism allows it to grow, but engaging with it risks damaging mainstream parties’ own legitimacy.

The result is a fractured Labour elite, and a party that highlights it is not populist, but is simultaneously cautious about declaring itself against populism. As one senior journalist told me: “They’ll quietly fix things, and when it helps, they’ll borrow the populist language.”

The European Dilemma

Labour’s balancing act is part of a wider European story. Both the Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) and the Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) frequently denounce the Freedom Party (FPÖ) as a right-wing populist force that threatens democratic stability. They highlight the FPÖ’s history of extremism and corruption scandals to argue it is unfit to govern. However, some analysts suggest that this moralising tone has also reinforced the FPÖ’s image as an outsider persecuted by the political establishment (Greilinger, 2024). 

In France, Emmanuel Macron has pitched himself as the rational bulwark against Marine Le Pen. His rhetoric helped him win two presidential elections, yet his reputation as the anti-populist “president of the elite” has also fuelled the resentment that benefits her party (Alduy, 2024). 

And in Slovakia, opposition leaders stress the importance of defending institutions against Robert Fico, though appeals to democratic norms often fail to resonate with voters who are more concerned about wages or security (OSW Centre for Eastern Studies, 2025).

Labour’s interviews echo these patterns. Starmer’s decision to call populism a “snake oil” resembles Macron’s confrontational stance, while McSweeney’s “pothole theory” mirrors the German CDU’s instinct to quietly address material grievances. And his tactic of co-opting populist themes recalls centre-left parties across Europe that have edged rightward on migration or nationalism in hopes of undercutting their rivals. Both approaches highlight the same paradox: ignoring populism lets it grow but confronting it risks alienating dissatisfied voters drawn to populist ‘common sense’solutions.

Conclusion: Lessons for Democracy

Labour’s struggle over how to deal with populism reflects a central dilemma facing European democracies. Mainstream parties increasingly recognise that populism threatens democratic norms, yet they are torn between exposing it and addressing the grievances that fuel it.

My interviews reveal a party uneasy about this balance. Starmer is inclined to call out populism for what it is. McSweeney and other strategists argue that delivery, not denunciation, is what keeps populists at bay – along with carefully borrowing some of their language and themes. MPs, often caught in between, worry about how rhetoric plays in their constituencies.

Since my research in January 2025, Starmer appears to have shifted closer to McSweeney’s view. He has grown more willing to co-opt populist policy positions and language in the hope of winning back voters tempted by Reform UK. A YouGov poll in early 2025 showed Reform UK as likely to be the largest party in parliament if a snap election were called, underscoring how desperate party elites have become. But comparative research suggests that Labour’s gamble may backfire. Political scientist Tarik Abou-Chadi has shown that when mainstream parties adopt aspects of populist policies from the far-right, they rarely succeed in winning over these voters. Instead, they might risk normalising the very politics they sought to resist.

Labour’s experience illustrates the challenge facing mainstream parties: how to safeguard democratic principles while competing in a political landscape reshaped by populism. These are not uniquely British problems, but global ones. For young people inheriting these democracies, the question is urgent: how can political actors who genuinely care about democracy confront populism without alienating voters or belittling their grievances?

 

References

Alduy, C. (2024, July 4). “How France Fell to the Far Right: In the End, Le Pen Hardly Had to Moderate to Gain Power.” Foreign Affairs. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/france/how-france-fell-far-right-le-pen-macron

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Cooper, Y. (2024, June 20). “Speech on Supreme Court ruling and Rwanda deportation.” Hansard. https://hansard.parliament.uk

Dunt, I. (2025, February 5). “A good man in government.” Politics.co.uk. https://iandunt.substack.com/p/a-good-man-in-government

Greilinger, G. (2024, January 2). “Normalising the far right: a warning from Austria.” Social Europe.

Hermer, R. (2024, July 25). “Speech as Attorney General on populism and the rule of law.” UK Government. https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/attorney-general-richard-hermer-on-populism

Ipsos. (2025, January). “Voting intention poll, January 2025.” Ipsos. https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/polling-voting-intention-2025

Lammy, D. (2025, March 10). “Statement on the International Criminal Court.” Hansard. https://hansard.parliament.uk

March, L. (2018). “Left and right populism compared: The British case.” The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 20(2), 281–298. https://doi.org/10.1177/1369148118763892

Müller, J.-W. (2016). What is populism? University of Pennsylvania Press.

Mudde, C. (2017). Populism: A very short introduction. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780190234874.001.0001

OSW Centre for Eastern Studies. (2025, January 28). “Slovakia: Fico’s government in trouble.” https://www.osw.waw.pl/en/publikacje/analyses/2025-01-28/slovakia-ficos-government-trouble

Rayner, A. (2024, April 21). “Referral of Prime Minister to Committee of Privileges.” Hansard. https://hansard.parliament.uk

Rodgers, S. (2025, February 24). “For evidence of Labour doubt in the Starmer project, look no further than his attorney general.” The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/24/labour-keir-starmer-project-attorney-general-richard-hermer

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response to (non) cooperation with populist radical right parties.” West European Politics, 48:6, 1389-1427, DOI: 10.1080/01402382.2024.2336436

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Starmer, K. (2024c, January 2). “Keir Starmer’s New Year speech.” Labour Party. https://labour.org.uk/updates/press-releases/keir-starmers-new-year-speech

The ongoing Russia-Ukraine war and its implications for EU defense policies.” Photo: Kirill Makarov.

Between Security and Suffering: The Human Cost of Europe’s Defense Resurgence 

by Editor’s ChoiceHomeVoice of Youth

As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine reshapes Europe’s security landscape, the EU faces a “watershed moment” demanding unprecedented defense spending and strategic autonomy. The “ReArm Europe Plan” allocates €800 billion for defense modernization, while EU states’ military expenditure has already surged 30% since 2021. Yet, this security buildup comes at a profound human cost: since 2022, over 1.3 million soldiers have been killed or wounded, with tens of thousands more facing lifelong trauma. While Europe seeks to safeguard territorial integrity and independence, the article questions whether spiraling militarization undermines humanitarian priorities, deepens instability, and perpetuates cycles of suffering rather than ensuring lasting security.

By Mohammed Afnan

Europe faces a serious threat to its territorial integrity, unprecedented since the Cold War. It is going through a “watershed moment in its security.” “Business as usual approach of underinvestment and fragmentation” is no longer viable given the Ukraine-Russia war and the American President Donald Trump’s frequent calls for the EU to take greater responsibility for its own defense.

Recent calls for increased defense spending by NATO members, predominantly including EU states, along with US Vice President J.D. Vance’s emphasis on “Europe’s threat within” at the last Munich Security Conference, signal the potential for tectonic shifts in the transatlantic relationship. It requires the EU to adopt a holistic and horizontal approach integrating defense and security dimensions of the continent. Nevertheless, questions remain regarding how far the EU can go, particularly within the milieu of historic transatlantic connections between the EU and the US, and the internal divergences concerning security within the EU member states. Since the wider debates have been taking place in this regard, the article will examine how a resurgence of traditional security concerns on the backdrop of Russia-Ukraine War, is going to affect the human cost of war.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has changed the European defense landscape since February 2022. European Commissions’ “White Paper for European Defense –Readiness 2030” proposed a vision to rearm Europe by enhancing the indigenous defense production and rapid deployment of military troops and assets across the EU. It clearly signifies the European Union’s maneuver to protect its citizens and consolidate its defense capabilities. “Readiness Plan,” also known as “ReArm Europe Plan” presented in March 2025 suggests leveraging over €800 billion in defense spending. As a matter of time, EU clearly understands the importance of strategic independence in the chaotic world.

Following the Russian invasion, EU leaders adopted the Versailles declaration pledging to enhance investment in defense sector. It aimed to boost the defense industry and gain strategic independence. Between 2021 and 2024, EU member states overall defense expenditure stood at €326 billion, marking an increase of 30%. The expenditure is expected to increase by more than €100 billion in real terms by 2027. It correlates with the defense investments too. In 2023, compared to the preceding year, defense investment increased by 17%, setting a record high of €72 billion. In 2024 alone, €102 billion was invested, in which beyond €90 billion was used for defense equipment procurement. Nevertheless, it raises questions regarding the utility of these enormous amounts in terms of enhancing the conditions of citizens, even those of soldiers engaged in deadly conflicts. Eventually, border defense and territorial integrity comes at the cost of losing lives, undermining the cost of human lives.

Throughout history, the recurring military conflicts and wars have brought devastating damage and countless destruction to both the lives and the physical environment. It is estimated that more than 37 million combatants have died in wars since 1800. If we take civilian deaths into consideration, the number of deceased will pile up. In the Second World War alone, which spread across much of the globe, 21 million soldiers died. Based on the data provided by the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP), 3.9 million people, including both civilians and combatants, have died in the armed conflicts between 1989 and 2024. Europe and America witnessed the fewest deaths, with around 370,000 and 230,000 deaths, respectively.

Parallels have been drawn comparing the casualties of the Second World War and the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. Based on the issue brief by Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), over 950,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded since the war began between Russia and Ukraine. Most of these soldiers belong to Russia’s Far North, Far East, and prisons. On the Ukrainian side, a total of 400,000 have been killed or wounded, and between 60,000 and 100,000 combatants have lost their lives. The severe injuries may have taken the well-being of the remainder of their life. Defense spending with its strong emphasizes on defense production and modernization makes these lives and their relatives futile. It may hinder the post-war reconstruction, especially in addressing long-term psychological trauma. Along with that, there are apprehensions that this increased spending could waste resources and cause political instability without delivering real security for the citizens. 

Overall, the resurgence of traditional security threats in Europe due to the Russia-Ukraine war is accompanied by sharply increased defense spending and military preparedness. This, however, comes with a high human cost in terms of lives lost and wounded, reminding that the price of safeguarding territorial integrity and security continues to be profound human suffering and loss. Human cost of war may hinder the post-war reconstructions. This needs to be taken into consideration in policy circles.

In sum, Europe’s renewed focus on defense and security — marked by unprecedented spending, strategic realignments, and calls for autonomy — reflects an unavoidable response to the Russia-Ukraine war and shifting transatlantic dynamics. Yet, this militarization entails profound trade-offs. While €800 billion in planned defense investments aims to safeguard territorial integrity, the staggering casualties — over 1.3 million killed or wounded since 2022 — highlight the immense human cost of security. Without balancing strategic preparedness with humanitarian priorities and post-war recovery, Europe risks undermining the very values it seeks to defend, perpetuating cycles of suffering and instability.

Falun Gong practitioners gather at Old Town Square in Prague, Czech Republic on July 20, 2019 to raise awareness about organ harvesting in China. Photo: Dreamstime.

Harvested in Silence: The Silent Surgery War on Migrant Bodies

by ECPS YouthEditor’s ChoiceHomeHuman RightsMigrationVoice of Youth

While the global community often articulates refugee detention as a banner of humanitarian concern, escalating evidence from Libya and North African regions reveals a deeper systemic failure where stateless refugees and other displaced persons are being subjected to medical procedures and organ removal through coercion masked as border security and health screening. Across these detention zones, a shadow economy thrives thereby transforming stateless refugees into targets of extrajudicial biomedical intervention. This article uncovers the alarming rise of coerced organ extraction and exploitative medical practices presented as humanitarian care, introducing the concept biomedical sovereignty to expose the violent necropolitics at play. To build upon forensic data, survivor testimonies, and policy analysis, the following article calls for an urgent re-evaluation of international ethical obligations toward radically marginalized populations. 

By Umavi Pagoda*

A 19-year-old Eritrean refugee is relocated from a detention center near Tripoli for what officials call a routine medical check-up. His departure marked the start of an absence that would never find closure as he became another unreturned face in a system that forgets too quickly. The following day, his belongings are returned to the dormitory with no explanation. His name is erased from records. His body is never found.

This incident is a fragment of a broader systematic pattern, one propagated across detention zones with troubling consistency in North Africa, where refugees are processed not only as asylum-seekers but as medical targets. While corridors of power continue to argue over the ethics and logistics of migration quotas and border security, a quieter atrocity is unfolding where the systematic medical exploitation of stateless persons, often unfolding into coerced organ removal. Within the ward where law disguises violence as care, silence kills quieter than bullets, outruns justice, and erases crimes before they are named. In extraction zones, silence enforced policy by design, not by accident.

Militias, Traffickers, and Medical Collusion

Since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, Libya represents a textbook case of post-revolutionary power vacuum, dominated by militia entrenchment, coercion by proxy, and smuggling networks. Moreover, in the absence of central governance, detention centers have evolved into profit-generating hubs for human trafficking, including a disturbing development: organ trade. 

Strategic assessments by the Inter-Agency Coordination Group against Trafficking in Persons (ICAT) outline that trafficking in persons for the purpose of organ removal is recognized under the UN Trafficking in Persons Protocol (Palermo Protocol) as a serious but hidden form of exploitation. Furthermore law-enforcement analysis by INTERPOL (2021) lays bare how criminal networks present in North and West Africa, which includes actors with medical links target vulnerable migrants and displaced populations for organ removal. Moreover, media investigation have further illustrated these risks, with platforms such as The Guardian (2024) bear witness to testimonies of migrants who were coerced into organ sales exposing the collusion between traffickers and medical staff.

Migrants and the displaced from sub-Saharan Africa, Syria, Bangladesh, and the Horn of Africa are frequently subjected to captivity under force along main transit routes through Agadez in Niger and eastern Sudan, with Libya positioned as Europe’s de facto checkpoint. In addition, these detention centers are often routinely run by militias and other non-state actors in alliance with traffickers and smugglers, under credible allegations of organ-trafficking risks and unease over possible complicity of medical personnel. Without independent oversight or any mechanism for accountability, these facilities—designed for secrecy—function as black boxes

From Rumor to Routine: Coerced Organ Removal Across Migration Routes

What was once a rumor is now routinized —measured in spreadsheets, hidden in budgets, and carved into bodies. In recent years, humanitarian workers and forensic specialists have uncovered disturbing patterns of disappearances and allegations of coerced medical procedures—making clear that the undocumented body, once erased by the state, is reintroduced into systems of value as currency, commodity, and collateral. Illicit transplant surgeries have been documented in multiple countries through police operations and court cases, even as UNODC’s Assessment Toolkit (2015) characterizes trafficking for organ removal as a hidden, under-reported crime whose true scale remains unknown.

From capitals to courtroom, global monitors have begun documenting the horror. The July 2024 IMO-UNHCR Mixed Migration Centre Report interviewed migrants, revealing patterns of detainees taken for blood testing and disappearing shortly afterward. Survivors report post-procedural states marked by disorientation, physical pain, and memory loss—reflecting a troubling loss of bodily agency under conditions where medical procedures are imposed rather than chosen. 

In July 2023, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) warned of deepening shadows over Libya, where layers of entrenched crimes have become almost invisible to international oversight: human trafficking, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, and the systematic torture of migrants and refugees—many lacking recognized nationality and thus classified as stateless under international law (OHCHR, 2023). 

Statelessness strips individuals of legal protection, leaving them defenseless against exploitation, including illicit organ removal. This risk is echoed in multiple reports, including a study led by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and the Mixed Migration Center (July 2024), which documents the experiences of refugees and migrants—many likely stateless—describing non-consensual organ removal along migration routes to the Mediterranean (Reuters, 2024). Witness journalism documents the experiences of 43 individuals from Sudan, South Sudan, and Eritrea—many of whom are absent from any civil registry—who sold a kidney under coercion, underscoring how displacement and the absence of state protection leave individuals acutely vulnerable to the most extreme forms of trafficking (The Guardian, 2024). 

Borders Beneath the Skin

In the shadows of ports, prisons, and refugee camps, the passport has been reduced to flesh, and the border is inscribed in blood. The trail starts in Tripoli, where the Mixed Migration Centre’s Everyone’s Prey briefing (July 2019) reports patterns of kidnapping and extortion of migrants in Libya’s detention industry. Moreover structural analysis such as the OSCE study on trafficking for organ removal coupled with the ICAT policy brief highlight how displacement and detention centers formulate systematic flaws that can be preyed upon by trafficking networks. 

Law-enforcement alarm remains unambiguous in  INTERPOL’s 2021 assessment which documents that organized crime groups based in North and West Africa prey on migrants and other displaced persons for coerced organ removal often shadowed by medical collusion. The UNODC Global Report on Trafficking in Persons (2022) observes that such trafficking persists in shadows, though it remains rare when in comparison to sexual or labor exploitations. Diesel generators hum into the darkness, fueling flickering lights over neglected wounds. The hum echoes east, into Xinjiang’s Dabancheng complex. Moreover, survivors bore witness before the Uyghur Tribunal revealing that they were subjected to blood draws, tissue typing, and ultrasound scans stripped of consent. In forensic retrospect, these procedures suggest a system where the border no longer ends at territory but continues beneath the skin.

This brutality is mirrored in the testimonies of countless individuals whose voices bleed through silence. On August 10, 2024, The Diplomat reported the public testimony of Cheng Pei Ming, described as the first known survivor of forced organ harvesting in China to speak openly. Cheng remains a crucial witness to an ongoing, state-directed system of coerced organ extraction — a campaign that the independent China Tribunal (2019) concluded was organized and carried out by the Chinese Communist Party, beyond reasonable doubt.

However, Beijing rejects any acknowledgement of state-directed coerced organ harvesting, particularly when involving prisoners of conscience. The official position maintains a stance of denial, asserting that the practice of using organs from executed prisoners was halted in 2015.

Bodies as Evidence: Testimonies of Coerced Organ Harvesting and the Global Shadow Trade

Policy is prose, while the body is evidence. Cheng’s testimony stands as a singular, rare first-person account. He recounts: “They said that I had to undergo an operation, but I firmly refused. They held me down and gave me an injection, and I quickly lost consciousness. When I woke up, I was still in the hospital and felt terrible pain in my side.” Refusal. Confinement. Injection. Blackout. Waking up shackled, with an IV taped to his foot, a drainage tube in his chest, oxygen tubes in his nose, and a thirty-five-centimeter incision. “There was a tube with bloody liquid coming from under the bandaging that was on my side,” he adds, as documented in the ETAC media release.

Additionally, The Diplomat reports that Xinjiang authorities plan to establish six new organ transplant centers despite the region’s strikingly low official voluntary donation rate — a figure widely disputed by human rights organizations.

While the East provides a witness, the South offers a case file. Described by authorities as Egypt’s largest organ-trafficking case to date, the December 2016 raids targeted 10 medical centers, resulting in 37 convictions in 2018. Among those arrested were several medical professionals, and authorities reported the recovery of millions in assets.

Victims, including Sudanese asylum seekers, recounted waking from anesthesia to find fresh surgical dressings, visible scars, and the absence of a kidney. Within North and West Africa, INTERPOL (2021) assessment states that organized crime groups frequently prey on migrants and refugees, often under the guise of “altruistic donations” and frequently shadowed by medical-sector complicity.

Additionally, some clinics are reported to perform both legal and illegal procedures simultaneously. However, weak reporting mechanisms and fragmented medical registries allow the illicit trade to thrive in the shadows.

Across borders, the UNODC Global Report on Trafficking in Persons (2022) records that trafficking for organ removal remains a statistical rarity in detected cases and is chronically under-reported. Furthermore, the only treaty directly addressing organ trafficking, the Council of Europe Convention against Trafficking in Human Organs (CETS No. 216), continues to struggle with limited ratification.

In a parallel theatre, in the Sinai, Eritrean captives have been kidnapped and tortured for ransom. In some cases, they were killed when payments failed; several testimonies also allege organ removal—a practice all too familiar—although rights reporting primarily emphasizes the ransom-torture economy. Yet the trail does not end in Sinai.

In April 2025, the trail led to Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, where the body of 19-year-old Beatrice Warguru Mwangi was returned to Kenya. What was returned was missing a stomach, eyes, and reproductive organs; her neck was almost severed. “How is this my daughter? Her body was empty. No stomach inside. Her breasts were cut …,” her mother testified to Migrants-Rights.org. The post-mortem examination in Nairobi further documented signs of strangulation, dehydration, and prolonged starvation. Despite petitions, the case remains unanswered—with no formal inquiry, no published findings, and no transparent remedial steps. One body speaking for many, her body stands as a summons to states to intervene.

Surgical Sovereignty and Stateless Bodies

This cross-national pattern highlights how, in detention and transit zones, where oversight falters and legal authority is often liminal, protection gaps open like unhealed wounds. The absence of identification papers renders human beings harder to see and easier to exploit. These are not isolated anomalies; rather, they expose a deeper implementation gap: the 1954 Convention and the Palermo Protocol—while widely ratified—remain unevenly enforced in practice, repeatedly failing at the stage of implementation. As a result, data remain under-reported, justice remains selective, and access to remedies often depends on documentation and financial means.

At the core of this atrocity lies a collapse of medical integrity—a reversal of the healer’s oath. Clinical spaces become theatres of harm, with ethics dissolved into silence. The obligation remains clear: voluntary, informed consent and the absence of financial gain are fundamental norms, and physicians must not participate in abuse, including in detention settings.

Yet, in documented cases, detainees have repeatedly been subjected to medical procedures without consent and denied proper care—from coercive interventions behind the closed gates of Libyan detention centers to intrusive medical testing in Xinjiang—while criminal networks exploit these systemic gaps. In such contexts, human bodies are treated as inventory rather than as patients.

This dynamic aligns with the concept of surgical sovereignty—the ability of non-state and state-adjacent actors to exert coercive control and extract biological value from stateless and displaced persons.

The concept of surgical sovereignty refers to the ability to use medical infrastructure by non-state actors to exert coercive control and exploit the biological value of stateless persons — those “not considered as nationals by any State under the operation of its law,” as defined in the 1954 Convention Art.1 (1). In these spaces, procedures continue to occur without voluntary, informed consent or credible oversight, reversing medicine’s role from care to control. The framework aligns with biopolitics but specifically isolates the role of medical systems. Moreover, the Palermo Protocol defines trafficking to include exploitation for the removal of organs, even as its implementation remains weak.

In February 2025, authorities in southeast Libya uncovered two migrant mass graves, freed 76 captives, and made three arrests linked to suspected trafficking sites. The following month, Sudanese refugees reported accounts of starvation, rape, slavery — and, in some testimonies, organ harvesting — along migration routes to the north. From a forensic perspective, such conditions cannot sustain lawful surgery: there is no anesthesia, no sterile field, and no consent, as required under the WHO Guiding Principles. Moreover under international law, such death and disappearances demand the recognition of right to life and a duty to reinvestigate as outlined in International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 6 and the Human Rights Committee’s General Comment No. 36. An individual’s right to health requires consent, documentation and oversight under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Article 12 and CESR General Comment No.14. Failure to keep records or examine remains may be treated as violations.

Although abuses remain widespread and often under-investigated, the law frequently erodes into silence. This is compounded by the absence of an effective accountability mechanism to enforce WHO health standards in conflict settings and detention sites. Current mandates also struggle to reach non-state actors who control many of these camps. As of 2025, the international response has been both limited and late.

Cut in Silence: The Cost of Global Inaction

This silence echoes earlier failures and undermines the very foundations of the post-war settlement the world claims to uphold. The 1947 Nuremberg Code declared voluntary, informed consent to be non-negotiable — even in times of conflict. Yet in modern-day Libya, while the principle is acknowledged in theory, it remains absent in practice.

What fails in implementation locally is often underwritten by decisions made in Europe. Amnesty International’s Europe’s Gatekeeper (2015) reported that EU funding and equipment to Libya’s coastguard and detention systems have given cover to abuses against migrants: arbitrary detention, torture, extortion. Moreover, UN reporting and rights groups have revealed a grim pattern: people returned to Libya vanish into detention centers or unregistered sites. Many then become effectively untraceable. Furthermore, The Global Protection Cluster cautions that Libya’s legal ambiguity  between migrants, asylum seekers, refugees, and trafficking survivors becomes a structural barrier to protection and remedies. Médecins Sans Frontières has reported overcrowding and the lack of adequate care: conditions that are irreconcilable with the very principles of medical care and a blatant disregard for the laws of human dignity.

Yet beneath the reports and the evidence, a deeper question is left unanswered. What happens to the body unclaimed by nation, unnamed by law, unacknowledged by history? What happens to a life that holds no legal weight, does its loss echo anywhere? In these spaces, the lack of prosecution remains as the infrastructure of impunity.

Breaking the Silence on Hidden Atrocities

This article does not claim to resolve the failures of states. However, it demands that the silence surrounding medical atrocities be dismantled. As the world increasingly governs bodies before protecting them, a pressing question persists: how long until the promise of healing conceals the reality of extraction?

When the refugee body is no longer seen as a body in need but one that is policed, processed, and politicised, the surgeon’s scalpel — once an instrument of care — becomes a tool of control. These atrocities are not merely the actions of complicit individuals; they are the outcome of systemic structures that strip the stateless and the dispossessed of their humanity.

Once, the international community drew a line after gas seared lungs. Today, the responsibility falls on governments, international bodies, and all who claim moral authority to draw a new line — for those cut in silence — and to outlaw surgical violence against the voiceless. If we remember only the suffering but not the perpetrators, we bury the crime beside the victim.

Will those who once enforced accountability now hold states, militias, and complicit actors responsible for the scalpel used without consent — or will silence remain the price of statelessness? If the world outlawed gas, will it also outlaw surgical violence, or will the voiceless continue to pay the cost of inaction?

 

(*) Umavi Pagoda is a UK-based A-level student studying Politics, Chemistry, Biology, and Physics, with a focus on the intersection of medical ethics, human rights, and international law. Their work in international debate and policy stimulation has been recognized at multiple high-level Model United Nations conferences Worldwide. Email: pagodaumavi41@gmail.com

Refugees and migrants disembark at the port of Thessaloniki after being transferred from the Moria refugee camp on Lesvos Island, Greece, September 2, 2019. Photo: Vasilis Ververidis.

Locked Out, Building In: Refugees in Greece Persevere Amidst Exclusion

by CommentariesECPS YouthEditor’s ChoiceHomeMigrationVoice of Youth

Greece has become a critical gateway for asylum-seekers, yet increasingly restrictive migration policies, harsh detention conditions, and reduced aid leave refugees in precarious circumstances. Amid systemic exclusion, NGOs like REFUGYM, Sama Community Center, and El-Sistema Greece foster hope, dignity, and belonging through education, sports, arts, and grassroots initiatives. Drawing on interviews with NGO leaders, refugees, and first-hand field observations, this article highlights both the barriers asylum-seekers face and the community-led solutions redefining resilience. In a climate of tightening borders and rising polarization, refugee-led spaces remain vital for empowerment, solidarity, and imagining more inclusive futures.

By Layla Hajj*

On July 9th, 2025, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced that Greece will stop the processing of asylum applications arriving from North Africa for three months, claiming that those who enter the country illegally will be “arrested and detained.” Despite the Greek Council for Refugees demanding that there be no suspension of asylum under the premise that it is “illegal,” a violation of international law, and a demonstration of Greece’s failure to guarantee basic fundamental rights, Greece has justified their migration restrictions with the influx of migrants arriving via the Mediterranean route. The government defends that they must halt all illegal migration to increase their country’s security and ensure that they have the adequate resources to distribute to their own citizens, who are currently facing issues such as widespread unemployment.

Despite being one of Europe’s main gateways for migration, with 80% of asylum-seekers who cross the Mediterranean landing in Greece, the country continues to tighten restrictions on asylum seekers, who already face a life-threatening journey to reach the island-nation (IRC). The UN agency IOM reports that as of July 2025, 743 people have died this year as they attempt to cross the Mediterranean to Europe, inducing 538 on the Central Mediterranean route, one of the main pathways to Greece and the deadliest migration route in the world. 

Those who make it to Greece live in detention centers, formally called refugee camps. Despite government officials denying all accusations, Cyprus and Greece have been repeatedly accused of human rights violations and push backs against migrants by the European Court of Human Rights and other councils.

While camps have always been isolated, cast away in remote mountains outside of the line of sight of most Greek citizens, they have become increasingly restricted in recent years. In 2020, the Greek government built 10 foot concrete retainer walls around a camp referred to as Malakasa 1, which was already surrounded by barbed wire. Within these towering walls, the government has limited the entrepreneurship of refugees, including shutting down most, if not all, of the small businesses running in the camps.

The government has even limited assistance for basic survival necessities. In 2021, between the months of October and December, the state stripped asylum seekers of cash card assistance, a provision that impacted many thousands of asylum-seekers (Refugees International). In 2024, cash assistance was not paid out to migrants for the months of May, June, July, and August. Recently in March of 2025, the government reduced the eligibility period for Refugee Cash Assistance (RCA) and Refugee Medical Assistance (RMA) from 12 months to 4 months. The government has not provided a specific reason for the halting of said assistance. 

In an interview with Britty Grace, founder of the NGO REFUGYM and a former service worker in Malakasa 1, she shared some insights into the realities of life inside the camps. “People refer to the camps as prisons” she revealed. People are often uninformed of their rights, detained in the camps for weeks on end for paperwork processing, which inhibits their ability to get a job and provide for their families, and are stripped of housing opportunities overnight. And when asked if the conditions inside of camps have improved over the years, she responded with a direct “No. Things have gotten worse. And when you think things can’t get any worse, they do.” 

Britty Grace started working in camps in 2016. Two years later, she started REFUGYM, an NGO that provides community-led-sports programming and language lessons to asylum-seekers. While there are many NGOs like Grace’s dedicated to servicing individuals living in refugee camps, the Greek government has placed several restrictions on their entry. According to Grace, the process of registration with a camp is “very expensive, bureaucratic, and difficult. Even after registration, it ultimately comes down to the discretion of the camp manager. Oftentimes, they don’t provide a reason for kicking us out. And I guess they don’t have to – they’re in charge.”

Grace was kicked out of the camp 5 times over the course of 6 years for trying to implement REFUGYM. “When I started it (REFUGYM), I had always created it to be a community led gym in the eventuality I would be kicked out. That way, it wasn’t completely dependent on me. So when I was forced to leave, REFUGYM was still able to continue for 6 years being led by the community.” However, her continued removal from the camps made management of her organization incredibly difficult, forcing Grace to eventually move her services to an external location.

A colleague of Grace’s, Katerina Tsikalaki, who now collaborates with Grace at her new location, shares similar experiences from working within the camps. As the co-founder of the NGO Science United, she is dedicated to providing science education to displaced youth in Greece. A valuable aspect of her services is providing children with the opportunity to go on field trips to observe the subjects they are learning about.

Tsikalaki shared a vivid memory of a setback she faced while implementing her travel programming: “A few years ago, I spent time planning a science field trip for the kids so that they could visit the Athens Science Festival. It was a much needed opportunity for them to get out of the camp and learn. However, on the planned day of the excursion, the minister abruptly decided to lock down the camp for what he described as procedures. Instead of a fun science excursion, the kids were stuck in the camps all day, watching their parents run through another round of security checks.”

“This was not an isolated event,” Tsikalaki continued. “While residents are allowed out of the camp, they must show identification. And if something goes wrong, they must remain in the camp until further notice. The children, and even adults, absolutely do not have the same rights as Greek residents outside of the camps. But it’s not surprising. We now have a very far-right minister of migration and asylum, Thanos Plevris.”

In the face of strict policy, refugees, with the support of NGOs, still manage to create their own spaces for belonging and success. Since relocating REFUGYM to the Sama community center, positioned right outside Malakasa 1 and 2,  Britty Grace has been able to do so much more with her organization. A big part of REFUGYM’s programming has always been the escapism element that it presents participants – before from the typical day in the camps and since relocating, from the camps altogether. 

“People come to hang out at Sama when we’re not there. It’s a safe space – a home,” Grace reflects.

Jumping in to support Grace’s comment, a refugee attending a Sama event revealed that “Sama makes life in the camps bearable. Sama gives me a purpose. When I leave to go back to camp, I am more joyful and hopeful.”

Sama is both a place of comfort and excitement. REFUGYM’s sports programming includes climbing trips, hiking, watersports, boxing, yoga and more. The center also hosts women’s weekly only days, cultivating a space in which women feel empowered and secure by offering activities like self-defense and meditation. On top of programming, Sama offers medical services and asylum support every week with the help of doctors and social workers from other NGOS.

A 16 year old frequenter of Sama serves as a prime example of the impact of the centers’ multifaceted program opportunities. He came to Sama illiterate and with a very bad eye condition. However, Britty Grace was able to connect him with an ophthalmologist and get him strong prescription glasses. From that point forward, his confidence increased exponentially. He became literate and learned English within months. Now, he helps translate the English classes for his less-fluent peers. This boy is one of many dedicated participants at the Sama community center. “People often attend 3 or 4 language classes. They are thirsty and keen for knowledge!” Grace exclaimed.

“Over the years a lot of people have asked me to write reference letters for them from when they were a leader in our program, and then that helped them to obtain a job,” Grace revealed. Their dedication inside Sama presents far-reaching opportunities.

Sama community center has also manifested into a space for cultural exchanges. Oftentimes, a Greek native named Maria, who helps teach the Greek lessons, plays music for the migrants on weekends. In return, migrants teach songs to their peers in their native language. “It is a super lovely reciprocal exchange of music. This is such an amazing, organic element that we should encourage,” Grace reflects. “Music is so universal and is an incredible way to promote mutual understanding and connection.” 

El-Sistema Greece, a partner organization of REFUGYM, utilizes music as its key tool to promote unity. The organization is a Greek-led NGO that teaches music to both displaced youth and Greek locals, cultivating a space that promotes understanding and cohesion. The team is adamant that they remain a completely Greek team in order to foster a tight-knit community that promotes Greek inclusion, and makes the clear statement that Greece is an inviting country.

In an interview with Anis Barnat, co-founder of the NGO, he explained that: “What we developed is not so much music lessons, it’s nice but it’s not the purpose of what we’re doing. The social element is the most important one and the values that we’re giving to the kids, like learning how to understand differences and how to understand that barriers are most of the time very psychological so you have to overcome that. We try to give our kids as much control over the lesson plan as possible, and encourage them to work together in order to devise a plan. This is the thing that is lacking, I think, in the world in general. Fear and polarization are overtaking our world – and we seek to combat that division through El-Sistema.  I love the arts, but we are creating good people, good leaders, and good citizens.”

“It’s essential to start community led projects so that they can be sustainable,” adds Grace. “In such programs. community members feel like it’s their space, so they contribute to it. It’s not just something that they passively show up to. They contribute to it, they help with upkeep, cleaning, and teaching. It’s a collective space as opposed to a hierarchical one.”

We will only see more people displaced from their home countries with the rise of climate change, poverty, and global conflict. In such a time, it is critical to lean on communities and cultivate spaces for inclusion. In the words of Britty Grace, “we must break down barriers in order to foster belonging.”

 

Layla Hajj is a rising senior at the National Cathedral School in Washington, D.C., and the founder of Refugee Youth Support, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit providing tutoring, mentorship, and school-prep programs for refugee children in the DC area. Over the past three summers, she has interned with the Blossom Hill Foundation, supporting educational initiatives for displaced youth worldwide. She has also traveled to Jordan and Greece to teach English to refugee children, conduct interviews with migration experts and asylum-seekers, and document grassroots efforts to build inclusive communities.

As a youth writer and advocate, Layla works to empower migrant youth and address systemic barriers facing displaced communities. For this article, she draws on interviews with NGO leaders and refugees, as well as her first-hand experiences working near refugee camps, aiming to amplify and contextualize the voices of migrants themselves.

 

References

Al Jazeera. (2025, June 17). “At least 60 people ‘feared dead’ after shipwrecks off the coast of Libya.” https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/6/17/at-least-sixty-asylum-seekers-missing-after-shipwrecks-off-the-coast-of-libya (accessed on September 1, 2025).

Al Jazeera. (2025, July 9). “Greece halts migrant asylum processing from North Africa.” https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/7/9/greece-to-halt-migrant-asylum-processing-from-north-africa (accessed on September 1, 2025).

Greece Refugee.info. (n.d.). “Information and services about rights and procedures for refugees in Greece.” https://greece.refugee.info/en-us (accessed on September 1, 2025).

Mixed Migration Centre. (2024). Quarterly Mixed Migration Update: Europe. https://mixedmigration.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/QMMU-2024-Q4-Europe.pdf

International Rescue Committee. (n.d.) Refugee Inclusion, Greece. https://www.rescue.org/country/greece (accessed on September 1, 2025).

Spinnicchia, C. (2025, April 11). “Greece: Government suspends cash assistance to asylum seekers for nine months.” Melting Pot Europa. https://www.meltingpot.org/en/2025/04/greece-the-government-has-suspended-economic-assistance-to-asylum-seekers-for-9-months/ (accessed on September 1, 2025).

MedMA, Mediterranean Migration & Asylum Policy Hub. (2025, February 24). “Unpacking Greece’s 2024 Migration & Asylum Report: Data and Trends. https://med-ma.eu/publications/unpacking-greeces-2024-migratio (accessed on September 1, 2025).

The controversial Israeli separation wall dividing Israel from the West Bank, often referred to as the segregation wall in Palestine. Photo: Giovanni De Caro.

The Psychological Toll of Graphic Content in the Israel-Palestine Conflict

by ECPS YouthEditor’s ChoiceHomeVoice of Youth

As massacre and starvation content floods social media in the wake of Hamas’s October 7 attack, a new generation of users—especially teenagers—grapples with its psychological toll. In this Voice of Youth commentary, 19-year-old aspiring journalist Andrea Castelnuovo explores how platforms like Instagram, X, and TikTok have become both vital sources of information and sources of distress. Drawing on recent studies from Israel and Jordan, Castelnuovo highlights the anxiety, trauma, and emotional numbness that graphic imagery can induce in young viewers. He also shares his own experience of digital overwhelm and the importance of finding alternative, less triggering ways to stay informed. His article raises a crucial question for journalists: Can we raise awareness without harming those who bear witness?

By Andrea Castelnuovo*

Since Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, people have turned to platforms like Instagram, X, and TikTok to stay informed. However, many are struggling with the emotional toll of witnessing violent content.

The Israel-Palestine conflict is one of the most discussed topics on social media – now the main source of information for much of the Western population. Studies show that people prefer following independent journalists on platforms like Instagram and TikTok over reading mainstream outlets like the BBC, Fox, and Sky News – often criticized for a perceived pro-Israel bias. Content on social media is usually more direct as journalists share raw pictures and videos that make the news easier to grasp. However, many viewers – teenagers in particular – are triggered by this approach. 

In the article “It matters what you see: Graphic media images of war and terror may amplify distress” by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), two researchers examined how graphic content can pressure governments to act – but also emphasized how often its emotional impact on viewers is overlooked. 

Cyber psychology researchers Liat Franco and Meyran Boniel-Nissim studied the psychological, physical, and mental toll – along with coping strategies – among teenagers in northern Israel exposed to war content on social media. Their symptoms included anxiety, sleep disturbances, and shifts in political views. Based on interviews with thirty-one adolescents aged 13 to 15 in northern Israel, the study found that many teens were becoming emotionally numb – a defense mechanism to shield themselves from ongoing trauma. 

A similar pattern emerged in research led by Dua’a Al-Maghaireh and colleagues, who studied acute stress symptoms among Jordanian teenagers. Nearly half of Jordan’s population has Palestinian roots, which intensifies the emotional impact of the content they view. All 180 students interviewed said they watched Gaza-related news on social media, with 61% consuming it for more than three hours a day. All of them reported viewing content on YouTube – a platform where footage is especially graphic and unfiltered. As a result, 70% described themselves as highly stressed, and only 11% reported low levels of stress. Common feelings included sadness, shock, and hopelessness.

One teenage boy recalled his first time seeing images of bombings in Gaza: “I was very shocked by the scenes of killing, blood, and destruction of homes – and the people inside them. I have never seen such scenes before.”

Another said the emotional weight had affected his relationships: “After I watched news footage of the Gaza attack on social media and described it to my family and friends, my friends became very sad, and there was no laughter like before. Also, my house became gloomy.”

As a 19-year-old aspiring journalist, I care deeply about staying informed – but also about protecting my mental health. Recently, I deleted Instagram, as its content made me anxious and triggered my dissociation. Being exposed to graphic imagery every day left me feeling hopeless and powerless – too small to make a difference. Since I started listening to podcasts and reading long-form articles, I have managed to stay informed without feeling overwhelmed. This approach may not work for everyone, but for people like me – who want to stay aware without burning out – it is a valuable starting point.

The main question remains: Is there a way journalists and content creators can sensitize their audience without harming them?

 

(*) Andrea Castelnuovo is a nineteen-year-old aspiring journalist from Italy. He studied languages and literature in high school, with a focus on English, German, and Chinese. In 2024, he attended NHSMUN in New York City, where he gained insight into international law and the importance of journalism. Email: castelnuovo.andrea2006@gmail.com