Kutupalong Refugee Camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh.

From Beneficiaries to Changemakers: Why Rohingya Youth Must Have a Voice in Their Future

by Editor’s ChoiceHomeMigrationVoice of Youth

Nearly a decade after the mass displacement of the Rohingya, an entire generation has come of age in refugee camps where their lives are shaped by decisions they rarely help make. In this compelling ECPS Voice of Youth (VoY) article, PS Ayaas, a young Rohingya writer and community organizer, challenges the humanitarian paradigm that casts refugee youth primarily as beneficiaries of aid. Drawing on both lived experience and policy analysis, he argues that young Rohingya are already leading initiatives in education, human rights, environmental protection, and community development despite severe structural constraints. The article calls for a fundamental shift from tokenistic consultation to meaningful participation, insisting that sustainable humanitarian governance must recognize refugee youth as partners, decision-makers, and changemakers in shaping their collective future.

By PS Ayaas

I have grown up watching decisions about my future being made in rooms I could not enter. I am a young Rohingya living in the refugee camps of Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, and I know the particular sound of a meeting happening somewhere close by, on the other side of a fence or a tarpaulin wall, deciding something about people like me without any of us inside it. Like thousands of other young people here, I have learned to build a future inside a place designed around uncertainty — where the rain decides some days whether a path is walkable, where a shelter roof gets patched more times than anyone bothers to count, where you learn early which queues take an hour and which take a whole morning. We are surrounded by humanitarian services, policies, assessments, and programs intended to protect us. Yet too often, the people designing these responses are speaking about young Rohingya rather than listening to us.

I know what it means to be grateful for assistance and, in the very same breath, to feel that your own voice is missing from the decisions that shape your life. Both things are true at once, and I have mostly stopped trying to resolve that contradiction, because living inside it is simply what it means to be young and Rohingya right now. I have watched young people keep studying despite severe limitations, volunteer in their communities with almost nothing to give, and organize around health, education, human rights, and environmental protection anyway — not because someone funded it, but because waiting for permission has never been something any of us could actually afford. These are not small things. They have convinced me of something I now hold as a plain fact rather than an opinion: Rohingya youth should not be treated only as beneficiaries of humanitarian assistance. We must be recognized as participants, problem-solvers, and changemakers.

Nearly a decade after the 2017 exodus, Cox’s Bazar remains home to close to a million Rohingya refugees, roughly half of whom are children and adolescents (UNICEF, 2025). Yet in nearly every major decision that shapes our daily lives — what we are permitted to study, where we may travel, whether our camp stays open or closed during a national election — young Rohingya are treated overwhelmingly as recipients of policy rather than participants in it. The international response to this crisis has structurally cast youth as beneficiaries of aid rather than as capable agents of change, even as a growing, under-recognized body of youth-led organizing inside these camps tells a very different story.

A Generation Defined by Ceilings

The most concrete example of this structural ceiling is education. Rohingya children in Bangladesh are, by government policy, not permitted to study in Bangladeshi schools and are barred from enrolling in formal schools outside the camps (Human Rights Watch, 2019). A 2022 pilot finally began offering instruction based on Myanmar’s national curriculum, reaching its first 10,000 students that year (UNICEF, 2022) — a genuine milestone, but one that arrived five years late and still reaches only a fraction of eligible youth. That fragile progress is now reversing. Foreign aid cuts have forced the closure of learning centers, and as of 2025, kindergarten and primary facilities across the camps remain shuttered while youth vocational centers have shut down entirely (UNICEF, 2025). Human Rights Watch (2025) reports that roughly 437,000 school-age children in the camps have been affected. Girls face a compounding barrier: while they make up roughly half of primary-level learners, safety concerns and restrictive gender norms reduce female participation at the secondary level to roughly twenty-five percent (Global Partnership for Education, n.d.).

For me, education has never been simply a classroom experience. I have studied by whatever light was available that evening, through a connection that drops mid-sentence, with materials passed hand to hand until the pages soften at the edges, and with a persistent uncertainty about where any of it actually leads once you reach the ceiling the policy has already built for you. Studying, some days, feels less like preparation for a future and more like an act of pure persistence, undertaken without any proof it will be rewarded. I continue anyway, because education has never meant a certificate to me. It means the possibility of becoming useful to my community, whatever shape that usefulness eventually takes — and some days, on the hardest ones, it is simply the one part of the day that still belongs to me and not to the camp around it.

Movement and livelihood are constrained in much the same way. Human Rights Watch (2022) documented curfews, checkpoint harassment, and arbitrary travel denials across the camps. Ahead of Bangladesh’s February 2026 national elections, camp authorities ordered the camps “sealed,” severely restricting movement (Fortify Rights, 2026). The International Crisis Group (2024) frames these restrictions on movement and the right to work as systemic pressures that leave refugees with no formal pathway to self-sufficiency. An entire generation is coming of age inside a system explicitly built to withhold the two pillars of adult independence: higher education and legal work.

The Agency the System Doesn’t Account For

What the policy framework misses is what is already happening despite it. I have felt this agency personally through community volunteering — in the small, unglamorous work of showing up for people who live three shelters down, in conversations that happen on a doorstep rather than in a workshop, in the particular satisfaction of solving something small and real for someone you actually know. Working directly alongside other young people has taught me that refugees do not need to be taught only how to receive services. Many of us already understand the particular, textured challenges of our environment, because we live inside them every day without a break, in a way no assessment visiting for an afternoon ever quite captures. What we lack is not motivation. It is the resources, the structural recognition, and the institutional space to turn what we already know into lasting action.

Across the camps, youth-led initiatives prove this daily, in ways that rarely make it into the reports written about us. In community leadership and rights work, the Rohingya Youth Union runs mentorship and problem-solving workshops designed specifically to bridge the learning gaps the formal system leaves open (UNHCR, n.d.-a), while the Rohingya Youth Advocacy Network, established in 2023, has grown to more than 700 volunteers coordinating human rights advocacy and community programming (Rohingya Khobor, 2025d). 

In grassroots protection and media, the IOM’s Poribortok — “change makers” — program has trained 400 young Rohingya to lead neighborhood-level efforts against gender-based violence (International Organization for Migration, n.d.), and in late 2025 a four-day media workshop trained seventy young Rohingya storytellers and videographers to document their own community instead of continuing to rely on outside narrators (Rohingya Khobor, 2025a, 2025b). In ecological stewardship, the Rohingya Environmental Protection Network, founded entirely by young volunteers, coordinates practical projects and education addressing the deforestation and climate vulnerability our overcrowded camps now face (Rohingya Khobor, 2025c).

What unites all of it is that none of it waited for permission from the humanitarian structures meant to serve us. It exists as living evidence against the premise that Rohingya youth need to be spoken for.

Why the Gap Persists: A Policy Critique

If this agency is already visible, why does the policy conversation still so rarely include it? Part of the answer is structural. A camp environment built around restricted movement, capped education, and no legal right to work does not simply fail to cultivate youth leadership — it actively works against the conditions leadership normally requires. Omata’s (2022) fieldwork in Ghana’s Buduburam camp found much the same pattern: even when refugees acquired real skills through aid programs, the surrounding economic and legal environment made those skills nearly impossible to apply. Skill-building without any legal pathway to use those skills locally does not build capacity. It builds frustration.

It would be unfair to say Rohingya participation does not exist at all. Humanitarian agencies frequently engage refugee volunteers, community leaders, and informal committees, and I have been one of those volunteers. But the deeper problem is the distance between participation and decision-making. A young refugee is often asked to help implement a program, and far more rarely given any seat at the table where that program was actually designed. The problem, in other words, is not only that Rohingya youth are excluded from decision-making. It is that humanitarian systems are losing real, local knowledge every time they treat young refugees primarily as beneficiaries rather than as partners. “Nothing about us, without us” cannot remain an advocacy slogan. It has to become an operational standard — for program design, for monitoring, for evaluation, for all of it.

What Changes When Youth Become Partners

When young Rohingya are engaged as agents rather than recipients, the outcomes are not abstract. Community-based protection work led by trained young volunteers has proven significantly more effective at reducing stigma and shifting harmful social norms than top-down messaging campaigns designed elsewhere and delivered to us (UNHCR, 2025). Youth-led journalism is producing an authentic archive of camp reporting, quietly shifting narrative authority from international outlets back to the community those outlets have long written about. Youth-run environmental and advocacy networks are building local organizational capacity that outlasts funding cycles entirely, unlike the rigid, externally designed projects that tend to disappear the moment a grant runs out.

What Meaningful Participation Should Look Like

Moving from tokenistic consultation to genuine policy partnership requires structural change, not better intentions. I believe four reforms matter most.

First, institutionalized youth advisory structures. Humanitarian coordination platforms should establish formal, representative Rohingya youth advisory groups with direct consultative status during the drafting of Joint Response Plans and strategic policy reviews — not consulted after the fact, but present while the plan is still being written.

Second, direct, accessible micro-funding. Donors should create streamlined, small-scale grant mechanisms specifically for legitimate refugee-led youth organizations, bypassing the bureaucratic hurdles that keep resources concentrated among established international organizations instead of the young people already doing the work.

Third, accredited education and vocational pathways. Education policy has to look past basic literacy. Aid agencies and host authorities need to expand access to accredited secondary curricula, certified digital skills training, and tertiary scholarships, so that studying leads somewhere rather than stopping at a ceiling by design.

Fourth, transparent institutional accountability. Participation needs measurable consequences. When agencies consult young refugees, they should be expected to report back — clearly, and in public — on which youth recommendations were accepted, which were modified, which were rejected, and why.

Conclusion: Living Between Uncertainty and Action

I do not know exactly where my own future will lead. Like many young Rohingya, I live with daily uncertainty about where I will study, work, or build a permanent life — whether the place I am sitting in right now, writing this, is where I will still be sitting in five years, or ten. But that uncertainty has not removed my desire to contribute. If anything, it has sharpened it, and strengthened my belief that young people must be given real opportunities to shape the communities we are already serving, whether or not anyone ever officially asked us to.

I do not ask the world to listen to Rohingya youth simply because we are young, or because we are refugees. I ask it to listen because we know our communities from the inside, in ways no external assessment can fully reach. We know what works. We know what fails. We know what our families quietly fear at night, and what young people here still hope to build, even now, even without much reason to expect it.

Nearly a decade into one of the world’s largest and most protracted refugee crises, young Rohingya are already learning, volunteering, organizing, creating, and leading — often in the same week we are also queueing for rations, patching a roof before the next rain, or walking further than we should have to for water. We are not waiting to become changemakers. We are already trying, today, with what little the system gives us, to change what we can. The only real question left is whether the international systems surrounding us will keep speaking for us — or finally make room for us to speak, participate, and help shape the future we are the ones who will actually have to live inside.

 

PS Ayaas is a young Rohingya writer based in the refugee camps of Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, currently studying Bachelor of Health Science at the University of the People. His writing draws on lived experience of displacement, statelessness, and community organizing, and focuses on repositioning Rohingya youth as active participants and changemakers rather than passive recipients of humanitarian aid. He has previously been recognized in the Mixed Migration Review writing competition, and is currently developing an essay on Rohingya it was named as Living in Limbo: Voices and Resilience of The Rohingya Protracted and displacement. Email: rohingyapubgsquad@gmail.com

 

References

Fortify Rights. (2026, February 26). “Bangladesh: Incoming government must end restrictions on freedom of movement, protect Rohingya refugees.” https://www.fortifyrights.org/bgd-inv-2026-02-11/

Global Partnership for Education. (n.d.). “Changing mindsets: Education for Rohingya girls in Bangladesh.” https://www.globalpartnership.org/results/country-journeys/changing-mindsets-education-rohingya-girls-bangladesh

Human Rights Watch. (2019, December 3). “Are we not human?”: Denial of education for Rohingya refugee children in Bangladesh.” https://www.hrw.org/report/2019/12/03/are-we-not-human/denial-education-rohingya-refugee-children-bangladesh

Human Rights Watch. (2022, April 4). “Bangladesh: New restrictions on Rohingya camps. https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/04/04/bangladesh-new-restrictions-rohingya-camps

Human Rights Watch. (2025, June 25). “Bangladesh: Foreign aid cuts affect Rohingya children’s education.” https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/06/25/bangladesh-foreign-aid-cuts-affect-rohingya-childrens-education

International Crisis Group. (2024, March 12). “Crisis mounts for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.” https://www.crisisgroup.org/asia/south-asia/bangladesh/355-crisis-mounts-rohingya-refugees-bangladesh

International Organization for Migration. (n.d.). “Community advocates inspire positive change across Rohingya refugee camps.” IOM Storyteller. https://storyteller.iom.int/stories/community-advocates-inspire-positive-change-across-rohingya-refugee-camps

Omata, N. (2022). “Humanitarian assistance as performance? Expectations and mismatches between aid agencies and refugee beneficiaries.” Ethnos, 87(4), 789–806. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00141844.2022.2154819

Rohingya Khobor. (2025a, September 3). “Rohingya youth trained to tell their own untold stories through journalism.” https://rohingyakhobor.com/rohingya-youth-trained-to-tell-their-own-untold-stories-through-journalism/

Rohingya Khobor. (2025b, November 29). “Youth led initiative completes four day journalism workshop empowering seventy Rohingya youth storytellers.” https://rohingyakhobor.com/youth-led-initiative-completes-four-day-journalism-workshop-empowering-seventy-rohingya-youth-storytellers/

Rohingya Khobor. (2025c, December). “Rohingya youth form environmental network to protect camps from growing ecological crisis.” https://rohingyakhobor.com/rohingya-youth-form-environmental-network-to-protect-camps-from-growing-ecological-crisis/

Rohingya Khobor. (2025d, April 20). “The journey of Rohingya Youth Advocacy Network (RYAN): Empowering a generation for justice.” https://rohingyakhobor.com/the-journey-of-rohingya-youth-advocacy-network-ryan-empowering-a-generation-for-justice/

UNHCR. (n.d.-a). “Empowering Rohingya youth through education and leadership. Global Compact on Refugees.” https://globalcompactrefugees.org/good-practices/empowering-rohingya-youth-through-education-and-leadership

UNHCR. (2025, October 23). “Young Rohingya volunteers confront gender-based violence in crowded Bangladesh camps.” https://www.unhcr.org/us/news/stories/young-rohingya-volunteers-confront-gender-based-violence-crowded-bangladesh-camps

UNICEF. (2022, May 1). “Education milestone for Rohingya refugee children as Myanmar curriculum pilot reaches first 10,000 children.” https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/unicef-education-milestone-rohingya-refugee-children-myanmar-curriculum-pilot

UNICEF. (2025, October 14). “Geneva Palais briefing on the situation of children in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh.” https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/geneva-palais-briefing-situation-children-coxs-bazar-bangladesh

Amsterdam, Muslims.

Part IV — Rethinking the Nexus of Racialization and Populism: Lessons from the Study

by ECPS YouthEditor’s ChoiceHomeVoice of Youth

In the concluding installment of her series, Lianne Nota offers a theoretically and empirically grounded reassessment of the relationship between populism and racialization. Moving beyond conventional assumptions, she demonstrates that while racialization is central to certain forms of right-wing populism, it is not an inherent feature of populism itself but contingent upon broader ideological configurations. By foregrounding the role of “new racism” and the discursive linking of categories such as migration, religion, and security, Nota reveals how exclusionary boundaries can be constructed without explicit reference to race. At the same time, the analysis highlights the possibility of de-racializing political discourse through more inclusive articulations of “the people.” The article thus advances a nuanced framework for understanding how language shapes political belonging and exclusion.

By Lianne Nota*

This series set out to explore a question that is often overlooked in populism research: how and under what conditions does racialization shape the construction of the populist ‘people’? By analyzing parliamentary debates in the Netherlands, the findings point to a clear but nuanced conclusion. While racialization plays a significant role in right-wing populism, it is not an inherent feature of populism as such.

Is Racialization Inherent to Populism?

A key takeaway from this study is that populist actors do not automatically produce racialized understandings of ‘the people.’ Both Dutch populist parties under examination relied on a populist logic separating ‘the people’ from ‘the elite,’ yet only one consistently constructed these categories in racialized terms.

This suggests that the presence of racialization depends less on populism itself, and more on the ideological context in which populism is articulated. In the case examined here, right-wing populist discourse constructed ‘the people’ through exclusionary boundaries that essentialized cultural and religious differences, while left-wing populist discourse emphasized inclusivity and resisted such essentialization.

At the same time, this finding should not be taken to mean that left-wing populism is inherently immune to racialization. Rather, it highlights the importance of examining these dynamics empirically, rather than relying on a priori assumptions regarding the presence (or absence) of racialization in populism.

New Racism

Another important insight is that racialization often operates indirectly. Throughout this study, explicit references to race were absent. Instead, references to culture, religion, and civilization performed a similar function. By presenting religious and cultural differences as fixed and immutable, the discourse created boundaries that closely resemble racial hierarchies, without ever using the language of race itself. 

This reflects what scholars have called ‘new racism,’ where cultural differences replace biological difference as the basis for exclusion. Another word to describe this type of racism is cultural racism. Cultural or new racism is not necessarily less innocent than ‘traditional’ biological racism, for the cultural boundaries that separate people from each other are presupposed to be absolute, meaning no ‘outsider’ can ever be assimilated into ‘the people (MacMaster, 2001: 194-195). In other words, “cultural racism as a discourse performs the same task as biological racism, as culture functions in the same way as nature, creating closed and bounded cultural groups,” (Wren, 2001: 144). 

Understanding racialization in this broader sense is especially important in contexts like the Netherlands. As mentioned in the first article, discussions of racism are often avoided by a majority of academics and policymakers in the Netherlands (Grosfoguel & Mielants, 2006). However, this does not mean that racism is absent from the Netherlands. In fact, as Weiner (2014) argues, racism takes a peculiar form in the Netherlands, rooted in the denial of race as significant and the particular Dutch history of colonization. Building on this, this study shows us how exclusionary logics can persist even in the absence of explicit references to race or racism.

The Importance of Discursive Linkages

The analysis also shows how racialization does not occur only through how ‘the people’ are described, but also through how different categories are linked together.

In right-wing discourse, groups such as Muslims, migrants, and terrorists were frequently connected, forming a broader threatening ‘Other.’ This process can be understood as kind of a discursive chain, where distinct categories are treated as equivalent.

This finding builds on existing scholarship on populism. While scholars have used the idea of a ‘chain of equivalence’ to explain how demands are linked together (Laclau, 2005), this study suggests that a similar logic can operate in the construction of perceived threats. By linking different groups into a single category, the boundaries of ‘the people’ become sharper and can exclude large portions of society from ‘the people’.

Looking Forward

Taken together, these findings draw attention to how processes of (de-)racialization are implied in the construction of the populist ‘people.’ In doing so, this study suggests that race, racism, and racialization are concepts that should be considered more systematically in relation to populism. Societally, this study demonstrates (again) that discourse has real consequences for real people. How something or someone is talked about has real-world implications that can affect the inclusion or exclusion of particular groups from society. In particular, this study warrants us to pay attention to how exclusion is naturalized through language and how groups of people are systemically excluded even in absence of terms like ‘race.’

At the same time, this article series also suggests that such exclusionary discriminatory framings are not inevitable. By emphasizing inclusivity, the protection of human rights, and the rule of law, more pluralistic understandings of ‘the people’ can be advanced. 

However, like any study, this analysis has its limitations. It has focused on a single country, a specific time period, and a limited number of political actors. As such, the findings cannot be generalized to all cases of populism across the world. 

This opens up avenues for future research. Comparative research across different countries could help determine whether similar patterns emerge elsewhere. It would also be interesting to analyze less traditional platforms like social media networks in order to examine whether racialization plays out differently depending on the platform of choice. Finally, future research could link the discursive dimension of racialization more to the material or institutional dimensions of racialization, for example, by examining how racializing or de-racializing discourse translates into policy decisions and institutional practices. 

Ultimately, this article series highlights a broader point: how we talk about ‘the people’ matters. The boundaries drawn through language shape who is included and who is excluded. Paying attention to these boundaries is therefore not only an academic exercise, but also a necessary step in understanding and potentially challenging the dynamics of exclusion in contemporary politics.

 

(*) Lianne Nota is an ECPS intern and Research Master’s student in International Relations at the University of Groningen, with a focus on identity, populism, ontological security, and the ethics of global affairs. These article series is based on her paper “Constructing ‘The People’: The Role of Racialization in Dutch Populist Discourse” that she wrote for her specialization phase at RUG.

 

References

Grosfoguel, R., & Mielants, E. (2006). “Introduction: Minorities, Racism and Cultures of Scholarship.” International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 47(3–4), 179–189. https://doi.org/10.1177/0020715206065780

Laclau, E. (2005). On Populist Reason (1st edn). Verso.

MacMaster, N. (2001). Racism in Europe, 1870-2000. Palgrave. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4039-4033-9

Weiner, M. F. (2014). “The Ideologically Colonized Metropole: Dutch Racism and Racist Denial.” Sociology Compass, 8(6), 731–744. https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.12163

Wren, K. (2001). “Cultural racism: Something rotten in the state of Denmark?” Social & Cultural Geography, 2(2), 141–162. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649360120047788

See other parts of the series

Part 1 — Constructing ‘The People’: The Role of Racialization in Dutch Populist Discourse

Part 2 — Studying “the People”: A Discourse-Analytical Approach to Populism

Part 3 — (De-)racializing ‘the People’: Who Is the Dutch Populist ‘People’?

Geert Wilders

Part III — (De-)racializing ‘the People’: Who Is the Dutch Populist ‘People’?

by ECPS YouthEditor’s ChoiceHomeVoice of Youth

In the third installment of her series, author Lianne Nota presents a nuanced comparative analysis of how “the people” are constructed within Dutch populist discourse. Drawing on parliamentary debates, she demonstrates that right- and left-wing populist actors do not merely differ in tone but articulate fundamentally distinct logics of political belonging. While the Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV) constructs a homogeneous and exclusionary “people” through the racialization of a Muslim “other,” the Socialistische Partij (SP) advances a more inclusive, civic conception that actively resists such boundary-making. By juxtaposing processes of racialization and de-racialization, Nota offers a compelling empirical contribution that challenges prevailing assumptions about populism’s relationship to exclusion, highlighting instead the contingent and discursive nature of political community formation.

By Lianne Nota*

In the previous parts, we outlined the project in terms of literature, method, and data. In this part, the findings of the analysis will be shared. To reiterate, this study analyzed parliamentary debates about migration, Islam, terrorism, and radicalization in the Netherlands during the 2015 refugee crisis. Through a comparison of how a right- and left-wing populist party spoke about ‘the people’ and various Others, the role of racialization in the construction of ‘the people’ was analyzed. What emerged is not just a difference in tone or emphasis, but a fundamentally different understanding of who belongs and who doesn’t.

PVV: The Homogenous Judeo-Christian People, the Tacialized Muslim Other and the Culpable Elite

The Construction of ‘the People’

PVV consistently presented itself as the party for the ordinary, hardworking, overlooked people. For example, in the debate on the terrorist attacks in Paris at the beginning of January 2015, frontman Geert Wilders stated that “I am [emphasis added] one of the victims, and not just me, but the entirety of the Netherlands and lots of others” (Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal, 2015a). As part of the common Dutch people, the PVV thus insisted on representing their voice.

For the PVV, ‘the people’ consisted of an innocent Judeo-Christian community that is being threatened by ‘Islamization.’ For example, one speaker expressed that “Islam is alien [‘wezensvreemd’] to the Judeo-Christian and humanist norms, values and traditions on which the Dutch society is based” (Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal, 2015b). In the context of the terrorist attacks in Paris, Wilders stated that he was “furious that, because of Islam, innocent victims fell again: jews, Islam critics and innocent people” and that “Islam simply does not belong to the Netherlands and is a danger to it,”(Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal, 2015a).

Islam was portrayed as slowly taking over and threatening ‘our’ culture, for example, through an expression like “we are having to put our [emphasis added] Christian culture with the garbage” (Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal, 2015c).Wilders even explicitly mentions that he does not see the encounter with Islam as a clash of civilizations, but rather as “a clash, a confrontation, between civilization and barbarism” (Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal, 2015a). Entire population groups (primarily Muslims) are thus systematically excluded from ‘the people’ along civilizational lines.

The Construction of ‘the Other’ and ‘the Elite’

The construction of ‘the people’ by PVV happened also through constructing a foreign Other. In this regard, PVV speakers positioned themselves as warriors for freedom fighting against Islam, and simultaneously as experts in Islam. For example, Wilders declared that “I am standing here to fight the root of all evil. That root of all evil is called Islam. I-s-l-a-m. Islam,” (Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal, 2015d). At the same time, one of the PVV speakers portrayed an SP opponent as ignorant in claiming that “it takes a lot of work to know exactly what Islam represents and how you can recognize it. I’m not going to give a lecture about it. To Ms. Karabulut of the SP, I say: bury yourself in the books, in the Quran, in hadith, and in the sira. Then you have enough to read and maybe you’ll find out,” (Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal, 2015b). This signaled the PVV’s anti-Islam and anti-Muslim position in the debates, while at the same time bolstering their claims as authoritative speakers.

For PVV, the boundaries between Muslims, immigrants, and terrorists were fundamentally blurred. This becomes most clear in the debate about the terrorist attacks in Paris, where Wilders claimed that “of course not all Muslims are terrorists, but almost all terrorists nowadays are Muslims,” (Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal, 2015a). He continued, “For decades, mass immigration has brought hundreds of thousands of people with an alien culture into Europe, into our country. Why do we import all this misery? Islam brings hate and violence everywhere it goes,” (Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal, 2015a).

In passages like these, it is assumed that terrorism stems from Islam, and through mass immigration, we are inviting Islamist terrorists to our country. Importantly, PVV speakers also linked these categories discursively through attributing physical features. Immigrants were portrayed as “masses of young men of around 20 years with beards” singing “allahu akbar-like songs” (Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal, 2015c). This obviously refers to young Muslim men. But in the data, terrorists were described by Wilders as “people who scream allahu akbar” as well, linking terrorists to immigrants and Muslims (Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal, 2015d). 

As for the elite, PVV speakers depicted political opponents and ruling parties not only as failing to address issues like terrorism and migration, but also as actively enabling them. For example, in the context of the Paris terrorist attacks, Wilders starts by saying that “of course the government is not responsible for every attack.” Still, he continues that “if someone who could have been stopped from returning to the Netherlands, if someone who the government has stopped from returning to Syria, if someone from another Schengen country comes to the Netherlands and commits a terrorist attack, then this government has blood on its hands,” (Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal, 2015a). Statements like these elevate responsibility into moral blame. 

These kinds of accusations were blended with portrayals of political opponents as “the political elite who look away,”(Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal, 2015a), “incompetent” (Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal, 2015a) and “scandalously neglecting its duty” (Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal, 2015a). 

PVV speakers also frequently used a kind of rhetoric that was meant to ridicule political opponents, for example declaring that “I was scared for a moment that clown Bassie [a famous clown in a children’s tv programme] was standing in front of me, but it was mister Kuzu” (Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal, 2015b). As opposed to these political opponents, PVV was depicted as telling the uncomfortable but necessary truth. For example, Wilders mentions that “it’s an awkward truth, but one that must be told: we are talking today about an invasion, an Islamic invasion of Europe, of the Netherlands,”(Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal, 2015c). The mixing of these strategies creates a sharp moral divide between ‘the people’ as represented by the PVV and the elite who are portrayed as detached from or indifferent to concerns of ‘ordinary’ Dutch people.

Presence of Racialization in the Discourse

The framing of ‘the people’ by the PVV can be seen as an instance of racialization. There is a boundary that is drawn very clearly between ‘us,’ ‘the people,’ and ‘them,’ Islam or Muslims. In addition, Islam is constructed not merely as a set of beliefs, but as an essentialized and homogeneous category that is incompatible with ‘our’ Dutch identity. In this regard, ‘we’ are clearly presumed superior vis-à-vis ‘them.’ 

Furthermore, the PVV construction of ‘the elite’ did not directly racialize ‘the people’ but could indirectly reinforce how racialization happens. The strong moral opposition between ‘the elite’ and ‘the people’ heightens the sense of urgency and crisis, which indirectly strengthens the exclusionary boundaries drawn between ‘people’ and ‘other.’ Overall, the PVV thus constructed a threatening racialized ‘other’ which, in turn, sharpened the boundaries of ‘the people’ as a homogeneous collective. 

SP: The Inclusive People, the De-racialized Other and the Irresponsible Elite

The Construction of ‘the People’

In contrast to the PVV, the SP tried to portray itself as the protector of the rule of law and individual freedoms by emphasizing “the freedom to think, believe, draw, and write whatever you want” as a central part of ‘our’ democracy (Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal, 2015a). SP speakers also stressed that they represented the ‘ordinary’ people in terms of wealth. For example, a speaker assertively stated that “nothing is shared fairly. Everything is for the rich, and those who are poor are screwed” (Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal, 2015e). 

SP members also emphasized that the Netherlands is generally a rich country, such as claiming that “in a rich country like the Netherlands, nobody sleeps under a bridge and we don’t eat from trash bins” (Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal, 2015f). SP thus positioned itself as defenders of the law and the less wealthy.

The ‘people’ constructed by SP was also a far more inclusive category compared to PVV. For example, regarding the terrorist attacks in Paris, the frontman of SP at the time, Emile Roemer, stated that “I am also here to protect the freedom of all [emphasis added] Dutch people. That means I have a lot of trouble with Mr. Wilders describing 1 million Dutch people with an Islamic background as potential terrorists,” (Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal, 2015a). 

In the other debates as well, it becomes clear that, for the SP, Muslims are explicitly included in their understanding of ‘the people.’ For example, in one debate, a SP member stated that “I want to clarify that we should all stand firm for the freedoms and fundamental rights of all people, whether it concerns Islamic people, non-religious people, or people of a different religion,” (Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal, 2015b). In this way, ‘the people’ is constructed not as a homogeneous entity but as a diverse collective united by the law.

The Construction of ‘the Other’ and ‘the Elite’

As for the construction of a foreign Other, the SP presented itself as a protector of vulnerable communities and their human rights, often explicitly opposing the PVV. For example, Roemer expressed that “people fear attacks in the Netherlands and wonder how they can defend themselves when terror comes so close. But people also fear that divisions between population groups are growing, between Muslims and non-Muslims, and that people of good will are being pitted against each other,” (Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal, 2015a).

SP also expressed their involvement in these communities by positioning itself as an eyewitness to the experiences of these minorities, especially migrants. For example, Roemer stated that “my party members have seen with their own eyes how vulnerable children are who are in the region of Syria, Libanon or Turkey,” (Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal, 2015g). SP thus saw itself as defender of the human rights and safety of vulnerable people, especially migrants.

For the SP, the boundaries between Islam, migrants, and terrorists were very clearly maintained. While SP speakers also addressed issues such as terrorism, they did so mostly from a legal point of view, describing terrorism as “a horrible form of criminality” or terrorists as “people who try to overthrow or harm the legal order here or in other parts of the world,” (Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal, 2015h). SP speakers were adamant that terrorists should be seen as “extremists that attack our freedoms under the flag of Islam,” instead of ordinary Muslims (Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal, 2015a). As such, rather than Islam or Muslims being framed as ‘other,’ terrorists are the clear ‘other’ of a ‘people’ that expressly includes Muslims.

As implied before, migrants and refugees were frequently constructed as vulnerable individuals rather than a potential threat. This was done, for example, by explicitly including children in descriptions of migrants. In this regard, Roemer talked about “children of 3, 4, 5 years old selling flowers in those camps to be able to buy something like a slice of bread,” (Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal, 2015g). Thus, just like ‘the people’ are seen as victims of terrorism, refugees and migrants are seen as victims of war and conflict, similarly in need of protection by the government.

As for their attitude towards the elite, the SP was markedly less aggressive and condemning towards the ruling parties and the government than the PVV. The SP did frame political elites as naïve and detached, such as in statements like “the prime minister is bailing again” (Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal, 2015g) or calling on a minister to “do his job better” and asking whether “he still has all his ducks in a row” (Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal, 2015h). However, in general, SP discourse was fairly institutional and targeted towards policy effectiveness. Rather than accusing the government of betraying the people, it was (constructively) criticized for not doing enough or not taking the right actions.

Presence of De-racialization in the Discourse

As a result, the framing of ‘the people’ as including multiple diverse population groups could be seen as an act of de-racialization that can be summed up by the following contribution: “Whether it concerns people who are black or white, whether they are being persecuted because of their race or their religion; people are people, European or not, and they remain people,” (Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal, 2015e). Here, race and religion are both explicitly invoked to argue that they should not be used as discriminatory bases. Therefore, the SP’s discourse constructs ‘the people’ largely in a more inclusive and civic way, rather than drawing divisions between groups of people in society.

Two Logics?

Taken together, the analysis demonstrates that the constructions of ‘the people,’ ‘the other,’ and ‘the elite’ are combined in different ways with different effects by PVV and SP. While PVV consistently constructed a homogeneous ‘people’ through racializing a threatening ‘other’ reinforced by a strongly antagonistic ‘elite,’ SP constructed a more inclusive understanding of ‘the people’ by resisting the racialization of out-groups. These findings highlight not only important differences between right- and left-wing populist actors but also raise important questions about the relationship between populism and racialization in general. In the following and final part, we will therefore reflect on what these findings mean for how we understand the relationship between populism and racialization more broadly.

 

(*) Lianne Nota is an ECPS intern and Research Master’s student in International Relations at the University of Groningen, with a focus on identity, populism, ontological security, and the ethics of global affairs. These article series is based on her paper “Constructing ‘The People’: The Role of Racialization in Dutch Populist Discourse” that she wrote for her specialization phase at RUG.

 

References

Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal. (2015a). “De aanslag in Parijs.” https://www.tweedekamer.nl/kamerstukken/plenaire_verslagen/detail/2014-2015/41#40d004c2. 

Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal. (2015b). “Komst moskee in Gouda.” https://www.tweedekamer.nl/kamerstukken/plenaire_verslagen/detail/2014-2015/95#b73a0f77. 

Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal. (2015c). “Gemeenschappelijk asielbeleid in Europa.” https://www.tweedekamer.nl/kamerstukken/plenaire_verslagen/detail/2014-2015/111#07cd76b4. 

Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal. (2015d). “Aanslagen in Parijs.” https://www.tweedekamer.nl/kamerstukken/plenaire_verslagen/detail/2015-2016/27#d0f39abf.  

Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal. (2015e). “Instroom asielzoekers.” https://www.tweedekamer.nl/kamerstukken/plenaire_verslagen/detail/2014-2015/68#e3e2931c. 

Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal. (2015f). “Uitkomsten onderhandelingen inzake bed, bad en brood.” https://www.tweedekamer.nl/kamerstukken/plenaire_verslagen/detail/2014-2015/83#ae18d915. 

Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal. (2015g). “Gemeenschappelijk asielbeleid in Europa.” https://www.tweedekamer.nl/kamerstukken/plenaire_verslagen/detail/2014-2015/111#d573540e. 

Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal. (2015h). “Ontnemen van het Nederlanderschap bij terroristische misdrijven.” https://www.tweedekamer.nl/kamerstukken/plenaire_verslagen/detail/2014-2015/60#9ad08f9e. 


See other parts of the series

Part 1 — Constructing ‘The People’: The Role of Racialization in Dutch Populist Discourse

Part 2 — Studying “the People”: A Discourse-Analytical Approach to Populism

Part 4: Rethinking the Nexus of Racialization and Populism: Lessons from the Study

Amsterdam, people.

Part II — Studying ‘the People’: A Discourse-Analytical Approach to Populism

by ECPS YouthEditor’s ChoiceHomeVoice of Youth

In the second installment of her series, the author Lianne Nota advances the analysis by developing a rigorous methodological framework for studying the construction of “the people” in populist discourse. Moving beyond abstract theorization, she introduces a discourse-analytical approach grounded in Critical Discourse Analysis and the Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA), emphasizing the interplay between language, power, and historical context. By operationalizing racialization through boundary-making, essentialization, and moral differentiation, Nota provides a precise analytical toolkit for identifying how political actors construct inclusion and exclusion—even in the absence of explicit racial references. Focusing on Dutch parliamentary debates during the 2015 refugee crisis, this contribution bridges conceptual and empirical inquiry, offering a nuanced pathway for examining how populist narratives produce and legitimize social hierarchies.

By Lianne Nota*

To analyze how and if Dutch populist actors have constructed ‘the people’ in racialized terms, we are in need of an empirical approach to actually study these processes in practice. This approach needs to be attentive to how ‘the people’ is not a concept determined a priori, but how they are actively constructed by populist parties in particular contexts. This is where a discourse-analytical perspective comes in.

Adopting a Discursive Approach

While discourse is a notoriously hard concept to define, for this article series, it is enough to understand that discourse refers to how language use in speech and writing functions as a form of ‘social practice.’ This means that a discourse constitutes situations, people, and objects of knowledge, but is also socially conditioned by them (Fairclough & Wodak, 1997: 258). In other words, discourse treats language not as a neutral medium, but as a form of social practice. Language does not merely reflect social and political reality but also constitutes it.

To capture these dynamics, this series draws on Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), and more specifically on the Discourse Historical Approach (DHA) in order to analyze racialization in populist discourse.

The Discourse-Historical Approach

The DHA is particularly well-suited for studying questions of racialization because the original purpose of the DHA was to examine racism and discrimination in the context of antisemitism (Reisigl, 2017: 44-45). What distinguishes DHA from other types of CDA is that it links linguistic analysis to broader political and historical contexts (Wodak & Reisigl, 2016: 583). 

In practice, this means that DHA combines three levels of analysis: (1) identifying key topics within a discourse, (2) examining discursive strategies through which different groups are constructed, and (3) analyzing the linguistic means through which these strategies are realized (Reisigl & Wodak, 2016). This means paying close attention to how political actors name certain groups, what characteristics they attribute to them, how they justify these attributions, and how they position themselves in relation to them.

The Data

Empirically, the analysis focuses on parliamentary debates in the Netherlands that have as their main topic migration, Islam, terrorism, or radicalization, because these debates are most salient in terms of racialized constructions of ‘the people’ (de Koning, 2020; Silverstein, 2005; Selod & Embrick, 2013; Woodbridge et al., 2025). In terms of periodization, I look at the year 2015 when debates surrounding these topics were highly relevant due to the 2015 refugee crisis. 

The analysis will be organized around two distinct but interrelated categories: ‘the people’ and “the Other.” These ‘Others’ can be further divided into two categories: the elite and the foreign Other. While the foreign Other typically only plays a role in right-wing populism (which is assumed to be exclusionary), it is included here as a separate category to allow for a systematic comparison between PVV and SP. This structure allows for a distinction between how ‘the people’ themselves are directly constructed, how ‘the people’ are (or are not) constructed in contrast to a foreign Other, and how ‘the people’ are constructed in opposition to ‘the elite’.

Identifying Racialization in Practice

Building on the earlier discussion of racialization (see the first article in this series), this study operationalizes it through three criteria.

  1. Boundary-making: a distinction is drawn between ‘the people’ and others;
  2. Essentialization: groups are portrayed as homogenous and defined by fixed characteristics;
  3. Moral differentiation: these groups are evaluated in normative terms (e.g. as good, dangerous, inferior etc.) 

By analyzing how these elements appear in populist discourse, it becomes possible to identify whether and how racialization happens, even without explicit mentions of race.

Looking Ahead

What happens when we apply this approach in practice?

In the next article, we turn to the empirical analysis and examine how Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV), a Dutch right-wing populist party, and Socialistische Partij (SP), a Dutch left-wing populist party, constructed ‘the people’ in parliamentary debates. By looking closely at how groups are named, described, and contrasted with others, we begin to see how different versions of ‘the people’ take shape. As we will see, while both parties drew on a populist logic separating ‘the people’ from ‘the elite,’ they constructed these boundaries in fundamentally different ways, raising important questions about how and when racialization enters populist discourse.

 

(*) Lianne Nota is an ECPS intern and Research Master’s student in International Relations at the University of Groningen, with a focus on identity, populism, ontological security, and the ethics of global affairs. These article series is based on her paper “Constructing ‘The People’: The Role of Racialization in Dutch Populist Discourse” that she wrote for her specialization phase at RUG.

 

References

de Koning, M. (2020). “The racialization of danger: Patterns and ambiguities in the relation between Islam, security and secularism in the Netherlands. “Patterns of Prejudice, 54(1–2), 123–135. https://doi.org/10.1080/0031322X.2019.1705011

Fairclough, N., & Wodak, R. (1997). “Critical discourse analysis.” In: Discourse as Social Interaction (pp. 258–284). SAGE.

Reisigl, M. (2017). “The Discourse-Historical Approach.” In: J. Flowerdew & J. Richardson (Eds), The Routledge Handbook of Critical Discourse Studies (pp. 44–59). Routledge. https://www-taylorfrancis-com.proxy-ub.rug.nl/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315739342-4/discourse-historical-approach-martin-reisigl?context=ubx&refId=5b29f8d0-009b-41bb-863b-946150a3bfc4

Reisigl, M., & Wodak, R. (2016). “The discourse-historical approach (DHA).” In: R. Wodak & M. Meyer (Eds), Methods of Critical Discourse Studies (3rd edn, pp. 23–61). SAGE.

Selod, S., & Embrick, D. G. (2013). “Racialization and Muslims: Situating the Muslim Experience in Race Scholarship.” Sociology Compass, 7(8), 644–655. https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.12057

Silverstein, P. A. (2005). “Immigrant Racialization and the New Savage Slot: Race, Migration, and Immigration in the New Europe.” Annual Review of Anthropology, 34(Volume 34, 2005), 363–384. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.anthro.34.081804.120338

Wodak, R., & Reisigl, M. (2015). “Discourse and Racism.” In: D. Tannen, H. E. Hamilton, & D. Schiffrin (Eds), The Handbook of Discourse Analysis (pp. 576–596). John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118584194.ch27

Woodbridge, E., Vanhouche, A.-S., & Lechkar, I. (2025). “The racialization of radicalization and terrorism: Belgian political language on Muslims and Islam.” Ethnicities, 25(5), 701–723. https://doi.org/10.1177/14687968251329926

See other parts of the series

Part 1 — Constructing ‘The People’: The Role of Racialization in Dutch Populist Discourse

Part 3 — (De-)racializing ‘the People’: Who Is the Dutch Populist ‘People’?

Part 4: Rethinking the Nexus of Racialization and Populism: Lessons from the Study

People skating on the frozen canals at the crossing of Leidsegracht and Keizersgracht in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Amsterdam’s canals rarely freeze, allowing residents and visitors to walk and skate on the ice. Photo: Wessel Cirkel.

Part I — Constructing ‘The People’: The Role of Racialization in Dutch Populist Discourse

by ECPS YouthEditor’s ChoiceHomeVoice of Youth

In this incisive opening to a multi-part series, ECPS intern Lianne Nota interrogates one of the most taken-for-granted concepts in populism studies: “the people.” Moving beyond conventional definitions that treat the category as self-evident, she foregrounds racialization as a critical—yet often neglected—dimension in its construction. By shifting the analytical lens from race as a fixed attribute to racialization as a dynamic process of boundary-making, the study offers a conceptually rigorous and empirically grounded intervention. Focusing on the Dutch case, Nota situates populist discourse within broader debates on “new racism,” identity, and political representation. The series promises to advance the field by systematically examining how both right- and left-wing populist actors construct “the people” through implicit and explicit forms of differentiation.

By Lianne Nota*

Populism is everywhere in contemporary politics, from Europe to the Americas. At its core lies a simple but powerful idea: ‘the people’ should be at the center of politics (Canovan 1999). But who exactly are ‘the people’ and how are they constructed?

This question is more complicated than it seems. In much of academic literature, populism is understood as a ‘thin ideology’ that divides society into two camps: the ‘pure’ people and the ‘corrupt’ elite (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2017). While this understanding captures something important, it often takes ‘the people’ for granted, overlooking the essentially contested and flexible nature of that category.

This four-part article series explores a crucial but often overlooked dimension of the construction of ‘the people’: racialization.

Beyond Race: Why Racialization Matters

While much has already been written on the people-centeredness of populism, this article series aims to focus the discussion on the construction of the populist ‘people’ through racialization. Using racialization as a concept instead of race, this series aims to avoid reifying race and emphasizes the inherent social constructedness of race (Small, 1994).

As such, racialization refers above all to a process through which differences between groups are constructed, whether cultural or biological. This understanding of racialization draws on the understanding that, nowadays, ‘new racism’ often uses culture and religion as proxies for race to create orders that resemble racial hierarchies, even in the absence of any explicit biological references (MacMaster, 2001). In addition, racialization often serves to subordinate a specific group (Woodbrige et al., 2025). This article series therefore uses racialization to refer to the discursive process of boundary-making by which (political) subjects are constituted and morally differentiated through the attribution of racial meanings, whether those are explicitly biological or not.

What Has Already Been Said?

Existing research on race and populism reflects the assumption that right-wing populism is inherently exclusionary while left-wing populism is inherently inclusionary (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2013). As such, the relationship between race and right-wing populism has been addressed by numerous scholars (Krzyżanowski, 2018; Krzyżanowski, 2020; Thorleifsson, 2021; Mondon & Winteri, 2020), while the relationship between race and left-wing populism has been largely overlooked. 

Following existing literature, this series does not make any assumptions about the conduciveness of either right- or left-wing populism to racialization. Instead, it asks the open-ended question: how do different populist actors construct ‘the people’ and to what extent does racialization play a role in that process?

Case Study: The Netherlands

To explore this question, we turn to the Netherlands, a country with a long history of both left- and right-wing populism. Interestingly, Dutch political discourse often avoids explicit references to race, favoring terms like ‘ethnicity’ or ‘culture’ (Essed & Trienekens, 2008). This makes the Netherlands a particularly interesting case study for studying how racialization can operate indirectly through seemingly neutral language.

What This Series Will Show

In the upcoming articles, we will work towards answering the puzzle of how Dutch populist actors construct ‘the people’ and, if so, how racialization plays a part in that process. Drawing on a series of Dutch parliamentary debates held in 2015 during the height of the refugee crisis, this series compares how/if Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV), a right-wing populist party, and Socialistische Partij (SP), a left-wing populist party, constructed ‘the people’ in racialized terms. The findings suggest that, while both parties mobilized a populist divide between ‘the people’ and ‘the elite,’ they differed significantly in how they constructed ‘the people,’ and only one party constructed the ‘people’ in racialized terms. 

Let’s dive into existing literature on the role of race in populist politics first. 

Where Is Race in Populism Studies?

We have already asked a deceptively simple question: who are ‘the people’ in populist politics? Surprisingly, within mainstream populist research, this question is not often framed in terms of race or racialization. To illustrate, let us take a look at the major handbooks on populism in scholarly literature. For example, the Oxford Handbook of Populism, contains no chapter on race, racism, or racialization, despite dedicating large parts of the book to ‘issue-centred’ discussions surrounding populism (Kaltwasser et al., 2017). Similarly, the Research Handbook on Populism and the Palgrave Handbook of Populism also do not systematically address race as a core issue in populist politics (Oswald, 2022). This relative silence suggests that race, racism, and racialization have not been regarded as central elements of populism within mainstream (theoretical) debates.

When research on the relationship between race and populism does exist, it mostly focuses on right-wing populist parties and movements. For example, Krzyżanowski (2018, 2020) argues that racist and xenophobic ideas have become normalized in Poland as a result of anti-refugee and anti-immigration rhetoric introduced by the Polish PiS party, a right-wing populist and nationalist party. This kind of research shows that culture and religion are often used as proxies for race to create orders that resemble racial hierarchies, even in the absence of any explicit biological references. This kind of cultural racism is sometimes called ‘new racism,’ to distinguish it from the biological racism that characterized the pre-1945 era (MacMaster, 2001). While this body of work has been crucial in drawing more attention to the role of race and racialization in populist ideology, it has also contributed to a relative neglect of how similar processes might (or might not) unfold beyond right-wing populist parties.

Two notable exceptions in this regard are worth mentioning. A study by Chazel and Dain (2021) found that left-wing populist movements may also draw on notions like ‘the homeland,’ albeit in more inclusive ways than their right-wing counterparts do. Drawing on narratives about belonging and national identity always engages in some exercise of boundary-making, introducing the possibility for racialization. In their study of Hugo Chávez’s political rhetoric, this leads Barreto and Maldonado (2025) to conclude that left-wing populism can also include racial rhetoric. 

Therefore, rather than assuming a priori that left-wing populism is immune to racialization, this article series critically examines the role racialization plays in left-wing populism and whether this role differs from how racialization operates in right-wing populism. The next article turns to how we can study racialization empirically by outlining a discourse-analytical approach to this process.

 

(*) Lianne Nota is an ECPS intern and Research Master’s student in International Relations at the University of Groningen, with a focus on identity, populism, ontological security, and the ethics of global affairs. These article series is based on her paper “Constructing ‘The People’: The Role of Racialization in Dutch Populist Discourse” that she wrote for her specialization phase at RUG.

 

References

Barreto, A. A., & Maldonado, D. (2025). Race and populism on the left: Political rhetoric in Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela. Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies, 20(3), 387–402. https://doi.org/10.1080/17442222.2024.2393506

Chazel, L., & Dain, V. (2021). “Left-Wing Populism and Nationalism: A Comparative Analysis of the Patriotic Narratives of Podemos and France insoumise.” Journal for the Study of Radicalism, 15(2), 73–94. https://www-jstor-org.focus.lib.kth.se/stable/48642382

Canovan, M. (1999). Trust the People! Populism and the Two Faces of Democracy. Political Studies, 47(1), 2–16. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9248.00184

Essed, P., & Trienekens, S. (2008). ‘Who wants to feel white?’ Race, Dutch culture and contested identities. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 31(1), 52–72. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870701538885

Kaltwasser, C. R., Taggart, P., Espejo, P. O., & Ostiguy, P. (Eds). (2017). The Oxford Handbook of Populism. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198803560.001.0001

Krzyżanowski, M. (2018). Discursive Shifts in Ethno-Nationalist Politics: On Politicization and Mediatization of the “Refugee Crisis” in Poland. Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies, 16(1–2), 76–96. https://doi.org/10.1080/15562948.2017.1317897

Krzyżanowski, M. (2020). Discursive shifts and the normalisation of racism: Imaginaries of immigration, moral panics and the discourse of contemporary right-wing populism. Social Semiotics, 30(4), 503–527. https://doi.org/10.1080/10350330.2020.1766199

MacMaster, N. (2001). Racism in Europe, 1870-2000. Palgrave. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4039-4033-9

Mondon, A., & Winter, A. (2019). Whiteness, populism and the racialisation of the working class in the United Kingdom and the United States. Identities, 26(5), 510–528. https://doi.org/10.1080/1070289X.2018.1552440

Mudde, C., & Kaltwasser, C. R. (2013). Exclusionary vs. Inclusionary Populism: Comparing Contemporary Europe and Latin America. Government and Opposition, 48(2), 147–174. https://doi.org/10.1017/gov.2012.11

Mudde, C., & Kaltwasser, C. R. (2017). Populism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. (1378915). https://research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=0a98f106-01e2-39bf-9f0c-7ff265fff45d

Oswald, M. (Ed.). (2022). The Palgrave Handbook of Populism. Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80803-7

Small, S. (1994). Racialised Barriers: The Black Experience in the United States and England in the 1980s. Routledge.

Thorleifsson, C. (2021). In pursuit of purity: Populist nationalism and the racialization of difference. Identities, 28(2), 186–202. https://doi.org/10.1080/1070289X.2019.1635767

Woodbridge, E., Vanhouche, A.-S., & Lechkar, I. (2025). The racialization of radicalization and terrorism: Belgian political language on Muslims and Islam. Ethnicities, 25(5), 701–723. https://doi.org/10.1177/14687968251329926

See other parts of the series

Part 2 — Studying “the People”: A Discourse-Analytical Approach to Populism

Part 3 — (De-)racializing ‘the People’: Who Is the Dutch Populist ‘People’?

Part 4: Rethinking the Nexus of Racialization and Populism: Lessons from the Study

Martin Luther King Jr.

I Have a Dream

by ECPS YouthEditor’s ChoiceHomeLeadership & PersonaVoice of Youth

In this compelling Voice of Youth (VoY) contribution, Emmanouela Papapavlou revisits the enduring moral and political legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. in an age of populist authoritarianism, reflecting on the contemporary erosion of empathy, solidarity, and human dignity. Blending personal reflection with normative critique, the piece interrogates how exclusionary attitudes and everyday discrimination have become normalized across societies. It calls for renewed civic courage, emphasizing the role of individuals—especially youth—in resisting injustice and sustaining democratic values. Framed as both a reflection and a call to action, the article underscores that transformative change often begins with principled minorities who refuse to accept injustice as the status quo.

By Emmanouela Papapavlou*

Decades ago, a man stood behind a podium and spoke to a world that was not ready to hear him. He spoke about justice in a time when injustice was normal. He spoke about love in a time when hatred had become routine. He spoke about equality in a society that had learned to live with division. And yet, he spoke anyway. He spoke with a vision that was bigger than the world in front of him.

“I have a dream. I have a dream today.  
A dream of freedom, a dream of peace, a dream of people walking together, without fear, without hate, without walls in between them.  
I have a dream that one day, no one will be judged by the color of their skin, but by the kindness in their heart.  
I have a dream that every child, black or white, rich or poor, will have the same chance to grow, to learn, to dream.  
I have a dream that love will speak louder than anger, that truth will shine brighter than lies, that hope will be stronger than fear.  
This dream is not mine. It belongs to everyone who still believes that tomorrow can be better than today.  
I know the road is long, I know the fight is hard, but I also know that justice always rises, even after the darkest night.  
So I will keep walking, I will keep believing, I will keep dreaming.  
These dreams are the beginning of change, and change is the proof that hope is alive.  
I have a dream, and I will not stop until that dream becomes real.”

Martin Luther King stood on that podium delivering a speech to a world that had grown comfortable with cruelty, a world that had learned to live with hate instead of love.

He knew all those things.

And yet he stood there anyway, standing up for what he believed every person is entitled to: freedom, equality, acceptance, and love, no matter the circumstances.

If you feel something when reading those words, you belong to a community of humans who have risen above the noise of propaganda, power, and profit. You belong to the quiet but powerful group of people who still believe that human rights are not negotiable.

You belong to a community that believes that color, sexuality, ethnicity, or religion do not determine whether a person deserves to be heard, to be accepted, or to be treated as equal.

And let me tell you something, as someone who belongs to that community: it has become incredibly rare.

Today, it is rare to openly stand up for every human being, even the ones you do not know, even when there is nothing to gain from doing so. It is rare to refuse to laugh at the joke made about a woman. Rare to speak up when someone mocks a person of color. Rare to challenge the comment made about someone’s religion, their sexuality, or where they come from.

Somehow, it has become normal to mock people for the very things that make them human. The way they look. The place they were born. The language they speak. The beliefs they hold. And because this behavior has become normal, the people who refuse to participate suddenly appear unusual.

So if you are reading this, and you are someone who stands up for people, even when it is uncomfortable, even when it makes you stand out, then yes, I am talking to you.

You who refuse to shrink your values just to fit in with your age group.
You who speak up even when it would be easier to stay quiet.
You who defend someone even when it brings you no reward.

You are not naive. You are not unrealistic. You are necessary. 

You are part of the reason the world is still capable of changing. Because change has never started with the majority. It has always started with the few people who were willing to look at injustice and say: this is not normal.

People will call you idealistic.
They will call you naive.
They will call you unrealistic.

But those words are often used by people who have simply grown comfortable with a world that should never have been acceptable in the first place.

Believing in human dignity should not make someone stand out. Defending someone’s humanity should not be controversial.  Speaking up for fairness should not be considered radical.

And yet, here we are. So maybe my dream is not just about equality or justice. Maybe my dream is about reaching a world where basic decency is no longer extraordinary. A world where standing up for another human being is not brave, it is simply the standard.

Until that day arrives, the dream still belongs to all of us. And as long as there are people willing to believe in it, to speak for it, and to live by it, hope is still alive.

 

(*) 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

Ice Hockey Women’s Team USA warms up before its preliminary round Group B match against Finland at the Milano Ice Park in Rho, Milan, during the 2026 Milano–Cortina Winter Olympics. The United States defeated Finland 5–0. Photo: Walter Arce | Dreamstime.

March 8th: For Every Victory That Was Not Considered Important

by Editor’s ChoiceGenderHomeVoice of Youth

In this reflective Voice of Youth (VoY) commentary for International Women’s Day, Emmanouela Papapavlou examines how gender hierarchy persists not only through overt exclusion but through the subtle normalization of unequal recognition. Using the contrasting reactions to the US men’s and women’s hockey gold medals at the 2026 Winter Olympics, she argues that women’s athletic success is still too often treated as supplementary rather than self-evidently equal. The issue, she suggests, lies less in explicit insult than in the quiet cultural codes that frame male achievement as the default and female achievement as the exception. By focusing on laughter, tone, and seemingly minor acts of dismissal, Papapavlou offers a sharp critique of how misogyny survives in normalized everyday reactions, revealing the distance that still separates formal equality from genuine social recognition.

By Emmanouela Papapavlou*

At the 2026 Winter Olympic Games, the United States won two gold medals in hockey. One by the men’s team. One by the women’s team. Same sport, same flag on the chest, same summit. A few hours later, in a conversation with the President of the United States, it is announced that the men’s team will be invited to the White House to be honored for their victory. And in the flow of the conversation, comes the phrase, “we have to invite the women too.” The players burst into laughter. A spontaneous, collective, light laugh.

It was not an insult. It was not an attack. Nothing explicitly degrading or offensive was said. And yet, in those few seconds, something deeper was revealed. Because the women’s victory entered the sentence as a footnote. As a reminder. As something that “also” happened.

A gold medal has no gender. The flag is raised the same way, the anthem sounds the same, while on paper, in official statements, in medal tables, the two achievements are absolutely equal. And yet, in our collective reaction, they are not. The men’s category is considered the default version of sport. The women’s is the special category. The men’s is the prototype, while the women’s is treated as its variation.

And this was not born in that room. It did not begin with a joke. It is the product of a culture that has learned to treat male success as a given and female success as an exception. As something worthy of congratulations, but not of the same unquestioned recognition. As something that “it would be good to honor as well.”

We live in 2026 and sport remains deeply male-dominated. Not only in terms of funding and visibility, but in symbolism. The hero, the captain, the leader, the warrior. Think about it. The images that accompany these words are still male. When a woman wins, we often describe her journey as “inspiring,” her endurance as “moving,” her presence as a “role model.” When a man wins, we speak of dominance, power, greatness. One victory moves us. The other confirms expectations.

What is most troubling, however, is not the difference in adjectives. It is that the laughter caused no discomfort. There was no pause. No split second of silence suggesting something was off. It felt natural. And that sense of naturalness is the problem. So why did it feel so natural in the first place?

Misogynistic mentality today rarely appears through shouting. It does not openly declare that “women are worth less.” It shows up in subtle tones. In inflections. In glances. In “jokes” that pass unnoticed. In the familiar “come on, don’t take it so seriously.” In an invitation framed like an obligation. In an achievement treated as an addition rather than as an unquestioned equal.

These small things, which seem insignificant, are what sustain the larger structure. As with every form of gender inequality, the root does not lie only in extreme incidents. It lies in what we have learned to consider normal. In the fact that unequal treatment no longer surprises us. In the fact that it does not bother us enough to react. In the fact that we laugh too or remain silent.

That is how hierarchy is built without ever naming it. Through small concessions. Through subtle diminishments. Through a society that speaks of equality on paper, yet in practice continues to place the male experience at the center and the female one at the margins. If the medal is equal, why isn’t the reaction?

And today, on International Women’s Day, we will once again speak about rights, achievements, and struggles that were fought to get us here. We will honor the women who fought to stand on fields that did not want them, in competitions that did not count them, in societies that preferred them silent. For every woman who spent countless hours training, who endured doubt, mockery, less funding, less coverage, less recognition. For every woman who reached the top knowing that even there she would have to prove her worth all over again, only for the very country she represented to remind her, the next day, with a laugh, that her effort and her victory were not quite as important.

This is not about oversensitivity. It is not about “political correctness.” It is about value. If a woman’s success requires a reminder in order to be acknowledged, then it is not considered self-evident. If inclusion provokes laughter, then equality has not taken root. It has merely been legislated.

So the question is not whether someone had bad intentions. The question is why diminishment fits so easily inside a joke. Why the idea that “we have to invite the women too” sounds like an add-on rather than an obvious part of the sentence. Why, even today, female success requires clarification.

Perhaps because our sense of normal has not changed as much as we think. Perhaps because the equality we proclaim has not yet moved from law into consciousness. And until it does, we will continue to encounter misogyny not only in the loud and blatant moments, but in the small, smiling ones.

The issue is not to stop laughing. The issue is to start asking ourselves what exactly we find funny.

(*) 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

Photo: Dreamstime.

To Where? On Language, Identity, Belonging, and the Cost of Silence

by Editor’s ChoiceHomeVoice of Youth

In this reflective essay, 15-year old Sojoud Al-Hjouj interrogates the intimate relationship between language, identity, and authenticity in contemporary life. Framed through the evocative figure of the “Ajji”—the individual orphaned from their mother tongue—the piece argues that abandoning one’s native language entails a deeper estrangement from the self. Moving between personal memory, cultural critique, and existential inquiry, Al-Hjouj shows how performative speech, social expectation, and fear of misunderstanding erode sincerity and belonging. Language, she contends, is not merely a communicative tool but the homeland of the soul, the medium through which memory, emotion, and identity are formed. Loyalty to language thus emerges as an existential act: a form of resistance, self-recognition, and true civilization.

By Sojoud Al-Hjouj

Speaking of one’s identity has become everyone’s business. Consequently, the intellectual and the eloquent no longer dare to oppose others’ opinions—not for a lack of argument, but because their tongues itch with truth. So, we let them speak like a burning fire that craves more wood to blaze higher.

As one philosopher once said: “Man was created with two eyes and one tongue.” One must realize that what the first eye might miss, the second will surely notice in the words we utter.

By nature, humans love to speak and learn, like a child learning the alphabet. However, one often stops at the boundaries of their own language, which separates them from the world—and other languages they must discover. Here, the story begins.

It is a story unlike any other; it is a reality we live and evolve through. But why? Humans have started expressing their feelings in a language that consumes their very thoughts and emotions. It does not allow them to honestly convey what burns in their hearts or what occupies their minds. They live beautiful moments under a self-invented illusion: “We are ashamed of our feelings.”

When will man realize, in this vanishing world, that his life will not happen twice? When will he realize that loved ones are like drifting dust, lost at any moment without permission?

But most importantly: Why? Why doesn’t man use the language he was raised with, the one he mastered since childhood? Instead, he abandons it, deceiving himself into becoming an “Ajji” (a person orphaned from their mother tongue) in this life.

We live in a world that values appearance over essence and the surface over the depth. Thus, many choose to hide their true voices behind carefully filtered words, as if truth itself has become a danger, and sincerity a rare currency. Man fears showing weakness or love, dreading being misunderstood, forgetting that language is the bridge between his heart and the world. To abandon it is to abandon oneself.

In the silence of the night, when one sits with themselves, they remember the first word they spoke, the first letter they drew, the first story they heard from their mother. The image of their inner child appears, fascinated by the alphabet, with boundless curiosity, without fear or shame. This child is the essence of freedom and the core of belonging to a language that both protects and reveals. If this child loses their language, they lose the deepest part of who they are.

How often do we see people choosing a language their hearts do not understand? A language that pleases others but suffocates their souls? How often do they laugh while their hearts weep? This is the tragedy of the modern human: to be a stranger in their own language and an alien to their own feelings.

Language is the homeland of the soul; it is where memories are stored and identities are built. Whoever leaves their language leaves their internal home and becomes homeless. Each forgotten word and each suppressed feeling is a step toward loss.

The concept of the “Ajji” here is not just a poetic image; it is a reality. If language is the mother, then abandoning it leaves one as an “Ajji”—orphaned and vulnerable before the noise of the world. Anyone who does not realize this will never know the meaning of loyalty or what it means to be true to oneself and others.

In every moment, we face choices: Do we speak what we feel or what people expect? Do we write what reflects our essence or what pleases those around us? This constant struggle is what makes life real, but also what makes it bitter. Silence is sometimes more dangerous than speech, for speech at least proves your existence.

Loyalty to language, identity, and true feelings is an existential necessity. Your language is the first mirror in which you see your true self. To ignore it is to lose the most profound thing you own.

And here, we return to the story: a reality lived moment by moment. The story that doesn’t repeat, made of our words, hearts, and minds. It makes us faithful to the child we were—to the “Ajji” within us who still seeks his mother’s embrace, his internal home, and his true self.

Woe to the man who abandons his language to please another. True civilization is to stay faithful to one’s roots, for if the language withers, the soul follows. This is true loyalty.

 

Sojoud Al-Hjouj is an award-winning young writer and thinker from Jordan, recognized as a “World Youth Essay Ambassador. She possesses a literary voice that blends philosophical depth with social critique. Her work focuses on themes of identity, the sanctity of the mother tongue, and the emotional challenges of the digital age and she is 15 years old.

Protest against ICE following the killing of Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old Minneapolis woman fatally shot by a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent during a federal operation, in Foley Square, Manhattan, NYC, USA on January 8, 2026. The fatal encounter has sparked national outrage and protests demanding accountability and reform of ICE use-of-force policies. Photo: Dreamstime.

Law, Order and the Lives in Between

by CommentariesEditor’s ChoiceHomeHuman RightsMigrationVoice of Youth

In this Voice of Youth (VoY) article, Emmanouela Papapavlou delivers a powerful reflection on state violence, immigration enforcement, and the fragile boundaries of democratic accountability. The article critically examines the fatal shooting of a civilian woman by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Minneapolis on January 7, 2026. Moving beyond official narratives of “self-defense,” Papapavlou situates the incident within broader patterns of institutional violence, racialized enforcement, and the erosion of human rights under the banner of security. By drawing historical parallels to the killing of George Floyd and interrogating the politics of “law and order,” the piece challenges readers to reconsider whose lives are protected—and whose are rendered expendable—in contemporary democracies.

By Emmanouela Papapavlou*

In a world where the concept of “security” weighs increasingly heavily on public policy, the use of state violence remains one of the most contentious and polarizing issues. In recent days, news that an agent of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) shot and killed a 37 year-old woman in Minneapolis has reignited the debate over the limits of state power, institutional impunity, and human rights in one of the world’s most developed democracies.

The incident took place on January 7, 2026, during a large-scale operation aimed at enforcing immigration law in the city. Official statements from government authorities described the shooting as an act of self-defense, claiming that the woman attempted to “strike officers” with her vehicle. At the same time, however, video footage and eyewitness accounts contradict this version of events, suggesting that the gunshot was fired as the driver was attempting to leave the scene, without an evident and immediate threat to the officers’ lives.

The government’s effort to justify the action, even employing language such as “domestic terrorism operation,” has sparked outrage and skepticism among local officials, human rights organizations, and ordinary citizens. The mayor of Minneapolis openly stated that the self-defense arguments were “false” and called for ICE to withdraw from the city altogether. Many have described the killing as a clear example of excessive use of force by state authorities, particularly within the context of a large enforcement mission that disproportionately targets vulnerable communities.

But can this case truly be treated as an isolated incident? Or does it represent yet another link in a growing chain of violent encounters that follow a disturbingly familiar pattern? The Minneapolis killing is already being described as at least the fifth fatal outcome of similar federal operations over the past two years, suggesting that law enforcement strategy has evolved into an aggressive and dangerous form of violence, often exercised without meaningful accountability or transparency.

Social scientists and activists point out that the use of force by state authorities, whether in immigration enforcement or neighborhood policing, frequently activates deeper structures of social inequality. When the rhetoric of “law and order” is prioritized over human safety, trust between state institutions and the communities they serve erodes rapidly. And this raises a fundamental question: is the principle of “legality” applied equally to everyone, or is it selectively deployed as a tool of control and discipline over specific social groups?

This case cannot be examined outside its broader historical context. In 2020, in the same city of Minneapolis, George Floyd was killed as a police officer pressed a knee into his neck, turning a routine arrest into a public execution witnessed by the world. That moment became a global symbol of systemic police violence and racial injustice, igniting mass protests and exposing how deeply embedded power, race, and state violence are within modern societies.

And yet, how much has truly changed since then? Even today, the way state violence is addressed, whether through policing or immigration enforcement, continues to be shaped by the same logic that transforms people into threats and human lives into acceptable risks. The stories of those killed become symbols not only of injustice, but of a persistent institutional indifference toward the protection of life and dignity.

The Minneapolis case therefore serves as a reminder that violence exercised by institutions is not merely a “tragic mistake” or an “unfortunate exception.” It is part of a broader relationship between power and vulnerability that tests the very foundations of democracy and human rights. And just as in the aftermath of George Floyd’s killing, a new generation is once again refusing to accept narratives that normalize violence in the name of security. A generation that insists on asking the same uncomfortable question: what does security really mean, when preserving it requires the loss of human life?

 

(*) 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

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.

 

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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.