Africa’s centrality to the global energy transition rests increasingly on its vast reserves of critical minerals, yet mineral abundance alone does not guarantee developmental sovereignty. Dr. Oludele Mayowa Solaja’s commentary argues that the key challenge is whether African states remain low-value extractive peripheries or convert geological advantage into industrial capacity, technological learning, regional value chains, ecological accountability, and democratic bargaining power. It develops the concept of transition sovereignty to capture the ability of resource-rich societies to shape extraction, processing, governance, knowledge, finance, and value distribution on their own terms. Rather than rejecting foreign investment, the article calls for strategic interdependence, stronger regionalism, and accountable institutions capable of ensuring that decarbonization produces not only cleaner technologies, but also more equitable and developmentally transformative outcomes for African societies.
The global energy transition is frequently framed as a clean break from the extractive political economy of fossil fuels. But decarbonization technologies such as digital infrastructure, electricity grids, electric vehicles, batteries, and wind turbines rely on another extractive frontier—critical minerals. Strategic materials such as lithium, cobalt, copper, manganese, graphite, and rare earth elements are emerging as essential materials for a low-carbon economy. In Africa, this transition is dominated, yet its importance is underutilized: the continent provides substantial amounts of minerals needed by clean-technology industries. Still, it receives only a small share of the value (IEA, 2025). The big question is not whether Africa will provide the green transition, but what it will look like and whether African societies have the political, industrial, and technological capacity to define its terms.
This is different from green colonialism and what this commentary calls transition sovereignty. Green colonialism is not just the extraction of African minerals by foreign companies. It describes a larger political-economic trend that is creating a material geography of global decarbonization where the rents of processing, technological control, knowledge, finance, and supply chains lie disproportionately elsewhere, particularly in Africa. The language of the commodity shifts, from oil to coal, lithium to cobalt and copper—but so does the underlying asymmetry. The threat is not the exclusion of Africa from the green transition. It is that Africa will be represented on conditions that mirror its historical role as a low-value exporter of ecological wealth.
A new yardstick exists for measuring Africa’s involvement: transition sovereignty. It means the ability of resource-rich societies to decide on the extraction, processing, governance and distribution of transition minerals, as well as to develop their own and regional skills and expertise in industry, technology, knowledge, financing and ecological regulation. It’s less restrictive than state ownership and less strict than local content rules. A country has transition sovereignty if mineral wealth increases its bargaining power, builds productive capacity, benefits society, safeguards ecological and community interests, and lets African actors shape the organization of global green value chains. The issue is not only who owns the mine, but who decides and has the power to make the decisions and technologies that start underground and end up at the surface of the decarbonization technologies.
Beyond Resource Control: Building Productive and Technological Capacity
But Africa is starting to challenge the conditions of the transition. The African Union’s Green Minerals Strategy focuses on value addition at source, regional industrialization, climate resilience, and integrated value chains, rather than relying on raw mineral exports (African Union, 2025). National export controls also indicate a clear direction of travel. Since 2023, Africa has implemented at least 14 measures to limit the export of raw or semi-processed minerals, and in February 2026, Zimbabwe banned the export of all raw minerals and lithium concentrates to encourage in-country beneficiation and accountability (Africa Centre for Strategic Studies, 2026; Reuters, 2026a). Such measures cannot be idealized as definitions of sovereignty. They are better understood as efforts to renegotiate where value exits African economies.
Zimbabwe provides a revealing illustration of both the possibilities and limits of resource sovereignty. The action was directly tied to in-country value addition, accountability and beneficiation (Reuters, 2026a) in its February 2026 suspension of exports of raw minerals and lithium concentrates. This policy reflects a well-known model in which upstream mining companies in Africa export concentrates, and downstream processing and value-added manufacturing occur elsewhere. But restricting exports is just the first step. An export ban can generate ‘protected extraction without transformative industrialization’ without reliable electricity, transport, finance, processing technologies, skilled labor, industrial demand and credible institutions. The real question is: Does export restraint build productive capabilities, or does it merely shift rents at the mine gate?
Thus, the Zimbabwean example illustrates an overarching lesson in the theory of transition sovereignty: control of the commodity is not enough if it is not matched by control over the capabilities attached to it. Industrialization does not need to be confined within the national boundaries. It needs to develop, process, create, capitalize, and integrate mineral production resources into local economies. The IEA sees Africa’s opportunity in spreading the transition’s economic value across the global value chain, because its economic value is distributed unevenly along the chain (IEA, 2025). In this sense, sovereignty is not realized by stopping the extraction; it is realized by transforming a geological advantage into a sustainable productive capacity.
Knowledge Sovereignty and the Regionalization of Green Value Chains
Another aspect of the issue is related to knowledge sovereignty, as demonstrated in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). In September 2026, the Congolese government stepped up its efforts to centralize geological information by creating a national geological databank, along with new aerial surveys and digital mapping. The goal is to strengthen state control, reduce the information imbalance, and boost the state’s negotiating leverage in mining deals (Reuters, 2026b). This is important because mineral sovereignty is also epistemic (knowledge-based). Information on the location, quality, access, and strategic value of deposits shapes investment, licensing, negotiation, and long-term planning. Formal ownership of mineral deposits can coexist with informational dependency, as long as geological intelligence, technical standards, and data infrastructures are externally dominated.
The DRC case also reminds us to see transition sovereignty beyond the state. If enhancing the bargaining power of government is to produce “public value,” “transparency” in contracts, “environmental accountability,” and “meaningful benefits” to “communities” and “workers,” then sovereignty is becoming “developmental.” It’s not just a matter of African States regaining control from foreign companies. It is the extent to which mineral control is institutionalized in institutions capable of making mineral governance socially accountable. Otherwise, the language of sovereignty can be used to justify a transfer of control from an outside entity to domestic elites, without changing who gets the benefits and who bears the costs.
The DRC-Zambia battery and electric-vehicle project provides a better regional prospect. Instead of treating copper and cobalt as a commodity that must leave the region before higher-value use can begin, the two nations have worked to develop a cross-border value-chain model that includes mineral processing, battery production, and industrial capabilities. The UN Economic Commission for Africa and other regional institutions have technically supported the activity. In 2025, measures were taken to strengthen engagement by firms, financial institutions, and other actors in the battery and electric-vehicle value chain. This is not limited to battery production. It shows how mineral-rich countries can be viewed as hubs of regional industrial coordination, not just sources of raw materials being bid for by foreign extractors.
Regionalism matters because many constraints to African benefaction are too great for individual states to overcome alone. Processing plants need stable energy, transport tie-ups, technical expertise, markets, capital, and volume. A regional strategy can then transform uncoordinated mineral resources into coordinated industrial systems. The Southern African Development Community (SADC) initiative on environmentally and socially responsible energy-transition mineral value chains also aims to keep mineral wealth within the region and encourage livelihoods and industrialization in several southern African nations (UNECA, 2026). This requires a multi-level understanding of transition sovereignty at the national, regional, and continental levels.
Strategic Interdependence: Partnerships on Whose Terms?
But the new mineral race reveals a more profound paradox. African minerals are now being talked about in terms of partnership, supply-chain security and strategic cooperation with powers, many of them global, who seek them out. The US, EU and China have legitimate reasons to acquire access to critical minerals. For instance, in September 2026, the US government announced its support for developing critical mineral processing in Kenya, including the proposed development of the Mrima Hill resource, while stressing the importance of local processing and value-added production (Reuters, 2026c). These partnerships could be real opportunities. Diversifying external partners is not sovereignty. African countries may expand the number of buyers of their products but not substantially alter the nature of their political economy if they switch from one big buyer to a few smaller ones and they still export their low-value resources.
That is why the question “with whom?” has to be asked alongside a deeper question: “with whom for?” or “with whom on whose terms?” Colonial elements in external capital, technology, and markets are not the same. The developmental consequences relate to bargaining power, institutional design, ownership structures, local linkages, environmental protection, and rent distribution. Hence, the target should not be autarky or opposition to foreign investment. Strategic interdependence means the ability to involve global partners without giving up control over the developmental paths of mineral societies.
From Mineral Abundance to Developmental Sovereignty
The politics of critical minerals also reveal the boundaries of a technologically driven view of decarbonization. A battery can have a range of emissions during its use, whereas its material components can include land dispossession, unsafe mining practices, water stress, labor exploitation, or ecological degradation. Thus, the environmental legality of green technologies cannot be judged solely by their carbon performance. This transition is likely to result in a “cleaner” global economy, but at the cost of African communities in the mining sector. The political feasibility of green development lies in jointly considering the costs of extraction and the benefits of decarbonization.
This will expand to include community and labor. Foreign ownership does not inevitably mean environmental damage, and state ownership does not necessarily mean that it is socially just. The key is whether the rights of people living and working around the mineral frontiers are meaningful and include access to information, voice, and benefits of extraction. Artisanal and small-scale miners are important in this context. Formalization cannot be used to criminalize informal miners; it should provide avenues to formalize their lives, safety, skills, and value addition. Otherwise, the switch could perpetuate the traditional scenario where people near the source of value bear the risk of extraction, while value is generated further up the chain.
The strategic question for Africa is then no longer whether to accept or reject the green transition, but rather how to do so. It’s a choice between engaging in it as an extractive periphery and as an industrial, technological, and political actor. The latter requires reliable and affordable energy, transport infrastructure, mineral-processing capacity, regional markets, skills, research and development, transparent contracts, accountable institutions, and effective protections for communities and workers. It also demands that governments differentiate between resource nationalism and transformation. National control may be a tool for development, but it is not development.
Decarbonization on Africa’s Terms
The green colonialism and transition sovereignty binary should thus be viewed as a spectrum of political-economic options. An African country can boost state bargaining power without excluding communities from the benefits; it can boost local processing but remain highly technology-dependent; or it can attract several foreign investors but keep exporting the bulk of the value contribution of its minerals. On the other hand, through mineral policy, a country can pursue regional industrialization, develop its own capacities and skills, improve ecological governance, and increase democratic involvement. The shift is therefore not necessarily green, just, sovereign, or developmental. Its character is being politically constructed.
This is therefore a both-and situation for the developing critical-mineral economy. Africa’s strategic position, which it could use to renegotiate its role in global geopolitics, will not create sovereignty if it is merely geologically abundant. The important question is whether mineral extraction becomes a basis for industrial potential, technological learning, fiscal independence, ecological responsibility, and democratic negotiating strength. The question is no longer just whether the world can decarbonize, but how. It’s about who has the power to decide, who receives the value created along the chain, who pays the environmental and social costs, and who controls the material foundations of decarbonization.
If Africa is the source of the mines, then others are the source of the manufacture, and the color of colonialism can vary without its political economy changing. The energy transition may be more than just a change in energy systems if Africa’s mineral wealth is translated into regional industrial capability, technological capability, ecological responsibility, and democratic bargaining power. It may be a chance to reimagine Africa’s economics in the international arena. This is the true measure of transition sovereignty—whether Africa provides the green transition or whether Africa can help regulate the transition.
In this ECPS interview, Dr. Sophie Suda, Postdoctoral Researcher in Comparative Politics at the University of Basel, examines the AfD’s transformation from a protest party into a broader political force capable of mobilizing multiple grievances across Germany. She argues that the party’s rise cannot be explained by eastern German exceptionalism or immigration alone, but reflects the interaction of structural neglect, economic insecurity, political distrust, and effective grievance mobilization. Dr. Suda cautions that dismantling the Brandmauer or imitating AfD positions would further legitimize the radical right rather than win voters back. Instead, she emphasizes effective policy delivery, sustained investment in neglected regions, political representation, and clearer party differentiation as the more viable democratic response to the AfD’s continued advance.
Germany’s party system is entering a period of profound strain as the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) expands beyond its earlier identity as a protest formation and establishes itself as a durable force across an increasingly broad range of policy domains. In this interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Dr. Sophie Suda, Postdoctoral Researcher in Comparative Politics at the University of Basel, argues that the AfD’s recent trajectory cannot be reduced either to eastern German exceptionalism or to a single grievance such as immigration. Instead, she describes a party that has become “a broader political phenomenon rather than simply a vehicle for protest,” increasingly credited by voters not only on migration and security but also on the economy and social security.
For Dr. Suda, the AfD’s rise reflects the convergence of long-term structural grievances, economic insecurity, distrust of political elites, demographic decline, and the party’s capacity to mobilize disaffected and previously non-voting citizens. In eastern Germany, post-reunification legacies still matter: unemployment, infrastructure deficits, regional neglect, and the perception that political elites “did not care about” large parts of the population have created fertile ground for the party. Yet she cautions against treating this as a uniquely eastern phenomenon, stressing that far-right and nativist attitudes have existed elsewhere as well and that the crucial change is the emergence of a party capable of effectively mobilizing them.
At the center of the conversation is the increasingly contested question of how mainstream parties should respond. Dr. Suda firmly rejects the idea that the Brandmauer, or firewall, has failed simply because the AfD has continued to grow. Its purpose, she argues, is not “to keep the AfD small,” but to define the limits of political cooperation and prevent its entry into office. Bringing the party into government, in her view, would produce “greater legitimization and inclusion, not fewer voters for the AfD.” Nor does she expect governing responsibility to moderate the party ideologically: institutional constraints may limit what populist or extremist parties can do, but “participation in government is more likely to lead to legitimization.”
Her prescription for mainstream parties is therefore sharply defined: do not dismantle the firewall, do not imitate the AfD, but deliver. Copying its positions—particularly on immigration—“does not win voters back either; it simply legitimizes those positions, while voters still choose the original in the end.” The more promising strategy lies in effective governance, sustained investment in neglected regions, political representation, and clear programmatic differentiation. As Dr. Suda puts it, parties must remain “distinguishable while also demonstrating that [they] can deliver.”
Dr. Sophie Suda is a Postdoctoral Researcher in Comparative Politics at the University of Basel.
Here is our interview with Dr. Sophie Suda, edited lightly to enhance clarity, readability, and overall flow for publication.
The AfD Is No Longer Simply a Protest Party
Dr. Sophie Suda, welcome! Let me begin with Saxony-Anhalt. AfD’s 43.8% victory appears to mark more than the consolidation of a marginal protest constituency. Should we interpret this primarily as the deepening of an eastern German exceptionalism rooted in post-reunification grievances and regional alienation, or as evidence that AfD has crossed a more consequential threshold—from protest party to potential governing force, with implications for Germany’s national party system and coalition politics?
Dr. Sophie Suda: In general, the AfD is strong across Germany, not only in the east. What is particularly striking is the extent of its strength and the positive trajectory it has shown, including doubling its vote share compared with the previous election there. So, this is not necessarily a phenomenon specific to Eastern Germany. What is especially interesting is how the party has evolved. You mentioned that it may once have been described as a protest party, but we have now reached a point where that characterization no longer seems adequate.
We can see this particularly in the policy areas in which citizens attribute competence to the AfD. Traditionally, these include migration and security, where the party is perceived as highly competent, but increasingly also areas such as the economy and social security. This suggests that the AfD has become a broader political phenomenon rather than simply a vehicle for protest. There are, of course, regional differences within Germany, but these relate more to the degree of legitimization than to a phenomenon confined to particular regions.
The AfD Has Been Able to Exploit Multiple Grievances
Germany was long regarded as one of Europe’s most resilient party systems, with strong institutions, stable coalitions, and a powerful cordon sanitaire against the radical right. What, in your view, went most fundamentally wrong: economic stagnation, migration politics, distrust of elites, weak political leadership, eastern German alienation, failures of representation—or the mainstream parties’ own strategic choices?
Dr. Sophie Suda: You mentioned a lot of points, and there isn’t really one reason I can give. There are long-term grievances, including economic grievances, as well as crises and weaknesses among other parties, and all of these factors contribute to one another. Some have longer-term effects, while others are more immediate.
Especially in Eastern Germany, many people have long felt that political elites did not care about them. After reunification, unemployment was high, and there are still infrastructure problems compared with the West. At the same time, nativist attitudes have always been present, and the AfD has been able to mobilize around them. What we can see, particularly in the last election but also more generally, is that the party is very effective at mobilizing people, especially non-voters. It managed to attract more non-voters than all other parties combined.
So, there is no single reason. It is more about all these factors coming together and the AfD being able to exploit them. There is also demographic decline in many areas. All of this contributes to distrust of political elites, the federal government, and incumbents, along with the perception that people are being left alone with their problems. So, it is more about this broader sense of how people perceive politics and political elites than about any single wrongdoing.
Cooperating with the AfD Would Lead to Greater Legitimization
Photo: Shutterstock.
The Brandmauer (firewall) was designed to isolate the AfD, yet the party has continued to grow. Has exclusion protected democratic norms, or has it unintentionally reinforced AfD’s outsider narrative by allowing the party to claim that an entire political establishment is conspiring against its voters? At what point does democratic containment risk becoming electorally counterproductive?
Dr. Sophie Suda: As you mentioned, the Brandmauer is not there to keep the AfD small, but rather to make clear which parties you are willing to cooperate with, allow into office, or include in your decisions. So, it is not a failure in any way, because it has kept, and continues to keep, the AfD out of office.
The first question is what the alternative would be. If the alternative were to bring the AfD into office or cooperate with it, that would lead to greater legitimization and inclusion, not to fewer voters for the AfD. Another important point is that the AfD is an anti-democratic party and, at least in Saxony-Anhalt, is classified as right-wing extremist. So, parties do not really have a great deal of choice. Where they can differ, however, is between cooperating with the AfD, on the one hand, and, on the other, taking the concerns of its voters seriously and responding to this part of the population.
Parties Should Not Adapt to and Tolerate the AfD
In your research with Andorff-Woller and colleagues, you find that coalitions including populists tend to be less stable, but that this destabilizing effect diminishes where populist participation becomes more common. Does Saxony-Anhalt suggest Germany may now be approaching precisely that moment—where the question is no longer whether AfD can be excluded indefinitely, but whether the system will begin adapting to its presence?
Dr. Sophie Suda: Yes, it’s quite a difficult situation. We do find, in general, that having populist parties in government correlates with premature government dissolution. At the same time, they are also more likely to enter government in situations where there is already instability, which may further reinforce this lack of cooperation.
So, if the question is whether the political system should adapt simply to their presence, this relates to the point I mentioned earlier: they are undemocratic and an extremist party. The real question is whether other parties should adapt to that and tolerate it, and I believe they should not. They should draw a clear line where certain forms of behavior begin to pose a risk of democratic decline.
Populists in Government Do Not Generally Become More Moderate
Your work raises a difficult possibility: populist parties may become institutionally normalized without becoming ideologically moderate. If AfD eventually enters a state government, should we expect governing responsibility to constrain it, or could normalization instead legitimate radical positions while leaving its anti-pluralist core largely intact?
Dr. Sophie Suda: To some extent, they would be institutionally constrained, because in a state or federal government, you cannot simply do whatever you want. There are constraints from the courts, the EU, and the federal government. But those constraints are institutional, not ideological. Ideologically, extremist or populist parties in government do not generally change their positions or become more moderate. Instead, participation in government is more likely to lead to legitimization.
Other research also shows that when such parties enter government—whether as a junior partner, senior partner, or in a single-party government—democratic quality immediately declines, particularly in terms of minority rights and liberal freedoms. So, this is not a situation in which governing responsibility would necessarily make them more moderate.
The AfD Is No Longer Defined Primarily by Anti-Immigration
AfD demo with slogan Stop Islamization and counter demonstration of the Left in Luetten Klein in Rostock, Germany on May 14, 2018. AfD, Alternative for Germany, is a right wing political party in Germany. Photo: Shutterstock.
AfD’s victory in Saxony-Anhalt coincided with deep dissatisfaction with the CDU-led political establishment, economic insecurity, cost-of-living pressures, and very low confidence in Chancellor Merz. Yet immigration was not necessarily the dominant concern for all voters. Does this suggest AfD is now succeeding because it has transformed itself from a single-issue anti-immigration party into a broader vehicle for accumulated anti-system discontent?
Dr. Sophie Suda: The AfD has always been quite effective at incorporating many different sources of dissatisfaction. Even when it began as an anti-EU party and later became strongly associated with immigration, its appeal was never limited to that issue. During COVID, around pro-Russian attitudes, and amid various other crises, the party was able to capitalize on a wide range of grievances.
I think the main difference now is this broader approach. At least in Saxony-Anhalt, immigration was not even such a major issue, nor the most important one. Yet the AfD manages to gain credit, or to be perceived as competent, across a wide range of policy areas. That is what is new. So, becoming broader and being seen as competent in almost all policy areas marks a significant change.
Reunification Provided Fertile Ground for AfD Support
Your earlier work on Mecklenburg-Vorpommern highlighted persistent east-west differences, weaker economic performance in eastern districts, border effects, and the importance of regional neglect, while also warning against monocausal explanations. How much of AfD’s strength today can still be explained by post-reunification grievances, and how much has become a more contemporary rebellion against the Federal Republic itself?
Dr. Sophie Suda: Looking only at historical explanations is definitely too simplistic. Historical legacies matter, and they matter considerably in shaping the level of support, but they do not really explain why the AfD suddenly doubled its number of voters, or its vote share, and why this increase occurred.
There are still many structural factors that were, or are, the result of reunification, such as economic problems and infrastructure. Many companies were also dissolved or bought up by Western German firms. These are structural factors that can benefit the AfD everywhere, but in eastern Germany many of them come together. There are also longstanding far-right strongholds that the party can now draw on. In that sense, reunification created many of the conditions that help explain why people vote for the AfD and provided fertile ground for its support.
At the same time, when we look at social norms and the way far-right ideas have become normalized, this is not something specific to eastern Germany. Far-right and nativist attitudes existed elsewhere as well; what has changed is that there is now a party capable of mobilizing them. So, the recent increase is better explained by shorter-term factors that the AfD has been able to exploit and mobilize around.
Neglected Areas Can Be Won Back
Your 2021 analysis showed that targeted regional investment, stronger political attention to neglected areas, and a popular, credible incumbent helped the SPD cut into AfD strongholds in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Does the current AfD resurgence there suggest that those gains were temporary, or that mainstream parties failed to institutionalize the lesson that territorial neglect and political distance must be addressed continuously rather than episodically?
Dr. Sophie Suda: To some extent, it shows the latter. In 2021, several factors came together to explain why the SPD performed so well. There were a number of short-term factors: the incumbent was quite popular, the AfD candidate was very weak, and there was also a favorable federal trend for the SPD.
But the previous government had also pursued this Vorpommern strategy, especially in the east of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, where the AfD was, and remains, strong, and where it had previously been particularly strong. They had a long-term strategy of investing in the region. So, it was not only about short-term factors. They also had a parliamentary state secretary who focused on this region. It was therefore also about political attention and representation.
They also managed, perhaps more than now, to deliver on a number of policies, such as childcare. So, it was this combination of short-term factors and a longer-term strategy of reaching voters, especially in the East.
Saxony-Anhalt Could Produce Either AfD Momentum or Counter-Mobilization
AfD posters displayed on a stand during Germany’s 2025 federal election campaign. Such posters were relatively rare in public spaces, as they were often quickly torn down. Photo: Dreamstime.
AfD now leads the latest Mecklenburg-Vorpommern poll with 35%, while the SPD has recovered to 32%. Given that AfD received only 16.7% there in 2021, what would a possible AfD victory on September 20 signify? Would it confirm a durable realignment of eastern German politics, or could candidate effects, government satisfaction, and late mobilization still reproduce something closer to the 2021 outcome?
Dr. Sophie Suda: Looking at the polls now, it seems quite likely that the AfD will make enormous gains. At the same time, the candidate effect still favors (Minister-President of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern) Manuela Schwesig, whom voters across most of the political spectrum continue to prefer over AfD’s Leif-Erik Holm —though not, of course, among AfD voters.
There are also still many undecided voters, so the key question now is who will be able to mobilize them. It will also be important to see whether the AfD can benefit from the momentum generated by its success in Saxony-Anhalt, or whether that result instead produces a counter-mobilization among other voters.
Berlin Would Show That the AfD Is Not Just a Rural Party
Berlin presents almost the opposite social and political environment: a large, diverse, metropolitan electorate in which CDU, Linke, Greens, and AfD are all competing near the top while the SPD has fallen sharply. If AfD approaches or exceeds 18–20% in Berlin, would that be more consequential than an even larger result in eastern rural Germany because it would demonstrate that AfD’s appeal has broken decisively out of its traditional geographic and sociological strongholds?
Dr. Sophie Suda: Yes, perhaps symbolically to some extent, because they can show that they are not just a rural party. But, in general, they are strong across all German states, and the difference is that in Berlin they will not be able to govern. So, the actual consequences would not be as significant as they potentially are in Saxony-Anhalt. This result would therefore confirm that the AfD is strong, but it would not necessarily have the same consequences as the party reaching almost 44% in other states.
Parties Must Cooperate without Losing Their Political Identity
Germany’s mainstream parties have increasingly been forced into ideologically awkward coalitions whose principal common denominator is excluding AfD. Can such alliances remain democratically persuasive if voters perceive them as programmatically incoherent? At what point does coalition engineering to contain AfD begin to deepen the very anti-establishment resentment on which AfD thrives?
Dr. Sophie Suda: It fits the AfD narrative quite well when all other parties are portrayed as the same and as part of a corrupt elite, while the AfD presents itself as the only alternative that looks after voters. But the AfD makes that claim regardless of who is governing. So, while this fits its narrative, it does not necessarily change what the party is doing or the approach it takes.
I think the more important point is that these coalitions have to govern and cooperate effectively. That is, of course, difficult when they bring together more parties with greater ideological differences. On the one hand, they have to cooperate; on the other, they must show voters what they stand for and demonstrate that not all elites are the same. Each party has to maintain a clear identity, deliver for its voters, and show that it can produce effective policies. That is the greater difficulty with these coalitions.
Cooperation and Efficiency Can Reinforce Each Other
Your research with Detlef Jahn shows that executive efficiency and consensus capacity need not be opposites and can jointly improve policy performance. Has Germany’s current problem become precisely a failure to combine the two—a political system still oriented toward consensus but increasingly perceived by citizens as unable to deliver decisively on growth, migration, infrastructure, energy, and public services?
Dr. Sophie Suda: Yes, this is exactly what we find. Sometimes cooperation and efficiency are perceived as a trade-off, but in fact they can reinforce each other and produce better policy outcomes. The key question is how to combine them, in which areas, and how governments coordinate effectively enough to achieve both.
There has always been competition between parties, and there still is. But when parties govern together, they also have to cooperate across many areas. At the same time, they need to remain sufficiently distinct for voters to understand what each party stands for. So, you need consensus to reach decisions, but also efficiency in implementing them.
To some extent, this is where Germany has struggled in the past. We had many grand coalitions in which center-left and center-right parties governed together, but the compromises they reached did not necessarily satisfy voters on either side. In recent years, parties have probably failed to communicate clearly enough what they stand for.
The AfD Is Very Effective at Exploiting Crises
Your recent work on critical events finds that governing parties tend to converge and project unity during externally driven shocks, whereas opposition parties have incentives to differentiate themselves and exploit grievances. Has AfD become unusually effective at turning successive crises—Ukraine, migration, inflation, energy insecurity, the Middle East, and economic stagnation—into a permanent opposition advantage?
Dr. Sophie Suda: Yes, they are quite good at exploiting this. In general, this is what all opposition parties do to some extent when there is a crisis or external event. They can use that to show how they are different, and they can criticize the government, especially when it is an important event. There have been many crises now, which also leads to a lot of insecurity, and the AfD works on that, builds on that, and exploits it, essentially.
We Should Not Expect a Change in German Foreign Policy
The Bundestag building at dusk, with German and EU flags waving in front, in Berlin, Germany, on November 17, 2024. The Reichstag dome is visible, symbolizing Germany’s democracy. Photo: Margarita Kosareva.
AfD’s pro-Russian orientation and opposition to continued support for Ukraine distinguish it sharply from the German foreign-policy mainstream. Your research shows that critical foreign-policy events usually strengthen cohesion among governing parties while opposition parties strategically distance themselves. Could AfD’s electoral rise eventually break Germany’s post-2022 foreign-policy consensus and constrain Berlin’s ability to lead within NATO and the EU?
Dr. Sophie Suda: At the moment, no. Part of the campaign in Saxony-Anhalt focused on foreign policy, but state governments do not decide foreign policy, so they have little power to change it. Supporting Ukraine, for example, is an essential part of Germany’s foreign policy, and there is no intention to change that.
Our research on cohesion shows that governing parties tend to stick together and become more cohesive during foreign-policy crises, at least to some extent and for a certain period. This is also an area where Friedrich Merz enjoys support within his own party and among voters, especially compared with other policy areas. So, for him, this is probably one area he should not change.
I therefore do not think he will. Of course, there will be pressure from the AfD, and there are other parties with different foreign-policy positions, such as the Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance -BSW). But these parties are not governing at the federal level. So, there will certainly be debate, but I do not think we should expect a change in German foreign policy.
Don’t Break the Firewall, Don’t Imitate the AfD—Deliver
And lastly, Dr. Suda, stepping back, what should mainstream German parties do now? Continuing the firewall may reinforce AfD’s anti-establishment appeal; accommodating AfD risks normalizing its radical positions; imitating its migration and cultural agenda may validate its diagnoses; and broad anti-AfD coalitions can appear incoherent. Is there still a viable democratic strategy for defeating AfD electorally—and if so, does it require better policy delivery, renewed social and territorial representation, clearer ideological differentiation, or a fundamental reconstruction of Germany’s party system?
Dr. Sophie Suda: Unfortunately, there is no single strategy for winning back 44% of voters. But the first thing parties should not do is break the firewall, because that would only lead to further legitimization of the AfD and the radical right, normalize those attitudes, and reinforce those positions. It would not win voters back.
The same applies to trying to imitate the AfD, which is something the CDU in particular, but also other parties, have tried to do in the past, including by adopting its positions on immigration. That does not win voters back either; it simply legitimizes those positions, while voters still choose the original in the end.
What parties can do—and this is easier said than done—is deliver effective policies. We saw in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern that neglected areas can be won back if there is a long-term strategy to address voters, respond to their concerns, and give them a sense of being represented, including through policies on the economy, infrastructure, and public services.
This does not require a fundamental reconstruction of the party system. It may instead require parties to adapt how they work together so that politics is not reduced to the AfD versus all other parties. At the same time, each party has to ensure that its policies remain distinguishable while also demonstrating that it can deliver. I think that is the more difficult trade-off parties are facing now.
Ahead of the 2026 US midterms, Professor Lane Kenworthy argues that Trumpism’s apparent dominance should not be mistaken for permanence. Although the Republican Party has acquired “an entirely new identity,” he stresses that this “could easily change after Trump,” especially if a more appealing political agenda emerges. Professor Kenworthy places MAGA within a longer cycle of ideological realignment, cultural backlash, and generational change, while cautioning against reading election outcomes as durable historical trends. He is equally skeptical that rising billionaire influence necessarily amounts to a new plutocratic order. Instead, he points toward Nordic-style social democratic capitalism—combining markets, public provision, economic security, and liberal democracy—as a more promising long-term model. Politically, however, he reduces the path forward to a simple proposition: “Democrats need to win elections.”
Ahead of the 2026 US midterm elections, the durability of Trumpism—and the political future of the Republican Party after Donald Trump—has become one of the central questions confronting American democracy. In an interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Professor Lane Kenworthy, Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Yankelovich Chair in Social Thought at the University of California, San Diego, argues that the institutionalization of Trumpism should not be taken for granted. His scholarship on inequality, social policy, political economy, and shared prosperity provides the broader framework for a conversation that ranges from MAGA and executive power to plutocratic influence, democratic socialism, and the prospects for social democratic capitalism in the United States.
Professor Kenworthy cautions against interpreting the current Republican transformation as necessarily permanent. Reflecting on the rapid succession from George W. Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” to the Tea Party and then to Trumpism, he stresses how unusually vulnerable the two major American parties are to sudden ideological takeover. “The two major American political parties are so weak, so hollow,” he observes, adding that they are “unusually susceptible to takeover in unpredictable ways.” Although the Republican Party has acquired “an entirely new identity” after a decade of Trump’s dominance, Professor Kenworthy emphasizes that “that could easily change after Trump.”
This uncertainty is even more pronounced when considering whether MAGA can survive its founder. Professor Kenworthy notes the “extraordinary passion” Trump supporters display toward him, but remains skeptical that this necessarily translates into a deeply rooted and durable ideological project. Historical precedents suggest caution: political agendas that once appeared dominant—Bush-era conservatism or the Tea Party—evaporated far more quickly than expected. J.D. Vance and others may attempt to preserve Trumpism, he argues, but its future will depend on whether the movement’s ideological commitments are genuinely deep or merely contingent. “It’s quite possible that it could disappear very easily,” Professor Kenworthy says, “if somebody with a more appealing agenda and a more appealing election campaign comes along.”
Professor Kenworthy also situates Trumpism within a longer cultural transformation. Drawing on the Inglehart-Norris thesis, he suggests that MAGA relies heavily on cultural traditionalists whose relative weight may decline through generational replacement. If that argument is correct, Trumpism “maybe survives another couple of election cycles, but after that, it could simply disappear.”
The interview ultimately places the 2026 midterms within a wider debate over American political economy. Professor Kenworthy questions both alarmist assumptions about an inevitable plutocracy and claims that democratic socialism offers a fundamentally different policy model. Instead, he repeatedly returns to the Nordic-inspired social democratic capitalism he has long advocated: combining markets with strong public provision, economic security, and liberal-democratic institutions. For Professor Kenworthy, the most plausible path toward that model remains politically straightforward, even if institutionally difficult: “Democrats need to win elections.”
Professor Lane Kenworthy is Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Yankelovich Chair in Social Thought at the University of California, San Diego.
Here is our interview with Professor Lane Kenworthy, edited lightly to enhance clarity, readability, and overall flow for publication.
Trumpism, MAGA, and the 2026 Midterms
Professor Kenworthy, welcome! The 2026 midterms are increasingly being framed as a referendum not simply on President Trump’s second administration but on the durability of Trumpism itself. You have argued that the rise of right-wing populism is driven less straightforwardly by economic hardship or inequality than by effective political entrepreneurs who mobilize already-existing cultural and political dispositions. If Republicans suffer substantial losses in November, should we interpret that as a rejection of Trump himself, a cyclical midterm correction, or evidence that the political coalition sustaining Trumpism has reached its limits? Conversely, if Republicans retain control of Congress despite Trump’s low approval ratings, what would that tell us about the depth and institutional durability of the MAGA transformation of the Republican Party?
Professor Lane Kenworthy: Interesting question. My view about the increased electability of right-wing populist parties comes mainly from Larry Bartels’s book from a few years back. I think the story of improved leadership among these types of parties is less about charismatic personalities like Trump—although that certainly played a role in the United States—and more about leaders who are willing to make their parties more acceptable to ordinary voters: shedding ties with neo-Nazis, embracing the welfare state, and taking moderate positions on some other issues.
I don’t think we know how things will play out over the midterms here in the United States. For a while in the early 2000s, it looked as though George W. Bush’s so-called compassionate conservatism was going to become the core Republican identity, replacing Reaganism and the idea that the central goal was to shrink the government. Then the Tea Party came into vogue after the 2010 wave elections, with its obsession with the national debt, the government deficit, and so on. And then came Trumpism, more or less out of the blue.
So, these things are very difficult to predict because the two major American political parties are so weak, so hollow. They are strong in some respects, but they are unusually susceptible to takeover in unpredictable ways, and that is basically the story of what happened with Trump in 2016. Almost nobody saw it coming. He entered the presidential nomination contest somewhat late, ended up winning the nomination narrowly, and then won the general election narrowly. Now we have had 10 years of this, and the Republican Party has an entirely new identity. But that could easily change after Trump. I don’t know if it will, but I think these things are very difficult to predict.
The other thing I would mention is that American elections since around 2000 have been somewhat unusual in that the country has been pretty closely divided—something along the lines of 45% Democrat, 45% Republican, and perhaps 10% of voters who may change their vote depending on what is happening. As a result, a lot of marginal, unpredictable factors can end up swinging election outcomes in ways that are very difficult to predict in advance. I also think it is dicey to interpret those outcomes as long-term trends—ones that are going to last or that are deeply embedded or deeply held among American voters.
Congressional Control and the Limits of Presidential Power
Republicans currently hold only a very narrow House majority, while Democrats need a net gain of four seats to take the Senate. How consequential is the congressional arithmetic for the trajectory of Trump’s presidency? If Democrats capture one or both chambers, would divided government meaningfully constrain what critics regard as Trump’s illiberal or executive-centered tendencies, or has presidential power expanded to the point that congressional control is less consequential than conventional separation-of-powers theory assumes?
Professor Lane Kenworthy: Here too, we don’t really know the answer to this question. Right now, it looks like Democrats will end up with a majority in the House of Representatives, although we’re still a little ways off from the election. Normally, in this kind of situation, when a president’s party holds majorities in both legislative bodies during the first two years, they get some things done but then typically lose one or both chambers in the midterm elections. The party that holds the presidency almost always loses one or both legislative bodies in the United States in the midterms. Then, typically, the president is able to get far less done, so his attention turns to foreign policy, where he has somewhat more autonomy and is able to take more action.
So I suspect that should be our default prediction for what happens in the last two years of this presidency. But this presidency has so far been very different. Trump has been trying much more aggressively to do things outside Congress, even though Republicans hold a majority in both houses. It’s a narrow majority, and Trump wants to do things that many Republicans in the Senate or House of Representatives don’t necessarily favor. So he has been trying to do a great deal through executive actions and concocting all sorts of justifications to get the Supreme Court and other judicial decision-makers to allow them. Sometimes they have; sometimes they haven’t.
My best guess is that he would continue along this path. But at the same time, because he has done so much outside what we have traditionally understood to be the bounds of presidential authority, my guess is that, especially if Democrats win the House of Representatives, they’ll launch a large number of investigations into actions he has taken in this first term, and possibly into things he did even before taking office. A lot of attention and time will be consumed by these investigations, as a great deal of media coverage, and the president—or the administration—will be forced to spend considerable time responding and reacting to them. So both the reality of what the administration will try to do and what it can do, and the narrative ordinary Americans are exposed to and think about, will shift pretty significantly.
But again, we’re in somewhat uncharted territory here with Donald Trump, so it’s difficult to have much confidence in predicting what’s going to happen in these last two years—hopefully the last two years.
Trump cannot constitutionally seek another term in 2028, yet the Republican Party remains organized to an extraordinary degree around his political identity. You emphasize the importance of capable populist leaders in converting latent cultural conservatism into electoral support. Does that imply that Trumpism may prove unusually dependent on Trump as an individual political entrepreneur? Or has he already constructed a sufficiently durable ideological coalition—around immigration restriction, protectionism, nationalism, hostility to liberal elites, and executive power—that figures such as JD Vance could successfully institutionalize Trumpism after Trump?
Professor Lane Kenworthy: Here I’ll go back to what I said in response to the first question, which is that the most important answer is that we just don’t know. It’s very difficult to predict this. Given the seemingly extraordinary passion that Trump supporters—or MAGA supporters—evince for Donald Trump, one might think there is a deep passion not only for him but also for his political project among a sizable segment of the American population.
But my best guess is that, as with almost all ideologies, movements, public philosophies, or whatever you want to call the set of policy proposals and the sort of aggressive approach to the presidency that Trump has pursued in his second term, it’s really difficult to know whether this is deep or lasting. Again, support for George W. Bush’s agenda seemed really strong, and public opinion surveys suggested that in 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004. But then, when the Iraq War went sour, it evaporated really quickly, and Democrats won a huge election in 2006 and an even bigger landslide in 2008.
The same thing happened with the Tea Party. It was widely thought to represent the overwhelming wave of the future. Members of the Tea Party, or those running on the Tea Party agenda, defeated some of the best-known and longest-serving Republican members of the House of Representatives in Republican primaries. And yet it, too, went away almost overnight in 2016 when Trump came along.
So J.D. Vance will certainly try, because he believes in a number of the same things that Trump does. But whether because of his limited skill as a politician, his limited ability to create the same passion among followers, or simply because commitment to this particular set of policy views is actually fairly thin, it’s quite possible that it could disappear very easily if somebody with a more appealing agenda and a more appealing election campaign comes along.
I should also say that there’s a view espoused most clearly by political scientists Ron Inglehart and Pippa Norris in a book they wrote about five years ago, which offers a long-term perspective on shifts in attitudes, especially on cultural and social issues. It suggests that since roughly the end of World War II, as rich democratic countries like the United States have become richer and richer, we’ve seen a slow but steady process of liberalization in views on all kinds of social and cultural issues. This happens mostly through cohort replacement.
Their hypothesis about the rise of right-wing populism is that we’re at a point in the evolution of this long-term shift where support for more traditionalist views on social and cultural issues is still fairly strong. It has been declining, but it remains fairly strong, and so this backlash against cultural liberalism, or social liberalism, is particularly fervent and particularly strong because we’re right at the point where this view is about to become—not disappear, but become—a clearly distinct minority.
Here too, Trumpism—the MAGA approach to politics—relies very heavily on cultural traditionalists in the United States. It’s not the only thing central to Trumpism, but it’s a really important part of that approach. If the Inglehart-Norris hypothesis is correct, maybe it survives another couple of election cycles, but after that, it could simply disappear. So there are lots of possibilities here, and again, I think we just don’t know.
Plutocracy and the Political Influence of the Rich
In your work on capitalism, inequality, and democracy, you acknowledge that affluent Americans have substantially more political influence than lower-income citizens, but you are cautious about concluding that increasing economic inequality has produced an ever-deepening plutocracy. How should we reassess that argument in the contemporary United States, where billionaire donors, super PACs, private political networks, and extraordinarily wealthy officeholders have become increasingly visible? At what point does disproportionate influence cease to be an inequality within democracy and become something more accurately described as oligarchic or plutocratic rule?
Professor Lane Kenworthy: Here too, I would say this is a possibility, but we don’t know. The problem with trying to draw any firm inference from what has happened during the first two years of this second Trump presidency is that he is a very idiosyncratic elected official. As a businessman, he strongly favored a transactional approach, and he has shown that he favors the same approach to politics. He is very interested in increasing the financial assets of himself and his family. He is also comfortable rewarding supporters and flatterers with positions in his company or, in this case, in his administration.
So, does the apparent rise in the influence of rich Americans and certain corporations in this second Trump administration represent a new era of plutocracy? Or is this simply an aberration, something unique to Trump? We won’t really know the answer until he’s gone.
One other thing to keep in mind is that although Trump has put billionaires in his cabinet and allowed Elon Musk to effectively destroy US foreign aid, the administration’s biggest policy changes have been in immigration and tariffs. And it is not America’s rich who have driven those policy commitments. Rather, it has been Trump himself and a few of his other non-billionaire advisors, such as Stephen Miller.
Tech Billionaires and New Forms of Political Power
The 2026 cycle has seen unprecedented political spending from technology, AI, cryptocurrency, and related sectors, while figures such as Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and other Silicon Valley billionaires have moved from financing politics to attempting to shape its ideological and institutional direction. Does the emergence of these “tech bros” represent merely another iteration of wealthy interest group influence, or are we witnessing the formation of a qualitatively new political elite whose control over capital, platforms, algorithms, artificial intelligence, and information infrastructure gives it forms of power that earlier industrial magnates did not possess?
Professor Lane Kenworthy: Yes, once again, this is a possibility, but it’s too early to know. One thing that makes me skeptical is that, because the United States is such a large country, the landscape of sources of influence—including mainstream media, social media, think tanks, universities, and more—is quite broad and fairly diverse. Even if a conservative billionaire like Larry Ellison buys a major media outlet such as CBS or Paramount, or Elon Musk buys Twitter, there are still plenty of other sources and alternatives, including new ones that emerge all the time for people to turn to.
So, yes, it is very much possible that we are seeing new forms of influence and new ways—and degrees—in which affluent individuals or companies can exert influence. But it is also possible that they will try and fail, or at least not succeed very much.
Does Extreme Wealth Produce Unlimited Political Power?
Anti-Trump protesters gather across from Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue during the annual Labor Day Parade in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on September 6, 2025. Photo: Dreamstime.
One of your more counterintuitive arguments is that although money clearly produces unequal political influence, there may be diminishing returns to additional wealth: once affluent actors already possess substantial access and influence, further increases in inequality may not produce proportionately greater political power. Does the extraordinary concentration of wealth at the very top—and the ability of individual billionaires to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on elections—challenge that thesis? Is there perhaps a threshold beyond which wealth ceases to yield merely diminishing returns and instead produces new forms of agenda-setting, institutional capture, and veto power?
Professor Lane Kenworthy: Possibly, yes. Like all the other questions or issues we’ve gone through so far, this is very much an empirical question, and we’ll have to see how it plays out. Here, I would emphasize that income and wealth inequality in the United States have been rising for roughly half a century, and the richest tend to give disproportionately to the Republican Party.
Despite that, and despite the Citizens United Supreme Court decision in 2010, which made it even easier for big money to enter politics—especially elections in the United States—Democrats have so far matched Republicans in campaign contributions and election spending.
It’s also important that a great deal of messaging and advertising now goes through the free channel of social media, so it’s simply not clear. Again, it’s quite possible that things will play out as your question suggests, but I also think there is reason for skepticism. Ultimately, we just have to wait and see how this plays out.
Non-Inclusive Growth and the Rise of Populism
You have described the United States since the late 1970s as a paradigmatic case of “non-inclusive growth,” in which economic growth continued while wages and middle-class incomes stagnated and a disproportionate share of gains flowed to the top 1 percent. How politically consequential is this “great decoupling” today? Even if inequality itself is not the primary cause of right-wing populism, has the failure to translate aggregate prosperity into broadly shared improvements weakened the legitimacy of liberal capitalism and made both Trumpist nationalism and democratic socialism more politically plausible?
Professor Lane Kenworthy: I strongly suspect that it has contributed, but I don’t think we know by how much, because there are so many competing explanations for the rise in support for right-wing populism and left-wing populism more generally, not only in the United States but in other countries as well. In addition to economic inequality, there is income stagnation. There is also regional and local decline—decline in particular cities, areas, and regions—which cannot be reduced simply to incomes or inequality.
There is cultural backlash, the pervasive negativity of social media, and rising loneliness and mental health concerns, especially among teenagers and people in their twenties. There has also been a strong reaction to the inflation of the early 2020s, which was relatively new. Inflation had been very limited for almost a generation, so many people grew up in a world where it simply was not a major concern. Then, all of a sudden, it returned, much as it had in the 1970s.
And then there is the interaction of these factors, perhaps alongside others. So, yes, I do believe economic inequality has contributed, but I’m not at all certain that it has been the main factor driving these political developments.
Inequality Versus Improving Ordinary Lives
Your work repeatedly makes a distinction that is often blurred on the American left: inequality is not necessarily the same problem as poverty, insecurity, weak opportunity, or stagnant living standards. Indeed, your recent framework treats inequality reduction as “sensible but secondary.” In an era of extraordinary billionaire wealth, is that distinction still politically and normatively sustainable? Should progressives concentrate less on how much Elon Musk or other billionaires possess and more on whether ordinary Americans enjoy secure healthcare, housing, education, employment, childcare, and rising incomes?
Professor Lane Kenworthy: In terms of actual policy, I strongly favor focusing on the latter—that is, secure healthcare, housing, and so on: bringing up the bottom and ensuring that as many people as possible have access to these critical components of a good life.
In terms of winning elections, the question may be somewhat separate. It’s possible that the same approach—focusing on particular policies—will also help you win elections. But it’s also quite possible that, especially at this moment in the United States, you’re more likely to win by focusing on inequality, billionaire wealth, and the evils of particular billionaires like Elon Musk.
So it may be that this more extreme or radical approach is better for winning elections. But once you do win, I’m very much convinced that the way forward is to bring up the bottom and expand access to these goods and services, rather than focusing first and foremost on reducing inequality or the income and wealth of billionaires.
Rawls, Billionaires, and the Least Well-Off
St. Patrick’s Cathedral with pedestrians, pigeons and a homeless man outside in Manhattan, Fifth Avenue on September 11, 2023. Photo: Dreamstime.
Your approach to distributive justice draws significantly on John Rawls, particularly the proposition that inequality can be justified if it improves the absolute position of the least well-off. But how should the Rawlsian “difference principle”be applied to an economy in which the wealth of the top has multiplied while many households still struggle with housing, healthcare, childcare, and economic insecurity? Is the relevant Rawlsian question whether billionaires deserve their fortunes, or whether the institutions that permit those fortunes simultaneously generate the best realistically attainable conditions for those at the bottom?
Professor Lane Kenworthy: Good question. My view on this is loosely inspired by Rawls’ emphasis on lifting up the floor first and reducing inequality of outcomes second. If it turns out that the best way to lift up the floor is to prevent people from becoming billionaires, or perhaps to tax away a substantial share of their wealth once they become billionaires, then I’d be in favor of doing that. If, however, a society can allow people to become billionaires—even mega-billionaires—while still doing a very good job of ensuring a high floor and a good life for the rest of the population, then I don’t worry as much about billionaires.
For me, it’s ultimately a pragmatic question. The experience of the Nordic countries in particular, but also some other Western European countries and, in historical comparative terms, even the United States—where things have improved considerably over the past 100 years, even if we are still a long way from performing as well as the best countries—suggests that the latter is possible. It is possible to have a good society even in the presence of individuals or corporations with enormous wealth and power.
But perhaps we are reaching a point where that is changing—where extreme wealth has become so concentrated that it prevents the United States, or perhaps other societies, from achieving good outcomes. Or perhaps the power of these unelected wealthy individuals and corporations will prevent further policy progress. If that is the case, then, again, for purely pragmatic reasons, we would be in a situation where we need to worry much more about inequality.
Democratic Socialism and the Nordic Model
In“Would Democratic Socialism Be Better?”, you argue that democratic socialism would likely reduce inequality but may not outperformsocial democratic capitalismacross most dimensions of well-being. Yet Sanders, AOC, Mamdani, El-Sayed, and others have made democratic socialist ideas increasingly viable. Are they diagnosing the right problems—concentrated wealth, insecurity, weak worker power, and corporate influence—but prescribing too radical a remedy, or does their success suggest that incremental social democracy is no longer enough for much of the Democratic electorate?
Professor Lane Kenworthy: The so-called democratic socialists you mentioned actually favor something very much like the Nordic model in terms of the policies they would like the United States or New York City to adopt and implement. The fact that they call themselves socialists is an idiosyncrasy of American politics. Bernie Sanders came of age in the 1970s, at a time when it was acceptable in parts of the American left to call yourself a socialist, and he has consistently run for election in Vermont, where that has not hurt him politically. So he simply kept doing it. Because he received so much attention and support when he ran for president in 2016, some others followed in his path and called themselves democratic socialists. In some cases, they have not paid a political price for it either.
That has very much been the case with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), and it also turned out to be the case with Mamdani in New York. We’ll see how that plays out with the Michigan Senate election in November. So, for the most part, I think they are prescribing the correct remedy because, in policy terms, they basically favor the Nordic model. Are they diagnosing the problems correctly? Here again, we should distinguish between what will make for effective policy and what will get people elected. I’m not convinced that concentrated wealth and monopolies are the main obstacles to getting better policy enacted in the United States, but focusing on them when you’re running for election might be a very effective strategy for getting yourself into office in at least some districts and states in the US at the moment.
Social Democratic Capitalism as a Democratic Governing Project
Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at the “Bernie Is Back” political rally in Queensbridge Park, Queens, New York, on October 19, 2019. Photo: Aleksandr Dyskin / Dreamstime.
You describe“social democratic capitalism”as a democratic polity combined with a mostly capitalist economy, strong education, extensive public insurance, employment-promoting services, and moderate regulation. Could this provide the Democrats with a more coherent post-neoliberal governing philosophy than either technocratic centrism or democratic socialism? And if so, why has the Democratic Party struggled to articulate such a model as a recognizable political project capable of competing emotionally and symbolically with the much clearer identity offered by Trumpism?
Professor Lane Kenworthy: Here too, I think we want to distinguish between the policies that are actually being enacted, implemented, and favored by many who call themselves Democrats, and what seems to resonate with at least a certain share of voters in the country at this moment. I do think movement toward the Nordic model, or what I call social democratic capitalism, is the direction the Democratic Party has been heading in, especially since around 2020, but to some degree even before that.
During the Biden administration, from 2021 to 2024, much of the policy emphasis was on expanding healthcare and childcare, creating a child allowance, and considering other elements of these public services. The administration and its Democratic allies in Congress ultimately chose to emphasize the transition to clean energy over these services, at least in terms of their rhetoric and symbolism, and I think they were right to do so. This is a really important and time-limited policy focus, whereas shifting toward the Nordic model can be done over a longer period.
But there is actually much more support within the party and in adjacent organizations for expanding public services and public goods these days than there used to be. As I just said, this is mainly what so-called democratic socialists are advocating in policy terms. If we look at Democratic Party-dominated states across the country—California, Massachusetts, New York, and some others—we also see real movement in this direction, through the enactment and implementation of these types of public services and public goods, or their expansion where they already exist.
But this policy approach might not have the same emotional resonance for many voters as right-wing or left-wing populism. So it could be that we’ll see more Democrats getting elected as so-called socialists while nevertheless governing as normal Social Democrats.
I would characterize what we see so far in the Mamdani administration as exactly that. He is governing mostly as a normal left-of-center Democrat, or what you might call a social democrat, while rhetorically continuing his commitment to what he calls democratic socialism and to certain issues that resonate strongly, especially with younger left-wing voters. Yet, in policy terms, those issues turn out to be secondary to what he is doing as an executive in a very large and important city.
Predistribution, Public Provision, and the Future of Wages
You have been skeptical that “predistribution” alone—raising wages through market institutions, stronger bargaining power, or labor-market reform—can solve the problem of stagnant earnings, and you have emphasized public insurance and transfers as essential mechanisms for ensuring shared prosperity. Given the long-term weakening of unions and the changing structure of work, should Democrats stop promising to reconstruct the mid-twentieth-century wage bargain and instead build a twenty-first-century social settlement in which government more explicitly socializes the costs of healthcare, childcare, education, retraining, and income security?
Professor Lane Kenworthy: I do think that’s partly true—that Democrats should focus more on the public provision of these services and public goods, and, to some extent, on transfers. As I just said, I do think that’s the direction many who consider themselves Democrats are moving in.
But at the same time, I also think government needs to step in more actively on the predistribution side to try to ensure that wages, as much as possible, rise more or less in sync with the economy. In the absence of strong labor unions and collective bargaining, I think this means using monetary and fiscal policy to keep the labor market tight.
We know that tends to be effective here in the United States. We saw it in the late 1990s, and we’ve seen it in the period since around 2015 or 2016. When the unemployment rate is below 5%, we almost always see wages rise—in many cases, or in fact most cases, faster than inflation. And that’s true all the way down to the bottom of the distribution.
This probably means doing more with minimum wages, and we’ve seen a lot of action at the state and local level in the United States. Going forward, we probably need to think more about shifting toward a system in which, instead of a crude universal minimum wage, we have occupation-specific or sector-specific minimum wages. Here in California, the state government has just enacted a specific minimum wage for the food service industry, and so we probably need to go further in that direction.
The Earned Income Tax Credit is another mechanism that can help. This is a government transfer, but it’s closely tied to wages and pay. There should perhaps also be more support for the widespread adoption of profit sharing.
So yes, I do think predistribution can also be critical. We see movement in this direction in Western Europe as well, with greater emphasis on minimum wages, first and foremost, as labor unions in many countries appear to be weakening. Not quite as dramatically as here in the United States, but nonetheless significantly, and in some cases collective bargaining is weakening as well.
CEO Pay, Bargaining Power, and Corporate Governance
Your comparative work on executive compensation shows that market forces alone cannot explain enormous differences in CEO pay and that the relative power of labor and executives matters significantly. Does this imply that today’s extreme top-end inequality should be understood less as an inevitable reward for productivity and innovation than as an institutional outcome shaped by bargaining power, corporate governance, taxation, and political choices? If so, what reforms would most effectively rebalance power without undermining the dynamism that you believe capitalism can provide?
Professor Lane Kenworthy: Bargaining power, corporate governance, taxation, and political choices have all mattered, and the rise of top incomes and top wealth is not simply a story about the economy or supply and demand.
So, what would help? I’m pretty pessimistic about resurrecting labor union strength. I hope I’m wrong about this, but the fact that union membership has declined so much in nearly all rich democratic countries, not just here in the US, suggests that the story we’ve told for half a century in the United States—that we have bad laws that make it too easy for employers to fend off unions or get rid of them when they exist—no longer seems very compelling, given declining union membership in so many other rich democratic nations.
A shift in corporate governance back toward emphasizing stakeholders rather than only shareholders would be really good, but here, too, I have trouble seeing the path forward. The governance model that was in place in the decades right after World War II was heavily influenced by the fear among business leaders and politicians of a return to economic depression, and especially by the fear of communism becoming more attractive. As a result, they were willing to give workers rising wages and a seat at the bargaining table in order to ensure that the whole system survived. But that is long gone now.
I think policies requiring works councils within firms and allowing employees to elect a third or half of the board of directors would be helpful. To get more money from those at the top, taxes are our main recourse at the moment.
I don’t want to see another world war if that’s what it takes to get business leaders or conservative politicians to say, “Oh yeah, okay, we need to go back to accommodating labor unions.” But in the absence of that, I don’t really see what the path is.
I think the focus probably has to be on these two institutional requirements—work councils and workers being allowed to elect board members—and then on taxes.
Liberalism and the Contemporary Backlash
Tea Party protest rally in Boston, Massachusetts. The demonstration, attended by roughly 5,000 people, took place near the historic site of the original Boston Tea Party. Photo: Dreamstime.
Your conception of liberalism places individual well-being, equal moral worth, and evidence-based reasoning at its core. Yet contemporary populists increasingly portray liberalism as an ideology of technocratic elites, cultural cosmopolitanism, weak borders, and indifference to community and national belonging. Does liberalism today suffer primarily from a communication problem, a problem of institutional performance, or a deeper philosophical tension between individual autonomy and citizens’ demands for solidarity, identity, order, and collective membership?
Professor Lane Kenworthy: This is a very difficult question for me, and I don’t have a strong view on it—or, I should say, a confident one. The main point I would make is that liberalism has been criticized and challenged for centuries, and I’m not convinced that the negative views of it today are any more widely or deeply held than they were during previous periods of backlash.
Unlike some people, I’m not fully convinced that liberalism needs a dramatic reappraisal or fundamental shift. It’s possible that, 10 years from now, much of this backlash will have weakened or disappeared, and we’ll look back and say that the period from the mid-2010s through the mid- to late 2020s was simply another episode in a long history of intense criticism, rethinking, and backlash. These things ebb and flow.
I might be wrong. There are quite a number of thinkers making the case for a more dramatic reconsideration. I’ve just been reading Daron Acemoglu’s book, What Happened to Liberal Democracy. It is a very new book and one among many arguing for a significant shift or reappraisal of liberalism, but I’m simply not convinced that such a shift is actually warranted. And I hope I’m right, though I might turn out to be wrong.
Toward an Expanded Rawlsian Conception of Social Justice
A striking implication of your work is that a society can tolerate substantial income or even wealth inequality and still achieve high levels of economic security, opportunity, freedom, inclusion, and subjective well-being—as the Nordic cases suggest. Does that mean the left should reconceptualize social justice away from equality of outcomes and toward what might be called an “expanded Rawlsian” framework: strong basic liberties, genuine opportunity, income security, universal public goods, and steadily improving living standards for the least advantaged? What, then, becomes of the traditional egalitarian aspiration to narrow the distance between the top and the rest?
Professor Lane Kenworthy: Yes, that is exactly my view. I do consider myself an egalitarian, and I think reducing inequality of outcomes remains a goal worth pursuing, especially in a high-inequality nation like the United States. But I do think it should be secondary to the other goals you mentioned.
The Deeper Choice in the 2026 Midterms
And lastly, Professor Kenworthy, stepping back from individual races, what do you see as the deeper political choice represented by the 2026 midterms? Is the United States choosing between Trumpist right-wing populism and a liberal-democratic alternative, between plutocratic capitalism and a more egalitarian political economy, or between competing visions of how capitalism itself should be governed? And if your evidence is correct that social democratic capitalism remains the most successful institutional arrangement yet devised, what would have to happen politically for the United States to move in that direction rather than toward either more radical market nationalism on the right or democratic socialism on the left?
Professor Lane Kenworthy: Because the United States is so large and geographically diverse, and because in our elections we vote for individual candidates rather than parties, I think very few US elections actually pose such a clear, big-picture choice between competing visions of policy, capitalism, liberalism, or democracy. We often over-interpret elections here in exactly those terms. But in most cases, people are voting for many different reasons. It may be about individual candidates, a single issue, or a particular set of issues, or they may simply have picked their party and stick with it no matter what.
Now, if that’s true, then for the United States to move toward something like the Nordic model in policy terms, Democrats need to win elections. It’s more complicated than that, of course, but basically, that’s how we’ve seen the country move historically over the last century in the direction of something like social democratic capitalism.
That’s also what we see at the state and local levels today. I mentioned before that a number of states have moved quite aggressively in this direction. There are limits to what states and cities can do, both because they have limited money at their disposal and because they face institutional constraints. They can’t do certain things that only the federal government can do. But they can do a lot.
When Democrats hold the governorship and both houses of the legislature, as they have in California, Massachusetts, Washington, Oregon, and elsewhere, we see substantial movement in this policy direction. My guess is that this will continue. And if and when Democrats again control all three decision-making bodies at the federal level, they’ll probably move in that direction again, as they did in 2021 when Biden came in, and in 2009 when Obama came in with Democratic majorities.
They’ll make limited progress, but they’ll probably make some real progress, and in most cases that progress lasts. There are no guarantees, of course. But it turns out that this is a pretty simple story, and I think it’s the right one.
Ahead of Sweden’s September 13, 2026 election, Associate Professor Anders Hellström argues that the Sweden Democrats’ influence can no longer be measured only by their vote share. Positions once treated as extreme have increasingly become “the default position, the standard,” while nativist rhetoric has become “a kind of ‘common sense.’” He also warns of growing resistance to the consequences of this restrictive turn, especially the expulsion of people deeply rooted in Swedish society, noting that “many Swedes feel that rejudification has gone too far.” For Assoc. Prof. Hellström, the deeper democratic challenge is whether mainstream parties can construct an inclusive national vision without reproducing SD’s exclusionary understanding of belonging, welfare, identity, and Swedishness.
As Sweden heads toward the September 13, 2026 general election, the country faces a political landscape increasingly shaped by the long-term normalization of the Sweden Democrats (SD) and by a broader mainstreaming of restrictive positions on migration, integration, citizenship, and national belonging. Once treated as a stigmatized outsider, SD has become a central actor in Swedish politics and is now deeply embedded in the governing architecture created through the Tidö Agreement. At the same time, the party continues to compete with the Moderates (M) for leadership of the Swedish right, while its core themes have increasingly influenced the language and policy priorities of mainstream parties.
In an interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Associate Professor Anders Hellström, Senior Lecturer in International Migration and Ethnic Relations at Malmö University and affiliated with the Malmö Institute for Studies of Migration, Diversity and Welfare (MIM), argues that the most important transformation may not be SD’s electoral strength alone, but the extent to which ideas once considered politically extreme have become normalized. According to Assoc. Prof. Hellström, positions on immigration that would have been regarded as beyond the mainstream a decade ago have increasingly become “the default position, the standard.”
This development, he suggests, has altered the political balance between stigmatization and accommodation. SD, once able to mobilize as an excluded underdog, has become part of the establishment. Yet mainstream accommodation has not necessarily weakened the party. As Assoc. Prof. Hellström puts it, from the voter’s perspective, “why should we vote for the copy when we have the original?” He also argues that nativist rhetoric has itself become “a kind of ‘common sense,’” reflecting a deeper transformation in the boundaries of legitimate political discourse.
The interview situates these developments within broader struggles over national identity, political myth, welfare chauvinism, and the meaning of Swedishness. Assoc. Prof. Hellström emphasizes the continuing importance of Folkhemmet as a powerful national narrative whose boundaries can be drawn inclusively or exclusively. He also highlights SD’s restorative vision of Sweden, built around nostalgia for an earlier and more homogeneous society.
At the same time, Assoc. Prof. Hellström points to growing resistance against the consequences of increasingly restrictive policies. He notes that many Swedes are uncomfortable with the expulsion of people who were born in Sweden, speak fluent Swedish, and have contributed to Swedish society, concluding that “many Swedes feel that rejudification has gone too far.”
Against the backdrop of the September 13 election, the interview therefore moves beyond the immediate question of who will govern Sweden. It asks whether the deeper transformation lies in SD entering government—or in the extent to which the political mainstream itself has already been reshaped by SD’s language, assumptions, and conception of national belonging. As Assoc. Prof. Hellström observes, “the Sweden Democrats have already won” in one important sense: Sweden’s major parties now broadly accept the need for a highly restrictive immigration policy.
Here is our interview with Associate Professor Anders Hellström, edited lightly to enhance clarity, readability, and overall flow for publication.
The SD’s Views on Immigration Policy Have Become the Default Position
A Sweden Democrats (SD) campaign poster ahead of Sweden’s September 13, 2026 parliamentary elections, featuring the slogan “This is how we make Sweden Sweden again” and highlighting the party’s policies on immigration, crime, Islamism, citizenship, welfare, and the economy.
Professor Hellström, welcome! Just days before the September 13 election, the Sweden Democrats remain close to 20 percent and are again competing with—or polling ahead of—the Moderates for leadership of the Swedish right. More than a decade ago, you described SD as the stigmatized “beast” of Swedish politics, excluded by mainstream parties but able to mobilize precisely through that exclusion. Today, SD is deeply embedded in the Tidö governing arrangement. Does this election mark the completion of SD’s journey from stigmatized outsider to normalized pillar of the Swedish party system, or does some element of its outsider status remain politically indispensable to its appeal?
Assoc. Prof. Anders Hellström: Yes and no. There is a concept we might call the mainstreaming of previously extreme positions. Ten years ago, derogatory statements about immigration and immigrants were regarded as extreme. The Sweden Democrats (SD) said things that the mainstream parties did not. Today, however, SD does not even have to say very much, because other parties—and their leaders—are themselves using very hostile language when talking about immigration and immigrants. They argue that Sweden needs a very restrictive immigration policy, and so forth.
So, what was depicted as extreme 10 years ago has become mainstream today. But you can also talk about a third stage. From the beginning, the Sweden Democrats were regarded as too extreme. Then they came to be seen as more radical challengers of the establishment: you could vote for the Sweden Democrats because they wanted to challenge the government and the establishment. But now something very interesting has happened. The Sweden Democrats have themselves become part of the establishment.
All the other parties are also saying insane things. Of course, the Sweden Democrats are still a little more extreme. But they are no longer seen as the underdog, because their views on immigration policy have become the default position, the standard.
Therefore, of course, I do not know what will happen in the election or how big they will become, but there is a feeling in society that many Swedes think developments toward rejudification have gone too far. Why do we expel people who were actually born in Sweden, who earn a lot of money, who speak fluent Swedish, and send them back to countries where perhaps their grandfather came from, even though they themselves have never been there? Why do you expel people who have done nothing wrong? So there is a tendency for many Swedes to feel that rejudification has gone too far.
‘The Beast’ Has Been Tamed
In “Feeding the Beast,” you and Peter Hervik challenged the idea that anti-immigration sentiment simply accumulates beneath an elite-imposed consensus until it eventually erupts. Instead, you argued that nativist rhetoric itself can make immigration anxieties more salient and thereby nourish radical-right support. Looking at Sweden in 2026, where restrictive migration rhetoric is now common across much of the mainstream, has the political system effectively “fed the beast” by adopting the language and problem definitions that originally distinguished SD?
Assoc. Prof. Anders Hellström: Yes. When we wrote this article, the Sweden Democrats were actually the beast. They were seen as something that should not be part of the establishment—something the cat had dragged in. But now, the beast has been tamed, so it has become, as I said before, something default, something standard. I would say that nativist rhetoric has become a kind of “common sense.”
Why Should We Vote for the Copy When We Have the Original?
Sweden Democrats’ Square Meeting in Umeå. Jimmie Åkesson speaks to the people on the city square where opposition left-wingers have formed a chain and protest in Umeå, Sweden on August 14, 2018. Photo: Shutterstock.
The Moderates (M), Christian Democrats (KD), and Liberals (L) have progressively abandoned the cordon sanitaire around SD, while migration, crime, citizenship, and integration policies have moved markedly in a restrictive direction. Mainstream parties often justified this shift as a strategy for neutralizing SD by responding to voter concerns. Yet SD remains close to one-fifth of the electorate. Does this suggest a fundamental failure of the accommodation strategy—that mainstream parties can adopt radical-right policies without recovering the voters who originally demanded them?
Assoc. Prof. Anders Hellström: Yes, I would say so, because from the voter’s perspective, you vote for the original, not the copy. So it doesn’t matter if the Moderates and the other parties are becoming more friendly toward SD or if they no longer see SD as a beast. Rather the opposite: they have understood the truth. Then voters say, “Okay, why should we vote for the copy when we have the original?” Therefore, this has actually strengthened their momentum, because, from the voter’s perspective, why should they vote for the copies?
The Stigma—That Tool for Mobilization—Is Gone
Your earlier work showed how the stigma attached to SD could paradoxically be politically productive because the party could portray itself and its voters as unfairly excluded from the legitimate political community. Now that institutional exclusion has largely disappeared, has SD lost an important mobilizational resource? Or has the party successfully transferred the old stigma from itself onto other antagonists—immigrants, Muslims, “liberal elites,” the media, or supranational institutions?
Assoc. Prof. Anders Hellström: It has lost that because there is a potential advantage in being a radical underdog. That can also be attractive to voters—you want to vote for the newcomer. But now, that stigma—that tool for mobilization—is gone. So it is good to be radical, but not to be seen as too extreme. You want to be close to the sum of equations, so to speak.
But now people are saying that maybe they have got too much power. And there may be, as I said, reactions against too many restrictions. But, of course, I don’t know that. Maybe there are a lot of people. We will see. It could be very interesting to see the election results on Sunday. There is a fraction of the Swedish population who actually like the policies that have been suggested by SD, but I don’t know how large that fraction is.
They Want to “Bring Sweden Back”
Your work on Nordic populist radical-right parties shows that the Sweden Democrats have been particularly active in constructing national myths around a lost “golden age” of ethnic homogeneity and social cohesion. How important is this nostalgic structure to SD’s appeal in the 2026 election? Is the party fundamentally mobilizing voters against immigration, or is immigration functioning as a symbol of a broader narrative that Sweden has lost something culturally, socially, and politically valuable?
Assoc. Prof. Anders Hellström: One thing that is important to understand is that SD does not want to create a new niche or anything like that. They want to restore Sweden. They want to bring Sweden back—to make Sweden great again, as Donald Trump says. For them, Sweden was great in the 1950s and 1960s, before the official adoption of multiculturalism in 1997 and before refugee migration.
For instance, an interesting fact is that in 1960, 4% of the Swedish population were foreign-born. Now, the figure is at least 20%. So this kind of demographic shift has created fissures in the population. This strategic appeal resonates with voters because they want to return to the period when they and their parents were young. They remember their childhood as a time when things were easier and society was more homogeneous. That is a fact: Sweden has become more diverse, and some people in the electorate dislike that demographic shift.
The Folkhemmet Has Always Had Both Inclusive and Exclusive Features
You have shown that SD has been unusually successful in appropriating the historical language of theFolkhemmetand linking the Social Democratic welfare-state tradition to a culturally bounded conception of national belonging. Has this appropriation altered the very meaning of the Swedish welfare state—from a universalist social project toward something increasingly conditional on national, cultural, or civilizational belonging?
Assoc. Prof. Anders Hellström: That is, of course, hard to tell. But if you have to remember one thing about the Folkhemmet, it is that it is a myth used strategically by political actors, but it is also a narrative of what Sweden is. Folkhemmet conveys the idea of Sweden as a people’s home. It is deeply embedded in many people’s minds, and the people’s home has always had both inclusive and exclusive features.
So, we welcome everyone—yes, everybody can become Swedish—but there have always been boundaries defining those who are not part of the people. Whether the people’s home becomes more inclusive or more exclusive depends, for instance, on which parties hold power. But the people’s home remains a major historical narrative that binds Swedes together. And it can be both inclusive and exclusive.
Who Actually Has the Right to Welfare Resources?
The concept of ‘welfare chauvinism’ captures the combination of social protection for insiders with exclusion or conditionality for outsiders. As migration politics has moved into the mainstream, do you see welfare chauvinism itself becoming normalized in Sweden—not merely as an SD position, but as an increasingly accepted way of defining solidarity and deservingness across the party system?
Assoc. Prof. Anders Hellström: Welfare chauvinism says that we want to have welfare. But for whom do we want welfare? Welfare for our people. It is the idea that you combine an active welfare state with social cohesion or cultural conformity. That also means having an idea of who is included among “the people.” Are immigrants included, or is it only for native Swedes? Who actually has the right to welfare resources?
And again, what will happen in the future depends very much on who actually leads the country. There are parties and movements representing both regressive and progressive forces in society and within the party-political structure as well. So there is a struggle right now, and I do not know exactly which direction Sweden will take.
For the SD A Muslim Can Never Truly Be Swedish
Jimmie Åkesson speaks to the people on the city square where opposition left-wingers have formed a chain and protest in Umeå, Sweden on August 14, 2018.
In your work on racism as a political activity, you emphasize that political struggles concern not only whether racism exists but also who gets defined as victim and perpetrator. You identify victim–perpetrator reversal as an important feature of far-right discourse. How significant is the growing rhetoric of‘svenskfientlighet’—hostility toward Swedes—in this transformation of Swedish political language? Does it allow majority-group grievance to be recoded as victimhood while simultaneously making structural inequalities affecting minorities more difficult to articulate?
Assoc. Prof. Anders Hellström: Yes, exactly. The victim-perpetrator reversal concerns the question of who the immigrant is. Is he or she a victim, or is he or she actually a perpetrator who threatens our Swedish values and can never become like us? This rhetoric—who is the victim and who is the perpetrator?—can also be applied, for instance, to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Who is the perpetrator, and who is the victim? That makes it important to look at the ideological motives behind such statements. According to the actor, who is the perpetrator and who is the victim? That can actually shift.
For instance, something I am looking at right now is the discussion about whether it is possible to be both Muslim and Swedish. For the Sweden Democrats, you have to make a choice between being a Muslim believer and being a Swede. You have to let go of one of those two identities. For them, a Muslim can never truly be Swedish. Or he or she can, but only by first letting go of the Islamic identity.
The SD Is No Longer Stigmatized
One of the puzzles running through your earlier research was that SD could expand despite overwhelmingly negative treatment from mainstream political and media actors. Your work on the “politics of shame” suggests that stigmatization may help create counterpublic identities in which supporters experience themselves as silenced, morally condemned, or excluded. Has Swedish democracy underestimated the political power of this counterpublic dynamic—particularly the way perceived exclusion can strengthen identification with populist radical-right movements?
Assoc. Prof. Anders Hellström: Yes, in the politics of shame, it is about how stigmatization can be used to create a shared identity. We have been stigmatized together, so we have something in common. They are evil, and we are the good guys. We come together, and that can trigger or stimulate a sense of in-group mobilization. But, as I said before, when SD is seen as part of the establishment, it loses that capacity. The party is no longer stigmatized. Increasingly, the risk SD faces is that it becomes associated with old news.
Liberal Democrats Need to Mobilize People Around a Common Vision
If condemnation and exclusion can reinforce populist counterpublics, but accommodation can normalize their worldview, mainstream democratic parties appear trapped between two strategies that can both strengthen the radical right. Is there a genuine democratic alternative betweenstigmatizationandaccommodation? What would an effective strategy toward SD look like if the objective is neither moral ostracism nor ideological imitation?
Assoc. Prof. Anders Hellström: You’re right: there is probably no single correct answer. But what you can do is focus on your own liberal-democratic institutions and build up their resilience. You also need to articulate clear visions—visions that can bring people together. Perhaps you can focus on other issues around which people can unite, such as fighting climate change, or something else that can mobilize people around a common purpose.
And when it comes to immigration, one-fifth of the Swedish population are immigrants. That is a reality. It is too late to say that immigrants should go home. Instead, you need to mobilize people around a common vision and be secure and confident in your own institutions.
Of course, you can disagree with someone and not share their views, but that does not mean you need to kill or beat them. At least you can talk. It is perfectly legitimate to have different opinions. The key is not to eliminate conflict, because conflict is natural and is part of politics. If you combine that recognition with the understanding that not everyone needs to agree with you, then you can be clear about your own vision—and create a vision that includes more people.
Democracy Necessitates Both Majority Rule and Minority Protection
Sweden continues to rank as a strong liberal democracy, yet democratic resilience is not only about the survival of elections and institutions. It also concerns the boundaries of legitimate political discourse, minority protection, pluralism, and social trust. Should we therefore understand the normalization of nativist language as a form of democratic erosion even when formal institutions remain stable? Or would that stretch the concept of democratic backsliding too far?
Assoc. Prof. Anders Hellström: If you look at what democracy is, Jonathan Bouffe wrote about the democratic paradox. Democracy is a paradox because it involves both majority rule and the protection of minorities. There is always a tension between the two; it is a compromise. There is no final, perfect solution. It is a balance that needs to be discussed continuously. You cannot simply say, “This is the perfect solution; this is how we do it.” That is why we have different people with different opinions.
Regarding your question, yes, problems can arise if you have a democracy that protects only the majority and disregards minorities. That creates a risk of sliding toward a more authoritarian state. You can end up with an illiberal democracy. But in order to have a liberal democracy, you need both majority rule and minority protection.
Sweden Was a Role Model for Integration Policy
Celebrating Sweden’s National Day in Norrköping, Sweden, on June 6, 2014. Immigrants and native Swedes participate together in National Day celebrations. Sweden’s National Day is an official public holiday. Photo: Dreamstime.
The success of SD has often been explained through failures in immigration policy, integration, crime prevention, or political responsiveness. But could the deeper failure of mainstream parties be representational rather than policy-specific—their inability to articulate a persuasive account of national belonging that acknowledges insecurity and social change without translating them into an exclusionary distinction between a virtuous native “people” and threatening outsiders?
Assoc. Prof. Anders Hellström: In a way, it is very interesting that you raised that, because what actually triggered my interest in the Sweden Democrats in the first place, a long time ago when I started, was a big paradox. Everyone, from the left to the right, was talking about the failure of integration. Then I looked at the Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX), and according to it, Sweden was the best in class. So Sweden was a role model for integration policy, while everyone on the street was talking about the failure of integration.
This paradox interested me. If you have this mantra of the failure of integration—and I am not saying that integration has been super successful—I am saying that if you have a population with more than 20% immigrants, of course, you can find examples of very successful integration, and you can also find examples of very poor integration. Because there are so many people, you can find many examples, depending on what you are looking for.
If you have this mantra, it has actually been very good news for the Sweden Democrats, because they can say, “We have an answer to that problem.” And for them, it is like: “don’t let them come here, and for those who do come, give them money so they can leave the country. And we don’t want to spend any money on integration.” But they have a recipe, while all the other parties, or most of the other parties, are talking about how integration has been so bad, so horrible, and that we have to do something. From the voter’s perspective, do you vote for someone who can say, “Okay, we have a solution”? Because everyone agrees that there is a problem.
Apart from that, you can also mention that it is very common in the debate to say that nobody wants to return to 2015, when you had the big reception crisis. I actually wrote a report on that period, and I concluded that it was a window of opportunity for both progressive and regressive forces in society. Yes, it created enormous pressure on municipalities. At the same time, you had a period when people opened their homes, there were language cafés, and there were very strong forces in civil society and in the Swedish Church. Everybody was saying, “Let’s fight together; we want to help the refugees.”
So there you have this tendency: both progressive and regressive forces. It is important to remember that. And when it comes to integration, you have examples of very good integration and also very poor integration. You can have both.
Politics Also Needs Stories
In your scholarship, political myths do not simply falsify history; they provide narratives through which communities establish continuity, belonging, and moral meaning. SD has been particularly effective at constructing a story in which contemporary Sweden represents a fall from an earlier, more cohesive national community. Why have mainstream parties been so much less effective at producing an alternative national narrative capable of combining diversity with social solidarity and a credible sense of collective continuity?
Assoc. Prof. Anders Hellström: That’s a very good question. From my perspective, you need to appreciate the storytelling dimension of representative politics. There is nothing wrong with telling stories that bind people together. In that sense, populism can be seen as a protest against politics as usual. It offers something beyond pragmatism—also a sense of redemption. It says: come together and find this emancipatory glue that can bind us together.
I think the answer—the key to addressing this—is not to reduce politics to technocratic means, because that becomes too rational. Politics also needs stories. For instance, you can tell a story about diversity: Sweden has become a much more exciting country to live in than it was 50 years ago. It is much more interesting, I would say, also from an outsider’s perspective. Yes, it is more exciting these days.
The SD Radicalizes Mainstream Popular Concerns
One of your articles distinguishes different strands within far-right ideology and argues that racism should be understood as a struggle over meaning rather than simply as an individual prejudice. As SD has professionalized and moderated parts of its public language, should scholars pay less attention to explicit racist statements and more attention to the underlying political work performed by categories such as culture, civilization, integration, national values, and “Swedishness”?
Assoc. Prof. Anders Hellström: That is one common distinction between the extreme and the radical. The thing is, if you look at the Sweden Democrats, they no longer use that language—that race-revolutionary language. Maybe they did in the late 1980s and early 1990s. They want to appear like the common man.
And their opponents normally make a mistake. They look at them and say, “No, don’t vote for SD.” Why? Or they portray them as very bad people, as evil guys. But the thing is, the Sweden Democrats do not use this kind of explicit racist rhetoric.
Instead, you can say that they radicalize mainstream popular concerns. And you can say that they rely on an identitarian logic—the logic of difference. It is like: “One people belongs to one country. Yes, those people are very nice, but they should not be here in Sweden. I don’t have anything against you, but you are not welcome in Sweden. It’s only for the Swedes. And the Swedish people are based on an ethnically homogeneous community.”
Politics Is Not Only About Distribution; It Is Also About Identity
People shop in Gamla Stan (Old Town) in Stockholm, Sweden on August 23, 2018.
The September 13 election appears increasingly structured not simply by a conventional left–right cleavage but by competing understandings of nation, migration, identity, and political community. Are we witnessing a durable transformation of Sweden’s cleavage structure in which the central conflict is becoming less about redistribution and more about who belongs to the nation, who deserves solidarity, and whose version of Swedishness is politically legitimate?
Assoc. Prof. Anders Hellström: I would say that it’s not an either-or question. Questions of distribution are important, and so are questions about identity and other issues. More and more, these have become political issues, so political cleavages are no longer only between the left and the right, but also between good and evil, or some kind of moralization of politics. So, these kinds of identity-related issues matter. But it doesn’t mean that redistribution does not matter. It only says that politics is not only about distribution; it is also about identity.
The Sweden Democrats Have Already Won
And lastly, Professor Hellström, looking beyond the immediate question of who governs after September 13, what would you regard as the more consequential long-term outcome: that SD formally enters government, or that its nativist conception of nationhood becomes sufficiently normalized that the distinction between the Sweden Democrats and the democratic mainstream becomes progressively harder to identify? In other words, is the deeper test of Swedish democratic resilience about keeping the radical right out of office, or about preventing the political mainstream itself from being transformed in its image?
Assoc. Prof. Anders Hellström: The thing is, we don’t know that yet. But both the current Prime Minister and the leader of the largest opposition party (Social Democrats) are talking about the need for a very restrictive immigration policy. So, from that perspective, the Sweden Democrats have already won. The biggest parties—the mainstream parties—agree that Sweden needs a very restrictive immigration policy.
But I can only say that there is considerable resistance to this. People are not very comfortable with it, especially when people who were actually born in Sweden, who may be well known, speak fluent Swedish, and have contributed a great deal to Swedish society are expelled from the country. A lot of Swedish people dislike that development.
What will happen in the future, we don’t know. We can only hope for the best. And it is important to acknowledge the storytelling dimension of representative politics and to build a vision that people can share and believe in.
In this commentary, author Zeynep Temel examines how passport hierarchies and unequal mobility shape not only who can travel, but also who gains the authority to represent the world through digital tourism. Drawing on research on visa regimes, mobility infrastructure, the tourist gaze, and platform-mediated representation, she argues that passport privilege can become representational privilege. Travel influencers do not simply document destinations; they participate in constructing their meanings for global audiences. Yet access to this representational power is structured by nationality, class, wealth, and mobility rights. Temel further shows how such inequalities can feed broader grievances around globalization, exclusion, sovereignty, and dignity, creating discursive conditions in which populist narratives may resonate without claiming that mobility inequality itself directly causes populism.
By Zeynep Temel*
A striking map of the world has circulated repeatedly on social media. Produced by Sightsmap from geotagged photographs uploaded to Google’s former Panoramio service, it visualizes photographic activity as points of light. Europe glows. North America is heavily illuminated. Other parts of the world appear far more sparsely represented. In the ranking associated with the map, New York, Rome, and Barcelona occupied the first three positions among the world’s most photographed cities (Marcus, 2014; Swanson, 2015).
Author-generated visualization inspired by the historical geography represented in Sightsmap. Sightsmap combined crowdsourced digital traces, principally geotagged photographic metadata from Google’s former Panoramio service, with other sources to estimate the popularity of places of tourist interest. The visualization should be understood as an illustrative reconstruction of the unequal geography of visibility represented by this historical digital ecosystem, rather than as a reproduction of the original Sightsmap or a comprehensive measure of global photographic activity (Tammet et al., 2013).
The map is not a contemporary measure of Instagram or TikTok activity. Panoramio itself was discontinued, and the visualization reflects a particular platform, user population, and period of digital photography. It should therefore not be mistaken for a neutral map of where photographs are taken today. Yet this limitation arguably makes the image more interesting rather than less. As an early visualization of digital tourism, Sightsmap raises a question that has become considerably more important in the age of travel influencers: who gets to see the world; and, consequently, who gets to construct its image for everyone else?
Contemporary travel content often makes international mobility appear almost frictionless. Creators move from Bangkok to Paris, spend a weekend in Istanbul, “discover” villages in the Caucasus, or work remotely from Bali. Borders are rarely protagonists in these narratives. Travel appears primarily as a function of curiosity, money, and individual choice. But a British, German, or Japanese travel creator and an Afghan, Pakistani, Nigerian, or Syrian creator do not encounter the same world of borders. They may look at the same map, but the map does not offer them the same possibilities.
This matters beyond tourism. If travel influencers increasingly participate in constructing how destinations are imagined by audiences who may never visit them, unequal access to international mobility also produces unequal opportunities to participate in the production of the global tourist imaginary. Passport privilege can, in other words, become representational privilege.
The Unequal Geography of Global Mobility
The passport is one of the most consequential yet normalized mechanisms through which states distribute international mobility. Research on visa regimes shows that globalization has not produced a uniformly borderless world. Instead, borders have become more permeable for particular populations. Czaika, de Haas, and Villares-Varela (2018) demonstrate the persistent differentiation built into international visa regimes, while Mau and colleagues (2015) describe the resulting hierarchy as a “global mobility divide.”
For holders of powerful passports, this divide can remain almost invisible. International travel may require little advance planning beyond purchasing transportation and accommodation. For others, the same journey can involve consular appointments, proof of employment and income, bank statements, travel insurance, accommodation reservations, substantial fees, and uncertainty over whether permission will ultimately be granted.
The costs of this system are themselves unequally distributed. Recchi, Deutschmann, and Gabrielli (2020) show that visa costs impose disproportionate burdens on travelers from poorer countries. Neumayer (2006) similarly demonstrates how visa restrictions allow states to regulate access to foreign spaces selectively rather than simply opening or closing borders to everyone equally.
Spijkerboer’s (2018) concept of a global “mobility infrastructure” is particularly useful here. International movement depends upon a network of laws, airports, consulates, transportation systems, technologies, financial resources, and administrative categories. This infrastructure enables some people to move quickly and predictably while making movement considerably more difficult for others.
A powerful passport therefore represents more than convenience. It is a form of mobility capital. And in the age of social media, mobility capital can become cultural capital.
Who Constructs the Tourist Gaze?
Urry’s (1990) classic concept of the “tourist gaze” challenged the idea that tourists simply encounter destinations as they are. What travelers consider beautiful, authentic, exotic, romantic, or worth photographing is shaped by representations they have encountered before travelling. The Sightsmap visualization offers an unusually literal illustration of this process. It does not simply tell us where tourists went; it records where a particular population of digitally connected travelers chose to photograph and geotag their surroundings. Research using geolocated tourism data has since demonstrated both the usefulness and the limitations of such digital traces: different platforms capture different tourist practices and populations, meaning that no single dataset can straightforwardly represent tourism itself (Salas-Olmedo et al., 2018).
Social media has nevertheless dramatically accelerated the circulation of the tourist gaze. Before visiting Cappadocia, travelers encounter thousands of images of hot-air balloons at sunrise. Bali appears through temples, beaches, rice terraces, and infinity pools. Paris is repeatedly condensed into a recognizable repertoire of balconies, cafés, streets, and monuments. Travelers subsequently reproduce many of those images themselves.
Instagram therefore does not simply document tourism. Research suggests that it participates in the co-creation of destination image: tourists, residents, tourism organizations, and influencers continuously produce and reproduce visual understandings of places (Iglesias-Sánchez et al., 2020). Influencers occupy an especially interesting position within this process. Their authority depends partly on the appearance of personal experience. Unlike conventional tourism advertising, influencer content often presents itself as an individual encounter with a destination: this is what I saw; this is what I discovered; this is what you should experience.
Yet these narratives necessarily involve selection. Landscapes are chosen, neighborhoods included or excluded, encounters edited, and experiences organized into coherent stories. Research examining influencer representations of destinations such as Iran demonstrates how social-media creators can reshape destination images by foregrounding particular dimensions of everyday life, hospitality, culture, and perceived authenticity. (Saeidi Motahar et al., 2021)
A constructivist perspective makes the significance of this process clearer. Destinations do not possess internationally shared meanings independently of representation. Their identities as “dangerous,” “romantic,” “authentic,” “undiscovered,” or “adventurous” are socially produced and stabilized through repeated narratives and images. Travel influencers increasingly participate in this meaning-making. The important question, then, is not simply what they show. It is who gets to travel enough to become an authoritative narrator of the world in the first place.
When Passport Privilege Becomes Representational Privilege
The connection does not require an assumption that Instagram or TikTok deliberately privileges particular nationalities. The mechanism is more mundane. Consider the conditions necessary to build a career around international travel. A creator able to enter dozens of countries without obtaining visas in advance can respond quickly to cheap flights, tourism-board invitations, brand collaborations, and emerging destinations. Travel can be frequent and spontaneous. Content can consequently be produced at the regular pace demanded by platform economies.
A creator requiring visas for many of those destinations faces a different production environment. Trips may need to be planned months ahead. Applications cost money. Passports may remain at consulates during processing. Bookings can be required before a visa decision is known. An application may simply be rejected. Mobility advantage can therefore become a content-production advantage.
Successful content generates followers and commercial opportunities; those opportunities finance further travel; further travel produces additional content. Passport privilege does not determine who succeeds as an influencer, and creators from the Global South are neither absent nor passive within digital tourism. Wealth, class, language, domestic mobility, and platform access further complicate any simple North–South division.
But nationality still structures the administrative conditions under which cross-border content can be produced. This is also why Said’s (1978) much older question of representational authority remains relevant. Orientalism was concerned not merely with whether Western descriptions of other societies were accurate, but with the unequal power to classify, describe, and produce knowledge about them.
Digital tourism is obviously not equivalent to nineteenth-century Orientalism, and every outsider representation of another society should not be interpreted as domination. Yet the underlying questions remain surprisingly contemporary: Who moves? Who observes? Who narrates? And who appears primarily inside somebody else’s narrative?
From Unequal Mobility to Political Grievance
The political significance of this inequality lies partly in its visibility. Social media places radically different experiences of globalization on the same screen. One person documents spontaneous weekend trips across borders; another spends months assembling documents for permission to visit a single country. Research on passport discrimination suggests that mobility restrictions can be experienced not merely as administrative inconvenience but through questions of dignity, recognition, and unequal treatment. (Yasin et al., 2024)
It would be too strong to argue that these experiences produce populism. Visa rejection does not turn someone into a populist, and travel influencers do not cause nationalist politics. The relationship is more indirect. Populist narratives frequently acquire force by translating complicated structural inequalities into morally intelligible conflicts: ordinary people against privileged elites, the nation against external institutions, or those who are excluded against those perceived to benefit from globalization.
Mobility inequality provides unusually tangible material for such grievances because it exposes one of globalization’s central contradictions. The contemporary international order celebrates openness, connectivity, and circulation while continuing to distribute the practical freedom to move largely according to nationality.
Digital platforms make this contradiction particularly visible. Research on social-media populism has shown how online communication can transform perceived exclusion, foreign influence, and national grievance into politically resonant narratives (Ragragio, 2022). Mobility inequality can enter the same discursive environment, particularly where unequal treatment becomes interpreted through wider debates over Western privilege, sovereignty, globalization, or national dignity. Travel influencers do not create this inequality. They can, however, inadvertently become some of its most visible symbols.
The Politics Behind the Picture
This brings us back to the illuminated Sightsmap. Its brightest areas should not be read simply as a hierarchy of beautiful or interesting places. Nor can they straightforwardly be interpreted as a map of passport privilege: population, tourism infrastructure, platform adoption, wealth, connectivity, and the particular demographics of Panoramio users all shaped what became visible. But that is precisely the point. Maps of digital visibility are produced by social conditions. They do not simply mirror the world.
The same is true of contemporary travel influencing. Calls for greater diversity among travel creators are worthwhile, but representation cannot be separated from the conditions under which representation is produced. If some creators face substantially greater obstacles simply to reach destinations, the imbalance cannot be solved entirely through more inclusive influencer campaigns or changes in platform policy.
Part of the inequality exists before anyone opens Instagram. It exists in visa regimes, consular practices, passport hierarchies, income inequalities, transportation networks, and the broader infrastructure governing international movement.
A constructivist reading of travel influencing brings these elements together. Influencers do not merely reflect an already existing tourist world. Through repeated images, narratives, classifications, and recommendations, they participate in constructing that world; helping determine which destinations become desirable, which places appear dangerous or welcoming, and what counts as an “authentic” experience. But the opportunity to participate in this construction is itself structured by unequal mobility.
The digital tourist gaze therefore tells us something larger about globalization. The freedom to see the world and the power to represent it are not entirely separate privileges. Those who can cross borders most easily are particularly well positioned to narrate what lies on the other side. The question raised by that old map of illuminated photographs is therefore still worth asking: when the world becomes an image, who gets to take the picture?
(*) Zeynep Temel is a PhD candidate in International Political Economy at Marmara University, Istanbul, and is currently based in Shanghai conducting research for her doctoral dissertation. Her research interests span inequality, platform capitalism, popular culture, and gender, with a regional focus on East Asia. She works on how economic and political structures shape everyday practices, identities, and moral expectations, particularly through attention, consumption, and labor under contemporary capitalism.
References
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Professor Ibrahim Ozturk argues that Turkey’s 2027–2029 Medium-Term Program is less a credible development strategy than a politically sequenced exercise in economic populism. While promising lower inflation, faster growth, and technological upgrading, the program simultaneously expands current transfers, procurement, interest payments, and fiscal deficits while squeezing productive capital expenditure. Professor Ozturk contends that this structure reproduces a familiar electoral cycle: benefits are front-loaded, while the costs are deferred through inflation, taxation, debt, currency depreciation, and declining real wages. He further warns that Turkey is shifting from a developmental state toward a transfer state in which politically protected rents crowd out productivity-enhancing investment. The ultimate cost, he argues, is not merely fiscal instability but the erosion of Turkey’s long-term productive capacity and competitive advantage.
The classical paradigm of macroeconomic populism, articulated by Rüdiger Dornbusch and Sebastian Edwards in The Macroeconomics of Populism in Latin America, describes a self-defeating political-economic cycle in which governments prioritize short-term growth and redistribution while discounting inflation, fiscal sustainability, productive capacity, and external constraints. These programs generally emerge in societies marked by deep socioeconomic inequality, declining trust in established institutions, and accumulated demands for redistribution. Governments respond by combining expansionary fiscal policies, rapid credit growth, substantial nominal wage increases, administered prices, subsidies, and attempts to suppress exchange-rate volatility. During the initial phase, the resulting demand shock can generate a temporary boom: capacity utilization rises, employment expands, real wages may initially improve, and politically visible consumption increases.
The apparent success of this first phase reinforces the government’s claim that conventional fiscal and monetary constraints can safely be disregarded. Yet the expansion does not necessarily increase productive capacity. When aggregate demand exceeds domestic supply, production bottlenecks intensify, imports rise, foreign-exchange requirements increase, and inflationary pressures accumulate. Attempts to suppress inflation through price controls, subsidized credit, fiscal transfers, or an overvalued exchange rate merely postpone—and often magnify—the eventual adjustment.
As foreign-exchange reserves decline and fiscal and external imbalances become increasingly difficult to finance, inflation accelerates, confidence deteriorates, capital moves abroad or into foreign currency, and the domestic currency depreciates. The government is ultimately forced to adopt stabilization measures involving tighter credit, higher interest rates, fiscal retrenchment, tax increases, and real-wage compression. The central paradox identified by Dornbusch and Edwards is therefore distributive: the social groups whom populist policies initially promise to protect frequently bear the heaviest burden of the subsequent crisis and adjustment.
A second strand of the literature explains why such policies remain politically attractive despite their recurrent economic costs. Acemoglu, Egorov, and Sonin argue that politicians may strategically adopt radical or economically costly positions to signal that they are not controlled by established elites. This signaling mechanism can make policy extremism electorally advantageous even when its longer-term economic consequences are damaging.
Dani Rodrik, in turn, emphasizes that globalization, technological disruption, regional inequalities, and distributional shocks generate genuine grievances that populist actors can mobilize. Populism therefore cannot be understood solely as manipulation from above. It also draws strength from real failures of representation, social protection, and economic inclusion. Once political leaders weaken institutional constraints and subordinate economic policy to electoral survival, however, legitimate grievances can become a mechanism for sustaining increasingly discretionary and unsustainable policies.
The conceptual distinction is crucial. Redistribution is not inherently populist, nor is every expansionary fiscal policy economically irresponsible. Redistribution becomes part of populist macroeconomic management when politically visible benefits are concentrated before an electoral deadline, their financing is concealed or deferred, productive and institutional constraints are disregarded, and the eventual adjustment is transferred to society through inflation, taxation, currency depreciation, public debt, unemployment, and declining real wages.
From the Classical Populist Cycle to Turkey’s Growth-Inflation Trap
Turkey’s recent experience does not reproduce every element of the classical Latin American model mechanically. It nevertheless displays several of its central political-economic mechanisms: the subordination of monetary policy to political objectives, credit-led demand expansion, the erosion of central bank credibility, extensive reliance on administrative interventions, the depletion of foreign-exchange buffers, and the postponement of adjustment until after politically critical moments.
Figure 1 places Turkey’s real GDP growth and officially reported year-end consumer-price inflation side by side. Between 2018 and 2025, inflation rose dramatically without a corresponding durable acceleration in real economic growth. The exceptional growth recorded in 2021 largely reflected the post-pandemic recovery, strong credit expansion via artificially subsidized negative real interest rates, and favorable base effects; it should not be interpreted as evidence that higher inflation generated structurally stronger growth.
Note: 2018–2025 growth figures are annual changes in real GDP, and inflation figures are December year-on-year CPI rates. For 2026, the figure uses Q2 year-on-year GDP growth and June year-on-year CPI inflation. The correlation is descriptive and does not imply causality. Source: Author’s compilation based on TurkStat and CBRT data.
The simple contemporaneous correlation between the two variables is positive but only moderate—approximately 0.44—and does not establish causality. More importantly, the temporal pattern reveals a widening divergence between nominal instability and real economic performance. Inflation exceeded 64 percent in 2022 and 2023, while real GDP growth remained close to 5 percent. As officially reported inflation subsequently declined, growth also weakened, reaching 2.3 percent year on year in the second quarter of 2026.
The central issue is therefore not whether inflation and growth occasionally move in the same direction, but whether inflationary expansion produces sustainable improvements in productivity, investment quality, technological capacity, employment, and household welfare. Turkey’s experience provides little evidence that it does. An inflationary growth strategy can temporarily support consumption, construction, government-directed investment, and politically connected sectors without generating comparable improvements in total factor productivity or long-term supply capacity. Measured GDP growth may consequently coexist with deteriorating income distribution, declining purchasing power, inefficient capital allocation, and eroding institutional credibility.
Turkey’s 2027–2029 Medium-Term Program (MTP) should be read through this conceptual and empirical lens. Although presented as a medium-term framework, its macroeconomic targets, expenditure composition, revenue assumptions, and sequencing of policy measures reveal a considerably shorter political horizon. The central question is whether the program constitutes a credible transition towards price stability, productive investment, institutional normalization, and distributive justice—or another attempt to defer structural adjustment while protecting Erdogan’s immediate political survival.
The Three Tests of an Economic Program
Every serious economic program must answer three elementary questions. First, how will the economy produce more and better goods and services? Second, how will scarce capital, labor, public revenue and foreign exchange be allocated to their most productive uses? Third, how will the resulting national income be distributed across households, firms, regions and generations? Growth, allocation and distribution are not separate chapters. They are a single system.
Analytical Frame: What the MTP Must Demonstrate
Judged by this triad, the MTP fails at a deeper level than forecast inconsistency. It subordinates production to demand management, efficiency to politically protected transfers, and distributional justice to a sequence in which organized beneficiaries receive secure returns while the wider public absorbs inflation, taxation and deteriorating public services.
A Program Without an Institutional Kitchen
The MTP reads less like the output of an autonomous professional planning process than a document assembled backward from a political requirement. The targets appear first; the behavioral mechanisms, policy instruments, implementation responsibilities, risk scenarios and trade-offs needed to make them mutually consistent are either missing or underdeveloped. This is what a program produced under political pressure looks like: arithmetic without architecture.
That weakness is inseparable from institutional history. The State Planning Organization (SPO), which accumulated specialized staff, sectoral memory and a culture of medium-term coordination, was abolished as a distinct organization in 2011 and transferred into the Ministry of Development. In 2018, the Presidency reorganized planning and budgeting functions under the Strategy and Budget Presidency. Formal responsibilities remained, but the center of gravity shifted from relatively autonomous technocratic coordination to a vertically controlled executive structure. The 2018 Presidential Decree establishing the Strategy and Budget Presidency documents these institutional changes. The analytical conclusion follows from the MTP itself: when autonomy, professional challenge, and collective deliberation are weakened, implausible assumptions are less likely to be questioned before publication. The issue is not the personal competence of every civil servant involved. It is the institutional environment in which competence can no longer constrain politics. Merit, teamwork and professional dissent cannot correct a program when the desired electoral conclusion is fixed in advance.
A Medium-term Program with a Short-term Political Horizon
The MTP projects faster growth, lower inflation, falling unemployment, a smaller current-account deficit and—after a temporary 2027 deterioration—a lower budget deficit. None of these outcomes is impossible in isolation. Their simultaneous delivery, however, requires a major productivity shock, stronger expectations, sustained capital inflows and unusually high policy credibility. The MTP states the destination more clearly than the transmission mechanism.
The Fiscal Fingerprint of an Early Election
The program’s political character is clearest in the 2027 budget. Expenditure rises faster than revenue; the budget deficit increases by almost 47 percent; and the already modest primary surplus is nearly halved. The MTP therefore does not begin its disinflation story with fiscal restraint. It begins with fiscal expansion.
The deficit-to-GDP ratio rises from 3.1 percent in 2026 to 3.5 percent in 2027, while the primary surplus almost disappears. In other words, the fiscal stance loosens just as the MTP claims inflation expectations will be decisively anchored.
Against the MTP’s roughly 25 percent 2027 deflator, current transfers rise by about 16 percent in real terms and purchases of goods and services by roughly 15.5 percent, while capital spending falls by about 17 percent in real terms. The contradiction is not rhetorical; it is embedded in the allocation.The MTP’s narrative promises technological upgrading; its budget finances current transfers, procurement and interest.
The 2023 Cycle Is Being Reconstructed
Turkey’s 2023 election cycle combined subsidized credit, public wage and pension increases, retirement arrangements, tax restructuring, energy support and extensive foreign-exchange and credit interventions. After the election came sharp depreciation, higher indirect taxes, tighter monetary policy and declining real purchasing power. The sequencing mattered: the benefit was immediate and politically visible; the correction was delayed and socially dispersed.
The MTP’s 2027–2029 path risks reconstructing the same political technology. The 2027 expansion supplies the distributive moment; the lower deficits and inflation promised for 2028–2029 imply the later correction. This is the classic time structure described by the economic-populism literature.
Distribution: Poverty Is Not a Footnote
The MTP discusses per-capita income and social policy, but aggregate averages conceal the depth of the subsistence crisis. Labor union TURK-IS calculated the August 2026 monthly food-only hunger threshold for a four-person household at TRY 37,388 and the broader poverty threshold at TRY 121,786; the estimated living cost of a single employee was TRY 48,305. These benchmarks show how far ordinary labor income has fallen behind the cost of basic reproduction.
The comparison permits a forceful but precise conclusion: the average household income of the poorest 40 percent is below the TURK-IS hunger threshold, while the average income of the bottom 80 percent is below its poverty threshold. This does not mean every household in those quintiles falls below the relevant line; the figures are quintile averages, and the TURK-IS thresholds refer to a four-person household. (See TURK-IS, August 2026 Hunger and Poverty Threshold. TUIK’s official relative-poverty rate—13.0 percent in 2025—uses an equivalized median-income methodology and therefore answers a different question. The two measures should not be conflated).
The methodological caution does not weaken the substantive conclusion. When the minimum wage is below a food-only threshold for a representative family, and the broader basic-needs budget is multiples of ordinary earnings, distributional stress is systemic. The MTP’s reliance on indirect taxation, inflationary erosion, and delayed adjustment means that lower- and middle-income households finance a disproportionate share of the program.
Economic populism does not correct this injustice. It temporarily compensates selected groups, then recreates poverty through inflation, currency depreciation, taxation, and compressed real wages. It distributes relief politically and distributes the bill socially.
Tax More, Privatize More, Borrow More
The revenue side does not solve the contradiction; it exposes it. In 2027, tax revenue is programmed to grow by 36.5 percent, faster than nominal GDP growth of about 30.3 percent. Tax revenue rises from 17.1 to 17.9 percent of GDP, while the total tax burden, including social-security contributions, moves from 24.3 percent in 2026 to 24.8 percent in 2027 and 25.1 percent by 2029. The MTP therefore couples visible expenditure with a rising social tax burden.
Privatization revenue jumps by roughly 70 percent in 2027, yet the MTP does not identify the assets, valuation logic or economic rationale behind that acceleration. Even if fully realized, the proceeds would finance less than 5 percent of the projected budget deficit. This is not a structural revenue strategy; it is a temporary financing device.Tax more, sell more and borrow more—then channel the proceeds into current expenditure, interest and guaranteed returns.
From a Developmental State to a Transfer State: Interest as Upward Redistribution
The MTP projects approximately TRY 13.9 trillion in cumulative interest payments during 2027–2029, against only about TRY 7.1 trillion in capital expenditure. In 2027 alone, interest is 2.15 times capital spending and close to 20 percent of tax revenue. At TRY 3.98 trillion, interest expenditure even exceeds the projected TRY 3.87 trillion budget deficit.
Interest is not merely a technical cost of debt. Under these conditions, it becomes a distributional mechanism: broad-based taxation and inflation-generated fiscal revenue are transformed into secured financial returns. Resources that could support education, research, technological upgrading, industrial capability and social resilience are transferred to holders of public debt.
Guaranteed Rent Capitalism
A second transfer channel lies outside the interest line: public–private partnership guarantees. For 2026, approximately TRY 136.1 billion was discussed for rent and service payments to 18 city hospitals, while about TRY 101.3 billion was allocated for bridge, motorway and tunnel guarantees. Together, these visible channels approach TRY 237.5 billion. Parliamentary budget proceedings on city hospitals and reporting on transport guarantees illustrate how these obligations are dispersed across rents, availability payments, services, traffic or revenue guarantees and exchange-rate adjustments. The problem is not the Public–Private Partnership (PPP) instrument in principle. It is the allocation of demand and currency risk to the state, the protection of corporate revenue over long horizons, and the limited transparency of effective returns and renegotiation terms. Profit is privatized while risk is socialized.
The MTP repeatedly invokes artificial intelligence, semiconductors, digitalization, green transformation and high-value-added exports. Yet its budget composition crowds out the very capital formation needed to make those ambitions credible. The state’s function shifts: its developmental and social capacities weaken, while its tax-collecting, interest-paying and guarantee-providing roles expand.
This changes incentives throughout the economy. Firms gain more by securing public contracts, guarantees and regulatory privilege than by building capabilities, raising productivity or competing internationally. Connections and rents displace innovation and competitive advantage.
Production: Growth Without Upgrading
The MTP treats a rising GDP growth path as evidence of development. But growth generated by public consumption, protected construction, credit expansion and imported inputs is not equivalent to a durable increase in productive capacity. The relevant question is not only how fast output grows, but what is produced, with which technology, at what import content, and with what learning effect.
The OECD Economic Survey of Türkiye 2025 concludes that future convergence must increasingly come from productivity because the demographic dividend is fading and investment is already high. Yet productivity has slowed, investment has flowed disproportionately into lower-productivity areas such as housing, and intellectual-property investment has been roughly half the European share. High-technology exports have remained around 3.5 percent of manufactured exports, far below comparable upper-middle-income economies.
This is precisely why the MTP’s expenditure composition is so damaging. A country that needs skills, research, digital diffusion and export sophistication cannot treat capital spending as the residual item after interest, transfers and procurement. The program may raise measured demand in 2027 while lowering the economy’s ability to generate non-inflationary supply thereafter.
Allocation: The Destruction of Efficiency
Resource allocation is the bridge between today’s spending and tomorrow’s productive frontier. An efficient system directs finance, land, public procurement, skills and foreign exchange toward firms and sectors capable of learning, innovating and competing. A rent-based system directs them toward political access, guarantees, sheltered markets and balance-sheet protection.
The MTP deepens the second pattern. Interest payments reward the holders of financial claims; public–private partnership guarantees protect selected corporate cash flows; current transfers and procurement grow rapidly; and capital expenditure is squeezed in real terms. The result is not merely waste in a static accounting sense. It is dynamic misallocation: productive firms face high financing costs and uncertainty while politically connected activities enjoy protected returns.
The OECD’s assessment reinforces this diagnosis: productivity is impaired by skill mismatch, barriers to business dynamism, state intervention and weak competition in network sectors. It estimates that pro-competition reforms in infrastructure-dependent sectors could materially raise firm-level productivity (See the OECD’s competitiveness and innovation chapter.) The deepest cost is not this year’s deficit. It is the competitive capability that Turkey fails to build.
Economic Populism as a Strategy of Regime Reproduction
The political logic extends beyond ordinary electoral opportunism. Erdogan needs a renewed coalition, a favorable parliamentary balance and a constitutional or electoral route to reproduce the regime. Article 116 of the Constitution provides that if parliament renews elections during the president’s second term, the incumbent may stand once more. This provision does not prove a 2027 election, but it makes the concentration of fiscal expansion in 2027 politically significant. See the official English text of the Constitution of the Republic of Turkey. The MTP’s timing fits a strategy in which benefits are immediate and attributable, while costs are postponed, fragmented, and depoliticized.
Gambling with Turkey’s Future
The central problem is not that Turkey lacks resources. The program simultaneously damages all three foundations of the economy. It produces growth without sufficient productive upgrading; it allocates capital away from its highest social return; and it distributes income and adjustment costs in favor of organized financial and politically protected interests.
The immediate casualty is distributive justice. The medium-term casualty is fiscal and macroeconomic sustainability. The longest-lasting casualty, however, is competitive advantage. Inflation can eventually be reduced, and a budget can eventually be tightened. Capabilities not built, skilled people lost, firms excluded from finance, technologies not absorbed and export markets surrendered are far harder to recover.
In that sense, the MTP is less a medium-term development program than an intertemporal political bargain drafted inside a weakened institutional order. The Erdogan regime borrows from Turkey’s future to purchase support in its present. It sacrifices not only fairness in distribution, but efficiency in resource allocation and sustainability in production. The recovery can be staged; the underlying model cannot be sustained.The election comes in 2027. The taxes, inflation, debt and lost development arrive in 2028.
Dr. João Ferreira Dias argues that the AfD’s strength in Eastern Germany cannot be explained by poverty alone. Instead, its rise reflects the interaction of nativist attitudes, political alienation, territorial decline, demographic shrinkage, and the enduring memory of post-reunification disruption. The AfD’s political success lies in converting disparate grievances—over immigration, economic insecurity, public services, identity, and distant decision-making—into a unified anti-elite narrative. Dr. Dias stresses that the Brandmauer may remain necessary as an institutional safeguard, but it is insufficient as a political strategy. A durable democratic response, he argues, must address material insecurity, regional neglect, state capacity, immigration, and recognition while offering citizens a credible sense of belonging and a recognizable future.
Some election results change governments. Others force a country to reconsider the story it tells about itself. The Alternative für Deutschland (AfD)’s victory in Saxony-Anhalt belongs to the second category. When a radical-right party comes close to winning half the electorate in a German state, it is no longer enough to speak of a “protest vote.” The question becomes a different one: how did the AfD manage, in parts of Eastern Germany, to become a socially rooted and electorally dominant political force?
The easy answer would be poverty. It is also, to a large extent, the wrong answer. The available research shows that attitudes towards immigration, national identity and political elites explain support for the AfD far better than individual economic deprivation does (Hansen & Olsen, 2024; Kailitz & Rippl, 2026; Schröder et al., 2026). But this does not mean that economics, place and abandonment are irrelevant. It points instead to something more interesting: what matters is less absolute poverty than the experience of loss — or what might be called the “fear of falling”: the loss of status, population, opportunity, recognition and control over the future. Such experiences can produce political alienation. It is the AfD, however, that supplies the nativist and anti-establishment language capable of giving that alienation meaning.
To understand this mechanism, we need to begin before the AfD itself. After 1990, Eastern Germany underwent an economic and social transformation of extraordinary intensity. Reunification was unquestionably an act of political liberation, but it also meant the disappearance of companies, careers, professional hierarchies and institutions that had structured the daily lives of millions of people. Steffen Mau describes this process in terms of status demotion, the transfer of elites, demographic transformation and the loss of biographical security (Mau, 2019). It was not simply that some people lost their jobs. For many, an entire social world suddenly lost its value.
When Economic Loss Becomes Political Memory
There is now evidence that these experiences left lasting political consequences. Kellermann (2024), studying workers affected by the privatizations carried out by the Treuhandanstalt, found lower levels of trust and greater detachment from institutions and established parties decades later. This does not mean that the Treuhand “caused” the AfD. It means that an economic experience can become a political memory when the loss is attributed to decisions made by distant institutions. There is a difference between thinking, “my job disappeared,” and thinking “they decided that the world I belonged to no longer had value.
That experience also acquired a concrete geography. Since reunification, Saxony-Anhalt has lost roughly a quarter of its population. Depopulation on this scale does not simply mean fewer inhabitants. It means young people leaving, schools with fewer pupils, shops closing, services becoming harder to sustain and communities growing progressively older. Höhne, Kölzer and Träger (2025), analyzing more than 1,400 municipalities in Eastern Germany, found a robust relationship between long-term population decline and support for the AfD. The most important finding, however, is that the same pattern does not appear with equal strength in support for the Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht. Territorial decline, then, does not determine political choice; it creates conditions that a party may or may not be able to mobilize.
It is in this sense that Andrés Rodríguez-Pose (2018) speaks of “the revenge of the places that don’t matter.” The problem is not simply that such places are poor. It is the feeling of living in a territory from which the future has withdrawn. A region may be materially far richer than it was thirty years ago and, at the same time, feel that it has lost relevance. Universities expand elsewhere. The most prestigious jobs appear somewhere else. Young people leave. Decision-makers live far away. The country can prosper in aggregate while particular communities see, above all, what is disappearing. Inequality then ceases to exist only between individuals; it begins to exist between places.
From Collective Disadvantage to Populist Mobilization
This is where the economic explanation meets the cultural one. Recent research is quite clear on two points that have to be held together. First, nativist, anti-immigration and anti-elite attitudes are genuine political drivers of the AfD vote; they should not be reduced to some form of economic false consciousness (Hansen & Olsen, 2024; Schröder et al., 2026). Second, political alienation and feelings of collective disadvantage are particularly strong in the East and help explain why such attitudes find more fertile ground there (Kailitz & Rippl, 2026; Pickel & Pickel, 2026). Kailitz and Rippl put it especially well: the seeds are not necessarily different; the soil is more fertile.
This is how the false choice between “economics” and “culture” can be resolved. A closed factory does not automatically produce xenophobia. A distant hospital does not produce nationalism. But accumulated experiences of loss, distance and inadequate recognition can nourish the sense that institutions no longer represent “people like us.” At that point, a populist narrative becomes more plausible: there is a forgotten people, and there are elites who govern for others. That is precisely the narrative the AfD learned to build.
The party founded in 2013 did not begin with the ideological configuration we know today. It emerged above all from the euro crisis, with a Eurosceptic, conservative and economically liberal profile. Between 2015 and 2017, however, immigration, refugees, Islam and national identity shifted the party’s center of gravity, bringing it closer to what Cas Mudde defines as the populist radical right: a combination of nativism, authoritarianism and populism (Arzheimer & Berning, 2019; Mudde, 2007). The euro crisis created the organization; the refugee crisis turned it into a mass political force.
Since then, the AfD has shown an extraordinary capacity to adapt. Hansen and Olsen (2024) describe it as a populist issue entrepreneur: a party able to retain ownership of the issues on which it already enjoys an advantage — above all immigration — while continually absorbing new conflicts. The euro, refugees, the pandemic, climate, energy, gender, Ukraine and the politics of memory are very different issues. The AfD manages to present them as manifestations of the same problem. That is its central political talent.
The Brandmauer Paradox and the AfD’s Anti-Elite Narrative
A railway station that closes is a transport problem. A factory that shuts down belongs to economics. Immigration is migration policy. The war in Ukraine is foreign policy. Gender belongs to the culture wars. The AfD turns all of them into a single story: the elites in Berlin and Brussels have stopped governing in the name of ordinary people. The issues change. The culprit remains the same.
Immigration occupies a central place in this narrative because it functions both as a real political issue and as a symbolic condensation of several anxieties. It can be connected to security, housing, schools, the welfare state, Islam, borders and identity. In a territory that has already experienced profound transformations decided in distant centers of power, it can also be presented as yet another change carried out “without us.” The interpretation does not need to be empirically accurate in order to be politically effective. Populism often succeeds not because it explains each problem better, but because it connects different problems within a single moral explanation.
This is also why it is no longer sufficient to speak simply of a “protest vote.” Mudde (2019) draws attention to the contemporary normalization of the radical right: ideas that once existed on the political margins gradually enter everyday politics. The Eastern German case adds a troubling generational dimension. Heinze and Scheuer (2026) find among young AfD voters not merely volatility or rebellion, but relatively stable partisan identification, closely associated with nativism. These young people did not experience the GDR, the Treuhand or reunification. Historical experience is no longer only biographical memory. It has become, at least in part, a political inheritance.
This is where the dilemma of the Brandmauer emerges: the firewall through which Germany’s mainstream parties refuse to govern with the AfD. There are powerful democratic reasons for maintaining it. Winning elections does not give any party the right to weaken fundamental rights, pluralism, or institutional independence. But an obvious political problem arises when the excluded force comes close to winning half the vote: the more all the other parties have to cooperate in order to keep it out of power, the easier it becomes for the AfD to say that “they are all the same” and that it alone represents a genuine alternative.
Why the Brandmauer Is Necessary but Not Enough
Yascha Mounk (2018) helps illuminate the paradox: populism seeks to present the liberal institutions that constrain majority power as obstacles to democracy itself. The Brandmauer (firewall) may therefore be necessary as an institutional defense and insufficient as a political strategy. It answers the question, “how do we stop the AfD from governing?” It does not answer the prior question: “why do so many people want it to govern?”
Understanding the answer to that second question does not mean excusing it. Anne Applebaum (2020) reminds us that the contemporary illiberal threat rarely begins with the immediate destruction of democracy. It can advance through the gradual occupation of institutions, administrative changes, appointments, education, culture and the media. In Saxony-Anhalt, a move by the AfD from opposition into government would give it access to precisely these areas. Sociologically explaining an electorate does not require us to minimize the consequences of the programme it chooses.
But historical memory is not enough either. Tony Judt (2010) reminded us that post-war European democracies did not survive because of constitutions alone. They built welfare states, public services, security and the expectation that the future could be better. A democratic order becomes fragile when it can tell its citizens only two things: “adapt to change” and “do not vote for them.” The first offers no security. The second offers no project.
Perhaps this is, in the end, the best way to understand the result in Saxony-Anhalt. The AfD did not win simply because a population became poorer, or because nearly half the electorate suddenly became radicalized. It won because it managed to transform experiences of territorial decline, downward mobility and inadequate recognition into a political narrative combining nativism, anti-establishment alienation and the promise of national restoration.
It did not merely say: “you lost.” It said: “you lost because they chose others over you.” It is this move — from loss to resentment, from resentment to identity, and from identity to the ballot box — that helps explain its strength.
And that is also why the democratic response will have to be more demanding than copying the AfD, increasing fiscal transfers or reinforcing the firewall. It will have to combine credible control of immigration, state capacity, services and opportunity in peripheral regions, recognition of Eastern Germany’s distinctive historical experience, and an idea of national belonging strong enough to create community without having to turn minorities into enemies.
Because citizens do not abandon a political order only when they become poor. They can also drift away from it when they cease to believe that it contains a recognizable future for people like them, and for places like the ones in which they live.
References
Applebaum, A. (2020). Twilight of democracy: The seductive lure of authoritarianism. Doubleday.
Arzheimer, K., & Berning, C. C. (2019). How the Alternative for Germany (AfD) and their voters veered to the radical right, 2013–2017. Electoral Studies, 60, 102040.
Hansen, M. A., & Olsen, J. (2024). The Alternative for Germany (AfD) as populist issue entrepreneur. German Politics, 33(4), 643–667.
Heinze, A.-S., & Scheuer, T. (2026). Growing up far right? Youth support for the AfD in Eastern Germany. German Politics, 35(3), 485–515.
Höhne, B., Kölzer, J., & Träger, H. (2025). Geography of shrinkage: Local population decline and electoral support for the anti-establishment parties AfD and BSW in East German state elections. German Politics, 34(3), 449–477.
Judt, T. (2010). Ill fares the land. Penguin Press.
Kailitz, S., & Rippl, S. (2026). Same seeds, more fertile ground: Sources of AfD dominance in Eastern Germany. German Politics, 35(3), 437–462.
Kellermann, K. L. (2024). Trust we lost: The impact of the Treuhand experience on political alienation in East Germany. Journal of Comparative Economics, 52(1), 54–75.
Mau, S. (2019). Lütten Klein: Leben in der ostdeutschen Transformationsgesellschaft. Suhrkamp.
Mounk, Y. (2018). The people vs. democracy. Harvard University Press.
Mudde, C. (2007). Populist radical right parties in Europe. Cambridge University Press.
Mudde, C. (2019). The far right today. Polity.
Pickel, G., & Pickel, S. (2026). The election of the AfD and the collective identity of East Germans. German Politics, 35(3), 412–436.
Rodríguez-Pose, A. (2018). The revenge of the places that don’t matter. Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, 11(1), 189–209.
Schröder, M., Rehm, M., & Röcke, A. (2026). Supporters of Germany’s far-right AfD party are concerned about immigration rather than feeling deprived. PLOS ONE, 21(7), e0350403.
Please cite as: Yang, Li; Yeh, Kuang-Ho; Raza, Hassan; Abdelbaki, Mohamed; Incani, Noemi; Koleszar, Réka; Ruttencutter, Sarah & Camoletto, Virginia. (2026). “From Tariffs to Conditional Integration: An EU Strategy for Chinese Electric-Vehicle Investment under the Industrial Accelerator Act.” Policy Papers. European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). September 3, 2026. https://doi.org/10.55271/pop0006
Abstract
Europe does not face a simple choice between admitting inexpensive Chinese electric vehicles and closing its market to protect domestic producers. The harder question is how foreign manufacturing can support decarbonization without hollowing out the industrial and employment base that makes the transition politically sustainable. The European Commission’s proposed Industrial Accelerator Act (IAA) is an important but incomplete answer. Tariffs can buy time and origin rules can anchor production, but neither instrument alone can create software capabilities, retrain workers or strengthen regional suppliers. This paper compares defensive localization, managed openness and conditional integration, and recommends the third. Its three core proposals are a European Automotive Investment Compact, a Skills and Regional Transition Covenant, and a ring-fenced European Automotive Transition Financing Window. A software and data pillar and a structured implementation dialogue with China would support delivery. The aim is not decoupling or unconditional access, but the conversion of market-seeking investment into capabilities that Europe can retain.
Keywords: European Union; China; electric vehicles; Industrial Accelerator Act; conditional integration
By Li Yang, Kuang-Ho Yeh, Hassan Raza, Mohamed Abdelbaki, Noemi Incani, Réka Koleszar, Sarah Ruttencutter & Virginia Camoletto
Introduction
Europe’s automotive debate is often framed as a contest between climate ambition and industrial protection. The issue is broader: can the European Union decarbonize transport while retaining enough productive, technological and social capacity to sustain public support? The sector provides direct and indirect work for approximately 13.8 million Europeans and supports extensive networks in steel, chemicals, electronics, software, logistics and services (European Commission, 2026a). When a major plant or supplier reduces production, the effects concentrate in towns where alternative employment may be scarce, and industrial identity remains politically important.
The pressure is real, but its causes are mixed. European producers face high energy costs, fragmented capital markets, uneven charging infrastructure, regulatory complexity and slow progress in software-defined vehicles (Draghi, 2024; European Commission, 2025; van Wieringen, 2024). They also confront a Chinese industry built on scale, intense domestic competition, integrated battery supply chains and rapid product development. China accounted for more than 70 percent of global electric-car production in 2024, while sales of Chinese-made electric cars in Europe continued to grow in 2025 (IEA, 2025; IEA, 2026). This is not merely an import surge, but a collision between industrial systems as EU regulation creates a large market for electric mobility (Ban & Šćepanović, 2026; van Wieringen, 2024).
This collision has a political dimension. The IAA proposal notes that more than 100,000 automotive job cuts were announced in 2024 and 2025 (European Commission, 2026c). Chinese competition is not the sole cause: weak demand, delayed investment, management choices and technological change also matter. Research on Germany shows that actual job loss and fear of future decline can produce different forms of protest, with right-wing populist support particularly responsive where manufacturing remains central to local identity, but its future appears insecure (Bayerlein, Kölzer & Metten, 2026). Trade shocks also make openness easier to portray as a bargain imposed on workers rather than negotiated with them (Poletti, 2026).
The EU has already responded. Following its anti-subsidy investigation, it imposed definitive countervailing duties on battery electric vehicles imported from China, with company-specific rates ranging from 7.8 to 35.3 percent in addition to the ordinary tariff (European Commission, 2024). The duties address identified subsidization and create breathing space for European manufacturers. They do not resolve Europe’s internal weaknesses. A tariff cannot build a battery plant, train a software engineer, connect a factory to affordable electricity or help a medium-sized supplier convert from combustion-engine components to power electronics.
The European Commission’s March 2026 proposal for the Industrial Accelerator Act (IAA) moves beyond border measures. It would create lead markets for low-carbon and European-made products, simplify permitting and seek to ensure that major foreign investments generate value inside the Union. Its foreign-investment chapter would cover investments above EUR 100 million in strategic sectors when a single third country holds more than 40 percent of global manufacturing capacity. Under the Commission proposal, covered investments would have to meet at least four of six conditions concerning ownership, joint ventures, technology licensing, EU research spending, employment and local sourcing; the employment condition would be mandatory (European Commission, 2026c, 2026d).
This policy paper argues that the IAA should become the basis for a policy of conditional integration rather than defensive exclusion. Chinese investment can accelerate European electrification and add manufacturing capacity. Yet investment should not be treated as beneficial simply because a factory stands within EU borders. The relevant test is whether it strengthens capabilities that remain in Europe: skilled employment, local suppliers, research, engineering, data governance, circular production and regional resilience. The task for DG TRADE, DG GROW and the wider Commission is to make these conditions predictable, proportionate and common across the Single Market.
Europe’s Automotive Dilemma
The EU’s dependence on China runs through battery cells, processed materials, components and production equipment, not only finished vehicles. Chinese firms benefit from a dense ecosystem in which battery makers, car manufacturers, software providers and suppliers develop products quickly and at scale. European companies remain strong in engineering, premium brands, safety and research, but competition increasingly turns on vehicle software, battery management, data integration, user interfaces and rapid product cycles (IEA, 2025; IEA, 2026; van Wieringen, 2024).
This is why the present ‘China shock’ differs from a conventional import surge. European climate policy is deliberately expanding demand for electric mobility. If European firms and suppliers cannot respond quickly, the demand created by EU regulation will be met by imported vehicles and components. Decarbonization would proceed, but with fewer of the industrial learning effects, investments and jobs that policymakers expected. The dilemma is therefore not whether Europe should remain open. It is how to prevent openness from becoming a one-way transfer of market share while avoiding a protectionist turn that raises consumer prices and slows electric-vehicle adoption (IEA, 2026; van Wieringen, 2024).
Trade figures reinforce the sense of imbalance. In 2025, the EU exported EUR 199.6 billion in goods to China and imported EUR 559.4 billion, producing a deficit of EUR 359.8 billion (Eurostat, 2026). A bilateral deficit is not, by itself, evidence of unfair trade. It does, however, intensify political pressure when it coincides with plant closures and visible import growth in a strategic industry. Measures presented as technical trade defense can quickly become symbols in a wider argument about sovereignty, dependence and the distribution of globalization’s costs.
Hard protectionism would not solve the problem. Europe still needs affordable EVs, competitive batteries and private investment, as well as cooperation with China on climate, standards and trade. Closing the market would reduce competition, delay capacity expansion and invite retaliation. It could also divert Chinese exports towards Europe’s southern neighborhood, where European manufacturers already face stronger competition (Fulton, Lons & Tsang, 2026). A broader protectionist turn would also shrink a major market for Chinese firms and make EU rules less predictable (IEA, 2026; Tagliapietra, Trasi & Sebastian, 2025).
Unqualified openness is equally inadequate. Chinese car and battery manufacturers are investing in Europe or considering local production, which can create jobs and shorten supply chains. Yet local assembly does not necessarily create local capability. A plant may import high-value inputs, retain research and software functions elsewhere and generate mainly assembly jobs. Separate Member-State negotiations can therefore produce uneven benefits and a subsidy race in which the largest public budgets attract the most valuable projects (Tagliapietra, Trasi & Sebastian, 2025).
The green transition must therefore be understood as a political bargain. Consumers need affordable vehicles. Firms need predictable rules and access to finance. Workers need credible routes into new occupations. Regions need replacement investment before old capacity disappears. The EU needs resilience without autarky, and Chinese investors need access without assuming that access can remain detached from European social and industrial concerns. Conditional integrationoffers a way to connect these interests.
Why the Industrial Accelerator Act Is Only a Partial Answer
The proposed IAA is significant because it recognizes that trade policy, industrial policy and foreign investment can no longer be treated as separate fields. Its demand-side measures would use public procurement and support schemes to favor low-carbon and European-made products in selected sectors. Its permitting provisions would aim to reduce delays through digital procedures and industrial acceleration areas. Its investment chapter would seek to prevent strategic foreign projects from operating as isolated enclaves by linking approval to European participation, research, training and value-chain integration (European Commission, 2026c, 2026d).
These are useful corrections to a policy model that relied heavily on carbon regulation and market incentives while assuming that industrial capacity would follow. The proposed IAA also reflects the Draghi Report’s argument that decarbonization can support growth only when climate targets are matched by investment, innovation and coordinated industrial action (Draghi, 2024). In the automotive sector, the proposed Act could help create demand for European batteries and components and give public authorities leverage when negotiating with major investors.
The difficulty is that location is not the same as competitiveness. The proposed IAA is strongest on vertical questions: where a battery cell is produced, how much Union-origin content a supported vehicle contains, or whether an investment creates jobs. It is weaker on the horizontal systems that determine long-term performance, including software platforms, vehicle data, cybersecurity, testing environments, charging infrastructure and recycling (European Commission, 2025; van Wieringen, 2024). A factory may satisfy an origin rule while remaining dependent on technology and critical components controlled elsewhere.
The proposed foreign-investment provisions also need refinement. A four-out-of-six test gives flexibility, but investors may select the least demanding combination without producing the capabilities Europe most needs. The proposed 50 percent EU-workforce threshold cannot distinguish temporary assembly jobs from durable technical and research positions. Moreover, conditions tied directly to the purchase or use of domestic goods can create risks under the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Investment Measures, while compulsory or uncompensated technology transfer would be politically and legally vulnerable (WTO, 1994). China’s Ministry of Commerce has criticized the proposal on precisely these grounds and warned of countermeasures (MOFCOM, 2026a, 2026b).
A further weakness is finance. The proposal warns that uncoordinated national measures can fragment the Single Market, but much industrial support still depends on national fiscal capacity. Germany or France can offer packages that smaller or more indebted Member States cannot match. Without a common EU layer, ‘Made in EU’ may in practice become ‘made in the Member States with the largest subsidy budgets.’ This would deepen regional inequalities and weaken the collective bargaining power that a common European approach is meant to create (Collin, García Bercero & McWilliams, 2026; Tagliapietra, Trasi & Sebastian, 2025).
Finally, the proposed IAA’s social logic remains too automatic. It assumes that anchoring production will anchor employment. Yet electrification changes the industry’s occupational structure, and new factories may be far from the regions losing old ones. Research on the European car industry shows that the transition can reproduce regional and social inequalities unless policy addresses who receives investment, who bears adjustment costs and who participates in decisions (Szabó & Newell, 2024). The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) is therefore right to call for mandatory training, worker participation and regional transition planning, not employment numbers alone (ETUC, 2026).
The proposal should not be abandoned. It should be completed. Its central insight is correct: access to the scale of the Single Market gives the EU bargaining power. That power should be used to secure outcomes rather than to build a wall. Recent assessments similarly caution that poorly calibrated origin and investment rules could delay capacity formation or distort the Single Market unless they are tied to clearer sectoral objectives (Collin, García Bercero & McWilliams, 2026).
Assessing Three Policy Options
At the present stage of the legislative debate, three policy approaches can be envisaged.
The first option is defensive localization. The EU would tighten ‘Made in EU’ rules, maintain or increase tariffs, restrict Chinese participation in public support and apply the proposed IAA’s ownership and technology conditions in their most demanding form. It offers a visible response to job losses and may create protected demand while European producers scale up.
The costs would be substantial. Strict exclusion would raise prices, reduce competitive pressure and delay capacity expansion. It would invite retaliation, while broad local-content requirements could conflict with WTO rules if they discriminated against imported goods (WTO, 1994). Protection would not guarantee innovation: firms could gain a sheltered market without closing gaps in software, batteries and production speed. Export diversion would also expose European manufacturers to stronger Chinese competition in nearby third markets (Fulton, Lons & Tsang, 2026).
This option carries a political paradox. Protection can temporarily reassure workers, but if it leads to expensive electric vehicles, weak demand and continued restructuring, populist actors will shift their argument. Brussels can then be blamed both for imposing the transition and for making it unaffordable. Evidence from manufacturing regions also cautions against assuming that one visible protective measure will settle deeper anxieties about status, employment and regional decline (Bayerlein, Kölzer & Metten, 2026; Poletti, 2026).
The second option is managed openness. The EU would retain countervailing duties and general investment-screening tools while welcoming Chinese factories case by case. Member States would remain free to negotiate investment packages, and the Commission would intervene mainly where subsidies, security risks or market distortions were evident. This approach could attract capital quickly and expand European production without the conflict generated by rigid joint-venture or technology-transfer requirements.
Managed openness is preferable to a trade war, but it is too weak for the scale of the transition. Individual Member States may compete to offer subsidies, land and tax advantages while accepting limited commitments on suppliers, research or skills. Investors could divide production across Europe in ways that maximize incentives rather than industrial coherence. A series of assembly plants would improve output statistics without necessarily strengthening European capability. The approach would also disadvantage smaller Member States and make monitoring uneven (Tagliapietra, Trasi & Sebastian, 2025).
The third option, recommended in this paper, is conditional integration. It starts from two propositions. First, Chinese investment is not inherently a threat; it can support decarbonization, competition and employment. Second, the value of an investment cannot be measured by its location alone. It should be judged by the capabilities it creates and retains in Europe.
Conditional integration would establish common EU rules for major electric-vehicle and battery projects, regardless of which Member State hosts them. Investment approval, eligibility for relevant public support and access to lead-market measures would remain available when investors make verifiable contributions to local research, skilled employment, supplier development, circularity and secure digital systems. The framework would not require firms to surrender corporate control or transfer proprietary technology. Instead, it would impose outcome-based obligations proportionate to the scale of the investment and the public support received.
This approach better balances openness and resilience. It uses the Single Market as leverage without treating investment as a zero-sum contest and aligns with proposals for a common European strategy towards Chinese EV investment (Tagliapietra, Trasi & Sebastian, 2025). Chinese firms would gain a predictable route into Europe: invest for the long term, build local capabilities and meet common standards. Europe would convert competitive pressure into learning and capacity-building rather than a sequence of trade disputes and national restrictions.
Political Feasibility on Both Sides
Conditional integration is viable only if it can be defended in domestic politics. In Europe, governments must show that openness does not mean accepting low-value assembly while research and supplier development remain elsewhere. Commitments on permanent technical jobs, paid retraining and regional supplier conversion should therefore be visible before public support is granted. This matters in industrial regions where expected decline can be as politically consequential as closures already recorded (Bayerlein, Kölzer & Metten, 2026), and it answers populist claims that trade policy protects abstract European interests while local communities absorb the costs (Poletti, 2026).
China faces a different constraint. Beijing is unlikely to accept a framework described as forced technology transfer, discriminatory localization or an anti-China ownership regime (MOFCOM, 2026a, 2026b). Chinese firms may nevertheless accept training, European R&D, supplier-development and carbon-performance commitments when these are presented as normal conditions for long-term investment and apply to all covered foreign investors. Deeper localization can then be framed as commercial adaptation rather than a political concession.
The framework should therefore privilege measurable outcomes over symbolic ownership tests. Country-neutral rules, protection of pre-existing intellectual property and a transparent route to approval make conditional integration easier to defend on both sides: Europe gains visible domestic value, while Chinese investors avoid openly punitive treatment.
Three Core Recommendations
1. Establish a European Automotive Investment Compact
The first step should be a European Automotive Investment Compact anchored in the proposed IAA framework. During the legislative negotiations, the co-legislators should strengthen Article 18 by making capability creation a mandatory element of covered EV and battery investments. In addition to the proposed employment requirement, each project should meet either the EU research-and-development condition or a strengthened supplier-development condition. The relevant legal bases are Articles 18(2)(d), 18(2)(f) and 18(3). The Commission should then use the implementing act foreseen in Article 18(5) of the proposal to establish a sector-specific verification scorecard (European Commission, 2026c).
The scorecard should test substance: technical and permanent jobs, engineering and research performed in Europe, paid training, supplier contracts and the treatment of jointly created intellectual property. An investor should not be able to meet formal ownership conditions while contributing little to learning, nor should a project be rejected merely because a joint venture is commercially inappropriate.
Technology cooperation must be handled carefully. The Compact should recognize paid licensing, joint research centers, jointly created intellectual property, testing facilities and university partnerships, while protecting pre-existing rights. Europe should seek competence rather than ownership of every foreign technology. Supplier conditions should be framed as verifiable value-chain development rather than a blanket obligation to purchase domestic goods, reducing WTO risk (WTO, 1994).
2. Attach a Skills and Regional Transition Covenant to Major Investments
The second recommendation is a Skills and Regional Transition Covenant. The Commission’s March 2026 IAA proposal would require at least half of the workforce in covered investments to be EU workers across occupational categories, accompanied by training. A qualitative plan should also identify the occupations created, qualifications required, share of permanent positions and routes for displaced automotive workers to enter them (European Commission, 2026c).
Investors should partner with vocational schools, universities and recognized training providers. Training should occur during paid working time and extend to affected supplier firms. Where projects receive significant public support, unions and worker representatives should participate in design and monitoring, preventing Europe from gaining mainly assembly jobs while high-value engineering remains elsewhere (ETUC, 2026).
The Commission should also favor projects linked to regions undergoing automotive restructuring, where infrastructure and skills conditions permit. Industrial Acceleration Areas should be tied to regional development, clean-energy access and supplier conversion rather than treated as deregulatory enclaves. A new battery plant does not automatically compensate for a distant components-factory closure; the connection must be designed and funded (Szabó & Newell, 2024).
3. Create a European Automotive Transition Financing Window
The third recommendation is a ring-fenced European Automotive Transition Financing Window under existing EU instruments, coordinated by the Commission and the European Investment Bank. The proposed IAA relies on synergies across the Innovation Fund, InvestEU, Horizon Europe, the Connecting Europe Facility and cohesion funds rather than a new spending envelope (European Commission, 2026c). The Commission should begin preparing a coordinated pilot in 2027, with implementation to follow once the IAA’s legal basis and the necessary budgetary arrangements are in place. In the longer term, the financing window could be incorporated into the European Competitiveness Fund if that instrument is established under the 2028-2034 Multiannual Financial Framework.
The window should finance shared European public goods rather than routine vehicle production: supplier conversion, battery recycling, testing facilities, worker training, grid connections and first-of-a-kind manufacturing. Cross-border value chains and shared research should receive priority over isolated plants with limited spillovers.
National aid could continue, but major packages should be listed on a common transparency platform with public contributions, expected jobs, training, supplier contracts and environmental performance. Investors would then face one European framework rather than a patchwork of national bargains, accepting consistent obligations in return for access to finance and lead markets.
Two Enabling Measures
A Software, Data and Innovation Pillar
The proposed IAA’s emphasis on manufacturing is understandable, but the competitive frontier is shifting towards software-defined vehicles, autonomous-driving systems, battery management, digital services and data. Europe could localize vehicle assembly while remaining dependent on external operating systems and data architectures. That would replace one form of dependence with another (European Commission, 2025; van Wieringen, 2024).
The Commission’s automotive action plan already points towards testing zones, connected and autonomous vehicle alliances and public-private research. These initiatives should be linked to the proposed IAA investment regime. Major projects should comply with EU cybersecurity, data-protection and competition rules; critical software updates and remote-control functions should face independent security auditing; and access to vehicle data generated in Europe should be governed by transparent legal rules (European Commission, 2025).
This pillar should remain open to Chinese firms. Exclusion from European research ecosystems would slow learning and encourage incompatible standards. Participation, however, should depend on interoperability, auditability and compliance with EU data governance. Joint testing facilities could allow European and Chinese firms to develop products for the EU market while ensuring that safety, cybersecurity and data standards are verified in Europe.
A Structured EU-China Implementation Dialogue
The second enabling measure is a structured EU-China implementation dialogue. It should not replace enforcement or offer China exemptions unavailable to others. A working group involving DG TRADE, DG GROW, relevant Chinese ministries, industry and social partners should instead reduce uncertainty during the proposed IAA’s legislative and implementation phases.
The agenda should cover Union-origin calculations, joint research and intellectual property, recognition of training expenditure, reporting and carbon accounting. It could also examine WTO-compatible alternatives to duties, including price undertakings where they address the subsidization identified by the Commission (European Commission, 2026b). Non-confidential guidance should be published for firms on both sides.
Reciprocity should remain on the agenda, but through defined sectors and measurable commitments rather than a demand that every market opens simultaneously. Progress on procurement, standards and research partnerships could be linked to greater confidence in implementation of the proposed IAA. The aim is managed bargaining, not rhetorical escalation.
Risks and Safeguards
Conditional integration will not eliminate conflict. China may challenge provisions of the proposed IAA or retaliate against European firms. The EU should prepare sector-specific contingencies, diversify critical inputs and use trade-defense instruments when evidence supports them. Rules should remain country-neutral and rest on transparent market-share, security and value-creation criteria, making them easier to defend legally (European Commission, 2026c; WTO, 1994).
Symbolic compliance is another risk. Research centers or training programmes may remain small relative to the investment. Approval decisions should therefore include measurable milestones and five-year reporting on permanent jobs, paid training, R&D, jointly developed intellectual property, supplier contracts, recycled content and carbon performance. Failure to meet commitments should trigger proportionate recovery of support or revised approval conditions.
Industrial policy can also become detached from affordability. Consumers cannot carry the full adjustment cost through higher vehicle prices. The Commission should preserve competition, expand charging infrastructure and target demand measures towards small and affordable EVs. Resilience will not be politically sustainable if electric mobility becomes a premium product (European Commission, 2025; IEA, 2026).
Finally, the proposed IAA should not be sold as a victory over China. Such language would strengthen nationalist narratives on both sides. It should be presented as a rule for all major investors: access to public support and the Single Market comes with responsibilities to workers, regions, innovation and climate goals. Visible local benefits are the strongest answer to populist claims that trade and decarbonization serve only distant institutions and large corporations (Poletti, 2026).
Conclusion
The European automotive transition cannot be secured by tariffs alone. Nor can Europe assume that any factory built within its borders will automatically deliver resilience. The decisive issue is the quality of industrial integration.
Defensive localization would protect selected producers but risk higher costs, retaliation and technological complacency. Managed openness would attract capital but leave Member States competing for investments that may create limited European spillovers. Conditional integration offers a more durable route. It welcomes Chinese electric-vehicle and battery investment when that investment creates capabilities Europe can retain skilled jobs, research, suppliers, secure digital systems, circular production and regional development.
The proposed Industrial Accelerator Act provides the beginnings of such a framework, but it needs clearer priorities, a realistic financing channel and stronger links to skills, software and regional policy. A European Automotive Investment Compact would turn broad legal conditions into predictable sectoral rules. A Skills and Regional Transition Covenantwould connect industrial location to social legitimacy. A European Automotive Transition Financing Window would limit fiscal fragmentation, while the two enabling measures would address future technological competition and reduce uncertainty without weakening enforcement.
Europe should not ask Chinese firms to become European. It should ask every major investor benefiting from the European market to make a measurable contribution to European capacity. The strategic shift is from market access to co-development, and from the location of output to the creation of capability. Implemented in that form, the proposed IAA could do more than manage a trade dispute. It could support decarbonization, democratic stability and a more balanced EU-China economic relationship.
(*) This policy paper is based on research conducted by the ECPS Summer School 2026 China Team during the case competition on the side of Summer School titled “Europe Between Oceans: The Future of EU Trade Between the Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific,” held on July 6-10, 2026.
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In this interview, Imran Bayoumi examines how the weakening of multilateral institutions and the rise of transactional diplomacy are reshaping global power in ways that often favor authoritarian and populist governments. He argues that authoritarian middle powers benefit from greater flexibility to hedge between competing blocs, while democracies remain constrained by alliances, institutions, and domestic accountability. Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan emerges as a key example: Ankara has “managed to play and interact with both realms at the same time,” using populist nationalism to present strategic balancing as the defense of national interests. Bayoumi also warns that weakening Western cohesion benefits revisionist powers, while calling for a “retooled American leadership” capable of rebuilding democratic cooperation in a more fragmented international order.
In an era of intensifying geopolitical fragmentation, weakening multilateral institutions, and increasingly transactional diplomacy, authoritarian and populist governments may find themselves unusually well positioned to exploit the emerging international disorder. In this wide-ranging interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Imran Bayoumi, Deputy Director and Resident Fellow with the GeoStrategy Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, examines how the erosion of the rules-based international order is altering the balance between democratic constraints and authoritarian flexibility. His central argument is not that autocracies are inherently stronger, but that a fragmented system can reward governments able to hedge between competing powers, bypass institutional constraints, and personalize foreign policy. As Bayoumi puts it, authoritarian middle powers “have experience with hedging” and are less constrained by the institutions and alliances that shape the choices of democratic states.
The decline of multilateralism is particularly consequential because it lowers the costs of defying established rules. According to Bayoumi, states increasingly feel comfortable “bypassing multilateral bodies,” ignoring treaties and challenging norms because the prospect of meaningful punishment has diminished. Yet he cautions against reducing this transformation simply to populism: “It’s a mix of both things: populism and power.” At the same time, the personalization of diplomacy associated with contemporary populist politics is becoming increasingly significant, as foreign policy becomes more closely tied to leaders themselves rather than institutions and professional bureaucracies.
Turkey provides one of the interview’s clearest illustrations of this emerging geopolitical flexibility. Still embedded in NATO and Western institutions, Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has simultaneously cultivated relations across competing geopolitical blocs. Bayoumi describes Turkey as a country that has “managed to play and interact with both realms at the same time.” Populist nationalism, he argues, has been crucial to legitimizing this strategy domestically: “Erdogan has been able to sell this balancing strategy as a way of being able to secure Turkey’s interests first.” The willingness to purchase Russian air-defense systems while remaining within NATO exemplifies how Ankara combines alliance membership with strategic hedging.
More broadly, Bayoumi warns that weakening Western alliances and institutional cohesion ultimately benefits revisionist authoritarian powers. “Every action that undermines the strong ties between the United States and its allies is a benefit for them,” he argues, pointing to the growing cooperation among Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea. Yet he rejects the idea that authoritarian ascendancy is inevitable. Instead, he calls for “some sort of retooled American leadership” capable of accommodating the growing autonomy of middle powers while rebuilding institutions and democratic cooperation. The challenge, therefore, is not simply to restore the old international order, but to construct a more resilient one capable of reconciling democratic values, strategic power, and an increasingly multipolar world.
Here is our interview with Imran Bayoumi, edited lightly to enhance clarity, readability, and overall flow for publication.
Authoritarian Middle Powers Are Better Equipped to Hedge
Figure from the V-Dem Institute Democracy Report 2026.
Mr. Bayoumi, welcome!In “Why Today’s Global Disorder Rewards Authoritarians,” you argue that autocratic middle powers are particularly well placed to benefit from today’s fragmented international system because they can hedge between larger powers and pursue highly transactional relationships. What is it specifically about authoritarian government that gives these countries greater room for maneuver than democratic middle powers? Could democratic states adopt similar strategies without weakening their democratic principles?
Imran Bayoumi: In the article, I lay out two factors that I’ve identified. The first is that these autocratic middle powers have experience with hedging. They’ve balanced between different blocs of great powers for a lot longer than these democratic middle powers are now trying to. They’re not constrained by these broader institutions and alliances that are now seeming more and more like a burden.
The second factor is that they are adept at these kinds of personalist politics that we’ve seen really dominate the second Trump administration and the broader political deal-making space. You saw Qatar donate the Boeing 747 for the new Air Force One at the start of the second Trump administration. In terms of hedging, I talk about it in the article, but Kazakhstan, for example, has signed up to both China and Washington’s flagship AI programs.
Therefore, these states are really better in this kind of disruption. They know how to gain influence in ways that democratic states would struggle with. If a democratic state was to donate a jumbo jet, there would probably be some sort of parliamentary pushback, discussions in the media, and potential repercussions that I don’t think authoritarians would be subject to.
So, can democratic states adopt these traits? Sure, it’s just harder for them to do so. There’s nothing stopping them from having a more personalist foreign policy. Nothing’s stopping them from hedging, but they face constraints. I don’t think their populations may want that. It’s harder to leave treaties if you have to have a parliament approve that. I think norms are a big thing, too. I can’t imagine that the Canadian public, for example, would be happy if Prime Minister Carney donated a large amount of military equipment to the United States in exchange for a trade deal. So, there’s nothing in theory stopping them, but the institutions and norms that they adhere to are a real limit.
Alliances Remain an Asset, but New Risks Are Emerging
You suggest that democratic middle powers such as Canada, Australia, South Korea, and the United Kingdom are constrained partly because their economies and security systems were deeply integrated into the US-led postwar order. By contrast, authoritarian middle powers were often less integrated into that system. Has the very institutional dependence that once protected democracies now become a strategic weakness in a more unstable world?
Imran Bayoumi: I’m not sure I would say that it’s a weakness. I don’t think the NATO alliance is a weakness. That’s still the most successful alliance in history, and there’s still great value to states being part of it, regardless of how disruptive and unpredictable they might see Washington as acting.
That being said, it also exposes them to new risks. I think you’ve seen the United States talk about annexing Greenland, making Canada the 51st state, putting kind of ad hoc tariffs in place, and all of this really weakens the strength of those institutions. So, I wouldn’t go so far as to say being part of them is a weakness right now, but it’s certainly a factor that undermines the security, economic interests, and sovereignty of some of these states in the current moment.
If we were really to see full-out great power war, and NATO was attacked and responded, Article 5 was invoked, I don’t think any of these states would see that as a weakness. They would see the alliance as a great benefit. So, these institutions still have great potential and promise. The problem is that we’re actively undermining them, and we need to change that course.
Bilateral Diplomacy Thrives as Institutional Constraints Weaken
Populist leaders often present international institutions, treaties, courts, and alliances as restrictions imposed by distant elites on national sovereignty. Does the weakening of the rules-based international order therefore create a particularly favorable environment not only for authoritarian governments but also for populist leaders who prefer bilateral deals and leader-to-leader diplomacy over multilateral institutions?
Imran Bayoumi: I think the current moment does. When we saw the rules-based international order with bodies like the UN supported by the US and backed by other countries, there were real costs to defying these major institutions and going against global norms. The threat of sanctions was real, as were the loss of market access and diplomatic isolation. What we’ve seen is that now states of all sizes feel more comfortable bypassing multilateral bodies to get action, ignoring treaties, ignoring what they previously signed, and maybe bucking norms because they think that the threat or possible punishment is lesser. There’s no cost associated with their revisionist actions. These bilateral deals are peaking because of that.
The stronger state can now enforce a deal that it wants and get its outcome. But, there are a few interesting threads also to pick up. One is that even though these multilateral institutions maybe are not as strong, the value and the brand of them are still strong. We still see populist autocratic leaders traveling to the UN every September to make a speech. So, there’s still value in that brand and in that address. Maybe the institution is not strong, but the broader value is and could be resurrected.
I touched on this earlier, but to return to your original question, I’m not sure it favors populist leaders so much as actors with power. Looking back, even before the Trump administration, if the United States pursued a bilateral deal with a less powerful populist leader, it would still be able to dictate the terms of that deal largely because of its relative power. So, it’s a mix of both things: populism and power.
Populism Is Accelerating the Personalization of Foreign Policy
Photo: Shutterstock.
Your argument focuses heavily on increasingly personalized and transactional diplomacy. This also seems characteristic of populist politics, where leaders frequently claim that personal strength and negotiating skill can replace institutions and professional bureaucracies. Do you see a connection between the global rise of populism and the wider shift from institutional diplomacy toward personalized diplomacy?
Imran Bayoumi: Yes, similar to my previous answer, that as populism rises and the foreign policy of countries increasingly becomes about the personalities of those leaders themselves, you do start to see this trend. People start to meet their partners where they are. I think there are some good examples here. King Charles gifted President Trump a bell from a naval submarine that bore his name. We’re even starting to see democracies meet this kind of populist trend. But I’d go back to the power thing. I think power really underpins this system. So, I’m not sure that personal strength and negotiating skill are any better than multilateral institutions if you’re still negotiating, arguing, or dealing with a more powerful state. Military and economic power are two constant underpinnings that exist regardless of the broader dynamic.
Democracies Still Face Constraints That Autocracies Escape
You write that autocratic governments are primarily concerned with regime survival rather than electoral accountability. But democratic populist governments can sometimes develop similar priorities by weakening courts, attacking independent media, politicizing the bureaucracy, and concentrating authority around the executive. Should we therefore think of the advantage you describe as belonging strictly to authoritarian regimes, or more broadly to highly centralized and personalized political systems?
Imran Bayoumi: I think it applies to both, but with the caveat that, in these still highly centralized systems that are maybe partially free democracies, the party can still lose power. If you look at Hungary, there was an election and there was a change in government.
I really tried to focus on autocratic states in my article, arguing that they don’t have to worry about these kinds of institutional checks and balances that highly centralized liberal democracies may have to worry about to a lesser extent, but that are still there. There’s still media, there are still courts, and there are still other ways that they can pressure the government.
Whereas in autocracies, they don’t have to worry about that. So, I think it applies to both, but there’s that caveat that it could change. Political systems change, and in these highly centralized, personalized systems, the media ecosystem, the justices, and the courts could be a vector for that change.
Washington Has Fully Embraced Personalized Foreign Policy
The Trump administration itself raises an important question for your argument. Trump has repeatedly criticized international organizations and alliances, emphasized personal relationships with foreign leaders, and favored transactional bargaining over traditional diplomatic institutions. To what extent has the United States under Trump begun to practice the kind of personalized foreign policy that you associate with authoritarian states?
Imran Bayoumi: Two things here. First, Washington has fully embraced this personalized approach to foreign policy. The diplomacy between President Trump and Kim Jong-un of North Korea during Trump’s first term is a good example. It involved exchanging letters and Trump addressing Kim Jong-un personally. I don’t think it was particularly successful, although it did result in a few summits. Tensions between the two countries remain high, but that kind of personalized diplomacy has clearly carried over into the second administration.
I would, however, push back somewhat on the idea that this approach is associated solely with authoritarian states. At the moment, authoritarian states may be better suited to handle it because they have more experience with this kind of diplomacy and know how to make it work. But over the longer term, they are unlikely to be the only states to practice or utilize personalist foreign policy.
Democratic Backsliding Could Carry Strategic Costs Abroad
Following from that, could there be an authoritarian dimension to the transformation of American foreign policy under Trump? I do not mean that the United States has simply become an authoritarian state, but rather whether the weakening of institutional constraints, the personalization of executive power, and the preference for loyalty and bilateral bargains are making American statecraft resemble some features traditionally associated with authoritarian governance.
Imran Bayoumi: The literature and public discourse around this topic are pretty clear. There is a very real risk of democratic backsliding in the United States, and there are concerns there. Ultimately, whatever US foreign policy looks like over the next decade, the next five years, or whatever timeframe you want to look at, there is a real risk that the kinds of factors you laid out—the personalization of executive power, the preference for blind loyalty, and bilateral deals—will weaken US foreign policy and national security writ large, rather than simply making the United States resemble an autocratic foreign policy.
I think the bigger challenge is not so much what it looks like, but what results it achieves for Washington and for American citizens. The risk is that it will produce a more dangerous world, one where we have more shaky, bilateral, ad hoc deals that are not built on these broad, treaty-bound alliances.
It would be a world where American interests are harder to define and therefore harder to defend, and where American power has lost some credibility. So, revisionist states feel more comfortable challenging it, undermining it, and acting against it. That’s a real challenge. How do we stop that? How do we change that? And what does a new, more powerful, newly designed American foreign policy look like to meet the challenges of the 21st century, deal with revisionist autocracies that are challenging Washington’s power, and also recognize the growing power of these smaller middle-power countries?
Fragmentation Rewards States That Can Move Faster and Hedge More Freely
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney attends a joint press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Ukraine’s Independence Day in Kyiv, Ukraine on August 24, 2025. Photo: Vladyslav Musiienko / Dreamstime.
In “Don’t Fall for the Middle-Power Mirage,” you question Mark Carney’s hope that democratic middle powers can build an alternative multilateral order. Democratic states appear divided over how far they should distance themselves from Washington, while authoritarian middle powers can cooperate selectively with Washington, Beijing, Moscow, and regional powers at the same time. Does this mean that fragmentation itself structurally favors governments that are less committed to fixed alliances and common political values?
Imran Bayoumi: In the current moment, 100%. That article really talks about two factors. One is that democratic middle powers, even if they were to answer the call that Prime Minister Mark Carney laid out at the Davos World Economic Forum earlier this year, can’t agree on the approach to doing so. In that article, I talk about then-UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Mark Carney. The week after Carney’s speech, Starmer had a different approach. He said, we don’t have to choose; we can balance all sides, play all sides, something to that effect. So that’s the first challenge. Democratic middle powers are not even on the same page.
I think that, in this era of disruption and upheaval, countries that don’t have these long-standing institutional ties and alliances can play both sides. They’re more nimble and can move faster. It goes back to the other article we talked about, where their populations may not want leaders to stay committed to these institutions, or, if they do, the leaders can ignore the will of their population. So, they’re more comfortable making these deals that might invite media blowback.
They don’t necessarily have to get parliamentary approval, or, if they do, it could be rubber-stamped. So, they’re more nimble and can act in different ways. The challenge for them is that they still recognize that there’s value in alliances and in this broader dynamic. Even if you look at Canada, which under Carney is trying to advocate for this new kind of vision of the international system, it’s not about abandoning NATO or totally pulling out of NORAD, the binational command here.
Therefore, there’s still a recognition that alliances are valuable and that these kinds of treaty-bound obligations are strong for a reason. These bilateral deals may be a temporary boon, but I don’t think they should be read as an indication of long-term success.
Revisionism and Pragmatism Increasingly Coexist
You distinguish between authoritarian states that actively seek to revise the international order and those that simply exploit its weakening. But is “pragmatic opportunism” really politically neutral? When governments such as Turkey, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Kazakhstan benefit from weaker democratic norms, looser conditionality, and more transactional great-power competition, do they not also have an interest in preserving—and perhaps deepening—the erosion of the rules-based order, even if they do not openly seek to replace it?
Imran Bayoumi: This is a really important point. These states—their erosion, or actions contributing to the erosion, of the current international order—are a real risk. Going back to my previous answer, I don’t think they’re trying to build what comes next. There’s not a clearly defined broader international architecture that they’re building toward. They’re more taking advantage of the current disruption.
In the long-term, I don’t know what they will try to build. Even though they’re now preying on this disruption, it would be a mistake to say that they didn’t benefit in some way from the previous international order as well. So, even though Carney’s vision might be incredibly tough to achieve, he’s at least trying to figure out what comes next.
To your point, I think they have an interest in both sides. In some areas and sectors, they want to weaken the current international order and advance their own interests. On some topics, however, they want to strengthen it.
China, for example, is still very committed to this idea of international standard-setting when it comes to telecoms and, potentially, artificial intelligence. These are the broad multilateral structures, forums, and venues that we associate with the previous international order. But in other ways, China and other states are quite revisionist. They don’t want to cede sovereignty; they want to achieve their own goals.
So, I think it’s this balancing act, and part of this tension is a realization that there’s a real question of what comes next. You will have to build what comes next, and that might be harder than merely reacting to the current disruption.
Turkey Shows How Populist Nationalism Can Legitimize Geopolitical Hedging
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made the opening of the Natural Gas Pipeline (Turkstream) in Istanbul, Turkey on November 19, 2018.
Turkey seems to present an especially difficult case for your argument. It remains a NATO member and benefits from Western security and economic institutions, while under Erdogan it has also experienced severe democratic backsliding, increasing authoritarianism, and a highly personalized and populist foreign policy. Is Turkey effectively benefiting from both worlds—using its place inside the Western institutional order while simultaneously exploiting the strategic flexibility associated with authoritarian middle powers? And to what extent has populist nationalism enabled Erdogan to present this balancing strategy not as dependence or inconsistency, but as evidence of multi-directional foreign policy, sovereignty, and national strength?
Imran Bayoumi: Turkey’s a very interesting case, and it’s one of those countries that has really managed to play and interact with both realms at the same time. The most recent kind of development there, with President Trump talking about lifting sanctions on Turkey that he himself put in place in his first term, is really a testament to the kind of power of personalized diplomacy and the strides in relations that Turkey has developed with the Trump administration in this second term.
To the second part of your question, in terms of populist nationalism, I think that’s key. Erdogan has been able to sell this balancing strategy as a way of being able to secure Turkey’s interests first. If that means buying Russian air defense systems while also being part of NATO, that’s what it takes. But, it goes back to my earlier point, where these kinds of illiberal, partially free democracies that still have elections, these leaders are still susceptible at some stage. So, there’s still, even if it’s limited, kind of opposition media in and out of the country that can pressure these leaders, and that maybe be a weakness. Therefore, there’s also a recognition that they need to work with everyone or work to sell the message more so than true authoritarian states that may not even communicate these foreign policy decisions.
Turkey’s Dual Alignment Reflects Strategic Geography and Diplomatic Flexibility
The recently signed Mecca Joint Defense Agreement between Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan seems to take this strategy a significant step further by creating a collective-defense arrangement among three important regional powers, while Turkey simultaneously remains inside NATO. Do you see the Mecca Pact as another example of Ankara hedging within an increasingly fragmented order, or does it represent something more consequential—the beginning of an alternative security architecture that could gradually reduce Turkey’s dependence on the Western alliance system? And what does Turkey’s ability to participate in both arrangements tell us about why today’s global disorder may particularly reward authoritarian or highly personalized middle powers?
Imran Bayoumi: I actually think the Mecca Pact is more about regional security. I don’t think it should be read as an attempt by Turkey, Pakistan, or Saudi Arabia to build a true international order alternative to the US-led alliance system, or to China or Russia. For these three countries, it reflects a recognition that the Middle East will remain markedly different after the conclusion of the Iran war, whenever that might be. They’ve seen that Iran may be weakened in some respects. Its economy has certainly taken a beating. The Supreme Leader was killed, but at the same time, it remains quite disruptive when it wants to be. It has control of the Strait of Hormuz and has launched attacks on a lot of the Gulf countries.
This is really about ensuring these countries’ own security in the region. You have Iran on one side, and then there’s also a recognition that the long-term presence of the United States in the region can no longer be guaranteed. No one knows what that will look like. It could be a substantial drawdown, and without the US there, there are all these other long-standing security threats that may emerge.
So, I see this pact more as strengthening the security of these three countries within the Middle East, within a volatile region that all three of them occupy. It’s a long-term bet that the region will remain unstable and that there’s value in having these alliances and partnerships.
The question with the Mecca Pact in particular is: how far does it go? What does it look like when a state is actually challenged? Is there an Article 5-style response, like you would see with NATO, where other nations commit troops and commit to fighting? Or is there just the provision of economic aid or military equipment, without necessarily joining the conflict with troops on the ground?
What Turkey’s ability to participate in both arrangements tells us is that Turkey has been able to play this system well. It understands that it occupies a geographically strategic and relevant location. It’s able to maintain ties and communications with key global players, and there’s recognition among the US and other NATO countries that it’s perhaps in their interest to have Turkey able to hold discussions with Russia and facilitate that channel, while also having a strong ally in the Middle East that can represent the alliance’s interests there.
So, as much as I think it’s a testament to Turkey’s ability to navigate this disruption, there’s also probably a bit more give than we may want to admit on Washington’s side, London’s side, and Berlin’s side. It’s helpful to have states that can both be your ally and talk to other still powerful, if not revisionist, countries.
Revisionist Autocracies Benefit Whenever Western Cohesion Weakens
In your New Statesman article on the “axis of autocracies,” you emphasize that China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea do not constitute anything like an authoritarian NATO. Their interests differ, and their cooperation remains limited and transactional. Yet you argue that they can still benefit from American strategic mistakes. Is it therefore misleading to focus too much on whether authoritarian states form a coherent alliance, when the more important issue may be that they benefit from the same weakening of Western institutions?
Imran Bayoumi: That’s right. To be clear, they’re working very closely together. Russia, for example, is providing targeting data to Iran to assist with Iran’s war that the United States is fighting. China has been an economic lifeline to Russia during its full-scale invasion of Ukraine and North Korea is providing troops to Russia to fight in Ukraine. Even though there’s no formal alliance system, these kinds of levers of cooperation and ties are deepening between these states.
You’re also right that we don’t need to focus on, or wait for, them to sign a formal alliance before being worried about the threat they pose. Every action that undermines the strong ties between the United States and its allies is a benefit for them. Tariffs against Washington’s trading partners that force them to look to new sources, such as China, are a weakness. Actions that undermine alliance cohesion, like threatening to take Greenland, are also a weakness, and the beneficiaries are really these revisionist autocracies.
So, we don’t need to wait for them to form a formal alliance and sign a treaty. We can be worried in the short term. I’m not sure they’ll ever get to that place, and that doesn’t mean we should wait to counter that threat.
Without Clear Goals, Tactical Victories Can Undermine Long-Term Power
Photo: Pavel Kusmartsev / Dreamstime.
Your analysis of the Iran war makes an important distinction between tactical success and strategic success. The United States might weaken Iran militarily while simultaneously increasing Russian energy revenues, diverting American military resources away from Asia, and creating tensions with European allies. Does this reflect a wider problem in American strategy—an ability to win individual confrontations while gradually weakening the alliances and resources that underpin its long-term power?
Imran Bayoumi: This has been a recurring challenge for the United States since it launched the 2003 Iraq War. It has been hard for the US to win decisively, and looking back to the first Trump administration, there was more of a recognition of that. This administration—the second Trump administration—may have been somewhat falsely emboldened by the relatively well-executed operation to remove Nicolas Maduro, the president of Venezuela, and bring him back to the United States to face trial. Militarily and tactically, that was quite a spectacular operation, with no lives lost. You can debate whether there has really been a transition to democracy or whether the lives of Venezuelan people have markedly improved, but more broadly, this was seen as a success and may have given a false sense of security moving into the Iran war.
One interesting thing to note about the Iran war, and this demonstrates that values still matter, is that if you look at the start of the war and German Chancellor Merz’s statements, he was initially in support of it when President Trump was framing the war as an opportunity for the Iranian people to rise up and overthrow their leaders. Then, once we saw the United States abandon that goal—though it was never really clear whether that was one of the core goals to begin with—and there was a recognition that this was going to be a longer-term conflict, you then saw Merz and other leaders come out against it.
There are a few things here. First, there is definitely a difference between tactical military success on the battlefield and translating that into strategic success in the long term. That’s a long-standing challenge. But the other point that’s maybe a bit more interesting and harder to tease out is that there is still support for these broad values-based interventions. The problem is that, in Iran specifically, I don’t think the war is being executed with a level of strategy and clear goals that would allow allies to support it.
That’s the challenge. Now we’re in this stalemate where both Iran and the United States increase leverage week over week. Sometimes one has more than the other, and there’s no clear off-ramp. That undermines US power and credibility and raises the question, in the eyes of allies: what does the US want here?
Rebuilding Allied Trust Will Take Much Longer Than Losing It
There may also be a populist dimension to this problem. Populist foreign policy often favors highly visible demonstrations of strength—tariffs, military strikes, threats, sanctions, territorial claims—because they can be presented domestically as proof of decisive leadership. But can policies that are politically attractive at home produce strategic costs abroad that only become visible years later?
Imran Bayoumi: That’s a real challenge, and we’re starting to see that now. With the Iran war—and more broadly with the actions this administration has taken—it will take a long time to rebuild the trust that the US had with its allies and partners. That trust still exists on some level. I don’t think it’s totally gone, but it has diminished. The next administration—or this administration, if it decides to change course going forward—will face a key question: how do we manage our relationships with allies, recognizing that they will now want more? They’ve diversified, they’ve taken steps to increase their defense spending, and they want to ensure their sovereignty as well. So what does this broader dynamic look like going forward? That’s a real challenge that I’m not sure many are thinking about.
What the future of the international order looks like is going to be a real challenge. I don’t think everything we’ve taken for granted over the past 80 years can continue to be taken for granted. Things will have to change. Some of these challenges might not be evident in the immediate future.
China Gains Influence by Showing Up Where Democracies Do Not
Map: Shutterstock.
In your work on China’s policing partnerships in the Pacific, you show that Beijing gains influence not simply through military power but through police training, surveillance systems, security assistance, infrastructure, and relationships with political elites. Does authoritarian influence spread partly because authoritarian governments are particularly willing to connect foreign policy with internal security and regime protection? And how should democracies compete without supporting similar forms of political control?
Imran Bayoumi: I think that’s certainly part of it. There is this recognition in authoritarian states that the technology China is selling can help preserve their power. But in the Pacific specifically, it’s more about the fact that China showed up and is willing to offer these goods for cheap. Public safety is a real concern for these governments, and if China is the one offering to help with policing when the US, Australia, or New Zealand is not there, most countries would take that offer of help.
The broader challenge is for the US and its allies to show up and offer cheap or affordable solutions and policies. In terms of what can be done differently, the Pacific is actually almost a success story now. You’ve seen Australia really invest in deepening its security ties across the region, and I’m focusing on that since that was the starting point of this article, or this question. It’s built out these broad security deals. It’s providing police training. There’s a big Pan-Pacific policing initiative, security initiative, and Australia has invested in cultural ties as well. Fore example, it’s used rugby as a way to strengthen support and ties and really build those stronger connections.
So, I don’t think democracies can’t compete or can’t still be attractive partners. The challenge, though, is that they have to offer something as good or better at a competitive price point. It’s hard when that can’t be underwritten by the state.
Democracy Remains a Valuable Organizing Principle
You have also criticized Washington for overlooking democratic backsliding or human-rights violations when dealing with strategically important partners. But if great-power competition gives authoritarian governments more alternatives, American pressure becomes harder to apply because governments can threaten to turn toward China or Russia. How can democracies defend democratic standards without pushing strategically important states toward authoritarian powers?
Imran Bayoumi: I’ll focus specifically on the US here. The United States still has a ton to offer, and countries still want to partner with it, regardless of how disruptive it may be in the current moment. It’s partly about the United States being comfortable using its leverage and its power. We’re seeing it use that power and leverage in ways that undermine its relationships and weaken them writ large. So I would pull that back and instead focus on how we build stronger relationships and how we present the US as a still attractive partner especially in terms of economic and military power.
Then, what are the conditions for partnering with the US? I don’t think that’s really any different from the past. There are opportunities to condition arms sales, trade agreements, and broad diplomatic agreements. So, Washington still has this kind of draw. Even though authoritarian states may be able to hedge better, they’re still hedging, which means there are still two powers—or multiple great powers. They’re not blindly allying themselves with Russia or China, or some combination of that. There’s still something they want from Washington.
It’s all about how we use what Washington has to incentivize changes in behavior. One last point: Democracy is still a valuable organizing principle. You could look at Madagascar last year, which had a youth movement that toppled the government and helped push it toward what may be some sort of democratic transition. So, there is still support for these values, and Washington needs to find a way to elevate that and try to create conditions for that change.
Renewed American Leadership Must Accommodate a More Decentralized World
Finally, you do not argue that authoritarian victory is inevitable. Russia and China have serious economic and demographic weaknesses, and authoritarian partnerships remain much less reliable than democratic alliances. If today’s disorder currently rewards authoritarian and populist forms of politics, what changes would be necessary for the international system to reward democratic cooperation again? And does that require simply restoring American leadership, or developing a new model in which democratic middle powers have much greater autonomy?
Imran Bayoumi: I’m not sure I know the answer to what changes the international system needs to make. But one important point, which I’ve touched on before and which you picked up in the question, is that the international system will look different going forward. What we will have to grapple with—we being the United States, or policymakers here in the United States—is that middle powers, both democratic and authoritarian, will have more power. They might not be able to build a whole new international system, but they will have the power to advance their interests in certain sectors, on certain topics, and in certain regions. So, the new international system will have to deal with their desire for autonomy.
That being said, I still think there is value in having a hegemon. The system still needs one strong power that can draw all of these states together, make them work together, and enforce the rules of the system while maintaining and growing it. Going forward, what we’ll need is some sort of retooled American leadership—one that recognizes the growing power of smaller states and the defining challenges of the moment, whether those come from revisionist states or from non-state threats such as climate change and the challenge of dealing with technology. It also needs to be able to build new institutions or revitalize existing ones in order to spur cooperation and continue that momentum.
In this interview with ECPS, Dr. María José Urzúa Valverde examines how authoritarianism, populism, and democratic backsliding increasingly intersect with struggles over civil society and international norms. She argues that autocracies view independent civic mobilization as a strategic threat because rights-based movements can generate broader networks of resistance. The conversation also explores how conservative and populist actors use transnational networks to contest LGBTQ+ rights, human rights norms, and the role of international organizations. Dr. Valverde highlights the growing polarization of international civil society, the strategic use of migration as interstate leverage, and the resurgence of sovereignty-based challenges to the liberal international order. Together, these developments reveal how democratic erosion increasingly unfolds across both domestic and international arenas.
In an era marked by democratic backsliding, transnational populism, and growing contestation over international norms, the struggle over civic space has become increasingly central to the future of liberal democracy. In this wide-ranging interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Dr. María José Urzúa Valverde, Assistant Professor in the Department of International Studies at ITAM in Mexico, argues that authoritarian governments do not merely resist particular rights claims; they are deeply concerned with the broader political capacity that autonomous civil society can generate. As she puts it, “Any rights-based mobilization becomes a focal point around which other regime opponents can build networks to resist the regime’s power.”
This insight lies at the heart of Dr. Valverde’s analysis of authoritarian opposition to LGBTQ+ rights. Drawing on her Journal of Democracy research with Gino Pauselli, she emphasizes that conservative ideology alone cannot explain authoritarian behavior. Their argument instead identifies a threefold logic: “repression of civil society, opposition to the liberal international order, and the instrumental use of conservative ideology.” For Dr. Valverde, the civil-society mechanism is especially revealing because rights-based mobilization can create organizational capacities that extend well beyond a single policy issue. Hence her conclusion that “both liberal and illiberal networks and governments understand civic space access itself as a strategic asset.”
The interview also broadens this argument beyond domestic authoritarianism. International organizations themselves, Dr. Valverde argues, have become arenas of normative competition. Conservative NGOs and governments increasingly use the same institutional channels once associated primarily with progressive advocacy, while seeking to influence judges, commissioners, and policy agendas. What is at stake, she stresses, is “not only outcomes, but also the IO’s function itself.” This process can produce what she calls “neutralization”: weakening an international organization’s capacity to advance norms without formally reversing its previous commitments.
These dynamics are closely connected to populism. Dr. Valverde rejects the idea that populists simply learn from autocracies; she instead points to “shared transnational infrastructure” linking conservative and populist actors across borders. She also warns against reducing democracy to electoral legitimacy. Populist leaders, she notes, often reason that “If I won the election, then I represent the people, and if I represent the people, I can do no wrong.” Such logic, she argues, can rapidly undermine checks and balances and weaken non-elected institutions essential to democracy.
Taken together, the conversation presents civic space not as a secondary democratic concern, but as a core arena in which authoritarianism, populism, human rights, and international order increasingly intersect.
Here is our interview with Dr. María José Urzúa Valverde, edited lightly to enhance clarity, readability, and overall flow for publication.
Rights from Above Do Not Empower Civil Society
United Nations headquarters in New York City, US. Photo: Dreamstime.
Dr. María José Urzúa Valverde, welcome! YourJournal of Democracyarticle argues that authoritarian governments oppose LGBTQ+ rights not simply because of cultural conservatism but because these rights strengthen civil society, reinforce liberal international norms, and potentially expand spaces for political contestation. This moves the discussion beyond morality into regime survival. To what extent should we understand contemporary anti-LGBTQ+ campaigns as instruments of authoritarian governance rather than merely expressions of conservative ideology?
Dr. María José Urzúa Valverde: That’s a fantastic question, and first of all, thank you very much for your interest in my article with Gino Pauselli in the Journal of Democracy. As scholars, we always dream of being read and of our scholarship being of interest. Responding to your question, I think that the dichotomy is analytically useful, but empirically, maybe it’s too clean. Our article shows that autocracies vote against SOGI, or Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Resolutions at the United Nations Human Rights Council, over 80% of the time. It explains this through a threefold logic: repression of civil society, opposition to the liberal international order, and the instrumental use of conservative ideology, not ideology alone.
I think that maybe the civil society repression channel is the most diagnostic. Social rights function as a proof of concept that a minority, once granted rights, mobilizes to expand them, or also just to gain them. That, exactly, is a capacity autocracies need to suppress, regardless of the issue. The clearest evidence in our article that the governance logic beyond ideology is what works best is Cuba: an authoritarian government that voted in favor of all five United Nations Human Rights Council social resolutions between 2011 and 2022, while never empowering independent LGBTQ+ civil society. So, rights granted from above, with no domestic accountability and mobilization attached.
So, yes, conservative ideology is one of the three interacting levers in our article, but we think about it as deployed instrumentally, where useful for legitimation and alliance building, and dispensable where regime survival logic points elsewhere, as in Cuba.
Civic Space Is a Strategic Asset
Your explanation places civil society at the center of authoritarian calculations. Rather than fearing LGBTQ+ communities themselves, authoritarian governments appear to fear the broader mobilizational capacity that rights-based movements generate. Does this suggest that authoritarian regimes increasingly perceive all forms of autonomous civic organization as interconnected threats, regardless of the specific issue around which they initially mobilize?
Dr. María José Urzúa Valverde: Yes, I do think so. I think that the mechanism doesn’t necessarily depend on said rights specifically. Any rights-based mobilization becomes a focal point around which other regime opponents can build networks to resist the regime’s power. So, this generalizes empirically to the tools autocracies more generally use, like foreign agent laws, NGO registration barriers, and propaganda status.
I’m currently working on anti-gender network mobilization at the Organization of American States (OAS), which shows the same generalized logic from the opposite ideological direction: conservative civil society networks treating access to international organizations (IOs) as an important focal point for infrastructure building, so, like, for training, coalition formation, and the creation of relevant normative frameworks, independent of any single policy win. And so, I think both liberal and illiberal networks and governments understand civic space access itself as a strategic asset.
Transnational Networks Matter More Than Autocratic Learning
Across Europe and Latin America, populist leaders frequently portray LGBTQ+ rights, gender equality, migration, and multiculturalism as elements of a single ideological project imposed by liberal elites. Do you see evidence that contemporary populists have learned from authoritarian regimes how to transform cultural issues into broader narratives about national sovereignty and democratic legitimacy?
Dr. María José Urzúa Valverde: That’s also a great question. I would resist learning from autocracies as the primary mechanism. It is better explained by shared transnational infrastructure than by diffusion from authoritarian regimes to populist governments.
I’ve been working on gender ideology at the OAS, and that gender ideology, as a concept, is a deliberately elastic floating signifier that articulates SOGI, reproductive rights, education, and public health into a single civilizational frame. In the case of the OAS, that infrastructure is facilitated by some very famous NGOs and networks, like Alliance Defending Freedom, CitizenGo, the International Organization for the Family, and the Congreso por la Vida y la Familia, which train and finance authoritarian-adjacent but also democratically elected populist actors at the same time.
So, I would say that, in the case of Latin America, the populist right couples sovereigntist nationalism with a religiously coded foreign threat, rather than immigration-centered nativism, which is also interesting. But this is a parallel development to the frameworks used and the narratives employed by authoritarian regimes. I wouldn’t say that populist governments learn from authoritarian regimes.
International Norms Create Lasting Institutional Effects
Participants march through the streets during Prague Pride, a major LGBTQ+ parade and celebration, in Prague, Czech Republic, on August 12, 2017. Photo: Madeleine Steinbach.
Your research demonstrates that battles over LGBTQ+ rights increasingly unfold within international organizations, particularly the United Nations Human Rights Council. Some observers assume these debates are largely symbolic. Yet your work suggests they have genuine political consequences. Why do authoritarian governments invest so much diplomatic capital in resisting seemingly non-binding international norms?
Dr. María José Urzúa Valverde: That’s a great question as well. I would say that non-binding norms matter. Non-binding doesn’t mean costless or inconsequential, so precedent accumulates. Also, regarding United Nations Human Rights Council resolutions specifically, they might be non-binding, but at the same time they establish mandates. For example, in the case of SOGI resolutions at the United Nations, they created the Independent Expert on SOGI rights in 2016, whose mandate was renewed by the resolutions of 2019 and 2022. That creates institutional machinery, reporting, monitoring, and a reference point that autocracies correctly read as a foothold for further, maybe even binding, developments.
In the case of autocracies, what happens at the domestic level matters less because of their repression of civil society and the lack of pathways for different domestic actors to influence politics. But in the case of democracies, even non-binding resolutions may serve as mobilization focal points for domestic policy wins. So, non-binding norms have evidently become relevant sites of contestation for both authoritarian regimes and opposing democratic regimes. And that has made such resolutions rare items at the United Nations Human Rights Council because they are consistently forced to a formal vote.
So, unlike the 74% of resolutions passed by consensus at the Council between 2006 and 2020, SOGI resolutions are usually voted on because of the relevance attached to them, and they draw above-average opposition, with up to 43% voting no against a 21% baseline. I would also say that what happens at the United Nations Human Rights Council is relevant as a coordination good for autocracies and other anti-SOGI rights actors themselves, because participation and opposition allow them to build what we can call backlash networks and rehearse a shared vocabulary that travels to other normative fights in international and national forums.
International Organizations Are Arenas of Normative Competition
Your doctoral research examines how civil society gains access to international organizations and transforms access into political influence. At a time when authoritarian governments seek to restrict civic participation both domestically and internationally, have international organizations themselves become contested arenas where democracy and authoritarianism increasingly compete for normative influence?
Dr. María José Urzúa Valverde: Yes, I would say definitely so, and increasingly in more symmetric ways. You mentioned my doctoral thesis, and in my thesis I work on civil society access to international organizations. In my thesis, I show, for example, conservative NGO participation at the Organization of American States (OAS), which is an organization I mentioned before but didn’t quite explain. The OAS is the main regional, multi-purpose organization of the Americas. The United States, Canada, Latin American countries, and the Caribbean countries participate in this organization, and it has been very relevant in terms of normative developments in the human rights arena, as well as in other issues.
In the case of human rights, it has a commission, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which closely parallels the European Court of Human Rights, if people reading this interview are familiar with the European Court. Individuals can access the Commission and the Court in order to get redress for human rights violations at the national level. And it’s very interesting how the Inter-American human rights system has driven progress on SOGI rights, especially in Latin America.
It, for example, led to the adoption of same-sex marriage in Costa Rica, and that has generated backlash. Conservative NGO participation—anti-SOGI rights NGO participation at the OAS, especially at the General Assembly—went from zero in the 1990s to 128 organizations by 2019, reaching close to a third of civil society participation at its peak, using identical access channels and similar strategies to those of pro-SOGI rights NGOs.
Conservative NGOs and conservative governments are also lobbying for the election of conservative judges and commissioners, so what’s contested is not only outcomes, but also the IO’s function itself.
In a later paper, which builds around my work on my doctoral dissertation, I talk about neutralization, which is disabling an IO as a driver of norm expansion without reversing prior commitments. That’s what we see today at the OAS, where discussions on SOGI rights are being stalled because of backlash and fear of backlash. I think that’s a very interesting development happening at IOs today.
International Civil Society Is More Polarized Than We Thought
Much of the democratic backsliding literature focuses on elections, constitutions, and judicial independence. Your scholarship instead highlights civil society, international norms, and transnational advocacy networks. Has political science underestimated the extent to which democratic erosion occurs through the gradual weakening of societal actors rather than through dramatic institutional change?
Dr. María José Urzúa Valverde: I am a student of international relations, a scholar of international relations, so I would say that, yes, political science has indeed underestimated the extent to which democratic erosion might also be advanced at the international level—at that level, through the weakening of societal actors rather than through dramatic institutional change. I wouldn’t necessarily generalize to research on domestic politics.
But I do think that, at the international level, in international relations, we have tended to think of societal actors as pretty homogeneous. So, most of the literature and research of the 1990s on civil society actors in IOs and transnational advocacy networks focused on pro-progressive human rights actors, or progressive actors more generally. And it was, like, the conventional knowledge that only those actors actually cared about what happened at the international level and accessed the international level to exercise pressure on their domestic governments to advance human rights causes, for example.
We have learned more recently that that’s definitely not the case, and that we even ignored, for a long time, how diverse civil society is, not only at the domestic level but also at the international level, and the polarization dynamics that emerge when civil society organizations that have contrasting ideas on certain topics, like SOGI rights, all access and all try to push forward their agendas in IOs.
I do think that this is a phenomenon that is usually not observed as dramatic institutional change, but rather as something that builds more progressively in IOs, and that has interesting implications for what IOs can do in terms of advancing human rights and advancing democracy. And I think that neutralization, for example, which I already mentioned, is a category that talks about this more nuanced and more progressive, little-by-little institutional change.
‘Backlash Networks’ Are Still Mostly Defensive
In yourJournal of Democracyarticle, you describe how authoritarian governments cooperate internationally to resist the expansion of LGBTQ+ rights through what might be called “backlash networks.” These coalitions appear increasingly coordinated across regions. Are we witnessing the emergence of an alternative international normative order, or are these alliances better understood as defensive coalitions seeking to slow liberal norm diffusion?
Dr. María José Urzúa Valverde: Based on the empirical evidence, I would say that, up until today, the system is more defensive. So, for example, the anti-gender networks’ litigation at the OAS is reactive, no? It tries to diminish the influence of progressive actors at the OAS, for example, by submitting amici curiae in cases brought by others. So, I read that as a response to an unfavorable opportunity structure in the Inter-American human rights system, and that might change over time.
But I do think that, right now, what we see is not reversal yet. I think reversal might happen, but right now, we don’t see decisions at the OAS or at the United Nations Human Rights Council that adopt substantive alternative standards from anti-SOGI rights networks. So, we do not see resolutions regarding, for example, an absolute right to life, or gender ideology being used as a category to talk about a threat, as it is usually framed by anti-SOGI rights actors.
So, rather, we see defensive coalitions seeking to slow liberal norm diffusion, as you mentioned. Influence shows up in stalled agendas and dissenting opinions, not new international norms. That said, I would say that the coordination infrastructure of backlash networks—for example, lobbying for ideologically proximate judges and commissioners at the OAS, training pipelines, and north-south funding flows—is being built for the long run.
And elected officials now sympathetic to these agendas are positioned to eventually build an alternative international normative order. So, I would say that being defensive today and building an alternative order later are not mutually exclusive, and we might see that in the future.
Migration Control Creates Interstate Leverage
Disembarkation of 300 migrants from Libya from the German rescue ship Sea-Watch 3 in Pozzallo, Province of Ragusa, Italy, on June 9, 2022. Photo: Alec Tassi.
Your more recent work introduces the concepts of migration power and migration statecraft, arguing that migration flows themselves have become instruments of interstate influence. This shifts migration from being merely a humanitarian or domestic policy issue to becoming a foreign policy resource. How does this conceptualization change the way political scientists should understand migration in an era of geopolitical competition?
Dr. María José Urzúa Valverde: That’s an interesting question, and also thank you for reading that paper with Natalia Saltalamacchia. In that paper, we reconceptualized migration flows themselves as a power resource, comparable in kind, not just in effect, to more conventional instruments of statecraft.
Using Baldwin’s relational anatomy of power, the key conceptual move is that migration power is constituted, so it exists only because destination states have decided domestically that controlling migration is a vital interest.
So, the target zone securitization of migration is what turns a transit or origin state’s population movements into leverage, or an instrument of statecraft. I think this is interesting. It reframes the weapon of the weak intuition as conditional, not structural. Exercising migration power credibly requires real institutional capacity, so border enforcement and processing infrastructures, which some fragile states lack.
But that’s why we see the strongest cases, like Morocco, Turkey, and Egypt. They are all states with functioning migration bureaucracies. But I do think that it’s an interesting turn to think not necessarily in terms of geopolitical competition. I think it’s more interesting for thinking about North-South relations.
What typically is the leverage that less powerful states have vis-à-vis more powerful states? So, for example, the case of Mexico vis-à-vis the United States. For the United States, for the government of Donald Trump, it is very important that Mexico engages and cooperates with the US in terms of the containment of migrants at the US-Mexico border. That gives Mexico some leverage vis-à-vis the United States, even when we as Mexicans have always been very aware of how asymmetrical our relationship with the US is. So, it’s very interesting to think about how North-South dynamics change when this leverage exists on the side of southern countries, and this leverage is, paradoxically, created in part by northern states that see migration as a threat.
Migration has increasingly become a bargaining tool in relations between states—from the Belarus–EU border crisis to Turkey’s agreements with the European Union and Morocco’s management of migration toward Spain. Does your framework suggest that migration is evolving into a standard instrument of statecraft comparable to sanctions, trade policy, or energy diplomacy?
Dr. María José Urzúa Valverde: I am not a scholar of migration, but I think this is a conceptual article. It is trying to provide some analytical tools and some relevant concepts to understand dynamics that we are indeed observing today, including some of the relevant empirical examples you just mentioned. I would also mention the very recent crisis regarding Morocco-Spain relations in Ceuta. In late July, thousands of people left Morocco and tried to reach Spain through Ceuta, which is a Spanish territory, in an enormous flow of people that unfortunately had terrible humanitarian consequences, because many of those migrants died.
What probably happened, given the enormous number of people crossing at the same time, was that the Moroccan government facilitated the crossing, or encouraged the crossing, to exercise political pressure on Spain. Migration is being used as an instrument of statecraft. I would compare it to energy sanctions or trade policy. In this case, the one that can exercise migration statecraft is the less powerful state, which doesn’t necessarily happen with all types of statecraft. Obviously, it varies.
I just want to finish the comment by recognizing also how problematic this is in terms of ethics. Because what we’re talking about is people’s lives. Exercising migration contention, or facilitating migration flows to exercise pressure on other states, depends on governments mobilizing or containing people who are trying to move across borders to have access to better living conditions. Migration statecraft is very problematic in this sense, but it’s something that we are observing today in the world, and that it’s important to name.
Populism and Migration Diplomacy Reinforce Each Other
Populist leaders often frame migration as an existential domestic threat, while governments simultaneously employ migration strategically in international negotiations. How do these two dimensions interact? Are domestic populist narratives and international migration statecraft increasingly reinforcing one another?
Dr. María José Urzúa Valverde: That’s a great question, and I think the two are indeed mutually reinforcing through the co-constitution mechanism at the center of Natalia Saltalamacchia’s and my article. Populist domestic narratives that frame migration as an existential threat are precisely what increase the value states place on migration control. That value, in turn, creates leverage that other states can exploit.
So, the causal relationship runs both ways. When migration statecraft succeeds, the episode can also be interpreted domestically as confirmation that migration is indeed the existential threat populists have described, thereby reinforcing the very narrative that generated the vulnerability in the first place. This creates a feedback loop with no obvious breaker.
The more governments perform toughness on migration for domestic audiences, the more valuable migration becomes as a lever for whoever controls the migration flow. That’s a genuinely understudied dynamic linking the populism and migration diplomacy literatures, which have generally developed separately.
The Liberal Order Is Being Challenged from Within
From Left: Hungary PM Viktor Orban, Poland PM Beata Szydlo, Czech PM Bohuslav Sobotka and Slovakia PM Robert Fico pose prior their meeting in Prague on February 15, 2016.
Throughout your scholarship, there is an ongoing tension between universal human rights and state sovereignty. In today’s geopolitical environment, where sovereignty has re-emerged as a central political slogan for both populist and authoritarian governments, has the balance between these principles shifted in ways that fundamentally challenge the post-Cold War liberal international order?
Dr. María José Urzúa Valverde: That’s also a great question. I would start by recognizing that the tension between universal human rights and state sovereignty has always existed. What universal human rights seek to achieve is to protect citizens from abuses of power by their own governments. There has therefore always been this very interesting tension between international human rights norms, institutions, and mechanisms, on the one hand, and state sovereignty, on the other, because when IOs or other states criticize a country’s human rights record, they are addressing a deeply internal matter: how a government treats its own citizens. So, this is not new.
However, I do think that the sovereignty-based justification for opposing international human rights norms has become more salient in the last couple of years because of the turn toward more nationalist governments in much of the world, and also because of the rise of authoritarian governments. These governments are, of course, particularly opposed to universal human rights norms and to international actors expressing opinions about or criticizing their domestic records, because they frequently violate human rights. That’s a basic trait of authoritarianism.
But yes, this is also because they want to maintain very tight control over domestic civil society. So, I would say that, yes, definitely, this tension has become more salient over time, and this does challenge the post-Cold War liberal international order. We must also recognize that it is not only authoritarian governments or populist governments in the Global South that are opposing or contesting universal human rights. Some of the main proponents of the liberal international order itself are also doing so, with the United States being the most relevant case.
So, besides normative contestation at IOs, we must also look at what happens, for example, with funding in the next couple of years. There is a real threat that international institutions may no longer be able to deliver in areas such as monitoring mechanisms because funding that has traditionally been provided by the United States may no longer be available. I think this is also a highly relevant dynamic, beyond the more discursive contestation of universal human rights norms.
Winning Elections Is Not Enough for Democracy
Your work on civil society implicitly broadens the concept of political representation beyond elected institutions. Many populist leaders claim that elections alone provide sufficient democratic legitimacy. Yet your research suggests that democratic governance also depends upon organized civic participation and international advocacy. Should we rethink democratic representation as extending well beyond electoral politics?
Dr. María José Urzúa Valverde: Yes, I would say it is a fundamental, core trait of populist governments to associate democratic legitimacy almost entirely with the electoral mandate, and that’s obviously worrisome. It leads populist leaders to say, “If I won the election, then I represent the people, and if I represent the people, I can do no wrong.” That kind of logic can quickly lead to dynamics of democratic erosion, for example, at the domestic level, by contesting and weakening non-elected officials who are also fundamental to democracy. A particularly emblematic case is the judiciary.
So, we must consider that democratic representation extends well beyond electoral politics and also depends on checks and balances on elected leaders, however large their mandates might be. We traditionally think of those checks and balances as domestic, and those are obviously the most relevant ones—for example, what happens at the legislative and judicial levels. But I think the international system also matters as a check and balance on the actions of domestic governments, especially in the case of human rights and other international commitments that the international community has a legitimate interest in upholding.
Gender Ideology Bundles Multiple Political Conflicts
The political contestation surrounding LGBTQ+ rights increasingly overlaps with debates about migration, gender equality, reproductive rights, and academic freedom. Do you see these issues gradually converging into a broader global struggle over the meaning of democracy itself, rather than remaining separate policy debates?
Dr. María José Urzúa Valverde: It’s a very interesting question. There is definitely some convergence across the issue agendas you mentioned. I would not necessarily describe it as a struggle over the meaning of democracy itself, but there is certainly a real convergence in the way these issues are framed.
For example, in my research on the OAS, I examine the use of gender ideology as a unifying concept among populist-right actors and conservative NGOs. In that context, it functions as a deliberately elastic floating signifier that allows the same coalition to move across different topics—including education, public health, SOGI rights, and reproductive rights—without losing coherence.
Populist sovereigntist rhetoric performs a similar bundling function in relation to issues such as migration and multiculturalism. But I would caution against treating all of this as one undifferentiated struggle. The actors, mechanisms, and even regime-type correlations differ from one issue to another.
For example, the relationship between autocracy and LGBTQ+ rights is very robust, as we have already discussed, and autocracies are very likely to oppose SOGI rights. Migration statecraft, by contrast, operates differently. In the case of migration, it is wielded by both democracies and autocracies with roughly symmetric logics.
And regarding the meaning of democracy itself, I would say that the dispute is not so much about democracy being destroyed as about how much democracy actually matters and whether democratic regimes are still considered necessary. It is also about whether we still need the international system and the liberal international order that was constructed after World War II. Two main issues definitely contested across these different, issue agendas.
Populist-Right Trends Are Converging Across Regions
Nested dolls depicting authoritarian and populist leaders Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, and Recep Tayyip Erdogan displayed among souvenirs in Moscow on July 7, 2018. Photo: Shutterstock.
Having worked extensively on Latin American politics while engaging broader comparative questions, do you believe Latin America offers distinctive insights into democratic resilience that Europe and North America often overlook? Conversely, are there emerging authoritarian strategies in Europe that may increasingly influence political developments across Latin America?
Dr. María José Urzúa Valverde: I would actually say that the current trends in Europe and Latin America are quite similar. We are seeing a rise of populist-right governments in both regions. In Latin America, over the past few months, we have seen the election of Alberto de la Espriella in Colombia and Kast in Chile. Elections are coming up in October in Brazil, and it’s unclear whether the Bolsonaros will return to government or whether Lula will be re-elected. We also see this turn in Argentina with Milei—this is not just a development of the last couple of months, but of the last couple of years.
We also see right-wing governments associated with Fujimori in Peru and with Noboa in Ecuador. And there is a broader trend, at least in the Western world, toward these right-wing governments. We might even think of them as forming a kind of transnational coalition, in the sense that there are links between different far-right and populist-right actors at both the European and Latin American levels.
For example, the influence of the Spanish far right in Latin America is very interesting. In Spain, the far right is represented by Vox, which also has a civil society branch, CitizenGo. CitizenGo and Vox have very interesting links to the populist right in Latin America, including support for political campaigns. Some of the narratives they employ are also copied and used in Latin American countries, and CitizenGo provides funding to Latin American conservative civil society organizations.
So, there are definitely political developments in both regions influencing one another. I don’t know whether Latin America offers distinctive insights into democratic resilience. I’m actually very concerned about current political developments in the region, and our institutions are weaker than those in most European countries. We will see how institutions respond to the democratic erosion dynamics that may emerge across Latin America in the next few years, and how those processes compare with developments in Europe. But the jury is still out on this particular question.
Backsliding and Institutional Backlash Are Increasingly Intertwined
And lastly, Professor Valverde, taken together, your scholarship examines civil society, international organizations, migration, human rights, and democratic governance from multiple perspectives. Looking ahead, which emerging development—whether democratic backsliding, transnational populism, migration diplomacy, digital disinformation, geopolitical fragmentation, or the weakening of international institutions—do you believe will most profoundly reshape the future of liberal democracy over the next decade, and where should scholars concentrate their attention?
Dr. María José Urzúa Valverde: I am particularly interested in democratic backsliding processes and in how international institutions might lock in certain international commitments to preserve international norms such as human rights norms, or whether they will fail to play this relevant locking role, which is something that has been theorized in international relations.
So, for example, there are some very famous articles from the 1990s, especially the one by Andrew Moravcsik on how transitioning democracies lock in international commitments in order to prevent future governments from backsliding, because there is already an international commitment to uphold. He writes about this in the context of European countries committing to the European human rights system.
I think that we are at an interesting time to test that theory and to see whether the international system will provide some safeguards against democratic backsliding, but also how international organizations and international institutions more generally will be—and already are—arenas of contestation over issues related to democratic backsliding, but also to the more general upholding of international human rights norms.
I think it’s a very interesting time to study, both from the perspective of comparative politics and from international relations, how these dynamics of democratic backsliding and the backlash against international institutions interact.
