Please cite as: ECPS Staff. (2025). “ECPS Conference 2025 / Panel 4 — Politics of Belonging: Voices and Silencing.” European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). July 8, 2025. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp00106
Panel IV of the ECPS Conference 2025, held at St Cross College, Oxford University (July 1–3), explored the theme “Politics of Belonging: Voices and Silencing.” Chaired by Dr. Azize Sargın (ECPS), the panel investigated how belonging is constructed and contested through populist discourse and historical memory. Dr. Maarja Merivoo-Parro (University of Jyväskylä) examined olfactory memory and grassroots aid in Estonia’s democratic awakening. Maria Jerzyk (Masaryk University) analyzed how the figure of the child is symbolically instrumentalized in Polish populism, revealing deep continuities with communist-era narratives. Together, the papers offered rich insights into how identity, exclusion, and affect shape democratic participation in post-authoritarian and populist contexts.
Reported by ECPS Staff
Panel IV of the ECPS Conference 2025, titled Politics of Belonging: Voices and Silencing, was held on the morning of July 2 at St Cross College, University of Oxford. As part of the broader conference theme—‘We, the People’ and the Future of Democracy: Interdisciplinary Approaches—this panel delved into how democratic belonging is shaped, contested, and narrated within and beyond populist frameworks.
Chaired by Dr. Azize Sargın (PhD), Director of External Relations at the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), the session opened with a theoretically grounded overview of the politics of belonging. Dr. Sargın emphasized that in an age of resurgent populism, belonging is no longer a neutral or merely affective category but a highly politicized mechanism of inclusion and exclusion. Populist actors increasingly construct “the people” by drawing sharp lines between insiders and outsiders, often invoking exclusionary logics tied to ethnicity, morality, or national destiny. Drawing on insights from political theory and migration studies, she outlined two key dimensions of belonging: “to whom one belongs” (social group affiliation) and “where one belongs” (spatial-territorial identity), both of which play critical roles in populist and post-authoritarian contexts.
The panel featured two intellectually rich and methodologically distinct papers. Dr. Maarja Merivoo-Parro (Marie Curie Fellow, University of Jyväskylä) explored the role of olfactory memory in the democratization of Estonia, arguing that cross-border sensory exchanges—especially smells tied to Finnish aid—played a profound role in shaping political consciousness and belonging during the late Soviet period. Maria Jerzyk (Masaryk University, Czechia) examined how children are symbolically deployed in contemporary Polish populist narratives, tracing striking continuities with communist-era state propaganda. She showed how the child functions as both a vessel of national purity and a screen for projecting anxieties over societal change.
Together, these contributions offered a powerful demonstration of how the politics of belonging operate through both the body and the imagination—an approach that resonated strongly with the interdisciplinary aims of the ECPS Conference.
Opening Remarks by Dr. Azize Sargın
Dr. Azize Sargın, Director of External Relations at the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), opened the first panel of the second day of ECPS Conference at the University of Oxford with a concise yet conceptually rich introduction to the session’s theme: The Politics of Belonging, Voices, and Silencing. Her remarks served to establish a theoretical and thematic framework, situating the panel within broader academic debates on identity, exclusion, and populism.
Dr. Sargın emphasized that questions of belonging have become increasingly politicized in recent years, particularly under the influence of populist movements that define “the people” through narrow, exclusionary frameworks. Populist rhetoric, she noted, often draws stark lines between insiders and outsiders, thus marginalizing those deemed threats to the imagined national community. This binary logic fundamentally reshapes notions of identity, social boundaries, and democratic participation.
Drawing on scholarship in the field, she distinguished between two core dimensions of belonging: to whom one belongs (social group belonging) and where one belongs (spatial or territorial belonging). She argued that both questions are central to the study of populism—domestically, through the politics of exclusion within state borders, and transnationally, in the experiences of immigrants and diasporas navigating their place within multiple communities.
Importantly, Dr. Sargın differentiated between the personal, affective experience of belonging and the politics of belonging—the latter being a deliberate political project aimed at constructing collective identities. Concluding, she underscored the temporal and contested nature of belonging, and the panel’s aim to explore these dynamics in historical and interdisciplinary perspective.
Maarja Merivoo-Parro: The Scents of Belonging: Olfactory Narratives and the Dynamics of Democratization
Chaired by Dr. Azize Sargın, this panel explored the sensory and symbolic dimensions of belonging and exclusion in populist contexts, with Maarja Merivoo-Parro examining olfactory narratives and democratization, and Maria Jerzyk analyzing the role of children in post-communist populist discourse in Poland.
In her richly evocative and methodologically innovative presentation, titled “The Scents of Belonging: Olfactory Narratives and the Dynamics of Democratization,” Dr. Maarja Merivoo-Parro (Marie Curie Fellow, University of Jyväskylä) offered a compelling interdisciplinary account of how smell shaped and symbolized the democratization process in late Soviet-era and post-Soviet Estonia. Delivered during Panel 4 of the ECPS Conference 2025 at Oxford University, her paper bridged political history, cultural memory, and sensory studies to examine how grassroots aid from Finnish citizens not only supported material survival but also catalyzed a sensory awakening to democratic possibility.
Merivoo-Parro began by setting the geopolitical stage: the late 1980s economic collapse in Soviet-occupied Estonia, and the contrasting openness of nearby Finland. Despite Finland’s cautious official stance due to “Finlandization”—a Cold War policy of alignment to Soviet interests—ordinary Finnish citizens took unprecedented grassroots action. They formed personal networks with Estonians, delivering tailor-made humanitarian relief (food, medicine, clothes, toys) in an improvised diplomacy of the people. These exchanges were not only materially transformative but also emotionally intimate and culturally revealing.
What made this aid unique, argued Dr. Merivoo-Parro, was its sensory intensity—especially its olfactory dimension. Western hygiene products, foods, and technologies carried unfamiliar yet alluring smells that stood in stark contrast to the scarcity and uniformity of Soviet life. Smell, she explained, is neurologically encoded with emotion and memory, and these olfactory stimuli became vessels of hope, aspiration, and belonging. Finnish deodorant, chocolate, and even the lingering scent of well-laundered clothes subtly communicated democratic abundance, cultivating what she called a “smell of democracy.”
She illustrated this dynamic through oral history, children’s correspondence, and anecdotal recollections—such as a girl’s envy at her Finnish pen-pal’s casual mention of ice cream. These accounts revealed the disjuncture between two neighboring worlds and illustrated how material exchanges carried symbolic, even ideological weight.
Critically, Dr. Merivoo-Parro suggested that this early, tangible exposure to democratic life inoculated Estonia against the pathologies of many post-Soviet transitions. Unlike other former Soviet republics that experienced high levels of corruption and authoritarian backsliding, Estonia pursued a robust democratic trajectory. Dr. Merivoo-Parro provocatively likened this process to Pavlovian conditioning: Estonians became conditioned to associate democracy with reliability, dignity, and material abundance—not through abstract theory but through smell, taste, and lived experience. This sensory grounding helped them “hit the ground running” in 1991, fostering low corruption, high civic trust, and strong digital and educational institutions.
In closing, she proposed that this case demonstrates the need to expand democratic theory beyond legal and institutional frameworks to include sensory, affective, and cultural registers. Belonging, she argued, is not only a political status but also a sensory experience—one capable of fostering or foreclosing democratic identification. Her intervention thus resonated deeply with the conference’s interdisciplinary mission and underscored the value of unexpected analytical lenses in studying democratization.
Dr. Merivoo-Parro’s talk stands as a powerful reminder that democracy is not only read in constitutions or heard in speeches—but smelled, touched, and tasted in daily life.
Maria Jerzyk: Silent Symbols, Loud Legacies — The Child in Populist Narratives of Post-Communist Poland
In her thoughtful and innovative presentation, Maria Jerzyk (graduate student, Masaryk University, Czechia) offered a compelling interdisciplinary analysis of how children function as symbolic instruments within populist political discourse in post-communist Poland. Her paper, titled “Silent Symbols, Loud Legacies: The Child in Populist Narratives of Post-Communist Poland,” brought to light the ideological potency of the child figure—often marginalized in both academic and policy debates—while interrogating its historical continuity and symbolic plasticity from communist to contemporary populist regimes.
Jerzyk opened by observing a common omission in populism studies: while elites, migrants, and minority groups frequently occupy the spotlight as the primary antagonists or protagonists in populist narratives, the child—less visible, less vocal—is often overlooked. Yet, she contended, the symbolic power attached to children is profound. In Poland, particularly under the rule of the Law and Justice (PiS) party, children have been recast as vessels of moral authority, purity, and national continuity. This symbolic construction is neither neutral nor inclusive. It privileges the “ideal child”—patriotic, Catholic, obedient, and heterosexual—while marginalizing children who do not conform, including those who are queer, politically engaged, or critical of nationalist narratives.
To uncover the mechanics of this symbolic deployment, Jerzyk drew from three intersecting disciplines: populism studies, childhood studies, and the sociology of memory. This triangulated framework enabled her to situate children not merely as political recipients or rhetorical props, but as figures embedded in a contested moral economy shaped by post-communist legacies. Her central questions—why exclusionary populist narratives around children still resonate in Poland, and how these narratives adapt motifs from the communist past—guided a deeply contextual and historically grounded investigation.
One of Jerzyk’s central arguments was that populist discourses, like their communist predecessors, rely on a binary construction of the child: one to be celebrated and one to be feared. Under communism, the ideal child was disciplined, collectivist, and loyal to the socialist cause; deviant children were framed as dangerous, Westernized, and individualistic. In the contemporary populist regime, the ideological content has shifted from socialism to nationalism and traditionalism, yet the structural logic remains intact. The ideal child today symbolizes moral rectitude and cultural belonging, while those who diverge—especially children of migrants or LGBTQ+ youth—are seen as ideological threats, vulnerable to foreign influence and moral decay.
Jerzyk offered a particularly striking illustration of how these dynamics are operationalized through the metaphor of the school. In both communist and populist Poland, schools are treated not only as educational institutions but also as ideological battlegrounds where future citizens are shaped. She referenced archival propaganda films from the 1960s in which children, during summer holidays, were depicted building schools with their own hands—a powerful image of self-disciplining youth serving the state. This motif reappears in contemporary populist discourses where state officials position schools as protective spaces for instilling “proper” values and shielding children from ideological contamination, whether from liberal elites, Western media, or LGBTQ+ advocates.
Methodologically, Jerzyk combined discourse analysis of recent political speeches by Law and Justice (PiS) officials with a close reading of archival media from the communist period. This diachronic approach enabled her to identify what she termed “symbolic recycling,” whereby contemporary populists inherit and reframe motifs from the past to legitimize present anxieties. She provided translated excerpts from speeches and slogans to reveal how moral panics are manufactured and how boundaries are drawn between “our children” and “their children”—a division that mirrors broader populist strategies of inclusion and exclusion.
Throughout her analysis, Jerzyk emphasized that children, though prominently featured in populist discourse, are rarely treated as autonomous political subjects. Drawing on insights from childhood studies, she reminded the audience that children are not merely “citizens in the making,” but existing participants in the political community—albeit frequently denied voice, agency, and representation. This silencing, she argued, is symptomatic of a broader authoritarian dynamic, wherein the child becomes a screen upon which adult anxieties, traumas, and aspirations are projected.
Jerzyk’s intervention was also attentive to the role of historical trauma and memory. She introduced the concept of “post-civic trauma”—a form of collective suffering linked to the legacy of communism—which remains latent in many post-communist societies. In Poland, she argued, this trauma is not only remembered but actively instrumentalized by populist leaders who draw upon Cold War tropes of cultural invasion, Western decadence, and moral crisis to justify repressive policies in education and family life.
She concluded her presentation by reflecting on the structural absence of children’s rights in Poland. Notably, the country lacks an independent ombudsperson for children—a role that is subject to parliamentary appointment and thus highly politicized. This institutional gap, coupled with the widespread belief (echoed in a Polish saying) that “children and fish have no voice,” contributes to a civic environment where children are spoken about but rarely spoken with. This cultural and institutional silencing, Jerzyk suggested, reinforces populist strategies that rely on symbolic purity while stifling actual pluralism.
Jerzyk’s presentation ultimately served as both scholarly analysis and normative appeal. She urged the audience to consider how the child—seemingly apolitical—serves as a powerful vehicle for moral panic, exclusionary nationalism, and cultural nostalgia. Populism, she argued, claims to break with the past, yet it inherits one of the most potent symbols of state ideology: the child. In both past and present, the child remains a “silent symbol,” but the ideological legacies it carries speak volumes.
Her talk thus made a vital contribution to the interdisciplinary goals of the ECPS conference. It not only expanded the scope of populism studies but also foregrounded the ethical and political urgency of treating children as full participants in the democratic project, rather than as mute emblems of contested futures.
Conclusion
Panel IV of the ECPS Conference 2025—Politics of Belonging: Voices and Silencing—brought into sharp focus the nuanced and often overlooked ways in which symbolic and sensory politics shape collective identities under populist and post-authoritarian regimes. Through the interdisciplinary lenses of cultural memory, childhood studies, and affect theory, the panel illuminated how belonging is constructed not only through institutional frameworks, but also through deeply embodied and historically situated experiences.
Both Dr. Maarja Merivoo-Parro and Maria Jerzyk underscored the persistence of ideological residues from past regimes, highlighting how present populist actors selectively inherit and retool historical narratives to legitimize exclusionary claims. Their work advanced the conference’s broader aim—captured in its title ‘We, the People’ and the Future of Democracy: Interdisciplinary Approaches—by demonstrating that the politics of inclusion and exclusion unfold not only through speeches and ballots, but through scent, schooling, silence, and symbolic order.
Note: To experience the panel’s dynamic and thought-provoking Q&A session, we encourage you to watch the full video recording above.
Please cite as: ECPS Staff. (2025). “ECPS Conference 2025 / Panel 3 — Populist Threats to Modern Constitutional Democracies and Potential Solutions.” European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). July 8, 2025. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp00105
Panel III of the ECPS Conference 2025, held at the University of Oxford, gathered five scholars from the Jean Monnet Chair in European Constitutional Democracy (EUCODEM) at the University of Barcelona to explore how populist forces are challenging liberal-democratic norms—and what institutional remedies might resist them. Chaired by Dr. Bruno Godefroy, the session addressed threats to judicial independence, the populist appropriation of secessionist demands, and the theoretical underpinnings of populism as a political strategy. It also examined the role of parliaments and second chambers in preserving constitutional order. Drawing from both comparative and case-specific perspectives—ranging from Spain and Scotland to Canada and the United States—the panel provided a timely and interdisciplinary diagnosis of populism’s constitutional impact and offered potential avenues for democratic resilience in increasingly polarized societies.
Reported by ECPS Staff
Panel III of the ECPS Conference 2025 at the University of Oxford brought together a group of distinguished scholars from the Jean Monnet Chair in European Constitutional Democracy (EUCODEM) at the University of Barcelona. Titled “Populist Threats to Modern Constitutional Democracies and Potential Solutions,” the session explored some of the most pressing challenges facing contemporary liberal democracies, from the erosion of judicial independence and the weaponization of secessionist demands, to the theoretical foundations of populist strategy and the underutilized potential of second chambers in democratic governance.
Chaired by Dr. Bruno Godefroy, Associate Professor in Law and German at the University of Tours, the panel featured five papers, each delving into different dimensions of populist encroachment on liberal-democratic norms.
Kicking off the session was Dr. Daniel Fernández, who traced the intellectual lineage of populism through the works of Heidegger, Lacan, and Laclau, offering a conceptual map of populism as a strategic response to post-hegemonic pluralism. Following this, Dr. Marco Antonio Simonelli examined how populist regimes strategically erode judicial independence, using comparative cases from Europe and the United States to illustrate how institutional autonomy can be dismantled under the banner of democratic legitimacy. Dr. Núria González then shifted the focus to secessionist populism, comparing Catalonia and Scotland to argue that the method of pursuing independence—via institutional fidelity or populist defiance—has long-term consequences for democratic cohesion.
In the final two presentations, Dr. Elia Marzal and Dr. Roger Boada explored structural alternatives to populist polarization. Marzal emphasized the Canadian model of parliamentary centrality in mediating secession, while Boada critically assessed Spain’s second chamber as a cautionary tale of underperformance and political vulnerability.
Collectively, the panel offered a rich interdisciplinary dialogue that blended constitutional theory, comparative jurisprudence, and political analysis—illuminating the risks posed by populism and the democratic pathways that might still be reclaimed.
Daniel Fernández: Theoretical Foundations of Modern Populism: Approaches of Heidegger, Lacan and Laclau
At Panel 3 of the ECPS Conference 2025, Dr. Daniel Fernández traced the philosophical roots of modern populism through the thought of Heidegger, Lacan, and Laclau, offering key insights into its impact on contemporary democracies.
Delivered during Panel 3 of the ECPS Conference 2025 at Oxford University, Dr. Daniel Fernández’s presentation, titled “Theoretical Foundations of Modern Populism: Approaches of Heidegger, Lacan and Laclau,” offered a foundational philosophical and constitutional roadmap for understanding populism’s intellectual lineage and strategic application in contemporary democracies. As Assistant Professor of Constitutional Law at Universitat de Lleida, Dr. Fernández situated his intervention as a bridge—from philosophy to political theory to constitutional interpretation—providing the analytical groundwork for subsequent panelists.
The presentation began with a touch of humor and humility, yet what followed was an incisive and ambitious effort to condense a dense intellectual genealogy into a three-part inquiry: (1) What are the philosophical influences on Laclau and Mouffe’s theory of populism? (2) What is the core political question they pose and how do they answer it? (3) Is there a shared constitutional logic underlying populist strategies?
Addressing the first question, Dr. Fernández identified three major philosophical influences: Heidegger, Lacan, and Gramsci. Heidegger’s notion of Dasein—that human understanding is historically and socially embedded—informs Laclau and Mouffe’s rejection of political universals. For them, there is no fixed political subject, no final revolution, and no overarching ideology. Lacan’s theory of constitutive lack, which posits an unfillable void in human identity and language, is transferred by Laclau and Mouffe to the political domain: political identities are never fully complete but instead are formed and reformed through the discursive struggle over “empty signifiers.” Gramsci’s theory of hegemony and Heidegger’s view of politics as conflict converge in Laclau’s core argument that politics is a permanent agonistic struggle for meaning and power, waged through discourse rather than the discovery of objective reality.
Dr. Fernández emphasized that for Laclau and Mouffe, the essential political question—posed most clearly in Hegemony and Socialist Strategy—is how to gain and maintain political power within pluralistic democracies, given the impossibility of universal values or fixed identities. Their answer is populism—not as a regime or ideology, but as a political strategy. This strategy unfolds in three stages: first, constructing an adversary; second, framing this adversary not only as antagonistic but as “agonistic” (posing an existential threat to the group’s inclusion in the public sphere); and third, consolidating hegemony by mobilizing discourse across all spheres of life. Here, Dr. Fernández keenly noted the affective turn in populism: emotions, not rational deliberation, become the engine of mobilization.
The third part of the presentation dealt with constitutional theory. Dr. Fernández asked: Can populism be reconciled with constitutional democracy, or does it entail a fundamental reorientation of constitutional norms? Drawing a distinction between populism in opposition and in power, he observed that the strategy shifts: in opposition, populists seek to stretch and destabilize liberal-democratic institutions, maximize dissent, and bypass intermediaries like parties and media. Once in government, however, they move to restrict dissent, delegitimize checks and balances, and monopolize the exercise of popular sovereignty—while still maintaining the façade of electoral democracy.
Despite these strategic differences, Dr. Fernández identified a common constitutional logic across populist movements. First, populism redefines the people as a unified sovereign entity distinct from the plural citizenry. Sovereignty, under this vision, is not confined to the constituent moment but remains ever-present in the leader or the movement. Second, populists reject representation in favor of embodiment: leaders do not represent the people; they are the people. As such, they seek to dismantle parliamentary authority and concentrate power either directly in “the people” (in opposition) or in the executive (in power). Third, democracy becomes equated with decision, not deliberation. Consensus is abandoned, and constitutions are perceived not as foundational agreements but as constraints to be overcome.
In conclusion, Dr. Fernández offered three takeaways. First, Heidegger, Lacan, and Gramsci’s reconfigurations of self, language, and power deeply inform Laclau and Mouffe’s discursive populism. Second, populism was conceived as a strategy to win power in post-hegemonic, pluralistic societies. And third, while Laclau and Mouffe did not articulate a full constitutional theory, the implementation of their ideas has generated widespread constitutional tension—redefining sovereignty, eroding liberal safeguards, and foregrounding antagonistic leadership.
Dr. Fernández ended with a provocative question: Can democracy endure if political conflict becomes a permanent condition of public life? And more pressingly: Does the constant reproduction of political confrontation eventually create the very discontent that leads to undemocratic solutions? These questions, left deliberately open, invited both scholarly reflection and urgent political introspection.
Marco Antonio Simonelli: Erosion of the Independence of the Judiciary
In Panel 3, Dr. Marco Antonio Simonelli examined how populist regimes are systematically undermining judicial independence in modern constitutional democracies.
In his incisive and sobering presentation titled “Erosion of the Independence of the Judiciary,”Dr.Marco Antonio Simonelli—Assistant Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Barcelona—offered a deeply legalistic yet politically resonant analysis of the ways judicial independence is being systematically undermined across contemporary constitutional democracies, especially under populist regimes. Taking the audience through a historically grounded, comparative, and multi-level assessment, Dr. Simonelli’s talk demonstrated how the erosion of judicial independence is not an isolated institutional anomaly but part of a broader authoritarian drift within democracies, often legitimized under the rhetoric of popular sovereignty.
Framed as a more strictly legal follow-up to preceding theoretical discussions, Dr. Simonelli’s argument proceeded in three carefully structured stages: first, a conceptual clarification of judicial independence and its role in constitutional democracy; second, an analysis of formal and informal attacks on judicial authority, particularly in populist regimes; and third, a review of possible legal and institutional remedies to protect the judiciary from political capture.
To begin, Dr. Simonelli returned to the roots of the idea of judicial independence in liberal constitutionalism. He invoked Montesquieu’s L’Esprit des Lois and the doctrine of the separation of powers to underscore that limiting government power requires not only legislative-executive separation, but a structurally insulated judiciary. While Montesquieu was cautious of judicial overreach—famously calling judges “the mouth of the law”—his model remained foundational in liberal democratic systems. By contrast, in the American tradition, Alexander Hamilton, writing in The Federalist Papers, viewed the judiciary as the “least dangerous” branch, possessing “neither the purse nor the sword.” Hence, Hamilton championed institutional safeguards such as life tenure and salary protection in Article III of the US Constitution to shield judges from political pressure.
Yet as Dr. Simonelli pointed out, while the US judiciary historically assumed a strong role in the separation of powers (e.g., Marbury v. Madison), in Europe the judiciary was more traditionally envisioned as the guardian of fundamental rights rather than an assertive counterbalance to the legislative and executive branches. Nevertheless, both models assume the indispensability of an independent judiciary for democratic governance.
Dr. Simonelli then provided a working definition of judicial independence, emphasizing structural guarantees like tenure security, impartial appointment processes, financial autonomy, and protection from executive interference. However, he noted that one crucial area of contention—particularly in comparative constitutional law—is the mode of judicial appointment. While European models tend toward merit-based career tracks, often with internal judicial oversight, the US and Latin American systems favor political appointments, raising questions about politicization and dependence.
From this doctrinal foundation, Dr. Simonelli pivoted to his core argument: that judicial independence is increasingly under threat, especially in populist contexts. He traced the roots of skepticism toward judicial power to North American legal scholarship in the 1980s and early 2000s, citing figures like Alexander Bickel and Ran Hirschl, the latter of whom warned against the emergence of juristocracy—a political regime ruled by unelected judges. Although these critiques were initially academic, Dr. Simonelli argued that they anticipated the current populist playbook, in which political leaders present judicial independence as an elitist obstacle to the “will of the people.”
The most visible and documented assaults on judicial independence, according to Dr. Simonelli, have occurred in Hungary and Poland. Beginning with Viktor Orbán’s rise to power in 2010–2011, Hungary launched a series of legislative reforms aimed at undermining judicial autonomy—lowering retirement ages, reshaping judicial councils, and centralizing disciplinary procedures under executive control. Poland followed a similar trajectory. Such formal attacks, Dr. Simonelli warned, are increasingly complemented by informal methods: rhetorical delegitimization, character assassinations of judges, and public discourse that portrays courts as politically motivated actors opposed to national interests.
Yet these dynamics are not limited to Eastern Europe. Citing recent statements from Elon Musk, Nigel Farage, and Donald Trump, Dr. Simonelli showed how even in consolidated democracies like the United States and the UK, public trust in the judiciary is being eroded by populist actors. The US Supreme Court’s declining legitimacy—only 30% of Americans now see it as independent, down from 40% in 2017—illustrates how hyper-politicized appointment processes and media-fueled polarization degrade the judiciary’s democratic function.
Dr. Simonelli emphasized that polarization—social as well as institutional—undermines judicial independence by blocking consensus on appointments and embedding judges within partisan frames. He illustrated this with the example of the Obama administration’s blocked judicial nominations, the Senate’s “nuclear option,” and the ensuing politicization of the Supreme Court. A similar impasse has stalled appointments in Spain, where the Council of the Judiciary has remained deadlocked for six years due to partisan gridlock.
Despite the bleak outlook, Dr. Simonelli concluded on a cautiously optimistic note, outlining a series of institutional remedies. These include (1) diversifying judicial appointment authorities to prevent single-party capture; (2) establishing anti-deadlock mechanisms, such as those adopted in Germany’s 2024 reform of its Constitutional Tribunal; and (3) enhancing judicial transparency, as demonstrated by Italy’s Constitutional Court, which has introduced public-facing programs and amicus curiae participation to build civic trust.
Finally, Dr. Simonelli underscored the importance of multi-level governance in defending judicial independence. The European Union, through the Commission and the Court of Justice, played a decisive role in resisting the collapse of judicial autonomy in Poland and, to a lesser extent, Hungary. He noted that events such as the 2025 Budapest Pride march—unthinkable without EU pressure—demonstrate the restraining influence of supranational frameworks.
In closing, Dr. Simonelli offered a pointed reminder: judicial independence is not a technocratic luxury, but the backbone of constitutional democracy. As populist movements challenge liberal norms under the banner of “the people,” defending the judiciary’s autonomy becomes not merely a legal imperative but a democratic one.
Núria González: Pro-Independence Movements as A Populist Way Out in Multinational Contemporary Societies
Dr. Núria González analyzed how pro-independence movements in liberal democracies often adopt populist strategies within a constitutional framework.
In her sharp and comparative presentation titled “Pro-Independence Movements as a Populist Way Out in Multinational Contemporary Societies”Dr.Núria González, Assistant Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Barcelona, explored the constitutional dimensions and populist inflections of secessionist movements in liberal democracies. Using Catalonia (2017) and Scotland (2014–2022) as her principal cases, Dr. González drew a compelling contrast between two pro-independence movements operating under liberal democratic conditions but adopting strikingly different approaches to law, institutional legitimacy, and democratic procedure.
Dr. González positioned her contribution at the intersection of constitutional law and populism. She acknowledged the conceptual ambiguity surrounding the term “populism,” but emphasized that, for constitutional lawyers, populism is identifiable when political leaders directly challenge counter-majoritarian institutions—especially courts—and circumvent established legal procedures. This framing set the analytical tone: populism, she argued, is less about ideological content and more about a mode of political action that undermines institutional and legal restraints.
Her analysis focused first on the Catalan case. Beginning in 2012, Catalonia’s regional government, led by a coalition of pro-independence parties, pursued a referendum on secession from Spain. Their public discourse framed the initiative in emotionally resonant but legally simplistic terms—slogans like “voting is normal” and “this is about democracy” dominated the narrative. However, Dr. González underscored that referenda on secession are far from “normal” or common practice in constitutional democracies, citing examples where such votes have been banned or severely restricted (e.g., the United States, Germany, Italy, and Spain). While Canada and the UK permitted such referenda under specific political conditions, they remain legal exceptions, not norms.
Spain’s constitutional framework poses significant hurdles to unilateral secession. Article 1.2 of the Spanish Constitution declares that national sovereignty resides in the Spanish people as a whole, and Article 2 affirms the “indissoluble unity” of the Spanish nation. Furthermore, while the Spanish Constitutional Court recognizes the legitimacy of advocating for independence, it insists that such goals can only be pursued through formal constitutional amendments, which require supermajoritarian support—effectively an institutional safeguard to ensure broad consensus on foundational changes.
Despite these constraints and repeated rulings from both the Spanish Constitutional Court and the Catalan High Court, the Catalan Parliament in 2017 passed two laws aimed at authorizing a referendum and initiating the creation of a Catalan republic. These laws were approved by an absolute parliamentary majority—72 out of 135 seats—but Dr. González emphasized that this majority represented only 48% of the Catalan electorate. The laws not only violated the Spanish Constitution but also contravened Catalonia’s own Statute of Autonomy, which requires a two-thirds majority for amendments. In her view, this episode revealed a populist strategy: a deliberate bypassing of legal constraints and institutional warnings in favor of majoritarian, identity-driven mobilization.
The Catalan leadership’s decision to proceed with the October 2017 referendum—despite judicial prohibitions—constituted, in Dr. González’s interpretation, a textbook example of populist defiance of counter-majoritarian institutions. She stressed that this confrontational approach exacerbated societal polarization in Catalonia, leaving deep political and social wounds that persist today.
In contrast, Dr. González turned to the Scottish case, which she presented as an example of institutional fidelity within a liberal democratic framework. The 2014 Scottish referendum on independence was legally permitted, politically negotiated, and constitutionally authorized. The UK’s constitutional flexibility—grounded in parliamentary sovereignty and an uncodified constitutional order—enabled the central government to temporarily amend the Scotland Act of 1998, thereby granting the Scottish government the authority to organize the referendum.
What is remarkable, Dr. González argued, is the political and institutional maturity with which the UK handled the question of secession. Even political actors historically opposed to devolution, like Margaret Thatcher, publicly acknowledged Scotland’s right to self-determination. The referendum was made possible not through legal defiance but through democratic consensus and negotiated legal channels.
She then addressed the more recent episode in 2022, when First Minister Nicola Sturgeon sought to organize a second referendum following Brexit. Sturgeon proposed a non-binding, consultative referendum, hoping to remain within Scotland’s devolved competencies. However, rather than proceeding unilaterally, the Scottish Government submitted the bill to the UK Supreme Court for pre-emptive judicial review. The Court ruled that even an advisory referendum on secession would have significant political and legal consequences, and thus exceeded the Scottish Parliament’s competencies. The Scottish response, Dr. González emphasized, was telling: rather than defy the Court, Sturgeon publicly accepted the ruling and sought alternative democratic strategies—such as treating future elections as de facto referenda.
This difference in legal and political comportment forms the crux of Dr. González’s argument. She concluded that the Scottish case illustrates a constitutionalist approach to secession—one that respects institutional boundaries, legal clarity, and the rule of law—while the Catalan case demonstrates a populist pattern: the instrumentalization of democratic language to circumvent constitutional norms and foster antagonistic “us vs. them” dynamics.
Her final reflection was pointed and poignant: one of the reasons Catalonia remains more polarized and socially fractured than Scotland, she argued, lies in the different paths their leaders chose. Where Scottish leaders pursued independence through institutional loyalty and negotiated democracy, Catalan leaders opted for a populist route that prioritized emotional mobilization over constitutional legality.
In sum, Dr. González’s comparative inquiry provided not just a legal diagnosis but also a normative caution: in multinational democracies, how secessionist claims are pursued matters as much as the claims themselves. Populism, in this context, is not defined by aspirations to independence, but by the willingness to defy the constitutional framework that makes democracy possible.
Elia Marzal: The Role of Parliaments in Secession Referenda — Canadian Doctrine and Consensus Democracy in Decision-Making Processes
In Panel 3, Dr. Elia Marzal offered a constitutional and theoretical reassessment of how liberal democracies should respond to secessionist claims.
In her presentation, Dr.Elia Marzal, Associate Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Barcelona, offered a jurisprudentially grounded and theoretically expansive reconsideration of how liberal democracies should approach secessionist claims. Focusing on the Canadian experience, Dr. Marzal argued that parliamentary institutions—not referenda—ought to be central in mediating territorial disputes in heterogeneous states. Far from endorsing referenda as inherently democratic instruments, she challenged their assumed neutrality and democratic legitimacy in contexts marked by pluralism and constitutional complexity.
Drawing on the landmark 1998 opinion of the Supreme Court of Canada and the subsequent Clarity Act (2000), Dr. Marzal demonstrated that Canada’s constitutional response to the Quebec question has been widely misunderstood. While often cited by secessionist movements as a liberal precedent that affirms the legitimacy of independence referenda, a closer reading of the Court’s reasoning reveals a more nuanced reality. Dr. Marzal emphasized that the Canadian framework is not referendum-centered but rather designed around parliamentary mediation, institutional pluralism, and procedural complexity.
At the core of the 1998 ruling, Dr. Marzal observed, lies an effort to reconcile the tension between legality and legitimacy: the former grounded in constitutional norms and the latter in democratic aspirations for self-determination. The Court did not resolve this tension through a simple endorsement of popular vote; instead, it laid out a multilayered process of negotiation involving federal and provincial institutions, subnational governments, and other relevant actors, including indigenous communities. In this model, Parliament assumes a pivotal role, functioning both as arbiter and guarantor of institutional legitimacy.
This centrality of Parliament was later codified in the Clarity Act, which grants the Canadian federal Parliament the authority to determine whether a referendum question is clear and whether the resulting majority is sufficient to warrant negotiations. Dr. Marzal interpreted this not as a marginal procedural safeguard but as a fundamental assertion of parliamentary sovereignty in a context where democratic legitimacy must be constructed—not assumed.
To underscore the continuing relevance and challenges of this model, Dr. Marzal examined more recent developments in Canadian federalism, including Alberta’s Sovereignty Act (2022) and ongoing debates in Quebec about adopting mechanisms to shield the province from federal interference. While these provincial initiatives invoke the rhetoric of autonomy, she warned that they risk distorting the spirit of the Canadian legal framework by deploying legal tools in service of unilateralism rather than institutional dialogue.
Dr. Marzal then turned to the United Kingdom’s 2022 Supreme Court opinion concerning the Scottish Government’s push for a second independence referendum. Much like in Canada, the UK Court affirmed that constitutional change must proceed through legislative authorization—reaffirming Parliament’s role as the central forum for constitutional adjudication. In both jurisdictions, she noted, courts have recognized that the legitimacy of secessionist claims cannot be divorced from institutional frameworks designed to represent the full diversity of the polity.
The theoretical foundation of Dr. Marzal’s analysis draws from social choicetheory and public choicetheory. Social choice theory, she explained, underscores the inherent limitations of aggregating individual preferences through majoritarian mechanisms such as referenda. Public choice theory, by contrast, highlights the difficulties of reaching legitimate outcomes in contexts of high polarization and affirms the need for decision-making processes that secure genuine consent.
In Dr. Marzal’s interpretation, the Canadian Supreme Court’s 1998 opinion was not merely a judicial ruling but a constitutional design effort—an attempt to construct a deliberative, consensus-oriented model of democratic legitimacy. This model resists the populist impulse to collapse complexity into binary choices and instead affirms that legitimacy arises from the interaction of diverse institutions, procedures, and actors within a pluralist constitutional order.
Two key conclusions emerged from her analysis. First, the legitimacy of decisions concerning secession is directly proportional to the complexity and inclusivity of the procedures used to reach them. The more divisive the issue, the more robust and multilateral the process must be. Second, Dr. Marzal stressed that in such high-stakes contexts, democracy cannot be reduced to the will of a singular “people.” Rather, it must be reimagined as a process of consensus-building through representative, pluralistic, and deliberative institutions—chief among them, Parliament.
In closing, Dr. Marzal called for a reorientation of secession debates away from populist and plebiscitary framings and toward the rich, if demanding, tradition of consensus democracy. By restoring parliamentary centrality and institutional dialogue to the heart of democratic decision-making, she argued, states can respond to secessionist claims in a manner that is both constitutionally sound and democratically legitimate.
Roger Boada: Potential Solutions: Second Chambers, Demos and Majoritarian Body
n Panel 3, Dr. Roger Boada explored the role of second chambers and majoritarian bodies as potential institutional solutions to strengthen contemporary constitutional democracies.
In his presentation titled “Potential Solutions: Second Chambers, Demos and Majoritarian Body,” Dr. Roger Boada, Assistant Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Barcelona, examined the theoretical and institutional potential of second chambers in contemporary constitutional democracies. While the title suggested a broad comparative analysis, Dr. Boada offered a focused and critical assessment of the Spanish Senate, using it as a case study to reflect on wider questions of democratic representation, constitutional design, and the institutional containment of populism.
Dr. Boada began by situating bicameralism within a broader normative framework. He noted that the traditional rationale behind second chambers is rooted in an anti-populist impulse: the belief that the demos cannot be adequately represented by a single, majoritarian legislative body. A second chamber, in this context, is meant to reflect social and territorial pluralism, provide a space for sober second thought, and moderate legislative impulses driven by fleeting popular majorities. In federal or quasi-federal systems, this usually manifests as a “territorial chamber” intended to provide representation for constituent units such as states or regions.
Dr. Boada traced the constitutional debates in Spain during the transition to democracy in the late 1970s, where two competing visions for the Senate were considered. The first envisioned the Senate as a territorial chamber, echoing the model of the US Senate or the German Bundesrat, where subnational units are given a participatory role in national decision-making. The second envisioned it as a moderating or revising chamber, inspired more by the British House of Lords, with a focus on reflection and legislative oversight. Ultimately, Dr. Boada argued, the Spanish Constitution opted for the latter, despite Article 69.1’s declaration that the Senate is the “Chamber of territorial representation.”
To support this claim, Dr. Boada examined both the powers and composition of the Senate. Functionally, the Spanish Senate has few competencies that would distinguish it from the lower chamber (the Congress of Deputies) in territorial matters. It plays no unique role in approving or amending the statutes of autonomy—the foundational legal texts of Spain’s autonomous communities. Nor does it serve as a regular venue for intergovernmental dialogue or conflict mediation between the central government and the regions. The sole exception is Article 155 of the Constitution, which allows the Senate to authorize coercive measures against an autonomous community in cases of serious constitutional violation—a power used only once, during the Catalan crisis of 2017.
Dr. Boada then turned to the composition of the Senate, which further undermines its claim to territorial representativeness. The majority of senators are elected on a provincial basis, but provinces in Spain have no political autonomy; only the autonomous communities do. Moreover, only around 20% of senators are appointed by regional parliaments, and even these appointees tend to act along national party lines rather than representing regional interests per se. In practice, Dr. Boada noted, senators—whether elected or appointed—do not behave in ways that distinguish them as representatives of territorial constituencies. The dominance of political parties within the Senate further undermines any distinctive regional function.
Given these institutional realities, Dr. Boada concluded that the Spanish Senate functions far more like a revising or moderating chamber than a federal or territorial one. However, even in this role, its influence is limited. The Senate can veto legislation or propose amendments, but both actions can be easily overridden by the Congress of Deputies. Its legislative productivity is marginal: only 15 bills originating in the Senate have become law since 1978. Nor does it carry the auctoritas that characterizes second chambers in some other parliamentary systems, such as the British House of Lords.
Dr. Boada observed a curious paradox in recent Spanish politics. Since 2023, the Senate has been under the control of the opposition party (the centre-right Partido Popular), while the Congress remains governed by a fragile left-leaning majority. This political asymmetry has led the Senate to assume a more assertive, oppositional role—issuing legislative vetoes, initiating constitutional conflicts, and acting as a de facto counterweight to the executive. However, this newfound assertiveness has not been met with institutional reinforcement. On the contrary, Dr. Boada showed that the governing majority in Congress has responded by curtailing some of the Senate’s powers—for instance, altering budgetary procedures and reducing its influence in public media governance.
This dynamic, Dr. Boada warned, reflects a structural vulnerability: when second chambers become politically inconvenient, their limited powers may be further weakened rather than reimagined or bolstered. The Senate’s increased activity has not translated into increased legitimacy or capacity, but rather into institutional backlash.
In concluding, Dr. Boada offered two critical reflections. First, the Spanish Senate does not currently fulfill the functions traditionally ascribed to second chambers—neither as a robust territorial forum nor as a meaningful legislative check. Second, any serious conversation about the role of second chambers in pluralist democracies must grapple with political realities: without constitutional guarantees of autonomy, representativeness, or procedural weight, second chambers risk becoming either symbolic appendages or targets of majoritarian retrenchment.
In sum, Boada’s presentation used the Spanish Senate as a lens through which to explore the broader question of how institutional design can (or cannot) accommodate pluralism, resist populist simplification, and enhance democratic resilience. His analysis called for a reassessment of second chambers not merely as institutional relics, but as potentially vital—if currently underdeveloped—sites for democratic negotiation in divided societies.
Conclusion
Panel III of the ECPS Conference 2025 delivered a rich, interdisciplinary examination of the constitutional vulnerabilities exposed by the rise of populism and proposed forward-looking strategies for democratic resilience. Across five presentations, the panelists offered a powerful synthesis of theory, case law, and comparative analysis, moving beyond abstract critiques to address the institutional mechanics of populist encroachment and possible legal remedies.
Several core insights emerged. First, Dr. Daniel Fernández’s philosophical excavation of populism underscored its strategic use of antagonism, identity construction, and constitutional disruption. Far from being ideologically neutral, populism reconfigures the meaning of democracy—reducing it to majoritarian assertion and executive embodiment. Second, Dr. Marco Antonio Simonelli highlighted the structural erosion of judicial independence, not only in Eastern Europe but across established democracies, where populist leaders increasingly frame courts as elite obstacles to the popular will. His analysis of institutional safeguards and multi-level governance revealed both the fragility and critical importance of judicial autonomy.
Third, Dr. Núria González’s comparative study of Catalonia and Scotland illuminated the profound difference in democratic outcomes when secessionist claims are pursued through populist defiance versus constitutional fidelity. Complementing this, Dr. Elia Marzal’s intervention re-centered the role of parliaments in secession debates, urging a shift from plebiscitary to deliberative models of democracy rooted in institutional pluralism. Finally, Dr. Roger Boada’s critique of the Spanish Senate exposed the risks of symbolic institutionalism in the face of populist pressure and underscored the need to reinvigorate second chambers as meaningful forums for territorial representation and legislative restraint.
Together, the panelists made clear that constitutional democracies must adapt not by mimicking populist rhetoric, but by renewing institutional frameworks that enable inclusion, negotiation, and complexity. In an age of polarization, democratic endurance depends not just on resisting populism—but on designing systems capable of absorbing and transforming it.
Note: To experience the panel’s dynamic and thought-provoking Q&A session, we encourage you to watch the full video recording above.
Please cite as: ECPS Staff. (2025). “ECPS Conference 2025 / Panel 2 — “The People” in the Age of AI and Algorithms.” European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). July 8, 2025. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp00104
Panel II: “‘The People’ in the Age of AI and Algorithms”explored how digital technologies and algorithmic infrastructures are reshaping democratic life. Co-chaired by Dr. Alina Utrata and Professor Murat Aktaş, the session tackled questions of power, exclusion, and political agency in the digital age. Together, their framing set the stage for two timely papers examining how algorithmic filtering, platform capitalism, and gendered data practices increasingly mediate who is counted—and who is excluded—from “the people.” With insight and urgency, the session called for renewed civic, academic, and regulatory engagement with the democratic challenges posed by artificial intelligence and transnational tech governance.
Reported by ECPS Staff
As our technological age accelerates, democracy finds itself in an increasingly precarious position—buffeted not only by illiberal politics but also by opaque digital infrastructures that quietly shape how “the people” see themselves and others. Panel II, titled “The People in the Age of AI and Algorithms,” explored how artificial intelligence, social media, and digital governance are reconfiguring the foundations of democratic life. Far from being neutral tools, these technologies actively structure political subjectivity, reshape the boundaries of inclusion and exclusion, and deepen existing inequalities—often with little accountability.
This timely and incisive session of the ECPS Conference at the University of Oxford, held under the title “‘We, the People’ and the Future of Democracy: Interdisciplinary Approaches” between July 1-3, 2025, was co-chaired by Dr. Alina Utrata, Career Development Research Fellow at the Rothermere American Institute and St John’s College, Oxford University, and Professor Murat Aktaş from the Department of Political Science at Muş Alparslan University, Turkey. Together, they provided complementary perspectives that grounded the panel in both international political theory and real-world geopolitical shifts.
Dr. Alina Utrata opened the session by noting how technology corporations—many based in the United States and particularly in Silicon Valley—play a crucial role in shaping today’s political landscape. Referencing recent headlines such as Jeff Bezos’s wedding, she pointed to the growing entanglement between cloud computing, satellite systems, and global power dynamics. She emphasized the importance of discussing AI in this context, particularly given the intense debates currently taking place in academia and beyond. Her remarks framed the session as an opportunity to critically engage with timely questions about artificial intelligence and digital sovereignty, and she welcomed the speakers’ contributions to what she described as “these thorny questions.”
Professor Murat Aktaş, in his opening remarks, thanked the ECPS team and contributors, describing the panel topic as seemingly narrow but in fact deeply relevant. He observed that humanity is undergoing profound changes and challenges, particularly through digitalization, automation, and artificial intelligence. These developments, he suggested, are reshaping not only our daily lives but also the future of society. By underlining the transformative impact of these technologies, Aktaş stressed the importance of discussing them seriously in this panel.
The panel brought together two compelling papers that tackled these questions from interdisciplinary and intersectional perspectives. Dr. Luana Mathias Souto examined how digital infrastructures exacerbate gender exclusion under the guise of neutrality, while Matilde Bufano explored the political dangers of AI-powered filter bubbles and the rise of the “Broliarchy”—a new digital oligarchy with profound implications for democratic governance.
Together, the co-chairs and presenters animated a rich discussion about how emerging technologies are not only transforming democratic participation but also reshaping the very concept of “the people.”
Dr. Luana Mathias Souto: Navigating Digital Disruptions — The Ambiguous Role of Digital Technologies, State Foundations and Gender Rights
In her powerful presentation, Dr. Luana Mathias Souto (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow, GenTIC, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya) analyzed how digital technologies, often portrayed as neutral and empowering, are increasingly used as instruments of exclusion, surveillance, and patriarchal control—especially targeting women.
In her compelling presentation, Dr. Luana Mathias Souto, a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at the GenTIC Research Group, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, examined how digital technologies—often framed as neutral tools of empowerment—are increasingly functioning as mechanisms for exclusion, surveillance, and patriarchal reinforcement, particularly against women. Her ongoing research critically interrogates how the foundational elements of statehood—sovereignty, territory, and people—are being redefined by the digital age in ways that intersect with illiberal ideologies and gender-based exclusion.
Dr. Souto opened by historicizing the exclusion of women from the category of “the people,” a structural pattern dating back centuries, and argued that this exclusion is not alleviated but rather exacerbated in the digital era. Drawing from feminist critiques and Global South scholarship, she explored how data flows and digital infrastructures decouple sovereignty from territoriality, complicating legal protections for individuals across borders. The concept of “digital sovereignty,” she noted, allows powerful private actors—particularly US-based tech giants—to co-govern people’s lives without accountability or democratic oversight. This dynamic renders traditional state functions increasingly porous and contested, especially in terms of enforcing regulations like the EU’s GDPR against surveillance practices rooted in the US legal and security regime.
Central to Dr. Souto’s argument is the idea that digital fragmentation not only challenges state sovereignty but also disrupts the cohesion of the political subject—the “people.” This fragmentation is manifested in what she called “divisible individuals,” where digital identities are reduced to segmented data profiles, often shaped by discriminatory algorithms. Despite the proclaimed neutrality of data, these systems encode longstanding social biases, particularly around gender. Dr. Souto emphasized how digital infrastructures—designed predominantly by male, white technocrats—perpetuate sexist norms and deepen women’s exclusion from political recognition.
She devoted particular attention to FemTech (female technology), highlighting apps that track menstruation, ovulation, and sexual activity. While marketed as tools of empowerment, Dr. Souto argued these technologies facilitate new forms of surveillance and control over women’s bodies. With the overturning of Roe v. Wade in the US, data from such apps have reportedly been used in criminal investigations against women seeking abortions. Similar practices have emerged in the UK, where antiquated laws are invoked to justify digital searches of women’s phones. Beyond legal threats, FemTech data has also been exploited in employment contexts, where employers potentially use reproductive data to make discriminatory decisions about hiring or promotions.
Dr. Souto linked these practices to broader alliances between tech elites and anti-gender, illiberal movements. By promoting patriarchal values under the guise of neutrality and innovation, tech companies offer a platform for regressive gender ideologies to take root. This fusion of technological governance with far-right agendas—exemplified by calls for “masculine energy” in Silicon Valley—is not incidental but part of a broader effort to rebrand traditional hierarchies within supposedly apolitical spaces.
In conclusion, Dr. Souto called for a fundamental challenge to the presumed neutrality of digital technologies. She argued that reclaiming democratic space requires recognizing how digital infrastructures actively shape who is counted as part of “the people”—and who is excluded. Without such critical engagement, the digital revolution risks reinforcing the very forms of patriarchal and illiberal governance it once promised to transcend.
Matilde Bufano: The Role of AI in Shaping the People — Big Tech and the Broliarchy’s Influence on Modern Democracy
In a thought-provoking presentation, Matilde Bufano (MSc, International Security Studies, Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies / University of Trento) explored the complex interplay between AI, social media infrastructures, and the weakening of democratic norms in the era of Big Tech.
In a sobering and richly analytical presentation, Matilde Bufano, MSc in International Security Studies at the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies and the University of Trento, examined the deeply intertwined relationship between artificial intelligence (AI), social media infrastructures, and the erosion of democratic norms in the age of Big Tech. Her paper, “The Role of AI in Shaping the People: Big Tech and the Broliarchy’s Influence on Modern Democracy,” offered a timely, practice-oriented reflection on how algorithmic technologies—far from being neutral tools—play a crucial role in shaping public consciousness, manipulating democratic engagement, and amplifying societal polarization. Drawing from her dual background in international law and digital politics, Bufano delivered a cross-disciplinary critique that challenged both policy complacency and academic detachment in the face of AI-driven democratic disruption.
At the heart of Bufano’s analysis lies a powerful assertion: democracy is not only threatened from outside by illiberal regimes or authoritarian populism, but also from within, through the algorithmic architecture of digital platforms that increasingly mediate how citizens engage with one another and with politics. The COVID-19 pandemic, according to Bufano, marked an inflection point. As physical interaction gave way to a digital public sphere, citizens became more dependent than ever on technology for information, identity, and even emotional validation. This shift coincided with an intensification of algorithmic curation, wherein AI systems selectively filter, promote, or suppress information based on user behavior and platform profitability.
Bufano focused on two key mechanisms underpinning this dynamic: algorithmic filtering and algorithmic moderation. Algorithmic filtering sorts through vast quantities of online content using coded preferences—ostensibly for user relevance, but in practice to optimize engagement and advertising revenue. This results in the formation of “filter bubbles,” echo chambers where users are continually exposed to like-minded content, reinforcing existing beliefs and psychological biases. Bufano distinguished between collaborative filtering—which groups users based on shared demographics or behavioral traits—and content-based filtering, which recommends material similar to what a user has previously interacted with. Both reinforce a feedback loop of ideological reinforcement, generating a form of identity-based gratification that discourages critical engagement and cross-cutting dialogue.
Crucially, this personalization is not politically neutral. Bufano demonstrated how algorithmic design often prioritizes sensationalist and polarizing content—particularly disinformation—because of its virality and ability to prolong user attention. Ninety percent of disinformation, she argued, is constructed around out-group hatred. In this context, algorithmically curated media environments deepen societal cleavages, producing a form of affective polarization that goes beyond ideological disagreement and encourages personal animosity and even dehumanization of political opponents. This is especially visible in contexts of crisis, such as during the pandemic, when scapegoating of Asian communities proliferated through local Facebook groups, or in the use of conspiracy theories and “phantom mastermind” narratives to channel social discontent toward imagined enemies.
The political consequences of this trend are severe. Filter bubbles inhibit democratic deliberation and increase susceptibility to manipulation by foreign and domestic actors. Bufano cited examples such as Russian disinformation campaigns in Romania, illustrating how AI-driven social media platforms can serve as conduits for election interference, especially when publics are already fragmented and mistrustful of institutions. These risks are magnified by a dramatic rollback in fact-checking infrastructures—most notably in the United States, where 80% of such systems were dismantled after Trump’s presidency, and mirrored in countries like Spain.
Bufano introduced the concept of the Broliarchy—a portmanteau of “bro” and “oligarchy”—to describe the growing political influence of a narrow cadre of male tech billionaires who control the infrastructure of digital discourse. No longer confined to private enterprise, these actors now exert direct influence on public policy and regulation, blurring the boundary between democratic governance and corporate interest. She illustrated this with the example of Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter (now X), which led to a 50% increase in hate speech within weeks due to weakened content moderation policies. Such developments, Bufano warned, compromise democratic accountability and entrench anti-democratic values under the guise of free expression and innovation.
While Bufano acknowledged the European Union’s recent steps toward regulation—especially the Digital Services Act (DSA), which seeks to promote transparency and safety in content recommendation systems—she emphasized the limitations of regional legislation in a global digital ecosystem. AI remains a “black box,” inaccessible to users and regulators alike. Without global accountability frameworks, national or regional efforts risk being outpaced by platform evolution and cross-border data flows.
In conclusion, Bufano made a dual appeal. First, for institutional and legal reforms capable of subjecting algorithmic systems to democratic oversight, including mandatory transparency in how recommender systems operate. Second, for renewed civic engagement and media literacy among citizens themselves. Democracy, she reminded the audience, cannot be fully outsourced to algorithms or regulators. It requires a culture of critical reflection and active participation—both online and offline. Reclaiming this space from the Broliarchy, she argued, means not only resisting disinformation and polarization, but reimagining democratic communication in ways that are inclusive, pluralistic, and resistant to both technological and ideological capture.
Bufano’s presentation, blending empirical insight with normative urgency, underscored the need for interdisciplinary collaboration in addressing one of the most urgent challenges of our time: how to ensure that digital technologies serve, rather than subvert, the democratic ideal.
Conclusion
Panel II of the ECPS Conference 2025, “The People in the Age of AI and Algorithms,” offered a powerful and urgent exploration of how digital infrastructures are reshaping the foundations of democratic life. As the presenters compellingly demonstrated, artificial intelligence, algorithmic governance, and platform capitalism are not passive tools but active agents that shape political subjectivities, influence public opinion, and determine who is included in or excluded from the category of “the people.” Across both presentations, a clear throughline emerged: digital technologies, while often framed in terms of neutrality and innovation, are in fact deeply embedded in structures of inequality, bias, and elite power.
Dr. Luana Mathias Souto illuminated how digital technologies intersect with patriarchal norms to undermine gender rights and state sovereignty, showing how the global tech ecosystem facilitates new forms of surveillance and control over women. Matilde Bufano, in turn, unpacked the algorithmic logic behind political polarization and democratic backsliding, naming the emergence of the “Broliarchy” as a key actor in this process. Together, their insights revealed a troubling paradox: while democracy should enable broad participation and dissent, the very platforms that now mediate political life often amplify exclusion and entrench concentrated power.
Rather than offering despair, the panel ended on a call to action. Both speakers urged the need for democratic oversight, global regulation, and enhanced digital literacy to reclaim public space and political agency in the algorithmic age. As AI technologies continue to evolve, so too must our frameworks for accountability, inclusion, and democratic resilience.
Note: To experience the panel’s dynamic and thought-provoking Q&A session, we encourage you to watch the full video recording above.
Please cite as: ECPS Staff. (2025). “ECPS Conference 2025 / Roundtable I — Politics of the ‘People’ in Global Europe.” European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). July 8, 2025. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp00103
Held at the University of Oxford on July 1, 2025, Roundtable I of the ECPS Conference launched the discussions of “‘We, the People’ and the Future of Democracy.” Chaired by Professor Jonathan Wolff, the session explored how “the people” is constructed, contested, and deployed in contemporary European and global politics. Presentations by Professors Martin Conway, Aurelien Mondon, and Luke Bretherton examined the historical resurgence of popular politics, the elite-driven narrative of the “reactionary people,” and the theological dimensions of populism. Together, the contributions offered a nuanced, interdisciplinary account of how populism’s democratic and anti-democratic potentials shape the political imagination and institutional realities of the 21st century.
Reported by ECPS Staff
Roundtable I of the ECPS Conference, hosted at the University of Oxford on July 1-3, 2025, brought together leading scholars to explore the shifting meanings and political uses of “the people” in contemporary Europe and beyond. Titled “Politics of the ‘People’ in Global Europe,” this session opened the in-person component of the Conference “‘We, the People’ and the Future of Democracy,” an interdisciplinary initiative addressing the democratic backsliding, populist resurgence, and the pathways toward civic resilience in the 21st century.
Chaired by Professor Jonathan Wolff (Senior Research Fellow, Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford; President, Royal Institute of Philosophy), the roundtable featured three distinguished speakers: Professor Martin Conway (University of Oxford), Professor Aurelien Mondon (University of Bath), and Professor Luke Bretherton (University of Oxford). Their presentations tackled the historical re-emergence of “the people” as a political category, the elite construction of the so-called reactionary public, and the theological undercurrents of populist discourse—particularly in relation to Christianity.
Taken together, the presentations demonstrated that “the people” is not a static or universally democratic force. Rather, it is a flexible and contested category, often constructed, instrumentalized, and redefined by elites, political movements, and media systems. While it can serve as a source of democratic renewal—as in historical instances of resistance to authoritarian regimes—it can also be mobilized to undermine pluralism, dismantle institutions, and sacralize exclusionary forms of nationalism.
The roundtable emphasized that populism is neither inherently democratic nor inherently authoritarian. Its normative direction depends on how “the people” are imagined, who is included or excluded, and whether political participation is broadened or curtailed. The session challenged participants to move beyond reductive narratives that blame “the people” for democratic erosion, instead urging deeper inquiry into how elites, ideologies, and media infrastructures shape public discourse and democratic practice.
As Europe and its transatlantic partners grapple with polarized electorates, declining trust in institutions, and re-enchanted political imaginaries, understanding the politics of “the people” remains central to safeguarding and reimagining democratic life in our time.
Professor Martin Conway: “The Reappearance of ‘The People’ in European Politics”
Professor Martin Conway (far right), Professor of Contemporary European History at the University of Oxford, delivers his talk titled “The Reappearance of ‘The People’ in European Politics” during Roundtable I of the ECPS–Oxford Conference 2025.
In his compelling presentation, Martin Conway, Professor of Contemporary European History, University of Oxford, explored the reemergence and reconfiguration of “the people”in contemporary European politics. He framed his remarks within a broader intellectual and historical reflection on democratic transformation and political disruption, noting that current anxieties about populism echo earlier eras of upheaval in European history.
Professor Conway began by acknowledging what he termed a prevailing “liberal anxiety”—a sense of unease about the future of democracy that has come to define our political moment. This anxiety, articulated by many mainstream figures including Baroness Royall and commentators like Timothy Garton Ash, reflects a broader fear that democracy is moving in a precarious or even regressive direction. Conway noted that this sentiment contrasts sharply with the optimism of two decades ago, when history was assumed to be progressing in a linear, liberal-democratic trajectory. The shift, he argued, is not unprecedented; similar concerns were widespread in Europe on the eve of the revolutions of 1848. Today, we once again live in a period marked by ambient pessimism and apprehension about what lies ahead.
Several structural transformations underpin this shift, according to Professor Conway. First, he pointed to the stagnation and decline of living standards across much of Europe. While there are exceptions—such as regions in Spain or Poland—many Europeans have experienced over a decade of economic insecurity, eroding the sense of progress and stability that once undergirded liberal democratic institutions. This economic fragility, exacerbated by global market forces and the retreat of the welfare state, has deeply unsettled large segments of society, particularly small businesses, farmers, and precarious workers.
A second, related transformation is the collapse of analog political structures and their replacement by digital media environments. Professor Conway emphasized that the move to digital communication has “anarchized” political debate by weakening the traditional channels—such as party structures and deliberative institutions—that previously organized and moderated political participation. What has emerged in their place is a more fragmented, volatile, and emotionally charged political space.
Beyond these socio-economic and technological shifts, Professor Conway focused on a deeper historical development: the breakdown of a stable model of disciplined, representative democracy that had defined much of postwar Europe. This model, characterized by proportional representation, enduring party systems, and a deeply embedded political elite, ensured predictability and continuity. Politicians might lose a seat in parliament, but often resurfaced in other public roles—“never losing the chauffeur-driven car,” as Professor Conway wryly observed, referencing Belgian politics.
Today, according to Conway, that model is under strain. Challenger parties—often short-lived, leader-centric, and ideologically fluid—have emerged across Europe. They range from the Flemish nationalist Vlaams Belang to leftist, Maoist-rooted movements in Belgium and populist coalitions in Italy. These parties often lack coherent platforms but are united in their appeal to “the people” as a reactive force. Their rise reflects the erosion of elite control and the democratization—but also destabilization—of political life.
Populism, Professor Conway argued, is the label most often applied to this phenomenon. However, he warned that historians are justifiably skeptical of the term. While political scientists like Cas Mudde have successfully theorized populism as a “thin ideology,” historians are more attuned to national contexts, ideological distinctions, and historical specificity. The danger, Conway suggested, lies in collapsing all anti-establishment movements into a single, undifferentiated category, thereby overlooking the distinct traditions—secular, religious, leftist, rightist—that shape each movement.
Nonetheless, Professor Conway underscores that populism, for all its analytical imprecision, captures a genuine insurgent reality: the reassertion of “the people” in forms that diverge significantly from the norms of 20th-century political action. These new forms of engagement are often marked by a rejection of institutional decorum, a distrust of expertise, and the rise of emotionally driven, male-dominated political performances that are less about coherent goals and more about expressive, affective protest.
This shift from rational deliberation to emotional expression—what Professor Conway termed “a change in the musical key of European politics”—is both a cultural and political transformation. It reflects not only structural changes in how politics is conducted, but also the symbolic and psychological reorientation of “the people” as a force both feared and romanticized. Whereas 1989 symbolized the disciplined, hopeful advance of freedom through mass protest in Eastern Europe, today’s mobilizations often appear to many observers as erratic, exclusionary, and disruptive.
Professor Conway underscored that the liberal political class has responded by building rhetorical and institutional defenses—what he called “anti-popular politics.” These include efforts to create legal buffers against referenda, avoid direct electoral challenges, and portray populist movements as inherently irrational, racist, or manipulated by shadowy online forces. Yet such reactions, he warned, risk becoming elitist and anti-democratic in themselves.
In his closing reflections, Professor Conway posed several critical questions: Why did we assume that history would progress smoothly and democratically? Why do we dismiss the democratic potential embedded in disruptive and turbulent popular movements? And crucially, why are we so unwilling to recognize that today’s “people,” for all their volatility, remain committed to democratic participation—albeit in forms unfamiliar and uncomfortable to the liberal imagination?
The reappearance of “the people” in European politics, Professor Conway concluded, should not be seen merely as a threat. Rather, it presents an opportunity—if approached critically and constructively—to rethink the boundaries, forms, and aspirations of democracy in 21st-century Europe.
Professor Aurelien Mondon: “The Construction of the Reactionary People”
Donald Trump’s supporters wearing “In God We Trump” shirts at a rally in Bojangles’ Coliseum in Charlotte, North Carolina, on March 2, 2020. Photo: Jeffrey Edwards.
In his incisive presentation, “The Construction of the Reactionary People,”Aurelien Mondon, Professor of Politics, University of Bath, critically unpacked the prevailing narrative that positions contemporary far-right and authoritarian populism as an authentic expression of the will of “the people.” Drawing on over 15 years of research, Professor Mondon challenged the assumption that the so-called “reactionary people” are an organic democratic force. Instead, he argued that this concept is largely an elite-driven construction—a top-down narrative shaped by media, political actors, and intellectuals.
Professor Mondon began by distinguishing between two problematic “P” words: populism and the people. He cautioned against the overuse and imprecision of populism as a catch-all term, which, he argued, has distracted scholars and commentators from a more meaningful analysis of democracy. Instead, he emphasized the importance of critically interrogating how the people are represented, invoked, and constructed in political discourse—especially in reactionary and exclusionary ways.
Central to Professor Mondon’s argument is the idea that the figure of the reactionary people—often depicted as the “white working class” or “the left behind”—has been strategically constructed by elite discourse to justify regressive political shifts. Citing the rhetoric of Nigel Farage and Donald Trump, Mondon highlighted how these elite actors positioned themselves as champions of ordinary people, despite their wealth and elite status. For example, in a speech delivered shortly after the Brexit vote and just before Trump’s election in 2016, Farage drew a direct connection between disaffected Welsh voters and the American rust belt, constructing a transatlantic narrative of popular revolt. Yet, as Professor Mondon pointed out, this framing was less about listening to real grievances and more about legitimizing reactionary, often xenophobic agendas under the guise of popular will.
Empirically, Professor Mondon’s research—particularly in collaboration with Dr. Aaron Winter—demonstrates that the supposed mass support of the white working class for Brexit and Trump has been overstated or misrepresented. Their studies of electoral data reveal that lower-income individuals were in fact less likely to support Trump or Brexit. Many abstained from voting altogether, and among those who did vote, a significant proportion supported establishment candidates such as Hillary Clinton or remained skeptical of nationalist populism. Trump’s and Brexit’s bases, according to the presentation of Professor Mondon, were more accurately characterized by middle- and upper-income voters, including older property owners—groups not typically considered “left behind” in any meaningful socioeconomic sense.
Yet this data was widely ignored in mainstream discourse. Prestigious media outlets—from Newsweek and The Guardian to The Washington Post and Harvard Business Review—repeatedly promoted the notion that the rise of Trump and Brexit reflected the voice of the working-class majority. Professor Mondon emphasized that political scientists, journalists, and commentators across the spectrum helped entrench this myth. In doing so, they lent legitimacy to exclusionary and reactionary politics, even while claiming to merely reflect public sentiment.
Importantly, Professor Mondon warned that this elite narrative has real consequences. It racializes the working class by equating working-class identity with whiteness, thereby excluding ethnic minorities and immigrants who are themselves often working-class. It naturalizes racism by framing it as an inevitable response to economic hardship, rather than a political choice or a construct of political elites. And it normalizes regressive politics by presenting them as the authentic voice of a democratic majority.
This construction is, to Professor Mondon, continually reinforced by media coverage. For example, recent violent anti-migrant demonstrations in the UK were portrayed by outlets like the BBC as expressions of legitimate, working-class anger—despite the racist and xenophobic nature of the acts. The BBC even apologized for calling the far-right Reform Party “far-right.” Similarly, headlines after these riots claimed they were driven by “economic grievances,” offering justification rather than critique.
Professor Mondon challenged this narrative with data from Eurobarometer surveys, which show a stark gap between what people say matters to them personally—such as healthcare, jobs, and education—and what they perceive as problems for the country—typically immigration, a perception shaped by media and political discourse. During the 2016 Brexit campaign, for example, immigration emerged as a top concern at the national level, but it barely registered as a personal priority. This discrepancy reveals the power of media agenda-setting and elite framing in constructing “public opinion.”
Professor Mondon further questioned why only certain actors are granted the status of “the people.” Those protesting for climate action, racial justice, or trans rights are often dismissed as “elite,” “woke,” or “naïve.” Meanwhile, racist protestors, anti-migrant agitators, or conservative culture warriors are hailed as representing “real people” with “legitimate concerns.” Even billionaire authors like J.K. Rowling, or politicians like Farage and Trump, are cast as victims of elite suppression and defenders of democratic expression.
This discursive bias shapes policy outcomes. Both conservative and center-left parties—such as Labour under Keir Starmer—justify rightward shifts in immigration and cultural policy by claiming they are responding to “the people’s” demands. Yet, Professor Mondon argued, such moves are often preemptive responses to media-generated moral panics rather than genuine democratic pressures. The result is a cycle in which reactionary politics are platformed and amplified, while progressive movements are marginalized.
In concluding, Professor Mondon offered several urgent recommendations. First, we must stop exaggerating the electoral strength of the far right and critically interrogate low voter turnout and political disengagement. Second, we should resist euphemizing reactionary politics as “populism”—if a policy is racist or authoritarian, it should be named as such. Third, we must reject the reflex to blame “the people” for the democratic crisis, and instead scrutinize how power, media, and elite discourse mediate public knowledge and shape perceptions. Finally, Professor Mondon called for a critical reassessment of liberalism’s role in enabling far-right resurgence. Liberal elites’ failure to address inequality, racism, and disenfranchisement has contributed to the very crisis they now lament.
Rather than discarding “the people” as a dangerous force, Professor Mondon argued, scholars and policymakers must engage more honestly with the democratic potential of the broader population. The challenge lies not in taming the people, but in confronting the forces that construct reactionary myths in their name.
Professor Luke Bretherton: “Christianity in A Time of Populism”
A man clasps his hands in prayer during the opening ceremonies of President Donald Trump’s “Keep America Great” rally at the Wildwoods Convention Center in Wildwood, New Jersey, on January 28, 2020. Photo by Benjamin Clapp.
In his presentation, Luke Bretherton, Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology at the University of Oxford, offered a nuanced theological and political analysis of populism, with particular attention to its relationship with Christianity. Rather than treating populism solely as a pathological deviation from democratic norms—as is common in much of the European and North American literature— Professor Bretherton argued that populism is a perennial and ideologically fluid component of democratic life. Populism, he suggested, oscillates between democratic and anti-democratic forms, each shaping the political terrain in profound, and at times, conflicting ways.
Professor Bretherton opened by critiquing the dominant academic and journalistic lens through which populism is often viewed—namely, as an aberration associated with far-right, anti-immigrant movements. This narrow interpretation, he argued, overlooks historical and global instances of populism as vehicles of democratization, such as the Solidarity movement in Poland, the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, and even populist peasant movements like La Vía Campesina. He emphasized that populism’s ideological indeterminacy makes it resistant to clear categorization on the traditional left-right spectrum, functioning instead as a vessel for diverse, often contradictory, political projects.
According to Professor Bretherton, populism’s complexity lies in its dual potential: it can either renew democratic life or corrode it. Drawing on the work of Margaret Canovan and Ernesto Laclau, Bretherton explained that populism arises from tensions internal to democracy itself, particularly between its redemptive promise—rule by the people—and its pragmatic reality, in which elite negotiation and institutional mediation often dominate. When the redemptive aspect is perceived to have been lost, populist movements emerge to reclaim it, often invoking the language of purity, moral renewal, and direct representation.
To differentiate forms of populism, Professor Bretherton proposed a typology contrasting democratic populism with anti-democratic populism. Democratic populism seeks to broaden political participation, construct shared moral vocabularies, and nurture long-term, deliberative engagement. It builds institutions, invests in civic education, and aims to create pluralistic forms of common life. Examples include community organizing movements like Citizens UK or the early American Populist movement of the late 19th century, which drew on religious traditions to foster democratic deliberation.
By contrast, anti-democratic populism, according to Professor Bretherton, simplifies political space through exclusion and dichotomy, often bypassing deliberative institutions in favor of plebiscitary rule and strongman leadership. It construes the people in essentialist, ethnoreligious, or racialized terms, delegitimizing opposition as traitorous or unpatriotic. Leaders like Donald Trump embody this form of populism, claiming to represent the “real people” while delegitimizing institutional checks and balances.
Professor Bretherton warned that while both forms of populism share characteristics—emphasis on leadership, romanticization of the “ordinary people,” skepticism toward elites and bureaucracy—they differ in their normative trajectories. Democratic populism aims to cultivate shared responsibility for the common good, while anti-democratic populism facilitates personal withdrawal from public life and the erosion of civic institutions in favor of authoritarian consolidation.
The latter part of Professor Bretherton’s presentation focused on the intersection between populism and Christianity. He argued that populism draws heavily on theological tropes, often reconfiguring religious narratives to legitimize its political vision. Christian theology itself, according to him, has longstanding populist impulses—particularly within Protestant traditions that emphasize unmediated access to God and critique ecclesial hierarchy. These impulses have historically fueled resistance to both clerical and political elites. However, Professor Bretherton cautioned that such impulses can be co-opted by anti-democratic populist movements, as seen in the rhetoric of far-right parties like Germany’s AfD or France’s Rassemblement National, which claim to defend Christian culture while attacking institutional churches.
Professor Bretherton emphasizes that this tension stems from the anti-institutional nature of anti-democratic populism, which bypasses mediating structures—such as churches or representative institutions—in favor of a direct identification between the leader and the people. Theologically, this dynamic manifests as a form of idolatry, in which the nation or a charismatic leader is elevated to a messianic role, effectively substituting for Christ. Bretherton described this as a “Christophobic and anti-ecclesial” form of Christianity—one that empties faith of its creedal and ethical commitments and repurposes it as a tool of exclusionary cultural identity.
Rather than treating Christian references in populist rhetoric as merely superficial or secularized, Professor Bretherton argued that we are witnessing a re-enchantment of political discourse. Far-right populism, he contended, does not secularize Christian symbols but sacralizes secular notions like sovereignty and nationhood, effectively reversing the modern trajectory of disenchantment. This shift represents a new kind of political theology, one in which secular concepts are infused with religious meaning, producing an existential, quasi-spiritual political struggle.
Professor Bretherton highlights global examples—from Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Islamist turn in Turkey to the rise of Hindu nationalism in India—that illustrate the resurgence of political movements in which the sacred and the political are strategically recombined with potent effect. In Europe, this re-enchantment emerges in response to technocratic liberalism’s perceived hollowness and its failure to address existential anxieties, community dislocation, and crises of agency.
Professor Bretherton concluded by asserting that Christianity must confront these dynamics with a return to its core commitments: love of God and neighbor, solidarity with the stranger, and the rejection of idolatrous narratives of salvation through nation or leader. The Church, he insisted, must become a site of resistance against both authoritarianism and technocratic alienation by cultivating forms of common life grounded in justice, plurality, and mutual care. The ultimate theological task, he contended, is to convert politics from a false gospel of domination into a means of neighboring—turning the earthly city into a penultimate place of peace rather than seeking salvation through it.
Conclusion
Roundtable I of the ECPS Conference 2025 at the University of Oxford offered a compelling and multifaceted reflection on the politics of “the people” in a time of democratic uncertainty and populist resurgence. Under the skillful moderation of Professor Jonathan Wolff, the session foregrounded how “the people” remains a highly malleable and contested category—evoked to both revitalize and erode democratic life. Drawing on historical, political, and theological perspectives, the speakers dismantled simplistic narratives that equate populism either with democratic renewal or authoritarian decline. Instead, they highlighted the need to interrogate how elites, institutions, and media infrastructures construct and instrumentalize notions of “popular will” for divergent ends.
A shared theme emerged: that contemporary politics is marked not simply by polarization, but by a crisis of representation, legitimacy, and moral imagination. Whether in the reappearance of emotionally charged political forms (Conway), the elite-driven construction of reactionary publics (Mondon), or the sacralization of exclusionary ideologies (Bretherton), the roundtable underscored the urgency of rethinking democratic participation. As the idea of “the people” continues to shape our political futures, this conversation reminded us that its meaning must remain a site of critical, ethical, and democratic contestation.
Note: To experience the panel’s dynamic and thought-provoking Q&A session, we encourage you to watch the full video recording above.
Please cite as: ECPS Staff. (2025). “ECPS Conference 2025 / Panel I — Politics of Social Contract.” European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). July 8, 2025. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp00102
Panel I – Politics of the Social Contract at the ECPS Conference 2025 brought together diverse approaches to examine how democratic legitimacy, resistance, and pluralism are evolving in the face of global democratic backsliding. Chaired by Dr. Lior Erez (Oxford University), the panel featured Professor Robert Johns and collaborators presenting experimental research on public support for human rights under repression; Nathan Tsang (USC) explored how Hong Kong diaspora communities engage in covert resistance through cultural expression; and Simon Clemens (Humboldt University) introduced Isabelle Stengers’ cosmopolitical philosophy, proposing a radical politics of coexistence over consensus. Together, the presentations reflected on how the idea of “the people” is being contested, reimagined, and mobilized across social, empirical, and philosophical registers.
Reported by ECPS Staff
Panel 1 of the ECPS Conference “‘We, the People’ and the Future of Democracy,”—titled Politics of the Social Contract—offered a rich, interdisciplinary exploration of how democratic legitimacy, group identity, and political resistance are being reimagined in response to the erosion of liberal democratic norms. Held at St. Cross College, Oxford, and chaired by Dr. Lior Erez(Alfred Landecker Postdoctoral Fellow at the Blavatnik School of Government and Nuffield College, Oxford), the session brought together empirical, ethnographic, and philosophical perspectives on the contested meanings of citizenship and coexistence in our contemporary moment.
The social contract—once the symbolic foundation of liberal democracy—has come under intense pressure in recent years. The rise of exclusionary populist movements, the securitization of public discourse, and the erosion of trust in institutions have all complicated the relationship between citizens and the state. Yet, even as these developments undermine traditional models of political legitimacy, new forms of democratic practice and resistance are emerging. This panel offers an interdisciplinary examination of how these tensions play out in empirical and philosophical terms.
The panel began with a presentation by Professor Robert Johns (University of Southampton), who—alongside co-authors Sabine Carey, Katrin Paula, and Nadine O’Shea—shared findings from an innovative survey experiment conducted in Germany. Their study investigated public support for police violence across various protest scenarios and tested whether different rhetorical frames—rooted in human rights, democracy, or universalism—could reduce support for repression. Strikingly, they found that traditional rights-based arguments were only modestly effective, and that democratic appeals had greater persuasive power. The research revealed the fragility of rights discourse and the challenge of mobilizing public support across group divides.
The second paper, by Nathan Tsang (University of Southern California), shifts the focus to diasporic resistance under authoritarian threat. Drawing from rich ethnographic fieldwork with Hong Kong communities in the US, Tsang reveals how cultural activities can serve as subtle yet powerful platforms for political expression—especially under the shadow of transnational repression. His analysis shows how everyday practices blur the line between political and non-political, reshaping our understanding of what resistance can look like.
Finally, Simon Clemens (Humboldt University of Berlin) invites us into the philosophical realm of cosmopolitics, drawing on the work of Isabelle Stengers to rethink pluralism, coexistence, and the political beyond the demos. Clemens challenges both liberal and radical democratic assumptions, offering a vision of politics rooted in heterogeneity, co-presence, and what he calls “cosmic proceduralism.”
Together, these papers open vital questions about power, belonging, and democratic futures in an unsettled world.
Professor Robert Johns: “Exploring Human Rights Attitudes: Outgroup Perception and Long-term Consequences
Robert Johns, Professor of Politics at the University of Southampton, presents the paper of his research team on human rights attitudes and outgroup perceptions during Panel I, Politics of Social Contract, at the ECPS Conference 2025 held at St Cross College, University of Oxford, on July 1, 2025.
In his empirically grounded and theoretically ambitious presentation, Robert Johns, Professor of Politics at the University of Southampton, examined the complexity of public attitudes toward human rights, with particular attention to how such attitudes are influenced by group identity, discursive framing, and rhetorical context. Delivered during Panel 1 of the ECPS Conference at Oxford University, his talk—titled “Exploring Human Rights Attitudes: Outgroup Perception and Long-term Consequences”—was a candid reflection on both the possibilities and limitations of persuasion in bolstering public support for human rights protections.
Professor Johns opened with an acknowledgment of the methodological diversity of the symposium and introduced his team’s (Sabine Carey, Katrin Paula and Nadine O’Shea) “quantitative persuasion experiment,” aimed not merely at observing public opinion but at exploring how to strengthen democratic and rights-based commitments in an age of populist backlash. He critiqued the prevailing notion that rights-supporting attitudes are stable, arguing instead that they are often thin, situationally dependent, and subject to manipulation by both rhetorical framing and group biases.
At the heart of Professor Johns’s research was a large-scale survey experiment conducted in Germany, designed to examine public reactions to the use of excessive police force against demonstrators. As Professor Johns explained during his presentation, respondents were randomly assigned to read a vignette describing peaceful protests, with the identity of the protestors varied across conditions—Muslim groups, climate activists, right-wing demonstrators, or an unspecified group. The primary dependent variable was the level of support for a hypothetical proposal to grant police amnesty for using excessive force in such scenarios.
Crucially, the study tested whether various types of arguments opposing this policy—framed in terms of human rights, democratic norms, universalism, or slippery-slope reasoning—could diminish public support for repression. As Professor Johns noted, a control group received no normative framing, providing a baseline against which the persuasive impact of each justificatory appeal could be assessed.
Professor Johns’ findings were striking. Across the sample, about one-third of respondents supported the repressive measure. Yet, surprisingly, most of the interventions—particularly those grounded in explicit human rights language—had only modest or negligible persuasive effects. The strongest rhetorical appeal was not a rights-based argument at all, but rather an appeal to “democratic rights,” suggesting that public support may be more easily activated by the language of democratic norms than by abstract invocations of “human rights.”
The study also explored how group attitudes shaped policy support. Respondents who harbored negative views toward the outgroup mentioned in the vignette—especially Muslims and climate activists—were significantly more likely to support repressive policies. However, even among this subgroup, some framing interventions, particularly those emphasizing universality or future consequences, slightly reduced support for police impunity. Intriguingly, the only subgroup where the interventions had a noticeable effect were those respondents who had previously signaled a willingness to deny rights across multiple domains—those least committed to human rights. This paradoxical finding suggested that even people initially inclined to restrict rights might be susceptible to targeted persuasion, while those who profess stronger commitments often remain unmoved.
Professor Johns also acknowledged the broader discursive challenge facing human rights advocacy. He pointed to the structural asymmetry between “urgent,” emotionally charged justifications for repression (e.g., national security, law and order) and the often abstract, long-term nature of rights-based arguments. In public debates, human rights defenders are frequently forced into reactive positions, which are temporally and rhetorically disadvantaged. As Professor Johns noted, in televised or political discourse, “rights” advocates often lose momentum by having to concede moral complexity or nuance in response to emotionally powerful narratives focused on threats, danger, or victimhood.
In concluding, Professor Johns emphasized that the lack of strong persuasive effects in the study was not necessarily a failure but an invitation to recalibrate both the content and the communication of human rights advocacy. He posed several provocations for future research and political practice: Should we reframe human rights in terms more resonant with popular democratic identity? Can rights-based arguments be made more immediate, urgent, or emotionally compelling? And how do we bridge the psychological gap between “us” and “them” when advocating for truly universal rights?
Ultimately, Professor Johns’ presentation underscored the fragility of rights-based norms in the public imagination and the difficulty of mobilizing support across group boundaries in polarized societies. Yet it also suggested that with careful framing, strategic messaging, and attention to underlying group perceptions, there remains space to expand public commitment to inclusive democratic principles. His empirical approach—rigorous yet normatively engaged—offered a valuable contribution to ongoing debates about how best to defend and revitalize the language of rights in a climate of democratic uncertainty.
Nathan Tsang: “Doing Politics Non-politically: Explaining How Cultural Projects Afford Political Resistance”
Umbrella Movement protesters gather in Admiralty, Hong Kong, after the launch of Occupy Central on September 28, 2014, demanding democratic reform and public consultation. Police blocked key access routes. Photo: Mike K.
Nathan Tsang, a doctoral candidate in sociology at the University of Southern California, presented his ongoing ethnographic research titled “Doing Politics Non-politically: Explaining How Cultural Projects Afford Political Resistance.” The project explores how diasporic Hong Kongers in the United States engage in political resistance within seemingly non-political cultural contexts. Drawing on two years of fieldwork, Tsang’s analysis offers a nuanced sociological account of how diasporic communities under threat of transnational repression navigate and perform political expression in the everyday.
Tsang’s inquiry originates in an empirical puzzle he encountered while attending a Chinese New Year festival organized by Hong Kong immigrants in the US. Amid the food stalls and traditional decorations, he noticed politically charged banners and banned books—materials overtly critical of the Chinese regime. What struck him was the blending of cultural celebration with veiled political protest. Why, he asked, do diaspora Hong Kongers embed political messaging in cultural settings? And how is political resistance sustained under the constraints of surveillance and repression from abroad?
The backdrop to this phenomenon is the 2019 Hong Kong protest movement, followed by intense repression by the Chinese and Hong Kong governments. Many activists fled and now live in exile, facing both psychological trauma and the threat of transnational repression. As Tsang noted, diaspora Hong Kongers wish to remain politically engaged without exposing themselves or loved ones to state retaliation. This has led them to embed resistance within cultural forms—New Year fairs, movie clubs, and community centers—allowing them to “do politics non-politically.”
While this blending of culture and politics in exile has precedent—similar dynamics have been observed in the Turkish, Iranian, and Tibetan diasporas—Tsang argues that existing literature leaves gaps. Most notably, while repression is often theorized as a top-down force that curtails public expression, less is known about how individuals interpret and navigate repression in real-time, social contexts. Furthermore, scholars have yet to fully explore how individual acts of covert resistance become collectively legible and politically potent. Tsang’s intervention centers on this “how” question: How do individuals under threat of repression switch between cultural and political modes of engagement in everyday life? How does resistance become collectively cued and sustained?
To answer this, Tsang adopts an interactionist ethnographic methodology. He embedded himself in two diasporic Hong Kong cultural organizations located in a major US West Coast city: a movie club that promotes Hong Kong cinema and a community center offering social gatherings and workshops. Both organizations were founded by former activists from the 2019 movement and operate in the same local network. By selecting highly similar cases—geographically co-located, ideologically aligned, and socially overlapping—Tsang sought to isolate the micro-interactional dynamics that differentiate more successful political cueing from less effective ones.
These dynamics, Tsang argues, demonstrate that political speech in diasporic communities under repression is contingent not only on intention but on a shared ability to “read the room.” Through repeated participation in communal settings, individuals learn when it is safe—and expected—to shift from being cultural consumers to political actors. These micro-cues and switches, often mundane and unnoticed, are the mechanisms through which political communities are built and sustained under repression.
A third case, from the US Pacific Northwest, further supported this argument. There, a movie screening group resembled the earlier movie club, but with one key difference: a small stand offering books on Hong Kong politics. This unassuming addition, not even strategically planned, catalyzed in-depth public discussions about resistance and community formation. Tsang concluded that such material cues—books, spatial layouts, symbolic gestures—can serve as powerful anchors for interactional shifts toward political engagement.
Theoretically, Tsang’s research bridges social movement theory, diaspora studies, and the sociology of culture. While concepts such as abeyance (from movement scholarship) and hidden transcripts (James Scott) capture aspects of suppressed activism, Tsang insists on the importance of micro-sociological analysis: the cues, environments, and interactions through which resistance becomes collectively meaningful. His work contributes to the growing body of scholarship that treats culture not merely as a resource or backdrop, but as an active site of political negotiation.
Tsang concluded with a sobering reflection. While his findings highlight creative resistance, he also cautioned against romanticizing these efforts. In recent fieldwork, he has observed “Hong Kong Trumpists”entering the same cultural spaces to reshape diasporic narratives in line with right-wing populism. This underscores that the same interactional dynamics that enable resistance can also be harnessed to spread illiberal ideologies. Hence, understanding how political meaning is cued in everyday life is crucial not only for recognizing resistance but also for identifying the incubation of populist backlash.
Tsang’s presentation, rich in ethnographic detail and theoretical insight, offered a compelling portrait of how politics persists—and is transformed—in spaces where it is ostensibly absent. His work sheds light on the subtle yet powerful ways diasporic communities negotiate identity, solidarity, and resistance in an era of transnational repression.
Simon Clemens: “From Demos to Cosmos: Isabelle Stengers’ Cosmopolitical Philosophy and Democratic Pluralism”
Simon Clemens, Doctoral Researcher at Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, presents his paper titled “From Demos to Cosmos: The Political Philosophy of Isabelle Stengers” during Panel I at the ECPS Conference 2025, held at St Cross College, University of Oxford, on July 1, 2025.
Simon Clemens, a doctoral researcher at the Cluster of Excellence “Contestation of the Liberal Script” (SCRIPTS) and the Theory of Politics program at Humboldt University of Berlin, delivered a nuanced presentation exploring the political philosophy of Belgian philosopher Isabelle Stengers. Titled “From Demos to Cosmos: The Political Philosophy of Isabelle Stengers,” the presentation aimed to reinterpret democratic politics and pluralism through the lens of what Stengers calls “cosmopolitics.”
Clemens contextualized his talk within his broader dissertation research, which interrogates the political significance of the so-called “new materialisms”—a theoretical tradition that reconsiders the relationship between nature and culture, particularly in light of climate crisis and transformations in the sciences. Through this framework, Clemens argued that Stengers offers an alternative imagination for politics that departs from liberal and utilitarian frameworks, introducing a politics grounded not in consensus or inclusion, but in co-presence and heterogeneity.
Clemens began by contrasting Stengers’ approach to pluralism with that of John Rawls, the quintessential liberal theorist. Rawls, in his theory of “reasonable pluralism,” acknowledges the coexistence of diverse worldviews in a democratic society, held together by an “overlapping consensus” of reasonable doctrines. Clemens noted that for Rawls, this consensus emerges from the institutional conditions of liberal democracy, enabling a coherent political framework that respects difference within bounds of reasonableness.
Stengers, however, rejects this premise. Rather than viewing pluralism as stemming from reasonable disagreement about a shared world, she posits that the world itself is fundamentally heterogeneous. Drawing from her work with Nobel laureate Ilya Prigogine in the philosophy of science, Stengers argues that even the natural sciences—particularly physics and thermodynamics—offer conflicting and irreducibly divergent perspectives on the nature of reality. Thus, heterogeneity is not just a social fact or epistemological disagreement but an ontological condition.
To conceptualize how such radical heterogeneity can coexist politically, Stengers develops two central concepts: the “ecology of practices” and “cosmopolitics.” An “ecology of practices” refers to the co-existence of diverse knowledge systems, ways of life, and forms of evaluation that interact without collapsing into a singular hierarchy. Each practice is embedded in specific environments, produces its own modes of meaning, and carries internal logics that cannot be subordinated to universal standards. This ecology does not demand consensus but mutual awareness and the maintenance of relations that allow different practices to endure.
Cosmopolitics, meanwhile, names the political moment in which these ecologies interact. Importantly, Clemens emphasized that Stengers departs from Kantian cosmopolitanism, which seeks universal moral order. Instead, cosmopolitics resists universalization and instead foregrounds what she calls “co-presence”: the simultaneous, non-hierarchical existence of entities and practices that assert their heterogeneity. It is, in her view, a political response to the “generalized state of war” imposed by projects of global homogenization, including capitalist globalization and abstract universalism.
Clemens then turned to what he termed “cosmic proceduralism”—Stengers’ approach to political process that eschews quick resolutions and seeks to create space for heterogeneity to express itself. The core practice here is “slowing down”: a deliberate deceleration of decision-making and political composition to make room for those whose practices and values are often excluded or marginalized.
Slowing down, Clemens explained, is not inertia but attentiveness. It is the art of “paying attention to those inhabiting the land,” to borrow Stengers’ phrase. In practical terms, it introduces hesitation into otherwise mobilized, goal-oriented political processes. This aligns with Stengers’ critique of “mobilization” in both scientific and political contexts, where speed and efficiency often override careful consideration of affected actors.
Complementing this is her interest in the figure of the “diplomat,” who negotiates among divergent worlds not by imposing unity but by pacifying potentially hostile interactions. Through diplomacy and slowing down, a fragile mode of coexistence is made possible—a cosmos that is always emergent and never fully known.
In the final section, Clemens addressed the implications of Stengers’ cosmopolitics for democratic theory, particularly the concept of the demos. Drawing on thinkers like Jacques Rancière and Claude Lefort, he noted that radical democratic theory defines the demos as inherently open and contestable. “We, the people” is never a closed category; it is always subject to expansion and redefinition.
However, Clemens argued that Stengers moves away from the inclusion-oriented logic of radical democracy. Her concern is not with expanding the demos to include the excluded, but with preserving the heterogeneity of forms of life without subsuming them into a unified political subject. In this sense, her cosmopolitics does not seek to rule “in the name of the people,” but to enable the coexistence of radically diverse actors—what might be called the rule of the heterogeneous.
This leads to a provocative claim: the liberal and even radical democratic emphasis on inclusion can become coercive when it imposes a shared ontology or worldview. Inclusion, in this view, risks annihilating difference under the guise of universality. Thus, Stengers’ cosmopolitics can be read as a post-democratic or even anti-democratic gesture—not in the sense of rejecting democracy, but of shifting its foundation from shared rule to plural coexistence.
Clemens concluded by noting that Stengers’ political philosophy makes an important intervention in both democratic theory and broader discussions of pluralism. It challenges the consensus-seeking, universalist tendencies of liberalism and radical democracy alike. By proposing a cosmopolitical proceduralism rooted in heterogeneity, slowing down, and non-hierarchical co-presence, Stengers reimagines political life as the careful negotiation of difference rather than its resolution.
In an era of planetary crisis, epistemic conflict, and social fragmentation, Clemens suggested, such a rethinking may be not only timely but necessary. Cosmopolitics, in this light, becomes a radical democratic gesture that centers the right to exist differently—not just for people, but for practices, worlds, and beings too often ignored by traditional political thought.
Conclusion
Panel I of the ECPS Conference 2025 at Oxford University illuminated the evolving tensions within the modern social contract by offering deeply complementary empirical, ethnographic, and philosophical insights. Each presentation underscored the ways in which democratic legitimacy is not only being tested but reconfigured in response to exclusionary populism, transnational repression, and ontological pluralism. From Robert Johns’ sobering data on the limits of rights-based persuasion to Nathan Tsang’s compelling ethnography of diasporic resistance and Simon Clemens’ philosophical reimagining of democracy through Stengers’ cosmopolitics, the panel revealed the fragility and adaptability of democratic norms under contemporary pressure.
Chair Dr. Lior Erez skillfully moderated a session that moved fluidly between grounded data, lived experience, and theoretical provocation. What emerged was a picture of “the people” not as a unified voice, but as a contested terrain—shaped by identity, institutional trust, and the search for meaningful participation. The session called not for nostalgia over lost democratic certainties but for rigorous engagement with the evolving forms of political subjectivity, belonging, and resistance. As the crisis of the liberal script deepens, such interdisciplinary dialogues remain vital in charting pathways toward inclusive, resilient, and plural democratic futures.
Note: To experience the panel’s dynamic and thought-provoking Q&A session, we encourage you to watch the full video recording above.
Please cite as: ECPS Staff (2025). “Opening Session of the ECPS Conference 2025: ‘We, the People’ and the Future of Democracy – Interdisciplinary Approaches.” European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). July 8, 2025. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp00101
The ECPS Conference 2025 at the University of Oxford began with a timely and thought-provoking opening session that explored the evolving meaning and political utility of “the people” in democratic discourse. Sümeyye Kocaman offered a nuanced welcome, highlighting how the term has been used across history to empower, exclude, and politicize identity. Kate Lindsay Mavor, Master of St Cross College, underscored the value of interdisciplinary exchange in addressing democratic challenges, noting how the College’s diverse academic environment aligned naturally with the conference’s aims. Baroness Janet Royall then delivered a compelling keynote, warning of the double-edged nature of “the people” as both democratic ideal and populist tool. Her address emphasized the need for inclusion, institutional integrity, civic renewal, and interdisciplinary cooperation in the face of democratic erosion. The session set the stage for critical and globally relevant dialogue across disciplines.
Reported by ECPS Staff
The opening session of the ECPS Conference 2025 at the University of Oxford commenced with a series of remarks that collectively set an intellectually rich and politically urgent tone for the days ahead. Sümeyye Kocaman, DPhil candidate at St. Catherine’s College and conference coordinator on behalf of the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), offered a thoughtful and inclusive welcome, grounding the event in the contested and evolving significance of “the people.” She reflected on how this concept—invoked across diverse historical, geographical, and ideological contexts—has served both emancipatory and exclusionary purposes. Drawing on her research and recent electoral analyses, she highlighted the growing resonance of populist narratives and the imperative to examine how democratic rhetoric shapes lived experience beyond the ballot box.
Following Kocaman, Kate Lindsay Mavor, CBE, Master of St Cross College, welcomed participants on behalf of the host institution. Emphasizing the interdisciplinary character of St Cross—a graduate college home to scholars from over 60 fields—she noted the alignment between the conference’s aims and the College’s commitment to cross-disciplinary dialogue.
Baroness Janet Royall of Blaisdon, Principal of Somerville College, then delivered an incisive keynote, urging participants to confront the dual nature of “the people” as both democratic foundation and potential populist weapon. Her address called for rigorous, interdisciplinary engagement and collective democratic renewal.
Welcome Address by Conference Coordinator Sümeyye Kocaman
Sümeyye Kocaman, Managing Editor of Populism & Politics, and the coordinator of the ECPS Conference 2025 on behalf of the European Center for Populism Studies, opened the event with a thoughtful and inclusive welcome. Expressing gratitude to participants for arriving so promptly, she framed the conference around the contested nature of “the people.” Kocaman also highlighted the plurality and political weight of the term across time and place. From 19th-century American democratization to Cold War securitization and from the ideological symbolism of Albania’s People’s Republic to contemporary struggles for women’s rights and labor justice, she emphasized that invocations of “the people” are never ideologically neutral.
Kocaman noted that in populism studies, “the people” remains a central but fluid category—emerging in various forms such as “digital populism,” “climate populism,” and others. This terminological proliferation, she argued, speaks to the field’s theoretical dynamism but also to its increasing relevance in everyday political life. Drawing from her own research, she underscored the need to interrogate how notions of “the people” function not just in electoral discourse, but in the daily lived experiences of individuals and communities. This perspective, she asserted, is especially urgent in light of rising populist rhetoric across both Eastern and Western Europe, as recently documented in ECPS’s report on the EU elections.
Kocaman closed by acknowledging the collaborative support of academic and institutional partners—including the Rothermere American Institute, the European Studies Centre, Oxford’s Democracy Network, and scholars from Berlin and Brighton—and expressed solidarity with scholars unable to attend due to geopolitical crises. Her closing remarks served as a poignant reminder of the stakes of the conference: engaging critically with the idea of “the people” under conditions of global instability and democratic uncertainty.
Welcome Address by Kate Lindsay Mavor on Behalf of the Host College
Kate Lindsay Mavor, CBE, delivers the opening remarks at the ECPS Conference 2025 held at St Cross College, University of Oxford, on July 1, 2025.
Kate Lindsay Mavor, CBE, Master of St Cross College, opened the Conference with a warm and appreciative welcome to all participants. She expressed genuine delight that the conference was taking place at St Cross and extended her congratulations to Sümeyye Kocaman for organizing what she described as an exceptionally rich and meaningful academic program. She also offered thanks to Ben Gladstone, Junior Dean at St Cross, for his role in helping bring the event to the college.
Mavor took a moment to reflect on the nature of St Cross College itself—an entirely graduate institution at the University of Oxford, with approximately 620 students representing over 60 academic disciplines. She noted that this unique breadth makes the College an especially fertile ground for interdisciplinary dialogue, and she emphasized that hosting events like the ECPS Conference is very much in line with the College’s mission to encourage rigorous, open, and diverse scholarly conversations.
She acknowledged the topic of the conference—centered on the idea of “the people” and its implications for contemporary democracy—as both pressing and, in some respects, deeply unsettling. Yet she expressed hope that the conference would provide space for thoughtful, evidence-based discussion at a time when such engagement is more necessary than ever. She concluded by welcoming attendees once again and graciously passed the floor to Janet Royall, Baroness Royall of Blaisdon, Principal of Somerville College, Oxford University.
Keynote Address by Janet Royall (Baroness Royall of Blaisdon)
Baroness Janet Royall of Blaisdon, Principal of Somerville College, delivers the keynote address during the opening session of the ECPS Conference 2025 at St Cross College, University of Oxford, on July 1, 2025.
Baroness Royall, in her opening address, brought to the fore a compelling blend of political insight, institutional experience, and democratic advocacy. While modestly noting her non-academic background, she framed her intervention with both humility and urgency—an acknowledgment of the significance of the moment and the thematic depth of the conference.
Speaking from her current role as Principal of Somerville College and her former position as Chair of the People’s History Museum in Manchester—a self-declared “museum of democracy”—Baroness Royall underscored the symbolic and practical weight of convening such a conference at a time when democracy is under unprecedented strain. Her address moved fluidly from personal reflection to systemic critique, offering a panoramic view of the challenges and possibilities that define our democratic era.
Baroness Royall opened by commending the ECPS and conference organizers for their vision and rapid execution of a robust program. She recalled an early conversation in January 2025 with the conference coordinator, Sumeyye Kocaman, about an “embryonic” idea to convene a gathering on the theme of “We, the People.” In less than six months, that idea had matured into an intellectually rigorous and internationally inclusive conference. She highlighted the potential of this initiative to lay the groundwork for a broader academic and civic endeavor, notably the proposed Oxford Democracy Network—a platform to foster long-term collaboration around democratic renewal.
At the heart of Baroness Royall’s speech was the concept of “the people”—both as a foundational democratic ideal and as a source of contemporary political peril. She asked, pointedly, whether the title of the conference might have been better framed as “We, the People and the Precarious Future of Democracy.” This rhetorical shift captured her broader concern: that the invocation of “the people” has become a double-edged sword in today’s political landscape.
Baroness Royall cited the alarming statistic that one-fifth of the world’s democracies have declined or disappeared between 2012 and 2024, pointing to a structural crisis in democratic governance. This regression, she argued, is not attributable to a singular cause but reflects a toxic convergence of polarizing narratives, us-versus-them mentalities, and the erosion of social cohesion. Crucially, she emphasized that these trends do not signal the end of democracy, but rather call for its reinvention—grounded in inclusion, resilience, and renewed solidarity.
Drawing on her political experience, Baroness Royall articulated how the phrase “we the people,” while historically empowering—as in the US Constitution—can also be weaponized. When deployed inclusively, the phrase serves as a unifying force, anchoring citizenship in shared values and a common public life. However, in the hands of authoritarian populists, the same phrase is used to divide, exclude, and delegitimize. By framing political opponents as enemies of the people, populist leaders transform democratic mechanisms into tools of domination. Royall cited cases such as Hungary, India, Turkey, and the United States, where the language of majoritarian legitimacy is used to undermine pluralism, erode judicial independence, and roll back minority rights. In such contexts, democracy may persist in name but is hollowed out in substance.
To confront these challenges, Baroness Royall stressed the necessity of interdisciplinary engagement. No single field, she argued, can adequately diagnose or respond to the crisis of democracy. Political science and law illuminate how constitutions shape and channel power; sociology and anthropology explore the socio-cultural dimensions of exclusion and cohesion; history and philosophy provide the longue durée through which the evolution of “the people” can be understood; and media and technology studies reveal how digital platforms both fracture and connect public discourse. She notably added science to this list—an unusual but thought-provoking inclusion—arguing that scientific knowledge and the practices of truth-seeking are indispensable to democratic life. Citing Nobel Laureate Sir Paul Nurse, she affirmed that “democracy is built on truth and trust,” and that science, in its ideal form, sustains both.
Baroness Royall’s address was marked by a tone of constructive realism. While expressing concern over democratic decline, she rejected fatalism. Instead, she outlined a multidimensional agenda for democratic renewal. First, she called for a redefinition of “the people” as an inclusive and dynamic community, one capable of accommodating diversity without retreating into fragmentation. Here, she invoked the post-Apartheid experience of South Africa as a model for constructing cross-cutting civic identities that transcend ethnic or sectarian divisions.
Second, Baroness Royall underscored the need to reinforce institutional integrity. This involves defending the independence of the judiciary, safeguarding electoral systems, and protecting a free press—all vital bulwarks against the authoritarian temptation of majoritarian rule.
Third, she emphasized civic renewal through grassroots participation, deliberative assemblies, and public education. Democracy, in her view, is not merely a set of institutions but a culture of engagement—a shared commitment to dialogue, complexity, and the common good.
Fourth, she called for global solidarity. Authoritarian populism is a transnational phenomenon and demands coordinated international responses. Civil society watchdogs, transnational legal norms, and cross-border academic partnerships must be part of the democratic arsenal.
Turning to her own political reflections, Baroness Royall acknowledged the widespread disillusionment with politicians. She argued, however, that this disaffection is often rooted in unrealistic public expectations. Voters demand lower taxes, higher pensions, and expanded public services—expectations that cannot be reconciled without trade-offs. Populists exploit this cognitive dissonance by offering simple solutions to complex problems. In contrast, genuine democracy, she insisted, requires honesty—about limits, about governance, and about the costs of collective decisions.
She also lamented the decline of local journalism and the rise of disinformation—particularly via AI-generated content—which has fractured the public sphere. Without a shared reality, she warned, the very possibility of democratic deliberation is undermined. In this context, she called for renewed investment in the civic infrastructure of knowledge: public media, media literacy, and forums for reasoned debate.
Baroness Royall then addressed a structural limitation of democracy often left unspoken: the influence of global capital. She noted that the need to placate financial markets can restrict democratic choice, creating a form of “attenuated democracy” where formal procedures persist but real power is constrained. This reality, she argued, highlights the need for vigilance and adaptation to preserve meaningful democratic sovereignty.
In her concluding remarks, Baroness Royall affirmed the value of the ECPS conference and its role in advancing a crucial intellectual and political mission. The “We, the People” program, she said, addresses the central paradox of modern democracy: that the very concept designed to empower citizens can also be used to erode their rights. By combining rigorous scholarship with policy-relevant insights, the conference aims not only to diagnose democratic decay but also to formulate strategies for renewal.
Baroness Royall closed on a note of cautious optimism, invoking Antonio Gramsci’s famous formulation: “pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.” While the threats to democracy are serious, she maintained that collective action, informed deliberation, and institutional resilience can chart a path forward. She expressed hope that the conference would inspire not only intellectually stimulating discussions but also concrete contributions to policy and democratic reform.
Conclusion
The opening session of the ECPS Conference 2025 laid a compelling foundation for the days ahead, offering both a sobering diagnosis of democratic fragility and an urgent call for renewal grounded in intellectual rigor and interdisciplinary collaboration. Anchored by the interventions of Sümeyye Kocaman, Kate Lindsay Mavor, and Baroness Janet Royall, the session deftly mapped the theoretical and practical stakes of examining “the people” as a contested and evolving concept at the heart of democratic politics.
Kocaman’s remarks highlighted the historical plurality and ideological malleability of “the people,” urging participants to interrogate its use not only in electoral campaigns but also in shaping everyday political experiences. Mavor emphasized the role of academic institutions in fostering open dialogue on questions of urgent public concern. Baroness Royall, meanwhile, offered a far-reaching keynote that moved from democratic theory to global political realities. Her speech underscored the double-edged nature of “the people” in democratic discourse—capable of both mobilizing collective agency and justifying exclusionary populism.
Collectively, these addresses set a tone of cautious optimism. While acknowledging the pressures of democratic backsliding, disinformation, and socio-political fragmentation, each speaker reaffirmed the possibility of renewal through civic education, institutional reform, and cross-sector dialogue. The session concluded with a clear message: that democracy cannot be taken for granted, and that critical, interdisciplinary engagement is essential not only for understanding the present crisis, but also for envisioning democratic futures that are more inclusive, participatory, and resilient. As the conference moves forward, the intellectual commitments voiced in the opening session will serve as both compass and challenge—calling participants to contribute meaningfully to the urgent task of democratic revitalization.
The European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS) successfully convened its Fourth Annual International Symposium at the University of Warsaw on May 22–23, 2025. The event brought together leading scholars, practitioners, and policymakers to examine the evolving dynamics of civilizational populism and its wide-ranging implications on local, national, transnational, and global levels.
Over two days of intensive dialogue and critical reflection, the symposium explored how populism—particularly in its civilizational form—interacts with religion, digital technologies, and identity-based narratives to shape political behavior, influence democratic institutions, and impact social cohesion across plural societies. Special attention was paid to the varied manifestations of populism in both the Global North and Global South.
The concept of civilizational populism—which deploys civilizational identity as a metanarrative to heighten antagonism between ‘the people’ and constructed ‘others,’ often along religious and cultural lines—was a central focus. Participants analyzed how this form of populism contributes to the intensification of intra- and inter-group conflicts and how it reshapes the discourse on globalization, South-South cooperation, and multipolar international relations.
Panels addressed the following core themes:
The relationship between civilizational populism and democratic backsliding.
The use of religion and civilizational rhetoric by populists to legitimize exclusionary policies.
The strategic role of digital technologies and artificial intelligence in amplifying populist messages.
Transnational linkages between populist actors and their impact on global governance frameworks.
The symposium further emphasized that while populism is often characterized as a “thin ideology,” it operates alongside thick ideologies—such as neoliberalism, nationalism, socialism, or religion—and plays a significant role in shaping emotions, mobilizing public sentiment, and reconfiguring political power structures.
Speakers highlighted that civilizational populist narratives, far from being confined to national borders, are increasingly embedded in global communication circuits, shaping diasporic politics, influencing foreign policy, and challenging multilateral norms.
Ultimately, the symposium fostered rich interdisciplinary discussions and called for innovative, inclusive, and ethically grounded strategies to address the challenges posed by civilizational populism in today’s digitally interconnected and ideologically polarized world.
Organizing Institution
European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS) (Brussels)
Hosting Institution
Centre for Europe, University of Warsaw (Warsaw)
Partner Institutions
Georgetown University (Washington DC)
University of Birmingham (Birmingham)
Deakin University (Melbourne)
DAAD / Cambridge University
University of Duisburg-Essen, Institute of East Asian Studies
Centre for International Relations (Warsaw)
DAY ONE – May 22, 2025
Opening Speech
Dr. Adam Bodnar (Minister of Justice of Poland / (Video Recording).
Keynote Speech
“A Relational Approach to Religion and Populism: Recontextualizing Civilizational Narratives in National and Global Contexts,” by Dr. Jocelyne Cesari(Professor and Chair of Religion and Politics at the University of Birmingham, UK, and Senior Fellow at the Berkeley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University).
Panel 1
Populism: Is It a One-way Route from Democracy to Authoritarianism?
“Making Sense of Multiple Manifestations of Alternatives to Liberal Democracies,” by Dr. Radoslaw Markowski(Professor of Political Science, Center for the Study of Democracy, Director, SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Warsaw & Polish Academy of Sciences & Polish National Election Study, Principal Investigator).
“Constitutional Intolerance: The Fashioning of ‘the Other’ in Europe’s Constitutional Repertoires,” by Dr. Marietta van der Tol(Politics & International Studies, DAAD-Cambridge).
Dr. Erkan Toguslu moderates a panel featuring Dr. Radoslaw Markowski and Dr. Marietta van der Tol, exploring alternatives to liberal democracies and the role of constitutional narratives in shaping ‘the Other’ in Europe. Photo: Muhammed Gemi.
Panel 2
Civilizational Rhetoric, Emotions, and Societal Cohesion
Moderator
Dr. Erin K. Wilson(Professor, Chair of Politics and Religion, the Faculty of Religion, Culture, and Society, University of Groningen).
Paper Presenters
“Populism, Civilization, and Restorative Nostalgia,” by Dr. Nicholas Morieson (Research Fellow, Deakin University’s Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalization).
“Emotional Dimensions of Civilisationist Populism: A Comparative Analysis of Erdogan, Modi, and Khan with Transformer-Based Classification,” by Dr. Matthew Belanger(Lecturer in Substance Use Sociology, Social Policy, and Criminology Faculty of Social Sciences University of Stirling) and Dr. Ana-Maria Bliuc (Reader in Psychology, School of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Law at the University of Dundee).
Dr. Erin K. Wilson moderates Panel 2 on “Civilizational Rhetoric, Emotions, and Societal Cohesion,” featuring Professor Ihsan Yilmaz, Dr. Nicholas Morieson on populism and restorative nostalgia, and Dr. Matthew Belanger & Dr. Ana-Maria Bliuc on the emotional dynamics of civilisationist populism. Photo: Muhammed Gemi.
Keynote Speech
Kamil Wyszkowski, Director of the UN Global Compact, delivers the keynote speech highlighting the challenges and responsibilities of global institutions in defending human rights amid rising populism. Photo: Muhammed Gemi.
The Role of the UN in Fighting for Human Rights in This Populist Age,” by Kamil Wyszkowski (Director of UN Global Compact).
Panel 3
Religion and Populism: Local, National, and Transnational Dimensions
Moderator
Dr. Jocelyne Cesari(Professor and Chair of Religion and Politics at the University of Birmingham (UK) and Senior Fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University).
Speakers
“Remember to be Jewish: Religious Populism in Israel,” byDr. Guy Ben-Porat (Professor of International Relations and Politics, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev).
“Religious Populism and Civilizationalism in International Politics: An Authoritarian Turn,” byDr. Ihsan Yilmaz(Research Professor of Political Science and International Relations and Chair in Islamic Studies at Deakin University’s Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalization) & Dr. Nicholas Morieson (Research Fellow, Deakin University’s Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalization).
Paper Presenters
“National Populists of Christian Europe, Unite? Civilizations Dimensions of Far-right Populist Alliances in Post-Brexit Britain,” by Dr. Rafal Soborski(Professor of International Politics, The Department of Social Science at Richmond American University and Senior Research Fellow at the Global Diversities and Inequalities Research Centre at London Metropolitan University).
“Anwar Ibrahim’s Civilisational Populism: Between the Muslim World and Malaysia,” by Dr. Syaza Shukri(Assoc. Professor& Head of Department of Political Science, International Islamic University Malaysia).
Dr. Jocelyne Cesari moderates Panel 3 on “Religion and Populism: Local, National, and Transnational Dimensions,” presented by Dr. Bulent Kenes, and featuring contributions from Dr. Guy Ben-Porat on religious populism in Israel; Dr. Ihsan Yilmaz & Dr. Nicholas Morieson on civilizational authoritarianism; Dr. Rafal Soborski on Christian far-right alliances; and Dr. Syaza Shukri on Anwar Ibrahim’s civilizational populism. Photos: Muhammed Gemi.
DAY TWO – May 23, 2025
Keynote Speech
Dariusz Mazur, Deputy Minister of Justice of the Republic of Poland, delivers a keynote speech addressing the challenges to the rule of law and the role of justice institutions in safeguarding democracy in an era of rising populism. Photo: Muhammed Gemi.
Dariusz Mazur (Deputy Minister of Justice of the Republic of Poland).
Panel 4
Impacts of Civilizational Populism on the Market and Globalization
Moderator
Antoine Godbert(Affiliate Professor of Law, Economics & Humanities at ESCP Business School, Paris, and Director of International Affairs at the Rectorat of Île-de-France – Paris).
Speakers
“On the Nature of Economics and the future of Globalization under Civilizational Populism,” by Dr. Ibrahim Ozturk (Professor of Economics, Duisburg-Essen University, Institute of East Asian Studies (IN-EAST), Germany, Senior Economic Researcher at the ECPS, Brussels).
“Populism as a Reaction to Neoliberal Technocratism,” by Dr. Krzysztof Jasiecki(Professor of Economic Sociology at the Centre for Europe, University of Warsaw).
“Far-Right Populism and the Making of the Exclusionary Neoliberal State,” by Dr. Valentina Ausserladscheider (Associate Professor, Department of Economic Sociology, University of Vienna and Research Affiliate, Department of Sociology, University of Cambridge).
Antoine Godbert moderates Panel 4 on “Impacts of Civilizational Populism on the Market and Globalization,” with Dr. Ibrahim Ozturk examining the future of globalization, Dr. Krzysztof Jasiecki analyzing populist responses to neoliberal technocracy, and Dr. Valentina Ausserladscheider exploring the rise of the exclusionary neoliberal state. Photos: Muhammed Gemi.
Panel 5
Religion and Identity Politics
Moderator
Dr. Ana-Maria Bliuc(Reader in Psychology, School of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Law at the University of Dundee).
Speaker
“Religion and Power in an Age of Identity Politics,” byDr. Erin K. Wilson(Professor, Chair of Politics and Religion, the Faculty of Religion, Culture, and Society, University of Groningen).
Paper Presenters
“Civilizational Populism and the Making of Sexualized Cultural Christianity,” byDr. Ludger Viefhues-Bailey(Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, Gender, and Culture, Le Moyne University, NY).
“Imagine No More Small Boats in the Channel’: How Populist Parties and Their Leaders Normalize Polarization in Their Communication on Social Media Platforms, a Multimodal Discourse Analysis,” byDr. Valeria Reggi(Post-doc Researcher at the University of Venice and Adjunct Professor and Tutor at the University of Bologna).
“Populism from a Double Perspective. Timo Soini and the Finnish Version of Populism,” byDr. Jarosław Suchoples(Centre for Europe, University of Warsaw, Former Polish Ambassador to Finland).
Dr. Ana-Maria Bliuc moderates Panel 5 on “Religion and Identity Politics,” featuring Dr. Erin K. Wilson on the intersection of religion and power, Dr. Ludger Viefhues-Bailey on sexualized cultural Christianity, Dr. Valeria Reggi on populist polarization via social media, and Dr. Jarosław Suchoples on the Finnish model of populism. Photo: Muhammed Gemi.
Gala Dinner
During the gala dinner, a short video clip was presented featuring a biopic on the Romani poet Papusza and Birds Are Singing in Kigali, two acclaimed Polish films directed by Joanna Kos-Krauze. Following the screening, Dr. Małgorzata Bonikowska moderated a brief conversation with the director and two other participants. (Photos: Muhammed Gemi)
Participants
During the coffee and lunch breaks, conference participants had the opportunity to connect, exchange ideas, and get to know one another better. They also engaged actively in the Q&A sessions, contributing thoughtful questions and insights to each panel discussion. (Photos: Muhammed Gemi.)
van Oosten, Sanne. (2025). “Do Muslims Have Different Attitudes and Voting Behaviour Than the Majority Populations of France, Germany and the Netherlands?” European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). June 10, 2025. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp00100
Abstract
The political preferences of Muslims are often the source of contention and misinformation. In continental Europe, there is not much data available on political preferences of Muslims due to strict privacy regulations, creating a knowledge lacuna allowing for misinformation to fester. In this report, I focus on three countries where privacy regulations are particularly longstanding: France, Germany, and the Netherlands. I use a novel sampling method that complies with privacy regulations while achieving a large enough sample of minority respondents to conduct statistical analyses. Regarding policy preferences, I find that respondents with a Muslim minority background have more conservative attitudes towards same-sex adoption, while showing very similar attitudes to white majority respondents when it comes to gender equality. Respondents with a Muslim minority background are, however, more progressive on immigration and religious freedoms for Muslims. Regarding voting preferences, Muslims show very similar patterns to their majority counterparts, with a few exceptions (La France Insoumise (FI) in France, and in the Netherlands DENK and Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV)). This paper seeks to put an end to persistent speculation about the political preferences of Muslims, particularly Muslims, in France, Germany, and the Netherlands.
The political preferences of Muslims in western countries are the subject of recurring speculation (Turnbull-Dugarte and Lopez, 2024; Turnbull-Dugarte et al., 2025; van Oosten, 2025a; 2025b). Political leaders often claim that Muslims vote for them to present themselves as legitimate leaders of all people, while at the same time, some political leaders claim that Muslims and other minorities have been imported by elites to vote for pro-immigrant parties and change society from within (Bracke and Aguilar, 2022; van Oosten, 2025a). Political actors also often point to the attitudes of Muslims to justify their exclusion from national communities (Glas, 2023; Spierings, 2021; De Lange and Mügge, 2015). These claims focus on issues like opposition to gay rights (Puar, 2013), perceived sexism (Farris, 2017), antisemitism (van Oosten, 2024a) or animal cruelty (Backlund and Jungar, 2022; van Oosten, 2024b). Far-right parties use these examples to argue that Muslims do not share core liberal values, and therefore do not belong in liberal societies (van Oosten, 2024b; 2022). These claims, however, are rarely supported by data. This report examines whether Muslims in France, Germany, and the Netherlands hold different political preferences from their white majority counterparts.
Standard sampling strategies do not yield enough minority participants for statistical analyses (Font and Méndez, 2013). Moreover, strict European privacy regulations limit the availability of sampling frames for racial/ethnic and religious minorities in the European context (Simon, 2017). To overcome these challenges, I surveyed a large sample of Kantar-panellists and used a mini-survey to oversample voters from France, Germany, and the Netherlands with a migration background in Turkey (France, Germany, and the Netherlands), North Africa (France), Sub-Saharan Africa (France), the Former Soviet Union (Germany), Surinam (the Netherlands), and Morocco (the Netherlands). I sampled a high number of minority respondents, with 1889 out of a total N of 3058 respondents having a migration background, of which 649 self-identify as Muslim. I asked these respondents for their propensity to vote (PTV) for all political parties in the French, German and Dutch parliament at the time of data collection, as well as their attitudes towards 8 key policy preferences spanning socio-cultural and socio-economic themes.
In this paper, I test whether Muslims and other minority groups differ from majority voters in their support for political parties in France, Germany, and the Netherlands. I find that Muslim voters are much less likely to support PVV in the Netherlands but are just as likely to vote for the RN in France or AfD in Germany (all three far right). Minority and majority voters are equally likely to support mainstream left parties, such as PS in France, the SPD in Germany, and PvdA in the Netherlands. Muslim minority voters are more likely to support left-populist parties DENK in the Netherlands and FI in France. In terms of policy preferences, respondents with a Muslim minority background hold more conservative views on same-sex adoption but show similar attitudes to majority respondents on gender equality. They are, however, more progressive on immigration and Muslim religious freedoms.
This report aims to contribute to the debate about the voting behaviour of Muslims in Western Europe, a debate that is often speculative and not based on data from academic scholars. Far right party leaders, thinkers and pundits have fuelled misunderstandings about minority voting patterns. In reality, the political preferences of Muslims, a minority, are very similar to the political preferences of the majority population. This report seeks to provide clarity and offer a data-driven response to counter the narrative that some political leaders might use to exploit the supposed voting behaviours of minorities for their political gain. Through empirical analysis, this study contributes to a more accurate understanding of ethnic minority political preferences and aims to challenge rhetoric with factual evidence.
Sampling Method and Sample Composition
I conducted this research in France (van Oosten et al., 2024a), Germany (van Oosten et al., 2024b) and the Netherlands (van Oosten et al., 2024c), three countries with key differences. In France, there is a strong emphasis on citizenship, secularism and a strong division between church and state (Kuru, 2008). In Germany, Christian political parties have had a longstanding presence (Ahrens et al., 2022) and the approach towards Muslims is characterised by the history of integration of guestworkers (Yurdakul, 2009). The Netherlands has a host of Christian parties (Kešić and Duyvendak, 2019), a tradition of high minority representation in politics (Hughes, 2016: 560), increased by the emergence of a political party run by Muslim parliamentarians and voicing Muslim interests in 2017, DENK (van Oosten et al., 2024d). All three countries have a history of parliamentarians from mainstream and populist radical right parties espousing Islamophobic rhetoric, with France and the Netherlands having a longer and more vociferous history of populist radical right parties and Germany being relatively new to the game and taking on a comparatively less strident tone (Brubaker, 2017).
I oversampled respondents with specific migration backgrounds to make group-specific statistical inferences (Font and Méndez, 2013: 48) and chose minoritised groups: numeric minorities that state experiencing discrimination to the largest extent (FRA: European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, 2017: 31). In France, the oversampled groups of ethnic minority citizens consist of French citizens with a North-African (Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria), Sub-Saharan African (Niger, Mauritania, Ivory Coast, French Sudan, Senegal, Chad, Gabon, Cameroon, Congo) and Turkish background. In Germany, I oversampled German citizens with a Turkish and Former Soviet Union (FSU) background. In the Netherlands, I oversampled Dutch citizens with a Turkish, Moroccan and Surinamese background. Some groups have come to France, Germany or the Netherlands as a result of the colonial ties between host and home country, some came as guest workers (FRA: European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, 2017: 93). I also oversampled French citizens with a Turkish background and German re-migrants from the FSU. Some, but not all, of the oversampled migration backgrounds are countries with Muslim-majority populations, making it possible to disentangle whether differences are either religiously or ethnically/racially driven. In this paper, I present data for the Muslim subgroup, but the data also includes other minoritised groups and analyses by these groups are also available for researchers.
After running pilots and obtaining the ethics approval, (see appendix: van Oosten, 2025c), I gathered data between March and August of 2020 amongst 3058 citizens of France, Germany and the Netherlands, administered by survey agency Kantar Public (for all replication materials and appendices, see van Oosten, 2025b). One important challenge in surveying ethnic/racial minority groups comes from the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a European law legally restricting saving data on race and ethnicity (European Commission 2018). I overcame this challenge by employing a large-scale filter question to the representative Kantar-panels in all three countries. I asked a very large sample to participate in a mini survey. The first and only question of this mini survey asks where their mother and father were born. If either one of their parents were born in a country of origin I wanted to oversample, I redirected this respondent to the full survey. If not, I either terminated the survey or redirected a small percentage to the full survey. This enabled us to form sizable groups of minority citizens for our final survey, ensuring ample diversity, a feature so often missing from survey research (e.g. Coppock and McClellan, 2018). Though there is still a chance of selection bias (see van Oosten, 2025d for a discussion on the selection bias in this sample), I have variables to weight the data on gender, migration background, education, age, urbanisation and region, and the findings are broadly the same with and without weights.
Respondents received so-called ‘LifePoints’ (France and Germany) or ‘Nipoints’ (the Netherlands) for the completion of the survey. With these points, respondents can periodically convert their saved points to an online gift card. The survey took about fifteen minutes to complete, which translated to an equivalent of two euros in gift card value. I ended up with the following number of respondents in each group:
I assessed migration background by inquiring about the birthplaces of respondents’ mothers and fathers. It was necessary to ask this question first for sampling purposes. To minimise potential ordering effects on the data, I randomised the order in which respondents viewed the policy questions and experimental profiles (for the full questionnaire, see appendix in van Oosten, 2025c). To mitigate acquiescence bias, where respondents tend to agree with statements, I randomised the wording of the policy questions. For instance, one half of the sample saw the statement: “the taxes for this rich should be raised” and the other half saw “the taxes for the rich should be lowered” and I recoded the variables accordingly. I prepared the data using R-package ‘tidyr’ (Wickham, 2020, see all code and replication materials here: van Oosten, 2025c).
Minorities’ Policy Preferences
In the following section, I first present the policy preferences of two groups: non-religious ethnic majority respondents and Muslim ethnic minority respondents (for other subgroups see appendix at van Oosten, 2025c). I present the distribution of the responses in a histogram, with a black line indicating the mean score. I asked respondents to indicate their agreement with a series of policy statements using an 11-point scale, ranging from 0 (strongly disagree) to 10 (strongly agree). The statements covered a broad range of topics, including attitudes towards state intervention, immigration, Islam, gender and sexuality. The attitudes towards state intervention are as follows: “The tax rate for the rich must be higher/lower,” “Our government should raise/lower support for the unemployed,” “Our government should do less/more to combat climate change than now,” and “Our government needs to lower/raise fuel prices.” Attitudes towards immigration and Islam are as follows: “Immigrants are a burden/an asset to our country,” “Islam should (not) be restricted by law.” I measure gender attitudes as follows: “That men and women receive equal pay for equal work should (not) be regulated by law,” and sexuality as follows: “Homosexual couples should (not) be allowed to adopt children.”
I compared the responses of non-religious ethnic majority respondents with those of ethnic minority respondents who self-identified as practicing Muslims. Differences between the groups were negligible for most policy areas, including taxation, unemployment, climate policy, fuel prices, and gender equality. However, Muslim respondents were more likely to oppose adoption rights for same-sex couples, and more supportive of immigration and religious freedoms for Muslims.
Subsequently, I present data for voting preferences. I asked respondents about their willingness to vote for a wide range of political parties in their respective countries using so-called “Propensity to Vote” (PTV) questions. Respondents were asked: “Please indicate the likelihood that you will ever vote for the following parties. If you are certain that you will never vote for this party then choose 0; if you are certain to vote for this party someday, then enter 10. Of course you can also choose an intermediate position.” In France, the list of parties included LREM, LR, PS, MoDem, FI, PCF, RN (formerly Front National), and MR. In Germany, I asked about CDU, SPD, AfD, FDP, Die Linke, Grüne, and CSU. In the Netherlands, the full list consisted of CDA, ChristenUnie, D66, DENK, FvD, GroenLinks, PvdA, PvdD, PVV, SGP, SP, and VVD.
In the figures below, I present histograms of the responses for two parties per country: FI and RN in France, Die Linke and AfD in Germany, and DENK and PVV in the Netherlands. These pairs were selected to contrast parties often associated with the ethnic majority versus those associated with minority or immigrant support. Full results for all parties are available in the appendix (van Oosten, 2025c). Our findings show that there are relatively few differences in voting propensities between non-religious ethnic majority respondents and Muslim ethnic minority respondents in France and Germany. In France, Muslims are about as likely as non-religious majority respondents to consider voting for both RN and FI. Similarly, in Germany, I find little difference between these two groups in their willingness to vote for Die Linke or AfD. The Netherlands stands out in this regard: Muslim respondents are significantly more likely to consider voting for DENK, a party with strong minority and Muslim support, while being far less likely to vote for the PVV, a party known for its anti-Muslim rhetoric. This suggests that differences in vote propensity by group are more pronounced in the Dutch context than in France or Germany.
Minorities’ Voting Preferences
Conclusion
In terms of policy preferences, the differences between Muslims and non-religious ethnic majority respondents are generally small, except in a few areas. Muslims tend to be more supportive of immigration and Muslim rights and less supportive of same-sex couples adopting children. There are no major differences on issues like gender equality, though. When it comes to voting preferences, there are bigger differences in the Netherlands compared to France and Germany. In the Netherlands, Muslims are much less likely to vote for the PVV, but more likely to vote for DENK. In France and Germany, there are fewer differences between Muslims and non-religious ethnic majorities, with both groups showing similar preferences for parties like RN and FI in France, and AfD and Die Linke in Germany.
This paper addresses the ongoing speculations about the policy and voting preferences of Muslims in France, Germany, and the Netherlands. Political leaders and commentators regularly spread misinformation; possibly unintentionally, possibly deliberately (van Oosten, 2025a). This false information about minority voting habits can mislead the public and fuel xenophobic views. In reality, Muslims often share similar political preferences with the majority population, though not always. This paper presents descriptive statistics to challenge false narratives. Combating misinformation is vital for the health of democracies, as it helps maintain informed discussions and trust in democratic institutions.
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Please cite as: Stamoglou, Anastasia. (2025). “The Sectarian Populist Playbook: Populism in Iraq, Syria, and Kurdish Regions.” European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). May 29, 2025. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp0099
This report presents the key insights from the 21st session of the Mapping Global Populism Panel Series, hosted by the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). Focused on Iraq, Syria, and the Kurdish regions, the panel examined how populism operates through ethnic and sectarian divisions in societies marked by authoritarian legacies and conflict. Drawing on political theory, field data, and comparative case studies, the session revealed how authoritarian leaders adapt populist strategies to manipulate communal fears, centralize power, and erode democratic institutions.
The 21st session of the Mapping Global Populism Panel Series, titled “Ethnic & Sectarian Politics and Populism in Iraq, Syria and Kurdish Regions,” brought together scholars to examine the complex interplay between populist politics and identity-based cleavages in some of the Middle East’s most conflict-affected contexts. Organized by the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS) and moderated by Dr. Ibrahim al-Marashi(Associate Professor of History, California State University), the panel focused on how populist leaders and movements in Iraq, Syria, and Kurdish regions instrumentalize ethnic and sectarian divisions to sustain power, suppress opposition, and assert exclusionary visions of national belonging.
Featuring contributions from Dr. Reda Mahajar (Research Fellow at The Conflict Analysis Research Centre (CARC) at the University of Kent), Hashim Hayder Khashan Al-Rekabi (Lecturer, University of Baghdad), Dr. Haian Dukhan (Lecturer in Politics & International Relations, SSSHL Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Teeside University), and Rojin Mukriyan (PhD candidate in the department of Government and Politics at University College Cork, Ireland), the session offered a timely and critical interrogation of memory, fear, gendered politics, and identity formation within the frameworks of populism and authoritarian governance.
Populism and Sectarian Calculations in Iraq and Syria
The panel opened with Dr. Reda Mahajar’s incisive critique of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in a presentation titled “Syrian Sunni Jihadi Chickens Come Home to Roost.” Dr. Mahajar argued that Assad’s support for Sunni jihadist elements in Iraq from 2003 to 2010 was not only deliberate but strategically framed to undermine the US occupation by making Iraq ungovernable. This short-sighted geopolitical gambit, he contended, ultimately backfired. The networks Assad helped empower, most notably al-Qaeda in Iraq, mutated into ideological and military adversaries, including Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, which would go on to play a central role in Syria’s civil war.
Dr. Mahajar emphasized the historical irony in Assad’s strategy: a secular Alawite regime that presented itself as modern and pluralistic nonetheless perpetuated a Sunni-centric educational framework that reinforced sectarian binaries. These state-sponsored narratives later became fertile ground for jihadist mobilization. By embedding sectarian discourse into national identity, Assad’s regime unwittingly cultivated the ideological terrain upon which its own enemies would rise. The case stands as a stark example of blowback: a regime’s instrumental use of sectarianism ultimately incubated the forces that would threaten to dismantle it.
Expanding on the dynamics of populism in Iraq, Hashim Hayder Khashan Al-Rekabi traced three waves of populist discourse since 2003. The first phase, from 2003 to 2014, was marked by sectarian populism, as Shia, Sunni, and Kurdish parties capitalized on identity politics and the muhasasa (power-sharing) system to consolidate ethno-sectarian blocs. This period saw the institutionalization of communal divisions, with political legitimacy grounded in confessional affiliation rather than policy performance.
The second phase, from 2014 to 2019, saw the rise of anti-establishment populism. Figures like Muqtada al-Sadr employed anti-corruption rhetoric and attacked state institutions, despite being deeply embedded within them. Al-Rekabi noted the paradox of elected officials publicly denouncing the very parliament or ministries they served in, a strategy that blurred the line between opposition and governance. The final phase, emerging after 2019, introduced what he termed “illiberal democracy,” a context in which populist leaders, including al-Sadr, leverage democratic processes not to deepen pluralism, but to centralize authority and marginalize dissent.
Interestingly, Al-Rekabi shared findings from field research indicating that approximately 70% of Iraqis associate democracy not with institutional pluralism or civil liberties, but with the delivery of basic services. This utilitarian understanding of governance fuels nostalgia for authoritarianism and strongman rule, suggesting that democratic legitimacy remains fragile and conditional in post-2003 Iraq.
Kurdish Populism and the Tension Between Ideals and Institutions
Turning to the Kurdish context, Ms. Rojin Mukriyan offered a comparative analysis of populist dynamics in Rojava (northeast Syria) and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq. Drawing on Ernesto Laclau’s theory of populism as a discursive construction of “the people” against “the elite,” Mukriyan argued that the Democratic Union Party (PYD) in Rojava exemplifies left populism through its use of unifying signifiers such as “democracy” and “gender equality.” In contrast to conventional state-building models, the PYD’s project, grounded in Abdullah Ocalan’s theory of democratic confederalism, seeks to transcend national borders and ethnonationalist frameworks by promoting decentralized, pluralistic governance.
In Rojava, populism is not merely oppositional but visionary. Its aim is to unite a multi-ethnic coalition including Kurds, Arabs, Assyrians, and others under a shared commitment to local autonomy and egalitarian principles. Mukriyan acknowledged, however, the criticisms of Rojava’s ambiguity and contradictions, especially from within libertarian and anarchist circles who question its simultaneous engagement with state actors like the Assad regime.
By contrast, the KRG in Iraq presents a case of populism devoid of transformative ambition. The dominant parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), continue to operate through clientelist networks and dynastic leadership. Their governance reflects a neoliberal, exclusionary model in which dissent is stifled, and party loyalty is rewarded with patronage. Mukriyan noted that while the rhetoric of reform occasionally surfaces (i.e. during election campaigns) these promises rarely materialize into structural change. The result is a hollowed-out democracy where elite families maintain control, replicating the very state-centric authoritarianism they once opposed.
Memory, Fear, and Sectarianism Among Syrian Christians
Dr. Haian Dukhan’s pre-recorded presentation focused on Christian communities in al-Hasakah, Syria, offering a layered analysis of sectarianism from both “above” and “below.” He argued that Assyrian and Syriac Christians in this region are shaped by collective memory and historical trauma including genocide, marginalization, and displacement. These long-standing fears were reignited during the Syrian civil war, particularly by ISIS’s attacks on Christian villages.
In response, some Christian groups aligned with the Assad regime and joined militias like Sutoro, seeking protection through militarized solidarity. Dr. Dukhan labelled this phenomenon as “sectarianism from below,” a grassroots survival response driven by existential anxiety. Simultaneously, the Assad regime manipulated these fears to reinforce its legitimacy, portraying itself as the only viable guardian of minority rights. This elite-driven manipulation, or “sectarianism from above,” not only entrenched dependency but also deepened mistrust among Syria’s diverse communities. Dr. Dukhan’s analysis underscores how authoritarian regimes weaponize identity and trauma to fragment civil society and maintain control.
Conclusion
Across the cases discussed, three common themes emerged. First, both Iraq and Syria illustrate how populist strategies become institutionalized through sectarian quotas and identity-based governance structures. The muhasasa system in Iraq and the sectarian entrenchment in Syria formalize the very divisions that populists exploit, making political reform deeply challenging. Second, authoritarian leaders in the region have proven adept at adopting the language of populism. Figures like Bashar al-Assad and Muqtada al-Sadr, while operating in different systems, share a similar rhetorical playbook: portraying themselves as defenders of the majority identity against both foreign enemies and domestic “elites.”
Finally, the Kurdish case highlights the limits and possibilities of populist governance. Rojava’s model of inclusive left populism contrasts starkly with the KRG’s elite-dominated politics, raising important questions about the viability of democratization within nationalist movements. Yet even Rojava is not immune to the contradictions of populist nationalism, particularly when faced with geopolitical constraints and regional authoritarian pressures.
Follow-Up Questions
The panel concluded with several pressing questions that warrant further exploration:
Can Rojava’s decentralized, inclusive governance model inspire institutional reform in the hierarchical, patronage-driven structures of the KRG?
How do external powers such as Turkey and Iran exacerbate or manipulate ethnic and sectarian populism, and how does their influence compare to Russia’s populist interventions in Europe?
Please cite as: Yilmaz, Ihsan; Mamouri, Ali; Morieson, Nicholas & Omer, Muhammad. (2025). “The Transnational Diffusion of Digital Authoritarianism: From Moscow and Beijing to Ankara.” European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). May 12, 2025. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp0098
This report examines how Turkey has become a paradigmatic case of digital authoritarian convergence through the mechanisms of learning, emulation, and cooperative interdependence. Drawing on Chinese and Russian models—and facilitated by Western and Chinese tech companies—Turkey has adopted sophisticated digital control strategies across legal, surveillance, and information domains. The study identifies how strategic partnerships, infrastructure agreements (e.g., Huawei’s 5G and smart city projects), and shared authoritarian logics have enabled the Erdoğan regime to suppress dissent and reshape the digital public sphere. Through legal reforms, deep packet inspection (DPI) technologies, and coordinated digital propaganda, Turkey exemplifies how authoritarian digital governance diffuses globally. The findings highlight an urgent need for international accountability, cyber norms, and ethical tech governance to contain the expanding influence of digital repression.
This research explores the diffusion of digital authoritarian practices in Turkey as a prominent example of the Muslim world, focusing on the three mechanisms of learning, emulation, and cooperative interdependence, covering four main domains: Legal frameworks, Internet censorship, urban surveillance, and Strategic Digital Information Operations (SDIOs). The study covers both internal and external diffusion based on a wide range of sources. These include domestic precedents, examples from authoritarian regimes like China and Russia, and the role of Western companies in spreading digital authoritarian practices.
The study had several findings. The key findings are detailed below:
Learning: Turkey, like other regional countries that experienced public unrest, has learned from previous experience in order to impose power and control on people using different digital capabilities. Countries like China and Russia played significant roles in this learning process across the region, including in Turkey. The research highlights the importance of both internal learning from past protest movements and external influences from state and non-state actors.
Emulation: Authoritarian regimes in Turkey and across the Muslim world have emulated China and Russia’s internet governance models in all four aforementioned domains. The Turkish government has developed its own surveillance and censorship techniques, influenced by the experiences of authoritarian states and bolstered by training and technology transfers from China and Russia, and certain western companies.
Cooperative interdependence: Turkey’s economic challenges have led it to forge closer ties with China, particularly through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This cooperation often comes with financial incentives, promoting the adoption of China’s digital governance practices, including urban surveillance systems and censorship technologies.
Role of private technology companies: Western companies have played a significant role in facilitating the spread of digital authoritarianism, often operating independently of their governments’ policies. Companies like Sandvine and NSO Group have provided tools that support the Turkish government’s digital control strategies, contributing to a complex landscape of censorship and surveillance.
Diffusion of SDIOs: The diffusion process of digital authoritarian practice is not limited to importing and using digital technologies. It also includes the spreading of legal frameworks to restrict digital freedom and also running Strategic Digital Information Operations (SDIOs), including state propaganda and conspiracy theories that China and Russia had a significant role in.
Based on these findings, the study proposes several recommendations to counteract the spread of digital authoritarian practices:
– Strengthening international cyber norms and regulations to define and regulate digital governance, particularly in countries with strong ties to the West.
– Enhancing support for digital rights and privacy protections by advocating for comprehensive laws and supporting civil society organizations in Turkey.
– Encouraging responsible corporate behavior among technology firms to ensure compliance with human rights standards.
– Fostering regional and global cooperation on digital freedom to counter digital authoritarianism through joint initiatives and technical assistance.
– Leveraging economic incentives to promote ethical technology use and partnerships with human rights-aligned providers.
– Using strategic diplomatic channels to encourage Turkey to adopt responsible surveillance practices and align with global digital governance norms.
The research illustrates the dynamics of digital authoritarianism in Turkey, revealing a complex interplay of emulation, learning, and economic incentives that facilitate the spread of censorship and surveillance practices. The findings underscore the need for international cooperation and proactive measures to safeguard digital freedoms in an increasingly authoritarian digital landscape.
Photo: Hannu Viitanen.
Introduction
Research suggests that a significant number of countries in the Muslim world, specifically those in the Middle East, are often characterized by authoritarian governance (Durac & Cavatorta, 2022; Yenigun, 2021; Stepan et al., 2018; Yilmaz, 2021; 2025). The rise of the internet and social media during the late 2000s provided immense capacities to civil society and individual activists in the Muslim world. This development burst into political action during the late 2000s and the early 2010s in the instances of the Gezi protests in Turkey and other examples in the region, including the Green Movement in Iran and the Arab Spring protests across the Arab world (Iosifidis & Wheeler, 2015; Demirhan, 2014; Lynch, 2011; Gheytanchi, 2016).
The fact that the protesters in all these cases have extensively used the internet and associated technologies (e.g., social media, digital messaging, and navigation) has led many observers to declare the latter as ‘liberation technology’ due to their role in facilitating anti-government movements across non-democratic countries (Diamond & Plattner, 2012; Ziccardi, 2012). Advocates of the internet as a liberation tool have also pointed to enhanced social capacity to mobilize and organize through the spread of dramatic videos and images, instigating attitudinal change, and countering government monopoly over the production and dissemination of information (Breuer, 2012; Ruijgrok, 2017). These qualities have been seen as giving the internet an equalizing power between the state and society. In the early 2000s, when the Internet and social media were spreading across the developing world, authoritarian governments were generally unable to control the digital sphere; they lacked the technical expertise and the digital infrastructure to curb the internet. So, they typically relied on completely shutting it down (Cattle, 2015; Gunitsky, 2020).
However, authoritarian regimes gradually learned how to use the digital space for empowering their control on the society and have even started using it for transnational repression and sharp power (Yilmaz, 2025, Yilmaz et al., 2024; Yilmaz, Akbarzadeh & Bashirov 2023; Yilmaz, Morieson & Shakil, 2025; Yilmaz & Shakil, 2024). Scholars such as Sunstein (2009) and Negroponte (1996) have warned against the capacity of the internet to fragment the public sphere into separate echo chambers and thus fundamentally impede ‘deliberative democracy,’ which is supposed to be based on debates of ideas and exchange of views.
Furthermore, the breakthroughs in deep learning, neural network, and machine learning, together with the widespread use of the internet, have accelerated the growth of artificial intelligence (AI), providing more capability to authoritarian regimes to impose control on people. In a Pew poll, almost half of the respondents believed that the ‘use of [modern] technology will mostly weaken core aspects of democracy and democratic representation in the next decade’ (Anderson & Rainie, 2020). This pessimism is driven by an unprecedented degree of surveillance and digital control brought forward by digital technologies, undermining central notions of freedom, individuality, autonomy, and rationality at the center of deliberative democracy (Radavoi, 2019; Stone et al., 2016; Bostrom, 2014; Helbing et al., 2019; Damnjanović, 2015). Tools of the governments to digitally repress democracy include smart surveillance using facial recognition applications, targeted censorship, disinformation and misinformation campaigns, and cyber-attacks and hacking (Feldstein, 2019).
Research as to how digital technologies such as high-speed internet, social media, AI, and big data affect, enable or disable democracy, human rights, freedom, and electoral process is in its infancy (Gardels & Berggruen, 2019; Margetts, 2013; Papacharissi, 2009). Further, most of this scant literature is focused on Western democracies. The existing literature on Muslim-majority countries is mostly focused on traditional social media (Jenzen et al., 2021; Wheeler, 2017; Tusa, 2013). This is despite the fact that extensive digital capabilities, especially AI and big data, offer governments of these countries the capabilities to exert control over their citizens, with disastrous outcomes for democracy. Indeed, we may be facing the rise of a new type of authoritarian rule: digital authoritarianism, that is, ‘the use of digital information technology by authoritarian regimes to surveil, repress, and manipulate domestic and foreign populations’ (Polyakova & Meserole, 2019; see also Ahmed et al., 2024; Akbarzadeh et al., 2024; 2025).
With the expansion of the internet in developing countries, authoritarian governments derive a similar benefit from technological leapfrogging with the capacity to selectively implement new surveillance and control mechanisms from the burgeoning supply of market-ready advanced AI and big-data-enabled applications. As one internet pioneer foreshadowed to Pew “by 2030, as much of 75% of the world’s population will be enslaved by AI-based surveillance systems developed in China and exported around the world” (Anderson & Rainie, 2020). Developing countries often experience technological leapfrogging; they shift to advanced technologies directly, skipping the middle, more expensive and less efficient stages because modern technologies, by the time of their implementation within those countries, become more economical and effective than the initial technology. This leapfrogging is demonstrated via the adoption lifecycle of mobile phones to that of landlines. It took less than 17 years, from the early 2000s to 2017, for mobile phones to be extensively adopted in Turkey, from 25% to 96%. (Our World in Data, 2021).
After the crises of the early 2010s, both democratic and authoritarian regimes worldwide started to invest heavily in sophisticated equipment and expertise to monitor, analyze, and ultimately crack down on online and offline dissent (Aziz & Beydoun, 2020; Feldstein, 2021). In addition to curtailing independent speech and activism online, authoritarian regimes have sought to deceive and manipulate digital environments in order to shape their citizens’ views. They have flooded the digital realm with propaganda narratives using trolls, bots, and influencers under their control (Tan, 2020).
More importantly, thanks to authoritarian diffusion, governments in developing countries are learning from and emulating the experiences of their peers of surveillance technologies such as China and Russia. However, there has been limited research on the political mechanisms through which such digital authoritarian practices spread. Against this backdrop, this report examines the mechanisms through which digital authoritarian practices diffuse in Turkey as an example of authoritarian regimes in the Middle East. We ask: What kind of authoritarian practices have the governments enacted in the digital realm? How have these practices diffused across the region? To address these questions systematically, we develop an analytical framework that examines the mechanisms of diffusion of digital authoritarian practices. Our framework identifies three mechanisms of diffusion: emulation, learning, and cooperative interdependence. We focus on four groups of digital authoritarian practices: legal frameworks, Internet censorship, urban surveillance, and Strategic Digital Information Operations (SDIOs). We aim to show how emulation, learning and cooperative interdependence take place in each of these four digital authoritarian practices. In addition to the above, the report will explore the international dimension of this phenomenon, discovering how Western companies, in addition to totalitarian systems like Russia and China, played a role in empowering the Turkish government to claim the digital space.
We first discuss our analytical framework which integrates the scholarship of digital authoritarian practices and authoritarian diffusion, and explain the concepts of learning, emulation, and as prominent diffusion mechanisms. We then move to the empirical section where we first identify convergent outcomes that are comparable between earlier and later adopters and then we will elucidate the mechanisms through which the diffusion process occurred by showing contact points and plausible channels through which decision-makers were able to adopt from one another.
Analytical Framework
To explore the phenomenon of diffusion, we follow best practices laid out in the literature (see Ambrosio, 2010; Ambrosio & Tolstrup, 2019; Bank & Weyland, 2020). We begin by identifying convergent outcomes that are comparable between earlier and later adopters. As part of this, we will also establish feasible connections between the two parties, which may take the form of physical proximity, trade linkages, membership in international organizations, bilateral arrangements, historical ties, cultural similarities, or shared language. Then, we will elucidate the mechanisms through which the diffusion process occurred by identifying contact points and plausible channels through which decision-makers were able to adopt from one another.
We will follow three good practices that have been advised by scholars (e.g., Ambrosio & Tolstrup, 2019; Strang & Soule, 1998; Gilardi, 2010; 2012). First, we adopt a comparative design that involves four middle powers (see Strang & Soule, 1998). There are important similarities and differences among the four cases that make comparison a useful exercise. Second, we provide extensive data to showcase the workings of diffusion mechanisms despite the challenge of working on authoritarian settings. As Ambrosio and Tolstrup (2019: 2752) noted, “the relevant evidence needed can be hard to acquire in authoritarian settings.” It is much more likely to gain access to strong evidence in liberal democratic settings where much of the current diffusion research has accumulated. Our article contributes to the literature on diffusion in authoritarian settings with Turkey as a prominent example. Finally, we provide smoking gun evidence based on several leaked documents to support our assertions.
In the empirical section, we follow the convention (see Ambrosio & Tolstrup, 2019) and start with identifying convergent outcomes among the major political actors in regard to the practices of restrictive legal frameworks, Internet censorship, urban surveillance and SDIOs. This section involves demonstrating the items that have been diffused between earlier and later adopters. Not only is there a substantial amount of similarity between the practices among these political systems, but also, we show a temporal sequence between earlier and later adopters that point at convergence.
We then move on to explain plausible mechanisms of diffusion, following the model provided by Bashirov et al. (2025): Learning, Emulation, and Cooperative Interdependence. It’s important to highlight from the outset that these three mechanisms functioned together in Turkey settings. As was observed in other settings (see Sharman, 2008), it is not feasible to examine the impact of these mechanisms independently. Instead of existing as separate entities or operating in a simple additive manner, these mechanisms are inherently interconnected, and they do overlap. We follow this understanding in our empirical analysis and discuss how each mechanism worked in tandem with other mechanisms.
Types of Digital Authoritarianism
Illustration: Shutterstock / Skorzewiak.
We identified four main domains of digital authoritarianism in general, and examples of them could be found in Turkey’s case as well.
Restrictive Legal Frameworks
The legal framework includes a variety of practices. We identified the following:
1- Laws that mandated internet service providers to establish a system allowing real-time monitoring and recording of traffic on their networks. These legislations mandated internet service providers to establish a system allowing real-time monitoring and recording of traffic on their networks (Privacy International, 2019). Moreover, all censorship laws refer to national security and terrorism as vague criteria to enforce widespread censorship of undesirable content. In Turkey, a Presidential decree (No 671) in 2016 granted the government extensive power to restrict internet access, block websites, and censor media (IHD, 2017). Under the decree, telecommunications companies are required to comply with any government orders within two hours of receiving them. In recent years, the Turkish government also prosecuted thousands of people for criticizing President Erdogan or his government in print or on social media (Freedom House, 2021).
2- Laws that have converged around penalization of online speech, referring to concepts such as national identity, culture, and defamation. It is hard to miss similarities between the laws in Turkey among other regional countries and those enacted in China earlier. In 2013, China’s Supreme People’s Court issued a legal interpretation that expanded the scope of the crime of defamation to include information shared on the internet (Human Rights Watch, 2013). In 2022, the Turkish Parliament passed new legislation that criminalized “disseminating false information,” punishable by one to three years in prison, and increased government control over online news websites. Article 23 of the law was particularly controversial as it stated that “Any person who publicly disseminates untrue information concerning the internal and external security, public order and public health of the country with the sole intention of creating anxiety, fear or panic among the public, and in a manner likely to disturb public peace, shall be sentenced to imprisonment from one year to three years” (Human Rights Watch, 2022). This clearly shows the pattern of diffusion from China and Russia by leaving vague and broad provisions of what constitutes “national security,” “peace” and “order” (Weber, 2021: 170-171; Yilmaz, Caman & Bashirov, 2020; Yilmaz, Shipoli & Demir, 2023; Yilmaz & Shipoli, 2022).
3- Laws that ban or restrict the use of VPNs following China and Russia’s lead. In Turkey, VPNs are legal, but many of their servers and websites are blocked. China banned unauthorized VPN use in 2017 in a new Cybersecurity Law. Russia introduced a similar ban the same year. The Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK), national telecommunications regulatory and inspection authority of Turkey, issued a blocking order targeting 16 Virtual Private Networks (VPNs). These VPNs, including TunnelBear, Proton, and Psiphon, are popular tools used by audiences seeking to access news websites critical of the government.
While entirely banning VPN access remains a challenge, governments can employ Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) technology to identify and throttle VPN traffic. Countries like Iran, China, and Russia are indulging in such practices. Users in Iran and Turkey, for example, have reported extensive blockage of VPN apps and websites since 2021. Engaging in efforts to access blocked content through a VPN can potentially result in imprisonment (Danao & Venz, 2023). Simon Migliano, research head at Top10VPN.com, acknowledges that blocking VPN websites in Turkey makes it harder to download and sign up for new services. Moreover, individual VPN providers like Hide.me, SecureVPN, and Surfshark confirm technical difficulties for their users in Turkey. Proton, on the other hand, maintains that their services haven’t been completely blocked.
As such, the report “Freedom on the Net 2023” by Freedom House (2023) reflects the aforesaid harsh reality, ranking Turkey as “not free” in terms of internet access and freedom of expression. However, it is worth noting that the Turkish government’s censorship efforts are met with a determined citizenry. Audiences, even young schoolchildren according to Ozturan (2023), have become adept at using VPNs to access banned content. Media outlets themselves sometimes promote VPNs to help their audiences bypass restrictions. Examples abound: VOA Turkish and Deutsche Welle (DW), upon being blocked, directed their audiences towards Psiphon, Proton, and nthLink to access their broadcasts. Diken, a prominent news website, even maintains a dedicated “VPN News” section offering access to censored content dating back to 2014.
4- Laws that tighten control on social media companies. While Western social media platforms remain accessible in Turkey, in recent years the government has introduced similar laws and regulations that increase their grip over the content shared on these platforms. They do so by threatening the social media companies with bandwidth restrictions and outright bans if they fail to comply with the governments’ requests. Moreover, in 2020, the Turkish Parliament passed a new law that mandated tech giants such as Facebook and Twitter (now X) to appoint representatives in Turkey for handling complaints related to the content on their platforms. Companies that decline to assign an official representative have been subject to fines, advertising prohibitions, and bandwidth restrictions that would render their networks unusable due to slow internet speeds. Facebook complied with the law in 2021 and assigned a legal entity in Turkey after refusing to do so the previous year (Bilginsoy, 2021).
Since the early 2010s, many countries in the region including Turkey have enacted a series of legal reforms that converged around similar concepts and restrictions. As Table 1 shows, these laws follow the Chinese and Russian laws in temporal order. The table makes a comparison with some other countries in the region as well, in order to see Turkey’s position in this field.
Internet Shutdown
All governments in the region have resorted to shutting down the internet as a simple solution over the past 20 years, mostly during the times of mass protests, social unrest or military operations. In Turkey, in 2015, access to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube as well as 166 other websites were blocked when an image of a Turkish prosecutor held at gunpoint was circulated online. The internet was also cut off multiple times during the July 15, 2016 coup attempt, as well as during the Turkish military’s operations in the Southeastern regions of the country. In many instances, the government has used bandwidth throttling to deny its citizens access to the internet. However, internet shutdown is costly as it affects the delivery of essential public and private services and has been dubbed as the Dictator’s Digital Dilemma. Therefore, even when it is practiced, the shutdown is limited to a certain location, mostly a city or a region, and would typically last only few days. According to Access Now (2022), an internet rights organization, no internet shutdown has taken place in Turkey in 2021.
Given the high cost of switching off the internet and thanks to the rise of sophisticated technologies to filter, manipulate and re-direct internet content, censorship has become a more widely used digital authoritarian practice over the last decade. Countries have converged on the use of DPI technology. DPI is “a type of data processing that looks in detail at the contents of the data being sent, and re-routes it accordingly” (Geere, 2012). DPI inspects the data being sent over a network and may take various forms of actions, such as logging the content and alerting, as well as blocking or re-rerouting the traffic. DPI allows comprehensive network analysis. While it can be used for innocuous purposes, such as checking the content for viruses and ensuring the correct supply of content, it can also be used for digital eavesdropping, internet censorship, and even stealing sensitive information (Bendrath & Mueller, 2011).
Countries across the Muslim world including Turkey started in the mid-2010s to acquire DPI technology from Western and Chinese companies who have become important sources of diffusion. US-Canadian company Sandvine/Procera has provided DPI surveillance equipment to national networks operating in Turkey (Turk Telekom). This system operates over connections between an internet site and the target user and allows the government to tamper with the data sent through an unencrypted network (HTTP vs. HTTPS). Sandvine and its parent company Francisco Partners emerged at the center of the diffusion of DPI technology in the Middle East. Recent revelations show that the company has played significant role in facilitating the spread of ideas between countries. Through their information campaign, Sandvine contributed to learning by governments. As such, Sandvine and Netsweeper’s prominent engagement in provision of spying technology shows that it is not merely Chinese companies that enable digital authoritarianism. Western companies have been just as active.
Turkey made its first purchase from Sandvine (then Procera) in 2014 after the Gezi protests and corruption investigations rocked the AKP government the previous year. The government later used these devices to block websites, including Wikipedia, and those belonging to unwanted entities, such as independent news outlets and certain opposition groups in later years. The governments in the region including Turkey have gathered widespread spying and phishing capabilities sourced from mostly Western companies. For example, in Turkey, FinFisher used FinSpy in 2017 on a Turkish website disguised as the campaign website for the Turkish opposition movement and enabled the surveillance of political activists and journalists. FinSpy allowed the MIT to locate people, monitor phone calls and chats and mobile phone and computer data (ECCHR, 2023). This could link in with our discussion in emulation more clearly as well regarding private companies being key actors (Marczak et al., 2018).
Urban Surveillance
Three high-definition video surveillance cameras operated by the city police. Photo: Dreamstime.
With the advance of CCTV and AI technology, urban surveillance capabilities have grown exponentially over the past ten years. Dubbed as “safe” or “smart” cities, these urban surveillance projects are “mainly concerned with automating the policing of society using video cameras and other digital technologies to monitor and diagnose “suspicious behavior” (Kynge et al., 2021). The concept of Smart city captures an entire range of ICT capabilities implemented in an urban area. This might start with the simple goal of bringing internet connectivity and providing electronic payment solutions for basic services and evolve to establishing AI-controlled surveillance systems, as we have seen in many Chinese cities (Zeng, 2020). Smart cities deploy a host of ICT—including high-speed communication networks, sensors, and mobile phone apps—to boost mobility and connectivity, supercharge the digital economy, increase energy efficiency, improve the delivery of services, and generally raise the level of their residents’ welfare (Hong, 2022). The “smart” concept generally involves gathering large amounts of data to enhance various city functions. This can include optimizing the use of utilities and other services, reducing traffic congestion and pollution, and ultimately empowering both public authorities and residents.
The rapid development of smart city infrastructures across world has led to controversies as critics argued that the surveillance technology enables pervasive collection, retention, and misuse of personal data by everything from law enforcement agencies to private companies. Moreover, in recent years, China has been a major promoter of the ‘safe city’ concept that focuses on surveillance-driven policing of urban environments – a practice that has been perfected in most Chinese cities (Triolo, 2020). Several Chinese companies have been at the forefront of China’s effort to export its model of safe city: Huawei, ZTE Corporation, Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology, Zhejiang Dahua Technology, Alibaba, and Tiandy (Yan, 2019).
China has been a significant exporter of surveillance technology worldwide, including to countries like Turkey. Chinese firms such as Hikvision and Dahua have supplied surveillance equipment, including facial recognition systems, to various nations. Reports indicate that Turkey has utilized facial recognition software to monitor and identify individuals during protests (Radu, 2019; Bozkurt, 2021).
Holistically, the global expansion of China’s urban surveillance model sparks significant concerns, particularly in relation to its potential to increase authoritarian practices in adopting countries. In the absence of robust counter mechanisms, the adoption of Chinese surveillance model by authoritarian states is only likely to augment.
Strategic Digital Information Operations (SDIOs)
Another interesting aspect of authoritarian regimes is the use of digital technologies in creating and spreading pro-regime propaganda and conspiracy narratives that benefit the regimes. This is happening extensively in the region, including Turkey, as a part of the manipulation of the people in order to impose control on them and silence the opposition. The pro-regime propaganda machine uses conspiracy theories with a dual strategy, defensive and offensive, to shape the public perception of the regime. Defensively, it seeks to portray the regime as a legitimate national authority, emphasising its adherence to the nation’s interests and well-being in a way that no legitimate alternative is imaginable. In these narratives, leaders are portrayed as heroic figures with exceptional qualities, and the system is presented as flawless and well-suited to the country’s needs. On the offensive front, the propaganda machine works to discredit any alternative to the current regime. Opposition figures are either assassinated, arrested or labelled as traitors, criminals, or foreign agents so they can be eliminated politically. To reach to this end, conspiracy theories link opposition figures to nefarious plots or foreign intervention, thus undermining the credibility of opposition narratives.
In recent years, propaganda and conspiracy theories have played a significant role in Turkey’s political landscape, influencing political narratives and public opinion. The Turkish government, particularly under President Erdoğan and his ruling party (AKP), has been known for using state-controlled or pro-government media to push certain narratives. The government’s media strategy includes promoting nationalistic themes, highlighting Turkey’s achievements under AKP rule, and portraying the government as the protector of national interests against both internal and external threats. The government often emphasizes Turkey’s sovereignty and positions itself against perceived Western interference, such as criticisms from the European Union or the United States. By doing so, it strengthens a nationalist image, resonating with citizens who view Turkey as being unfairly targeted by foreign powers. Propaganda often incorporates Islamic and conservative values to appeal to the AKP’s core voter base. Erdoğan’s speeches and media outlets supportive of the government emphasize the defense of Islamic culture and values, framing the AKP as a protector of both religion and national identity. Government narratives frequently depict opposition groups as threats to national stability. This includes not only political rivals but also groups like the Kurdish population, the Gülen movement (which is accused by Erdogan regime of being behind the 2016 coup attempt), and the pro-Kurdish HDP party, who are often associated with terrorism or disloyalty.
Additionally, conspiracy theories have been pervasive in Turkish political culture, often used to explain domestic unrest or justify political decisions. Here, pro-government media often propagate conspiracies about the opposition, portraying them as aligned with foreign powers or terrorist organizations. A persistent theme in Turkish political discourse is the idea that foreign powers or global financial institutions are working to undermine Turkey’s economy and political stability. Moreover, the failed coup attempt in July 2016 became a fertile ground for conspiracy theories. While the Turkish government attributed the coup attempt to Fethullah Gülen, a cleric who lived in exile in the United States for decades until his death, alternative theories continue to circulate. Some claim that foreign powers, particularly the US, were involved in the coup plot, while others suggest that elements within the Turkish government may have allowed the coup to proceed as a means to justify a subsequent crackdown on opposition. In the same vein, many conspiracy theories center around the idea that Western powers, particularly the US and Europe, are conspiring against Turkey to prevent it from becoming a major regional power. These theories often cite Turkey’s geopolitical location, its military interventions in the region, or its aspirations to become an independent economic powerhouse.
A significant portion of the mainstream media in Turkey is either directly controlled by the government or aligned with it. These outlets often echo government narratives, downplaying criticisms, and emphasizing government achievements or conspiracy-laden stories about opposition and foreign interference. Despite the dominance of pro-government media, social media platforms have become spaces for both opposition voices and pro-government voices. The government has sought to control these platforms through legal means, introducing laws to regulate social media and threatening to block access to platforms that do not comply with government requests to remove content.
Mechanisms of Diffusion
We observed that the diffusion of digital authoritarianism occurs in three main mechanisms: learning, emulation and cooperative interdependence.
Learning
It has been widely argued that countries across the globe learned from domestic and foreign experience to adopt various forms of digital authoritarian practices. This is more prominent in countries experiencing public unrest, like Turkey and Egypt. For example, they both have learned lessons from the Gezi Park and Tahrir Square protests, respectively. Despite many indications to this effect, for a long time there was a lack of smoking gun evidence pointing at this type of learning. In 2016, a series of leaked emails from Erdogan’s son-in-law and then Energy Minister Berat Albayrak’s account revealed that in the aftermath of the Gezi Park protests, the Erdogan regime identified its lack of control of digital space as a problem and sought solutions in the form of “set[ting] up a team of professional graphic designers, coders, and former army officials who had received training in psychological warfare” (Akis, 2022). In later years, the regime built one of the world’s most extensive internet surveillance networks on social media, particularly on X, according to Norton Symantec.
In regard to external learning, China (and Chinese companies) and Western private companies have been at the forefront of actors promoting internet censorship practices. China has been not only a major promoter but also a source of learning for middle powers when it comes to internet surveillance, data fusion, and AI. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) has become a key vehicle that drives these efforts. For example, during the 2021 SCO summit, Chinese officials led a panel titled the Thousand Cities Strategic Algorithms, which trained the international audience that included many developing country representations on developing a “national data brain” that integrates various forms of financial and personal data and uses artificial intelligence to analyze it. The SCO website reported that 50 countries are engaged in discussions with the Thousand Cities Strategic Algorithms initiative (Ryan-Mosley, 2022). China has also been active in providing media and government training programs to representatives from BRI-affiliated countries. In one prominent example, Chinese Ministry of Public Security instructed Meiya Pico, a Chinese cybersecurity company, to train government representatives from Turkey, Pakistan, Egypt, and other countries on digital forensics (see Weber, 2019: 9-11).
Moreover, the spread of internet censorship and surveillance technologies points to a highly probable learning event facilitated by western corporate entities. Specifically, Sandvine, NSO Group, and their parent company Francisco Partners, emerged at the center of the diffusion of DPI technology in most Middle Eastern countries except for Iran where the company is not allowed to operate. Recent revelations show that the company has played a significant role in facilitating the spread of ideas between countries. Alexander Haväng, the ex-Chief Technical Officer of Sandvine, explained in an internal newsletter addressed to the company’s employees that their technology can appeal to governments whose surveillance capacities are hampered by encryption. Haväng wrote that Sandvine’s equipment could “show who’s talking to who, for how long, and we can try to discover online anonymous identities who’ve uploaded incriminating content online” (Gallagher, 2022).
The spread of DPI practices in general and Sandvine’s technology in particular is also evidenced by the chronology of acquisition by developing countries. The list of countries contracted to buy Sandvine’s DPI technology includes Turkey, Algeria, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Eritrea, Jordan, Kuwait, Pakistan, Qatar, Russia, Sudan, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, and Uzbekistan (Gallagher, 2022). There is a clear trend here, both in terms of regime susceptibility and chronology of adoption. Turkey purchased Sandvine’s DPI technology in 2014, Egypt in 2016, and Pakistan did so in 2018 (Malsin, 2018; Ali & Jahangir, 2019).
It is highly likely that later adopters of this technology reviewed its performance in early adopters and decided upon their own adoption. We know from previous research that private companies can “influence the spread of state policies by encouraging the exchange of substantive and procedural information between states” (Garrett & Jansa, 2015: 391). Governments are required to understand details about the content of a technology and relevant institutional mechanisms to use it effectively. Corporations facilitate communication about these details. The existence of extensive links between Sandvine and authoritarian regimes, the similarities of how the tech has been used, and the sheer prominence of this company and its technology demonstrate a plausible argument for diffusion.
Using practice framework, we focus on ‘configurations of actors’ who are involved in enabling authoritarianism (Glasius & Michaelsen, 2018). In most instances, these actors are not states, but private companies (see Table 2). Moreover, contrary to perceived active role of Chinese companies, with the prime exception of Iran, it was Western tech companies that provided most of the high-tech surveillance and censorship capabilities to authoritarian regimes in the Muslim world including Turkey. These included, inter alia, US-Canadian company Sandvine, Israeli NSO Group, German FinFisher and Finland’s Nokia Networks.
Emulation
There’s evidence that authoritarian countries in the region like Turkey have emulated major powers, as well as each other, when it comes to internet censorship practices. Among other things, homophily of actors played important role as actors prefer to emulate models from reference groups of actors with whom they share similar cultural or social attributes (Elkins & Simmons, 2005). Political alignment and proximity among nations foster communication and the exchange of information (Rogers, 2010). We observe the influence of this dynamic between China and Russia, and political regimes in the Muslim world who are susceptible to authoritarian forms of governance to varying degrees.
Research noted that states tend to harmonize their policy approaches to align with the prevailing norms of the contemporary global community, irrespective of whether these specific policies or institutional frameworks align with local conditions or provide effective solutions. Notably, since most transfers originate from the core to the periphery, policy transfers to developing regions might be ill-suited and consequently ineffective. There’s evidence that adoption of city surveillance is driven by the desire for conformity rather than the search for effective solutions. China’s CCTV-smart city solutions are considered in the region to be “bold innovations” as they’ve gathered disproportionate attention from the developing countries across the world. However, there’s evidence that the countries adopt this technology because of their apparent promise rather than demonstrated success. For example, there has been a controversy about whether Huawei’s safe city infrastructure actually helps to reduce urban crime. In a dubious presentation in 2019, Huawei claimed that its safe city systems have been highly effective in reducing crime, increasing the case clearance rate, reducing emergency response time, and increasing citizen satisfaction. However, research by CSIS revealed that these numbers have been grossly exaggerated if not completely fabricated (Hillman & McCalpin, 2019).
Emulation and learning appear to be the major mechanisms through which such practices spread. First, by demonstrating the effectiveness of disinformation campaigns and propaganda – such as Russian interference in US presidential elections in 2016 and China’s propaganda around the Covid-19 pandemic – these countries have shown other regimes that similar tactics can be used to control their own populations and advance their interests (Jones, 2022). Second, China and Russia have acted as important sources of learning for authoritarian regimes. China has hosted thousands of foreign officials and members of media from BRI countries in various training programs on media and information management since 2017 (Freedom House, 2022). For example, in 2017, China’s Cyberspace Administration held cyberspace management seminars for officials from BRI countries. Chinese data-mining company iiMedia presented its media management platform which is advertised as offering comprehensive control of public opinion, including providing early-warnings for “negative” public opinions and helping guide the promotion of “positive energy” online (Laskai, 2019).
The governments in the Muslim world learned how to use the social media and other digital technologies for ‘flooding,’ which helps strengthen and legitimize their political regime. This is a part of a broader objective of shaping the information environment domestically and internationally (Mir et al., 2022). At home, these governments are attempting to mold their citizens’ conduct online. They hired social media consultants and influencers to do their propaganda. They learned how to flood the information space with propaganda narratives using troll farms and bots. For example, in Turkey, the AKP government created a massive troll army in response to the Gezi Protests in 2013. A 2016 study published by the cyber security company Norton Symantec shows that among countries in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Turkey is the country with the most bot accounts on Twitter (Akis, 2022). In 2020, Twitter announced that it was suspending 7,340 fake accounts that had shared over 37 million tweets from its platform. Twitter attributed the network of accounts to the youth wing of the ruling AKP.
Through the aforementioned techniques, Turkey moved beyond strategies of “negative control” of the internet, in which the government attempt to block, censor, and suppress the flow of communication, and toward strategies of proactive co-optation in which social media serves regime objective. The opposite of internet freedom, therefore, is not necessarily internet censorship but a deceptive blend of control, co-option, and manipulation. As the public debate is seeded with such disinformation, this makes it hard for the governments’ opponents to convince their supporters and mobilize (Gunitsky, 2020).
Here, the practices appear to be a mixed bag of diffusion, convergence and even innovation on the part of some regional countries. There is some proof of learning on the part of the Turkish regime: Berat Albayrak’s emails reveal the government’s learning from the Gezi protests and intentional establishment of their own troll farms (Akis, 2022). Similarly, the Sisi regime learnt from the Arab Spring protests as well. While it is hard to find a smoking gun evidence of these regimes copying Russian or Chinese playbook, extensive links between some of these countries (such as Pakistan and Turkey), as well as between some of these countries and Russia/China (Turkey and Russia; China and Pakistan/Iran) brings some evidence of diffusion.
Cooperative Interdependence
Nested dolls depicting authoritarian and populist leaders Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, and Recep Tayyip Erdogan displayed among souvenirs in Moscow on July 7, 2018. Photo: Shutterstock.
We have observed that a cooperative interdependence has been at play when it comes to the diffusion of internet censorship practices from China to developing countries. Countries like Turkey are facing serious economic challenges and are in dire need of foreign direct investment. When tracing China’s technology transfer in these countries, a common thread emerges that tie most of the Chinese engagement to various forms of aid, trade negotiations, or grants. Prominently, China uses its Digital Silk Road (DSR) concept under the banner of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to push for adoption of its technological infrastructure and accompanying policies of surveillance and censorship in digital and urban environments (Hillman, 2021). For example, at the 2017 World Internet Conference in China, representatives from Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE signed a “Proposal for International Cooperation on the ‘One Belt, One Road’ Digital Economy,” an agreement to construct the DSR to improve digital connectivity and e-commerce cooperation (Laskai, 2019). The core components of the DSR initiative are smart (or “safe cities”), internet infrastructure, and mobile networks.
We do not argue that China is “forcing” these countries to adopt internet censorship practices. Rather, a cooperative interdependence works through changing incentive structures of BRI-connected states where financial incentives by China, coupled with technology transfer, promote China’s practical approach to managing the cyberspace as well. Indeed, BRI’s digital dimensions include many projects such as 5G networks, smart city projects, fiber optic cables, data centers, satellites, and devices that connect to these systems. In addition to having commercial value in terms of expanding China’s business of information technology, these far-reaching technologies have strategic benefit as they help the country achieve geoeconomic and geopolitical objectives that involve promotion of digital authoritarian practices and Chinese model of internet governance (Malena, 2021; Tang, 2020).
For example, Huawei’s growing influence in Turkey, and other regional countries such as Iran, Egypt, Pakistan, and particularly in the context of building their 5G infrastructure, is tied to these countries’ involvement in DSR projects. As mentioned above, all the abovementioned countries have signed agreements to cooperate with Huawei to build their 5G infrastructure. The latter is not merely an advanced technology, but also a vehicle of promoting an entire legal and institutional infrastructure for China. In 2017 the Standardization Administration of China (SAC) released the “BRI Connectivity and Standards Action Plan 2018-2020” which aims at promoting Chinese technical standards and improving related policies among BRI-recipient states across technologies including AI, 5G, and satellite navigation systems (Malena, 2021).
Cooperative interdependence such as loans, commercial diplomacy and other state initiatives are prominent mechanisms through which China spreads its urban surveillance practices. The Table 2 also demonstrates this process.
In the Muslim world, countries converged on importing China’s smart city platforms in recent years. A close collaboration between Chinese technology companies and authoritarian governments has led to the development of smart city infrastructures in multiple urban settings. Several Chinese companies have been at the forefront of this endeavor: Huawei, Hikvision, ZTE Corporation, Alibaba, Dahua Technology, and Tiandy (Yan, 2019). Huawei is a key source of diffusion of urban surveillance practices.
Huawei has established partnerships with major Turkish telecom companies, Turkcell and Vodafone TR, to implement smart city technologies in Samsun and Istanbul, respectively (KOTRA, 2021). Additionally, Turkey hosts one of Huawei’s 19 global Research and Development centers. In 2020, Turkcell became the first telecom operator outside China to adopt Huawei’s mobile app infrastructure, a system developed by Huawei in response to US sanctions that limited the use of certain Google software on Huawei devices. In 2022, Turk Telekom signed a contract with Huawei to build Turkey’s complete 5G network (Hurriyet, 2022). This infrastructure, known as Huawei Mobile Services (HMS), encompasses a suite of applications, cloud services, and an app store, which Huawei describes as “a collection of apps, services, device integrations, and cloud capabilities supporting its ecosystem” (Huawei, 2022).
Countries have also emulated China as the role model when it comes to urban surveillance practices. Indeed, China’s influence was highly discernible in the area of urban surveillance, where it has emerged as a role model and a key provider of high-tech tools (Germanò et al., 2023). To begin with, there are extensive linkages between sender (mostly China) and adopter countries in political and economic areas. These include the growing presence of China in regional economies, participation in China-dominated organizations such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and cooperation with China on internet governance issues such as the statement in the UN by several countries. Moreover, China has long acted as a laboratory to observe the results of its unique blend of high-tech authoritarianism that combined extensive urban surveillance with control of the internet under the pretext of national security and sovereignty (see Mueller, 2020). The perceived success of Chinese officials in curbing crime, ensuring stability and efficient management of urban settings, including their draconian measures to control the spread of COVID-19, have elevated China as a role model to be emulated by many authoritarian countries, including those in the Muslim world (Barker, 2021).
The table below demonstrates China’s role in the diffusion of digital authoritarianism in the region including Turkey:
Conclusion
This research illustrates how Turkey’s adoption of digital authoritarian practices—encompassing restrictive legal frameworks, internet censorship, urban surveillance, and strategic digital information operations—has been propelled by a combination of learning from domestic unrest, emulating paradigms set by major authoritarian players like China and Russia, and capitalizing on cooperative interdependence forged through economic and strategic partnerships. Despite Turkey’s NATO membership and other Western affiliations, the government has selectively borrowed from authoritarian models, integrating advanced surveillance technologies and normative frameworks that restrict civic freedoms in the digital realm. In this ecosystem, private Western companies, operating with limited oversight, have facilitated the supply of censorship and surveillance tools, challenging conventional expectations that illiberal digital governance is primarily state-driven.
These findings highlight the urgent need to establish robust international cyber norms and regulations that delineate clear boundaries on digital governance, particularly in states with deep ties to the West. Multilateral fora, including the United Nations and the Council of Europe, can take the lead by defining the scope of “digital authoritarianism,” instituting transparent guidelines on surveillance exports, and ensuring that technology providers are held accountable for the potential misuse of their products. Greater emphasis on privacy protections and digital rights is equally critical, calling for comprehensive legislation within Turkey that shields citizens from unwarranted data collection. Support from the international community—through funding, awareness campaigns, and legal assistance—can empower local civil society groups to advocate for these rights, educate citizens on online privacy, and hold authorities to account.
A second imperative is responsible corporate behavior, where companies must be compelled—via legal and reputational mechanisms—to adhere to human rights standards and disclose how their technologies are deployed in countries like Turkey. Establishing an independent monitoring entity to track repressive digital practices, publicize violations, and elevate them to international organizations can reinforce such accountability. Equally important, regional and global cooperation on digital freedom can help counter Turkey’s authoritarian trajectory; governments committed to open societies should launch joint initiatives aimed at improving cybersecurity, combating disinformation, and expanding transparent governance models that respect human rights. Technical assistance and knowledge-sharing will be particularly valuable where Turkey’s domestic institutions seek alternatives to purely repressive tools.
Moreover, economic incentives can be used strategically to steer Turkey away from partnerships that reinforce authoritarian tendencies. By prioritizing trade relationships and development aid tied to ethical technology practices, major economic powers and international financial institutions can encourage Turkey to align more closely with suppliers committed to democratic values. Such an approach has the added benefit of opening the market to innovators developing privacy-enhancing products, thus providing viable alternatives to invasive surveillance systems. Finally, the use of strategic diplomatic channels remains a powerful lever. Dialogue within NATO, discussions at the European Union level, and broader diplomatic engagements allow Turkey’s partners to advocate for transparent, responsible digital practices. Joint resolutions or multilateral condemnations of authoritarian behaviors can further raise the political costs of continued repression.
Taken together, these initiatives underscore that countering digital authoritarianism in Turkey requires a proactive, holistic strategy. While local factors—such as domestic protest movements and longstanding elite interests—play a crucial role, the role of international actors and private corporations is equally significant. Each dimension, whether it be legal reform, corporate accountability, economic leverage, or diplomatic pressure, offers a piece of the puzzle. Coordinated action that weaves these elements into a cohesive approach is essential not only for Turkey but for the broader effort to preserve the open, rights-respecting nature of the global digital landscape. By challenging the unchecked diffusion of repressive technologies and policies, the international community can mitigate the risks posed by an ever-expanding authoritarian playbook and ensure that the internet remains a domain of freedom and democratic possibility.
Funding:This work was supported by Australian Research Council [Grant Number DP230100257]; Gerda Henkel Foundation [Grant Number AZ 01/TG/21]; Australian Research Council [Grant Number DP220100829].
Authors
Ihsan Yilmaz is Deputy Director (Research Development) of the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation (ADI) at Deakin University, where he also serves as Chair in Islamic Studies and Research Professor of Political Science and International Relations. He previously held academic positions at the Universities of Oxford and London and has a strong track record of leading multi-site international research projects. His work at Deakin has been supported by major funding bodies, including the Australian Research Council (ARC), the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, the Victorian Government, and the Gerda Henkel Foundation.
(*) Ali Mamouri is a scholar and journalist specializing in political philosophy and theology. He is currently a Research Fellow at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation at Deakin University. With an academic background, Dr. Mamouri has held teaching positions at the University of Sydney, the University of Tehran, and Al-Mustansiriyah University, as well as other institutions in Iran and Iraq. He has also taught at the Qom and Najaf religious seminaries. From 2020 to 2022, he served as a Strategic Communications Advisor to the Iraqi Prime Minister, providing expertise on regional political dynamics. Dr. Mamouri also has an extensive career in journalism. From 2016 to 2023, he was the editor of Iraq Pulse at Al-Monitor, covering key political and religious developments in the Middle East. His work has been featured in BBC, ABC, The Conversation, Al-Monitor, and Al-Iraqia State Media, among other leading media platforms. As a respected policy analyst, his notable works include “The Dueling Ayatollahs: Khamenei, Sistani, and the Fight for the Soul of Shiite Islam” (Al-Monitor) and “Shia Leadership After Sistani” (Washington Institute). Beyond academia and journalism, Dr. Mamouri provides consultation to public and private organizations on Middle Eastern affairs. He has published several works in Arabic and Farsi, including a book on the political philosophy of Muhammad Baqir Al-Sadr and research on political Salafism. Additionally, he has contributed to The Great Islamic Encyclopedia and other major Islamic encyclopedias.
Nicholas Morieson is a Research Fellow at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University. He was previously a Lecturer at the Australian Catholic University in Melbourne. His research interests include populism, religious nationalism, civilizational politics, intergroup relations, and the intersection of religion and political identity.
(**) MuhammadOmer is a PhD student in political science at the Deakin University. His PhD is examining the causes, ideological foundations, and the discursive construction of multiple populisms in a single polity (Pakistan). His other research interests include transnational Islam, religious extremism, and vernacular security. He previously completed his bachelor’s in politics and history from the University of East Anglia, UK, and master’s in political science from the Vrije University Amsterdam.
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I assessed migration background by inquiring about the birthplaces of respondents’ mothers and fathers. It was necessary to ask this question first for sampling purposes. To minimise potential ordering effects on the data, I randomised the order in which respondents viewed the policy questions and experimental profiles (for the full questionnaire, see appendix in van Oosten, 2025c). To mitigate acquiescence bias, where respondents tend to agree with statements, I randomised the wording of the policy questions. For instance, one half of the sample saw the statement: “the taxes for this rich should be raised” and the other half saw “the taxes for the rich should be lowered” and I recoded the variables accordingly. I prepared the data using R-package ‘tidyr’ (Wickham, 2020, see all code and replication materials here: van Oosten, 2025c).
Conclusion
