Stop Trump Coalition march, Central London, United Kingdom, September 17, 2025. Protesters dressed as Musk, Farage, Vance, Putin, Trump, and Netanyahu. Photo: Ben Gingell.

Policy Brief: The Conditions for a Democratic Pushback Against Populism

by Editor’s ChoiceEuropean ObservatoryHome

This policy brief by Andrea Guidotti offers a research-based assessment of the conditions under which democratic actors can push back against populism. Synthesizing recent scholarship on populist emergence, incumbency, accountability, and democratic defense, the brief shows that populism thrives amid economic insecurity, cultural backlash, crises of representation, and weak party systems. Yet it also emphasizes that populist power is not immune to constraint: organizational weaknesses, governing responsibilities, institutional resistance, and crisis mismanagement can undermine populist appeal. The analysis cautions that neither confrontation nor accommodation provides a universal solution; both may backfire under specific conditions. Instead, effective democratic defense requires context-sensitive strategies combining institutional robustness, coordinated opposition, citizen engagement, and careful management of polarization. Ultimately, democratic erosion remains reversible, but not automatically so.

By Andrea Guidotti

Introduction

The literature on the study of populism has flourished, building on studies investigating the causes and roots of populism, from the West to Latin America, Southeast Asia, and beyond. On the one hand, scholars have defined different ways to conceptualize populism, notably the ideational (Mudde, 2004; Hawkins & Kaltwasser, 2018), political-strategic (Weyland, 2001 & 2021), discursive (Laclau, 2005a & 2005b), performative (Moffitt, 2015), and socio-cultural approaches (Ostiguy, 2017). On the other hand, there has been a development of historically informed reconstructions of how populism rises in certain contexts, especially after crises (Pappas, 2019; Weyland, 1999; Norris & Inglehart, 2019).

The latter research agenda mirrors comparative and empirical studies reconstructing how mainstream political forces and elected leaders erode institutional norms by fueling polarization and twisting democratic mechanisms (Levitsky & Ziblatt, 2018; Valentim et al., 2025; Stokes, 2025; Bunce et al., 2025). A more neglected niche in the academic literature has focused on the possibilities for political actors and the structural constraints they face when fighting against the contemporary surge of populist platforms and rhetoric. Building on academic work focusing on the protection of democratic norms and institutions, this policy brief is dedicated to offering a concise reconstruction of the major findings within this emerging literature and outlining potential policy actions to counter such developments.

Conditions for Populist Success

One of the main drivers of populist emergence concerns economic factors. Periods characterised by economic shocks and recessions favour the rise of populist movements. In the European context, the financial crisis played a key role, increasing the electoral support for populist parties by about ten to fifteen percentage points (Guriev & Papaioannou, 2022). A systematic meta-analysis of the literature confirms that a significant portion of cases of populist emergence is causally associated with economic insecurity (Scheiring et al., 2024).

Cultural shifts and perceived cultural crises are another major driver of populism. Between the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, modern societies with developed liberal democracies experienced unprecedented changes in social attitudes, mainly a shift from material and physical security concerns to post-materialist demands for greater individual liberties and room for self-expression. This triggered what Norris & Inglehart (2019) call a cultural and populist backlash.

Nonetheless, other authors argue that cultural theories should search for different causal explanations, either suggesting that data show how young cohorts, as well as older ones, hold (authoritarian) populist attitudes and electoral behaviours (Schäfer, 2022), or stressing the importance of unresolved issues and older cleavages in explaining support for populist movements (Baro & Todal Jenssen, 2025).

From an organizational and strategic point of view, plebiscitarian populist leaders have gained political power by leveraging three factors (Weyland, 1999). The first is the weakness of the party system. Strong internal disagreement and inconsistencies within mainstream parties constitute a permissive cause for populist movements. The second is the adoption of an adversarial strategy towards political opponents, whereby populist leaders strengthen their position by undermining the credibility of other political actors. The third element is the promotion of a confrontational approach towards structured trade unions and lobbying organizations.

While theories of populist emergence based on economic crises tend to treat political processes as exogenous, this view builds on the idea that the most appropriate indicator to gauge the rise of populism is political crises of representation, mainly endogenous to politics (Pappas, 2012). Such crises are necessary but not sufficient conditions for populism to flourish, and they are sufficient as long as there is adequate political leadership ready to mediate between emergency scenarios and citizens’ demands (Pappas, 2019).

The traction acquired by plebiscitary populist leaders is something not to be underestimated. In Latin America, populist incumbents have often exploited crisis situations so severely as to hamper the space and agency for advancing legitimate political opposition, thus pushing the democratic system towards a competitive authoritarian setting (Levitsky & Loxton, 2013).

Crises of democratic representation are the other side of the coin of populist emergence. While populist leaders capitalize on structural developments and favorable political conjunctures, citizens find ways to express their dissatisfaction with the current state of democracy. Employing longitudinal individual-level data from the European Social Survey (2012–2020), researchers have found that the rise of populism is deeply rooted in democratic dissatisfaction. Populists and non-voters are the most dissatisfied with democratic features, displaying a strong overall mismatch in expectations: European citizens hold very high expectations for democracy, but they perceive that the social and direct democracy dimensions are underperforming (Favaretto & Mariani, 2024).

Some interpretations of the rational voting model help explain why citizens may opt for radical (right-wing) populist parties. Where parties retain a centralized and stable structure and, in parallel, externally project policy effectiveness and competence in their core issue area, voters perceive their decision to electorally support populist outsiders as a strategic way to influence the political agenda when they disagree with the actions of established parties (Betz, 2002).

Populist Accountability in Government

On a general level, personalistic populist parties face three structural constraints while in government: (i) the failure to achieve conflict resolution among major personalities within the party leadership; (ii) the lack of a coherent political platform capable of delivering concrete results; and (iii) the absence of an experienced and skilled governing class. These conditions tend to favor mainstream and conservative parties over populist actors in power (Heinish, 2003).

Nonetheless, the crucial determinant of populist parties’ success during incumbency is their ability to adapt the party’s strategies and priorities to the new goal of office maximization rather than populist vote attraction (Luther et al., 2011). As the Latin American experience shows, another key moment of confrontation arises when populist incumbents face constraints from oppositional forces and the judicial apparatus.

This decisive moment determines whether populists choose to create power asymmetries vis-à-vis other branches of government, thereby becoming an unconstrained governing majority. Throughout this process, populist leaders may mobilize societal organizations or even manufacture state-sponsored confederations to establish hegemonic or authoritarian rule, respectively (Carrion, 2021).

Besides cases of populist governing majorities, there is empirical evidence regarding the cost of converging toward more mainstream political platforms after entering a coalition with other political parties post-elections. Van Spanje (2011) shows that anti-political establishment parties incur an additional cost of governing, in terms of future electoral support, after becoming part of a governing coalition.

Rather than becoming doubtful about the policy compromises made by their populist representatives, supporters are dissuaded by the perceived lack of genuineness in their anti-establishment leitmotifs. Similar findings are presented by other scholars. Katsanidou and Reinl (2020) disprove the correlation between ideological congruence on the left-right and European dimensions and voter support for populist parties in government. Instead, the main driver of populist vote defection is the perception that newly elected representatives are no longer fighting against elites and protecting the people’s interests, thereby breaking the populist link.

Policy accountability for ruling-party populist coalitions follows the same logic. A bank expansion and demonetization policy program implemented in India in 2005 provides an indicative example. Even though individuals from areas most affected by demonetization, due to the presence of fewer banks in the region, were 4.7 percentage points less likely to support the ruling coalition, stronghold areas presented a more nuanced pattern.

Citizens were found to be, on average, unresponsive to the negative externalities of demonetization policies when strongly aligned with the ruling populist party (Khanna & Mukherjee, 2023). The picture changes when populists are confronted with crises.

In the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, populist governments were unable to “perform” the crisis, which consequently exposed their political incompetence. This reduced citizens’ support by 10 percentage points throughout the first year of the emergency (Foa et al., 2022), while in parallel decreasing the share of populist attitudes within the population (Daniele et al., 2020).

Opposing and Fighting (Illiberal) Populism

Countering Illiberal Threats

Empirical research reveals a new pattern of regime-type transformation. In this sense, U-turns can be characterized as episodes of autocratization followed by subsequent episodes of democratization. Specifically, Nord et al. (2025) demonstrate that nearly half of the 102 autocratization episodes taking place between 1900 and 2023 reversed course and eventually resulted in a restored or even improved level of democracy.

Data suggest that 85% of democratic regimes sliding into autocratization episodes U-turned into democracy. Accounting for a more recent period—the last three decades—democratic reactions represent 61% of all U-turns. It is thus clear that a window of opportunity for political action aimed at protecting democracy, its rules, and institutions has opened up in recent times.

As Capoccia (2001) puts it, defending democracy denotes “the elaboration and enactment of short-term political strategies, whether inclusive or repressive in nature, which are explicitly aimed at reacting against those political forces that exploit the rights and guarantees of democracy in order to undermine its fundamental bases.”

To properly deliver democratic defense against illiberal actors, some scholars have developed a series of tools and instruments. On a general level, one should be able to assess the level of threat depending on the nature of the organization—whether collective or individual—that is advancing the challenge. In addition, when confronted with a group, it is important to identify leaders and followers, as well as to understand its internal composition, with the aim of differentially targeting radical and moderate members. Finally, it is essential to establish the objective of one’s own actions: whether the goal of democratic defense is to (i) change illiberals’ attitudes and civic competence, (ii) change illiberals’ behavior, or (iii) mobilize democrats (Lurmhann et al., 2020).

On a more sophisticated level, this emerging literature has conceptualized the defense of democracy in different, but interconnected, ways. Merkel and Lührmann (2021) focus on a functionalist understanding of democratic resilience, clarifying how different responses to prevent or react to illiberal challenges—namely, withstanding major changes, adapting through internal reforms, and recovering after initial damage—are necessary but not sufficient conditions for successful democratic defense.

Two other constitutive dimensions to consider carefully are structural and actor-centered. The former examines the institutional relationships among governing bodies: the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary. The latter scrutinizes the conditions under which political agents can nurture democratic resilience, distinguishing among political parties, civil society, and citizens as members of a polity.

Tomini et al. (2022) provide a typology of so-called resisters to autocratization—namely institutional, political, and social actors—while highlighting that the regime type critically influences both the actors involved and the degree of their democratic resistance. Gamboa et al. (2023) detail the scope and nature of specific measures implemented by oppositional forces in response to incumbent-led democratic backsliding along two dimensions: strategy type and desired goals.

Briefly, strategies can be either institutional or extra-institutional, and goals can be either moderate or radical. The combination of these key dimensions shapes the incentives and costs faced by democratic defenders.

From a procedural and normative standpoint, democratic defense can be addressed in three different ways (Malkopoulou & Norman, 2018). An elitist conception of democracy informs militant democratic defense, consequently violating the principle of non-domination. A procedural account of democratic defense adopts an inclusionary posture but underestimates the role of ordinary citizens and their agency. By contrast, a social model of democratic self-defense enhances the credibility of civil society actors and their participation in such a process as a baseline condition for the full realization of democracy.

In this context, actor-centered approaches to democratic recession appear to hold strong explanatory power. According to Van Lit et al. (2024), the strategic interaction between elites and citizens is the key element within the two-level game of democratic defense. Following this framework, elites’ decision to defend democracy is a function of their self-interest in maintaining the democratic status quo and the threat of repression by incumbents.

On the other side, citizens’ engagement and considerations result from a comparison between the ambiguity of the incumbent’s threat and the democratic credibility of elite defenders (Van Lit & Meijers, 2025).

Building on these insights, a research agenda and theoretical account have been put forward, offering a comprehensive model for countering illiberalism in liberal democracies. In his framework, Capoccia (2026) refines the understanding of viable countermeasures that can be adopted by a range of actors against illiberal threats and defines the related successful outcomes. His dynamic approach helps to explain how endogenous and exogenous information affect the temporal structure, as well as the sources of variation in institutional legacies across time and space, of pro-democratic interventions.

Countering Populism

Populism has become a defining characteristic of contemporary democracies and has developed in many Western countries. To avoid an even greater surge, liberal democratic actors should reduce the level of polarization, especially on matters related to identity politics. To do so, their objective should be to avoid paternalistic narratives and direct opposition to populist actors. Rather, they should concentrate on shaping norms by allowing populists to enter governing coalitions under certain premises.

In this way, populist actors can be held accountable based on the success of their promised actions within such coalitions (Kendall-Taylor & Nietsche, 2020). By welcoming populist ideas within governing coalitions, mainstream parties can not only broaden their electoral support by adopting some of their core policy positions, but also ostracize the more extremist and divisive elements present in populist political agendas. As empirically shown by Van Spanje and de Graaf (2018), analogous strategies can help increase support and the electoral gains of incumbent parties.

This strategy does not come without risks. The strategies of mainstream parties critically influence the chances of success of emerging niche and populist parties in electoral terms (Meguid, 2005). According to Berman (2021), we can summarize three distinct strategies that mainstream parties can adopt to address the emergence of new populist movements. The first is a dismissive strategy aimed at ignoring the key issues of interest to populist newcomers. The second is an adversarial strategy based on direct and explicit opposition to populist newcomers. The third is accommodative in nature, entailing policy convergence toward the political platforms of emerging populists.

Overall, strategies emphasizing either convergence or polarization can be detrimental to democracy under certain conditions. On the one hand, during periods of economic distress, an emphasis on polarizing cultural issues can push citizens toward populist parties that offer scapegoats and simplistic solutions. On the other hand, when votes tend to disperse toward the extremes of the Gaussian distribution, mainstream parties’ convergence toward populist positions may directly nudge citizens to shift their preferences closer to new populist actors (Berman & Kundnani, 2021).

Safeguards against populist illiberal actors can be found on historical and institutional grounds. Populists’ attempts at strangling liberal democracy may be hampered by high levels of institutional solidity and organizational strength, thereby safeguarding pluralism and even indirectly revitalizing democratic participation and resilience (Weyland, 2024a).

When populists are in power, institutional parameters are not the only drivers enabling a pushback. In such cases, the strategies of oppositional forces largely depend on the strength or weakness of the institutional framework and the initial degree of institutional solidity. Moreover, conjunctural opportunities also play a decisive role. Unexpected favorable economic conditions can boost support for populists and expand their scope of action, while significantly limiting the agency of oppositional forces. Acute crises can also enhance charismatic populist leaders’ popular appeal by obscuring the public standing of democratic opponents (Weyland, 2025b).

There seems to be only negative evidence concerning effective, actionable strategies to implement against populist forces. An experiment in Italian municipalities during a 2020 constitutional referendum proposing a reduction in the total number of Members of Parliament (MPs) from 945 to 600 in the two chambers of the Italian Parliament offers some indications (Galasso et al., 2024). Deploying a two-tier advertisement campaign, Stanig et al. (2022) tested the efficacy of two approaches to opposing populism: (i) a “win the argument” strategy aimed at persuading voters by deconstructing populist ideas; and (ii) a “use the same weapons” strategy attempting to reduce populist parties’ credibility, thereby lowering populist voters’ turnout.

Findings from a follow-up survey conducted in 2023 show that, while the campaign reduced attachment to established populist parties, attempts to counter populism by applying its own tactics increased voter disaffection and ultimately backfired. Notably, individuals targeted by the campaign were more likely to support newer and emerging populist parties (Galasso, 2024).

Conclusion

In sum, the literature suggests that democratic pushback against populism is neither automatic nor uniformly effective, but contingent on a complex interaction of structural conditions, institutional resilience, and strategic agency. While economic insecurity, cultural backlash, and crises of representation create fertile ground for populist mobilization, the durability of such movements in power remains constrained by organizational weaknesses, accountability pressures, and their capacity to adapt from opposition to governance.

At the same time, evidence on counter-strategies reveals no universally effective blueprint. Both confrontational and accommodative approaches by mainstream parties carry significant risks, potentially reinforcing polarization or legitimizing populist agendas. Similarly, attempts to counter populism through its own communicative logic may generate unintended consequences, including increased voter disaffection and the emergence of new populist actors.

Nevertheless, recent patterns of democratic “U-turns” indicate that democratic erosion is not irreversible. Institutional robustness, coordinated opposition, and favorable conjunctural conditions can reopen pathways to democratic recovery. As a result, effective democratic defense depends on context-sensitive strategies that balance institutional safeguards, political competition, and citizen engagement, rather than relying on singular or deterministic solutions.

 

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Professor Richard Youngs is a Senior Fellow in the Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program at Carnegie Europe and Professor of International Relations at the University of Warwick.

ECPS Symposium 2026 / Keynote by Prof. Richard Youngs: Democratic Resilience in Europe — Can It Be Effective?

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Please cite as:
ECPS Staff. (2026). “ECPS Symposium 2026 / Keynote by Prof. Richard Youngs: Democratic Resilience in Europe — Can It Be Effective?” European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). April 28, 2026. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp00152

 

Professor Richard Youngs’ keynote examined the European Union’s evolving response to democratic backsliding, populism, and institutional fragility. Professor Youngs argued that the EU has developed important tools—including the Democracy Shield, digital regulation, rule-of-law conditionality, civil society funding, and participatory mechanisms—but that its approach remains uneven and incomplete. He emphasized that democratic resilience must address not only external threats such as disinformation and foreign interference, but also internal dysfunctions, including weakened civic space, far-right normalization, migration politics, and democratic recovery after state capture. The ensuing discussion underscored the need for a more coherent and holistic EU strategy that effectively connects institutional reform, grassroots mobilization, and long-term democratic renewal across member states.

Reported by ECPS Staff

The keynote session on the second day of the Fifth Annual International Symposium, “Reforming and Safeguarding Liberal Democracy: Systemic Crises, Populism, and Democratic Resilience,” featured Professor Richard Youngs, Senior Fellow in the Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program at Carnegie Europe and leader of the European Democracy Hub. In his keynote, “Democratic Resilience in Europe: Can It Be Effective?” Professor Youngs offered a focused and policy-oriented assessment of the European Union’s evolving efforts to respond to democratic malaise, backsliding, and the broader challenge of democratic renewal.

Moderated by Professor İbrahim Öztürk, the session situated Professor Youngs’ analysis within the symposium’s wider debates on democratic vulnerability, populism, and institutional resilience. Professor Öztürk guided the discussion by opening the floor to critical questions and reflections, enabling participants to connect the keynote’s policy analysis to pressing concerns over civic freedoms, migration, far-right influence, transatlantic lesson-learning, and democratic recovery after autocratization.

Professor Youngs argued that EU democratic resilience policy has advanced considerably in recent years, especially through initiatives such as the Democracy Shield, the Centre for Democratic Resilience, digital regulation, rule-of-law conditionality, civil society funding, and participatory mechanisms. Yet his assessment remained deliberately balanced: while the EU has become more active, its approach remains partial, uneven, and marked by significant blind spots. It has been strongest in addressing online disinformation, foreign interference, and formal rule-of-law concerns, but weaker in supporting bottom-up democratic mobilization, developing systematic strategies for democratic recovery, confronting internal democratic dysfunctions, and reforming the EU’s own institutional architecture.

The discussion following the keynote extended these themes into politically sensitive terrain. Participants raised questions about Europe-wide restrictions on pro-Palestinian activism, the mainstreaming of far-right influence in migration and climate policy, the erosion of the cordon sanitaire, and the relevance of Polish and Hungarian experiences for democratic recovery. Professor Youngs emphasized that Europe’s democratic resilience challenge is not only external but deeply internal, involving unresolved tensions over civic rights, identity conflicts, policy accommodation, and institutional credibility. Taken together, the keynote and discussion provided a nuanced account of both the promise and the limits of the EU’s emerging democratic resilience agenda.

Democratic Resilience in Europe

Professor Richard Youngs delivered the keynote speech with a focused and policy-oriented analysis of the European Union’s evolving approach to democratic resilience. Speaking from the perspective of his work at Carnegie Europe in Brussels, where he leads the European Democracy Hub, Professor Youngs framed his intervention as an assessment of recent practical policy initiatives developed by the EU to address democratic malaise, democratic backsliding, and the broader challenge of democratic renewal across Europe. Rather than approaching democratic resilience purely as an abstract or conceptual question, Professor Youngs sought to connect concrete EU policy developments to the more theoretical debates that had animated the symposium’s earlier panels.

At the outset, Professor Youngs emphasized that EU efforts in the field of democratic resilience have advanced significantly in recent years, but that these advances remain uneven, partial, and marked by important blind spots. European responses to democratic decline, he argued, were slow to emerge. Many of the initiatives now gaining prominence arrived relatively late, despite years of concern about democratic erosion within and around the EU. Nevertheless, over the last couple of years, democratic resilience has become a much more visible and urgent part of the EU agenda. A wide range of initiatives is now being developed to help contain, mitigate, and potentially reverse Europe’s democratic challenges.

Professor Youngs’s central assessment was therefore balanced: the EU has made important policy advances, but its approach remains patchy and incomplete. The Union has developed relatively strong instruments in some areas of democratic resilience, especially digital regulation and protection of the information space, but has been weaker in other domains, particularly bottom-up democratic mobilization, democratic recovery, and reform of the EU’s own institutional architecture. In this sense, Professor Youngs suggested that EU democratic resilience policy reflects aspects of different conceptual approaches, yet suffers from imbalances within each.

To establish the analytical framework for his discussion, Professor Youngs defined democratic resilience in two stages. The first concerns the capacity of democratic systems to resist immediate threats and crises while preserving their core democratic elements. The second is more forward-looking and concerns democratic renewal: the improvement of democratic quality in ways that reduce vulnerability to future crises. This two-level model allowed Professor Youngs to distinguish between short-term defensive measures and deeper, longer-term reforms aimed at strengthening democracy’s foundations.

Professor Youngs also emphasized that democratic resilience depends on multiple levels and actors. It may be provided through formal institutional actors, state bodies, political parties, civil society, local authorities, and, in the European context, the EU’s transnational dimension. A key question, therefore, is whether these different actors are acting in effective coordination with one another. This issue of coordination became one of the recurring themes of Professor Youngs’s keynote.

He further noted that much of the policy discussion in Europe is framed less explicitly in terms of “democratic resilience” and more in terms of how to respond to the far right. This distinction matters because it shapes the kinds of policies that are prioritized. While democratic resilience implies a broad concern with institutional quality, civic participation, political legitimacy, and democratic renewal, a narrower focus on the far right may lead to more defensive or tactical measures aimed primarily at containment.

From Stability to Strain

Professor Youngs distinguished between two ways of assessing the state of European democracy. If one looks at the immediate snapshot, the situation is not catastrophic. Democracy indices suggest that overall democratic levels in Europe have held up reasonably well, with only slight deterioration in several countries. Europe has not experienced wholesale democratic collapse. Yet the deeper concern is prospective: democratic quality may suffer significantly in the future unless more ambitious renewal efforts are undertaken. Thus, the EU’s resilience challenge is not only to resist immediate democratic breakdown but also to stave off future crises and assist democratic recovery in countries that have already undergone sustained backsliding.

The major policy development identified by Professor Youngs was the EU’s Democracy Shield, introduced as a key initiative to strengthen democratic resilience. The Democracy Shield is intended to bring together various strands of EU work aimed at defending and renewing democracy. Under this rubric, the EU has also opened a new Centre for Democratic Resilience. Professor Youngs described these initiatives as promising and tangible signs that the EU is beginning to take democratic resilience more seriously.

However, Professor Youngs also highlighted the main criticism directed at the Democracy Shield: its initial framing was overly defensive and externally focused. It tended to define the principal threat to European democracy as coming from non-democratic actors outside the EU, especially through foreign interference and online manipulation. This framing, Professor Youngs argued, risks placing too much emphasis on external threats while underplaying endogenous democratic weaknesses within European political systems. Although he acknowledged that this criticism remains partly valid, he also noted that the EU has gradually broadened its focus. The Democracy Shield now includes policies on elections, civic participation, civil society, and democratic resilience more generally.

Still, Professor Youngs argued that democratic resilience efforts across Europe remain scattered. Many initiatives exist at different levels, but they are not sufficiently joined together. Policy activity is expanding, but it has not yet been integrated into a holistic framework capable of addressing the full range of democratic challenges identified in academic debates.

Six Pillars of Resilience

Professor Youngs organized the main body of his keynote around six dimensions of EU democratic resilience policy: the online information space and foreign information manipulation and interference; rule of law conditionality; democratic hardball and alliances against far-right actors; civil society and participatory tools; democratic mobilization through protest; and reform of the EU itself.

The first and most developed area, according to Professor Youngs, is the online information space. He argued that this is where EU tools have advanced furthest and where the Union has the most concrete leverage. The EU has developed what it refers to as its “digital suite,” including the Digital Services Act and related measures, aimed at regulating large technology platforms and moderating their impact on democratic information spaces. These policies are being implemented increasingly assertively and form a central part of the EU’s democratic resilience agenda.

Professor Youngs noted that much of the work in this area is carried out through the new Centre for Democratic Resilience, which focuses on sharing lessons and best practices for countering online threats. This is the domain in which the EU possesses real institutional weight, particularly through legal and regulatory instruments. However, Professor Youngs also acknowledged criticism that the EU remains relatively cautious. More ambitious proposals—such as promoting pro-democratic algorithms, taxing anti-democratic disinformation, or moving toward public-interest digital infrastructure—remain part of policy debate but have not yet been fully adopted.

For Professor Youngs, the EU’s digital strategy is therefore significant but limited. It is strongest in containing the worst effects of online threats, but less developed in addressing the deeper structural model through which large technology platforms undermine democratic agency. The EU has done comparatively less to foster digital empowerment or use online tools to improve democratic deliberation. Thus, even in its most advanced area of policy, the EU’s democratic resilience strategy remains more regulatory than transformative.

The second major area Professor Youngs addressed was rule of law conditionality. He observed that the EU has gradually become tougher in using financial leverage against member states where rule of law concerns are acute. Since 2022, the EU has withheld large amounts of funding from Poland and Hungary on rule of law grounds. In Poland, this amounted to around €110 billion in support in the run-up to the 2023 elections. In Hungary, approximately €30 billion remains withheld, equivalent to roughly 14–15 percent of Hungarian GDP.

Professor Youngs argued that withholding funds has not been a primary driver of democratic resilience but has acted as a meaningful secondary factor. In Poland, for example, the EU’s withholding of funding may have played a relevant role in shaping the pro-democratic electoral outcome of 2023. However, he also stressed the limitations of this approach. EU conditionality remains relatively narrow and technical, focused on rule of law concerns that affect the functioning of the EU, rather than broader democracy conditionality. Moreover, the EU has not been able to use Article 7 effectively to suspend voting rights for member states that violate fundamental rule of law principles.

Professor Youngs noted that this may change under proposals for the next EU budget, which could extend rule of law conditionality to all EU funding and broaden the scope of rule of law pressure. If implemented, this would represent a significant policy development, potentially increasing the EU’s leverage over member states that backslide democratically.

The third area concerned emerging debates over democratic hardball and tactics against far-right parties. Professor Youngs observed that some member states have begun using more assertive tools against far-right leaders and parties, including legal provisions, increased surveillance, and multi-party alliances designed to prevent far-right actors from gaining power. These developments remain limited and ad hoc. There is no common EU-level strategy for dealing with the far right in this way.

Professor Youngs stressed that academic research does not prescribe a single approach to the far right. The appropriate balance between ostracism, confrontation, containment, and pragmatic engagement depends heavily on national political context. This diversity of analytical thinking is reflected in the diversity of strategies pursued across Europe. Still, Professor Youngs suggested that a hybrid EU approach may be emerging, combining tougher tactics against anti-democratic actors with pragmatic centrism as part of democratic resilience.

The fourth dimension was civil society and participation. Professor Youngs described this as an increasingly important and promising area. The EU has developed new funding streams for democratic groups working inside Europe—funding that did not previously exist at this scale. There are proposals to double these funds in the next budget, which would significantly increase the resources available for democratic resilience work.

In addition, the EU now organizes several citizen panels each year to promote citizen engagement in democratic debates. At national and subnational levels, there has also been significant growth in citizens’ assemblies, juries, and participatory panels. While these mechanisms are not entirely new, their number has increased notably. Professor Youngs also pointed to the rise of civil society-led participation initiatives, which are becoming more prevalent and influential.

Yet he also acknowledged skepticism about this area. Critics argue that these initiatives remain small-scale and that their concrete political impact is not yet visible at the overarching political level. Thus, while participatory democracy has gained attention, it has not yet become a fully transformative force in European democratic renewal.

The fifth dimension was democratic mobilization through protest. Professor Youngs noted that Europe has witnessed a wave of pro-democratic protests over the last two or three years, with most member states experiencing some form of democratic mobilization. Yet EU policy in this area has been cautious, and sometimes even negative. Governments have tended to contain or suppress protests rather than actively support them. In some countries, civic space has narrowed, making it harder for protests to be organized effectively.

This, for Professor Youngs, reveals a crucial imbalance in the EU’s democratic resilience approach. The EU remains more comfortable with top-down initiatives, regulation, and standard-setting than with genuinely bottom-up grassroots pluralism. Democratic resilience is therefore being supported from above more than cultivated from below.

The sixth dimension was reform of the European Union itself. Professor Youngs emphasized that many analysts argue democratic resilience measures will remain limited unless the EU addresses its own democratic deficit. Concerns about the EU’s democratic deficit have deepened in recent years and contribute to wider feelings of disenfranchisement among citizens. Although debates on EU reform have intensified, with many governments acknowledging the need for structural change, little has been done concretely.

Professor Youngs argued that placing democracy at the core of EU reform is a frequently expressed aspiration but remains underdeveloped in practice. This is one of the weakest links in the EU’s democratic resilience strategy: the Union seeks to strengthen democracy in member states without sufficiently democratizing its own structures and decision-making procedures.

The EU’s Unfinished Agenda

Professor Youngs then turned to democratic recovery, especially in relation to Poland and Hungary. He noted that the EU does not yet have a systematic strategy for helping countries re-democratize after sustained autocratization. This question has become more urgent because of developments in Poland after the 2023 elections and, more recently, Hungary. The EU was not especially effective in preventing democratic regression in either country, but some of the funding it kept in place for pro-democratic actors may now help democratic recovery.

Professor Youngs emphasized the central dilemma: how to recover democracy without using undemocratic means after periods of autocratization. Poland illustrates this difficulty, as the post-2023 government has faced significant challenges in restoring democratic norms. The EU, he argued, still lacks a well-developed line on democratic recovery.

He also noted that the EU’s response to Poland may have been overly generous and rapid. The Union released funds quickly to reward the new government’s pro-EU orientation, but some observers argue that this may have reduced the EU’s leverage over democratic recovery. This lesson is now shaping debates about Hungary, where the EU may be more cautious and severe in setting conditions before releasing withheld funds.

In concluding, Professor Youngs summarized five key imbalances in EU democratic resilience policy. First, the EU remains more focused on external threats than on internal democratic dysfunctions, though this imbalance is beginning to shift. Second, the EU is better at setting standards through regulation than at supporting local-level citizen participation. Third, it focuses more on rule of law than on broader indicators of democratic quality. Fourth, it is stronger in top-down regulation than in fostering bottom-up pluralism. Fifth, its approach to the far right remains pragmatic and fragmented rather than systemic.

Professor Youngs concluded that the EU’s democratic resilience agenda is becoming more prominent and has developed significantly, especially in the areas of disinformation, foreign interference, digital regulation, and formal civic participation. However, it remains mixed and uneven. It is less developed in relation to assertive responses to far-right parties, bottom-up democratic contestation, democratic recovery, and EU reform itself.

Ultimately, Professor Youngs argued that the EU still lacks a fully comprehensive understanding of democratic resilience. Its policies reflect partial elements of what democratic resilience requires, but not yet a holistic strategy. Much of the policy debate has focused on explaining the causes of democratic problems, while less attention has been given to developing operational frameworks for democratic resistance and renewal. The EU’s current approach, though promising, still needs a more coherent analytical framework against which its effectiveness can be judged.

 

Discussions

The discussion following Professor Youngs’ keynote speech deepened and extended the central themes of his presentation, particularly the tensions between democratic resilience, internal dysfunctions within Europe, the rise of the far right, civic freedoms, transatlantic lesson-learning, and the challenge of democratic recovery after periods of autocratization. Moderated by Professor Öztürk, the exchange moved from questions of Europe’s response to pro-Palestinian activism to the impact of far-right influence on EU policy, the comparative lessons of Hungary and Poland, the weakening of cordon sanitaire strategies, and the dilemmas faced by liberal-centrist governments attempting to reverse democratic backsliding without losing public support.

Opening the discussion, Professor Öztürk invited questions, comments, and criticism from the participants. The first intervention came from Professor Cengiz Aktar, who posed what he described as a straightforward but politically charged question concerning Europe-wide restrictions on pro-Palestinian narratives and activism. He asked Professor Youngs to assess the weight and impact of such repression on Europe’s democratic credentials and normative claims. Professor Aktar further emphasized that many European far-right parties, which democratic actors are ostensibly seeking to contain, have become increasingly pro-Israel, often as an extension of their anti-Islam orientation. In this sense, he framed the issue as a clear example of what Professor Youngs had earlier termed an “internal dysfunction” within European democracy. Rather than merely facing external democratic threats, Europe was, in Professor Aktar’s formulation, tolerating or even accommodating internal contradictions each time pro-Palestinian rallies were restricted in London, Berlin, or elsewhere.

Professor Youngs responded by acknowledging that this is indeed a growing democratic problem. He distinguished the impact of the Middle East conflict from the war in Ukraine, arguing that unlike the Ukrainian case, the Middle East conflict has had a negative effect on the quality of European democracy. In his assessment, Europe has effectively imported the tensions of the conflict into its own political systems. Restrictions on pro-Palestinian protests, he noted, have already been registered in democracy indices and help explain why civic rights indicators have deteriorated in several member states. Professor Youngs linked this directly to a point from his keynote: European governments have often failed to positively encourage democratic mobilization and have instead attempted to contain or hold protests at bay.

At the same time, Professor Youngs recognized the complexity of the issue. Were EU or national government officials present, he suggested, they would likely justify restrictions as necessary to limit antisemitism within some protests. This creates a difficult balancing act between protecting minority communities and safeguarding protest rights. Yet Professor Youngs emphasized that the issue also reinforces another theme from his keynote: the absence of a common European line. Some countries, such as Spain, have adopted more favorable positions toward the Palestinian issue, while others have imposed stricter limits. For Professor Youngs, this illustrates how external crises can expose internal democratic weaknesses and how the EU struggles to respond in an agile and democratically coherent fashion when member states diverge sharply.

Far-Right Influence and Strategic Dilemmas

Dr. Bulent Kenes then raised a question about whether the EU itself is genuinely moving in the right direction in reforming and strengthening democratic resilience. He asked whether, given recent shifts in EU migration policy, the Union can be considered immune to far-right influence or “contamination.” He further asked whether these policy adjustments reflect a deeper normative accommodation to far-right projects within the European project.

Professor Youngs responded by broadening the issue beyond migration to include climate policy as another area where far-right influence has become visible. He noted that the radical right and far right now have significant representation in the European Parliament, and this has begun to affect policy debates and outcomes. However, he cautioned that it is more complicated to determine whether such policy impacts are intrinsically anti-democratic. One may profoundly disagree with the policy positions adopted by far-right actors, but whether these positions directly undermine European democracy depends on the specific parties, countries, and policy areas involved.

Professor Youngs connected this question to ongoing debates over tactics against the far right. Academic research has long examined whether democratic actors should adopt constitutional hardball and assertive measures against anti-democratic parties, or whether they should pursue a more pragmatic and consensual approach that attempts to understand and address the root causes of far-right support. In practice, he argued, no common European line has emerged. Even some relatively liberal parties would argue that ostracizing far-right parties may increase their appeal among disaffected voters. Others contend that the greater danger lies in mainstream center-right parties becoming increasingly open to cooperation with far-right policy agendas. Professor Youngs concluded that the evidence is not yet conclusive as to which approach is more effective. However, the divergence itself reveals how difficult it is for the EU to develop a full-spectrum democratic resilience strategy while member states and political families remain divided on these tactical questions.

Transatlantic Lessons and Limits

Professor Kent Jones then introduced a comparative transatlantic perspective. Speaking as an American observer, he reflected on the different dimensions along which democratic resilience is being tested in the United States. He noted that federal courts have often provided a degree of resistance, even if the Supreme Court has sometimes been less helpful. Public backlash has also played a role in raising awareness, while the federal structure of the United States has limited some illiberal reforms during the Trump years. Against this background, Professor Jones asked whether there is a useful path for exchanging lessons between Europe and the United States. He asked what elements of the European experience might be transferable to the United States and what aspects of the American experience might be informative for Europe’s own resilience agenda.

Professor Youngs described this as a particularly important question and noted that Carnegie has been working with colleagues in the United States on precisely this issue. However, he argued that there has been a “woeful insufficiency” of lesson-learning not only across the Atlantic but also among European states themselves. This, he suggested, is an area in urgent need of development. For many years, both the EU and the United States had relatively well-developed external democracy support policies, but very little aimed inward at protecting their own democratic norms and institutions. This rested on the assumption that democracy was not seriously at risk internally. Recent trends have shattered that assumption.

Professor Youngs explained that the policy equation has now shifted. More European attention is being directed toward democratic resilience within Europe itself. Initial efforts are emerging to share lessons among member states, and he suggested that this could be extended to transatlantic cooperation. Given the political situation in the United States, this may not currently involve governmental actors, but there is considerable room for exchange among civic actors, protest movements, electoral experts, and digital democracy specialists. Professor Youngs identified the EU’s regulatory experience in the digital sphere as potentially relevant for the American context. At the same time, he emphasized that both Europe and the United States face the challenge of supporting many small grassroots efforts while ensuring that they acquire larger political significance. This, he suggested, is one of the weakest points in both contexts and perhaps the most promising area for mutual learning.

Professor Jones added that many Americans have drawn hope from the recent experiences of Hungary and Poland. In the United States, he argued, the struggle is increasingly coming down to voting, especially in the next midterm elections. The ability of Hungarian voters to remove a populist leader after 16 years has generated interest and even amazement among some American observers. Professor Jones suggested that the European experience may be most useful for the United States in showing how grassroots mobilization and effective voting can remove entrenched populist leaders. He added that while grassroots mobilization has been relatively successful in the United States, the political system has made it difficult to translate that energy into effective day-to-day opposition in Washington.

Professor Youngs responded by explaining how the Hungarian election is being interpreted in Brussels. The dominant reading, he said, is that the opposition made the right strategic choice by focusing intensely on corruption and avoiding being drawn into identity-war battles. He acknowledged that the reality is likely more complex, and that only some elements of the Hungarian experience are relevant to the United States. He also noted that Hungary’s EU membership likely acted as a secondary constraint on Orbán. Had Orbán attempted to falsify the elections in an overt way, Hungary’s EU membership would have been seriously jeopardized. In that sense, the EU functioned as a kind of external buttress, helping preserve enough political space for the opposition to retain a competitive chance.

Cordon Sanitaire and Electoral Signals

ECPS Chair Selçuk Gültaşlı then asked two related questions. First, he asked about the state of the cordon sanitaire against the far right in Europe and EU institutions, particularly given cooperation between the European People’s Party (EPP) and far-right blocs in the European Parliament. Second, he asked for Professor Youngs’ reading of Orbán’s defeat in Hungary and whether its implications for the future of far-right politics in Europe are being exaggerated or underestimated.

Professor Youngs responded by noting that the cordon sanitaire varies significantly across institutional and national contexts. In the European Parliament, there is clear concern because the traditional pro-EU coalition that had long dominated parliamentary dynamics has weakened. The center-right’s willingness to cooperate with far-right groups on some policy files has disrupted this earlier pro-EU bloc. In many national parliaments, however, the cordon sanitaire remains more firmly in place. Professor Youngs emphasized the difficulty of the challenge: if mainstream parties cooperate with the far right, far-right policies risk becoming normalized; if all other forces coalesce against the far right, the far right may use exclusion to strengthen its anti-establishment appeal.

Professor Youngs stated that the key question is whether cooperation between center-right and far-right parties on specific policy issues will become a systemic threat to democracy. He did not believe that this conclusion can yet be drawn definitively, but warned that such cooperation may open a slippery slope toward a broader democratic impact.

Returning to the question of Orbán’s defeat, Professor Youngs cautioned against interpreting it as a complete watershed moment for the European far right. The defeat is clearly good news for liberal democracy, but far-right fortunes across Europe fluctuate according to national circumstances. A far-right party may lose in one country and perform strongly in another soon afterward. The Bulgarian elections, he noted, point in a different direction from Hungary. Thus, he argued, Europe is likely to see continued fluctuation rather than either an inexorable rise or a uniform decline of far-right politics.

Poland’s Recovery Dilemma

The final question came from Matin Nikookar Ardestani, who drew on the Polish context. He observed that although the centrist, liberal-democratic, pro-EU coalition won the parliamentary election, the populist right returned through the presidential election, while the anti-populist coalition appears to have declined in support. At the same time, liberal-centrist parties seem to be adopting positions on migration, LGBTQ issues, and other cultural questions that were previously associated with right-wing populists. He asked how Professor Youngs would explain this policy shift and its correlation with declining support for liberal-centrist forces.

Professor Youngs responded by situating Poland within the broader EU dilemma of democratic recovery. He argued that fear of the far right returning to power encouraged the EU to provide generous and rapid support to Poland after the 2023 election, even before the government had fully implemented its promised democratic reforms. The new government faces the enormous challenge of dismantling or reforming a captured state apparatus built over many years by its predecessor, while doing so without violating core democratic procedures. Because of concern that the far right could return, the EU has been highly supportive of Poland, despite the fact that its democratic reform record still leaves room for improvement.

Professor Youngs suggested that this experience may shape the EU’s approach to Hungary, where it may impose tougher conditions before releasing withheld funds. He acknowledged that expectations for the Polish government after 2023 were very high, and that frustration has grown because reforms have not progressed as quickly or fully as many hoped. For Professor Youngs, the Polish case illustrates a difficult balancing act: the EU wants to support governments that move in a pro-European direction, but if it releases leverage too quickly, it may weaken its ability to encourage deeper democratic recovery.

Taken together, the discussion following Professor Youngs’ keynote underscored the complexity of democratic resilience in Europe. The exchange showed that the EU’s challenge is not only to defend democracy against external threats but also to confront internal contradictions: restrictions on protest rights, the mainstreaming of far-right policy preferences, the erosion of the cordon sanitaire, and the difficulty of restoring democracy after state capture. The discussion also highlighted the importance of comparative and transatlantic learning, especially around grassroots mobilization, electoral strategy, and institutional safeguards. Throughout the exchange, Professor Youngs maintained the balanced assessment that characterized his keynote: EU democratic resilience policy has advanced, but it remains incomplete, uneven, and often more reactive than transformative.

 

Conclusion

Professor Richard Youngs’ keynote and the ensuing discussion offered a nuanced assessment of the European Union’s emerging democratic resilience agenda. The central insight was that the EU has moved beyond rhetorical concern and begun to develop concrete instruments—such as the Democracy Shield, digital regulation, rule-of-law conditionality, civic participation mechanisms, and support for democratic actors. Yet these initiatives remain uneven, fragmented, and more advanced in some areas than others.

A key contribution of Professor Youngs’ analysis was his insistence that democratic resilience cannot be reduced to defensive responses against external threats. While disinformation, foreign interference, and digital manipulation remain serious concerns, Europe’s democratic vulnerabilities are also internal: weakened civic space, contested protest rights, far-right normalization, migration politics, declining trust, and the EU’s own democratic deficit. The discussion on pro-Palestinian activism, migration policy, and the cordon sanitaire underscored how difficult it is for the EU to defend democracy while managing sharp political divisions among member states.

The session also highlighted the unresolved challenge of democratic recovery. Poland and Hungary illustrate that removing or weakening autocratizing actors does not automatically restore democratic norms. Rebuilding institutions after state capture requires careful strategies that avoid reproducing undemocratic methods. Professor Youngs’ warning that the EU may have released leverage too quickly in Poland points to the need for a more systematic recovery framework.

In sum, the keynote showed that European democratic resilience is possible but not yet fully operationalized. The EU has developed promising tools, but it still lacks a holistic strategy connecting rule of law, civic mobilization, institutional reform, democratic recovery, and bottom-up pluralism. The task ahead is not merely to shield democracy from crisis, but to renew it.

Peter Magyar.

Péter Magyar’s Two Early Signals: Migration, Mitteleuropa, and the Rearticulation of Hungarian Nationalism

by CommentariesEditor’s ChoiceEuropean ObservatoryHome

In this ECPS European Observatory commentary, Dr. João Ferreira Dias offers a theoretically rich analysis of Péter Magyar’s electoral breakthrough, arguing that it should not be read as a simple liberal shift but as a reconfiguration of Hungarian nationalism. Focusing on migration and Mitteleuropa, he shows how Magyar preserves a moderated nationalist grammar while repositioning Hungary within a more plural, regionally grounded Europe. Rather than abandoning sovereignty or identity, this emerging project seeks to detach them from illiberal statecraft and reintegrate them into a European framework. The piece introduces the idea of a national Europeanism beyond Orbánism, highlighting the central question facing Hungary: whether nationalism can be rearticulated within democratic institutions without reproducing authoritarian dynamics.

By João Ferreira Dias

Péter Magyar’s victory in Hungary should not be read as the sudden liberalization of Hungarian politics. Such a reading would be analytically tempting, but politically misleading. A society shaped by post-socialist dislocation, imperial memories, border anxieties, regional asymmetries, and sixteen years of illiberal statecraft is unlikely to move overnight from national-conservative politics to post-national liberalism. The defeat of Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz marks a profound political rupture, but not necessarily an ideological tabula rasa. Yes, Magyar’s Tisza party won Hungary’s April 2026 election, ending Orbán’s sixteen-year rule and paving the way for the formation of a new government. Yet the more interesting question is not simply whether Hungary is “returning to Europe.” It is what kind of Europe, and what kind of nationalism, Magyar is now attempting to articulate.

The first signals suggest that Magyar’s emerging political project is not built against Hungarian nationalism, but through its reconfiguration. Its novelty lies less in abandoning the national grammar that Orbán radicalized than in relocating it within a more institutionally acceptable, pro-European, and strategically autonomous framework. Two discursive axes are particularly revealing. The first is migration, where Magyar preserves a nationalist concern with cultural cohesion, border control, and the limits of multicultural integration. The second is Mitteleuropa, where he appears to reimagine Hungary not as an isolated sovereigntist fortress, but as part of a Central European space capable of giving Europe greater internal plurality and strategic depth.

Taken together, these axes point towards a possible post-Orbán synthesis: nationalism without Orbán’s full illiberal infrastructure; Europeanism without unconditional deference to Brussels; and Central European regionalism without geopolitical ambiguity towards Moscow.

Migration and the Continuity of Nationalist Grammar

Migration remains the clearest field of continuity between Orbánism and the emerging Magyar project. Across Europe and the United States, immigration has become one of the privileged arenas through which contemporary nationalist politics articulates anxieties over identity, sovereignty, cultural continuity, and social trust. The populist radical right has been especially effective in transforming migration from a policy question into a symbolic frontier: between the nation and the outsider, order and disorder, cultural continuity and multicultural dissolution. In Cas Mudde’s terms, the radical right often combines nativism, authoritarianism, and populism, and migration is the issue through which these elements are most visibly condensed (Mudde, 2007). In the broader literature on cultural backlash, hostility to immigration is also interpreted as a reaction against cosmopolitanism, rapid value change, and perceived threats to national identity (Norris & Inglehart, 2019).

Orbán’s political genius was to radicalize this grammar and convert it into state ideology. Under his rule, migration was not merely a matter of border management. It became a civilizational drama: Christian Hungary against multicultural Europe; national sovereignty against Brussels; the border fence against liberal universalism. Migration offered Orbán a language through which economic insecurity, demographic anxiety, anti-EU resentment, and cultural conservatism could be fused into a single political narrative. 

Magyar’s position appears less incendiary, but not simply opposite. According to The Guardian, he argued that Europe had “mismanaged” the migration crisis and that the issue should have been addressed primarily in countries of origin, rather than by bringing populations into Europe. This is not the language of liberal multiculturalism. Nor is it the apocalyptic rhetoric of Orbán’s civilizational border politics. It is something more subtle: a moderated, humanitarianized, and administratively respectable version of migration skepticism.

That ambiguity is politically important. On the surface, the emphasis on addressing migration in countries of origin can seem pragmatic and humane. It recognizes that migration has causes — war, poverty, instability, state failure, climate pressures — and that durable solutions cannot be reduced to reception policies in Europe. Yet the same formula may also operate as a politically acceptable form of closure: solidarity without settlement, assistance without multicultural transformation, responsibility without internal absorption.

This is where Magyar’s discourse preserves a nationalist grammar while softening its tone. Migration remains framed not only as a humanitarian issue, but as a question of cultural cohesion and governability. The political community is still imagined as something whose boundaries must be protected, whose identity cannot be indefinitely diluted, and whose social trust depends on controlled membership. In that sense, Magyar does not fully break with Orbán’s migration politics. He changes its register.

The distinction is therefore not between nationalism and liberalism. It is between two uses of nationalism. Orbán embedded nationalist discourse within an illiberal regime marked by institutional capture, constitutional engineering, media domination, and clientelist power consolidation; features widely discussed in the literature on Hungary’s hybrid and illiberal transformation (Bozóki & Hegedűs, 2018; Krekó & Enyedi, 2018; Scheppele, 2018). Magyar, by contrast, seems to be attempting to detach national-conservative discourse from that authoritarian infrastructure. His wager is that Hungarian voters did not reject nationalism as such; they rejected corruption, exhaustion, state capture, deteriorating public services, and Russia-friendly isolation.

This is a crucial insight. Orbán did not fall because nationalism disappeared from Hungarian society. He fell because his nationalism became inseparable from regime fatigue. Magyar’s challenge is therefore not to erase the national vocabulary, but to make it governable again.

Mitteleuropa and the Reinvention of European Agency

If migration reveals the continuity of Hungarian nationalist grammar, Mitteleuropa reveals its attempted transformation. Magyar’s Europeanism should not be read simply as a return to Brussels after the long Orbán years. It seems better understood as an effort to recover Central Europe as a strategic, historical, and political space within a more multidimensional Europe.

This distinction matters. A merely Brussels-centered interpretation would reduce Magyar’s project to normalization: Hungary returns to the European mainstream, restores its institutional credibility, unlocks EU funds, and abandons Orbán’s obstructive diplomacy. 

There is truth in this reading. The new government’s early economic and ministerial signals suggest an emphasis on policy stability, EU funds, and economic recovery. But this is not the whole story. Magyar’s rhetoric points not only to reintegration, but to repositioning.

Mitteleuropa is not a neutral geographical term. It carries historical density. It evokes empires, shifting borders, multilingual societies, imperial collapse, Soviet domination, peripheralization, and the recurring experience of being located between larger powers. In Milan Kundera’s famous formulation, Central Europe was a kidnapped West: culturally Western, politically displaced eastwards by history (Kundera, 1984). Later interpretations of post-1989 Central Europe have stressed another dimension: the ambivalent relationship between liberal imitation, Western tutelage, and the resentment generated by the feeling of being permanently evaluated from outside (Krastev & Holmes, 2019).

Orbán exploited this historical repertoire through a politics of resentment. Hungary was presented as a besieged nation: pressured by Brussels, misunderstood by liberal elites, threatened by migration, and entitled to defend its own civilizational path. Sovereignty became trench warfare. Europe was not a plural home, but a disciplinary center. Central Europe became less a region of European agency than a rhetorical shield against liberal-democratic constraints.

Magyar appears to be proposing a different use of the same historical memory. His Mitteleuropa is not necessarily a retreat from Europe, but a way of making Europe more internally plural. It suggests that Hungary need not choose between two poor alternatives: Orbán’s nationalist isolation or passive obedience to a Brussels-centered technocratic order. Instead, Central Europe can be imagined as a third space: European but not submissive; nationally rooted but not authoritarian; historically conscious but not paranoid.

This is the deeper meaning of the “return of Mitteleuropa.” It is not nostalgia for empire. Nor is it a romantic escape from the European Union. It is a proposal for a Europe made of historical regions with their own memories, vulnerabilities, and strategic vocabularies. In this vision, Hungary is not a void between Germany and Russia, nor a problematic periphery to which Brussels grants certificates of good behavior. It is part of a Central European constellation capable of shaping Europe from within.

The contrast with Orbán is again instructive. Orbán’s Europe was vertical: Brussels above, Hungary below, sovereignty as resistance. Magyar’s Europe appears potentially horizontal: Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Prague, Bratislava, Warsaw, Zagreb, Ljubljana, Rome, Copenhagen, Brussels, and Budapest as parts of a plural continental architecture. Such a Europe is not merely a union of institutions; it is a field of regions, memories, and strategic positions.

This does not make Magyar a liberal cosmopolitan. Rather, it suggests a form of national Europeanism. The nation remains the primary symbolic community, but Europe becomes the necessary arena of agency. Mitteleuropa provides the bridge between the two. It allows Magyar to say that Hungary can be proudly national without being anti-European, and European without becoming politically weightless.

A Post-Illiberal National Europeanism?

Magyar’s two early signals therefore reveal a more complex ideological architecture than the language of “liberal victory” allows. Migration preserves the nationalist grammar. Mitteleuropa gives that grammar a new European geography.

The first axis is defensive: it protects the boundaries of the political community, insists on cultural cohesion, and keeps alive a skepticism towards large-scale multicultural integration. The second is expansive: it seeks to recover agency for Hungary and Central Europe within a more plural, multidimensional Europe. One axis looks inward, towards identity and membership. The other looks outward, towards regional strategy and European architecture.

The tension between them may define the coming Magyar period. If the nationalist grammar of migration hardens, it may reproduce exclusionary assumptions under a more polished vocabulary. If Mitteleuropa becomes another language of exceptionalism, it may simply replace Orbán’s resentment with a more elegant form of regional self-importance. But if the two axes are held in democratic balance, they may allow Hungary to move beyond Orbán without demanding that Hungarian society abandon the national vocabulary through which it still understands itself.

That is why Magyar’s project should not be understood as post-national liberalism. It is better described as an attempt at post-illiberal national Europeanism: a politics that preserves sovereignty, identity, and Central European memory, while seeking to detach them from authoritarianism, corruption, and Russian dependency.

The real test of post-Orbán Hungary will therefore not be whether nationalism disappears. It will not. The test is whether nationalism can be rearticulated within democratic institutions, European pluralism, and a regional imagination capable of enriching Europe rather than fragmenting it.

Magyar’s early discourse suggests that this is precisely the wager: to keep the nation but change its political grammar; to return to Europe, but not as a pupil; to recover Mitteleuropa, not as nostalgia, but as strategy.

 

References

Bozóki, A. & Hegedűs, D. (2018). “An externally constrained hybrid regime: Hungary in the European Union.” Democratization, 25(7), 1173-1189. https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2018.1455664

Krastev, I. & Holmes, S. (2019). The light that failed: A reckoning. Allen Lane.

Krekó, P. & Enyedi, Z. (2018). “Explaining Eastern Europe: Orbán’s laboratory of illiberalism.” Journal of Democracy, 29(3), 39–51. https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2018.0043

Kundera, M. (1984). “The tragedy of Central Europe.” The New York Review of Books, 31(7), 33–38.

Mudde, C. (2007). Populist radical right parties in Europe. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511492037

Norris, P., & Inglehart, R. (2019). Cultural backlash: Trump, Brexit, and authoritarian populism. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108595841

Scheppele, K. L. (2018). “Autocratic legalism.” The University of Chicago Law Review, 85(2), 545–584.

Associate Professor Petar Stankov.

Assoc. Prof. Stankov: Too Early to Say Bulgaria’s Radev Will Act as an Orbán 2.0, He Looks More Like Fico 

by Editor’s ChoiceEuropean ObservatoryHomeInterviews

In an interview with the ECPS, Associate Professor Petar Stankov offers a nuanced assessment of Bulgaria’s post-election trajectory under Rumen Radev. Challenging alarmist comparisons, he argues that “it is too early to tell” whether Radev will become an Orbán-style leader, suggesting instead that he “looks more like Fico,” pursuing a pragmatic balancing strategy. Assoc. Prof. Stankov interprets the electoral outcome as “a demand for stabilization after prolonged institutional volatility,” rather than a clear ideological shift. While economic constraints limit disruptive policymaking, he warns that the greater risk lies in institutional capture, particularly if opportunities for judicial reform are missed. Ultimately, Bulgaria’s trajectory will depend on whether reformist or rent-seeking dynamics prevail.

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

In the aftermath of Bulgaria’s April 2026 parliamentary elections, the country finds itself at a critical juncture shaped by the tension between political stabilization and the risk of democratic erosion. Following years of fragmentation, repeated elections, and institutional fatigue, Rumen Radev’s newly established Progressive Bulgaria party secured a decisive majority, capitalizing on anti-corruption sentiment, voter exhaustion, and socioeconomic anxieties linked to eurozone integration. While this outcome has brought a measure of political clarity, it has also intensified debates over Bulgaria’s democratic trajectory and its positioning between the European Union and Russia.

In a written interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Associate Professor Petar Stankov, Senior Lecturer in Economics at Royal Holloway, University of London, offers a nuanced and analytically grounded interpretation of these developments. Challenging alarmist comparisons, Assoc. Prof. Stankov argues that “it is too early to tell” whether Radev will evolve into an Orbán-style leader, suggesting instead that he “looks more like Fico,” pursuing a pragmatic balancing strategy rather than an overtly confrontational illiberal project.

At the core of Assoc. Prof. Stankov’s analysis is the argument that Radev’s victory reflects “a demand for stabilization after prolonged institutional volatility,” rather than a coherent ideological realignment. The electoral coalition that brought him to power, he notes, was “mobilized against discredited incumbents, not a coherent positive ideology,” drawing support from both left- and right-leaning constituencies. This heterogeneity, in turn, underscores the enduring salience of identity politics in Bulgaria, where Radev’s “balanced position” on Russia’s war in Ukraine resonated deeply “on identity grounds.”

Situating these dynamics within his broader framework of populist cycles, Assoc. Prof. Stankov characterizes Radev as “a short-term manifestation of populist demand,” rooted less in economic distress than in identity and fairness concerns, particularly dissatisfaction with the judicial system. In this sense, Bulgaria’s political landscape reflects structural patterns rather than exceptional rupture.

The interview also addresses the central question of whether Radev’s anti-corruption mandate will lead to institutional renewal or facilitate a new phase of power concentration. Here, Assoc. Prof. Stankov highlights a fundamental tension between reformist impulses and entrenched interests, warning that outcomes will depend on whether political actors pursue “institutional repair” or the redistribution of “political rents.”

On foreign policy, Assoc. Prof. Stankov underscores the importance of strategic ambiguity. While Radev may be “a natural candidate to do the Kremlin’s bidding,” he is unlikely to pursue a confrontational course vis-à-vis the EU, instead maintaining a careful balancing act shaped by Bulgaria’s structural constraints. Economically, these constraints significantly limit his room for maneuver, but Assoc. Prof. Stankov cautions that “politically, he may do more damage” if opportunities for judicial reform are squandered.

Ultimately, this interview with ECPS presents a measured yet critical assessment of Bulgaria’s evolving political order. By rejecting simplistic analogies and foregrounding structural dynamics, Assoc. Prof. Stankov highlights both the constraints and the risks inherent in Radev’s ascent—capturing a moment in which the promise of stability coexists uneasily with the possibility of democratic backsliding. 

Here is the edited version of our interview with Associate Professor Petar Stankov, revised slightly to improve clarity and flow.

A Vote for Stability, Not Ideology

Bulgarian President Rumen Radev.
Then-Bulgarian President Rumen Radev speaks to the media following his meeting with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker at EU headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, on January 30, 2017. Photo: Dreamstime.

Professor Stankov, what does Rumen Radev’s landslide victory tell us about Bulgaria’s current political position after eight elections in five years? Should this outcome be interpreted primarily as a demand for stability and anti-corruption reform, or as evidence of a deeper ideological realignment?

Assoc. Prof. Petar Stankov: Radev’s victory is best read as a demand for stabilization after prolonged institutional volatility, rather than a clear ideological departure from underlying voter preferences. It mobilized a coalition against discredited incumbents, not a coherent positive ideology. What earned Radev support from the electorate was also his balanced position on the war that Russia started in Ukraine. As Russia has, justifiably or not, a special place in the hearts and minds of many Bulgarians, this stance resonated deeply on identity grounds.

How should we situate Radev’s victory within your broader theory of populist cycles? Does his rise reflect a classic populist moment in which economic anxiety, elite discredit, and identity-based grievances converge into a new electoral coalition?

Assoc. Prof. Petar Stankov: Populist cycles are a long-term phenomenon. Radev is a short-term manifestation of populist demand, which is consistently strong in Bulgaria. The theory of populist cycles rests on identity, fairness, and economic pillars. If it offers the appropriate lens through which to view Bulgarian politics at the moment, then identity and fairness certainly played a role, though less so the state of the economy. Identity mattered because voters appear to have stopped associating themselves with previous pro-Western populists, finding insufficient representation in them. Fairness also played a role, as the condition of the judicial system is no longer tolerable.

Identity Over Economics, Structure Over Cycles

In your earlier work on Bulgaria and Germany, you identify unemployment, inequality, trade openness, and migration as factors associated with stronger right-wing populist support. To what extent do these structural pressures help explain Radev’s success in 2026, even if he does not fit neatly into a conventional far-right mold?

Assoc. Prof. Petar Stankov: Yes, but only imperfectly. Cyclical pressures such as inflation and emigration may have been relevant. However, Radev’s support draws from both left- and right-leaning constituencies. This is consistent with identity factors and deeper structural issues shaping Bulgarian voters, rather than the cyclical factors that typically underpin a populist rise.

Radev won on an anti-corruption platform, but anti-corruption discourse in Central and Eastern Europe often serves as a bridge between democratic renewal and populist concentration of power. In your view, does his mandate open a path toward institutional repair, or does it risk legitimizing a new phase of executive centralization in the name of cleansing the system?

Assoc. Prof. Petar Stankov: This will depend on two opposing forces. On the one hand, there are new faces in politics under Radev who would like to start from scratch. This would be consistent with the institutional repair hypothesis. On the other hand, there are also some older figures among the incoming cohort of politicians who have not yet had the chance to secure a share of “political rents.” This would be consistent with the hypothesis that consolidation of power serves the redistribution of political rents rather than the renewal of democracy in Bulgaria. Whichever force prevails will determine whether Bulgaria moves toward rebuilding or redistributing. I sincerely hope that idealism will prevail, but history suggests that, in poorer countries, political rents often outweigh ideals.

Closer to Fico Than Orbán in Europe’s Fault Lines

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico speaks at a press conference following a Visegrad Group (V4) meeting in Prague, Czech Republic, on February 15, 2016. Photo: Dreamstime.

A central question for European observers is whether Radev represents the emergence of a new Orban-type actor inside the EU. Do you see him as a potential ideological successor to Orban in the nexus of EU-Russia tensions, or is that analogy too blunt for the Bulgarian case?

Assoc. Prof. Petar Stankov: On the surface, Radev and Orban appear more aligned with the interests of the Kremlin than with those of the EU. However, I think Radev strikes a more balanced tone, at least for now. Whether he will act as an Orban 2.0 is too early to tell, but I do not expect him to go as far as Orban did in his last term in office in terms of aligning with the Kremlin. At the same time, we should not be naive about Radev’s background: he is a military officer from a period when the Bulgarian army perceived NATO as an adversary and Russia as a source of public and ideological goods. It would be unnatural for him to suddenly change his identity.

If not Orban, is Radev better understood as closer to Robert Fico: rhetorically skeptical of Brussels and supportive of “pragmatic” relations with Moscow, yet constrained by economic dependence on the EU and by Bulgaria’s embeddedness in NATO and European institutions?

Assoc. Prof. Petar Stankov: I believe Radev fits that description. I expect him to pursue a balancing act without creating major disruptions for NATO or the EU.

How should we interpret Radev’s position on Ukraine? He has opposed military support and criticized parts of the EU’s approach, yet analysts suggest he may avoid outright vetoes while preserving Bulgaria’s role in the broader European defense ecosystem. Does this amount to strategic ambiguity, domestic balancing, or a more systematic geopolitical repositioning?

Assoc. Prof. Petar Stankov: It is not natural for Radev to oppose the interests of the Kremlin; doing so would run against who he is and how he has developed as an individual and as a politician. However, I do not think he is inherently confrontational. He projects confidence and a desire for dialogue, which may serve his strategy of ambiguity. Given his current level of electoral support, I do not think he needs to balance domestically—he holds the strongest political mandate in recent memory.

Pragmatism or Russophilia? A Shifting Political Language

What do Radev’s statements about renewing ties with Russia and rethinking Europe’s security architecture tell us about the evolving vocabulary of pro-Russian politics inside the EU? Are we seeing old-style Russophilia, or a newer populist language of “pragmatism,” sovereignty, and anti-moralism designed to be more electorally acceptable?

Assoc. Prof. Petar Stankov: Because of who Radev is, he is a natural candidate to do the Kremlin’s bidding in Europe, to re-legitimize the economic and political relationships between Europe and the Kremlin, and, why not, to do their dirty laundry. Let us not forget, however, that Radev represents a small and declining nation among many others. In that sense, although Radev is a valuable asset—the Kremlin will take any asset that comes its way at this stage—he is not its prime candidate. The Kremlin’s prime European asset is not even in Europe.

Your work argues that populists weaponize identity conflicts and economic hardships for political gain. In the Bulgarian case, which mattered more in this election: material grievances such as inflation, euro adoption, and living costs, or identity and geopolitical divisions over Russia, Europe, and national sovereignty?

Assoc. Prof. Petar Stankov: I believe the latter mattered more. Russian propaganda in Bulgaria is very strong, while the economy is not performing poorly enough for cyclical factors to outweigh identity conflicts.

Balancing Brussels and Moscow While Eyeing Judicial Reform

Radev is not a newcomer; he governed for years from the presidency before stepping down to seek executive power. Looking back at his presidential record, what patterns in his political style, institutional behavior, and crisis communication most help us anticipate how he may govern now as prime minister?

Assoc. Prof. Petar Stankov: It is hard for me to predict his moves as prime minister. Although he came to power with one of the most remarkable electoral victories in Bulgarian democratic history, he will probably not rush to disrupt what has worked well so far for the Bulgarian economy. For example, he attempted to launch a referendum on joining the Eurozone in his final year as president, but he would not take Bulgaria out of the Eurozone. He may be inclined to cozy up to the Kremlin, but he would not forgo the benefits of EU membership. What he could attempt—and history may credit him for—is to secure a constitutional majority for large-scale judicial reform. Whatever his rhetoric abroad, if he manages to fix that system, which has long hindered the development of a level playing field in Bulgaria, he will be remembered for his domestic achievements rather than his external balancing act.

Do you see Progressive Bulgaria as a durable governing project, or as a typical new-party vehicle built around a single leader and a temporary coalition of discontented voters? In other words, does this victory mark the stabilization of a new political order, or simply the latest phase in Bulgaria’s volatile anti-establishment cycle?

Assoc. Prof. Petar Stankov: Like any party built around a single leader rather than a consensual political platform, Progressive Bulgaria will likely fizzle out once Radev is no longer at its helm.

Reform Window or Lost Generation?

One of the themes in your research is that not all populists are equally damaging in economic governance, especially in Europe, where institutional constraints can mute the worst forms of macroeconomic populism. Given Bulgaria’s EU obligations, eurozone membership, and fiscal constraints, how much room does Radev actually have to behave as a disruptive populist in office? Yet your work also stresses that the economic moderation of populists does not necessarily prevent damage to the rule of law, democratic accountability, or civil society. If Radev is constrained economically, should the greater concern be institutional capture rather than macroeconomic irresponsibility?

Assoc. Prof. Petar Stankov: Economically, Radev has little room to do significant damage. His external constraints are substantial, and he would therefore be unable to pursue the kind of macroeconomic populism that has plagued Latin American economies in the past.

Politically, however, he may do more damage if he squanders his opportunity to build a majority for constitutional reforms that are vital for the country’s long-term development. If he does squander it, Bulgarians may need to wait another generation—or even two—before a similarly strong political figure emerges with a popular mandate for reform. 

This broader concern, that European populists may do more damage politically than economically, raises an important question: if economic constraints limit their capacity for harm, should political constraints also be strengthened? There has recently been a proposal for EU institutional reform to limit the consensus principle in certain areas, particularly foreign policy. Proposals of this kind may bring the European project closer to its original vision of uniting European nations under shared values. However, the trade-off is that many smaller states could become less influential in decision-making. To protect itself from malign external influence, the EU may need to reconsider some of its foundational principles—evolve, or else…

Looking ahead, what is your medium-term forecast for Bulgaria under Radev? Do you expect a pragmatic, nationally framed but still fundamentally European government; a creeping illiberal turn marked by pressure on the judiciary and media; or a shorter-lived experiment in which governing responsibilities quickly erode the broad electoral coalition that brought him to power?

Assoc. Prof. Petar Stankov: That depends on how quickly he starts forming a coalition for constitutional change. If this part of his agenda starts finding excuses to be pushed further back in time while mundane issues take centre stage, the medium-term forecast for Bulgaria would not be great. If a majority for constitutional changes takes centre stage in the political narrative coming from Radev, then I would be more optimistic. In general, I would be an optimist until proven wrong, which, given the Bulgarian experience of the last few decades, has never been a hard theorem to prove.

Bulgarian President Rumen Radev.

Assoc. Prof. Otova: Under Radev, the Path to Autocracy in Bulgaria Becomes All Too Easy

by AuthoritarianismEditor’s ChoiceEuropean ObservatoryHomeInterviews

Associate Professor Ildiko Otova, in an interview with the ECPS, offers a compelling analysis of Bulgaria’s post-election trajectory under Rumen Radev. Following a landslide victory driven by anti-corruption sentiment and political fatigue, Radev has consolidated power in a system marked by institutional fragility. Assoc. Prof. Otova argues that his success reflects not a new geopolitical shift, but a strategic exploitation of existing cleavages, enabled by a “specific discursive situation” of empty rhetoric and symbolic politics. While his ambiguity has mobilized a broad electorate, it also masks deeper risks. As populism transitions from protest to governance, Assoc. Prof. Otova warns that, under conditions of concentrated power and weak safeguards, “the path to autocracy becomes all too easy.”

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

In the aftermath of Bulgaria’s April 2026 parliamentary elections, the country has entered a new and uncertain political phase marked by both the promise of stability and the risk of accelerated democratic erosion. Rumen Radev’s newly formed Progressive Bulgaria party secured a decisive majority after years of political fragmentation, capitalizing on widespread anti-corruption sentiment, voter fatigue with repeated elections, and growing socioeconomic anxieties following eurozone accession. While his victory ended a prolonged cycle of unstable coalition governments, it also raised urgent questions about the future trajectory of Bulgarian democracy, particularly given Radev’s ambivalent positioning between the European Union and Russia.

Giving an interview to the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Associate Professor Ildiko Otova, Head of Political Science Department at New Bulgarian University, offers a nuanced and analytically rigorous assessment of the structural and discursive dynamics underpinning Radev’s rise. As she argues, his victory “should not be attributed solely to Russia or to the broader Europe-Russia divide”; rather, it reflects a more complex political environment in which he has “skillfully exploited” existing cleavages, often “using minimal words and gestures to convey what different audiences want to hear.” This strategic ambiguity has allowed him to mobilize a remarkably heterogeneous electorate, ranging from pro-European reformists to nationalist and pro-Russian constituencies.

Assoc. Prof. Otova situates this development within a broader pattern of normalized populism in Bulgaria, where “what was once an episodic phenomenon has become a structural feature of the system.” In such a context, Radev’s success appears less as an anomaly than as the predictable result of a political order shaped by institutional distrust, party-system exhaustion, and what she terms a “specific discursive situation” characterized by cycles of “empty rhetoric” and symbolic politics. His campaign slogan, “We are ready, we can do it, and we will succeed,” captured this dynamic, offering not policy substance but an affective promise of exit from political stagnation.

At the same time, Assoc. Prof. Otova underscores the deeper identity tensions that continue to shape Bulgarian politics. Euroscepticism, she notes, is structured by enduring paradoxes, including the perception of the EU as an external imposition, contrasted with the framing of Russia as culturally “internal.” This ambivalence has enabled Radev to navigate competing geopolitical imaginaries while maintaining what she describes as a dual discourse, one directed at domestic audiences, another at Brussels.

Yet the central concern animating Assoc. Prof. Otova’s analysis is the transformation of populism from oppositional rhetoric into governing practice. With a consolidated parliamentary majority and limited institutional constraints, “concrete actions and policies are required,” and it is precisely under these conditions, she warns, that “the path to autocracy becomes all too easy.” In a system already marked by weak institutional safeguards and vulnerability to state capture, the concentration of executive power risks reproducing, rather than dismantling, entrenched oligarchic networks.

This interview with ECPS situates Bulgaria at a critical juncture. While Radev’s rise reflects broader global trends of democratic backsliding and populist normalization, Assoc. Prof. Otova’s insights highlight the contingent nature of political outcomes, shaped not only by leadership, but by institutional resilience, societal mobilization, and the unresolved tensions at the heart of Bulgaria’s democratic and European identity.

Ildiko Otova, an Associate Professor of Political Science and the Head of Political Science Department at New Bulgarian University.

Here is the edited version of our interview with Associate Professor Ildiko Otova, revised slightly to improve clarity and flow.

Not a New Cleavage, but a Strategic Exploitation of Old Divides

Professor Otova, given your argument that Bulgarian Euroscepticism must be read through the historically embedded Europe–Russia axis, does Rumen Radev’s victory mark a new phase in this cleavage, or merely its latest institutional expression?

Assoc. Prof. Ildiko Otova: Relations with Russia have long been central to Bulgarian politics, shaped by shared history, culture, personal connections, economic ties, and geopolitical factors. A widely circulated photo of Radev with Putin drew significant attention, prompting international media to describe him as “Russia’s new Trojan horse in Europe.” Experts have rightly pointed to Russia’s involvement in Radev’s political rise and raised concerns about campaign interference, online influence operations, and opaque funding sources suggesting substantial investment.

However, Radev’s victory should not be attributed solely to Russia or to the broader Europe–Russia divide. His win does not mark a new phase in this cleavage; rather, he has skillfully exploited it, using minimal words and gestures to convey what different audiences want to hear. In a campaign—and a political environment—often full of empty rhetoric, Radev has become adept at using silence, paradoxically communicating exactly what various constituencies seek.

In practice, little is known about the figures in his party, but among those who have become visible, we observe both openly provocative pro-Russian positions and the exact opposite. This is not to downplay Russia’s role; instead, it underscores the need for more comprehensive explanations.

Euroscepticism Built on Cultural Paradoxes and Identity Tensions

To what extent does Radev’s rise reflect not only geopolitical ambivalence but also a deeper identity crisis in post-communist Bulgaria, where competing civilizational imaginaries—Europeanization, Slavic-Orthodox affinity, and post-socialist nostalgia—intersect? In your framework, how does this identity fragmentation reshape the nature of Bulgarian Euroscepticism?

Assoc. Prof. Ildiko Otova: Bulgarian Euroscepticism rests on several paradoxes. The first is that the EU and “Europe” are frequently depicted as external to Bulgaria and Bulgarians—as actors that impose unacceptable values and adopt a lecturing posture. Yet this hostility toward external influence does not extend to all external actors. Russia, for example, is often not perceived as foreign in the same way; rather, it is framed as culturally “internal” due to a presumed Slavic-Orthodox affinity.

The second paradox is temporal. Resistance to the EU did not precede Bulgaria’s accession but developed alongside it. Until the early 2000s, Bulgaria was characterized by a broad pro-European consensus. 

Third, although Bulgaria has been an EU member state for years, European issues remain weakly embedded in its domestic political agenda. This does not mean that anti-EU narratives are absent. On the contrary, they are visible in discourses about massive migration allegedly changing the national gene pool, “stealing” the pensions of the elderly because EU policies and values are too liberal, and attacks on so-called “gender ideology,” among other themes.

Fourth, the deeper Bulgaria’s European integration becomes, the more its political elites tend to adopt anti-European positions. This shift occurs primarily through the normalization of populism. In this sense, within the Bulgarian context, the relationship between Euroscepticism and populism is particularly important—though not predetermined. There are also examples of populist, anti-establishment projects that remain pro-European. Among voters, too, there are those who are anti-establishment and anti-corruption yet remain pro-European. Notably, Radev has managed to mobilize them as well, including a significant portion of the so-called Generation Z.

There is also one more factor that should not be overlooked: his flirtation with the idea of a potential referendum on the euro. People do not necessarily need a rational explanation for why food is expensive; they need someone or something to blame. Prices do not even have to rise in reality—it is enough to sustain a narrative of rising costs. In this sense, the timing and the overall situation played perfectly into Radev’s hands.

Exhaustion, Silence, and the Power of Narrative Control

Bulgaria protests.
Protesters chant anti-government slogans during a demonstration in central Sofia, Bulgaria on July 26, 2013. Photo: Anton Chalakov / Dreamstime.

Should Radev’s success be understood primarily as anti-establishment populism, geopolitical revisionism, or a hybrid formation in which anti-corruption discourse masks a deeper pro-Russian reorientation?

Assoc. Prof. Ildiko Otova: Any of these three explanations is valid, yet even taken together, they remain too simplistic. As a citizen, I find it increasingly difficult to remain silent about the pervasive corruption in Bulgaria and the broader condition of the country, or to withhold my solidarity with the despair my fellow citizens feel toward the political elite. After the events of recent years, and the evident futility of going to the polls for an eighth time, there is a sense of collective exhaustion. Nevertheless, I will attempt an answer within an academic framework.

In my view, the main reason for his victory lies in what I would describe as a specific discursive situation. Since 2020, Bulgaria has been caught not only in a cycle of repeated elections but also in a cycle of empty rhetoric. Radev has managed to control the narrative so effectively that he appears to tell everyone what they want to hear—largely through silence. This is neither classic anti-elitist rhetoric built on the populist trope of the corrupt elite versus the honest, long-suffering people nor a standard expression of movements grounded in a thin-centred ideology.

“We are ready, we can do it, and we will succeed”—the words with which he announced his departure from the presidency, later adopted as his campaign slogan—projected a sense of purpose. They offered not concrete details, but hope for an exit from a cycle of meaningless repetition. In a political environment where emotions and symbolic gestures carry greater weight than rational argument, and where both traditional and digital media amplify urgency and a pervasive sense of crisis, this has proven sufficient. For citizens who are exhausted and perceive threats as omnipresent, such messaging resonates deeply.

Populism as the New Normal in Bulgarian Politics

In your work with Evelina Staykova, you argue that populism in Bulgaria has become normalized through party-system exhaustion, state–economy fusion, institutional distrust, and the digital turn. Does the 2026 election represent the culmination of this normalization?

Assoc. Prof. Ildiko Otova: Since 2001, Bulgaria has experienced several so-called waves of populism: the return of Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, the rise of GERB, and the emergence of post-2020, protest-driven, short-lived “pop-up” political projects. Taken together, these developments illustrate how what was once an episodic phenomenon has become a structural feature of the system. Paradoxically, the populist wave has itself become a constant.

Populism is now the defining characteristic of Bulgaria’s political order—the norm rather than the exception—making it unrealistic to expect fundamentally different outcomes. Radev fits squarely within this pattern: his victory represents not an unexpected populist surge, but the predictable result of a persistently populist political environment, shaped by the specific discursive situation I mentioned.

If this moment does represent a culmination, one might expect either a subsequent decline in populism or a reversion to pre-populist politics. However, such a scenario currently appears unlikely.

Radev has long combined anti-corruption, nationalist, and anti-establishment rhetoric from within one of the state’s highest institutions. Does his transition from the presidency to executive power illustrate the transformation of populism from protest discourse into governing logic?

Assoc. Prof. Ildiko Otova: This is the greatest challenge he faces. The presidency, even though he ultimately governed alone through caretaker governments and later during the pre-election period, gave him the opportunity to craft narratives. However, when one commands such a majority and holds executive power, concrete actions and policies are required.

We have had populists in power before—the GERB administration is one such example—but the dynamics were different. The coalition nature of those governments, especially the most recent one, created room to maneuver. Under Radev, there will be no such leeway. And that is the greatest challenge we face. Under these conditions, the path to autocracy becomes all too easy.

Limits of the Orbán Analogy

Editorial illustration: Rumen Radev and Viktor Orbán depicted against national flags, symbolizing political tensions between Bulgaria and Hungary. Photo: Dreamstime.

How should we assess the analogy between Radev and Orbán? Does Radev possess the ideological coherence and institutional ambition required for Orbán-style illiberal state-building, or is Bulgaria’s EU dependency likely to constrain him?

Assoc. Prof. Ildiko Otova: Let us begin with the obvious: Orbán is an experienced politician with a long, well-documented, and easily traceable career. Radev, by contrast, was effectively parachuted from the military into the presidency—a role he has never fully mastered. He entered politics without a solid ideological, political, or broader conceptual foundation, essentially as an empty vessel into which almost anything could be poured.

Another obvious point is that Bulgaria is not Hungary. Radev lacks ideological consistency and has no substantial political background or prior experience; he is, to a large extent, a product of the circumstances that enabled his rise—a product of the status quo, the absence of alternatives, and the prevailing populist momentum. Looking back, we also cannot entirely rule out the possibility that his ascent was shaped by external forces. What is beyond doubt, however, is the presence of clear ambition.

In this sense, the emergence of a non-liberal form of democracy in Bulgaria cannot be ruled out. The European Union, having learned from its experience with Hungary, is likely to be far more cautious. Against this backdrop, Radev’s first major test will be the so-called judicial reform.

Is Radev better understood as an Orbán-type system builder, a Fico-type pragmatic Eurosceptic, or a specifically Bulgarian figure shaped by Russophile memory, anti-corruption politics, and institutional volatility?

Assoc. Prof. Ildiko Otova: I do not think these comparisons meaningfully deepen our understanding of Radev or improve our ability to predict future developments. There are simply too many specific factors at play, and the international landscape is in constant flux. What existed elsewhere yesterday may not necessarily apply here tomorrow.

The Politics of Dual Discourse

Your research suggests that Bulgarian populism often blurs ideological distinctions. How should we classify Progressive Bulgaria: left-conservative, national-populist, technocratic-populist, or post-ideological?

Assoc. Prof. Ildiko Otova: Yes, populism undoubtedly blurs ideological distinctions; this is intrinsic to its nature. Consider Progressive Bulgaria’s program: despite the label “progressive,” its economic agenda is largely far right, even though some members of its expert economic team previously worked on more left-leaning projects. This example alone illustrates the extent to which ideological lines are being blurred.

For this reason, I see the party as best fitting within a post-ideological framework. Populism can be understood as a de-ideologized ideology. It incorporates elements from other ideologies, yet remains neither left nor right, and this is precisely one of the greatest dangers it poses—the de-ideologization, and consequently the depoliticization, of the political. Progressive Bulgaria, at least for now, aligns well with this understanding.

Does Radev’s discourse of “pragmatism” toward Russia and “critical thinking” toward Europe signal a strategic foreign policy stance, or does it reveal a more profound ontological insecurity in Bulgaria’s self-understanding as both a European and historically Russia-linked polity? How does identity anxiety translate into political legitimacy for such leaders?

Assoc. Prof. Ildiko Otova: I believe these statements by Radev are part of a broader strategy to tell each audience what it wants to hear. It is highly likely that he will continue to use one discourse in Bulgaria and another in Brussels. This is nothing new; Bulgarian politicians have long maintained such a dual discourse. In Radev’s case, however, it will be especially evident, likely conveyed through various spokespersons as well.

At the same time, Radev will have to speak not only to pro-Russian citizens at home. The EU still enjoys the support of more than half of Bulgarians, and some of those who backed Radev did so not because of his pro-Russian stance, but because of his anti-corruption declarations. He will have to meet their expectations with tangible actions, as narrative alone will no longer suffice.

Strategic Ambiguity Between Brussels and Moscow

Radev’s Ukraine stance appears to combine opposition to military aid with reluctance to openly block EU decisions. Is this strategic ambiguity a governing necessity, or a sign of deeper tension between his electorate’s geopolitical pluralism and his own Russophile instincts?

Assoc. Prof. Ildiko Otova: I cannot say whether Radev holds Russophile instincts. If he does, it would be rather ironic given his background in American military academies. Joking aside, there is a Russian saying: “We will live and we will see”—time will tell. However, I would assume that Radev will not openly oppose EU decisions.

To what extent did Radev absorb the political space of openly pro-Russian and nationalist parties such as Revival, and does this suggest moderation of the far right or mainstreaming of its core themes?

Assoc. Prof. Ildiko Otova: The myth of moderation is remarkably persistent, but I do not find it convincing. For years, analysts have claimed that once the far right gains power, it will be tamed. The opposite has happened: instead, far-right views have steadily become the norm. One need only look across the EU to observe this trend.

When it comes to Revival, Radev succeeded in attracting a significant portion of its electorate. As I have already noted, he now faces the difficult task of continuing to speak to multiple constituencies at once—and to do so convincingly through his actions. This will determine whether he fully absorbs the Revival electorate or, conversely, whether that electorate becomes further radicalized and shifts into opposition. I would not underestimate the leader of Revival, who is a seasoned political actor.

Given Bulgaria’s captured institutions, weak trust, and repeated anti-corruption mobilizations, can Radev realistically dismantle oligarchic networks, or does his concentration of power risk reproducing the same state-capture logic under a new banner?

Assoc. Prof. Ildiko Otova: This issue is extremely important. The resignation of the acting chief prosecutor, coming just days after Radev’s victory, was among the first signs of a new arrangement and already signals a realignment within oligarchic networks. I would also return to the question of how Radev’s seemingly expensive campaign was funded. Where did that money come from? Even these few points leave little room for optimism.

Radev’s regime is likely to reconstitute a state-capture model—perhaps initially in a more covert and less overtly assertive form—but such a configuration is unlikely to remain restrained over time.

From Anti-Elite Narrative to Elite Reality

Anti-government protests against corruption intensified across Sofia, Bulgaria on July 15, 2020. Photo: Dreamstime.

You have argued that anti-establishment populists in power may themselves become the new elite. How quickly might this paradox confront Radev once he assumes responsibility for inflation, eurozone adjustment, corruption reform, and EU funding?

Assoc. Prof. Ildiko Otova: Radev has long belonged to the elite. After all, he has been the sitting president for nearly nine years. His seemingly modest gestures—driving his own car, grumbling about the lack of parking spaces in Sofia, and publicly paying his parking tickets—are mostly for show, part of the narrative drafting.  

That said, I understand the core of the question. Given the international environment and the many urgent issues awaiting resolution, the risk that mounting challenges will overwhelm the new status quo is very real. Radev’s victory will ultimately need to be substantiated through concrete actions. Let us return to the notion of a “de-ideologized ideology” and the broader process of depoliticizing politics. How can genuinely sustainable policies be designed when they are no longer anchored in a clear and coherent vision?

My concern is that the emerging political reality is stripping politics of its very essence: not only the capacity to deliver immediate solutions, but also the obligation to develop policies grounded in a substantive vision of the world and its internal order. Returning to Radev, it is entirely possible that the failure of the new elite could trigger a fresh wave of protests. The key questions are whether such protests would be strong enough and, more importantly, what kind of new political configuration they might produce.

A new, powerful actor—a new master of the narrative who can and will succeed—will not emerge overnight. The possibility that, if Radev fails, Bulgaria could enter yet another cycle of instability cannot be ruled out. Even so, I am inclined to believe that Radev and those around him will, at least for a while, remain in power.

Diaspora Divides and the Limits of Democratic Agency

In your work on contestatory citizenship, you highlight the transformative potential of civic agency. In the current context, can civic mobilization and diaspora engagement mitigate what appears to be an emerging crisis of democratic and European identity, or are these forms of participation themselves being reshaped by populist narratives of belonging and exclusion?

Assoc. Prof. Ildiko Otova: Let me begin by noting that the diaspora is not necessarily pro-European—quite the contrary. While some are pro-European, others are anti-European, including Bulgarian emigrants in other EU member states. I continue to believe in the power of contestatory citizenship. However, as I have already noted, the key question is what exactly a new wave of protests might bring about.

Looking ahead, do you expect Radev’s Bulgaria to become a pragmatic EU-anchored government with Russophile rhetoric, a soft illiberal regime inside the EU, or an unstable populist experiment likely to fracture under the burdens of governance?

Assoc. Prof. Ildiko Otova: I do not think these three options are mutually exclusive.

Jordan Bardella and Princess Maria Carolina of Bourbon-Two Sicilies captured in a staged, paparazzi-style moment—where romance, image, and political branding converge on the cover of Paris Match.

‘Ugly, Badly Groomed, and Bitter’: Gendered Delegitimation and Aesthetic Politics 

by CommentariesEditor’s ChoiceEuropean ObservatoryGenderHome

In this incisive analysis, Dr. Gwenaëlle Bauvois interrogates how contemporary far-right discourse mobilizes gendered and aesthetic hierarchies to structure political legitimacy. Focusing on the controversy surrounding Rassemblement National (RN) leader Jordan Bardella’s relationship with Princess Maria Carolina of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Dr. Bauvois demonstrates how misogynistic rhetoric operates through a dual mechanism of delegitimation and idealization. The stigmatized figure of the female sociologist—constructed as intellectually suspect and aesthetically deficient—is juxtaposed with the idealized “princess” archetype, embodying socially sanctioned femininity. This contrast reveals how populist communication instrumentalizes gendered imagery, transforming private relationships into symbolic resources that reinforce political narratives, hierarchies of visibility, and claims to cultural legitimacy.

 

By Gwenaëlle Bauvois

Controversy Around a Romance 

The relationship between Jordan Bardella, president of the National Rally / Rassemblement National (RN), and Princess Maria Carolina of Bourbon-Two Sicilies has recently attracted significant media attention in France and abroad, particularly after their romance was featured on the cover of a gossip magazine and circulated widely across both political and lifestyle media outlets. 

During a televised exchange on this subject, Sébastien Chenu, a leading figure of the Rassemblement National, stated: “I am delighted that [Bardella] is in love, I am delighted that his partner, who could possibly become First Lady, is a young lady who speaks six languages.” Interpelled by the journalist who noted that Maria Carolina is a “luxury influencer,” he responded: “Why not!” He then added: “Not everyone is destined to be a sociology lecturer,” “ugly, badly groomed, and bitter,” (Chenu, n.d.).

Chenu’s remarks triggered significant backlash across political, media, and academic circles.As a national spokesperson for the Rassemblement National, Chenu is already recognized for his provocative communication style, which was especially apparent in this instance. The French National Union of Researchers, for instance, stated that these comments reflect the Rassemblement National’s anti-feminist positioning, which regularly targets women’s rights and reproduces outdated gender stereotypes. 

The Sociologist: Failed Femininity

At the center of Chenu’s remark lies the figure of the Sociologist, a familiar symbolic target in far-right discourse. In France, sociology occupies a particularly visible position within broader “culture wars” dynamics, where academic disciplines become entangled in political and ideological conflicts over questions of identity, inequality, and gender. Within this context, sociology is often framed by some right-wing and far-right political actors as emblematic of a politicized or ideologically biased academia. 

Crucially, however, the figure used by Chenu is here implicitly gendered: it is not a neutral academic subject that is evoked, but specifically the female sociology lecturer, whose presence is central to the rhetorical effect of the statement rather than incidental to it. The emphasis on a woman in an academic position is significant because it enables the statement to operate simultaneously through professional and gendered delegitimation, thereby amplifying its symbolic effect. 

This framing reflects three intersecting discursive logics. First, populist anti-intellectualism constructs experts and academics, more often in social science, as ideologically driven rather than legitimate producers of knowledge. Second, it specifically frames female academics as socially deviant and suspect. Third, misogynistic aesthetic stereotyping delegitimizes women through appearance and affect, casting them as Chenu describes as “ugly” and “bitter.” Together, these patterns construct the figure of the female social sciences academic as a rhetorically productive figure within far-right discourse, whose authority is simultaneously undermined along epistemic, social, and gendered lines. 

Female academics and public intellectuals are disproportionately targeted through appearance-based insults and narratives of emotional instability, particularly when they are associated with feminist or progressive positions. Within this frame, the figure of the female sociology lecturer mobilized by Chenu is used as an instance of failed femininity, insofar as she is represented as failing to conform to normative expectations of feminine appearance, emotional disposition, respectability and desirability. 

The Princess: Worthy Femininity

In contrast to the representation of the female sociologist as ugly and bitter, Maria Carolina of Bourbon-Two Sicilies is implicitly constructed through a combination of aristocratic lineage and conventional markers of attractiveness—youth, blonde hair, and normative beauty—alongside her prestige and glamour. The opposition between these stereotypes reflects two radically different regimes of femininity within far-right populist discourse, structured around processes of delegitimation and idealization.  

Within this configuration, the figure of the Princess does not merely function as an aesthetic ideal, but also as a form of symbolic validation. It produces a culturally legible ideal of femininity in which aesthetic conformity and social status reinforce one another. It illustrates how visibility and worth are distributed unevenly, rendering certain bodies desirable and socially legitimate, while others are marked as deviant or unworthy —an opposition explicitly echoed in Chenu’s references to ugliness and bodily neglect. 

More than a static ideal, the Princess figure operates as a normative reference point for acceptable and desirable femininity, where beauty, refinement, and social legitimacy are tightly aligned. Taken together, these contrasting constructions of femininity serve a broader populist logic of image-making, in which gendered archetypes are mobilized to organize hierarchies of legitimacy, visibility, and credibility. In this sense, the Princess archetype embodies the “right” kind of femininity and womanhood within this symbolic economy—one that is aesthetically intelligible, socially valorized, and politically functional. 

The Princess figure also works particularly well in the context of Bardella’s electoral positioning ahead of the 2027 presidential race, especially given the timing and circulation of the orchestrated, paparazzi-style photographs of the couple. The Princess figure is highly media-friendly and easily integrated into simplified narrative formats, including “fairy-tale” framings that translate personal relationships into emotionally resonant political stories. In this sense, rather than functioning as a private individual, the Princess operates as a branding resource.

The Populist Leader and the Princess: Romance as Political Resource?

This romance between the young, ambitious populist leader of the French far right and the glamorous jet-setter princess can indeed be seen as part of a wider strategy of political communication and personal branding, contributing to the construction of Bardella’s profile as a prospective presidential candidate.

It also reinforces a narrative of upward social mobility, in which Bardella’s self-presentation as emerging from a modest, working-class background is juxtaposed with his growing proximity to aristocratic lineage and inherited forms of cultural and social capital. 

However, this construction is also potentially ambivalent. Bardella has long cultivated an image as a politician who speaks for ordinary people against the elites, a figure of social ascent from below. Yet his relationship with a luxury influencer, jetsetter and heir to a fortune worth several hundred million euros—risks complicating that populist narrative of proximity to these “ordinary people” he claims to represent.

References

Chenu, S. [@sebchenu]. (n.d.). “Je suis ravi de voir @J_Bardella amoureux et que tous les deux soient épanouis ! N’en déplaise à certains, tout le monde n’a pas vocation à finir comme une prof de sociologie à Nanterre, moche, mal coiffée et aigrie ! @franceinfo” [Post]. X. https://x.com/sebchenu/status/2045028471185821837

La Provence. (2026, April 17). “Une prof à Nanterre, moche et aigrie” : Chenu défend la vie amoureuse de Bardella et s’attire les foudres de la gauche. https://www.laprovence.com/article/politique/1346683888928215/une-prof-a-nanterre-moche-et-aigrie-chenu-defend-la-vie-amoureuse-de-bardella-et-sattire-les-foudres-de-la-gauche

Caulcutt, Clea. (2026, April 9). “Jordan Bardella: France romance with Italian royal heiress goes public.” Politico. https://www.politico.eu/article/jordan-bardella-france-romance-italian-royal-heiress-goes-public/

SNCS-FSU. (2026, April 20). “Le SNCS-FSU dénonce les propos diffamatoires et misogynes de Sébastien Chenu.”https://sncs.fr/2026/04/21/le-sncs-fsu-denonce-les-propos-diffamatoires-et-misogynes-de-sebastien-chenu/

Symposium

The 5th Annual International Symposium — Reforming & Safeguarding Liberal Democracy: Systemic Crises, Populism, and Democratic Resilience

by EventsPast Events

DOWNLOAD PROGRAM

 

Date: April 21–22, 2026 

Online Event | All Sessions in Brussels Time (CEST, UTC+2)

 

Click here to register!

Day One

(April 21, 2026 / 13:00-19:10)

Opening Remarks

(13:00–13:10)

Irina von Wiese (ECPS Honorary President)

 

Keynote Speech

(13:10–14:00)

“The Chicken-and-Egg Dilemma: Systemic Crises and the Rise of Populism,” by Staffan I. Lindberg (Professor of Political Science, University of Gothenburg, Founding Director (2012–2025) of V-Dem Institute).

Coffee Break

(14:00–14:10)

Panel 1

From Grievance to Radicalization: Rhetoric, Ideology, and the International Politics of Populism

(14:10–15:40)

Moderator

Guri Rosén (Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science, University of Oslo).

Speakers

“‘Driving On the Right’: Analyzing Far-Right Rhetoric,” by Ruth Wodak (Distinguished Professor and Chair in Discourse Studies, Lancaster University; University of Vienna). 

“The Theocratic Blueprint of Christian Nationalism, Reconstructionism, the New Apostolic Reformation, and Catholic Integralism Behind Trump’s Agenda,” by Julie Ingersoll (Professor of Philosophy & Religious Studies and Religious Studies Program Coordinator at the University of North Florida).

“International Organizations in Times of Populism,” by Stephan Klingebiel (Head of the Department of Inter- and Transnational Cooperation at the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS)). 

“Humiliation, Elite Impunity, and the Anti-System Gamble: Weimar-Type Mechanisms in Contemporary Grievance Politics,” by Benjamin Carter Hett (Professor of History, Hunter College & The Graduate Center, CUNY). 

Coffee Break

(15:40–15:50)

Panel 2

Institutions Under Pressure: Rule of Law, Executive Power, and Democratic Defense

(15:50–17:20)

Moderator

Yavuz Baydar (A blogger with Mediapart and a columnist with Svenska Dagbladet).

Speakers

“Democratic Resilience Under Pressure: Institutions, Accountability, and the Return to Robust Democracy,” by Susan C. Stokes (Tiffany and Margaret Blake Distinguished Service Professor and Director of the Chicago Center on Democracy at the University of Chicago).

“To Resist a Coordinated Attack, We Need a Coordinated Defense,” by Robert Benson (Associate Director for National Security & International Policy, Center for American Progress (CAP)).

“The Law and Politics of Fear: Executive Power in 2026,” by Barry Sullivan (The Raymond and Mary Simon Chair in Constitutional Law and the George Anastaplo Professor of Constitutional Law and History at Loyola University).

“Democracy, the Rule of Law, and Regime Change: An Evolutionary Perspective,” by Stephen E. Hanson (Lettie Pate Evans Professor of Government, William & Mary (USA)).

Coffee Break

(17:20–17:30)

Panel 3

Normalizing Authoritarian Populism: Institutions, Algorithms, and Fascist Drift

(17:30–19:00)

Moderator

Werner Pascha (Emeritus Professor of Economics, Duisburg-Essen University, Institute of East Asian Studies (IN-EAST)). 

Speakers

“The Arc of Authoritarian Populism in the US under Donald Trump, How Far It Has Progressed, and the Prospects of Reversing It,” by Larry Diamond (William L. Clayton Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution; Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy, Freeman Spogli Institute (FSI); Bass University Fellow). 

“The Institutional Enablement of American Populism,” by Bruce Cain (Professor of Political Science, Stanford University; Director, Bill Lane Center). 

“Algorithmic Populism in the Age of the Deep-Fake,” by Ibrahim Al-Marashi (Associate Professor at the American College of the Mediterranean, and the Department of International Relations at Central European University).

“From Populist Capture to Democratic Belonging: Multicultural Nationalism as an
Alternative to Exclusionary Nationalism,” by Tariq Modood (Professor of Sociology, Politics and Public Policy at the University of Bristol). 

Wrap-up

(19:00–19:10)

 

Day Two

(April 22, 2026 / 13:00-17:15)

Opening 

(13:00–13:05)

Keynote Speech

(13:05–13:50)

“Democratic Resilience in Europe: Can It Be Effective?” by Richard Youngs (Professor, Senior Fellow at Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program at Carnegie Europe).

Panel 4

Comparative Regional Pathways of Democratic Backsliding and Far-Right Mobilization

(13:50–15:20)

Moderator

Reinhard Heinisch (Professor of Comparative Austrian Politics, University of Salzburg).

Speakers

“Building an Authoritarian Edifice Step-By-Step,” by Henri J. Barkey (Cohen Professor of International Relations (Emeritus), Department of International Relations, Lehigh University).

“Populism and Transnational Ties of the Far Right in East Asia: Recent Developments in South Korea,” by Hannes B. Mosler (Professor, Universität Duisburg-Essen, Institut für Politikwissenschaft (IfP), Institute of East Asian Studies (IN-EAST)).

“The Geopolitics of Right-wing Populism in a Post-hegemonic World Order,” by Edward Knudsen (A doctoral researcher in international relations at the University of Oxford and an Affiliate Policy Fellow in European political economy at the Jacques Delors Centre in Berlin).

“Populist Narratives and Democratic Backsliding: Perspectives from Latin America,” by María Esperanza Casullo (Professor at the Institute of Political Science, Faculty of History, Geography and Political Science, Pontifical Catholic University of Chile).

Coffee Break

(15:20–15:30)

Panel 5 

Democratic Resistance in a Hardening World: Civic Capacity, Strongmen, and Economic Coercion

(15:30–17:00)

Moderator

Jocelyne Cesari (Professor and Chair of Religion and Politics and Director of Research at the Edward Cadbury Centre for the Public Understanding of Religion at the University of Birmingham, and Senior Fellow at Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs). 

Speakers

“Structural Pressures Behind Strongman Politics,” by Jack A. Goldstone (The Virginia E. and John T. Hazel, Jr., Professor of Public Policy at George Mason University, and a Senior Fellow of the Mercatus Center).   

“Changing Democracy’s Address,” by Steven Friedman (Research Professor of Politics, University of Johannesburg; former Director, Centre for the Study of Democracy).

“Return of the Strong Men,” by John Pratt (Emeritus Professor of Criminology, Victoria University of Wellington).

“Weaponized Trade Policy: Tariffs, Industrial Policy, and the Future of Global Economic Governance,” by Kent Jones (Professor Emeritus of International Economics, Babson College.)

 

Closing Remarks

(17:00-17:15)

İbrahim Öztürk (ECPS, Senior Economic researcher, Professor of Economics, Duisburg-Essen University, Institute of East Asian Studies (IN-EAST)).

 

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Abstracts and Brief Bios

Keynote Speech

Staffan I. Lindberg: “The Chicken-and-Egg Dilemma: Systemic Crises and the Rise of Populism”

Abstract: In this keynote Professor Staffan I. Lindberg discuss the most recent trends in democracy, autocracy, and regime transformation based on Democracy Report 2026. He will show how by some measure the level of democracy is back to 1985; that the global wave of autocratization is intensifying, with 44 countries autocratizing and only 18 democratizing. The outlook is worse than in the last 25 years, includes weakening of democracy in established democracies. These trends are closely tied to increasing disinformation and polarization and driven primarily by far-right, nationalist parties and leaders around the world. Finally, Lindberg will touch on the ongoing process of autocratization in the United States of America (USA) under President Trump, and show that his administration is doing away with American democracy.

Staffan I. Lindberg is Professor and Founding Director of the V-Dem Institute (2012-2025); PI of Varieties of Democracy; Founding Director of the national research infrastructure DEMSCORE (2019-present); Wallenberg Academy Fellow alumni; co-author of Varieties of Democracy (CUP 2020), Why Democracies Develop and Decline (CUP 2022) as well as other books and over 70 scientific articles as well as numerous reports, policy briefs, and think-pieces; extensive experience as consultant on development and democracy, and as advisor to international organizations, ministries, and state authorities. Lindberg is the principal author of the annual Democracy Report,  the Case for Democracy and numerous policy briefs out of the V-Dem Institute. ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0386-7390

 

Panel 1 
From Grievance to Radicalization: Rhetoric, Ideology, and the International Politics of Populism

Moderator

Guri Rosén is Associate Professor of Political Science at the Department of Political Science at the University of Oslo, Norway. She is also a senior researcher at Arena, Centre for European Studies at the University of Oslo, Norway.

Speakers

Ruth Wodak: “‘Driving On the Right’: Analyzing Far-Right Rhetoric”

Abstract: Much research in EU member-states, the US, and beyond, illustrates that formerly taboo subjects and expressions in mainstream discourse are being accepted more and more (‘normalization’) and have become part and parcel of mainstream politics. Such normalization goes hand in hand with a certain ‘shamelessness‘: the limits of the sayable are shifting regarding both the frequency of lies and the violating of discourse and politeness conventions – as well as regarding repeated attacks on salient democratic institutions.

Discursive strategies of provocation, blame avoidance, denial, Manichean division, victim-perpetrator reversal as well as eristic argumentation and conspiracy theories dominate official communication, accompanied by ever more nativist nationalism and the racialization of space. For example, normalizing the assessment of migrants and refugees (all labelled as “illegal migrants”) as a threat to inner security, a burden on the welfare state and education system must be perceived as an international development – generally instrumentalizing a “politics of fear” and reinforcing a “coarse civility” [rohe Bürgerlichkeit] (@Heitmeyer).

Ruth Wodak is Emerita Distinguished Professor of Discourse Studies, Lancaster Univ. and retired Professor of Applied Linguistics, Univ. Vienna. She is the recipient of many awards such as the Wittgenstein-Prize for Outstanding Research 1996. She has honorary doctorates from Univ. Örebro 2010, Warwick Univ. 2020; since 2020 honorary member of the Senate, Univ. Vienna. She is member of the British Academy of Social Sciences and the Academia Europeae.

 She is co-editor of Discourse & Society and Critical Discourse Studies.

Research interests
Discourse studies, identity politics and politics of the past, populism, media- and political communication, racism and antisemitism. 

Recent book publications

“Babyelefant und Hausverstand”. Wie Krisen produziert werden (Picus; with Markus Rheindorf)

Das kann noch immer in Wien passieren. (Czernin Verlag 2024).

Identity Politics Past and Present. Political Discourses from Post-war Austria to the Covid Crisis (Exeter Press 2022: with Markus Rheindorf). 

The Politics of Fear. The Shameless Normalisation of Far-right Discourses. (Sage 2021).

Österreichische Identitäten im Wandel (with Rudolf de Cillia, Markus Rheindorf & Sabine Lehner; Springer 2020).  

Sociolinguistic Perspectives on Migration Control (edited with Markus Rheindorf; Multilingual Matters 2020).

Julie Ingersoll: “The Theocratic Blueprint of Christian Nationalism, Reconstructionism, the New Apostolic Reformation, and Catholic Integralism Behind Trump’s Agenda”

Abstract: The groups making up the MAGA coalition in the U.S. are varied and contradictory. This talk will focus on three of those groups that solidify the support of Christian Nationalists and provide an underlying shared opposition to social equality and government by consent. Sidestepping discussions of whether or Christian Nationalists are “really Christian,” I’ll suggest rethinking how we understand religion as theology; a step that helps makes sense of why these three divergent groups have a shared ant-democratic vision.

Julie Ingersoll is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Florida. She teaches and writes about religion and politics, violence and the Christian right. She is an occasional contributor to Religion Dispatches, The Huff Post, and The Conversation and her work has been widely cited including in the New Yorker, the Washington Post, and the New York Times.

Her books include “Evangelical Christian Women: War Stories in the Gender Battles” (New York University Press, 2003) and “Building God’s Kingdom: Inside the World of Christian Reconstruction” (Oxford University Press, 2015).

Stephan Klingebiel: “International Organizations in Times of Populism”

Abstract: International organizations are under growing pressure from populist governments in multiple ways. The ongoing transformation of global politics has created a situation in which, particularly during the second term of Donald Trump, power and coercion are employed more explicitly and strategically.
Governments may address domestic and/or international audiences by announcing their intention to withdraw or by terminating membership, reducing or delaying financial contributions, promoting a populist agenda, or obstructing decision-making processes. One additional strategy is to exert pressure to refocus mandates on a narrowly defined “core mission.”
The first year of Trump’s second term provides several illustrations of how international organizations are treated in this context — from the United Nations to the multilateral development banks, the OECD, and others. Another approach consists of creating alternative forums in order to undermine existing global governance structures.
 
Stephan Klingebiel is a  Professor of Political Science at University of Turin and Head of the Research Department “Inter- and Transnational Cooperation” at the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS). His research focuses on the political economy of development cooperation, aid effectiveness, global public goods, and the nexus between security and development. Professor Klingebiel’s work also examines governance and regional cooperation in Africa, with additional regional expertise in Central Asia, Eastern Europe, and East Asia. He has held his current leadership position at IDOS since July 2021, following the institute’s transition from the German Development Institute (DIE).
 

Benjamin Carter Hett: “Humiliation, Elite Impunity, and the Anti-System Gamble: Weimar-Type Mechanisms in Contemporary Grievance Politics”

Abstract: The historical example of the Nazi rise to power in Germany can provide some useful insights into the question of what can fuel authoritarian politics in a liberal democracy. In the Weimar Republic the most significant element fueling the Nazi rise was the pervasive sense of humiliation which millions of Germans experiences in the aftermath of the First World War, combined with the adjacent concept of status anxiety. These feelings operated at both elite and relatively modest levels, and the Nazis were skillful at exploiting them. When this phenomenon is understood it can also provide key insights for understanding authoritarian politics in modern democracies in the 21st century, in North America, Europe, and elsewhere.

Benjamin Carter Hett earned a B.A. at the University of Alberta and a J.D. at the University of Toronto and practiced litigation in Toronto before going back to obtain an MA in history from U of T and finally a Ph.D. in history at Harvard. He has taught at Harvard College and the Harvard Law School and, since 2003, at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York (CUNY). He is the author of 6 books, including The Death of Democracy: Hitler’s Rise to Power and the Downfall of the Weimar Republic (Henry Holt, 2018), winner of the 2019 Vine Award for History, named one of the year’s best books by The Times of London and the Daily Telegraph, and was a Jeopardy clue in 2025; and The Nazi Menace: Hitler, Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin, and the Road to War (Henry Holt, 2020) named an editors’ choice by the New York Times Book Review. He is presently finishing a book on criminal policing in Nazi Germany and moving on to a project on Nazi feature films.

 

Panel 2

Institutions Under Pressure: Rule of Law, Executive Power, and Democratic Defense

Moderator

Yavuz Baydar is a blogger with Mediapart and a columnist with Svenska Dagbladet. He publishes his commentary on politics and culture in Substack.

Speakers

Susan Stokes: “Democratic Resilience Under Pressure: Institutions, Accountability, and the Return to Robust Democracy”

Abstract: The world has experienced a spate of democratic erosion in the past quarter century. In two dozen democracies, presidents and prime ministers have come to power through free and fair elections, only to undermine their own democratic institutions. What have we learned about the causes of democratic backsliding. And, though we are still in the midst of this drama, what have we learned about forces and factors that put the brake on backsliding?

Susan Stokes is Blake Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science and Faculty Chair of the Chicago Center on Democracy. She is the author of books and articles about democracy, development, political behavior, and Latin American politics. Among her single- and co-authored books are Mandates and Democracy (Cambridge University Press 2001), Brokers, Voters, and Clientelism (CUP 2013), and Why Bother? Rethinking Participation in Elections and Protests (CUP 2019). Her most recent book, The Backsliders: Why Leaders Undermine Their Own Democracies, was published by Princeton University Press in September, 2025. Stokes is the current president of the American Political Science Association. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a co-founder of Bright Line Watch.

Robert Benson: “To Resist a Coordinated Attack, We Need a Coordinated Defense”

Abstract: Democratic backsliding rarely unfolds through a single institutional rupture. Instead, it advances through coordinated pressure on multiple pillars of the system—courts, bureaucracies, electoral administration, and oversight institutions. This talk examines the vulnerabilities such strategies exploit and the conditions under which bureaucratic actors, civil society, and democratic institutions can mount effective resistance. Using the upcoming U.S. midterm elections as a focal point, the presentation explores scenarios in which democratic norms come under stress, including potential electoral breaches, the use of intimidation or political violence, and attempts to undermine the legitimacy of electoral administration. It assesses the institutional safeguards designed to respond to these challenges and highlights the critical role that professional civil servants, courts, and civil society networks play in defending democratic procedures. The talk argues that authoritarian actors succeed when democratic institutions respond in isolation. If the attack on the rule of law operates as a coordinated strategy, democratic resilience must also take a coordinated form—linking bureaucratic resistance, institutional safeguards, and civic mobilization. Finally, the presentation situates these developments within a broader geopolitical context. If democratic norms are tested in the United States, the implications will extend beyond domestic politics. The talk considers how such scenarios could shape transatlantic relations, influence political strategy in Brussels and European capitals, and prompt European progressives to articulate a clearer position toward a potential Trump administration.

Robert Benson, D.Phil., is the associate director for National Security and International Policy at American Progress. Prior to joining American Progress, Benson worked as a global relations consultant at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris and as a research fellow at the Social Science Center Berlin. He holds a Master of Science in global politics from the London School of Economics and a doctorate from the Free University of Berlin. Benson is an avid traveler who enjoys a good book and even better food on the road.

Barry Sullivan: “The Law and Politics of Fear: Executive Power in the US in 2026”

Abstract: President Trump was recently interviewed by a group of journalists from the New York Times. During the interview, the President expressed the belief that he is not bound by international law, and that he is indeed limited by only “one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.” That sentiment may well account for the President’s impulse to upend the post-War international legal order, bully friends and foes alike, both at home and abroad, and deploy American military power on a scale and for purposes that seem unprecedented in modern times. But it does not explain why the President has been so successful in seeing those impulses take root and change the world.

In his presentation, Professor Sullivan will explore some of the reasons why President Trump has been so successful (and so much more successful than in his first term) in altering political discourse and political reality both domestically and internationally in the relatively brief time since he returned to power. Professor Sullivan will explore some of the factors that may account for that success, such as: the four year period when he was out of office, which gave him ample time to plot revenge against his “enemies” and to reflect on what he considered the shortcomings of his first term, such as choosing advisors who would restrain his impulses and plotting against his enemies;  the lessons he learned in his first term about “flooding the zone,” which was a proven technique for keeping his opponents off balance by creating so many issues of major and minor importance to which they felt compelled to respond;  the work done by the Heritage Foundation to provide him with an agenda as well as recommendations as to the personnel necessary to carry it out that a majority of the Supreme Court effectively gave him a blank check by immunizing him from criminal liability for virtually anything he might do as President; congressional disfunction and the fact that the separation of powers does not function as the founders intended, at least when there is substantial political polarization, internal party cohesion, and the presidency and at least one House of Congress is in the hands of one political party.

It is also the case that the President admires and respects leaders who are strong in the sense that he understands strength. He belittles and ridicules others. And he seeks to instill fear in those he does not respect, whether they are leaders of allied governments or members of his  own party in the legislative branch.

Barry Sullivan is the Raymond and Mary Simon Chair in Constitutional Law and the George Anastaplo Professor of Constitutional Law and History at Loyola University Chicago (USA). He previously served as an Assistant to the Solicitor General of the United States, Vice President and Dean of the Law School at Washington and Lee University, and a partner in the law firm of Jenner & Block, where he was co-chair of the Supreme Court and Appellate Practice. Professor Sullivan has taught at various law schools in the United States, Canada, and Europe, including Alberta, Bayreuth, Bologna, Dublin, and Warsaw.

Stephen E. Hanson: “Democracy, the Rule of Law, and Regime Change: An Evolutionary Perspective”

Abstract: The global erosion of democracy and of the rule of law over the past two decades has been amply documented in every major database that tracks regime change over time. Yet the most common definitions of “regime” in the political science discipline themselves remain surprisingly static. “Democracy” and “authoritarianism” are implicitly understood as poles on a universal linear spectrum that can be used to determine the placement of political regimes around the world throughout human history. In this talk, I will argue that this schema is not well suited to the task of determining with precision how to differentiate distinct types of democracy and distinct types of authoritarianism, nor does it help us pinpoint just when one “regime” has changed into another. An alternative approach to regime taxonomy, one based on a return to evolutionary theorizing about social and political change, can help us better understand the origin, development, and collapse of regimes over time. I will conclude with a discussion of how an evolutionary approach to regime change can help us better understand how to resist the global wave of anti-liberalism.

Stephen E. Hanson is Lettie Pate Evans Professor in the Department of Government at William & Mary. He served as Vice Provost for International Affairs at W&M from 2011–2021, and as Vice Provost for International & Academic Affairs in 2021–2022. From 2009–2011, he served as Vice Provost for Global Affairs at the University of Washington, Seattle. Hanson received his B.A. in Social Studies from Harvard University (1985) and his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley (1991). A specialist in Russian, post-communist, and comparative politics, Hanson is the author of numerous books and scholarly articles, including Post-Imperial Democracies: Ideology and Party Formation in Third Republic France, Weimar Germany, and Post-Soviet Russia (Cambridge University Press, 2010) and Time and Revolution: Marxism and the Design of Soviet Institutions (University of North Carolina Press, 1997). His books include The Assault on the State: How the Attack on Modern Governance Threatens Our Futures (Polity, 2024) and The Evolution of Regimes (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming). In 2014, Hanson served as President of the Association for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES).

Stephen E. Hanson is Lettie Pate Evans Professor in the Department of Government at William & Mary. He served as Vice Provost for International Affairs at W&M from 2011-2021, and as Vice Provost for International & Academic Affairs in 2021-2022. From 2009-2011, he served as Vice Provost for Global Affairs at the University of Washington, Seattle. Hanson received his B.A. in Social Studies from Harvard University (1985) and his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley (1991). A specialist in Russian, post-communist, and comparative politics, Hanson is the author of numerous books and scholarly articles, including Post-Imperial Democracies: Ideology and Party Formation in Third Republic France, Weimar Germany, and Post-Soviet Russia (Cambridge University Press, 2010) and Time and Revolution: Marxism and the Design of Soviet Institutions (University of North Carolina Press, 1997). His forthcoming books include The Assault on the State: How the Attack on Modern Governance Threatens Our Futures(Polity, 2024) and The Evolution of Regimes (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming). In 2014, Hanson served as President of the Association for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES).

 

Panel 3

Normalizing Authoritarian Populism: Institutions, Algorithms, and Fascist Drift

Moderator

Werner Pascha is an Emeritus Professor of East Asian Economic Studies, Japan and Korea, and an Associate Member of the Institute of East Asian Studies (IN-EAST) of the University of Duisburg-Essen. He has studied economics at Freiburg University in Germany, the London School of Economics, and Nagoya University. Over the years, he has been invited to several other institutes and universities, including Kyoto University (Japan Foundation Fellowship, 1996), Korea Institute for International Economic Policy (KIEP Scholarship, 2007), Doshisha University (JSPS Fellowship, 2011), and Busan National University in South Korea (2013). Among other functions, he is the Vice President of the Japanese-German Centre Berlin (JDZB) and an Honorary Fellow of EastAsiaNet, the European Research School Network of Contemporary East Asian Studies. His research interests include the political economy of institutional change in Japan and Korea, and international economic relations of the region.

Speakers

Larry Diamond: “The Arc of Authoritarian Populism in the US under Donald Trump, How Far It Has Progressed, and the Prospects of Reversing It”

Abstract: Donald Trump’s second term as President of the United States poses a much more serious challenge to democracy than his first term because he lacks the internal restraints on his conduct within his Administration; his authoritarian agents and acolytes had four years out of office to strategize on how to eliminate constraints and achieve authoritarian power the second time; there is significantly greater concentration of wealth and media power now compared to eight years ago; the digital technology entrepreneurs and companies are more favorable to him or at least more subservient; and the Supreme Court has significantly expanded the scope of presidential power along with legal immunity for its abuse.

Fifteen months into the second Trump presidency, there are significant manifestations of authoritarianism, including widespread fear and intimidation; brazen politicization of the Justice Department and other federal agencies; rampant corruption at high levels with impunity for those responsible; the conscious development for the first time in American history of a cult of personality around the President; the dramatic expansion of a poorly trained and rights-abusing federal force (ICE) to detain undocumented immigrants; extensive violation of court orders regarding the Administration’s treatment of immigrants; efforts to construct a vast archipelago of federal detention centers for undocumented immigrants, which could someday be deployed to detain and repress other targeted groups as well; acquiescence if not active cooperation and support from peak sectors of the business community; and abuse of federal power to obtain the compliance or restraint of important nongovernmental institutional actors like universities and law firms—to name only a few examples. 

However, the federal courts have been pushing back against many of these abuses, and recently the Supreme Court as well in its decision on tariffs; civil society has mobilized extensively, including the largest single-day turnouts for protests in American history; and the President, his party, and his policy agenda have become extremely unpopular.

I argue that the most effective way of halting the incremental slide of a democratic system toward autocracy is through the defeat of the incipient authoritarian project at the ballot box. This talk will then assess the prospects and conditions for this, noting the multitude of ways in which the authoritarian populist project in the US seems intent on trying to frustrate a free and fair election in November 2026, and more consequentially, in the presidential election two years later.

Finally, I note that even a decisive set of defeats of the authoritarian project in November 2026 and 2028 will not represent a final victory for democracy because 1) the underlying causal drivers of illiberal populism remain; and 2) as in Poland and Hungary, the democratic alternative, if it comes to power in 2029, will face significant challenges in trying to purge the system of authoritarian mentalities, personalities, precedents, and traps.

Larry Diamond is the William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. He is also professor by courtesy of Political Science and Sociology at Stanford. He co-chairs the Hoover Institution’s project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region and a new Israel Studies Program at FSI. 

Diamond’s principal research focus is on democratic trends and conditions around the world and on policies and reforms to defend and advance democracy. His book, Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency, analyzes the challenges confronting liberal democracy in the United States and around the world at this potential “hinge in history.”

Diamond served for 32 years as the founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy and co-chaired the International Forum for Democratic Studies of the National Endowment for Democracy.

Bruce E. Cain: “The Institutional Enablement of American Populism”

Abstract: Many US political reforms are enacted in the immediate aftermath of representative government failure. Scandals and bad policies open opportunity windows for institutional change as reformers seek to prevent the same problems from occurring in the future. One appealing solution is to open government up to more transparency, public participation and letting the people decide matters directly. The US has proliferated direct party primaries for candidates, enacted strong public participation rules for legislative and agency hearings and transformed its political parties into a loose party network of factions and interests. Populist reforms breed more populist candidates. There are of course more angles to the populist story, but the institutional pathway is one important enabler.  

Bruce E. Cain is the Charles Louis Ducommun Professor in Humanities and Sciences at Stanford University. He holds appointments in the Political Science Department, the Public Policy Program, and the Stanford Doerr School for Sustainability. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, and the Precourt Institute for Energy. Before accepting his current position at Stanford, he taught at the California Institute of Technology (1976-1988) and the University of California, Berkeley (1989-2012).  Professor Cain was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2000, and has won various awards for teaching, research, and public service over the course of his career. His book, Democracy More or Less: America’s Political Reform Quandry, examines the unintended consequences of attempts to make government more democratic, including opening the door to more populism.

Ibrahim al-Marashi: “Algorithmic Populism in the Age of the Deep-Fake” 

Abstract: Media theorist Marshall McLuhan’s oft-quoted phrase, “The Medium is the Message,” argues that, irrespective of the messages sent by various forms of media, be it newspaper, radio, or TV, the medium, in and of itself, also contains a message. The message of the AI-deepfake, on the other hand, is that generative AI produces content that enables populism, allowing populist leaders and movements to transcend national borders while bypassing legacy media that served as gatekeepers and watchdogs. Populism is enabled by algorithms and a decentralized, viral digital public diplomacy, both dependent on shares and likes. Analyzing the disruptive potential of deepfakes requires futurist speculation along the lines of dystopian science fiction novels like Orwell’s 1984. More relevant, however, is the year 1983, when science fiction author William Gibson coined the term “cyberspace” in his novel Neuromancer, and described it as a “consensual hallucination.” Deepfakes are the fodder for perpetuating political hallucinations, enabling the populist to generate viral memetic narratives.  

Ibrahim al-Marashi is an Associate Professor of History at California State University, visiting faculty at The American College of the Mediterranean, and the Department of International Relations at Central European University. His publications include Iraq’s Armed Forces: An Analytical History (2008), The Modern History of Iraq (2017), and A Concise History of the Middle East (2024).

Tariq Modood: “From Populist Capture to Democratic Belonging: Multicultural Nationalism as an Alternative to Exclusionary Nationalism”

Abstract: Populist, exclusionary nationalism charges that multiculturalism privileges minorities and neglects the normative status of majorities. It is not enough to simply analyse or even oppose these views, one needs to offer a positive, unifying alternative that values majorities and minorities. This does not involve giving up on multiculturalism but, rather, developing a multicultural national identity, to which all citizens can have a sense of belonging without giving up other identities that are important to them. The goal should be that such a multicultural sense of the national can be adapted to be part of an electoral majority on a stable, continuing basis; above all, such a sense of the national allows one to be sensitive to minority identity vulnerabilities and majority identity anxieties within an integrated theoretical and political framework.

Tariq Modood is Professor of Sociology, Politics and Public Policy and the founding (former) Director of the Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship at the University of Bristol and the co-founder of the international journal, Ethnicities. He has held over 40 grants and consultancies, has over 35 (co-)authored and (co-)edited books and reports and over 350 articles and chapters. He was awarded an MBE by the Queen for services to social sciences and ethnic relations in 2001, was made a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (UK) in 2004 and elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2017. In 2022 he was ranked in the top 20 UK cited scholars in Politics, Law, Sociology and Social Policy. He served on the Commission on Religion and Belief in British Public Life and has been an advisor to the All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims, the European Commission on Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) and to the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB). His latest books are Essays on Secularism and Multiculturalism (2019) and with T. Sealy, The New Governance of Religious Diversity (2024). He has a You Tube Channel and his website is tariqmodood.com

 

Keynote Speech

Richard Youngs: “Democratic Resilience in Europe: Can It Be Effective?”

Richard Youngs is a senior fellow in the Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program, based at Carnegie Europe. He is also a professor of international relations at the University of Warwick and previously held positions in the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office and as director of the FRIDE think-tank in Madrid. He is co-founder and director of the European Democracy Hub.

Youngs has authored seventeen books, the most recent of which are Democratic Crossroads: Transformations in Twenty First-Century Politics (Oxford University Press, 2024), Geoliberal Europe and the Test of War (Agenda Publishing, 2024), Rebuilding European Democracy: Resistance and Renewal in an Illiberal Age (Bloomsbury/Tauris, 2021) and The European Union and Global Politics (Macmillan, 2021).

Panel 4

Comparative Regional Pathways of Democratic Backsliding and Far-Right Mobilization

Moderator

Reinhard Heinisch is a Professor of Comparative Austrian Politics at the University of Salzburg and head of the Department of Political Science. He received his academic training in the US where he completed his PhD at Michigan State University and then taught at the University of Pittsburgh from 1994 to 2009. Heinisch’s research focuses on the rise of the radical right, populism, democracy, and political parties.

Dr. Heinisch is the author of over 40 research articles and more than 50 other scholarly publications including 14 books. His research appeared in journals such as Journal of European Political Research, Political Studies, Journal of Common Market Studies, Party Politics, West European Politics, Democratization, Representation, and many others.

His book publications include Understanding Populist Party Organization: The Radical Right in Western Europe (Palgrave 2016); The People and the Nation: Populism and Ethno-Territorial Politics in Europe (Routledge 2019), Political Populism. A Handbook, Nomos (2021), and Politicizing Islam in Austria (Rutgers University Press 2024).

He has funded his research with various project grants by including Marie Curie research fellowship by the European Union (2010), a European Union Horizon 2020 grant to study populism and counterstrategies, and a grant by the Austrian Research Fund (2022) on studying populism and conspiracy theories.

Dr. Heinisch is the recipient of Austrian National Science Prize by the Austrian parliament (2017), past president of the Austrian political Science association, and served as the head of Working Group on Democracy by the Austrian Research Association. He continues to be a faculty associate of the University of Pittsburgh and has been a regular visiting scholar with the Renmin University of China in Beijing.

Speakers

Henri J. Barkey: “Building an Authoritarian Edifice Step-by-Step”

Abstract: Populist authoritarianism has the great advantage of being able to construct and institutionalize a dominating structure at a pace that often escapes attention or is overlooked by the population as a whole. Focusing on the use of the judicial system, this paper will compare the recent U.S. experience with Turkey’s travails under Erdogan.

Henri J. Barkey is an adjunct senior fellow for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and the Bernard L. and Bertha F. Cohen chair in international relations at Lehigh University (Emeritus). At CFR he works on the strategic future of the Kurds in the Middle East. Previously he was the director of the Middle East Center at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars (2015-2017). Barkey served as chair of the Department of International Relations at Lehigh University for thirteen years. He served on the State Department Policy Planning Staff (1998-2000) working on the Eastern Mediterranean, the Middle East, and intelligence-related issues. He was a non-resident senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (2008-2011). Currently, he also serves on the board of trustees of the American University in Iraq, Sulaimani. He has written extensively on Turkey, the Kurds, and other Middle East issues.

Hannes B. Mosler: “Populism and Transnational Ties of the Far Right in East Asia: Recent Developments in South Korea”

Abstract: This presentation explores the evolving political landscape of East Asian liberal democracies by evaluating the comparative utility of “populism” and “far-right” frameworks in the contemporary South Korean context, assessing which conceptual approach better captures the current trajectory of the South Korean landscape. The analysis focuses on three core dimensions: the radicalization of political actors through anti-constitutional activities, a profound resurgence of historical revisionism regarding authoritarian legacies, and the strategic mobilization of gendered grievances —specifically the role of anti-feminism.

Hannes B. Mosler serves as Chair of East Asian Social Sciences, specializing in Korean politics and society, at the University of Duisburg–Essen (UDE), where he is affiliated with the Institute of East Asian Studies (IN-EAST) and the Institute of Political Science (IfP). His research interests include political systems, civic education, memory politics, foreign policy, and social and political institutional change in East Asia, especially the Korean peninsula. Recent publications include “Causes and sources of South Korea’s fragile democracy” (2025), “Rewriting history, undermining democracy. The role of the New Right in South Korean memory politics” (2025), and “The Incurious Approach to East Asian Populism: Why Studies on Japan, South Korea and Taiwan are Often Overlooked in Political Science” (2025, co-author).

Edward Knudsen: “The Geopolitics of Right-wing Populism in a Post-hegemonic World Order“

Abstract: What happens to global politics—and the use of “soft power” in particular—when the liberal international order loses its central architect and nationalism is rising across the globe? This talk explores the geopolitics of right-wing populism in an increasingly post-hegemonic world. Drawing on comparative analysis across major powers, it argues that both the rise of European nationalism and the retreat of US soft power has accelerated a shift toward a more fragmented, zero-sum international environment, in which cultural diplomacy and external cultural policy are repurposed for national assertion rather than mutual exchange. On one hand, this is an opportunity for Europe, as it could partially step into the vacuum left by the US. On the other, however, a foreign policy hobbled by right-wing populism poses risks for constructive engagement abroad.

Edward Knudsen is a doctoral researcher in international relations at the University of Oxford and an Affiliate Policy Fellow in European political economy at the Jacques Delors Centre in Berlin. His research focuses on the political economy and economic history of the US and Europe in the 20th century, specifically how the historical memory of economic events is constructed and deployed. Previously, he worked in the US and the Americas Programme at Chatham House think tank in London on projects which explored the future of transatlantic economic and security relations. He holds a master’s in international political economy from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a Bachelor’s degree with majors in history and economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

María Esperanza Casullo:“Populist Narratives and Democratic Backsliding: Perspectives from Latin America”

Abstract: The entire world is undergoing a process of democratic backsliding. It is probably not a coincidence that there is an upsurge in populism happening at the same time. In this presentation, it will be shown how populist narratives are a central driver of the process of democratic backsliding, through their effect on affective polarization, distribution of eliminationist discourses, and legitimation of anti-illiberal movements.

María Esperanza Casullo is a professor at the Institute of Political Science, Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. She has published extensively on populist narratives and performances. Her most recent article is “When the strongman is a woman: female leadership in right wing populism,” in International Journal of Public Leadership. She is currently working on a project centered on the populist baroque.

 

Panel 5

Democratic Resistance in a Hardening World: Civic Capacity, Strongmen, and Economic Coercion

Moderator

Jocelyne Cesari is Professor and Chair of Religion and Politics and Director of Research at the Edward Cadbury Centre for the Public Understanding of Religion at the University of Birmingham, and Senior Fellow at Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs. She has also served as T. J. Dermot Dunphy Visiting Professor of Religion, Violence, and Peacebuilding at Harvard Divinity School. An internationally recognized scholar of religion and politics, her work focuses on Islam, democracy, nationalism, and comparative religion, and her forthcoming book is We God’s Nations: Political Christianity, Islam and Hinduism in the World of Nations.

Speakers

Jack A. Goldstone: “Structural Pressures Behind Strongman Politics”

The current wave of strong-man politics is similar to other waves of revolutions and democratic reversals dating back to the crisis of the 17th century.  While individual demagogues play an important role, it is no accident that so many countries around the world are experiencing regime crises, with democratic institutions and norms being threatened or overturned even in countries thought to be long-consolidated democracies.  The structural factors behind this change are well documented by the structural demographic theory of regime crises: they include state fiscal decay, increased inequality combined with declining social mobility, sharply increased intra-elite competition resulting in polarization and government dysfunction, falling trust in government, and widely-felt declines in the affordability of expected private and public goods and services.  But while these structural factors create a crisis situation and opportunity for nationalist authoritarians, they are not determinative; as with past eras of crisis many attempts at regime change will be unsuccessful or reversed.
 
Jack A. Goldstone (PhD Harvard) is the Virginia E. and John T. Hazel, Jr., Professor of Public Policy at George Mason University, and a Senior Fellow of the Mercatus Center.  He has received the Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship award from the American Sociological Association, the Arnoldo Momigliano Prize, the Barrington Moore Jr. Award, the Myron Weiner Award, the Ibn Khaldun Award, and fellowships from the MacArthur Foundation, the JS Guggenheim Foundation, the Carnegie Foundation, the U.S. Institute of Peace and the Mellon Foundation.  He also served as the Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Visitor to the American Academy in Berlin.  Dr. Goldstone’s research focuses on the impact of global population changes on social and economic development.  His new book: 10 Billion: How Aging, Immigration, Women and Youth will Change the World in the 21st Century, will be published in 2026 by Oxford University Press.
 

Steven Friedman: “Changing Democracy’s Address”

Abstract: During the late Twentieth century democratic wave, democracy was implicitly associated with the West. Western Europe and North America were assumed, in the global South as well as the North, to be the epicentre of democracy and its global champions. This was inaccurate, but it enhanced support for democracy, which was associated with Western prosperity and stability. The crisis of Western democracy has made this assumption untenable. Not only are parties whose commitment to democracy is debatable gaining ground. In many Western countries, democratic freedoms are eroding and support for democracy, at least in its current guise, is declining. If formal democracy does survive in the West, it may do so only in a diluted form.  These realities make it imperative to promote an understanding of democracy which is no longer linked to Western-ness, which seeks to persuade Western decision-makers and publics that democracy is not specific to any culture or region and that there are reasons to adopt and preserve it on its own merits.
 
Steven Friedman is a Research Professor in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Johannesburg. He has published several studies of South Africa’s transition to democracy and his current work focuses on the theory and practice of democracy. He is the author of several books, numerous book chapters, and journal articles. His study of South Africa’s democratic trajectory, Prisoners of the Past: South African Democracy and the Legacy of Minority Rule, was published in 2021. His most recent book, Good Jew, Bad Jew, Racism, Anti-Semitism, and the Assault on Meaning, discusses the use of ostensibly anti-racist language to justify racism. He is also a media commentator on the development of South African democracy and the author of a weekly column for subscribers, Against the Tide.
 

John Pratt: Return of the Strong Men: Populism, Punishment and the Threat to Democratic Order

Abstract: Western liberal democracy seems in retreat, assailed by the emergence of an autocratic ‘strong man’ politics, mistakenly thought to have been consigned to the dustbin of history after the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945. This strong man politics is now seen most clearly in the second US presidency of Donald Trump where a different political order altogether is being constructed: one where cardinal principles of liberal democracy such as the rule of law and due process can be discarded as suits, scientific knowledge is discredited, any criticisms of the strong man leader will not be tolerated, and where democratic allies can be tossed aside in favour of the company of other strong men around the globe.  This paper examines the rise of this new authoritarianism and its implications for democratic order. 

John Pratt is Professor of Criminology at the Institute of Criminology, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. His fields of research are comparative penology and the history and sociology of punishment. He has published in eleven languages and has been invited to lecture at universities in South America, North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. His books include Punishment and Civilization (2002), Penal Populism (2007) and Contrasts in Punishment (2013). In 2009 he was awarded the Sir Leon Radzinowicz Prize by the Editorial Board of the British Journal of Criminology. In 2012 he was elected to a Fellowship of the Royal Society of New Zealand and was awarded the Society’s Mason Durie Medal, given ‘to the nation’s pre-emiment social scientist.’

Kent Jones: “Weaponized Trade Policy and the Future of Global Economic Governance”

Abstract:  Trade policy in the era of Donald Trump has added a new dimension to populism studies: the dismantling of global trade institutions by the populist hegemonic leader of the system.  In his second term as President, Trump has made absolute control over tariffs the centerpiece of his international economic policy, abandoning core principles of non-discrimination and tariff binding.  The challenge for the global trading system is to find a modus vivendi for trade among countries that wish to support a rules-based system in the midst of US unilateralism and intimidation.  Internal political and legal challenges to Trump’s power are growing, and the recent US Supreme Court decision has curbed his tariff power.  Yet even after his departure from the scene, geopolitical and economic faultlines in the global economy will challenge countries to establish new institutional structures to facilitate mutually beneficial trade.

Kent Jones is Professor Emeritus of Economics at Babson College, Massachusetts, USA. He completed his M.A.L.D. degree at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University and his Dr. ès sci. pol. (international economics) degree at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies at the University of Geneva.  He is the author of several books on trade policy and the WTO, including Populism and Trade (2021).   Most recently, he published a chapter, “Transatlantic Trade, the Trump Disruption and the World Trade Organization,” in the recent ECPS volume, Populism and the Future of Transatlantic Relations.

 

Closing Remarks

İbrahim Öztürk is ECPS Senior economic researcher & associate member of the Duisburg-Essen University, Institute of East Asian Studies(IN-EAST). He is studying developmental, institutional, and international economics. His research focuses on the Japanese, Turkish, and Chinese economies. Currently, he is working on emerging hybrid governance models and the rise of populism in the Emerging Market Economies. As a part of that interest, he studies the institutional quality of China’s Modern Silk Road Project /The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), its governance model, and implications for the global system. He also teaches courses on business and entrepreneurship in the Emerging Market Economies, such as BRICS/MINT countries. Ozturk’s Ph.D. thesis is on the rise and decline of Japan’s developmental institutions in the post-Second WWII era. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8069-4721

 

Dr. Eszter Kováts is a political scientist, a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at Department of Political Science at University of Vienna. Photo: Photo credit: Zoltán Adrián / 24.hu

Eszter Kováts: Orbán’s Defeat Doesn’t Mean the End of Illiberal Politics in Europe

by Editor’s ChoiceEuropean ObservatoryHomeInterviews

In this ECPS interview, Dr. Eszter Kováts offers a measured reassessment of Viktor Orbán’s electoral defeat and its wider implications for Europe. While the 2026 Hungarian elections mark a major rupture in domestic politics, she cautions against triumphalist readings that treat Orbán’s fall as the collapse of illiberalism itself. “It is something of a liberal dream,” she argues, to assume that the defeat of one leader means the defeat of the entire project. Kováts situates Orbánism within deeper structural, economic, and discursive dynamics, showing how it combined institutional power, culture-war politics, and claims to national sovereignty. At the same time, she underscores Hungary’s enduring polarization, the persistence of Fidesz’s electorate, and the unresolved conditions that continue to sustain illiberal-right politics across Europe.

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

As Hungary enters the post-2026 electoral moment, the defeat of Viktor Orbán has been widely interpreted as a watershed in the trajectory of illiberal governance in Europe. For more than a decade, Orbán’s system stood as a paradigmatic case of what has often been termed “illiberal democracy”—a political formation combining electoral legitimacy with institutional centralization, ideological mobilization, and a sophisticated use of culture wars and transnational alliances. Yet, as this interview with Dr. Eszter Kováts makes clear, such interpretations risk overstating both the rupture and its implications.

In conversation with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Dr. Eszter Kováts—Marie Skłodowska-Curie postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Vienna—offers a careful and analytically grounded reassessment of this moment. While the electoral outcome may appear decisive, she cautions against reading it as a definitive break. As she puts it, “it is something of a liberal dream to treat Orbán’s defeat as the defeat of his entire project.” The persistence of “many Fidesz voters,” alongside the broader constituency of “far-right and illiberal-right parties across Europe,”underscores the continued relevance of the political and social forces that sustained Orbánism.

This insight frames the central tension explored throughout the interview: whether the Hungarian case represents a genuine transformation or a reconfiguration of underlying structural dynamics. Dr. Kováts emphasizes that both the rise and the exhaustion of Orbán’s system can only be understood through a layered analysis that combines structural, contextual, and contingent factors. Economically, the regime rested on a distinctive model—often described as a hybrid of state intervention and market adaptation—which, for a time, delivered tangible improvements in living standards. Politically, it capitalized on what she identifies as “blind spots” within liberal and progressive frameworks, constructing an antagonistic narrative around migration, gender, and geopolitical conflict, each containing a “kernel of truth” but amplified into an “apocalyptic vision.”

At the same time, the interview challenges conventional narratives that frame right-wing mobilization simply as“backlash.” Such interpretations, Dr. Kováts argues, rely on overly teleological assumptions about democratic development and obscure the deeper systemic tensions that shape political contestation. Orbán’s success, in this reading, lay not merely in institutional control but in his ability to articulate these tensions—though this articulation ultimately faltered as economic conditions deteriorated and rhetoric became “increasingly detached from reality.”

The emergence of Péter Magyar introduces a further layer of complexity. Rather than a straightforward democratic reversal, Dr. Kováts describes the transition as, in part, a “democratic rebalancing,” but also as a moment fraught with uncertainty. Hungary remains “deeply divided,” with 94 percent of voters concentrated in two opposing camps, reflecting not only political polarization but competing “perceptions of reality.” Moreover, Magyar’s own political trajectory—rooted in Fidesz—raises questions about continuity as much as change, particularly given his constitutional majority and capacity to reshape state institutions.

Beyond Hungary, the implications for European populism are similarly ambiguous. Illiberal networks, Dr. Kováts notes, are not dependent on a single figure; they are embedded in national contexts and sustained by what she terms a “representation gap.” The assumption that Orbán’s exit signals the broader decline of illiberal politics is therefore, in her words, “a compelling discourse, but… a political one rather than an analytical description.”

In sum, Dr. Kováts’s reflections invite a more measured interpretation of Hungary’s political shift—one that resists both triumphalism and determinism. Rather than marking the end of a political era, the Orbán–Magyar transition may be better understood as a contingent episode within a longer and unresolved contest between competing visions of democracy in Europe.

Here is the edited version of our interview with Dr. Eszter Kováts, revised slightly to improve clarity and flow.

Exhaustion, Not Erasure

Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s Prime Minister, arrives for a meeting with European Union leaders in Brussels, Belgium, on June 22, 2017. Photo: Alexandros Michailidis.

Dr. Kováts, welcome. Drawing on your work on illiberalism and the structural drivers of populism, how should we interpret both the rise and the electoral defeat of Viktor Orbán’s system? Does this moment reveal inherent limits within the model, or rather the contingent exhaustion of a particular political configuration?

Dr. Eszter Kováts: This is already a very interesting and complex question, and we must consider both structural, contextual, and contingent elements in the rise of the system, its sustainability over 16 years, and its defeat or exhaustion, as well as how it could be defeated.

One must definitely mention the structural dimension in economic terms—essentially, the circumstances under which Orbán rose, the economic model he was building, how it functioned, and why it eventually exhausted itself. This is important because, in the international political science community, the focus is mostly on the democratic aspects—how Fidesz’s regime hollowed out democracy from within, removed checks and balances, and restricted press freedom, academic freedom, and so on.

But the system also had a very strong economic basis and a very particular economic model, often referred to as “Orbanomics.” This term comes from Gábor Scheiring, a political economist. I will not go into his writings here, but I would recommend them. It was a mixture of challenging neoliberalism while also building on several of its elements, combining state intervention with the construction of a national bourgeoisie.

For a long time, this model had a trickle-down effect. Together with favorable global economic conditions, ordinary Hungarians experienced standards between 2013 and 2019. Then came COVID and the war in Ukraine. When Péter Magyar entered the scene with the Tisza Party, there had been recession and worsening living standards. I would highlight this briefly as a structural element.

Obviously, there were also contextual elements, such as the weakness of the old opposition parties, which, by the time Tisza appeared, were already completely discredited. Then there is the role of Péter Magyar himself, who endured smear campaigns, demonstrated a strong will to power, and emerged at a moment when there was already a significant societal uprising—a large movement over the last two years that helped sustain this energy and desire for change.

However, we must also emphasize that Hungary has not simply switched from Orbán to Magyar. Hungarian society remains deeply divided. Although Tisza and Péter Magyar won the elections by a two-thirds majority, Fidesz still received 38–39 percent. That is not insignificant. The party has not disappeared, and neither have its voters.

At the same time, 94 percent of the Hungarian electorate voted for one of the two major parties, indicating an extremely polarized political landscape. This polarization extends to perceptions of reality, as well as to competing visions of society. That will remain a major challenge for the next government.

Fear Worked Until Reality Intervened

You have argued that mobilizations often framed as “backlash” are better understood as expressions of deeper systemic tensions. To what extent did Orbán’s political project succeed in articulating these tensions—and where did it ultimately fall short?

Dr. Eszter Kováts: It is a very widespread term in the literature to describe Orbán’s regime and similar regimes, in line with concepts such as democratic backsliding. All these approaches tend to have a very teleological view of history, as if societies are moving from less democratic regimes toward increasingly developed liberal democratic systems—with more rights for minorities, better deliberative processes, and so on. Within this framework, right-wing challenges are often interpreted as a backlash, as if they seek to push history back from its “normal” trajectory.

I have been challenging this view for many years, because I think it does not adequately explain Orbán’s regime. It assumes that all right-wing forces form one homogeneous group, without internal tensions, and that all so-called democratic or progressive forces also constitute a homogeneous group. It also presumes a Western blueprint, suggesting that all societies should move toward what the Western liberal mainstream currently defines as the normative model. Whenever someone defies this blueprint or this supposed direction of history, it is very easily labeled—also in social science literature—as right-wing or as advancing right-wing ideas. It is treated as an anomaly if one does not subscribe to a unified progressive front against a so-called right-wing backlash.

But this does not describe reality. Orbán was very skillful in tapping into these blind spots and into power relations that are not sufficiently addressed, including within the European Union. He capitalized on certain blind spots or blind alleys on the progressive side and constructed an expansive, often apocalyptic narrative around them.

Across his three main ideological projects—migration, gender, and the Russia–Ukraine war—there was always a kernel of truth. However, these were accompanied by a great deal of homogenization and apocalyptic framing. He presented these issues as existential threats, claiming that Brussels, the opposition, and liberal forces all sought to impose these dangers on Hungary, and that only he, Viktor Orbán, could protect the country.

This politics of fear was effective, but only as long as the economy was functioning and as long as those kernels of truth remained credible. Over the last three to four years, however, the economic foundation of this narrative has eroded, and in the final months, even the kernels of truth largely disappeared. The campaign became increasingly surreal—for example, the anti-Ukrainian discourse was exaggerated to the point where Ukraine was portrayed as seeking to “colonize” Hungary, and President Zelenskyy was depicted on billboards all over Hungary as a figure who would take over the country if Orbán lost the election. This was clearly disproportionate and increasingly detached from reality.

Crucially, Orbán’s narrative could function as long as there was no strong opposition. Péter Magyar, who comes from Fidesz, brought not only political instincts but also insider knowledge of how this communication machinery operates. He avoided many of the traps and managed to build a relatively narrow party structure alongside a broad social movement.

We will likely analyze the elements of his success for years to come, but one thing is clear: Orbán could operate like a tank as long as there was no counterforce. Once a credible challenger emerged, it became increasingly evident—especially in the final months of the campaign—that this strategy was no longer working.

Democratic Correction, Structural Uncertainty

Tisza leader Péter Magyar
Tisza leader Péter Magyar begins a symbolic “one million steps” march to Nagyvárad, Romania, addressing reporters with supporters in Budapest, Hungary on May 14, 2025. Photo: Istvan Balogh / Dreamstime.

In your critique of simplified ideological binaries, you highlight anti-pluralist tendencies across political camps. How should we understand the transition from Orbán to Péter Magyar in this light: as a democratic rebalancing, or as a reconfiguration of underlying structural conflicts?

Dr. Eszter Kováts: Yes, the anti-pluralism of right-wing forces is very well described, and that is their understanding of politics, at least in the case of the new right. Not everybody who is right-wing or conservative would defend this vision of politics, but within this illiberal or new right, there is clearly an understanding that politics consists of two antagonistic camps. Those who are not with us are against us. In the Hungarian case, this meant, if you are not with the government, you were portrayed as against Hungarians, against Christianity, or against children. These antagonisms are constructed continuously.

However, the other side is much less discussed, namely the progressive side, which also reproduces this binarism through the backlash narrative: we are the good people, the morally righteous, the democratic ones, and we are fighting against the other side. In the Hungarian context, this took a very specific form of anti-Orbánism. There were certain imperatives: if Orbán set the tone on something or placed an issue on the agenda, the opposition would automatically adopt the opposite position—defending stigmatized minorities, the rule of law, and democracy. Orbán deliberately reproduced these traps.

Magyar said: stop with this. Over the last two years, whenever Fidesz tried to create a rule-of-law trap—forcing him to engage in highly divisive debates, which are not framed in emotional language and are not what people feel they are fighting for—he avoided it. This is not to say these issues are unimportant, but politically they were not helpful and tended to divide the electorate.

As for whether this is a democratic rebalancing or a reconfiguration of underlying structural conflicts, in a way it is certainly a democratic rebalancing. There was a significant societal uprising. It became too much—too much coercion, too much hate, too much polarization on the side of the Orbán regime, which branded even ordinary voters as people who wanted to serve Ukraine and send children to war. There were also anti-democratic measures: in the final weeks of the campaign, whistleblowers from the police and the military revealed that Hungarian secret services were working against Tisza, the main opposition party. In that sense, this is a democratic correction.

However, as I mentioned, Péter Magyar comes from Fidesz, and until 2024 he had no problem with it. He was even a diplomat for Fidesz in Brussels and represented its EU policies. He shares core elements of Fidesz’s ideology. But we will see, because this is, in fact, a broad coalition. He may come from Fidesz and hold conservative views, but he won on a platform of broad societal unity, with one of his main promises being to reunite Hungary after deep polarization.

Regarding the structural elements, that is the key question. What room does he have to maneuver economically? There is a large hole in the budget. Will he pursue austerity? Will he be able to stimulate growth quickly? Will financial markets respond favorably to Hungary? How will he deliver on his promises? Another structural issue is his commitment to unblocking frozen EU funds—around €18 billion, which is a substantial sum. But to achieve this, he will need to negotiate with the EU, and he has already indicated that he will not compromise on certain Orbán-era policies, such as migration and Ukraine. This will be a significant challenge, as will the broader geopolitical environment involving the US, China, and Russia, which exerts pressure on Hungary.

I believe this geopolitical balancing was one of the reasons for Orbán’s defeat, as his model of maneuvering among these powers ultimately failed. Whether Magyar can manage this differently remains to be seen.

There is also the issue of restoring the rule of law and checks and balances. Now that Péter Magyar has a two-thirds, constitutional majority, he can change everything. He has already announced that he will remove Fidesz-appointed figures from key institutions, such as the Constitutional Court, the presidency, the Audit Office, the Budgetary Council, and the office of the Chief Prosecutor. At this point, we do not know whether he will appoint independent figures or loyalists.

We are therefore in a very difficult moment. There is great relief and even euphoria in opposition circles, but memories of Fidesz’s earlier two-thirds majority in 2010 remain vivid, when it reshaped the state in its own image. Magyar promises not to repeat that. The expectation is that he should not. But structurally, he could still follow a similar path. So, there are many uncertainties.

Ridicule as the Limit of Power

Over more than a decade, Orbán constructed a durable governing bloc through a combination of institutional control and narrative framing, including the strategic deployment of culture wars. Which elements of this hegemony proved most resilient, and which appear, in retrospect, more fragile?

Dr. Eszter Kováts: That is a very big question, and I am not going to answer it in detail. However, I find this understanding of hegemony very helpful, and Béla Greskovits, Dorothee Bohle, and Marek Naczyk wrote an excellent piece three years ago on how this was shifting, even before Péter Magyar and Tisza came onto the scene.

They argued that the consent elements gradually disappeared, while more coercive measures came in and the regime became more ideological. In the phase after 2010, it was much more pragmatic and opportunistic. Later on, it even took into account that EU funds were frozen, yet it continued in order to maintain power and preserve its ideological elements.

Apparently, in the last two years, coercion stopped working. It did not work because it became disconnected from reality, and it did not go beyond a certain level of coercion. We will certainly need to discuss this further in the months and years to come, but at least Hungary is not Russia or Belarus. It did not go beyond a certain point; it still maintained a minimalist understanding of democracy, which is why Orbán conceded on election night, saying that he accepted the results because the numbers were clear.

I do not want to trivialize this or suggest that what the Fidesz regime did was minor. As I mentioned, there was interference by secret services to undermine an opposition party, as well as an atmosphere of intimidation, constant smear campaigns, and sustained polarization and hostility. So, it was certainly not a harmless regime. However, it did not go beyond a certain level in practical terms, even though in discursive terms it went far beyond—constantly invoking threats.

But once a strong opposition emerged, this rhetoric no longer worked. In the final weeks of the campaign, statements that might previously have been effective instead sounded almost ridiculous. And I think ridicule is the greatest threat to autocrats—when people stop taking them seriously.

So, this was a very slow erosion of hegemony. It had economic causes, as well as contextual and contingent ones. By now, it seems that much of its base has eroded. In the days following the election, an interesting phenomenon emerged, captured by the Hungarian writer Péter Esterházy, who once said that “there is a traffic jam on the road to Damascus.” Many Fidesz loyals are now rapidly distancing themselves from the party and aligning with democracy. Suddenly, many claim they were always part of an internal opposition and had always been critical, even though they did not act on this for 16 years. Now, in the days just before and after the election, many of them have begun to speak out.

Reality Pushes Back

Campaign poster of Viktor Orbán ahead of the April 12, 2026, parliamentary elections. Photo: Bettina Wagner / Dreamstime.

Your work emphasizes the role of discourse, particularly the construction of political antagonisms. To what extent do the interpretive frameworks established during the Orbán era continue to shape political perception and competition in Hungary today?

Dr. Eszter Kováts: I belong to the soft constructivists, who argue that discourse has its limits. Not everything can be constructed. Every crisis, every enemy, ultimately encounters material reality, and that was, in a sense, the end of it. Discourse must be taken seriously, including the discourse of the left. But I also believe that, in social constructivist social science literature—and in approaches inspired by it—as well as in much of the Western media landscape, there is too strong an emphasis on, or belief in, the power of constructing things.

We can see this in debates about migration or gender. There are limits to this, and it does not convince people if it does not align with their material perceptions or lived realities. That was also, in a sense, the end of the Orbán era. However, as I said, it is not a simple switch where everything is suddenly debunked and over.

We are talking about around 800,000 people who moved from Fidesz to Tisza. There was one opposition party that managed to unite the previous opposition, and besides that Magyar succeeded in attracting over 800,000 voters. But this does not mean a complete transformation of reality in every respect. It is devastating for Fidesz, and there is clearly a process of soul-searching beginning within the party. What will happen to Orbán and to this right-wing illiberal project remains to be seen. So, we should be cautious not to discard all our analytical frameworks altogether.

Bread-and-Butter Politics Against Culture War

Tisza Party volunteer collecting signatures in Mosonmagyaróvár, Hungary on June 5, 2024 during a nationwide campaign tour ahead of the European Parliament elections. Photo: Sarkadi Roland / Dreamstime.

Hungary has often been described as a polity divided into parallel informational and political realities, in part structured through enduring culture war cleavages. Does the 2026 election represent a genuine rupture in this duality, or merely a shift in the dominant narrative without deeper societal reconciliation?

Dr. Eszter Kováts: I think it is a genuine rupture, in the sense of how Magyar has developed his discourse over the last two years. As I said, he did not simply take up the opposite position. He did not do what Fidesz wanted him to do by stigmatizing a minority and making very threatening statements, such as getting rid of NGOs and media financed from abroad or banning Pride parades. These were often presented in a way where you never knew how far they would go, but they frequently went quite far, creating major rule-of-law and minority-rights concerns. The old opposition would then respond by defending those minorities and liberal democratic institutions, the rule of law, and the right of assembly.

Magyar simply ignored this dynamic. Again, this is an ambivalent issue. On the one hand, it can be explained by his Fidesz instincts—these liberal causes or agendas may not mean much to him. On the other hand, it was a very smart tactic: he did not allow himself to be derailed and instead focused on rural Hungary.

A key element of his approach was to speak consistently about state failure—that hospitals do not function properly, that it is difficult to make ends meet, that the education system does not serve people well, and that housing costs are high. In other words, he focused on economic, bread-and-butter issues. He connected these to the failures of the state and kept the focus there, rather than on rule-of-law debates or culture war issues.

He also traveled extensively across Hungary. This may not sound like a novel strategy, but in the Hungarian context it proved significant. Since his appearance in March 2024, he has been constantly on the move, visiting a large number of settlements—around one-third of all Hungarian villages and cities. He met people directly, shook hands, and gave speeches even to small groups of 10, 30, or 100 people. This required a great deal of energy and is often underestimated. We tend to focus on structural factors, ideologies, and media narratives, but this basic element of presence—listening to people, asking about their concerns, and engaging directly with Fidesz voters—made a substantial difference.

When asked about culture war issues, he often simply repeated the Fidesz position. Again, this remains an open question, particularly regarding migration and Ukraine, and we will likely see in the coming weeks and months whether this was merely a tactical move or reflects a deeper strategic and ideological stance.

Culture Wars Were Central to Orbánism

You have shown that symbolic issues—such as debates around gender—can serve as vehicles for broader political mobilization and culture wars. How central were such symbolic frameworks to Orbán’s project, and do you expect them to retain salience in the post-Orbán period?

Dr. Eszter Kováts: It was very central to Orbán’s ideology, for both practical and power-related reasons. He knew that it served his interests, because whenever he introduced a symbolic issue, the urban liberal intelligentsia and the European elites would react in a predictable way—opposing it in very clear terms but not being able to mobilize a broad social movement around it. As a result, it became a kind of elite hysteria in the discourse. This then allowed him to position himself as defending Hungary, so to speak, against those elite dictates.

This became a rehearsed performance on all sides, and I believe this is one of the main takeaways from the last two years: this dynamic should probably stop, because Magyar stopped it, and it worked. However, Magyar won on a very broad voter base; it is a big-tent coalition. Many liberal and leftist voters, as well as the intelligentsia and urban elites, effectively swallowed the pill, accepting that if Orbán can be defeated this way, then be it.

But after his victory, they may seek to present the bill. I assume that in the weeks and months to come, these liberal and leftist sensibilities and ideas will not disappear; rather, they will resurface and attempt to exert pressure on Magyar. However, if they lack broader societal support, this may result only in empty gestures—open letters or outrage on social media—without real political impact.

If they want to represent these ideas—for example, to argue that not all minority rights are “woke” or trivial but are in fact important—then they will need to organize social movements or rethink opposition in a new configuration. For a long time, Péter Magyar will be able to respond by saying: stop this, because if you continue in this way, Orbán could return. This argument may be effective, given that he achieved a two-thirds majority against an autocratic system. He now has considerable credibility, and there is a sense of gratitude among many voters, which he can invoke to marginalize competing demands.

Orbán’s Exit Will Not End the Network

Given that many of these mobilizations were embedded in transnational networks, how might Hungary’s political shift alter its position within broader European and global constellations of right-wing and populist radical right actors?

Dr. Eszter Kováts: I agree with those who argue that this should not be overestimated. It is not the case that removing Orbán from the scene will cause everything to collapse. These networks exist beyond Hungary; they have their own national structures, and all these parties—from Rassemblement National to AfD, from Vox to others—have their own societal drivers and root causes.

Péter Magyar was asked exactly this question on Monday, the day after the elections, by international media. He responded by saying: look at your own countries. The people who vote for Rassemblement National or AfD are not necessarily far-right. Drawing on his own experience of speaking with Fidesz voters, he emphasized the importance of listening to them and understanding what is missing for them. Essentially, he was pointing to a representation gap—there are reasons why people vote for these parties, they see their concerns unaddressed by mainstream parties.

So, I think it is somewhat simplistic, or perhaps too comfortable, for some liberals to assume that if Orbán is gone, the illiberal challenge will also disappear. It may indeed create some uncertainty among illiberal elites—what do we do without Orbán?—but I do not think it will bring an end to these movements. They are rooted in national contexts, and their voters orient themselves toward their own far right or illiberal parties, not toward Orbán personally. In that sense, the underlying causes and structural problems will not disappear simply because Orbán is no longer in power.

A Different Tone Toward Brussels

Hungary - EU
Flags of Hungary and the European Union displayed together in Budapest. Hungary has been an EU member since 2004. Photo: Jerome Cid / Dreamstime

You have highlighted the importance of East–West asymmetries in shaping political discourse in Central and Eastern Europe. How might a renewed orientation toward the European Union under Magyar reshape these dynamics?

Dr. Eszter Kováts: These far-right or illiberal right parties all have different backgrounds in their respective contexts, and in East-Central Europe, what they have been able to mobilize—also beyond Hungary—are these asymmetrical relationships within the EU, which are often denied. Orbán exposed this hypocrisy and double standards: what France can do, Hungarians cannot do, and how Eastern Europeans are sometimes treated as second-class Europeans.

Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes have written about this, arguing that right-wing populists in Eastern Europe have been able to capitalize on this second-class Europeanness, where societies feel judged by Western Europeans—whether they are European enough, civilized enough, and so on. These dynamics have economic, symbolic, and epistemic dimensions, shaping how Central and Eastern Europeans are perceived as inferior. There is extensive literature on this from the past decade.

I assume that Péter Magyar will not fulfill the expectations of Western liberals and mainstream center-right actors by simply aligning fully with the Western mainstream. He will likely preserve some of the room for maneuver that Orbán built. He has a well-known phrase: we do not want to be a stick among the spokes, but a spoke in the wheel—meaning a constructive partner within the EU. This will likely be a relief at the EU level, as he may avoid vetoing for its own sake or subordinating EU foreign policy so directly to imminent Hungarian party political interests.

However, in normative terms, as I mentioned, he was part of Fidesz and supported its EU policies for a long time. He also understands that Hungary’s structural position within the EU has not changed, so it is not in his interest to abandon everything Orbán established in recent years, whether for better or worse.

At the same time, Orbán placed Hungary in a very precarious position. In the weeks before the elections, conversations leaked by secret services to the media between Putin and Orbán, as well as between Lavrov and the Hungarian foreign minister Szijjártó, suggested a deeper connection between Hungary and Russia than previously acknowledged. If such information were further exposed, it could have deepened Hungary’s isolation in the event of an Orbán victory. So, I think that, in the corridors of Brussels, there is a sense of relief. There will likely be some realignment, but not the complete shift that some may expect.

Orbán Is Gone, the Project Is Not

Orbán positioned Hungary as both a challenger to and a critic of liberal democratic consensus within the EU. How significant is his electoral defeat for the broader trajectory of illiberal governance in Europe and the evolution of the far-right?

Dr. Eszter Kováts: As I said previously, I think it is something of a liberal dream to treat Orbán’s defeat as the defeat of his entire project. There are still many Fidesz voters, and there are voters of far-right and illiberal-right parties across Europe. At the moment, there is a sense of moral high ground — “look, he is gone, so everything was wrong and has been debunked.” I am not sure about that. It is a compelling discourse, but it remains a political one rather than an analytical description, and I am not convinced it will have the effect on the voters of those parties that such narratives might hope for.

Agency Matters, but So Do Structures

Finally, Dr. Kováts, stepping back, does the Orbán–Magyar transition mark a broader inflection point in European politics, or should it be understood as a contingent episode within a longer cycle of contestation between liberal and illiberal visions of democracy?

Dr. Eszter Kováts: We are going to spend many months and years discussing this question. I think social scientists tend to look for the reasons behind everything and to underestimate contingency. At the same time, those of us who prefer structural explanations also tend to underestimate agency, and I believe there is much to correct in this regard.

This is what Péter Magyar’s success demonstrates: he exercised agency. It was not predetermined in a system designed to keep Orbán in power that it could be challenged. It required creativity, hard work, and strategic thinking. Of course, the previous 14 years were also necessary—we learned collectively from many mistakes. Or perhaps not “we,” since liberals and the left were not central to this success; it was someone else who achieved it.

Magyar himself also learned, probably in part because he was inside the system. There were many elements that contributed to his success. Some were contingent, others structural; some related to talent, effort, good intuitions, and having the right people at the right time. There was also an important social movement dimension. For instance, in rural Hungary, some of the biggest losers of Orbán’s regime were small and medium-sized entrepreneurs, and they formed a core part of the Tisza movement. They had networks and were able to mobilize and organize effectively.

We will need further research to fully understand these elements and what made this outcome possible. But it is clear that there are many factors at play. I am not in favor of sweeping explanations that look for a single determining factor or draw definitive conclusions that one model has ended, and another has decisively triumphed.

Professor Jonathan Portes

Ten Years on with Brexit / Prof. Portes: Brexit Has Not Solved Britain’s Problems; It Made Them Worse

by EconomicsEditor’s ChoiceEuropean ObservatoryHomeInterviewsMigration

As the United Kingdom nears the tenth anniversary of the 2016 Brexit referendum, Professor Jonathan Portes offers a sober, evidence-based reassessment of its economic and political legacy. In this ECPS interview, Professor Portes argues that Brexit did not resolve the structural problems it promised to overcome; rather, “the UK still confronts the same fundamental problems it did 10 years ago,” and, in key respects, they have worsened. Drawing on a decade of research on trade, migration, labor markets, and policy autonomy, he shows how weakened investment, reduced integration, and persistent political tensions have defined the post-Brexit settlement. Moving beyond slogans, Professor Portes situates Brexit within broader debates on sovereignty, interdependence, and populist politics in an increasingly unstable international order.

Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

As the United Kingdom approaches the tenth anniversary of the 2016 Brexit referendum, the debate has moved decisively from slogan to scrutiny, from promises of restored sovereignty to the measurable consequences of economic and political separation. In this context, the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS) is pleased to host Professor Jonathan Portes, Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the School of Politics & Economics, King’s College London, whose extensive scholarship has been central to understanding the economic and labor-market consequences of Brexit. Throughout the past decade, Professor Portes has offered one of the most rigorous and evidence-based assessments of how trade, migration, policy autonomy, and public expectations have evolved under the post-Brexit settlement.

This interview is framed by a stark and sobering conclusion that runs through Professor Portes’s reflections: Brexit did not resolve the structural dilemmas it claimed it would overcome. Rather, as he puts it, “the UK still confronts the same fundamental problems it did 10 years ago.” The core promise of Brexit, he argues, was that it would allow Britain to escape the constraints associated with globalization, immigration, and post-2008 economic stagnation. Yet the reality has been quite different. “Rather than solving those problems,” he observes, Brexit “has probably made them worse.” In Professor Portes’s analysis, the UK remains what it always was: “a middle-sized, advanced Western European economy,”still grappling with familiar pressures, but now doing so from a more exposed and less advantageous position.

The interview explores this argument across several interrelated domains. On the economic front, Professor Portes notes that the evidence on growth, trade, productivity, and investment has broadly confirmed the mainstream pre-referendum consensus: Brexit was never likely to produce collapse, but it would impose “significant and material long-term damage”on British economic prospects. Trade, especially goods trade, emerges in his account as the most enduring site of disruption, while weakened investment and reduced integration with the European market suggest an adaptation process that may culminate in a “permanent loss of integration.”

On migration, Professor Portes offers an especially illuminating account of Brexit’s unintended consequences. Rather than simply reducing immigration, Brexit reconfigured it, replacing free movement from within the EU with larger-than-expected inflows from outside it. That outcome, he suggests, exposed a contradiction at the heart of the Leave campaign: the demand for both lower migration and greater economic flexibility under national control. More broadly, the interview shows how the promise of sovereignty often failed to produce meaningful control in practice. As Professor Portes cautions, sovereignty “in the abstract legal and political sense does not necessarily translate into having control.”

Taken together, Professor Portes’s reflections offer a penetrating assessment of Brexit not as a completed nationalist correction, but as a prolonged and costly reconfiguration of Britain’s political economy. His analysis challenges triumphalist narratives from both the sovereigntist and populist right, while posing deeper questions about the limits of national autonomy in an interdependent world.

Here is the edited version of our interview with Professor Jonathan Portes, revised slightly to improve clarity and flow.

Brexit Has Intensified, Not Resolved, Structural Economic Pressures

A Brexit Day ‘Independence’ parade was held at Whitehall and on Parliament Square in London to celebrate the UK leaving the European Union on January 31, 2020.

Professor Portes, welcome. You have been among the most careful and empirically grounded observers of Brexit’s economic and political consequences over the past decade. As we approach the ten-year mark since the 2016 referendum, how would you characterize the overall trajectory of the UK economy and policy landscape under Brexit? What stands out most when you step back and take a long view?

Professor Jonathan Portes: I think what stands out most, perhaps, is that the UK still confronts the same fundamental problems it did 10 years ago. The UK remains very much a middle-sized, advanced Western European economy, with many of the same issues and problems as other such economies. The difference, however, is that Brexit was, in some ways, touted as a means for the UK to escape some of those problems, issues, and constraints relating to globalization, immigration, and economic stagnation since 2008, as well as a range of political problems within the UK that arose from those economic challenges.

But rather than solving those problems, as Brexit was presented as doing by some of its proponents, it has probably made them worse. This is partly because it led, obviously, to a period of political chaos in the UK. Even after that, and despite a degree of relative stability being restored, it has possibly caused some damage to the UK’s political institutions. At the same time, rather than resolving any of these political economy problems, it has arguably exacerbated them.

In other words, the difficulties of managing globalization and its impacts were already very apparent when the UK was a member of the EU. They manifested themselves partly through EU membership and partly outside it. However, outside the EU, these difficulties have become even starker. Rather than being resolved by Brexit, as was hoped, they have become more visible and more difficult. This is partly due to the structural contradiction of Brexit itself. It is also, of course, partly the result of global developments since then—most notably the election of Trump—which have made the UK’s position outside the EU more difficult for fairly obvious reasons.

Growth, Trade, and Investment Have Weakened as Expected

Much of your work highlights the gap between political expectations and economic outcomes—particularly in areas like growth, trade, and migration. Looking across the evidence now available, how should we understand the real costs of Brexit compared to what was anticipated or promised at the time?

Professor Jonathan Portes: Of course, politicians on both sides said a lot about Brexit. In terms of the economic impacts of Brexit on things like growth, trade, and investment, this is one area where we economists can actually be rather pleased with ourselves. Economic forecasts rarely turn out to be accurate, and of course there is still quite a lot of debate about the precise impacts of Brexit. But we now have a wide range of economic evidence on the impact on growth, trade, and investment, and it is pretty much entirely consistent with the mainstream economic consensus that I and others formed part of, before Brexit: that Brexit would not be a complete catastrophe for the UK economy, but it would do significant and material long-term damage to our economic prospects by reducing growth, productivity growth, trade, and investment. And all of those have been fairly clearly borne out.

The interesting difference is on migration, where both I and others thought that Brexit would reduce migration through the free movement channel within the EU, which would only be partly offset by increased inflows from outside the EU. In fact, it has turned out that the direction for both of those numbers has been correct. But the relative magnitudes were wrong, and the increase in migration from outside the EU has more than offset the reduction in flows within the EU. As a result, the UK population and labor force are actually larger than they would have been without Brexit, not smaller. That provides, not a small, offset to the negative impacts of Brexit, although it has also generated a great deal of political backlash. From an economic point of view, however, this is a positive—though certainly not by anywhere near enough to offset the negative impacts of Brexit on trade and investment.

Trade Took the Hardest Hit, While Services Showed Resilience

If we think of Brexit as a large, multi-dimensional economic shock, where do you see its most significant and lasting effects—across trade, investment, labor markets, and productivity—and which of these have proven more resilient than many expected?

Professor Jonathan Portes: The biggest persistent shock has been to trade, particularly trade in goods. The UK did quite well out of EU membership in terms of being integrated into pan-European and hence pan-global supply chains for goods. We have seen that small and medium-sized exporters benefited from being able to export to the EU without regulation or red tape. And, of course, British consumers benefited from frictionless imports from within the EU. None of that has disappeared completely—you still have trade under the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, and the EU remains by far our largest trading partner. But nonetheless, there has been a significant impact, particularly for those manufacturers integrated into global supply chains, who have faced increased costs as a result, and also for some of those small and medium-sized businesses that benefited from frictionless trade within the single market.

On the more resilient side, there has also been some damage to the financial services sector, which, of course, was a major issue in the run-up to Brexit. Again, the UK’s financial services sector is large and resilient, and London remains by far the largest financial center in Europe, but it is nonetheless somewhat smaller than it would have been without Brexit. There has been some damage there, but the sector is not going anywhere and will continue to be an important part of the UK economy.

There has been more resilience in other areas of the high-productivity tradable services sector—things like consultancy, legal services, and accountancy—where trade barriers were never that large, because there are no tariffs and there is less in the way of regulation than in financial services. Hence, the UK has actually done pretty well; it has not just been resilient but has also seen very fast growth in those sectors. This has helped preserve the overall picture and means that the economic impacts have not been as clear, as severe, or as visible as they might have been, as some people at one end of the spectrum feared.

And then on the labor market, there was considerable concern that the end of free movement would do quite a bit of damage to sectors that relied on European migration. While migration from outside the EU is not a perfect substitute—because it involves different types of people in different sectors with different skills and so on— overall, the rather large increase in non-EU migration has done a lot to cushion the UK labor market and sectors that are dependent on migrant labor from what the impacts would otherwise have been. So, it has been a mixed picture.

Short-Term Adjustment, Long-Term Disintegration

Brexit.
Photo: Dreamstime.

There is now substantial evidence that UK trade with the EU has underperformed relative to its pre-Brexit trajectory, alongside signs of weakened investment. How should we interpret these developments in structural terms—do they reflect a permanent loss of integration, or an ongoing process of economic adaptation?

Professor Jonathan Portes: I think the answer is, in some ways, both. It is an ongoing process of adaptation that, eventually, leads to a permanent loss of integration, assuming that the new situation continues as it is. Of course, because this has done significant damage to the UK economy, both politicians and the public are now trying to think of ways to reverse that damage, at least in part. So, we do not know exactly where we will be in five or ten years. But if the current status quo continues, then you have, as you suggest, a process of adaptation that has partly happened but still has some way to run, leading to a permanent loss of integration.

On the other hand, as I said, there are now active discussions acknowledging that this is a bad outcome—recognized as such from an economic perspective by the UK public and policy establishment—and efforts are being made to think of ways to reverse it, at least to some extent.

Migration Fell from the EU, Rose from Elsewhere

Your research shows that Brexit fundamentally reshaped the composition of migration rather than reducing it overall, with declines in EU-origin workers offset by increases from non-EU countries. How should we interpret this outcome in relation to the central political promise of “taking back control”?

Professor Jonathan Portes: This is absolutely fascinating, because there was a very large implicit contradiction in some of the arguments made by pro-Brexit campaigners, which sought to present it both as a way of substantially reducing immigration overall and, by taking back control, ensuring that migration policy would be tailored to the needs of the UK economy or labor market, rather than dictated by EU rules.

But it turned out that, particularly at the time of Brexit and in the aftermath of the pandemic, the interpretation of the then-government—which was the government that delivered Brexit—was that what the UK economy needed was a significant increase in migration, and that is what we got. So, you had people within the Brexit movement saying, “We have been betrayed, immigration is going up,” and others saying, “No, we have control—yes, immigration is going up, but it is immigration that is entirely under our control and dictated by the needs of the UK economy and labor market.”

That contradiction was always implicit in some of the claims made by Brexit proponents at the time of the referendum, when it was never entirely clear whether they were making a concrete pledge to reduce immigration or not. But nobody, certainly not me, expected that contradiction to become so obvious and so large as it did in the post-pandemic period, because of the significant labor shortages that emerged post-Brexit and post-pandemic in the UK, and, to some extent, in other countries as well. 

The result is that the UK political system has not really been able to cope with this. It has done a great deal of damage to the Conservative Party and has been one of the significant factors behind the rise of the Reform Party, contributing to divisions within the Conservative Party. Despite the fact that the Labour Party opposed Brexit but is now having to manage this new post-Brexit immigration system, it is also leading to very severe tensions within the Labour Party and the current government between those who believe that immigration needs to be reduced regardless of the needs of the economy, and those who, for economic or broader political reasons, think that, on the whole, a relatively liberal and open immigration system is a good thing.

Migration Policy Reveals the Limits of Political Steering

In your analysis, the UK has moved from a largely automatic free-movement regime to a highly managed, points-based system—yet with outcomes still strongly shaped by labor demand and external shocks. Does this suggest limits to how far governments can actually steer migration and labor markets?

Professor Jonathan Portes: It illustrates the difficulties and contradictions in having control. One of the perceived disadvantages, from a political point of view, of free movement was that we could not say who could come. People would simply come and go as they wished, and we had no control over that because of EU rules. But the upside, of course, was that this had two advantages. From an economic perspective, it meant that these flows were, to a significant extent, determined by the market. Labor demand led to people coming in, a weak labor market led to people leaving, and these things happened more or less automatically. From an economic perspective, that, on the whole, is a good thing.

But the second advantage was political, and I think people did not fully appreciate it. Governments could largely sit back and say, “well, these are market decisions, and we do not have the remit to interfere with them,” so migration could be somewhat removed from the political process. The disadvantage of the current system, as it has turned out, is that having control means there is a great deal of political pressure on governments to do something about migration, regardless of whether it is actually a problem in economic terms.

That leads to sharp swings in policy, and often, as we are seeing at the moment, swings that are somewhat counter cyclical. This reflects an old problem that we used to discuss as macroeconomists with demand management through fiscal policy in a Keynesian framework: in principle, it is good to cut taxes when the economy is weak and increase taxes when the economy is strong. But in practice, because governments react slowly and economic data comes through with delays, it often turns out that policies are implemented at the wrong time—by the time you cut taxes, the economy is already recovering, or by the time you raise taxes, the economy is already weakening.

We seem to be seeing something similar with migration. The government was panicked by the large rise in migration in 2022 and 2023 and has now put in place very draconian measures to reduce migration at exactly the time when migration to the UK was already falling very sharply. That is a very bad way of making policy. We have control—this is all entirely under government control—but we have ended up with policy where that control is being exercised in a way that is quite damaging economically and does not really convince the public that we actually have control. To the public, it looks as though the government is just flailing around and does not really know what it is doing. To be honest, they are not wrong about that.

Mismanaged Migration Policy Fuels Shortages and Bottlenecks

Air Travellers Proceed to Passport Control at a British Airport. Photo: Dreamstime.

You have described post-Brexit migration patterns as producing “unintended consequences,” particularly in terms of scale and sectoral distribution. To what extent do these dynamics help explain persistent labor shortages, sectoral imbalances, and broader economic bottlenecks?

Professor Jonathan Portes: I think it goes back to what I just said, which is that, as in many other things, a relatively free market is the worst possible way of managing the matching of supply and demand, except for all the other ways of doing it. So, when you have a government that is trying, in some way, to use the migration system to match supply and demand and is also doing so in an environment where it faces all these political constraints, real or imagined, it ends up getting things wrong.

Partly this is because you simply cannot manage an economy or a labor market in that way, and partly it is due to politics. Once you have said you are in control, and that everything is under control, you face pressure to make policy changes that are not necessarily justified by anything in particular, except perceived political pressures. As a result, the government ends up getting a number of things wrong.

This has been particularly evident in the health and care sector, where the government liberalized probably too much, too quickly, in a way that did not take account of the dynamics of the immigration system or the labor market, and has now tightened up too much, too quickly, again without taking those dynamics into account, or considering how the labor market works or its own role in shaping pay and conditions in this workforce.

The result is both poor policymaking and poor political outcomes—shortages, bottlenecks, and broader imbalances. It also causes significant harm to individuals caught up in this system, including migrants, who can find the rug pulled out from under them and are sometimes treated very badly, both by their employers and by the government, as well as the people who depend on care—the consumers of these services—who ultimately should be our primary concern.

Widespread Impact Undermines Claims of Uneven Gains

Brexit’s economic consequences have not been evenly distributed. How important are these distributional effects—for workers, firms, and regions—in shaping both the economic outcomes and the political sustainability of Brexit?

Professor Jonathan Portes: In one sense, there has been a great deal of work on the regional impacts of Brexit, and I am not sure it has demonstrated that they are as differential as one might expect. You can, of course, point to very specific examples, such as the loss of European regional funding in some disadvantaged areas. There has also been a particularly negative impact on parts of the food and agriculture sector. I mentioned the City of London and the financial services sector, but overall, the impact has been quite diffuse across the economy as a whole.

So, you can point to individuals or particular businesses that have been put out of business by Brexit, and there are people who are especially dependent on certain sectors. But beyond that, there has mostly been a general pattern of lower growth, lower trade, and lower investment, affecting pretty much the entire UK economy to a greater or lesser extent.

You can see that in the opinion polling. The view that Brexit has been an economic failure is very widely shared across UK society. It is very hard to find a section or interest group that says Brexit was great for them, even if it was bad for others. Rather, there is a broad consensus that, from an economic point of view, Brexit has been a failure across the board. So, while you can identify individuals or businesses that have suffered much more than someone like me, for the most part it has been a broadly shared, generalized negative impact.

Formal Sovereignty Cannot Override Economic Realities

Your work suggests that while Brexit restored formal policy autonomy, outcomes have remained difficult to control in practice. Does this point to a deeper structural tension between political sovereignty and economic interdependence in advanced economies?

Professor Jonathan Portes: Yes, and I think that goes back to what I was saying before. You may or may not have thought it was plausible for the UK to argue, in 2016, that as a middle-sized, advanced economy—like other European countries—dependent on global trade and investment, there were nonetheless various structural, political, and economic reasons why it should not be part of the EU. Partly political—we have a different political tradition—and partly structural and economic. We are much more dependent on services trade, particularly high-value services, and while we are economically integrated with the EU, it is not to the same extent as countries like Germany or France. So, the UK could, and should, for this combination of reasons, be independent, make its own trade policy, and make its own, to some extent, foreign policy, retain close economic links with the EU, but not subordinate its political, economic, or trade decision-making to the EU. And we could make a success of it as a global economy, just as some other countries—whether Singapore or Australia, or to some extent Switzerland—have done. That case was always flawed, and most economists thought it was flawed, but it was not obviously unreasonable.

But it is now pretty clear that geopolitical developments over the last ten years have been very unfavorable to that strategy. It is much easier to pursue such a strategy when there is a benign, liberal hegemon—or perhaps two hegemonic powers, the US and China—both with a strong interest in a stable, liberal international trading order that accommodates countries in the position I have just described. You can argue about what might have happened without Trump. I think it is plausible that even without Trump, we would have been moving, to some extent, in the direction we are already going, which would have made that strategy increasingly implausible. But it is clear that Trump has accelerated this trajectory, to the point where that strategy now looks unrealistic.

That is where we are now, unfortunately. Even if Trump himself were reversed, it is very hard to see a return to the sort of benign, liberal international trading order I described—one in which a middle-sized power like the UK can comfortably pursue an independent path while still participating fully in global trade.

Brexit Reconfigures Long-Standing Migration Debates

In your work on free movement and the UK, you situate Brexit within a longer trajectory of labor mobility and political contestation. From that perspective, does Brexit represent a rupture, or a reconfiguration of deeper structural tensions within the British political economy?

Professor Jonathan Portes: It is very much the latter. Immigration—both its political, economic, and social consequences—has been an issue in British politics that has gone up and down in prominence for a very long time, certainly in the post-war era, from the mid-1950s to now, over the last 70 years. Brexit has clearly changed things. It has changed the system, as we have just discussed, and it has changed the environment. But many of the issues being contested now are very much the same as those that were contested in the 1960s, in the Powell era, were contested again in the 2000s immediately after enlargement, and are being contested today.

These include questions such as: to what extent is the UK—like other European countries, albeit in a different context—a country shaped by migration? What is the role of migration in a modern economy and labor market? What is its role given the demographic challenges and ageing that all our countries face? And what are the implications of migration for a country’s national and cultural identity?

We are not, for the most part, countries of immigration in the same way as the US, but equally, certainly in the UK—and in most of Europe—we are no longer monocultural or ethnically homogeneous societies either. Those who seek to take us back to that are very dangerous. So, the question becomes: what is the model of a multi-ethnic European democracy? That is something we are all struggling with. The UK was struggling with it before Brexit, and it is struggling with it now.

Brexit Pushed the Far Right Toward a European Strategy

Brexit was widely seen as a landmark moment for populist and sovereigntist politics, including the rise of far right and populist radical right mobilization around migration and national control. Looking back, how do you assess the relationship between Brexit and these broader political currents—both at the time and in their evolution over the past decade?

Professor Jonathan Portes: It has been quite interesting in that Brexit has, in a sense, forced European far-right movements to reconfigure their offer. What most of them seem to have recognized is that Brexit is neither a success nor is it perceived as a success, either domestically in the UK or in their own countries. So, you have far-right movements that were, at the time and immediately afterwards, flirting with their own ideas of exit from the European Union, but have now reconfigured themselves to retain the same focus on migration issues while embedding those concerns within a European frame rather than a purely domestic one.

This has, if anything, been bolstered by what we see from across the Atlantic, with figures such as J.D. Vance talking about European culture or European Christian values, rather than Italian or French values. So, you have this form of ethnically based, anti-immigrant nationalism that has, in a sense, shifted toward a European-level identity, alongside a domestic one.

In that respect, these movements have been, whether one likes it or not, quite effective in adapting. When you look at figures like Le Pen and Meloni, they have pivoted away from overt anti-Europeanism toward a form of European white nationalism.

Populist Right Is Here to Stay—but Its Shape Is Uncertain

Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party UKIP. Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party, speaking at Chatham House in London on March 31, 2014. Photo: Dominic Dudley / Dreamstim.

In the same context, how do you interpret the continued prominence of Nigel Farage and the rise of Reform UK within the UK’s political landscape? Does their trajectory suggest that Brexit has consolidated a durable populist radical right (PRR) and far-right constituency, or are we witnessing a more fluid and contingent phase of political realignment?

Professor Jonathan Portes: I hesitate to make predictions on this. But the obvious answer is a bit of both. The presence of Farage and the populist right in the UK is now well established; it is no longer a flash in the pan. We now have some years of it, so I think it is not going away. But how the current political shake-up in the UK plays out is very difficult to assess.

Structurally, our political system is configured around a two or two-and-a-half-party system. We have a roughly 50–50 division between right and left blocs, with a group of voters in the middle who are willing to support either side on occasion. That is a reasonably stable political configuration. But when you have four or five parties, the system becomes much more unstable, especially when these cleavages cut across both economic and socio-cultural dimensions.

It is not clear that the current first-past-the-post system is well suited to this new context. Whatever one thinks in the abstract about first-past-the-post versus different forms of proportional representation, the dynamics look very different in a two or two-and-a-half-party system than in a four or five-party system, where instability increases significantly.

So, it is very unclear how this will shake out. Populism—and in particular far-right populism—is certainly not going away in the UK. But how it will reconfigure the right of the UK political spectrum, and to what extent the more traditional conservative right, which still has a constituency in the UK, can reassert itself and regain control, remains very uncertain at the moment.

Economic Reality Challenges Populist Narratives

To what extent do the economic and migration outcomes of Brexit challenge or reinforce the core claims of populist narratives about globalization, elites, and national sovereignty?

Professor Jonathan Portes: As discussed, they illustrate some of the limitations of national sovereignty and the fact that sovereignty in the abstract legal and political sense does not necessarily translate into having control. There is a fundamental issue here: people felt that they wanted more control over their lives, and Brexit was sold to them as a way of achieving that, yet they certainly do not feel that this has been delivered. That is a fundamental problem.

It is also a fundamental problem for politicians, because it is very difficult to explain to people that, on the one hand, politicians need to demonstrate concretely that they have given people back some control over their lives, while on the other hand they must also be honest about the fact that there are areas where national governments simply cannot exercise control and must be realistic about those limits.

We are seeing this right now with oil and gas prices. The UK government cannot stop global oil and gas prices from rising. At some point, politicians have to be honest and say that we can try to protect the most vulnerable households and mitigate the impact of this economic shock, but it remains an economic shock, and that means the country as a whole is poorer, and we have to live with that.

Populists Shift Strategy as Exit Loses Appeal

Finally, for other sovereigntist or “exit” movements across Europe that have looked to Brexit as a model, what lessons—economic, political, or institutional—should be drawn from the UK’s experience over the past decade?

Professor Jonathan Portes: As I said, populists have correctly learned that Brexit, or its equivalent, is largely going to be a political loser, and they have pivoted away from that. They have shifted towards a more pan-European, ethnically based opposition to immigration—a form of pan-European white nationalism that mirrors some of what is going on in the US at the moment. To some extent, they have done this quite successfully in countries such as France and Italy.

To my mind, the challenge is for those of us who are not part of these movements and do not want to see them succeed: what is the narrative—economic, political, and cultural—that we use to push back against this and say that this is not the sort of Europe we want? The kind of Europe we seek to build is not one that will be economically successful, nor one that most people would want to live in. That is the challenge, and frankly, I do not think we have met it yet.

Peter Magyar, a popular opposition politician of celebrity status meeting the press at the site of a soccer arena and miniature train station in Viktor Orban's village in Felcsut, Hungary. on May 24, 2024. Photo: Blue Corner Studio.

Dismantling an Embedded Autocracy

by CommentariesEditor’s ChoiceEuropean ObservatoryHome

In this timely and analytically rich commentary, Associate Professor Attila Antal examines the aftermath of Viktor Orbán’s electoral defeat and the formidable challenge of dismantling an entrenched authoritarian system. Moving beyond the electoral outcome, Assoc. Prof. Antal argues that the core question is whether Hungary is witnessing a mere сhange of government or a deeper regime transformation. He identifies three interrelated arenas—propaganda and moral panic, institutionalized autocracy, and transnational authoritarian networks—as central to this process. The analysis underscores that while electoral victory is decisive, it is insufficient on its own: the durability of Orbánism lies in its embedded structures. The piece ultimately frames Hungary as a critical test case for democratic resilience and the possibility of reversing authoritarian consolidation within the European Union.

By Attila Antal

The Orbán government, which had been in power since 2010, was defeated in the 2026 Hungarian parliamentary elections. The Tisza Party, which formed a united opposition, will in all likelihood hold a two-thirds, i.e., constitutional, majority in the National Assembly. The most important question for the coming period is whether this strong mandate will be sufficient to dismantle an institutionalized authoritarian regime.

The election resulted in a landslide victory for the opposition, and although final/official results are not yet available and recounts are still underway (98.94% of votes have been tallied), the current results show that Hungarian society has risen up against the Orbán government: the ruling parties’ list received 2,375,468 votes (39.53% of the votes cast), the Tisza Party received 3,128,859 votes, representing 52.1% of the total, and the far-right Mi Hazánk party will also enter parliament with 343,684 votes (5.74% of the total).

All this means that currently (as of April 15, 2026), with 137 members (having won 93 individual districts and 44 seats on the party list), the Tisza Party is the largest faction in the 199-member Hungarian parliament, while the former ruling party, Fidesz-KDNP, received a dramatically small 56 seats (the collapse of the ruling parties occurred at the level of individual constituencies, where they managed to win 14 seats, accompanied by 43 list seats), and the far-right Mi Hazánk party received 6 seats from the party list.

The collapse of the Orbán government was thus caused, on the one hand, by the radical loss of individual constituencies (traditional rural constituencies belonging to Fidesz were lost to the Tisza Party, where non-Orbánist candidates had previously almost never won), and this was compounded by the record-high voter turnout, which can be interpreted within the context of the mood for systemic change: 5,988,778 people cast their votes, representing 79.56% of eligible voters.

In my view, the fact that the authoritarian Orbán government could be removed through an election does not negate the regime’s authoritarian nature, and only time will tell whether what has occurred is merely a change of government or a change of regime. However, despite its very significant mandate, the Tisza Party will have a very difficult task dismantling the remnants of the authoritarian Orbán regime. In what follows, I will examine this from three perspectives: Orbán’s politics of hatred, the institutionalization of autocracy, and the international network of autocracies.

Dealing with the Hatred and Moral Panic Generated by the Orbán Regime

One of the most important challenges in dismantling the authoritarian regime is dismantling the Orbán propaganda machine, which has been a fundamental pillar of Orbán’s power politics since 2010. This culminated in the 2026 campaign, in which the Orbán regime effectively functioned as a tool of Putin’s propaganda.

Starting in 2015, the fabrication of enemy stereotypes was continuous: refugees and immigrants, NGOs and civil society, the EU and Brussels, domestic political opponents, George Soros and his institutions. From 2022 onward, however, the Orbán regime was increasingly defined by overt Putinist hate-mongering and daily moral panic.

All of this led to President Zelenskyy becoming the greatest enemy in the 2026 campaign, with Hungarian propagandists portraying the Tisza Party as if it represented no Hungarian interests whatsoever and served Ukrainian and Brussels interests. The main message was that if the opposition came to power, Hungary would be dragged into the war—in other words, only Orbán could prevent the worst from happening.

All of this had a devastating effect on Hungarian public discourse, and the lies and hatred propagated became unbearable for Hungarian society. Orbán sought to make people believe that he wanted to avoid war, but in reality, from a communicative and ideological standpoint, he had long since entered it—on Putin’s side.

All of this was further underscored by the fact that, in the final stretch of the campaign, unprecedented leaks began to emerge from Western intelligence agencies via the independent Hungarian press. These confirmed that the Orbán regime had committed itself, at the highest levels (including the foreign minister), to representing Russian interests and had attempted to use the Hungarian police and intelligence services to undermine the Tisza Party.

These leaks played a key role in preventing the Orbán regime—which presumably cooperates continuously with the Russians—from successfully carrying out any gray-zone operations, while also reinforcing the Hungarian opposition’s belief that the Orbán regime had committed treason.

It has thus become clear that the Orbán regime is capable of stoking hatred to the extreme, and addressing this both socially and institutionally must be a key task for the next government. Maintaining the remnants of Orbán’s autocracy and failing to hold those responsible to account will create a situation that could pave the way for the next authoritarian backlash.

Dismantling the Institutional and Political Foundations of the Authoritarian Regime

There is no doubt that the next government’s second-biggest challenge will be dismantling the institutionalized autocracy—a task that will not be easy for the new government, even with a supermajority to amend the constitution. For this reason, Péter Magyar called on the most important public officials of the Orbán regime to resign on election night, even though they have so far indicated that they will not step down.

A key issue for the new democracy and constitutional order to be built is the neutralization of the remnants of the Orbán regime embedded in the public and political system. A related question is how the new government will act to ensure accountability and whether it will find a way to reclaim the assets that the oligarchs of the Orbán regime have stashed away in private capital funds.

All of this has significance beyond itself, since it is precisely the nature of law in authoritarian systems to declare solutions and matters that are unacceptable from a democratic perspective to be legal; however, this seriously jeopardizes both the functioning of democracy and the constitutional norms intended to be institutionalized.

The Collapse of Orbán’s Regime in the Context of the International Authoritarian Right

Not only did the Orbán regime collapse unexpectedly in a political sense, but so too did the international authoritarian right-wing structure that Orbán had sought to build. It proved to be a significant sign that, on April 5, 2026, explosives were found on the Serbian section of the Turkish Stream gas pipeline, and although Orbán’s propaganda tried to use this against the Ukrainians in line with the campaign, President Vučić surprisingly did not prove to be a partner in supporting Orbán.

Just before the election, on April 7, US Vice President J.D. Vance visited Hungary—a visit in which the government had placed enormous hopes. Vance had already stated at that time that the US would cooperate with a new government, and after the election, he remarked that Orbán’s defeat “did not surprise” him.

The most surprising development, however, was that the Kremlin quickly let go of Orbán’s hand (at least on the surface). Orbán, who had represented Russian interests to the very end, was met with a remark from Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, who stated, “we were never friends,” adding that they were satisfied that Hungary remained open to pragmatic cooperation.

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The Hungarian opposition’s victory over the Orbán regime could therefore serve as an important lesson in several respects for the European Union and, more broadly, for authoritarian political regimes. On the one hand, it is a significant lesson that illiberal authoritarian regimes operating under one-party hegemony can be defeated through elections; however, the international political environment and the cooperation that supports the opposition through political and other means can play an important and indispensable role in this (as was the case with the Western and Central and Eastern European forces supporting the Tisza Party).

Through the Orbán regime’s constant vetoing, its incitement of hatred against Ukraine, and its representation of Putinist interests within the EU, it has essentially provoked a form of international and Hungarian cooperation that can rightly be described as the first manifestation of a cross-border “militant democracy” within the EU.

The coming period will determine whether the success of the April 2026 election will bring about merely a change of government or something more: the removal of an embedded authoritarian regime. For this to happen, the new Hungarian government and the EU must work together to dismantle the remnants of the Orbán regime; this could deal a decisive blow to the international authoritarian right.