Panel V of the ECPS Conference 2025, “Governing the ‘People’: Divided Nations,” held on July 2 at St Cross College, University of Oxford, explored how contested constructions of “the people” are shaped by populist discourse across national, religious, and ideological contexts. Co-chaired by Dr. Leila Alieva and Professor Karen Horn, the session featured presentations by Natalie Schwabl (Sorbonne University), Dr. Sarah Riccardi-Swartz (Northeastern University), and Petar S. Ćurčić (Institute of European Studies, Belgrade). The panel examined Catholic nationalism in Croatia, American Christian ethno-populism, and the evolving German left, offering sharp insights into the manipulation of collective identity and memory in populist projects. Bridging multiple regions and disciplines, the panel revealed populism’s capacity to reframe belonging in deeply exclusionary and globally resonant ways.
Reported by ECPS Staff
Panel V of the ECPS Conference 2025, titled Governing the ‘People’: Divided Nations, convened on July 2, 2025 at St Cross College, Oxford, under the overarching theme of “We, the People” and the Future of Democracy: Interdisciplinary Approaches. This intellectually charged session examined the fractured and contested constructions of “the people” across varied historical, cultural, and political contexts, focusing particularly on how populist discourse navigates religious identity, memory politics, and socio-political polarization.
Co-chaired by Dr. Leila Alieva (Associate Researcher, Russian and East European Studies, Oxford School of Global and Area Studies) and Professor Karen Horn (Professor of Economic Thought, University of Erfurt), the session benefitted from their combined expertise in post-Soviet transformation, democratic theory, and political economy. Dr. Alieva welcomed the audience by underlining the significance of case-driven approaches to dissecting populism’s conceptual ambiguity and real-world diversity.
The panel featured three analytically rigorous and empirically rich presentations. Natalie Schwabl (Sorbonne University) opened with a diachronic analysis of Catholic nationalism in Croatia, demonstrating how the term Hrvatski narod has been sacralized, politicized, and manipulated by state and ecclesiastical actors from the Ustaša period through post-socialist independence. Sarah Riccardi-Swartz (Northeastern University) followed with a provocative ethnographic account of American far-right Christian nationalism, highlighting transnational alignments between U.S. Orthodox converts and Russian illiberalism. Finally, Petar S. Ćurčić (Institute of European Studies, Belgrade) offered a comparative analysis of Die Linke and the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance in Germany, interrogating whether a coherent form of left-wing populism is still viable amid competing ideological pressures and electoral challenges.
Under the guidance of the co-chairs, the session provided a vibrant space for critical reflection and scholarly dialogue. The panel’s breadth of focus—from Southeastern Europe to the US and Germany—underscored the global entanglements of populist discourse and the enduring power of identity politics in shaping both democratic crisis and populist resurgence.
Here is the report of Panel V of the ECPS Conference 2025.
