Nikola Ilić

Nikola Ilić is a Junior Researcher and Teaching Fellow at the Faculty of Political Science, University of Belgrade. He teaches the course Contemporary Political Theory and pursues a PhD in Politics. His research focuses on the relationship between populism, the discursive construction of “the people,” and the rise of the populist radical right, with particular attention to the question of the working class realignment with right-wing populism in contemporary democracies.

He obtained his BA (2022) and MA (2023) degrees in Political Science from the University of Belgrade. His master’s thesis, The Populist Challenge in Democracy Theories, explored how populism can be reinterpreted within democratic thought rather than dismissed as a threat to it.

Nikola’s recent work has been presented at international conferences such as the 18th and 19th Annual Conferences of the Serbian Political Science Association (SPSA), the Symposium on Civilizational Populism held in Warsaw (2025), and the Perspectives of Political Science in Contemporary Society. His publications include the chapter “Research approaches in the study of populism and reexamination of the concept – critique of the ideational approach from the perspective of the discursive-theoretical approach” (2025), which addresses conceptual and methodological challenges in populism research.

He has also been active in programs fostering democratic participation and civic learning, including the BOLD Fellowship on Civic Engagement (University of Nebraska Omaha, 2024) and the ECPS Academy Summer School on Populism and Climate Change (2025). Beyond his research, Nikola has facilitated deliberative forums and lectured in the extra-curricular course Democracy: from theory to practice, dedicated to civic engagement, democracy, and human rights.