Session 7 of the ECPS Virtual Workshop Series offered a compelling interdisciplinary examination of how contemporary populism unsettles the foundations of democratic representation. Bringing together insights from digital politics, the history of political thought, and critical social theory, the session illuminated the multiple arenas—affective, constitutional, and epistemic—through which representation is being reconfigured. Dr. Gabriel Bayarri Toscano revealed how memetic communication and generative AI reshape political identities and moral boundaries within far-right movements. Maria Giorgia Caraceni traced these dynamics to enduring tensions within the conceptual history of popular sovereignty, while Elif Başak Ürdem demonstrated how neoliberal meritocracy generates misrecognition and drives grievances toward populist articulation. Collectively, the session highlighted the necessity of integrated, cross-disciplinary approaches for understanding the evolving crisis of democratic representation.
Reported by ECPS Staff
On November 27, 2025, the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS) convened Session 7 of its Virtual Workshop Series, “We, the People” and the Future of Democracy: Interdisciplinary Approaches. This session, titled “Rethinking Representation in an Age of Populism,” assembled an interdisciplinary group of scholars to interrogate the shifting boundaries of political representation in an era defined by populist appeals, democratic fragmentation, and technological transformation. The workshop opened with a brief orientation by ECPS intern Reka Koleszar, who welcomed participants, provided technical guidance, and formally introduced the moderator, presenters, and discussant on behalf of ECPS, ensuring a smooth and well-structured beginning to the session.
Under the steady and incisive moderation of Dr. Christopher N. Magno (Associate Professor at Department of Justice Studies and Human Services, Gannon University), the session unfolded as a robust intellectual engagement with the crises and possibilities surrounding contemporary democratic representation. Dr. Magno framed the event by situating today’s populist moment within broader transformations affecting democratic institutions, public trust, and communicative infrastructures. Emphasizing that representation must be understood not only institutionally but also symbolically and epistemically, he set the stage for the three presentations, each of which approached the problem of representation from a distinct but complementary angle.
The first presentation, delivered by Dr. Gabriel Bayarri Toscano (Assistant Professor, Department of Audiovisual Communication, Rey Juan Carlos University), examined how memes, short-form videos, and AI-generated images operate as potent vehicles of populist discourse. His talk demonstrated how digital visual cultures simplify complex ideological battles, construct moralized identities, and normalize hostility—revealing the emotional and aesthetic foundations of far-right mobilization in Latin America. By mapping differences in memetic ecosystems across Argentina, Brazil, and El Salvador, Dr. Bayarri illuminated how digital artifacts reshape political communication and reconfigure the representational field.
Next, Maria Giorgia Caraceni (PhD Candidate in the History of Political Thought, Guglielmo Marconi University of Rome; and Researcher at the Institute of Political Studies San Pio V) offered a long-term conceptual genealogy of popular sovereignty, tracing contemporary populism to the enduring tension between monist and pluralist understandings of “the people.” Through a reconstruction of Rousseauian and Madisonian frameworks, Caraceni argued that the conflict between unfettered majority rule and constitutional constraints is not a modern anomaly but a persistent structural dilemma within democratic theory—one that populism reactivates with renewed force.
The final presentation, by Elif Başak Ürdem (PhD candidate in political science at Loughborough University), analyzed populism as a political response to the failures of neoliberal meritocracy. Introducing the concept of epistemic misrecognition, Ürdem argued that meritocratic regimes undermine democratic parity by devaluing non-credentialed forms of knowledge, generating status injury, and closing off channels of political voice. Her synthesis of Nancy Fraser’s tripartite justice framework and Ernesto Laclau’s theory of political articulation offered a novel explanation for why unaddressed grievances increasingly channel into populist mobilization.
The session concluded with deeply engaged feedback given by Dr. Sanne van Oosten (Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Oxford), whose discussant reflections synthesized the thematic intersections among the papers while posing incisive questions that broadened the theoretical and comparative horizons of the workshop.
