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MORE THAN THREE decades ago, Nathan Hatch published The Democratization of American Christianity, a history of the Second Great Awakening, arguably the most important religious episode in American history. At [...]

The aim of this article is to review the role that emotions play in populism, specifically ressentiment, and how it is strategically used on social media platforms to create polarization. Firstly, I define the two of the main characteristics that populism has had over time: the agonistic struggle between a people and an elite, and charismatic leadership. Secondly, I examine the significance of resentment as a political emotion and how it operates in extreme right-wing populism. Thirdly, I review how resentment has been applied in the context of social media and how these platforms offer the most effective means to generate social mobilization based on emotions through storytelling, which can anticipate the reactions of the public or users. Keywords: populism, social media, emotions, ressentiment, mobilization, Introduction: populism as agonistic dynamic and charismatic leadership Populism has emerged as one of the primary contemporary political phenomena. Consequently, there has been a significant increase in academic research on [...]

Populists’ ideological opposition to global governance is well recognized, yet whether and how these actors systematically undermine international organizations (IOs) remains unclear. We argue that a keymeans by which populists warp global governance is by distorting scientific information, which is necessary for global responses to many public health and environmental issues. Populists are motivated to withhold or misreport scientific information due to their anti-elite, pro-state sovereignty views. Using new data on the source and quality of information provided to IOs, we find that populist leaders are significantly less likely to provide scientific information to these organizations than other types of leaders. When they do offer such data, it is less accurate than the information supplied by other sources. Our findings suggest that populism may stymie international institutions’ ability to govern in areas of pressing international concern.

This research explores Chinese netizens’ response to Russia-Ukraine war narratives on Chinese social media, and how online populism affects the reception of war narratives. Taking a comparative perspective, it examines the mechanisms and reasons behind the dynamics in the Chinese social media users’ comments (N = 30261) toward Russian and Ukrainian Weibo posts (N = 124). With the help of the natural language processing (NLP) approach, the article highlights populism as a significant characteristic among comments on these war narratives, emphasizing the role of ideological influences in shaping public perception of geopolitical events. While Russia’s narrative initially garnered support, its popularity waned over time due to the heterogeneous nature of Chinese online populism. Conversely, Ukraine’s narrative faced initial challenges but eventually gained more support, largely due to the decreasing credibility of the opposing narratives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inspired by previous research showing how populist radical right‐wing parties capitalise discussions around nation, this article examines Finnish lay citizens' understanding of nationhood in the context of rising right‐wing populism. Drawing on in‐depth interviews with voters of a populist party (N = 25) and using the photo‐elicitation method, this study explores how participants use time, place and emotions to construct their national identity. Through a narrative‐discursive analysis, three emotional narratives were identified—respecting the past, beloved places of identity and admiring traditional ways of living—each contributing to social identity continuity. The findings reveal the interplay between political discourses and embodied, affective meaning‐making, highlighting the importance of approaching the nation as an affective community and using image‐based methodologies to study complex national identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Populism is hard to contain in democracies because it is the sugar, salt, and fat of contemporary politics. I borrow from research on ultraprocessed foods to develop this metaphor. The modern food industry creates ultraprocessed foods by oversupplying naturally occurring macronutrients (sugar, salt, and fat) and recombining them to create new foods that are distortions of the real thing. These new pretend foods are both addictive and toxic. Likewise, I argue that authoritarian-populist leaders take natural tenets of democracy—for example, policies to help the voiceless (sugar), competition against opponents (salt), and reform agenda saturation (fat)—and supply them in combinations and quantities that end up distorting democracy. The result is a new regime that veers easily into authoritarianism (toxicity) while in the process generating hard-core followership (addictiveness). I also discuss the way authoritarian populists from both the left and the right have emulated each other since the 1980s, while introducing their own tweaks to their steals. In the end, despite important differences, both left and right-wing populism are far more similar to each other than they each care to recognize. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines far-right, authoritarian politics among middle-class White communities of the Inland Empire region of Southern California. Grounded in a materialist theoretical framework and an analysis of 30 semi-structured interviews and the recent political-economic history of the region, I interrogate the political and social attitudes of study participants in relation to their experiences and perceptions of changing political-economic and sociocultural conditions in Southern California in the twenty-first century. Drawing upon Gramsci and the critical theoretical literature on authoritarian populism and neoliberalism, I consider how study participants’ authoritarian politics and ideologies reflect a reactionary political response to processes associated with the reorganization of racialized capital accumulation under neoliberalism. I argue that the appeal of these movements is, in part, how they provide commonsense (hegemonic) explanations for economic precarity, demographic shifts, and immigration, among other issues, while at the same time normalizing this increasingly exploitative and brutal regime of capital accumulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Populist parties have been increasingly successful in European politics over the last decade. Although research suggests that nostalgic deprivation – a perceived loss of economic, political or social status — is linked to support for populist parties, the generalizability of this argument across voters and national contexts remains unclear. In this research note, we leverage original representative surveys across 19 European countries to demonstrate that perceptions of declining status are a consistent predictor of populist support. Decomposing nostalgic deprivation into different dimensions, we find that while social, economic and power deprivation have different antecedents, each predicts populist attitudes and voting behaviour. Moreover, we find that nostalgic deprivation predicts support for populist platforms among both left‐wing and right‐wing respondents, as well as across Eastern and Western Europe.  While the antecedents differ across contexts, these findings confirm that perceptions of downward mobility are associated with the rise of populism in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective Method Results Conclusion We aimed to predict the trend of populist orientations and votes in Italy before and during the COVID‐19 pandemic.Using the Consequences of COVID‐19 (COCO) data set (quota sample of the Italian adult population), we conducted a 3.5‐year, seven‐wave longitudinal study, with one wave before the pandemic (June 2019) and six waves during the pandemic (April and October 2020, April and October 2021, and April and October 2022).Two latent growth analyses have shown that in the period we considered the degree of populism of the party chosen for the vote decreased linearly; this change was positively associated with the anxiety of the participants. Conversely, populist orientations remained stable.The COVID‐19 pandemic plausibly contributed to a superficial and temporary halt to the long populist wave that hit Italy in the last decades, as demonstrated by the decrease in populist vote choices concomitant with a persistent substrate of populist orientations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tradwives have been the thorn in feminism’s side ever since they exploded onto the social media landscape in 2013, attracting considerable media attention post-COVID. With their growing popularity in the online influencer space, the movement has been a critical focus of feminist academic discourse, given their promotion of ‘traditional’ values. Adopting a black feminist lens, this article traces the construction of the tradwife as anti-feminist populism and given the complexity of defining tradwives, offers a typology to better understand sub-types of content creators. Three clear sub-types of tradwives are identified: 1) the nostalgic tradwife, 2) the former feminist and finally 3) the Southern Belle. It also examines the unassuming hyperfeminine aesthetic within the tradwife persona that allows tradculture to perpetuate alt-right ideology to an everyday audience. This article argues that some tradwives bury their heads in the sand by failing to consider how nostalgic constructions of ‘traditional’ femininity reproduce colonialist discourses, as well as modes of oppression through gendered, ethnic and class lines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars connect the rise of populist parties and the growing importance of social media platforms for political communication as the emerging social media logic seems well-suited to populist communication. The following research note presents a novel dataset that connects Facebook accounts to party-level populism data from the POPPA database. Over 600,000 posts from 226 parties between 2017 and 2019 were analysed. The results show that in most European countries, populist parties are more active than non-populist parties on Facebook. However, high variation in the frequency of posts emphasises that country-specific aspects play an important role. Generally, Italian parties are much more active than those from other countries, whereas those in Northern and Western Europe are the least active. The most active party in Europe, the Italian right-wing populist Lega, showed the most extreme level of activity: its daily activity is around 20 times higher than the median. Furthermore, this analysis highlights why researchers should carefully check Facebook data for implausible inactivity and how connecting different data resources can help overcome potential biases resulting from missing data. Future studies analysing any party communication on Facebook will benefit from the insights and the list of party accounts featured herein. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article undertakes a critique of the attitudes approach to populism, predicated on survey-based operationalisations of populism as a set of attitudes. Our critique is threefold: first, the move of reducing 'the elite' to 'the politicians' in survey items – beginning with the foundational Akkerman scale – is at odds with the constructivist underpinnings of Mudde's ideational definition that this literature largely draws on, where 'the people' and 'the elite' are understood as contingent constructions that can take on a wide range of meanings depending on the ideological permutation. Second, our corpus linguistics-based overview of empirical patterns within the 'populist attitudes' literature indicates a skewed focus on the far right within this literature, contrary to the ideological variability of populism following the ideational definition. Third, the reliance on public opinion surveys points to the danger of reifying public opinion and attributing objective qualities to 'the people' as such. In assuming categories such as 'the elite' to stand for determinate referents such as 'the politicians' in survey-based operationalisations, the positivist bias of the attitudes approach paradoxically mirrors the objectivist bias (following Sartori) of early populism research that reduced the identity of 'the people' in populism to determinate socio-structural categories such as the peasantry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What explains citizen support for executive aggrandizement? Previous work points to support for the president, showing that individuals who support the incumbent are more accepting of executive aggrandizement. Yet, the role of the president in shaping support for (and the meaning of) executive aggrandizement is unexplored. I argue that populist discourse increases support for executive aggrandizement by framing the president as the genuine representative of the people and by portraying institutional opposition as corrupt. Two studies support this argument: First, a multilevel analysis shows that a text-based measure of populist discourse is associated with increasing support for the president closing congress or the supreme court. The estimated effect of populist discourse is largest among presidential supporters. Second, a survey experiment conducted in Ecuador shows that populist and anti-elitist discourse increase support for a hypothetical executive closing the legislature. The findings indicate that populist discourse undermines public opinion as an executive accountability mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Economic nationalism has been on the rise for the past two decades. Scholars have also noted the shift away from globalization and deregulation toward a more prominent role of the state in the economy. I explore the role played by populist governments in the increased adoption of economic nationalism and in this return of the state. I argue that the populist worldview lends itself naturally to a consolidation of power—not just political, but also economic. This consolidation of economic power results in a more prominent state even in countries where the populist regime is a right‐leaning one. Methods: I test this argument quantitatively by analyzing governments in 30 European countries since 1990, levels of state ownership in the economy, and a battery of economic and political controls. Results: The election of a populist government is associated with a strengthening of state ownership in the economy. Conclusion: I conclude with a discussion of the prospects for the future study of this populist economic agenda both domestically and internationally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After Trump and Brexit, a dominant narrative emerged that portrayed the rise of right-wing populism as a backlash to neoliberalism. While it is true that right-wing populism emerged during the heydays of neoliberal globalization in the 1980s and 1990s, the relationship between the two is more complex than often assumed. In a series of countries, right-wing populism emerged with, rather than against neoliberalism. The particular combination of "neoliberal populism," however, is still underexplored. Studying this political discourse can help us understand the role of neoliberal ideology in the rise of right-wing populism. As a contribution to this end, this article offers an in-depth analysis of the ideological evolution of the Dutch neoliberal populist Pim Fortuyn (1948–2002). It places the development of his ideas against the backdrop of the Dutch neoliberal turn and shows how his populist establishment critique emerged out of a neoliberal critique of the Dutch corporatist welfare state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that the crises of neoliberal globalisation since the 2000s have given rise to a new transnational political family that we call 'national-conservatism'. Through a critical examination of the literature on the Global Right and the role of the state under globalisation, we contend that national-conservatism acts as an innovative model for acquiring and exerting power from the right today, characterised by an endorsement of the state's economic role, an emphasis on traditional values and hierarchies such as religion, and a proactive, occasionally confrontational stance in foreign policy. Consequently, the paradigm of national-conservatism prompts the division of transnational neoliberalism into discrete national domains. These domains function as havens where the neoliberal elite is shielded both from foreign competitive pressures and radical demands of respective national societies. Crucially, national-conservatism garners legitimacy for this new order through its commitment to revitalising traditional, hierarchical models of national sovereignty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What impact do populist and radical-right ideas have on a country's foreign policy? Although research on the nexus of populism and foreign policy has taught us much about populists' conduct of foreign affairs, we still lack distinctive categories characterising the nature of a populist and radical-right foreign policy. Furthermore, the impact of populist and radical-right parties on foreign policy and the question of how to measure this impact is still unanswered. This article seeks to address this research gap by examining the populist and radical-right Freedom Party's participation in the Austrian government from 2017 to 2019 and by applying a mixed-methods approach to government programmes and official press releases. Overall, the article makes three contributions to the literature. First, it proposes distinctive categories of a populist and radical-right foreign policy conception. Second, it introduces an approach to measure the impact of this conception on a country's foreign policy. And finally, it determines this impact on Austria's foreign policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By analysing the dynamics of neoliberalism through a Polanyian lens, this article illustrates the complexities and consequences of neoliberalism in the Turkish context. It examines the rule of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Turkey as a manifestation of 'embedded neoliberalism'. The article delves into the AKP's ascent to power, its consolidation of authority, and, most notably, its subsequent shift towards authoritarianism and interventionism. It traces the evolution of the AKP's governance, highlighting its trajectory from a period of 'soft embeddedness' to 'authoritarian embeddedness'. During the 'soft embeddedness' phase (2002–2013), the AKP implemented neoliberal policies alongside improved access to credit and social programmes. However, as global economic conditions deteriorated and the contradictions of neoliberalism intensified by 2013, the phase of 'authoritarian embeddedness' ensued. This phase not only entailed overtly authoritarian politics but also witnessed an escalation of state interventionism in the economy further contributing to the crisis of the economy and state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the citizen movements initiated in Hong Kong and Chile in 2019. Based on discourse analysis and interviews, the study argues that adapting the repertoires of protest to the mobility restrictions and the evolution of the political systems reinforced the populist dimension of the Anti-ELAB (anti-extradition law amendment bill) and the Chilean Spring movements. In Hong Kong, the restrictions of freedoms facilitated the constitution of a broad international network opposed to the Chinese Communist Party that comprises overseas organisations and public figures in exile dedicated to lobbying before western governments and providing a discourse frame to the diasporic communities. In Chile, the successive election campaigns that accompanied the constitutional process allowed new political actors with refoundation aspirations to access the institutions. This study found, in both cases, that rhetoric based on the antagonistic exaltation of the people's signifier has become central to the movements' discourses: a transformation accompanied by the consolidation of political leaders pretending to represent the movements' demands. This study analyses the discourses and demands of the citizen movements in light of the institutional framework in which they appear and evolve to contribute to the growing literature where the study of contemporary social movements intersects with the studies of populism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the strategies modern-day autocrats use to delegitimate the press as a means of consolidating power, including in democratic states. Using content analysis and Brazil as a case study, I examine Bolsonaro's online discourse on X and YouTube, during the second half of his administration (January 2021–December 2022). I argue that Bolsonaro endeavors to promote an image of the press that centers on three elements: unreliability, obsolescence, and being an enemy to the people. The delegitimation of the press through discursive, insidious means suggests a change in the way autocrats exercise power. Rather than deploying the repressive tactics of old, modern autocrats are updating their toolbox to monopolize power while enjoying the legitimacy normally granted by democratic norms. These findings raise questions about the dispersion of authoritarian practices in supposed democracies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent populist wave has raised questions about the implications of populism for democracy. Some scholars express optimism that populism may be a source of democratic revitalization, bringing about sweeping changes in accordance with the majority will. More often, populism is viewed as a threat to liberal democracy, combining calls for radical change with disdain for core democratic institutions and norms. We consider the possibility that these outcomes may not be mutually exclusive and develop a conceptual typology for understanding the consequences of populist rule. We then use cross-national panel fixed-effects models to analyze the effects of populist leadership between 1990 and 2017. We first examine whether populists have economic and social effects in line with their core aspirations. Left-wing populists are quite effective at implementing their agenda: they reduce income inequality, regulate markets, and incorporate marginalized groups. Right-wing populists are also fairly impactful: for instance, they raise tariffs, cut taxes, and restrict the rights of women and gay people. However, populists of all stripes are associated with the rapid and severe erosion of liberal democratic institutions. Populists, we conclude, often destroy democracy in the name of the people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on political representation suggests that legislative activity is influenced by governing parties' policy emphases in their election campaigns. We argue that populist governments are an exception as they may find it difficult to draft and implement laws on an issue even if it is salient to them. The anti-elitism, people-centrism, and Manichean-discourse nature of populist party platforms significantly alters their ability to legislate on their campaign issues. We test this claim using data on the saliency of governments' immigration policies in their election campaigns and subsequent legislation on immigration. The empirical analysis is based on 14 democratic states from 1998 to 2013. The results support the theory that populist governments will exhibit a relatively weak relationship between their issue emphases in election campaigns and the number of policies they enact on immigration. This research has important implications for our understanding of populism, political representation, and immigration policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies the conditions required by populist radical right actors to convincingly create a sense of crisis. The article draws on the literature on political blame games and policy feedback to argue that it is not only the salience of an event that determines its 'populist exploitability', but also its proximity to mass publics – or more simply, how directly and closely it affects citizens. In the study, Moffitt's stepwise model of populist crisis performance is extended and expectations are formulated regarding how the proximity of an event influences the various steps of crisis performance. The article then tests this theoretical argument with a within-unit analysis of the crisis performance of a populist radical right party, the Alternative for Germany (AfD), during the refugee crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis suggests that the pandemic's proximity to people's daily lives narrowed and complicated the AfD's crisis performance in important ways. The article sheds light on the determinants of the success of populist radical right parties and nuances our understanding of the broader relationship between populism and crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the gender politics of populist parties in two countries historically marked by cultural traditionalism – Italy and Spain. It defines and compares the articulation of gender issues cross-nationally and intra-ideologically to understand how populist parties contest the politics of gender in the two countries. Drawing on computer-assisted qualitative content analyses of programmatic documents, it assesses the framing and salience of gender by the populist radical left (the Spanish Podemos) and right (Lega and Fratelli d'Italia in Italy; VOX in Spain), while also accounting for an ideologically ambiguous populist party (the Italian Movimento 5 Stelle). It concludes ascertaining the different salience of gender politics among Italian and Spanish populist parties and evinces multiple axes of programmatic proximity and distance – not only cross-nationally, but also intra-ideologically among parties akin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2021, President Nayib Bukele introduced Bitcoin as legal tender in El Salvador. This paper examines the relationship between right-wing populism and Bitcoin. Through textual and visual analyses, the paper shows how Bukele weaves the promises and techno-utopian ideology surrounding Bitcoin into classic populist narratives. Adopting Bitcoin adds the promise of technology-driven development and the realization of a techno-utopia to the populist narrative template, allowing Bukele to construct a populist myth of himself as a tech-savvy visionary. This brand of crypto-populism represents a novel addition to the right-wing populist repertoire, capitalizing on the promises of an ongoing digital revolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many countries, science is challenged by science-related populism, which deems the common sense of "ordinary people" superior to the knowledge of "academic elites". Individual support for science-related populism can be associated with people's communication behavior: On the one hand, people who hold science-related populist attitudes may inform themselves differently about science; they may even be disconnected from societal discourse around science. On the other hand, they may communicate more actively on social media and in interpersonal conversations. We test this using nationally representative survey data from Switzerland. Results show that science-related populists use TV and social networking sites more often to get information about science. They are also more likely to communicate about science in social media comments. However, science-related populist attitudes are not associated with a general preference for social media over journalistic media. Science-related populism has thus not (yet) fueled a "science-related public disconnection". We also run multiverse analyses, which show further nuances of our results, and discuss implications for science communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author thematizes the operation of the political market of attention that is propelled by the willingness of citizens to credit populist leaders with their digital political labour. Mutual, nevertheless unequal, exchange of attention leads to the formation of a spiral of attention. Its expansive character is sustained by the strategically subsidized recognition of populist leaders. Accumulated attention, i. e. attention capital, is the resource that is used to maintain populist networked public spheres, while citizens are proletarianized: they are invited to apply their labour power to distributing political ideas but are pevented from evaluating the influence of competing public actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individuals with populist radical-right (PRR) attitudes seem particularly inclined to spread disinformation. However, it is unclear whether this is due to the large amount of disinformation with a PRR bias or a general tendency to perceive disinformation as credible and/or spread it further. This study explores (1) effects of a PRR bias on perceived message credibility and likelihood of spreading disinformation, (2) the extent to which perceived message credibility mediates the spread of disinformation, (3) effects of PRR attitudes on the perceived message credibility of biased disinformation, and (4) whether a PRR bias of disinformation explains the spread of disinformation by individuals with PRR attitudes despite a lack of credibility. An online experimental study (N = 572) in Germany showed that the spread of disinformation is mediated by perceived message credibility of disinformation. PRR attitudes positively predict perceived message credibility regardless of whether it is biased or unbiased disinformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What happens to democratic administration when populists come to power? This article depicts the contours of the debate within the discipline of Public Administration (PA) about populist attempts to transform the state bureaucracy. It presents the results and limitations of recent empirical research about populist public administration policies and discusses the options for generating more systematic insights. The argument is that populist public administration research needs to improve on three fronts. First, more comparative research is needed in order to identify and explain similarities and differences across affected administrative systems. Second, the threat of democratic backsliding requires scholars to revisit questions about the ethical basis of public administration. Third, as populist backsliding endangers the survival of liberal democracy, PA needs to provide pragmatic and concrete answers as to how administrative systems can be made resilient against threats of illiberal state transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Leaders are rewarded for delivering on policy pledges. Yet mobilisation strategies often depend on keeping issues and unsolved problems ‘alive’ for electoral purposes. What happens when these incentives collide has been subject to little attention. Drawing on the example of Brexit in the United Kingdom, this article examines the politics of issue-eclipsing pledges – scenarios in which policy pledges directly undercut mobilisation strategies. Brexit offers a good example of these tensions because the referendum vote called the bluff of decades-long Conservative efforts to instrumentalise EU membership for electoral gain. We show how issue-eclipsing pledges produce cyclical and path-dependent dynamics that tend towards radicalisation, as pledges of incumbent elites to guarantee policy delivery are vulnerable to the efforts of non-incumbents to re-interpret pledges and re-mobilise bases of electoral support. We illustrate these dynamics by narrating the interplay of reform pledges and re-mobilisation strategies encountered by successive UK governments since the 2016 referendum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between religion and politics is receiving increasing attention in political science, although the focus is often on voter attitudes. Despite secularization trends, scholars expect a resurgence of religion in Western European party politics, where Christianity as a native identity is opposed to non-native Islam by populist radical right parties. In this context, it is primarily hostility toward other religious groups that structures religious elements in political communication. In most Latin American societies, religiosity plays a much greater role for individuals, which is reflected in the discourses of political elites who use genuine religious references to appeal to religious voters ("sacralization of politics"). Using data from my own recent research on content analysis of parties' and candidates' Facebook profiles, this article compares how political actors in Latin America and Western Europe use religious references in electoral campaigns and how salient these discourses are. The results help to explain the different prominence of religious discourses in different democratic regions and religious markets. The article contributes to the ongoing debate on the role of religion in 21st century politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article "Editorial: Crisis, contention, and Euroscepticism" published in Frontiers in Political Science explores the interplay between crisis narratives and Euroscepticism in the context of European integration. The research topic delves into the impact of the 2008 financial crisis on narratives of integration/disintegration in the European Union, focusing on contentious politics and governance challenges. The article highlights the rise of Euroscepticism due to compounding crises, such as the 2008 financial meltdown and the influx of asylum seekers, leading to a surge in populist movements and far-right political parties across Europe. The authors suggest that addressing Euroscepticism requires more adaptable and inclusive governance strategies to ensure the longevity of European integration. [Extracted from the article]

In studies on Populism, extensive discussion has mounted around whether the phenomenon represents a threat to democracy or a corrective force. In line with this concern, we examine whether the populist attitudes held by legislators are related to their opinions on the functioning of and satisfaction with three central aspects of governance: (I) democracy itself; (II) its institutions; and (III) the separation of powers. Using the ideational approach and survey information collected for the PELA‐USAL database, we first measure the populist attitudes of legislators in 12 Latin American countries. We then test through multivariate analysis two theoretical arguments: (1) that populism is relatively hostile to democracy and its institutions; and (2) that ideological extremism and the situation of the legislator in the government/opposition dynamic serve as moderators (enhancers) of that hostility. The results suggest that the populist attitudes of these legislators are indeed significantly connected to lower levels of trust and satisfaction with democracy and its institutions and that populism in combination with ideological extremism sharpens that critical perspective, while a legislator's affiliation with the ruling party or coalition in government tends to temper it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the Marcos golden age narratives on YouTube before the 2022 Philippine presidential elections. Despite evidence of brutality during the Marcos years, many Filipinos reminisce about his tenure as a period of peace and progress, influenced by selective historical accounts propagated through digital media. Expanding Laclau's theory of populism, we identify affective storytelling techniques prominent pro-Marcos YouTubers employ to glorify the Marcos era and examine them to understand how the populist logic of difference and equivalence guides the articulation of a romanticized past and endorses the vilification of elites and Marcos critics. Our analysis underscores the potency of nostalgia in populist and authoritarian politics, demonstrating their capacity to foster a collective yearning for a mythic past and stoke a collective desire for Marcos-brand authoritarianism. Ultimately, this article contributes to understanding the dynamics of historical revisionism and its implications for political discourse and historical consciousness in the digital age, emphasizing the role of YouTubers in shaping political landscapes through nostalgia and the manipulation of social memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ostracism—being ignored and excluded—has been shown to fuel threats to democracies, including increased willingness to engage in violent actions, endorsement of partisan falsehoods, and belief in political conspiracy theories. Recently, low social belonging has been linked with lower voter turnout and increased populist party support, thus illustrating how an individual's social experiences may prove consequential for political processes. Importantly, low levels of belonging may originate from social ostracism, as ostracized individuals are denied social partaking by others. In a registered report, we analyzed large survey data including reported voting behavior in the past national election from 11 European countries, and we found that ostracism is associated with lower voter turnout. Ostracism was not connected to populist party vote, irrespective of their ideological orientation (far‐left vs. far‐right). The findings highlight the need to better understand and consider how individuals' social experiences are relevant in safeguarding modern democracies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that the securitization of the Kurds and other opposition groups along with an anti-Western discourse has become a useful political strategy for the governing Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) in Turkey. The party used these security framings to put the opposition on the defensive by equating Turkey’s survival with the maintenance of AKP’s rule. This securitization of domestic politics has also shaped the content of the category of ‘enemy’ in foreign policy with particular repercussions for Turkey’s policy towards Syria. Drawing on a discourse analysis of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Twitter posts between May 2013 and May 2023, and declarations made by prominent AKP government figures, this article reveals that the government has used securitization as a strategic tool to reinforce populist dualities. The article also shows that vague and situational conceptualizations in securitization processes provide useful channels through which the government shapes and legitimizes its foreign policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article challenges the prima facie differences between the Scottish independence and pro-Brexit movements, drawing similarities based on shared promotion of nationalism, incorporation of populism, and policy radicalism challenging consensuses over austerity/immigration. The analysis tests four hypotheses: first, their respective supporters hold nationalist beliefs; second, their supporters adhere to different but relatively radical policy preferences (tested on three dimensions: economic, cultural, immigration); third, their supporters adhere with populism; and fourth, their supporters are cynical towards perceived experts. The article finds the expected nationalist support, as well as supporters of independence/Brexit holding more radical policy beliefs compared to anti-independence/anti-Brexit voters. Furthermore, the analysis reveals a clearer picture of anti-expert and anti-elite populism support for Brexit, with little evidence showing these being features of Scottish independence support. This leaves the conclusion of some voter-level similarities between supporters of both movements, but also differences in the levels of populism among their respective voters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The many aberrations of Donald Trump's political career are important to analyze not only with regard to the state of the union but also for how they challenge existing theories of rhetoric, power, and performance. Among the studies conducted during and after Trump's presidential term to explain his persistent appeal to millions of Americans, scholars have constructively focused on his particular style of authoritarian populism, his revival of a premodern form of charisma, and his entanglements with professional wrestling. Taken together, these theoretical foci inform my approach to an underexamined subset of Trumpian utterances: those that simultaneously evoke entirely incompatible meanings, from the frivolous to the aggressive. Examining a series of such perplexing verbal and visual rhetorical moments through the lenses of the carnivalesque, the berserk charismatic, and the fractal fictions of kayfabe, I develop a theory of the delegation of intellectual labor through ludic layering that accounts for some of the power of Trump's rhetorical performances and is potentially applicable to understanding polyvocality in other populists' rhetoric. I further show how this concept suggests improvements on existing recommendations for listening to and reporting on an authoritarian figure like Trump. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past decades, numerous studies have enhanced the understanding of the Salafi milieu, revealing a diversity within the movement that goes beyond the traditional classifications of quietist, jihadist, and political Salafism. This research builds on recent scholarly work by exploring the porous boundaries of the Salafi realm, emphasizing the concept of hybridization. It examines the blending of registers and repertoires of action from other social worlds with Salafism, utilizing a social movement perspective and first-hand field data. The study investigates Salafi trajectories of engagement beyond the religious sphere in Tunisia and Algeria during perceived periods of constraint. This comparative analysis is both empirically and theoretically significant, given the distinct socio-political landscapes of the two countries. Tunisia was recognized as a democratic exception in the MENA region in 2011. In contrast, Algeria, rising from the ashes of its civil war, is regarded as a resilient rentier state largely unaffected by the Arab uprisings but significantly impacted by the Hirak movement in 2019. Despite these differences, both countries have experienced revolutionary moments and repressive campaigns, offering opportunities for the transformation of Salafism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Post-politics consists of a comprehensive literature that includes new political formations and positions such as the new-right, the new-left, the third way, and at the same time tries to demonstrate that the possibilities of politicization suppressed by these new ones have not completely disappeared. In other words, the concept of post-politics, in this respect, includes discussions on depoliticization and counter-politicization, and with such a comprehensive content, it points to the search for politicization. Populism is read by this post-politics literature as depoliticization on the one hand and a new possibility of politicization on the other. The main purpose of this study is to reveal the discussion on populism as an element of depoliticization in the light of the intersections with the post-politics literature, and in line with this purpose, the relevant literature readings are handled in a way to reveal the place of populism in the post-politics literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many countries worldwide have seen populist resentment against scientists, which can manifest as "science-related populist attitudes" among the population. These attitudes can be assumed to divide populations into multiple segments—each endorsing or rejecting different facets of science-related populism, with segment sizes and characteristics varying between countries and cultural contexts. This study tests this with a secondary analysis of four public opinion surveys from Austria, Germany, Switzerland, and Taiwan (total N = 4598), combining a Most Similar Systems Design (MSSD) and a Most Different Systems Design (MDSD). It uses fixed-effects latent class analysis to demonstrate that Austrian, German, Swiss, and Taiwanese publics can be grouped into three segments: Full-Fledged Populists, People-Centric Non-Populists, and Deferent Anti-Populists. A large majority in all countries can be classified as Non-Populist or Anti-Populists, whereas Populists, who support the entire spectrum of science-related populism, make up the smallest segment. Bayesian regression shows that Populists are older and more likely to support right-leaning political views. Cross-country and cross-cultural comparisons reveal differences in segment sizes and characteristics: For example, Populists are more prevalent in Austria, while Germany has a large proportion of Anti-Populists. These are less widespread in Taiwan, where Non-Populists form a particularly big segment. The findings can be explained with national political, cultural, and historical contexts to some degree. Eventually, they are discussed against the backdrop implications for science communication and future scholarship on public science skepticism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how the Conservative Party dominated British politics from 2010 to 2024 despite this period being one of instability and crisis. It argues that a key source of this turmoil was the Conservative Party itself, which under a succession of Prime Ministers struggled to formulate an effective statecraft strategy. While these leadership failings have been well documented the underlying difficulties run deeper, reflecting tensions for the self-proclaimed natural party of government in adapting its statecraft to the rise of populist and anti-politics pressures. The article exposes these through the lens of statecraft theory, which is applied to the largely overlooked constitutional dimension of Conservative statecraft. This reveals a persistent willingness to prioritize partisan statecraft strategy over adherence to constitutional norms, which portends a slide into populism now the party has returned to opposition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Le professeur Edouard Rist (1871–1956), ancien président de l'Académie de médecine en 1948, nous permet à partir d'un texte inédit qu'il a intitulé « Ses Souvenirs » d'esquisser le portrait de son père : Adrien Rist (1841–1923). Issu d'une famille de chirurgiens, c'est sous la Monarchie de Juillet qu'A. Rist (1841–1923) voit le jour à Strasbourg. Élevé dans une famille protestante, il effectue sa médecine à Paris. En 1869, il est docteur en médecine et devient le premier à faire connaître en France la loi psychophysique de Gustav Théodor Fechner (1801–1887) qui jette un pont entre la psychologie et les sciences exactes. Son mariage et la guerre franco-prussienne le détournèrent de passer l'agrégation. Ayant choisi de quitter l'Alsace pour ne pas renier sa nationalité française et après un bref passage au Havre (Normandie), A. Rist décide de se rendre en Suisse et de s'occuper de l'organisation du tout nouvel asile cantonal à Bois-de-Céry près de Lausanne (1873). En 1877, il devient médecin-directeur dans une clinique privée psychiatrique privée de Suisse romane : La Métairie. Il y exerce durant une douzaine d'année. Grâce à son fils E. Rist et à ses souvenirs, nous pouvons dans cette première partie rendre compte du parcours professionnel d'A. Rist, de l'organisation des soins qu'il a instaurés à La Métairie et du climat qui y régnait. Au cours de son expatriation, A. Rist a toujours eu un profond sentiment de fidélité et d'attachement à la France. Il reviendra en France en 1889 et vient s'établir à Versailles où il ouvre une maison de santé au 11 rue des Deux-Moulins. Professor Edouard Rist (1871–1956), a former president of the Academy of Medicine (1948), wrote an unpublished text entitled "His Memories". This text allows us to sketch the portrait of his father: Adrien Rist (1841–1923) and to review the professional career of this alienist doctor who always had a deep sense of loyalty and attachment to France and its culture. Coming from a family of surgeons, his grandfather Jean-Louis Rist (1769–1839) was a surgeon of the Grande-Armée like his uncle Côme Damien Rist (1760–1826) and their father Jean Népomucène Sébastien Rist (1725–1798) was too a surgeon in Wissembourg. It was under the July Monarchy that A. Rist (1841–1923) was born in Strasbourg. Raised in a Protestant family, he enrolled at the Military Health Service School in Strasbourg. He left the school after one year to enroll in the medical school of the same city. However, he finished his medical study in Paris. After his externship, he was accepted as an intern on December 26, 1864. Five years later (1869), he was a doctor of medicine and became the first one to make known in France the psychophysical law of Gustav Théodor Fechner (1801–1887), which bridges the gap between psychology and the exact sciences. Then, he returned to Strasbourg where he opened a medical practice and started to prepare for the aggregation in physics at the University of Göttingen (Germany). He stayed there long enough to fall in love with Emma Cornelia Gess (1848–1928), a native of Württemberg, to whom he married on April 5, 1870. Three months after his marriage, the war with Prussia broke out. During the conflict, his wife gave birth in Strasbourg to a boy named Edouard (1871–1956). Thus, his new family life and the Franco-Prussian war and its outcome deterred him from passing the aggregation. But also, A. Rist chooses to leave Alsace so as not to renounce his French nationality. After a brief stay in Le Havre (Normandy), he decided to expatriate to Switzerland. In order to be able to practice in this country, A. Rist passed the examinations in the canton of Vaud where he provided an important memorandum on the legislation of insane persons. In 1867, the Champ de l'Air Hospital for the insane was transferred to the Bois-de-Cery located near Lausanne where six years later (1873) a new hospital called "Asile de Cery" was inaugurated. Authorized to practice in Switzerland, A. Rist became in 1873 the first doctor-director of the Bois-de-Cery. A few years earlier, the first private psychiatric clinic in Romanisch Switzerland opened: La Métairie. In 1877, he became the director of this establishment located not far from the previous one at about forty kilometers away still on the banks of Lake Geneva. Board of Directors of this private establishment composed of a majority of Geneva bankers was able to receive about forty patients of well-to-do condition who came from all over the world. A. Rist lived there with his family and the organization at La Métairie was based on the participation of the insane in the family life of the doctor. A. Rist's children (Edouard, Charles, Elisabeth and Eve) founded the "Children's Society" which aimed to give concerts and theatrical performances to the patients of La Métairie. Also, they contributed when patients ran away. At the Métairie, A. Rist received the visit of Alexandrovitch Herzen (1839–1906) who was a professor of physiology at the medical faculty of Lausanne (1881) and whose father, Alexander Ivanovich Herzen (1812–1870) was the father of Russian populist socialism. However, the separation from his children who were studying in France and the tragic death of his daughter Elisabeth at the age of 17 were two factors that led to his return to France. In 1889, A. Rist and his wife decided to leave La Métairie. Rudolf Friedreich Fetscherin (1829–1892), a former assistant physician at the Waldau (Bern; 1859) succeeded him. A. Rist moved to Versailles near Paris where he opened a nursing home at 11 rue des Deux-Moulins: La Châtaigneraie. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article sheds new light on the drivers of bureaucratic resilience in the face of presidential attacks, an understudied but politically salient topic. Scholars have long shown how political advocacy can protect bureaucracies from presidential attacks on policy regulation. We argue, however, that advocacy is insufficient to defend bureaucracies against attacks on policy implementation, which occurs largely outside the formal political arena. Through a case study of Brazil's successful Covid-19 vaccination campaign, we call attention to two additional forms of support for agencies under attack--resource provision and social activism--that come into play during the implementation phase of policy. In conjunction with political advocacy, resource provision and social activism bolster bureaucracies under attack by filling in where other forms of support fall short. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the sixty years since the publication of Jürgen Habermas' magnum opus, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, the public sphere now faces a new threat in the era of "post-truth" politics. The preponderance of lies, mis/disinformation, "fake news", "alternative facts", conspiracy theories, and the general breakdown of trust in established sources of knowledge and information has led to the fragmentation and deepening polarisation of the public sphere - a situation deliberately promoted by right wing populist forces intent on fighting the "culture wars". At the same time, the political space is being disrupted, in a different way, through new social movements and radical activism particularly around issues of climate change, inequality, racial injustice, and police violence. My aim is to show how these contemporary forms of dissent are engendering a new "structural" transformation of the public sphere. They create autonomous and critical spaces of collective engagement that call into question the legitimacy of dominant power structures. Understanding this process requires an alternative rendering of the relationship between truth and politics - something I develop through Michel Foucault's rethinking of the critical impulse of the Kantian Enlightenment and his later work on parrhesia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Populist leaders are often described as "strongmen," receiving a somewhat two-dimensional Western press coverage that cannot explain their local popularity. Based on visual and textual analysis of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's Facebook, we argue that he has a more complex social media persona. Orbán's Facebook shows him as (1) a fighter against a variety of enemies, (2) a symbolic condensation of the nation, (3) a relatable politician with (4) a gentleness toward children and animals, and (5) a strong competence in elite political contexts. Orbán uses his charismatic authority on Facebook to draw the boundaries of the Hungarian nation, presenting himself as the iconic representation of "Hungarian-ness." The building blocks of his image are constantly being adapted to the current political situation and to shifts in public opinion. The Orbán image is, thus, a fluid and pragmatic material with only a few core principles and its popularity remains steadfast despite the brand's contradictions. Understanding the appeal of Orbán's self-representation may help us better grasp populist regimes' variation and success worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From US President Donald Trump's Tweet labeling news media "the enemy of the people" to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's establishment of a politically appointed Media Authority, media freedom is under threat in democracies and nondemocracies alike. According to Freedom House, in 2016 media freedom declined globally to its lowest level since 2003, with Europe experiencing the largest regional decrease. We investigate the relationship between government and media in Hungary and Poland and develop a theory that the rise of nationalist sentiment and leaders who leverage this sentiment to encourage censorship from the bottom-up has led to increased media restrictions from the top-down. We posit that bottom-up censorship will erode media credibility and make people more accepting of top-down media restrictions, which could, in turn, lead to nationalism unchecked by the fourth estate. Using a multilevel analysis of World Values Survey, we analyze the relationship between nationalism and media distrust. Using a cross-national time series, we analyze the relationship between nationalist sentiment and media restrictions. We find that increased nationalism is indeed associated with media distrust and media restrictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the increasing number of studies examining the conflicts between the media and populist leaders, understanding how such clashes prompt shifts in journalism norms and practices remains to be thoroughly explored. Based on a literature review and the discussion of an extensive array of examples characterizing the Brazilian media setting, this article provides a qualitative assessment of how Jair Bolsonaro's rhetoric and actions have triggered a "critical incident" in our mainstream journalism. We consider four dimensions currently experiencing transformations: the media's (1) institutional responses and campaigns, (2) production of the news, (3) production of editorials, and (4) how media professionals have reacted to populist attacks. There is evidence that journalism has increasingly become a central topic in news texts. We have also cataloged changes in news production routines (e.g., the editors' hesitancy to send reporters to cover some political events), the use of editorials to reinforce metajournalistic discourses, and shifts in how professionals make sense of their work. Our findings contribute to the broader literature by investigating how traditional borders and values of journalism are renegotiated during institutional crises. In addition, our analytical framework can be applied to other media settings experiencing similar tensions and help underpin the construction of empirical variables to understand meaningful changes in the field. Lastly, this study considers the possible effects that change in norms, routines, and practices can have on the democratic roles of journalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]