Populism, radicalism, and protest mobilization by parties in Europe

From Democratic Simulacrum to the Fabulation of the People: Minority Populism

The online transnationalisation of populist radical right publics

International cooperation between radical right populists has escalated over the last decade as parties and leaders worldwide increasingly establish formal and informal connections. Although studies have investigated the role of populist radical right parties (PRRPs) in transnationalisation processes, we know little about the transnationalisation of their online audiences, who are key to amplifying the circulation of PRR narratives across countries. This article therefore addresses the following research question: Which factors explain transnational online engagement with PRR communications? I argue that their digital publics play a role in constructing a transnational network for the PRR, facilitated by online spaces. I hypothesise that engagement varies according to party strategies, platform architectures, and linguistic and geographical factors. To investigate my research question, I analyse YouTube data from 2016 to 2024 of nine PRRPs in eight countries across three continents – the Americas, Europe, and Oceania. Using content and social network analysis, I find transnational engagement is on the rise, that it intensifies around public joint appearances of PRR actors from various countries, and is driven by language and content popularity. These results indicate that transnationalisation is not only catalysed by party elites but is shaped from below and by the architecture of digital platforms amidst a complex interplay of grassroots activity, algorithmic visibility, and party communications.

Parallel politicization: rethinking the demand–supply divide in populism. Evidence from parliamentary and protest discourse in Romania (2020–2024)

This article examines how populist politicization unfolds across civic and institutional arenas and what its temporal dynamics reveal about demand- and supply-side explanations of populism. Focusing on Romania between 2020 and 2024, it compares protest-related media coverage and parliamentary plenary debates to trace the circulation of five core populist themes. Rather than treating populism as either a societal attitude or an elite strategy, the study conceptualizes it as a discursive repertoire whose salience can be traced over time. Using a longitudinal, frequency-based design, the analysis tests whether politicization follows a demand-induced (bottom-up), supply-induced (top-down), or interactive logic. The findings show no consistent evidence of bottom-up diffusion from protest to parliament, nor of systematic top-down activation from parliament to protest. Parliamentary discourse exhibits a stable and routinized engagement with populist themes, whereas protest communication remains episodic and event-driven. Politicization is therefore institutionally insulated and only weakly coupled to civic mobilization. The article proposes the concept of parallel politicization to describe this configuration: a pattern in which similar populist repertoires circulate across arenas without stable temporal transmission or semantic alignment. The results suggest that populist politicization can persist without continuous feedback between citizens and elites, challenging linear demand- or supply-driven models and indicating that populism may endure as an institutionalized repertoire of political communication even when civic mobilization remains fragmented.

Populism, reform, and failure: Constrained constitutional ambition in Italy

This article examines the trajectory of constitutional reform under the Meloni government (2022–2026) as a case of failed institutional transformation. While much of the literature on populism in power has focused on successful cases of democratic erosion, the Italian case shows how ambitious reform projects can be progressively scaled back and ultimately defeated. The article conceptualises this dynamic as constrained constitutional ambition, a process in which populist actors seek to reshape the polity dimension but are limited by dense institutional, political, and procedural conditions. Drawing on the concepts of populist domestication and democratic resilience, the analysis highlights how reform initiatives are filtered through parliamentary procedures, coalition dynamics, and referendum politics. Particular attention is devoted to the 2026 constitutional referendum, which rejected judicial reform and illustrates the interaction between institutional limits, political polarisation, and voter behaviour. The article contributes to comparative debates by showing that reform failure is analytically as important as institutional entrenchment for understanding populism in power. It argues that democratic resilience operates not through the absence of conflict, but through the capacity of institutions to structure and contain it.

Assessing Populism in Canada

Populist rhetoric is understood as political language that is used to differentiate between the elites and the people, where this rhetoric calls for political power to be given back to the people. A key feature of modern Canadian populism has been its strong regional dimension, but what contemporary issues are of salience to which provincial parties has not been systematically studied in terms of populist rhetoric. Building on Pippa Norris’ international study, we unpack populist rhetoric in regions by surveying Canadian party politics experts on their perception of provincial parties’ use of this type of rhetoric. These experts perceive that half of the provincial parties use populist rhetoric in their messaging. We also break down perceptions of provincial political parties’ rhetoric on five salient policy dimensions: social and economic policies, racialized minority rights, immigration, women’s rights, and environmental protection. Our findings demonstrate how populist rhetoric in Canada has a distinctly regional variation and has been driven by the center-right and the right.

EUPopLink Country report - Slovakia

This article explores the intersection of populism and Euroscepticism within the Slovak political landscape, demonstrating how European issues have evolved from a largely depoliticised post-accession consensus to a pivotal domain of domestic political competition. The article focuses on the differing positions of key populist actors such as Smer–SD, the Slovak National Party (SNS), Movement Republika (Hnutie Republika) and the Slovakia Movement (formerly OĽaNO), situating them within wider changes in Slovak party politics. We argue that Euroscepticism in Slovakia is predominantly soft and generally does not translate into demands for EU withdrawal. Nevertheless, Euroscepticism has become increasingly centred on national sovereignty and the portrayal of Brussels as an external actor that constrains Slovak interests. Furthermore, the article demonstrates that Slovak parties do not hold fixed and coherent positions on European integration. Instead, their attitudes towards the EU are adapted strategically in response to changing domestic competition and broader political crises. The growing overlap between populism and Euroscepticism has therefore reshaped party competition, strengthened pro-European counter-mobilisation and established the opposition between ‘Slovak interests’ and ‘Brussels’ as a defining feature of contemporary political discourse.