Category Archives: Populism

Right-wing populist movements present a threat to liberal democracies around the world. Whereas in the past the threat was explicit through such means as military rule, outright dictatorships, and fascist regimes today it is more subtle, involving the gradual erosion of trust in democratic norms and institutions (Levitsky and Ziblatt 2019, Norris and Inglehart 2019). In Western societies, the vote share for right-wing, authoritarian, populist parties in national elections has more than doubled, from some 5% in the 1960s to more than 12% in the 2010s (Norris and Inglehart 2019).

These developments have renewed interest in understanding the causes of populism. In this respect, a substantial literature has argued that the rise of right-wing populism in many countries can be attributed at least partially to voter dissatisfaction triggered by economic insecurity and distress (Guiso et al. 2020, Guiso et al. 2017a, Dal B et al. 2018, Dehdari 2021), globalisation shocks such as trade liberalisation (Rodrik 2018), and government austerity (Fetzer 2019). Economic factors, though, tend to be of only limited importance in understanding the emergence of populism, as Margalit (2019 b) has argued in Vox (see also Margalit 2019a). Scholars have hence paid more attention to the socio-cultural axis of political conflict by highlighting the importance of such factors as identity, education, and migration in generating a cultural backlash from which populist movements spring to power (Bonomi et al. 2021, Gethin at al. 2021, Norris and Inglehart 2019).

Although the literature has examined the role of cultural conflict in explaining the rise of populism, the role of violent conflict has received less attention, despite the strategies of many right-wing authoritarian movements to emphasise security against (actual or perceived) internal or external threats and to play on the politics of fear (Norris and Inglehart 2019). But can acts of terror actually shift the political landscape of a nation to the right? Does terror mobilise voters, affect voter preferences and attitudes, and lead ultimately to differential voting behaviour?

In our research, we identify the causal impact of small, local terror attacks on the vote share for the right-wing, populist Alternative fr Deutschland (Alternative for Germany, henceforth AfD) party across German municipalities. We also provide an account as to why terror increases support for the far right, highlighting the role of voter mobilisation, the attacks media coverage, and responses of political parties. To identify casual effects, we rely on the success or failure of attacks in a similar manner as Brodeur (2018) and Jones and Olken (2009). What makes this empirical strategy suitable is the fact that as we document in the paper the success of an attack is random in the sense that it is not related to endogenous factors. A terror attack can fail if a bomb does not explode or a weapon is jammed. Indeed, comparing municipalities hit with successful or failed attacks along a wide range of municipality characteristics reveals no significant social, economic, demographic, geographic, or political differences between them. We also find no significant differences in attack characteristics, including attack motivation or weapon technologies. This enables us to isolate the effect of successful terrorist attacks on far-right voting.

In our analysis, we compare the AfD vote share in federal, European, and state elections between 2013 and 2021 in German municipalities targeted with successful and failed attacks since 2010. Our results suggest that the AfD experiences a six percentage point increase in state elections in municipalities hit with successful attacks, an increase of some 35% relative to the sample mean. We find no effects for federal or European parliament elections. These results are in line with the fact that matters of internal security in Germany including policing politically motivated terrorism are primarily (but not exclusively) left to federal states to determine. They are also in line with the fact that the terrorist attacks in our sample receive far more news coverage at the regional and local level than they do at the national level.

Our results are even more intriguing when one considers that nearly 75% of the attacks in our sample are carried out by right-wing extremists and target foreigners, suggesting that the right-wing, AfD benefits from right-wing attacks. To better understand why this is the case, we explore various mechanisms that drive our effects. In this respect, we uncover four main sets of results, three of which we present in this article.

First, we find that successful terror attacks lead to large, significant increases in voter turnout in state elections, on the order of some 16 percentage points. This resonates with Morelli (2020), who has argued that populism was a mobilisation strategy during Covid. In our case, the AfD claims more than 30% of this mobilisation, while the remaining 70% of the turnout effect is spread among other political parties. This differential capture of voters translates into a significant realignment of vote shares. Whereas the AfD increases its share of votes cast by some six points, other parties including the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) that led the federal government from 2005 to 2021 experience either no effects or much smaller gains.

Figure 1 Successful terror and voting outcomes

Second, employing restricted-use German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) data, we are able to study the political preferences of the same person at several points in time, both before and after an attack. We find that a person residing in a municipality hit with a successful attack, compared to a similar person residing in a municipality hit with a failed attack, identifies as more hard-right on the political spectrum and prefers the AfD significantly more in response to the attack. They also report being increasingly worried about immigration and active in local politics. Interestingly, peoples concerns about terror are not affected by successful attacks.

Using the SOEP, we document important heterogeneities in individual responses to successful terror. We find, for example, that individuals without pre-terror partisan commitments are significantly more likely to prefer the AfD following a successful attack. In addition, we find that people who have prior political affiliations with the CDU (the main ruling party in Germany), and the Linke (a left-wing protest party) differentially prefer the AfD following a successful attack. We also find that people who reported being politically inactive pre-attack go on to prefer the AfD significantly more following an attack, suggesting that terror leads to politically slanted mobilisation. What is more, we find that individuals without a university education prefer the AfD differentially more in response to terror than those with a university education. These results are in line with Gethin et al. (2021), who document the gradual process of disconnection between the effects of income and education on voting outcomes. This particular result is also in line with what Norris and Inglehart (2019) term the authoritarian reflex: the notion that groups in society left behind by globalisation may react defensively to shocks that undermine security including terrorismby adopting more extreme ideological positions.

Figure 2 Successful terror, party preferences, and political participation

Third, we examine whether successful attacks receive differential attention in the news media. To conduct this exercise, we collect news stories from two sources: the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), a national publisher in Germany with one of the highest circulation rates in the country, and Lexis Nexis, which collects stories from a range of publishers and includes reports from the regional and local level. Using these data, we find that, on average, successful attacks are no more likely than failed attacks to receive regional or local coverage. Instead, we find that successful attacks receive significantly more coverage than failed attacks. We also document significant differences in tone and content between local stories that cover successful attacks and local stories that cover failed attacks. Stories that cover successful terror have lower sentiment scores and use significantly different vocabulary, highlighting themes such as Islam and playing down issues related to right-wing populism. We find no such patterns when examining national news coverage. These results suggest that local media coverage plays an important role in making successful attacks, and certain themes used to describe those attacks, salient.

Taken together, our results provide evidence that acts of terror can lead to a broad shift in the political landscape of a nation by mobilising voters, shifting their preferences, and realigning the messaging of political parties and news outlets. What is more, our results indicate that a right-wing, populist party like the AfD benefits from acts of terror which, by and large, were carried out by perpetrators motivated by right-wing extremist causes and who largely target foreigners. This finding reflects the powerful ways media can shape human perceptions: not only do successful attacks receive more news coverage at the local level than failed attacks, news stories that cover successful attacks also make use of significantly different vocabulary, highlighting such issues as terrorism and Islam and using fewer words related to right-wing populism. Germany does not seem to be a special case, as Vlachos et al. (2019) have shown the important impact of media in the anti-minaret code in Switzerland. On the whole, our results suggest the powerful role that narratives play in shaping perceptions as well as political and social attitudes and preferences.

Brodeur, A (2018), The effect of terrorism on employment and consumer sentiment: Evidence from successful and failed terror attacks, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 10 (4): 24682.

Dal B, E, F Finan, O Folke, T Persson and J Rickne (2018), Economic losers and political winners: Swedens radical right, Unpublished manuscript, Department of Political Science, UC Berkeley 2 (5): 2.

Dustmann, C, K Vasiljeva and A Piil Damm (2019), Refugee migration and electoral outcomes, The Review of Economic Studies 86 (5): 20352091.

Fetzer, T (2019), Did austerity cause Brexit?, American Economic Review 109 (11): 384986.

Gennaioli, N and G Tabellini (2019), Identity, beliefs, and political conflict, CESifo Working Paper No. 7707.

Gethin, A, C Martnez-Toledano and T Piketty (2021), Brahmin Left Versus Merchant Right: Changing Political Cleavages in 21 Western Democracies, 19482020, The Quarterly Journal of Economics.

Guiso, L, H Herrera, M Morelli and T Sonno et al. (2017b), Demand and supply of populism, EIEF Working Paper 17/03.

Jones, B F and B A Olken (2009), Hit or miss? The effect of assassinations on institutions and war, American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics 1(2): 5587.

Levitsky, S and D Ziblatt (2019), How Democracies Die, Crown Publishing.

Margalit, Y (2019a), Economic insecurity and the causes of populism, reconsidered, Journal of Economic Perspectives 33(4): 15270.

Margalit, Y (2019b), Economic causes of populism: Important, marginally important, or important on the margin, VoxEU.org, 20 December.

Morelli, M (2020), Political participation, populism, and the COVID-19 Crisis, VoxEU.org 8 May.

Norris, P and R Inglehart (2019), Cultural backlash: Trump, Brexit, and authoritarian populism, Cambridge University Press.

Vlachos, S, S Hatte, M Thoenig and M Couttenier (2019), The media coverage of immigrant criminality: From scapegoating to populism, VoxEU.org 2 April.

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Terrorism and voting: The rise of right-wing populism in Germany - CEPR

In 1954, Richard Hofstadter, the eminent American historian of modern conservatism, asked a provocative question about his eras assault on progressive and left-wing ideals, known as McCarthyism: Where did this extremism come from?

He argued in a celebrated essay that even the prosperous, post-Second World War United States was not immune to the radicalism of authoritarian populism. The so-called Red Scare of the 1950s was simply the old ultra-conservatism and the old isolationism heightened by the extraordinary pressures of the contemporary world.

Seven decades later, Hofstadters words ring true again. Conservative movements are always fighting a rearguard action against modernity by falsely claiming to protect society from progressives who trample traditional values and sneer at the forgotten men and women who embrace them.

With so much money and power behind it, this paranoid style of politics with its enemies lists, demonization of opposition leaders and often violent language has gone mainstream.

Conspiracy theories are no longer a stigma discrediting those who trade in salacious innuendo. Even mainstream politicians are now peddling them.

But is there anything to fear from the red-hot rhetoric of the paranoid style of politics? Some argue these circumstances are cyclical.

In Hofstadters time, after all, American conservative politics turned away from fringe radicalism following the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963. The following year, Lyndon Johnson defeated right-wing Republican insurgent, Barry Goldwater in one of the largest landslides in U.S. history.

But the crisis we face today is bigger in scale and scope. Its been whipped to a frenzy by political leaders who seek to profit from the chaos that it incites via social media.

Populism was supposed to bring government closer to the people, but it actually places the levers of power squarely in the hands of authoritarians. Here are four ways populism has turned poisonous and poses existential threats to democracy:

Democracy without compromise erodes popular sovereignty by fragmenting the electorate and eliminating meaningful compromise.

We are now in a world of zero-sum political contests, with a shrinking middle ground. Conservative parties often force extreme referendums to maintain their grip on a deeply divided electorate.

Election campaigns have become dangerous contests over wedge issues designed to deepen cultural divisions using social media.

We saw this with Brexit as Boris Johnson and other populists stoked fears about immigration and Europeans. Donald Trump did it well with attacks on immigrants. Republicans are now doubling down on the abortion issue, even though theyre facing pushback from some state legislatures and governors.

In Canada, Albertas Premier Danielle Smith, whose United Conservative Party has been newly re-elected with a majority, has focused on demonizing her opponents and has allegedly engaged in anti-democratic conduct in her months as premier.

Read more: Democracy itself is on the ballot in Alberta's upcoming election

Identity politics isnt empowering working people because the politics of revenge doesnt fix structural problems.

Nevertheless, conservative parties around the world are marketing themselves as parties of the working class.

Populists recognize the working class is essential to their success at the national level because of the diploma divide that now separates right and left.

There is a strong correlation between lacking a college diploma and supporting nationalist conservative movements at election time.

It used to be that working people recognized education as a path to prosperity. But massive tuition increases in the U.S., in particular, have betrayed the promise of universal access to a college degree.

Tuition fees are also heading in the wrong direction in the U.K., Canada and Australia. Education now reinforces class divisions rather than breaking down barriers to a better life.

Read more: The 'freedom convoy' protesters are a textbook case of 'aggrieved entitlement'

Populism was supposed to empower people outside the corridors of power, but talk of retribution against liberal elites normalizes calls for political violence always a bad thing.

In a war of all against all, its not the wealthy who lose. Its ordinary, hard-working citizens.

Furthermore, once a lust for vengeance takes hold in the general public, its almost always being directed by elites with money and power who benefit financially or politically from the chaos.

Authoritarian leaders have gained unprecedented institutional legitimacy by building successful movements based on fantasies of blood and soil. The paranoid style of politics has entered a new phase with a full-spectrum assault on the rule of law from inside government.

Populists are lying when they argue they want to empower the rest of us by divesting judges of their authority to oversee democracy. They really want to breach the strongest constitutional barrier against authoritarianism.

Look at the situation in Israel, where Benjamin Netanyahus extremist coalition seeks to destroy judicial checks and balances and allow the countrys parliament to overrule its Supreme Court, a move that would ease the prime ministers legal woes.

Netanyahu has been charged with corruption and influence peddling.

Trumps attempts to undermine the legitimacy of judges are equally self-serving. As he runs again for president, hes already telegraphing his violent desires, promising pardons for the Jan. 6 insurrectionists.

The political dial is already spinning. The defeats of Trump and Brazils Jair Bolsonaro dont represent absolute rejections of their movements.

Despite an indictment for alleged financial crime and being found liable for sexual abuse in a civil case, Trump is still the 2024 front-runner.

Read more: Why populism has an enduring and ominous appeal

We cant count on an easy institutional fix, like a grand electoral coalition to push the populists off the ballot.

Opponents of Hungarys Viktor Orban formed a united front to oppose him in the countrys 2022 elections. But Orban was re-elected in a vote widely derided as free but not fair.

Opposing coalitions are an uncertain strategy in most cases, and they dont work at all in two-party systems. There is in fact no obvious electoral strategy for defeating populism, especially now that the far right has hacked the system.

We can no longer view elections as contests between the centre-right and centre-left in which undecided voters make the difference between victory and defeat. Nor can we count on the right to step back from the abyss of culture wars. We cant even say for certain that the populism will recede in the usual cyclical manner.

Only decisive rejection can force the right to abandon anger and grievance, but voters are not yet turning their backs on the paranoid populists. It will take a lot of strategic ingenuity to beat them. And it will get harder to do so as they rig the game with rules designed to disenfranchise people who are young, poor or racialized.

All citizens can do is offer is constant, concerted pushback against the many big lies told by populists. Its never enough, but for the time being, its the only way forward.

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From Donald Trump to Danielle Smith: 4 ways populists are ... - The Conversation

At first glance, Turkeys electoral drama appeared to confirm well-worn readings of Middle Eastern politics as driven by clashing Islamists vs. secularists. The frame has long shaped outsiders perceptions of the country and, like other familiar binaries (e.g. Turk vs. Kurd, or orthodox Sunni vs. heterodox Alevi) has been internalized by many people in the region. The impression was encouraged by candidates choice of where to wrap their campaigns. Incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdoan closed both the first and second rounds with events at Hagia Sofia a 1,500 year-old structure which has served as church, mosque and museum, and which he reconsecrated as a mosque in 2020. At both rallies, the monuments symbolically drenched spaces pulsated with the leaders electoral formula: equation of Erdoans very person with faith, nation, and state. Opposition challenger Kemal Kldarolu, on the other hand, wrapped his campaign with a more subdued visit to Atatrks mausoleum in Ankaraa tribute to the ongoing resonance of the secularist founding father for millions of voters.

Yet, closer examination reveals a different cleavage at play one which is propelling would-be Erdoans to power across the globe. This is a clash between people with pluralistic orientations: i.e., folks from all walks of life, who are okay sharing space with people who look, speak, and pray differently than they do, versus ultra-nationalists: people who believe that state and society are best served when we rally around a singular ethnic and/or religious flag.

The oppositions Milli (Nation) coalition sought to rally the former. Bringing together moderate, secularist nationalists from the right and left alike, the party fielded an Alevi leader who brokered a cross-camp coalition in pursuit of greater pluralism. This entailed formal alliances with Islamist critics of Erdoans hardline turn. It also incorporated an informal, but electorally meaningful, alliance with the restive Kurdish movement. The result, as a savvy Tweeter put it, was that on election day, leftists rushed to vote for rightists, Kurds voted for Turkish nationalists, atheists voted for devout Muslims, homosexuals voted for extreme conservatives, and former ministers of Erdoan voted for the staunchest opponents of his regime. The fact that this oddball coalition carried almost half of the vote despite Erdoans immense incumbent advantage was remarkable, if ultimately, insufficient.

Conversely, Erdoans Cumhur (Peoples) coalition with ultra-nationalist parties of both secular and Islamist orientation, gave the leader a crucial boost in the presidential contest which he won on 28 May, and parliamentary elections which wrapped on 14 May. The numbers are telling. In the first round, Erdoan lost ground within almost every electoral district, including his traditional strongholds, compared to prior presidential campaigns. Similarly, his Justice and Development Party (AKP) underperformed, costing the party 27 parliamentary seats. Yet, ultra-nationalist allies compensated by bringing 55 seats to the coalition. In short, by joining forces with the medium-sized Nationalist Action Party (MHP) and smaller, radical right parties, the AKP-led Peoples coalition secured a robust parliamentary majority.

Ultra-nationalist swing voters also decided the presidential race. Giving 5.17 percent of the first round vote to the third presidential candidate, Sinan Oans ATA alliance, they denied both Erdoan and Kldarolu the margins each needed to win (an especially demotivating outcome for the latter who had set expectations high).

The imperative, in turn, of courting ATA votes in Round Two, put Kldarolu in the impossible position of wooing extreme right nationalists while maintaining the 10 percent of ballots he had been lent by leftists, especially Kurds. Kldarolu tried by doubling down on anti-immigrant rhetoric, while scrambling to disassociate Kurdish voters from Kurdish terrorists. In the process, he squandered the inclusive spirit which had buoyed the opposition coalition in the first place.

The result was a victory for Erdoan who took home 52.18 percent of the vote, in comparison to the oppositions 47.82. This translates into a strengthened executive presidency and accelerated state capture, in coalition with ultra-nationalists of both Islamist and secular stripe. At least in the short term then, prospects appear dim for Turkeys de facto diverse society to claw back a pluralistic political system, where rule of law, freedoms, and human, womens and minority rights are effectively enshrined.

What lessons can we draw from Turkeys turn? We live, after all, in a world from Modis India and Orbans Hungary to Trump or DeSantiss United States, where populists, their ultra-nationalist allies, and opportunistic enablers are seeking to rewrite the frames and rules of electoral democracy.

Lesson 1: Its not only the economy, stupid

Much of the pre-election optimism surrounding the opposition was due to the sorry state of Turkeys economy: its hyperinflation and ravaged currency, and Erdoans counterintuitive response (e.g. refusal to raise interest rates; expansive economic populism). The governments bungled relief efforts after devastating earthquakes in February which killed at least 50,000, and left some 1.5 million homeless also were thought to advantage the opposition.

But, it seems that when a race is framed as if survival of the national in-group is at stake, identity politics beat out bread-and-butter concerns. Exceptionally high turnout by the AKP base underscores the urgency which Erdoan communicated to supporters. Populists claim to be bulwarks against existential threats real or imagined likewise render them remarkably immune to scandals for which conventional politicians are punished. In short, polarization, post-truth communication, and fear-mongering worked, from fomenting moral panic about womens and LGBTQ+ activism under the opposition umbrella, to a doctored video showing Kldarolu conspiring with Kurdish militants.

The results further suggest that conventional wisdom regarding bad economy = poor electoral performance ignores interest group preferences at its own peril. In other words, unsound policies which nevertheless benefit key constituencies can help a platform prevail at the ballot box, even though the result is managed decline for the economy overall. (In this case, smaller business owners, shopkeepers, and their workers key demographics for the pro-religious and ultra-nationalist base either benefit from Erdoans economic policies, or from his compensatory, economic populism.)

Lesson 2: Pre-election fairness matters as much as Election Day free-ness

Democracys minimum criterion is free and fair elections. In Turkeys case, there is wide consensus that election-day is relatively free (despite a number of anomalies reported at polls across the country). But the build-up to elections simply was not fair.

When it comes to mining the electoral playing field, the tactically brilliant Erdoan wrote the playbook which right-wing populists around the world are reading. Choice elements include control of traditional media through coercion and cooption, while policing and manipulating social media. Meanwhile, critical external media is delegitimized as driven by nefarious (Western/Zionist/fill-in-the-blank) interests. The result, since Turkeys far-right coalition coalesced in 2015, has been a steady drumbeat of very heavy nationalistic and militaristic narrative every day from morning till night on the TVs, in the newspapers, and beyond, shaping voter sensibilities.

A second strategy is to stack governing bodies with allies from election boards to the Courts. This helps to hedge against a vote gone awryallowing, for example, a populist incumbent to challenge an unfavorable electoral outcome (as Erdoan sought to do during nation-wide municipal elections in 2019).

As importantly, however, capturing institutions enables the incumbent to shape the opposition bench by disqualifying charismatic rivals. For example, the mediatic mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamolu, had a better chance of bridging two key demographics right-wing Turks and left-wing Kurds than Kldarolu. But he was prevented from running by dubious charges brought in December 2022. Forced to appeal, he would have campaigned with Damocles sword dangling over not just his presidential candidacy but his Istanbul mayorship. This danger compelled the opposition, in turn, to line up behind a weaker candidate.

Lesson 3: From Illiberal to Potemkin Democracy?

A key question then after Turkeys elections is whether the very notion of illiberal democracy is meaningful in our age of performative politics? Or, as some have argued, does the hope it evokes do more harm than goodallowing earnest voter engagement on election-day to legitimize outcomes obtained through post-truth polarization, and the mined playing field? Right-wing populists like Trump and Bolsanaro did weaponize democracy, embracing the vote when they won, but unleashing ultra-nationalist rank and file to overturn results when they lost. Erdoan a more sophisticated player than his western copycats stated, for his part, that he would accept any outcome. But there is evidence that at least some elements within his coalition were positioning for a stop the steal spectacle, had identity politics and the uneven playing field not prevailed.

Yet, ultimately, the only way left to prevent illiberal democracy from devolving into Potemkin farce may be the ballot box itself. In this respect, an uplifting takeaway from Turkeys elections was voters commitment to electoral participation (which was over 90 percent at many polling stations). In the build-up to March 14th& 28th alike, they turned out droves in diaspora and at home to vote and monitor, to celebrate and console. It is this conviction, that government is legitimized by the will of the people, which may compel even the most cynical populists, and their ultra-nationalist partners, to allow intermittent opportunities for democratic contestation, even if there is less democracy to save.

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Pluralism vs. Ultra-Nationalism: The Real Cleavage Behind Turkey's ... - E-International Relations

May 31, 2023

DHAKA President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkiyes so-called modern Sultan, emerged victorious in the most nail-biting test to his 20-year rule. Turkiye once a staunchly secular Muslim nation braces for another five years of virtual one-man rule with creeping Islamisation, unorthodox economic policies, and an independent yet disruptive foreign policy.

Erdogan is the inventor of nativist, populist politics globally, and his defeat would mean something globally, said Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute. Now that hes not going anywhere, the question pressing on our minds is: what does Erdogans win mean for global democracy or, contradictorily, populism?

Erdogan, declaring victory from his residence in Istanbul, sang, We have opened the door of Turkiyes century without compromising our democracy, development and our objectives. The anthem is deception at its finest. Yet, it works. His supporters, who refer to him as Superdogan, celebrated on the streets with unbridled euphoria.

It is well-known that democracy in Turkiye once a beacon of democratic liberalism in the East largely backslid in the last decade.

In 2013, when people took to the streets calling for Erdogans resignation, amid a sprawling corruption scandal, the government led a brutal crackdown, imprisoning dissenters. And lets not forget the bloody 2016 failed military coup, where more than 250 people were killed and the aftermath of which saw the Erdogan government targeting 50,000 people soldiers, police, judges, civil servants and teachers in purge. Then, in 2017, Erdogan subsumed the role of the prime minister into that of the president through a referendum, and has since monopolised the political arena using state institutions for political gains.

Despite all the vile things hes done, Erdogan scored win after win like a wizard. A deep dive into his tenure reveals rather bloodthirsty politics, but people consume the surface he puts out: that hes all for Turkiye and the oppressed and whatnot. The majority of people forget that this man, who talks about saving people all the time, does so living in the largest presidential residence in the world: a palace with 1,100 rooms, which costs $615 million of public money.

It cannot be denied that the 69-year-old is a clever politician. He perfected the art of autocracy where his missteps such as lowering interest rates to bring down inflation are deafened out by the nationalist song of making Turkiye great again, flirting with the controversial history of the Ottoman era. For Erdogan, and for many leaders around the world, populism is not an ideology. Its rather a robust political strategy, wherein leaders actively leverage common peoples inclination to feel more charged by nationalist narratives and rhetoric over policies and performance.

And Erdogan has unmatched competence in harnessing the populist political strategy. Not unfamiliar to us in Bangladesh, Turkiyes leader used his development projects which physically transformed the nation to pull the rug over systemic corruption, its effect on the economy, and alarming macroeconomic indicators. He had his supporters smitten with shiny new things: the making of the biggest airport in the world, highways, universities, schools, bridges, mosques, shopping centres, transit lines, tunnels, ports, the $1.5 billion Kanal Istanbul in the works (which will turn Istanbuls European side into an island), and so on.

He showed off Turkiyes rising military prowess, such as the development of drones; his foreign adventures, and misadventures, legitimised Turkiye as a global force, even if a contentious one. He has alienated Turkiye from its Nato partners and imperilled the alliances defence, most prominently by purchasing Russian S-400 missile defence systems. Those bold moves have been welcomed by his supporters. A 40-year-old owner of a stagnating barbershop in Istanbul told Foreign Policy, This is the future I want to give my sons: A country standing strong and independently on the world stage. A safe place.

His re-election campaign withstood troubling times for the Turkish economy: rampant inflation, a deepening cost-of-living crunch, and intensifying poverty. Turkiyes response to the earthquake, which killed 50,000 lives, also highlighted the negligence of the government and was perceived by pollsters to reflect the last straw on the proverbial camels back.

Yet, the majority of Turkish people, in a polarised nation, saw no better option than their strongman. The Table of Six and the uncharismatic Kemal Kldarolu was never going to stand, because Erdogans hold over the nation in the judiciary, the media narrative, and so on makes it difficult to launch an effective opposition. Its also another indicator of his dexterous autocratic strategies, and the same dynamic is seen elsewhere in the world.

Erdogans win is a learning lesson for us to shift our thinking. It disparages the notion long held by analysts and journalists: that freedom of speech, rule of law, and a flourishing economy are essential to win the hearts of the people. Its common to think that when those features are threatened, especially the economy, the peoples will turns away from the office-holder. We perceive they want to break free from the shackles of the leaders responsible for the damage. But in this unstable global climate, that purview, though logical, is rather black and white.

Politicians like Erdogan in Russia, India, China, Israel, and the far-right parts of the West are mangling history to capitalise on their self-interests, and people support them. (For example, Putins support has not faltered even after the Ukraine war thats hit the Russian economy, as people still long for that past glory that shattered from the break-up of the Soviet Union.) Erdogan has ever-so-successfully played to the historical prestige of Turkiye to cultivate popularity; his nationalist narrative, which often includes bashing the Western global hegemony, nurtures national nostalgia of Turkiyes early global dominance.

Post his election win, calls are being made in the Western media for Erdogan to pivot his policies. But when autocrats face an unstable domestic context, they double down on repression, says Gonul Tol, the author of Erdogan War: A Strongmans Struggle at Home and in Syria. Erdogan has long held a self-conscious neo-Ottomanism dream, posing himself to be a modern version of Sultan Selim, who expanded the Turkish empire from a strong regional power to a gargantuan empire with an exclusionary vision of power. It is unrealistic to think hed shift. If anything, hell be more desperate to bring that dream to life, the act of which will continue to shake the edifice of democracy and whatever is left of it.

Ramisa Rob is a journalist at The Daily Star.

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The Erdogan era lives on, as does the power of populism - asianews.network

Most Mexico observers would agree that Andrs Manuel Lpez Obrador (AMLO) is undermining the countrys democratic institutions. This development poses two questions. First, how closely the Mexican experience fits into the broader patterns of the crisis of democratic rule around the world in the 21st century? Second, what lessons can other societies learn from this experience as they also struggle to build and sustain democratic institutions in the face of rising authoritarian populism?

To answer the first question, I take as reference point the ideas of Mickey et al. for whom the experience of most contemporary autocracies suggests that it would take place through a series of little-noticed, incremental steps, most of which are legal and many of which appear innocuous. Taken together, however, they would tilt the playing field in favor of the ruling party.[1]

To answer the second question, I follow the ideas of Nancy Bermeo who considers three qualities of contemporary forms of democratic backsliding that opponents need to reckon with.[2] First, and in consonance with Mickey et al., that troubled democracies are now more likely to erode rather than to shatter.[3] Second, that current trends are not random events but rational responses to local and international incentives.[4] And third, that contemporary forms of democratic backsliding are most ambiguous and most difficult when they marshal broad popular supportand they often do.[5]

I have organized my own ideas in the form of a written questionnaire. My responses follow the notion that the struggle to build and sustain democracy in Mexico is in fact the history of creating autonomous electoral authorities and shielding them from political interference from the executive branch. For most of the 20th century, elections in Mexico were a farce as the hegemonic Institutional Revolutionary Party(PRI) controlled them and sanctioned their validity. The result was, of course, that the party always won. Starting in 1977, Mexican politicians from both the PRI and the opposition began to pursue a democratic project. This was attuned with the democratic winds blowing in other parts of the Spanish-speaking world. Over the next two decades, these politicians established the rules and institutions to redress the authoritarian regime. Despite the slow and complex process, by 1996 the electoral authorities became independent of the PRI-dominated executive branch. In this way, if in1977the elections were organized and sanctioned by the Ministry of the Interior, by2000they were organized by an autonomous Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) and sanctioned by the newly created Electoral Tribunal of the Federal Judiciary Branch (TEPJF).

This is in a nutshell the story of Mexicos democratic transition: a two decades-long series of electoral reforms to prevent political interference in elections from the incumbent government. Naturally, the democratic backsliding that we are currently observing in Mexico tries to unwind that process by restoring the influence of the executive branch in the electoral process.

1. Has Mexicos democratic backsliding taken place through a series of little-noticed, incremental steps?

Yes, and in fact I trace the exact moment when the democratic backsliding started in Mexico: the election night of July 2nd , 2006, when AMLO refused to accept his defeat and lashed out at the National Electoral Institute (INE) accusing it of abetting electoral fraud. That was the precise moment that the tide turned for the INE and by extension also for Mexican democracy. We are reaping what we have sown. The eminent Polish-American political scientist, Adam Przeworski argues that one of the essential conditions for democracy to survive is that losers accept electoral defeat.[6] None of this happened in Mexico in 2006, nor in 2012 when AMLO lost against Enrique Pea Nieto and again cried foul. On the contrary, and to this day, he keeps fanning conspiratorial flames with claims of a Big Steal la Trump in 2020. His animosity against the INE was not even tempered with his landslide victory in the 2018 elections that were organized and overseen by the INE. On the contrary, a few weeks after his victory, he went on the offensive against the Institute, accusing it of malfeasance for auditing his campaign finances.

Ever since 2006, AMLO has created his political persona as an embattled social justice warrior that faced and eventually defeated a corrupt economic elite that twice stole the presidency from him, abetted by the acquiescence of the INE. And ever since that year he has vilified the Institute over and over again. He found in this an unexpected ally in the liberal intelligentsia, which for years had ruthlessly criticized the Institute calling it inefficient, imperfect, expensive, tone-deaf, etc. Let no one fool themselves. Not even those with a superficial knowledge of AMLO can be surprised that he is leading a full-frontal assault on the INE. So to answer the question: yes, Mexicos democratic woes are the chronicle of a death foretold.

2. Have the steps been legal and apparently innocuous?

Yes and no. The real question, however, is whether it is desirable and feasible for authorities to force a political actor to acknowledge defeat? This is a devilishly difficult proposition. To be specific, should it be deemed illegal to disallow unfavourable electoral results? Whatever option we may hold, the fact is that back in 2006 and to this day it is not illegal to send institutions to hell as AMLO famously declared in the aftermath of that years election. It could be, I can imagine, fringing into the illegal to suggest that the INEs board members sold themselves for a few pesos, as AMLO accused them of doing. But most of the time those expressions are simply disregarded as rhetoric. Ironically but true: for a democracy to be such, it needs to tolerate the intolerant, and to put up with those that flat-out subvert and vilify it from the inside.

But one thing is to say that AMLOs antics are legal, or rather put not illegal, and another thing to say they are innocuous. They are not. The first casualty here was the publics trust in its electoral authorities. We need also to remember where we came from: the PRI led a hegemonic party system under which other parties are permitted to exist, but as second class, licensed parties; for they are not permitted to compete with the hegemonic party in antagonistic terms and on an equal basis.[7] It took almost 20 years to restore public trust on the electoral process, and one night in 2006 to destroy it. And we are still stuck in that moment. The conspiratorial flames over the 2006 electoral results are the same that are being fanned over the INE with claims of it being a bloated, unreliable bureaucratic apparatus. AMLO is crystal clear on this, by the way, noting I did not reach the Presidency because of the INE, I reached the Presidency because of the people. When I was a candidate, I never met with the INE and always tried to keep my distance from them and not believe them because I knew that they were biased referees.[8]

Demagoguery and lies may be the daily bread in politics, but they are never innocuous. Quite the contrary, they create alternative facts where the devil lurks.

3. Taken together, have they titled the electoral playing field in favour of ruling party MORENA?

Im not entirely sure about this. Despite all of AMLO's efforts to undermine, neutralize, and emasculate the INE, the fact remains that it still there and working. Barring the possibility that AMLO strikes a last-minute decisive blow against it, it is safe to assume that the INE will have survived the most direct and vicious attack from the federal government in its 26-year history. Let's take a moment to see how this happened.

First, there was Plan A, which flat-out proposed to eliminate the INE under the guise of an "electoral reform" that would create a new body under the orbit of influence of the executive branch. Largely perceived as a power grab, the electoral reform failed after a massive rally across Mexico in defense of the INE in November 2022.

Then came Plan B, a not-so-veiled administrative reform that aimed to denaturalize the INE by drastically reducing its budget and stripping it of key administrative responsibilities. This plan also failed when massive demonstrations took place across Mexico and abroad, and the legislative process of the bill was admitted for review by the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation.

Next came Plan C, which, as it turned out, was an attempt to pack the INE's board with AMLO loyalists. The plan also failed due to pure luck as the new board members were chosen at random, leaving out AMLO's favoured options.

Despite all of the efforts and animosity displayed by AMLO towards the INE and the rivers of ink spilled around it, his gains are modest: placing one of his loyalists in the INE's presidency, which, given the collegial nature of the board, feels like a pyrrhic victory.

For all of the above reasons, I believe it is unclear whether the electoral field is tilted towards MORENA or not. To be clear, the playing field is always tilted towards the incumbent, but is it any more tilted now than it was in 2018 towards the PRI or 2012 towards the PAN? We will soon find out.

4.Piecemeal erosions of autonomy may thus provoke only fragmented resistance.[9] Has the opposition in Mexico fallen into this trap?

I dont think so. AMLOs 2018 landslide victory taught the opposition that the only way to prevent a complete takeover by MORENA was to join forces. And they did so in 2021 by running together in that years midterm elections, successfully defeating MORENAs candidates in key races for Congress and in several of Mexico Citys boroughs. They also managed to establish a united front in the defense of the INE, despite the many attempts of the government to break it apart. Therefore, on the balance the opposition has acted together on the critical turning points, most likely simply out of pure survival instinct.

5. trends in backsliding are rational reactions to international incentives as well as domestic history.[10] Has the Mexican opposition recognized this?

I am not sure. The 2018 election in Mexico was a political earthquake that shattered the 25-year-old party system that consolidated with the end of the democratic transition. This was a stable three-party system in which the PAN occupied the political right, the PRD the left, and the PRI, the center. A generation of Mexicans grew up in this system that abruptly came to an end in 2018; almost single-handedly brought down by AMLO. The immediate reaction of the traditional parties was to cast this event as a bizarre accident. Stunned as they were left, they were incapable of realizing the profound generational and social changes that had occurred since 1996. They grew up over-confident with hubris and took their voters for granted. This painful truth is slowly sinking in and, little by little, the opposition parties are starting to realize certain things. First of all, and chief among them, is the generational change towards a more radical electorate, which became less tolerant and more belligerent than before, just like AMLO himself. Second, that not all of this is their fault. These are dark days for democracy around the world as its value is questioned and demagoguery runs rife. Mexico is not an island, and it is only natural that the authoritarian winds that blow elsewhere do the same in the country, just as did the democratic winds that blew strong in the 1970s and 1980s.

6. those seeking to reverse backsliding must cope not only with the state actors who engineer backsliding but with their mobilized supporters. Silencing or simply ignoring these citizens preferences may stoke reactionary fires and undercut the quality of democracy. Yet changing their preferences is devilishly difficult and a long-term project at best.[11] Have the opposition parties in Mexico arrived at this realization?

I am not sure. There is still a whiff of hubris among the leaders of the opposition towards the heterogeneous political coalition that AMLO put together in 2018. They are still very much operating under the successful slogan of Felipe Caldern in 2006: AMLO: A danger for Mexico. This fear-inducing message worked wonders in 2006 but not anymore. AMLO learned his lesson and in 2012 and 2018, he softened his image. The electorate stopped being afraid of him at some point in the second quarter of 2018 when he broke his historical voter preference ceiling, going from the mid-thirties to 50 percent. This is the15% of loosely committed voters who will decide the 2024 election. The thing is that it is unlikely that they will be mobilized simply by offering an anti-AMLO message, which at this point seems to be the only thing the opposition has to offer. But that would be too little, too late. The opposition leaders needs to offer more and engage with them in a way that does not censor them over their past or present views on AMLO. They need to offer them a path that reconnects with their profound desire for radical change in times of social anxiety and widespread criminal violence. A political New Deal to promote national economic and social recovery, a deal that clearly departs from AMLO but at the same time is not a return to a past that voters soundly rejected in 2018. The challenge ahead for the opposition is to reinvent itself and adapt to new circumstances and new generations. Give hope to the young and old and fully embrace their radical desire for change, to which they are fully entitled. It starts at the basic level of developing their own language and breaking free from the Newspeak of this administration: 4th transformation, conservatives, otros datos, fifs, etc. The future of democracy in Mexico depends on it.

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Democratic backsliding in Mexico: Lessons for opponents of ... - Wilson Center

In an announcement as surprising as sunshine in Florida, the states governor, Ron DeSantis, unveiled his long-teased candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination Wednesday. The only unforeseen aspect came from technical glitches at the start of a Twitter conversation with Twitter CEO Elon Musk.

The question now obsessing pundits is whether DeSantis stream of Florida legislative victories can overcome the GOPs allegiance to a certain former president and his disdain for the man he calls Ron DeSanctimonious.

In his first term as governor, and especially in the months since his landslide reelection last November, DeSantis has tried to position himself as the Republican who will most aggressively insert himself into the nations culture wars. Assisted by a Republican supermajority, he enacted laws banning abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, allowing permit-less concealed carrying of guns, and outlawing education about sexual orientation and gender identity through the fourth grade. He has prohibited diversity, equity, and inclusion programs at state colleges and requirements that teachers and students use pronouns that dont correspond with a persons birth sex. And he even punched Mickey Mouse, by tightening state regulation of Walt Disney World in Orlando after the company criticized his sexuality instruction ban, dubbed Dont Say Gay by critics.

DeSantis is offering this record as rationale for Republicans to nominate him to take on President Biden, over GOP front-runner Donald Trump. But can DeSantis win, when polls have shown that majorities or pluralities of Americans disagree with him on many of these issues? Does he comfortably fit intoTrumps populist, MAGA movement? Hours after DeSantis launched his campaign, BU Today spoke with Rachel Meade, a lecturer in political science at the College of Arts & Sciences who studies populism in politics, about where DeSantis fits in the political and cultural landscape.

Rachel Meade: DeSantis is not particularly populist, according to many common understandings of populism. He is not very charismatic, nor does he use the kind of everyday or politically incorrect language that is often associated with populist appeals to the people. Populists also usually have strong relationships with grassroots social movements, who they communicate with in direct and informal ways, as Trump does in his rally appearances.

I think he is less populist than Trump, but more so than the typical Republican. And he is clearly trying to present as populist. I just think he is mostly, though not entirely, unsuccessful. His rhetoric on woke corporations, schools, and media strikes a populist tone. He is attempting, with some level of success, to pick up the mantle of preexisting populist social movements, like the anti-lockdown, parental rights/anti-critical race theory movement, and the broader sentiments and frustrations with a perception of anti-free speech censorship. Still, I think the arguments against him being truly populist and picking up that MAGA base are stronger.

Fully populist appeals clearly designate an elite and institutional target, and usually have an economic component, whereas his anti-woke narrative remains mostly a cultural critique and doesnt clearly connect to peoples broader economic concerns. In addition, his style often sounds very technocratic and jargon-y, which was very notable in his campaign launch speech on Twitter.

The harms of a Trump presidency are clear, most notably in 2020 election denialism and the Stop the Steal movement. While DeSantis seems less likely to embrace election denialism and has steered clear of those aspects of Trumpism, its still hard to say whether DeSantis would be better or worse when it comes to concerns about authoritarianism. He has proved a much more effective policymaker and navigator of bureaucracy when you look at the many anti-[critical race theory] and anti-trans policies passed across a range of Florida institutions, and how he coordinates with conservative activists across the states. This could potentially mean that he might be more effective in following through with policies to match his promises, which is something Trump often failed to do. Where those promises would seek to undermine democratic institutions or erode checks and balances, this could pose a threat.

I hesitate to make any kind of prediction, since Americans are so surprisingwhich is what makes studying public opinion so interesting! But I would tentatively say that with Trump in the race, it does seem like a long shot for him, as he faces attacks from die-hard MAGAs, Never Trumpers, and fired-up opposition from liberals and identity groups based on his anti-woke policies. His position in the race is also complicated in that he is trying to present himself as a more grown-up or responsible version of MAGA populism, even though part of the appeal of Trump is actually his transgressive nature and feeling of authenticity.

I think he is less populist than Trump, but more so than the typical Republican. And he is clearly trying to present as populist.

Im not convinced he is a fully populist governor, but he may well be the most successful and notable current Republican governor. I do think hes made an impact in Florida policy, which has resonated with a portion of the Republican electorate. In particular, many conservatives and others became more politicized during COVID-19 out of opposition to federal and local COVID policies, public health communications, media rhetoric, and social media platform policiesall of which were seen to be silencing the voices of those who disagreed with COVID orthodoxy. DeSantis very effectively presented Florida as a beacon for COVID freedom, by advertising that schools and businesses were open there. He capitalized on the growing discontent with COVID policy and the anti-lockdown, anti-mask, and reopen social movements, whose roots can now be seen in the parental rights school movements that DeSantis has also taken up.

Direct, unmediated communication with the people, through social media platforms, livestreaming, or rallies, is a major feature of populist leadership style, so I would say this was at least an attempt to present himself as a populist champion of the people. Elon Musk has been trying to rebrand Twitter as an adversary of ideologically liberal norms of speech and a defender of free speech and political correctness, all of which fits with DeSantis anti-woke brand. Yet truly populist communications involve more than a politician just delivering information on a social media platform. In my view, populist communication in the digital realm has to include some level of reciprocity and interaction with constituents that goes beyond top-down communication.

With this higher bar, I would judge this to be an unsuccessful attempt at populist communication. Twitter itself is not the platform one might go to in order to present as a real man of the people, being mostly full of journalists, politicians, and highly engaged and educated news junkies. Even with Elons attempted rebranding of the platform as a free speech haven for censored conservatives and others, this cant make up for the splintering of conservative social media, with Trumps die-hard supporters with him on Truth Social, as well as competition from other conservative and free speechbranded platforms like Rumble.

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Can Ron DeSantis Out-Populist Donald Trump to Win the GOP ... - Boston University

The Karnataka election may spur competitive populism among various political parties

The Congress impressive victory in the Karnataka Assembly election has not just added a new dynamic in national politics but also cast a shadow on the future of economic reforms. In general, reforms are put on the back burner in the period before a general election. PV Narasimha Rao carried out the historic liberalisation in the first three years of his tenure (1991-96). Similarly, in the last year of his tenure, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, another great liberaliser, also did not privatise any public sector undertaking (PSU). Once again, there are news reports that the Narendra Modi Government will not take up any new PSU for sale, though the Government would continue with the ongoing deals involving disinvestment in IDBI Bank, Shipping Corporation, BEML and Container Corporation of India (Concor). An official was quoted in a report, saying. Even the proposed privatisation of two public-sector banks and a general insurance firm has been postponed. The reasons are not difficult to find. It is very easy for socialists and vested interests to find fault with any privatization deal. They malign everything and everyonethe idea of privatization, the process, the privatisers, the government that does it, the economists and experts who favour the sale of PSUs. They deploy all tricks and proffer fallacious arguments in their jihad privatization: sale of family silver to pay the grocers bill, national assets being sold for a song, etc. If they fail to stop a privatisation, they begin harassing the privatisers. Arun Shourie, disinvestment minister in the Vajpayee cabinet, is still facing court cases decades after the transactions were made.

Besides, the political cost of liberalisation is highor at least politicians believe that. Vajapayees defeat in 2004, for example, was falsely attributed to his governments liberalising moves. It was not just Left-leaning intellectuals but also many RSS luminaries linked his unexpected loss with the reforms his government carried out. Public discourse at that timeand to some extent even nowwas heavily influenced by socialist dogmas. The most prominent dogma sees the economy as a zero-sum game: one gains only at the expense of the other. So, if India was shining, as the BJP claimed, Bharat must be whining. In such a milieu, the Congress shrewdly coined the slogan, Aam aadmi ko kya mila. In such a social, cultural and political milieu, the Modi Government should be lauded for just slowing down and not discarding privatisation. But the danger of populism is realand it might grow. The grand old party took recourse to populism in Karnataka, and handed over a bill of Rs 50,000-60,000 crore to the States taxpayer. The GOP and other parties are likely to come up with more freebies and entitlements; the BJP, willy-nilly, may be forced to enter the race of competitive populism. If that happens, economic reforms will suffer a terrible setback.

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Danger of populism - Daily Pioneer

Much has been said and written about the rise of populism around the world and the threat it poses to traditional politics, dominated as it has been by the centre right and centre left. As the new wave of populism sweeps across various continents, the Middle East has been somewhat absent from the conversation. Crushed under the weight of authoritarianism, the region is seen to be immune from populist backlash and, moreover, had its populist moment under the wave of Pan-Arabism, also called Arab nationalism, peaking during 1958-61 in a political union between Egypt and Syria, in the form of the United Arab Republic.

The Arab Spring could be held up as a populist moment but there are important differences between the current strain of populist politics and the mass uprising which began in Tunisia in 2010. Firstly, there was no single leader around whom protestors rallied behind. This is a key marker of populism, which did not exist during the Arab Spring. Leaders like the former US President Donald Trump, India's Narendra Modi and Hungary's Victor Orban are typical of the top down, elite-led popularism garnering power and momentum. Whatever one may think of the Arab Spring, it was a genuine bottom-up movement calling for democracy.

A second important difference is that the Arab Spring was a revolt by the masses against authoritarianism and not, as is the case with the populist backlash, fuelled by fear over minorities. A dark undercurrent of racism flows through the current wave of populism, especially in India where the Muslim minority faces horrific levels of discrimination. The same crop of populist leaders inspiring these movements fuel racial and culture divides and present themselves as "heroes" in a war waged on two fronts: the manufactured culture war and the feud against an imagined global elite. That said, it would be inaccurate to assume that the Middle East is fully immune to populism. Under the right conditions, populism can become a major force, a fact that was powerfully demonstrated to me during a recent trip to Algeria.

The North African country continues to defy many of the long-held assumptions and stereotypes common amongst Western analysts. I was invited by a member of the governing coalition, the National Construction Movement (NCM), known in Arabic as the Harakat Al-Bina' Al-Watani. With 39 seats out of 407 in Algeria's People's National Assembly, the party has the fifth highest number of elected representatives. The President of Harakat Al-Bina' Al-Watani is Abdelkader Bengrina. He is a former member of Algeria's largest Islamist party, the Movement for a Society of Peace (MSP), a self-avowed branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. With 65 seats, MSP is second only to the National Liberation Front (FLN), the party which spearheaded Algeria's liberation movement against the French. In one of the many splinters within the Islamist groups, Bengrina left the MSP in 2008, alongside other dissidents.

Though unfamiliar with details of the split between Bengrina and Algeria's Muslim Brotherhood, the reasons for their differences became all too apparent during the 61-year-old's address at the 10,000 capacity International Conference Centre where thousands of party members, foreign delegates, including representatives of various government and political parties gathered to celebrate the second congress of Harakat Al-Bina' Al-Watani.

"Our nation is our creed" declared Bengrina during his hour-long address, steeped in the kind of nationalist fervour typical of populist leaders elsewhere. "Our country is a belief and an idea, and whoever neglects his country, it will be easy for him to neglect his religion and belief," Bengrina declared while laying out NCM's vision. "Whoever neglects his country, it will be easy for him to neglect his honour, homeland and people," he continued. "The homeland is soil and sovereignty, and the homeland is a state and institutions. Whoever tears the fabric of society and united the people is a traitor. Whoever abandons an inch of the homeland and does not defend it, is a traitor. Whoever distorts the institutions of his state or abuses them is a traitor."

READ:Algeria supports any deal to organise elections in Libya

Evoking nationalist sentiments further, Bengrina urged Algerians to offer themselves as "mukhbirs" informants against anyone who wishes to undermine the country's security and prosperity. He made the remark within the context of Algeria's long feud with Morocco. The two countries have bitter differences over Western Sahara, where Algiers backs the Polisario against Rabat. The nationalistic crescendo ended with a narration of the prophet Muhammed (PBUH) justifying "love of the homeland".

Beside Bengrina's strong appeal to nationalism, which had become a source of unease for several delegates I spoke to, there was little to separate between the political programme of NCM and other Islamist parties. There was the unequivocal denunciation of violence. In fact, Bengrina went beyond most leaders on this issue. "None of us hurt the elites and challenge the institutions," he said extolling his party's non-violent stance. "None of us sow doubt and confusion, none of us conspires against the institutions of his state." For Bengrina "democracy is the gift of civilisation for making political change". Speaking about Israel and Palestine, which featured heavily throughout the event, including addresses by the major Palestinian factions, Bengrina described it as "our greatest concern".

Nonetheless, in the days that followed Bengrina's rousing speech, all the talk had come to be about his powerful appeal to nationalism. What did Bengrina mean when he said, "our nation is our creed?" Is he really asking Algerians to "spy" on their fellow citizens on behalf of the state? Is Bengrina a new model of Islamist leaders and does his party represent a future of political Islam elsewhere?

Since their founding, there has existed a tension within Islamist political parties over the universalist concept of Ummah (Islamic community of believers), a supranational or transnational union and the idea of a nation state as the post-colonial normative model for how the Muslim world is politically arranged. "Islam is not Algerian, Tunisian or Egyptian. Islam is universal" remains a common sentiment amongst many Islamists. As this tension played out in Algeria, pan-Islamic aspirations were said to have been dismissed as irrelevant, to the context in which parties like the MSP and its later rival, NCM, had operated.

"The struggle against French colonial forces and, later, against 'imported' extremism together bolstered the requirement of indigeneity and hypernationalism, and made being viewed as a foreign current profoundly hazardous for movements, political groups and individuals alike" said Vish Sakthivel, Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute's Program. According to Sakthivel, Algerians view the notion of a meddling foreign hand with a collective and institutionalised anguish. Allegations of influence under a foreign hand whether Saudi Arabia and Egypt in decades past or Qatar and Iran have been weaponised against Islamists in Algeria. Commenting on Algeria's largest Islamist party, Sakthivel explained that "to avert suspicions of extra-nationalist loyalty, the MSP often oscillates between emphasising and downplaying its ties to the transnational Muslim Brotherhood, as well as broader discourses on the 'global umma.'"

Senior Harakat Al-Bina' Al-Watani officials were keen to press on me the importance of the evolution that their party had undergone and the progress they had made. One of the party's founders, Ahmed Al-Daan, agreed with the view that Bengrina is a populist, but not in the way we know populist leaders to be in other parts of the world. His argument is that Algeria is not just a Muslim majority country; it is "one hundred per cent Muslim." The difference between the two is significant, according to Al-Daan as, unlike Muslims states with large non-Muslim minorities, Algeria is "hundred per cent Muslim" and, therefore, the argument goes, a genuine leader representing the popular will cannot be anything but a Muslim populist.

READ:Egypt, Saudi, UAE, Algeria, Bahrain seek to join BRICS bloc

Al-Daan continued stressing that it was impossible to separate Islam and nation within the context of Algeria. The bond between the three Islam, nation and Algerians was sealed during the long anti-colonial movement. This view of Algeria was powerfully illustrated to us during our pre-arranged trip to the Army Museum. Upon arrival, visitors are greeted by the magnificent and imposing figure of Algeria's most revered leader, Emir Abdelkader. As well as being a major religious figure, he was also a military leader who led the struggle against the French colonial invasion of Algiers. For secular and religious Algerians, the spirit of their nation is embodied in Abdelkader, who epitomised religious virtue and Algeria's struggle for freedom from French colonial rule.

Populism within the Algerian context is not the same as populism in the US, Al-Daan insisted. I had some sympathy for the argument as there is a danger to populism in countries with large minorities, which does not necessarily exist in a homogenous state like Algeria. Like many others in the party I spoke to, Al-Daan stressed the idea of service. "Service to the people, service to the country and service to Islam" was one and the same thing in the eyes of Harakat Al-Bina' Al-Watani loyalists.

Perhaps Algeria a country whose history and struggle against colonialism is unlike any other is a unique case, and our model and categories, including Islamist, secularist and populists, are unsuited for understanding the politics and history of the country. There was a confidence in NCM members in that they did not feel the need to assert the "Islamicness" of their party. It is a given, they would say. What mattered more than anything was giving voice and expression to the people of Algeria and the spirit of their nation. Democracy, they argued, if done properly and is allowed to reflect the will of the people, would preserve the values of Islam in a country that is "One hundred per cent Muslim."

READ:Gaza and the use of sanctions as a foreign policy tool for collective punishment

Perhaps Harakat Al-Bina' Al-Watani has found a formula for overcoming the false choice between Islamism and authoritarianism that has plagued the Middle East. Or, maybe, in their embrace of nationalism and their seemingly absolute loyalty to the state, Algerians' second largest Islamist party is playing a dangerous game. In the second chapter of the series, I will look to answer those questions.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.

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Algeria: A populist leader challenging our notions of what is possible in the Middle East - Middle East Monitor

The arrest this week of former Pakistan prime minister and cricket legend Imran Khan has triggered nationwide protests targeting military and other institutions, some of which have turned violent.

Pakistans political crisis has worsened significantly since Khan lost a no-confidence motion in parliament and was ousted from power last April. Since then, Khans populist rhetoric has stoked divisions in society, leading to extreme polarisation and the violent reactions weve seen this week.

Khan began sowing these divisions even before he left office. Before his ouster, he had blamed Pakistans one-time close ally, the United States, for conspiring against his government and trying to push him from power.

His party, the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf, has a long history of labelling its political opponents as Western slaves, so this narrative reverberated among his supporters.

Khan then shifted his anger towards the army and its then-chief, General Qamar Bajwa, claiming they were trying to bring down his government.

Khan and the military were once close. Soon after he rose to power in 2018, many of the leaders in his party claimed it was perhaps the first time a civilian government and the military establishment were on the same page in Pakistan.

But the relationship started to fray over the appointment of a new head of Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistans powerful intelligence agency, in 2021. Khan wanted the then-chief of the agency, General Faiz Hameed, to continue in the role, while the military wanted someone else.

Then, last November, Khan survived an assassination attempt at a political rally in Punjab province. A day later, he pointed the finger at three senior government figures as being behind the attack the new prime minister, the interior minister and a senior intelligence official.

The military establishment issued a statement accusing Khan of fabricating the allegations. Khan responded immediately by saying that he stood by his allegations.

While political violence has a long history in Pakistan, it has certainly increased in the wake of Khans populist attacks on the military and other institutions and the political polarisation that has ensued. The new governments pursuit of Khan has also sparked anger among his supporters.

After removing Khans party from power last year, the Pakistan Democratic Alliance an alliance of several other parties, including the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) and Pakistan Peoples Party formed a government and immediately began targeting Khan and his party officials in whatever ways possible.

In the so-called Toshakhana case, the government accused Khan and his wife of corruption for illegally keeping gifts given to them by other countries. The case refers to the Toshakhana department in the government responsible for storing expensive gifts given to public officials. Just last week, the Islamabad High Court found the case to be illegal and dismissed it.

Khan has faced a flood of other allegations, however, ranging from corruption to sedition. By some counts, he faces more than 100 cases around the country. There are elements of revenge politics here because Khans government had also targeted rival political leaders through corruption charges when it was in power.

The new government has made several attempts to arrest him in recent months. A small team from the federal police was sent to his house in Lahore in March, but faced heavy resistance from Khan supporters. A popular slogan emerged among Khans supporters: Khan is our red line. It was a warning to the state not to arrest him.

Although the government has tightly controlled the mainstream media, Khans party has reached its supporters through social media to stoke dissent. And despite crackdowns on Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf leaders, party workers and Khan sympathisers for speaking out against the state on social media, the government hasnt been able to control the simmering anger across the country.

This week, Khan was finally arrested on corruption charges related to another case involving the Al-Qadir University Trust. Khan is accused of using state funds to compensate a real estate giant, Malik Riaz, for land that would be used to build a new university called Al-Qadir.

Khans lawyers challenged the legality of the arrest, but the High Court upheld it. Doubts have remained over whether the authorities followed the proper procedures, however, so it was not surprising that Khans supporters reacted the way they have. Within hours of the arrest, party workers and supporters gathered in many major cities and began openly attacking key military buildings.

The headquarters of Pakistans army was attacked by a mob in Rawalpindi, as was the house of a corps commander in Lahore. This is unprecedented the army headquarters have only ever been targeted by terrorists before.

The military was singled out due to Khans earlier allegations the army conspired to oust him from power and also the fact he was arrested by rangers and not the police.

So far, no one knows Khans exact location or whether he is under civilian or military custody. It is very likely the protests will continue and with that, increasing levels of violence until Khan is released.

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How Imran Khan's populism has divided Pakistan and put it on a knife's edge - The Conversation

The departed but mostly unlamented coalition government, the first version of which was pieced together in February 2020 by four parties in a push to unseat Ficos Smer party following eight years of increasing authoritarianism and corruption, certainly wasnt helped by circumstances.

The COVID-19 pandemic hit immediately after it assumed office, helping to unseat the combustible Igor Matovic leader of OlaNO, a ragtag centre-right populist party that surprised everyone by garnering most votes in the election from the prime ministers chair. Russia then unleashed its war in neighbouring Ukraine, followed by an energy crisis and vicious inflation spike.

With Matovic demoted but continuing his provocative behaviour from the seat of the Finance Ministry, the grip of his replacement Heger slipped late last year, when after months of ill-tempered sniping, the SAS coalition party quit the government.

Opposition parties called for a snap election, but the governing parties resisted and delayed the vote to September 30. President Zuzana Caputova allowed Heger to limp on with a minority cabinet.

But having failed to win a vote of confidence in parliament, that cabinet remained precarious. Hence, a corruption scandal around the agriculture minister that flared up late last week swiftly engulfed it, and Heger fell on his sword on Sunday.

Caputova has been quick to name a temporary technocratic replacement. After half a year of waiting in the wings, Ludovit Odor will finally get his chance to govern Slovakia, when his caretaker government is appointed as expected on May 15.

The deputy governor of the central bank had been lined up in the background, ready for such a collapse, since the start of the year. The economist is little known by the public, but has long served in public institutions. His pro-European democratic credentials fit well with Caputovas own outlook.

The president has not yet revealed the rest of her government of the experts, noting only that none of the temporary ministers will seek election in September.

It will be a government of the people, for whom governance will not be an election campaign, the president stated. The members of the new government were chosen according to expertise, so naturally there will be people from both conservative and liberal backgrounds.

That mixed make-up is also a nod to the fact that the cabinet will need to try to secure parliamentary approval within 30 days of its appointment. Should it fail in that, the president must dismiss it, but can ask it to continue in a caretaker capacity.

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Slovakia to Get 'Expert' Government But Return to Populism Looms - Balkan Insight