Category Archives: Populism

Im a global macro investor who has been betting on whats going to happen for over 50 years. Ive been through all sorts of events and cycles in all sorts of places over a long time which led me to study how these events and cycles work. In the process, I learned that I needed to study history to understand whats going on and whats likely to happen.

Early in my career, I learned though a couple of painful mistakes that the biggest things that surprised me did so because they never happened in my lifetime but had happened many times in history. The first time that happened was on August 15, 1971 when I was clerking on the floor of the New York Stock exchange and the U.S. defaulted on its debt promise to allow people to turn in their paper dollars for gold. I thought that this was a big crisis that would send stock prices down but they went up a lot. I didnt understand why because Id never experienced a big currency devaluation before. When I looked back in history, I saw that the exact same thing happened on March 5, 1933 when Roosevelt defaulted on the U.S.s promise to let people turn in their paper money for gold and stocks went up. That led me to study and learn whywhich is that money could be created, and when its created, it goes down in value which makes things go up in price. That experience led me to study the rises and declines of markets, economies, and countries which Ive done ever since. For example, my studying how the 1920s debt bubble turned into the 1929-33 financial collapse led me to anticipate and profit from the 2008 financial crisis. Thats how I learned that its critical to take a longer-term perspective and understand the mechanics behind why history rhymes.

A few years ago, I saw three big things happening that hadnt happened in my lifetime but had happened in the 1930-45 period. These were:

Seeing these three big things that never happened in these magnitudes in my lifetime led me to study the rises and declines of markets, economies, and countries over the last 500 years, as well as the rises and declines of Chinas dynasties the last 2,100 years.

That examination showed me that these three big forcesi.e. the debt/money one, the internal conflict one, and the external conflict onetranspired in big cycles that reinforced each other to make up what I call the Big Cycle. These cycles were driven by logical cause-effect relationships Most importantly, this study of the last 500 years of history taught me that:

Said differently, history shows that the painful seismic shifts part of the Big Cycle comes about when there is simultaneously 1) too much debt creation that leads to debt bubbles bursting and economic contractions which cause central banks to print a lot of money and buy debt, 2) big conflicts within countries due to big wealth and values conflicts made worse by the bad economic conditions, and 3) big international conflicts due to rising world powers challenging the existing world powers at a time of economic and internal political crises In doing this study, I also saw two other big forces that had big effects. They are:

I call these the Five Big Forces. I saw how they affect each other and change in logical ways to produce the Big Cycle that produces big changes in the world order. I came to realize that if one understands and follows each of these forces and how they interact, one can understand most everything thats changing the world order. Thats what Im trying to do.

I will give you a quick summary of what I learned from my study but if you want to lean more about how and why things change you can get that in my book Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order.

In the U.S., we are now in middle part of what I call the short-term debt cycle and is also known as the business cycle. These short-term debt cycles have lasted 7 years on average, give or take about 3 years. There have been 12 1/2 of them since the new monetary world order started in 1945. So, we are now about half-way though the 13th of the cycles, at the point of the cycle when the central bank has tightened money to fight inflation that is just before the debt and economic contractions which will likely come over next 18 months.

We are also in a late and dangerous part of the long-term debt cycle because the levels of debt assets and debt liabilities have become so high that it is difficult to give lender-creditors a high enough interest rate relative to inflation that is adequate to make them want to hold this debt as an asset without making interest rates so high that it unacceptably hurts the borrower-debtor. Because of unsustainable debt growth, we are likely approaching a major inflection point that will change the financial order. Said differently, it appears to me likely that we are approaching a debt/financial/economic restructuring that will lead to big changes to the financial order.

More specifically. it appears likely to me that because of large deficits the U.S. Treasury will have to sell a lot of debt and it appears there will not be adequate demand for it. If that happens, it will lead to either much higher interest rates or the Fed printing a lot of money and buying bonds which will devalue money. For these reasons, the debt/financial conditions could worsen, perhaps very significantly, over the next 18 months.

In several countries, most importantly the U.S., we have seen a growing percentage of the population that are populist extremists (about 20-25 percent of the right are extreme and about 10-15 percent of the left are) and a shrinking of the percentage of the population that are bipartisan moderates. Though the bipartisan moderates still remain in the majority, they constitute a declining percentage of the population and they are far less willing to fight and win at all costs. In studying history, I saw this growing populism of both sides and increased conflict has repeatedly occurred when large gaps in wealth and values existed at the same time as bad economic conditions. At such times, significant percentages of the population chose populist political leaders who vowed to fight and win for them rather than compromise. In my book, I described the state the U.S. is now in as Stage 5 (When There Are Bad Financial Conditions and Intense Conflict) of the internal order cycle, which comes just before some sort of civil war and changes in the domestic order. That is what is now happening.

Looking ahead, the next 18 months will be an increasingly intense big election period which will lead to much greater political conflict which is likely to sharper the divide between the left and the right. Thirty-three Senate seats, the presidency, and control of the House will be fought over by a number of populist candidates and there will likely be poor economic conditions, so the fights will be vicious and there will be a real test of rule-following and compromising, both of which are required to make democracies work. You can see the movement toward a win at all cost fight while the respect for the legal and political systems declines. You can see this dynamic playing out even now, in things like Donald Trump and his followers being at war with the justice system, or as he and his followers would say, the systems war against him. Whichever perspective you have, it is clear that we are headed into a type of civil war over the next 18 months. To me the most important war is between the bipartisan moderates and the populist extremes, yet the bipartisan moderates are for the most part quietly staying out of this fight. The only thing the Democrats and Republicans can agree on, which most Americans also agree on, is being anti-China which brings me to my next big force.

The conflicts between the U.S. and China are likely to intensify as domestic political tensions will likely lead to increased aggressiveness toward China. That is because in the U.S. most everyone is anti-China and those running for office will want to out-China-bash each other in an election year. China and the US are already dangerously close to some form of war, whether an all-out economic one or, worse, a military one. There are also important elections in Taiwan next year, which is already a flash point in U.S.-China elections, and a U.S.-backed push for Taiwanese independence is something to keep a close eye on when weighing the potential for even more overt U.S.-China conflict. There are several issuesTaiwan, chips, dealing with Russia, sanctioning investmentsthat are being fought over, and both sides are preparing for war. I dont mean to say that we are destined for war, but I do mean that the odds of some form of a major conflict are dangerously high.

Acts of nature are of course harder to predict accurately, but they appear to be getting worse and are likely to be more costly and damaging over the next five to ten years due to climate change. Also, the world is entering an El Nio phase of the climate cycle over the next year.

What can we expect from technology/human inventiveness? Like acts of nature, it is hard to know exactly, though there should be no doubt that generative AI and other technological advances have the potential to cause both massive productivity gains and massive destructions, depending on how they are used. The one thing that we can be sure of is that these changes will be greatly disruptive.

Exactly how events will unfold is beyond my ability to say, but there is no doubt in my mind that those who assume that things will work in the orderly ways we have gotten used in the last few decades will be shocked and probably hurt by the changes to come.

How well these changes are managed will make all the difference. If our leaders can rise above their tendencies to fight and instead focus on cooperating, we can certainly navigate these tricky times to create a better world for most people. Presumably, this outcome is best for everyone, so we should be strongly against civil disorder and war between nations, keeping it in the back of our mind so we strive for cooperative decision-making. For example, now that a debt ceiling agreement has passed, it would be great to see the Democrats and Republicans mutually agree on a bipartisan group of very skilled people to come up with a practical, long-term bipartisan plan. I wrote an article Why and How Capitalism Needs to be Reformed? years ago which is still relevant today in case youre interested. Having said that, it is probably unrealistic to believe that we can materially change the course of events, so what is most important for most people is to visualize the worst. If you do that, you will be prepared for it and will probably be fine.

In closing I should say that the most important thing Ive learned in my 50 years of being a global macro investor is that I can be wrong. For that reason, while I suggest that you consider what I am sharing, I also suggest that you assess it and the circumstances for yourself.

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Why the World Is on the Brink of Great Disorder - TIME

Populist movements in Europe are still with us, and European liberals ought to take on board how and why they appeal to voters, political scientist Zsolt Enyedi writes.

A number of European elections in recent times stronglysuggest that the wave of populism may have peaked in Europe.

Centrist parties, typically representing some version of liberalism, have managed to muddle through and retain public support in some places.

But the problems that caused Europes populist insurgency are still with us, with many of its aspects now transforming rather than falling away.

Populism is typically understood as a negative, transitory, and disruptive phenomenon. This is partly because, in the post-World War II period, populists tended to be amateurs.

Lately, however, a number of authoritarian parties have started to attract donors, campaign managers, lawyers, and government insiders to their cause.

These backers have changed the game and provided a more professional look to their operations by providing investment in institutions of socialisation, access to international contacts, and ground to forge geopolitical alliances.

Liberals, who are prone to self-flagellation, have acknowledged many of the political mistakes they committed in the past.

Neglecting national sentiments and showing insensitivity towards the plight of the losers of globalisation feature high on the list.

But they keep oscillating between two equally dangerous strategies.

The first is to focus on issues that affect tiny groups in the society. The second, typically adopted once the first proves disastrous, is to build on the assumption that ordinary citizens care only about material conditions.

They could do with observing their opponents.

Populists, while playing the nostalgia card, also capture citizens imaginations by stirring debates about the future: a future full of apocalyptic threats.

Playing on fear has a bad reputation. But it is a completely legitimate strategy. If politics has any function, it is precisely to help us avoid future disasters.

The principal disaster heralded by populists is multicultural conflict and a loss of national identity.

Many citizens consider these real dangers, and although they are critical of the authoritarian movement, they often see their countrys authoritarian insurgents as counterweights against rapid social change.

Anti-populist discourse today has an equivalent danger: climate change. But we are a long way away from a restructuring of our political space as a consequence.

Climate concerns motivate the younger generation, less so the older one. This is a problem because, in most countries, young people dont turn out to vote in such large numbers, and they are simply fewer.

This has the additional consequence that the universalistic, cosmopolitan discourse embraced by younger generations is likely to remain on the fringes of national policymaking for some time to come.

National identities are here to stay, and liberals need to remind people of the fundamental compatibility between liberalism and patriotism.

In order to reach the median citizen, liberals need to explain how personal safety and cultural continuity will be safeguarded in the future.

They also need to identify authoritarianism as the source of conflict rather than the resolution.

There may be a dramatic scenario ahead of us one of cultural and inter-cultural clashes but the facilitators of such an outcome are exactly the ones who show themselves to be most concerned about it: populists like Matteo Salvini, Marine Le Pen, Viktor Orban, Narendra Modi, and Donald Trump.

Another thing liberals can learn from populists is the rhetoric of self-respect.

While references to national sovereignty may be self-serving and often shield corrupt leaders from criticism of their self-aggrandisement, human rights abuse and restrictions on press freedom, voters hear the voice of someone who doesnt take orders and who doesnt surrender in front of impersonal processes.

Viktor Orban, for example, has long cultivated the myth of Central Europe as a region that can rejuvenate European politics and forge ahead without waiting for Brussels.

The content of such rhetoric is reactionary, but the format has huge potential.

Ultimately, the best course of action for liberals is to stay true to their fundamental values, such as freedom. The protection of freedom represents a rejection of the hard right but also of the hard left.

It is true that liberals should take the issue of equality more seriously than in the past.

But they should also openly say that imposing radical visions of social justice on citizens while curtailing their freedom to speak up is an unacceptable idea, even if it comes from well-meaning and progressive young people.

They should keep reminding us that respect toward others is a virtue, but one still has the right to free speech whether one is respectful or not.

Zsolt Enyedi is a professor at the political science department at Central European University (CEU) and lead researcher for CEUs Democracy Institute. He was also a speaker at the inaugural Budapest Forum in 2021.

This article was originally published on 8 October 2021.

At Euronews, we believe all views matter. Contact us at view@euronews.com to send pitches or submissions and be part of the conversation.

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Europe's liberals should take a page or two out of the populist movement's book - Euronews

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?

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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.

Paranoid politics

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:

1. The shrinking middle ground

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.

2. The working class isnt benefiting

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.

3. The rich and powerful direct the chaos

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.

4. Assaults on the rule of law

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 road ahead for populists

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 frontrunner.

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.

Red lights flashing

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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Smith, Trump and the Paranoid Populist Assault on Democracy - TheTyee.ca

While most eyes are on the Trump vs. DeSantis battle, other candidates, we'll call them the Lilliputians, are jumping into the race. We'll wait until the autumn to start handicapping these contestants, but no one should dismiss them entirely. When George W. Bush sought the presidency in 2000, people dismissed his candidacy, comparing him unfavorably not just to the other candidates but to his younger brother Jeb. Vermont Gov. Howard Dean was leading the Democratic pack in 2004, until he melted down in Iowa. Barack Obama was in single digits when he entered the 2008 presidential race.

The Palmetto State has two announced candidates: former Gov. Nikki Haley and current Sen. Tim Scott. Trump's Vice President Mike Pence, set to enter the race next week, would be expected to be a front-runner, if things had turned out differently with his former boss. They didn't. Former governor of Arkansas, Asa Hutchinson, is running as the voice of sanity in a party where sanity is no longer a highly valued commodity.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is expected to announce his candidacy next week. In 2016, he singlehandedly took down the candidacy of Sen. Marco Rubio, mocking the Floridian's robotic debate performance. I will always have a soft spot in my heart for Christie for that takedown, but that doesn't mean he should be president.

In fact, none of these other candidates should become president.

It is easy in the era of Donald Trump to look back wistfully at an earlier Republican Party. We recall that GOP candidates Mitt Romney and John McCain conceded when they lost. We remember that George W. Bush was young and irresponsible when he was young and irresponsible, but like St. Paul counseled, when he became a man, he put away childish ways. And, further back, there is the memory of Ronald Reagan, optimistic, brimming with confidence as only an actor can, sketchy on policy details but someone who knew what he believed. Every Republican presidential candidate in my lifetime was preferable to Trump.

The other Republican candidates running now, with the possible exception of DeSantis, would be better than Trump. None of them have his baggage, his obsessions, his acute narcissism. (Every presidential candidate has to be at least a little bit of a narcissist.) They all lack his capacity for self-delusion.

These Lilliputian candidates, however, share one characteristic that also defines their relationship to Trump in a critical way. They all subscribe to neoliberal economics that made Trump possible. Reagan was not hateful the way Trump is hateful, but he and his GOP heirs embraced policies that hollowed out the middle class, decimated the working class and denuded the government of the power needed to right the wrongs they perpetrated.

Income inequality has grown consistently since the Reagan years. This article at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities looks at the data from a variety of angles, but each angle tells the same story: The rich got richer and the poor got poorer. The numbers for wealth inequality are even worse than those for income: "The best survey data show that the share of wealth held by the top 1 percent rose from 30 percent in 1989 to 39 percent in 2016, while the share held by the bottom 90 percent fell from 33 percent to 23 percent," the CBPP article states.

Union membership is half what it was in 1983, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Not coincidentally, the decline in union membership tracks with the increase in income inequality, as this fact sheet from the Economic Policy Institute shows. The best news in the post-pandemic economy is that low-income workers have seen steady gains in both employment and wages, as the pandemic brought back classic Keynesian policies. President Joe Biden needs to be out celebrating that fact every day.

Last week, a friend drove me around Detroit. We looked at some beautiful, historic churches. All around was the fallout from neoliberalism. Vacant buildings interspersed with vacant lots. Boarded up storefronts. Few pedestrians downtown. Reagan accepted the presidential nomination of his party in that city's Cobo Hall in 1980. His shadow still lingers over the city's decline.

For every Detroit, there are scores of smaller cities that have also lost their vibrancy. Harvard politics professor Robert Putnam has been cataloging the diminishment of these communities for years, from Bowling Alone, to American Grace, to Our Kids. Those books focus on the citizens and communities that neoliberalism left socio-economically crippled. They are the same citizens and communities whose anxieties Trump figured out how to exploit. Trump's vulgar populism is different from neoliberalism, but it is dependent on the crushing economic devastation neoliberalism wrought.

So, one cheer, maybe even two, for Republicans who stand up to Trump, who insist the 2020 election was not stolen, who condemn his racist and misogynistic behaviors. But voting for neoliberals does not really help the country move forward or address the solidarity deficit; It only paves the way for other, future populists to degrade our democracy.

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Other GOP candidates still pave the way for Trump's vile populism - National Catholic Reporter

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