In contemporary political sociology, the precise relationship between nationalism and populism remains a subject of intense debate. While often conflated, these concepts represent distinct political logics: nationalism is premised on the centrality of belonging to a national community and presupposes the horizontal boundaries of the said community, while populism, highlighting the centrality of belonging to ‘the people’, is predominantly defined through a vertical conflict between the people and the elite. Using data on Greece from the ISSP 2023 National Identity and Citizenship module, this study examines the interactive effects of these two dimensions on anti-immigrant sentiment (nativism). Employing hierarchical regression analysis, we register that (ethnic) nationalism is not inherently synonymous with heightened nativism. We then focus on the inter-penetration(s) of nationalism, nativism and populism. What if populism may act as a critical moderator? – as a force multiplier or a ‘catalyst’ that radicalizes latent ethnic identity into active nativist hostility? Our findings seem to support the thought-provoking insight that the ‘double enemy’ narrative of (mostly, but not exclusively, far-right) populist politics may be a key articulatory mechanism transforming ethnic difference into heightened nativist exclusion, with the latter operating as our dependent variable.
In this paper, we study if and how wealth is associated with preferences for democratic representation among citizens and legislators. Based on two parallel surveys conducted in 2022 – a representative population survey and a survey of members of the German Bundestag and state parliaments – we find clear associations: Individuals with low wealth favour more responsive and inclusive legislators whereas highly wealthy individuals prefer strong leadership and favour legislators to be qualified. This insight implies three important contributions: First, we corroborate recent findings that process preferences have an instrumental dimension as citizens appear to favour processes that they consider to be suited to pursuing their interests. Second, wealth is not only associated with distinct patterns of policy preferences but also with process preferences. Third, by highlighting the role of wealth, we extend research on unequal democracy which has largely focused on the role of income or education.
Elites are often considered key in democratic transitions, but we lack a detailed study of what happens to them during democracy. The Spanish transition, frequently cited as a paradigmatic example of top-down transition, is an ideal case for examining elite persistence and transformation. This article introduces the ‘Late Francoism Dataset,’ a new, publicly available resource that documents the professional careers of Francoist elites before and after the country's democratization. The dataset contains individual-level biographical, demographic, political, and professional data for 618 individuals who occupied top positions across more than 250 key institutions during the final decade of the Francoist dictatorship (1965–1975). By enabling a quantitative approach, this dataset allows new analyses of elite continuity and change. Initial research using these data reveals a major divergence in post-transition outcomes: economic elites largely retain their influence, while political elites experience substantial changes. The ‘Late Francoism Dataset’ provides a new tool for scholars interested in studying the Spanish Transition from a micro perspective, moving beyond accepted narratives to empirically investigate the power of authoritarian elites in a new democracy.
The study of political discourse sits at the intersection of political science and discourse analysis, yet genuine integration between these fields remains rare in practice. Political science attends primarily to situated meaning (who speaks, from what institutional position, and toward what ends), leaving linguistic variation underexamined; discourse analysis offers fine-grained accounts of internal meaning (the reality constructed through lexical and grammatical choices), but the political implications of that meaning receive less sustained attention. The paper shows that subordinating either dimension is more than a matter of emphasis: because the two produce meaning jointly, an analysis tilted toward one rests on assumptions about the dimension it leaves aside and may therefore misread the meaning it sets out to reconstruct. In response, it develops a coding scheme that holds the two together and supports both close reading and systematic analysis across a corpus. Applied to Belgian politicians' and experts' conceptions of legitimate decision-making during the COVID-19 pandemic, the scheme shows what an integrated analysis recovers that an asymmetric one would miss. The paper thereby argues for a study of political discourse in which interdisciplinarity is enacted in the texture of the analysis.
While much research on governance examines how bureaucratic discretion is exercised, this article investigates how civil servants construct legitimacy when justifying their discretion in applying EU law. In multilevel governance systems, discretionary interpretation shifts elements of authority away from elected actors, making justification central to sustaining administrative legitimacy. Drawing on elite interviews with senior Norwegian officials in the energy, environmental, and financial sectors, the study identifies four ideal-type justificatory logics: (i) technical neutrality, (ii) legal EU compliance, (iii) political responsiveness, and (iv) technocratic nationalism. The analysis shows that officials do not see themselves as passive EU implementers. They justify discretion through professional expertise and democratic accountability, and, in politically sensitive situations, by presenting expertise as a way to defend national interests. Sectoral variation is influenced by issue salience, legal ambiguity, and perceived conflict between EU obligations and domestic priorities. In contexts of constrained sovereignty, a distinctive discourse appears, technocratic nationalism, where compliance is reframed as an act of responsible national guardianship. The article contributes to scholarship on bureaucratic roles, Europeanisation, and legitimacy by demonstrating that discretion is not only exercised but discursively constructed and rendered acceptable through structured justificatory practices in multilevel governance.
