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.
Environmental and climate activism in the Czech Republic has evolved within a polarized democracy where both dominant political blocs, ‘anti-democratic populism' and ‘democratic anti-populism,' reject climate policy. This article analyzes how grassroots movements respond to this closed political opportunity structure, focusing on Re-set, an organization that emerged from the climate justice movement. Unlike earlier protest-based or NGO-driven advocacy, Re-set advances a counter-hegemonic strategy by combining prefigurative practices, such as solidarity economies and cooperatives, with organized efforts to build social power from below. Drawing on qualitative research, including interviews and participant observation, the study shows how Re-set redefines activism across cosmological, technological, and organizational dimensions. In a context where the political left has disappeared, Re-set represents an innovative form of ‘beyond climate activism’ that not only challenges neoliberal hegemony but also offers new pathways for democratic practice and socio-ecological transformation.
The far right is increasingly gaining power, with its local impact largely shaped by how mainstream actors interpret and respond to it. While research on party strategies is growing, municipal-level dynamics remain underexplored. This article investigates how mayors understand their role in responding to the far right and how these interpretations shape the strategies they pursue. Theoretically, it highlights how local politics can facilitate far-right mainstreaming and normalisation, potentially challenging the cordon sanitaire. Empirically, the study draws on original qualitative data from a focus group with mayors in eastern and western Germany, supplemented by municipal records. The analysis shows that the Alternative for Germany (AfD) employs obstructionist tactics that disrupt local policymaking, political culture, and administration. Mayors’ responses are primarily shaped by their role perception as guardians of democratic norms, which mediates how they constrain or accommodate far-right behaviour. Far-right strategies, party ideology, and party size serve as analytically relevant dimensions that structure interpretation rather than as causal determinants. By foregrounding mayoral role perception as the central lens, the article provides new insights into the interpretative and practical dynamics of local democratic governance and demonstrates the pivotal role of local leadership in addressing far-right challenges.
Using a corpus from ten German outlets during COVID-19, we examine how mainstream media translated scientific expertise into political debate. We define politicization narrowly as coverage in which conflict or controversy, partisan alignment, and communicated uncertainty about expert claims co-occur. Combining named-entity recognition for political and expert actors with word-embedding measures around policy-intervention terms, we estimate mixed-effects models of politicized coverage. Politicization was episodic, peaking at major policy junctures, and outlets differed more from one another than a convergence perspective would predict. Biomedical coverage showed a higher baseline of politicization but only modest ideological differences among centrist, centre-left, and centre-right outlets. By contrast, in non-biomedical coverage of policy trade-offs involving the economy, schooling, and civil liberties, centre-right outlets more often used the conflict-partisan-uncertainty configuration, while centre-left outlets remained close to the centrist benchmark. These findings indicate that editorial routines, brand positioning, and the disciplinary locus of expertise shape when and how science is politicized. The study contributes to research on how scientific authority is contested in public debate by showing that politicization is not a uniform media-system response to crisis, but a domain- and outlet-specific translation of uncertain evidence into collective choices under conditions of public urgency and political contestation.
The rise of populist radical right parties (PRRPs) has prompted mainstream parties (MPs) to adopt more sceptical positions toward immigration. Spatial theory suggests that MPs benefit electorally by adopting issues associated with PRRPs. However, empirical evidence indicates adverse effects as this strategy bears the potential to legitimise the radical right’s core agenda. This study investigates whether centre-left and centre-right MPs gain or lose from a visible right-wing shift on migration during campaigns in which a significant proportion of people identify immigration as the most pressing issue, making the accommodation strategy seem more promising. Using Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) on fourteen high-salience elections and 37 MPs, we show that, even in contexts of high issue salience, MPs do not benefit from adopting tougher stances on immigration. While a right-wing shift is not a necessary condition for significant vote losses, not shifting to the right is a sufficient condition for avoiding considerable losses to PRRPs. We describe further conditions that could influence voter migration between MPs and PRRPs.
Do member states concentrate or disperse competences when delegating authority to regional organisations (ROs)? Existing scholarship has examined how much independence organizations enjoy from their members, but has paid little attention to how competences are distributed across an organization's internal organs. This article addresses that gap by introducing measures of concentration and policy capacity alongside the established measure of scope, drawing on an original dataset of over 230 treaties covering the near-complete population of regional organizations since 1945. We find that while the scope and policy capacity of ROs have increased steadily over time, this expansion has been accompanied by a significant decline in concentration across most organizations. To explain this pattern, we test two competing theoretical accounts. Rational design theory predicts that member states deliberately disperse competences as a sovereignty-protecting response to increased delegation. Functional evolution theory predicts instead that dispersion emerges from the governance demands that broader scope places on organizational structures. Our empirical analysis supports the functional account: policy capacity mediates the relationship between scope and concentration, and institutional complexity-rather than political scope-is the primary driver of dispersion. Member states do not merely delegate; they simultaneously design internal structures that distribute competences across specialized organs.
Scholarly research shows that the usage of social media in election campaigns produces similar gender imbalances compared to pre-digital times. A systematic comparative approach for a larger set of (European) countries, however, is still lacking. We contribute to filling this gap by studying how politicians all over Europe used Twitter in the 2019 election campaigns to the European Parliament (EP) and ask the following research questions: Do female and male candidates differ in their Twitter usage during campaigning, and if so, in which manner? And how can we explain such a deviating Twitter usage? Our study follows a predominantly quantitative approach, informed by qualitative interview data, and draws on Twitter data linked with individual-, party- and country-level contextual information. Our findings show that female candidates are less present on Twitter than their male counterparts, but both are equally active during the campaign. While biological sex does not significantly influence how frequently candidates post on Twitter, other campaign-related factors - such as incumbency and list placement - do. Our findings are insightful for both gender research as well as the impact of social media on political behaviour.
‘Discretionary power' suffers from conceptual ambiguity. Is it an attribute of individual street-level bureaucrats, or an organizational prerogative? If sociological approaches have deconstructed the legalistic donut analogy and explain discretion through a series of sociological variables, it is still unclear where the authorship of practices lies. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in two Belgian immigration detention centres, in this article I advance a relational approach to discretionary power. I argue that to understand the practices of street-level bureaucrats, we must analyse the power relations in which they are embedded. Drawing on Crozier & Friedberg’s strategic analysis and Emirbayer and Johnsons’ theory of the organization-as-field, I look at how detention staff strategically mobilized different forms of capital to influence the decision-making processes. I argue that, rather than being discretionary, their practices and daily routines are the result of struggles over the control of organizational uncertainties, particularly the management of risks linked to detainees. Hence, their practices are neither organizational nor individual, but relational: they are shaped by and contribute to these relations of power. This dimension enables us to think of discretion beyond the individual-organizational dichotomy and questions the pertinence of the concept ‘discretion' to analyse migration policy implementation.
Negative emotions are held to be at the very core of the emotional appeal of populist radical right parties (PRRP). Building on emerging studies that paint a more nuanced picture, I argue that appeals to positive emotions are frequent, deliberate and intricately linked to appeals to negative emotions (especially anger) in the election campaigns of PRRPs. This argument builds on two kinds of evidence from an integrated mixed-methods design: First, a holistic analysis of campaign communications (manifestos, Facebook posts, press releases, posters and video ads) issued in campaigns in Austria (2017), Germany (2017) and Italy (2018). Second, in-depth semi-structured interviews with top-level campaigners from the FP & Ouml; (Austria) and the AfD (Germany). PRRPs frequently and deliberately add positive emotions to negative ones in order to de-radicalize their image and make inroads into mainstream electorates. The article draws out the conceptual, methodological and substantive implications of mixing emotional appeals. In terms of the latter, without de-radicalization in policies, the PRRP emotional cocktail is better characterized as an attempt to further radicalize voters. That mainstream parties fail to see the relevance of positive emotions to the appeal of PRRPs poses a serious obstacle to them finding an effective strategy to fight back.
Far-right parties across Europe have increasingly capitalized on narratives of gender backlash, mobilizing young male voters through grievances rooted in sexual-affective dissatisfaction and modern sexist attitudes. This article contributes to this growing literature by examining how sexual and affective frustration - combined with modern sexism - shapes voting preferences for far-right versus mainstream right parties. Sexual-affective dissatisfaction acts as a gateway to far-right support among young men - VOX becomes a symbolic refuge for those who feel left behind in love, sex, and gender politics. Drawing on original survey data of young voters in Spain, we find that sexual-affective dissatisfaction significantly increases the probability of supporting the far right (VOX) among men, but not among women, and not for the mainstream right (PP). Moreover, this frustration magnifies the effect of modern sexist attitudes on far-right voting. In contrast, no such effects are observed among mainstream right voters. Our findings reveal the centrality of male grievance politics in far-right mobilization and help clarify the gendered pathways through which backlash against feminism and unmet affective needs translate into political behaviour.
Far-right parties have been on the rise in European democracies. Their calls for a fundamental reorganization of democracy along nativist and people-centric lines have resonated with a growing share of voters who are dissatisfied with the political status quo. Other parties have predominantly responded to these developments by coopting the far right's position and rhetoric - typically with no substantive electoral success. What else can parties do? This paper offers new insights in response to this question by investigating the breakthrough of Nieuw Sociaal Contract (New Social Contract, NSC) in the 2023 Dutch parliamentary election. Although NSC failed to sustain its success and missed re-election in 2025, its breakthrough offers broader lessons on how to respond to the far right. Drawing on evidence from the party's manifestos and survey analysis, we show that NSC appealed to voters who are dissatisfied with the political status quo and supportive of stricter immigration policies - segments of the electorate inclined toward far-right parties - without reproducing far-right narratives. Instead, NSC integrated these positions within a platform highlighting technocratic trust and communitarian values rooted in Christian democratic thought. NSC's breakthrough thus illustrates how dormant ideological traditions can be reactivated as constructive responses to contemporary public grievances.
Civic integrationist requirements for citizenship, such as proof of language skills, civic knowledge, and adherence to liberal values, involve various testing and assessment methods. This article examines standardized and discretionary value assessments of naturalization applicants in Denmark, which combines strict standardized criteria with political discretion in awarding naturalization. It analyzes how politicians, bureaucrats, and citizenship applicants relationally navigate a system designed to restrict access to 'non-European' immigrants, whose values are constructed by politicians as a potential threat to democracy. The study draws on policy and media analysis, as well as interviews with naturalization applicants, test implementers, and civil society actors. Findings show that politicians advocate for subjective interviews to screen applicants' values, while bureaucrats emphasize the procedural fairness of multiple-choice tests. Applicants are ambivalent - some see interviews as potentially fairer, but ultimately prefer standardized tests due to concerns about discrimination. The article contributes to understanding how racialized exclusion is embedded in both standardized and discretionary naturalization procedures and how different actors negotiate these dynamics. It argues that value assessments within a system built on exclusionary and racializing assumptions risk straining implementing institutions and threatening citizenship applicants' sense of belonging to the nation-state.
Far-right parties have been electorally successful in recent elections in many Western democracies. Previous research shows that mainstream actors, including mainstream parties and the media, contribute to the success of far-right parties by accommodating far-right ideas and fostering their wider societal acceptance. However, we lack a clear understanding of the factors that influence media responses to the far right. Combining research on political communication, media, and the far right, this article develops a framework to analyse the rationales behind journalists’ responses, ranging from accommodation to the implementation of a media cordon sanitaire. The empirical study focuses on journalists’ responses to the far right in Germany, where the political opportunities for the far right are expanding. Based on semi-structured interviews with editors-in-chief, political editors, and journalists reporting on the far right from different media outlets and regions, the article provides novel insights into the constraints and obstacles they face. The findings highlight that a combination of self-imposed and external pressure from the far right, alongside institutional constraints, prompted journalists to adopt responses that contributed to the mainstreaming of the far right. Overall, this article enhances our understanding of journalists’ challenges and opportunities in responding to the far right in liberal democracies.
Research on differences within the climate movement has been focusing for a long time on the emergence of the ‘climate justice’ frame within this trajectory as a way out of a post-political understanding of climate action, as well as on tensions on the ‘radical’ vs. ‘reformist’ axis. Still, recent cases of climate action seem to call for a deeper analysis: while the climate justice framework is ubiquitous, internal differences within the movement are far from over. This article aims to address this issue, focusing on the strategic choices of movement actors. We aim to contribute to the literature on social movement strategies by pointing out the role of theories of change, i.e. the meta-strategic logics on how actors plan to achieve their goals and from which they derive their choice of targets, means, audience, and so on. Drawing on qualitative interivews to activists, our exploratory article proposes a framework to analyse theories of change and applies it to the three main actors of the Italian climate movement: Fridays For Future (FFF), Extinction Rebellion (XR) and Ultima Generazione (UG, part of the A22 network). Furthermore, the analysis points out how theories of change contribute to shaping how actors address strategic dilemmas.
Political rhetoric plays a crucial role in shaping public perception and legitimizing leadership, yet the strategic use of love by political elites remains underexplored. This study examines how two prominent world leaders - Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin - deploy love rhetoric as a political resource within distinct discursive contexts to advance their agendas. Through a detailed discourse analysis of speeches containing variations of the word 'love', we reveal the different ways in which love is mobilized as a rhetorical tool. We show how Obama invokes an indiscriminate, compassionate love (agape) to frame political inclusivity, diversity, and universal moral responsibility, while Putin employs a particularized, passionate love (eros) rhetoric to articulate national belonging, tradition, and political cohesion. Our findings demonstrate that love serves as a flexible and potent instrument that can support both inclusive and territorially bounded political projects, depending on how it is framed and embedded in broader narratives. By highlighting the context-dependent uses of love rhetoric, this study contributes to a deeper understanding of emotional appeals in political discourse and their role in shaping legitimacy, public sentiment, and power dynamics.
Focusing on the administrative examination of applications for Italian naturalisation, the article aims to understand how the ‘highly discretionary powers’ granted to the relevant office by law are exercised in practice. To this end, it adopts a relational approach to implementation, considering two key actors: bureaucrats and lawyers. The analysis is based on multi-sited research, including observation within the Central Department for Citizenship at the Ministry of the Interior and within a digital self-help forum for migration and citizenship lawyers, which is hosted by a professional association. The article demonstrates the indirect effects of legal activity and court decisions on the work of caseworkers, as mediated by organisational and technical changes initiated by the administration. It also sheds light on the intertwining of moral, technical, and organisational elements within the relational implementation of citizenship policy.
