Giada Pasquettaz argues that although Trump is indeed a populist, he is a distinct species within the category, and should be treated accordingly. Unlike other populist leaders, Trump does not seek to reshape multilateralism from within. Instead, he rejects it altogether
Hossein Kermani argues that the Islamic Republic’s staying power relies as much on fracturing its opposition as it does on repression. Here, he explains how depolarising rhetoric, institutional transparency, and durable organisation will sustain pressure, protect activists during crackdowns, and ensure the failure of the regime's divide-and-conquer tactics
Followers of the ‘Hindutva’ Hindu nationalist movement are using AI-generated pornographic images to degrade Indian Muslim women – including public figures. Their tactics, argues Sonia Sarkar, serve the movement’s wider drive to humiliate India’s 200-million-strong Muslim community
Comparing Central and Eastern Europe with the Western Balkans, Visnja Vukov argues that the EU’s governance of economic integration is a decisive lever of transformation. When the EU prioritises and credibly enforces these requirements, it constrains rent-seeking and weakens state capture. When the EU defers them, however, governments can entrench clientelist political–economic coalitions
Michal Malý and Asker Bryld Staunæs argue that synthetic dissidents mark a new form of opposition politics. In authoritarian regimes, AI avatars and chatbots can propagate risky speech without exposing a single, identifiable speaker. This can protect journalists and activists, but it also changes how responsibility, authenticity and repression work
Based on a 67-year arc of reporting by British magazine The Economist, Lucas Schramm analyses the European Council, a key institution of the European Union. He shows how that coverage explains why the European Council was created, how it evolved, what it does, and why its dominance is both useful and unsettling
Mattia Zulianello introduces the PopulisTree, a new taxonomy and open-access dataset that maps the full diversity of populist parties across Europe over recent decades. Building upon and expanding the existing PopuList database, The PopulisTree helps scholars, journalists, and policymakers analyse one of the most important political phenomena of our times
TikTok deportation propaganda is fast becoming the new border wall. States, platforms and algorithms are fusing into a single machine. This, says Mimi Mihăilescu is turning deportation into bingeable content, burying resistance in the feed, and replacing physical walls with algorithmic control. Local populism dies and global spectacle rules
The world order is not simply shifting from unipolarity to multipolarity, but undergoing a deeper struggle over political authority. Who has the right to make binding global rules, through which institutions, and with what legitimacy? Fulvio Attinà argues that multipolarity helps explain today’s stalled reforms, institutional paralysis, and fragmented alternatives
Valesca Lima argues that Irish local authorities tend to treat public participation as a formal administrative requirement. However, by moving beyond performative box-ticking and toward genuine co-design, we can bridge the trust gap. True engagement doesn't just legitimise decisions; it sparks the local innovation our cities desperately need
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