🌊 #IlliberalWave No.51
A #fascist zeitgeist has replaced the #populist one.
🗳️ Luca Manucci explains how today's far right exploits a widespread 'saudade' for the authoritarian past.
The stigma has gone, and the #IberianCountries are no longer ‘exceptional’.
@populismblog.bsky.social
⤵️ bit.ly/4yDYhEy

🤝 US-Pakistan ties tend to deepen during crises and weaken thereafter
🌐 Saima Afzal says the latest opening may prove more durable because it is less ambitious
🪨 Trade, technology, minerals & counterterrorism can each sustain cooperation without requiring grand strategic alignment
⤵️ bit.ly/4B0zbBC

🎈#RepresentativeDisconnect No.15
🗳️ De Simone, Martini, Russo & Şişman find little evidence that Europeans are abandoning democracy.
🔀 But democratic support often coexists with openness to authoritarian alternatives.
👩‍🎓 Education emerges as the most consistent dividing line
⤵️ bit.ly/4dsDlIl

💸 A corruption scandal has toppled yet another Prosecutor General in #Ukraine.
📜 Anastasiia Kudlenko argues this offers Ukrainian society and international partners an opportunity to reinvigorate reforms aimed at dismantling #StateCapture in the system of law enforcement
⤵️ bit.ly/4y31AnF

👩‍👧 In the early 2020s, Swedish #childwelfare services became the target of an intense social media campaign. Drawing on research into Arabic-language social media narratives, Dana Sofi explains why correcting false claims is unlikely to restore institutional trust.

⤵️ bit.ly/4jMpnES

🤝Support for #EuropeanIntegration and satisfaction with the EU are not the same thing.
⛓️‍💥 Alexander Kossev says that #Bulgarians value integration but its results disappoint them.
🫤 This creates frustration that political parties may redirect towards very different visions of Europe
⤵️ bit.ly/4APprKb

Philipp Noetges says #SachsenAnhalt's record vote for the far-right #AfD is less about #GermanExceptionalism than a widening gap between what policy now requires and what an electorate can evaluate: a gap populism exploits faster than evidence-based politics can close theloop.ecpr.eu/germanys-sac...

👋 After 6️⃣ years at The Loop's helm, @profmartinjbull.bsky.social and @johannesaltnes.bsky.social have stepped down. All at @ecpr.bsky.social – especially Managing Ed Kate – extend heartfelt thanks.
🎁 M&J leave a thriving publishing outlet of lasting value to the discipline:
ecpr.eu/News/News/De...

🗳️ Vladyslav Butenko argues that the narrow win for the 'red-green' bloc in the 2026 #SwedishGeneralElection signals not a retreat of the far right, but how its policy agenda has already won
🛣️ The centre-left, he says, must now turn its razor-thin majority into a new political course
👇 bit.ly/4ddhSTI

🌊 #IlliberalWave No50
🗳️ Sweden's election blocked the populist #SwedenDemocrats' route into government
🤝 But Vera Tika argues that far-right normalisation isn't automatically reversed by electoral defeat. Once institutionalised, #illiberal change acquires a political life of its own
bit.ly/4hkWzSy

🌈 #GenderingDemocracy No.53
📋 Decisions about what governments collect and publish can shape more than statistics.
🗂️ Sebastián León-Giraldo argues public knowledge is part of democratic infrastructure.
📊 When states make some populations harder to see, they exacerbate inequality.
⤵️ bit.ly/4z5wi0i

This is my last day as part of the Founding Editorial Team of @ecprtheloop.bsky.social with Johanne Dohlie Saltnes and Kate Hawkins. Over 1,500 blogs published in 6 years! What a Team! Big thanks to @ecpr.bsky.social, Johanne and Kate, and to all our contributors. And all the best to our successors!

💊 #RescuingDemocracy 17
🗳️ #AndyBurnham has announced a Commission on #ElectoralReform, and he is right to do so.
📊 Democracy's defenders must guard institutional gains and address the grievances on which the far-right feeds.
A Commission, says @gulayicoz.bsky.social, honours both.
⤵️ bit.ly/4hEs4WJ

🛢️Argentina has tightened oil development in the #Malvinas #Falklands and upped its defence budget.
👛 @nicosalvoni.bsky.social says this may hurt firms with mainland interests, but more money must translate into military capability for Argentina to sustain stronger regional presence
⤵️ bit.ly/4hVmOz2

Thank you so much for the wonderful decade of posts on populism 🙏

POP - Political Observatory on Populism - closes down 📢

That's all folks...
POP is dead, long live POP 🤟

Read here the last post 🤓

populismobserver.com/2026/09/28/t...

🪧Mohsen Askari compares #Iran’s 1979 revolution with the 2026 uprising to reveal a paradox about digital communication.
🛜 Modern tech swiftly mobilises collective action, but authoritarian states with control over internet infrastructure can still interfere with collective knowledge
👉 bit.ly/3Vh7jIZ

🌕 Akash Shah analyses the necessity of #HALO for #NATO’s integration of #SpaceArchitecture.
🚀 Here, the author suggests that President Trump’s push for European self-reliance, data sovereignty and technical challenges could all explain the US absence from this initiative 👇
👩‍🚀 bit.ly/4rt7yN4

🌐 The #RulesBasedInternationalOrder is not simply breaking down.

🌎 Instead, governments are increasingly creating exceptions that allow them to modify or selectively apply those rules while leaving the wider institutional architecture intact, argues @ilankapoor.bsky.social

📖 bit.ly/4xLz0qT

👨‍🏭 Britain’s #DisabilityBenefit debate is commonly framed as a choice between containing spending and protecting claimants.
👩‍💻 Pierce Leslie argues for distinguishing income protection from #EmploymentSupport, to make it safer for people with partial or fluctuating capacity to work
🧑‍🦽 bit.ly/4rtyXOS