Issue Populism and digital politics

Summary

Populism is defined as a thin ideology that divides society into a pure people and a corrupt elite and holds that politics should express the general will of the people. In digital politics, recommendation algorithms, engagement metrics and network effects have sharply lowered the cost of reaching and amplifying messages, favouring populist content that uses emotional and moral dividing frames in the competition for attention. Social drivers and algorithmic mechanisms reinforce each other in feedback loops, and with generative AI and deepfakes spreading, securing trustworthy and verified information infrastructure becomes a pressing task. Overlapping crises over identity, culture, immigration, security, war and pandemic after-effects strengthen the appeal of simple, intuitive stories, while economic grievances among those left behind by globalisation fuel nation-first populism and a green backlash against environmental rules. The rise of populism reflects a deeper crisis of party politics and representative democracy, as populist leaders claim to embody the direct will of the people and try to bypass institutional procedures and compromise.