Populist Radical Right: Illiberal Erosion or Liberal Decay? Assessing Theoretical Explanations in the Wake of the 2024 European Parliament Election

Abstract

This article identifies the structural factors underlying the rise of the Populist Radical Right (PRR) in Europe and evaluates its implications for liberal democracies. Our research finds that the emergence of the PRR is driven by the decay of democratic institutions resulting from the neoliberal globalization that was catalyzed by the collapse of the Soviet Union. We argue that the electoral success of the PRR lies in its capacity to use emotionally charged, single-issue narratives that resonate with the political demands of orphaned electorates, who engage in protest voting to express their frustrated expectations. Far from being an ephemeral phenomenon, we show that the PRR reflects structural transformations of the liberal political architecture, and is capable to further eroding democratic institutions by procedurally adopting liberal norms as a means to undermine them. A critical reassessment of the liberal perspective is necessary to address the dysfunctions of democratic institutions.

1. Introduction

The emergence and institutional consolidation of the Populist Radical Right (PRR) is among the most consequential developments in European politics in the 21st century. The term PRR refers to a family of political agents that articulate polarizing populist rhetoric around punitive approaches to security, exclusionary national and gender identities, and rejection of global integration [1,2,3]. Unlike the fascist or overtly authoritarian far right movements of the twentieth century, contemporary PRR parties have managed to achieve social legitimacy by adapting their language, aesthetic, and strategy to fit institutional politics, while being able to deploy, at the same time, emotionally charged discourses that have proven to be effective in transforming public anxieties into political capital by targeting perceived internal and external threats, such as immigration, non-binary gender identities, cultural liberalism or globalization.

Once marginal actors stigmatized by their association with authoritarian ideologies, today PRR parties are increasingly becoming legitimate electoral participants and increasingly influential players in the institutions of the European Union. The success of PRR movements challenges the prevailing theories of political moderation and institutionalization of the party system, suggesting that political systems are beginning to accommodate illiberal actors instead of effectively containing or neutralizing them. This progressive consolidation raises critical questions about the resilience of liberal democratic regimes and European integration as a consequence of mass political re-alignments in contexts increasingly characterized by disaffection, inequality, and cultural contestation.

Addressing these questions, however, requires political scientists to resist the temptation of purporting PRR actors through a biased lens—treating them as mere aberrations, temporary disruptions, or inherently illegitimate challengers to liberal democracy. Much like a biologist encountering a new life form that defies established classifications, scholars must approach PRR with analytical clarity and neutrality, using available tools to describe the phenomenon honestly and as disconnected from ideological biases as possible. Given the underlying conflict between liberal democracies and illiberal movements, this entails actively avoiding both liberal and illiberal biases in the analysis, recognizing that while PRR movements may pose risks to democratic norms, they may also reveal structural weaknesses or tensions within liberal democracy that warrant attention and repair. Even more interesting, this would allow researchers to identify signs of a potential evolution of the political system that would otherwise have remained hidden behind ideological bias.

To avoid such biases, we adopt a genealogical approach to address a central research question: Should the PRR be understood as a transient anomaly that democratic institutions can absorb without undergoing significant change, in line with liberal theory, or as a more enduring phenomenon that stems from–or is capable of—producing structural transformations within the liberal political architecture? The stakes of this question are significant, both in theory and in practice. If the Populist Radical Right (PRR) is merely a temporary disruption—an episodic challenge that liberal democracies can manage—then existing institutions can be adjusted to contain and integrate it, reinforcing the adequacy of liberal theory. However, if the PRR reflects a deeper structural shift in politics—either as a sign of or a force behind the decline of liberal democratic norms—then relying on existing approaches would not only be insufficient but potentially harmful.

In order to answer this question, we develop a multidimensional analysis that integrates a genealogical examination of ideological developments, from post-fascist roots to contemporary populism, exploring their discursive and cultural strategies aimed at normalizing radical content and performing an institutional analysis of party group formation and coordination within the European Parliament post-2024. In order to contextualize PRR growth, our article engages with key explanatory frameworks—such as economic insecurity [4], post-materialist reversal [5], and affective polarization [6], arguing that their success can be better explained by the interplay of structural conditions and agency-based strategies. Rather than employing a quantitative methodology such as a systematic literature review, our analysis follows a theoretical approach that allows for a more nuanced engagement with the relevant scholarship. This method draws on the researchers’ prior work and expertise, enabling a deeper, context-sensitive understanding of the phenomenon that quantitative synthesis alone could not capture.

In order to articulate our research, the article is structured as follows. First, we evaluate the conceptual and historical foundations of the Populist Radical Right, looking at how they have evolved from marginal to mainstream politics in liberal institutions. After that, we briefly present relevant theoretical explanations for the rise of PRR, considering structural and cleavage disruptions, reversed postmaterialism and cultural backlash, economic grievance and globalization losers, and affective polarization and emotional mobilization. Then we look at the strategies followed by PRR to facilitate the integration in liberal institutions, including aesthetics, digital communications, cultural warfare, and electoral targeting; we describe the situation produced after the 2024 Election to the European Parliament. Finally, we articulate a discussion to provide an answer to our research question by evaluating our findings and emphasizing the challenges that PRR movements introduce to liberal democracy.

2. Conceptual and Historical Foundations

2.1. Defining the Populist Radical Right (PRR)

By Populist Radical Right (PRR), we refer to a category of political actors in Europe that blend three core elements: polarizing populist rhetoric around punitive approaches to security, exclusionary national and gender identities, and rejection of global integration. These actors contest established political elites and liberal cosmopolitan norms while presenting themselves as authentic representatives of a virtuous, homogeneous “people” [1,7]. While operating within the institutional boundaries of liberal democracies, they often undermine foundational democratic norms such as pluralism, minority rights, and the rule of law [8,9]. It is important to note that PRR is distinct from classical fascism or the explicitly anti-democratic extreme right of the 20th century. Unlike their predecessors, contemporary PRR movements do not overtly endorse totalitarian discourses. Instead, they pursue legitimacy by mimicking institutional aesthetics and engaging in formal political processes [10,11]. However, this respectability can be seen as merely instrumental, because behind their formal democratic compliance lies a worldview that is at odds with liberal democracy due to their nativism, cultural authoritarianism, and general hostility to liberal pluralism [12,13]. To conceptually delimit the PRR, scholars such as Mudde have proposed frameworks to distinguish the “radical right”, which operates within democratic norms, from the “extreme right”, which rejects them entirely [14]. However, in practice, the boundary is porous. Many PRR actors adopt a dual strategy, preserving procedural democracy while, at the same time, gradually eroding its liberal substance from within, a process described by Forti as the “hollowing out” of democracy [8]. This strategy enables PRR parties to mobilize affective resentment without crossing into outright authoritarianism. Consequently, we believe that the rise of the PRR must be understood not only as an ideological phenomenon, but also as a discursive and performative adaptation of far-right politics to the normative grammar and rules of representative democracy.

2.2. From Margins to Mainstream: A Brief Historical Evolution

The evolution of the European PRR marks a transition from political marginality, in the decade of the 1990s up to now, to institutional normalization. In this regard, the participation of Italy’s Alleanza Nazionale, a party with neo-fascist origins, in the government of 1994 signaled a key turning point. The case of Italy was soon followed by other countries over the following decades, as exemplified by parties such as Rassemblement National in France, Hungary’s Fidesz, Poland’s PiS, or Vox and Chega in Spain and Portugal, respectively. In all cases, those parties showed a clear capacity to move from protest to institutional power, reshaping first regional and then national or even European political dynamics, either directly or through their coalitions [14,15]. This trajectory of institutional normalization was facilitated by two parallel developments. Firstly, the decline of traditional mass parties, which created a vacuum in political representation, particularly among working-class and rural constituencies [16,17], opening a space to be filled by new political actors. Second, the fragmentation of the mass media, together with the rise of digital platforms, managed to enable PRR actors to bypass the gatekeeping mechanisms of liberal democracies, directly engaging with disaffected voters [2,18,19]. Remarkably, the institutional integration of PRR parties has not led to their ideological moderation. On the contrary, their presence in mainstream politics has allowed them to shift the Overton window, which frames the range of acceptable public discourse, towards more exclusionary and authoritarian narratives [8,10]. Indeed, their electoral and discursive success has, in many cases, forced center-right parties to adopt elements of their platform in a bid to retain relevance, as opposed to committing to defined “sanitary cordons” capable of avoiding non-democratic parties from entering the institutions, leading to what has been described as the “contagion effect” [9,20]. Despite their apparent divergence from classical authoritarianism, many PRR parties maintain symbolic and ideological connections with earlier far-right movements, with their historical “rupture”, with fascism being more tactical than substantive, as argued by Forti [8]. While they no longer advocate for dictatorship or racial purity, they continue to promote authoritarian values, ethno-nationalist hierarchies, and a civilizational clash narrative [21].

2.3. Institutional Camouflage and Democratic Subversion

The success of the PRR may lie in its ability to translate their radical agendas into institutionally compatible forms. This camouflaging strategy is performed through the appropriation of liberal democratic symbols and procedural rhetoric to mask illiberal agendas [11]. By aligning their public discourse with the narratives and mechanisms of institutional democracy, PRR parties gain access to media platforms, public funding, and coalition possibilities previously inaccessible to explicit extremist actors, while undermining the content of the liberal institutions at the same time. This process of “institutional mimicry” allowed them to achieve the necessary legitimacy while enabling the incremental erosion of democratic norms. Their use of legalistic and emotional rhetoric to justify exclusionary practices, such as immigration controls, welfare nationalism, and constraints on civil liberties, severely limits the capacity of efforts to delegitimize them without appearing partisan or anti-democratic [10]. Rather than opposing the political system from the outside, PRR actors increasingly operate from within, using representative institutions to pursue majoritarian control at the same time that they hollow out pluralism and minority protections. As noted by Forti, this “democratic illiberalism” presents a subtler but equally dangerous challenge to democratic resilience [8].

3. Theoretical Explanations for the Rise of the Populist Radical Right (PRR)

The rise of the Populist Radical Right (PRR) in Europe has prompted a rich scholarly body looking to explain its causes, spanning structural, socio-psychological, and institutionalist perspectives that often combine macro-level dynamics at the societal level with micro-level voter behavior. This section reviews five principal frameworks, emphasizing their contributions and limitations.

3.1. Structural Realignment and Cleavage Disruption

A foundational perspective attributes the PRR’s rise to the erosion of traditional political cleavages and the weakening of intermediary institutions like mass parties, trade unions, and civic organizations. Following the Rokkanian model of party systems [17], this theoretical perspective proposes that Western European democracies traditionally organized around socio-economic and religious cleavages, have been affected by processes such as deindustrialization, urban–rural divergence, and globalization, which have disrupted these alignments, creating representational gaps that PRR actors exploit [9,20]. In order to exploit those disruptions, PRR parties offer simplified narratives and emotional appeals capable of resonating in disillusioned citizens confronted with technocratic governance and elite consensus. As noted by Schmidt, the EU’s “governing by rules and numbers” ethos has alienated segments of the electorate who feel unrepresented by mainstream parties [22]. PRR actors fill this void by claiming to restore popular sovereignty and cultural authenticity, creating a new cleavage between “the people” and “the elites.”

3.2. Reversed Postmaterialism and Cultural Backlash

Another influential approach builds on Inglehart’s postmaterialism thesis. This approach suggests that economic security leads citizens to value self-expression and democratic participation [5], in contrast with more recent research identifying a reversal of this trend, where significant segments of the population respond to rapid cultural change with resentment and reaction. In this regard, authors such as Kaufmann and Piketty argue that immigration, multiculturalism, and gender equality are perceived by many voters, remarkably older, rural, and less-educated males, as threats to national identity and cultural cohesion [16,21]. As a result, those anxieties fuel a cultural backlash, which is amplified by PRR parties through ethnonationalist rhetoric and the defense of traditional values [23,24]. The prevailing liberal perspective’s dismissal of these values as obsolete or useless can start to be perceived as wrong, as emerging powers like China, Russia or the Arab countries, who actively uphold such values, are increasingly challenging the unipolar geopolitical world order dominated by the United States since the end of World War II.

3.3. Economic Grievance and Globalization Losers

Economy is the focus of another set of theoretical explanations, where economic insecurity turns into the critical factor to explain PRR support, especially among voters affected by job precarization, welfare retrenchment, and declining living standards. This is the case of Rodrik, who conceptualizes populism as a political response to the dislocations of global capitalism, where national governments appear increasingly unable, or unwilling, to shield citizens from market volatility [4]. Instead of fostering coherent redistributive platforms, PRR parties tend to advocate for welfare chauvinism, promising social benefits for “deserving nationals”, while excluding undesirable immigrants and minorities [24,25]. This synthesis of economic and identity politics enables them to appeal across class lines, remarkably among low-skilled workers who feel abandoned by leftist parties [26].

3.4. Affective Polarization and Digital Mobilization

Affective polarization is the central element of theoretical explanations about the emergence of PRR, in a process where citizens do not merely disagree with political opponents on the basis of deliberation about political preferences but instead define their interactions on the basis of emotional responses [6]. PRR leaders activate this polarization mostly by exploiting negative emotions such as fear, anger, and humiliation, and transform them into political loyalty [6]. Feelings of national belonging exemplify a classic affective mechanism, especially with regard to the normalization of the discourse [27,28]. In addition to classic mechanisms of collective belonging, digital media ecosystems have proved useful to amplify these dynamics. PRR actors also use algorithmically targeted messaging to foster digital echo chambers and disseminate moralized, binary narratives [8,19], in a strategy that not only strengthens their base but also undermines the deliberative ethos that is central to liberal democracy.

3.5. Protest Voting and Political Dissatisfaction

A fifth explanation explains PRR support as a form of protest vote against established parties, political corruption, and unresponsive institutions. According to Cohen, strategic and affective dissatisfaction, rather than deep ideological alignment, is the main motivation among many PRR voters [26], where citizens are less committed to far-right platforms than they are disillusioned with mainstream options. This view aligns with evidence of volatile electoral behavior among PRR supporters, and with case studies demonstrating the symbolic role of voting for outsiders [15,29]. However, this account may underestimate the degree to which sustained exposure to exclusionary discourse can lead to durable attitudinal shifts and norm erosion [30].

4. Political and Cultural Strategies of the Populist Radical Right (PRR)

The rise of the PRR cannot be fully understood by taking into account structural conditions alone because its electoral and discursive success is equally dependent on strategic agency. It is clear that PRR actors actively shape their public discourse, manipulate emotional cues, and adapt their communication strategies to the evolving media environment, including the digital one. In order to evaluate this approach, this section examines four interrelated strategic dimensions: the normalization of aesthetics, the use of digital persuasion and neuropolitics, the tactics of cultural warfare and discursive re-framing, and the targeted outreach to politically disengaged groups with a focus on the younger generations.

4.1. Institutional Aesthetic and Strategic Camouflage

The adoption of democratic symbols, parliamentary rhetoric, and institutional decorum to conceal illiberal objectives has proven to be one of the most effective tactics employed by PRR parties. This aesthetic normalization is a form of “institutional mimicry” through which PRR actors pursue “normalization by appearance” [8], maintaining procedural legitimacy and symbolic alignment with liberal norms in exchange for accessing public funding, coalition opportunities, and media attention, which was traditionally reserved for established parties [11]. This strategy goes beyond just institutional cosmetics, because it effectively enables PRR actors to subvert democratic norms from within, allowing the institutional integration of exclusionary and nativist agendas disguised as rational and security-driven policies [10]. Beyond the discussion about the legitimacy of political actors to present their claims in ways that are acceptable at the institutional and citizenship level, which can be seen as shared by conventional political parties as well, this “rhetorical camouflage” allows PPR to advance policies that, while formally legal, undermine liberal democratic substance—such as welfare nationalism, binary gender policies, climate change negationism, or punitive populism.

4.2. Digital Communication and Neuropolitics

One of the most reiterated findings about contemporary PRR electoral campaigns is that they are deeply embedded in digital ecosystems and reliant on successful techniques of micro-targeted persuasion. Leveraging social media platforms, PRR actors have managed to amplify emotional appeals and construct identity-driven narratives, thus bypassing traditional gatekeepers. The use of neuro-political tools, such as algorithmic profiling, affective priming, and cognitive resonance techniques, has consistently been identified as an effective way to craft emotionally charged content aimed at anxious or alienated voters [31]. Carral and Tuñón-Navarro show how the Twitter strategy of the French far right has been capable of constructing a real-time performative identity based on opposition, crisis, and nationalism [18], fostering “affective identification,” allowing voters to perceive PRR leaders as authentic spokespeople of their grievances. Moreover, digital spaces have consistently allowed the PRR to form networked counterpublics, where exclusionary views are not only expressed, but reinforced, through algorithmic feedback loops, described by Forti as the “extreme right 2.0”, where far-right movements weaponize digital tools to amplify polarization and delegitimize democratic norms [32].

4.3. Cultural Warfare and Overton Window Shifting

PRR actors deliberately engage in what Forti and Ramos term cultural warfare, where public discourse is strategically reframed to mainstream previously marginal ideas [8,10]. Instead of confronting electoral rules, PRR actors seek to shift the Overton window, which defines the range of publicly acceptable ideas, by injecting taboo or controversial topics into mainstream political debates. Examples of this tactic include the normalization of anti-immigrant rhetoric, gender ideology, environmental conspiracies, or anti-European sovereignty narratives, which are put forward through formal channels such as parliamentary interventions or electoral manifestos, but also informal platforms such as memes, influencer collaborations, or fringe media. The result is a discursive reconfiguration in which liberal democratic values such as multiculturalism, inclusion, gender diversity, or transnational cooperation are recoded as threats to national survival, fostering a reactive political climate in which authoritarian responses appear legitimate or even necessary [30,33].

4.4. Targeting Youth and the Politically Unaligned

Contrary to earlier assumptions where PRR parties were associated with older segments of the population closer in their biographies to the experiences of 20th-century authoritarian regimes, empirical evidence shows that they are increasingly effective at mobilizing younger and politically unaligned voters. For example, Álvarez-Benavides and Aguilar show how far-right parties effectively cultivate a countercultural image among youth, leveraging irony, satire, and internet subcultures to bypass ideological stigma [34], managing to make far-right ideas appear as rebellious, authentic, and emotionally resonant, especially in contrast to technocratic or scripted mainstream politicians. At the same time, PRR campaigns focus on emotionally disengaged or volatile segments, offering simplified messages that are successful in resonating with feelings of anger, betrayal, or loss [26,35]. By constructing a political identity around affect rather than ideology, PRR parties sidestep policy coherence and appeal instead to existential or symbolic narratives, often organized around nostalgia, victimhood, and sovereignty.

5. Institutionalization in the European Parliament

The case of the European Parliament (EP) provides a useful perspective in our task to evaluate the rise and consolidation of the PRR, because it offers a common institutional framework allowing for comparative analysis. Indeed, the growing presence of the PRR in the EP offers a privileged perspective to observe their effective institutional integration since the prior perception of those parties as inherently anti-systemic. This section examines how PRR formations have transitioned from oppositionist nationalism to strategic integration within EU institutions, particularly following the 2024 European elections.

5.1. Reconfiguration After the 2024 Elections

The 2024 EP elections marked a critical juncture in the consolidation of PRR power at the European level. According to de Candia and Bressanelli [36], the 2024 EP elections produced three major party groups identifiable with PRR ideologies:

• European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR);
• Patriots for Europe (PfE) (formerly Identity and Democracy);
• Europe of Sovereign Nations (ENS), a newer and more heterogeneous alliance.

The three groups vary in their degrees of Euro-skepticism, policy preference, and strategic orientations. The ECR, for instance, tends to adopt a soft Eurosceptic position, advocating institutional reform rather than dismantlement, and including parties such as Fratelli d’Italia and Law and Justice [36]. By contrast, PfE and ENS actively promote more hardline nationalist and civilizational rhetoric, couched with anti-migration and anti-globalist frames as well. This proliferation reflects both the fragmentation and the normalization of the far right at the EU level: while these groups are not always ideologically cohesive, their collective presence signals the increasing institutional embeddedness of radical-right agendas and, therefore, the threats to liberal democracy also at the transnational level.

5.2. Typological Comparison and Strategic Divergence

Although united by broad themes that include nationalism, sovereignty, and immigration restriction, the three major PRR groups in the EP show significant differences in orientation and coherence:

• ECR members often pursue strategic moderation, framing themselves as defenders of “traditional values” and national competences, somewhat in line with the subsidiary principle. Their participation in parliamentary committees and budgetary negotiations shows a preference for more practical and technical policy engagement over symbolic protest, very much aligned with the EP bureaucratic procedure [37].
• PfE, anchored by parties such as France’s Rassemblement National and Italy’s Lega, tends instead toward confrontational populism, emphasizing cultural defense and Euroscepticism but still not outrightly rejecting the mechanisms of the European Union [38].
• Finally, ENS brings together smaller or more ideologically radical actors, some of which have struggled to align on core issues. Their instability reflects internal competition, leadership rivalries, and also divergent policy priorities, offering a much more fragmented landscape than their counterparts.

5.3. Coordination Challenges and Tactical Convergence

Despite their ideological and national differences, PRR groups in the EP share several tactical priorities:

• Resisting migration quotas and multiculturalism;
• Opposing climate legislation perceived as “elitist” or anti-industrial;
• Criticizing EU interference in national values and judicial systems.

These shared priorities foster issue-based convergence, particularly in debates on identity, sovereignty, and the limits of EU integration [39]. However, it is relevant to note that effective coordination is frequently undermined by personalist leadership styles, national interest clashes, and divergent foreign policy orientations, notably regarding Russia, China, or the U.S. [40]. Still, the presence of these groups has produced visible shifts in parliamentary discourse. As Shore and Thedvall have observed [41], PRR MEPs have become adept at using symbolic legislative initiatives and media platforms to shape public narratives, even when they lack governing capacities. This way, these strategies allow them to frame EU deliberation as either a battleground for “civilizational defense” or as evidence of elite detachment.

6. Discussion

In the preceding sections, we have traced the multidimensional evolution of the Populist Radical Right (PRR) in Europe, from its ideological genealogy and theoretical drivers to its political strategies and institutional entrenchment in the European Parliament (EP). We have tried to understand in what ways the historical evolution of 21st-century Europe’s far-right populist parties, their ideological distinctiveness from the radical right, and their transnational alliances in the European Parliament challenge or validate the prevailing theoretical frameworks that seek to explain their rise and evaluate their potential impact in the liberal political system. Our analysis shows that the theoretical explanations reviewed in Section 3 offered partial but insufficient insights into the rise and institutionalization of the PRR:

• While the cleavage realignment theory explains the vacuum left by traditional parties [17,20], it underestimates how PRR parties have not merely filled that space, since they have redefined it through identity and sovereignty discourses.
• The postmaterialist reversal and cultural backlash frameworks [5,21] helped us in explaining mobilization in older and rural demographics, but they underplayed the PRR’s appeal among younger voters through countercultural branding [34].
• The economic grievance thesis [4] still remains highly relevant, especially in welfare chauvinist appeals, but it cannot account alone for the success of PRR in wealthy regions or among middle-class voters.
• The protest vote hypothesis [26] accurately captured early stages of PRR support but fails to address the normalization and durability of these parties as soon as they reach power.

As the different theories alone cannot fully address our research question, we have opted to examine them towards synthesizing their main contributions into a unified approach. This has led us to identify two main interconnected themes: the increasing saliency of frustrated expectations derived from the inequality derived by the concentration of wealth produced by neoliberal globalization, and the subsequent emergence of orphaned electorates whose claims do not find an adequate answer in the majority political parties. Together, these two issues can more comprehensively explain the institutionalization of the PRR parties, safely disregarding them as a temporary phenomenon. As the causal mechanisms explaining the PRR emergence are structural, they should be seen as a durable and persistent instead of just a contingent disruption. Together with their capacity to blend in the liberal institutions without surrendering their illiberal agenda, this persistent nature has profound implications for liberal value-based political systems. In the following sections, we discuss both the dual explanation and its implications for liberal democracy.

6.1. Frustrated Expectations, Orphaned Electorates

The first major theme, closely tied to reversed postmaterialism, is the notion that Europe is undergoing a “revolution of declining expectations” [42]. This idea is expressed by the phrase “children will live worse than their parents”, reflecting the stagnation of social mobility caused by growing inequality and the concentration of wealth driven by the global deployment of the neoliberal agenda. This agenda promotes the replacement of automatic stabilizers (such as unemployment insurance, social assistance, and corporate taxes) and social wages (like public healthcare, education, childcare, and housing), which were established in European societies to counter the appeal of the Soviet model, with products and services provided by transnational corporations. This shift from the welfare state to the transnational corporation reinforces wealth concentration and deepens social inequality.

This transgenerational material reality creates a bleak and uncertain outlook that resonates both with older generations who once cast protest votes for communist parties or their social democrat derivates, and with newer voters, detached from that historical context but likewise seeking to express dissent, leveraging the strategic use of social media and sophisticated neuromarketing techniques to attract new voters. This broader context of declining expectations results in a resurgence of material concerns, affecting key pillars of democratic systems such as social cohesion, civic participation, and trust in institutions. The necessary consensus underpinning polyarchies—as articulated by Lipset, wherein society broadly agrees that the institutional framework is the best available for governance and coexistence—begins to erode.

That mechanism is further amplified when structural public policies fail to align with the basic needs of citizens, creating the perfect breeding ground for the rise of illiberal, strongly anti-globalization movements. This is evident in the shift of the European Union’s energy policy as a response to the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, which, by prioritizing militaristic interests and alliances instead of economic ones, leads to rising prices, diminishing salary value, and a decline in industrial and job provision capacities. These developments fuels economic dissatisfaction, frustrated expectations, and difficulties in securing basic needs like employment and housing, undermining the ability to build families and lead prosperous lives, and thus provide fertile ground for the spread of such movements. Similar contradictions emerge when public policy and lawmaking fail to keep pace with structural transformations in society—particularly those driven by technological advancements. The rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) offers a striking example. Beyond the unresolved issue of job displacement and the spread of disinformation, AI poses threats that challenge the constitutional foundations of European societies. It enables companies, public institutions, and even public research organizations to sidestep privacy laws, data protection regulations, and intellectual property rights. This creates substantial contradictions at the core of legal and moral frameworks that are rooted in liberal values, where the protection of property and privacy is essential to individual autonomy, democratic governance, and the proper functioning of a market economy, consistently with liberal theory.

Such internal contradictions lead to further questioning the legitimacy of liberal institutions, deriving in increased social polarization, as many citizens seek quick, radical, and seemingly simple solutions in the face of growing mistrust of traditional politics and institutions. Within this scenario, PRR parties appear particularly well-equipped to capitalize on public discontent through populist tactics that amplify polarization (and thus electoral mobilization) by identifying scapegoats and adversaries, including immigrants, minorities, public servants, non-binary gender identities, or cosmopolitan elites.

Frustrated expectations caused by the neoliberal agenda after the collapse of the Soviet Union paved the way for the re-enactment of protest voting as a mechanism for institutional change which is effectively exploited by the PRR, suggesting the idea that PRR parties may have become the new recipients of those voters who, during the Cold War, turned to communist parties as a vehicle for expressing protest. From that perspective, those voters were not necessarily ideologically aligned or committed to those parties, but were deeply disillusioned with the prevailing socioeconomic conditions. In this context, voting for the party representing the alternative system served as a form of rejection or a wholesale censure of a government subjected to electoral accountability.

In contemporary Europe, following the collapse of the Iron Curtain, communist parties have lost much of their appeal due to a variety of factors. The loss of support by a super-power after the demise of the Soviet Union, diminishing social legitimacy in areas where communism was demonized, and eroded respectability as the result of the assimilation of liberal values -and even to the neoliberal agenda- by their social democratic spin offs, are generally accepted mechanisms explaining the displacement of communist parties to political marginality. However, the electoral decline of these formations did not imply the disappearance of their voters, nor the recourse of protest-voting as an effective way to express dissent and dissatisfaction. This has given rise to a group of “orphaned electorates” who, as Piketty argues, are joined by segments of the social democratic electorate disenchanted by the neoliberal drift of many such parties. While conservative and christian democratic parties may have provided an alternative, electoral dynamics prioritizing the center voter led to the progressive indistinctiveness of the political offer by the systemic parties both in the center-left and center-right. Consequently, sectors of the increasingly growing working class and progressively diminishing middle classes find themselves without clear electoral alternatives amid a context of high uncertainty, persistent crisis, and widespread dissatisfaction with institutions, consistently with social rupture thesis.

In this context, the single-issue strategies often employed by PRR parties can serve to attract these orphaned electorates, particularly those without well substantiated ideologically positions. This would constitute a form of effective, yet lower-cost, protest voting. These voters wish to express dissent and be heard, but generally do not view capitalism itself as the problem—rather, they take issue with a particular manifestation of it, disconnected from the general phenomenon, and even grounded on conspiratorial thinking. Thus, voting for a PRR party becomes an effective expression of discontent and protest, not merely with globalization, as described by Stiglitz, but with hyperglobalization, as experienced within contemporary Western societies, where increasing inequality and declining opportunities are perceived within a broader context of insecurity and uncertainty, in line with the proposals of the reversed postmaterialism thesis.

6.2. Systemic Implications for Liberal Democracy

Contrary to the view of the PRR as a transient or purely reactive phenomenon that liberal institutions will be able to neutralize over time without major consequences, we find that they emerge as reflection of structural changes in liberal democracies caused by the implementation of the neoliberal agenda. As the frustrated expectations caused by those changes are structural, so they can be expected to be the subsequent orphaned electorates, and thus the political parties showing capacity to articulate a political offering capable to meet their demands, as the PRR is proving to be successfully capable of.

Two paradoxes need to be discerned in order to envision the systemic implications of the PRR for liberal democracies and European integration. First, the apparent contradiction of a political party being capable to subvert the principles of the liberal institutions they partake. As already explained, PRR parties have shown proficiency in the combined use of institutional mimicry [11] and discursive normalization [10] mechanisms, allowing them to blend in dynamics of liberal to effectively foster illiberal agendas. Rather than rejecting liberal democratic institutions outright, PRR actors work within them to gradually erode pluralistic norms, in line with the “democratic illiberalism” strategy described by Forti [8]. Second, exclusionary identities fostered by PRR at the national level may lead to see this parties as uncapable to forge electoral coalitions beyond their national frontiers, and therefore to engage in the dynamics of internationalization. However, shared core values, such as those connected to nativist articulation of national identities, rejection of non-binary gender approaches, or punitive security frameworks [2,3] allowed them to successfully build European-level alliances [36].

The institutionalization process of the PRR in the European Parliament illustrates that double paradox, as the very architecture designed to promote European integration and liberal democratic norms is facilitating their subversion, and the increasing fragmentation and ideological polarization within the EP undermining its capacity to act as a unifying, normative actor consistently advancing the agenda of liberal democracy [39,41]. Moreover, the PRR’s presence is effectively shifting the discursive boundaries of EU politics, legitimizing ethnonationalist rhetoric, a return to binary gender family structures, and deepening democratic erosion at the national level. These dynamics threaten to harden regime stress into a structural condition where liberal democracies remain formally intact, but progressively “hollowed out” [16,22].

In this context, the persistent contradictions in the application of normative criteria by European leaders—where inconsistent positions are defended across different international cases—demand particular attention. Such inconsistencies provide the Populist Radical Right (PRR) with potent rhetorical ammunition to highlight the perceived incoherence of the liberal international order. A salient example is the divergent response of European institutions to the occupations of Ukrainian and Palestinian territories, which has generated visible controversy and public discontent, even in relatively depoliticized arenas such as the 2024 and 2025 Eurovision contests. These cases are especially damaging to the normative legitimacy of liberal democracies, as they lend credence to accusations of “double standards,” whereby the evaluation of international aggression appears contingent on the geopolitical alignment of the perpetrator rather than on consistent adherence to the principles of a rules-based international order.

In highlighting this critique, we have deliberately adopted the terminology consistently used at the United Nations by members such as China and Russia, as they represent the leading proponents of an illiberal agenda. The agenda alignment between those countries and the PRR amplifies its international resonance within Europe. Much as the perceived sucess of the Soviet Union once provided a plausible ideological alternative to postwar liberal democracies, the rising influence of emerging powers contesting liberal hegemony may now be offering plausible models of governance rooted in illiberal values asserting national identity and sovereign interests in both political and economic terms. Just as the Soviet Union lent historical credibility to the viability of socialist principles, the growing prominence of China and Russia may increasingly serve to legitimize illiberal principles as a credible foundation for effective governance in the contemporary global order. While the PRR nominally subscribes to values such as individual freedom and liberty—typically framed in opposition to the governance principles of illiberal states—it simultaneously aligns with other elements of illiberal governance fostered by those countries, including strong assertions of national sovereignty, punitive security policies, and the defense of traditional social values such as binary gender roles and family structures that have already served as a common ground to bridge the differences of PRR political parties facilitating international coordination at the European level.

Taken together, we understand that the PRR should be interpreted not only as a symptom of institutional failure, but also as a catalyst for a deeper regression of democracy and liberal representative institutions. While the erosion of liberal norms is not an inevitable destiny, the challenge posed by the PRR needs more than defensive containment in the form of ‘sanitary cordons’, public disdain, or appeals to abstract values that are difficult to be perceived as directly connected with the tangible priorities of European citizens. The emergence of PRR and consolidation demand a renewed democratic project capable of articulating security, identity, and solidarity according to a governance framework where the potential benefits of authoritarian approaches can be tangibly seen as less profitable and more damaging than those of democratic rule.

7. Conclusions

In this article, we have examined the emergence, adaptation, and institutionalization of the Populist Radical Right (PRR) in contemporary Europe. While their ideological diversity and national contexts vary, these parties often share a common pattern: (1) they foster and react to dissatisfaction caused by socioeconomic transformations or institutional inefficiencies, (2) they employ simplified and moralized narratives to activate negative emotions, and (3) they embed themselves within liberal institutions without necessarily moderating their illiberal agenda. Empirically, the success of the PRR cannot be explained entirely by any of the revised theories. Rather, their success emerges from a strategic synthesis of multiple grievance narratives, aligned with proven communicative, cultural, and institutional tactics, where a new offer emerges to match the political demands of an orphaned electorate produced by the erosion of democratic institutions caused by the implementation of the neoliberal agenda. This convergence challenges static typologies and suggests a new political model: one that is populist in form, authoritarian in ambition, and strategically democratic in practice. Our analysis suggests that PRR parties are not disregardable temporary challengers of the liberal democratic order responding to specific contingencies, but instead they are persistent agents of its transformation, fostering illiberal agendas while maintaining procedural legitimacy. PRR parties are so persistent as the erosion in the structure of liberal institutions caused by the neoliberal agenda.

In our synthetic framework, the role of new protest parties—gathering voters alienated from mainstream parties—is pivotal, as is the broader context of declining expectations. Rejecting simplistic or monolithic explanations, our analysis shows that PRR success cannot be reduced to only an ephemeral sentiment of protest, to conjunctural economic grievances, or to cultural backlash alone; instead, we have found that it emerges from the strategic convergence of all those drivers, and is materialized through legitimate political actors that have learned to navigate democratic institutions and mass media, while subverting them from within.

These parties fulfill the protest function that communist or anti-system left-wing parties previously held for certain voting strata, while also targeting younger, non-aligned voters. This is complemented by strategies such as single-issue campaigning, which proves effective in contexts marked by social erosion or rupture, within a framework shaped by reversed postmaterialism and the revolution of declining expectations. The increasing capacity of countries aligned with the PRR agendas, such as China or Russia, provides a sense of plausibility and utility to illiberal values previously disregarded as obsolete or useless by the prevailing liberal perspective, further reinforcing the perception of utility in supporting those parties. The lack of consistency between the proclaimed values and their implementation provide an effective base to question the legitimacy of liberal institutions, as illustrated in the antagonism between Ukraine and Palestine. Finally, the lack of proper alignment with the material needs of European citizens further emphasizes discontent, as exemplified by the erosion of economic conditions caused by the militarisation of European energy policy. As argued by Mudde, the “populist zeitgeist” is no longer peripheral; it is a governing logic in many European settings [1], providing a clear indication that the PRR is capable not only of adapting to, but also reshaping its political environment. Together, moral contradictions and inefficient policies provide a very effective platform for PRR to demonstrate the lack of coherence of the liberal perspective, where a more authoritarian approach could provide the missing order and security.

We have argued that the PRR represents a new political formation: ideologically exclusionary, procedurally democratic, and strategically illiberal. By cloaking authoritarian tendencies behind the language of sovereignty and tradition, PRR actors managed to avoid the traditional barriers that have kept them on the side of political illegitimacy. Their growing presence in the European Parliament, especially since the 2024 elections, provides an illustration of how illiberal forces can become institutional players in systems originally designed to protect pluralism and integration. Consequently, three core conclusions emerge from this study:

• The PRR is not a temporary disruption, but a durable and evolving force capable of shaping agendas, normalizing exclusionary narratives, and governing from the more local to the more international levels.
• Liberal democracies are institutionally vulnerable to actors who use procedural legitimacy to erode substantive democratic norms. The case of the PRR reveals the insufficiency of institutional formalism, such as procedural democracy, in preventing democratic backsliding.
• The presence of multiple PRR actors in the European Parliament suggests both fragmentation and adaptation capacities, with PRR parties being capable of balancing their local agendas with international alliances, reflecting the increasing complexity of the far right’s role within European integration.

While the idiographic nature of this research has facilitated the articulation of a plausible explanation about the nature of the PRR movements that is consistent with the established literature, our proposal is not exempt from limitations, including the potential omission of other relevant theories or scholarly contributions that may deserve the merit of being included. In this regard, we want to appreciate the contribution provided by anonymous reviewers and colleagues with valuable comments and corrections. In any case, our analysis can benefit from future research. The discipline will benefit from more deeply exploring issues, such as the long-term impact of PRR parties on policymaking in the EU, the diffusion of illiberal norms across party families, and the resilience strategies that liberal democracies can adopt to counteract liberal erosion. More specifically, the targeting of youth and the use of digital neuropolitics deserve further attention, as these strategies suggest that PRR actors are not only consolidating power but also investing in generational renewal.

Furthermore, the rise and normalization of the PRR introduces questions to scholars studying liberal democracies, as the questioning introduced by PRR may be seen not just as a phenomenon of external disruption, but as a symptom of more profound changes to the contemporary political systems derived from dysfunctions in the democratic implementation of the liberal framework, where alternative approaches could start to be entering the toolbox of human political organization. In this regard, the consistency between the PRR political agendas and those of the increasingly central political systems representing the so-called “global majority” should raise the attention of scholars evaluating democratic performance. Outstanding questions in the theory of democracy regarding the role of emotions in rationality, fluid identities, and the role of digital automation in the deliberation process—such as in the case of generative Artificial Intelligence—emphasize the utility of the PRR as an opportunity to better understand contemporary politics. In any case, the utility of PRR-related analysis will depend on the capacity of scholars to avoid liberal—or illiberal—bias in their research.

Ultimately, we contend that addressing the challenge posed by the Populist Radical Right (PRR) requires more than a defensive reaffirmation of liberal democracy as an ahistorical, universal, and normatively uncontestable framework. What is at stake is not merely institutional preservation, but the reconstitution of key political categories—democratic legitimacy, collective identity, security, and belonging—within terms that resonate with lived experience and are perceived by citizens as offering greater responsiveness and inclusion than those advanced by authoritarian or exclusionary alternatives.

This necessitates a critical re-engagement with liberalism’s normative foundations and an honest reckoning with its internal contradictions—particularly the tensions between universalism and exclusion, proceduralism and substantive justice, market logic and democratic equality. The complacency of liberal elites, long insulated by assumptions of ideological consensus, has become increasingly untenable in a context marked by both external contestation—from ascendant illiberal powers proposing alternative value frameworks—and internal disaffection, as segments of the citizenry perceive liberal institutions as inattentive to concerns around identity, sovereignty, and social cohesion.

If liberal democracies want to survive rising populism, exclusionary identities, and political frustration, they must engage with the emotional, symbolic, and cultural aspects of politics. While empirical analysis and pragmatic reform remain necessary, the deeper challenge is theoretical. The rise of the PRR is not an anomalous deviation, but an expression of structural changes that expose the limits—and potential obsolescence—of core liberal assumptions. Responding to this populist moment demands a reinvigorated political theory capable of articulating alternative imaginaries of equity, belonging and freedom for the emerging post-liberal stage.