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Open research questions in Populism, Right-Wing Movements

173 unresolved questions extracted from the limitations and future-work sections of 6,825 Populism, Right-Wing Movements papers in our library. Each links back to the study that raised it.

What the literature leaves open

  • Whether Slovakia will follow the Polish path of significant ‑but ‑reversible erosion or the Hungarian path of threshold crossing will depend critically on whether Fico’s coalition acquires constitutional amendment authority – a development that remains uncertain 171 POLITICS IN CENTRAL EUROPE 22 (2026) 2 as of the time of writing.

    Why Does Backsliding Depth Vary? Legal Populism, Abusive Constitutionalism, and the Differential Trajectories of Democratic Erosion in Hungary and Poland · 2026 · DOI

  • Besides, as the generation born after 2000, who did not experience actual authoritarian rule, gradually becomes a key voting bloc, it remains to be seen whether re-contextualising historical trauma will continue to effectively influence their voting behaviour.

    From Structural Resistance to the Performance of Crisis · 2026 · DOI

  • More specifically, whether the case of reinstating lost status is something which is only present in the US given its great power master role needs further investigation on the basis of taking a comparative approach to populist foreign policy from a The narration of status in far‑right populist foreign policy:… 4 Page 20 of 24 L.

    The narration of status in far-right populist foreign policy: the United States of Trump 2.0 · 2026 · DOI

  • In order to test the “populist Zeitgeist” hypothesis (Mudde, 2007), and to fill the gap in research on populism in Eastern Europe, this methodology is then applied to a corpus of Polish mainstream politicians’ election campaign speeches.

    Keys to populism? Exploring varieties of mainstream populist discourse through key item analysis · 2026 · DOI

  • The five collected articles address open issues in the literature by applying populism as a malleable ideological, rhetorical, and communicative tool across dimensions of gender and leadership, organizational dynamics, constitutional and legal strategies, chameleonic institutionalization, and discursive ambivalence in EU elections.

    Populism and the Ambivalences of Brothers of Italy. An Introduction · 2026 · DOI

  • This study examines attempts to gain access rather than realised contact or pol- icy influence. While access-seeking captures strategic intent and organisational agency, future research should distinguish between attempts, successful access, and responsiveness to capture the full interaction process. Second, treating coun- try as a contextual background rather than a modelled causal factor limits causal inference regarding institutional effects. Expanding the analysis to a larger num- ber of countries, or leveraging within-country variation, would allow for more fine-grained tests of how institutional conditions shape access-seeking. Future research could also engage more directly with POS frameworks. In particular, comparative work across a wider range of political contexts could assess how var- iation in institutional openness, party competition, and democratic safeguards shapes the strategic calculus of IGs and the extent to which organisational re- sources translate into access-seekingbehaviour. Finally, the null finding for or- ganisational age suggests that post-communist associational fields may reward current capacity over longevity. More nuanced indicators of institutional learn- ing, networks, and professionalisation could help unpack these dynamics.

    Interactions between Interest Groups and Political Parties in the Czech Republic and Slovakia - Three Decades after the Velvet Divorce · 2026 · DOI

  • Adopting these strategies will enable the potential of diasporas to be realized in a way that is responsible, sustainable, and impactful, empowering those groups to contribute to peacebuilding, recovery and development efforts globally.

    Digital political communication of new-generation right-wing populists in the EU: a comparative analysis · 2026 · DOI

  • The paper calls for communication strategies that frame circular economy adoption as generating job creation and industrial competitiveness benefits for economic-security-focused constituencies, but lacks empirical data on how different political messaging frames (environmental protection vs. economic benefit emphasis) influence circular economy policy support across provinces with varying ideological compositions.

    Black and green: How electoral outcomes influence provincial circular economy performance in Italy · 2026 · DOI

  • The research demonstrates socio-economic factors (unemployment rate, population density, GDP per capita, graduate education) as key determinants of circularity practices, but does not test interactive or moderating effects between electoral preferences and specific socio-economic conditions—for example, whether left-wing environmental commitment varies in strength across provinces with different labour market vulnerabilities.

    Black and green: How electoral outcomes influence provincial circular economy performance in Italy · 2026 · DOI

  • The study identifies that circularity transitions in marginalised areas require enhanced local participation and bottom-up engagement strategies to counteract populist narratives and rebuild institutional trust, but provides no specific operational framework for designing or measuring the effectiveness of participatory governance mechanisms tailored to low-trust institutional environments.

    Black and green: How electoral outcomes influence provincial circular economy performance in Italy · 2026 · DOI

  • The paper demonstrates that left-wing political orientations align with circularity policies while right-wing preferences oppose them, but does not examine mechanisms of policy implementation or enforcement intensity—specifically whether provincial administrations with left-wing majorities allocate greater budgetary resources or administrative capacity to circular economy initiatives compared to right-wing counterparts.

    Black and green: How electoral outcomes influence provincial circular economy performance in Italy · 2026 · DOI

  • The analysis identifies infrastructural deficits and administrative fragmentation as structural barriers to circular economy adoption in marginalised Italian territories, but lacks empirical quantification of how specific infrastructure types (waste management systems, recycling facilities, logistics networks) correlate with provincial circularity index scores at different scales of territorial marginalisation.

    Black and green: How electoral outcomes influence provincial circular economy performance in Italy · 2026 · DOI

  • The study's classification of the Democratic Party (PD) within the centre-right category based on observed policy behaviour during the Renzi era requires longitudinal ideological tracking across multiple temporal periods to validate whether policy-behaviour-based classifications consistently outperform party self-identification methods in predicting circular economy adoption across different Italian provincial administrations.

    Black and green: How electoral outcomes influence provincial circular economy performance in Italy · 2026 · DOI

  • The paper analyzes affective place-making at the discursive level but does not examine the material/infrastructural dimensions through which this rhetoric might be operationalized (e.g., regional economic policies, education initiatives, urban development projects marketed as 'CSU-governance of Bavaria'). A multimodal analysis integrating spatial policy analysis with discourse analysis would clarify the relationship between populist place-rhetoric and actual territorial governance.

    „Bayern ist die Vorstufe zum Paradies“. Affektives Place-Making als populistische Mobilisierungsstrategie in den Aschermittwochsreden der CSU-Parteivorsitzenden · 2026 · DOI

  • The analysis identifies a recurring dichotomy between Bayern as 'Ordnung und Vernunft' (order and reason) versus threats from Brussels/Berlin and 'woke' urban elites, but does not systematically map how these spatial anxieties have evolved temporally across the 2015-2023 period or correlate with specific historical events (refugee crisis, COVID, climate debates, federal elections).

    „Bayern ist die Vorstufe zum Paradies“. Affektives Place-Making als populistische Mobilisierungsstrategie in den Aschermittwochsreden der CSU-Parteivorsitzenden · 2026 · DOI

  • The paper demonstrates how CSU rhetoric constructs Bavaria as a homogeneous 'place' and positions the Greens/Islam as external threats, but lacks empirical measurement of audience reception and affective resonance. Quantitative or qualitative reception studies examining how targeted voters (rural vs. urban Bavarians, different age cohorts) actually respond to and internalize these affective place-making claims would validate the mobilization effectiveness claimed.

    „Bayern ist die Vorstufe zum Paradies“. Affektives Place-Making als populistische Mobilisierungsstrategie in den Aschermittwochsreden der CSU-Parteivorsitzenden · 2026 · DOI

  • The analysis relies exclusively on Aschermittwochsreden (Ash Wednesday speeches) from CSU party chairs as its corpus. The paper does not investigate whether the identified affective place-making patterns appear consistently across other speech contexts (campaign rallies, parliamentary debates, media interviews) or whether the ceremonial/ritualistic nature of Ash Wednesday speeches specifically amplifies emotional spatial claims.

    „Bayern ist die Vorstufe zum Paradies“. Affektives Place-Making als populistische Mobilisierungsstrategie in den Aschermittwochsreden der CSU-Parteivorsitzenden · 2026 · DOI

  • The paper analyzes affektives Place-Making in CSU party leadership speeches from the last decade but does not systematically compare this mobilization strategy across other German political parties (e.g., AfD, SPD, Grüne) or non-German populist movements. A comparative discourse analysis examining how place-based affective framing differs across party ideologies and national contexts would clarify whether this strategy is CSU-specific or endemic to populist mobilization more broadly.

    „Bayern ist die Vorstufe zum Paradies“. Affektives Place-Making als populistische Mobilisierungsstrategie in den Aschermittwochsreden der CSU-Parteivorsitzenden · 2026 · DOI

  • This article, based on a survey with 1047 people (aged 18–30) from all regions of Portugal, focuses on this under-researched geographic context and demographic group, aiming to understand the drivers of populist inclinations among Portuguese young adults.

    What Drives Young Adults’ Populist Attitudes? An Analysis of the Predictors of Populism in Portugal · 2025 · DOI

  • NSC, innocent protest vote or gateway party? – The rise of a centrist anti-establishment party in the Netherlands Centrist anti-establishment parties (CAPs) are an understudied new type of protest party, described as parties with moderate ideological views that use anti-establishment rhetoric and attract protest voters.

    NSC, onschuldige proteststem of gateway party? · 2025 · DOI

  • In the future, we need further research on the aspects of influence and raising questions about other factors and systems of influence on the appearance of populists in local authorities, in order to know what local authorities should pay attention to in order to strengthen trust and resist the spread of populism.

    A study of trust and satisfaction with local authorities in Ukraine. The impact of populism · 2024 · DOI

  • Abstract Do individuals with right‐wing populist ideologies have higher violence‐justification attitudes than those supporting different political ideologies? While the literature has confirmed the association between political violence and populism, research on which components of populist ideologies relate to individual attitudes towards political violence is relatively scarce.

    Are right‐wing populists more likely to justify political violence? · 2024 · DOI

  • However, the impact of integration policies on PRRP voting has not been assessed yet on a cross-country level—neither direct nor dependent on (anti)immigration attitudes.

    A virtuous cycle? Migrant integration policies, attitudes toward immigration, and populist radical right voting in Europe · 2024 · DOI

  • This article addresses this gap in the literature by combining a Gramscian-inspired dyad of senso comune v buon senso (common sense v good sense), and recent discursive approaches to mainstreaming, with the general orientation of the Discourse Historical Approach (DHA) to Critical Discourse Studies (CDS).

    ‘Talking about’ the far right and common sense. A case study of Matteo Salvini’s buon senso trope on Twitter (2018–2023) · 2024 · DOI

  • Although it is possible to assert that Bolsonaro belongs to the PRR given his political career, few studies have focused on the supply-side and Bolsonaro’s ideas and discourses.

    Jair Bolsonaro and the defining attributes of the populist radical right in Brazil · 2023 · DOI

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173 open questions have been extracted from the limitations and future-work passages of 6,825 Populism, Right-Wing Movements papers in our library. Each one below links back to the study that raised it, so you can read the original claim in context.

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