You know those annoying people who say they liked bands before they were popular? That’s me with populism. I’ve been working on it since I was a PhD researcher in the mid-2000s, even though my thesis was on something else (to the despair of my dear supervisor, Alfio Mastropaolo).
My research in this area has looked primarily at how right-wing populist parties organise and mobilise, both domestically and internationally. To that end, I’ve interviewed leaders, MPs, MEPs, officials, and grassroots members in countries across Europe, as well as in India and the United States. As far as I know, I’ve interviewed more right-wing populists than anyone else.
I’ve also studied how populists communicate in different languages with my old friend, Stefano Ondelli from the University of Trieste, whom I first met as an undergraduate on an Erasmus exchange a long long time ago.
Currently, I’m working on my ARC Future Fellowship which looks at the internationalisation of nationalist populism. In a nutshell, I ask: how and why are nationalist populists from across the globe increasingly networking and collaborating with one another?
My next book on populism will be ‘Youth wings of the populist radical right’, for which I’m the lead author of a team including Sofia Ammassari, Ann-Cathrine Jungar, Anders Jupskäs, and Cas Mudde. The book examines how 10 European populist youth wings contribute to both the present and future success of their parties. It will be published by Oxford University Press in mid-2026.
Selected publications
International populism: The radical right in the European Parliament (Oxford University Press)
Populists in power (Routledge)
The language of right-wing populists: Not so simple (Perspectives on Politics)
Populist leaders and coterie charisma (Political Studies)
The right-wing populism of India’s Bharatiya Janata Party (and why comparativists should care) (Democratization)
Right-wing populist party supporters: Dissatisfied but not direct democrats (European Journal of Political Research)
Differently Eurosceptic: radical right populist parties and their supporters (Journal of European Public Policy)