For more than a decade, we have been told that insurgent populists are challenging a complacent post-political technocratic establishment. Combatants on both sides testify to this polarization. Poland’s Donald Tusk, former President of the European Council and the country’s current prime minister, stated back in 2017 that “we must challenge the populists”—and he did so, defeating the right-wing Law and Justice Party in 2023. French President Emmanuel Macron warned last year that “populists” risk undermining the European bloc from within. On the other side, Britain’s Nigel Farage declared the same year that “nation-state democracy” was “making a comeback against the globalists.” More recently, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni railed against “the global leftist liberal network” created in the 1990s by Tony Blair and Bill Clinton.
But the truth is that the insurgents are now part of the furniture, and mostly about as immobile as that image suggests. When they are not already in government, they are His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition. But the issue isn’t simply that the political landscape has shifted: It is that the opposition between technocrats and populists is a phony one, and perhaps always was. The political reality of the current moment is, in fact, techno-populism: a synthesis of populism and technocracy that is no longer merely rhetorical and stylistic—the way politics is done—but increasingly also substantive. In other words, techno-populism is at the core of what politics is about.
Neoliberal globalists have long incorporated populist elements, while national conservatives often adopt technocratic programs. Outright elitism no longer sells, so even the snootiest managerial politicians must tell the electorate they are responding to the people’s real needs. Similarly, populists who seek to represent popular desires against the elite regularly champion their competence, the ability to “get things done.” Already in his first presidential campaign, Donald Trump’s business nous was wielded in this fashion. This approach was given a new emphasis by Elon Musk’s DOGE, which promised to fight the establishment by … cutting government spending, a standard establishment mantra for 40 years.
In their 2021 book Technopopulism, Christopher Bickerton and Carlo Invernizzi-Accetti argued that technocracy and populism can be combined in multiple and creative ways because they “abstract from substantive interests and policy commitments.” In contrast to the politicians and parties of the old right and left, which represented specific values and interests within society, technocrats and populists alike adopt an “unmediated conception of the common good,” whether they speak of the popular will or of trusting the experts.
The technopopulist synthesis is transforming the content of politics as well as its style. Consider the following. In response to Trump’s unabashed assertion of unilateral US interests, one might expect that European populists—already skeptical of European integration—would entrench further in their demands for national autonomy. In fact, the opposite is happening. Meloni, who declares that her party does not have an anti-European wing, has emerged as one of the continent’s strongest advocates for continuing American protection. In this, she is closely followed by France’s Marine Le Pen—and in particular her deputy, Jordan Bardella—in pushing in a more Atlanticist direction. As one analyst bitingly put it, when the French radical right “insist that they are ready to govern,” what they really mean is that “they are ready to be co-opted.”
“Neoliberal globalists, meanwhile, are moving in the opposite direction.”
Neoliberal globalists, meanwhile, are moving in the opposite direction. There is some irony to this. Europe’s 2010s were a story of neoliberal technocrats insisting on European unity but never delivering even the merest reform, such as fiscal transfers, that would make that unity credible, let alone desirable, to European peoples. When right-populists mounted their revolt against Brussels, left-populists and progressives pushed for a European Green New Deal, viewed as the escape hatch from austerity. Now the populists and the technocrats are uniting under the aegis of nationalism and militarism—witness Ursula von der Leyen’s nearly $900 million plan to re-arm Europe. The new synthesis promises its own passage beyond neoliberalism—but it’s not through redistribution. Instead, it’s through war, and “civilizational struggle” is its alibi. Contrary to expectations, then, the incursion of populism into government looks set to strengthen the European Union, placing culturalist and identitarian concerns at its heart.
The representative Western figure in all of this is Macron. Misleadingly described as an orthodox neoliberal centrist standing against Le Pen’s National Rally party, he has distinguished himself by adapting through institutional crises and popular revolts, in one moment standing as a law-and-order statesman while in another defending economic sovereignty. Moreover, he has shown himself concerned with grander themes, for instance declaring in 2018 that “what makes me optimistic is that the history we are living through in Europe is becoming tragic again.” The return of inter-state war to the European continent four years later would underscore Macron's sense that great historical clashes were back. Such a context allows a Macron to emerge as a transversal figure, cutting across political traditions, and appearing as the providential man.
As with 21st-century politics more broadly, the technopopulist synthesis is premised on weak and unrepresentative party systems. Political “success” thus rests on personal charisma. Macron is not alone in this, even in Europe; other instances of this type include Slovakia’s Robert Fico and Serbia’s Aleksandar Vučić. Romania’s election is the latest to underscore the same trends: the run-off pits a centrist pro-Western figure—but notably one who lacks party affiliation and whose background is in civic activism—and a right-wing Euroskeptical figure who talks the nationalist talk without any sovereigntist walk. Both are typically technopopulist.
The contours of this emerging technopopulist landscape, though, may well be more visible in the periphery. It is in countries like Hungary, Turkey, and India where a leader-focused form of nationalist populism has been able to hegemonize the political field. In contrast to the North Atlantic, where populists have sought to speak for the “left behind,” in the semi-periphery of the globe, figures like Modi or Bolsonaro have also drawn support from the traditional middle classes. This configures their politics less towards inclusion of the unrepresented, and more towards exclusion of the poor, the foreign, and so on. This may be indicative of where Trump is heading, too—the Republicans won’t become a “party of workers,” but he can helm a cross-class coalition drawing themes from across the spectrum.
“Nationalism, rather than threatening European breakup, is being brought in-house.”
The result is that the backlash against globalism represented by national populism will not result in a reconfiguration of the global order. Witness how the business class put pressure on Trump to reverse his tariffs, in a backlash against the backlash. What is happening is that liberal technocrats are slowly abandoning an exhausted cultural progressivism that has served as the main means of legitimation over the past decades, while national populists are entering government in a growing number of countries … and conforming, not transforming.
Nationalism, rather than threatening European breakup, is being brought in-house. Consider next month’s elections in Poland. Except perhaps Belgium’s Guy Verhostadt, few have been as outspoken as the aforementioned Tusk in “standing up to populism.” Tusk relished his role in trying to prevent Britain from leaving the European Union, and, when out of government in Poland, he attacked the Law and Justice Party in Poland for allowing too many migrants to enter the country. Now in government, by contrast, Tusk’s party claims “the survival of Western civilization” depends on stopping uncontrolled migration.
Changing the economy is hard; changing international structures is even harder. Reforming national politics to be more representative is undesirable if you depend increasingly on elite backing. In contrast, changing the past is easy. In this sense, it is hardly a coincidence that Trump’s U-turn on his “Liberation Day” tariffs has been followed by two substanceless symbolic announcements: The United States will celebrate its victory in WWII much harder from now on, and the Persian Gulf will henceforth be the Arabian Gulf. Following Orbán’s lead, the Trump administration is also setting out to restructure America’s universities and cultural institutions.
Of course, migrants—an avatar of globalization and for many the incarnation of the loss of political control—remain an easy target. So the deportations continue—a classic technopopulist exercise in “getting things done”—but the low-wage economy remains mostly untouched.
Whether the technopopulist fusion becomes subject to genuine political challenge depends on whether those who see themselves as inheritors of the Enlightenment project take the bait and opt to re-litigate the past, or develop future-oriented programs that answer popular aspirations for individual and collective autonomy. Until now, liberals and leftists have abandoned their ostensible ideals in favor of identitarian commitments and a narrow and conservative “anti-fascism.” It doesn't matter where you come from, it’s where you’re going that counts. By that measure, it doesn’t matter that Macron originates in the metropolitan neoliberal progressive camp or that Turkey’s Erdogan emerges from provincial Islamic conservatism—their destination is the same. Technopopulism is the handmaiden of the post-neoliberal order: a small step in a nationalist and populist direction, a change so that everything might remain the same.