Focusing on the cases of Egypt, Brazil, Japan, ASEAN members, Russia, and China, this edited volume by Hiro Katsumata and Hiroki Kusano looks at responses to the global spread of liberalism arguing that there are three typologies of responses: illiberal bandwagoning, counter-backlash and thirdway charting.

Nuno Fragoso Vidal looks at the cases of Mozambique and Angola as case studies of authoritarian populist tendencies in sub-Saharan Africa arguing that neither case is part of an attempt to imitate an international trend of the wave of authoritarian populism since 2010, but are rather emblematic of “selective assimilation of political features to serve the existing and locally dominant systems.”

Adriana Cuppuleri and Liridona Veliu Ashiku look at Russian soft power in the Western Balkans making a broader point about the potential sway of soft power of illiberal states.

Kristina Stoeckl argues that Russian state and church leaders’ strategic cooption of human rights language and its application to topics of traditional values, homeschooling, and family have advanced an illiberal and nationalist agenda in Russia that has undermined democratic values and has been used to target liberal members of civil society.

Natasha Wunsch and Theresa Gessler look at the case of Hungary and citizen tolerance towards democratic violations in a context of severe backsliding. They argue that authoritarian-leaning elites engage in a strategy of offering targeted compensation to segments of society to construct a network of electoral support.

Mark Cauchi argues that European united identity and strong democratic values are rooted in Catholic political thought and that the departure from this “this communitarian tradition” can explain the rise of populism and Euroscepticism.

Editors Philip Giurlando and Daniel F. Wajner present a volume dedicated to populist foreign policy. Chapters use cross regional comparisons to identify populist foreign policy practices and advance a new theoretical framework for studying populist foreign policy.

Jens Meijen and Peter Vermeersch look at the people-vs-elites rhetoric advanced by populist leaders and its intersection with memory politics. They argue that populist leaders use memory politics as an important tool for maintaining an “underdog” position by emphasizing a position of the victim.

Kornelia Kończal and A. Dirk Moses present an edited volume on patriotic histories and their promotion of “mythified, monumental, and moralistic interpretations of the past that posit partisan and authoritarian essentialisms and exceptionalisms.” They argue that the interpretation of patriotic histories features three primary features: a “post-truth” context, increased separation between the political and professional approaches to collective memory, and the “ruthless” methods by which states impose their interpretation of the past.

Maximilian Selent and Matthias Kortmann take the case of the AfD and examine to what extent the party fulfills Brubaker and Moffitt’s conception that right-wing populist parties use ‘civilisationist’ and liberal-illiberal narratives characterized by a “philo-Semitic stance.” They argue that differences at the national and local level, ranging from antisemitism to pro-Jewish stances, is attributed to the “regionally divergent discursive opportunity structures as well as personnel heterogeneity across the party sections” and that more broadly, these divergent attitudes fit with a strategy of attracting both radical right and more moderate conservative voters.

Alexander Cooley, John Heathershaw, and Ricard Soares de Oliveira present a model of “transnational uncivil society” showing how kleptocrats use the tools of the liberal international order to engage in reputation-laundering by hiring political consultants, reputation managers, and engaging in philanthropy to portray themselves as “productive and respected cosmopolitans.”

Adam Holesch and Piotr Zagórski look at Fidesz and Law and Justice party within the alliance of Populist Radical Right parties in the European Parliament post Russia’s full-scale invasion of Poland. They argue that despite the two parties’ divergent attitudes to Russia and the invasion, support for both backsliding parties remained strong and that both parties were actually brought closer together on rule of law issues.

Giorgos Venizelos draws a comparison between Donald Trump and the Greek political party SYRIZA to look at their populist discourse. He argues that focusing on the “rhetorical and emotional dynamics of populist performativity” shows that both maintained their populist rhetoric while in power despite their varied styles.

Diego Fossati looks at the case of Indonesia to explore to what extent a unified pluralist opposition can resist democratic backsliding. They find that illiberal citizens, specifically Isalmist Indonesians, were more likely to hold that democracy has worsened than pluralist individuals.

Nina Paulovičová and Oľga Gyárfášová examine the Slovak extreme-right People’s Party Our Slovakia and its strategies for building a mnemonic alliance with Russia. They argue that the Slovak national uprising of 1944 and the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia of 1969 both present nominal obstacles to forging this alliance, but that they are nevertheless overcome by careful treatment by the party to successfully build an alliance with Russia.

Focusing on issues of identity, norms and interests and the limits of liberal normative universalism, Suzanne Loftus addresses the deteriorating relationship between Russia and the West and post-Cold War international geopolitics broadly.