All of them have been defined as “populists”. However, it’s important to ask if actors involved in such diverse political narratives can all be considered part of the same category, even when they have been in power at different times. The period from 2000 up until the present day reflects not only the rise of populism but also, in several cases, the consolidation of these regimes that we might consider “hybrid”, as is the case in Poland, Russia and Hungary.

A brief history of the concept

The concept of populism has been subjected to meticulous discussions in academia, the media and within politics itself. Considered both polysemic and arbitrary, these are terms that are often resorted to either to criticize or to describe populism. Describing populism is necessary when it comes to looking at structural similarities rather than similar traits or comparable historical trajectories, since, as we know, history never repeats itself, neither as a tragedy nor as a farce (no matter how suggestive Marx's humour or Hegelian historiography may be).

That structural similarity that defines both left and the right populism is the explicit, deliberate suspicion of globalisation. Slogans used by populist leaders are always tinged with hints of disenchantment with globalisation and with the liberal order established at the end of the Second World War and then consolidated with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The result was what was once known as "demoliberalism", now integrated irreversibly with globalization, which brings with it demographic and geopolitical changes.