This paper reports data from a study of young Catholic activists. They were concerned about the expansion of Islamist populism in democratic Muslim-majority Indonesia. They actively built inter-faith coalitions with local liberal Muslim youth groups, and with pan-national Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the largest independent Islamic organization in the world. Islamist populism prioritises religious identity over the national identity of citizenship. In framing their citizenship activism against the current tide of Islamist populism, the informants in our study selectively engaged aspects of Catholic theology. They articulated their religious identity as coterminous with a nationalist identity centred on multi-faith tolerance and harmony. That discourse in itself refutes a key principle of Islamist populism, which argues for primordial entitlement.

Is the existence of populist sentiments linked to greater affective polarization? Is there a relationship between these two factors (populist sentiments and affective polarization) and the endorsement of far-right ideologies? Are there differences in the types of media prioritized by individuals with varying levels of affective polarization? This exploratory study, conducted in the context of the early legislative elections in Portugal in April 2024, analyzes data from a sample of 130 first-time young voters. It suggests an association between the defense of far-right arguments, the possession of populist sentiments, and levels of affective polarization. The study also found variations in affective polarization among young people who prioritized different types of social media to inform themselves on political issues.

American secularisation is considered a exceptional case in the Western world because of, on the one hand, the softer way it seems to have occurred in relation to other Western countries and, on the other, the fusion it seems to have been done among Judeo-Christian traditions into what is known as American civil religion. The point proposed before is problematic and needs to be called into questions under the light of both the revisions made to the secularization theory by scholars such as Casanova through the interpretation of empirical data collected through the world about the religiosity of people and the multiple works made about the use of “sacred” language in American public life. However, this paper takes those problematic dimensions for granted in order to deepened into what can be considered another secular human endeavour endowed with a religious spirit, namely: the spirit of Silicon Valley. This new secular-sacred narrative is not just American but is being exported as a narrative with “Messianic” traces that seems to aspire to embrace the whole world. Thus, this article explores the origins and evolution of this narrative in the United States, on the one hand, and the expansion of what can be considered a “salvation” ideology abroad that country, on the other.

The wide circulation of conspiracy narratives and their frequent intertwining with populist rhetoric is both an element of concern and a topic of intense scientific and philosophical debate. The depth of the link between conspiracy theories and populism represents a crucial issue whose comprehension can facilitate understanding their specific nature and the factors behind their diffusion in public communication. To this end, it is necessary to cultivate an interdisciplinary approach and great critical attention, eschewing monocausal explanations. This paper addresses the question of the essentially political nature of conspiracism confronting the recent epistemological debate that, by putting the positivist paradigm aside, has sought to explore and understand the socio-cultural roots of conspiracy rhetoric, with its sceptical, antagonistic and hermetic traits. By integrating the reflections of epistemologists such as Cassam or Harris with the considerations of political scientists such as Taggart and with Schmitt's radical reflections on politics, it is perhaps possible to reintegrate the different approaches to populist conspiracism into an overall social genealogical perspective, thanks also to recent demographic elaborations. Thus, we could ascribe the spread of conspiracism to the prevalence in societies of a hyper-political discursive regime, i.e. founded on the principle of opposition, without the possibility of compromise, between different groups and interests. At the basis of such Manichaeism, it is plausible to place in the first place the growing inequalities and related social disintegration, which hinder the circulation of trust and recognition between individuals and groups, thus ending up undermining democracy at its roots, as a political system that legitimises and thus peacefully regulates conflict.

In this paper I dig deep down along the slope of what touches me deeply – a democratic decline in climate politics with increasing use of hateful and threatening rhetoric – nasty rhetoric. I follow the course of critical researchers in management and organization studies, striving to move away from traditional, horizontal norms of academic writing that elision the author from the text, to-wards a more vertical writing incorporating the voice of the author. Embodying and resonating with my own emotional experiences of far-right hate and threat campaigns, I qualitatively analyze written, spoken and visual material from newspapers, magazines, blogs, podcasts, photos, vid-eos, television, radio and social media, to understand the nature of nasty rhetoric in Swedish climate politics, and the implications thereof for democracy. A far-right populist nativist party is currently holding tangible powers, dictating the ambitions, content and process of Swedish cli-mate politics. In less than two years, Swedish climate politics have turned into an antidemocratic divisive politics portraying climate science as “a point of view”, female climate journalists as “moron hags” that should be “fired” and “raped”, and the climate justice movement as “terror-ists” and “a threat to Swedish democracy” that should be “sent to prison” and “executed”. Nasty rhetoric is used not only by anonymous trolls in social media, but openly by the prime minister, cabinet ministers and parliamentarians. Their use of nasty rhetoric aims to silence the opponents to the current paradigm shift in Swedish climate policy, breaching democratic norms such as le-gitimacy, accountability and justice, but also to mobilize followers and expand they hate and threats. The opposition is also using nasty rhetoric, but of a less aggressive nature, to reveal far-right populist climate policy and politicians as a naked emperor. Nasty rhetoric is a powerful tactic to mobilize more offenders, while leaving its targets with fear and anxiety and a need for disappearance from public debate. Many targets resign or stay silent, negatively affecting plu-ralistic debates and the scrutiny of power in democracies. I chose to break the silence and write differently to increase our knowledge of the phenomenon of nasty rhetoric.