Giovanni Capoccia @gcapoccia.bsky.social

🗣️🇫🇷 « Jordan Bardella ne parle pas tant aux électeurs, il parle à ses fans. […] Mais le fait est que, quand il est confronté à des questions sérieuses, le résultat est lamentable », affirme Raphaël Enthoven, essayiste et philosophe, à propos du leader d’extrême droite.

Qu’un enfant, un puceau, un stagiaire comme Jordan Bardella puisse l’an prochain être élu Président de la république, c’est une perspective aussi terrifiante que drôle. Car il est (presque) consolant de se dire qu’avec tant d’incompétence à la tête de l’Etat, on va se marrer tous les jours. 🤡

Meanwhile in Hungary

Ferguson: This is a great day not just for Hungary. It is a great day for Ukraine and for everybody who believes in liberty. If populists can lose elections, they are not fascists. There is hope here for Europe and for the wider democratic world. 2X

Historian Niall Ferguson: Magyar’s victory over Orbán is good not because the left defeated the right. What happened is that a non-corrupt populist who is not a lackey of Putin and Xi defeated one who became both corrupt and a lackey of our adversaries. 1/

“Orbán’s defeat challenges the idea of an unstoppable shift away from liberal #democracy." CES Resident Faculty Grzegorz Ekiert on the implications of the #hungaryelection on Europe and the world. Read the article: ces.fas.harvard.edu/news/2026/04/t…

Pay attention to what is happening at the Department of Justice. The New York Times reported today that Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche is moving forward with investigations and prosecutions against five people. Here are the five.🧵

The special issue of @cps_journal “Back from the Brink: Countering Illiberalism in Liberal Democracies”, co-edited by myself and Isabela Mares, was just published. The issue includes 8 articles, many of which set new research agendas. A🧵w/overview 1/10 journals.sagepub.com/toc/CPS/current

I am pleased to introduce the first seven ministers of the TISZA government: Szabolcs Bóna – Agriculture and Food Zsolt Hegedűs – Health András Kármán – Finance @_OrbanAnita – Foreign Affairs László Gajdos – Living Environment István Kapitány – Economy and Energy Romulusz Ruszin-Szendi – Defence

Together, these pieces provide notable research findings and open new avenues of research on how illiberalism can be successfully countered in liberal democracies. 10/end. x.com/gcapoccia1/sta…

Vicente Valentim explores the implications for democracy of “staged democrats”, ie citizens who privately hold anti-democratic values but publicly support liberal democracy, and of the related increasing normalization of illiberal values. 9/10 journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.11…

How Viktor Orbán Loses | Journal of Democracy. — my analysis of how challenger Peter Magyar was able to overcome Orbán’s rigged electoral system to win even bigger than Orbán. journalofdemocracy.org/online-exclusi…