Political Monopoly

The briefing argues that contemporary national populists in Europe employ a systematic strategy to capture the state by eroding liberal norms, dominating the information space, and subordinating the judiciary and civil service. By treating the government as a 'contractor' for a national majority, these movements justify the removal of institutional restraints to concentrate power in the executive. The author details a multi-stage assault involving 'trolling', 'building' parallel infrastructures, and 'automating' disinformation to create a facade of democracy while maintaining an effective monopoly on power.

• National populists employ a 'national majoritarian' ideology that views the government as a supplier hired by the national majority, which justifies the removal of institutional checks to ensure the majority's will is implemented without restraint.
• The assault on liberal democracy occurs in three broad phases: first gaining power over information, then over institutions, and finally over the means of coercion.
• The 'information war' consists of three stages: 'troll' (expanding the bounds of acceptable debate with extreme positions), 'build' (creating parallel media and think tanks), and 'automate' (using social media to spread fake content and exaggerate support).
• National populists 'capture' media by converting public service broadcasting into government propaganda and using sympathetic businesspeople to buy private outlets, thereby tilting the market against independent news.
• In Hungary, the government has systematically restructured the state, including amending the constitution to lower the retirement age of judges and creating the 'Central European [MEDIA] Foundation' (KESMA) to consolidate media ownership.
• Poland's Law and Justice government has attacked judicial independence by purging the judiciary and refusing to publish Constitutional Tribunal rulings that declared government measures unconstitutional.
• The Italian government under the Lega/5-Star coalition targeted independent media and public broadcasting, including the shutdown of Radio Radicale and the cancellation of the TV programme 'Che tempo che fa'.
• National populists politicise the administrative state by reducing civil service independence, such as through the taxation of severance pay in Hungary or attempts to remove employment protections in the US.
• Electoral processes are manipulated to ensure the survival of the political monopoly, with Hungary showing advanced levels of fraud, including the use of 'phantom voters' and the registration of fake parties.
• The author proposes a 'political antitrust' research framework to measure the concentration of power and identify how dominant parties abuse their position to stifle political competition.

APA

Walshe, G. (2020). Political Monopoly. Institute for Strategic Dialogue. https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Political-Monopoly-briefing-20200731.pdf

Chicago

Walshe, Garvan. Political Monopoly. Institute for Strategic Dialogue, 2020. https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Political-Monopoly-briefing-20200731.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Walshe |first1=Garvan |title=Political Monopoly |publisher=Institute for Strategic Dialogue |date=31 July 2020 |url=https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Political-Monopoly-briefing-20200731.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{walshe2020political, author = {Walshe, Garvan}, title = {{Political Monopoly}}, institution = {Institute for Strategic Dialogue}, year = {2020}, month = jul, url = {https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Political-Monopoly-briefing-20200731.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }