What structural strategies must the political center implement to effectively reclaim the future for liberal democracy? How can governance bodies […]
What structural strategies must the political center implement to effectively reclaim the future for liberal democracy? How can governance bodies connect abstract concepts to the everyday lived experiences of citizens? What distinct emotional promises allow the populist right wing to capture public dissatisfaction so effectively across Europe? And how does the algorithmic, endless design of modern news feeds erode public trust and dismantle our capacity for reasoned political debate?
Leszek Jazdzewski (Fundacja Liberte!) talks with Leonie Haiden, who after three years of serving on the Policy Planning Staff of the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs is currently exploring the challenges of political communication in the 21st century as part of the Europe’s Futures fellowship programme run by the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) in Vienna. She is also working as an expert in strategic communication for the ERSTE Foundation. Tune in for their talk!
This podcast is produced by the European Liberal Forum in collaboration with the Movimento Liberal Social and the Fundacja Liberté!, with the financial support of the European Parliament. Neither the European Parliament nor the European Liberal Forum are responsible for the content or for any use that be made of. This podcast, as well as previous episodes, is available on SoundCloud, Apple Podcast, Stitcher and Spotify.
Leszek: Hello, welcome to Liberal Europe. Today we are going to talk about narratives, and about how to reclaim the future for liberal democracy. Big issues — and I have a great person to talk about them with today: Leonie Haiden, Europe’s Futures Research Fellow at the IWM, the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, and a strategic communications expert currently at the ERSTE Foundation. Hello, Leonie.
Leonie: Hi, and thank you so much for having me.
Leszek: Great to have you with us today. Let’s start with what you are doing at the IWM: reclaiming the future for liberal democracy. How can we actually achieve that?
Leonie: Maybe just as a background — where that thinking came from. Having worked in the foreign policy sphere before I was a fellow — I was at the Foreign Ministry in Austria, working a lot on geopolitical discourses and speech-writing — something that was really apparent to me was that the political centre was very much stuck in a passive mode. Not just in politics, but also in the commentary. We’ve got these buzzwords: polycrisis, permacrisis. But nothing was really giving direction. At the same time, I felt that the narratives coming from the fringes were supplying that. If you think of a campaign slogan like Make America Great Again, or the Brexit campaign — even before that, Take Back Control — those had a lot of strong verbs in them. My background is in communications, and specifically in looking at metaphors and narratives. I think it’s important how we think about the future. When we look at the discourse right now, for the political centre — and this came out really nicely in von der Leyen’s State of the Union speech last autumn, where she said Europe is in a fight for its future — it was very much presented as a reaction to what was happening around us. It was: we’re up against the wall, we don’t actually want to do this, but we’re forced to by circumstance to fight for our future. So one element is getting out of this passive stance, which makes it appear that institutions and politics are doing crisis management, rather than acting into the future.
Leszek: That makes perfect sense. Maybe we can start from the very basics: what actually makes an effective narrative?
Leonie: One element is showing activity, but then also relating it to lived experience. There’s sometimes a false assumption that you can craft perfect narratives at the political level, and then just disseminate them — and people will believe them, think they’re great, and buy your story. But they have to relate to very basic concerns. This is where I got really interested in metaphor, because a metaphor encapsulates a narrative — it’s a shortcut to narrative. When I say “there’s a populist wave,” which is a very common metaphor right now, that assumes populism is on the rise, almost like a natural phenomenon — unstoppable, with nothing we can do about it, only contingencies and reactions. So thinking about how we relate narratives to very basic things — and this is something we’re observing in the discourse in the US as well — is about asking: what do people actually care about?
Leszek: Leonie, what about examples of political narratives from the past that you think really worked? People like to talk about Take Back Control or Make America Great Again — those are slogans, but there’s a certain imaginary behind those claims. Can you describe effective narratives from history that really made sense and worked politically?
Leonie: One narrative I studied for a long time in my doctoral research was actually containment. Containment is known as a foreign policy in the US during the Cold War, but I actually looked at it as a bipartisan example of strategic communications for at least several decades, until the 1960s, when there was more of a backlash against it. I looked at containment as a metaphor. It appeals to a very basic human need, almost to say: here’s inside, here’s outside; here are the good guys, here are the enemies. That’s something we see recurring in a lot of narratives. Something I’ve thought about for a long time is whether that is necessary. Do we necessarily need that inside-outside dichotomy? Or can we actually talk in much more open terms? And then the question is also: where do you draw that line? Populist politicians will say it’s an in-group, this pure form of an often Austrian or a Pole — that’s drawing a very specific line. But you could also say: we are contained as a planet. We are the in-group of planet Earth. And we see what is happening with the current heat wave as well. Is there a way of expanding that inside-outside view? The other thing is that an effective narrative always implies movement or direction, and talks about the future — and talks about it in a way that people feel included, so that it’s not a narrative imposed externally. It’s not: here’s our perfect vision of the future. It’s: here’s what you can do specifically as a citizen to be part of it. Going back again to the Cold War, and to the example of convincing the US population that a nuclear arms race was necessary and sensible — even though it cost so many dollars and it was even dangerous to produce those weapons — that also worked because they had a whole civil defence plan. It said: this is what you do in case of a nuclear attack; this is how you are a proud American citizen even just by living your life, being part of the capitalist system, going to Disneyland, living a certain life, reading certain things, but also preparing for attack. So I don’t think it’s a purely positive example. But you always have to have that link between the geopolitical level and the individual level, because otherwise it will just feel way too abstract. That’s part of what has happened with what I’d call the language of the centre — we use a lot of big terms: democracy, rule of law, freedom of expression. But what does that actually mean on a very specific level?
Leszek: For example, von der Leyen, whom you mentioned — do you think the geopolitical commission is part of a narrative? How should she frame it in a way that would be effective, in line with the necessities you described?
Leonie: It very much depends on who she is speaking to. “Geopolitical commission” is fair. But for a lot of people, the institutional set-up of the EU is not particularly clear. If you have “commission” in there, that’s already putting off certain people, because they don’t understand the structures. When you say “for Europe,” I think that goes more in the direction of just talking to any person on the street. If you stopped someone on the street and they asked you: why do we need the EU? Why do we need to strive for sovereignty in the digital sphere? Why should we take care of our own security? — I think you need a very simple answer. So it should talk about how it has meaning in everyday life. Is it a Europe we’re all shaping? Is it about combining freedom as Europe with freedom as individuals? The problem often is that the EU does a lot of good things and develops a lot of good things, but it still talks in a quite technocratic way about it. That doesn’t get into the details. I remember, in part of the Brexit campaign, there was this video for Brexit that was very effective, because it went through a house, and it just pointed out all the things that were regulated by the EU — the size of the pillows, the shape of the cucumber, whatever it was — obviously a very biased and one-sided way of telling that story, but it made you think immediately about how it related to you. There it’s also almost a nation-branding exercise for the EU. Why do we, for example, not have passports as EU members that are blue and have the stars on them? If you think of how good, say, the US is at doing that kind of branding for itself, that’s where the EU has a way to go. I also see some movement on this, because with the geopolitical shifts that have happened, we are no longer looking at the US as the big brother that will come and save us. That is no longer the point of reference. We are trying to shape our own identity, which I think is very exciting. But it’s happening at a point where we again feel it’s a crisis point, and we feel pressure from all sides. Even so, I think it’s actually very exciting.
Leszek: How do you see this current narrative? Speaking of the liberal mainstream — the European mainstream, the parties still in power in most countries — how do you see this current narrative of EU politics? Are there any common threads that you can identify?
Leonie: One thing is that it’s quite timid. There’s a kind of fear of being bold and courageous, because that is seen as over-promising. But politics is all about tensions — the tension between over-promising and offering vision. The liberal mainstream tends too much towards fear of over-promising, and not enough towards offering vision. There was a survey done across the world, and they asked what people wanted from leaders — not just political leaders, but also educators, or even cultural leaders. And they all said what they want from them is to express hope. That’s something politicians should really take to heart, and it’s something that’s very hard for some to wrap their heads around, because we feel we live in quite gloomy times. It sometimes feels like we’re meant to choose which doomsday scenario we’re going to think about today. But if we truly think about what hope actually means: hope is not blind optimism. This is basically how Václav Havel defined it. It’s not blind optimism; it’s saying that our actions right now make sense, that they can have an impact. It’s that sense of agency, which is not really being communicated by politicians, and then also not being transferred onto individuals. When we think about how it feels to live in 2026 for a lot of people: we have a ton of information — we haven’t even really talked about how that impacts narratives, but we have access to a lot of information, and disinformation as well, from all over the world. But our radius of action is actually quite small in terms of how we can react to it. So there is a sense of hopelessness, but also of lack of agency. This is something that should really be touched upon. And again, speaking a language that everyone can understand — not a language steeped in bureaucratic, technocratic speak. I looked at this a little when we had our own elections in Austria. What distinguished the far-right party, the FPÖ, from the others was that it wasn’t using terms like party or politics. It was always saying: this is our relationship with you, the people. The answer isn’t to emulate populist rhetoric — but there is a lesson to take from it, which is: speak to people, and take them seriously in how you talk about politics, not about yourself. Don’t make it a self-referential exercise that says: this is what we do to stay in power, and to form coalitions, and so on.
Leszek: Speaking of populists, what is their narrative of Europe — this populist right? Because that seems to be quite effective.
Leonie: They are effective in the sense that they offer direction. But it’s almost — especially when we think about the future — it’s not that they’re saying we want to go back to the past, but rather: we want to go back to how the future used to feel in the past. That starts unlocking what is happening for a lot of people. Again, there is this sense of the future being something that is racing towards us. When we open up our phones — or the newspaper, more rarely — and look at notifications, there’s war, a possible future pandemic, the climate crisis, nuclear Armageddon because all the regulation regimes have basically fallen apart. Populists basically say: let’s not think about that. Let’s go back to how the future used to feel. There’s a legitimate, strong emotion expressed in that. And I think they’re also effective because they put all other parties into a double bind by saying: the only true representatives of the people are us. If you are in any way dissatisfied with the democratic system, your way to express that is to vote for us. This is another thing we might have to think about: how can people actually express dissatisfaction with the system within the system? What are the mechanisms for that, other than voting for that one party? Because we often see it as a sense of protest — a sense that politics is not working for me, I do not feel heard by these politics. So structurally, for democracy: what are the avenues to express that? They also benefit from a discourse that is — we talk a lot about polarisation, but it’s a discourse that basically says any form of disagreement is like a war. That’s another metaphor: argument is war. Having an argument is like a war. Mainstream politics often falls into that trap and continues that framing. But we should say: no, democracy is the form of government that acknowledges there will always be conflict, there will always be tension, but we are trying to deal with and resolve that tension as best we can. We don’t try to avoid it or get away from it, but it means we need a certain way of doing politics and communicating to ensure that it is respectful and works well.
Leszek: What role does the actual messenger — the actor delivering the narrative — play? You might identify a narrative that you think might be effective, but then it’s a question of who says it, and, as you said, to whom. Can you describe the role of the storyteller?
Leonie: That role has always been important, but it’s probably growing even more now, because one of the central concerns right now is trust. We talk a lot about the problem of disinformation, but it’s often actually a problem of trust. Disinformation has been around for a long time. The question of trust is: how can I rely on whoever is speaking, and do I feel that they have my best interest at heart? The other element of trust is: do I actually feel that the world is moving in a positive direction? Because we don’t need trust if we feel like everything’s going to go bad anyway. The role of the messenger is growing also because of the way the information environment works. We often cannot know our sources. We don’t know where messages come from, who they’re funded by, what the true outlet is. So we’re seeing more and more of a shift towards people choosing specific outlets or individuals to trust. That can have both a positive and a negative effect. I’ve spoken to journalists — I think it was the Financial Times — and they said they now have a phenomenon where their journalists are like pop stars, because people build up a relationship with these individual authors and journalists, and value the work they do. On the other hand, you also have influencer culture online, which means that people trust voices because they feel they know these individuals, but the individuals might not have any of the credentials or the background that would justify them sharing political views alongside makeup tutorials — to put maybe too fine a point on it. So this is something politicians should really think about in their communications: having, as an element of how they communicate, an attempt to convey why they should be trusted. Trust is something that takes a long time to build, but that can be destroyed in a moment. Part of that is also looking at trust as a two-way relationship. This is where politics has sometimes had a bit of a patronising view on citizens: well, why aren’t we trusted? Why aren’t they believing us? But at the same time: are you trusting your citizens? Are you, in the way you’re speaking with them, treating them as self-determined individuals who will choose to listen or not, and to make their own decisions?
Leszek: I’m curious how you see the distribution of narratives. In social media, we now see amplifiers in a very different way than before. In theory, at least, almost anyone can create and distribute a narrative now. How are narratives distributed today, and what’s the role of technology in that?
Leonie: There are two points I’d make. One is that I’ve been looking at this conversation around disinformation for the past 10 years or so. Disinformation has been around as long as people have shared information. What has happened with digital and social media technologies is that it’s become faster, easier, cheaper — and you can do it at scale. That is part of the story. But another element, which is actually even more interesting, is: we’re all using these technologies, and they are very invasive in our lives. They’re changing the logic of how we look at information, of how we look at the world. To give you an example: think of the difference between opening a book, which is bounded and has a clear beginning, middle, and end. If we enter a news feed on our phones, that’s an endless stream that we somehow plunge into like a river, and then plunge out of again. It doesn’t have that internal logic of beginning, middle, and end. When we talk about politics — which in essence needs to persuade through emotion, but also through argument, through reasoned argument — a reasoned argument requires that beginning, middle, and end. It requires causality. If the technologies we are using are actually anti-narrative in a way, then that really changes both how politicians act — we see that a little when we look at politicians who have basically become influencer politicians, doing videos that try to emulate the style of the platform. Sometimes you’re left thinking: how is this actually fulfilling your responsibilities to lead your country as minister for X? That’s a really interesting part. The other thing is how we consume information. As political scientists, or people working in this policy area, we tend to think: the only thing people look at online is information about politics. But that’s only a fraction of what they look at. This intermixing is actually part of what creates the problem, because you think — this is called the “news finds me” phenomenon among users of these technologies, and it also applies to me — if you have notifications on, you think: I don’t have to go and seek out information to be informed. I’ll simply get notifications on my phone and be well-informed anyway. But because we process them next to our bank statement and our best friend getting married and some messages in between, it’s a very different way of processing news, compared to sitting down for Good Morning America, eating your cereal, and knowing you’re sharing that experience of news consumption with, I don’t know, millions of others. That communal sharing of information is really crucial. There has been a real shift there, because it’s not just that I’m not sharing the same information environment with people in my town or my neighbours — it’s often your partner. You wake up and you open your phones and you can be in two completely different information spheres. This is something people have been concerned about, not just for the last 10 years. I often go back to Walter Lippmann, who at the beginning of the 20th century was basically saying the same thing: democracy needs a basis of shared information and facts. If we don’t have that, then we run into a problem, because the way we want to argue and talk about these things needs at least the basis that we share. We can disagree about what it means, but we need that basis.
Leszek: I think that’s a very good conclusion for our conversation. Leonie Haiden, thank you so much for being with us today.
Leonie: Thank you.