Trivializing religion: the nominal-religious populism approach

This study aims to explain how traditionalism and civilizationism may not be able to capture and account for the totality of Europe’s PRR. Focusing on six parties across Europe (FdI/Italy, VOX/Spain, AfD/Germany, SNS/Slovakia, Fidesz/Hungary, and SD/Sweden) in the period between 2019 and 2024, we analyze how these actors mobilize religion within their discourse and political performance. Utilizing Ostiguy’s socio-cultural approach, we suggest that references to religion operate as mere symbolic gestures with ostensibly political implications. Mainly drawing on data from official party platforms, this study advances two core findings. First, it demonstrates that religion is not mobilized in isolation but is strategically intersecting with anti-immigration rhetoric, Islamophobia, traditionalism, and Euroscepticism to forge salient boundaries. Second, the analysis challenges the prevailing tendency to label these PRR actors as “religious populist” either framed as “civilizational” or “devout-conservative”. We argue that religion, when viewed through a socio-cultural lens, is increasingly subject to banalization and we propose the notion of “nominal-religious” populism, i.e. a type characterized by the strategic and symbolic invocation of religious references, devoid of theological depth, institutional affiliation, or even performative religiosity, and distinct from the civilizationist paradigm that explicitly advocates in favour of the social liberal agenda.