The King’s Centre for British Democracy and Centre for German Transnational Relations are co-organising a roundtable. The event will examine the implications of populist parties in power - or on the threshold of power - in the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, and Germany, assessing what their trajectories reveal about the challenges to liberal-democratic norms and institutions, as well as democratic resilience in Western Europe. By comparing cases where populist actors have governed with those where they have been institutionally constrained, the roundtable seeks to identify the mechanisms that enable democracies to absorb populist pressures without systemic erosion. In doing so, it advances the broader debate on whether Western European democracies are demonstrating resilience, adaptation, or gradual transformation in the face of far-right populist power.

The roundtable will be followed by a drinks reception.

SPEAKERS

Dr Claire Burchett (King’s College London)

Victor Mallet (Financial Times & author of Far-Right France (Hurst, 2026))

Professor Anand Menon (King’s College London, The UK in a Changing Europe)

Professor Paul Taggart (University of Sussex)

Professor Stijn van Kessel (Queen Mary, University of London)