When Donald Trump launched a campaign on Harvard University’s admissions policies and broader educational culture, it was framed as part of a wider assault against what he called “wokeness” in American academia. 

But across the Atlantic, a different kind of academic is gaining political traction, not in opposition to populism, but in defence of it.

Karol Nawrocki, a historian with a PhD in the humanities, was elected president of Poland two weeks ago. An admirer of Trump’s nationalist agenda, Nawrocki is not an isolated case.

In Germany, Alice Weidel, co-chair of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), is an economist whose doctoral research focused on China’s pension system at the University of Bayreuth.

In Portugal, Andre Ventura, leader of the far-right Chega party, holds a PhD in public law.

In Romania, George Simion, another far-right figure and historian, and a Trump admirer, recently lost a presidential election to a pro-EU candidate but played a vocal role in supporting Nawrocki’s campaign.

The emergence of these figures raises a question: are nationalist academics becoming a trend in European politics? Is this an actual shift or isolationist exceptions?

“It’s not a model,” says Emmanuel Dupuy, a political scientist at the Catholic University of Lille and president of the Institute for European Perspective and Security Studies (IPSE), a think-tank focused on track-two diplomacy and strategic analysis.

“I must say that it is not the norm across Europe. While there are far-right politicians from academic backgrounds, not all are from academia,” Dupuy tells TRT World.

Academics and populism

Critics of populism often deride it for offering simplistic answers to complex issues, from migration to economic policy to the Israel Palestine conflict. But Dupuy sees academic participation in right-wing politics as symptomatic of a broader sociological trend: growing disillusionment with mainstream political elites.

“Very simple and very easy to say that academics are not from Mars,” he says. “They represent ideologies like everyone else. An academic is not inherently neutral, they have personal and political beliefs, often shaped by their family and social and political background.”

Academics, Dupuy adds, are not “out of the society”, but “inside the society”. “It is perfectly normal that some choose to apply their expertise in a political context.”

While Dupuy sees the emergence of academic politicians as part of a change in the general sociology of elected political leadership in Europe, Chega leader Ventura said that he has viewed academia and politics in different dimensions. 

Ventura, for his part, insists on separating his academic work from his politics. When questioned about the apparent contradiction between his PhD thesis, which critiques “criminal populism”, stigmatisation of minorities, and the expansion of police powers and his current far-right positions, Ventura claimed that his academic writing was “scientific analysis, not ideological postulate.”

Not nationalist, but ‘sovereigntist’

For Dupuy, it's not “very difficult to understand” that these right-wing academicians adopt “some elements of sovereignty or the reaffirmation of the sovereignty of their country” whether it's Poland or Portugal.  

As a result, he does not call them nationalists but sovereignists. Across the EU territory, many far-right groups have emerged in their opposition of the union’s federalist policies which they believe violate their own countries’ sovereign rules. 

“It’s not very difficult to understand,” he says, “that these right-wing academics are advocating a reaffirmation of their countries’ sovereignty.”

However, Dupuy adds that the academic influence on far-right politics remains limited in countries like Italy and France, where populist leaders often lack academic credentials.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, despite her adoption of hardline policies, does not come from an academic background. Nor do French far-right leaders Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella. Bardella, an anti-immigration politician, is himself the son of migrants.

“Moment of political rediscovery”

Dupuy also dismisses the influence of Renaud Camus, a far-right French academic, whom many credit for the rise of anti-migrant “The Great Replacement” theory, which claims that migrants would eventually replace natives if migration were not stopped across Europe. 

“Camus represents nothing politically,” says Dupuy. “Camus spoke academically about the question of migration, which was in the rhetoric of the nationalist parties for ten to twenty years before Camus ever wrote about it. His ideas were already in the rhetoric of nationalist parties long before he wrote about them.”

Ecaterina Matoi, a Romanian academic at the Bucharest-based Middle East Political and Economic Institute (MEPEI), agrees with Dupuy. “Camus never reached the level of influence that Marine Le Pen has,” she says.

But Matoi also draws attention to the fact that “in this moment of political rediscovery, the European community should not forget” that former German Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, a mainstream conservative leader, was also “an academic.” 

Merkel, who was long considered a symbol of centrist stability in Europe, was not only defined by her academic background, just as Nawrocki’s or Weidel’s does not fully explain theirs.

“Being an academic doesn’t make one moderate or extreme,” she says, “but it can shape how they articulate policy.”