This week, Mark Leonard welcomes Anton Jäger, lecturer in politics at Oxford University and author of Hyperpolitics: Extreme Politicization Without Political Consequences, to discuss why political engagement is surging across Western democracies—even as traditional political institutions continue to weaken.

Anton argues that the West has entered a “hyperpolitics” era, marked by intense political engagement and protest but lacking durable organisations capable of sustaining change. Unlike the 1930s, to which the current era is often compared, today’s citizens are more politicised yet less likely to join institutions that enable long-term collective action.

Mark and Anton explore how social media shapes political expression, why contemporary politics feels simultaneously more intense and less effective, and what figures like Donald Trump reveal about the relationship between political mobilisation and institutional power. They examine why right-wing movements appear to have adapted more successfully to the hyperpolitical age, and whether a new form of political organisation could eventually emerge from today’s fragmented landscape.

What explains the growing gap between political engagement and political influence? Why are traditional institutions struggling to channel public discontent? Has the right found a more effective formula for the hyperpolitical era? And how could we move from hyperpolitics to a new age of institutional politics?

This episode was recorded on March 27th 2026.

Bookshelf:

Hyperpolitics: Extreme Politicization without Political Consequences by Anton Jäger

Nations and Nationalism by Ernest Gellner 

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