From democracy to display: Albanian’s prime minister Edi Rama,symbolic power,and the leadership of authoritarian populism

Abstract

This article contributes to critical leadership studies by building on Dennis Tourish’s (2023) call to confront the authoritarian and fascistic dimensions of contemporary leadership. Focusing on the case of an Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, it explores how emotional control, symbolic performance, and epistemic closure are used to consolidate power within democratic façades. While dominant leadership theories often celebrate charisma and moral vision, this paper critiques their normative assumptions by showing how such traits can legitimise exclusion and suppress dissent. Through a critical analysis of Edi Rama’s leadership, this article illustrates how populist authority is sustained through affective and narrative practices. In doing so, it extends current debates by offering a non-Western case that highlights how democratic structures may enact authoritarian-populist rule.

Introduction

The study of leadership has long questioned the tension between its emancipatory promise and its capacity for control, exclusion, and domination. Within mainstream traditions, leadership continues to be celebrated as a moral and visionary force. Yet, this is often invoked as the solution to crisis, dysfunction, and uncertainty (Bass, 1990; Burns, 1978). However, scholars in critical leadership studies have challenged this idealisation by foregrounding how leadership also functions as a mode of emotional governance, symbolic control, and epistemic closure (Collinson, 2005; Ford et al., 2008; Tourish, 2013).

Equally, in recent years, we have witnessed a steady rise in political figures who claim to speak uniquely for ‘the people’ while simultaneously dismissing institutional limits on executive power. For example, in Hungary, the Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s self-proclaimed ‘illiberal democracy’ has reshaped constitutional norms and weakened judicial independence (Metz and Plesz, 2023). Such trend, as put by Mounk (2018) reflect a growing global appetite for supporting strong leaders who are free from parliamentary oversight or electoral processes. This shifting political terrain has brought renewed urgency to the study of populism. While frequently associated with authoritarianism or radicalism, populism has emerged as a distinct mode of political engagement. That is the one that is ideologically flexible but stylistically and structurally coherent. Populism is best understood not as a fixed ideology but as a ‘political logic’ that constructs society as divided into two antagonistic and homogenous groups: the ‘honourable people’ and the ‘corrupt elite’ (Laclau, 2005; Mudde, 2004). This binary framing serves as the foundation of populist discourse and enables populist actors to claim an exclusive moral mandate to represent the people. While populist movements can emerge across the ideological spectrum, left, right, or centre, their unifying features lie in their anti-elitist rhetoric and rejection of pluralism. This is often accompanied by efforts to bypass institutional mediation in favour of direct political expression.

Expanding upon these foundations, Malkopoulou and Moffitt (2023) argue that populism is not necessarily anti-democratic but rather ‘democratically ambivalent’. In this context, populist leaders may operate within democratic frameworks. That is participating in elections and respecting formal procedures. However, they disregard the liberal norms that underpin constitutional democracies, such as minority rights, independent judiciaries, and press freedom (Levitsky and Ziblatt, 2018). This form of populism can erode the liberal-democratic order from within. Malkopoulou and Moffitt (2023) refer to this as populism’s ‘ambiguous status’, wherein its democratic form masks its illiberal content. This enables long-term institutional decline without immediate authoritarian rupture.

Also, Barr (2019) and Pappas (2019) suggest that populism thrives under strong, charismatic leaders. Charisma is often understood as the force that binds the leader to ‘the people,’ creating an emotional and affective connection that bypasses institutional mediation. As Weyland (2017) puts it, charisma acts as a ‘glue’ that binds leaders to followers in a highly personalised and often emotionally charged political relationship (Taggart, 2004). Hawkins (2003) similarly defines populism as a communicative style rooted in the embodiment of the popular will, where the leader personifies national unity and moral renewal. Considering this, as argued by Mudde (2007) and Mudde and Kaltwasser (2014), charisma is a driving force behind populist mobilisation, particularly in the context of radical-right parties.

Other studies, including Van Hauwaert and Van Kessel (2018) extend this and scrutinise whether citizens hold populist attitudes. Examples include support for direct rule by the people and opposition to elites and how these attitudes influence political behaviour. From this perspective, populism is viewed as a ‘thin-centred ideology’ (Abts and Rummens, 2007; Mudde, 2004). While populist sentiments are widespread, they do not always translate into support for populist leaders unless activated by political messaging (Hawkins et al., 2020). This suggests that populism is not inherently dependent on charisma but can be mobilised under particular discursive and institutional conditions. Despite this, the dark side of charisma remains central to concerns about populism’s destabilising effects on liberal democracy (Abts and Rummens, 2007). As discussed by Tourish (2020), charismatic authority, particularly when unbound by institutional constraints, can enable demagogic leadership and populist personalism. In this view, populist charisma is less about popularity. It is rather more about the leader’s ability to symbolically fuse with the people, delegitimise opposition, and frame political conflict in stark moral terms (Diehl, 2019; Urbinati, 2019).

As such, while this article does not aim to discuss how different leadership perspectives affect the populist leader’s behaviour, it builds on Dennis Tourish’s (2023) call to engage with the authoritarian-populist forces reshaping democratic systems. Tourish frames Donald’s Trump’s leadership as a case of fascistic populism, warning that leadership studies can no longer avoid confronting the emotional and symbolic means by which power is accrued and sustained. This paper examines a different geopolitical site, Albania under Prime Minister Edi Rama, to investigate how populist-authoritarian leadership is exercised in a hybrid democratic regime (Urbinati, 2019). His leadership style epitomises many features associated with populist governance. For example, Rama consistently frames his administration as a force of moral renewal, fighting entrenched corruption and institutional decay. He does this by casting himself as the sole authentic representative of ordinary Albanians (New Union Post, 2025). This narrative is an example of a moral dichotomy between a virtuous citizenry and a corrupt elite. This is often depicted as manipulated by foreign influence, mirroring the binary populist logic (Laclau, 2005).

Equally, Rama’s rhetorical attacks on the media, judiciary, and opposition parties reinforce this antagonistic discourse. He does this by portraying critics as enemies of progress rather than legitimate democratic actors. This aligns with Moffitt’s (2016) concept of performative populism, in which leaders stage crises, amplify divisions, and communicate directly with the public through personalised channels. They often do this by bypassing institutional intermediaries. Rama’s heavy use of social media, controlled media appearances, and cultivation of a personalised political image serve to concentrate authority and diminish the role of other democratic actors (Mudde and Kaltwasser, 2017). Equally, Heifetz (1994) warns that such figures thrive in contexts of uncertainty by offering morally charged narratives that satisfy emotional and identity-based anxieties. Finally, although not authoritarian in a formal sense, Rama’s leadership exemplifies the kind of democratic ambivalence (Malkopoulou and Moffitt, 2023). His increasing centralisation of power, delegitimisation of oversight institutions, and personalised approach claim to embody national unity. This represents a mode of governance that exploits democratic procedures while weakening their liberal-democratic substance (Sassoon, 2007; Schneiker, 2020; Stanley, 2018). As such, this paper explores how such dynamics are increasingly visible in Rama’s leadership, particularly through his monopolisation of national storytelling and symbolic alignment with Albania’s future.

Case study context

Albania’s political development since the mid-20th century reflects a turbulent path from authoritarian rule to a formerly democratic but increasingly contested system of governance. From 1945 to 1990, Albania was governed by Enver Hoxha’s regime establishing one of the most repressive political systems in Eastern Europe (Csergo et al., forthcoming). The state eliminated political opposition through executions, long-term imprisonment, and forced labour camps. Religion was outlawed, media tightly suppressed, and Albania became internationally isolated. This regime collapsed in in 1990 and Albania embarked on a rapid and chaotic transition to democracy (Csergo et al., forthcoming). The Democratic Party emerged as the leading force in the early 1990s and introduced sweeping reforms, including economic liberalisation and mass privatisation. However, these changes were implemented without the necessary legal and institutional safeguards. This led to a widespread unemployment, economic instability, and a surge in emigration, particularly among younger and educated citizens. In 1997, the country descended into near anarchy following the collapse of nationwide pyramid investment schemes that had absorbed the life savings of nearly two-thirds of the population. This led to violent protests, looting, and a breakdown of state authority followed. The crisis prompted international intervention, including from NATO, to stabilise the country (Csergo et al., forthcoming).

In 2013, Edi Rama became Prime Minister of a Socialist Party, marking the beginning of a new political phase. Presented as a reformist and pro-European moderniser, Rama quickly began consolidating executive power (New Union Post, 2025). His government launched a major judicial reform in 2016, focused on a vetting process to remove corrupt judges and prosecutors. Though supported by the European Union, the reform was criticised for a lack of transparency and for allegedly being used to align the judiciary more closely with the executive (Elbasani and Vurmo, 2014). Critics argue, Albania’s judicial system became weaker in capacity and less independent in practice (Basha, 2024; PD, 2025). Since taking office, Rama’s administration has been implicated in several high-profile corruption scandals (Semini, 2023). The most notable is the ‘incinerator affair,’ in which politically connected firms were awarded multi-million-euro waste management contracts with limited oversight (Peka, 2025). Investigations have implicated several senior officials, including the current Deputy Prime Minister, Belinda Balluku who is accused of numerous corruptions (PD, 2025). While the government established SPAK, an independent anti-corruption agency, critics argue it has been selectively used to target political opponents rather than allies (Newsroom, 2025; Csergo et al., forthcoming).

Electoral integrity has also been a growing concern. The 2025 national elections were marred by reports of vote-buying, administrative pressure on public employees, and media manipulation (Peka, 2025). The government ordered the closure of the independent broadcaster NEWS 24 in summer 2025, officially citing a lease violation. Access to TikTok was also temporarily blocked during the election campaign in February 2025, raising concerns over state censorship and control of digital platforms (Semini, 2025). The government narrative prompts a narrative of economic progress and rising GDP but in reality, Albania remains one of the poorest countries in Europe (Csergo et al., forthcoming). There is still high inequality, low wages, and a largely informal economy. Small and medium enterprises are constantly faced with arbitrary inspections and fines often perceived as politically motivated. Meanwhile, emigration has continued at high levels throughout Rama’s tenure. Hundreds of thousands of citizens have left the country since 2013. This is driven by lack of economic stability and opportunities along with high level of corruption (Peka, 2025). It is widely argued that Rama’s leadership has created a political trajectory. His government has crushed the democratic system whereby public institutions are weakened, critical media silenced, as well as fear and corruption remain at highest level (Peka, 2025; Semini, 2025). Rama’s ability to control the political narrative, centralise decision-making, and maintain a dominant public image has made his leadership one of the most consequential in Albania’s post-communist history (Basha, 2024; PD, 2022).

Thus, while much of the scholarship on authoritarian-populist leadership focuses on high-profile cases in established Western democracies such as Trump in the United States (Goethals, 2018; Schneiker, 2020) and Orban in Hungary, the leadership of Edi Rama in Albania offers a theoretically significant yet underexplored alternative. Albania’s status as a post-communist transitional democracy, coupled with its ongoing negotiations for EU accession, makes it a compelling site for examining how populist-authoritarian strategies can be deployed under the auspices of liberal modernisation. Rama’s leadership demonstrates how symbolic domination, emotional governance, and epistemic closure can flourish in a regime that outwardly adheres to democratic norms. This case allows for the theorisation of populist leadership not only as an institutional phenomenon, but as a complex interplay of affect, narrative, and perception in peripheral political contexts.

To explore this, this paper draws on a qualitative synthesis of publicly accessible sources, including: national and international media reports; transcripts of political speeches and press briefings; European Union progress reports; OSCE/ODIHR electoral monitoring assessments and social media outputs and investigative journalism. These materials span the period from Rama’s ascent to power in 2013 through the May 2025 general election, with particular emphasis on moments of intensified symbolic performance and democratic backsliding. Following an interpretivist approach consistent with critical leadership studies, the analysis focuses on the affective and symbolic dimensions of leadership practice. It traces how legitimacy is constructed, dissent is delegitimised, and emotional and epistemic boundaries are policed. This study, however, does not seek generalisability, but rather aims to contribute to theory-building by illustrating how authoritarian-populist leadership functions as a mode of emotional and epistemic governance even in formally democratic settings.

This paper argues that Rama’s leadership operates through three interconnected mechanisms, namely; emotional governance, epistemic closure, and symbolic saturation. These strategies function not in isolation but as a mutually reinforcing system of populist-authoritarian rule that sustains loyalty, centralises knowledge, and aestheticises power. Drawing on insights from critical leadership theory, populism studies, and political aesthetics, this paper explores how these mechanisms work in tandem to consolidate Rama’s position in Albania. A state formerly aligned with liberal democratic norms but increasingly governed through affective and symbolic domination.

Emotional governance

Leadership studies have traditionally celebrated charisma, transformation, and vision as progressive forces in organisational and political life. For example, the work of Bass’s (1985) theory of transformational leadership tends to position leadership as a driver of innovation, cohesion, and moral purpose. Yet this optimistic framing has increasingly come under scrutiny. Scholars in the critical leadership tradition have argued that the same emotional mechanism that allow leaders to mobilise collective effort can also enable domination, dependency, and democratic decay (Chace 2021; Kellerman, 2004; Lipman-Blumen, 2005; Sy et al., 2018; Tourish, 2020). Tourish’s (2023) call to ‘use the F word’ fascism when analysing populist-authoritarian leaders like Donald Trump has become a key provocation within this evolving literature. Tourish argues that authoritarian leadership in the 21st Century no longer requires uniforms, martial law, or visible acts of repression. Instead, it thrives within the symbolic architecture of democracy, reconfiguring elections, rhetoric, and emotional appeal into mechanisms of coercion and compliance (Malkopoulou and Moffitt, 2023; Sy et al., 2018).

In this context, Edi Rama’s leadership hinges on the management of affect. Emotional governance, as conceptualised within critical leadership studies, refers to the mobilisation of emotional dependency, fear, hope, and moral certainty to stabilise authority in uncertain contexts. Goethals (2021) describes this as ‘emotional ensorcellment,’ where leaders captivate followers not through rational policy debate but through moral clarity and symbolic simplicity. Edi Rama’s political discourse is saturated with emotionally charged language crisis, betrayal, rebirth that frames Albania as perpetually under threat and himself as the sole agent of salvation (Carsten et al., 2013; Mudde, 2007). For example, in a debate in Opinion, Klan TV, Edi Rama accuses the opposition leader, Sali Berisha of twisting words playing victim, misleading the audience. He brought a photo in the debate and states: ‘I have a thousand reasons, but I will not comment. I have brought just one. One reason is enough to show why this man does not deserve a debate. He is a charlatan who mocks the Albanian people day and night, especially those who vote for him. What I have brought here is for them and for you. I am the one who can save our country’ (KlanTV, 2023). This implies that his constant invocation of loyalty, sacrifice, and national rebirth resonates powerfully in post-communist Albania, where democratic institutions remain fragile and contested.

In such a framework, emotional governance becomes a tool to delegitimise foreclose pluralistic debate. This affective structure is not unidirectional. As Collinson (2005) and Ford and Harding (2018) argue, leadership is co-constructed through shared emotional fantasies. Followers project their anxieties and desires onto the leader, especially in transitional or unstable environments. Metz and Plesz (2023) build on this with a follower-centric theory of charisma, emphasising that the craving for emotional certainty and strong leadership increases in contexts of institutional fragility. In this context, as argued by The Fronter (2024) Albania under Edi Rama has been framed by Western governments, as a strategic and stabilising partner. Yet, he has used this perception to shield his government from external scrutiny despite serious corruption concerns (Basha, 2024). A 2023 investigative report by Report (Rai 3) suggests that Albania has not merely been infiltrated by organised crime, but structurally adapted to facilitate it (Peka, 2025; Politiko, 2024). Former Deputy Prime Minister Arben Ahmetaj has alleged that criminal networks, operating through intermediaries, secure state contracts and launder illicit funds via the country’s rapidly expanding construction sector (Peka, 2025). Thus, despite evidence of elite corruption, democratic erosion, and increasing inequality, is best understood through this affective lens. Accordingly, it can be argued that his leadership offers emotional stability and a clear national narrative (Taggart 2004; Van Knippenberg and Sitkin, 2018; Weyland 2017).

These emotional mechanisms are further entrenched through ritualistic and performative acts. Public town halls, social media broadcasts, and national addresses are stylised as emotional events rather than spaces for deliberation. For example, his use of platform X is informal in tone, yet it serves to launch attacks, such as targeting the Constitutional Court, accusing it of attempting to remove a member of parliament from their post following an accusation of corruption. He then shifts focus to the judges’ salary increase to €9,230, framing it as a populist narrative to resonate with his followers (X, 2025). This strategy aims to portray him as aligned with ‘ordinary people,’ while diverting attention from controversies surrounding his own government. Chace (2021) refers to this as affective dependency, where feelings are not spontaneous but regulated by leadership performance. Tourish (2023) argues that modern authoritarianism increasingly relies on emotional saturation rather than visible repression. Through emotional scripting, citizens are invited to experience loyalty as pride, dissent as betrayal, and policy as moral obligation (Urbinati, 2019). These dynamics were most visibly at play during the 2025 general election, in which the Socialist Party secured a fourth consecutive term. According to the OSCE/ODIHR (2025), the election was marked by widespread irregularities, including vote buying, abuse of state resources, and the development of patronage databases designed to track voter loyalty. Exit News (2025) reports that these databases were used to pressure public employees and welfare recipients into political compliance. These forms of soft coercion reflect what Chace (2021) terms ambient fear, a subtle form of emotional control in which citizens self-monitor behaviour due to anticipated reprisals.

Crisis moments are further instrumentalised as emotional tools. In the months preceding the 2025 election, Rama’s government intensified its consolidation of power, marked by a growing reliance on judicial institutions to target political opponents. Several high-profile opposition figures were arrested on corruption allegations, including former President Ilir Meta, who has been in detention since October 2024 yet remains formally uncharged (Dom, 2024). Meta has publicly claimed that his arrest is politically motivated, accusing Prime Minister Rama and the head of SPAK, Altin Dumani, of orchestrating the decision to silence dissent ahead of the elections (Basha, 2024; Dom, 2024). These arrests occurred alongside damaging investigative reports exposing procurement fraud involving high-ranking government officials, including current Deputy Prime Minister Belinda Balluku (Newsroom, 2025). Prosecutors have indicted Balluku for her alleged involvement in the selection of a company for a government-funded infrastructure project, specifically, a 5.9-km tunnel in southern Albania, with an estimated cost of approximately €190 million (Politics, 2025). While legally framed, the arrests functioned symbolically to cleanse, distract, and reaffirm the leader’s moral authority. Schneiker (2020) characterises this strategy as ‘superhero populism,’ in which the leader plays the ethical redeemer, capable of rescuing the nation through authentic and sacrificial acts.

Through repeated references to betrayal, sabotage, and conspiracy, Edi Rama fosters a sense of collective victimhood. His leadership thus creates an emotional contract in exchange for loyalty, followers receive a sense of belonging and moral clarity. This affective dependency diminishes the salience of institutional procedures or policy accountability. Instead, leadership becomes a form of emotional stewardship. Followers are not merely voters but believers’ participants in a narrative in which the leader’s vision is inseparable from national survival. These affective performances echo longstanding critiques within leadership studies. Kellerman (2004) and Lipman-Blumen (2005) warn that emotional attachment to leaders can lead to dependency, vulnerability, and the erosion of democratic norms. Sy et al. (2018) similarly argue that charismatic leadership can suppress dissent and encourage followers to overlook ethical concerns in favour of symbolic coherence. Hence, in this instance, it can be argued that Edi Rama’s emotional governance, grounded in moral binaries, performative unity, and crisis narratives, exemplifies this drift into emotionally mediated authoritarianism. As such, the Albanian case reveals how authoritarian-populist leadership is not limited to repression or demagoguery.

Epistemic closure

Alongside emotional governance, Rama’s leadership consolidates power through epistemic closure. That is the foreclosure of discursive plurality and the delegitimation of competing knowledge claims. Hassan (2019) defines epistemic closure as the creation of cultic political environments, in which followers are encouraged to treat the leader’s worldview as epistemologically exclusive. Under such regimes, dissent is not just opposition, but it is rather framed as misinformation, sabotage, or foreign intervention. In other words, Hassan’s (2019) work on cultic political leadership provides a framework for understanding how leaders like Donald Trump and, by extension, Rama, create closed epistemic systems in which the leader’s perspective becomes the only legitimate source of truth. In Albania, Edi Rama’s government has progressively tightened its control over media institutions, public communication, and state resources. Critical journalists and opposition leaders are portrayed not simply as adversaries but as existential threats to the moral and institutional order. For example, in 2024, Edi Rama dismissed questions from journalist Ambrozia Meta about a controversial investment project involving Jared Kushner, refusing to respond, and making a patronising physical gesture caught on video. This followed previous incidents, including a 2022 press conference where Rama told Meta it needed ‘re-education’ and banned Meta from press events for 60 days after it asked questions about corruption (Mapping Media Freedom 2024). Such actions illustrate Rama’s pattern of marginalizing critical journalists, reinforcing his government’s tightening control over media discourse in Albania (Mapping Media Freedom 2024). The political community becomes separated and trust is reserved for those who affirm the leader’s vision, while doubt and dissent are pathologised. Goethals (2018) highlights how populist leaders often present themselves as reformers of a broken system, using the language of justice to mask authoritarian consolidation. Rama has adopted this approach through technocratic justification, including sweeping judicial reforms ostensibly aimed at eradicating corruption.

For example, the judicial vetting process initiated in 2016, endorsed by EU institutions, was initially seen as a step toward accountability. This reform was intended to provide a new transparent approach, something that would drive Albania to the EU membership. However, it has faced criticism for its politicisation and lack of transparency. Politico (2024) and Freedom House (2025) report that the vetting disproportionately affected judges and prosecutors aligned with opposition interests, raising concerns about selective enforcement and the erosion of judicial independence (Semini, 2023). These interventions do not simply remove corrupt actors. Rather, they symbolically cleanse the institutional field, reinforcing Rama’s monopoly over moral and legal interpretation.

Epistemic closure also operates through direct suppression of digital counter-publics. In Albania, early 2025, the government announced a nationwide ban on TikTok, officially justified as a response to misinformation and national security threats (Politico, 2025). However, the ban coincided with the intensification of the election campaign and the platform’s growing role in youth activism and political satire. According to Politico (2025) and RSF (2025), the ban was widely interpreted as a strategic effort to curtail opposition messaging and reassert narrative dominance. Hassan (2019) observes that such pre-emptive closures are essential to epistemic cults, where affective and moral coherence depends on excluding discursive alternatives. The 2025 election cycle also revealed how epistemic control extends into bureaucratic infrastructure. OSCE/ODIHR (2025) documented the use of patronage databases to monitor citizens’ political orientations and employment status. These surveillance mechanisms transformed elections from arenas of democratic contestation into zones of behavioural conditioning and emotional calibration. As highlighted above, Tourish (2023) argues that such leadership regimes retain the formalities of democracy while emptying them of deliberative substance; what he terms as post-democratic leadership. In other words, this is a ‘managed democracy,’ wherein the appearance of reform masks the consolidation of centralised control.

In this context, epistemic boundaries become emotional ones. As Stanley (2018) explains, authoritarian populists do not merely deny facts. In fact, they reframe truth itself as an expression of loyalty. In this instance, Edi Rama’s leadership illustrates a broader pattern in which truth is reframed as an expression of loyalty rather than fact. Epistemic closure is not only enforced through institutional control or censorship, but also through the emotional disqualification of dissenting voices. For example, when confronted with opposition claims that the arrests of opposition leader Sali Berisha and former President, Ilir Meta, were politically motivated, Rama deflected by branding Berisha as ‘the most corrupt person that can exist.’ He further blurred moral and factual boundaries in a rambling monologue that conflated systemic issues in healthcare and education with personal despair, concluding, ‘you either have to go crazy, or do your job, or just close your ears and look ahead’ (Politico, 2024). In such moments, political truth becomes less about evidence and more about emotional submission to leadership. Thus, Rama’s epistemic regime operates in tandem with emotional governance. Knowledge and feeling converge in a closed system in which political truth is inseparable from affective allegiance to the leader’s moral narrative.

Symbolic saturation

The third mechanism anchoring Rama’s leadership is symbolic saturation. That is achieved through the aesthetic and narrative overloading of the political field to the extent that alternative imaginaries are rendered unintelligible. The leadership style of Edi Rama exemplifies how populist and authoritarian practices can thrive symbolic construction and crisis narratives. Rather than dismantling institutions directly, Rama reshapes their symbolic and affective meaning through what Tourish (2023) calls ‘post-democratic leadership,’ where formal democratic procedures are retained but emptied of pluralistic substance (Moffitt, 2016).

Rama’s approach exemplifies what Alvesson and Spicer (2012) describe as aesthetic leadership which is a mode of authority in which symbolic gestures, imagery, and visual coherence are integral to the exercise of power. Edi Rama has invested heavily in the visual and performative dimensions of politics. These elements are not superficial, but they are constitutive of his leadership strategy. This strategy constructs Edi Rama not simply as a head of government, but as the embodiment of national culture, trauma, and destiny. His artistic background is evident in the design of public buildings, government branding, and media staging. Edi Rama’s dual identity as a painter and politician has allowed him to blur the lines between governance and performance. Rama’s political image is shaped through carefully choreographed public moments that blur politics and art. For example, during Angela Merkel’s visit in 2021, he staged an encounter with renowned European artists and guided her through a symbol-laden garden installation. Specifically, he ‘took Merkel inside a small room, where she was introduced to some of the most eminent European contemporary artists of our time’. Such gestures reflect a broader strategy. In this instance appearances are meticulously designed, and media is tightly controlled, all reinforcing a curated narrative of Albania as a modern, progressive state under his leadership (Shqiptarja, 2021).

Equally, leadership, as Smircich and Morgan (1982) argue, is a process of constructing meaning. This governance constitutes a form of symbolic leadership in which the leader embodies not only the state, but its values, hopes, and aspirations (Stanley, 2018). Through social media, national ceremonies, and highly personal broadcasts, Rama offers himself as the symbolic centre of political life and a source of pride, resilience, and affective certainty. For example, his interventions from urban redevelopment to government branding are not neutral design choices, but political statements. If we review his speeches about how he is pro-European and how he will ensure that by 2030 Albania will join the EU are carefully staged. Thus, by monopolising the symbolic narrative, Rama’s leadership precludes alternative imaginaries and discredits dissent not through argument, but through affective design. As such, they communicate modernity, order, and European aspiration, in contrast to the ‘chaotic,’ ‘retrograde,’ and ‘un-European’ image projected onto his opponents. By the opposition party he is constantly being accused of corruption and money laundering with the latest example being where he was involved giving a tender to a Turkish company, something that his Deputy Prime Minister is being investigated for (Newsroom, 2025; Sinoruka, 2025). Stanley (2018) and Tourish (2020) note that such symbolic dualisms are central to fascist political aesthetics, where the leader is positioned as both the saviour and symbolic core of the nation.

This symbolic work is performative as much as visual. Schneiker (2020) highlights the use of narrative structures in superhero populism, where the leader is cast as the sole redeemer capable of rescuing a morally compromised nation. In this instance, Edi Rama frequently invokes Albania’s history of isolation and humiliation under communism, through Western neglect, and via internal betrayal. To justify his narrative, he turns his attention to the opposite party where he accuses them of lack of vision and corruption. He does this to position himself as the vehicle of national redemption (Dom, 2024). These historical traumas are not addressed as sites of reckoning but re-narrated as preambles to his transformative mission. This fits well with Spector’s (2019) work who highlights that populist leaders resolve political crisis not by addressing causes but by reasserting interpretive clarity through symbolic action. Under Edi Rama, crises are estheticized into moral dramas in which the leader appears as the only stable and ethical force. Whether addressing domestic political challenges, judicial reform, or foreign relations, his discourse is often framed in terms of existential danger and moral urgency. In such instances, populist leaders often construct crises not to solve them but to produce the conditions for heightened legitimacy and follower dependency (Chace, 2021; Spector, 2019). For example, this logic was evident in the May 2025 election cycle when opposition leaders were arrested under corruption charges (Dom, 2024). These arrests were highly publicised and timed to coincide with damaging reports about procurement fraud involving the ruling party. The arrests thus served dual purposes, they deflected attention from government scandals and reinforced Rama’s self-image as the enforcer of ethical governance. Such interventions operate as symbolic rituals of purification. By removing ‘corrupt’ figures from public life, Rama enacts a performance of moral cleansing that deepens the emotional bond between leader and followers. This underscores how such spectacles stabilise the leader’s centrality in moments of political volatility (Schneiker, 2020). The spectacle becomes the message, and leadership is enacted through theatrical affirmation rather than institutional deliberation (Diehl, 2019).

Equally, the aesthetic is inseparable from emotional governance. The leader’s body, voice, style, and even attire is stylised as symbols of unity, resilience, and progress. As Goethals (2021) argues, charismatic leaders do not just wield symbols. Instead, they become symbols, embedding their authority in the visual, emotional, and narrative life of the polity. In this instance, in May 2025 Edi Rama hosted European leaders in Albania to discuss the continent’s security. In doing so, he strategically constructs Albania’s image as a stable, democratic, and pro-European state, deploying this narrative to cultivate international legitimacy and support, particularly in the context of EU accession (New Union Post, 2025). However, this symbolic projection obscures ongoing democratic erosion at home. Despite improvements in international rankings, press freedom remains precarious; Albania placed 80th in the 2025 Reporters Sans Frontières index, with a declining score and persistent impunity for attacks on journalists (New Union Post, 2025). In this context, Rama operates not merely as a political leader but as a central symbolic figure, mediating political meaning, moral legitimacy, and affective orientation.

As such, Edi Rama’s leadership illustrates how charismatic and populist strategies can produce a mode of governance that is emotionally resonant, symbolically saturated, and formally democratic, yet fundamentally anti-pluralistic. His approach relies on a mixture of mythic self-construction, emotional dependency, aesthetic governance, and narrative control to produce a form of soft authoritarianism that is both performative and durable. Thus, this study challenges the existing understanding of leadership to move beyond normative accounts of charisma and transformation. It underscores the need for a more critical leadership paradigm, one attentive to the emotional, symbolic, and epistemic dimensions of power and how they can be used to undermine democratic principles from within.

Discussion

In discussing the case of Edi Rama, this paper demonstrates the risks posed by charismatic and populist leadership, exercised within democratic facades but outside of democratic ethos. His governing style by employing aesthetic control, emotional saturation (Sy et al., 2018), and narrative domination invites a re-examination of foundational claims within the leadership studies field. Leadership theory has increasingly incorporated nuance regarding the relational, affective, and symbolic dimensions of leadership (Alvesson and Spicer, 2012; Collinson, 2005; Tourish, 2013). It has often done so through normative assumptions that position leadership as a moral or progressive force. Rama’s leadership challenges that impulse, suggesting instead that charisma, vision, and even transformational rhetoric may be harnessed to legitimate anti-pluralist, emotionally coercive, and epistemically closed governance.

This study contributes to critical leadership studies by building from foundational leadership theories to recent critiques of authoritarian-populist power. Early models, particularly transformational leadership theory (Bass, 1985, 1990; Burns, 1978), framed leaders as morally enlightened agents who elevate followers toward collective purpose. But as Kellerman (2004) and Tourish (2013) have argued, the heroic assumptions underpinning this literature often conceal how transformational rhetoric can entrench dependency, suppress dissent, and centralise power in the figure of the leader. Rama’s own public persona as a visionary moderniser, cultural aesthete, and ethical purist resonates with the imagery of transformational leadership. However, his use of these traits serves to consolidate personal authority, weaken institutional checks, and delegitimise opposition (Sinclair, 2007). These dynamics confirm that the very tools valorised in transformational discourse vision, inspiration, moral clarity which can be co-opted in the service of anti-democratic leadership.

Equally significant is the centrality of emotional governance to Rama’s style. Scholars such as Goethals (2021), Grint (2005, 2010), Humphrey (2013) have highlighted how leadership is not merely rational or strategic, but emotionally saturated. Yet there remains an under-theorisation of the political and ethical consequences of this saturation. Rama’s mobilisation of national trauma and promises of salvation constructs a powerful emotional contract in which citizens locate belonging not in institutions but in the person of the leader. In such settings, leadership becomes a vehicle for affective discipline: the control of feeling as a mechanism for political control. As Metz and Plesz (2023) argue, populist charisma thrives not because followers are manipulated, but because they actively seek emotional coherence in uncertain contexts. Rama simplifies complex political discourse into moral binaries, portraying dissent not as disagreement but as betrayal. This emotional saturation is deeply entwined with epistemic closure, which is a concept elaborated by Hassan (2019) and Spector (2019). Rama’s control of media narratives, his 2025 TikTok ban, and his routine marginalisation of opposition voices demonstrate how epistemic boundaries are drawn and defended through emotional reasoning. The leader becomes the exclusive source of political certainty, and truth is defined by proximity to his moral narrative. Here, Smircich and Morgan’s (1982) conceptualisation of leadership as meaning-making finds a dark corollary. Thus, meaning is no longer contested or co-produced, but imposed through narrative control and symbolic domination.

This study challenges deliberative or participatory models of leadership, which presuppose reciprocal influence and discursive openness (Cunliffe and Eriksen, 2011; Raelin, 2011). In Rama’s Albania, relationality is present but asymmetrical. Followers do not co-create leadership meaning but are emotionally scripted into its symbolic order. Emotional allegiance replaces political agency. Dissenting voices are framed not as alternatives but as existential threats. These dynamics resonate strongly with Ford and Harding’s (2018) argument that mainstream leadership theories, namely, transformational, servant, and distributed, mask elite power under a veneer of empowerment and virtue. In each, power ‘lurks between the lines’ yet remains unacknowledged. In servant leadership, followers are ostensibly at the centre, but are in fact subjects of elite benevolence. In distributed leadership, claims of harmony obscure structural domination. Rama’s leadership does not simply reflect these pathologies but it amplifies them, turning empowerment narratives into tools of control.

Power, then, must be understood not only as coercive but as productive, following the work of Foucault (1977) and Lukes (2005). Leadership shapes what people can know, feel, and imagine. As Butler (1997) puts it, power is that which both limits and constitutes the subject. Rama’s leadership demonstrates how leadership can structure emotional and epistemic life so fully that dissent becomes not only dangerous but unintelligible. His followers are not passive recipients but emotionally entangled in the production of a symbolic universe in which he alone embodies virtue, modernity, and destiny. This insight has broader implications for leadership studies. Ethical and authentic leadership models (e.g. Brown and Treviño, 2006; Walumbwa et al., 2008) continue to frame ethicality as a matter of individual character. But Rama’s case shows that morality can be instrumentalised. His aesthetic and ethical persona is not a reflection of virtue, but a rhetorical device to suppress opposition. We must, therefore, adopt a more relational, contextual, and structural approach to ethics, recognising how ethical claims are mediated through power, affect, and symbolic framing.

Moreover, leadership must be understood as mediated performance. As Alvesson and Kärreman (2000) and Ladkin (2010) remind us, leadership is enacted through bodies, images, and discourses. Rama’s public appearances, curated imagery, and ritualised messaging do not merely express leadership but they constitute it. This supports Schneiker’s (2020) and Stanley’s (2018) insights that populist leadership is not just enacted through policy, but through symbolic and affective saturation that displaces democratic imagination. This study therefore makes a focused contribution to critical leadership studies by showing how populist leaders construct authority through emotional resonance, epistemic monopolisation, and symbolic control. It builds on Tourish’s (2023) call to confront the fascistic dimensions of contemporary leadership not for rhetorical provocation, but as a methodological imperative. Tourish’s analysis of Trump is extended here to a different geopolitical setting, revealing how similar leadership dynamics emerge in transitional democracies like Albania, where institutional fragility and legacy structures of control make such strategies more potent. Rama’s example in this study demonstrates that post-democratic leadership is not an aberration but a systemic formation. A governance modality that uses symbolic coherence and emotional discipline to preserve democratic appearances while hollowing out pluralism. Leadership studies must respond to this reality not with further idealisation, but with theoretical tools that foreground power, affect, and epistemology.

Conclusion

This study contributes to critical leadership literature by advancing a theoretically grounded analysis of authoritarian-populist leadership, foregrounding the affective, epistemic, and symbolic mechanisms through which leaders consolidate power in democratic settings. While much of the existing literature has concentrated on high-profile Western figures such as Donald Trump, this paper expands the analytical focus by examining the case of Edi Rama, the Prime Minister of Albania since 2013. Rama’s leadership illustrates how authoritarian-populist strategies thrive in transitional democracies. This is where institutional fragility, weak media pluralism, and post-authoritarian political legacies create fertile ground for emotionally and symbolically saturated rule.

Building on Tourish’s (2023) call for leadership, scholars confront the fascistic tendencies visible in contemporary populist regimes. This paper applies his critique to a new geopolitical context. Tourish argued that the use of the ‘F word’ fascism was not rhetorical flourish but an analytical necessity, essential to naming the practices through which leaders manipulate emotion, erode democratic norms, and construct follower dependency. Rama’s leadership reveals a similar configuration of emotional mobilisation, epistemic control, and symbolic domination, albeit through more subtle, culturally mediated means. In so doing, this study confirms the broader applicability of Tourish’s framework beyond the United States, showing how authoritarian-populist leadership may be even more potent where democratic institutions are more vulnerable.

As such, the contribution made here bridges several strands of leadership theory. First, it critically re-evaluates transformational leadership (Bass, 1990; Burns, 1978), demonstrating that charisma, vision, and moral rhetoric can serve as tools for exclusion, conformity, and centralised control. Rama’s cultivated image as visionary reformer, cultural aesthete, and ethical moderniser masks authoritarian intent and enables a politics of emotional dependency. This finding supports critiques advanced by Kellerman (2004), Lipman-Blumen (2005) and Tourish (2013), who caution that transformational traits can easily slide into autocratic practices when unmoored from democratic accountability.

Second, this study advances scholarship on emotional governance and affective leadership (Alvesson and Spicer, 2012; Goethals, 2021; Metz and Plesz, 2023), arguing that Rama’s leadership depends not just on policy but on an emotional economy that binds followers through fear, pride, and symbolic belonging. Followers are not passive but co-construct a shared mythos in which the leader embodies the moral and cultural future of the nation. Opposition becomes affectively illegible, cast not as political divergence but as moral deviance or betrayal.

Third, this paper engages with the concept of epistemic closure (Hassan, 2019; Spector, 2019; Stanley, 2018), showing how Rama’s regime curates the discursive field through aesthetic hegemony, narrative policing, and the delegitimisation of dissent. The 2025 TikTok ban, suppression of critical media, and ritual denigration of political opponents are not merely acts of censorship, but expressions of a leadership style in which truth itself becomes contingent upon loyalty to the leader’s emotional world. Hence, leadership in this form is not only relational or symbolic but it becomes a structuring force in the emotional and cognitive life of a nation. In narrowing its theoretical lens to authoritarian-populist leadership, this study responds to recent critiques in critical leadership studies, particularly those by Ford and Harding (2018), who argue that many leadership theories mask power asymmetries through rhetorical appeals to inclusion, harmony, or service. Whether in transformational, distributed, or servant models, leadership often claims to elevate followers while simultaneously reinforcing elite control. Rama’s example exemplifies this paradox. The language of modernisation and reform cloaks a system that marginalises dissent, monopolises symbolic capital, and displaces pluralism.

This analysis also points to a broader need for comparative and transnational perspectives in leadership studies. Authoritarian-populist leadership is not unique to large Western democracies, nor does it always manifest in dramatic institutional breakdowns. As this study shows, it can develop gradually, embedded in the rituals, aesthetics, and emotional grammars of democratic life. It is precisely in its subtlety and its ability to enchant, to align itself with national aspiration, to silence through symbolic saturation. This can be argued it is a form of leadership becomes so enduring. Ultimately, this study argues that leadership must be understood not merely as a behavioural or ethical phenomenon, but as an epistemic and affective one. Leadership constructs what can be known, felt, and imagined and it does so within fields of power that must be critically examined. By building on Tourish’s (2023) ground-breaking analysis of populist leadership, and by extending it to the under-examined context of Albania, this study contributes to the development of a more politically attuned, ethically grounded, and globally relevant leadership studies paradigm. It invites scholars to consider how charisma, emotion, and narrative can function not only as tools of mobilisation, but as instruments of domination.

To conclude, this study advances critical leadership studies by conceptualising authoritarian-populist leadership as a governance strategy rooted in emotional control, symbolic saturation, and epistemic closure. It urges scholars to take seriously the affective architectures of leadership not as secondary features, but as core mechanisms through which domination is made durable, desirable, and democratic in appearance. To do so is not alarmist but rather it is intellectually and ethically necessary. As Tourish reminds us, the time has come to confront authoritarianism not at its extremes, but in the ordinary, emotionally resonant practices through which it becomes palatable. Leadership studies must therefore rise to the challenge, not by retreating into abstraction, but by naming, critiquing, and resisting the forms of leadership that indent democracy from within.