From Lisbon to the Global Right: Populist Truth Regimes, Digital Networks, and Digital Authoritarianism in Chega’s Online Strategy

This paper analyses the Portuguese populist radical right party Chega’s strategies of digital authoritarianism and mobilization of truth regimes. In recent years, the transnationalization of the far right has accelerated, with political parties and leaders increasingly using digital platforms to forge cross-border alliances, circulate ideological narratives and truth claims, and amplify their international visibility. This paper examines how the Portuguese populist radical right party Chega engages in this process through its activity on X (formerly Twitter) between 2019 and 2024. Building on the relationship between digital authoritarianism, digital populism, the Foucauldian concept of ‘truth regimes,’ and the reconfiguration of the public sphere (De Vreese et al., 2018; Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2017), the study investigates three key questions: 1. How does Chega interact with the transnational far right online? 2. Which connections appear to be the most strategic, and how have these evolved over time? 3. What is the role of digital networks in Chega’s mobilization of truth regimes? Methodologically, the research applies Social Network Analysis to the entirety of Chega’s posts on X during this five-year period, identifying relational patterns, strategic alignments, and shifts in the party’s digital positioning within international radical right ecosystems. By analyzing the structure, intensity, and evolution of these interactions, the study sheds light on the mechanisms through which digital platforms facilitate not only populist communication but also transnational coordination among authoritarian actors and the mobilization of global digital truth regimes. The findings contribute to current debates on digital political communication, offering new insights into the international dynamics of radical right populism and the role of social media in reconfiguring political extremism.