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The Amsterdam Centre for European Studies (ACES) opens the 2025–2026 academic year on September 15 with a timely lecture by Professor Catherine E. De Vries, Generali Endowed Chair in European Policies and Professor of Political Science at Bocconi University. Her talk, Public Service Deprivation and the Rise of Populism in Europe, explores how reduced access to essential services fuels far-right and populist support across the continent.
Catherine de Vries.

Ahead of the lecture, ACES Programme Manager Agnė Piepaliūtė sat down with Prof. De Vries to discuss her research and its implications.

How would you explain “public service deprivation” to someone unfamiliar with the term?

It refers to situations where communities experience reduced or declining access to essential public services, such as healthcare, schools, or public transport, because of long-term state disinvestment.

Why are areas with fewer public services more likely to support far-right or populist parties?

When people feel abandoned by the state, they become more receptive to political narratives that blame outsiders or unresponsive elites. Far-right parties tap into this discontent by framing service decline as evidence of unfair treatment, resource competition with immigrants, or simply neglect.

ACES Opening Academic Year Lecture

Public Service Deprivation and the Rise of Populism in Europe

  • Date: 15 September 2025, 16:00 - 18:00
  • Location: Bushuis/Oost-Indisch Huis, F0.01

Which services matter most to people’s sense of being supported or abandoned by the state?

Services that structure everyday life - local schools, healthcare facilities, public transport, and infrastructure - matter most. Their absence or decline is immediately visible and deeply felt in daily routines.

Where in Europe is this pattern most visible?

It is especially visible in deindustrialized regions, rural areas, and small towns across Western and Southern Europe, where population decline and disinvestment have made state retreat most pronounced.

What is the key message you hope the audience takes away from your lecture?

That the rise of far-right parties is not only about cultural conflict or immigration, it's also about geography and state presence. Where the state retreats, resentment grows, and this creates fertile ground for far-right mobilization.