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New Directions in the Study of Populism in International Relations

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Abstract

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the international dimensions of populism, by now a major political phenomenon around the world. This interest, however, has been confined largely to the state level, especially the influence of populism on foreign policy. In this Forum, we argue that it is important for analysis to move beyond the state level and view populism as a concept and phenomenon of international relations (IR) rather than simply a factor of foreign policy. The Forum discusses implications of the rise of populism for IR theory, the role of international systemic change in the emergence of populism in national arenas, and the ways that regime type, state structure and institutions, ideational content, and the political strategies of populists condition the impact of populism on world politics. In this way, the Forum identifies specific directions for the study of populism in IR that scholars can follow in the future.

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... Populism is a global phenomenon that has been studied for a long time (Fabbrizi, 2023). In recent years, however, its impact has become increasingly strong on the international stage (Chryssogelos et al., 2023). This is partly due to the rise of populist leaders in various parts of the world, such as Donald J. Trump in the United States and Narendra Modi in India. ...
... These ethnonationalist leaders often adopt aggressive and competitive stances in international relations (Wimmer, 2012). While much of the literature has focused on how populism affects foreign policy (Verbeek and Zaslove, 2017;Destradi, Cadier and Plagemann, 2021), some argue that it should also be studied as a broader phenomenon within international relations (Chryssogelos et al., 2023). ...
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... Questi partiti sono sostanzialmente diversi nelle loro posizioni nei confronti di entrambi i Foreign policy has been traditionally studied through the prism of international relations, and only more recently attention has been given to analysing the positions of political parties and their potential impact (e.g. Chryssogelos et al., 2023;Hofmann & Martill, 2021;Kaarbo, 2015;Rathbun, 2004;Raunio & Wagner, 2020;Wagner et al., 2017). In this respect, even though the study of the extreme right (ER) and radical right (RR) is among the most popular research topics in comparative politics, the analyses on their foreign policy are still rare. ...
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... Comparative Politics research has shaped the examination of PFP. Scholarly works on PFP have proliferated in recent years and some have started developing a research agenda on how populism can shed light on IR debates (Wajner and Guirlando 2024;Chryssogelos et al. 2023). PFP research has focused on different regional realities from Africa, Asia, Latin America, Middle East, North America and Western and Easter Europe (Lacatus 2023;Plagemann and Destradi 2018;Löfflmann 2022;Wajner and Wehner 2023;Lopes et al. 2022;Wehner 2023;Giurlando 2021;Jenne 2021). ...
... 110 On the domestic front, Erdogan framed the Syrian war, and Washington's support to the YPG, as a strategic manoeuvre by Western imperialist forces to fragment and exert control over the Middle East. 111 President Erdogan also suspected that the United States was behind the 2016 attempted military coup against his regime. This suspicion poisoned the relationship between the two countries and seriously affected their bond of trust. ...
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... The prioritization of the hyper-empowered populist leader, rather than the long-established patterns, defines the foreign policy agenda. 28 Although Taş explained AKP's disdain for institutionalism by connecting it to populism, it should not be solely referred to populism as if populism has only one agenda or orientation. As demonstrated above in some cases, a populist government may exist on quite good terms with inherited institutions and institutional regulations. ...
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Diplomacy does not take place simply between states but wherever people live in different groups. Paul Sharp argues that the demand for diplomacy, and the need for the insights of diplomatic theory, are on the rise. In contrast to conventional texts which use international relations theories to make sense of what diplomacy and diplomats do, this book explores what diplomacy and diplomats can contribute to the big theoretical and practical debates in international relations today. Sharp identifies a diplomatic tradition of international thought premised on the way people live in groups, the differences between intra- and inter-group relations, and the perspectives which those who handle inter-group relations develop about the sorts of international disputes which occur. He argues that the lessons of diplomacy are that we should be reluctant to judge, ready to appease, and alert to the partial grounds on which most universal claims about human beings are made.
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Foreign policy change is as ubiquitous as it is hard to grasp. Against this background, the edited volume seeks to expand our understanding of foreign policy change and to identify the drivers and inhibitors of such processes. This concluding chapter discusses key lessons and insights that can be drawn from the empirical chapters for the volume’s two main objectives. Particular emphasis is placed on: types of foreign policy change; the temporal dimension of foreign policy change; and drivers and inhibitors of foreign policy change. Building on those insights, the chapter suggests several avenues—both conceptual and empirical—for future research. These avenues concern: the classification of specific episodes of foreign policy change; typologies of the drivers (and inhibitors) of foreign policy change; the interaction between different drivers and the promise of a leader-oriented perspective; moving beyond state-centrism in analyzing foreign policy change; a theoretical dialogue with approaches in public policy; and exploring the drivers and inhibitors of foreign policy change in non-Western settings.
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The global ascendance of populism has produced an explosion of research, bringing together scholarship on American and comparative politics as well as encouraging intellectual exchange among political scientists, economists, and sociologists. A good way to get a handle on what is now a wide-ranging and interdisciplinary literature is to focus on the key debates characterizing it. This article reviews the literature on the causes of populism, and in particular right-wing populism, in the United States, Europe, and other advanced industrial nations generally, but much of this literature draws on and refers to research on other parts of the world as well. This review analyzes the nature as well as the strengths and weakness of demand- and supply-side explanations of populism, economic grievance–based and sociocultural grievance–based explanations of populism, and structure- and agency-based explanations of populism. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Political Science, Volume 24 is May 11, 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
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This contribution to the Forum argues the research agenda on diplomacy has to be recalibrated: with a greater focus on how diplomacy is challenged domestically. This turbulence is intertwined with the rise of populism not from the periphery as largely featured in the past, but in the countries at the core of the international system, most noticeable in the Brexit campaign in Britain and the Donald Trump Administration in the United States. The challenge posed is that diplomacy – no less than other institutions – traditionally viewed positively as providing continuity and stability in terms of the national interest and identity has increasingly been stigmatized. Although distinctive national features cannot be ignored, a common feature in terms of generic cause and effect is an association with the concept of disintermediation highlighting a separation of diplomats not only from other components of governmental bureaucracy but citizens at large. The effect of disintermediation is more pervasive because of the use of social media and other means of going around established institutions. In addressing th is serious challenge, the research agenda must extend to comprehensive options for organisational maintenance in which the institution and operational machinery of diplomacy is re-directed towards delivery in the service of citizens.
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It is quite understandable that diplomatic studies devote a huge amount of research to new trends in diplomacy such as public diplomacy, cyber-diplomacy, and digital diplomacy. Research has therefore become more limited when states’ foreign services and institutions are concerned. This contribution is a plea for not forgetting research perspectives on foreign ministries in the world. It insists on five good reasons to continue comparative work on what seems to be a ‘classic’ topic of diplomatic studies. The article is conceived as the introduction to a series of other contributions on the subject, all resulting from a round-table that took place at the ISA Congress 2017 in Baltimore.
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Populism has been perhaps the most popular explanation for the difficulties that have been besetting contemporary governments. But despite the intense interest in populism as a political phenomenon, very little has been written assessing the implications for governance and even less on the implications for public administration. Focusing on the United States, but adding some comparative analysis, this article examines the implications of populist politics for public administration and the role of the bureaucracy in governance.
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The Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25), launched by former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, seeks to construct a transnational left political project to ‘democratise Europe’. Its construction of a European ‘people’ against an international elite raises questions about the potentials of populism beyond the nation-state. Building on a discourse-theoretical distinction between populism and nationalism, the article asks whether DiEM25 is a truly transnational populist movement. Through an analysis of the movement’s manifestoes, speeches, press releases and published interviews with DiEM25 leaders, the article shows how DiEM25 constructs a ‘European people’ in opposition to an international ‘elite’, how DiEM25 oscillates between speaking for national ‘peoples’ and a transnational ‘people’, and how it negotiates its populism, nationalism and transnationalism. The article contributes to the theorisation of populism beyond the usually assumed nation-state level and shines a light on the potentials and limitations of transnational populism as an as-yet understudied political development.
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Few social science categories have been more heatedly contested in recent years than ‘populism’. One focus of debate concerns the relation between populism and nationalism. Criticising the tendency to conflate populism and nationalism, De Cleen and Stavrakakis argue for a sharp conceptual distinction between the two. They situate populist discourse on a vertical, and nationalist discourse on a horizontal axis. I argue that this strict conceptual separation cannot capture the productive ambiguity of populist appeals to ‘the people’, evoking at once plebs, sovereign demos and bounded community. The frame of reference for populist discourse is most fruitfully understood as a two‐dimensional space, at once a space of inequality and a space of difference. Vertical opposition to those on top (and often those on the bottom) and horizontal opposition to those outside are tightly interwoven, generally in such a way that economic, political and cultural elites are represented as being ‘outside’ as well as ‘on top’. The ambiguity and two‐dimensionality of appeals to ‘the people’ do not result from the conflation of populism and nationalism; they are a constitutive feature of populism itself, a practical resource that can be exploited in constructing political identities and defining lines of political opposition and conflict.
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Public diplomacy has been externally directed via a strategy of assertive reputation-building. In an era of insurgent populism, this model faces strong backlash, driven by the image of public diplomacy being disconnected from domestic publics. Under these conditions, an opportunistic set of ascendant political leaders — even those located at the international system’s core — have considerable incentive to diminish ‘their’ own diplomats as part of a wider campaign to stigmatize the traditional establishment. While more attention needs to be directed to the causes of this disconnection between diplomats and public, this article highlights a number of key ingredients in a menu of adaptation to the populist challenge. Above all, the focus of engagement in public diplomacy should be broadened to include domestic as well as foreign audiences. Disruption, it must be emphasized, does not mean the end of public diplomacy. Rather, public diplomacy must take a domestic turn.
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This article contributes to the emerging literature on populist foreign policy by examining President Trump’s ability to dominate and shape public discourse on trade. We develop an ideational approach to populism that focuses on the social network that emerges surrounding a populist leader’s discourse. We hypothesize that populist leaders will generate a polarized social network along the elite-versus-people divide instead of the usual partisan boundary. Populist leaders like Trump are known to prefer direct, unmediated access to the people in order to spread their ideology. We therefore examine Trump’s use of Twitter as he announced his steel and aluminum tariffs in March 2018 and its impact on the salience and content of debates around trade policy on the Twittersphere. Our findings highlight how Trump and his supporters use populist foreign policy themes to articulate their policy positions on social media. © 2019 by the Southern Political Science Association. All rights reserved.
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There is today a growing sense of a global rise of populism. Right-wing populist leaders and parties claim to represent the people and pit them against a “corrupt” elite and “dangerous” Others. However, the international dimensions of populism remain largely unexplored in the populism and international relations (IR) literature. By analyzing the relationship between foreign policy and populism, this article seeks to show how the phenomenon of populism can be integrated into IR theory and how IR scholarship can inform debates on populism. The article argues that poststructuralist IR, with its focus on foreign policy as a boundary-drawing practice that demarcates the Self from the Other, allows us to study how populist actors can use foreign policy as a site for the reproduction of their claim to represent the people. To grasp this, the article identifies different discursive strategies through which the people/elite antagonism can be constructed and interacts with other antagonisms such as the inside/outside divide of nationalism. It illustrates its arguments with a case study on India's foreign policy discourse under the Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi, who has promised to purify India from a corrupt elite and pursue an “India first” policy.