Populist Foreign Policy: Regional Perspectives of Populism in the International Scene 3031227727, 9783031227721

Citation preview

GLOBAL FOREIGN POLICY STUDIES

Populist Foreign Policy

Regional Perspectives of Populism in the International Scene Edited by

Philip Giurlando Daniel F. Wajner

Global Foreign Policy Studies

Series Editors

Karen E. Smith Department of International Relations London School of Economics and Political Science London, UK Kai He Centre for Governance and Public Policy Griffith University Nathan, QLD, Australia Cameron G. Thies James Madison College Michigan State University East Lansing, MI, USA

Editorial Board Members Karin Aggestam Lund University Lund, Sweden

Dewi Fortuna Anwar Indonesian Academy of Sciences Jakarta, Indonesia Amnon Aran City, University of London London, UK

Klaus Brummer Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt Eichstätt, Germany Feliciano de Sá Guimarães Universidade de São Paulo São Paulo, Brazil Erin Kristin Jenne Central European University Budapest, Hungary Juliet Kaarbo University of Edinburgh Edinburgh, UK Hiro Katsumata Tohoku University Sendai, Japan Mingjiang Li Nanyang Technological University Singapore, Singapore Honghua Men Tongji University Shanghai, China ‪Candice Moore University of the Witwatersrand Johannesburg, South Africa Özgür Özdamar Bilkent University Ankara, Turkey

Leticia Pinheiro Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Rajesh Rajagopalan Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi, India Jorge A. Schiavon Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE) Mexico City, Mexico Arlene Beth Tickner Universidad del Rosario Bogotá, Colombia

This Series publishes cutting-edge scholarship on foreign policy with a global focus, including single case studies (on the foreign policy of a particular state), comparative studies, and studies on particular themes or issues (such as gender and foreign policy). In this way, the Series contributes to broadening the existing knowledge of, and debate on, foreign policies and foreign policy analysis. The Series seeks to push the boundaries of Foreign Policy Analysis in three ways. First, it includes scholarship on the foreign policies of states that have often been neglected in the literature. The foreign policy literature has been dominated by studies of the US (by far) and European states as well as the European Union. The Series is inclusive and publishes studies of the foreign policies of states across all regions, as well as studies that compare states in other regions. It also publishes studies of the foreign policies of states with different regime types, from democratic to autocratic. Second, the Series publishes studies that focus on the intersection of foreign policy (analysis) with issues such as gender, race, climate change and new technologies. Studies of gender and foreign policy analysis are still in an incipient stage, with race and foreign policy receiving even less coverage. To the extent that there are studies of gender and foreign policy, these focus predominantly on states in the Global North, such as the US, Canada, and Sweden. There is clearly a need to explore the role that gender – and race – play in foreign policy-making, from decision-making to implementation. Other issues such as climate change and new technologies (for example, artificial intelligence, digital technologies) have not been extensively incorporated into studies of foreign policy, and this Series aims to fill that gap. Third, the Series includes studies based not only in traditional approaches to Foreign Policy Analysis and International Relations, but also those that use or develop approaches including: the role of emotions; critical theoretical approaches including post-colonial theorising; feminist theories; and international political economy.

Philip Giurlando  •  Daniel F. Wajner Editors

Populist Foreign Policy Regional Perspectives of Populism in the International Scene

Editors Philip Giurlando Department of International Studies Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University Suzhou, China

Daniel F. Wajner Department of International Relations and The European Forum Hebrew University of Jerusalem Jerusalem, Israel

Global Foreign Policy Studies ISBN 978-3-031-22772-1    ISBN 978-3-031-22773-8 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22773-8 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Contents

1 Introduction  to Populist Foreign Policy (PFP)  1 Daniel F. Wajner and Philip Giurlando 2 Digging  New Western European Trenches: Populism and the Foreign Policies of Germany and the Netherlands 37 Bertjan Verbeek and Thorsten Wojczewski 3 Populist  Foreign Policy in Southern Europe 63 Angelos Chryssogelos, Philip Giurlando, and Daniel F. Wajner 4 Populist  Foreign Policy in Central and Eastern Europe: Poland, Hungary and the Shock of the Ukraine Crisis 89 Akos Kopper, Andras Szalai, and Magdalena Góra 5 The  Trump Shock: Populism and Changing Narratives of US Foreign Policy117 Georg Löfflmann, Amy Skonieczny, and Rubrick Biegon 6 Tradition,  Geopolitical Constraints, and Leadership Styles in Latin American Populist Foreign Policy147 Gisela Pereyra Doval, Leslie Wehner, and Daniel F. Wajner

vii

viii 

Contents

7 Populist  Foreign Policy in the Middle East and North Africa171 Daniel F. Wajner, Hakkı Taş, Alberto Priego-Moreno, and Jony Essa 8 Leadership,  Context, and Populist Foreign Policy in East Africa: An Analysis of Uganda and Rwanda199 Michael Mawa, Solomon Muchwa Asiimwe, and Anne Abaho 9 Populist  Foreign Policy in Asia223 Sandra Destradi, Vihang Jumle, and Alyssa Santiago 10 Aotearoa  New Zealand and the Quasi-­Populist Foreign Policy of New Zealand First247 David MacDonald 11 Conclusions:  Populist Foreign Policy in a Comparative Perspective269 Philip Giurlando and Daniel F. Wajner Index287

Notes on Contributors

Anne Abaho  is a 2006 graduate of International Relations (Major) and Journalism (Minor) from the United States International University— Africa (Kenya) and holds an MA in Pan African Studies from Syracuse University—New York in 2008. In 2019, she graduated with a PhD in Public Administration and Management (Security) from Nkumba University. Anne has been in the academic field since 2009 and has taught in different universities in Uganda in the fields of international relations, public administration and security studies. Her academic interests are in gender, foreign policy, conflict and security. She has also served in administrative positions, including deanship of the School of Social Sciences—Nkumba University and coordinator of Nkumba Women’s Centre. Solomon  Muchwa  Asiimwe  is the head of Postgraduate Studies and Research and Professor of Security Studies and International Relations at Nkumba University. He holds a PhD in Security and Strategic Studies, a Master’s of Science in Security Sector Management, a Master’s of Arts in International Relations and Diplomatic Studies, a Bachelor’s of Arts in Social Sciences, a Diploma in Education and a Certificate in Legislative Practice. His doctoral studies and research focused on security oversight mechanisms in the protection of democracy. Rubrick Biegon  is Lecturer in International Relations in the School of Politics and International Relations, University of Kent. His research focuses on the foreign policy of the United States, with particular interests ix

x 

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

in populism and anti-populism, remote warfare and the political economy of US primacy. He is the author of US Power in Latin America: Renewing Hegemony. Angelos  Chryssogelos  is Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at the School of Social Sciences, London Metropolitan University. He holds a PhD in Political Science from the European University Institute and has held positions at LSE, King’s College London, the Weatherhead Centre of Harvard and, as a Fulbright scholar, SAIS Johns Hopkins. In 2020–2021 he was Jean Monnet Fellow at the Schuman Centre of the European University Institute (EUI). His articles have appeared in, among others, the Journal of Common Market Studies, Journal of European Integration, Politics, International Political Science Review, Foreign Policy Analysis and so on. He is author of Party Systems and Foreign Policy Change in Liberal Democracies (2021). Sandra  Destradi holds the Chair of International Relations at the University of Freiburg, Germany. Previously, she was Professor of International Relations and Regional Governance at Helmut Schmidt University and a senior research fellow at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies. She is the principal investigator of the research project ‘Populism and Foreign Policy’ funded by the German Research Foundation. Her research interests include the international consequences of populism, emerging powers and global governance, and regional security issues. Her research has been published in journals such as the European Journal of International Relations, Review of International Studies, British Journal of Politics and International Relations, Comparative European Politics, Foreign Policy Analysis, Democratization, Third World Quarterly and Asian Survey. Gisela  Pereyra  Doval  is a researcher at Argentina’s National Scientific Research Council (CONICET) and a lecturer at the National University of Rosario (UNR) in International Relations Problematics. Her main areas of research and teaching are Argentinian and Brazilian foreign policies and ideologies and populism in foreign policies. She has edited the books El Brasil de Bolsonaro (2023), Sudamérica en Movimiento (2022), Global Resurgence of the Right (2021) and Diccionario de acontecimientos de derechas en América Latina (2021), among others, and several book chapters; some of her most recent peer-reviewed articles have been published in Oxford Encyclopedia of International Studies, Latin American Policy, Revista de Ciencia Política, Esboços and so on.

  NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS 

xi

Jony  Essa  is a Neubauer Research Associate at the Israeli Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) and a doctoral candidate in the International Relations department and the Leonard Davis Institute for International Relations Graduate School, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His dissertation is titled “What Explains Different Military Behavior? Jordan, Syria, and Egypt in a Comparative Perspective.” He holds a BA in International Relations and English Literature and an MA in International Relations, both from the Hebrew University, and lectures on Middle East politics and culture at the Rothberg International School, Hebrew University. His primary areas of research include contemporary Middle Eastern military history; conflict processes (ethno-political conflict and civil wars); and the state, society and security in the Middle East. Philip Giurlando  is Assistant Professor of International Politics at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University. His work focuses on populist foreign policies and the formation of inter-state hierarchies and has appeared most recently in the Canadian Foreign Policy Journal, International Journal, and European Politics and Society. Magdalena Góra  is Associate Professor of Political Science and European Studies at the Institute of European Studies, Jagiellonian University. Her research deals with legitimacy and contestation in external relations of the European Union, EU actorness in international relations, especially in EU’s close neighbourhood, as well as democratic challenges in the EU.  She has worked and taught in a number of academic institutions worldwide. She has participated in several research projects and is a co-leader of the Future of Europe Debate within Horizon 2020–funded project EU3D: EU Differentiation, Dominance and Democracy (2018–2023) and leader of the Horizon Europe–funded project SHAPEDEM-EU: Rethinking and Reshaping the EU’s Democracy Support in Its Eastern and Southern Neighbourhood (2022–2025). Her work has been published in several peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters and co-edited volumes. Vihang Jumle  is a graduate public policy student with a policy analysis specialisation at the Hertie School in Berlin. He is part of the “Populism and Foreign Policy” research cluster based at German Institute for Global and Area Studies in Hamburg (GIGA) and the University of Freiburg. He also independently researches political communication, media and public discourses.

xii 

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Akos  Kopper  is an Alexander von Humboldt senior research fellow at ZOIS (Centre for East European and International Studies) in Berlin. His research focuses on foreign policy, security, diplomacy and visuality in international relations, with a particular focus on Eastern Europe and East Asia. He is the coordinating editor of PARISS (Political Anthropology Research on International Social Sciences), while previously he was the chief editor of the Journal of International Relations and Development (Springer-Palgrave). He received his PhD from Jacobs University Bremen (2009), MA from Central European University (CEU) (2000) and BA from ELTE University Budapest (1999). Georg Löfflmann  is Assistant Professor in War Studies and US Foreign Policy, Department of Politics and International Studies (PAIS), University of Warwick. He is the author of American Grand Strategy Under Obama: Competing Discourses (2017) and several articles on US foreign and security policy, including in Survival, International Politics, Geopolitics and Critical Studies on Security. His latest book project examines the role of populist security narratives under the Trump presidency. David  MacDonald  is a biracial Indo-Trinidadian and Scottish Political Science professor from Treaty 4 lands. He was appointed as the Research Leadership Chair for the college from 2017 to 2020. He has a PhD in International Relations from the London School of Economics, where he also served as Deputy Editor and Book Reviews Editor at Millennium: Journal of International Studies. Before coming to Guelph, he was Pūkenga Matua (Senior Lecturer) in Political Studies at Otago University, Aotearoa New Zealand, and an assistant visiting professor at the École Supérieure de Commerce de Paris—ESCP Business School. He has been the field coordinator for the PhD core course in International Relations. He has written four books, co-edited four more and co-authored two political science textbooks, in addition to book chapters and journal articles. Some of his writing is on comparative foreign policy, international relations and comparative Indigenous politics. He has a five-year Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Insight Grant (with co-researcher Sheryl Lightfoot) on Indigenous practices of self-­determination in comparative perspective, with a focus on Canada and Aotearoa New Zealand (https://complexsovereignties.ca/). Recent books are The Sleeping Giant Awakens: Genocide, Indian Residential Schools, and the Challenge of Conciliation (2019) and Populism and World

  NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS 

xiii

Politics: Exploring Inter- and Transnational Dimensions, co-edited with F.A.  Stengel and D.  Nabers (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). He is a fellow at the Australia Centre (University of Melbourne) and at Te Puna Rangahau o te Wai Ariki/NZ Centre for Indigenous Peoples and the Law (University of Auckland) and a member of the Royal Commission Forum monitoring the work of the NZ Royal Commission on Abuse in Care. He is also a member of the Reconciliation Committee of the Canadian Political Science Association and an incoming member of the Committee on the Status of Representation and Diversity of the International Studies Association. Michael Mawa  is a scholar, researcher and higher education manager in Uganda. He has been the Deputy Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at Uganda Martyrs University and Associate Professor of Ethics, Human Rights and Human Development at the same institution. He is a visiting professor at Ludwigshafen University of Business in Germany. Michael Mawa has published books and numerous book chapters and journal articles in the areas of ethics, human rights and human development. He is the author of the book Humanitarian Action and Human Rights in Africa Since 1990 published in 2005 and is one of the editors of the books African International Relations: Thematic Analysis and Governance Framework for a New African, both published in 2021. Alberto  Priego-Moreno holds a PhD in International Relations, a degree in Political Science and Administration—specialization in International Relations, with mention in European Studies. He has been a visiting scholar in think tanks such as East West and foreign universities such as the University of Reading, Coimbra or the School of Oriental and African Studies (postdoctoral fellow). He joined the Universidad Pontificia Comillas in 2010. He is a regular contributor to different media (El Mundo, El Confidencial, El País, RNE, la Cope etc.). Alyssa Santiago  is a PhD candidate at the University of Freiburg, studying foreign policy shifts in populist leadership using an agent-based perspective. She is also working on the “Populism and Foreign Policy” project based at the University of Freiburg and the German Institute for Global and Area Studies in Hamburg. Amy  Skonieczny  is Professor at San Francisco State University in the International Relations Department. Her research interests include populism and foreign policy, narratives and US trade politics, and the study of

xiv 

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

national identity and foreign policy discourses. Dr. Skonieczny’s publications over the past five years have focused on the rise of populism in the United States and its impact on US trade policy. She is a co-­editor of the book series Global Populisms and a board member of the journal Populism. Her recent publications include “Economic Security and the US-China Trade War,” in Contemporary Cases in U.S. Foreign Policy: From National Security to Human Security, 6th edition, edited by Ralph Carter (2021); “Trump Talk: Rethinking Elections, Rhetoric, and American Foreign Policy” in the journal Politics (2021); “Saying the Unspeakable: Populism, Performance and the Politics of Covid-19,” in Populism, Political Communication and Performative Leadership in International Politics, edited by Corina Lacatus, Georg Lofflmann and Gustav Meibauer (expected 2023); and “The Trump Effect: Toxic Politics and Emotional Populism in US-China Relations” (with Ancita Sherel), in the special issue The Effects of Global Populism in the journal International Affairs (expected 2024). She is also working to revise U.S.  Foreign Policy: Paradox of World Power (with Steven Hook) for the 7th edition (expected 2024). Andras Szalai  is an associate professor in the Department of International Relations and European Studies, Eötvös Loránd (ELTE) University. His research deals with right-wing populism’s narrative construction of security threats, the symbolic use of borders in mitigating ontological insecurities and the securitisation of migration as a societal control mechanism. His general research interests include securitisation theory, constructivist theories of European foreign policy and epistemic power in security expertise. Szalai’s work has appeared in outlets such as International Relations, Millennium and the European Review of International Studies. Hakkı Taş  is a postdoctoral research fellow at the German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Hamburg. His research interests include populism, diasporas, political Islam and identity politics, with a special focus on Turkey and Egypt. Taş has held researcher or teaching positions at Yale University, American University in Cairo, Ipek University in Ankara, the Swedish Defence University and the University of Bremen. His peer-reviewed articles have appeared in journals including Comparative Studies in Society and History, Third World Quarterly, PS: Political Science and Politics, British Journal of Politics and International Relations and Identities.

  NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS 

xv

Bertjan Verbeek  is Professor of International Relations at the Department of Political Science, Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands. He has published extensively on the relationship between populism and ­foreign policy (with Andrej Zaslove), and has co-edited volumes on the changing role of international organizations in world politics (with Jutta Joachim and Bob Reinalda) as well as on the foreign policies of middle powers in the twenty-first century (with Giampiero Giacomello). Daniel  F. Wajner  Lecturer (Assistant Professor) at the Department of International Relations and the European Forum of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His main areas of research are international legitimacy, conflict resolution, regional integration, and populist foreign policies, particularly focusing on their interplay in the realm of Middle Eastern, Latin American, and European politics. His academic articles have been published in International Studies Quarterly, Global Studies Quarterly, British Journal of Politics and International Relations, Foreign Policy Analysis, Journal of International Relations and Development, Comparative Political Theory, Diplomacy and Statecraft, and Latin American Research Review. He is the Principal Investigator of the research project “Populism and International (In-)Security”, funded by the Israel Science Foundation (ISF 2450/22). Leslie  Wehner is Reader in International Relations, Department of Politics, Languages and International Studies, University of Bath, UK. His work focuses on foreign policy role theory, emerging powers (BRICS), populism in foreign policy and international relations theory. His research has been published in International Studies Quarterly, Cooperation and Conflict, International Studies Review, the Journal of International Relations and Development, International Relations, Foreign Policy Analysis and Cambridge Review of International Affairs. Thorsten Wojczewski  is Lecturer in International Relations at Coventry University. Previously, he was a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the School of Global Affairs, King’s College London. His research interests are: foreign policy analysis, populism and the far right, world order, poststructuralist international relations and critical security studies. His research has been published in International Studies Review, Foreign Policy Analysis and the Journal of International Relations & Development, among others. He is the author of The Inter- and Transnational Politics of Populism: Foreign Policy, Identity and Popular Sovereignty published by Palgrave.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction to Populist Foreign Policy (PFP) Daniel F. Wajner and Philip Giurlando

This book aims to introduce readers to the emerging and developing field of populism and foreign policy, highlighting some of the more important scientific advances in the past decade and setting the stage for future contributions to this growing research program. Across its different chapters, this edited volume examines what is distinctive about populist foreign policy (PFP) in parallel to its diversity in cultural, socio-economic, and political terms. Moreover, by exploring how populist governments addressed their foreign policies in Latin America, North America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Southern Europe, the Middle East, East and

D. F. Wajner (*) Department of International Relations and The European Forum, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel e-mail: [email protected] P. Giurlando Department of International Studies, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Suzhou, China e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 P. Giurlando, D. F. Wajner (eds.), Populist Foreign Policy, Global Foreign Policy Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22773-8_1

1

2 

D. F. WAJNER AND P. GIURLANDO

Southeast Asia, Oceania, and Africa, the book analyzes the domestic and international conditions which enable or constrain PFP in each region. Populism has become a defining feature of the domestic and international political landscape, although the character, rootedness, and durability differ across regions. This ‘populist turn’ in world politics can mainly be explained by the success of populist leaderships in winning governmental power (either as the dominant or as a minor party in the coalition) and setting and shaping the political agenda (either from inside the government or by influencing mainstream parties from outside). The US and the UK since 2016 are among the more dramatic relatively recent examples, in part because few analysts expected Donald Trump’s presidential victory or the success of the Brexit referendum. In Europe, populists started playing a pivotal role earlier, since the post-Cold War era, while Latin America experienced several waves of populist leaders taking power throughout the twentieth century. Populist leaderships and trends have also experienced growing popularity across Southeast Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Oceania. In all these examples, populists have not only shaped politics through their discourse and performances, but also through their policies, including foreign policies. Given the growing global phenomenon, political scientists, mostly from comparative politics (‘comparativists’), have attempted to distill general sources, patterns, and effects. The focus of the research on populism as a category of political analysis has mostly been on domestic politics and can be traced back to the 1960s. Only in the last two decades this field of inquiry has taken a more focused and specialized hue, involving systematic attempts to investigate populist governments’ behavior in the international arena. More recently, scholars of international relations (‘internationalists’) have also increased attention to the analysis of its transnational dimensions, as demonstrated by important scholarly outputs during the last five years. Indeed, one of the elements which has made the study on populism so fruitful is the cooperative interaction between ‘comparativists’ and ‘internationalists’. This book, therefore, continues the collaborative efforts for bridging the gaps between both fields while contributing to their mutual enrichment. Certainly, when projecting populism from domestic politics to international politics, the growing epistemic community has also imported the disagreements on some of the more important elements of this area of inquiry. First, researchers of the international dimensions of populism have adopted different approaches on the very essence of the populist

1  INTRODUCTION TO POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY (PFP) 

3

conceptualization. Some define the core of populism as “ideational”; that is, as a sort of “thin ideology”, meaning it attaches itself to “thicker” ones like conservatism or socialism; while others sustain that it comes closer to a stand-alone thick ideology; meanwhile, many conceptualize it as a sort of political style, discourse, or strategy. Scholars also disagree on the transnational causes of populism. There is a relatively wide agreement that the structural changes of the post-Cold War period, particularly globalization, regionalization, and denationalization, and their attendant consequences on precarity, inequality, unaccountability, and insecurity have generated the grievances and frustrations which have fueled populism (see Zürn, 2018; Rodrik, 2018). Yet this trend also leaves space for other explanations, particularly ones focused on ideas, identity, and emotions (Busher et  al., 2018). Similarly, the epistemic community has also imported the disagreements on the potential impact of populism, which includes a normative dimension. While some scholars understand populism as a threat to the institutions of liberal democracy and even of the liberal international order, others consider the populist potential to enhance democracy— understood as popular rule—and promote a fairer global governance. Despite these disagreements, which are likely to persist and even grow, scholars of populism from different perspectives and disciplines can fruitfully cooperate because the populist phenomenon will probably continue to impact world politics. Not only because the populist “temptation” has become a recurring, inherent feature of democratic politics regardless of regime type, culture, and geography, but also because the transnational drivers are expected to remain with us for long (Wajner, 2022; see also Eatwell & Goodwin, 2019; Reno, 2020, Vallespin & Bascunan, 2017). In this sense, populists can go home, but populism will remain. One can assume that several of the structural and sociological changes which have contributed to populists’ rise may be present for the foreseeable future, and perhaps even deepen given the dramatic shifts in economic and political power induced by the COVID-19 pandemic, the gradual consolidation of a new ‘Cold War’ with China, and the growing digitalization of economics and communications. This prospect makes the study of global populism, and particularly of populist foreign policy (PFP), even more pressing. Moreover, this endeavor is particularly relevant because standard IR theoretical frameworks, such as neorealism, neoliberal institutionalism, and neo-Marxism, have major shortcomings when trying to explain populist phenomena. One is that, to the extent that they address populism, they conceive it as an epiphenomenon, that is, a relatively less important feature

4 

D. F. WAJNER AND P. GIURLANDO

of the broader and more dramatic inter-play of structural forces. Second, and consequently, is that this ignores the possibility that populism itself can provide some explanatory value to the international behavior of states. From this proposition many other types of interesting possibilities emerge. How do we distinguish a populist foreign policy from a non-populist one? Are there important differences and/or significant similarities among populists from different parts of the world, or between ones of the left and those on the right, in how they interpret and act upon international actors, such as diplomats, technocrats in international organizations, or mass publics from other countries? What are the elements which enable and/or constrain populists’ willingness and capacity to shift the foreign policies of the country where they either hold power or are important members of coalition governments? This volume is a collaborative effort to answer these and related questions. To this end, it brings together some of the leading scholars who have already published ground-breaking work on the intersections of populism and foreign policy. Likewise, an important contribution of this book is that it addresses the phenomenon from a regional perspective, whereby teams of scholars focus on their respective regions of expertise, engaging in comparative analyses of populists’ foreign policies in countries which reside in the following areas: Latin America; North America; Northern, Southern, and Eastern Europe; the Middle East; Africa; East and Southeast Asia; and Oceania. Such an extensive geographical scope and regional representation will be particularly valuable to identify cultural similarities and differences in PFP. The reader is thus invited to contrast the operations of PFP with a broader sample of case studies, enriching the generalizations while highlighting the limitations. This approach also allows us to make cross-regional comparisons of PFP in our conclusions, identifying patterns, similarities, and differences which will aid the development of theories and generate new research questions for future work. The following sections summarize some of the more important conclusions of the bourgeoning literature on PFP, present our general and specific research questions, and subsequently elaborate how the different chapters contribute to answering it.

Populism and Foreign Policy The study of populist foreign policy among scholars of political science and international relations occurred sporadically even as the large literature on populism had developed in the late twentieth and early

1  INTRODUCTION TO POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY (PFP) 

5

twenty-­first centuries. Students of populism traditionally concentrated on elucidating patterns within the domestic sphere and largely disregarded its foreign policy dimensions. Even in countries where populists took power, few scholars considered particularly puzzling the role of populism in their interactions with other international actors and their international stances. In parallel, the IR epistemic community also  overlooked addressing the populist theorizing systematically and only a few relevant exceptions appear in the sub-field of foreign policy analysis, particularly referring to the impact of public opinion demands in some specific types of policymakers in the US (see Axelrod, 1967: 51–58; Holsti & Rosenau, 1996; Hughes, 1975: 98–105). Following this preliminary tradition, research carried out by Russell Mead several years before Trump’s rise assisted in this endeavor (Mead, 1999, 2011); his identification of the links between the Jacksonian tradition and the Tea Party, which was one of the key social bases of the rise of Trumpism, led to measurable predictions such as skepticism about globalization in all its forms, including, and particularly, the global governance institutions that the US had a large role in creating precisely to help address problems which transcend national borders. Partly for this reason, when Trump was elected, many eminent scholars of American foreign policy predicted the end of the international liberal order underwritten by Washington, opening a very heated discussion (see, e.g., Ikenberry, 2018; Stokes, 2018; Zakaria, 2019). Indeed, Donald Trump’s election in 2016 launched a cottage industry on the academic study of populism and, consequently, during this period the systematic focus on how populists behave in the international system grew considerably. This was not surprising, given the structural character of the international system: decisions in Washington unavoidably have an outsized impact on other countries, and thus the question of how populists behave internationally suddenly became pressing for many capitals around the world. The “populist explosion” occurred in Europe as well, using the colorful words of John Judis (2016). There, populism had a longer pedigree, gaining strength as globalization, regionalization, and denationalization accelerated in the wake of the fall of the Berlin Wall (Börzel & Zürn, 2021; Mudde, 2007; Norris & Inglehart, 2019). The populist phenomenon became initially conflated with the radical right, in part because many of the early successful populists were on that part of the spectrum and were motivated by issues related to the tensions between national identity and immigration, particularly from North Africa and the Middle East (see Betz, 1994; Mudde & Rovira-Kaltwasser, 2012; Liang, 2016). The

6 

D. F. WAJNER AND P. GIURLANDO

clearest examples of this populist path in Europe in the early 2000s were Jean-Marie Le Pen’s Front National in France, Jörg Haider’s Freedom Party in Austria, and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia in Italy. Yet things took a deeper turn after the global debt crisis, which had its debut in the US housing market and subsequently migrated to the EU, where it encountered, and exacerbated, the structural weaknesses of the currency union (Giurlando, 2015). Syriza in Greece was the pioneer force, bringing a first experience of left-wing populism that came to power in Europe (Pappas, 2019; Stavrakakis & Katsambekis, 2014). Later, Podemos in Spain, Unsubmissive France and Front National in France, and the 5 Star Movement in Italy, all saw significant gains, in part, because of how Europe’s powerholders dealt with the crisis: the standard IMF formula, copiously applied previously in Latin America, of bailouts and austerity, which compounded the economic distress particularly for lower and working classes. Even worse was that, in cases such as Italy and Greece, these policies were implemented by technocrats portrayed as following the ‘diktats’ of Brussels, Berlin, and Frankfurt rather than the national citizens they ostensibly represented, seemingly confirming the populist refrain of an out-of-touch elite which betrays the people. In response to this, both right- and left-wing populists formed political coalitions in which one of their main foreign policy positions was to confront these transnational elites for the austerity which had impoverished many (Chryssogelos, 2017; Giurlando, 2021; Goodhart, 2017; Kioupkiolis, 2016). The Brexit crisis following the 2016 referendum on the British presence in the European Union should be also understood in this context, since Brexiters were fueled in part by the harsh treatment of Greece (Jones, 2015; Varoufakis, 2018; see also Freeden, 2016; Inglehart & Norris, 2016). Naturally, in all these cases confrontation only went so far; when faced with the realities of power or the constraints of domestic institutions, both buckled or significantly softened their demands. This observed outcome—populists’ capacity to execute a rupture in their countries’ foreign policy traditions must contend with geopolitical and institutional constraints—can also be generalized to other cases, as this edited book tries to explore and attest. In parallel to these events, the study of PFP has taken a more focused and specialized hue, with several ‘comparativists’ and ‘internationalists’ initiating more systematic attempts to examine the conduct of populist leaderships in the international arena and their potential effects. Multiple studies have illustrated and compared how populists around the world have emerged on the international stage, finding common transnational

1  INTRODUCTION TO POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY (PFP) 

7

sources and domestic patterns, such as in the volumes edited by De la Torre (2018), Stockemer (2019), and Ostiguy et  al. (2020), as well as Moffitt’s pioneering book on the communicational and performative grounds of the global rise of populism (2016). In parallel, studies have attempted to merge IR theories to several outstanding questions concerning the implications of populism for the present and future of global politics. Highlighted in this sense is the insightful edited volume of Stengel, Macdonald, and Nabers (2019), organizing the exploration of the drivers of populism through theoretical themes and some patterns across regions, as well as the special issues coordinated by Hadiz and Chryssogelos (2017) and Skonieczny and Wahlrab (2019). Particularly pioneering were also the works by Chryssogelos (2017, 2020), Drezner (2017), Grzymala-Busse (2017), Verbeek and Zaslove (2017), Plagemann and Destradi (2018), Destradi and Plagemann (2019), and Voeten (2020), questioning the scope and nature of the populist dimension on foreign policymaking while scrutinizing the links with national, regional, and global processes. The academic progress is evident in both theoretical and empirical terms. In only half a decade, IR scholars have contributed in-depth case studies and comparative analysis, thus accumulating rich empirical evidence of the foreign policy of populists in different regions, including North America (Biegon, 2019; Boucher & Thies, 2019; Drezner, 2017; Löfflmann, 2019; Krebs, 2021; Skonieczny, 2019), Western Europe (Bonansinga, 2022; Chryssogelos, 2020; De Cleen et al., 2020; Diodato & Niglia, 2018; Giurlando, 2021; Verbeek & Zaslove, 2015), Central Eastern Europe (Cadier & Szulecki, 2020; Grzymala-Busse, 2017; Grzymala-Busse et al., 2020; Jenne, 2021; Özdamar & Ceydilek, 2020; Söderbaum et  al., 2020), Southeast Asia (Arugay, 2018; Hadiz, 2018; Plagemann & Destradi, 2018; Wojczewski, 2020), the Middle East (Altinors, 2021; Özpek & Tanriverdi Yaşar, 2018; Priego, 2019; Taş, 2020), and Latin America (Colalongo & Donato, 2021; Farias et  al., 2022; De Sá Guimarães & Silva, 2021; Sagarzazu & Thies, 2019; Wajner, 2021; Wehner & Thies, 2021). This growing academic community has made valuable milestones in identifying some common foreign policy aspects of contemporary populist leadership in the different regions and developing initial theoretical links. Yet it goes without saying that the research program is still in its initial stages. For achieving scientific progress at this stage, we require a systematic comparative analysis to examine how a variety of populist governments from different regions conducted their foreign policies. In this

8 

D. F. WAJNER AND P. GIURLANDO

sense, the proposed book has the potential to combine the strengths of the existent literature while adding the novelty of a theoretical focus on foreign policy, the adoption of a regional perspective, and maximum geographic diversity in terms of the empirical cases of populism to be studied.

“Populist Foreign Policy” (PFP)? The first question connecting each of the book’s chapters deals with what distinguishes a “populist foreign policy”. This endeavor, which a priori seems descriptive, is more complex than it seems, analytically speaking. Indeed, it can be argued that by addressing PFP as a concept, we are not only seeking to examine how populist governments mold their foreign policies, but also asserting that there is a category of political analysis with value of its own. On the other hand, there is a growing consensus within the epistemic community that it is difficult to point to a unified “populist foreign policy” phenomenon, and that we should focus on identifying what explains the differences (and not just the similarities) between the foreign policies of populists. Furthermore, answering this question is not straightforward because the extant literature has approached this analytical exercise using different theoretical perspectives on both populism and foreign policy and has thus reached different conclusions. Hence, clarifying the scope of the object under study and setting a pluralistic approach to PFP is crucial to allow a ‘big tent’ that also ensures some basic coherence between the different perspectives, at least between those implemented in this edited volume. We claim that the search for a consensual theoretical ground on PFP cannot be separated from the heated debates around the understanding of the phenomenon of populism, on the one hand, and the subdiscipline of foreign policy analysis, on the other hand. In other words, since the study of PFP inherits an essentially contested concept (populism), it must also inherit, embrace, and reflect the various approaches it spawned. Indeed, political scientists have discussed for decades which is the essential feature of populism (see Rovira-Kaltwasser et al., 2017), asking if its theoretical nucleus is based on a specific type of ideology (Canovan, 1981; Stanley, 2008; Hawkins et al., 2018; Mudde, 2007), political strategy (Barr, 2018; Müller, 2017; Weyland, 2001), performative style (Moffitt, 2016), or discursive narrative (Laclau, 2005; Stavrakakis & Katsambekis, 2014). Certainly, there is also wide diversity among the theoretical approaches that stand out in foreign policy analysis, including the study of its

1  INTRODUCTION TO POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY (PFP) 

9

formulation (Goldstein & Keohane, 1993; Kaarbo, 2003; Risse, 1991), decision-making process (Levy, 1994; Mintz & DeRouen, 2010; Stein, 2008; Vertzberger, 1990), roles (Kaarbo, 2012; Thies & Breuning, 2012; Wehner & Thies, 2014), discursive practices (Barnett, 1999; Subotić, 2016; Wæver, 2002), and outcomes (Blum, 1993; Hudson & Vore, 1995; Smith, 1996). We believe that an imperative task for this research program is to relate, combine, and ultimately integrate the main theoretical approaches of each field in a way that allows the identification of multiple ‘schools’ for the study of PFP. Hence, seeking to bridge this gap, we propose five different alternatives to address the study of PFP, which result from the merging of the main theoretical approaches of populism, on the one hand, and foreign policy on the other hand. Table 1.1 summarizes the designation of the combined ‘schools’ and the theoretical focus of each. Needless to say, this analytical exercise is highly stylistic, and hence there may be overlaps between the schools or alternative combinations. We discuss below the fundamentals of each school, while trying to classify the existing knowledge about PFP according to the different schools. PFP-1: Populist Ideology and Foreign Policy Formulation This school of PFP treats populism as a kind of ideology, albeit a ‘thin’ one (so thin, sometimes, that it is called ‘ideational’). Scholars who take this approach tend to focus on the formulation of foreign policy, that is, the ideas that underlie how these leaders, parties, and movements view the preferential insertion of their countries in the international scene (see Goldstein & Keohane, 1993; Kaarbo, 2003; Risse, 1991). Given that there is a growing understanding within this scholarship that the populist core is based on the ideational construction of a permanent struggle Table 1.1  “Populist Foreign Policy” schools Populism as…

Foreign policy as… Formulation Ideology PFP-1 Strategy Style Discourse Policy

Process PFP-2

Roles

PFP-3

Practice

PFP-4

Output

PFP-5

10 

D. F. WAJNER AND P. GIURLANDO

between ‘the people’ and ‘the elites’, the main tasks of such a school lie in analyzing how populists identify the categories ‘people’ and ‘elites’ in international spheres and incorporate them into their own mindsets. Indeed, due to the widespread perception of populist leaderships as ‘nationalists’, ‘radicals’, and ‘revolutionaries’, they were initially expected to display ideological dogmatism vis-à-vis the international system and specifically toward the ‘elites’ accused of dominating it. Since anti-elitism is here considered an inherent feature of the populists’ worldview, foreign policy should be an expression of this dichotomy on the international stage (see Betz, 1994; Liang, 2016). From this point of view, PFP is ideologically based on the restoration of popular sovereignty from the hands of ‘conspiring’, ‘corrupted’ elites, who are both the historical cause and the material beneficiaries of the national crises and, therefore, they should be punished for their unpatriotic conduct (see Chryssogelos, 2017; Inglehart & Norris, 2016). As Michael Zürn shows, this contestation against transnational elites was triggered by the processes of globalization, denationalization, and executive centralization, which since the end of the Cold War increased the political authority of non-majoritarian institutions and thus caused politicization and delegitimation (Zürn, 2018: 9–13, 62–79; Schäfer & Zürn, 2021). This contestation is expressed in the populist backlash against all kinds of technocratic authorities that allegedly “fail to reflect the vox  populi”, including regional and international organizations, international non-governmental organizations, multinational companies, and the international judicial system, as best shown by the works of Voeten (2020), Copelovitch and Pevehouse (2019), and Söderbaum et al. (2020). Therefore, what characterizes PFP as an ideology is the idea of an untrustworthy establishment accused of being unrepresentative and unaccountable in its handling of power, and a populist leadership that comes to protect the ‘morally pure’ people, the wise and silent majority victim of the malevolent machinations of elites (see Casullo, 2019: 58; Müller, 2017: 19; Voeten, 2020: 407–409). ‘Take back control’, one of the messages leading the Brexit campaign, is one of the clearest expressions of this belief. However, the recent literature on PFP suggests a more complex picture, questioning the real influence of populists’ ideological dogmatism on foreign policy issues. The works of Verbeek and Zaslove (2017), Plagemann and Destradi (2018), and Destradi and Plagemann (2019) have been especially influential in this regard, arguing that the ‘thick’ (or ‘host’) ideologies tacked onto populism tend to affect the formulation of foreign

1  INTRODUCTION TO POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY (PFP) 

11

policy more. Indeed, the transnational elites who are accused of going against the popular will vary according to ‘thicker’ ideological orientations, particularly left-wing and right-wing, as is suggested in the literature on ‘inclusionary’ and ‘exclusionary’ populists within the state (see Mudde & Rovira-Kaltwasser, 2012: 14–20; Rooduijn, 2014; Stavrakakis & Katsambekis, 2014). Hence, while contemporary right-wing populists tend to backlash against international organizations such as the various UN agencies, international judicial authorities such as the International Criminal Court (“The Hague”), regional political bureaucracies such as the EU Commission (“Brussels”), and new transnational media such as CNN or Facebook, left-wing populists are more prone to focus on financial oligarchies such as Wall Street businessmen, international economic agencies such as the International Monetary Fund, regional economic bureaucracies such as the European Central Bank (“Frankfurt”), and transnational clerical institutions such as Catholic and Evangelical churches (see Boucher & Thies, 2019: 720; Chryssogelos, 2017: 1; Skonieczny, 2019: 345–355; Verbeek & Zaslove, 2017: 12–15). The identification of the transnational sectors pointed out as leaders of the global “swamp” often depends on the geopolitical context (Global South vs. Global North), and changes over time, depending on the popular pragmatic interest in each specific situation. This ‘flexibility’ raises doubts about the possibility of treating populism in ideological terms (see Stengel, 2019). PFP-2: Populist Strategy and Foreign Policy Processes This second school of thought about PFP basically addresses populism as a political strategy in the process of accumulation of power by leaders. Accordingly, this scholarship focuses on how populist governments differ in the way they decide on their foreign policy strategies and translate them into tactics (Levy, 1994; Mintz & DeRouen, 2010; Stein, 2008; Vertzberger, 1990). This school has also addressed the possible consequences of such behavioral patterns, assessing whether the strategic approach that characterizes populists’ decision-making processes has implications for different aspects of foreign and security policy, including diplomacy, military, and integration affairs. One of the most prominent features of the PFP literature is the politicization and centralization of decision-making processes in foreign policy (Destradi & Plagemann, 2019: 14–16; Wajner, 2019: 214–216; Wojczewski, 2020: 7–8). Mirroring the way “ordinary people” make their

12 

D. F. WAJNER AND P. GIURLANDO

decisions, populist leaders claim that they too should be guided by “common-­ sense” in determining the national interest in international interactions (Drezner, 2017: 30–39). This claim allows populist leaderships to incorporate their own political interests throughout the foreign policy decision-making process: setting the agenda, defining problems, evaluating policy alternatives, and selecting the best option. This growing politicization is accompanied by the centralization of the process in the hands of populists through the marginalization, undermining, and fragmentation of the traditional ‘deep state’ in the foreign and security policy apparatus, while filling key staffing positions on the basis of personal loyalty, rather than competence, experience, and pedigree. Certainly, it can be argued that these patterns are observable among non-populist leaderships as well, but contemporary populists reinforce and catalyze these foreign policy trends, turning decision-making processes under populist governments more unpredictable (see Boucher & Thies, 2019: 713; Destradi & Plagemann, 2019: 1–2; Löfflmann, 2019: 127–128; Drezner et al., 2020: 115–116). In what is probably the most elaborated analysis of the potential impact of populism on policymaking, Ronald Krebs asserts that the rise of these anti-expertise and anti-intellectual trends could undermine the ability of the states to design and execute a coherent grand strategy, since this ability requires continued legitimation, trust, and consensus among authorities at the highest echelons of the military and diplomatic corps (Krebs, 2021: 10–12). Similarly, other scholars suggest a professional environment more prone to radicalization and polarization (Biegon, 2019: 531–533; Henke & Maher, 2021: 389–395; Liang, 2016: 16–27). Scholars have also shown contemporary populist leaderships transferring these strategic paths of politicization, centralization, and polarization of foreign policy to the international level. Indeed, the populist reaffirmation of people’s ‘control’ over regional and global governance does not essentially result in opposition to these frameworks, but mainly those influenced by political opponents (Chryssogelos, 2020: 30; Verbeek & Zaslove, 2017: 7–8). Populists, therefore, have championed the attempt to politicize and centralize decision-making processes in these organizations or conversely creating or recreating alternative cooperation schemes in which they control their political agenda and institutional structure (Söderbaum et al., 2020: 10–13; Wajner & Roniger, 2022). In addition, scholars have speculated that, to support their international strategies, populists may be more willing than non-populists to interfere in foreign matters using sophisticated tactics aimed at exacerbating social tensions

1  INTRODUCTION TO POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY (PFP) 

13

(Grzymala-Busse et al., 2020: 9). It has also been claimed that populists are more likely to use threats, diversionary maneuvers, and rally-around-­ the-flag tactics (Drezner, 2017: 33–39). On the other hand, scholars have also underlined the populist willingness to ‘pay’ for audience costs in conflicts by delaying violent action and seeking more conciliatory measures, thus reducing tensions (see Arugay, 2018: 6; Destradi & Plagemann, 2019: 7–8; Drezner, 2017: 35). PFP-3: Populist Style and Foreign Policy Roles We can identify a third school on PFP, whose theoretical background lies in defining the populist phenomenon as a type of political style and, therefore, pays attention to the ways in which populist leaders carry out diplomatic practice. This approach coincides with the study of the different foreign policy roles adopted by leaders and countries; their underlying cultural, psychological, and instrumental reasons; and their political implications (see Kaarbo, 2012; Thies & Breuning, 2012; Wehner & Thies, 2014). These scholars have thus focused on the personalization of foreign policy in populist governments, the rationale behind the ‘authentic’ style of their international performances, and its potential impact. Indeed, a distinctive trait in populist diplomacy is the personalization of leadership, a new pattern among contemporary populists that mirrors their domestic behavior. In PFP, the traditional cult of the populist leader merges with a greater emphasis on public diplomacy, whereby diplomats attempt to connect directly with foreign audiences to influence public opinion, civil society, and specific political elites (Plagemann & Destradi, 2018; Wajner, 2019; Wojczewski, 2020). To some degree, all politicians have been pressured to adopt this strategy, particularly as media roles often are framed in moral tales of good and evil, which is more digestible to the masses in terms of individual personalities. But populists have other reasons, one of which is their desire to override the local and global “establishment” in the media, think tanks, and bureaucracy, which are allegedly committed to a status quo that the populists want to overturn. The use of social media is one way they have pursued this, as these channels allow them to bypass legacy media and speak directly to national and international audiences. Direct communications also allow them to influence foreign actors and audiences emotionally through a highly emphatic style, thus building a mutual bond of sacrifice with transnational followers. Hence, although personalization and public diplomacy are certainly not

14 

D. F. WAJNER AND P. GIURLANDO

limited to populism, the international performances of contemporary populist governments appear to be recreating and intensifying existing trends (see Arugay, 2018; Boucher & Thies, 2019; Löfflmann, 2019; Skonieczny, 2019; Stockemer, 2019; Wajner, 2022; Wehner & Thies, 2021). Naturally, as Benjamin Moffitt (2017: 415–477) asserts, the populist role as “performer” faces a major challenge on the international scene: engaging with his transnational ‘people’ is more difficult than with its domestic parallel. Scholars have shown that, to channel and project frustration and anger against transnational elites, populists require acting ‘authentically’ in diplomatic contacts. To do this, populist leaders do not keep the diplomatic etiquette of possessing a cool and distant demeanor. Rather, they freely show their feelings, giving carte blanche to their use of “bad manners”, including local jargon, mannerisms, and insults (Moffitt, 2016, p. 44). Daniel Drezner has examined this new diplomatic style, calling these leaders “angry populists”. In Drezner’s view (2017: 30–39), aware that deviations from political correctness have a positive resonance on their political base, populists take advantage of a reinforced portrayal as “genuine” leaders who act like “ordinary people” also in diplomatic roles. Moreover, supported by multiple propaganda tools, including dramas, scandals, and conspiracy theories, populist leaders (re)create the affective relationship of martyrdom and heroism with regional and global publics, catalyzing the sense of constant crisis and persecution along with the belief that ‘victory’ is on the horizon (Albertazzi & McDonnell, 2015: 3–5; Casullo, 2019: 58–59; Inglehart & Norris, 2016: 5; Senkman & Roniger, 2019). These manipulative tactics in times of crisis were intended not only to divert criticism of domestic governmental failures but also to reaffirm the role of populist leaders as the sole “protectors” of the people, as evidenced by the performance of several “Covid-populists” amid the recent pandemic (see Stavrakakis & Katsambekis, 2020). PFP-4: Populist Discourse and Foreign Policy Practice This school of PFP approaches populism primarily as a type of discursive articulation, regardless of the ‘logos’ of the ideas behind it, that is, without necessarily perceiving rhetoric as an expression of a coherent ideology, as in the first school presented above. In this sense, following Ernesto Laclau’s approach to populism, the notions of ‘people’ and ‘elites’ are ‘empty signifiers’, which can be used in the service of the preferred populist narrative (Laclau, 2005; see also Panizza, 2005; Stavrakakis &

1  INTRODUCTION TO POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY (PFP) 

15

Katsambekis, 2014). Scholars who engage with this approach tend to see discourse and narratives as a key practice in the implementation of foreign policy (see Barnett, 1999; Subotić, 2016; Wæver, 2002). This school thus focuses on how populist leaderships use their words on the diplomatic scene as ‘speech acts’, by shaping international political reality through their discursive practices. Indeed, scholars argue that a key feature of the populist narrative is the restoration of a just and glorious past of popular sovereignty: “Make XXX Great Again”. Central in this nationalist framing is the foreign policy dimension; the populist leaderships promise through their electoral slogans to defend the socio-economic interests of the ‘original people’ by putting them ‘first’, that is, leaving ‘foreign’ interests in the background (see Inglehart & Norris, 2016; Chryssogelos, 2017: 2). However, the nationalist and nativist frames that prevail among populist leaderships are increasingly accompanied by new frames that transcend national boundaries, incorporating new transnational imaginations. Scholars of PFP have studied why and how contemporary populist leaderships, both from the left and from the right, increasingly project the struggle between ‘the people’ and ‘the elites’ onto regional and global spheres for legitimation purposes (Wajner, 2022). The discursive projection of the main ‘empty signifiers’ of populism implies the disconnection between the ‘people’ and the ‘nation’, and consequently between popular and national political interests, which in some cases overlap and in other cases are contradictory (see De Cleen et  al., 2020; Moffitt 2017: 410–412; Zeemann, 2019: 28–40). The invocation of a “fully unified people” beyond national labels raises the importance of religious and ethnonational diasporas while facilitating the development of regional and global solidarities based on new or renewed identity constructions (see Destradi & Plagemann, 2019: 6; McDonnell & Werner, 2020: 197–230; Wojczewski, 2020: 12; Wajner & Roniger, 2022). These transnational narratives of solidarities have also been influential in promoting political activism across borders, while helping to fuel transnational networks of patronage, interactive communications, and mass mobilization in times of crisis, thereby bypassing national and international intermediaries (see Boucher & Thies, 2019: 713–714; Grzymala-Busse et  al., 2020: 9–11; Moffitt, 2016: 74–81; Verbeek & Zaslove, 2017: 12–14). The discursive approach to PFP has also been active in addressing the flipside of the projection of ‘the people’ on the international scene: the alienation of ‘foreign’ populations. Indeed, contemporary populist leaderships show a growing tendency to antagonize a transnational ‘Other’ by

16 

D. F. WAJNER AND P. GIURLANDO

securitizing the presence of vulnerable foreign groups such as ethnic minorities, asylum-seekers, and guest-workers (Homolar & Löfflmann, 2021; Wojczewski, 2020: 415–421). This is accompanied by rhetorical criticism of ‘globalist’ bureaucrats within their countries, who show ‘too tolerant’ attitudes toward the rights of Others and thus allegedly betrayed the People’s will, as particularly evident in right-wing populist parties such as Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (PiS, Law and Justice) in Poland, Fidesz in Hungary, UK Independence Party (UKIP) in the UK, and One Nation in Australia (Chryssogelos, 2017: 31–33; Destradi & Plagemann, 2019: 3; Moffitt, 2016; Verbeek & Zaslove, 2015: 15–17). In countries where populism is a longstanding phenomenon, such as Latin America or South-­ European countries such as Greece or Italy, signaling out external irresponsible elites is particularly evident (see Diodato & Niglia, 2018: 42–43; Hadiz & Chryssogelos, 2017: 408; Giurlando, 2021). Populist governments implement multiple blaming practices, targeting these ‘cosmopolitan’ elites by accusing them of being unpatriotic at best and traitors at worst. The populist backlash is expressed through an anti-system discourse against the political and the judicial system; these, as defenders of a ‘liberal’, ‘multicultural’, ‘secular’, ‘postmodern’ order, are accused of deploying technocratic language to justify the role of global governance agencies, the need for supranational delegation to solve collective action problems, and the defense of “universal values” such as equality, human rights, and the rule of law (Boucher & Thies, 2019: 714, 720; Voeten, 2020: 407–409; Wojczewski, 2020: 9–12). Populists look at these institutions but see something very different: asymmetrical power relations, actors engaging in national interest maximization, exploitation, and coercion, all promoted by elites in the hegemonic powers (Germany for some, the US for others), their local lackeys (often mainstream parties and judges), and rootless technocrats working in international organizations. Similar discursive patterns are also evident in the populist offensive against the “conspiring” and “distorting” international media (Drezner, 2017: 27–33; Moffitt, 2016: 41–45; Sagarzazu & Thies, 2019: 205) and against like-­ minded academics and experts by employing anti-science rhetoric (Szabados, 2019; Pevehouse, 2020). PFP-5: Populist Policy and Foreign Policy Output Last, but not least, we can identify a school of PFP which looks at the populist essence from the prism of the policies they implement. They thus

1  INTRODUCTION TO POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY (PFP) 

17

adopt an approach to foreign policy that mainly focuses on questioning the type of output that leaderships achieve from their foreign policies (see Blum, 1993; Hudson & Vore, 1995; Smith, 1996). In a sense, this school builds on the traditional populist claim that they primarily pretend to rescue their countries and regions from their ‘unfair’ conditions, suffering from inequality and double standards. These scholars also address whether the policies of populist governments follow a more ‘effective’, ‘just’, ‘revisionist’ policy at different levels (bilateral and multilateral) and issue-areas (including trade, finance, environment, integration, security, and human rights). This type of approach can be particularly distinguished in studies on the role of populist impact in international trade and cooperation (see Skonieczny, 2019; Verbeek & Zaslove, 2015). Populist leaderships were originally identified as adopting unilateral, protectionist policies toward the commercial and financial international systems that did not produce the best outcomes for the people’s interests and allegedly caused the decline of national sovereignty (see Hughes, 1975; Mead, 2011). The populist ‘assertiveness’ and ‘muscularity’ are expected to achieve ‘better deals’ in bilateral agreements or multilateral regimes, particularly in those that govern or regulate the provision of goods and services and have become inherently transnational, such as trade, investments, environment, and health (Boucher & Thies, 2019: 714–20; Chryssogelos, 2017: 2–6; Jenne & Mudde, 2012: 147–155; Milner, 2019; Verbeek & Zaslove, 2017: 6–7). Interestingly, populist leaders from both left and right, South and North, can find common ground here, for example in the Americas, by taking strong revisionist approaches against Wall Street businessmen, the International Monetary Fund, Free Trade Agreements, and the World Trade Organization, although with no substantial policy impact (see Inglehart & Norris, 2016: 5; Sagarzazu & Thies, 2019: 205; Skonieczny, 2019: 345–55). This consensus is also evident in Europe, where criticism of the socio-economic effects of the Eurozone crises has been a key catalyzer for both left-wing populist parties, such as Greece’s Syriza or Spain’s Podemos in Spain, and right-wing populist parties, such as Italy’s Lega and Spain’s Vox, albeit with limited practical changes (see Diodato & Niglia, 2018; Kioupkiolis, 2016; Stavrakakis & Katsambekis, 2014). A more complex picture than expected can also be identified with respect to the study of populist effects on regional integration (see Söderbaum et al., 2020; Wajner, 2021). Scholars have shown how contemporary populist

18 

D. F. WAJNER AND P. GIURLANDO

leaderships, regardless of the previous expectations in terms of ideology and rhetoric, have adopted diverse integration policies, while creating and recreating new institutional frameworks to enhance regional ties and transnational solidarities. Particularly paradigmatic in this sense was Chavismo’s foreign policy, which exploited the national resources of Venezuela to finance numerous regional programs with social purposes, claiming an ‘altruistic’ regional sharing of national revenues (Wajner & Roniger, 2019). Naturally, some of the expected effects of the populist establishment of their own “clubs” were symbolic: their international cooperation “a la carte” was primarily aimed at spreading populists’ performative portrayal as “primus inter pares” (Söderbaum et  al., 2020: 10–13; see also Drezner, 2017: 28–35; Moffitt, 2016: 7–8). In a similar vein, authors have questioned the effectiveness of populist policies in terms of international security affairs. Here too, populist governments have championed in their unilateral search for ‘better deals’, what could be read as a display of geopolitical ‘revisionism’, but have not always achieved such results (see Biegon, 2019: 531–33; Henke & Maher, 2021: 389–395; Jenne, 2021: 329–332; Stengel et al., 2019: 366–368). Certainly, populists around the world have advocated a preference for closer ties with China and Russia, as well as with less powerful soft-­ balancing powers, as part of the preceding shifts in the global distribution of power. Populists in Venezuela, Hungary, Egypt, Turkey, and Philippines, for example, pursued working toward multipolarity and privileging ties with alternative global powers long before some Western leaders hinted that it might be advisable to pivot Europe’s foreign relation in that direction (see Destradi & Plagemann, 2019: 1–2). We can see some of these unique features among populists in Southern Europe, and particularly in Italy: in their short period in power, they made a conscious effort to deepen ties with China (and to a lesser extent, Russia), despite the protests in Washington, Berlin, Paris, and Brussels (Giurlando, 2021). This populist preference may have a normative character: a conscious attempt to weaken their ‘globalist’ enemy, who fights for the preservation of the Liberal International Order (LIO).

Under Which Conditions Does Populist Foreign Policy Matter? The above indicates that PFP—whether as an ideology, strategy, style, discourse, or policy—has distinct traits that flow from its distinctive conception of domestic and international politics as the struggle between the

1  INTRODUCTION TO POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY (PFP) 

19

‘people’ and the ‘elites’. This renders PFP an autonomous analytical category which can aid in theory construction and measurement for understanding and explaining international phenomena. However, like other social science categories, its operationalization is often conditional on structural and contextual factors, including power structures, domestic particularities, ideological underpinnings, and policy domains. This brings us to the second major research question which connects the chapters to follow: what are the domestic and international factors which enable and constrain PFP? (Multipolar) Power Structures Realist research on foreign policy analysis has historically taught us that a country’s foreign policy depends not only on the characteristics of its leadership but, in the first place, on the structural variables that constrain the country’s menu of options in its international interactions (see Alden & Amnon, 2016: 82–100; Breuning, 2007: 141–162). From this perspective, it follows that systemic factors, such as the material distribution of military power, geopolitical pressures, and economic capabilities, affect the way populist leaderships formulate, plan, and implement their foreign policies (Giurlando, 2021, Destradi & Plagemann, 2019, Krieger, 2019). Populists’ approach to the world’s current global hegemon, the US, tends to be strongly conditioned by these power structures. Indeed, populists’ criticism of or support for ‘Washington DC’, ‘Wall Street’, and the ‘Pax Americana’ more broadly is often affected by the countries’ systemic position in the military, strategic, and economic order, regardless of whether their leaderships are considered as populists. In the Global South, for example, populist leaders have generally been more critical of US-led institutional establishments than populists from the Global North, or at least more aggressive in their criticism and subsequent policymaking (Dodson & Dorraj, 2008; Sagarzazu & Thies, 2019). The case of Trump’s PFP is special because, this time, the backlash against the institutions of the international order originated from the same global hegemon that designed such international institutions, an apparent internal contradiction in realist terms: why would a hegemon criticize the institutions that it previously designed to serve its own political interests? In a way, the stances of contemporary populist leaderships to/from regional powers like Germany in Europe and, to a lesser extent, France and Great Britain fall into similar discussions (see Pappas & Aslandis, 2015; Mammone, 2009; Kane & McCulloch, 2017).

20 

D. F. WAJNER AND P. GIURLANDO

The influence of power structures not only conditions PFP toward global and regional powers with status quo approaches toward the international order, but also toward/from contending global powers such as Russia and China. Indeed, another remarkable characteristic of contemporary populist leaderships of all kinds seems to be their preference for closer ties with Russia and China, which preceded shifts in the global distribution of power. In Venezuela, for example, a paradigmatic populist leader like Hugo Chávez pursued the strategy of soft balancing by working toward multipolarity long before Angela Merkel hinted that it might be advisable to pivot Europe’s foreign relation in that direction (Dodson & Dorraj, 2008; Wajner & Roniger, 2019). Certainly, for populists, this preference may be normative in character, since they may prefer to portray their enemies as part of a rapacious, corrupt, and exploitative global elite, which advocates the preservation of an unjust Liberal International Order (LIO) (see Börzel & Zürn, 2021; Lake et al., 2021). But material interests also cut through historical legacies and regional dynamics, and closer ties with Russia and China also serve as a conscious attempt to weaken opponents historically seen as predatory enemies (Futak-Cambell & Schweiter, 2019; Giurlando, 2021). Interestingly, we can see some of these unique features, albeit in a softer form, also among populists in countries well established in the Global North in general and in Europe in particular, such as Italy, Spain, France, and Greece, making a conscious strategic effort to deepen ties with China (and to a lesser extent, Russia) despite protestations from Washington, Berlin, Paris, and Brussels (Bonansinga, 2022; Coticchia & Vignoli, 2020; Feroci, 2019; Diodato & Niglia, 2018; Giurlando, 2021). This pattern can be seen in several of the chapters to follow, particularly in the chapter focusing on PFP in the Middle East, in which Turkey’s Erdoğan, and even Egypt’s Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, all pursued, to varying degrees, privileged ties with Russia and China. A similar pattern can be observed in the chapter of PFP in Latin America, as shown by contemporary left-wing populists such as Venezuela’s Chavismo-Madurismo, Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega and Bolivia’s Evo Morales, but also now in right-wing populist leaderships of Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro and El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele. The material influence on closer ties with China and Russia also appears in the analysis of PFP in Southern Europe, highlighting how this Mediterranean area has, to various degrees, pursued this strategy under the pressure of their creditors during the acute phase of the Eurozone crisis. That said, as seen

1  INTRODUCTION TO POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY (PFP) 

21

above, historical legacies and regional dynamics play a significant role in how multipolarity and China’s and Russia’s role in it are interpreted. As shown in the chapters on Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe, India’s rivalry with China and Hungary’s and Poland’s previous experiences of being dominated by Moscow put pressure on them to pursue varied strategies toward both autonomy and support in the international system. Thus, even if populists, to varying degrees, tend to oppose the institutions and actors that represent a globalist or regionalist establishment, this core ideational principle can often be overridden by longstanding geopolitical rivalries or alliances that precede the rise of populism in their countries and will presumably outlast it. Domestic Variables Unlike neorealist understandings of foreign policy, both liberal and neoclassical realist approaches are used to emphasize the role of internal variables, such as the type of government regimes and electoral systems, the characteristics of political parties, as well as the attitudes of public opinion and political and economic elites (Alden & Amnon, 2016: 62–81; Breuning, 2007: 115–140; Fearon, 1998; Kaarbo, 2015; Risse, 1991). These academic schools tend to argue that foreign policy decision-making processes are a kind of “black box” that must be opened to better understand the policy outcomes of different leaderships, including populists. From this perspective, the aforementioned PFP features are constrained by the type of regime ruling within the country and the region. Indeed, we know from previous research that populist ideas, discourses, styles, and strategies appear in different grades of the democracy-­ authoritarianism axis, and such grade can affect the scope of populist phenomena (see Hawkins et  al., 2019; Levitsky & Ziblatt, 2018; Norris, 2020; Rooduijn et al., 2019; Schäfer & Zürn, 2021). In regions such as the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Latin America, countries have frequently experienced authoritarian paths and, in most cases, the illiberal trends persist there, influencing foreign policy. Among these regimes, the cases of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, Vladimir Putin in Russia, and Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey stand out. The tools used by these radical cases of authoritarian populists are often different from those used by non-authoritarian or moderately authoritarian populists, who are less willing to use illiberal repression and thus need to resort to ‘softer’ tools of legitimation and delegitimation: PFP is thus used as a form of ‘way out’ (Wajner, 2022).

22 

D. F. WAJNER AND P. GIURLANDO

Electoral systems also affect how populist features translate politically within their country, while constraining foreign policy structures and decision-­making. Populist leaderships can appear in both presidential and parliamentarian systems; however, in the latter, the constant need to maintain a political coalition and assert the mandate tends to stimulate a more pragmatic policymaking based on check and balances (see Levitsky & Loxton, 2013; Pappas, 2019; Weyland & Madrid, 2019). Although there have been fewer studies focusing on such dynamics and foreign policy, there are empirical grounds for this ‘containment’ of populist patterns, as expressed by recent cases of Greece, Britain, Spain, Italy, and Israel. Furthermore, electoral systems do not stop at the presidential versus parliamentary divide. For instance, populism experienced spectacular successes in Britain and the US in 2016, largely due to the winner-take-all character of the ‘First Past the Post’ electoral system which is used in many Anglo-Saxon countries. In the US, Donald Trump had to capture the reins of power in an established party and, in the process, he transformed it into a vehicle for his own brand of mercantilism. In a country with a more proportional voting system and/or a multi-party system, Trump would probably have had to create his own party to challenge the established ones in a multiplicity of places, which would have rendered his project much more arduous. A similar dynamic was also observable in the UK, where the Conservative Party of David Cameron and Theresa May was overtaken by Boris Johnson, who proceeded to transform it into a vehicle of a hard Brexit. In both cases, the capacity to take advantage of the particularities of electoral systems and capture established parties allowed them later to more fully execute their populist preferences, including in the realm of foreign policy. There are multiple examples of populists who needed to create new parties to challenge the establishment. This constraint arguably represents a formidable, but not insurmountable, barrier. Often, this pressures them to work with more established parties, creating a need for compromise, as shown in Spain, when Podemos entered the coalition government with the Socialist Party and this forced the former to significantly water down its proposals, first and foremost in terms of international economy and regional integration. In other cases in Southern Europe, such as Italy and Greece, populist parties were constrained by both political coalitions and domestic institutions, limiting their attempts to aggressively confront Brussels’ austerity reforms (see Giurlando, 2021; Chryssogelos, 2020). Indeed, in countries where foreign and security communities are dominated by technocrats, institutional constraints often affect the populist

1  INTRODUCTION TO POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY (PFP) 

23

definition of national interest and limit unpredictability in decision-­making processes that often characterize populist governments (see Biegon, 2019; Löfflmann, 2019; Krebs, 2021). All the regions under discussion, in varying ways and subject to diverse constraints, have displayed some constraints of PFP by national institutions. That said, in regions where such internal check and balances are less strong, such as Southeast Asia, Africa, the Middle East (excluding Israel), and Latin America, the populist impact on foreign policy orientations was more likely to be felt. Naturally, populist performative patterns in the international scene are also affected by the specific characteristics of these political parties in terms of their foundations and composition. In both established and new parties, populists are extremely attentive to domestic pressures of public opinion and media bodies, from the more consistent, activated, and mobilized grassroots groups, as well from the different political and economic elites functional to electoral politics (see Canovan, 2002; De Vreese et al., 2018; Jagers & Walgrave, 2007; Moffitt, 2016; Roberts, 2006). Although the impact of domestic forces on foreign policy varies across regions, in places that identify the populist ‘people’ or ‘elites’ as transnational, the role of the populist style, discourse, and policies might be even more important. Indeed, extent work has shown the importance of transnational identities in predicting populist patterns in foreign policy (see Homolar & Löfflmann, 2021; Jenne, 2021; Wajner & Roniger, 2022; Wojczewski, 2020). The chapters to follow will display multiple examples of populist governments being constrained by these domestic features which, in varying degrees, limit the ability to execute the declared revolutionary rupture in the international political arena. Ideological Factors Foreign policy is usually conditioned by the ideological orientations of political leaders (see Breuning, 2007: 53–84; Checkel, 1993; Goldstein & Keohane, 1993). Among these ideological differences, the division between left and right prevails, also understood in terms of progressivism versus conservatism, or socialism versus liberalism. Indeed, a consensus among researchers of PFP lies in the identification of differences between left-wing and right-wing populists in the realm of foreign policy, which, as mentioned above, risks turning populism into epiphenomenal. Since populists of the left and the right are generally found at the extreme ends of the political spectrum, they are often perceived as incompatible on some

24 

D. F. WAJNER AND P. GIURLANDO

of the fundamental questions in the realm of foreign affairs and are therefore expected to advocate for very different orientations. That said, other evidence paints a more nuanced picture. First, both left- and right-wing contemporary populists are generally motivated by the demand for national sovereignty and the restoration of a glorious past, while tending to reach out to potential ideological allies in different countries (see De Cleen et al., 2020; Söderbaum et al., 2020; Wajner, 2022). Also, in both cases, there is a conception of a predatory transnational elite oppressing the people, made up of a corrupt domestic establishment that has betrayed the country, along with external stakeholders in international finance and trade and like-minded regional and global governance bureaucrats. Certainly, there are important differences in style and rhetoric between populists on the right and on the left; nevertheless, on some of the fundamental questions on the international order and its core institutions, they do not differ substantially. For example, both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders backlashed against the ‘globalists’ management of national borders: while the former accused the cosmopolitan ‘blob’ of deliberately allowing immigrants in, the latter suggested that ‘open borders’ were a policy inspired by the Koch brothers to benefit domestic capitalists. Although they were motivated by different factors, the practical implications of their positions were similar, namely, to restrict immigration (and gain support from it). Similarly, Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters hold similar pro-Brexit stances to those of UKIP and the Conservatives, regardless of their different underlying preferences toward economic and migratory policies emanating from Frankfurt and Brussels. In Greece, Italy, and Spain, right-wing and left-wing populists were frequently united by a shared interpretation of their countries’ relationship with other populist actors like Putin’s Russia, particular transnational creditors, and EU policymakers. Particularly notable was in Latin America, the cooperation in the early years of Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, a left-wing populist leader, with Peru’s Alberto Fujimori, a right-wing populist leader. In all these examples, populists managed to set aside some of their declared ideological differences to unite against foreign actors who, with the complicity of local elites, had allegedly caused painful damage to their countries. These shared understandings, despite being on opposite sides of the standard ideological spectrum, suggest the possibility of an underlying populist thick ideology. Helpful in unraveling this complexity is the work of Goodhart (2017) who highlights that there is a structural basis for the distinction between the “people” and the “elite”, even though populist

1  INTRODUCTION TO POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY (PFP) 

25

discourse rarely takes into account these messy nuances. This suggests that, in some contexts at least, populism, like other thick ideologies, possesses sociologically structural foundations, providing deeper grounds for political action, including the identification of costs and benefits for their respective social constituencies. This edited volume will, among other purposes, weigh the evidence for the relationship of PFP and thick ideologies. Foreign policy represents a unique standpoint from which to approach this question: whether populist governments pursue foreign policies consistent with an underlying thick ideology like liberalism, socialism, or conservativism, or, conversely, foreign policies that stem from deeper social roots which influence distinctive interpretations of international relations. Variations of these trends will be seen in the chapters to follow, since one of the purposes of presenting populism in different regions of the world is to distill similarities among left- and right-wing populists who share both geographic location and an ideological affinity. This examination can provide evidence of a specific core among populists in different parts of the world, strengthening the identification of PFP as an autonomous analytical category. Policy Domains Last, but not least, PFP are expected to vary depending on the type of policy domain in question, including international trade and finance, international security, regional integration, and climate change, among others. Indeed, there is vast understanding that leaderships address the processes of foreign policy formulation, and planning differently, according to the classification of the topics, including through the old-fashioned definition of “high” or “low” politics (Kegley, 2007: 165, 369). In this sense, like all political parties, populists must establish a hierarchy of priorities, which inevitably derive from their social base, the relative distribution of power in the state organs, the unresolved social and distributional conflicts of their societies, and historical legacies of tensions or disputes with contiguous states or other regional actors. This diversification of policies creates a very complex picture when comparing populist priorities in different parts of the world. For example, of all the populists discussed in this volume, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi is perhaps the only one who has invested political and economic capital to help combat climate change. Conversely, some populist leaders, like Brazilian Jair Messias Bolsonaro, made opposition to this

26 

D. F. WAJNER AND P. GIURLANDO

subject an intrinsic part of their PFP against hypocritical, double-­standard ‘globalists’. Elsewhere, like Eastern Europe, populists did not take a strong stance on these issues and focus almost exclusively on what they perceive as threats to their identity emanating from Brussels, in particular the promotion of refugee settlements and multiculturalism. Yet there were also examples of parties in the middle of these two extremes: the Five Star Movement, for example, stands out for its rhetorical promotion of green and sustainable energy, although when it was in a populist coalition government, its priority was fighting austerity policies presumably emanating from foreign capitals. There are also populist leaderships of states, such as Venezuela and Iran, that are highly dependent on oil revenues, and this makes their governments particularly interested in cooperative policies on issues related to fossil fuels. Lastly, there are examples of populists, like Trump, who are ideologically opposed to attempts to limit the use of fossil fuels. A similar inconsistency can be found in the way populists reacted to COVID-19 crisis (see Farias et al., 2022; Pevehouse, 2020; Stavrakakis & Katsambekis, 2020). In other issue-areas, however, such as international security and international trade and finance, we can expect more consistent PFPs across regions. For example, populists of the left and the right opposed many of the US-led regime change policies, particularly in Libya and Syria, promoted and/or executed by mainstream parties and their domestic allies. This reflects their emphasis on sovereignty, non-intervention, and suspicion of the international liberal order. Likewise, populist leaderships, regardless of their ideological family, tend to discursively oppose free trade and international finance and are suspicious of international organizations, particularly when it involves transfers of sovereignty to supranational bureaucracies which are perceived as agents of globalism and cosmopolitanism (Milner, 2019; Rodrik, 2018; Skonieczny, 2019). Similarly consistent has been populists’ behavior toward international courts (see Voeten, 2020). Meanwhile, the question of regional integration is particularly complex because populists have not always opposed the kind of regionalist schemes that frustrate and balance their enemies in the international system. As we will see in the chapter on Latin America, emblematic in this sense was Venezuela’s Chavismo-Madurismo and its regional allies, who have promoted new and renewed regional organizations inspired by a transnational, all-­encompassing identity narrative that opposes Washington’s interests in the region (see Wajner & Roniger, 2019). In a similar vein, right-wing populists in Europe have banded together to challenge the technocratic and multiculturalist

1  INTRODUCTION TO POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY (PFP) 

27

ideas of their rivals and promote a Europe based on civilizational principles that place the defense and promotion of their Christian civilizational legacy at the center of their regional agenda. This points to their often-­ contradictory character of PFP: on the one hand, populists can work to delegitimize and weaken regional frameworks, while on the other hand, they could work to transform and even strengthen regional integration.

References Albertazzi, D., & McDonnell, D. (2015). Populists in Power. Routledge. Alden, C., & Amnon, A. (2016). Foreign Policy Analysis. Routledge. Altinors, G. (2021). Rethinking Populism Geopolitically: Authoritarian Populism and Migration Politics in Britain and Turkey. BSEU-Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi, 6(2), 297–308. Arugay, A. (2018). When Populist Perform Foreign Policy: Duterte and the Asia-­ Pacific Region Order. SWP Working Papers 4(1), October. https://www.swp-­ berlin.org/fileadmin/contents/products/projekt_papiere/Ar ugay_ BCAS_Philippines.pdf Axelrod, R. (1967). The Structure of Public Opinion on Policy Ossues. Public Opinion Quarterly, 31(1), 51–60. Barnett, M. (1999). Culture, Strategy and Foreign Policy Change: Israel’s Road to Oslo. European Journal of International Relations, 5(1), 5–36. Barr, R.  R. (2018). Populism as a Political Strategy. In C. de La Torre (Ed.), Routledge Handbook of Global Populism (pp. 44–56). Routledge. Betz, H. G. (1994). Radical Right-Wing Populism in Western Europe. Springer. Biegon, R. (2019). A Populist Grand Strategy? Trump and the Framing of American Decline. International Relations, 33(4), 517–539. Blum, D. W. (1993). The Soviet Foreign Policy Belief System: Beliefs, Politics, and Foreign Policy Outcomes. International Studies Quarterly, 37(4), 373–394. Bonansinga, D. (2022). ‘A threat to us’: The Interplay of Insecurity and Enmity Narratives in Left-wing POPULISM. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 24(3), 511–525. Börzel, T.  A., & Zürn, M. (2021). Contestations of the Liberal International Order: From Liberal Multilateralism to Postnational Liberalism. International Organization, 75(2), 282–305. Boucher, J.-C., & Thies, C.  G. (2019). “I Am a Tariff Man”: The Power of Populist Foreign Policy Rhetoric Under President Trump. Journal of Politics, 81(2), 712–722. Breuning, M. (2007). Foreign Policy Analysis: A Comparative Introduction. Palgrave Macmillan.

28 

D. F. WAJNER AND P. GIURLANDO

Busher, J., Philip, G., & Gavin, S. (2018). Introduction: The Emotional Dynamics of Backlash Politics Beyond Anger, Hate, Fear, Pride, and Loss. Humanity and Society, 42(4), 399–409. Cadier, D., & Szulecki, K. (2020). Populism, Historical Discourse and Foreign Policy: The Case of Poland’s Law and Justice Government. International Politics, 57(6), 990–1011. Canovan, M. (1981). Populism. Houghton. Canovan, M. (2002). Taking Politics to the People: Populism as the Ideology of Democracy. Palgrave Macmillan. Casullo, M. (2019). How to Become a Leader: Identifying Global Repertoires for Populist Leadership. In Populism and World Politics (pp.  55–72). Palgrave Macmillan. Checkel, J. (1993). Ideas, Institutions, and the Gorbachev Foreign Policy Revolution. World Politics, 45(2), 271–300. Chryssogelos, A. (2017). Populism in Foreign Policy. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics, 17 July. https://doi.org/10.1093/ acrefore/9780190228637.013.467 Chryssogelos, A. (2020). State Transformation and Populism: From the Internationalized to the Neo-sovereign State? Politics, 40(1), 22–37. Colalongo, R., & Donato, S. (2021). Populist Left-wing Foreign Policy: The Case of Kirchnerism in Argentina. Cultura Latinoamericana, 34(2), 24–47. Copelovitch, M., & Pevehouse, J.  C. (2019). International Organizations in a New Era of Populist Nationalism. The Review of International Organizations, 14, 169–186. Coticchia, F., & Vignoli, V. (2020). Populist Parties and Foreign Policy: The Case of Italy’s Five Star Movement. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 22(3), 1–16. De Cleen, B., Moffitt, B., Panayotu, P., & Stavrakakis, Y. (2020). The Potentials and Difficulties of Transnational Populism: The Case of the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25). Political Studies, 68(1), 146–166. De la Torre, C. (Ed.). (2018). Routledge Handbook of Global Populism. Routledge. De Sá Guimarães, F., & Silva, I. D. O. E. (2021). Far-right Populism and Foreign Policy Identity: Jair Bolsonaro’s Ultra-conservatism and the New Politics of Alignment. International Affairs, 97(2), 345–363. De Vreese, C. H., Esser, F., Stanyer, J., Reinemann, C., & Aalberg, T. (2018). Populism as an Expression of Political Communication Content and Style: A New Perspective. International Journal of Press/Politics, 23(4), 423–438. Destradi, S., & Plagemann, J. (2019). Populism and International Relations: (Un) predictability, Personalisation, and the Reinforcement of Existing Trends in World Politics. Review of International Studies, 45(5), 711–730. Diodato, E., & Niglia, F. (2018). Berlusconi ‘The Diplomat’: Populism and Foreign Policy in Italy. Springer.

1  INTRODUCTION TO POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY (PFP) 

29

Dodson, M., & Dorraj, M. (2008). Populism and Foreign Policy in Venezuela and Iran. Whitehead Journal of Diplomacy & International Relations, 9(1), 71–88. Drezner, D. W. (2017). The Angry Populist as Foreign Policy Leader: Real Change or Just Hot Air. Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, 41(1), 23–44. Drezner, D. W., Krebs, R. R., & Schweller, R. (2020). The End of Grand Strategy: America Must Think Small. Foreign Affairs, 99, 107–117. Eatwell, R., & Goodwin, M. (2019). Nacional-Populismo. La Revolta Contra a Democracia Liberal. Diagonal. Farias, D. B., Leal, G. C., & Magalhães, D. (2022). Radical Right Populism and the Politics of Cruelty: The Case of COVID-19  in Brazil Under President Bolsonaro. Global Studies Quarterly, 2(2), 1–13. Fearon, J.  D. (1998). Domestic Politics, Foreign Policy, and Theories of International Relations. Annual Review of Political Science, 1(1), 289–313. Feroci, F. (2019). La Politica Estera del Governo Giallo-Verde. Istituto Affari Internazionali. https://www.iai.it/it/pubblicazioni/la-­politica-­estera-­del-­ governo-­giallo-­verde Freeden, M. (2016). After the Brexit Referendum: Revisiting Populism as an Ideology. Journal of Political Ideologies, 22(1), 1–11. Futak-Cambell, B., & Schweiter, C. (2019). Practising Populism: How Right-­ wing Populists Negotiate Political Competence. Journal of Common Market Studies, 58(3), 1–19. Giurlando, P. (2015). Eurozone Politics: Perception and Reality in Italy, Britain, and Germany. Routledge. Giurlando, P. (2021). Populist Foreign Policy: The Case of Italy. Canadian Foreign Policy Journal, 27(2), 251–267. Goldstein, J., & Keohane, R. O. (Eds.). (1993). Ideas and Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions, and Political Change. Cornell University Press. Goodhart, D. (2017). The Road to Somewhere: The Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics. Oxford University Press. Grzymala-Busse, A., Fukuyama, F., Kuo, D., & McFaul, M. (2020). Global Populisms and Their Challenges. Global Populisms Cluster, Stanford University, March. https://stanford.app.box.com/s/0afiu4963qjy4gicahz2ji5x27tednaf Grzymala-Busse, A. (2017). Global Populisms and Their Impact. Slavic Review, 76(S1), S3–S8. Hadiz, V.  R., & Chryssogelos, A. (2017). Populism in World Politics: A Comparative Cross-Regional Perspective. International Political Science Review, 38(4), 399–411. Hadiz, V.  R. (2018). Imagine All the People? Mobilising Islamic Populism for Right-Wing Politics in Indonesia. Journal of Contemporary Asia, 48(4), 566–583. Hawkins, K. A., Aguilar, R., Silva, B. C., Jenne, E. K., Kocijan, B., & Kaltwasser, C. R. (2019). Measuring Populist Discourse: The Global Populism Database [Dataset]. Team Populism. https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/LFTQEZ

30 

D. F. WAJNER AND P. GIURLANDO

Hawkins, K. A., Carlin, R. E., Littvay, L., & Rovira-Kaltwasser, C. (Eds.). (2018). The Ideational Approach to Populism: Concept, Theory, and Analysis. Routledge. Henke, M., & Maher, R. (2021). The Populist Challenge to European Defense. Journal of European Public Policy, 28(3), 389–406. Holsti, O., & Rosenau, J. (1996). Liberals, Populists, Libertarians, and Conservatives: The Link Between Domestic and International Affairs. International Political Science Review, 17(1), 29–54. Homolar, A., & Löfflmann, G. (2021). Populism and the Affective Politics of Humiliation Narratives. Global Studies Quarterly. Hudson, V. M., & Vore, C. S. (1995). Foreign Policy Analysis Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow. Mershon International Studies Review, 39(2), 209–238. Hughes, T. (1975). Liberals, Populists, and Foreign Policy. Foreign Policy, 20(1), 98–137. Ikenberry, G. J. (2018). The End of Liberal International Order? International Affairs, 94(1), 7–23. Inglehart, R.  F., & Norris, P. (2016). Trump, Brexit, and the Rise of Populism: Economic Have-nots and Cultural Backlash. HKS Working Paper RWP16-026, 29 July. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2818659 Jagers, J., & Walgrave, S. (2007). Populism as Political Communication Style: An Empirical Study of Political Parties’ Discourse in Belgium. European Journal of Political Research, 46(3), 319–345. Jenne, E.  K. (2021). Populism, Nationalism and Revisionist Foreign Policy. International Affairs, 97(2), 323–343. Jenne, E.  K., & Mudde, C. (2012). Hungary’s Illiberal Turn: Can Outsiders Help? Journal of Democracy, 23(3), 147–155. Jones, O. (2015). The Left Must Put Britain’s EU Withdrawal on the Agenda. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/14/ left-­reject-­eu-­greece-­eurosceptic Judis, J. B. (2016). The Populist Explosion. Columbia Global Reports. https:// globalreports.columbia.edu/books/the-­populist-­explosion/ Kaarbo, J. (2003). Foreign Policy Analysis in the Twenty-First Century: Back to Comparison, Forward to Identity and Ideas. International Studies Review, 5(2), 156–163. Kaarbo, J. (2012). Coalition Politics and Cabinet Decision Making: A Comparative Analysis of Foreign Policy Choices. University of Michigan Press. Kaarbo, J. (2015). A Foreign Policy Analysis Perspective on the Domestic Politics Turn in IR Theory. International Studies Review, 17(2), 189–216. Kane, C., & McCulloch, C. (2017). Populism and Foreign Policy: Deepening Divisions and Decreasing Efficiency. Global Politics Review, 3(2), 39–52. Kegley, C.  W. (2007). World Politics: Trend and Transformation. Wadsworth Publishing.

1  INTRODUCTION TO POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY (PFP) 

31

Kioupkiolis, A. (2016). Podemos: The Ambiguous Promises of Left-wing Populism in Contemporary Spain. Journal of Political Ideologies, 21(2), 99–120. Krebs, R. R. (2021). Pluralism, Populism, and the Impossibility of Grand Strategy. In T. Balzacq & R. R. Krebs (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Grand Strategy (pp. 673–698). Oxford University Press. Krieger, H. (2019). Populist governments and international law. The European Journal of International Law, 30(3), 971–996. Laclau, E. (2005). On Populist Reason. Verso. Lake, D. A., Martin, L. L., & Risse, T. (2021). Challenges to the Liberal Order: Reflections on iInternational Organization. International Organization, 75(2), 225–257. Levitsky, S., & Ziblatt, D. (2018). How Democracies Die. Broadway Books. Levitsky, S., & Loxton, J. (2013). Populism and Competitive Authoritarianism in the Andes. Democratization, 20(1), 107–136. Levy, J. S. (1994). Learning and Foreign Policy: Sweeping a Conceptual Minefield. International Organization, 48(2), 279–312. Liang, C.  S. (Ed.). (2016). Europe for the Europeans: The Foreign and Security Policy of the Populist Radical Right. Routledge. Löfflmann, G. (2019). America First and the Populist Impact on US Foreign Policy. Survival, 61(6), 115–138. Mammone, A. (2009). The Eternal Return? Faux Populism and Contemporarization of NeoFascism Across Britain, France and Italy. Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 17, 171–192. McDonnell, D., & Werner, A. (2020). International Populism: The Radical Right in the European Parliament. Oxford University Press. Mead, W.  R. (1999). The Jacksonian Tradition: And American Foreign Policy. National Interest, 58(1), 5–29. Mead, W. R. (2011). The Tea Party and American Foreign Policy: What Populism Means for Globalism. Foreign Affairs, 90(2), 28–40. Milner, H.  V. (2019). Globalisation, Populism and the Decline of the Welfare State. Survival, 61(2), 91–96. Mintz, A., & DeRouen Jr., K. (2010). Understanding Foreign Policy Decision Making. Cambridge University Press. Moffitt, B. (2016). The Global Rise of Populism: Performance, Political Style, and Representation. Stanford University Press. Moffitt, B. (2017). Transnational Populism? Representative Claims, Media and the Difficulty of Constructing a Transnational ‘People’. Javnost, 24(4), 409–425. Mudde, C. (2007). Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe. Cambridge University Press. Mudde, C., & Rovira-Kaltwasser, C. (2012). Populism in Europe and the Americas: Threat or Corrective for Democracy? Cambridge University Press. Müller, J.-W. (2017). What is Populism? Penguin.

32 

D. F. WAJNER AND P. GIURLANDO

Norris, P. (2020). Global Party Survey, 2019 [Dataset]. Harvard Dataverse. https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.7910/ DVN/WMGTNS Norris, P., & Inglehart, R. (2019). Cultural Backlash: Trump, Brexit, and Authoritarian Populism. Cambridge University Press. Ostiguy, P., Panizza, F., & Moffitt, B. (2020). Populism in Global Perspective: A Performative and Discursive Approach. Routledge. Özdamar, Ö., & Ceydilek, E. (2020). European Populist Radical Right Leaders’ Foreign Policy Beliefs: An Operational Code Analysis. European Journal of International Relations, 26(1), 137–162. Özpek, B.  B., & Tanriverdi Yaşar, N. (2018). Populism and Foreign Policy in Turkey Under the AKP Rule. Turkish Studies, 19(2), 198–216. Panizza, F. (Ed.). (2005). Populism and the Mirror of Democracy. Verso. Pappas, T.  S. (2019). Populism and Liberal Democracy: A Comparative and Theoretical Analysis. Oxford University Press. Pappas, T. S., & Aslandis, P. (2015). Greek Populism: A Political Drama in Five Acts. In H. Kriesi & T. S. Pappas (Eds.), European Populism in the Shadow of the Great Recession (pp. 181–196). ECPR Press. Pevehouse, J. C. (2020). The COVID-19 pandemic, International Cooperation, and Populism. International Organization, 74(S1), E191–E212. Plagemann, J., & Destradi, S. (2018). Populism and Foreign Policy: The Case of India. Foreign Policy Analysis, 15(2), 283–301. Priego, A. (2019). La Teoría de la Inclusión/Moderación como puerta hacia el Populismo Islámico: El caso de los Hermanos Musulmanes. Araucaria, 41, 465–494. Reno, R. R. (2020). El Retorno de los Dioses Fuertes: Nacionalismo, Populismo, y el Futoro de Occidente. Homo Legens. Risse, T. (1991). Public Opinion, Domestic Structure, and Foreign Policy in Liberal Democracies. World Politics, 43(4), 479–512. Roberts, K. M. (2006). Populism, Political Conflict, and Grassroots Organization in Latin America. Comparative Politics, 38(2), 127–148. Rodrik, D. (2018). Populism and the Economics of Globalization. Journal of International Business Policy, 1(1–2), 12–33. Rooduijn, M., Van Kessel, S., Froio, C., Pirro, A., De Lange, S., Halikiopoulou, D., & Taggart, P. (2019). The PopuList [Dataset]. www.popu-­list.org Rooduijn, M. (2014). The Nucleus of Populism: In Search of the Lowest Common Denominator. Government and Opposition, 49(4), 573–599. Rovira-Kaltwasser, C., Taggart, P. A., Espejo, P. O., & Ostiguy, P. (Eds.). (2017). The Oxford Handbook of Populism. Oxford University Press. Sagarzazu, I., & Thies, C. G. (2019). The Foreign Policy Rhetoric of Populism: Chávez, Oil and Anti-Imperialism. Political Science Quarterly, 72(1), 205–214. Schäfer, A., & Zürn, M. (2021). Die demokratische Regression. Suhrkamp Verlag.

1  INTRODUCTION TO POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY (PFP) 

33

Senkman, L., & Roniger, L. (2019). América Latina ras Bambalinas: Teorías Conspirativas, Usos y Abusos. Latin American Research Commons. Skonieczny, A. (2019). Emotions and Political Narratives: Populism, Trump and Trade. Politics and Governance, 6(4), 62–72. Skonieczny, A., & Wahlrab, A. (2019). Introduction to the Special Issue on Exploring Global Populisms. Populism, 2(2), 105–109. Smith, A. (1996). Diversionary Foreign Policy in Democratic Systems. International Studies Quarterly, 40(1), 133–153. Söderbaum, F., Spandler, K., & Pacciardi, A. (2020). Contestations of the Liberal International Order: A Populist Script of Regional Cooperation. In Cambridge Elements in International Relations. Cambridge University Press. Stanley, B. (2008). The Thin Ideology of Populism. Journal of Political Ideologies, 13(1), 95–110. Stavrakakis, Y., & Katsambekis, G. (2020). Populism and the Pandemic: A Collaborative Report. Populismus, June. https://repository.lboro.ac.uk/articles/repor t/Populism_and_the_pandemic_A_collaborative_repor t/ 12546284 Stavrakakis, Y., & Katsambekis, G. (2014). Left-wing Populism in the European Periphery: The Case of SYRIZA. Journal of Political Ideologies, 19(2), 119–142. Stein, J. G. (2008). Foreign Policy Decision-making. In S. Smith, A. Hadfield, & T. Dunne (Eds.), Foreign Policy: Theories, Actors, Cases (pp. 101–116). Oxford University Press. Stengel, F. (2019). Forget Populism! Global Discourse, 9(2), 445–451. Stengel, F., MacDonald, D. B., & Nabers, D. (Eds.). (2019). Populism and World Politics: Exploring Inter- and Transnational Dimensions. Palgrave Macmillan. Stockemer, D. (Ed.). (2019). Populism Around the World. Springer. Stokes, D. (2018). Trump, American Hegemony and the Future of the Liberal International Order. International Affairs, 94(1), 133–150. Subotić, J. (2016). Narrative, Ontological Security, and Foreign Policy Change. Foreign Policy Analysis, 12(4), 610–627. Szabados, K. (2019). Can We Win the War on Science? Understanding the Link Between Political Populism and Anti-Science Politics. Populism, 2(2), 207–236. Taş, H. (2020). The Formulation and Implementation of Populist Foreign Policy: Turkey in the Eastern Mediterranean. Mediterranean Politics, 1–25. Thies, C.  G., & Breuning, M. (2012). Integrating Foreign Policy Analysis and International Relations Through Role Theory. Foreign Policy Analysis, 8(1), 1–4. Vallespin, F., & Bascunan, M. (2017). Populismos. Alianza. Varoufakis, Y. (2018). Adults in the Room: My Battle with the European and American Deep Establishment. Farrar.

34 

D. F. WAJNER AND P. GIURLANDO

Verbeek, B., & Zaslove, A. (2017). Populism and Foreign Policy. In C. Rovira-­ Kaltwasser, P.  A. Taggart, P.  O. Espejo, & P.  Ostiguy (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Populism (pp. 384–405). Oxford University Press. Verbeek, B., & Zazlove, A. (2015). The Counter Forces of European Integration: Nationalism, Populism and EU Foreign Policy. In K. E. Jorgensen, A. K. Aarstad, & E.  Drieskens (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of European Foreign Policy (pp. 530–544). SAGE. Vertzberger, Y. (1990). Risk Taking and Decision Making. Stanford University Press. Voeten, E. (2020). Populism and Backlashes Against International Courts. Perspectives on Politics, 18(2), 407–422. Wæver, O. (2002). Identity, Communities and Foreign Policy. In L. Hansen & O. Wæver (Eds.), European Integration and National Identity: The Challenge of the Nordic States (pp. 20–50). Routledge. Wajner, D. F. (2019). Making (Latin) America Great Again: Lessons from Populist Foreign Policies in the Americas. In F. Stengel, D. B. MacDonald, & D. Nabers (Eds.), Populism and World Politics: Exploring Inter- and Transnational Dimensions (pp. 195–225). Palgrave Macmillan. Wajner, D. F. (2021). Exploring the Foreign Policies of Populist Governments: (Latin) America First. Journal of International Relations and Development, 24(3), 651–680. Wajner, D. F. (2022). The Populist Way Out: Why Contemporary Populist Leaders Seek Transnational Legitimation. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 24(3), 416–436. Wajner, D.  F., & Roniger, L. (2019). Transnational Identity Politics in the Americas: Chavismo’s Regional Legitimation Strategies. Latin American Research Review, 54(2), 458–475. Wajner, D. F., & Roniger, L. (2022). Populism and Transnational Projection: The Legitimation Strategies of Pink Tide Neo-Populist Leaderships in Latin America. Comparative Political Theory, 3(1), 1–30. Wehner, L., & Thies, C. G. (2014). Role Theory, Narratives, and Interpretation: The Domestic Contestation of Roles. International Studies Review, 16(3), 411–436. Wehner, L., & Thies, C. G. (2021). The Nexus of Populism and Foreign Policy: The Case of Latin America. International Relations, 35(2), 320–340. Weyland, K. (2001). Clarifying a Contested Concept: Populism in the Study of Latin American Politics. Comparative Politics, 34(1), 1–22. Weyland, K., & Madrid, R. L. (Eds.). (2019). When Democracy Trumps Populism: European and Latin American Lessons for the United States. Cambridge University Press. Wojczewski, T. (2020). Populism, Hindu Nationalism, and Foreign Policy in India: The Politics of Representing “the People”. International Studies Review, 22(3), 396–422.

1  INTRODUCTION TO POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY (PFP) 

35

Zakaria, F. (2019). The Self-destruction of American Power: Washington Squandered the Unipolar Moment. Foreign Affairs. Zeemann, J. (2019). Populism Beyond the Nation. In F.  A. Stengel, D. B. MacDonald, & D. Nabers (Eds.), Populism and World Politics: Exploring Inter- and Transnational Dimensions (pp. 25–53). Springer. Zürn, M. (2018). A Theory of Global Governance: Authority, Legitimacy, and Contestation. Oxford University Press.

CHAPTER 2

Digging New Western European Trenches: Populism and the Foreign Policies of Germany and the Netherlands Bertjan Verbeek and Thorsten Wojczewski

The Research Puzzle Germany and the Netherlands have traditionally been supportive of European integration. As original signatories to the Treaty of Rome, both countries claim to have always been a strong pillar of the European project. In the relance européenne of the mid-1980s both countries did not shy away from proposing supranational solutions to the main challenge that was perceived at the time: fear of losing economic competition to the US and the emerging economies in Asia. Indeed, in September 1991 the Netherlands, holding the rotating chair, famously proposed a treaty

B. Verbeek (*) Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] T. Wojczewski Coventry University, Coventry, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 P. Giurlando, D. F. Wajner (eds.), Populist Foreign Policy, Global Foreign Policy Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22773-8_2

37

38 

B. VERBEEK AND T. WOJCZEWSKI

revision that was considered far too supranational—by France in particular—and then succeeded in securing a lighter version, the Treaty of Maastricht in December of that year. The realization of the single market and the establishment of the Eurozone proved vital in protecting the European Union (EU) from the effects of globalization, but these successes at the same time promoted the conditions for anti-European sentiments among various segments of the population, paving the ways for populist parties from the right as well as from the left. As a matter of fact, European integration proved a double-edged sword: it did protect the European market from more efficient producers outside the Union (e.g., in agriculture and steel), but it caused major adjustment issues within the Union, as the single market, combined with several enlargement rounds, provided incentives for producers to redistribute production processes across the EU area. Overall economic growth in the EU thus masked an uneven distribution of gains and losses across different regions. In Germany, the perception of uneven distribution was also affected by the travails of German unification after 1991. At the same time, EU citizens who were worried by these developments often felt that the ability of their national politicians to defend their interests had been reduced because of the increased supranational character of EU policymaking. Such worries increased when economic and financial globalization made it more difficult to close European borders for (digital and financial) services. Both in Germany and the Netherlands these conditions furthered the rise of populism. In Germany, this is showcased by the populist radical right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). The AfD has been an institutional feature of the German political system since the 2014 European elections when it won seven seats. In 2017, the AfD gained 12.6% of the votes in the parliamentary elections and entered the German Bundestag as the main opposition party. In the Netherlands populism is an older phenomenon: since the early 2000s various parties, both to the left (Socialistische Partij [SP]) and to the right (a.o., Lijst Pim Fortuyn [LPF], Partij voor de Vrijheid [PVV], and Forum voor Democratie [FvD]), have entered (and left) the political system. All these parties have taken a critical stance towards European integration. It is here where we reach the research puzzle of this contribution: whereas both Germany and the Netherlands have been staunch proponents of European integration, have experienced similar uneven distributive costs of integration, and have witnessed the rise of populism to the left

2  DIGGING NEW WESTERN EUROPEAN TRENCHES: POPULISM… 

39

and/or right, the countries differ in how they have been confronting the critical discourses of these parties regarding European integration; indeed, whereas Germany has maintained its strong defence of continued if not intensified European integration, the Netherlands has adopted a much more intergovernmental attitude towards the EU.  How to explain this difference? To answer this question, it is important to discuss the position these parties take on regional integration and multilateralism. This requires theorizing the interrelationship between populism and foreign policy and addressing this volume’s overarching questions: (1) What is distinct about populist foreign policy? (2) Under which domestic and international conditions does populist foreign policy matter? The chapter shows that populism has no direct impact on the substantive foreign policy preferences of the discussed parties. Rather, the ‘thick’ radical right and radical left ideologies, respectively, shape their foreign policy outlook. Hence, in this case study there is no ‘populist foreign policy’ in terms of programmatic content. However, populism, as we will show, does influence the way in which these parties communicate their foreign policy positions as well as certain procedural aspects of foreign policy. This corresponds to those understandings of populist foreign policy which highlight the strategic and processual (PFP-2) and stylistic (PFP-3) dimensions of populism in foreign policy (see Wajner & Giurlando’s, 2023 introduction). In view of our main research puzzle— the divergence between Germany and the Netherlands with respect to the European integration process—we argue that different domestic conditions influence the access to, and impact of, left- and right-wing populist parties on official foreign policy in Germany and the Netherlands. While there are strong ideational and institutional constraints hampering the AfD’s impact on Germany’s official EU policy, the presence of several populist, Eurosceptic parties, regularly attracting between 20 and 25% of the Dutch electorate, combined with the resulting difficulties in coalition-­ building make most mainstream parties in the Netherlands almost necessarily more receptive to the positions of these parties. In the context of the objectives of this volume, this chapter positions itself among those studies that take the ideational approach to populism as its starting point, but also pays attention to rhetorical and strategic dimensions of the phenomenon. In particular, the chapter shows that populists’ approach varies because populism is combined with different thicker ideologies and left- and right-wing populist parties have different ideas when juxtaposing elites and the people. Second, it confirms the need to

40 

B. VERBEEK AND T. WOJCZEWSKI

incorporate domestic factors when discussing the role of populism in foreign policy. The comparison between Germany and the Netherlands suggests that the different impact of populism in both countries partly originates from institutional constraints such as electoral rules and the party system. Lastly, the chapter confirms that it is fruitful to investigate the regional dimension of populist foreign policy. Together with countries such as Belgium, Luxembourg, and Austria, Germany and the Netherlands belong to a set of Northwest European countries that have some important characteristics in common that help understand the fertile grounds for populism: these countries were long dominated by strong Christian democratic parties and a system of socio-economic policymaking that envisaged a major institutionalized role for intermediate organizations, such employers and workers associations. The end of the Cold War bereft Christian democracy from its dominance (the exception being Luxembourg). The advent of Europeanization and globalization made it increasingly difficult for intermediate institutions to perform their role as cushion between the world economy and local interests: employers and workers now were not (only) divided by class but also by the degree of profits they reaped from Europeanization and globalization. All in all, in these countries, a specific major gap between elites and citizens emerged, different in nature compared to Anglo Saxon countries where neither Christian democracy nor intermediate socio-economic institutions developed to a significant degree. Populism thus did not fall on deaf ears in Austria, Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands. The chapter is structured as follows: we begin by theorizing the relationship between populism and foreign policy. The following section discusses the foreign policy preferences of the right-wing populist AfD and its position on the European integration and multilateralism in particular. The next section then outlines the foreign policy outlook of the different right- and left-wing populist parties in the Netherlands and their respective positions on the EU. In the concluding section, we compare the cases of Germany and the Netherlands in order to shed light on the different effects of the rise of populism on both states’ official European policy.

Theory: Populism and Foreign Policy Although most scholars agree that populism always involves a distinction between bad elites and good people, the concept of populism has remained contested for a long time (Verbeek & Zaslove, 2019). Here, we follow the

2  DIGGING NEW WESTERN EUROPEAN TRENCHES: POPULISM… 

41

ideational approach and its conception of populism as a thin ideology, emphasizing the fundamental division between the “corrupt elites” and the “pure people” (Mudde, 2007). This approach focuses on the call for giving the people more say in politics or, as Wajner and Giurlando describe it in the introduction to this edited volume, to let ‘the people take back control’. Because this juxtaposition of elites and people does not build a complete platform, populists borrow from other ideologies to thicken their world outlook. The different choices they make here account for the variety of populism that one can observe across the globe (Stanley, 2008). This approach focuses on the call for giving the people more say in politics in the name of popular sovereignty. It highlights that populism always operates in junction with thicker ideologies such as nationalism, socialism, or conservatism which in turn shape or thicken the ideological outlook of those parties that conjure such a moral antagonism between elites and people. While this approach allows for analysing the potential impact of the thin ideology of populism on foreign policy preferences, it can be combined with the literature that focusses on populism as a political style and political strategy that analyse the communication style and mobilization strategies of populists, respectively (Jagers & Walgrave, 2007; Weyland, 2017). This, in turn, allows us to study the potential programmatic effects of populism on foreign policy as well as the stylistic and procedural aspects of populism in foreign policy rhetoric and behaviour. Importantly, it also enables us to observe when mainstream parties borrow from populists, in ideology, rhetoric, or actual policy, in order to stem the populist tide. Are There Populist Foreign Policy Preferences? The outlook of populists on foreign policy contains two dimensions: first, their substantive preferences; second, their diplomatic style. The former depends on two elements: first, the specific juxtaposition of elite and people they choose and, second, the thick ideology they borrow from to supplement their world view (Verbeek & Zaslove, 2017). Different types of populism have different ideas of elite and people: left-wing populists often define the two in groups in terms of exploited and exploiters. Right-wing populists often present a clash between long-time incumbents and the people whose interests they ignore. The people are often confined within the territory of the state, often taking on an exclusive, almost nativist character. However, in the case of the exploited, the people could also

42 

B. VERBEEK AND T. WOJCZEWSKI

represent individuals living in many different countries. The elites are often national elites, but can also don a transnational coat, for example, in the form of CEOs of transnational corporations or top bureaucrats of international organizations. Indeed, the so-called eurocrats in Brussels are often invoked as belonging to the ‘corrupt elite’. Similarly, populists differ in the ideology they choose to borrow from to supplement the elite/people dichotomy of their choice. Left-wing populists usually take a critical position towards the capitalist world economy and have policy preferences that advance the position of underprivileged worldwide. Hence, we would expect their European preferences to match that worldview based on the idea that ‘Brussels’ is an elite-driven project to promote capitalist exploitation. Right-wing populists may take a very nativist outlook and draw from conservative ideologies emphasizing traditions and national sovereignty. They will draw on the EU as a multicultural, liberal danger to traditions and may fear migration both from outside the EU and within the EU. Others may take a liberal economic perspective and conceive of the EU as an unnecessary, bureaucratic, if not corrupt hindrance to a liberal economy. Because all populists share the idea of empowering the people, they can be expected to prefer direct diplomatic negotiations by leaders over multilateral logrolling by professional diplomats. In describing the foreign policy preferences, therefore, it is important to interpret them in the context of their specific elite/mass division and borrowing ideology. Also, it is important to realize that their world view may induce populists to change position: as long as the Italian Lega Nord defined itself as a party of the hardworking, honest people of northern Italy, it embraced the EU almost as an ally to the extent that the EU promoted regionalism; once the Lega Nord changed its notion of the people to a geographically wider, but culturally narrower idea of the Italian people, it increasingly defined the EU as a northern project, at the expense of the European South. When it comes to diplomatic style, populists are expected to display the following attitude (cf. Wojczewski, 2020a; Destradi et al., 2021): first and foremost, they would strive to resolve international political differences by promoting (often media-happy) summit meetings between political leaders, rather than waiting for traditional diplomacy to take its secret and slow course. Second, populists would seek to involve the people in what they consider major decisions in foreign policy, such as treaty ratification, and would thus propose consultation of the people, for example, in referendums or via direct communication over social media. Third, because of

2  DIGGING NEW WESTERN EUROPEAN TRENCHES: POPULISM… 

43

their interest in distinguishing themselves from the political establishment, populists might use global politics as a stage to perform populism by, for example, deliberately violating diplomatic conventions and the rules and procedures of international organizations. This can, in turn, negatively affect relations with partners and the functioning of international organizations. What Conditions Facilitate Populists Access to Foreign Policymaking? Populists also differ in access to the corridors of power. At the same time, it may not be necessary to walk those corridors to have an impact on a state’s foreign policy. Closest to the corridors come those parties that have entered government. In the case of, for instance, Fidész in Hungary, the right-wing populist party obtained an absolute majority in parliament four times in a row. Other governments consist of several populist parties (such as the Lega-Five Star Movement coalition in Italy in 2018–2019) or at least one populist party in the coalition (such as the FPÖ in coalition with the ÖVP in Austria between 2017 and 2019). Under such circumstances, populists may dominate the European agenda of their respective states. Indeed, Hungarian governments under Fidész have defied the EU on various policy domains often on the basis of protecting the Christian values the Hungarian people embody. Then, we observe situations in which populists are not fully participating in government, but formally support a (minority) government, often based on an explicit policy agreement. This model has been extensively tested in Denmark with the right-wing populist Danish People’s Party externally supporting a minority government in exchange for policy concessions. Below, we will see that the Dutch PVV has had access to power in that fashion as well. Third, there is the situation in which populists are part of the opposition, either inside or outside parliament. Although this seems the least advantageous position to affect foreign policy, there is an important mechanism that may still have an effect. It has been noted in the literature that mainstream parties emulate (often a diluted version of) populist policy preferences in an attempt to stem the populist tide (especially when opinion polls or extra-parliamentary mobilization suggests a surge in populist support) (Odmalm & Hepburn, 2017). Being vocal about Europe may thus pay off even if you are part of the opposition.

44 

B. VERBEEK AND T. WOJCZEWSKI

Germany and Populist Foreign Policy Germany has long been an outlier in European politics. While populist radical right parties made electoral breakthroughs and even entered governments in many European countries, such parties remained marginalized in Germany and never really came close to successful voter mobilization at the national level. Due to Germany’s legacy of the Nazi dictatorship and the Holocaust, it seemed like the far-right was discredited and that a party which openly propagates an exclusionary ultra-nationalism had little appeal to the German electorate. With the rise of Alternative for Germany, this no longer holds true (Berbuir et  al., 2015; Rensmann, 2018; Arzheimer, 2019). Founded in 2013, the AfD did not start out as a populist radical right party, but rather as a national-liberal or liberal-conservative Professorenpartei (party of professors)1 led by the neoliberal professor of economics, Bernd Lucke, and with a political programme centring on the opposition to the Euro and bailout programmes for crisis-hit member states of the Eurozone (Arzheimer, 2015). However, this right-wing populism was already looming behind the party’s Euroscepticism, Deutschmark nostalgia, and chauvinistic nationalist statements on southern European states. In addition, the post-political consensus on the European Union among mainstream parties in Germany and the emergence of a “discourse of Alternativlosigkeit” (Kim, 2017) in EU matters, including the bailouts and the Euro, made it relatively easy for the AfD to stage itself, in a populist fashion, as the only ‘real’ political alternative to the establishment parties. In subsequent years, the AfD underwent several programmatic and leadership changes and developed—in the context of the influx of refugees to Germany in 2015–2016—into an openly populist radical right party, which conjures the elites and migrants as enemies of the German people. In the following, we will analyse the AfD’s foreign policy outlook and thus how the populist radical right party seeks to shape and alter German foreign policy. While the AfD’s ideological profile, voter base or electoral mobilization, and its anti-immigration stance and Euroscepticism have been widely examined, its foreign policy positions have so far received little scholarly attention (see Lewandowsky, 2016; Wojczewski, 2021). With the AfD, Germany—the continent’s major economic power and important driving force behind the European integration process—now 1

 The AfD was given this label due to the large number of professors within the party.

2  DIGGING NEW WESTERN EUROPEAN TRENCHES: POPULISM… 

45

has a relatively strong populist radical right party that can, even if in opposition, influence public opinion on foreign policy matters and put pressure on the government in this policy field. The AfD’s Outlook on European Integration and Multilateralism The AfD does not oppose multilateralism and regional integration per se and even explicitly endorses international law and international organizations such as United Nations (UN), World Trade Organization (WTO), or North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) (AfD, 2017: 18/20) but sets clear limits to regional and global cooperation and governance. First, the AfD points out that “Germany’s foreign policy must be driven by German interests” (AfD, 2021: 62).2 While this statement might appear uncontroversial in other countries, in the German context, it is significant, because it breaks with the tradition of German parties which typically refrain from referring to national or German interests and instead speak of European interests and highlight Germany’s strong commitment to multilateral institutions such as the EU and NATO. The statement also shows how the AfD uses foreign policy for its populist radical right politics by suggesting that Germany’s political establishment does not represent the interests of the German people and betrays their sovereignty in international relations: “The Federal Republic pursues a disoriented foreign policy. As a result, other states and institutions are increasingly influencing and steering German foreign and security policy” (AfD, 2018: 56). By prioritizing ‘German interests’, the AfD thus envisions a foreign policy characterized by the pursuit of more narrowly defined national interests and a limited willingness to compromise in multilateral frameworks. Second, highlighting that “the people are the sovereign”, the AfD demands that the ratification of all “important international treaties” requires “the consent of the people” through a “referendum” (AfD, 2021: 12f.). Again, the AfD uses foreign policy here to conjure an antagonism between the elite and the people: “As the only party represented in the Bundestag, we believe in the Mündigkeit [responsibility] of the German people […]” and that “citizens make more long-sighted, peaceful and welfare-oriented decisions than career politicians when it comes to fateful questions concerning the nation” (ibid.: 14).

2

 All translations by the authors.

46 

B. VERBEEK AND T. WOJCZEWSKI

Third, the AfD regards the principle of “national sovereignty” as the foundation of international relations (AfD, 2018: 41) and calls for “a strict adherence to the principle of non-interference into the internal affairs of other states” (AfD, 2017: 18): “The promise of replacing functioning democratic nation-states with multinational federations and international organizations is doomed to fail. […] Stable, democratic nation-states are the foundation of a peaceful world order” (AfD, 2018: 32). For the AfD, multilateralism and international organizations are acceptable or even desirable as long as they take the form of interstate or intergovernmental cooperation and “do not undermine the right to national self-­ determination” (AfD, 2021: 62). This vision of international relations explains why the AfD opposes the European integration process and wants to dismantle the EU by abolishing all supranational institutions, returning to national currencies and reversing EU law. In the AfD manifestos, the EU is depicted as “an undemocratic construct” promoted by the “political elites” against “the evident majoritarian will of the peoples in the EU” and at the expense of “national sovereignty”, “popular sovereignty”, and “peace” in Europe (AfD, 2018: 11/32). Instead of the EU, the AfD envisions “a Europe of the fatherlands, a European community of sovereign states”, which cooperate in matters of shared interests such as maintaining “a common market” (AfD, 2019: 7), and thus seeks to reverse the EU to a strictly intergovernmental regional organization with a limited political agenda. While the AfD pledges to maintain the common European market and promote “foreign trade” based on “market economic principles” and “ideally regulated by multilateral treaties” (AfD, 2018: 133f.), it qualifies this preference for free trade and multilateral trade arrangements by highlighting the supreme importance of “sovereignty” and demanding “high standards for trade agreements”: “Foreign trade measures must take into account German sovereignty. Therefore, the AfD only supports international trade agreements insofar as they meet the principle of non-­ discrimination and take into consideration German industrial, social and environmental standards” (ibid.: 134).3 Moreover, the AfD calls for the highest possible “transparency in multilateral negotiations and between 3  The AfD does make a partial ‘exception’ for developing countries (AfD, 2018: 134), but this concession is less motivated by concerns for economic development and economic justice but by the desire to “reduce incentives for migration to Europe and Germany in particular” (AfD, 2017: 21) by addressing “the economic causes for migration” (AfD, 2018: 121).

2  DIGGING NEW WESTERN EUROPEAN TRENCHES: POPULISM… 

47

international organizations” and “opposes any free trade agreements which stipulate the transfer of sovereign rights to special tribunal courts” (ibid.: 134). Consequently, the party opposed all recent free trade agreements negotiated by the EU such as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA), and the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) (ibid.: 135). In keeping with this vision of a reduced EU, the AfD also opposes “a common European foreign and security policy and the European External Action Service” (AfD, 2021: 62) and favours more conventional interstate European diplomacy. While the AfD pledges to fight for such a reform of the EU, it threatens with a “DEXIT” if its reform initiatives should not materialize (AfD, 2019: 12). The AfD supports Germany’s membership in NATO but demands that “the European component of the transatlantic alliance should be strengthened significantly” (AfD, 2018: 59) in order to ensure greater “strategic autonomy for Germany and its European partners” in security policy (AfD, 2021: 62). Though underscoring its commitment to multilateralism and common defence, the party’s reference to ‘strategic autonomy’ and demand that “Germany must be capable of defending itself” (AfD, 2017: 18–19) raise questions about the commitment to NATO.  While previous AfD manifestos proclaimed that “membership in NATO is in the foreign and security policy interest of Germany” (AfD, 2018: 59), the most recent manifesto qualifies this position by stating that “membership in NATO […] is for the time being a central element of our security strategy” (AfD, 2021: 64; emphasis added). This reference to ‘strategic autonomy’ and the qualification of the importance of NATO can be attributed to the significant influence of the officially defunct, but still existing neo-­ fascist Der Flügel (the wing) within the AfD, whose members question Germany’s membership in NATO (Tillschneider, 2016; Höcke, 2017a),4 and the more general aspiration of the AfD to create a more “balanced relationship with the United States and Russia” (AfD, 2019: 17): “For the AfD, a détente with Russia is a precondition for endurable peace in Europe. It is in Germany’s interest to integrate Russia into a common security 4  The leader of Der Flügel, Björn Höcke, for example, claimed NATO does not serve German interests but US interests: “Our once respected army has degenerated from an instrument of national defence to a completely gendered multiculturalized intervention force in the service of the United States” (Höcke, 2017b).

48 

B. VERBEEK AND T. WOJCZEWSKI

framework”, “to lift sanctions” and “to deepen economic cooperation with Russia” (AfD, 2017: 19). This demanded redirection of Germany’s relations with Russia serves mainly two purposes: on the one hand, it is about asserting Germany’s full sovereignty in international relations vis-àvis the Allied Forces and thereby ‘normalizing’ Germany’s identity and role in the world (Wojczewski, 2021). On the other hand, the AfD, like other far-right parties, views Russia as a counterweight to the US-led liberal West and globalization, multiculturalism, and gender mainstreaming in an increasingly “multipolar world order” (AfD, 2021: 62).5 For the AfD, the ideal world order is represented by the Concert of Europe and Bismarck’s balance-of-power politics in the nineteenth century: “When it comes to foreign policy”, as the leading AfD politician Alexander Gauland (2018) noted, “our current government could learn from Prince von Metternich and Bismarck. […] Oscillating between hegemony and balance-of-power it was ultimately always the European balance-­ of-­power that has been the engine of European progress and not a central power, regardless if this power is located in Madrid, Paris, Berlin, or now in Brussels”. This reactionary vision of international relations, which aspires to restore a past and lost order, is at odds with the AfD’s populist anti-elitism and demand for popular participation, transparency, and accountability, because it idealizes a highly elitist and secretive form of diplomacy and foreign policy. The AfD’s Access to German EU Policy As Europe’s biggest economy and net-contributor to the EU budget, Germany faces less structural constraints than other European countries for a departure from the EU. However, given the very broad consensus among German mainstream parties on the importance of the EU, which has become a core element of German post-war identity (cf. Banchoff, 1999), and the high approval ratings of the EU in the German public (Pew Research Centre, 2020), the AfD’s call for a DEXIT has relatively 5  The AfD’s apparent sympathy towards Russia has also been visible during the Russian-­ Ukrainian war. Though the AfD officially condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 as a severe breach of international law (AfD, 2022), leading AfD politicians such as Tino Chrupalla and Björn Höcke have relativized the Russian attack and blamed not only the US and NATO for the Russian-Ukrainian war, but also spread Russian propaganda such as the claim that there are secret US bioweapon laboratories in Ukraine (Chrupalla, 2022; Höcke, 2022).

2  DIGGING NEW WESTERN EUROPEAN TRENCHES: POPULISM… 

49

little appeal in Germany. The AfD, which emerged during the Eurozone crisis, did however manage to shape the discourse on Germany’s role in the EU’s crisis management and put pressure on the German government to prevent a Schuldenunion (debt union) and using the money of German taxpayers to bailout Southern European states such as Greece. The domestic opposition spearheaded by the AfD has, along with the prevalence of a strong ordo-liberal tradition in Germany, contributed to the uncompromising stance of the German government during the Eurozone crisis and its demand for draconian austerity measures in Greece (Bebnowski, 2016; Havertz, 2019). While the AfD has been able to influence public opinion and the German government during the Eurozone crisis (and during the so-called refugee crisis in 2015/2016), its impact on Germany’s foreign policy discourse has otherwise been extremely limited. On the one hand, foreign policy has never been a central theme for the AfD and the AfD is internally divided over many foreign policy issues such as NATO membership or Germany’s relations with the US and Russia. On the other hand, Germany’s membership in the EU and the wider Western international community has been a cornerstone of Germany’s post-war foreign policy and is interpreted by Germany’s mainstream parties as a key lesson of Germany’s troubled history in that it has not only made possible the reconciliation and fraternity with former enemies such as France and the US, but also serves as insurance against the re-emergence of an aggressive nationalism in Germany. There are thus relatively high ideational constraints for a DEXIT in Germany insofar as the departure from the EU or the disintegration of the EU is associated with the darkest chapter of German history. Accordingly, the German government has sought to frame its response to the Eurozone crisis as a necessary intervention to protect the EU and defend its core values rather than as an expression of German nationalism (Galpin, 2015). In fact, Germany’s mainstream parties actively seek to distance themselves from the AfD and its ultra-nationalism in the domain of foreign policy.

The Netherlands and Populist Foreign Policy The position of Dutch governments is generally considered to have become much more critical of European integration since the early 2000s, whereas before the Netherlands was often portrayed as one of its staunchest supporters. To be sure, this previous Dutch pro-European position

50 

B. VERBEEK AND T. WOJCZEWSKI

should be qualified in the sense that the pro-European rhetoric was uttered against a backdrop of prioritizing the North Atlantic alliance over European integration and of welcoming enlargement in order to dilute the supranational elements of the EU (Segers, 2019). Similarly, the current critical position is still taken from the government’s official point of departure that the EU now is the principal channel for Dutch foreign policy (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2022). The changes in the Dutch government’s position can roughly be described as follows: based on public dissatisfaction with the scandalized Santer Commission (1995–1999) and the debate surrounding the EU’s democratic deficit, the Dutch government supported a treaty revision in order to address the EU’s pressing legitimacy problem. The public debate surrounding the Constitutional Treaty aggravated dissatisfaction only further, culminating in the rejection of the Treaty in an unusual and non-binding referendum in 2005. The government’s failure to promote the treaty ushered in a sharpening of its EU stance. One strand related to the criticism that Brussels enjoyed too much power and that the Netherlands had to pay an unfair amount of money to the EU budget. This resulted in a lobby for a structural reduction in Dutch financial contributions and in attempts to curb creeping federalism, for instance, by toughening the subsidiarity test for new European initiatives (Verbeek & van Kersbergen, 2020). A second strand involved a stricter position towards countries that allegedly were less strictly implementing the rules of the Eurozone. In the wake of the financial crisis that started in 2008, the Netherlands resisted further budget expansion and was critical of a structural relaxation of the rules of Stability and Growth Pact (Verdun, 2021). During the COVID crisis the Netherlands was very keen on avoiding the image that the 800 billion EU COVID relief fund would not be given to (Southern) ‘spending countries’ without monitoring and oversight (Schout, 2017). Indeed, Dutch Ministers of Finance Jeroen Dijsselbloem (2012–2017) and Wopke Hoekstra (2017–2022) became highly unpopular in Southern Europe. The position of the Dutch government had not transformed into outright opposition to integration but displayed a clear change towards emphasizing the narrow Dutch national interest, both to European and national audiences. This change coincided with the rise of populism in the Netherlands. Was the change a response to this domestic challenge?

2  DIGGING NEW WESTERN EUROPEAN TRENCHES: POPULISM… 

51

Outlook on Europe of Dutch Populist Parties Arguably, European integration had already inspired a populist party in the 1960s when dissatisfaction with the Common Agricultural Policy helped farmers found the Boerenpartij (Farmer’s Party) that would be represented in parliament between 1963 and 1981. The party portrayed a conflict between the ignorant elite in The Hague and the commonsense cleverness of the farmer. The cometlike rise of populist Pim Fortuyn in 2002 certainly was related to his relentless attacks in media and books on Eurocrats and corruption in Brussels in the years before. Nevertheless, the success of his party LPF fed on disenchantment with mainstream parties that had already become visible in increased electoral volatility and the popularity of local and pensioners’ parties. Basically, its 2002 election manifesto (Lijst Pim Fortuyn, 2002) takes a positive attitude towards the EU (“a phenomenal experiment”, p.  7), although national identity and sovereignty (“where possible”, p. 7) are leading. It complains of the EU’s bureaucracy and proposes that entry of new member states will require a binding referendum. Here the LPF represents populism of a liberal variety: the bad bureaucratic elite of the EU versus the honest people whose identity should be protected and who should be empowered to decide on EU enlargement via direct democracy. It is liberal because it cherishes the benefits of economic integration. The electoral success of the LPF in 2002 becoming the second largest party in parliament with 17% showed the potential for parties defying the mainstream. This potential was also warranted by the growth of the support for the arguably left populist Socialist Party (SP), which campaigned on the basis of election programme that described the Netherlands as “being swallowed” by the European Union and thus called for a halt to further European competencies. Here, the juxtaposition is between the EU as a neoliberal elite project promoting big business that can partly be checked by more influence of citizens, partly, again via a referendum on future enlargements. The party also resisted “dictates” coming from the World Trade Organization: free trade was to the disadvantage of the Global South and the WTO itself was a danger to sovereignty (Socialistische Partij, 2002). Ever since 2002, populist parties have captured around 20–25% of the vote at Dutch elections (the exception being 2003 with 12.4%). This electoral space has mostly been dominated by the Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV) of Geert Wilders who was forced to leave the mainstream

52 

B. VERBEEK AND T. WOJCZEWSKI

liberal party VVD in 2004, because of his anti-migration stand, taking 6% of the vote in 2006 and growing to 16% at the European elections in 2009. In its 2006 electoral pamphlet the PVV asked for referenda both on the euro and on Turkish EU membership and called for a strong reduction of European institutions and competencies. This attitude was motivated by the protection of Dutch national identity against perceived waves of (especially Islamic) migration, facilitated by European agreements such as the Schengen area (Partij voor de Vrijheid, 2006). In 2009 its anti-EU stand was even more explicitly linked to its anti-Islamic migration position (Partij voor de Vrijheid, 2009). The PVV sees the national political elite to be in connivance with EU bureaucrats against the interest of the Dutch people and starts presenting its fight as similar to the war of independence against Spain (Partij voor de Vrijheid, 2010). In 2012 the PVV made the EU focus on its electoral programme. Labelled “Their Brussels, Our Netherlands” the opposition of elites and people was framed in terms of the EU’s wrongdoings: the manifesto starts off with a diatribe against the EU, repeating all old grievances, adding the complaint that in the financial crisis the Netherlands was paying the bill for spendthrift countries like Greece (Partij voor de Vrijheid, 2012). In all these electoral programmes, the PVV discarded development cooperation as too costly. From 2017 on the populist right is increasingly fragmented. The PVV remains the larger contender but meets competition from Forum voor Democratie (FvD), a new party led by a flamboyant, controversial young leader Thierry Baudet, that surprisingly came in third at the 2019 European elections with 11% of the vote (with the PVV reduced to 3.5%). FvD proved unstable as political party, witnessing several defections, giving rise to new parties such as the JA21 alliance (around former FvD politicians Joost [J] Eerdmans and Annabel [A] Nanninga). Although right-wing populists together reached an all-time high with over 19% of the votes in the 2021 elections, their effectiveness was severely reduced with the vote essentially divided over three, if not four parties. JA21 clearly considers European integration as a threat to Dutch interests, claiming national sovereignty over migration and asylum issues and calling for a revision of the European treaty. It presents itself as a conservative-liberal party putting less emphasis on the elite-people conflict (JA21, 2021). JA21 is an offshoot of Thierry Baudet’s FvD, which had been built around a conservative ideology which sprang from its leader’s earlier critical publications on the threat to national sovereignty and to democracy that he saw in international courts. Its electoral programme is built around a notion of

2  DIGGING NEW WESTERN EUROPEAN TRENCHES: POPULISM… 

53

sovereignty, a fairly nativist idea of national identity around a people that should enjoy the benefits of direct democracy. The EU is considered antithetical to this objective. FvD envisages ‘an intelligent exit from the EU’ (Forum voor Democratie, 2021, p. 34). FvD sees multilateral treaties as harmful to Dutch trade interests and proposes to submit multilateral treaties to a referendum. In addition, it calls for the halting of the funding of development cooperation, particularly the money allocated via non-­ governmental development organizations. To the left the SP enjoyed electoral gains with an all-time high in 2006 with 16.6% of the vote, making it the third largest party in the lower house, followed by a steady decline to 6% in 2021. In her electoral manifestos the SP consistently argues that the EU competencies should be kept to a minimum, that transparency is required, and that the Netherlands should reduce its contribution to the EU budget (SP, 2006, 2010). From 2012 the SP puts more emphasis on the neoliberal character of the EU, thus presenting it as part of the global economic elites that operate to the detriment of the working people (SP, 2012), calling in 2017 and 2021 for a new treaty that should create a less neoliberal EU, which should be subjected to a referendum (SP, 2017, 2021). Clearly then, since 2002 mainstream parties in the Netherlands (CDA, PvdA, VVD) have been facing a strong anti-European populist wave from the left and the right, thus threatening the position of most mainstream parties, with the possible exception of staunch pro-European parties such as D66 and GroenLinks. It is plausible to argue that the changes in governmental EU policies were partly inspired by populists who succeeded in attracting between 20% and 25% of the electorate. Dutch Populist Parties’ Access to Dutch EU Polities Clearly, a sizeable part of the Dutch electorate has consistently voted for parties that present a critical, if not outright negative perspective on European integration. Although other parties have been known for their Eurocriticism, especially smaller protestant parties like the Staatkundig Gereformeerde Partij (SGP), the Eurosceptical vote has been successfully wooed by left- and right-wing populist parties since early 2000s. To what extent can the parallel toughening of the Dutch government’s position on the EU be related to the populists’ advance? As a matter of fact, only during the short-lived Rutte I government (2010–2012) did populism walk the corridors of power in The Hague: after a failed attempt to create a

54 

B. VERBEEK AND T. WOJCZEWSKI

coalition of mainstream parties, the liberal VVD and Christian Democratic CDA formed a minority government (itself an exceptional feature in Dutch politics). The populist PVV formally endorsed this government on the basis of an explicit supplement to the VVD-CDA coalition agreement. Rutte I thus enjoyed a narrow two seats’ supporting majority in the Lower House. Wilders had obtained concessions in exchange for support and could avoid taking responsibility for governmental policies, if expedient. Regarding the government’s foreign and EU policies, the PVV had secured several concessions: upgrading the post for asylum and migration policies to Cabinet level; paying an increase in defence spending from the development assistance budget; a revision of migration-related EU directives; a promise to revise international treaties regarding migration; and an explicit recognition that the number of EU competences had reached its limit (Verbeek et al., 2019, pp. 285–286). Despite its brevity, Rutte I demonstrated the structural strength of populist parties in Dutch politics: the steady decline for support for mainstream parties and the increased electoral volatility put these parties in a difficult position: labour (PvdA) faced competition from the populist left, CDA and VVD from the populist right. An important mechanism of populist influence on governmental policies has therefore been the adoption—in diluted form—by mainstream parties of issues raised by left- and right-wing populist parties. This was particularly the case for EU policies, especially regarding migration, the EU budget, and solidarity with Southern EU member states (cf. Van Klingeren et al., 2017). The potential strength of populist sentiments became especially clear during societal debates, which directly or indirectly touched upon the Netherlands’ attitude towards Europe. Most importantly, this involved the unexpected rejection, by a large margin, of the Constitutional Treaty in a (non-­ binding) referendum in 2005. The rejection came as a shock and, although not binding, resulted in a tougher stand of Dutch governments in Brussels in order to placate EU critics. This vulnerability resurfaced afterwards, especially where the narratives of left-wing and right-wing populists converged: in 2016 the Dutch electorate rejected the EU’s association treaty with Ukraine in a (non-binding) referendum, and, a year later, 200,000 signatories had been collected to file a request for a referendum on the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between Canada and the EU. By that time, however, a majority of parties in parliament had agreed to abolish the possibility of consultative referendums in the Netherlands. Mainstream parties clearly wrestled with the consequences of conceding

2  DIGGING NEW WESTERN EUROPEAN TRENCHES: POPULISM… 

55

some more direct democracy, which so clearly demonstrated the mobilizing and legitimizing power of populists: indeed, the success of Wilders’s PVV was linked to his role in the 2005 referendum, whereas the rise of Baudet’s FvD in 2016–2017 was partly based on his visibility in the debates surrounding the Ukraine and CETA treaties.

Explaining the Different Dutch and German Trajectories During most of the post wartime period Germany and the Netherlands, both original signatories of the Treaty of Rome, have been staunch promoters of European integration. Yet, since the early 2000s their attitude seems to have been diverging: whereas Germany has remained in the forefront of European integration, the Netherlands has taken a more critical perspective on European integration. One might be tempted to explain this divergence by the swelling of the populist tide in Europe, but both countries are home to strong right-wing populist parties that voice criticism against European integration. How to explain the different outcome in both countries? Two major factors come to mind: first, possible differences in foreign policy outlook between right- and left-wing populist parties in Germany and the Netherlands, especially their perspectives on European integration; second, by looking at how different national and international structural conditions affect the impact of these parties on foreign policy differently. Regarding the first explanation, left- and right-­ wing populist parties differ in their justification of their Euroscepticism, especially in presenting the pure people: the exploited in the capitalist order or the native people of a specific territory. Nevertheless, they all point to the ‘Eurocrats’ as the villains in this story, either because they are ‘pawns’ of global business or because they are corrupt and seek to expand EU competencies at the expense of national sovereignty. Ideology thus does not seem to account for the differences in EU policies of the two countries. Still, whenever left- and right-wing populists join hands, they seem to have a stronger impact, as occurred in the Netherlands during the referendums on EU treaties. Regarding the second explanation, differences between Germany and the Netherlands can be observed: the dominant narrative regarding Germany’s role in world politics, originating in its troubled past and emphasizing the essential importance of Germany’s EU membership, does

56 

B. VERBEEK AND T. WOJCZEWSKI

not allow for narratives that seek to reverse Germany’s role in Europe. However, a narrative based on the value of German frugality allowed for a sharpening of German policies towards money transfers to southern EU member states, testifying to the fear of mainstream parties SPD and CDU of voters defecting to the AfD. The AfD’s impact is thus felt through the impact of its electoral strength on the coalition options for the mainstream parties, not through the likelihood that it might become a legitimate coalition partner itself. In the Netherlands, two institutional conditions seem to affect the impact of populist parties. First, the fragmentation of the political system, due to increased electoral volatility and virtually no electoral threshold. This makes it increasingly difficult to form governing coalitions. This is where the PVV’s impact on Dutch EU policies originated in the early 2010s. Second, populist parties persistently prove to attract a large share of the electorate, luring away voters from most mainstream parties. This condition makes mainstream parties more prone to adjusting their policies towards the position of populist parties. These different conditions thus account for the varied impact of populism’s growth on Dutch and German foreign policies.

Conclusions This chapter shed light on the diverging attitude towards European integration in Germany and the Netherlands by analysing the rise of populism in both countries and the foreign policy outlook of right- and left-wing populist parties, particularly their perspectives on the EU. In doing so, it also sought to contribute to a better understanding of the distinct features of populist foreign policy and the domestic and international opportunities and constraints that influence the impact of these parties on foreign policy. The case study on the AfD has shown that populism has no impact on the programmatic content of foreign policy. Rather, it is the thicker radical right ideology, consisting of ultra-nationalism, authoritarianism, and reactionary politics, that determines the foreign policy preferences of the AfD and explains why the party regards national sovereignty as the foundation of international relations and opposes the EU in its current form. Populism does influence the way in which the AfD frames its radical right demands by allowing the party to stage, for example, its Euroscepticism as a struggle against the establishment in the name of popular sovereignty—an

2  DIGGING NEW WESTERN EUROPEAN TRENCHES: POPULISM… 

57

aspect highlighted by the discursive approach to populism in particular (cf. Wojczewski, 2020b). Populism also influences certain procedural aspects of foreign policy. As we have seen, the AfD demands that all important international treaties should be ratified through a referendum, because ‘the people’ are supposedly better qualified than career politicians to make such crucial decisions. However, this populist demand for popular participation and restoration of popular sovereignty in foreign policy is at odds with the AfD’s glorification of the highly elitist and secretive Bismarckian foreign policy as template for Germany’s contemporary foreign policy. This episode also shows that there is a clear contradiction between the populism and the reactionary politics propagated by many far-right parties. The case study on the Netherlands has shown that both left- and right-­ wing populist parties oppose the EU in its current form, however for very different reasons. While the left-wing populist SP views the EU as a neoliberal elite project that has empowered and benefitted big business and the ultra-rich at the expense of the ‘common people’, right-wing populist parties such as PVV and FvD view the EU as a threat to Dutch national identity and sovereignty. Both parties’ Euroscepticism is moreover motivated by nativist and discriminatory sentiments against Muslim migration. This shows that it is the underlying thick ideology rather than the thin ideology of populism that shapes the programmatic orientation of leftand right-wing populist parties in the Netherlands. Like in the case of the AfD, all Dutch populist parties criticize the EU’s democratic deficit and demand greater popular participation via referendums. They also call for referenda on major international treaties. Again, for different reasons: the left-wing SP is weary of institutions that for them represent capitalist exploitation of the people; the right-wing FvD sees such treaties as a threat to national sovereignty and potentially at the expense of specific Dutch trade interests. This underscores that populism can indeed influence certain procedural aspects of foreign policy and the way in which (foreign) policy positions are communicated, namely, as a struggle between people and elites. The cases of Germany and the Netherlands also show that certain domestic conditions (especially electoral and party systems) can enable or constrain the access to and impact of left- and right-wing populist parties on foreign policy. The AfD’s access to German foreign policy, and EU policy in particular, has been hampered by various institutional and ideational constraints. While the AfD has been able to influence public opinion and put pressure on the German government during the Eurozone

58 

B. VERBEEK AND T. WOJCZEWSKI

crisis and the so-called refugee crisis in 2015–2016, its impact on Germany’s foreign policy has been extremely limited. The mainstream parties in Germany view membership in the EU and the Western international community as an essential part of German post-war identity and foreign policy, whereas the departure from the EU and the disintegration of the EU are associated with a dangerous German Sonderweg, which ultimately led to the rise of the Nazis, and a return of nationalist rivalries and conflicts in Europe. As a result, all German mainstream parties oppose any collaboration with the AfD. As these parties typically have a very comfortable majority in the Bundestag, they are not dependent on the AfD for forming coalition governments. In the Netherlands, by contrast, coalition-­ building is more difficult, which in turn gives left- and right-wing populist parties potentially greater influence on the government’s policies or at least makes the government more sensitive to the positions of these parties, not the least because the latter regularly attract between 20 and 25% of the Dutch electorate, whereas the traditional mainstream parties no longer attract sufficient voters to form relatively stable two- or three-party coalitions. This strong anti-European populist wave from the left and the right makes most mainstream parties almost necessarily more receptive to the positions of these different populist parties. Finally, the case studies suggest that future research into the regional dimension of populism and foreign policy may be a fruitful trajectory. Germany and the Netherlands were presented as a larger group of Northwest European countries, which shared a tradition of Christian democratic dominance of politics and a legacy of intermediate institutions playing a vital role in socio-economic policymaking. After the end of the Cold War and the advent of Europeanization and globalization, these long-lasting societal features reinforced the populist claims of a class of political and socio-economic elites which was self-oriented and inattentive to the interest of the people. Given the past involvement of Christian democrats and many economic interests in the European project, it is no coincidence that Europe became the new frontline where populists were digging new trenches.

2  DIGGING NEW WESTERN EUROPEAN TRENCHES: POPULISM… 

59

References AfD. (2017). Wahlprogramm der Alternative für Deutschland für die Wahl zum Deutschen Bundestag am 24. September 2017. https://www.afd.de/wp-­ content/uploads/sites/111/2017/06/2017-­06-­01_AfD-­Bundestagswahl programm_Onlinefassung.pdf AfD. (2018). Programm für Deutschland: Das Grundsatzprogramm der Alternative für Deutschland. https://www.afd.de/wp-­content/uploads/ sites/111/2018/01/Programm_AfD_Druck_Online_190118.pdf AfD. (2019). Europawahlprogramm: Programm der Alternative für Deutschland für die Wahl zum 9. Europäischen Parlament 2019. https://www.afd.de/wp-­ content/uploads/sites/111/2019/03/AfD_Europawahlprogramm_A5-­ hoch_web_150319.pdf AfD. (2021). Deutschland. Aber normal. Programm der Alternative für Deutschland für die Wahl zum 20. Deutschen Bundestag. https://www.afd. de/wahlprogramm/ AfD. (2022). Positionspapier zum Russland–Ukraine-Krieg. https://afdkompakt. de/2022/03/10/positionspapier-­zum-­russland-­ukraine-­krieg/ Arzheimer, K. (2015). The AfD: Finally a Successful Right-Wing Populist Eurosceptic Party for Germany? West European Politics, 38(3), 535–556. Arzheimer, K. (2019). “Don’t Mention the War!” How Populist Right-Wing Radicalism Became (Almost) Normal in Germany. Journal of Common Market Studies, 57, 90–102. Banchoff, T. (1999). German Identity and European Integration. European Journal of International Relations, 5(3), 259–289. Bebnowski, D. (2016). ‘Gute Liberale gegen, böse’ Rechte? Zum Wettbewerbspopulismusder AfD als Brücke zwischen Wirtschaftsliberalismusund Rechtspopulismus und dem Umgang mit der Partei. In A.  Häusler (Ed.), Die Alternative für Deutschland: Programmatik, Entwicklung und politische Verortung (pp. 25–37). Springer. Berbuir, N., Lewandowsky, M., & Siri, J. (2015). The AfD and its Sympathisers: Finally a Right-Wing Populist Movement in Germany? German Politics, 24(2), 154–178. Chrupalla, T. (2022). Rede im Rahmen der 19. Sitzung des Bundestages: Abgabe einer Regierungserklärung durch den Bundeskanzler zur aktuellen Lage. 27 February. https://dserver.bundestag.de/btp/20/20019.pdf Destradi, S., Cadier, D., & Plagemann, J. (2021). Populism and Foreign Policy: A Research Agenda (Introduction). Comparative European Politics, 19(6), 663–682. Forum voor Democratie. (2021). Stem Nederland Terug. Verkiezingsprogramma 2021–2025. Retrieved May 13, 2022, from https://dnpprepo.ub.rug.nl/ 86169/7/FvD%20verkiezingsprogramma%20TK%202021%20definitief.pdf

60 

B. VERBEEK AND T. WOJCZEWSKI

Galpin, C. (2015). Has Germany ‘Fallen Out of Love’ with Europe? The Eurozone Crisis and the ‘Normalization’ of Germany’s European Identity. German Politics and Society, 33(1), 25–41. Gauland, A. (2018). Rede Hambacher Schloss: Nationale Identität. https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=iKqn69oU2eM&t=4s Havertz, R. (2019). Right-Wing Populism and Neoliberalism in Germany: The AfD’s Embrace of Ordoliberalism. New Political Economy, 24(3), 385–403. Höcke, B. (2017a). Holt unsere Jungs heim!: Die Bundeswehr muss wieder eine reine Verteidigungsarmee werden. https://www.facebook.com/Bjoern. Hoecke.AfD/photos/a.1424703574437591.1073741828.1424631334 444815/1862405890667355/?type=3&theater Höcke, B. (2017b). Rede bei Veranstaltung der Jungen Alternative in Dresden am. 19 January. https://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/hoecke-­rede-­im-­ wortlaut-­gemuetszustand-­eines-­total-­besiegten-­volkes/19273518.html Höcke, B. (2022). Tweet, 11 March. https://twitter.com/BjoernHoecke/statu s/1502278550342156289?cxt=HHwWgoCqrbqYldkpAAAA JA21. (2021). Het Juiste Antwoord. JA21 Verkiezingsprogramma 2021–2025. Retrieved May 13, 2022, from https://dnpprepo.ub.rug.nl/86186/1/JA21% 20verkiezingsprogramma%20TK%202021%20definitief.pdf Jagers, J., & Walgrave, S. (2007). Populism as Political Communication Style: An Empirical Study of Political Parties’ Discourse in Belgium. European Journal of Political Research, 46(3), 319–345. Kim, S. (2017). The Populism of the Alternative for Germany (AfD): An Extended Essex School Perspective. Palgrave Communications, 3(5). https://www. nature.com/articles/s41599-­017-­0008-­1 Klingeren, V., Marijn, A. Z., & Verbeek, B. (2017). Accommodating the Dutch Populist Radical Right in a Multi-Party System: Success or Failure? In P. Odmalm & E. Hepburn (Eds.), The European Mainstream and the Populist Radical Right (pp. 108–129). Routledge. Lewandowsky, M. (2016). Die Verteidigung der Nation: Außen- und europapolitische Positionen der AfD im Spiegel des Rechtspopulismus. In A.  Häusler (Ed.), Die Alternative für Deutschland: Programmatik, Entwicklung und politische Verortung (pp. 39–52). Springer. Lijst Pim Fortuyn. (2002). Zakelijk met een Hart. Election manifesto. Retrieved May 12, 2022, from https://www.parlement.com/9291000/d/vtk2002_ vp_lpf.pdf Ministry of Foreign Affairs. (2022). Kamerbrief over De Staat van de Unie. https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/documenten/kamerstukken/2022/04/28/ kamerbrief-­inzake-­staat-­van-­de-­unie-­2022 Mudde, C. (2007). Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe. Cambridge University Press. Odmalm, P., & Hepburn, E. (Eds.). (2017). The European Mainstream and the Populist Radical Right. Routledge.

2  DIGGING NEW WESTERN EUROPEAN TRENCHES: POPULISM… 

61

Partij voor de Vrijheid. (2006). Verkiezingspamflet. Retrieved May 12, 2022, from https://www.parlement.com/9291000/d/vtk2006_vp_pvv.pdf Partij voor de Vrijheid. (2009). Verkiezingsprogramma Europees Parlement 2009. Retrieved May 12, 2022, from https://dnpprepo.ub.rug.nl/130/1/ PVVVerkProgrEurParl2009.pdf Partij voor de Vrijheid. (2010). De agenda van hoop en optimisme. Een tijd om te kiezen: PVV 2010–2015. Retrieved May 12, 2022, from https://dnpprepo. ub.rug.nl/18/1/VerkiezingsProgrammaPVV2010.pdf Partij voor de Vrijheid. (2012). Hún Brussel, óns Nederland. Verkiezingsprogramma 2012–2017. Retrieved May 13, 2022, from https://www.pvv.nl/images/stories/verkiezingen2012/VerkiezingsProgramma-­PVV-­2012-­final-­web.pdf Pew Research Centre. (2020). Majorities in the European Union Have Favorable Views of the Bloc. Retrieved May 17, 2022, from https://www.pewresearch. org/global/2020/11/17/majorities-­in-­the-­european-­union-­have-­favorable-­ views-­of-­the-­bloc/ Rensmann, L. (2018). Radical Right-wing Populists in Parliament: Examining the Alternative for Germany in European Context. German Politics and Society, 36(3), 41–73. Schout, A. (2017). The Dutch EU Presidency: The Continuing Relevance of the Rotating Presidency in a Political Union. Journal of Common Market Studies. Annual Review, 55, 54–63. Segers, M. (2019). The Netherlands and European Integration. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/ acrefore/9780190228637.013.1151 Socialistische Partij. (2002). Eerste Weg Links. Retrieved May 12, 2022, from https://www.parlement.com/9291000/d/vtk2002_vp_sp.pdf Socialistische Partij. (2006). Een Beter Nederland voor Hetzelfde Geld. Retrieved February 17, 2023, from https://www.parlement.com/9291000/d/vtk 2006_vp_sp.pdf Socialistische Partij. (2010). Een Beter Nederland voor Minder Geld. Retrieved February 17, 2023, from https://www.parlement.com/9291000/d/2010_ sp_verkiezingsprogramma.pdf Socialistische Partij. (2012). Nieuw Vertrouwen. Retrived February 17, 2023, from https://dnpprepo.ub.rug.nl/536/1/SPTK2012prog.pdf Socialistische Partij. (2017). Pak de Macht. Retrieved February 17, 2023, from https://dnpprepo.ub.rug.nl/10868/1/SPverkiezingsprogramma2017.pdf Socialistische Partij. (2021). Stel een Daad. Retrieved February 17, 2023, from https://dnpprepo.ub.rug.nl/13280/13/SP%20verkiezingsprogramma%20 2021-2025.pdf Stanley, B. (2008). The Thin Ideology of Populism. Journal of Political Ideologies, 13(1), 95–110.

62 

B. VERBEEK AND T. WOJCZEWSKI

Tillschneider, H.-T. (2016). Rede von Dr. Hans-Thomas Tillschneider beim Kyffhäusertreffen 2016. https://www.derfluegel.de/2016/06/10/video-­rede-­ von-­dr-­hans-­thomas-­tillschneider-­beim-­kyffhaeusertreffen-­2016/ Verbeek, B., & van Kersbergen, K. (2020). Subsidiarity as a Subject of Battle in European Union Politics. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013. 1055 Verbeek, B., Vossen, K., & Zaslove, A. (2019). De PVV en het Nederlandse Buitenlandse Beleid. In G. Voerman & K. Vossen (Eds.), Wilders Gewogen. 15 Jaar Reuring in de Nederlandse Politiek (pp. 269–290). Boom. Verbeek, B., & Zaslove, A. (2017). Populism and Foreign Policy. In C. R. Kaltwasser, P.  Taggart, P.  O. Espejo, & P.  Ostiguy (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Populism. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/ 9780198803560.013.15 Verbeek, B., & Zaslove, A. (2019). Contested Issues Surrounding Populism in Public and Academic Debates. The International Spectator, 54(2), 1–16. Verdun, A. (2021). The Greatest of the Small? The Netherlands, the New Hanseatic league and the Frugal four. German Politics. https://doi.org/1 0.1080/09644008.2021.2003782 Wajner, D. F., & Giurlando, P. (2023). Introduction to Populist Foreign Policy (PFP). In P. Giurlando & D. Wajner (Eds.), Populist Foreign Policy: Regional Perspectives of Populism in the International Scene. Palgrave. Weyland, K. (2017). Populism: A Political-Strategic Approach. In C. R. Kaltwasser, P.  Taggart, P.  O. Espejo, & P.  Ostiguy (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Populism. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/ 9780198803560.013.2 Wojczewski, T. (2020a). Populism, Hindu Nationalism, and Foreign Policy in India: The Politics of Representing ‘the People’. International Studies Review, 22(3), 396–422. Wojczewski, T. (2020b). Trump, Populism, and American Foreign Policy. Foreign Policy Analysis, 16(3), 292–311. Wojczewski, T. (2021). Conspiracy Theories, Right-wing Populism and Foreign Policy: The Case of the Alternative for Germany. Journal of International Relations and Development. [Online First].

CHAPTER 3

Populist Foreign Policy in Southern Europe Angelos Chryssogelos, Philip Giurlando, and Daniel F. Wajner

Introduction This chapter explores the foreign policies of populist governments in several countries of Southern Europe, notably France,1 Greece, Italy, and Spain. These Mediterranean countries show similar characteristics in terms of not only geography, culture, and political system but also a dense 1  There may be some ambiguity on whether France is part of Southern or Northern Europe. For the purposes of this chapter, we sustain it can be usefully placed in the category of Southern given its shared religious, social, and political history with non-protestant countries, as well as several macroeconomic indicators such as levels of debt and deficit, regulation, state intervention.

A. Chryssogelos (*) London Metropolitan University, London, UK e-mail: [email protected] P. Giurlando Department of International Studies, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Suzhou, China e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 P. Giurlando, D. F. Wajner (eds.), Populist Foreign Policy, Global Foreign Policy Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22773-8_3

63

64 

A. CHRYSSOGELOS ET AL.

presence of populist leaderships with governmental power (or close to having it, in the French case), both from the right and from the left. A comparative analysis of Populist Foreign Policy (PFP) in this sub-region allows us to unravel some of the distinctive ways in which populists shape foreign policy, especially in relation to the EU, and how this is influenced by structural positions in the regional distribution of power and the relative strength of domestic parties and institutions. Indeed, France, Greece, Italy, and Spain are states that show multiple similarities in the context of South European politics of the last decade. They found themselves, to varying degrees, in the intersection of the two major EU governance crises of the 2010s: the Eurozone crisis and the refugee crisis. As a result of the politicization and contestation fuelled by these crises, their party politics were dramatically altered, from a conventional competition between moderate parties of the centre-right and the centre-left to the rise or strengthening of anti-establishment parties (Katsanidou & Otjes, 2016). In the case of Italy and Greece, these changes culminated in the creation of unorthodox all-populist governing coalitions: the government of the radical-left SYRIZA and the right-nationalist ANEL in Greece between 2015 and 2019; and the government of the progressive populist Five Star Movement and the radical-right Lega in Italy between 2018 and 2019. In the case of Spain, the crisis strongly deepened populist and anti-establishment attitudes, thus putting an end to the “Iberian exceptionalism” regarding populism (see Alonso & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2015; Turnbull-Dugarte et  al., 2020). The massive anti-­ austerity protests that followed the crises of 2011–2012 led to the rise in January 2014 of a left-wing political party—Podemos—that reached the European Parliament four months later and the Spanish congresses in 2015 and ultimately joined the national coalition in November 2019; and the rise of a far-right populist party—Vox—that split from the Partido Popular in January 2014 and by 2019 had achieved substantial power in the legislature. In the case of France, these crises catalysed existing populist trends (Giurlando, 2020), both from the right and from the left, which led to the progressive strengthening of the Front Nationale since the presidential candidacy of Marine Le Pen in May 2011 to her participation (and

D. F. Wajner Department of International Relations and The European Forum, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel e-mail: [email protected]

3  POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN SOUTHERN EUROPE 

65

defeat) in the April 2022 Presidential ballot, and the creation of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s La France Insoumise since 2016, which came third with 22% of the votes in the 2022 Presidential elections. Both Rassemblement National (RN) and La France Insoumise (LFI) performed very well in the French legislative elections 2 months later. These parallel trajectories make a comparison of Southern Europe’s populism particularly fruitful for assessing the role of populism in foreign policy and provides lessons for other countries in Europe and beyond, where populists enjoy relatively high levels of public support and could conceivably take full executive power in future elections. Following the theoretical framework outlined by Wajner and Giurlando  (2023) in the Introduction of this book, this chapter will conceptualize populism primarily as a discursive strategy and PFP as a practice and will look at the factors that induced the influence of populism on the foreign policy in these four key Southern European countries. The examples of these countries will illustrate some of the structural constraints to PFP which ultimately forced populist parties, especially of Greece and Italy, to realign with the European and Western mainstream. Based on this outcome, we can derive general conclusions relevant to populists elsewhere, and particularly in Southern Europe.

International Sources and Effects of Southern Europe’s Populism Greece and Italy are the most obvious cases to compare the sources and the international effects of populism, in part because in both countries populists obtained executive power, giving them the responsibility for decisions in the field of foreign policy. The post-World War II geopolitical trajectories of two countries at the crossroads of the Cold War divide that ultimately settled in a firm Euro-Atlantic alignment have been closely tied with the dynamics of their party politics. For this reason, the fracturing of centripetal party politics in Greece and Italy immediately gave rise to concerns about the foreign policy orientation of both states, especially in a context of rising geopolitical challenges to the Western-led international order after the global financial crisis and the passing of the US “unipolar moment” (Kouskouvelis, 2012; Zakaria, 2019). Both the SYRIZA-ANEL and the 5SM-Lega coalitions (Chryssogelos, 2019; Coticchia & Vignoli, 2020; Feroci, 2019; Pugliese et al., 2022; Monteleone, 2021; Claudi & Locatelli, 2020, Feroci, 2019; Tsardanidis, 2015) elicited a significant

66 

A. CHRYSSOGELOS ET AL.

number of analyses on their foreign policy implications and, by extension, the significance of populism for foreign policy. Meanwhile, in the case of Spain, even though Podemos has come to power in the national government since November 2019, the areas of foreign affairs are under the control of the Socialist Party (Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE)) (see Manfredi-Sánchez et  al., 2021). This distanced Podemos from foreign policy decision-making but enabled it to maintain a certain degree of independent speech and criticism towards the EU institutions. That said, populist attitudes remain clearly entrenched in the society, as polls show that Spain is the country with the highest proportion of the population (over two-thirds) who believe that the political system needs to be completely reformed (Pew Research, 13/12/21). Another similarity between the cases of Greece and Italy is the foreign policy trajectory under these two populist governing coalitions, which started off their terms with declared ambitions and transparent efforts to rebalance their foreign policy. Of particular importance here was Greece and Italy’s perceived dependence and subjugation to the priorities of the EU, a sentiment heightened during the economic and refugee crises of the 2010s that in turn fed frustration with established pro-European parties and bolstered the vote of Eurosceptic populists (Clements et al., 2014). SYRIZA, ANEL, 5SM and Lega were all successful, despite their diverse ideological origins, in framing economic and migration crises in terms of a crisis of democratic representation for states embedded in the process of European integration (Stavrakakis & Katsambekis, 2014). In Spain and France, on the other hand, populists also were fuelled by the frustration of the decisions taken in foreign capitals, such as Brussels or Berlin/Frankfurt, and although they did not take the reins of foreign policy (and some could argue that because of it), they too framed the crises in terms of elite corruption and the unrepresentativeness of the EU technocrats and proposed foreign policy policies which indicated the potential for substantive rupture. Interestingly enough, despite these parties’ Euroscepticism in rhetoric, in practice their leaderships took advantage of the political game of alliances in the European Parliament, and both Podemos’ Pablo Iglesias and Vox’s Aleix Vidal-Quadras were Member of European Parliaments (MEPs) (see Turnbull-Dugarte et al., 2020; Sola & Rendueles, 2018). Similarly, Marine Le Pen’s career was launched by her participation as MEP for almost 13 years, from 2004 to 2017, while even serving as Chair of the Europe of Nations and Freedom Group between 2015 and 2017.

3  POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN SOUTHERN EUROPE 

67

The cases are also particularly well suited for comparison because they found similar conditions in terms of their PFP effects. In the cases of Greece and Italy, the primary consequence of these populist governing coalitions was moves that challenged their states’ alignment with core tenets of EU foreign policy, cooperation with other EU member states and their position within the West as a whole. In 2015, its first year in power, the SYRIZA-ANEL coalition appeared to pursue closer relations with non-Western powers like Russia, China, and Venezuela to find alternative sources of financing for the Greek debt. As the danger of Greece’s eviction from the Eurozone increased throughout 2015, so did concerns about its exit from the Western orbit, with its exit from the EU perhaps being followed by its exit from NATO as well (Chryssogelos, 2021). Similarly, in Italy, the 5SM-Lega coalition adopted a confrontational stance towards other EU partners, and during tense and acrimonious negotiations signalled its willingness to exit the Eurozone (Giurlando, 2021). It also was hostile to French president Emmanuel Macron, made overtures to Russia, was sympathetic to Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, and signed a controversial partnership agreement with China as part of the One Belt One Road initiative (Pugliese et al., 2022). Populist parties in Spain and France, meanwhile, expressed favourable evaluations to these positions, although in opposition and in varying degrees. The strengthening of Podemos and La France Insoumise on the one hand and RN and Vox on the other, had a relative success in terms of internal debate, adding a certain Eurosceptic impact to their country’s stances. In parallel, all these parties strengthened alliances and bonds of solidarity with other populist leaders in Europe (including between them, as well as with Italy, Hungary, and Poland), with Putin’s Russia, in the United States (Trump and Sanders, respectively) and in Latin America (either with Pink Tide populist leaderships led by Venezuela’s Chavismo-­ Madurismo or with the Brazilian government of the right-wing populist Jair Bolsonaro) (see Wajner, 2022, pp. 424–5). Ultimately, what appeared like a populist-induced foreign policy realignment, particularly in Greece and Italy, was eventually halted because of a combination of domestic and international constraints which put a serious brake on populists’ willingness to follow through with their radical proposals. After ignoring the historic and dramatic referendum in 2015, when 62% of Greeks voted against austerity proposals emanating from foreign capitals, the SYRIZA-led coalition under Alexis Tsipras came closer to the priorities of the EU and NATO so much so that by the end

68 

A. CHRYSSOGELOS ET AL.

of its term in 2019 they could be considered fully mainstream members of the Western alliance (Chryssogelos, 2021). In Italy, the radicalism of the populist coalition was interrupted by the intervention of the President of the Republic Mattarella, the pressure of financial markets and creditor countries (Giurlando, 2021), and the fracturing of the coalition and convoluted processes of government formation which saw the two populist parties, 5SM and Lega, first opposing each other and, eventually, becoming coalition partners again under Mario Draghi. Throughout much of this period, 5SM leader Luigi di Maio has held the post of foreign minister, which only highlights even more his party’s, and Italian populism’s more generally, realignment with the European and Western mainstream after the fracturing of the first populist coalition in 2019. Similarly, Podemos has found clear limitations in their preliminary positions towards Russia, Catalunya, and Western Sahara in their own conflicts, and has stepped back in their preliminary stances on these issues. Vox, such as FN and LFI, has mostly tried to act at the EU level, such as when they launched a strategy of legal warfare through the EU Parliament against the Catalan independentists. We delve deeper on these international (multi)polarity as follows. International (Multi)polarity While the rise of populism in Southern Europe is, as seen above, inextricably connected with the economic crisis and the austerity programs imposed by the EU, from an international relations perspective, it can also be viewed as a national and regional expression of a larger structural shift in global politics: the passage from the world of Western-led globalization and US hegemony to the world of multipolarity, where non-Western powers hold increasing sway. Indeed, in Greece, the appeal of populism during this period cannot be understood outside the context when calls for a rebalancing of Greece’s international orientation towards emerging powers gained increasing credence (see e.g., Kotzias, 2010. Kotzias later became foreign minister in the SYRIZA government). Populism in Italy has a similar pedigree but with some important differences. The country was one of the first with a Trump-like populist showman, Silvio Berlusconi, who governed four times, between 1994 and 1995, 2001 to 2006, and 2008 to 2011. Italy’s second wave of populism occurred shortly after, with the rise of the Five Star Movement and the Lega’s turn towards sovereigntism. Neither were initially intrinsically anti-EU.

3  POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN SOUTHERN EUROPE 

69

In contrast, an anti-Western and Eurosceptic posture characterized parties of both the radical left and the radical right in Greece in the post-Cold War period. However, these ideas had limited appeal at a time when Greece’s main political parties had successfully convinced voters that it was in the country’s interest to remain closely aligned with the West and the EU, a choice from which significant economic benefits flowed to Greece. The crisis however shattered this consensus, revealing Greece’s European integration as a problem both of prosperity and national and democratic sovereignty (Verney, 2014). In fact, since the late 2000s Greek foreign policy had begun to experiment with contacts beyond the country’s Western allies. Interestingly, such contacts were initiated by non-populist parties, as when a conservative government signed an energy deal with Russia in 2009 and a socialist government pursued after 2010 closer relations with Israel and welcomed Chinese investments in the port of Piraeus. Italian foreign policy, too, began a shift from near uncritical obsequiousness to Atlanticist and Europeanist positions towards exploring opportunities among alternative power centres, including Russia and China. Yet populists greatly accelerated these trends and openly embraced non-­ Western powers. A similar trend can be observed in Spain: just as Italy, it also had a consensus about the benefits of European integration, and this condition was seriously undermined by the crisis, so much so that both went from being two of the most Europhile countries to two of the most Eurosceptic (you need data here). Podemos absorbed the anti-American (i.e., anti-US) stances of the left-wing populism in Latin America, which encourages a strategy of soft balancing the hegemon, delegitimizing its international institutions, and backing alternative global and regional powers such as Russia and China (Dodson & Dorraj, 2008; Sola & Rendueles, 2018; Wajner, 2021, p. 672; Wehner & Thies, 2021). Vox also advocated multiplying links with other global powers towards the insertion of Spain in the world (Gonzalez, 2022), yet it disagreed on Podemos’ views towards the United States, particularly during the government of the like-minded Donald Trump. In addition, Vox embraced the notion of the Spanish “commonwealth” according to their view of Spain’s imperial past, for example expressed in cooperation practices through Ibero-American frameworks, as well as in Spain’s relationship with emerging powers in the Global South. Vox has also actively collaborated through European frameworks together with Hungarian Fidesz, Poland’s PiS, and Italy’s Lega, pushing the political coalition of “Identity and Democracy” in the

70 

A. CHRYSSOGELOS ET AL.

European Parliament (see Rama et al., 2021). That said, the situation is more complex in France, where the economic and migration crises fuelled the rise of LFI and RN (Giurlando, 2019), but the country’s central position of power in the EU brings it closer to Germany than to their Mediterranean peers. The rise of anti-austerity populists after 2010 in all the countries under discussion (Varoufakis, 2016; Vampa, 2020; Sola & Rendueles, 2019; Sotirakopoulos & Sotiropoulos, 2013; Lapavitsas, 2012), initially appearing in street mobilization, the media, and public debates before transferring to the party arena, drew on this geopolitical shift. Populism was particularly appropriate to frame this “rise of the Rest” in domestic politics. Contrary to radical ideologies of the left and right that had a more limited appeal, populism could mobilize broad feelings of democratic exclusion, a sense of betrayal by domestic elites (Giurlando, 2019; Rinaldi, 2018), and political frustration with domestic and European elites. This was particularly pronounced in Italy, where the democratically elected government of Silvio Berlusconi was replaced by the Brussels friendly technocrat Mario Monti in part because financial and European elites believed that the former could not carry out the necessary “structural reforms” to make Italy solvent and, by extension, ensure the Eurozone’s stability (Middelaar, 2017). Meanwhile, in France, the elected governments of Sarkozy and Holland were perceived to be following the dictates of Berlin, Brussels, and financial markets rather than the supposedly sovereign people who elected them (Streeck, 2018; Delaume, 2018; Lordon, 2015; Melenchon, 2015; Tavel, 2013; Odent, 2014). Similarly, Spain’s traditional parties (PSOE and PP) appeared to be disconnected from the suffering of workers, students, and other vulnerable groups affected by the recession (Alonso & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2015; Fassin, 2018; Iglesias & Juliana, 2018). In this framework, Greece’s, Italy’s, France’s, and Spain’s traditional partners in the United States and the EU could be presented as the “elites” of the international system (“globalists”), and alternative powers such as China and Russia now were portrayed as their credible opponents. Consequently, the domestic and international features of populism (“people” vs. “elites”) mutually reinforced each other at times of crisis. The main source of populism in three highly indebted Mediterranean countries, Greece, Italy, and Spain, was frustration with austerity measures “recommended” by the EU on their sovereignty (Barbeito & Alonso, 2021; Sanchez-Cuenca, 2014; Verney, 2014). In Greece, in particular, flirtations with rising non-Western powers took the form especially of calls

3  POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN SOUTHERN EUROPE 

71

for Greece to turn to them for the financing of Greek debt. For populists in both countries, Russia was especially appealing, with Vladimir Putin appearing as a prototypical “strong leader” juxtaposed to the bureaucratic and technocratic mode of EU governance (Chryssogelos, 2014). China also appeared as a welcome counterweight to Greece’s dependence on the EU, a position that was particularly held by Italy’s Five Star Movement. Similarly attractive was Putin for Podemos, LFI, and the Five Star movement, while solidarity with Venezuela was particularly appealing given the affinities felt with the regime of Hugo Chavez and his successor, Nicolás Maduro (see Wajner & Roniger, 2022). Likewise, in the case of Greece, the crisis catalysed a more sophisticated differentiation of populists’ views towards the two main pillars of the Western alliance to which it belonged, the United States and the EU. For most of the post-World War II period in Greece, the United States was seen in a particularly negative light in large parts of the Greek population, and especially the left, because of its meddling in Greek politics during the Cold War. After the end of the Cold War, that antipathy was shared with elements of the nationalistic and religious right viewing the United States as the leading force of globalization and the cultural threat this represented. As a result, populists of both the right and left in Greece, similar to their populist cousins in France, historically targeted the United States as the “elite” of the international system. While also distrusted on various counts (e.g., seen as a neoliberal free-market project), the EU was seen by most Greeks as the more palatable “face” of the West where Greece could belong. In Italy, meanwhile, anti-US sentiment was much more subdued and held mainly by the communist party; other parties were either indifferent to the United States or favourable to the alliance, particularly as Italy hosted several important American military bases. But in Italy, similar to Greece, favourable attitudes towards the EU were felt across the political spectrum. After the double parliamentary elections of 2012, SYRIZA and ANEL emerged as the bearers of popular discontent with austerity and systematized in their party platforms the populist perspectives of foreign policy developed over the initial years of crisis, including a mistrust of the EU, a sovereigntist perspective of Greece’s role in the world, a willingness to align more closely with non-Western powers and espousal of multipolarity, and an instrumental perspective of foreign policy in the service of debt renegotiation and freeing Greece from austerity (see, e.g., SYRIZA electoral platform for the 2012 elections). During those years, however, both

72 

A. CHRYSSOGELOS ET AL.

parties also allowed openings towards the United States to appear. As leader of the opposition, Alexis Tsipras cultivated relations with progressive figures in the United States, while ANEL leader Kammenos maintained the Atlanticist outlook he had since the time he belonged to ND. When the SYRIZA-ANEL government took over in early 2015, some of its first actions indeed showcased this turn towards non-Western powers. Most notably, and similar to the populist coalition in Italy, the new government signalled its opposition to the imposition of additional EU sanctions on Russia over its annexation of Crimea, although notably it did not veto the extension of existing sanctions. During the so-called “renegotiation” with the EU of the first half of 2015, Tsipras and a number of his ministers visited Moscow to negotiate funding and energy cooperation agreements with Russia. There were also reports of SYRIZA politicians exploring opportunities of funding or energy and food supplies from non-­ Western powers like China, Venezuela, and Iran. All these initiatives however came to a halt after Tsipras capitulated and accepted a new bailout package from the EU in July 2015 (Chryssogelos, 2021). In Italy, the replacement of Silvio Berlusconi with the Brussels friendly technocrat Mario Monti, who subsequently cut spending and raised taxes in order to meet the demands of creditors, leading to a significant increase of economic distress, fuelled the rise of populism. The Five Star Movement and the Lega performed well in general elections of 2013 but did not gain enough votes to be power brokers. Consequently, in a trend seen elsewhere in Southern Europe, including Spain and Greece, an unholy coalition of the centre-left and centre-right governed together in order to reassure financial markets, Brussels, and Berlin and to ensure some continuity with the “structural reforms” of the previous, technocratic government. Hopes were dashed when Italy’s economic distress continued (Giurlando, 2019). Matteo Renzi, a kind of Italian version of Emmanuel Macron, attempted to turn the tide with neoliberal reforms, particularly his signature piece of legislation, the Jobs Act, with reduced worker protections. During the same period, the Syriza-ANEL coalition was engaged in tense negotiations with Brussels, France, and Germany over the question of Greece’s willingness to bow to creditors and, by extension, remain a member of the Eurozone. When the majority of Greeks voted no to more austerity, and yet Greek Prime Minister Tsipras buckled to creditors’ demands, Italian populists of the left and the right, as well as large sections of the Italian masses, expressed outrage (Giurlando, 2016). Meanwhile, America’s destabilizing policies in the Middle East, and Brussels’ inability to adequately clean up the mess, led to the migration crisis which

3  POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN SOUTHERN EUROPE 

73

exacerbated the sense that the country was losing control (Lazar & Diamanti, 2019; Socci, 2018; Goodhart, 2017). These trends in Italy—the failure of Monti’s technocratic government and his successors to reduce or stem economic distress, the perceived humiliation of Greece, and the migration crisis—set the stage for populists’ dramatic success in the general elections of 2018. The Five Star Movement won an unprecedented 34% of the vote; meanwhile the Lega won 17%, which was not enough to form a coalition government with its partners—Forza Italia and Fratelli de Italia—on the Right. The Five Star Movement had the option to form a coalition with the centre-left Partito Democratico (PD), but this would have meant governing with a detested faction of the establishment which was perceived to be an agent of hostile foreign capitals. Similar to what occurred in Greece, populists of the right and left entered a coalition government, in part because of their shared distaste of international actors accused of working in complicity with domestic parties who were perceived to be responsible for the country’s economic decline. Consistent with their underlying belief in the desirability of a multipolar world, Italian populists made overtures to Russia and China, with varying degrees and nuances in terms of preferred partner and strategy (Giurlando, 2021). Both were favourable towards Russia and wanted to veto sanctions against the country for its annexation of Crimea. However, they neglected to exercise their veto twice, in part because these decisions occurred during tense negotiations with Brussels over public spending and gaining advantage on the latter was clearly their priority. Regarding China, the Five Star Movement’s top brass, and many sympathetic intellectuals, viewed the closer ties as potential leverage against Western capitals (Il Fatto Quotidiano, 2020), particularly Paris, Berlin, and Brussels, and signed the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) despite loud protestations. On challenging austerity, the coalition made a serious attempt in this direction when it chose the Keynesian economist Paolo Savona as the candidate for minister of Finance. Similar to Yannis Varoufakis, he was willing to exit the Eurozone if demands for less austerity were not met. The president of the Italian Republic, Sergio Matarella, vetoed his candidacy, on the grounds that this possibility of rupture with the EU would bankrupt and impoverish millions of Italians. For all the talk of multipolarity and challenging Brussels and Berlin, then, the main structural constraint that proved insurmountable for Greek and Italian populists was economic dependence on the EU. With the only alternative to a deal with the EU

74 

A. CHRYSSOGELOS ET AL.

being bankruptcy and eviction from the Eurozone, and with no assistance forthcoming from any non-Western power (at least of the magnitude required to keep Greece and Italy afloat), the SYRIZA-ANEL and 5SM-Lega governments were forced to lay to rest the rhetoric about realigning away from its traditional allies. In Italy, the populist coalition governed only for a period of 14 months, and so its attempts to alter Italy’s traditional Atlanticist and Europeanist orientation in foreign affairs was cut short. The SYRIZA-ANEL government, meanwhile, continued to govern and to invest in a variety of bilateral relationships beyond the EU, with Tsipras visiting China twice during his premiership, making a high-profile visit to Cuba on the occasion of Fidel Castro’s funeral, and deepening his ties with the United States. Sometimes these ties offered opportunities to the government to use a rhetoric of diversification of Greece’s relations or to employ populist themes of global justice or a growing multipolarity against Western dominance. However, during the same period Greece became increasingly aligned with the priorities and functioning of the EU foreign policy system. By the end of Tsipras’ term, even relations with Russia, once the main reference point of Greek populists, had soured due to Moscow’s opposition and undermining of the deal that resolved the Macedonia name-issue and paved the way for North Macedonia to join NATO. The effect of four years of populist rule in Greece from the perspective of international polarity then was to cement Greece’s alignment with the West all the while international politics moved inexorably away from unipolarity. In this sense, the geopolitical gravity of dependence on the EU and Greece’s traditional orientation proved more important than populist ideas. For Italy, Greece, and Spain, it was precisely the peculiar international systemic pressures that they operated under, especially their embeddedness in the web of EU governance, that reigned in the populist coalition. In the future, there is potential for France to be an exception, given its higher ranking in international hierarchies which would presumably give it more leverage than Italy, Greece, or Spain to carry out its promises to challenge Brussels and more closely align with Russia and/ or China. Ideology PFP in Southern Europe was also constrained by ideological features. That two parties from the opposites of the ideological spectrum ended up

3  POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN SOUTHERN EUROPE 

75

forming a governing coalition is a testament to the strength of populist ideology in the context formed by the economic crisis and the collapse of the old party system in Greece and Italy. Despite SYRIZA coming from the radical left and ANEL from the nationalist right, and 5SM having more progressive leanings while the League had right-wing roots, and the two camps differing in a host of policy issues (especially on questions of religion, multiculturalism, and social rights), their common opposition to austerity and Greece’s and Italy’s subjugation to the EU was enough for them to cooperate. In Italy, in addition, both parties shared a pro-China orientation, although for different reasons; the 5SM was and is also very sympathetic to China for reasons of realpolitik, while the League sees this country mainly as an opportunity for Italian exports and investors. One position that arguably flowed from populist ideology was the idea that the corrupt or malicious international “elite” originated in Frankfurt (as a representation of the European Central Bank) and in Germany more broadly (as the most powerful regional pivot), and that a policy of soft balancing was essential to counter its accused imposition of austerity (Giurlando, 2021). In the case of Greece, however, it is unclear whether this hints at an independent role of populism as the main ideological guide of the two parties’ stances and the policies they followed when in office. The reason is that many of the foreign policy positions of the two parties could be attributed to their thick host ideologies rather than populism. SYRIZA’s opposition to the EU as a neoliberal free-market project and its preference for a multipolar world that would balance against US imperialism were positions long associated with the Greek and European radical left, well before the party made its populist turn. Equally, ANEL’s affinity for Russia on the basis of common culture and religion and distrust of the West out of concerns for Greek national sovereignty are core elements of right-wing nationalist ideology, again not reducible to populism (Ellinas, 2012). Therefore, the evidence is mixed for the hypothesis of populism being an independent cause of PFP: regarding the Eurozone crisis and Germany’s role in it, in both Greece and Italy populists from different ideological traditions interpreted it very similarly, and in a way which reflected the people-elite dichotomy which is intrinsic to populist ideology; on various other issues, PFP positions can be traced to their host ideologies. Another fruitful line of inquiry is that PFP was a specific kind of discourse or articulation of these positions. In other words, populism helped political forces with relatively fundamental and restricted ideological

76 

A. CHRYSSOGELOS ET AL.

outlooks to reach out to larger groups of voters on the basis of anti-­ establishment and pro-democratic appeals, calling for restitution of the “people” against domestic and European power structures. Based on this, foreign policy positions that emanated from specific ideologies—the radical left’s anti-Westernism, the nationalist right’s affinity for Russia—could be presented in the context of the crisis as preconditions for giving power back to the people, as pro-Western and pro-European elites had betrayed their mission by accepting austerity and violations of Greeks’ and Italians’ sovereignty. Although these positions were accepted by large parts of the population even before the crisis, they were never majoritarian as most accepted the logic of the Western anchoring and European integration of the country. Populism gave them a much larger audience as part of a broader rhetoric that presented a recalibration of relations with Europe as a precondition for the “people” to recover its democratic dignity (Busher et al., 2018). In this direction should also be understood the positions of France’s FN and LFI as well as Spain’s Podemos towards NATO, portrayed as a pro-US organization that constrained the sovereignty of the French, Spanish, and Europeans more generally vis-à-vis other global powers and institutions. In its role as a discourse ground for foreign policy performance, in the case of Greece populism helped SYRIZA and ANEL to be agile in the face of shifting geopolitical circumstances and their leaders to escape some of the rigid ideological positions of their political camps. For example, by prioritizing the “struggle” the end of austerity and reinstating independence and sovereignty to the Greek people, Tsipras could justify the mellowing of some of SYRIZA’s traditional hardcore left-wing positions on issues of foreign policy. While in the 2012 elections, where SYRIZA emerged as the main opposition party, its platform still stated its opposition to Greece’s NATO membership and to Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories (SYRIZA, 2012), both positions were silently jettisoned by Tsirpas when he entered power. Instead, the United States under Barack Obama was seen as an important ally and counterweight to Germany’s dominance in the EU, while close relations with Israel (initiated by previous governments) was seen to offer opportunities to Greece to diversify its relations and raise its geopolitical importance as a counter-­ balance to its precarious economic situation and its protracted conflict with Turkey (Chryssogelos, 2021). For both the Greek and Italian governments, populism, understood as a stand-alone discursive strategy that influenced PFP, eventually withered,

3  POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN SOUTHERN EUROPE 

77

but for different reasons. In Italy, the European elections of 2019 demonstrated that the balance of power was more and more in Salvini’s favour, and he began to make maximalist demands; at the same time, the stand-off with Brussels and Berlin had calmed down, lessening the need for unity. These and other factors contributed to the Italian populist government’s short lifespan of 14 months. In the case of Greece, Varoufakis was replaced with the more pliant Tsakalotos, and shortly after the crisis receded, leading to Tsipras’s reintegration into the European mainstream. This became evident in 2018–2019, when Tsirpas decided to resolve the Macedonia name-issue. In this way, Tsipras was repositioning SYRIZA as a party of the left, rather than a populist party that had embraced during the crisis a rhetoric that often-used sovereigntist and nationalist language at odds with leftist ideology (Chryssogelos & Stavrevska, 2019). Domestic Politics PFP in the Southern region of Europe was strongly conditioned by local characteristics of the political systems, parties, and cultures. In Greece, for instance, SYRIZA and ANEL were two very different populist parties. Although before the economic crisis SYRIZA was a small party, rarely exceeding 4–5% of the vote, it had a long historical pedigree reaching all the way back to the 1960s, when the reformed left broke from the Greek Communist Party (Kommounistiko Komma Elladas (KKE)). In its various iterations, the reformed left comprised multiple parties, movements, and personalities engaged in deep ideological debates. ANEL on the other hand resembled much more the typical model of splinter-parties in Greece created by disgruntled politicians (usually ex-ministers who failed in leadership bids) from one of the two historical major parties, New Democracy and Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK). ANEL founder Panos Kammenos was a maverick MP of New Democracy who acquired a high profile in the first phase of the crisis, in 2010–2011, when ND opposed the first austerity package brought in by PASOK. Articulating a radically populist and anti-austerity discourse, Kammenos became identified with the right-wing critique of austerity as a danger not only to Greece’s economic prosperity but also its national independence. The Five Star Movement and the League have very different origins even if their trajectory, in terms of the path to taking power, were similar to those of the Greek government’s. Beppe Grillo, the Italian comedian and performer, and his associate Gianroberto Casaleggio launched the

78 

A. CHRYSSOGELOS ET AL.

party in 2009 as a revolt against corruption in the Italian party system (Grillo & Casaleggio, 2011). Policy proposals were a hodgepodge of attempts to enhance environmental sustainability and internet connectivity, but, consistent with their populist roots, their priority was the implementation of measures, such as referendums and recalls, that would give citizens the tools to override a distant and corrupt establishment (Grillo, 2010; Grillo & Casaleggio, 2011; Grillo & Casaleggio, 2014). In contrast, the League’s origins were as a northern separatist movement angry about Rome’s taxation and corruption. The perceived corruption and betrayal of Italy’s mainstream parties, plus the migration and financial crisis, turned Matteo Salvini into an anti-establishment icon (Mosetti, 2021), giving him a similar status as Beppe Grillo. Both, at this point, were perceived by many as charismatic leaders who could potentially embody the people’s will against the corrupt and treasonous establishment. In Spain, the fate of the populist parties and their PFP was also related to the main conflicts in which modern Spain is involved: the secessionist attempts of Catalonia and the Basques, as well as the vindication of the independence of Western Sahara and the disputed control over Melilla and Ceuta. Podemos and Vox have shown very different positions in this regard, and their own positions in the face of these conflicts have greatly influenced their very essence from an ideological perspective. In contrast with the majority of the Socialist Party, Podemos has taken a more favourable stance towards the collective rights of Catalonia during the 2017–2018 Spanish constitutional crisis, as particularly discussed in October 2017, in the aftermath of the referendum for the independence of Catalonia led by the former President of the Generalitat de Catalunya, Carles Puigdemont. Indeed, some figures of Podemos in the region, such as the mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, led the criticism of the Spanish government’s repression of Catalan public servants and the expressions of King Felipe VI in which he accused the organizers of the referendum of acting “outside the law” with “unacceptable disloyalty.” Likewise, Vox has stood out for its strong ultra-nationalistic stance during this conflict, and it is believed that part of its appeal in the subsequent elections was earned, thanks to this assertive stance at such a critical juncture (Wheeler, 2020). Vox has also taken advantage of a kind of nostalgia among Spanish population about Hispanic “imperial” past (“make Spain great again”), that also influenced Spanish public attitudes in relation to the demands against Morocco in the mutual claiming of the enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, which are in Spain’s hands. This follows the decision of

3  POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN SOUTHERN EUROPE 

79

December 10, 2020, once US President Donald Trump announced the official recognition of Morocco’s claims to Western Sahara by the United States. Vox members then abstained from voting in the Parliamentary vote on a motion over one area once known as the “Spanish province in Africa.” For different reasons, Podemos voted against the decision of the President of Spain, PSOE’s leader Pedro Sánchez, to break a 46-year-old consensus on the “active neutrality” of Spain in the conflict between Morocco and the Polisario Front combatants; a decision that Sánchez supposedly made alone, without consulting Podemos, their allies in the coalition, which has historically expressed sympathy for the Sahrawis. In Greece, when ND accepted austerity in 2011, Kammenos and a number of other MPs disagreed, left the party and formed ANEL.  As through a series of national elections in 2012–2015 most of these MPs lost their seats, Kammenos consolidated himself as the undisputed leader of ANEL, which in turn appeared like a classical populist party, with minimal organizational structures and relying on the personalistic leadership of its founder. In that sense, ANEL’s foreign policy positions reflected in essence Kammenos’ personal preferences and ideas. When the SYRIZA-­ ANEL coalition was formed, a distribution of labour was implemented in the management of foreign affairs. Kammenos received the ministry of defence, which allowed him to exploit opportunities for militaristic performances and to pose as protector of Greece’s national independence and sovereignty. Once the populist government accepted a new austerity package from the EU, these opportunities were all that Kammenos had to showcase his populist credentials, which did not save his party from obliteration in the 2019 elections after all (Chryssogelos, 2019, 2021). Interestingly, Tsipras appointed as foreign minister Nikos Kotzias, his close foreign policy advisor and an academic with a history of advisory roles in PASOK governments and high-profile public interventions on questions of foreign policy. The appointment of Kotzias is interesting from the perspective of the study of populist foreign policy for two reasons. On the one hand, it seemed to agree with the expectation of a populist government realigning Greece away from the West, since Kotzias had for long advocated for Greek foreign policy to embrace international multipolarity and non-Western rising powers (Kotzias, 2010). But at the same time, Kotzias was a formally non-partisan actor: not only did he not belong to SYRIZA but was not even elected a member of parliament. Kotzias conducted foreign policy largely insulated from pressures from within his own government, the opposition and most of public opinion.

80 

A. CHRYSSOGELOS ET AL.

Although he took various personal initiatives on the basis of his own reading of the international situation and Greece’s interests, Kotzias largely remained within the parameters of established foreign policy goals and processes, which he had after all served as advisor to PASOK governments in previous years. This arrangement served the main purpose of Tsipras, which was to centralize most important and highly political foreign policy decisions and strategic overview in his person. To the extent that this made foreign policy part of an overall populist strategy, such as during the adversarial renegotiation with the EU in the first half of 2015, one could see this as a typical example of populism being instrumentalized for other political purposes (Chryssogelos, 2021). On the other hand, it bears noting that centralization of foreign policy making and the primacy of elected leaders over foreign policy bureaucracies is not a particularly new phenomenon nor confined to populists (Destradi & Plagemann, 2019). In Italy, in contrast, the formation of the government, including key cabinet positions such as finance and foreign affairs, occurred while the populist coalition was under pressure from Brussels, financial markets, foreign capitals, and the President of the Republic, who ensured that centrist technocrats, Giovani Tria and Enzo Milanesi, and not populists occupied these key posts (Giurlando, 2021). Consequently, the populist government’s foreign policies, particularly decisions regarding Russia and negotiations with Brussels, were implemented by agents who had to face the Scylla of satisfying populist colleagues who demanded rupture and the Charybdis of external actors pressuring Italy to conform to decisions previously taken by technocratic or non-populist predecessors. Policy Domains Contrary to the stereotype that populists do not invest significantly in the development of concrete policy proposals, populists in Greece in the 2010s attempted to underpin their vision of an alternative relationship between the “people” and the “system”, as well as between Greece and Europe, with a different policy orientation than what the Greek state had taken until that point. Naturally, a big part of the policy debate revolved around the economy and the question of Greek debt, since that was the reason for austerity and the emergence of populism in the first place. As a result, various anti-establishment actors in the early period of the crisis 2010–2012 formulated elaborate (albeit mostly unrealistic) proposals for Greece’s exit from the Eurozone, the financing of its debt, a restructuring

3  POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN SOUTHERN EUROPE 

81

of its economy, and so on. After 2012, with populist sentiments channelled through the party system and especially SYRIZA and ANEL, proposals for exit from the Eurozone were toned down (although they were still harboured by SYRIZA’s far left wing). Italy followed a similar path. Leaders of the 5SM and the League, Luigi Di Maio and Matteo Salvini respectively, are on record as saying the Eurozone was a betrayal and that a referendum should be held on Italy’s membership to the currency union (Giurlando, 2021). Their preferred candidate for the post of minister of finance also endorsed this potential rupture (Savona, 2018). Ultimately, the coalition government could not overcome the domestic and geopolitical pressures that constrained their agenda. France’s La France Insoumise and Rassemblement National shared both this critique of the euro and the desire for a referendum on it (Giurlando, 2019). In Spain, in contrast, Podemos never openly endorsed an exit from the currency union even if its critiques—that it was a tool for German and financial interests to impose neoliberal austerity on Europe’s workers—were identical to those of populists elsewhere, including Greece, Italy, and France. In the case of Greece, energy became a highly salient area of foreign policy in the public debate during the crisis for various reasons. First, energy security carried obvious material implications for the Greek economy. For anti-austerity populists like ANEL leader Panos Kammenos, if Greece were “allowed” to exploit the energy resources in its soil, it would not need to implement austerity to pay off its debt (see e.g., Kammenos, 2012). When the SYRIZA-ANEL government came to power, energy policy became an important parameter of the search for alternative financing. The energy ministry was occupied by Panos Lafazanis, leader of SYRIZA’s far left anti-euro wing, and he immediately sought to deepen cooperation with Russia and highlight Greece’s independence from EU energy policy. Second, energy policy carried a high symbolic value in domestic debates because it embodied different alternatives about Greece’s geopolitical orientation as well as its ability to stand up to regional rivals. Concurrently, energy dovetailed with the popularity of non-Western powers in Greece during the crisis, especially Russia. For populists of both the left and right, highlighting the role of energy for Greece’s economy was a veiled reference to the need to approach Russia. In the context of the crisis, Europe was presented as an actor who limited Greece’s independence and wanted

82 

A. CHRYSSOGELOS ET AL.

to exploit its natural resources, thus keeping it subjugated (see again Kammenos, 2015).

Conclusions This chapter aimed to identify patterns in PFP in four key Southern European countries—France, Italy, Spain, and Greece. There are important differences among them, particularly in terms of geopolitical position, relative economic and military power, distinct histories, and, most importantly for the purposes of comparison, the outcomes of populist politics: in Greece and Italy they took executive power, while in Spain they entered government as a minor member of a coalition. In France, on the other hand, they remained in opposition, even though at the popular level their support remained very high, with the 2022 presidential elections indicating that a majority of French voters were willing to select anti-­establishment parties of either the left or the right. These differences are outweighed, or least counter-balanced, by the important similarities among the case studies. All share a non-protestant religious history, which would have some influence on their respective political and economic structures. Southern European countries tend to be more statist and collectivist, more highly indebted and regulated. During the height of the Eurozone crisis, it was no coincidence that all four were members of the Mediterranean bloc led by France (Giurlando, 2021) who attempted to push their Keynesian vision against the pressures of the ordoliberal model defended by Germany and its Northern allies. All are members of the EU and the Eurozone, and so governments, regardless of ideological stripe, must operate under very important constraints, particularly the lack of monetary and fiscal sovereignty. In all four countries, populism was strengthened considerably by the Eurozone and refugee crises, and in all cases, both left- and right-wing populists enjoyed widespread popular support; in the case of Italy, Spain, and France, this support remained significant despite the ebbs and flows of electoral outcomes. One major conclusion, with many qualifications, is that populism can be characterized as, following the framework presented in the Introduction of this book (Wajner and Giurlando, 2023), a discursive strategy to win elections in the context of multiple crises, particularly of the democratic process itself, whereby mainstream parties are perceived, sometimes not unjustifiably, to be implementing decisions emanating from foreign capitals rather than the people they ostensibly represent. The elite-people

3  POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN SOUTHERN EUROPE 

83

dichotomy, which is intrinsic to populism as a discursive strategy, helps parties expand their voter base beyond the left-right axis in part because, as was evident in Italy and Greece, parties of the centre-left and centreright converged on the need for neoliberal structural reforms demanded by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Frankfurt, and Berlin. This strategy worked to some extent, as Syriza, 5SM, the League, Podemos, LFI, and RN did expand their support to classes and citizens who previously voted for other parties, although this success was arguably ephemeral, particularly in Greece and Spain. Another conclusion is that populism, whether as an ideology or a discourse, informs a distinctive understanding of IR which then leads to identifiable tendencies. In all cases, the international corrupt elite was, with varying nuances, Berlin, Brussels, Washington, the IMF, and “globalists.” Developing ties with alternative power centres, particularly Russia and China but including members of the Global South such as Venezuela, represented attempts to counter-balance their supposed enemies, confirming the observations of Dodson and Dorraj (2008) that PFP is often characterized by “soft balancing,” that is, developing economic and diplomatic ties with alternative powers, particularly Russia and China, because direct confrontation or hard balancing is too risky or costly. The cases under investigation also demonstrate the importance of domestic and international factors in shaping and constraining PFP. Greece and Italy highlight how economic dependence on the EU—and by extension Germany—imposes severe limits on populists’ ability to realize their desire for a substantive rupture. As an external constraint, this becomes particularly evident when compared with PFP in the United States (see Chap. 5), where America’s superpower economic status gave former president Donald Trump more leverage, for example, to obstruct the WTO, withdraw from the Trans Pacific Partnership, impose tariffs on Americas foes and allies alike, and quit the Paris Climate Accord. Domestic constraints also greatly mattered, particularly in Italy, where President Sergio Mattarella exercised his veto multiple times to reassure markets, Berlin, and Brussels. Podemos also was constrained by its status as a minor member of a coalition. Important lessons can be distilled for countries, such as France, where populists of the left and right enjoy popular support and could conceivably take power in the future. Even with full possession of executive power, populists in France would be constrained by the economic dependence which accrues from membership in the Eurozone and the EU.

84 

A. CHRYSSOGELOS ET AL.

Covid and the war in Ukraine have been two external shocks to the domestic politics of European states, including the Southern European ones which are the focus of this chapter. The economic consequences of the pandemic threatened to tear apart the Eurozone, and a major milestone was reached when Germany and France agreed on a common debt instrument to help finance the recovery. Meanwhile, the European Central Bank (ECB) under Christine Lagarde purchased massive amounts of sovereign bonds to ensure stability. Here, it became harder to depict Brussels, Frankfurt, Berlin, and Paris as an international corrupt cabal, and many populist narratives resonated less and less. In terms of political contestation, this helped to strengthen the left-right axis and weaken the globalist-­ sovereigntist one which is characteristic of populist politics. There are some important qualifications, as demonstrated by Jean-Luc Melenchon’s recent demand that France disobey European treaties with a neoliberal bent. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, meanwhile, pressured most parties— left or right, populist or mainstream—to condemn the war while expressing solidarity with Ukraine. But here, too, there are important qualifications: one of the causes of the weakening of Mario Draghi’s technocratic government was that an important faction of the 5SM, which has long harboured pro-Russia sympathies, did not support the policy of sending weapons to Ukraine, a position shared by the populist right League. This highlights the continued potential for future cooperation between populists of the left and right, if circumstances allow.

References Il Fatto Quotidiano. (2020). Alessandro Di Battista: “L’Italia deve dire no al Mes. Senza di noi la Ue si scioglie”. https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/in-edicola/ articoli/2020/04/19/litalia-deve-direno-almes-senza-di-noi-la-ue-siscioglie/5774896/. Alonso, S., & Rovira Kaltwasser, C. (2015). Spain: No Country for the Populist Radical Right? South European Society and Politics, 20(1), 21–45. Barbeito, R. I., & Alonso, Á. I. (2021). Political Emotions and Digital Political Mobilization in the New Populist Parties: The Cases of Podemos and Vox in Spain. International Review of Sociology, 31(2), 246–267. Busher, J., Giurlando, P., & Sullivan, G. (2018). Introduction: The Emotional Dynamics of Backlash Politics Beyond Anger, Hate, Fear, Pride, and Loss. Humanity and Society, 42(4), 399–409. Chryssogelos, A. (2014). Vladimir Putin’s Popularity Among Populist Parties in Europe Illustrates the Depth of the Challenges Facing European Democracy.

3  POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN SOUTHERN EUROPE 

85

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2014/05/14/vladimir-­putins-­popularity-­ among-­populist-­parties-­in-­europe-­illustrates-­the-­depth-­of-­the-­challenges-­ facing-­european-­democracy/ Chryssogelos, A. (2019). Europeanisation as De-Politicisation, Crisis as Re-Politicisation: The Case of Greek Foreign Policy During the Eurozone Crisis. Journal of European Integration, 41(5), 605–621. Chryssogelos, A. (2021). The Dog That Barked But Did Not Bite: Greek Foreign Policy Under the Populist Coalition of SYRIZA-Independent Greeks, 2015–2019. Comparative European Politics, 19(6), 722–738. Chryssogelos, A., & Stavrevska, E.  B. (2019). The Prespa Agreement Between Greece and North Macedonia and the Discordancies of EU Foreign Policy. European Foreign Affairs Review, 24(4), 427–446. Claudi, L., & Locatelli, A. (2020). Explaining Italian Foreign Policy Adjustment After Brexit: A Neoclassical Realist Account. Journal of European Integration, 43, 459–473. Clements, B., Nanou, K., & Verney, S. (2014). ‘We No Longer Love You, But We Don’t Want to Leave You’: The Eurozone Crisis and Popular Euroscepticism in Greece. Journal of European Integration, 36(3), 247–265. Coticchia, F., & Vignoli, V. (2020). Populist parties and foreign policy. The case of Italy’s Five Star Movement. British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 22(3), 523–541. Delaume, C. (2018). Le Couple Franco-Allemand N’existe Pas. Michalon. Destradi, S., & Plagemann, J. (2019). Populism and International Relations: (Un-)Predictability, Personalization, and the Reinforcement of Existing Trends in World Politics. Review of International Studies, 45(5), 711–730. Dodson, M., & Dorraj, M. (2008). Populism and Foreign Policy in Venezuela and Iran. The Whitehead Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations, 9(1), 71–87. Ellinas, A.  A. (2012). LAOS and the Greek Extreme Right Since 1974. In Α. Mammonne et  al. (Eds.), Mapping the Extreme Right in Contemporary Europe: From Local to Transnational (pp. 124–140). Routledge. Fassin, E. (2018). Populismo de Izquiredas y neoliberalismo. Herder. Feroci, F. (2019). La Politica Estera del Governo Giallo-Verde. Istituto Affari Internazionali. https://www.iai.it/it/pubblicazioni/ la-­politica-­estera-­del-­governo-­giallo-­verde Giurlando, P. (2019). “This was not supposed to happen!” Betrayal, Populism, and the Demand for Control. Populism, 3(1), 65–86. Giurlando, P. (2020). France’s déclassement in the Eurozone. International Journal, 74(4), 559–580. Giurlando, P. (2021). Populist Foreign Policy: The Case of Italy. Canadian Foreign Policy Journal, 27(2), 251–267.

86 

A. CHRYSSOGELOS ET AL.

Giurlando, P. (2016). Eurozone Politics: Perception and Reality in Italy, Britain, and Germany. Routledge. Gonzalez, M. (2022). El Negocio de Patriotismo Espanol. Peninsula. Goodhart, D. (2017). The Road to Somewhere. Hurst. Grillo, B. (2010). A Riveder Le Stelle. Rizzoli. Grillo, B., & Casaleggio, G. (2011). Siamo in Guerra Per una Nuova Politica. Chiarelettere. Grillo, B., & Casaleggio, G. (2014). Vinciamo Noi. La Voce Dei 5 Stelle. Chi Siamo e Quale Europa Vogliamo. Casaleggio Associati. Iglesias, P., & Juliana, J. (2018). Nudo España. Arpa. Kammenos, TVXS. (2012). TVXS: Convergence Only with SYRIZA, Tvxs.gr, April 2. https://tvxs.gr/news/egrapsan-­eipan/p-­kammenos-­sygklisi-­mono-­ me-­ton-­syriza (in Greek). Kammenos (2015): Deals with USA, Russia, China Or India in Case of Rupture, To Vima, April 7. https://www.tovima.gr/2015/04/07/politics/kammenos-­ symfwnies-­me-­ipa-­r wsia-­kina-­i-­india-­se-­periptwsi-­riksis/ (in Greek). Katsanidou, A., & Otjes, S. (2016). How the European Debt Crisis Reshaped National Political Space: The Case of Greece. European Union Politics, 17(2), 262–284. Kotzias, Ν. (2010). Greek Foreign Policy in the 21st Century. Kastaniotis (in Greek). Kouskouvelis, I. (2012). Crisis and Foreign Policy. Foreign Affairs: The Greek Edition. Online https://foreignaffairs.gr/articles/68646/ilias-­i-­koyskoybelis/ krisi-­kai-­eksoteriki-­politiki?page=1 (in Greek). Lapavitsas, C. (2012). Crisis in the Eurozone. Verso Books. Lazar, M., & Diamanti, I. (2019). Peuplecratie. Gallimard. Lordon, F. (2015). La Malfacon: Monnaie Europeenne et Souverainete Democratique. Les Liens qui Liberent. Manfredi-Sánchez, J. L., Amado-Suárez, A., & Waisbord, S. (2021). Presidential Twitter in the Face of COVID-19: Between Populism and Pop Politics. Comunicar: Media Education Research Journal, 29(66), 79–90. Melenchon, J. L. (2015). Le Hareng de Bismark: Le Poison Allemand. Plon. Middelaar, L. V. (2017). Quand L’Europe Improvise. Gallimard. Monteleone, C. (2021). Foreign policy and de-Europeanization under the M5S– League government: exploring the Italian behavior in the UN General Assembly. Journal of European Integration, 43(5), 551–567. Mosetti, P. (2021). Mil mascaras: La Deriva del nacionalpopulismo Italiano. Siglo XXI de Espana. Odent, B. (2014). Modele Allemand: Une Impostature. Le Temps De Crises. Pugliese, G., Ghiretti, F., & Insisa, A. (2022). Italy’s Embrace of the Belt and Road Initiative: Populist Foreign Policy and Political Marketing. International Affairs, 98(3), 1033–1051.

3  POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN SOUTHERN EUROPE 

87

Rama, J., Zanotti, L., Turnbull-Dugarte, S. J., & Santana, A. (2021). VOX: The Rise of the Spanish Populist Radical Right. Routledge. Rinaldi, A. (2018). La Sovranita Appartiene al Popolo o Allo Spread? Aliberti. Sanchez-Cuenca, I. (2014). La Impotencia Democratica. La Catarata. Savona, P. (2018). Come un Incubo, Come un Sogno. Rubinetto. Socci, A. (2018). Traditi, Sottomesi, Invasi. Rizzoli. Sola, J., & Rendueles, C. (2018). Podemos, the Upheaval of Spanish Politics and the Challenge of Populism. Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 26(1), 99–116. Sola, J., & Rendueles, C. (2019). The Situation of the Left in Spain. https:// www.rosalux.eu/en/article/1386.strategic-­crossroads.html Sotirakopoulos, N., & Sotiropoulos, G. (2013). The Greek Indignados and the Present Cycle of Struggles. Current Sociology, 61(4), 443–456. Stavrakakis, Y., & Katsambekis, G. (2014). Left-Wing Populism in the European Periphery: The Case of SYRIZA. Journal of Political Ideologies, 19(2), 119–142. Streeck, W. (2018). L’Europe sous Merkel IV: L’e´quilibre de L’impuissance. Le Crises. SYRIZA. (2012). Electoral Platform for the 2012 Elections. http://www.syn.gr/ gr/keimeno.php?id=26945 Tavel, M. (2013). Le Cauchemar Europeen. Bruno Le Prince. Tsardanidis, C. (2015). Greek Foreign Policy: The De-Europeanization Impact of the Economic Crisis. Hellenic Studies, 23(1). Turnbull-Dugarte, S. J., Rama, J., & Santana, A. (2020). The Baskerville’s Dog Suddenly Started Barking: Voting for VOX in the 2019 Spanish General Elections. Political Research Exchange, 2(1), 1–21. Vampa, D. (2020). Competing Forms of Populism and Territorial Politics: The Cases of Vox and Podemos in Spain. Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 28(3), 304–321. Varoufakis, Y. (2016). Adults in the Room. Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux. Verney, S. (2014). ‘Broken and Can’t be Fixed’: The Impact of the Economic Crisis on the Greek Party System. International Spectator, 49(1), 18–35. Wajner, D. F. (2021). Exploring the Foreign Policies of Populist Governments: (Latin) America First. Journal of International Relations and Development, 24(3), 651–680. Wajner, D. F. (2022). The Populist Way Out: Why Contemporary Populist Leaders Seek Transnational Legitimation. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 24(3), 416–436. Wajner, D. F., & Giurlando, P. (2023). Introduction to Populist Foreign Policy (PFP). In P. Giurlando & D. Wajner (Eds.), Populist Foreign Policy: Regional Perspectives of Populism in the International Scene. Palgrave.

88 

A. CHRYSSOGELOS ET AL.

Wajner, D. F., & Roniger, L. (2022). Populism and Transnational Projection: The Legitimation Strategies of Pink Tide Neo-Populist Leaderships in Latin America. Comparative Political Theory, 3, 1–30. Wehner, L. E., & Thies, C. G. (2021). Leader Influence in Role Selection Choices: Fulfilling Role Theory’s Potential for Foreign Policy Analysis. International Studies Review, 23(4), 1424–1441. Wheeler, D. (2020). Vox in the Age of Covid-19. Journal of International Affairs, 73(2), 173–184. Zakaria, F. (2019, July/August Issue). The Self-destruction of American Power: Washington Squandered the Unipolar Moment. Foreign Affairs.

CHAPTER 4

Populist Foreign Policy in Central and Eastern Europe: Poland, Hungary and the Shock of the Ukraine Crisis Akos Kopper, Andras Szalai, and Magdalena Góra

Introduction Victor Orbán of Hungary and Jarosław Kaczyński of Poland are symbols of successful, long-standing populist leaders in power. Therefore, within populism studies, Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) enjoys special attention as an interesting case study of a disrupted (successful) democratization but also in its role as a source of inspiration for other movements particularly within the European Union (EU) (Buštíková & Guasti, 2018; Meislova & Buckledee, 2021; Orenstein & Kelemen, 2017; Varga &

A. Kopper (*) ZOIS, Berlin and Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), Budapest, Hungary A. Szalai Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), Budapest, Hungary e-mail: [email protected] M. Góra Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 P. Giurlando, D. F. Wajner (eds.), Populist Foreign Policy, Global Foreign Policy Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22773-8_4

89

90 

A. KOPPER ET AL.

Buzogány, 2021). The past decade has shown considerable similarities in the ways in which these two populist actors attack democratic institutions, solidify their hold over domestic audiences, and appear as disruptors of the European status quo.1 This chapter, however, problematizes this apparent uniformity of CEE populisms in the realm of foreign policy (FP) and highlights differences between Hungary and Poland that characterized their FP well before Russia’s war on Ukraine. These differences, we argue, are rooted in the ideological depth of these actors. Whereas Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán is not bound by ideology and therefore can flexibly take opportunistic political actions and construct narratives that give meaning to these moves, Poland’s populists are much more (self)constrained in their decisions as these have to be ideologically consistent. When it comes to the interlinkage of foreign policy and populism, we see the role of the latter as a discursive tool that is used to justify foreign policy actions domestically and give them coherence (Boucher & Thies, 2019; Hall, 2021). As a discursive style that “features an appeal to ‘the people’ versus ‘the elite’, ‘bad manners’ and the performance of crisis,” (Moffitt, 2018, p. 4), populism cannot “cause” a specific type of foreign policy, but can rather act as a discursive toolkit for constructing narratives that give certain foreign policy moves meaning(Stengel et al., 2019). The separation of populism-as-style and foreign policy proper does not mean that CEE populists show no similarities in their foreign policy: both have had numerous conflicts with EU elites, tried to repair their relations with the United States during the Trump presidency, and have gradually moved closer to China (albeit to a very different degree).2 Rather we illustrate that these foreign policy moves do not flow solely from populism, but from the domestic and European contexts these governments find themselves. In other words, even though in our opinion the fourth school of Populist Foreign Policy (PFP) proposed by Wajner and Giurlando in the introduction to this edited volume captures the characteristics of CEE populism the best, discourses must resonate with local experiences, such as resentment to West-European tutelage (more specifically resentment to 1  Poland and Hungary have a track record of intense policy learning both before and after their accession to the EU. The trend continues under Orbán and Kaczyński. Mutual imitation also includes domestic discourse as Poland adopted the rhetoric and othering practices that Hungary championed, propelling it down the road of de-democratization. 2  While it seems that Hungary is openly pivoting towards China, Poland’s policies do not amount to a pivot primarily due to the traditional foreign policy role of “loyal US ally” which limits Polish options vis-à-vis China. See Chappell (2021).

4  POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE… 

91

Germany in Poland), or certain ideological elements that the potential powerbase of the populists find appealing. Still populists do not merely follow the “mood of the people,” but are also shaping and moulding it, which is increasingly feasible as they consolidate power and change the state apparatuses to their liking. This regime building frequently leads CEE populist governments to conflict with their European peers on numerous domestic policies concerning liberal democratic norms, which makes it reasonable for them to search for alternative sources of stability for their regime, which partially explains Hungary’s and Poland’s (limited) pivot to China, and Hungary’s turn towards Russia. At the same time conflicts with Brussels allow governments to target the EU for othering, thereby re-establishing populism’s “the elite” versus “the people” vertical antagonism where these populists in power no longer appear as “the elites,” but as representatives of “the people” against European powerholders.3 The Polish and Hungarian cases demonstrate that foreign policy is a useful arena for populists that allows the performance of crises and the construction of threatening external others. As scholars from Laclau (2005) to Moffitt (2014) highlight, populists thrive on crisis, or as Hall (2021, p. 52) stated: “a sense of crisis is an inherent part of populism” as it provides useful conditions to stress the need and urgency of actions and allows clearly define enemies (Moffitt, 2016; Pirro et al., 2018). Populists capitalize on external crises by offering themselves as the only solution for protecting the people from the crisis, while scapegoating political elites/ opponents. But they also produce crises (see endogenously created crises) that they then dominate. This was done to great effect during the migration crisis (Bocskor, 2018; Krzyżanowski, 2020; Szalai, 2020) when CEE populists exploited the securitized events of the summer of 2015 in ways that it could be used to generate continued support and to win elections. Yet not all crises are necessarily a blessing for populists as not all crises allow for the easy construction of populist narratives. External crises that were not constructed by the populist can fall into this category. Specifically, Russia’s war on Ukraine created the biggest crisis for CEE countries since the end of communism and it was far from trivial how populists would deal with it. The war not only cooled down the Polish-Hungarian 3  There have also been attempts at “transnational populism,” that is establishing “the people” on the CEE level. These attempts have largely failed though. See Kuyper and Moffitt (2020).

92 

A. KOPPER ET AL.

partnership, but also highlighted differences between the two states, revealing the significance of the ideological elements of the Polish regime, in addition to turning foreign policy into a priority for the EU. Due to the war in Ukraine, populist foreign policy narratives that were previously successful now became contradictory. How the two governments narratively navigate the war and make sense of their policy responses will also be addressed in this chapter. This chapter is organized as follows. Before our two case studies focusing on how Hungary and Poland reacted to Russia’s war against Ukraine, we highlight that the EU provides a context specific to European populism: it acts as a quasi-abroad, supranational environment. Similar to the case studies in the preceding chapters, the EU is in some sense part of the foreign yet is also deeply intertwined with domestic politics via numerous channels, making the separation of the two domestic/foreign politics difficult, except for the narrative level, where domestic narratives can differ radically from narratives offered externally (especially in the case of Hungary). As numerous policies of populists automatically produce conflict with the European Union, populist regimes frequently relied on careful manoeuvring to avoid confronting the EU head on. Also, we highlight the role “crisis talk” and “war rhetoric” played in the regime building of populists both in Hungary and Poland, by continuously identifying enemies to fight. Still, with Russia’s war on Ukraine, a real war hit the region with fighting taking place nearby. This made foreign policy a top priority, which we argue was previously subordinate to domestic regime building. The fundamental difference between the two populist regimes lied in the nature of the regime they wanted to create. Whereas for Polish populists’ ideology was a guide for the norms and values the Polish state should represent, for Hungarian populism ideational elements were but fig leaves for buttressing and justifying the rule of the Fidesz elite.4 As the result of this, Hungarian (foreign) policy was much more the outcome of ad hoc tactical decisions and pragmatism and was characterized by greater flexibility. The CEE region was for the last two decades a laboratory of democratization; in the recent years, the pro-Western tendencies and mimicking 4  We disagree with the interpretation offered by Varga and Buzogány (2021) that the ideological underpinnings of Orbán’s populism influenced policy choices. Instead, we see Orban’s regime building pragmatic, using ideology in an á la carte fashion. The renaming of the Foreign Ministry to Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade suggests this transactional, pragmatic attitude to all policies, including foreign affairs.

4  POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE… 

93

patterns following the Western templates of political, economic and social developments became growingly contested domestically. Such tendencies were also externally supported by powerful actors such as Russia or China. The selected cases of Hungary and Poland demonstrate how populists were able to capitalize on this and solidify in power. Even if other countries in the region were less prone (due to a variety of reasons) to have long-lasting populist governments, many had populist episodes (such as Slovenia, Slovakia, or Czechia) or witnessed growth of populist parties on domestic scenes, with factors responsible for this being similar across the region (Buštíková & Guasti, 2018; Csehi, 2019; Domański, 2004; Körösényi et  al., 2020; Krekó & Enyedi, 2018; Krzyżanowski, 2020; Szalai, 2019), particularly regarding the EU (Góra et al., 2022). In this chapter, we will not provide analysis beyond these two cases, yet the findings will shed light on the overall tendencies in the region.

Populist in Central and Eastern Europe— Manoeuvring and the Overlap of Domestic/EU and Foreign Politics For CEE countries, EU membership creates a particular structural context in which the EU’s normative underpinnings and the fact that the EU is often depicted as a paternalistic institution dictating policies for weaker member states and especially those of the CEE (Domański, 2004) creates the setting for certain types of narratives rooted in victimization and collective narcissism that are at times invoked to lend meaning to foreign policies (Golec de Zavala & Keenan, 2021). For capturing the particularities of CEE populism, we offer a framework that moves beyond the domestic/foreign policy dichotomy and incorporates the European (EU) level as a context specific to the foreign policies of CEE populists.5 The extension of the traditional dual framework to three policy levels helps to highlight the unique setting in which the CEE countries formulate their foreign policies. For CEE member states, the EU is both an external actor against which domestic politics needs to be formulated, because EU institutions can and do constrain

5  It is crucial to underline that “foreign policy” may refer both to populists’ policies towards the EU, while it may also refer to policies outside to the EU, where the EU (including its member states) has its foreign policy.

94 

A. KOPPER ET AL.

domestic actors,6 while the EU also represents a quasi-international realm for member states: something external to the nation state yet still more internal and controllable than world politics outside of the EU.  Thus, whatever happens within the EU context is not truly foreign policy, as CEE member states are not candidate countries anymore but are true participants in EU decision-making.7 This in-between-ness of the EU has a fundamental effect on how member states conduct their foreign policies, when it suits populist politicians, the EU could be portrayed as a faraway entity, but at the same time EU politics could also be used to portray CEE politicians as equal to those of France or Germany and EU politics in this sense could be turned into a stage on which “the Leader” performs the role of an influential figure, a maverick, a trickster, or a freedom fighter (Körösényi et al., 2020). While for populist regimes like those in Poland and Hungary, the EU offers an ideal external “elite” to other, and its institutions offer an arena where populist leaders could readily perform their “struggle for the people.” Meanwhile, EU membership also offers a platform through which CEE states can increase their reach in global politics. As EU foreign policy still manifests the intergovernmental characteristics of the Union, and as full-fledged members of the Council, EU states can shape or even block common measures. Regime Building and Manoeuvring Despite frequent condemnation from the European Parliament (EP), the EU did not stop populists from dismantling democratic institutions and the last decade has shown a gradual, but steady decline in democracy scores in both countries under investigation(Freedom House, 2021). Talks about illiberal democracy could be interpreted as merely a narrative strategy to make the dismantling of democratic institutions and centralization acceptable, by obscuring the fact that majoritarian democracy without liberal elements is an oxymoron (Drinóczi & Bień-Kacała, 2019). The 6  As Bozóki and Hegedűs (2018) argue, the EU both constrains and provides support and legitimation for Hungary’s. 7  Populists in their narratives tend to simplify the numerous ways in which EU and domestic politics overlap, suggesting a clear separation between these. One example for this is when sovereignty is invoked without clarifying in any sense what “national sovereignty” means within the EU, or referring to the EU as an external other, without acknowledging that it is comprised of its member states, thus it is not an external and foreign entity, but it is constituted with us being included.

4  POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE… 

95

reasons for the EU’s lack of firm action against de-democratizing tendencies in the CEE are many. Partly the EU does not yet have mechanisms against member states that violate its basic norms, contrary to the power it had towards candidate countries. Even though the Union sought to curtail de-democratization by trying to limit financial support to mis-­ behaving governments, these attempts have largely been unsuccessful due to a lack of political will, and populists’ skilled navigation within the EU’s vague values (Mos, 2020) and its formalized bureaucracy (Juncos & Pomorska, 2021). Ultimately, the lack of EU instruments allowed for populist CEE leaders to use the resources the EU provided for solidifying their rule. The fact that populists identified the “elite” in Brussels created an awkward situation for the EU to put forward its critique. Critical comment made by the EU could be fitted into the populist narrative about the EU trampling national sovereignty as Enyedi and Krekó observed: “The Fidesz regime benefits not only from the EU’s carrots, but from its sticks as well” (Krekó & Enyedi, 2018, p. 45). Both Viktor Orbán and Jarosław Kaczyński started his career as committed supporters of the West,(Kuisz, 2019) but as their policies were increasingly diverging from European norms and values both domestically and in the field of foreign policy, it became necessary for them to find ways of manoeuvring to avoid confronting the EU head on. Orbán’s actions epitomize how despite frequent debates with the EU, when needed he was mostly ready to backtrack—or to make token gestures at the right moment to avoid direct confrontation that could lead to countermeasures (Mos, 2020; Visnovitz & Jenne, 2021). Manoeuvring included the crafting of policies in a way that conforms to EU norms in form but hardly in substance.8 Also, Orbán frequently relied on legalese to twist procedures and inherently ambiguous procedural norms to have his way (Mos, 2020). His declared aim was to create the National System of Cooperation (NER) through the introduction of a wide range of institutional changes. Although these institutional changes followed examples that existed elsewhere in the EU—thus they were difficult for the EU bodies to criticize given their checklist approach—once added together these created what Scheppele called a Frankenstate (2013), a monster that hardly conformed to democratic standards in any meaningful sense (Scheppele, 2013). Creating a political regime that assures continued electoral victories or at the least a strong veto position in opposition included for instance the 8

 For a discussion on fake compliance, see Kopper et al. (2020).

96 

A. KOPPER ET AL.

ambition to achieve overwhelming control over the public media. Media control leads to control over narratives and enables the creation of multiple, often contradictory narratives for various audiences. When it comes to EU politics as foreign policy, the story told to the EU could radically differ from the one produced for domestic consumption. The outcome was a permanent double talk, leading to an institutionalization of dual reporting on foreign policy that allowed to frame changes in positions or compromises as victories or simply to omit them in the domestic press. A revealing example for this is the way Hungary responded to Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea. Although the international press made frequent analogies between Hungary’s 1956 revolution that was crushed by the Soviet Union, as well as to the occupation of Crimea by Russia, Hungarian public media controlled by the populists did not even allude to this parallel (Véleményvezér, 2014). Still, internationally, along with the other V4 leaders, on the 5th of March 2014, Viktor Orbán signed a statement condemning the occupation, including a clear reference to 1956: “The Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia are appalled to witness a military intervention in 21st century Europe akin to their own experiences in 1956, 1968 and 1981” (Prime Ministers of the Visegrad 4, 2014). This dominance over the public media is unique to Hungary and partly explains why PM Orbán can be more flexible in making its policy-changes and detours.9 Although elements of manoeuvring were also present in the case of Poland such as obtaining control over public media and attempt of dismantling check-and-balance between the judiciary and executive, the domestic context for this manoeuvring radically differed for the two countries. Orbán’s regime was characterized by an opportunistic flexibility that was not guided by any fixed ideology, whereas Prawo i Sprawiedliwość’s (PiS, Law and Justice) politics had a strong ideological core, still conveyed through a populist style.10 Initially after its creation in 2001, PiS’ views were moderate with regards to foreign policy with an emphasis on a narrowly defined national interest defined through a conservative, right-wing lens that focused on the market and its benefits, and on preventing 9  Even though propaganda is a strong word, it still captures how Fidesz’ control over the Hungarian media landscape results in a monopoly on information, enabling the governing party to decide what news and in through what framing should reach the people. 10  The ideological difference between Poland’s and Hungary’s populists is described in detail by Barša and Hesová (2021), including the different roles the Catholic Church played in the two countries also contributing to the shallower ideological underpinnings of Hungarian populism. (Barša and Hesová, 2021).

4  POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE… 

97

deepening integration and federalization of the EU (Styczyńska, 2018). With time, however, PiS established a strategic alliance with more right-­ wing parties (most notably Solidarna Polska—SP, United Poland) and ultra-conservative circles. Most of them—such as the anti-Semitic and ultra-conservative Radio Maryja or civil society organization Ordo Iuris— were ideologically much more conservative and anti-European. In 2015, PiS came to power forming an electoral coalition Zjednoczona Prawica (ZP, United Right) with radical right-wing formations such as SP as well as with more centrist minor coalition partners as Porozumienie (Agreement). These various groups are necessary for PiS and its leader to govern the country and have a significant impact on the formation’s ideological stance. PiS itself however has always been internally diverse with many factions maintaining the more centrist and moderate outlook as regards domestic and external issues including the EU. This internal diversity as well as the three-headed governing system with party, government and president’s office led by separate politicians is maintained strategically by party head Jarosław Kaczyński in order to diversify the party electoral base.11 One of the internal factions emerged around President Andrzej Duda, elected in 2015 and re-elected in 2020. Since his first term in office the President occasionally used his veto powers to constrain some of the far-­ reaching party attempts to dismantle judiciary independence. Such a tendency intensified in his second term when he also constrained attempts to limit media freedom or in ideologically motivated educational reforms. After the Russian aggression on Ukraine in 2022, President Duda tried also to respond to the Commission concerns about the controversial juridical reforms, with a proposal to smoothen relations with the EU (Szczerbiak, 2022). Still, for Polish populists the major challenge of manoeuvring came with the war, where they strove to style themselves as one of the leading powers of the EU, while also remaining its key critic. Under the circumstances of the war Kaczynski emphasized European solidarity, while voicing continued criticism of the current forms of European

11  It is important to note that in the case of PiS since 2015 electoral victory party controls both government (with Prime Minister Beata Szydło governing between 2015 and 2017, and Mateusz Morawiecki since 2017) and the residency. PiS party leader Jarosław Kaczyński has only occasionally taken governmental positions since 2015 focusing rather on ruling the party itself. There is little doubt however that he is controlling the governing formation.

98 

A. KOPPER ET AL.

institutions, and especially of Germany’s role within the EU (Higgins, 2022). Internationally, manoeuvring for Orbán was about making a shift towards increasingly pro-Russia and pro-China policies, and about balancing this reorientation with the country’s EU membership. Although Orbán constantly talked about the decline of the West and the pragmatic benefits of building good relations with Russia—among others to secure the country’s energy needs—whenever the EU called for a united stance, for instance on sanctions against Russia, Orbán supported the collective European position. At the same time, he made token gestures to Russia (Orenstein & Kelemen, 2017). The strategy of Fidesz’s foreign policy was to balance in a way to “make the most out of EU membership,” while at the same time to buttress Hungary’s regime by also relying not only predominantly on Russian, but also on Chinese, Turkish, or Azeri partners (Krekó & Enyedi, 2018, p. 49). In Poland, no such clear shift happened. Despite some possible links between the Kremlin and ultra-right-wing circles, official relations with Russia remained cold and rather hostile. There were some openings towards China within the 16(17)+1 format and through bilateral links, but traditional Polish Atlanticism and the United States’ growing concern over Chinese strategies towards the CEE region fuelled caution. Ultimately it was a Polish and Croatian initiative to establish the Three Seas Initiative that clearly aims to counter Russian and Chinese influence in the region (Bieńczyk-Missala, 2020). Therefore, when it comes to the substance of their relations with main EU adversaries there has been a significant difference between Poland and Hungary. Divergence is also noticeable when it comes to US relations. Crisis Talk and War Rhetoric As we stated in the Introduction, populist politicians tend to portray themselves as saviours of the nation fighting for “the people.” The fight— against enemies both outside and within12—justifies populists’ ambitions to introduce wide-ranging systemic changes that go beyond simply governing within the limits of the existing political framework, and instead turning populist projects into regime building. 12  This identification of the enemy both outside and within is an additional characteristic that complicates the definition of the “foreign” in the case of populists.

4  POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE… 

99

Orbán’s populism for instance has been anchored in warlike rhetorical tropes. War metaphors are frequently used in crisis talk and, just like populism, are based in an antagonistic relationship. The function of a rhetoric of crisis-as-war was exceptionally apparent with the migration crisis, itself a “blessing” (Csehi, 2019) for many CEE populists that offered an ideal enemy in a diffuse and therefore vague threat. Within the image of the migrant, a roster of new enemies could be introduced: the EU itself, US-Hungarian billionaire George Soros, civil society actors, local opposition, and many more. The narrative construction of crisis does not necessitate a physical component to the threat. In fact, hegemonic narratives on crisis can be more flexibly developed, maintained, and adapted if the audience does not have direct experience with the threatening Other: like with the continued securitization of migration after the construction of militarized borders, or the moral panic promoted around “gender ideology” invading Hungarian kindergartens.13 This kind of crisis talk was also employed to criticize “misguided Western policies” as Orbán argued that Hungarians represented true Europeans, and he by extension could represent “the people” of Europe against their corrupt elites. In Poland the winning electoral campaign of 2015 was marked by the populist shift in PiS narratives, which in turn were in many instances borrowed from Orbán. This conscious imitation was famously framed by Jarosław Kaczyński as “bringing Budapest to Warsaw” (tvn24.pl, 2011). There were several key narrative elements that ZP and PiS skillfully implemented. Firstly, they concentrated on external threat and specifically on the migration crisis and employed known tropes in constructing the enemy and threat, utilized anti-immigrant and Islamophobic narratives, and strengthened the party’s position as the saviour of the nation from such threats. Secondly, similar to Hungary, in response to the EU’s multiple crises, PiS developed a narrative of a weak and failing EU unable to deal with crises. This was coupled with established narratives, present since 1990s at least, of a West failing due to its moral decay caused by departure from conservative values such as the protection of family, rejection of abortion or vocal anti-LGTBQ+ stance.(Kotwas & Kubik, 2019) Perceived tensions between the normative order in Poland and the West already characterized right-wing circles since the pre-enlargement period. 13  As Kovács (2020, p. 92) points out about the “gender war” in Hungary, “these are (…) imported threats in the Hungarian context” used to uphold the sentiment of “being under constant threat.”

100 

A. KOPPER ET AL.

Accordingly, the value alignment process during the accession period (e.g. erasing capital punishment) was perceived as a series of significant costs that Poland had to pay in order to benefit from EU membership (Góra & Mach, 2010). These perceptions formed a basis for a populist style othering of the EU (and the West) since 2015 with additional familiar (and similar to Hungary) tropes of attacking Brussels bureaucrats or fuelling anti-German sentiments. It is especially visible in the Polish case that Germany—Polish significant other and former aggressor—is used by politicians from ZP (PiS and SP alike) to undermine the EU and unity depicting it as dominated by Germany and threatening to Poland and its national identity (Cadier, 2021; Cadier & Szulecki, 2020; Cianciara, 2021). In the Polish case, the populist othering practices were deeply intertwined with a concrete and well-developed ideological programme pursued by Jarosław Kaczyński and his partners that was based on strong statism with significant spendings for social benefits for vast groups of beneficiaries; an extreme conservative counterrevolution aimed at repositioning the country’s progressive elites, certain professional groups such as judges; and on reshaping the media landscape. The strengthened sovereign nation state was located at the centre of the PiS and ZP programme. This soon led to significant clashes with the European institutions over the rule of law, most visible during the crisis that resulted from the judicial overhaul that PiS initiated in 2015. In contrast to the Hungarian case, however, PiS was more committed and less ready to backtrack on these measures, especially in ideologically loaded issues. Importantly, in both cases the core of conflicts with the EU and its institutions concerned the long-term strategies of the new regime—of illiberal democracy as Victor Orbán coined it: building by organizing an overhaul of key liberal democracy institutions. As Sadurski claims, the main aim in legal reforms introduced by the PiS government was to dismantle the checks-and-balances system and create a new disciplinary regime that allowed judges to be sanctioned based on the content of their ruling (Sadurski, 2019). In both countries’ populists’ main objective was regime building with the major difference that whereas Hungary’s populism operates without consistent ideological underpinnings the Polish populist regime had much firmer ideological convictions. Put differently, this means that the foreign policies of the two states had different footings, despite similarities in terms of their foreign policy discourses. Whereas for Polish populists’ ideology is a guide for the type of regime they desire to create in terms of norms and values, for Hungarian populists’ ideational elements are simply useful tools for the Fidesz elite. The term mafia-state used for Hungary

4  POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE… 

101

captures this lack of Fidesz’s ideology highlighting that the regime’s priority is to guarantee the well-being of its leaders and its cronies and their firm grip on power, with nationalistic and sovereigntist narratives simply offering a decoration to make it marketable domestically (Magyar & Júlia, 2017).

Russia’s War against Ukraine In February 2022, Russia attacked its smaller and weaker neighbour. The war that ensued devastated the security architecture of the continent and shook the sense of security of leaders and citizens alike. The two CEE populist governments discussed in this chapter responded differently to the unprecedented challenge. The war started just six weeks before general elections were scheduled in Hungary. Many had the impression that the kind of manoeuvring, antagonistic, disruptive, and maverick foreign policy that characterized Hungary had to end with the EU facing its biggest international challenge in decades. Some believed that the crisis would force Orbán to show his “true face,” (Way, 2022) that the manoeuvring had to end, and it was time for the regime’s lack of normative underpinnings to become blatantly visible. Especially those of his supporters who were sceptical about the pivot towards Russia could find a warning sign in the analogy between the outbreak of the war and the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 (Nagy, 2022). Thus, the challenge for Orbán was both domestic (win the elections despite the strong parallels between Russia’s War on Ukraine and the 1956 revolution) and international (whether the balancing that characterized the regime for over a decade could continue under the new circumstances). Courting Russia Before Its War on Ukraine14 The Hungarian pivot to Russia following 2010 was unexpected. In 1989, during the transition Orbán became a nationally known politician when in his talk at the re-burial of Imre Nagy—the executed Prime Minister of the 1956 revolution—called on Soviet troops to leave the country. Back in 14  We believe this longer section on Hungary’s pivot to Russia is necessary, even if it makes the chapter somewhat “imbalanced” as no similar account is given of Poland as there has been no such a pivot. It is only by discussing this in detail that it could be shown that Orbán’s pivot to Russia was not limited and showing sympathies with Russia go far beyond the securing of cheap oil and gas for Hungary.

102 

A. KOPPER ET AL.

opposition in 2007 Orbán was sceptical about Russia and said that he did not want Hungary to become the “happiest barrack of Gazprom,” in reference to an old socialist era joke that claimed Hungary was the happiest barrack of the Soviet bloc (Fischer, 2022). He changed his mind following a visit to the Kremlin in 2009. What caused the change is unclear, but there are a few likely candidates. First, Russia was seen as a source of funding at a time when the EU and the IMF were critical of Orbán’s economic policies and the former even suspended funds for Hungary for three months in 2012. As the country was in dire financial conditions (Bod, 2013; Kornai, 2015, n. 47), funds without any conditionality from Russia or China had an enormous appeal. Second, it seemed reasonable to make friends with a likeminded leader of a self-styled illiberal state whose policies in many aspects inspired Orbán in building his own regime (Janjevic, 2018). Third, beliefs about the decline of the West inspired the government’s “Eastern Opening” strategy towards Russia, Central Asia, and China (Végh, 2015). Finally, better relations with Russia could lead to a better bargaining position vis-à-vis the EU, as Orbán argued privately to his followers. The shift towards Russia required careful manoeuvring in terms of memory politics, as Russia’s image was negative among conservatives, with the memory of 1956 strongly alive. As Miklóssy (2021) highlights, Russia-related sensibilities had to be taken into consideration (about the Red Army’s atrocities during the Second World War and about 1956), while cementing the freedom-fighter image of Orbán and his government. The narrative juggling included on the one hand separating the Soviet Union and contemporary Russia while making Putin’s regime palatable, even imitable. On the other hand, negative historical memories about Soviet atrocities in 1945 and 1956 were omitted. Curiously, the rhetoric instead drew an analogy between the Soviet aggressors of 1956 and the EU as an empire, with empire referring to those in the contemporary Union who aspired for deeper European integration. Within this analogy, the task for Orbán and his followers was to save Hungary and Europe as a whole from Sovietization (Orbán 2016). Keeping the media under control played a crucial role in strengthening anti-Western and pro-Russian foreign policy attitudes (Krekó & Enyedi, 2018, p.  47). Although critical media still existed, it had limited penetration and could not effectively shape the discourse on Russia. Some experts believe that Orbán already had an action plan to reshape Hungarian politics in his favour well before his landslide victory in the

4  POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE… 

103

2010 elections (Deák, 2013). Still, the policy measures that in the past decade amounted to regime building and de-democratization were frequently taken ad hoc and were about tactical moves to seize opportunities.15 The fact that ideological justifications of these moves were often introduced post hoc makes it clear that there was no clear-cut blueprint about how policy changes would be promoted, including those in foreign policy. Claims about the decline of the West, illiberalism, anti-migration (and the protection of Christianity), identifying civil society actors as foreign agents and later anti-LGBTQ ideas came to the fore gradually, as these—and related policies—were the next tactical moves of regime building, always involving the identification of a new enemy to fight against. Still, all these, one way or another, could be linked up with the country’s pivot to Russia, (Keating & Kaczmarska, 2017) or were in fact copies of Russian polices (such as attacks against foreign funded activists (Janjevic, 2018), or the anti-LGBTQ law that even the European Parliament found to be the copy of a similar Russian law) (Európai Parlament Magyarországi Kapcsolattartó Irodája, 2021). Despite the pivot to Russia, Orbán supported all the sanctions the EU introduced against Russia, although it always voiced its criticism (A.  Rácz, 2021). Hostile moves were always balanced by making gestures to Russia, which included not expelling Russian spies, to offering citizenship to members of the Russian elite, welcoming Putin in Budapest in 2015 (while the EU had its sanctions against Russia) (Orenstein & Kelemen, 2017, p. 97), buying the Sputnik vaccine and allowing the International Investment Bank to have its centre in Hungary (the bank is suspected to be tied to Russian secret services). Hungarian-Ukrainian relations were strained before the war, but only partly because of Orbán’ gestures towards Russia. The more substantive conflict was about the Ukrainian education law that gave preference to the use of Ukrainian in education. Although the target of the law was the Russian-speaking population, it also negatively affected the Hungarian ethnic minority in Western Ukraine. As a response, Hungary blocked Ukraine’s high-level meetings and joint military exercises with NATO. Although this move could be seen to have been made purely out of concern for the well-being of the Hungarian minority, participants at the NATO meetings had the impression that the real intention was to cater to Russian interests (Panyi, 2020). The opinion that Hungary 15  For example, the conflict with the EU and IMF in 2012 were unforeseen and eventually pushed Orbán closer to Putin as a potential source of funding.

104 

A. KOPPER ET AL.

continues to serve as Russia’s battering ram against the EU and NATO in the current conflict is now shared by many on both sides of the war (Istrate et  al., 2021). Such disruptive politics in both organizations can benefit Russia by revealing internal tensions, blocking, or stalling important measures, and weakening positions vis-à-vis third countries. The Outbreak of the War—The Challenge for Orbán The first challenge after the outbreak of the war for Orbán was to win the upcoming Hungarian national elections. Whereas until the outbreak of the war Orbán’s modus operandi was about constantly identifying new enemies, through a sudden narrative turn Orbán started to style himself as a dove of peace, as the only actor to provide security. His opponents were the “war-mongering” domestic opposition and Hungary’s Western allies. These enemies/opponents were discursively linked to previous narratives (e.g. decline of the West, corrupt/short-sighted European elites, a domestic opposition serving foreign interests, Orbán and the “Hungarian national path”). He said that “…if the opposition (…) won, we could be certain that the next day arms shipments would start to Ukraine, gas and oil contracts would be terminated and Hungary would be ruined” (Szabó, 2022). Fidesz won the elections with an overwhelming majority. His victorious strategy had a number of elements that combined populism and crisis talk. He continued to talk about peace, he invoked existential fears of war, promised to keep the country out of the war, and emphasized the country’s dependence on Russian gas. Hungary’s energy dependence on Russia was to a great extent Orbán’s making, as during his premiership the country became even more reliant on Russian energy than before. Rising energy costs were, however, not simply about rising global prices, because guaranteeing cheap energy was one of the core messages of Orbán’s populism ever since he got re-elected in 2010, and it therefore had important symbolic qualities. Keeping utility prices low was one of the crucial messages of Orbán’s 2014 election campaign when he declared the “battle of the utility bills”, that is protecting voters from rising energy prices (Bouzarovski & Tirado Herrero, 2017). The victory-in-battle, however, was illusory because in reality Hungarians for many years paid more for energy than the market price (Ember, 2018;

4  POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE… 

105

Jandó, 2021, 2022). Gaining control over the energy sector was crucial for Orbán’s regime building, thus one of the first moves of the newly elected Orbán government in 2010 was to bring the sector into state ownership, which in fact automatically meant putting the regime’s cronies into positions, including deals with Russian partners (mfor.hu, 2018). Again, critics from Brussel and the subsequent infringement procedures in 2015 for the way energy prices were calculated only offered the opportunity for Orbán to turn Brussels into an enemy, for taking away the benefits of the “utility battle” from the people (Ember, 2018). Russia’s war against Ukraine was framed again16 as “misguided” and “incompetent” EU elites making the wrong choice by sanctioning Russia and undermining the Orbán government’s efforts to secure cheap utility prices for the people (G. Rácz, 2022). Hungary did not offer weapons to Ukraine and did not allow military equipment to be shipped to Ukraine directly through Hungarian territory. When Russia tried to pressure the EU by demanding payments for gas and oil in rubbles, Hungary first claimed that if that is what Russia wants, that is what Hungary would do (for which it received warnings from the EU Commission’s head) (Molnár, 2022). Next, when the EU was planning to introduce sanctions on oil from Russia, Orbán said that Hungary would veto the sanctions, arguing that these would have the effect of an “atomic bomb” on the Hungarian economy. These could all be explained as rational moves by a leader of a country dependent on Russian energy imports. Yet, the same moves could also be interpreted as acts in favour of Russia, keeping on the balancing between the EU and Russia just as before. While European leaders tried to convince Orbán to change his mind, Dmitry Medvedev (Russia’s Security Council Deputy) praised the wisdom of Orbán’s acts (Maximov, 2022). Double talk continued to such an extent that an observer watching Hungarian media noted the absurdity that: “we condemn Russia’s aggression, while the public media looks as if its content was created in Moscow” (Nagy, 2022). Thus, Orbán kept on manoeuvring, trying to secure EU funds while showing clear sympathies with Russia. 16  Here a caveat is necessary. This is an ongoing process and refers to the first few months of the war. Given the extremity of the situation with a parallel economic crisis unfolding (which was made partly by the war, but partly by Orbán’s populist economic policies before the election) it is impossible to foresee how events would unfold.

106 

A. KOPPER ET AL.

Poland and the Ukraine Crisis—Back to Europe? For Polish foreign policy leaders, the situation was much clearer. The war posed an unprecedented challenge, and the answer was first to “rally around the flag” and suspend domestic conflicts in the face of such a direct external threat. Second the idea was to repair and restore alliances, primarily with the United States and NATO, but to a lesser extent also with European partners within the EU. The Polish government did not hesitate long in how to interpret and position itself in the context of the Russian aggression against Ukraine in February 2022. The reaction was immediately, almost instinctively, to interpret the war as an existential threat—for Ukraine, for Poland, for Central and Eastern Europe, and Europe as a whole. The country witnessed not only immediate results of the war with millions of Ukrainians— mostly women and children—seeking refuge in Poland but also extraordinary in recent years unity among political elites. PiS and opposition alike reacted similarly to Russian aggression. This reaction was primarily based on widespread and rather uniform understanding of Russian motivations as imperialistic in nature, which have manifested in the region in 1920s, 1940s, and now. In all previous cases, Poland was a victim of said Russian imperialism. The immediate reaction that “we will be next” was not only the population’s instinctive response but also that of the elites. But who can one turn to in such a dark hour? Firstly, deep-seated foreign policy motivations and roles kicked in, like strong Atlanticism and a focus on the United States and a common NATO response (Chappell, 2012; Zaborowski, 2019). Since PiS government relations with the Joe Biden administration were not the smoothest, the decision was made to engage in response President Andrzej Duda, who, though an ally of PiS, still represented its moderate wing.17 Duda became a key recipient of acknowledgments from the opposition as well as from US political actors. In the Ukraine crisis, Duda and his office—which in the Polish parliamentary cabinet system has rather strong prerogatives concerning foreign policy and significantly is the commander-in-chief of the Polish Army—became a 17  Since we know that the US government was warning European allies on Russian plans for aggression in the end of 2021—new light is shed on Duda’s decision to veto on the 27th of December 2021, a meticulously prepared by PiS media law aimed at limiting the broadcast rights for private TV station TVN owned by American concern Discovery (“Lex TVN.  Prezydent Andrzej Duda zawetował ustawę anty-TVN—relacja i komentarze ekspertów—TVN24” 2021).

4  POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE… 

107

key actor representing the state towards allies. This strategic move alone allowed the Polish government to regain a key position in the Western alliance (both in NATO and the EU) and gave Poland a seat at many significant tables and political gatherings. Significantly, however, that seat was filled by the President and not by the Prime Minister or the Minister of Foreign Affairs, or that of defence (all of whom had its issues with Western partners originating from the previous clashes with the EU and US administration). In the mending of relations with Europe, Jaroslaw Kaczynski took a role by increasingly putting a rhetorical emphasis on European solidarity. It seems that in PiS’ assessment the threat emanating from Russia was multi-faceted (a direct military threat, an energy security crisis, and potential long-lasting economic consequences and further political destabilization of the region) as well as in medium- and long-term, devastating for their rule and prospects in parliamentary elections in 2023. It is also important to note that since 2020 the centrist Porozumienie left governing coalition and Kaczyński has since been perpetually engaged in stabilizing the ad hoc majority for his government (since PiS and SP are not having majority in Sejm). Furthermore, in the current parliament, PiS controls only the lower chamber while Senate—that has a significant say in external relations—is controlled by opposition parties. It seems that Kaczyński, who usually focuses solely on domestic politics and is known for his disregard of (and lack of interest in) foreign policy, also wanted to signal his position on external affairs for increasingly concerned domestic audiences. Although the crisis did not make EU-critical voices fade away, the attempt was clear in taking a distance from pro-Kremlin European populists like Le Pen or Orbán, with whom Kaczyński used to try to create a common front to oppose the direction in which the EU was heading (Higgins, 2022). The dramatic events in Ukraine revealed a deeply rooted contradiction in PiS’ approach to European integration. On the one hand, as stated above, the formation was attacking the EU’s elites and was attempting to construct an alliance with other Eurosceptics (even the most right-wing) primarily to promote a sovereigntist vision of European integration focusing on economic aspects and limiting the impact of the EU on crucial areas of national sovereignty (Góra & Zielińska, 2022). On the other hand, when it comes to security aspects, the EU was perceived among PiS elites—albeit to a different degree—as a provider of some important attributes especially crucial for stabilizing and securing the EU’s Eastern neighbourhood. Therefore, the criticism of EU efforts within its

108 

A. KOPPER ET AL.

external relations was significant but not as much as other areas of European integration (Góra, 2021). Meanwhile, government leadership maintained populist tropes (mitigated but still visible) aimed primarily against German and French leadership and their reactions towards Russia and hesitant aid to Ukraine. Prime Minister Morawiecki engaged in direct criticism of President Emmanuel Macron in the midst of the presidential campaign in France, while criticism of Chancellor Scholtz was delivered daily by governmental actors. In the meantime, the government was negotiating with the European Commission over rule of law concerns, particularly concerning the removal of the disciplinary chamber in the Supreme Court that was positioned as a precondition of unlocking the New Generation Europe funds for Poland. Significantly, the moderated and accepted EC proposal was issued by the presidential office, strengthening Duda’s role as a centrist politician fixing the conflicts with key allies, engaging in a manoeuvring between pleasing the EU while also keeping its domestic allies on board. Currently, the consensus on that solution within the ruling minority coalition was broken by SP politicians with Zbigniew Ziobro blackmailing the PiS leadership with pre-term elections. It seems that, in the situation of reality check when it comes to foreign policy and in circumstances bringing the international order to the most dangerous moment since the Second World War, PiS decided to curb its populist rhetoric through an institutional manoeuvre of pushing to the front the PiS president representing a more moderate and pro-Western stance. At the same time, governmental actors are still engaged in othering some western partners, but it seems PiS leaders strategically silenced the most radical voices (within own ranks and on a political scene) for the sake of bigger aims of repairing relations with allies and strengthening the country’s security guarantees. It is relevant to note that this may be a temporary strategy to suspend the populist attempts to regime changes described in the paragraphs above. It may also, however, be that within already heterogenous ranks of PiS the more moderate and centrist option prevails leading to abandoning the ultra-right-wing coalition partners and seeking for a still conservative but more centrist partnership ahead of Autumn 2023 election (or the pre-term elections earlier). The key observation is however that the existential nature of an external threat—imminent and so familiar and known to Poles—was a game-­ changer determining a change in PiS’ approach to foreign policy. For the past couple of years foreign and security policy—as in many other populist

4  POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE… 

109

instances across the globe—was utilized for internal purposes and was a useful source of manufactured crises and repository of enemies useful in populist rhetoric. In February 2022, foreign and security policy issues were elevated to the front and became (again) responsible for safety and well-being of people, the nation, and the country. It became an everyday concern for ordinary Poles and forced populists to reconsider previous strategies. One may conclude that in cases where populism is primarily a discursive articulation such as in the case of PiS it proves to be useful in fair weather conditions but needs to be reconsidered while the storm hits.

Conclusion In this chapter, we argued that CEE populists-in-power are in a peculiar position as leaders of EU member states for which the Union creates a structural constraint, while also offering an enabling context where careful political manoeuvring produces ample opportunities for populists to exploit. Meanwhile the EU remains ill-prepared to regulate member states—including the two under investigation in this chapter—that violate its core values. Although the context is similar, we argued that country-­ specific characteristics play a defining role in how CEE populists can act within and outside of the European Union, which together constitute the two main dimensions of their foreign policy. Comparing Poland and Hungary, we have highlighted that Poland’s populists are more constrained in their manoeuvring both for ideological reasons (Hungarian populism is ideologically shallow), but also for the domestic political context in which Polish populists are forced to seek compromises. Concerning their foreign policy, we argued that conflicts with their European peers around contentious domestic measures offer an incentive for these actors to find allies and resources elsewhere. These external resources can then be employed to buttress populists’ rule, which goes beyond governing within the given institutional setting as both governments have sought to introduce radical changes domestically. As Nadia Urbinati observed, populism “escapes generalization” as “its language and content are imbued with the political culture of the society in which it arises” (Urbinati, 2019, p. 4). These specificities impact on foreign policies and foreign policy discourses as well, and differences most strikingly come to the fore at the time of external crisis, such as with Russia’s war in Ukraine.

110 

A. KOPPER ET AL.

The war radically changed the context in which CEE populists need to manoeuvre, turning foreign policy into a foremost priority, both in terms of revising their national priorities, but also in terms of a need to act together with the other member states. The war made policies and sanctions against Russia the cornerstone of relations and here Poland and Hungary parted ways both in rhetoric and policy. Poland invested in repairing its relations with Western partners, especially the United States, and the President took the stage with a narrative to overcome differences between Poland and the EU. This led to a division of roles between the President and the government. Whereas the President could be offered as a more palatable face of Poland to previously critical partners, the government itself could maintain its populist style. In Hungary, Orbán and his government changed their rhetoric and transformed their image of freedom fighters battling enemies of the people into doves of peace that are trying to avoid involvement in the war. The rhetoric still retained the particular way of othering inherent to populist as EU elites and domestic opposition were framed as warmongers trying to drag the country into the war. Manoeuvring still characterizes Hungarian foreign policy as the government still regularly challenges EU initiatives regarding the war. Still, this manoeuvring now takes place in a radically different environment. First, the war put a freeze to Polish-Hungarian camaraderie which means that Hungary cannot or can only conditionally count on Poland’s support in the future. Second, as foreign policy is at the forefront and is imbued with urgency, former tactics of postponing issues and obscuring disagreements are increasingly unfeasible, especially as the economic crisis in Hungary in the wake of the war has made conditional European funds extremely desirable. Finally, the fact that on foreign policy member states have a say makes the European Commission and Brussels less and less a suitable strawman to attack for inaction. Still, the Polish example seems to have been inspiring: Hungary’s new President took a critical tone against Russia (visiting Poland first to mend relations), while much of Orbán’s rhetoric remains unchanged and high-level Fidesz politicians’ words mirror Russian propaganda. As for the core question of the volume concerning the link between FP and populism, we believe that there is a reflexive relationship between populism and foreign policy, that is, there is no unidirectional causal connection. While populism is used to make sense of and sell foreign policy moves, foreign policy actions can be used symbolically to give ammunition to (domestic) populist discourses. Of the four models of populist foreign

4  POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE… 

111

policy, we found the 4th one most applicable to the region, although elements of the others could be identified. We highlighted that CEE populism, similar to populists in Southern Europe (see Chap. 3), operates in a context where their countries as member states are tied, and as beneficiaries of EU funds are dependent on the EU.  This created a conducive environment for manoeuvring, but also offered an ideal “elite” in Brussels to be constantly criticized and to define the regime to protect the people against. The fact that the nature of the two populist regimes differ—with Poland’s being more ideological and Hungary’s more opportunistic—partially explains the divergence in their foreign policy.

References Barša, P., & Hesová, Z. (2021). Afterword. In P. Barša, Z. Hesová, & O. Slačálek (Eds.), Central European Culture Wars: Beyond Post-Communism and Populism (pp. 325–353). Humanitas. Bieńczyk-Missala, A. (2020, June 16). From Intermarium to the Three Seas Initiative—The Meanders of Poland’s Foreign Policy in Central Europe. Stosunki Międzynarodowe—International Relations, 54, (1), 95–115. Bocskor, Á. (2018, June 1). Anti-Immigration Discourses in Hungary during the ‘Crisis’ Year: The Orbán Government’s ‘National Consultation’ Campaign of 2015. Sociology, 52(3), 551–568. Bod, P. Á. (2013). The Illusion of Monetary Sovereignty. In C. Stephanou (Ed.), International Debt: Economic, Financial, Monetary, Political and Regulatory Aspects (pp. 109–126). Palgrave Macmillan. Boucher, J. C., & Thies, C. G. (2019, April 1). ‘I Am a Tariff Man’: The Power of Populist Foreign Policy Rhetoric under President Trump. Journal of Politics, 81(2), 712–722. Bouzarovski, S., & Tirado Herrero, S. (2017, August 31). The Energy Divide: Integrating Energy Transitions, Regional Inequalities and Poverty Trends in the European Union. European Urban and Regional Studies, 24(1), 69–86. Bozóki, A., & Hegedűs, D. (2018, October 3). An Externally Constrained Hybrid Regime: Hungary in the European Union. Democratization, 25(7), 1173–1189. Buštíková, L., & Guasti, P. (2018, September 20). The State as a Firm: Understanding the Autocratic Roots of Technocratic Populism. East European Politics and Societies: And Cultures, 33(2), 302–330. Cadier, D. (2021, September 14). Populist Politics of Representation and Foreign Policy: Evidence from Poland. Comparative European Politics, 19(6), 703–721. Cadier, D., & Szulecki, K. (2020, June 19). Populism, Historical Discourse and Foreign Policy: The Case of Poland’s Law and Justice Government. International Politics, 57(6), 990–1011.

112 

A. KOPPER ET AL.

Chappell, L. (2012). Germany, Poland and the Common Security and Defence Policy. Germany, Poland and the Common Security and Defence Policy. Palgrave Macmillan UK. Chappell, L. (2021). Polish Foreign Policy: From ‘Go To’ Player to Territorial Defender. In Foreign Policy Change in Europe Since 1991 (pp.  233–258). Palgrave Macmillan. Cianciara, A.  K. (2021). Between EU’s Aspiring Saint and Disillusioned Rebel: Hegemonic Narrative and Counter-Narrative Production in Poland. Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 30(1), 84–96. Csehi, R. (2019, August 18). Neither Episodic, nor Destined to Failure? The Endurance of Hungarian Populism after 2010. Democratization, 26(6), 1011–1027. Deák, A. (2013). Hungarian Dances-The Origins and the Future of Viktor Orbán’s Revolution. Lithuanian Annual Strategic Review, 11(1), 145. Domański, B. (2004, July 25). West and East in ‘New Europe’: The Pitfalls of Paternalism and a Claimant Attitude. European Urban and Regional Studies, 11(4), 377–381. Drinóczi, T., & Bień-Kacała, A. (2019, December 1). Illiberal Constitutionalism: The Case of Hungary and Poland. German Law Journal, 20(8), 1140–1166. Ember, Z. (2018, March 24). Bemutatjuk a Rezsicsökkentést, Az Elmúlt Nyolc Év Legnagyobb Szemfényvesztését. 24.hu. https://24.hu/fn/gazdasag/ 2018/03/24/rezsicsokkentes-­energiaarak-­szemfenyvesztes/ Európai Parlament Magyarországi Kapcsolattartó Irodája. (2021, July 19). Az Európai Parlament Hevesen Tiltakozik a Magyar LMBTIQ-Ellenes Törvény Ellen. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/hungary/hu/aktualis/2021-­hirek/ 2021-­j ulius/az_europai-­p arlament-­h evesen-­t iltakozik-­a z-­l mbtiq-­e llenes-­ torveny-­ellen.HTML Fischer, G. (2022, February 3). Orbán És Putyin Kapcsolatának Története— Reálpolitikai Bölcsesség, Vagy Elvtelen Kompromisszum? szeretlekmagyarorszag.hu. https://www.szeretlekmagyarorszag.hu/szempont/orban-­ es-­p utyin-­k apcsolatanak-­t ortenete-­r ealpolitikai-­b olcsesseg-­v agy-­e lvtelen-­ kompromisszum/ Freedom House. (2021). Freedom in the World 2022: The Global Expansion of Authoritarian Rule. Golec de Zavala, A., & Keenan, O. (2021, April 1). Collective Narcissism as a Framework for Understanding Populism. Journal of Theoretical Social Psychology, 5(2), 54–64. Góra, M., Ostatnik, V., Steuer, M., & Timková-Rungis, N. (2022). Who Owns Sovereignty? Visegrad Four Eurosceptic Narratives on the Future of the European Union. Góra, M. (2021). It’s Security Stupid! Politicisation of the EU’s Relations with Its Neighbours. European Security, 30(3), 439–463. https://doi.org/10.108

4  POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE… 

113

0/09662839.2021.1957841/SUPPL_FILE/FEUS_A_1957841_ SM2376.PDF Góra, M., & Mach, Z. (2010). Between Old Fears and New Challenges. The Polish Debate on Europe. In J.  Lacroix & K.  Nikolaidis (Eds.), European Stories: Intellectual Debates on Europe in National Contexts. Oxford University Press. Góra, M., & Zielińska, K. (2022). Sovereignist Narratives and European Integration: Does Religion Matter and How?. Unpublished manuscript. Hall, J. (2021). In Search of Enemies: Donald Trump’s Populist Foreign Policy Rhetoric. Politics, 41(1), 48–63. Higgins, A. (2022, March 18). War in Ukraine Prompts a Political Makeover in Poland. The New  York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/18/ world/europe/poland-­jaroslaw-­kaczynski-­ukraine-­eu.html Istrate, D., Takácsy, D., & Krekó, P. (2021, December). A Battering Ram against the EU?—Hungary through the Eyes of Russian Propagandists. Budapest. Jandó, Z. (2021, October 1). Most Látszik Igazán, Miért Nem Csökkentette a Kormány Még Jobban a Rezsit. G7. https://g7.hu/vallalat/20211001/ most-­latszik-­igazan-­miert-­nem-­csokkentette-­a-­kormany-­meg-­jobban-­a-­rezsit/ Jandó, Z. (2022, April 21). Brutálisan Drágán Jön Az Orosz Gáz Magyarországra. G7. https://g7.hu/vallalat/20220421/brutalisan-­dragan-­jon-­az-­orosz-­ gaz-­magyarorszagra/ Janjevic, D. (2018, September 18). Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orban’s Special Relationship. DW. https://www.dw.com/en/vladimir-­putin-­and-­viktor-­ orbans-­special-­relationship/a-­45512712 Juncos, A. E., & Pomorska, K. (2021). Contesting Procedural Norms: The Impact of Politicisation on European Foreign Policy Cooperation. European Security, 30(3), 367–384. Keating, V.  C., & Kaczmarska, K. (2017, May 11). Conservative Soft Power: Liberal Soft Power Bias and the ‘Hidden’ Attraction of Russia. Journal of International Relations and Development, 22(1), 1–27. Kopper, Á., Körtvélyesi, Z., Majtényi, B., & Szalai, A. (2020, December 18). The ‘Insecurity Toolbox’ of the Illiberal Regime: Rule by Law and Rule by Exclusion. Political Anthropological Research on International Social Sciences (PARISS), 1(2), 216–242. Kornai, J. (2015, September 1). Hungary’s U-Turn. Society and Economy, 37(3), 279–329. Körösényi, A., Illés, G., & Gyulai, A. (2020). The Orbán Regime : Plebiscitary Leader Democracy in the Making. The Orbán Regime: Plebiscitary Leader Democracy in the Making. Kotwas, M., & Kubik, J. (2019, April 16). Symbolic Thickening of Public Culture and the Rise of Right-Wing Populism in Poland. East European Politics and Societies: And Cultures, 33(2), 435–471.

114 

A. KOPPER ET AL.

Kovács, E. (2020). Post-Socialist Conditions and the Orbán Government’s Gender Politics between 2010–2019 in Hungary. In G. Dietze & J. Roth (Eds.), Right-­ Wing Populism and Gender: European Perspectives and Beyond (pp.  75–100). transcript Verlag. Krekó, P., & Enyedi, Z. (2018, July 1). Orbán’s Laboratory of Illiberalism. Journal of Democracy, 29(3), 39–51. Krzyżanowski, M. (2020, August 7). Discursive Shifts and the Normalisation of Racism: Imaginaries of Immigration, Moral Panics and the Discourse of Contemporary Right-Wing Populism. Social Semiotics, 30(4), 503–527. Kuisz, J. (2019, April 1). The Two Faces of European Disillusionment. Eurozine. https://www.eurozine.com/two-­faces-­european-­disillusionment/ Kuyper, J., & Moffitt, B. (2020, November 15). Transnational Populism, Democracy, and Representation: Pitfalls and Potentialities. Global Justice: Theory Practice Rhetoric, 12(02), 27–49. https://doi.org/10.21248/ GJN.12.02.208 Laclau, E. (2005). On Populist Reason. Verso. “Lex TVN.  Prezydent Andrzej Duda Zawetował Ustawę Anty-TVN—Relacja i Komentarze Ekspertów—TVN24”. (2021, December 27). TVN24. https:// tvn24.pl/polska/lex-­t vn-­p rezydent-­a ndrzej-­d uda-­z awetowal-­u stawe-­ anty-­tvn-­relacja-­i-­komentarze-­ekspertow-­5540366 Magyar, B., & Júlia, V. (Eds.). (2017). Twenty-Five Sides of a Post-Communist Mafia State. CEU PRess. Maximov, V. (2022, May 6). Medvedev Hails Orbán’s Opposition to EU Oil, Religious Figures Sanctions. EURACTIV.com. https://www.euractiv.com/ section/global-­e urope/news/medvedev-­h ails-­o rbans-­o pposition-­t o-­e u-­ oil-­religious-­figures-­sanctions/ Meislova, M. B., & Buckledee, S. (2021, January 5). Discursive (Re)Construction of Populist Sovereignism by Right-Wing Hard Eurosceptic Parties in the 2019 European Parliament Elections: Insights from the UK, Italy, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Journal of Language and Politics, (6), 20, 825–851. mfor.hu. (2018, March 12). Így Építhette Ki Titokban Orbán a Putyinhoz Fűződő Kapcsolatát. mfor.hu. https://mfor.hu/cikkek/befektetes/igy-­epithette-­ki-­ titokban-­Orbán-­a-­putyinhoz-­fuzodo-­kapcsolatat.html. Miklóssy, K. (2021). Memory and Leverage : Russia’s History Policing and the Remembrance of 1956 in Hungary. In K. Miklóssy & M. Kangaspuro (Eds.), Conservatism and Memory Politics in Russia and Eastern Europe (pp. 110–129). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003251743-­7 Moffitt, B. (2014). How to Perform Crisis: A Model for Understanding the Key Role of Crisis in Contemporary Populism. Government and Opposition, 50(2), 189–217. Moffitt, B. (2016). The Global Rise of Populism Performance, Political Style, and Representation. Stanford University Press.

4  POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE… 

115

Moffitt, B. (2018). The Populism/Anti-Populism Divide in Western Europe. Democratic Theory, 5(2), 1–16. Molnár, S. (2022, April 8). Ursula von Der Leyen: Ha Rubelben Fizet Magyarország a Gázért, Megszegi Az Uniós Szankciókat. Index. https://index.hu/belf o l d / 2 0 2 2 / 0 4 / 0 8 / h a b o r u -­o r o s z o r s z a g -­s z a n k c i o k -­u r s u l a -­v o n -­ der-­leyen-­orban-­viktor-­gaz-­energia-­rubel/ Mos, M. (April 2, 2020). Ambiguity and Interpretive Politics in the Crisis of European Values: Evidence from Hungary. East European Politics, 36(2), 267–287. Nagy, G.  M. (2022, March 7). Tíz Ellentmondás, Amivel Orbánt És a NER-t Megcsapta Az Orosz-Ukrán Háború | 24.Hu. 24.hu. https://24.hu/belfold/2022/03/07/orosz-­ukrn-­haboru-­ner-­orban-­viktor-­elllentmondas/. Orenstein, M.  A., & Kelemen, R.  D. (2017, January 1). Trojan Horses in EU Foreign Policy. JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies, 55(1), 87–102. Panyi, S. (2020, February 13). Hungary Pressured by Diplomats to Stop Blocking NATO-Ukraine Talks. Direkt36. https://www.direkt36.hu/en/bement-­egy-­ tucat-­diplomata-­a-­magyar-­kulugybe-­feszult-­vita-­lett-­belole-­ukrajna-­miatt/ Pirro, A. L. P., Taggart, P., & van Kessel, S. (2018, July 4). The Populist Politics of Euroscepticism in Times of Crisis: Comparative Conclusions. Politics, 38(3), 378–390. Prime Ministers of the Visegrad 4. (2014). Statement of the Prime Ministers of the Visegrád Countries on Ukraine. Vienna. http://vienna.io.gov.hu/accessibility/statement-­of-­the-­prime-­ministers-­of-­the-­visegrad-­countries-­on-­ukraine Rácz, A. (2021, October 22). Authoritarian Ties: The Case of Russia and Hungary. The Russia File—A Blog of the Kennan Institute. https://www.wilsoncenter. org/blog-­post/authoritarian-­ties-­case-­russia-­and-­hungary Rácz, G. (2022, June 10). Orbán Viktor: Tönkremegy Európa Az Energetikai Szankciókkal. Napi.hu. https://www.napi.hu/magyar-­gazdasag/orban-­viktor-­ interju-­2022-­junius-­10-­energia-­szankcio-­oroszorszag-­haboru.754042.html Sadurski, W. (2019). Poland’s Constitutional Breakdown. Poland’s Constitutional Breakdown. Oxford University Press. Scheppele, K. L. (2013). The Rule of Law and the Frankenstate: Why Governance Checklists Do Not Work. Governance, 26(4), 559–562. Stengel, F. A., Macdonald, D. B., & Nabers, D. (2019). Introduction: Analyzing the Nexus Between Populism and International Relations. In F.  A. Stengel, D. B. Macdonald, & D. Nabers (Eds.), Populism and World Politics (pp. 1–22). Palgrave Macmillan. Styczyńska, N. (2018). Więcej Czy Mniej Europy? UE i Integracja Europejska w Dyskursie Polskich Partii Politycznych. Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego.

116 

A. KOPPER ET AL.

Szabó, Z. (2022, April 2). Mit Mondott a Kormányoldal És Az Ellenzék a Kampányban a Háborúról? Index. https://index.hu/belfold/2022/04/02/ orban-­marki-­zay-­haboru-­es-­valasztas-­magyarorszagon/ Szalai, A. (2019). The Construction of the Refugee Other in Hungary During the 2015 ‘Migration Crisis. In A.  Prodromidou & P.  Gkasis (Eds.), Along the Balkan Route: The Impact of the Post-2014 ‘Migrant Crisis’ on the EU’s South East Periphery (pp. 104–117). Konrad Adenauer Foundation. Szalai, A. (2020). Securitizing Migration in Contemporary Hungary: From Discourse to Practice. In A. Prodromidou, M. Kmezic, F. Bieber, & P. Gkasis (Eds.), Migration, Integration, Disintegrarion. Routledge. Szczerbiak, A. (2022, May 17). Intuition or Grand Plan? Explaining Andrzej Duda’s Rise to Prominence during the War in Ukraine. EUROPP. https:// blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2022/05/17/intuition-­o r-­g rand-­p lan-­ explaining-­andrzej-­dudas-­rise-­to-­prominence-­during-­the-­war-­in-­ukraine/ tvn24.pl. (2011, October 9). ‘Przyjdzie Dzień, Że w Warszawie Będzie Budapeszt’—TVN24. tvn24.pl. https://tvn24.pl/polska/przyjdzie-­dzien-­ ze-­w-­warszawie-­bedzie-­budapeszt-­ra186922-­3535336 Urbinati, N. (2019, May 11). Political Theory of Populism. Annual Review of Political Science. Annual Reviews Inc. Varga, M., & Buzogány, A. (2021). The Foreign Policy of Populists in Power: Contesting Liberalism in Poland and Hungary. Geopolitics, 26(5), 1442–1463. Végh, Z. (2015). Hungary’s “Eastern Opening” policy toward Russia: ties that bind?. International issues & Slovak foreign policy Affairs, 24(01–02), 47–65. Véleményvezér. (2014). Orbán Feloldozza a Baloldalt. Véleményvezér. Visnovitz, P., & Jenne, E.  K. (2021, December 1). Populist Argumentation in Foreign Policy: The Case of Hungary under Viktor Orbán, 2010–2020. Comparative European Politics, 19(6), 683–702. Wajner, D. F., & Giurlando, P. (2023). Introduction to Populist Foreign Policy (PFP). In P. Giurlando & D. Wajner (Eds.), Populist Foreign Policy: Regional Perspectives of Populism in the International Scene. Palgrave. Way, L. A. (2022). The Rebirth of the Liberal World Order? Journal of Democracy, 33(2), 5–17. Zaborowski, M. (2019). Poland: Nato’s Front Line State. In J. A. Olsen (Ed.), Security in Northern Europe: Deterrence, Defence and Dialogue (pp.  88–97). Routledge.

CHAPTER 5

The Trump Shock: Populism and Changing Narratives of US Foreign Policy Georg Löfflmann, Amy Skonieczny, and Rubrick Biegon

Introduction During his inaugural address on January 20, 2021, Joe Biden called on Americans to end their ‘un-civil war’ and refrain from treating political opponents as mortal enemies (White House, 2021). Biden vowed to defend democracy and the US Constitution and stressed the vital importance of facts and truth for the functioning of a liberal, open, and democratic society. Without ever naming his predecessor outright, Biden’s

G. Löfflmann (*) University of Warwick, Coventry, UK e-mail: [email protected] A. Skonieczny San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA, USA e-mail: [email protected] R. Biegon University of Kent, Canterbury, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 P. Giurlando, D. F. Wajner (eds.), Populist Foreign Policy, Global Foreign Policy Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22773-8_5

117

118 

G. LÖFFLMANN ET AL.

speech repudiated decisively the nationalist populism of Donald Trump, who had employed a divisive rhetoric of fear, anxiety, and resentment throughout his time in office; a strategy of narrative disruption and antagonistic mobilization for domestic political gain, culminating in the January 6 Capitol riot in Washington DC, where, instigated by Trump, a violent mob attempted to overturn the certification of the presidential election by force (Homolar & Löfflmann, 2021). Some of the first executive orders Biden signed in office saw the United States re-join the Paris climate agreement and the World Health Organization (WHO), symbolically ending the era of America First in US foreign policy. But the forces of nationalist populism and nativism did not disappear with Donald Trump’s exit from the White House, and his political influence survived his banning from the social media platforms Twitter and Facebook. The United States of America remained a deeply polarized nation, while Trump’s renewed bid for the presidency in 2024 remained a realistic, even probable proposition (Dimock, 2021). In any case, the 74 million Americans that voted for Trump in 2020 all but guaranteed that nationalist populism would continue to dominate the Republican Party and the American right at large. This enduring quality of populism in American politics challenges the structural integrity of liberal democracy and its core institutions, casting serious doubts over the future role of the United States in the international system. In assessing the impact of the Trump presidency and America First on US foreign policy, this chapter contributes to a growing literature on populism in International Relations (IR) and security studies that explores populism’s role in informing the foreign policy decision-making process of populist leaders and parties (Lacatus & Meibauer, 2022; Wehner & Thies, 2020; Jenne, 2021) and how populist rhetoric, beliefs, and performances interact with security discourses and practices (Kurylo, 2020). As such, we focus our analysis predominantly on populist discourse and foreign policy practice (PFP-4) as outlined by Wajner and Giurlando (2023), while also considering populist foreign policy outputs and the context of American grand strategy. Nationalist populist narratives like America First construct security imaginaries of socio-economic threat, political alienation, and socio-­cultural anxiety decidedly as a non-elitist articulation of the ordinary fears and concerns of the ‘real people’ (Beeman, 2018). In portraying the wholesale failure of establishment policies and ideologies and linking the existence of a corrupt elite to national decline and the socio-economic and socio-cultural anxieties and insecurities of populist voters—for example in

5  THE TRUMP SHOCK: POPULISM AND CHANGING NARRATIVES OF US… 

119

Trump’s inaugural address on ‘American carnage’ (Trump, 2017)— populist rhetoric centres on social constructions of enmity, existential threat, and crisis (Biegon, 2019; Löfflmann, 2022a; Skonieczny, 2021a; Wojczewski, 2020). The securitization of policy issues, such as trade and immigration (Fermor & Holland, 2020), and the identification of internal and external ‘enemies of the people’ simultaneously seeks to mobilize voters via affective appeals and an emphasis on dramatization, personalization, and conflict, while legitimizing policy initiatives through an antagonistic framing of international politics (Skonieczny, 2018; Steele & Homolar, 2019; Wodak, 2015). Although the Trump era coincided with renewed public and scholarly interest in the prospect of American decline, the United States continues to enjoy considerable room for manoeuvre in international affairs—diplomatically, economically, and especially militarily. The United States’ relatively advantageous position in the global power structure suggests that, when thinking about the conditions that enable and constrain a Populist Foreign Policy (PFP), the US case points predominantly in the direction of domestic variables and ideational factors, rather than, as in most other cases in this volume, external, strategic constraints. This includes the nature of the US electoral and two-party political system, but also the cultural and ideological terrain on which foreign policy and national security narratives are constructed domestically. Donald Trump has elicited many comparisons to other right-wing populists and flamboyant ‘strongmen’, such as Viktor Orbán in Hungary, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, and Boris Johnson in the United Kingdom (Löfflmann, 2022b) with whom he shares many characteristics and rhetorical flourishes, in particular an antagonistic framing of policy issues, such as immigration and free trade, and general hostility towards liberal internationalism, decried by Trump as un-­ American ‘globalism’. Trumpism followed a similar path as the Berlusconi phenomenon (see Chap. 3); his popularity and political rise are intrinsically linked to Trump’s individual status as a prominent TV celebrity and media figure in the United States prior to his run for the presidency in 2015–2016. Trump’s election, moreover, and presidency further accelerated a long-standing dynamic of partisan polarization in the United States. Although populism is a region-wide contemporary phenomenon witnessed elsewhere in the Americas (e.g., in regard to Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, El Salvador under Nayib Bukele, or Maxime Bernier’s People’s Party of Canada (PPC) party in Canada), from a global politics perspective, the United States can effectively be seen as

120 

G. LÖFFLMANN ET AL.

constituting a ‘region’ unto itself, given its geopolitical, economic, and ideational power. Our focus on Trumpism may therefore allow for fruitful comparisons with research on populist narratives and the conduct of foreign policy in other cases in this volume and beyond, but due to the singular status of the United States, our findings do not necessarily apply accordingly to Mexican left-wing populism, or to the marginal impact of right-wing populism on Canadian foreign policy. In contrast to the other countries and cases discussed in this volume, the United States ultimately faces fewer external constraints due to its hegemonic status within the international system, and within the liberal international order in particular. As noted in the Introduction to this volume (see Chap. 1), part of the peculiarity of the Trump case rests with the fact that the populist backlash he harnessed (against the international institutions of the global order) was not primarily directed against an external ‘enemy of the people’ (Löfflmann, 2022a), but an internal challenge that targeted the very Washington foreign policy establishment that embodied America’s liberal hegemony, its institutions, and practices. In examining the political rhetoric and security narratives employed by Donald Trump in the context of US foreign policy, this chapter will therefore first examine the framing of America First as narrative fusion of nationalist anti-­globalism and populist anti-elitism. We show how Trump’s discursive intervention presented an internal narrative shock to the US foreign establishment and the bi-partisan strategic consensus on liberal hegemony. This chapter will then outline the policy impact of the Trump presidency in the areas of trade and economic policy and national security respectively to assess the extent of the narrative disruption of America First and the degree of structural change it engendered in US foreign policy.

America First as Narrative Disruption to US Foreign Policy At his inauguration in January 2017, Donald Trump declared that his election had to be seen as more than a regular transition of power, and something more akin to a political revolution, heralding a new nationalist populist era for America’s role in the world, as well as its domestic politics: ‘(…) today we are not merely transferring power from one administration to another or from one party to another, but we are transferring power from Washington, DC, and giving it back to you, the people’ (Trump,

5  THE TRUMP SHOCK: POPULISM AND CHANGING NARRATIVES OF US… 

121

2017). Against a prevailing Washington bi-partisan elite consensus on liberal hegemony, economic globalization, and institutionalized multilateralism, Trump envisioned a new ideational paradigm of America First that would supposedly prioritize the interests of ordinary Americans at the expense of a globalist elite that had weakened and endangered the United States through a mix of lax immigration policies, insufficient border security, failed military interventions, and unquestioning support of free trade and globalization: From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land. From this this day forward, it’s going to be only America first. America first. Every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs, will be made to benefit American workers and American families. (Trump, 2017)

The narrative framing of America First cast the realm of international politics and foreign relations almost exclusively as one of existential threats, escalating danger and ruthless economic competition, a zero-sum game in which the United States had to compete mercilessly for advantage against the rest of the world, regardless if these competitors were liberal democracies and long-standing allies, or authoritarian regimes and traditional adversaries (Löfflmann, 2019). Trump and his closest advisors such as National Security Advisor H.  R. McMaster expressed a profoundly realpolitik-­inspired vision of world politics in that military and economic power alone determined a state’s national security, prosperity, and survival in the international system (McMaster & Cohn, 2017). Hostility towards the liberal international order and resistance to America’s role as its primary guarantor was at the heart of the fusion of nationalist anti-globalism and populist anti-elitism America First embodied (Daalder & Lindsay, 2018). The ideational dimension of America First represented a deliberate break with the liberal Wilsonian tradition of US foreign policy (Mead, 2002) and a strategic vision of cooperative engagement that sought to realize security and prosperity for the United States primarily in conjunction with US allies and partners and in support of a liberal world order at large (Hamid, 2018). Trump’s transactional understanding of international affairs measured American foreign policy successes in direct political gain and economic benefit to the United States, rather than in any joint commitment to universal values of freedom and democracy, or support for human rights. Politically, this nationalist-populist reorientation had its

122 

G. LÖFFLMANN ET AL.

clearest manifestations in Trump’s withdrawal from several multilateral agreements, considered signature achievements of President Obama’s cooperative approach to US foreign and security policy, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade agreement; the Paris Agreement on climate change; and the Iran nuclear deal. Anti-globalism also informed Trump’s publicly stated views on NATO as ‘obsolete’ and repeated attacks on key NATO member states, Germany in particular, for failing to fulfil the NATO target of committing 2% of national GDP for defense expenditures. In Trump’s assessment other countries owed the United States ‘vast sums’ of money for underspending and neglecting their NATO commitments; a view that he also repeatedly publicized via Twitter (Deutsche Welle, 2018). What separated Trump from previous US administrations that quarrelled over the imbalance of financial and military commitments within the transatlantic alliance was that Trump questioned the benefit of the very existence of NATO to the United States, seeing it predominantly as unwarranted subsidization of the security of wealthy European nations at the expense of US taxpayers. Antagonistic narratives of enmity, geo-­ economic competition, and Manichean confrontation were regularly employed in Trump’s rhetorical repertoire to vilify long-standing allies and partners, such as ‘bad’ Germany, or an EU branded as ‘foe’ (Schütz, 2019). Trump also repeatedly showed appreciation and respect for authoritarian and nationalist populist leaders such as North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un and Russian President Vladimir Putin, as well as for President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Chinese President Xi Jinping, despite often fraught relationships of their respective countries with the United States and, in the cases of China and Russia enduring strategic rivalries and geopolitical contestations, for example over Ukraine and Taiwan. Frequent accusations of countries deliberately ‘ripping off’ the United States were thereby used both publicly and privately to compel these ‘delinquents’ to comply with Trump’s demands. During the 2020 presidential election campaign, Trump would describe increased defense expenditures by several European countries as a direct result of this hectoring diplomatic style: And I’m making other countries pay because, you know, NATO, they weren’t paying their bills. They were delinquent to use the New York real estate term. (…). They’re paying $130 billion a year more now because I said, look, you’ve got to pay (…). They rip us on trade and then we’re supposed to protect them, the European Union. (Trump, 2020)

5  THE TRUMP SHOCK: POPULISM AND CHANGING NARRATIVES OF US… 

123

Against a structural geopolitical reorientation of the United States, like closer strategic alignment with Russia or withdrawal from NATO, however, Trump faced significant resistance by the US foreign policy and national security establishment, including the Pentagon, State Department, and from within his own White House, as well as significant bi-partisan opposition and legal obstacles put in place by Congress (Anonymous, 2018; Kheel, 2021). These internal constraints were a significant institutional and domestic political impediment that together with Trump’s mercurial personality, poor attention to policy planning and implementation, and at times, dysfunctional White House administration, prevented the emergence of America First as a fully fleshed Trump Doctrine. Rather than ushering in structural populist-informed changes in US foreign policy, such as a visible reduction of US troop levels in South Korea, Germany, or Japan, or even wholesale US withdrawal from NATO, Trump’s America First agenda, therefore, primarily had a negative impact on the global perception of American leadership and its political reliability among its allies and partners. In the words of German chancellor Angela Merkel, the ‘times in which we could completely depend on others are, to a certain extent, over’ (BBC News, 2017). Public opinion polls seemed to concur, demonstrating that publics in 25 countries had less confidence in Trump than in either the authoritarian leaders of Russia and China, or liberal stalwarts like Trudeau and Merkel, while favorability ratings of the United States were drastically lower under Trump than they had been under Barack Obama (Bialik, 2018). In Germany, for example, only 10% of respondents had confidence in Trump, while three-in-four people thought that the United States under his presidency was doing less to address global problems (Wike et al., 2018). Support for Trump was higher, however, among supporters of European populist parties, and majority positive attitudes towards the United States prevailed in many countries (Ibid.). Trump’s hostility towards the liberal international order,—including disruptive performances at high-profile G-7 and NATO summits—would not radically alter US foreign policy in the short term, but it affected the medium to long-term strategic calculations regarding American grand strategy among both US allies and adversaries. America’s international partners began to hedge as much against the momentary volatility under Trump as against the possibility of long-term US retrenchment, calculating that while the Trump presidency was the symptom, the underlying causes were the deepseated political polarization and government dysfunction in the United States, which were undermining the premise of Pax Americana, while both

124 

G. LÖFFLMANN ET AL.

the American people and its political class were turning increasingly inward (Dobbins et  al., 2020). International assessments of America’s gradual withdrawal from world leadership had already begun under the Obama administration, sparked by President Obama’s emphasis on military restraint and ‘nation-building at home’ (Löfflmann, 2017). These concerns had intensified considerably in the America First era, with French President Emmanuel Macron, for example, declaring that the NATO alliance had become ‘brain dead’ (Economist, 2019). Trump’s nationalist populism acted as a rhetorical accelerator to a dynamic that was rooted in structural geopolitical, demographic, and economic shifts that would constitute the United States as primus inter pares in a post-American World rather than a unipolar superpower. Such a shift towards a less hegemonic role of the United States in the international system, however, was welcomed by a majority of Americans, who envisioned a less militarized global leadership role for their country that should instead emphasize the foreign policy tools of diplomatic engagement and multilateralism (Bremmer, 2019). Data from the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations (CCFR) show that from 1974 to 2018 between 66% and 70% of Americans supported an active role of the United States in global affairs (Smeltz et al., 2018); a relatively stable figure for over four decades that nonetheless reveals a significant gap when compared to foreign policy elites, who nearly unanimously endorsed internationalism and active US engagement. This discrepancy between the Washington elite consensus on liberal hegemony and public opinion was reconfirmed in 2013, when a much-reported poll showed that 52% of Americans agreed with the statement that the ‘United States should mind its own business internationally’ (Pew, 2013). This was the highest percentage of popular support for what US mainstream media and US foreign policy experts would immediately decry as dangerous and irresponsible ‘isolationism’ since 1964 (Fisher, 2013). Although support for ‘isolationism’ declined to 43% in 2016, 70% of Americans polled still demanded a greater focus on domestic issues over foreign policy and 57% agreed the United States should ‘deal with its own problems and let other countries deal with their problems the best they can’ (Pew, 2016). While foreign policy is traditionally less relevant as a campaign issue and tends to be less scrutinized by public opinion, these results suggest considerable public support for a more restrained, less interventionist foreign policy of the kind that Donald Trump outlined during his presidential campaign in 2015–2016, for example when he announced during his acceptance speech of the

5  THE TRUMP SHOCK: POPULISM AND CHANGING NARRATIVES OF US… 

125

Republican Party’s nomination that: ‘We must abandon the failed policy of nation building and regime change that Hillary Clinton pushed in Iraq, Libya, Egypt and Syria’ (Trump, 2016d). The 2008 financial crisis and its aftermath, together with the failure of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, seriously diminished the credibility of the bi-partisan foreign policy establishment among the general public. In the words of Andrew Bacevich: ‘In the eyes of ordinary citizens, policies conceived under the direction of George H. W. Bush or George W. Bush, Bill Clinton or Hillary Clinton, Condoleezza Rice or Susan Rice no longer command automatic assent’ (Bacevich, 2018, p. 61). Dissatisfaction with the US foreign policy establishment’s dogmatic position, its perceived lack of political nuance and habitual promotion of military interventionism had already given rise to the derogatory label of the ‘Blob’, a moniker originally coined by Ben Rhodes, Obama’s foreign policy speechwriter and deputy national security advisor (Samuels, 2016). Partisan polarization and public dissatisfaction with the US government had steadily increased under the Obama presidency (Oliver & Rahn, 2016). The American electorate was divided between ideologically opposing camps (Pew, 2014) with voter coalitions separated by race, gender, level of education, and socio-economic status (Jacobson, 2016). Trump’s electoral base of White working-class and non-college educated voters in the South and Midwest expressed a combination of political alienation, economic insecurity, and cultural anxiety tied to the impact of globalization, changing demographics, and immigration that were primarily informed by questions of identity. Trump voters’ subjective perception of their own economic and social status was one of relative deprivation and decline and loss of overall societal relevance and cultural hegemony (Hochschild, 2018; Jardina, 2019). This combination of anti-establishment resentment, ontological insecurity, and social marginalization opened a discursive space for Trump’s populist reframing of foreign and economic policy, trade, and immigration, which combined disdain for the corrupt Washington elites with promises of national revival and renewal (‘Make America Great Again’) through economic protectionism, strict anti-migration measures, militarized border security, and a transactional focus on prioritizing US interests in international affairs. America First thus both exploited and contributed to a loss of political legitimacy of the dominant bi-partisan elite consensus on liberal hegemony, which resulted in a significant widening of the space for debate on US foreign policy and national security in both parties. This shift manifested as an internal fracturing between defenders of the status

126 

G. LÖFFLMANN ET AL.

quo and inner-party groupings forcefully advocating for major policy changes. In the Democratic Party, for example, the left-wing populist Bernie Sanders and the liberal progressive Elizabeth Warren outlined foreign policy platforms during the 2020 presidential campaign that both opposed Trump’s America First stance and demanded substantial cuts to the US defense budget, an end to military interventions overseas, and halting US support for Saudi Arabia in its war in Yemen (Ettinger, 2020). In the Republican Party, foreign and national security experts, who had become known as ‘Never Trumpers’ for their rejection of the Trump presidency and its American First credo had been marginalized and forced into inner-party exile, while prominent figures like Mike Pompeo, Rand Paul, and Ted Cruz would endorse President Biden’s decision for withdrawal from Afghanistan, echoing widespread sentiments in the Republican Party and among Republican voters that the era of ‘forever wars’ had to come to an end and that there was no return to the status quo ante of Republican foreign policy orthodoxy, directly echoing Trump’s anti-interventionist stance (Lerer, 2021). The popularity of Trump’s populist attacks against the misguided ‘globalism’, ‘economic surrender’ and failed military interventions launched by the bi-partisan US foreign policy establishment had found a particularly positive echo among Republicans, where over 80% Republican voters had consistently supported Trump’s America First course (Pew, 2018). A survey by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs in 2020 found that Republican voters ultimately preferred economic protectionism and a nationalist foreign policy over the support for multilateralism and global engagement (Smeltz et al., 2020). Almost half of Republicans agreed that ‘the United States is rich and powerful enough to go it alone, without getting involved in the problems of the rest of the world’ (Ibid.). This popular support forced many establishment conservatives to endorse America First positions over traditional Republican and neoconservative priorities, such as support for free trade, or the use of force in support of the global spread of democracy and freedom. Key nationalist populist policy issues, such as opposition to free trade deals, or fortifying the US-Mexico border, were, at the same time, addressed primarily to a core constituency of White working-class and non-college educated voters in the heartland whose views on foreign policy and economic issues both lacked representation at the elite level and which was more hostile towards globalization, internationalism, and immigration than mainstream American society (Foyle, 2021; Pew, 2018).

5  THE TRUMP SHOCK: POPULISM AND CHANGING NARRATIVES OF US… 

127

Trump, Trade, and Economic Nationalism Trump’s candidacy and subsequent presidency valued ‘folk economics’— that is, the economic notions that untrained individuals or laypersons have and the perceptions of such individuals about the economy (Rubin, 2003) over mainstream economic expertise. Generally, economists view economic knowledge as objective and analytical—as a strict science that helps predict what might happen, regulate economic forces, and promote economic strategies. ‘As a consequence, they are not very interested in how people view the economy or in non-scientific theories about the economy, except as something that should be replaced by scientific knowledge. In fact, economists can be quite hostile to persons who speak on economic topics but who lack academic credentials’ (Swedberg, 2018, p. 4). This view produces a sharp divide between scientific economic knowledge and folk economics that is ripe for exploitation by a populist narrative that pits the people against a corrupt elite. With Trump, folk economic rhetoric coalesced with an economic nationalist, populist narrative that threw any sense of normalcy in trade policy out the window. In 2016, presidential candidates Trump and Sanders connected with people by tapping into a basic, everyday folk economics that resonated with certain demographics in American society. Trump and Sanders valued and amplified the economic understandings and experiences of everyday people, while the other candidates such as Hillary Clinton sought to educate the ‘folk’ about why trade and liberalizing the economy was important, drawing on economic theory, historical trajectories, and technical terms. This aligned with a populist portrayal of the economy as a conflict between the regular, working-­class people versus the elite, and when it came to economic issues such as trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership, North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), or trade with China, very quickly mainstream economic arguments became framed by Trump as elitist and out of touch with regular Americans. A folk populism was born and it quickly constrained US economic policies as Trump re-made what a folk populist approach to US foreign policy would look like and what it would mean for trade politics. Trump approached US trade politics as an opportunity to turn back time. His folk populist narrative framed past trade agreements and globalization broadly as responsible for taking away jobs from Americans and treating lower-wage workers as expendable. He claimed to stand up for the ‘forgotten worker’ and promised to restore dignity to the working

128 

G. LÖFFLMANN ET AL.

people. For example, in a speech delivered in Dimondale, Michigan on August 19, 2016, he explicitly claimed to give a voice to the forgotten workers: ‘It’s going to be a victory for the people, a victory for the wage-­ earner, the factory worker. Remember this, a big, big victory for the factory worker. They haven’t had those victories for a long time. A victory for every citizen and for all of the people whose voices have not been heard for many, many years. They’re going to be heard again. [Applause]’ (Lamont et al., 2017, p. 164). In his economic narrative, Trump elevated the ‘folk’ or the ‘people’ and pitted them against corrupt government officials who had traded away their jobs and dignity to China, Mexico, and other countries through disastrous trade policies that only he could re-­ negotiate and restore. He flipped the trade narrative from one where globalization lifted all boats and brought new opportunities to Americans to blaming globalization for the ills of the ‘rust belt’ and an elitist mentality that valued white collar jobs over hard-working, blue-collar workers. As he stated, ‘This is not a rising tide that lifts all boats. This is a wave of globalization that wipes out our middle class and our jobs. We need to reform our economic system so that, once again, we can all succeed together, and America can become rich again’ (Trump, June 22, 2016a). Trump positioned himself as an outsider to the political arena, someone who would defend the common folk against the elites. In a speech in Green Bay, Wisconsin on August 5, 2016, he declared, ‘I’m not a politician, proudly. I’m not part of the system. I ran against the system’. And later, in September 2016, he called himself an ‘outsider fighting for you’ (Trump, August 5th, 2016b). This self-presentation not only resonated with white working-class Americans’ views of the government, but it also quickly established a divide with his opponents like Hillary Clinton who had been an instrumental part of the negotiations of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) as Secretary of State under President Obama and now needed to try and pivot on the issue. The impact on US trade policy was swift. Trump’s folk economic populism took an immediate and shocking toll on support for the TPP particularly with Republicans who were crucial for its legislative success. The TPP, the largest regional trade accord in history, would have set new terms for trade and business investment among the United States and 11 other Pacific Rim nations. In May 2015, the Senate approved ‘fast-track’ authority clearing the way for the President to sign the TPP, which he did at the beginning of 2016, leaving only Congressional ratification as a final step which Obama seemed poised to achieve by the summer of 2016. In February 2016, President Obama told a New Zealand

5  THE TRUMP SHOCK: POPULISM AND CHANGING NARRATIVES OF US… 

129

audience, ‘We should get TPP done this year and give more American workers the shot at success they deserve and help more American businesses compete and win around the world’ (Obama, 2016). However, three months later, public opinion shifted on trade and 85% of Republicans reported that trade deals hurt US jobs—a stark turnaround from the traditional Republican free trade position from less than a year earlier. The positive and optimistic view of the benefits of free trade quickly hit stark resistance as Trump’s reframing caught fire. Trump redefined who could be considered ‘the people’ or ‘the folk’ and quickly their rhetoric differentiated themselves from the ‘folk’ or ‘people’ referred to by President Obama and candidate Clinton. Trump used the term ‘workers’ in opposition to ‘politicians’ and ‘financial elites’ in many of his speeches on the economy and trade. Trump’s folk populism reset the ‘who’ of trade debates and ultimately forced Hillary Clinton to change her position on TPP, effectively killing President Obama’s chances of passing the agreement before the end of his term. For Trump, the TPP was a central touchstone for a fierce nationalist narrative that fused with populism to position America ‘first’ over globalist economic policies. In June 2016, he stated: ‘We…switched from a policy of Americanism—focusing on what’s good for America’s middle class—to a policy of globalism, focusing on how to make money for large corporations who can move their wealth and workers to foreign countries all to the detriment of the American worker and the American economy’ (Trump, June 22, 2016a). He regularly addressed TPP by name through his populist narrative. In August 2016, he stated, ‘Just imagine how many more automobile jobs will be lost if the TPP is actually approved. That is why I have announced we will withdraw from the deal before that can ever happen’ (Trump, August 8, 2016c). Of course, this is what happened. President Trump unsigned the TPP on his first day in office on January 23, 2017. Through his attacks on trade and past trade agreements, Trump reframed the liberal economic consensus on trade and globalization from one that brought positive gains and aligned with US values to one that sowed economic destruction, job loss, and the plundering of the working class. Moreover, he redefined ‘folk economics’ from a layperson’s mistaken understanding of economic laws and science to a deified, glorified practical knowledge that made instituting long-maligned strategies such as tariffs and protectionist blunt instruments acceptable policies under his new administration. Indeed, once in office, Trump instituted one of his

130 

G. LÖFFLMANN ET AL.

long-standing crusades into common institutionalized practice—resetting economic policy towards China at any cost. As a presidential candidate, Trump made trade a centrepiece of his economic policy platform blaming past presidents for trade deficits, bad trade deals, and losing US manufacturing jobs to other countries. When he announced his candidacy, he made it clear that if he were elected, he would take a different approach to China, saying, ‘Our country is in serious trouble. We don’t have victories anymore. We used to have victories, but we don’t have them. When was the last time anybody saw us beating, let’s say, China in a trade deal? They kill us. I beat China all the time. All the time’ (Trump, 2015). The main focus of Trump’s angst with US-China trade was a ballooning trade deficit with China, the belief that China manipulated its currency to keep its products artificially cheap and impossible for US manufacturing to match in pricing, and that China stole intellectual property from US companies. Within the first few months of his presidency, President Trump made it clear that his administration would apply a new, and much more aggressive approach to the US-China trade relationship with the intent on getting a better deal. Bolstered by economic advisors such as Peter Navarro, a long-­ standing critic of China, Trump signed an executive order in March 2017 directing his economic team to examine US-China trade for unfair practices that he could label a national security threat. By the end of his first year in office, President Trump announced that the United States would impose tariffs or taxes on Chinese imports to curb what he deemed unfair trade politics on the part of the Chinese, and this started the series of retaliations and escalations between the United States and China over the next two years known as the United States-China trade war (Skonieczny, 2021b). Within a year, the United States and China were locked in an escalating battle of reciprocating tariffs. It started when Trump announced he would impose stiff tariffs on imports of steel and aluminium. The action, which came against the wishes of Trump’s pro-trade advisers, would impose tariffs of 25% on steel and 10% on aluminium, effectively placing a tax on every foreign shipment of those metals into the United States (Swanson, 2018). Although the tariffs targeted all aluminium and steel products, not just those from China, China responded by putting tariffs as high as 25% on imports of 128 American-made products, including pork and seamless steel pipes (Buckley, 2018). The Chinese Ministry of Commerce stated, ‘We hope that the United States will rescind its measures that violate World Trade Organisation rules as quickly as possible. China and the United States are the world’s two biggest economies, and cooperation is

5  THE TRUMP SHOCK: POPULISM AND CHANGING NARRATIVES OF US… 

131

the only correct choice. Both sides should use dialogue and consultation to resolve their mutual concerns’ (Buckley, 2018). However, the tariff war continued to escalate. This went on throughout the summer of 2018 until by late fall, the Trump administration implemented 10% tariffs on $200  billion of Chinese imports saying the rate would increase to 25% on January 1, 2019. China applied duties of its own on $60  billion of US goods and at this point, it could no longer match the amount of goods subject to tariffs by the United States because China simply did not import more than $60  billion of US goods (‘Timeline’, 2019). In essence, all imports and exports between the United States and China were now subjected to a potential tariff by the deadline of January 1, 2019. Finally, by early October 2018, President Trump announced that a partial trade deal—Phase 1—had been agreed to by both parties. The partial deal included relief for American farmers and businesses as China agreed to buy $40 billion to $50 billion worth of American agricultural products annually. The deal also included guidelines on managing China’s currency and strengthened Chinese protections for American intellectual property (Swanson, 2019). As part of the negotiations, the United States agreed to not move ahead with plans to raise tariffs on $250 billion worth of goods to 30%, but the existing tariffs on nearly two-thirds of Chinese products remained in place. The Phase 1 agreement was part of a three-phase approach and was officially signed January 15, 2020. However, the ink was barely dry on the trade agreement when news of a novel virus in Wuhan (COVID-19), China began startling global leaders and raising concerns of a global pandemic. The Covid-19 pandemic left little room to ease tense relations with China. While the pandemic left economic turmoil in its wake, it stalled any movement on trade relations and Trump left office with the three-phase trade agreement still stuck in Phase 1. Trump’s trade war with China also stalled as the global economy shut down during the initial phase of the Covid-19 pandemic, but the anti-China rhetoric now had a new tone as Trump repeatedly disparaged China for spreading the virus and causing the global pandemic (Neuman, 2020). While Trump upended US trade and economic politics and policies with his folk populist-­ nationalist narrative, it didn’t go away with his presidency. Relations with China remain constrained by Trump’s trade narrative and President Biden has yet to renegotiate the US-China trade deal or move forward on implementation of Phase 2. The Trump shock reframed the narrative of US

132 

G. LÖFFLMANN ET AL.

trade policy and putting ‘America first’ is now part of any equation of US foreign policy even with a different president in charge.

America First and National Security Populist foreign policy often involves the use of the international stage to pursue the external legitimation of populist projects. This gives populist leaders a ‘way out’ of the legitimacy challenges they find ‘at home’ (Wajner, 2022). On matters of national security Trump’s rhetoric was not intended to legitimate US foreign policy so much as reinforce his personalised ‘movement’ and stabilise his erratic leadership of his right-wing coalition. This entailed the construction of security threats increasingly framed as interlinking and transnational (‘the border’ was totemic in this regard), with malign outside forces aided by duplicitous elites in the United States. As Trump’s rhetoric grew more conspiratorial towards the end of his term, the ‘deep state’ served as an important rhetorical target; a stand-in for the ‘swamp’ that Trump had promised to drain in 2016 (Horwitz, 2021). The various security crises that threatened the heartland could be attributed to the officials, bureaucrats, and administrators of the deep state, who betrayed everyday Americans through their links to the nefarious Others established previously in Trumpian discourse, and who reputedly undermined his authority in a host of fantastical ways. This served to legitimate President Trump’s eclectic, antagonistic style in the target audience, but it failed to cohere as an alternative to the national security consensus that existed prior to his election. During the 2016 campaign, Trump broke with Republican orthodoxy in voicing pointed criticism of the Iraq war. Falsely claiming he opposed the war prior to the invasion, Trump used his distinctive bombast to confront the more establishment figures in the field, arguing not only that Iraq was a ‘big fat mistake’ but that George W. Bush ‘lied’ about the reasons for the war; ‘we’ve been in the Middle East for 15 years’, Trump said, ‘and we haven’t won anything’ (Grunwald, 2016). Within the voting public, there was a certain perception of Trump as an ‘anti-war’ figure, and the ambiguity surrounding his ‘America First’ approach to security strategy likely enhanced his idiosyncratic appeal. Based largely on his antipathy for the ‘Blob’, some analysts viewed Trump as a ‘realist’ (Schweller, 2018). Others pushed back on this claim (Walt, 2018). The characterisation of Trump’s security strategy as ‘Jacksonian’ provides some analytical purchase (Biegon, 2019; Lacatus, 2021; Löfflmann, 2019, p.  128; Holland & Fermor, 2021). Mead (2017) himself depicted Trump’s election as a

5  THE TRUMP SHOCK: POPULISM AND CHANGING NARRATIVES OF US… 

133

‘Jacksonian revolt’ unleashing populist nationalism against the established order. In Jacksonian fashion (Mead, 2002, pp. 218–263), Trump’s security policy demonstrated an unmistakable militarism. This ‘hawkishness’ would protect the honour and security of the ‘folk community’, a hallmark of this nationalist tradition. In the early stages of his presidency, Trump routinely referred to the military brass affectionately as ‘my generals’. His administration sought and secured sizeable increases in the Pentagon budget. The 2017 National Security Strategy called for ‘rebuilding’ the military to achieve ‘peace through strength’, reorienting the United States towards ‘great power competition’ (White House, 2017). Whatever scepticism Trump had regarding the ‘nation-building’ elements of interventionism, he did not shy away from the deployment of military power. In his first few months as president, Trump bragged about using the ‘mother of all bombs’ in Afghanistan. In April 2017, the administration launched a missile strike on a Syrian airbase controlled by the Assad government in response to its use of chemical weapons in the country’s civil war. The United States carried out further strikes against Syrian weapons facilities in 2018. The actions in Syria, much like his counterterrorism strategy, won plaudits from the foreign policy elites Trump aimed to denigrate. Indeed, when unveiled in October 2018, analysts viewed the National Strategy for Counterterrorism as ‘utterly conventional’ (Fonzone & Hartig, 2018), with some hailing it as a ‘relief’ (Geltzer, 2018). Gone were the campaign pledges to reinstate torture and seize Middle Eastern oil fields. The document included one quote from Trump using the phrase ‘Radical Islamic terrorists’ in relation to ISIS, but the text otherwise used the less-provocative ‘Islamist’ when discussing religious grievances (White House, 2018, p. 7). Trump sought to maintain his hard-line, ‘muscular’ stance against transnational terrorist groups. The struggle against ISIS was often cast in civilisational tones. The White House initially ramped-up the use of drones for targeted killing, loosening restrictions on strikes and expanding their geographic scope, most noticeably in Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen. Consistent with the Obama administration’s approach, Trump also relied heavily on the use of Special Operations Forces in counterterrorism practices (Biegon & Watts, 2020, p.  45). ‘From the outset’, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, ‘Trump’s Principles, Standards, and Procedures for U.S.  Direct Action Against Terrorist Targets (PSP) (was) striking for the bellicose and nationalistic tone it (set) and the message it (sent) to agencies involved in lethal operations’ (Shamsi, 2021).

134 

G. LÖFFLMANN ET AL.

Trump interjected considerable uncertainty into US counterterrorism efforts without dramatically altering the substance of US policy. Over the course of his term, the spike in drone strikes would level-off and decline, even as questions remained about the (higher) rate of civilian casualties under his administration. Trump would hint that he was withdrawing US personnel from key ‘hotspots’, only to reverse himself later on, as happened with regards to Afghanistan in 2017 and Syria in 2018–2019. Cuts in State Department-administered security assistance initiatives would be offset by increases in Pentagon-funded programmes (Arabia & Goodman, 2018). The 2020 drone strike on Iranian general Qasem Soleimani was perhaps the most dramatic instance of Trump’s outward erraticism impacting US security policy. Although assassination has a history in US statecraft, the Soleimani killing was unusual in that a drone strike was used against a state official (Trenta, 2021), thus marking a clear escalation of the contemporary targeted killing programme. In concrete terms, Trump did not shift the parameters of US interventionism (Biegon & Watts, 2020; Lacatus, 2021). It was Biden, not Trump, who ended the US military’s presence in Afghanistan. Trump maintained US support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen. Closer to home, Trump appointed neoconservative operative Elliot Abrams, formerly a ‘never Trumper’, as special envoy for Venezuela. In a series of tweets, Trump brazenly called for regime change in Venezuela, urging military officials to depose Nicolas Maduro. John Bolton, Trump’s third national security advisor, articulated the administration’s aggressive stance towards Latin American adversaries, including the governments of Cuba and Nicaragua, while claiming that ‘the Monroe Doctrine was alive and well’ (Taladrid, 2021). A 2019 coup in Bolivia garnered enthusiastic support from Trump. Although the administration briefly suspended development aid to El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras over the migration issue, the United States continued to provide substantial amounts of counternarcotics assistance to repressive governments in Central America’s ‘Northern Triangle’, despite ongoing human rights concerns. Trump’s erratic style was tied to his efforts to disrupt the status quo, heightening conditions of uncertainty and unpredictably in US foreign policy (Bentley & Lerner, 2021). His populism was on display in his highly personalised approach to diplomacy. This was most pronounced in his meetings with other populist leaders, such as Vladimir Putin. Although his administration implemented a series of new sanctions on Russia, Trump’s various encounters with Putin often left diplomats and intelligence

5  THE TRUMP SHOCK: POPULISM AND CHANGING NARRATIVES OF US… 

135

officials scrambling (Baker, 2019). On North Korea, Trump dramatically broke with the normal protocols of professionalised diplomacy to pursue matters via Twitter. Trump’s bizarre relationship with Kim Jung-un saw crude insults and dangerous taunts give way to a ‘bromance’ complete with ‘love letters’. A headlines-grabbing 2018 meeting with Kim in Singapore failed to produce a meaningful bilateral breakthrough, but it did intensify the personalisation of US foreign policy associated with the Trump shock. Trump’s rhetoric challenged the liberalism of traditional security narratives more than the internationalist posture of US strategy per se. Trump’s brand of populist ‘ethnic nationalism’ constituted a ‘sharp break’ with the decades-long commitment to liberal leadership, even as it resonated with deeper currents in American culture and history (Restad, 2020, p. 22). On NATO, Trump’s campaign criticisms, though toned down over the course of his term, persisted. In a 2017 speech, he reportedly changed his comments at the last minute to avoid explicitly reaffirming the United States’ commitment to Article 5 of the NATO treaty (the core of the collective defense principle), surprising his close advisors (Glasser, 2017). As he continued to tweet disparagingly about the alliance, others in the administration sought to reassure anxious allies. Trump fuelled the uncertainty surrounding NATO, complicating the transatlantic security relationship and heightening discussions about European strategic autonomy (Schreer, 2019). Although US policy towards NATO illustrated the degree to which liberal multilateralism could be eroded by Trump’s transactionalist tendencies, America First did not lead to an abandonment of the institution (Sperling & Webber, 2019). Even so, there was a general sense of crisis that enveloped much of NATO during Trump’s term. Whereas American presidents generally strive to present a calming disposition on matters of national security, Trump was unusual in his persistent deployment of crisis narratives (Hall, 2021; Homolar & Scholz, 2019). Scholars have connected this to issues of ‘ontological security’. As Homolar and Scholz argue (2019), ‘Trump-speak’ was about instilling a sense of anxiety in the US public to reinforce supporters’ perceptions that he alone provided the means back to ‘normality’ and ontological ‘wholeness’. This meant that his foreign policy moved quickly from enemy to enemy, target to target (Hall, 2021)—from ISIS to immigration, Iran to China, terrorists to protesters, crime to Covid, and so on. Trump’s security imaginary was thus closely intertwined with the framing of US national identity (Löfflmann, 2022a). The ‘real’ America was increasingly under

136 

G. LÖFFLMANN ET AL.

threat from an array of Others both external to the United States but also inside its very borders (Holland & Fermor, 2021; Löfflmann, 2022a). This is not entirely novel to US foreign policy discourse, of course, but the boundaries between external and internal threats were increasingly, and deliberately, blurred. In Trump’s populist framing, threats became more ‘existential’ as they fused and coalesced. With minimal connection to ‘actual’ trends and events, the dangers to US identity were always escalating, the internal sanctity of the ‘real’ folk community under ever-more ontological distress. In this context, the foreign policy establishment was part of the problem. Even as he appealed to Jacksonian principles of military honour, Trump’s Manichean rhetoric could extend to the ‘globalists’ in charge of defense policy (Biegon, 2019; Löfflmann, 2019). This provided Trump the flexibility to criticise elements of the military establishment as he saw fit. The trend only intensified after Trump left office amidst violent protests and reports of an attempted ‘coup’. Reminiscent of earlier spats with Generals Mattis and McMaster (Trump’s first Defense Secretary and second national security advisor, respectively), he feuded with Gen. Mark Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, whom Trump installed in the position in September 2019. In response to Milley’s concerns that Trump would try to stay in office after losing re-election, for example, Trump (2021) issued a statement accusing Milley of ‘trying to curry favor with the Radical Left and the absolute crazy people espousing a philosophy which will destroy our Country’. The hostility towards certain military leaders presented a difficult balancing act for Trump given the overt militarism of his America First agenda. The same could be said of Trump’s fluid position on the United States’ overseas military commitments. Trump tweeted about ‘endless wars’ so frequently that, by the end of his term, the phrase became something of trope in his rhetorical repertoire (Miller, 2020). After leaving office, Trump issued a spate of contradictory statements about the Biden administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan (Hurley, 2021). The inconsistencies in Trump’s rhetoric contributed to a highly ambiguous discourse lacking a coherent narrative. One constant was the centrality of Trump himself to the agenda he represented.

5  THE TRUMP SHOCK: POPULISM AND CHANGING NARRATIVES OF US… 

137

Conclusion Our focus on Trump’s style and rhetoric is not meant to imply that his presidency had no material impact on US security policy. In the security realm as in economic matters, the America First agenda was more nationalistic and realist zero-sum than was the case with previous administrations with some tangible policy outcomes ranging from terminated or renegotiated free trade agreements like TPP and NAFTA to a drawdown of US forces in the Middle East and Central Asia. Moreover, the renewed attention on ‘great power competition’ (White House, 2017, 2018) is likely to have some staying power as indicated by the foreign policy stance outlined by the Biden administration vis-a-vis China and Russia. Above all, however, Trump’s security policy was defined by an explicit illiberalism that disrupted traditional narratives of foreign policy legitimation and American exceptionalism on the ideational level (Biegon, 2019; Lacatus, 2021; Posen, 2018). Gone were hitherto ubiquitous Washington establishment platitudes about democracy, multilateralism, human rights, and a rules-­ based international order underwritten by the United States’ singular role as the world’s ‘indispensable nation’. The Trump shock to national security and US foreign policy did not mean that a new nationalist populist paradigm of America First had fully supplanted previous doctrines, nor did it lead to a fundamental restructuring of the means and ends of US statecraft. But it did produce a dislocation in the narratives of US foreign policy that, if not unprecedented, was certainly deserving of the ‘shock’ appellation. The main political effects of this populist reframing of US foreign policy under the America First paradigm were to both challenge global perceptions of US engagement and world leadership abroad, and erode the discursive dominance of the US foreign policy establishment at home. Trump’s preferences for a foreign policy course of non-interventionism and unilateralism, hard-line anti-immigration measures and economic protectionism posed an unprecedented challenge to the discursive dominance of a grand strategy of liberal hegemony and its political supporters in Washington DC. The effects of this populist intervention against the status quo would outlast the Trump presidency, challenging long-held positions on America’s role in the world, the wisdom of unwinnable ‘forever wars’, and the possibility of any national consensus on grand strategy. The most important findings in regard to enablers and limitations of a populist foreign policy (PFP) that emerge from our analysis of the Trump administration are then that we must differentiate between the rhetorical

138 

G. LÖFFLMANN ET AL.

and narrative level of a populist disruption of the status quo and practical policy effects that actually enact structural reorientation of a country’s role and position in the international system. While the former can legitimate the later, significant countervailing forces can exist to moderate or even counter-act the populist remaking of foreign policy, trade and national security, and the revolutionary change populists promise their voters. In the case of America First and the Trump administration, the most important countermanding influences were exerted by independent institutional sources of foreign policy authority in the United States, such as Congress and the courts, which checked or moderated a more overtly nationalist populist-informed policy course of radical change, for example, in bi-­ partisan legislation blocking President Trump from withdrawing from NATO, the Supreme Court limiting the scope of blanket anti-­immigration measures targeting Muslim countries, and White House officials preventing Trump from terminating the free trade agreement with South Korea (Woodward, 2018). In addition, the US national security establishment overall sought to maintain the structural integrity of a United States-led system of partnerships and alliances that Trump openly disdained, but which had formed the cornerstone of American grand strategy for more than seven decades. This conflict of interest between personal convictions about the national interest and bureaucratic preferences for strategic continuity on the one side and loyalty to the President and his nationalist populist vision of America First on the other, ultimately ended with the resignation or firing by Trump of several seasoned executive figures and former generals like Jim Mattis, John Kelley, and H.  R. McMaster. However, while hailed in mainstream US media as the ‘adults in the room’, the political influence of such unelected officials, who partially worked to subvert the President’s foreign policy agenda also raises the spectre of a further populist backlash against ‘deep state’ conspiracies exploited by Trump himself or a political figure of his ilk. The dynamic of partisan polarization, on the other hand, seems to increasingly affect the workings of institutions once thought to operate above the political fray in the United States, such as the Supreme Court. As such, a future iteration of America First may face fewer institutional, political, and legal obstacles for a populist makeover of US foreign policy.

5  THE TRUMP SHOCK: POPULISM AND CHANGING NARRATIVES OF US… 

139

References Anonymous. (2018). Opinion | I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration. New York Times, September 5. https://www.nytimes. com/2018/09/05/opinion/trump-­white-­house-­anonymous-­resistance.html Arabia, C., & Goodman, C. (2018). Major Trends in U.S. Counterterrorism Aid FY 2015–19. Security Assistance Monitor, Center for International Policy. https:// securityassistance.org/publications/major-­trends-­in-­u-­s-­counterterrorism­aid-­fy-­2015-­19/ Bacevich, A.  J. (2018). Twilight of the American Century. University of Notre Dame Press. Baker, P. (2019). Trump and Putin Have Met Five Times. What Was Said Is a Mystery. New York Times, July 15. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/15/ us/politics/trump-­putin-­meetings.html BBC News. (2017). Merkel: Europe “can no longer rely on allies” After Trump and Brexit. May 28. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-­europe-­40078183 Beeman, R.  D. (2018). What Are the Three Characteristics of Trumpism?: A Discourse Analysis of Trump’s Four Major Campaign Speeches. Political Analysis, 19(1), 4–16. Bentley, M., & Lerner, A. B. (2021). Introduction: Trump and Unpredictability in International Relations. Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 34(3), 348–359. Bialik, K. (2018). How the World Views the U.S. and Its President in 2018 in 9 Charts’. Pew Research Center, October 9. https://www.pewresearch.org/ fact-­t ank/2018/10/09/how-­t he-­w orld-­v iews-­t he-­u -­s -­a nd-­i ts-­p resident-­ in-­9-­charts/ Biegon, R. (2019). A Populist Grand Strategy? Trump and the Framing of American Decline. International Relations, 33(4), 517–539. Biegon, R., & Watts, T.  F. A. (2020). When Ends Trump Means: Continuity Versus Change in US Counterterrorism Policy. Global Affairs, 6(1), 37–53. Bremmer, I. (2019). Americans Want a Less Aggressive Foreign Policy. It’s Time Lawmakers Listened to Them. Time. https://time.com/5532307/ worlds-­apart-­foreign-­policy-­public-­opinion-­poll-­eurasia/ Buckley, C. (2018, April 1). China Slaps Tariffs on 128 U.S. Products, Including Wine, Pork and Pipes. The New  York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/ 2018/04/01/world/asia/china-­tariffs-­united-­states.html Daalder, I. H., & Lindsay, J. M. (2018). The Empty Throne. America’s Abdication of Global Leadership. PublicAffairs. Deutsche Welle. (2018). Donald Trump on NATO: Top Quotes. July 9. https:// www.dw.com/en/donald-­trump-­on-­nato-­top-­quotes/g-­44588734 Dimock, M. (2021). America Is Exceptional in Its Political Divide. Pew, March 29. https://pew.org/3bDV6Fa

140 

G. LÖFFLMANN ET AL.

Dobbins, J., Tarini, G., & Wyne, A. (2020). The Lost Generation in American Foreign Policy: How American Influence Has Declined, and What Can Be Done About It. RAND. Economist. (2019). Emmanuel Macron Warns Europe: NATO Is Becoming Brain-­ Dead, November 7. https://www.economist.com/europe/2019/11/07/ emmanuel-­macron-­warns-­europe-­nato-­is-­becoming-­brain-­dead Ettinger, A. (2020). Is There an Emerging Left-Wing Foreign Policy in the United States? International Journal, 75(1), 24–48. Fermor, B., & Holland, J. (2020). Security and polarization in Trump’s America: Securitization and the domestic politics of threatening others. Global Affairs, 6(1), 55–70. Fisher, M. (2013). American Isolationism Just hit a 50-Year High. Why That Matters. Washington Post, December 4. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ news/worldviews/wp/2013/12/04/american-­isolationism-­just-­hit-­a-­50­year-­high-­why-­that-­matters/ Fonzone, C., & Hartig, L. (2018). The More Things Stay the Same: Why the Trump Administration’s Counterterrorism Strategy is Surprisingly Conventional. Just Security, November 13. https://www.justsecurity.org/61452/stay-­same-­ trump-­administrations-­counterterrorism-­strategy-­surprisingly-­conventional/ Foyle, D. C. (2021). The New Normal?: Public Opinion, Partisan Division, and the Trump Doctrine. In S.  A. Renshon & P.  Suedfeld (Eds.), The Trump Doctrine and the Emerging International System (pp.  181–208). Palgrave Macmillan. Geltzer, J. (2018). Trump’s Counterterrorism Strategy is a Relief. The Atlantic, October 4. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/10/ trump-­counterterrorism-­strategy/572170/ Glasser, S. B. (2017). Trump National Security Team Blindsided by NATO Speech. Politico, June 5. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/06/05/ trump-­nato-­speech-­national-­security-­team-­215227/ Grunwald, M. (2016). Trump Goes Code Pink on George W.  Bush. Politico, February 14. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/02/ trump-­code-­pink-­bush-­iraq-­9-­11-­213630/ Hall, J. (2021). In Search of Enemies: Donald Trump’s Populist Foreign Policy Rhetoric. Politics, 41(1), 48–63. Hamid, S. (2018). Deconstructing Trump’s Foreign Policy. Brookings, November 5. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-­f rom-­c haos/2018/11/05/ deconstructing-­trumps-­foreign-­policy/ Hochschild, A. R. (2018). Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right. The New Press. Holland, J., & Fermor, B. (2021). The Discursive Hegemony of Trump’s Jacksonian Populism: Race, Class, and Gender in Constructions and Contestations of US National Identity, 2016–2018. Politics, 41(1), 64–79.

5  THE TRUMP SHOCK: POPULISM AND CHANGING NARRATIVES OF US… 

141

Homolar, A., & Löfflmann, G. (2021). Populism and the Affective Politics of Humiliation Narratives. Global Studies Quarterly, 1(1), 1–11. Homolar, A., & Scholz, R. (2019). The Power of Trump-Speak: Populist Crisis Narratives and Ontological Security. Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 32(3), 344–364. Horwitz, R. B. (2021). Trump and the “deep state”. Policy Studies, 42(5-6), 473–490. Hurley, B. (2021). Trump Releases 12 Statements in Five Days Attacking Biden While Whitewashing His Own Role in Afghanistan Withdrawal. The Independent, August 17. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/ americas/us-­p olitics/tr ump-­a ttack-­b iden-­a fghanistan-­w ithdrawal­b1904199.html Jacobson, G.  C. (2016). Polarization, Gridlock, and Presidential Campaign Politics in 2016. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 667(1), 226–246. Jardina, A. (2019). White Identity Politics. Cambridge University Press. Jenne, E.  K. (2021). Populism, Nationalism and Revisionist Foreign Policy. International Affairs, 97(2), 323–343. Kheel, R. (2021). Senators Reintroduce Bill to Block NATO Withdrawal. The Hill, April 15. https://thehill.com/policy/defense/548500-­senators­reintroduce-­bill-­to-­block-­nato-­withdrawal Kurylo, B. (2020). The Discourse and Aesthetics of Populism as Securitisation Style. International Relations, 36, 127–147. Lacatus, C. (2021). Populism and President Trump’s Approach to Foreign Policy: An Analysis of Tweets and Rally Speeches. Politics, 41(1), 31–47. Lacatus, C., & Meibauer, G. (2022). ‘Saying it like it is’: Right-wing populism, international politics, and the performance of authenticity. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 24(3), 437–457. Lamont, M., Park, B. Y., & Ayala-Hurtado, E. (2017). Trump’s Electoral Speeches and His Appeal to the American White Working Class. The British Journal of Sociology, 68(S1), S153–S180. Lerer, L. (2021). How the G.O.P. Lost Its Clear Voice on Foreign Policy. New York Times, April 15. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/15/us/politics/ republicans-­afghanistan.html Löfflmann, G. (2017). American Grand Strategy Under Obama: Competing Discourses. Edinburgh University Press. Löfflmann, G. (2019). America First and the Populist Impact on US Foreign Policy. Survival, 61(6), 115–138. Löfflmann, G. (2022a). “Enemies of the people”: Donald Trump and the Security Imaginary of America First. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 24, 543–560. Löfflmann, G. (2022b). Introduction to special issue: The study of populism in international relations. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 24, 403–415.

142 

G. LÖFFLMANN ET AL.

McMaster, H.  R., & Cohn, G. (2017). America First Doesn’t Mean America Alone  – WSJ. Wallstreet Journal, May 30. https://www.wsj.com/articles/ america-­first-­doesnt-­mean-­america-­alone-­1496187426 Mead, W.  R. (2002). Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World. Routledge. Mead, W. R. (2017). The Jacksonian Revolt. Foreign Affairs, 96(2), 2–7. Miller, P. D. (2020). Ending the “Endless War” trope. Atlantic Council, March 26. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-­a tlanticist/ending-­the­endless-­war-­trope/ Neuman, S. (2020). In U.N. Speech, Trump Blasts China And WHO, Blaming Them For Spread Of COVID-19. NPR. Obama, B. (2016). Statement by the President on the Signing of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The White House, February 3. https://obamawhitehouse.archives. gov/the-­p ress-­o ffice/2016/02/03/statement-­p resident-­s igning-­t rans­pacific-­partnership Oliver, J. E., & Rahn, W. M. (2016). Rise of the Trumpenvolk: Populism in the 2016 Election. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 667(1), 189–206. Pew Research Center. (2013). Public Sees U.S. Power Declining as Support for Global Engagement Slips, December 3. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2013/12/03/public-­sees-­u-­s-­power-­declining-­as-­support-­for-­global­engagement-­slips/ Pew Research Center. (2014). Political Polarization in the American Public. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2014/06/12/political-­polarization-­in­the-­american-­public/ Pew Research Center. (2016). Public Uncertain, Divided Over America’s Place in the World. Pew Research Center – U.S. Politics & Policy, May 5. https://www. pewresearch.org/politics/2016/05/05/public-­uncertain-­divided-­over-­americas­place-­in-­the-­world/ Pew Research Center. (2018). Conflicting Partisan Priorities for U.S.  Foreign Policy, November 29. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2018/11/29/ conflicting-­partisan-­priorities-­for-­u-­s-­foreign-­policy Posen, B. (2018). The Rise of Illiberal Hegemony: Trump’s Surprising Grand Strategy. Foreign Affairs, 97(2), 20–27. Restad, H. E. (2020). What makes America great? Donald Trump, national identity, and US foreign policy. Global Affairs, 6(1), 21–36. Rubin, P.  H. (2003). Folk Economics. Southern Economic Journal, 70(1), 157–171. https://doi.org/10.2307/1061637 Samuels, D. (2016). ‘The Aspiring Novelist Who Became Obama’s ForeignPolicy Guru’, New York Times, 5 May. Available at: https://www.nytimes. com/2016/05/08/magazine/the-­aspiring-­novelist-­who-­became-­obamas-­ foreign-­policy-­guru.html

5  THE TRUMP SHOCK: POPULISM AND CHANGING NARRATIVES OF US… 

143

Schreer, B. (2019). Trump, NATO and the Future of Europe’s Defence. The RUSI Journal, 164(1), 10–17. Schütz, S. (2019). “Washington Has Become Much Rougher”: Germany Is Still Recalibrating With Trump. NPR, February 27. https://www.npr.org/ 2019/02/27/697803708/washington-­has-­become-­much-­rougher-­germany-­ is-­still-­recalibrating-­with-­trump Schweller, R. (2018). Three Cheers for Trump’s Foreign Policy. Foreign Affairs, 97, 133–143. Shamsi, H. (2021). Trump’s Secret Rules for Drone Strikes and Presidents’ Unchecked License to Kill. American Civil Liberties Union, May 5. https:// www.aclu.org/news/national-­security/trumps-­secret-­r ules-­for-­drone-­strikes-­ and-­presidents-­unchecked-­license-­to-­kill/ Skonieczny, A. (2018). Emotions and Political Narratives: Populism, Trump and Trade. Politics and Governance, 6(4), 62–72. Skonieczny, A. (2021a). Trump Talk: Rethinking Elections, Rhetoric, and American Foreign Policy. Politics, 41(1), 127–134. Skonieczny, A. (2021b). Economic Security and the U.S.-China Trade War. In R.  Carter (Ed.), Contemporary Cases in U.S.  Foreign Policy. Rowman and Littlefield. Smeltz, D., et  al. (2018). America Engaged: American Public Opinion and US Foreign Policy. Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Smeltz, D. et al. (2020). 2020 Chicago Council Survey. The Chicago Council on Global Affairs. https://www.thechicagocouncil.org/research/public-­opinion-­ survey/2020-­chicago-­council Sperling, J., & Webber, M. (2019). Trump’s Foreign Policy and NATO: Exit and Voice. Review of International Studies, 45(3), 511–526. Steele, B. J., & Homolar, A. (2019). Ontological Insecurities and the Politics of Contemporary Populism. Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 32(3), 214–221. Swanson, A. (2018, March 1). Trump to Impose Sweeping Steel and Aluminium Tariffs. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/01/business/trump-­tariffs.html Swanson, A. (2019, October 11). Trump Reaches ‘Phase 1’ Deal with China and Delays Planned Tariffs. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/ 2019/10/11/business/economy/us-­china-­trade-­deal.html Swedberg, R. (2018). Folk Economics and Its Role in Trump’s Presidential Campaign: An Exploratory Study. Theory and Society, 47, 1–36. https://doi-­ org.jpllnet.sfsu.edu/10.1007/s11186-­018-­9308-­8 Taladrid, S. (2021). Can Biden Reverse Trump’s Damage to Latin America? New Yorker, February 11. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-­desk/can-­biden-­ reverse-­trumps-­lasting-­damage-­in-­latin-­america

144 

G. LÖFFLMANN ET AL.

Timeline: Key Dates in the U.S.-China Trade War. Reuters, May 8, 2019. https:// www.reuters.com/article/us-­usa-­trade-­china-­timeline/timeline-­key-­dates­in-­the-­us-­china-­trade-­war-­idUSKCN1SE2OZ Trenta, L. (2021). Remote Killing? Remoteness, Covertness, and the US Government’s Involvement in Assassination. Defence Studies, 21(4), 468–488. Trump, D. (2015, June 16). Remarks Announcing Candidacy for President. Retrieved August 13, 2020, from https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/remarks-­a nnouncing-­c andidacy-­f or-­t he-­r epublican-­p residential-­ nomination-­2020 Trump, D. (2016a, June 22). Remarks at Trump SoHo in New  York City. https://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/transcript-­trump-­speech-­on-­the-­ stakes-­of-­the-­election-­224654 Trump, D. (2016b, August 5). Remarks at the KI Convention Center in Green Bay, Wisconsin. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/remarks-­the-­ ki-­convention-­center-­green-­bay-­wisconsin Trump, D. (2016c, August 8). Remarks to the Detroit Economic Club. American Presidency Project. Trump, D. (2016d). Address Accepting the Presidential Nomination at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, July 21. https:// www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/address-­accepting-­the-­presidential-­ nomination-­the-­republican-­national-­convention-­cleveland Trump, D. (2017). Inaugural Address. https://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/ full-­text-­donald-­trump-­inauguration-­speech-­transcript-­233907 Trump, D. (2020). Donald Trump Holds a Campaign Rally in Des Moines, Iowa, October 14. https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/donald-­trump-­rally-­des-­ moines-­iowa-­transcript-­october-­14 Trump, D. (2021). Statement by Donald J.  Trump, 45th President of the United States of America, July 15. https://www.donaldjtrump.com/ news/statement-­by-­donald-­j-­trump-­45th-­president-­of-­the-­united-­states-­of-­ america-­07.15.21-­04 Wajner, D. F. (2022). The Populist Way Out: Why Contemporary Populist Leaders Seek Transnational Legitimation. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations. Online January 2022. Wajner, D. F., & Giurlando, P. (2023). Introduction to Populist Foreign Policy (PFP). In P. Giurlando & D. Wajner (Eds.), Populist Foreign Policy: Regional Perspectives of Populism in the International Scene. Palgrave. Walt, S. M. (2018). US Grand Strategy After the Cold War: Can Realism Explain It? Should Realism Guide It? International Relations, 32(1), 3–22. Wehner, L. E., & Thies, C. G. (2020). The Nexus of Populism and Foreign Policy: The Case of Latin America. International Relations, 35(2), 320–340. White House. (2017). The National Security Strategy of the United States.

5  THE TRUMP SHOCK: POPULISM AND CHANGING NARRATIVES OF US… 

145

White House. (2018). National Strategy for Counterterrorism of the United States of America. White House. (2021). Inaugural Address by President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. https:// www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-­r oom/speeches-­r emarks/2021/01/20/ inaugural-­address-­by-­president-­joseph-­r-­biden-­jr/ Wike, R., and et al. (2018). Trump Approval Worldwide Remains Low Especially Among Key Allies. Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project, October 1. https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2018/10/01/trumps-­international­ratings-­remain-­low-­especially-­among-­key-­allies/ Wodak, R. (2015). The Politics of Fear: What Right-Wing Populist Discourses Mean. Sage. Wojczewski, T. (2020). ‘Enemies of the people’: Populism and the Politics of (in) security. European Journal of International Security, 5(1), 5–24. Woodward, B. (2018). Fear: Trump in the White House. Simon & Schuster.

CHAPTER 6

Tradition, Geopolitical Constraints, and Leadership Styles in Latin American Populist Foreign Policy Gisela Pereyra Doval, Leslie Wehner, and Daniel F. Wajner

Introduction Populism has a long life in Latin America. Latin American (proto-)populism can be traced back to the early 1900s with the two times Argentinian president Hipolito Yrigoyen (1916–1922 and 1928–1930), also known as ‘the father of the poor’. Since then, Latin America has experienced at least four waves of populist leaderships. The first wave, the so-called classic populism, took place between the 1930s and 1950s and its key figures are Lazaro

G. P. Doval CONICET – Department of International Relations, Universidad Nacional de Rosario, Rosario, Argentina L. Wehner (*) Department of Politics, Languages and International Studies University of Bath, Bath, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 P. Giurlando, D. F. Wajner (eds.), Populist Foreign Policy, Global Foreign Policy Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22773-8_6

147

148 

G. P. DOVAL ET AL.

Cárdenas in Mexico (1934–1940), Getúlio Vargas in Brazil (1930–1945, 1950–1954), Carlos Ibáñez in Chile (1937–1952), and Juan Domingo Perón in Argentina (1946–1955). A second wave of populist leadership, also known as neo-populism, took place in the 1990s in Argentina with Carlos Ménem (1989–1999), in Peru with Alberto Fujimori (1990–2000), in Ecuador with Abdala Bucaram (1996–1997) and in Brazil with Fernando Collor de Mello (1990–1992). Leaders of the third wave of populism (2000s–2010s) are Hugo Chávez in Venezuela (1999–2013), Rafael Correa in Ecuador (2007–2017), Evo Morales in Bolivia (2006–2019), and Néstor Kirchner (2003–2007) and Cristina Fernández (2007–2015) in Argentina. At the time of writing, the Latin American region is experiencing a fourth wave of populism, notably in Brazil with Jair Bolsonaro (2018–2022), in México with Manuel Lopez Obrador-­AMLO (2018– present), and in El Salvador with Nayib Bukele (2019–present). These populist experiences have been the cornerstone to theorize on the concept and political manifestations of populism in the field of politics (see e.g., Weyland, 2001; Laclau, 2005). In fact, Latin America has been a fertile ground for the study of populism (see e.g., Arenas, 2016; de la Torre, 2010; Casullo, 2019a; Conniff, 1982; Germani, 1978; Hawkins, 2010; Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2012; Mackinnon & Petrone, 1998; Milanesio, 2010; Navarro, 1982; Panizza, 2005; Laclau, 2005; Lesgart & Souroujon, 2021). However, as discussed in the Introduction to this edited volume (see Wajner & Giurlando, 2023), the study of Latin American populism has mainly been approached from a comparative politics perspective without much of a focus on its international manifestations. While the international dimension of populism has started to receive increasing attention in recent years (see e.g., Chryssogelos, 2018; Destradi & Plagemann, 2019; Stengel et al., 2019; Pereyra Doval, 2021; Wajner, 2019; Wehner & Thies, 2021; Thies & Wehner, 2022; Verbeek & Zaslove, 2017), the elements of what is populist about these leaders’ foreign policies remain contested and thus subject to further empirical inquiry. In this sense, Latin America populist experiences have certainly cumulated and developed over time forming a populist tradition, but its international

D. F. Wajner Department of International Relations and The European Forum, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel e-mail: [email protected]

6  TRADITION, GEOPOLITICAL CONSTRAINTS, AND LEADERSHIP STYLES… 

149

expressions also remain a pending task. Thus, this chapter engages with these aspects by looking at the way populist leadership has used the international platform over time, seeking to answer the following questions: What is original and distinctive of the so-called populist foreign policy in Latin America? What are the factors that enable and constrain populist foreign policy? We argue that populist leaders rely on the populist tradition of the past as blueprints for their own ‘present’ projects with the purpose of securing and maximizing their leaderships in polarized national contexts. It is here where the practice of learning more clearly develops, since populist leaders bring their populisms into the international as another dimension to deepen the nexus with the people of the populist project, as well as to delegitimize and erode the power of the elite at home and abroad. Leaders use practices available in the toolbox of earlier populists to narrate their own experience. They also rely on their own leadership style to navigate different domestic and international constraints to advance foreign policy strategy in a context in which the geopolitical dimension can facilitate and impede the realization of such goals at the regional/global interplay. The structure of this chapter proceeds as follows: first, we introduce the conceptual dimensions of populism and its more common use in terms of foreign policy analysis. This section also provides an eclectic analytical framework that captures the tradition of populism and its ability to shape the present (temporal dimension), how populists make sense of the international within their regions and in the global arena (spatial dimension), and the creative dimension of the populist leader (agential dimension). Second, we provide a historical contextualization of early populist experiences in Latin America and their key foreign policy principles and tradition. Third, we analyse the different waves of populism especially from the 1990s onwards along the lines of tradition, geopolitics, and leadership. Finally, we conclude with a comparison of the Latin American populist foreign policies in terms of commonalities and differences and with an outline of further research avenues.

Analytical Framework Conceptualizing and characterizing populism is a worthwhile academic endeavour, despite being a slippery concept whose conceptual properties have the risk of overstretching (Mudde & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2017). Despite this, populism has been defined along three key dimensions: the

150 

G. P. DOVAL ET AL.

notion of the people, the elite, and the general will. All different theoretical elaborations (as a discourse, as a political strategy, and as a thin centred ideology) share this triad (see Laclau, 2005; Weyland, 2001; Mudde, 2004). ‘The people’ is a social construct that the leader articulates and manipulates as he/she has agency to delimit the boundaries of what the people means and the groups that are in and out from such construct. The populist project through the narrations of the leader also has an anti-elite dimension. ‘The elite’ is usually the political and economic elite of the country as much as the bureaucratic elite of the state apparatus and any type of group that seeks to counterbalance the populist project. The leader has that narrative capacity to include and exclude groups with power from this social category. Finally, the ‘general will’ is a dimension of the populist project that reflects the leader’s conviction that she/he only knows what the people want and deserve (see Wehner & Thies, 2021). Most works on the study of populism in foreign policy have adopted the theoretical makeup of populism as a specific type of political discourse (see Löfflmann, 2019; Skonieczny, 2019; Wojczewski, 2020), as a thin-­ centred ideology (see Boucher & Thies, 2019; Chryssogelos, 2017; Destradi & Plagemann, 2019; Grzymala-Busse, 2017; Verbeek & Zaslove, 2017; Wajner, 2021; Wehner & Thies, 2021), as a political style (see Drezner, 2017; Moffitt, 2017), or as a political macro-strategy (see Wajner, 2022). In this chapter, we build from the benefits of analytical eclecticism (see Sil & Katzenstein, 2010), since our venture is driven by the need to distinguish what it is distinctive about populist foreign policy in Latin America and the factors that enable or constraint populist foreign policy in this region. We therefore rely on several aspects of the theoretical approaches to populist foreign policy (PFP) discussed in the Introduction to this edited volume, particularly those that focus on roles, style, and narratives in populists’ foreign policy performances. The people, elite, and general will aspects are expected to permeate and shape the goals, actions, and behaviour of the populist government in the international. As such, these elements are filled with meaning and practice of previous populist experiences. This temporal dimension of populism is key to understand how the populist leader develops practice and learns from the past to frame and narrate a story of the people against a dominant elite and locate the leadership figure as a fixer and saviour of the country (see Weyland, 2003, 2017). Transnational contacts, cultural traditions, and historical memories strongly shape both national and international politics (Roniger, 2021). The populist tradition is made of practice

6  TRADITION, GEOPOLITICAL CONSTRAINTS, AND LEADERSHIP STYLES… 

151

and routines that are cherry picked by the contemporary populist leader. It is the leader that inherits, carries, and shows practice behaviour of the populist tradition. Practice is composed of habitus and takes behavioural manifestations in the narrations of the leader about ‘friends’ (people) and ‘foes’ (elite) at the national and international levels (on practice theory, see Adler & Pouliot, 2011; Adler-Nissen & Pouliot, 2014; on tradition and cultural influence on Latin American foreign policy, see Wehner & Thies, 2014, Wehner, 2020, Pereyra Doval, 2013; Wajner & Roniger, 2019). As part of the international, a geopolitical dimension acts as an enabler or constrainer to the populist foreign policy, as a social structure that is constituted by the interplay between sub-regional, regional, and international orders. Hierarchies and power distribution within and outside the region shape the type of room to manoeuvre that the populist leader enjoys. A region that is fragmented in different political projects informed by divergent interests and ideologies may impact on the populist foreign policy as being less region-oriented (e.g., lacking support and vocation for regional cooperation schemes) and more inclined to isolation or selective engagement through bilateralism with international peers. Similarly, Latin America as a region shows a clear structural feature of what Buzan and Wæver (2003) call ‘regional overlay’, which captures the strong footing of the US as a global hegemon in this region. As such, the US is seen through the prism of autonomy and dependency by Latin American states depending on whether there is ideological and interest convergences (see Hey, 1995; Thies, 2017; Lorenzini & Pereyra Doval, 2019). The case of Venezuela shows the impact of power distribution and external role of the US as it pushed Venezuela of Chávez to seek regional integration as a mechanism of protection for the Bolivarian project. At the same time, we see other manifestations of power hierarchies in the region as small states with populist leaders tend to either adopt an ally role of bigger states to achieve strategic autonomy from the US (e.g., Evo Morales’ Bolivia and Rafael Correa’s Ecuador as allies of Chavismo’s Venezuela). Likewise, states that benefit from structural forces as economic globalization or a closer relationship with the US will seek to deepen benefits of the global markets and thus adopt a more dependent policy from the US. In addition, populism in Latin America has proliferated under different structural settings (Wajner, 2021). The structure of multipolarity in an interwar period, then the bipolar system of the Cold War and currently after a unipolar moment, a would-be multipolar or multiregional order is taking place. These structural features can help us in the analysis of why and how

152 

G. P. DOVAL ET AL.

populism permeated more strongly the international in the last waves visà-vis previous populist experiences. In addition, this rich tradition of populist experiences under different structural settings is a treasure trove for comparability with other populist experiences in other regions of the world, which have only been constrained or enabled by one type of structural setting. Latin American populism can provide some theorizations and methodological developments to understand how populism in the international adapts and navigates through different structural settings and develops different types of agential manifestations in foreign policy. Finally, populism in Latin America is also about leadership. Presidential systems provide the executive with power to be the key actors in the foreign policy of the state.1 While this is an institutional feature of presidential systems in Latin America (positional leadership), the populist figure also brings his/her own individual agency to navigate both domestic and international constraints. Leadership as a creative venture of style about leading is key to understand whether populists bring distinctive elements to the foreign policy of the state (Thies & Wehner, 2022; Wehner & Thies, 2021; see also Moffitt, 2016). As Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser (2017) suggest, populists are in the search of constant ways to differentiate themselves as political leaders from the established, ‘traditional’ elite, thus adopting an outsider status. As populist leaders make sense of the international, they also find ways to use foreign policy to carry on with the differentiation of the people and elite as images. This differentiation is not only performative, but it is also both normative and affective. It is normative in the sense that it categorizes groups, other states, and institutions with evaluative tags like good and bad as much as enemy and friend, providing the populist leader with courses for role selection and action (Wehner, 2022). It is also affective as the leadership style is driven by and seeks to trigger emotional responses amongst the followers of the populist project such as fear and anger against the elite (Skonieczny, 2018; Wehner, 2022) or empathy towards other twinned ‘peoples’ (Wajner & Roniger, 2022). As it triggers anger, fear, and empathy, it also produces safety as provided by the leader. Thus, the leader is the cornerstone for the success of the populist project. Taggart states populism is about ‘the most extraordinary individuals to lead the most ordinary of people’ (2000, p.  1). Likewise, Weyland (2003, 2017) describes the strategy of the leader as 1  In the Latin American case, the president’s leadership also leans on what is known as hyper-presidentialism (see Ackerman et al., 2011; Malamud, 2014).

6  TRADITION, GEOPOLITICAL CONSTRAINTS, AND LEADERSHIP STYLES… 

153

positioning her/himself as the saviour or fixer of the country. In other words, the leader advances his/her interests, ideas, and policies in and about the international through narrations in which the triad people, elite, and general will is embedded (Wehner & Thies, 2021). Thus, the populist tradition and the geopolitical context in which populism takes place is dependent on the populist leader’s creative agency to advance specific and value-laden interpretations of that historical past of populism. This agency of the leader allows him/her to navigate through both domestic and external contexts that either facilitate or constrain the realization of the type of foreign policy that the leader envisages for the state. In this sense, populist leaders take advantage of the ‘two-level game’ that links national and international politics to shape old-new imaginaries that can legitimize their own process of power accumulation and delegitimize their adversaries (see Wajner, 2022). Leadership performance turns thus into the creative capacity of the populist leader to make sense of tradition and geopolitical aspects as well as to narrate the type of foreign policy roles of the state along the lines of the people versus the elite and for the general will.

Empirical Analysis The Tradition of Populism in Latin America (Temporality of Populism) Traditional paths in identity politics have played a key role in the narration of the populist stories in Latin America and, therefore, in their strategic selection of collective identities, seeking to legitimize their role as leaders and their political project in the region and beyond. Given that populism in Latin America has long historic and cultural roots, tradition has strongly affected the way populist leaderships addressed who they are (the ‘self’) and who they are not (‘the others’) when formulating their foreign policy. As a result, the populist construction of the ‘people’ has been influenced by the social resonance of existing (and competing) transnational solidarities and calls for regional unity, dating back to Greater Colombia Simón Bolívar, the Inca Túpac Amaru, the Cuban José Martí, the Peruvian José Carlos Mariátegui, among others (Wajner & Roniger, 2019). Populist leaders not only inherited narrative traditions about transnational ‘friends’, but also about transnational ‘foes’. Indeed, the formulation of the foreign policy ‘colonies’ in Latin America, from the beginning,

154 

G. P. DOVAL ET AL.

was defined by the search for national autonomy and, consequently, by their relationship with the European homeland (more specifically the Iberian Peninsula, Spain, and Portugal, but also later Great Britain, Italy, and France), with ‘the other’ America in constant growth and potential conflict (the United States), with native communities and growing populations coming from abroad (Indo-Americans, Afro-Americans, and European immigrants), and between themselves. Populists were reflected in two traditional figures, the ‘caudillo’ and independence heroes, those glorious leaders capable of holding autonomous positions, establishing ties with some and fighting against others (see Conniff, 1999; Panizza, 2005). Narrative traditions in Latin America were also defined by transnational flows of migrants, social networks, and political practices, which proliferated in sub-national, national, and supra-national levels, not always harmoniously (Roniger, 2021). Given the conflict between these narrative traditions, Latin American populists learned from past experiences to improve the framing of transnational solidarities and enmities towards the ideational polarizing between ‘people’ and ‘elites’. The classic populists, Cárdenas, Perón, and Vargas, built on these traditional ‘caudillo’, glorious figures, embracing the autonomous ‘people’ that opposes the imperialist ‘elites’. Meanwhile, they felt closer to Europe, as part of their attraction to European models of government and their broader historical identification with the West (Wajner, 2021, p.  665). They thus narrated the story of two different Americas, emphasizing and legitimizing the mythological, almost messianic, populist leadership. However, while emphasizing in rhetorical terms the need for a common destiny for ‘the peoples’ of the region, these populists were ambiguous about the possibility of truly integrating Latin American countries and disintegrating it from global powers. Conversely, most took pragmatic stances in terms of foreign policy that would contribute to the progressive development of protectionist industrialization (see Neto & Malamud, 2015; Knight, 1998; Russell & Tokatlián, 2006). The diplomatic confrontation was largely at the service of the dichotomy between the categories of ‘people’ and the ‘oligarchy’. These populist experiences also filled with historic meaning the decisions of the next populist wave, the neoliberal populists of the 1990s, including Perú’s Alberto Fujimori, Argentina’s Carlos Ménem, and Brazil’s Fernando Collor de Melo. The neo-populist backlash largely focused on domestic elites, the ‘corrupted’ political class attached to dependentista, ‘unrealistic’ paradigms (see Roberts, 1995; Tickner, 2008;

6  TRADITION, GEOPOLITICAL CONSTRAINTS, AND LEADERSHIP STYLES… 

155

Weyland, 1999). In contrast to them, and despite emphasizing some autonomous identity particularities such as indigenous features, neoliberal populists claimed that the region’s past and destiny was (and will be) one under the hegemony of the ‘North’ (US and Europe) (Kacowicz & Wajner, 2021, p. 13, 17–22). The historic tradition to focus on was the policy of Pan-Americanism led by the United States in the late 1880s in the spirit of the 1823 Monroe Doctrine, which was consolidated in the aftermath of World War II with the 1948 Agreement of Bogotá. In parallel, they promoted the sub-regional projects that developed in the 1960s in the Southern Cone, Central America, and the Caribbean, with the endorsement of extra-regional powers. Through this old-new path of aligned, harmonious relationships, while enhancing Pan-Americanness and Europeanness in identity terms, neo-progressive populists claimed that the region should reinsert itself into the First World (Wajner, 2021, pp. 666–667). The neo-progressive populists of the 2000s built on the two previous experiences of populism in the region but presented a shift. They radicalized the traditional definitions of the revolutionary people and the imperialist elites, adopting a more confrontational strategy (see Sagarzazu & Thies, 2019; Wehner & Thies, 2021). Venezuela’s Presidents Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro, in association with Bolivia’s President Evo Morales, Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega, and Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa, resorted to an old-new legitimation strategy based on the systematic use of the notion of ‘Nuestra America’ (‘Our-America’), promoting an all-encompassing regional solidarity that incorporated the moral legacy of the historically marginalized indigenous and ethnic populations and the more traditional ‘national’ heroes. The institutionalization of this re-founding of a regional identity was best illustrated by the adoption of a new name for the regional club ALBA, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (Wajner & Roniger, 2019). Opposition to the United States was expressed institutionally, throwing the Free Trade Area of the Americas [FTAA or ALCA] ‘to the hell’ (‘El ALCA, al carajo’), undermining sub-regional organizations (the Common Market of the South [MERCOSUR] and the Andean Community of Nations [CAN] as well as other regional or interregional frameworks (the Organization of American States [OAS], the Association Agreements with the EU, and General Secretariat of the Iberoamerican Community of Nations [SEGIB]). Despite the progressive neopopulists maintaining a certain margin of manoeuvre concerning their ‘national interests’ in terms of

156 

G. P. DOVAL ET AL.

macroeconomy and security, a process of gradual radicalization of foreign policy occurred (Wajner, 2021, pp. 670–671; see also Gardini & Lambert, 2011, pp. 2–3). Geopolitical Dimension Changes in the international system at the interplay material and ideational can help us to understand the type of systemic conditions that shape populist leaderships in foreign policy, following the premise that Latin American states normally behave not as they wish but as they can, based on the peripheric role of the region in the international system (see Jaguaribe, 1979; Prebisch, 1983; Russell & Tokatlian, 2001; Deciancio & Tussie, 2020; Escudé, 1992, 1995). Indeed, the Latin American neo-populisms of the 1990s were children of the international context, one in which the Cold War reached its zenith, the United States emerged triumphant, and liberal democracy, market economy, and cooperative security highlighted as the main banners. The ‘end of history’ led national governments and regional frameworks to the widespread adoption of the neoliberal paradigm through radical economic reforms. The only possible option for Latin America was to align itself with the premises of the Washington Consensus and the hegemonic power of the US if countries from this region were to achieve economic development (Escudé, 1992, 1995). As a consequence of neoliberal economic transformations, integration processes proliferated in the region as ‘Open Regionalism’—MERCOSUR, CAN, NAFTA, FTAA—(Kacowicz & Wajner, 2021, p. 24). While these economic reforms brought short-term benefits due to increased competition and lower input costs and expanded consumption possibilities, they also introduced new socio-­economic difficulties that reached a tipping point in the multiple crises towards the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s.2 This coincided with the 9/11 terrorist attacks that led the US strategic planning to neglect some regions of the globe. At the regional level, the so-called left turn implied a return of the State to economic issues and a generalized repudiation of the neoliberal decade as proposed by Amsdem (2001).3 This anti-neoliberal stance was then 2  Financial crises occurred not only in Latin America but also in other parts of the world: Mexico 1994, Southeast Asia 1997, Russia 1998, Brazil 1999, and Argentina 200l. 3  As Souroujon states, certain elements of classical populism would be present in the left turn populists: “(…) the redistributive vocation, the polyclassist mobilization, the national-

6  TRADITION, GEOPOLITICAL CONSTRAINTS, AND LEADERSHIP STYLES… 

157

reinforced by the palpable socio-economic effects of the 2008 financial crisis. One of the characteristics of populisms from the left turn is their mutual support through the aggiornamento of both implicit and explicit regional alliances characterized as ‘post-hegemonic’ (see Riggirozzi & Tussie, 2012), or post-liberal (Da Motta Veiga & Ríos, 2007; Sanahuja, 2012). ALBA, MERCOSUR, UNASUR, and later CELAC were used both as a negotiation mechanism and as a springboard to connect with other actors in the Global South. In addition, the strive for autonomy of left oriented populist leaders became a driving force to strengthen cooperation with the Global South as a strategy of international insertion (Russell & Tokatlian, 2001). In this wave of populism, both China and Russia are seen as distant options to undermine the hegemonic role of the US within this region of the world. The closest ally in the region for both China and Russia was Hugo Chávez. He developed close economic ties with China as most Latin American states have done so far, while China made sure not get involved in or dragged into Chávez’s political issues and agenda against the US that would otherwise put pressure on China’s own relationship with the US. At the same time, Chávez also aligned Venezuela with Russia for geostrategic reasons not only to counter US pressures but also to ameliorate the new economic dependency towards China (see Mijares, 2017) These systemic variables started to mutate with the next regional turn— the triumph of Mauricio Macri in Argentina (2015), the defeat of Evo Morales in the Referendum for another cycle of government (2016), the triumph of Kuczynski in Peru (2016), and the impeachment and removal of Rousseff, replaced by Temer (2016). The regional ‘turn’ to the right finally consolidated with the assumption of Duque and Piñera in Ecuador and Chile and Lacalle Pou in Uruguay (2020), the coup d’état in Bolivia (2019), and the rise of a new type of right-wing populism with Nayib Bukele in El Salvador and Jair Messias Bolsonaro in Brazil (2019). All this tinged by the triumph of Donald Trump in the United States (2016). This way, the populist progressive turn at the beginning of the millennium, was answered with a turn to ‘new’ types of right-wing political leaderships from 2015 (see Wajner, 2016; Lorenzini & Pereyra Doval, 2019, 2020; Luna & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2021; Stefanoni, 2018). Later, another turn to ization of strategic companies related to energy resources, which was combined with a radicalized rhetoric of the constitution of the people in the face of external and internal enemies” (2021, p. 4).

158 

G. P. DOVAL ET AL.

the left began in 2019, although less generalized, with the electoral triumphs of Alberto Fernandez in Argentina, Lopez Obrador in Mexico, Luis Arce in Bolivia and, most recently, Gabriel Boric in Chile. The international scenario characterized by this new South American turn, an axis of world power that would gradually shift to the East, the crisis of multilateral organizations, growing trade protectionism, among others, generated a much more restrictive arena than that of the turn to the left (Listrani & Zaccato, 2018). This reinforced the perception of the new conservative current that the foreign policies of previous governments were excessively ideologized and that this had to change. In this sense, the governments of the region returned to leaning towards the United States in what Russell and Tokatlian (2013) call the logic of acquiescence. In the minds of right-wing leaders, the adhesion of their countries to the West, detaching themselves from the image of a State clinging to Third Worldist ideas, part of the anachronistic Patria Grande, would automatically result in gains. This would have nuances according to which leader carried out the rapprochement. In this sense, Bolsonaro is probably the most radical, presenting a foreign policy based on a Rigid Westernism (see Pereyra Doval & Ordoñez, 2020). In the Brazilian case, the linkage with Trump’s United States consisted in introducing Brazil into a civilizational struggle in which the soul of the West was at stake. In this sense, the populism of the turn to the right showed a more bilateral and less multilateral facet than that of its predecessors, which was accentuated by the Covid-19 pandemic (see Guimarães & Silva, 2021; Casarões & Farias, 2022). This was also reflected in the regional scenario. The renewed importance assigned to trade issue and its regulation was observed in the marked interest in trying to assemble blocs such as MERCOSUR with the Pacific Alliance. The new mega-blocks—Trans-Pacific Partnership (TTP), The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP)—were seen as an opportunity to the trade needs of Latin American governments. Thus, multilateralism within the region and within the Global South— considered anachronistic—entered into crisis (see Lorenzini & Pereyra Doval, 2020). The institutional paralysis in the OAS and MERCOSUR and the end of UNASUR gave way to the creation of more informal and ad-hoc mechanisms of coordination such as the Lima Group, seeking a peaceful solution to the Venezuelan crisis, as well as new crises in Bolivia, Nicaragua, and beyond, but regional fatigue and polarization negatively affected the possibility of having an impact on these crises.

6  TRADITION, GEOPOLITICAL CONSTRAINTS, AND LEADERSHIP STYLES… 

159

Leadership Styles of Populist Leaders (Agency Dimension) Latin American populist leaders have traditionally adopted different types of leadership in their making of foreign policy. The leaders of the neoliberal wave of populism all relied on their outsider status to first become presidents and then to actively engage with the international. First, these leaders promoted new and renewed schemes of regional governance to deal with globalization by viewing them as a ‘steppingstone’ towards global governance. Under the premises of open regionalism, Carlos Menem and Collor de Mello used MERCOSUR as a platform to integrate South American economies to the global economic markets, while Fujimori in Peru led the revitalization of the Andean Pact (St. John, 2017). In this period, populist leaders also walked away from traditional patterns of autonomy from the US (Wehner & Thies, 2021; Wajner, 2021). Fujimori adopted patterns of selective dependency towards the US while he also relied on his ethnic background to develop a narrative of Peru as belonging to the Asia-Pacific region, thus joining different trade driven groups in Asia since 1991, including APEC in 1998 (González Vigil, 2012). Instead, Collor’s leadership was more constrained by the institutional makeup of the foreign affairs bureaucracy than Fujimori. Brazil was not as enthusiastic about the US Enterprise for the Americas Initiative and the US policy on the Gulf War and wanted to preserve its principle of sovereignty in foreign policy (Casarões, 2012). Unlike the other two populist leaders, Menem adopted the role of faithful ally of the US in both economic and security initiatives, supporting the US in the Gulf war, assuming that the security domain was key to keep the benefits of a close economic relationship with the US (Wehner & Thies, 2021). In these populist leadership ventures, the antagonization of the people versus the elite in the foreign policy domain is particularly ‘thin’, as the international context was associated with positive emotional tags of regional integrator allies or followers of the US, as shown in Menem’s and Fujimori’s international action. However, the third wave of populism articulated a narrative of questioning the neoliberal economic model, based on a top-down approach. In this sense, the casting and positioning of leadership was based on following a bottom-up approach, and thus a social dimension, endorsed by the populist leader (Casullo, 2019b). In addition to the narrative of being a social leader to fix the country, there was also a predisposition from followers of populism to believe in the offer of a kind of messianic salvation

160 

G. P. DOVAL ET AL.

from the leader. Weyland (2003) stresses the charismatic approach of Chávez and the need of the people to believe in his project. Frajman (2014) stresses the leader’s capacity to face an audience and improvize a strong and direct message. Thies and Wehner (2022) find that a key attribute of Chávez’s populist foreign policy is the priority he gives to keeping relationships with the people of the project over the task of policymaking. Chávez also adopted antagonization between the elite (foe) and the people (friend) when exerting leadership in the international. He used images of the other as bad and an enemy to be feared which only he, with the support of the people, could confront and defeat. To do so, Chávez located different role relationships with similar leaders to build regional alliances as the regional builder and leader (ALBA group). The ALBA became the platform to disseminate the benefits of the Socialism of the twenty-first century in which Chávez recurrently appealed to the Latin American people as an additional layer of his leadership style. Achieving regional empathy through emotional mechanisms was also a key strategy of other neo-progressive populist leaders allied to Chavismo-Madurismo (Wajner & Roniger, 2022). Evo Morales from Bolivia adopted a leadership style of stressing his own ethnic background, in addition to a critical position towards economic globalization and like-minded Bolivian national elites. Similarly, Rafael Correa adopted a social leader rhetoric that allowed him to position himself as a fixer of the negative consequences of neoliberalism in Ecuador, while following Chavismo-Madurismo in the ALBA project, but he adopted a less belligerent rhetoric against the global establishment, including the US (Malamud & García-Calvo, 2009). A common factor where the agency dimension and material constraints come together is that both Morales and Correa advanced a populist foreign policy at the regional level which could not transcend to the international level beyond the Latin American region, given these countries small state status. In the case of Chávez, given his own agency as the saviour of the country and of the region and the disposal of high oil prices, he was able to bring his leadership approach to the regional and international levels. The fourth wave of populism is diverse in an ideological sense as both Bolsonaro and AMLO come from opposing sides of the political spectrum. Bolsonaro and AMLO both have adopted an inward-looking approach to foreign policy in which principles of sovereignty and autonomy are key. At the same time, both have used their leaderships to undermine and side-line the foreign affairs expertise of the respective diplomatic

6  TRADITION, GEOPOLITICAL CONSTRAINTS, AND LEADERSHIP STYLES… 

161

corps and ministries; in the case of AMLO, this has been more rhetorical. In their populist rhetoric, there is a recurrent antagonization between the elite and the people that explains their actions against the foreign affairs bureaucrats as depicted as part of the undesirable elite. This antagonization is based on a logic of friend and foe and it seeks to trigger fear and safety in the followers of the populist project. The reference to the elite as enemy or what it is depicted as undermining the core of the project is driven by fear and anger. For instance, these leaders have also showed certain apathy and distance towards regional integration projects. Yet, the leadership of both diverge too. Bolsonaro has advanced an anti-global role with clear behavioural patterns in this regard (see Guimarães & Silva, 2021), while AMLO has been more cautious to question multilateralism and has kept most of the roles of Mexico as an international actor. Bolsonaro admired Trump as a leader and emulated him in terms of style, discourse, and strategies, while AMLO, despite being distant and strongly criticizing Trump from the opposition, once in power adopted a pragmatic relationship with this US administration. Further, when it comes to relationships with other global actors Bolsonaro criticizes China for being a ‘communist state’ and thus against the values of the government, but in practice he has adopted a pragmatic stance in order to not harm the national economy (see Guimarães & Silva, 2021). In contrast, the same leader has shown his admiration for the type of leadership Putin exercises, and Bolsonaro has not taken sides on the war in Ukraine (Small, 2022). Like Bolsonaro, AMLO has sought to increase the economic ties with China. Unlike Bolsonaro, AMLO has been rather cautious in what he says about both China and Russia and the same US.  AMLO has sought to show Mexico’s tradition as a non-aligned country (Villamar, 2019). While AMLO has said that he does not accept Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (Reuters, 2022), like Bolsonaro—he has not adopted any type of economic sanctions against Russia (Small, 2022). Thus, leaders have agency to bring their own views and styles to the foreign policymaking of their countries. A key common characteristic of populisms in the waves analysed here is that they tend to personalize foreign policymaking. Moreover, these leaders locate themselves as saviours of the country and thus bringers of safety to the people against a dangerous elite. Populist leaderships oscillated between an active engagement with the international as exemplified in the neopopulist wave, and a contestation to the global economic process as the populist leaders’ actions of the pink tide show. The third wave of populist leaders advancing notions of

162 

G. P. DOVAL ET AL.

anti-economic globalization took form in socially and politically driven regional integration schemes and in anti-US narratives, while the fourth wave of populist leadership has shown a neglect and distance towards regional integration. Bolsonaro has shown admiration for Trump but not necessarily for the US as an international actor, while AMLO has adopted a pragmatic stance towards its neighbouring country. Finally, Bolsonaro has adopted a harsh anti-‘globalists’ role while AMLO has downgraded his narrative in this regard. Leadership styles are varied in Latin American populisms and span from exploiting an outsider status, ethnic backgrounds, and presenting themselves as social leaders. For these populist leaders the international actions are a way to continue with their declared leadership mission of fixing and saving their countries by prioritizing the ‘people’ against a national and global elite. In their quests and actions, populist leadership styles displayed as a performance on the international stage trigger different sets of emotions in both followers and opponents and allow the populist leader to select roles for the state at their own discretion.

Conclusion This chapter engaged with different understandings and approaches to populism in foreign policy in a rather eclectic way to answer what about the populist foreign policy in Latin America is distinctive in terms of its political, economic, and ideational features and contents. We also covered the different sets of factors that derive from the regional and international context, and both enable and constraint populist foreign policy in Latin America. We answered our research questions focusing on different levels of analysis such as historical traditions of populism, the geopolitical context in which populism unfolds, and the populist performative dimension of the leader. In this sense, we analysed the different ‘story-telling’ dimensions of populism as a process that is narrated and recreated overtime by the populist figures. Populist leaders are embedded in populist traditions in Latin America which go back to the figure of caudillos that emerged in the nineteenth century to the most recent experiences of nowadays a fourth wave. Populist figures are not only part of this rich historical context of populisms in Latin America, but they are also the main actors who allow the populist phenomenon to learn, adapt, and develop over time. These leaders are thus able to bring new interpretations to the populist venture in foreign policy as they come to power and rely on stories of the past to make their populist presents and futures.

6  TRADITION, GEOPOLITICAL CONSTRAINTS, AND LEADERSHIP STYLES… 

163

When it comes to foreign policy, we showed that populist leaders have also to navigate through geopolitical constraints with their creative agency as political leaders. In their populist foreign policies, we assessed the adoption of different economic paradigms that populists adopt either to follow systemic cues as economic globalization or to resist such pressures. For instance, in the 1990s, the neopopulist leaders adopted roles of followers of the US and economic globalization; locations that were depicted by the leader as safe and benign inasmuch as only open and direct engagement with the international could deliver the social progress for the people of the populist project at home and erode the power of the bureaucratic elites. Later, in the late 1990s and 2000s, a series of countries reacted against the forces of economic globalization, open regionalism, and the US omnipresence in Latin America, a trend that came from a series of left oriented leaderships that advanced regional solidarism while adopting an old-new narrative of the people of Latin America and referring to the elite as an extension of the US influence in this region. As this pink tide came to an end, a new trend of populist leadership emerged in Latin America, prioritizing principles of nationalism and sovereignty and oscillating from neglect towards the international to the adoption of an anti-globalist role. In all these systemic contexts and developments, the populist leader in Latin America has presented himself as the saviour of the country, while the international arena is used by the populist leader as another battlefield for antagonistic confrontations between the people and the elite. The populist leader adopts and adapts to the different geopolitical barriers and constraints but, when possible, he uses them at his own discretion, and thus manipulating and stretching affective, normative, and performative aspects that the notions of people and elite offer when conceiving and acting in the foreign policy domain.

References Adler, E., & Pouliot, V. (2011). International Practices. International Theory, 3(1), 1–36. Adler-Nissen, R., & Pouliot, V. (2014). Power in Practice: Negotiating the International Intervention in Libya. European Journal of International Relations, 20(4), 889–911. Ackerman, S.  R., Desierto, D., & Volosin, N. (2011). Hyper-Presidentialism: Separation of Powers without Checks and Balances in Argentina and the Philippines. Berkeley Journal of International Law, 29(1), 246–333. https:// doi.org/10.15779/Z38XW8H

164 

G. P. DOVAL ET AL.

Amsdem, A. (2001). The Rise of ‘The Rest’: Challenges to the West from Late-­ Industrializing Economies. Oxford University Press. Arenas, N. (2016). El chavismo sin Chávez: la deriva de un populismo sin carisma. Nueva Sociedad, 261, 13–22. Boucher, J.-C., & Thies, C. G. (2019). ‘I am a tariff man’: The Power of Populist Foreign Policy Rhetoric Under President Trump. The Journal of Politics, 81(2), 712–722. Buzan, B., & Wæver, O. (2003). Regions and Powers: The Structure of International Security. Cambridge University Press. Casarões, G. S. P. e. (2012). O papel do Itamaraty na definição da política externa do governo Collor de Mello. Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional, 55(1), 135–153. Casarões, G. S. P. E., & Barros Leal Farias, D. (2022). Brazilian Foreign Policy Under Jair Bolsonaro: Far-Right Populism and the Rejection of the Liberal International Order. Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 35(5), 741–761. Casullo, M. E. (2019b). How to Become a Leader: Identifying Global Repertoires for Populist Leadership. In F.  A. Stengel, D.  B. MacDonald, & D.  Nabers (Eds.), Populism and World Politics (pp. 55–72). Palgrave Macmillan. Casullo, M. E. (2019a). ¿Por qué funciona el populismo? El discurso que sabe construir explicaciones convincentes de un mundo en crisis. Siglo XXI. Chryssogelos, A. (2017). Populism and Foreign Policy. Retrieved January 28, 2020, from http://repository.londonmet.ac.uk/5186/1/Populism-­in-­ Foreign-­Policy_OUP_Revised.pdf. Chryssogelos, A. (2018). Populism in Foreign Policy. In C. Thies (Ed.), Oxford Encyclopedia of Foreign Policy Analysis. Oxford University Press. Conniff, M. (Ed.). (1982). Latin American Populism in Comparative Perspective. University of New Mexico Press. Conniff, M. (1999). Populism in Latin America. The University of Alabama Press. Da Motta Veiga, P., & Ríos, S. (2007). O Regionalismo pós-liberal, na América do Sul: origens, iniciativas e dilemas. CEPAL, 82, 1–48. de la Torre, C. (2010). Populist Seduction in Latin America. Ohio University Press. Deciancio, M., & Tussie, D. (2020). Globalizing Global Governance: Peripheral Thoughts from Latin America. Fudan Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences, 13, 29–44. Destradi, S., & Plagemann, J. (2019). Populism and International Relations: (Un) predictability, Personalisation, and the Reinforcement of Existing Trends in World Politics. Review of International Studies, 45(5), 711–730. Drezner, D. W. (2017). The Angry Populist as Foreign Policy Leader: Real Change or Just Hot Air. The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, 41, 23. Escudé, C. (1992). Realismo Periférico. Fundamentos para la nueva política exterior argentina. Editorial Planeta.

6  TRADITION, GEOPOLITICAL CONSTRAINTS, AND LEADERSHIP STYLES… 

165

Escudé, C. (1995). El Realismo de los Estados débiles. La política exterior del primer Gobierno Menem frente a la teoría de las relaciones internacionales. GEL. Frajman, E. (2014). Broadcasting Populist Leadership: Hugo Chávez and Aló Presidente. Journal of Latin American Studies, 46(3), 501–526. https://doi. org/10.1017/S0022216X14000716 Gardini, G. L., & Lambert, P. (2011). Introduction. In G. L. Gardini & P. W. Lambert (Eds.), Latin American Foreign Policies: Between Ideology and Pragmatism (pp. 1–11). Palgrave Macmillan. Germani, G. (1978). Authoritarianism, Fascism, and National Populism. Transaction Publishers. González Vigil, F. (2012). Relaciones de comercio e inversión del Perú con el Asia-Pacífico. In NOVAK, Fabián (coordinador). Veinte años de política exterior peruana (1991–2011) (pp.  209–241). Fondo Editorial de la Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. Grzymala-Busse, A. (2017). Global Populisms and Their Impact. Slavic Review, 76(S1), S3–S8. Guimarães, F. d. S., & Silva, I. D. O. G. (2021). Far-Right Populism and Foreign Policy Identity: Jair Bolsonaro’s Ultra-Conservatism and the New Politics of Alignment. International Affairs, 97(2), 345–363. Hawkins, K. (2010). Venezuela’s Chavismo and Populism in Comparative Perspective. Cambridge University Press. Hey, J. (1995). Theories of Dependent Foreign Policy and the Case of Ecuador in the 1980s. Ohio University Center for International Studies. Jaguaribe, H. (1979). Autonomía periférica y hegemonía céntrica. Estudios Internacionales, 12(46), 91–130. Kacowicz, A. M., & Wajner, D. F. (2021). Alternative World Orders in an Age of Globalization: Latin American Scenarios and Responses. In Latin America in Global International Relations (pp. 11–30). Routledge. Knight, A. (1998). Populism and Neo-Populism in Latin America, Especially Mexico. Journal of Latin American Studies, 30(2), 223–248. Laclau, E. (2005). On Populist Reason. Verso. Lesgart, C., & Souroujon, G. (2021). Populism. Uses, Abuses and Travels of an Uncomfortable Concept. In G.  P. Doval & G.  Souroujon (Eds.), Global Resurgence of the Right. Conceptual and Regional Perspectives (pp.  54–76). Routledge. Listrani, B. T., & Zaccato, C. (2018). Tendiendo puentes en aguas tumultuosas: la política exterior del gobierno de Mauricio Macri (2015–2018). Perspectivas. Revista de Ciencias Sociales, 6, 167–188. https://doi.org/10.35305/ prcs.v0i6.39 Löfflmann, G. (2019). America First and the Populist Impact on US Foreign Policy. Survival, 61(6), 115–138.

166 

G. P. DOVAL ET AL.

Lorenzini, M. E., & Pereyra Doval, G. (2020). Tendencias del Orden Internacional y sus efectos sobre el tablero latinoamericano. Conjuntura Austral. Journal of the Global South, 11(55), 34–49. Lorenzini, M. E., & Pereyra Doval, G. (2019). Posneoliberalismo y después. El Centro Relativo del Sistema Político y el ascenso de la Marea Celeste en el espejo de la Política Exterior de Argentina y Chile. Revista de Ciencia Política, 39(3), 435–457. Luna, J.  P., & Rovira Kaltwasser, C. (2021). Castigo a los oficialismos y ciclo político de derecha en América Latina. Revista Uruguaya de Ciencia Política, 30(1), 135–156. Mackinnon, M., & Petrone, M. A. (1998). Populismo y Neopopulismo, el problema de la Cenicienta. Eudeba. Malamud, A. (2014). Presidentialist Decision Making in Latin American Foreign Policy. Examples from Regional Integration Processes. In A.  C. Velasco & J. Dominguez (Eds.), Handbook of Latin America in the World. Routledge. Malamud, C., & García-Calvo, C. (2009). La política exterior de Ecuador: entre los intereses presidenciales y la ideología, Real Instituto Elcano ARI no. 61/2009. Mijares, V. (2017). Soft Balancing the Titans: Venezuelan Foreign-Policy Strategy Toward the United States, China, and Russia. Latin American Policy, 8, 201–231. https://doi.org/10.1111/lamp.12128 Milanesio, N. (2010). Peronists and Cabecitas: Stereotypes and Anxieties at the Peak of Social Change. In M.  B. Karush & O.  Chamosa (Eds.), The New Cultural History of Peronism (pp. 53–85). Duke University Press. Moffitt, B. (2016). The Global Rise of Populism: Performance, Political Style, and Representation. Stanford University Press. Moffitt, B. (2017). Transnational Populism? Representative Claims, Media and the Difficulty of Constructing a Transnational “People”. Javnost-The Public, 24(4), 409–425. Mudde, C. (2004). The Populist Zeitgeist. Government and Opposition, 39(4), 541–563. Mudde, C., & Kaltwasser, C.  R. (Eds.). (2012). Populism in Europe and the Americas: Threat or Corrective for Democracy? Cambridge University Press. Mudde, C., & Rovira Kaltwasser, C. (2017). Populism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. Navarro, M. (1982). Evitas’s Charismatic Leadership. In M. Conniff (Ed.), Latin American Populism in Comparative Perspective (pp. 47–67). University of New Mexico Press. Neto, O. A., & Malamud, A. (2015). What Determines Foreign Policy in Latin America? Systemic versus Domestic Factors in Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico, 1946–2008. Latin American Politics and Society, 57, 1–27. https://doi. org/10.1111/j.1548-2456.2015.00286.x

6  TRADITION, GEOPOLITICAL CONSTRAINTS, AND LEADERSHIP STYLES… 

167

Panizza, F. (Ed.). (2005). Populism and the Mirror of Democracy. Verso. Pereyra Doval, G. (2013). The Point of View of the Tradition in the Institutional Identity. The Case of the Ministry of Foreign Relations of Brazil. JANUS.NET E-journal of International Relations, 4(2). https://www.redalyc.org/ pdf/4135/413534060006.pdf Pereyra Doval, G., & Ordoñez, E. (2020). De Pivote a Proxy. El occidentalismo rígido de la política exterior bolsonarista. Foreign Affairs Latinoamérica. Pereyra Doval, G. (2021). Bolsonaro in Brazil. To the Right of the Right. In G. P. Doval & G. Souroujon (Eds.), Global Resurgence of the Right. Conceptual and Regional Perspectives (pp. 214–234). Routledge. Prebisch, R. (1983). Cinco etapas de mi pensamiento sobre el desarrollo. El trimestre económico, 50(198), 1077–1096. Reuters. (2022, April 10). Mexico Says It Does Not Accept Russian Invasion of Ukraine. Retrieved August 11, 2022, from https://www.reuters.com/world/ europe/mexico-­s ays-­i t-­d oes-­n ot-­a ccept-­r ussian-­i nvasion-­u kraine-­2 022-­ 04-­09/ Riggirozzi, P., & Tussie, D. (2012). The Rise of Post-Hegemonic Regionalism: The Case of Latin America. Springer. Roberts, K.  M. (1995). Neoliberalism and the Transformation of Populism in Latin America: The Peruvian Case. World Politics, 48(1), 82–116. Roniger, L. (2021). Contesting Liberal Citizenship: The Populist Challenge. ProtoSociology, 38, 229–243. Russell, R., & Tokatlian, J. G. (2001). De la Autonomía Antagónica a la Autonomía Relacional: una mirada teórica desde el Cono Sur. Posdata. Revista de Reflexión y Análisis Político, 7, 71–92. Russell, R., & Tokatlian, J.  G. (2006). Will Foreign Allies Help? Argentina’s Relations with Brazil and the United States. In E. Epstein & D. Pion Berlin (Eds.), Broken Promises? The Argentine Crisis and Argentine Democracy (pp. 245–269). Lexington Books. Russell, R., & Tokatlian, J. G. (2013). America Latina y su gran estrategia: entre la aquiescencia y la autonomia. Revista Cidob D’Affers Internacionals, 104, 157–180. Sagarzazu, I., & Thies, C. G. (2019). The Foreign Policy Rhetoric of Populism: Chávez, Oil, and Anti-imperialism. Political Research Quarterly, 72(1), 205–214. https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912918784212 Sanahuja, J. A. (2012). Regionalismo posliberal y multilateralismo en Sudámerica: el caso de Unasur. Anuario de Integración, 9, 19–71. Sil, R., & Katzenstein, P. (2010). Beyond Paradigms: Analytic Eclecticism in the Study of World Politics. Palgrave Macmillan. Skonieczny, A. (2018). Emotions and Political Narratives: Populism, Trump and Trade. Politics and Governance, 6(4), 62–72.

168 

G. P. DOVAL ET AL.

Skonieczny, A. (2019). Populism and Trade: The 2016 US Presidential Election and the Death of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. In F.  A. Stengel, D. B. MacDonald, & D. Nabers (Eds.), Populism and World Politics: Exploring Inter- and Transnational Dimensions (pp. 337–363). Palgrave Macmillan. Small, J. (2022, March 4). Mexico, Brazil Leaders Ignore Their UN Delegates, Refuse to Sanction Russia. Retrieved August 11, 2022, from https://www. newsweek.com/mexico-­b razil-­l eaders-­i gnore-­t heir-­u n-­d elegates-­r efuse-­ sanction-­russia-­1685001 Souroujon, G. (2021). Las definiciones mínimas de populismo. Problemas y potencialidades. Revista Pilquen, 24(2), 1–12. St. John, R. B. (2017). La política exterior peruana en el nuevo milenioContinuidad y cambio. Revista del Instituto Riva-Agüero, 2(2), 65–119. Stefanoni, P. (2018). Biblia, buey y bala… recargados: Jair Bolsonaro, la ola conservadora en Brasil y América Latina. Nueva Sociedad, 278, 4–11. Stengel, F.  A., MacDonald, D.  B., & Nabers, D. (Eds.). (2019). Populism and World Politics: Exploring Inter- and Transnational Dimensions. Palgrave Macmillan. Taggart, P. (2000). Populism. Open University Press.

Thies, C., & Wehner, L. E. (2022). The Personality Traits of Populist Leaders and Their Foreign Policies: Hugo Chávez and Donald Trump. International Studies Quarterly, 66(1), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqab083 Thies, C. (2017). Role Theory and Foreign Policy Analysis in Latin America. Foreign Policy Analysis, 13(3), 662–681. Tickner, A.  B. (2008). Latin American IR and the Primacy of lo práctico. International Studies Review, 10(4), 735–748. Verbeek, B., & Zaslove, A. (2017). Populism and Foreign Policy. In C. R. Kaltwasser, P. Taggart, P. O. Espejo, & P. Ostiguy (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Populism (pp. 384–405). Oxford University Press. Villamar, Z. (2019). Un nuevo gobierno en México, ¿Una nueva política exterior? Wajner, D.  F. (2016). La inminente era del neo-progresismo en Latinoamérica. Foreign Affairs Latinoamérica, January, https://revistafal.com/la-­ inminente-­era-­delneoprogresismo-­en-­latinoamerica/ Wajner, D. F. (2019). Making (Latin) America Great Again: Lessons from Populist Foreign Policies in the Americas. In F.  A. Stengel, D.  B. MacDonald, & D.  Nabers (Eds.), Populism and World Politics: Exploring Inter- and Transnational Dimensions (pp. 195–225). Palgrave Macmillan. Wajner, D. F. (2021). Exploring the Foreign Policies of Populist Governments: (Latin) America First. Journal of International Relations and Development, 24(3), 651–680. Wajner, Daniel F. (2022). Global Populism. In The Palgrave Handbook of Populism (pp. 351–367). Palgrave Macmillan.

6  TRADITION, GEOPOLITICAL CONSTRAINTS, AND LEADERSHIP STYLES… 

169

Wajner, D. F., & Giurlando, P. (2023). Introduction to Populist Foreign Policy (PFP). In P. Giurlando & D. Wajner (Eds.), Populist Foreign Policy: Regional Perspectives of Populism in the International Scene. Palgrave. Wajner, D.  F., & Roniger, L. (2019). Transnational Identity Politics in the Americas: Reshaping “Nuestramérica” as Chavismo’s Regional Legitimation Strategy. Latin American Research Review, 54(2), 458–475. Wajner, D. F., & Roniger, L. (2022). Populism and Transnational Projection: The Legitimation Strategies of Pink Tide Neo-Populist Leaderships in Latin America. Comparative Political Theory, 3, 1–30. Wehner, L. (2020). The Narration of Roles in Foreign Policy Analysis. Journal of International Relations and Development, 23(2), 359–384. Wehner, L. E. (2022). Stereotyped Images and Role Dissonance in the Foreign Policy of Right-Wing Populist Leaders: Jair Bolsonaro and Donald Trump. Cooperation and Conflict. https://doi.org/10.1177/00108367221108814 Wehner, L., & Thies, C. (2014). Role Theory, Narratives and Interpretation: The Domestic Contestation of Roles. International Studies Review, 16(3), 411–436. Wehner, L. E., & Thies, C. G. (2021). The Nexus of Populism and Foreign Policy: The Case of Latin America. International Relations, 35(2), 320–340. https:// doi.org/10.1177/0047117820944430 Weyland, K. (1999). Neoliberal Populism in Latin America and Eastern Europe. Comparative Politics, 31(4), 379–401. Weyland, K. (2001). Clarifying a Contested Concept: Populism in the Study of Latin American Politics. Comparative Politics, 34(1), 1–22. https://doi. org/10.2307/422412 Weyland, K. (2003). Economic Voting Reconsidered: Crisis and Charisma in the Election of Hugo Chávez. Comparative Political Studies, 36(7), 822–848. https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414003255106 Weyland, K. (2017). Populism: A Political-Strategic Approach. In C. R. Kaltwasser, P.  A. Taggart, P.  O. Espejo, & P.  Ostiguy (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Populism. Oxford University Press. Wojczewski, T. (2020). Trump, Populism, and American Foreign Policy. Foreign Policy Analysis, 16(3), 292–311. https://doi.org/10.1093/fpa/orz021

CHAPTER 7

Populist Foreign Policy in the Middle East and North Africa Daniel F. Wajner, Hakkı Taş, Alberto Priego-Moreno, and Jony Essa

Introduction This chapter examines the foreign policies of contemporary populist leaderships in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Although research on international relations in the region has largely overlooked the impact of populism on policymaking in general and foreign policy in particular, the emergence and strengthening of multiple political leaderships in the last two decades has made this concept increasingly relevant for a greater

D. F. Wajner (*) Department of International Relations and The European Forum, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel e-mail: [email protected] H. Taş German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Hamburg, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 P. Giurlando, D. F. Wajner (eds.), Populist Foreign Policy, Global Foreign Policy Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22773-8_7

171

172 

D. F. WAJNER ET AL.

understanding of the political dynamics in MENA states and the region at large.1 We therefore adopt here a comparative regional approach to “populist foreign policy” (PFP) in MENA, seeking to identify commonalities and differences that distinguish PFP in these countries, as well as national and international factors that allow or limit these regional trends. Along with this, we place special emphasis on four cases: Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Turkey (2003–), which is probably the most “paradigmatic” case of contemporary populism in the region, and three more “controversial” cases in terms of the theoretical applicability of populism as a category of political analysis—Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s Egypt (2014–), Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Iran (2005–2013), and Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israel (1996–1999, 2009–2021).2 Although the four cases differ greatly from each other, especially in their varied approaches to democracy, freedom, human rights, and the rule of law, we can still benefit from a comparative perspective of their PFPs. Indeed, all these political leaders have increasingly used populist FP performances in their attempts to strengthen bonds of mutual affection and commitment with their support bases. The adoption of a polarizing discourse between the “corrupted,” “globalist” elites, and the “original,” “pure” people, has been especially evident during periods of destabilization, elections, and investigations. During these critical junctures, populist leaders perceived that the legitimacy of their power was contested and particularly in danger, so they resorted to re-legitimation strategies based 1  For previous work on populism in MENA, though mostly from a domestic perspective, see Filc (2018). 2  Although the Global Populism Database considers Erdoğan a populist only after 2007, at the beginning of his second term, we agree with scholars who claim that his populist trends were present from the very beginning of his political career. A similar argument can be made about Netanyahu.

A. Priego-Moreno Facultad de Derecho ICADE, Universidad Pontificia Comillas, Madrid, Spain e-mail: [email protected] J. Essa Department of International Relations, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel e-mail: [email protected]

7  POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA 

173

on political mobilization and public relations, both inside and outside the state. These cases reflect the importance of promoting a “genuine” political style through social and mass media that includes offensive diatribes, heroic mythology, conspiracy theories, and the leader’s cult of personality. In this sense, the MENA path of PFP emphasizes the relevance of strategic and stylistic approaches to populism and thus the “schools” of PFP-2 and PFP-3, as shown in the introduction to this volume (see Wajner & Giurlando, 2023). Likewise, we claim that MENA’s PFP must be understood considering the geopolitical background of this region, which includes a combination of internal struggles, military conflicts, and external interventions. These contextual features strongly influence the way populist governments interact with other intra- and extra-regional powers, including through regional and international organizations or through ad hoc associations and symbolic solidarity gatherings. The study also highlights the role of civilizational and ethno-religious components in promoting and limiting collective action, as well as the differences in terms of PFP between countries with well-established democratic/authoritarian regimes and between parliamentary/presidential systems. These points can be particularly useful for a better understanding of the internal and external factors that condition PFP outcomes, based on evidence from a region that has been historically reliant on international dynamics and where foreign policy has been constantly contested.

Populism and/in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Populism is not a new word in the MENA region. Some of the champions of pan-Arabism since the 1950s, first and foremost the Egyptian Gamal Abdel Nasser, have often been mentioned as characterized by a populist discourse and style (Crabbs, 1975, p.  387, Bou-Nassif, 2017). There is also a tradition of populism in Iran, where the prolonged absence of democracy favored the establishment of local populist leaderships during the Shah’s regime (Ansari, 2008, p. 683; Dodson & Dorraj, 2008), a phenomenon that was perfected since the advent of the Islamic Republic in 1979 (Obućina, 2015, p. 165; Amirahmadi, 1989, p. 92). Populism is not new to Turkey either, as an ancient political tradition stretching from the Young Turks at the end of the Ottoman Empire to the Kemalist

174 

D. F. WAJNER ET AL.

peasantism in the 1930s to Adnan Menderes’ Democrat Party rule in the 1950s (Karaömerlioğlu, 2022). Also in Israel, political parties such as Likud, Shas, and Yisrael Beiteinu have historically been accused of stimulating populist attitudes linked mainly to ethno-religious cleavages (see Filc & Lebel, 2005; Filc & Pardo, 2021; Navot & Rubin, 2016; BenPorat & Filc, 2022; Ben-Porat, 2006; Talshir, 2018). That said, the region has been less systematically and comparatively analyzed using populism’s theoretical framework and certainly not from a regional perspective or an examination of foreign policy sources, patterns, and effects. The reasons for this mutual neglect in the literatures of populism on MENA politics are multiple. First, the fact that most countries in the region have historically had authoritarian systems complicates the possibility of identifying and isolating the specific populist dimension. More specifically, in the cases of Egypt, Iran, and Turkey, the absence of free, democratic political systems made it difficult to analyze these cases in tandem with paradigmatic populist leaderships in Latin America or Europe, where the study of populism was more popular. Second, the intrinsic political and cultural characteristics of the MENA region, and in particular the role of multiple overlapping layers of nationalism, religion, and other ideologies, risked turning populism into an epiphenomenon. Finally, the high presence of geopolitical elements, including violent and military conflicts, made these cases so complex and politicized as to discourage research on such a controversial and often misunderstood topic. Despite these difficulties, we tend to believe that research on populist phenomena in the region, and especially on the role of its transnational and international dimensions, has multiple theoretical and empirical benefits. For MENA experts, an in-depth examination of the sources, patterns, and impact of PFP in the region can contribute to the growing IR efforts devoted to the importance political leaderships attach to narratives, rhetoric, and performative styles in regional and international politics (see Barak, 2017; Barnett, 1998; Çuhadar et al., 2021; Hudson, 1977; Sela, 1998). This approach could also be highly influential for researchers studying regional dynamics in the Middle East and North Africa, including regional integration and cooperation through Regional Organizations (ROs) (see Barnett & Solingen, 2007; Hinnebusch, 2003; Ibrahim, 2016; Wajner & Kacowicz, 2018). Finally, for students of populism and PFP, attention to populist patterns is particularly useful to better understand the internal and external features that condition populism in a region historically shaped by the international context and therefore by politicization and contestation in foreign policy.

7  POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA 

175

Patterns of MENA’s Populist Foreign Policy PFP in the MENA region is characterized, above all, by a high degree of personalization and politicization. These are certainly international trends, yet we argue that this pattern is often radicalized in MENA due to the absence of established checks and balances. According to the former, the political leader appears at the forefront of diplomacy, influencing foreign policy discourse, style, and diplomatic channels. On the latter, foreign policy becomes a subject of debate and contestation by public opinion and domestic constituents, while political leaders constantly project domestic politics to the regional and global arena for political gains at home (Chryssogelos, 2021; Destradi et  al., 2022; Verbeek & Zaslove, 2017; Wajner, 2019; Wehner & Thies, 2021). Indeed, the case of populism in Turkey in the last two decades during the ruling of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi—AKP) and its leader, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, shows the importance of the use of populist mythology, offensive rhetoric, and the cult of leader personality through social and mass media (see Adar & Türkmen, 2019; Altınörs & Akçay, 2022; Taş, 2022; Yilmaz, 2018). Along with the process of authoritarianization, a direct outcome of AKP populism has been the creeping personalization in foreign policy implementation. Institutionally, with July 2018 presidential elections sealing Turkey’s transition from a parliamentary system to a heavily centralized presidential one, the office of the President, together with his closest aides, has become the main decision-making body, mocking the diplomatic bureaucracy and its long diplomatic traditions. Even in his most democratic moments, Erdoğan repeatedly expressed his mistrust of the bureaucracy by calling the diplomats “mon cher” to insult them for allegedly being detached from the people (Taş, 2020, p. 7). This reflected the populist disdain for intermediary bureaucratic institutions viewed only as an impediment to the realization of Turkish popular will. Hence, to sideline the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Erdoğan established several new institutions such as the Office of Public Diplomacy, the Presidency for Turks Abroad and Related Communities (YTB), the Maarif Foundation, and the Yunus Emre Cultural Centers. Alternatively, he granted extensive powers to the existing bodies such as Diyanet, the Turkish International Cooperation and Development Agency (TIKA), and the Turkish Intelligence to operate abroad. All working under the central executive, the gravity of foreign policy implementation was moved away from the Ministry of Foreign

176 

D. F. WAJNER ET AL.

Affairs and given instead to the Office of the Prime Minister (later the President). Likewise, as a quick fix to diplomatic problems, outmaneuvering the diplomatic bureaucracy, Erdoğan increasingly resorted to personal diplomacy on the basis of personal relations and friendships with other national leaders (see Ülgül, 2019). This personalization, circumventing established processes of diplomatic communication and making policy decisions based on one’s whims, privileged the ad hoc process and prioritized bilateral one-on-ones, leading occasionally to impulsive policies (Taş, 2020, p. 7). Personalization in foreign policy is also epitomized in the rise of travel diplomacy. For instance, by the end of 2021, President Erdoğan visited 30 African countries—an unprecedented record for a non-African leader. Several diplomatic matters from TIKA’s development aid programs to trade cooperation deals are decided by the Turkish leader during these visits (Kavak & Aktas, 2021). Similarly, we recognize populist features in the foreign policy of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi since he assumed the presidency of Egypt in June 2014 after winning the national elections. This followed a controversial move in July 2013, in which he cooperated as the Minister of Defense and Deputy Prime Minister to topple the government led by Muslim Brotherhood’s leader Mohammed Morsi amid continuous popular demonstrations (see BouNassif, 2017; Selim, 2015). In response to the popular sentiments of the “Arab Spring,” Sisi gradually adopted a populist discourse in which foreign policy is at the service of a new domestic agenda based on satisfying social needs (“Egypt first”). Sisi’s government has gone to great lengths to make it clear that he is the man “running the show” when it comes to the political agenda, especially policy efforts that promote social welfare (Essa & Winter, 2022). Sisi relies on a style that strives to be as open as possible with “the common people,” including adopting an open-door interactive policy, no off-limits on several topics, as well as offering a platform for unmediated discourse and dialogue. Similarly, Sisi’s own personality stands at the forefront of the Egyptian attempts to bring the country back to the leading of regional and interregional dynamics (“Make Egypt Great Again”). The Egyptian authoritarian tradition is largely shaped by the image of Sisi as Pharaoh who guides the Egyptian people with strength and determination while relying on Sisi’s portrayal as the once powerful general who turned into a powerful statesman (Bou-Nassif, 2017, p. 253; Kandil, 2016; Taylor, 2014, pp.  15–20). Sisi’s personalization is particularly expressed through Egypt’s digital media: since 2014, official websites have been actively transforming themselves to match Sisi`s portrayal of old-new

7  POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA 

177

Egypt. Some prominent examples include weekly reports and visits to development sites as well as governmental meetings that are broadcast directly to regional audiences through the Office of the Presidency. This public diplomacy strategy includes an open portal for project development and a live YouTube and Facebook page in Arabic that lists all the agendas that aim to benefit citizens as part of the Egypt Vision 2030 plan (Brooks, 2022; Essa & Winter, 2022). A similar path can be found in Iran during the presidential term of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005–2013) (see Zaccara, 2007).3 The profound social injustices of the Shah’s era, along with the public immoralities attributed to his regime, were the basis on which the declared revolutionary goals of the Islamic Revolution were built: democracy, independence, social justice, and the rule of law (Obućina, 2015, p. 165; Amirahmadi, 1989, p. 92). More than two decades later, Ahmadinejad’s presidency has been portrayed as the culmination of this process, creating social programs purportedly designed to redistribute oil profits directly to the most disadvantaged Iranians (Nikfar, 2009). Iran’s populist character has also been reflected in its foreign policy, with Ahmadinejad at the forefront of Iranian interactions with other countries and international bodies. The personalization—and one might even say sacralization—of the ruler in Iran comes from Achaemenid times, during which the term “Shahan shah” (“King of Kings”) was coined: a purely personalistic title later used by Mohammed Reza Shah, including in terms of foreign policy. The importance of the ruler in international interactions continued into the era of the Islamic Republic under Khomeini’s leadership (Abrahamian, 1993). It included the figure of the supreme leader, shifting the legitimacy of the ruler from dynastic to religious principles and thus making the leader infallible and the possibilities of changing him impossible. Ahmadinejad built on this trend of populist personalism in Iran’s foreign policy and took it to an unprecedented level, enhancing politicization and polarization. In this sense, Ahmadinejad’s Iran made enormous international efforts to divide the world between those who are hostile to the principles of the Islamic Revolution (Israel, the US, Europe, and their allies) and those who are not (Russia, Hezbollah, Venezuela, and Cuba, among others). Ahmadinejad’s personal commitment to the Global South in general, and Latin America in particular, is remarkable. His binary view of international society was 3  It is worth reminding that, according to articles 89–91 of the Iranian Constitution, the Supreme Leader is the highest authority of the state, both in its political and in its religious spheres. He is above the head of government, who is an elected official.

178 

D. F. WAJNER ET AL.

nothing but a projection of a populist mindset in which a virtuous minority group looks out for the good of a large transnational collective marginalized by transnational elites. In this sense, the Lebanese minorities in Latin America have often been used by Iran to implement its populist strategy, wielding a certain marginalization carried out by a transnational elite led by the US and local governments (see Karmon, 2009). Finally, patterns of personalization and politicization became more and more evident in Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israel as well. As opposition leader of the right-wing Likud in the 1990s, Netanyahu was accused of promoting a highly polarizing diatribe against the Israeli promoters of the Oslo Accords and the military and technocratic elites who supported them. However, Netanyahu’s anti-elitist tendencies were largely contained in his first term as prime minister between 1996 and 1999, in which he generally displayed pragmatism and a spirit of respect for unity and statehood (mamlachtiut) (see Caspit, 2017; Filc & Lebel, 2005; Filc, 2009). International pressures certainly influenced Netanyahu’s restraint of his populist traits, as did domestic conditions, including the presence of several political figures with liberal beliefs in his own party (the so-called Likud’s princesses), a more conservative public opinion, and the deep-­ rooted democratic tradition of a multi-party, parliamentarian political system. Netanyahu ultimately paid a heavy political cost for his “containment” policy: his government ultimately collapsed after the abandonment of his right-wing supporter base, following peace negotiations with the Palestinian National Autonomy via US mediation at Wye Plantation in October 1998 (and after signing the Hebron agreement in 1996). It took time in the “political dessert” for Netanyahu to internalize these lessons. To this end, the personalization and politicization of Netanyahu’s foreign policy increased from the beginning of his second term as prime minister in 2009, but it was only in 2015 that the populist patterns gradually became apparent. The explanations for this strategic shift can be Netanyahu’s “discovery” of his communicative power through social networks, the accumulated accusations of corruption coming from the judiciary and the mainstream media, and the new international “winds”: Brexit, the arrival of Donald Trump to the US administration, and the rise of right-wing populism in Europe (see Ben-Porat & Filc, 2022; Caspit, 2017; Filc & Pardo, 2021; Harpaz 2022; Talshir, 2018). Since then, Netanyahu has highlighted his personalized, highly mediated “diplomatic romances” with other populist world leaders, most notably Trump, Modi, Putin, and Bolsonaro. During the campaign for the Knesset elections in April 2019, Netanyahu used images of his warm encounters with these

7  POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA 

179

international figures in television commercials and on large posters to emphasize his electoral slogan: “a league of his own” (see Wajner, 2022). Netanyahu’s personalization of PFP was also accompanied by the weakening of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, distributing its power and budgets among new ad hoc bodies, often controlled by like-minded political forces, and the high centralization of the processes of decision-­making on foreign policy in his closest inner circle made up of familiar and political allies who expressed full loyalty to his personal leadership. A second, central characteristic of the region with respect to PFP lies in the role of cultural, ethno-religious, and civilizational milestones. Indeed, the populist narrative not only imagines the people vis-à-vis the elite within a “people-elite” matrix but also locates this binary within the broader regional and global contexts, which are often aligned along identity-­oriented directions. Foreign policy is thus a key area through which the populist “peoplehood” can be reproduced (Chryssogelos, 2020; Löfflmann, 2021; Söderbaum et  al., 2021; Taş, 2020; Wajner, 2021; Wojczewski, 2020). In our four cases of populism in MENA, the definition of the dichotomous notions of people/allies and elite/enemies is largely grounded on these features. The populist leaderships of Turkey, Iran, and Egypt agree on the fusion between nationalistic trends and a civilizational discourse, shaped by a sense of domination promoted by Westernization and/or the Global North. This well-rooted anti-elitism is complemented in the first two cases by bonds of Islamist solidarity, albeit differentiating between Sunni and Shiite groups, respectively. Although Israel’s populism is different in this regard, being the only non-Muslim country in the area, it also highlights a very strong identity grounded on national and ethno-religious particularistic features. In the case of Turkey, contemporary populism under Erdoğan’s AKP has danced throughout its two-decade rule with several attaching ideologies, ranging from conservative democracy to Islamism and even Turkish nationalism (Balta, 2018). Yet, at all phases it has been crystallized into a definite civilizational outlook and a corresponding foreign policy behavior. The AKP initially escalated its power through its anti-Kemalist stance and a narrative of victimhood, claiming to represent the groups ostracized by the Kemalist establishment of the “Old Turkey.” Complaining about the corruption of its political and cultural elite, Erdoğan branded himself as the voice of the oppressed masses.4 AKP populism was thus expected to  This can be illustrated by (Tayyip) Erdoğan’s own portrayal as a “black Turk”: “In this country, there is segregation of black Turks and white Turks. Your brother Tayyip belongs to the black Turks” (Bucak, 2014; Özkök, 2004). 4

180 

D. F. WAJNER ET AL.

usher in a silent democratic revolution against the old establishment at home, but it also advocated for the possibility of a Muslim “conservative democracy,” bringing together diverse political projects as a front of pluralistic democracy: an antidote to the notorious “clash of civilizations” thesis. The foreign policy of AKP’s Erdoğan thus defined Turkey as a member of another civilization (i.e., Islamic/Ottoman) but in full conformity with Western-rooted liberal values.5 However, brimming with self-­ confidence after electoral successes and the neutralization of the Kemalist military via 2008 Ergenekon and 2010 Sledgehammer Trials, the “people” in AKP populism gradually lost its cosmopolitan notion and shifted to refer to the Muslim nation, with Islamist repercussions to follow in the foreign policy field (Taş, 2020). Particularly after Ahmet Davutoğlu became foreign minister in 2009, the AKP’s foreign policy activism served to make Turkey a central player in a region of its own rather than remaining a peripheral one on the margins of Europe (Keyman, 2014). While maintaining its strategic relations with the West, Turkey would no longer grovel at the gates of the EU, begging to be let in. This revisionist doctrine meant deeper engagement with Middle Eastern affairs, exploiting the opportunities after the “Arab Spring” to establish a Turkey-led regional order while enhancing mediator roles in regional conflicts. The AKP’s civilizational populism demanded an Islamist rehabilitation, if not restoration, to correct the errors of a century-long Westernization at home and ongoing Western imperialism throughout the region.6 The further the processes of de-Europeanization and authoritarianism advanced, the more “the West” took the form of the “Other.” After the 5  The United Nations 2005 Alliance of Civilizations Initiative, with Turkey as one of the co-leaders, re-affirmed this identification (Çınar 2018, pp.  183–184). Likewise, while the Copenhagen Summit of 2002 provided Turkey a tangible prospect for EU accession and triggered a series of harmonization reforms, the AKP government opted for a multidimensional foreign policy, diversifying its regionalist goals. 6  Erdoğan and Davutoğlu saw Turkey’s mission, thanks to its historical and geographic depth, as one of re-civilizing a region that was once the birthplace of civilization tout court (Başkan, 2017). Yet certainly, besides the AKP’s entanglement with diverse offshoots of Ikhwan in the region, there were other major factors at play. The amity between Turkey and Israel following Erdoğan’s infamous “one minute” interruption at the 2009 World Economic Forum against Israeli leadership over its Gaza occupation, for one, as well as the 2010 Mavi Marmara Flotilla incident. All these incidents combined were emblematic of what was debated as “shift of axis” in Turkey’s foreign policy orientation (Alpan, 2016, pp. 21–22; Wajner, 2019, pp. 1041–1046).

7  POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA 

181

Islamists’ brief stint in power regionally, and the challenge of the 2013 anti-government Gezi Protests domestically, AKP populism increasingly adopted a conspiratorial anti-Western discourse, by which the Western powers, jealous of Turkey’s unbridled rise and potential to achieve its 2023 goals, were grappling to intervene. Simultaneously, with the 2015 end of the Kurdish Resolution Process at home, the “people” in the AKP’s populist projection were narrowed down to the “Muslim Turkish nation” against the Western imperialist elite. Redefining politics as a fight between the milli (national) and gayr-ı milli (non-national), Erdoğan declared Turkey’s second liberation war against the Western powers determined to divide and conquer the country (Taş, 2022). With a civilizational outlook mostly demarcated by religious identities since the Arab Uprisings, the AKP increasingly resorted to a religious PFP discourse, framing international politics in the form of a Manichean fight between good (Islam) and evil (Crusaders, Judeo-Christian West) constantly repeating itself. Erdoğan accused EU politicians of being enemies of Islam when criticizing their report suggesting the official freeze of negotiation talks with Turkey (Taş, 2020, p. 11). Despite the structural factors making it less likely for Turkey to break away from the trans-Atlantic alliance, Erdoğan began challenging the merits of EU membership and other multilateral institutions while voicing alternative plans, such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and pursuing greater military cooperation with Russia and China in areas such as training, intelligence, cyberwarfare, and the defense industry (Kutlay & Öniş, 2021). Erdoğan encouraged Muslim Turks to come back to the world stage to realize their destiny of Islamic leadership, reviving the Ottoman glory.7 Notwithstanding the symbolic moves, such as the conversion of Hagia Sophia into a mosque after its 80-year museum status, the Islamicization of foreign policy was more than mere rhetoric. AKP governments utilized religion as a soft power instrument via the Presidency of Religious Affairs (Diyanet), building mosques and training imams in the Balkans, Africa, Latin America, and Central Asia (Öztürk, 2021). They promoted the Turkish brand of Islam and Islamist politics in these regions, while supporting Islamist militants in hot zones such as Libya and Syria. The regional rivalry, born out of the demise of Pax Americana in the Middle East, also utilized a religious language among competing alliances, framed as a battle for the soul of good Islam, in which Turkey assumed the 7  “Turkey is the only country that can lead the Muslim world,” Erdoğan stated, and under that Turkish leadership, the salvation of the Islamic ummah was near (Yeni Şafak, 2018).

182 

D. F. WAJNER ET AL.

role of being a voice for the Muslim “streets” against the autocratic monarchies of the region led by the Saudi-Emirati alliances (Aydıntaşbaş & Bianco, 2021). It goes without saying that Iran’s populism is also strongly based on ethno-religious and civilizations features, and Ahmadinejad’s period enhanced this dimension. Certainly, Iran has always been a country very proud of its history of leadership and cultural heritage. Nevertheless, while during the Shah’s time this discourse focused on ethnic-national elements based on the Persian empire,8 the coming to power of the Ayatollahs shifted the focus to the religious one. Since 1979, Tehran has focused its foreign policy strategy on the Shiite element, creating a transnational concept of “a chosen people” around Shiism, which was amplified during Ahmadinejad’s term in office. Indeed, to a large extent, Iran’s external alliances (such as the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Iraqi Al-Hashd Al-Sha’abi, and the Baath Party in Syria) have focused on the religious element while adopting a paternalistic stance in defense of Shiites who have been abused by the “unholy” Sunnis and their Western allies. That said, during Ahmadinejad’s term in office, the civilizational narrative received a strong boost by adding an anti-colonialist discourse that blamed the “corrupted” West and its allies for the problems of the “pure” people of Iran and like-minded oppressed countries. In this context, Ahmadinejad took this battle to Latin America, where Iran uses religious centers to penetrate and subsequently favor Shi’ism over Sunnism, thus influencing these religious groupings to suit Iranian interests (see Humire & Berman, 2014). Interestingly, at the time Ahmadinejad defined revolutionary Iran as one of the most significant countries in the world, with a glorious past and a future of regional and global hegemony, he raised the idea of an oppressed Iran in the search of autonomy in security affairs, including in reference to its nuclear program. This paradoxical combination of “winning” and “underdog” legitimation strategies in international scenes characterizes a multiplicity of contemporary populist leaderships around the world (see Wajner, 2022; Wajner & Roniger, 2022). Likewise, in the case of Sisi’s Egypt, the civilization discourse is increasingly linked to the notion of Egypt being a hub that connects East and West, as it was during the time of the Pharaohs. Based on these cultural foundations, Sisi framed Egypt as an ancient regional power with past golden times, and this consequently mirrored his own portrayal within 8

 And even used the UN platform to complain about Iran’s historical treatment.

7  POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA 

183

both local and regional audiences (see Bou-Nassif, 2013; Kandil, 2016; Springborg, 2016). In addition, Sisi’s foreign policy was aimed at showing Egypt at the forefront of Arab diplomacy, as Egypt was primarily during Gamal Abdul Nasser’s pan-Arabism era. Sisi’s leadership is therefore depicted as delivering better results for the country and the region than the West delivers, while as a possible alternative to the Gulf states in terms of output legitimacy (see Abul-Magd, 2017; Ketchley, 2017; Kandil, 2016). To this end, a large emphasis was placed on certain dates of commemoration such as the liberation of Sinai and the attack on the Suez Canal, which remind of a joint triumph that bind together Egyptians in particular and Arabs more broadly (see Winter & Essa, 2021; Podeh & Winckler, 2004). Equally interesting is the case of Israel’s PFP when it comes to its cultural components. Although the country differs in this regard as the only non-Muslim country in the area, Israel also possesses a highly emphasized identity grounded on national and ethno-religious characteristics. These particularities are based on the essential definition of Israel as the only Jewish state, descended from an ancient nation with a strong religious influence and an enduring presence in the Middle East, but combined with the Western and modern roots of political Zionism. This identity syncretism is often the target of populists in Israel, who boost the antagonism between particularistic characteristics and cosmopolitan tendencies coming from abroad, trying to disintegrate their potential amalgamation (see Caspit, 2017; Porat & Filc, 2022). The history of Likud reflects how the party slowly transformed from a party of right-wing “underdogs” left behind by the Socialist-Zionist hegemony due to its “revisionist” approach to pro-British mandatory policy, to a party that incorporated other “forgotten tribes” in Israel: particularly Mizrahi/Sephardic Jews, orthodox Zionists, and non-Zionist ultraorthodox. Likud leader Menachem Begin, who was presented as a punisher of the same political, social, and cultural “establishment,” increasingly embraced the role of the savior of those “abandoned” groups that claimed historical justice and similar socio-­ economic opportunities, if not revenge. Yet Begin and his party members remained ideologically committed to liberalism and democracy, and they did not make substantial changes on this front after coming to power in 1977.9 However, combined with economic and ethno-national elements, 9  This was also reflected in the formation of the Likud as a merge of Begin’s Jerut party with the Liberal party.

184 

D. F. WAJNER ET AL.

a bottom-up phenomenon emerged in Israel in the 1980s and 1990s increasingly inclined to backlash against the hegemonic elites, perceived as “corrupting” politics, economy, justice, academia, and the media, while tending to cosmopolitan sentiments. Although these anti-elitist sentiments appeared at different times, this pattern become institutionalized only in the advanced years of the second Netanyahu government. Especially since the 2015 national elections, anti-elitist approaches began to be gradually activated through new media and alternative mass media, accusing the “hegemonic,” “cosmopolitan” elites of acting in a conspiratorial manner against the democratic preferences of the more “traditional” People of Israel. This claim is particularly interesting considering Netanyahu’s ethnic, socio-economic, and religious background, whereby he resembles the so-called elites more than “the Second Israel” he claims to represent.10 Moreover, catalyzed by the numerous corruption investigations against the Prime Minister, his family, and his inner circle, Netanyahu’s backlash against these “corrupt,” “technocratic” elites who were allegedly persecuting him was increasingly seen as a common denominator for many in the aforementioned underdog groups. Netanyahu’s leadership cult was then compared to one of martyrs—fighting for the suffering of the entire People. Soon, the mutual relations of affection and devotion of the movements supporting “Bibi” Netanyahu—Bibism—crossed tribes and even national borders, building bonds of solidarity around the world (see Caspit, 2017; Filc & Pardo, 2021; Priego, 2021).

Constraints to PFP Effects in MENA Despite the aforementioned patterns in the PFP of MENA countries, several elements have influenced its impact on both national and international political dynamics. In this section, we delve into two of these components: the structure and tradition of political systems, and the characteristics of the regional security context, which includes several protracted military conflicts. 10  Netanyahu was initially seen as one of the “princesses” of Likud, the children of those who supported the Revisionist party of Vladimir Zeev Jabotinisky and the Etzel military movement of Menachem Begin. Moreover, Netanyahu is a descendant of an Ashkenazi family who was born in the “noble” Jerusalemite neighborhood of Rehavia, studied in the “prestigious” Gimnasia, served as an officer in the commando brigade of the Intelligence (Sayeret Matkal), and later moved to the wealthy city of Caesarea.

7  POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA 

185

Indeed, any approach to the study of populism in MENA must address the region’s authoritarian roots and their constitutive effects on both populist attitudes and tactics. The presence of illiberal and autocratic regimes was historically the rule in the region, with the exception of Israel, where the political system features stronger democratic institutions and there is (still) a tradition of respecting the rule of law and liberal values. In this sense, we know that authoritarian populists often tend to radicalize their foreign policies to perpetuate and deepen the so-called revolution (“input legitimacy”), but they occasionally prefer the opposite direction, seeking to legitimize their regime through economic achievements and diplomatic relations (“output legitimacy”). The MENA region provides rich evidence of this dual move. Turkey is a faithful example of how both options—radicalization and moderation—were adopted by a populist government according to the political interests of the regime at that specific moment. As mentioned above, Erdoğan’s process of authoritarianization accompanied Turkey’s radicalization of the patterns of personalization and centralization, as well as the diffusion of ethno-religious elements in the mid-2010s. On the other hand, it can be argued that after Turkey’s transition from a parliamentary to a highly centralized presidential system following the July 2016 coup and the July 2018 presidential elections, Erdoğan’s PFP was slightly constrained and shifted toward moderation. This ostensibly paradoxical policy shift follows the understanding that the AKP’s ambitious plans and overstretched foreign policy have led to serious miscalculations, not to mention Turkey’s “precious loneliness” in the region in the mid-­2010s, which soon turned into bitter disappointment. It was evident that the relations between Turkey and the EU were reduced to a transactional standard defined by a quid-pro-quo approach, generally focused on immediate concerns such as the refugee deal or the fight against terrorism. So were the relations with the US and the UN following Erdoğan’s pursuit of greater strategic autonomy from a waning Western hegemony, such as through “the world is bigger than five” campaign to challenge the exclusive structure of the UN Security Council, as well as his projection of hard power over the region on multiple fronts (primarily Syria, Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh, Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip). The authoritarian characteristics of the political system seem to have initially catalyzed the deepening of the PFP, but then contained and reversed it once the PFP’s ill results became evident.

186 

D. F. WAJNER ET AL.

Meanwhile, both the Egyptian and Iranian regimes displayed a similar zig-zag effect in terms of PFP, initially highlighting it for legitimation purposes but then hiding it when it no longer served political interests. The authoritarian tradition of the Egyptian political system has shaped Sisi’s portrayal at home and abroad as a once powerful general who has become a powerful statesman leading the Egyptian people against fanaticism, terrorism, and instability. This “muscularity” emphasizes his popularity in democratic elections while serving as a face-saving strategy in the international scene (Wajner, 2022). Similarly, the prolonged absence of democracy in the Shah’s Iran favored the establishment of a political system prone to PFP radicalization; since then, despite holding regular elections, the Islamic Republic of Iran continued to take steps backward in terms of democracy, most notably showing radicalization under Ahmadinejad’s term. That said, the regime’s internalization of the fact that Iran almost became a Pariah state in the international arena likely affected the decision to sideline Ahmadinejad in 2013. Restraint in terms of PFP during Hassan Rouhani’s term helped Iran advance in negotiations and subsequently signs the multilateral framework of the nuclear deal formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) (see Priego, 2015; Giurlando, 2021). Finally, the characteristics of the Israeli political system have also conditioned Netanyahu’s PFP, but in the opposite direction from the previous cases: first as a constraint and then as a catalyst. The weaknesses of Israel’s executive branch in a multi-party parliamentary system and the strong democratic traditions both within the Israeli institutions and within his Likud political party have led Netanyahu to initially accommodate his PFP patterns. However, the rising popularity within the entire “national camp” and the growing political control within Likud fueled Netanyahu’s path to radicalization, centralizing international policymaking and strengthening highly politicized, partisan diplomatic channels with Trump, Putin, Modi, Orban, Bolsonaro, and other right-wing populist leaders around the world (see Filc & Pardo, 2021). In this way, Netanyahu’s self-portrait as a player in “a league of its own” pushed his “way out” into the international arena, as an attempt to get external backing for his legitimation struggle against the domestic elites (see Wajner, 2022). A second component that often conditions PFP patterns in the region lies in the highly militarized and conflict-prone geopolitical context. Most MENA countries have been involved in some form of military conflict in the last two decades, be it interstate or intrastate, and this structural

7  POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA 

187

competition for power certainly casts doubt on the independent influence of the populist variable. In addition, military bodies tend to have greater power and influence in these societies, often even constituting a key stronghold of the regime, and the shift from military to political leadership tends to affect the formulation of foreign policy. Moreover, the constant presence of conflicts causes MENA national leaderships (including non-­ populist ones) to employ securitization practices against their transnational “others” and “elites” as a strategy of political mobilization (see Owen, 2004). These three conditions together risk turning populism into an epiphenomenon in light of the national context. Turkey’s Erdoğan shows an emblematic case of populist mobilization fueled by internal and external conflicts, eventually catalyzing a spiral of radicalization in PFP. Specifically, authoritarian populism at home and an assertive foreign policy toward enemies of the Turkish-Muslim people mutually reinforce and justify each other. Indeed, the people-centrism of populism not only dictated emphasis on reaffirmed sovereignty at home but also demanded the realization of national autonomy and grandeur in the global scene, railing against an unjust geopolitical order. The idea that Turkey could regain its regional strength and expand its influence over former imperial territories under dispute captivated the imagination of Erdoğan’s popular base, and he did not hesitate to flex his muscles to steer the outcome of bilateral and international conflicts in his favor. Turkey’s unilateral economic actions in the region, most prominently in the Eastern Mediterranean gas dispute, were aimed at proving its independence from the constraints of the global hegemons in the eyes of a Turkish public long suspicious of Western interference in the country’s domestic affairs. Simultaneously, its hard power projections, like the transborder military operations in Syria and Northern Iraq, demonstrate the well-earned people’s power at broader scale. This “muscular” PFP was extended from its support for Azerbaijan’s military campaign to retake Nagorno-Karabakh to the regional rivalry at the Horn of Africa to the Libyan Civil War. In parallel, construing the people as the sons of the glorious Ottomans, the AKP used the Ottoman legacy to enhance its soft power and assume its ostensible historical role of custodianship of Africa’s Muslim societies. In return, this assertive foreign policy activism framed as Turkey’s “second liberation war” justified a brutal, smashmouth politics, not to mention the silencing of any political opponents for treason. Fighting against the international dark forces on so many fronts from Azerbaijan to Yemen to Libya,

188 

D. F. WAJNER ET AL.

the people had to act in unison and conformity (see Yackley, 2020).11 With this projection of regional power, Erdoğan was not only re-introducing Turkish grandeur, but also tapping on Turks’ ontological insecurities, better known as Sevres Syndrome—the long-held paranoia about the West’s imperialist ambitions over Turkish territories, which helped to buttress the construction of the West as the evil “Other” of the AKP’s populism. Moreover, while the recurrent theme of “liberation war” assigned the Turkish public the historic mission of defending their country, this populist mobilization justified the increasing militarization of Turkish foreign policy in the region. Between 2011 and 2020, Turkish military expenditure rose by 77 percent, with a steeper rise after 2015 coinciding with the same trend in foreign policy (see Da Silva et al., 2022, p. 11). The role of a contextual background of conflicts, militarization, and securitization in catalyzing and constraining PFP is also salient in the case of Sisi’s Egypt, particularly regarding his regime’s struggle against terror attacks in Sinai and the way it deals with the Islamist opposition. Despite Sisi’s alleged prioritization of the domestic sphere over the international one, the foreign policy dimension is emphasized as part of a national security strategy that aims at uniting Egypt against common, “foreign” enemies (see Winter & Essa, 2021). While underlining Sisi’s portrayal as a “muscular” leader, in both politics and military spheres, the regime has regularly politicized and securitized the situation in Sinai and the clash against the Muslim Brotherhood opposition that existed since the controversial overthrow of President Mohammed Morsi (see Kandil, 2016). For instance, in Sinai, the conditions of the Bedouin communities have been historically harsh, creating an environment ripe for extreme dissent and leading to bombings in the south of the Sinai Peninsula and terrorist attacks in the north. Sisi highlighted the fact that even if years have passed and Sinai has not been developed properly, the Peninsula’s mass development will bring prosperity and safety by improving the lives of its citizens, leading to a new era in the region free from Islamist terrorists (Winter & Essa, 2021). Linkages between international conflicts with Egypt as a protagonist also served a similar purpose. For instance, at a press conference commemorating the “October war” (or “the Yom Kippur war”) in 1973, Sisi emphasized his commitment to the people of Sinai and the sacrifices 11  As Erdoğan stated: “Turkey is the real target of a siege that stretches from the Caucasus to the Balkans, from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean and the adjoining regions. As long as Turkey stands strong, none of these scenarios will succeed” (Yackley, 2020).

7  POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA 

189

they have historically undergone while apologizing for previous neglect by the former Egyptian regimes. However, Egypt’s history of protracted conflicts also created opposition to Sisi’s attempts at rapprochement with Israel amid the normalization trends coming from “the Abraham Accords.” The opposition to the “warming” of relations was especially identified in professional unions and journalists, in addition to the traditional opposition to Israel on the part of the Muslim Brotherhood and pan-Arab organizations (see Winter & Essa, 2021). Likewise, the security context in Iran strongly conditioned Ahmadinejad’s PFP, limiting his room for maneuver. Certainly, Iran had already become a revisionist, conflict-prone actor when the Ayatollahs came to power in 1979 claiming to export the Islamic revolution to the region. This was not just a rhetorical strategy. Iran has been involved since then in several wars, some directly, like the one in Iraq, and others by proxy, like in Yemen and Syria, and thus its military budget has skyrocketed to carry out a more aggressive foreign policy. However, since its inception, Iran’s Ahmadinejad used geopolitical competition to strengthen a notion of “us” against “them” (the Sunnis) that catalyzed and re-inspired the trend toward conflict (see Pipes, 2006). As part of an aggressive and conflict-prone foreign policy, Ahmadinejad increasingly clashed with some of his regional neighbors over control of the Persian Gulf and South Asia, causing widespread fear among regional powers, notably Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and resulting in the further consolidation of the Gulf Cooperation Council. Although this rivalry can be seen as nothing more than a two-power struggle for hegemonic control of the Persian Gulf, this regional competition also served Iran to reshape its populist vision both domestically and internationally (Priego, 2020). The ideational construction of an Arab and Sunni “other” against revolutionary Shiite version of Islam served to legitimize an aggressive foreign policy while securitizing domestic policies. In the case of Israel as well, the security situation and the evolution of the various conflicts in which the country is involved greatly influenced Netanyahu’s PFP. It is hard to think about Netanyahu’s meteoric rise in politics without referring to his diplomatic roles during the First Intifada in 1987 and the First Gulf War in 1991, or later, as leader of the opposition throughout the “Oslo period,” holding a harsh discourse against the promoters of the Oslo Accords when the terrorist attacks against Israel began to multiply (see Wajner, 2020). This discourse, nevertheless, was curtailed once Netanyahu was in power and Israel’s security and political

190 

D. F. WAJNER ET AL.

needs were at stake. In the 1990s, pragmatism guided Netanyahu’s interactions with the Palestinian National Authority, Egypt, Jordan, and even Syria. This behavior returned in the mid-2000s, when Netanyahu (as finance minister) tacitly “tolerated” Ariel Sharon’s Disengagement Plan from the Gaza Strip, as well as when he returned to the Prime Minister’s Office in 2009, trying to manage the crisis with the US President Barack Obama’s through his Bar-Ilan discourse of “two states for two peoples” that led to five years of negotiations (see Priego, 2021). In all these cases, it is difficult to distinguish between Netanyahu’s ideological focus on nationalism and security issues and his PFP practices, since the former probably contributed greatly to the latter. Likewise, the intensification of Netanyahu’s PFP patterns since 2015 was not necessarily related to the security dimension. As described above, the context of conflicts in the MENA region following the Arab Spring, the rise of ISIS, and the Syrian civil war accelerated and restricted some of these patterns, depending on whether the avoidance of securitization was necessary or preferred by the populist leader. A similar pattern was seen toward the end of Netanyahu’s term regarding his approach to the “Abraham accords” and the dynamic cooling or warming of relations with the neighboring Arab countries, primarily Egypt, Jordan, and even Lebanon.

Conclusions In this chapter, we have taken a comparative regional approach to analyze how contemporary populist leaders in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) formulate and implement their foreign policies. Although the phenomenon of populism has not been systematically studied in the past in MENA, it has become increasingly influential in the last two decades, including in terms of foreign policy. Seeking to close this gap, we have focused on four cases, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Turkey, Abdel Fattah el-­ Sisi’s Egypt, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Iran, and Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israel, looking for common characteristics and variations in their PFP. In addition, we analyzed the local and external elements that restrict or allow these regional trends. The evidence from MENA underlines the predominance of strategic and stylistic approaches to PFP. Although populism as an ideology seems to be less accentuated in the Middle East, even more so in terms of foreign policy, the region has received its share of the current wave of populism that is overhauling the world. All four cases reveal a growing use of

7  POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA 

191

populists’ personalistic performance in foreign policy. This is expressed through an authentic style of offensive diatribes, heroic mythology, and conspiracy theories while using mass media and social networks as key channels of public diplomacy. In all four cases, MENA populist leaders are likely to resort to a discourse that antagonizes “people” and “elites” in transnational terms, with the former as “original” and “pure” when its political representation is based on ethno-religious homogeneity within and across national borders, and elites as “corrupted” when they became “globalists,” “cosmopolitan,” or simply “foreigners.” The adoption of this polarizing (de-)legitimation strategy stands out at critical junctures, primarily at electoral times, but also when populists face attempts to destabilize their government through investigations, mass protests, or coup attempts. When their power is challenged and compromised, MENA leaders are more likely to resort to populist practices at home and abroad in their quest for re-legitimation, seeking to strengthen the bonds of mutual affection and commitment with their support bases and therefore expecting great political mobilization. However, MENA has its own local peculiarities, as the region is heavily constrained by a long tradition of authoritarian regimes, rentier states, and military conflicts (both interstate and intrastate). This geopolitical context configures populist interaction at both the bilateral and multilateral levels and more precisely in the relations of countries with international organizations and regional and extra-regional powers, since the fear of economic sanctions, coercive diplomacy, and even external intervention is always present. Therefore, any evaluation of the impact of PFP practices in MENA countries must recognize the key role of the political, economic, and security context in constraining or enabling the populist variable. Similarly, our study acknowledges the central place of ethno-religious and civilizational features in the ideational construction of “people” and “elites” by the populist leaderships of MENA. Well-established narratives based on a past of trauma, domination, imperialism, and colonialism affect not only populists’ strategic framings but also their menu of options for promoting (or restricting) collective action via institutionalized frameworks of cooperation. We believe that these insights can contribute to a better understanding of PFP in MENA and in the Global South in general, where the formulation of foreign policy has also been a permanent issue of controversy and populist practices have historically relied on the international arena. Certainly, as mentioned above, we must remember that the four cases

192 

D. F. WAJNER ET AL.

present great differences in political, social, and ideological terms, which requires reservations when considering the benefits of the regional and comparative approach. Greater attention to this variation should be considered in future accounts of PFP in MENA, which may focus on their sources and impact, rather than their patterns. Likewise, further research should also be accompanied by the elaboration of in-depth case studies where PFP approaches have been largely disregarded (all these cases except Turkey). In this sense, a more focused exploration of how populist governments face critical junctures may be particularly relevant to understanding the links between populism and international actors in times of disruption and uncertainty.

References Abrahamian, E. (1993). Khomenism. I. B. Tauris. Abul-Magd, Z. (2017). Militarizing the Nation: The Army, Business, and Revolution in Egypt. Columbia University Press. Adar, S., & Türkmen, G. (2019). Populism Beyond the West: Dissonant Diversities and Fragmented Politics. New Diversities, 21(2), 1–7. Alpan, B. (2016). “From AKP’s ‘Conservative Democracy’ to ‘Advanced Democracy’: Shifts and Challenges in the Debate on ‘Europe.’” South European Society and Politics, 21(1), 15–28. Altınörs, G., & Akçay, Ü. (2022). Authoritarian Neoliberalism, Crisis, and Consolidation: The Political Economy of Regime Change in Turkey. Globalizations, 1–25. Amirahmadi, H. (1989). The State and Territorial Social Justice in postrevolutionary Iran. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 13(1), 92–120. Ansari, A. (2008). Iran Under Ahmadinejab: Populism and Its Malcontents. International Affairs, 84(4), 683–700. Aydıntaşbaş, A., & Bianco, C. (2021). Useful enemies: How the Turkey-UAE rivalry is remaking the Middle East. European Council on Foreign Relations. Balta, E. (2018). The AKP’s Foreign Policy as Populist Governance. Middle East Report, 288. https://merip.org/2018/12/the-­akps-­foreign-policy-aspopulist-­governance/ Barak, O. (2017). State Expansion and Conflict: In and Between Israel/Palestine and Lebanon. Cambridge University Press. Barnett, M. N. (1998). Dialogues in Arab Politics: Negotiations in Regional Order. Columbia University Press. Barnett, M. N., & Solingen, E. (2007). Designed to Fail or Failure of Design? The Origins and Legacy of the Arab League. In Crafting Cooperation: Regional International Institutions in Comparative Perspective, 180–220.

7  POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA 

193

Başkan, B. (2017). ‘Islamism and Turkey’s Foreign Policy during the Arab Spring’. Turkish Studies, 19(2), 264–88. https://doi.org/10.1080/1468384 9.2017.1405346 Ben-Porat, G. (2006). Global liberalism, local populism: Peace and conflict in Israel/Palestine and Northern Ireland. Syracuse University Press. Bou-Nassif, H. (2013). Wedded to Mubarak: the second careers and financial rewards of Egypt’s military elite, 1981–2011. The Middle East Journal, 67(4), 509–530. Bou-Nassif, H. (2017). Coups and Nascent Democracies: The Military and Egypt’s Failed Consolidation. Democratization, 24(1), 157–174. Brooks, R. (2022). Beyond Defection: Explaining the Tunisian and Egyptian Militaries’ Divergent Roles in the Arab Spring. Journal of Strategic Studies, 1–28. Bucak, S. (2014). “Turkey’s Erdogan seen softening style not substance as president.” Reuters. 24 August. https://www.reuters.com/article/ us-­turkey-­erdogan-­rhetoric-­idUSKBN0GO0EI20140824 Caspit, B. (2017). The Netanyahu Years. St. Martin’s Press. Chryssogelos, A. (2020). State Transformation and Populism: From the Internationalized to the Neo-sovereign State? Politics, 40(1), 22–37. Chryssogelos, A. (2021). The Dog That Barked But Did Not Bite: Greek Foreign Policy Under the Populist Coalition of SYRIZA-Independent Greeks, 2015–2019. Comparative European Politics, 19(6), 722–738. Chryssogelos, A. (2017). Populism in Foreign Policy. Çınar, M. (2018). “Turkey’s ‘Western’ or ‘Muslim’ Identity and the AKP’s Civilizational Discourse.”Turkish Studies, 19(2), 176–97. Crabbs, J. (1975). Politics, History, and Culture in Nasser’s Egypt. International Journal of Middle East Studies, 6(4), 386–420. Çuhadar, E. Ç., Kaarbo, J., Kesgin, B., & Özkeçeci-Taner, B. (2021). Turkish Leaders and Their Foreign Policy Decision-Making Style: A Comparative and Multi-method Perspective. Turkish Studies, 22(1), 1–27. Da Silva, D. L., Tian, N., Béraud-Sudreau, L., Marksteiner, A., & Liang, X. (2022). “Trends in World Military Expenditure, 2021,” SIPRI Fact Sheet, April. https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/2022-­0 4/fs_2204_milex_ 2021_0.pdf. Destradi, S., Plagemann, J., & Taş, H. (2022). Populism and the Politicisation of Foreign Policy. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations. https://doi.org/10.1177/13691481221075944 Dodson, M., & Dorraj, M. (2008). Populism and Foreign Policy in Venezuela and Iran. Whitehead Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations, 9, 71. Essa, J., & Winter, O. (2022). On the 40th Anniversary of Israel’s Withdrawal from Sinai: Is the Peninsula Becoming Integrated into Egypt? INSS, May 19. https:// www.inss.org.il/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/%D7%A4%D7%A8%D7%A1 %D7%95%D7%9D-%D7%9E%D7%99%D7%95%D7%97%D7%93-190522.pdf

194 

D. F. WAJNER ET AL.

Filc, D. (2009). The political right in Israel: Different faces of Jewish populism. Routledge. Filc, D. (2018). Populism in the Middle East. In C. De la Torre (Ed.), Routledge Handbook of Global Populism (pp. 385–401). Routledge. Filc, D., & Lebel, U. (2005). The Post-Oslo Israeli Populist Radical Right in Comparative Perspective: Leadership, Voter Characteristics and Political Discourse. Mediterranean Politics, 10(1), 85–97. Filc, D., & Pardo, S. (2021). Israel’s Right-Wing Populists: The European Connection. Survival, 63(3), 99–122. Giurlando, P. (2021). Democratizing International Agreements in the Context of Inter-State Hierarchy. Griffith Journal of Law and Human Dignity, 8(2), 1–15. Harpaz, G. (2022). EU-Israel Relations: Netanyahu’s Legacy. European Foreign Affairs Review, 27(4), 541–562. Hinnebusch, R. (2003). The International Politics of the Middle East. Manchester University Press. Hudson, M. C. (1977). Arab Politics: The search for Legitimacy. Yale University Press. Humire, J., & Berman, I. (2014). Iran’s Strategic Penetration of Latin America. Lexington Books. Ibrahim, R. (2016). Regional Organizations and Internal Conflict: The Arab League and the Arab Spring. BRICS Policy Brief, 4(2), 1–32. Kandil, H. (2016). Sisi’s Egypt. New Left Review 102, Nov/Dec: https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii102/articles/hazem-­kandil-­sisi-­s-­egypt Karaömerlioğlu, M.  A. (2022). Populism in Turkey: From a Political Style to a Mode of Global Politics. In J. Jongerden (Ed.), The Routledge Handbook on Contemporary Turkey (pp. 75–88). Routledge. Karmon, E. (2009). Iran and Its Proxy Hezbollah: Strategic Penetration in Latin America. Real Instituto Elcano, Working Paper 18/2009. Kavak, G., & Aktas, T. (2021). Turkey’s Influence in Africa on the Rise. AA, October 21. Retrieved November 3, 2021, from https://www.aa.com.tr/en/ economy/turkeys-­influence-­in-­africa-­on-­the-­rise/2399194 Ketchley, N. (2017). Egypt in a Time of Revolution: Contentious Politics and the Arab Spring. Cambridge University Press. Keyman, F. (2014). The AK Party: Dominant Party, New Turkey and Polarization. Insight Turkey, 16(2), 19–31. Kutlay, M., & Öniş, Z. (2021). Turkish foreign policy in a post-western order: strategic autonomy or new forms of dependence?. International Affairs, 97(4), 1085–1104. Löfflmann, G. (2021). ‘Enemies of the people’: Donald Trump and the Security Imaginary of America First. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 13691481211048499.

7  POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA 

195

Löfflmann, G. (2022). Introduction to Special Issue: The Study of Populism in International Relations. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 13691481221103116. Navot, D., & Rubin, A. (2016). Likud’s success in the 2015 elections: Netanyahu’s Hobbesian moment. Israel Affairs, 22(3–4), 628–640. Nikfar, M. R. (2009). El fenómeno Ahmadineyad. El País, 3 de noviembre. Obućina, V. (2015). Social Populism and the Future of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Politic ̌ka misao: c ̌asopis za politologiju, 52(4–5), 163–186. Owen, R. (2004). State, Power and politics in the Making of the Modern Middle East. Routledge. Öztürk, A. E. (2021). Islam and foreign policy: Turkey’s ambivalent religious soft power in the authoritarian turn. Religions, 12(1), 38. Pipes, D. (2006). The Mystical Menace of Mahmoud Ahmadinejab, Jerusalem Post, January 27. Podeh, E., & Winckler, O. (Eds.). (2004). Rethinking Nasserism. Revolution and Historical Memory in Modern Egypt. University Press of Florida. Porat, G. B., & Filc, D. (2022). Remember to be Jewish: Religious Populism in Israel. Politics and Religion, 15(1), 61–84. Priego, A. (2015). El programa nuclear iraní: orgullo nacional, amenaza regional o percepción equivocada. Cuadernos De Pensamiento Político, 85–100. Priego, A. (2021). La doctrina Netanyahu. Un cambio de paradigma en la política exterior de Israel. UNISCI Discussion Papers, Issue 57, September–October. Priego, A. (2020). La nueva política de Israel hacia el Golfo Pérsico. Instituto Español de Estudios Estratégicos Documento de Opinión 147. Sela, A. (1998). The Decline of the Arab-Israeli Conflict: Middle East Politics and the Quest for Regional Order. SUNY Press. Selim, G. (2015). Egypt Under SCAF and the Muslim Brotherhood: The Triangle of Counter-Revolution. Arab Studies Quarterly, 37(2), 177–199. Söderbaum, F., Spandler, K., & Pacciardi, A. (2021). Contestations of the Liberal International Order: A Populist Script of Regional Cooperation. Cambridge University Press. Springborg, R. (2016). Sisi’s Back to the Wall. Belfer Center, November 8. https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/sisis-­back-­wall Talshir, G. (2018). Populist rightwing ideological exposition: Netanyahu’s regime as a case in point. Advances in Applied Sociology, 8(04), 329. Taş, H. (2020). The Formulation and Implementation of Populist Foreign Policy: Turkey in the Eastern Mediterranean. Mediterranean Politics. https://doi. org/10.1080/13629395.2020.1833160 Taş, H. (2022). The Chronopolitics of National Populism. Identities, 29(2), 127–145.

196 

D. F. WAJNER ET AL.

Taylor, W. (2014). Military Responses to the Arab Uprisings and the Future of Civil-­ Military Relations in the Middle East: Analysis from Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, and Syria. Springer. Ülgül, M. (2019). Erdoğan’s Personal Diplomacy and Turkish Foreign Policy. Insight Turkey, 21(4), 161–182. Verbeek, B., & Zaslove, A. (2017). Populism and Foreign Policy. The Oxford Handbook of Populism, 384–405. Wajner, D. F. (2019). Making (Latin) America Great Again: Lessons from Populist Foreign Policies in the Americas. In Populism and World Politics (pp. 195–225). Palgrave Macmillan. Wajner, D. F. (2019). “Battling” for legitimacy: analyzing performative contests in the Gaza flotilla paradigmatic case. International Studies Quarterly, 63(4), 1035–1050. Wajner, D. F. (2020). International Legitimacy and Conflict Resolution: Analyzing Legitimation Dynamics During Peace Negotiations in Intractable Conflicts. PhD Thesis, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Wajner, D. F. (2021). Exploring the Foreign Policies of Populist Governments: (Latin) America First. Journal of International Relations and Development, 24(3), 651–680. Wajner, D. F. (2022). The Populist Way Out: Why Contemporary Populist Leaders Seek Transnational Legitimation. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 24(3), 416–436. Wajner, D. F., & Giurlando, P. (2023). Introduction to Populist Foreign Policy (PFP). In P. Giurlando & D. Wajner (Eds.), Populist Foreign Policy: Regional Perspectives of Populism in the International Scene. Palgrave. Wajner, D. F., & Kacowicz, A. M. (2018). The Quest for Regional Legitimation: Analyzing the Arab League’s Legitimizing Role in the Arab Spring. Regional & Federal Studies, 28(4), 489–521. Wajner, D. F., & Roniger, L. (2022). Populism and Transnational Projection: The Legitimation Strategies of Pink Tide Neo-Populist Leaderships in Latin America. Comparative Political Theory, 3, 1–30. Wehner, L. E., & Thies, C. G. (2021). The Nexus of Populism and Foreign Policy: The Case of Latin America. International Relations, 35(2), 320–340. Winter, O., & Essa, J. (2021). Are Egypt’s Professional Unions an Obstacle to Closer Relations with Israel? INSS Insight 1530, November 7. https://www. inss.org.il/publication/egypt-­israel/ Wojczewski, T. (2020). Populism, Hindu Nationalism, and Foreign Policy in India: The Politics of Representing ‘the people’. International Studies Review, 22(3), 396–422. Yilmaz, I. (2018). Islamic Populism and Creating Desirable Citizens in Erdogan’s New Turkey. Mediterranean Quarterly, 29(4), 52–76.

7  POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA 

197

Zaccara, L. (2007). Ahmadineyad, entre la espada y la pared. Política Exterior, 21(116), 99–110. Yackley, A. J. (2020). “How Turkey militarized its foreign policy,” Politico, 15 October. https://www.politico.eu/article/how-­turkey-­militarized-­foreignpolicyazerbaijan-­diplomacy/ (Accessed date 2 April 2022). Yeni Şafak. (2018). “Erdoğan: Turkey is the only country that can lead the Muslim world,” 15 October.

CHAPTER 8

Leadership, Context, and Populist Foreign Policy in East Africa: An Analysis of Uganda and Rwanda Michael Mawa, Solomon Muchwa Asiimwe, and Anne Abaho

Introduction Populism can be understood as the reliance on strong leaders, whom, for political gain mobilize the masses aiming at enacting radical reforms in the name of the “people.” Through their action and speech, populist leaders present themselves as the voice of the people (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2017; Nyadera & Agwanda, 2019; Giovanni, 2005). While populism is intensely debated in Europe and North America, there is now growing interest in the phenomenon among many African countries. For instance, citing

M. Mawa (*) Uganda Martyrs University, Nkozi, Uganda S. M. Asiimwe • A. Abaho Nkumba University, Lyamutundwe, Uganda e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 P. Giurlando, D. F. Wajner (eds.), Populist Foreign Policy, Global Foreign Policy Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22773-8_8

199

200 

M. MAWA ET AL.

examples of populist political parties and leaders from South Africa, Kenya, and Zambia, Nyadera and Agwanda (2019) connected the emergency of populism in Africa to failure by political leaders to offer a tangible development agenda to a bourgeoning urban poor population that constitute the largest voting bloc. The above examples however are not unique cases in Africa. Within the East African Community, the actions and styles of leaders such as Yoweri Kaguta Museveni and Paul Kagame of the National Resistance Army (NRA) and the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) of Uganda and Rwanda, respectively, have led the media to label them populists (Giovanni, 2005). With a common history as “liberators” in their respective countries, the two share a populist style; they project themselves as true defenders of “their people” against an “elite” who has betrayed them. While scholars of Europe and North America may lament about populism as a threat to democracy (Müller, 2016), it is not exactly the same in Africa. In Africa, strong personality in leadership is often considered necessary especially while transiting from a chaotic political and military situation to democratization. Populist leaders in Africa have been in most cases glorified as defenders of nationalism, guarantors of peace and stability, and defenders of the territorial integrity of their respective countries. However, it may also be misleading to generalize that there is a single populist approach to foreign policy in Africa or indeed in the world, as certain structural conditions and histories may lead them to act in particular ways (Giovanni, 2005; Nyadera & Agwanda, 2019), as argued by Wajner and Giurlando (2023) in the introductory chapter to this edited volume. This chapter examines in greater depth the phenomenon of populism in the East African countries of Uganda and Rwanda, connecting it to the rich anti-colonial history of populist movements and the post-­independence populist political leaders and their organizations, whose failures gave birth to the new breed of African populist liberation movements and leaders. In so doing, it attempts to answer three fundamental questions: What are the historical political conditions that have led to the rise of populist leaders in Africa? What foreign policy strategies have these populist leaders adopted in the management of their countries? What can we learn from the experience of populism in Uganda and Rwanda? Therefore, the chapter is structured into three main parts: The Contemporary Context of Populism in Africa; Populism in Uganda and Yoweri Museveni’s Populist Foreign Strategies/ Policy; and Populism in Rwanda and Paul Kagame’s Populist Foreign

8  LEADERSHIP, CONTEXT, AND POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN EAST AFRICA… 

201

Strategies/Policy. The chapter concludes with a reflection on the Future of Populism in Africa within the current complex and dynamic conditions of global and regional geopolitics.

The Historical Antecedents of Contemporary Populism in Africa The precursor to the current growing phenomenon of populism in Africa is the anti-colonial movement of the 1950s and 1962 when many African people struggled to free themselves from the bonds of colonial rule. However, this type of populism can be understood differently from the current meaning which connotes radicalism and anti-establishment (Makulilo, 2013). The rise of African leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Julius Nyerere of Tanganyika, Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, and Patrice Lumumba of the Congo, whose popularity grew with the gains of independence, marked a distinctive feature of populism in the African Continent. Yet, the failings of the independence populist leaders quickly gave way to the rise of a “new breed of African Leaders” whose populist domestic and foreign agenda was marked by military revolutionary movements and interventions. The case of Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni and Rwanda’s Paul Kagame explored in this chapter illustrates this breed of populists. Uganda’s Domestic and Foreign Relations Before Museveni The rise of President Museveni, who has now dominated the political scene of Uganda for more than 35 years, can be traced to the country’s colonial and post-colonial history. The British colonial system nurtured a syndrome of dependency and as such, the country became dependent on International Financial Institutions, such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, and some countries in Europe and Asia, for its economic and political survival. But, as a land-locked country, Uganda has tried to maintain good relations with its East African neighbors of Kenya and Tanzania which gives access to the Indian Ocean. This has allowed the country to have relatively stable diplomatic relations with other countries—which were however halted during the Amin regime (Lwanga-Lunyiigo, 1987; Rugumamu & Gbla, 2004). Populism in Uganda can be traced as early as the immediate independence years. In 1963, Obote adopted the non-alignment principle, thereby

202 

M. MAWA ET AL.

strengthening diplomatic relations with both East and Western camps. However, he could not sustain that stance because foreign aid could not come forth if diplomatic and economic relations were not strengthened with the West. Threatened by the declining diplomatic ties with the West, Obote opened relations with African countries of Tanzania and Zambia that were already on the Socialist path. Diplomatic relations were also strengthened with China, North Korea, and the Soviet Union. During the Amin era (1971–1979), Britain regarded Uganda as an ally in the fight against the growing threat of communism in Africa and Uganda in particular. Throughout 1971, Britain remained Uganda’s chief trading partner. But Amin had no clear economic policy—all he wanted was to appease the West by reversing Obote’s socialist ideas. In Africa, while Malawi, Liberia, Ghana, and Zaire as well as Nigeria recognized Amin’s government, Tanzania, Guinea, Somalia, and Sudan refused. The economy slowly collapsed and so did the support from the West. The worst would probably come as the government expelled Asians and most of them had British passports. At this point, bilateral relations with Britain declined, affecting the flow of aid to Uganda. Worse, together with its ally Israel, Britain slapped an embargo against Uganda. Amin had also often accused Kenya of supporting Israel in the Entebbe raid and so he threatened to invade Kenya. In response, Kenya declared a trade embargo on Uganda. In his second government from 1980–1985, Obote prepared to restore economic and political relations that had been affected during the Amin regime. Instead of continuing with his socialist ideas, he introduced a mixed economy in which the state, the private sector, and the cooperative movement would play an active role. He also promised to guarantee British investments. In return, the British promised diplomatic support and did indeed take part in many development programs in Uganda. At home, Obote promised to revive relations with neighboring countries (Rugumanu & Gbla, 2004). At a regional level, Obote supported the rebirth of the EAC and worked for continued economic cooperation in the region and committed to the OAU and NAM principles. Internally, however, peace in some parts of the country did not easily come by and made it hard for the country to improve its economic relations. In January 1986, Museveni through military power seized control and ended Obote’s second government and the other short-lived governments in Uganda.

8  LEADERSHIP, CONTEXT, AND POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN EAST AFRICA… 

203

Museveni’s Populism and Uganda’s Domestic Policy Museveni took power in 1986 after his National Resistance Army/ Movement (NRA/M) guerrillas captured Kampala the capital city of Uganda after a five-year war. Since then, and similar to populists elsewhere, he has been considered the only “visionary leader” in his political party NRM and in Uganda. Like all populists do, he has created himself as an outsider in the Ugandan politics when he launched the rebellion in 1981 despite him being a very active member in the pre-1980 politics as a Uganda People’s Congress (UPC) Youth Winger under Obote I government; as well as a Minister in the Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA) government that removed Amin with the help of Tanzania and also participating in the 1980 elections as a presidential candidate of UPM party. He has extensively utilized populist discourses, for example attacking past governments like Obote and Amin’s governments as anti-people and corrupt while portraying himself and his army as disciplined and pro-­ people forces (Giovanni, 2005). During his rebellion, Museveni formed Resistance Councils (RCs) for the restoration of the power of the people. He immediately legislated against the operations of political parties after taking power. He has been organizing elections since 1996 and emerging victorious in every presidential election. He has also been a chairman of his party, the NRM, since it was formed in 1996 when the Movement System became NRM party. Museveni’s populism was noted earlier on when his regime launched the Ten Point Program in which the economic and political priorities were outlined as a pro-people strategy which was developed during the “liberation” struggle. They embraced a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist approach in the economy while openly condemning neo-colonial economic relations. For some time, they deliberately refused to cooperate with Western financial institutions and blamed them for draining the Ugandan economy (The ten-point program, 2022). Portraying himself as a revolutionary, relations were established with Samora Machel of Mozambique, Sankara of Burkina Faso, Jerry Rawlings of Ghana, and Mengistu of Ethiopia, as well as Gadaffi of Libya—all Marxist-oriented leaders. But if the economy was to be revamped, he realized he needed the imperialists he had cursed. He therefore dropped his socialist rhetoric and established ties with the West (Giovanni, 2005). Using the Revolutionarism mantra, he justifies himself as the only vision holder for his Party and the embodiment of Uganda as a whole. He is

204 

M. MAWA ET AL.

quoted to have said that his bush war was successful because of the existence of a revolutionary leadership able to do two things: articulate how much better the future will be when the revolutionary forces win and convince the people by advocacy and actions that it is possible to triumph (Museveni, 2022). As a revolutionary in power, he rebukes those who ask him about retirement—after all, revolutionary populists don’t retire; they pursue their vision for the country until they achieve it. For instance, in an interview with the BBC, he expressed his unreadiness to leave power because he had an unfinished job (BBC, February 17, 2016). His revolutionary populism has led to authoritarian tactics, as demonstrated by his unwillingness to be removed through the ballot. Indeed, Museveni has been an active participant in all the elections organized since 1996 to present. Contrary to campaigns on effecting radical transformations for the betterment of the people, results have been by and large a failure and responsible for the emergence of economic and leadership crises (Makulilo, 2013). Museveni has also lived to the known tenet of populism which is manifested in “Saviorism/messianism.” His character and talk for the entire period of his rule has been of a savior of the country and the only guarantor of security, stability, and prosperity of Uganda. He has advanced State security at the expense of freedom to the extent that during his rule legislation that limits freedoms has been entertained even by the Judiciary that seem not ready to provide the check and balance to the executive. Consistent with populists’ tendency to interpret the world in a Manichean manner, dissidents are seen as enemies contradicting a messiah and are treated as such. It has been stated in the BTI Transformation Index (2022) that in Uganda the Institutions of State security and the ruling party have become so intertwined that the separation of powers looks suspended. This can be attributed to the strong personality character of Museveni who, as already observed above, has arrogated to himself the position of a single vision bearer for the country. In the same BTI report, it is said that Uganda’s constitution provides for institutional differentiation of state organs; however, these are often overstepped, usually by the President while undermining separation of powers. Museveni’s activities also resonate well with the concept of “People-­ powerism.” Populists ride on the mantra of returning power to the people, who were previously alienated from political processes—but at the expense of institutions that would offer an effective check on presidential power. Museveni rode on this kind of populism when he levied a war against the

8  LEADERSHIP, CONTEXT, AND POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN EAST AFRICA… 

205

Obote II government and instituted direct democracy from the bottom up through what he called Resistance Councils (RCs)—now Local Councils (LCs). With direct democracy, he sidelined and banned political parties for 20 years since 1986. Even when he reluctantly opened the political space for parties, the activities of opposition political parties were severely restricted and deliberately weakened by the regime. State institutions have been emasculated to the extent that they almost always find themselves falling in line with what Museveni wants. The few times institutions such as the judiciary have contradicted him and ruled against him, Museveni has not been shied to tell them he would use political and popular means (referenda) to sort them out. Museveni’s People-powerism has made him despise institutions that guarantee checks on him (Atuhaire, BBC News, 2021). Museveni’s Populist Foreign Policy It has been observed by many scholars, captured in the introduction to this volume, that regimes design foreign policies that are reflective of the ideological bent of a leader, and domestic political dynamics and calculi. Because of these predicates, or others like them, Uganda’s foreign policies under Milton Obote were not identical to those of Idi Amin, and Museveni’s are not identical to those of Milton Obote nor Idi Amin’s. However, it is also true that foreign policies are predicated on a state’s national interests (i.e., the security of state and its people, as well as the protection of its natural endowments, wealth, and civilization). This subsection discusses the individual foreign actions of Museveni that project him as a populist leader. Similar to the regional integration efforts of populists in Latin America (see Chap. 6), Museveni has expressed a Pan-Africanist foreign policy since rising to power. He has emphasized that Uganda’s foreign policy should be outward-looking to assist other African “brothers” who might need help. Contemporaneously, Museveni has been portrayed as a warmonger. Since 1986, Uganda has been a staging ground for regional military interventions in countries as far as Liberia, Somalia, and the Central African Republic. Due to these interventions and his political work in Uganda especially in the 1990s, Museveni gained a label of the new breed of post-Cold War African statesman (Centre for Policy Analysis, 2022). It is evident that Museveni has also generated controversy when supporting rebels in other African countries. It is on record that he backed

206 

M. MAWA ET AL.

Laurent Kabila, who removed Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire, known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1997. The accusation was that Mobutu’s Zaire harbored dangerous elements that would come and destabilize the security of Uganda. Indeed, this was proved by the attack of Kichwamba Technical College near the Uganda DRC border by the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) that moved from the DRC. It is also claimed that Museveni was behind the removal of the Habyarimana government in Rwanda by supporting the Tutsi exiles some of whom (including President Paul Kagame of Rwanda) had participated in the NRM guerrilla war in Uganda from 1980 to 1986 and were part of the NRA army after the capture of Kampala. Likewise, his efforts were cited in supporting a group, headed by one of his former schoolmates John Garanga, battling the Islamic fundamentalist rulers of Sudan. Museveni justified his support of rebels by stating that his goal was to achieve regional integration in both politics and economics and that the downfall of corrupt regimes was necessary to bring about such a union. He has also been praised for his participation in the peace enforcement in Somalia by contributing troops to the African Union’s force (The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, 2022). There are important factors which constrain PFP in the case of Uganda. For instance, location: as a landlocked country that needs to cooperate for international trade and commerce, and second as a country that exists in a tumultuous region with which it needs mutual security and trade. The military instrument cannot be dismissed in the implementation of a foreign policy, but also it can only go as far as contributing to the achievement of foreign policy goals in tandem with other instruments in the toolbox of a state. These can be briefly explained below. Friction between Uganda and Kenya has been inevitable regardless of who is in power, experiencing a roller-coaster ride in their relations swinging between friendship and hostility from 1970 onward resulting in both countries mobilizing their troops in July 1976 and December 1987 (Okoth, 1992) under Amin and Museveni, respectively. Despite the frictions, the two countries have maintained a peaceful policy regardless of whether it is Jomo Kenyatta and Arap Moi, Mwai Kibaki, Uhuru Kenyatta in Kenya against Obote I&II, Amin or Museveni in Uganda. Partly, this may be explained by Uganda’s reliance on the Kenyan ports of Mombasa for her international trade. The two countries have also been calculative enough to avoid escalation into a direct confrontation when there have

8  LEADERSHIP, CONTEXT, AND POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN EAST AFRICA… 

207

been disputes confirming that the duo’s foreign policy has been dictated by geopolitics. The Museveni regime’s Sudan Policy is a clear example of how geography and the security interest blended to shape the foreign policy of Uganda under Museveni. In the late 1980s, while Uganda still shared a border with Sudan to the north, Museveni had to deal with the security headache visited upon him by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). Uganda’s Sudan policy was one of hostility and military intervention, albeit indirectly through arming, training, and providing sanctuary to the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA). This could have given an opportunity to Museveni to project his populist “savior of the nation” mantra, but one may not disregard the national security factor that existed. Uganda’s recent military intervention in South Sudan when the crisis erupted on the 15th of December 2013 is worth noting. Like in the case of the Sudan policy, Uganda’s DRC policy has not been static. It has changed based on the security climate to a larger degree and on geography. It is important to remember that Uganda’s military action during the war was not against the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) which were using the Congolese territory to launch attacks against Uganda (Venugopala, 2016), but against the Congolese army. The aim was to replace the government of Mobutu, which had failed to address the security needs of Uganda since the ADF freely carried out attacks on Uganda from the Congolese territory. Uganda’s border with the DRC is very porous and hard to guard, which made it easy for the ADF to launch attacks inside Uganda. However, in recent times, Uganda’s DRC policy has shifted from conflict to economics, and in the pursuit of that, the Museveni government has planned to spend 200 billion Uganda shillings on constructing roads in Eastern Congo to facilitate cross-border trade between Uganda and the DRC (Ojambo, 2020). One must also look at Uganda’s Rwanda Policy which has been a blend of domestic political considerations, ideological drives, and security interests. The role of the Museveni administration in the 1990–1994 Rwanda Civil war which was noted earlier illustrates this point. In the period between 1990 and 1994, Museveni supported the RPF against the government in Rwanda. He owed them a debt. They were comrades in arms during Museveni’s struggle against Amin, Obote, and Okello Lutwa (Kuperman, 2003; Kamukama, 1993; Watson, 1991). Today and in the recent past, Uganda’s relations with Rwanda can be described as uneasy to

208 

M. MAWA ET AL.

the extent that the common border between the two countries had to be closed for over one year. Following the above analysis of Uganda’s populist leader, we can conclude that foreign policy in Africa is often motivated by regime survival, and thus highly personalized, politicized, and centralized, patterns consistent with some expectations outline in the PFP literature. However, other factors cannot be neglected like the geographical location of a country, national security considerations, and others. Whereas it is a fact that Museveni shot his way to power by the gun and the bullet, his foreign policies toward Uganda’s neighbors have not been uniform and consistent. While some have been militaristic and aggressive in their international interactions, others have been friendly and cooperative, depending mainly on whether the neighbor provided conditions of peace or hostility, and on the calculus of whether he had a comparative military edge that would guarantee the achievement of his foreign policy goals and survival for his government.

Paul Kagame and Rwanda’s Populist Foreign Strategies/Policy It is now well acknowledged that foreign policy is an understudied subject of post-genocide Rwanda, and much less studied is Rwanda’s populist foreign policy. Rwanda is an interesting case study of African foreign policy because of its ability to combine hard (military) and soft (socio-­ economic performance and international perception) power to attain domestic and global interests despite the deep structural challenges (Handy, 2021). Herein, an account of populism in Rwanda is given building on the different aspects of populist foreign policy—as an ideology, a strategy, style, and practice, as discussed in the introductory chapter. While narrating how President Kagame has risen as a populist leader, the discussion does not shy away from crediting his good deeds. But first is a tale of how the genocide aided in the creation of a populist leader in Africa. The Catastrophic Genocide and the Creation of a Populist Leader In 2015, 95% of the voters in Rwanda agreed to a Constitutional reform that allowed the sitting president to reign over the country at least until 2034 (BBC, 2017; Bouleanu, 2018). President Kagame intimated that he

8  LEADERSHIP, CONTEXT, AND POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN EAST AFRICA… 

209

disliked eternal leadership, but the people had given the verdict. As Rwandans moved to fulfill a democratic principle, they gave a direct ticket to a political messiah to consolidate authority (BTI, 2022). President Kagame’s would say that he deserves this political reward for his historical sacrifice and steady leadership. In 1962, following the departure of the colonial master and subsequently, the transfer of power into a Hutu-­ controlled political environment, President Kagame became one of the thousands of Tutsis that fled the country into adjacent neighbors. Born in 1957 in Southern Rwanda and raised in refugee communities of neighboring Uganda, he witnessed oppression meted upon him and his people at a tender age (Ruhumuliza, 2019; Dizolele, 2021; Wrong, 2021). As refugees, Tutsis suffered rejection by Obote, experienced massacres by Idi Amin’s military in 1971–1979 and became accustomed to insecurity while sharpening their instincts to vigilance. It was in this environment that Kagame would rise. Organized under the Rwanda Alliance for National Unity (RANU), they responded to the massacres by joining the host country’s rebel movements and learnt military skills. Under the National Resistance Movement (NRM), Kagame and others rose to the ranks where they exploited training, equipment, and connections to transition from a helpless situation to one to be reckoned with (Mohamed, 2020). Following the untimely death of the top Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) leadership, he returned from the United States, capitalized on the Ugandan, Tanzanian, and American military tactics (Epstein, 2017; Marara, 2017) and with backing from Uganda (Epstein, 2017) successfully carried on the October 1, 1990, liberation war (Tasamba, 2021). With a disciplined military force, he was able to launch successful military attacks that brought to an end in July 1994 a 3-month genocide that had left 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus dead. His leadership and role in ending the genocide automatically put him at the top of a devastated nation amid accusations of having exacerbated the genocide with his RPF invasion. Kagame has remained a self-styled, personalistic leader (Rayarikar, 2017) committed to restoring Rwanda’s past glory and challenged any one’s moral right to level accusations against him or Rwanda (Epstein, 2017). In the new administration of President Bizimungu, Kagame enjoyed considerable powers—serving dually as Vice president and Minister of Defense (Cascais, 2020). Having emerged in a hopeless political environment, with many of the natives displaced and traumatized and some of the perpetrators fighting for a return to the political table, the RPF fought to

210 

M. MAWA ET AL.

restore the country’s social and economic fabric and consolidate political legitimacy. Focusing on national rather than ethnic identities to unify the country, Kagame has rhetorically made clear Rwanda’s common interest: “the common interests we have for a better future of this country are more important than any other interests, especially such interests as of different groups….and we say every Rwandan has the same opportunity to life, to the resources of this country, as the other” (Shiffman, 2008). His authority has stood unchallenged by anyone within the party and those against him were asked to leave (Rayarikar, 2017). The tragic events of the genocide and the relegation of Rwanda to a failed state (Ruhumuliza, 2019) allowed Kagame to take a new approach to governance—trimming the institutions of democracy to consolidate power into his own hands while claiming it is necessary to fight the corrupt international elite. During the 2012 National Dialogue, for instance, Kagame rallied Rwandans against allegedly threatening external actors saying; in the morning, they teach us about human rights, but they come back in the evening to take way your rights and you to do as they say (Behuria, 2016, p. 12). To his favor, the international community’s open acknowledgment of doing so little to end the genocide gave him an upper hand in dealing with Washington and the international community. For instance, in 1998, President Clinton admitted: we did not act quickly enough after the killing began (Gourevitch, 1998; Rayarikar, 2017). Many years later, the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon lamented: the organization is still ashamed of its conduct during the genocide (Durmaz, 2019). Interestingly, many, including some of his opponents, hold that if not for Kagame’s visionary leadership, Rwanda would not have experienced many recent achievements (Rayarikar, 2017; Ruhumuliza, 2019; David, 2012). His character has been an important factor in Rwanda—commanding loyalty from the military and consistently steering the country toward ethnic integration and economic prosperity. For President Kagame, a combination of despair, trauma, and hopelessness among the survivors and a return to pre-colonial Rwandan values have combined to guarantee his ability to take the requisite populist actions, such as punishing and disciplining elites. Under President Kagame, Rwanda has for example rewritten its tragic history using a rich cultural heritage in both tangible (natural heritage and Genocide memorialization) and intangible (such as imivugo—poems; folklore) forms (Bolin & Nkusi, 2022). Cultural heritage has served as an instrument of domestic unity and international repositioning using, for

8  LEADERSHIP, CONTEXT, AND POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN EAST AFRICA… 

211

instance, the Heritage Management Institutions (HMIs) for reframing aspects of Rwandan life, such as ethnicity, in positive ways (Bolin & Nkusi, 2022). Internationally, cultural heritage functions as a soft power approach in interstate relations—through heritage diplomacy such as mobilization of funds for heritage projects or heritage conservation (Bolin, 2021). For instance, using cultural heritage, the American Cultural Preservationists extended through the Department of State a grant focused on architectural conservation and training in conservation (Bolin, 2019). In the tourism sector, cultural heritage takes an international face with great potential for national economic development (Bolin & Nkusi, 2022). Away from the genocide, the country’s foreign policy has been shaped by its dependence on foreign aid: Agaciro and use of military diplomacy for increased prestige. The next section discusses these factors while highlighting the international and national factors that have favored Kagame’s rise as a populist leader. Aid Economy and Rwanda’s Populist Foreign Policy Kagame is appreciated for not only changing the lives and chances of most ordinary Rwandans but also presiding over Rwanda as a benevolent and farsighted leader. Strategically combining welfare (for instance, key enterprises are controlled by the state while rural workers and agriculturalists are managed by the state through cooperatives overseen by loyal political cadres (BTI, 2022)) and capitalist economic policies, Rwanda’s economy has steadily grown in comparison with the other East African countries (BTI, 2022; Cascais, 2020). Between 2008 and 2012, the Rwandan government claimed a remarkable economic growth at 8% (Sundaram, 2014). While the international community laments over mismanagement of donor funds in developing countries, Rwanda’s story turned was unique— it restored hope after 50 years of development barrenness in Africa. This performance is linked to Kagame’s strict oversight role in how donor aid is spent to avoid wastage (Rayarikar, 2017). With half of the budget coming from donors, Rwanda has been careful to maintain a flow of foreign assistance from development partners like the United States, Britain, Germany, and the Netherlands. Increased flow of development funds to Rwanda is equally related to the country’s implementation of the liberal economic policies—Liberals hold that a nation’s route to development is through foreign direct investment that in turn influences human employability and reduced government involvement in the market. Rwanda’s commitment to the liberal

212 

M. MAWA ET AL.

economic views is evident with the reception extended to foreign direct investors—the Mara Phone, the first smartphone to be produced in Africa is from Rwanda’s industrial park not far from the Volkswagen plant (Cascais, 2020). The entry of electronic investors in East Africa’s small country confirms a strong political commitment to turn a sad history into a successful one since 2000. Against these developments though, critics charge Rwanda adopted the development strategy of the East Asian countries that exposed the poor to greater economic difficulty (Behuria, 2016). The IMF and World Bank, probably mindful of their alleged role in the genocide (Storey, 2001), have been lenient funders of aid for development in Rwanda (IMF & IDA, 2000). In 2000, Rwanda qualified as a beneficiary of Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) funds worth US $ 810M (IMF, 2020). With backing from the key global financial players, Rwanda has been able to revitalize its economy; Africa’s hilly nation opened its first maize factory, refurbished its national airline, improved its road network, and constructed facilities for air transport (BBC, 2017). These development indicators inform a country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) just as they influence human development characterized by access to employment and resultantly, improved living conditions. Despite these developments, critics charge against the sustainability of a middle-income country due to the deficits in balance of payment, a heavy foreign debt, 40% under-employment of the labor force, and increased inequality between the rich and the poor (BTI, 2022). Notwithstanding, the country’s economic shifts have attracted the international community to Kagame as a visionary leader from Tony Blair; from Bill Clinton, one of the greatest leaders of our time; and Clare Short, such a sweetie (David, 2012). As globalization ushers the world into the Fourth Industrial Revolution (41R) characterized largely by internet use and information revolution, Rwanda has strategically positioned itself in Africa to benefit from the global changes. Portrayed to have the best and cheapest internet infrastructure with many government services online, Rwandans will benefit from increased efficiency, certainty, and security in an environment influenced by information flow for economic growth and job creation (Ndung’u & Signe, 2020). President Kagame’s commitment to an information society is underscored by his presence on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram (BBC, 2017). The Kagame generation is an empowered, ambitious young people that stand freely from the prejudices that animated their parents (Ruhumuliza, 2019). In a continent where most leaders shut down social media platforms to limit the flow of information, Kagame’s love for information technology challenges those that criticize him as politically

8  LEADERSHIP, CONTEXT, AND POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN EAST AFRICA… 

213

intolerant. Yet, love for technological advancements comes with a concerning picture of what a government, determined to hunt down enemies, can do with cyber growth. Access to information is not only an indicator of a country’s development levels but also equally a key measurement aspect of democratic maturity. Kagame’s commitment to an information society contradicts the view that he is an authoritarian leader (The Economist, 2021). Meantime, while the government’s plan to develop the information and communications technology sector is on track, the government runs a military approach to information access through media censorship (Noorlander, 2010). Using Rwanda’s Law Relating to the punishment of the crime of genocide ideology, many journalists have been forced to work in restrictive and abusive environments with many harassed by the military and security elements (Matthaei, 2014). Kagame’s greatest focus on economic development has probably been his anti-corruption war. The RPF considered corruption as a predisposing factor for Rwanda’s genocide, especially for its costs on service delivery that in 1998, in the Kicukiro—II meeting of the RPF, President Kagame threatened to put his boots on and return to the bush to fight against the akazu (Jones & Murray, 2018, p. 41). The country’s zero tolerance to corruption with public officials vulnerable to dismissal at a slight transgression has been one great factor in attracting aid (Redifer et al., 2020). Rwanda’s focus against corruption has been consistent that Transparency International’s Index situated it at 102 in 2008; 89th in 2010; 66th in 2011; and 49th in 2012 (Ankomah, 2013). These efforts against the vice of corruption in Rwanda contrast sharply with neighboring Uganda where among top officials, corruption has been permitted to reinforce loyalty to the political leadership (Carbone, 2005). Agaciro for Dignity and Self-reliance The concept of Agaciro is recorded to mean dignity, self-respect, and self-­ worth (Mwambari, 2021; Behuria, 2016). In Rwanda, Agaciro has been used for several things: project a country’s development strategy; mobilize Rwandans both at home and in the diaspora for self-reliance; maintain political stability (Behuria, 2016) and mobilize groups for memory purposes (Mwambari, 2021). Externally, Agaciro not only is connected to Rwanda’s trade policy but also aids the government in meeting the indigenous needs and expectations (Bolin, 2021). In 2018, Rwanda, relying on the principle of dignity banned the importation of used clothing and footwear from the United States (Dahir & Kazeem, 2018). Like President

214 

M. MAWA ET AL.

Trump’s America First approach during his time, Kagame chose to prioritize Rwandans’ interests. Unlike his counterparts from Uganda that did not phase-in-a ban and Kenya that backtracked on the 2016 decision to ban the same, Rwanda did not heed to American threats to withdraw the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) benefits. Agaciro has been used to re-activate the memories of Rwandans as a vulnerable nation. Through it, the government was able in 2012 to establish the Agaciro Development Fund (Handy, 2021; Behuria, 2016) following years of economic hardship after government had embraced neo-liberal economic policies and later, international community’s withdrawal of foreign aid (Behuria, 2016). In response to the aid withdrawal, one of RPF members retorted; we were worried but in many ways, we were prepared….we cannot rely on the goodwill of donors forever (Behuria, 2016, p. 7). Basing on Agaciro principle of individual dignity, Rwandans were mobilized to take responsibility over their situations rather than rely on the government to support them. The creation of the fund was to instill in the population a sense of ownership, change of mindset of dependency and rebuilding of Rwandans’ dignity (Behuria, 2016; Mwambari, 2021). Although there are arguments that those who contributed to the fund may have done so out of forced patriotism (most of the contributors were public servants), within a period after its establishment, a tune of 23.7b RwF had been realized (Behuria, 2016). The agaciro principle also helps drive the government to pursue the principle of sovereignty. President Kagame has often made mention of his commitment to defending Rwanda against incursions—protecting its national territorial interests and human security while resisting pressures to implement democratic governance and civil rights. In his rule, President Kagame has shaped Rwanda’s position in international politics not as a passive participant but actively involved—calling his people to be self-­ reliant while ensuring the principle of self-determination. Agaciro has also  significantly influenced this nation-building and nation-positioning (Bolin, 2021). Domestic and Global Security Interests The stability witnessed in Rwanda is largely attributed to the President’s unquestionable authority over internal security and foreign relations (Rayarikar, 2017). The country’s internal peace is rooted in being an

8  LEADERSHIP, CONTEXT, AND POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN EAST AFRICA… 

215

active participant in neighboring countries’ security situations. In comparison with the neighboring country of DRC where territories are often ungoverned or rebels take advantage of absence of rule of law and lack of government presence, Rwanda has no rebel groups based therein while incidents of violence are only a handful (BTI, 2022). In 2021, in praise of Kagame’s public administration, Ashimwe wrote, your journey of national liberation shared by vision, sacrifice and resilience has been inspiring to follow (Ashimwe, 2021). Rwanda has proactively used its involvement in multi-lateral and bilateral relations to shape its global image. It has strategically positioned itself as a continental security provider by sending troops to Mozambique, South Sudan, Darfur, and Central African Republic. This troop contribution speaks volumes about Rwanda’s position at the UN Security Council in 2013–2014 where borrowing from the genocide experience pushed for humanitarian intervention in conflict-stricken countries. Although these deployments may be seen by critics as Rwanda’s intent to become Africa’s new police state, it may be necessary to appreciate them in light of Rwanda’s wider foreign policy approach; political and economic strategies; military professionalism; political stability and brand Rwanda (Handy, 2021). The deployments confirm Kagame’s military potential to stretch beyond immediate neighbors and the country’s diplomatic capacity to broker deals with other African countries. For instance, the deployment in CAR came after a 2019 military cooperation agreement signed between Kigali and Bangui (Handy, 2021). Rwanda has a leader whom the global community has since regarded as competent and a better manager of security and public affairs compared to his African counterparts. Thus, as countries such as Uganda suffer scrutiny for deployment into countries like South Sudan, Rwanda is able to boost its international image and rely on military diplomacy as a tool to boost its project: brand Rwanda. Similar to Museveni and to populists in Latin America that mostly focused on creating transnational solidarities for legitimacy purposes (Wajner, 2021), Kagame focused on regional integration. The Pan-­ Africanist became the first African leader to announce that from 2013 January, Africans would get a visa on arrival (Ankomah, 2013). This permission to Africans to move on the continent is key to deepening intra-­ African trade while brightening the prospects for regional integration based on the principles of mutual respect and beneficial cooperation

216 

M. MAWA ET AL.

(Tasamba, 2021). Such efforts hide the destabilization created in neighboring DRC in the pursuit of genocidaires and the resultant insecurity in the Great Lakes Region of Africa. Rwanda’s military involvement in the DRC forced the donor community led by the United States to halt relations in 2013 on suspicion of Rwanda’s support to M23, a rebel group condemned for its use of children as soldiers (Smith, 2013; Sundaram, 2014). The above notwithstanding, when tasked with reforming the African Union, Rwanda considered results-delivery as critical for continental prosperity (BBC, 2017). During his Chairmanship of the African Union, the game-changing leader pushed for Continental Free Trade Areas (CFTA) that was signed in Kigali. Kagame has consistently called on African countries to avoid foreign entanglements by practicing the philosophy of African Solutions to African Problems (Soyinka, 2014). Rwanda has also been able to use its diplomatic stature to lobby for representation in international organizations—for instance, former Minister Louise Mushikiwabo and former National Bank of Rwanda Deputy Governor were elected to the positions of secretary-general of the Francophonie and the African Union Commission chair, respectively (Handy, 2021). Rwanda’s position on the international scene is unique—its security and economic strategies offer new perspectives, especially on how small-­ size countries can use their tangible and intangible assets to influence international relations for their benefit. President Kagame, despite his authoritarian and populist tendencies, is credited for turning the country’s appalling history into an admired contemporary tale with backing from many members of the international community. As the country still navigates a traumatic political past, those that have known him as the only president may not comprehend how Rwanda would be without him. If prevention of a return of an ugly past coupled with service provision to the electorates informs a leader’s hold to power, then President Kagame may have many years longer as a populist leader in Africa.

The Future of Populism in Africa: Drawing Conclusions from East Africa The foregoing analysis of the two populist leaders in East Africa has shown that populism as a political discourse and foreign policy strategy has taken firm roots in Africa. The common denominator of the two populist leaders is their military rise to power due to the political and historical crises in the two countries. Portraying themselves as visionary revolutionists, the two

8  LEADERSHIP, CONTEXT, AND POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN EAST AFRICA… 

217

have been considered messiahs that turned their ruined nations into peaceful and prosperous ones. Although colonial history has had some influence in the geopolitical realities of their countries, the post-colonial experiences have largely shaped their rise to political power. Moreover, the strategic actions and paths taken by both leaders, particularly their claims to embody the ordinary or true people against the corrupt elite, have clearly distinguished them as populist leaders in their own countries and in Africa. President Museveni came to power with the promise to make a fundamental change in the politics and leadership of Uganda. He capitalized on the ruins of civil wars and collapsed constitutional order to rebuild a new Uganda. Similarly, President Kagame capitalized on a nasty genocide to preach forgiveness, reconciliation, unity, post-genocide reconstruction, and development through abolishing the ethnic-based identities. Such strategies have enabled both leaders and indeed many leaders in Africa to be considered irreplaceable despite the accusations of human rights violations and unfriendly interventionist policies in neighboring countries. Yet, the two have been keen enough to break from Africa’s nationalist leaders’ insights such as Nkrumah, Kaunda, or even Nyerere. Similar to populists in Latin America, Museveni and Kagame have promoted regional integration via their Pan-African initiatives, with the goal of providing regional autonomy in relation to external powers while achieving solutions to continental challenges.

References Ankomah, B. (2013, March 19). Rwanda: A Star in Fighting Corruption. Retrieved April 22, 2022, from https://newafricanmagazine.com/3616/ Ashimwe, E. (2021, July 4). Rwanda: Kagame to Unveil Transformational Projects as Rwanda Marks Liberation Day. Retrieved May 12, 2022. Atuhaire, P., BBC News, Kampala. (2021). Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni: How an Ex-rebel Has Stayed in Power for 35 Years. BBC. (2017, August 3). Rwanda’s Paul Kagame—Visionary or Tyrant? Retrieved April 16, 2022, from https://www.bbc.com/news/10479882 Behuria, P. (2016). Countering Threats, Stabilizing Politics and Selling Hope: Examining the Agaciro Concept as a Response to a Critical Juncture in Rwanda. Journal of East African Studies, 10(3), 434–451. Bolin, A. (2019, August 6). Governing Memory and Cultural Heritage After Conflict in Rwanda. Centre for Public Authority and International Development, LSE.  Retrieved April 2022, from https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/ 2019/08/06/governance-­memory-­cultural-­heritage-­conflict-­r wanda/

218 

M. MAWA ET AL.

Bolin, A. (2021). The Strategic Internationalism of Rwandan Heritage. Journal of East African Studies, 15(4), 1–20. Bolin, A., & Nkusi, D. (2022). Rwandan Solutions to Rwandan Problems: Heritage and Community Engagement in Nyanza District, Rwanda. Journal of Social Archeology, 22(1), 3–25. Bouleanu, A. (2018, June 18). Analysis: Rwanda’s Paul Kagame Slides Towards Dictatorship. Retrieved April 22, 2022, from https://deeply.thenewhumanitarian.org/peacebuilding/ar ticles/2018/06/18/analysis-­r wandas-­ paul-­kagame-­slides-­towards-­dictatorship BTI. (2022). Rwanda Country Report 2022. Retrieved April 17, 2022, from https://bti-­project.org/en/reports/country-­report/RWA Carbone, G. (2005). ‘Populism’ Visits Africa: The Case of Yoweri Museveni and No-Party Democracy in Uganda. LSE. Retrieved from https://www.files.ethz. ch/isn/57583/wp73.pdf Cascais, A. (2020, April 17). 20 years Under Rwanda’s ‘Benevolent Dictator’ Paul Kagame. Retrieved April 2, 2022, from https://www.dw.com/ en/20-­years-­under-­r wandas-­benevolent-­dictator-­paul-­kagame/a-­53159121 Centre for Policy Analysis. (2022). Deciphering Africa’s Sphinx: The Foreign Policy of Yoweri Kaguta Museveni. Retrieved April 13, 2022, from https:// c e p a . o r. u g / d e c i p h e r i n g -­a f r i c a s -­s p h i n x -­t h e -­f o r e i g n -­p o l i c y -­o f -­ yoweri-­kaguta-­museveni/ Dahir, A.  L., & Kazeem, Y. (2018, April 05). Trump’s Trade War Includes Punishing Africans for Refusing Second Hand American Clothes. Retrieved May 21, 2022, from https://qz.com/africa/1245015/trump-­trade-­war-­us-­ suspends-­r wanda-­agoa-­eligibility-­over-­secondhand-­clothes-­ban/ David, S. (2012, October 10). Paul Kagame’s Rwanda: African Success Story or Authoritarian State. Retrieved April 21, 2022, from https://www.theguardian. com/world/2012/oct/10/paul-­kagame-­r wanda-­success-­authoritarian Dizolele, M. P. (2021, May 29). The Dark Side of Rwanda’s Rebirth. Retrieved May 22, 2021, from https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/05/29/the-­dark-­ side-­of-­r wandas-­rebirth/ Durmaz, M. (2019, April 5). It’s Time to Accept: The West Failed Rwanda During Genocide. Retrieved April 22, 2022, from https://www.trtworld.com/opinion/it-­s-­time-­to-­accept-­the-­west-­failed-­r wanda-­during-­genocide-­25593 Epstein, C.  H. (2017, September 12). America’s Secret Role in the Rwandan Genocide. Retrieved May 12, 2022, from https://www.theguardian.com/ news/2017/sep/12/americas-­secret-­role-­in-­the-­r wandan-­genocide Giovanni, C. (2005). Crisis States Research Centre ‘Populism’ Visits Africa: The Case of Yoweri Museveni and No-Party Democracy in Uganda, Working Papers Series no.1 ISSN 1740-5815. Gourevitch, P. (1998). We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda. The New York Times.

8  LEADERSHIP, CONTEXT, AND POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN EAST AFRICA… 

219

Handy, P. S. (2021, September 27). Rwanda’s Foreign Policy Objectives Appear Focused on Economic Development rather than Africa Policing. Retrieved May 21, 2022, from https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-­09-­27-­ rwandas-­foreign-­policy-­objectives-­appear-­focused-­on-­economic-­development-­ rather-­than-­africa-­policing/ IMF. (2020, December 22). Rwanda to Receive US$ 810M in Debt Service Relief: The IMF and World Bank Support Debt Relief for Rwanda Under the Enhanced HIPC Initiative. Retrieved May 17, 2022, from https://www.imf. org/en/News/Articles/2015/09/14/01/49/pr0084 IMF, & IDA. (2000). Rwanda: Decision Point Document for the Enhanced Initiative for Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC). Retrieved May 17, 2022, from https://www.imf.org/external/np/hipc/2000/rwa/rwadp.pdf Jones, W., & Murray, S. (2018, April). Consolidating Peace and Legitimacy in Rwanda. Retrieved May 27, 2022, from https://www.theigc.org/wp-­content/ uploads/2018/04/Rwanda-­report.pdf Kamukama, D. (1993). Rwanda Conflict: Its Roots and Regional Implications. Fountain Publishers. Kuperman, A. J. (2003). Explaining the Ultimate Escalation in Rwanda: How and Why Tutsi Rebels Provoked a Retaliatory Genocide. The American Political Science Association Conference. : The American Political Science Association. Lwanga-Lunyiigo, S. (1987). The Colonial Roots of Internal Conflict in Uganda. International Seminar on Internal Conflict, Paper 17. Kampala: Makerere Institute of Social Research. Makulilo, A.  B. (2013). When “Populists” become Unpopular”: The Case of Three Presidents in Africa. The African Review: A Journal of African Politics, Development and International Affairs, 40(1). Retrieved April 12, 2022, from https://www.jstor.org/stable/45342087 Marara, N. (2017). Behind the Presidential Curtain: Inside Out of Real Paul Kagame from his Body Guard. Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. Matthaei, K. (2014, December 9). Rwanda: Censorship or Self-Censorship? Retrieved May 30, 2022, from https://www.dw.com/en/rwanda-­ censorship-­or-­self-­censorship/a-­18118956 Mohamed, H. (2020, February 20). Will Kagame and Museveni Resolve Their Dispute? Retrieved May 2022, from https://www.aljazeera.com/ news/2020/2/20/will-­kagame-­and-­museveni-­resolve-­their-­dispute Mudde, C., & Kaltwasser, C. R. (2017). Populism: A Very Short Introduction. Retrieved April 10, 2022, from https://www.veryshortintroductions.com/ view/10.1093/actrade/9780190234874.001.0001/actrade-­9780190234874-­ chapter-­4 Müller, J.  W. (2016). What is Populism?. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Museveni. (2022). The Strategy of Protracted People’s War.

220 

M. MAWA ET AL.

Mwambari, D. (2021). Agaciro, Vernacular Memory, and the Politics of Memory in Post-Genocide Rwanda. African Affairs, 120(481), 611–628. Ndung’u, N., & Signe, L. (2020). Capturing the Fourth Industrial Revolution: A regional and National Agenda. Retrieved May 13, 2022, from https://www. brookings.edu/wp-­c ontent/uploads/2020/01/ForesightAfrica2020_ Chapter5_20200110.pdf Noorlander, P. (2010, August 9). How Paul Kagame Has Used the Law to Muzzle Rwanda’s Media. Retrieved May 30, 2022, from https://www.theguardian. com/law/2010/aug/09/rwanda-­paul-­kagame-­media-­censorship Nyadera, I. N. & Agwanda, B. (2019, August), The Emergence and Evolution of Populism in Sub-Saharan Africa: Party Politics and Personalities, International Journal of Political Studies, 5(2). e-ISSN: 2149-8539 http://www. politikarastirmalar.org/, https://dergipark.org.tr/en/download/article-­file/ 800599 Ojambo, F. (2020, October 20). Uganda Submits Funding Plan to Build Roads in Eastern Congo. Retrieved May 25, 2021, from https://www.bloomberg. com/news/articles/2020-­10-­20/uganda-­submits-­funding-­plan-­to-­build-­ roads-­in-­eastern-­congo Okoth, G.  P. (1992). Intermittent Tensions in Uganda-Relations: Historical Perspectives. Transafrican Journal of History, 21, 69–92. Rayarikar, C. (2017). Rwanda: Development towards Authoritarianism? Senior Theses. Redifer, L., Alper, E., Meads, N., Gursoy, T., Newiak, M., Thomas, A., & Kwalingana, S. (2020). The Development Path Less Travelled: The Experience of Rwanda. IMF. Rugumanu, S., & Gbla, O. (2004). Studies in Reconstruction and Capacity Building in Post-Conflict Countries in Africa: Some Lessons of Experience from Uganda. Harare, African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF). Ruhumuliza, G. N. (2019, October 21). Kagame’s Rwanda is Still Africa’s Most Inspiring Success Story. Retrieved April 20, 2022, from https://www.aljazeera. com/opinions/2019/10/21/kagames-­r wanda-­i s-­s till-­a fricas-­m ost­inspiring-­success-­story Shiffman, K. (2008). From Child Refugee to Rwanda’s Reconciliation President. Retrieved May 12, 2022, from https://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/ africa/11/13/sbm.rwanda.kagame/index.html Smith, D. (2013, October 4). US Blocks Military Aid to Rwanda over Alleged Backing of M23 Child Soldiers. Retrieved April 02, 2022, from https://www. theguardian.com/global-­d evelopment/2013/oct/04/us-­m ilitar y-­a id-­ rwanda-­m23-­child-­soldiers Soyinka, A. (2014, April 4). 20 Years On, Rwanda Exhausts Its Genocide Credit with Donors. Retrieved May 12, 2022.

8  LEADERSHIP, CONTEXT, AND POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN EAST AFRICA… 

221

Sundaram, A. (2014, April). Rwanda: The Darling Tyrant. Retrieved April 02, 2022, from https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/02/rwanda-­ paul-­kagame-­americas-­darling-­tyrant-­103963/ Tasamba, J. (2021, July 4). Rwanda Marks 27th Liberation Day. Retrieved May 12, 2022, from https://www.aa.com.tr/en/africa/rwanda-­marks-­27th-­ liberation-­day/2294221 The Economist. (2021, September 27). How Does Paul Kagame, Rwanda’s President Get Away with It? Retrieved May 17, 2022, from https://www. economist.com/the-­e conomist-­e xplains/2021/09/27/how-­d oes-­p aul-­ kagame-­r wandas-­president-­get-­away-­with-­it The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica. (2022). Retrieved April 13, 2022, from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Yoweri-­Kaguta-­Museveni The ten-point program. (2022). Retrieved April 10, 2022, from http://countrystudies.us/uganda/54.htm Venugopala, H. (2016). Understanding the Conflict in Congo. Observer Research Foundation (ORF). Issue Brief No. 139. Wajner, D. F. (2021). Exploring the Foreign Policies of Populist Governments: (Latin) America First. Journal of International Relations and Development, 24, 651–680. Wajner, D. F., & Giurlando, P. (2023). Introduction to Populist Foreign Policy (PFP). In P. Giurlando & D. Wajner (Eds.), Populist Foreign Policy: Regional Perspectives of Populism in the International Scene. Palgrave. Watson, C. (1991). Exile from Rwanda: Background to an Invasion. U.S. Committee for Refugees. Wrong, M. (2021). Do Not Disturb: The Story of a Political Murder and an African Regime Gone Bad. Public Affairs.

CHAPTER 9

Populist Foreign Policy in Asia Sandra Destradi, Vihang Jumle, and Alyssa Santiago

Introduction The global rise of populism of the 2000s was visible in practically all world regions, including Asia (Plagemann & Ufen, 2017).1 There, populism manifested itself in different forms, from the early formation of populist governments in countries like Thailand under Thaksin Shinawatra (2001–2006) (Phongpaichit & Baker, 2008) to the spread of populist opposition movements like the Islamist-populist movement challenging 1  This contribution emerged as part of the project ‘Populism and Foreign Policy’. Funding by the German Research Foundation (grants DE 1918/3-1 and PL 797/3-1) is gratefully acknowledged. See also https://pop-fp.populism-internationalrelations.com/.

S. Destradi (*) • A. Santiago University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]­freiburg.de V. Jumle Hertie School, Berlin, Germany © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 P. Giurlando, D. F. Wajner (eds.), Populist Foreign Policy, Global Foreign Policy Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22773-8_9

223

224 

S. DESTRADI ET AL.

the Jokowi government in Indonesia (Mietzner, 2018). This chapter will focus on populist governments, and particularly on two prominent cases of populists in power: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has been in power in India from 2014 until the time of this writing (2022), and President Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, who served for one term in the years 2016–2022. Analyzing the cases of India and the Philippines in comparative perspective is interesting for a number of reasons. Both countries are sizeable regional actors in Asia and important players in their respective subregions: India is clearly the ‘regional power’ in South Asia, even though it faces a nuclear-armed rival at its borders constantly challenging its regional hegemony (Destradi, 2012); the Philippines is an important actor in Southeast Asia as a founding member and an important player in the ASEAN (Kumar, 2018). It is also one of the actors involved in the South China Sea territorial disputes. Indeed, both India and the Philippines have border disputes with China, which have led to a difficult relationship between each of them and China over the past years. In the case of India, border disputes around contested areas along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and competition over spheres of influence in South and Southeast Asia have led to a marked deterioration of bilateral relations since the 2000s. These relations had improved under the non-populist government of Manmohan Singh, which preceded Modi’s, but they worsened again after Modi took office. In the case of the Philippines, disputes have revolved around Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea, leading to several shifts in the Philippines’ foreign policy under the presidency of Duterte. In both India and the Philippines, populist governments came to power replacing previous non-populist governments. In fact, in India populist Prime Minister Modi succeeded the non-populist United Progressive Alliance I and II governments, which were in power between 2004 and 2014, both under the leadership of the Indian National Congress (INC) and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. In the Philippines, populist President Duterte succeeded the non-populist government of Benigno Aquino, who was in power between 2010 and 2016. In line with the overall aims of this edited volume, in this chapter we ask to what extent populism had an impact on foreign policy in the cases of India and the Philippines. To do so, we carry out within-case comparisons of each country’s populist government with the preceding non-populist government as this will allow us to trace the impact of populism on foreign policy change. This chapter is therefore structured as follows. First, we outline the definition of populism we are working with and, based on such

9  POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN ASIA 

225

an understanding of populism, we develop a guiding hypothesis for our analysis of the impact of populism on foreign policy change, with a particular focus on whether populist governments pursue less cooperative policies as compared to non-populist ones. We then move on to analyze our two case studies: for each, we discuss why our definition of populism applies to the respective government and what the peculiar features of populism are; we then assess to what extent foreign policy changed with the transition to a populist government, and in particular whether foreign policy became more conflictual. This empirical analysis will reveal that the two cases developed in very different ways: in the case of India, the transition to a populist government led to a more decisive foreign policy vis-à-­ vis important rivals like China and Pakistan, but not to a radical foreign policy change, revealing a substantial degree of continuity in India’s foreign policy despite the transition to a populist government; in the case of the Philippines, under Duterte’s administration, we see a high degree of volatility in foreign policy, epitomized most clearly by a surprising but short-lived rapprochement to China. In line with the theoretical framework outlined in the introduction to this edited volume, the concluding section of this chapter discusses potential explanations for such variation, focusing particularly on the constraining effects of structural factors and of ‘thick ideology’ as a framework that increases the predictability of the impact of populism on foreign policy.

Populism and Its Impact on Foreign Policy: Towards a More Conflict-Prone Foreign Policy? Among the numerous possible ways of conceptualizing populism, one of the currently most widespread definitions focuses on populism’s ideational character: it considers populism to be a set of few ideas on what society and political representation should look like or, in other words, a ‘thin-­ centered ideology’ (Mudde, 2004). According to this understanding, the core constitutive components of populism are anti-elitism and people-­ centrism, as populism focuses on the notion that society is ‘ultimately separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic groups, “the pure people” versus “the corrupt elite”’ (Mudde, 2004, p. 543). Moreover, political representation has a particular quality as populism ‘argues that politics should be an expression of the volonté générale (general will) of the people’ (Mudde, 2004, p. 543 emphasis removed). This parsimonious ideational

226 

S. DESTRADI ET AL.

understanding of populism is particularly suitable for developing hypotheses about the impact of populism on foreign policy (Destradi & Plagemann, 2019), addressing the formulation of foreign policy, as suggested by Wajner and Giurlando (2023) in the introduction to this edited volume, but also foreign policy processes, practices, and outputs. By analyzing concrete elements of political change, this chapter is primarily interested in the output dimension of foreign policy. Among the many aspects of foreign policy, one could focus on, while analyzing the consequences of populism for foreign policy, a country’s relationships with important neighbors and particularly the issue of whether such relationships will deteriorate under populist leadership stands out. There are many reasons to expect populists to pursue more conflict-prone foreign policies as compared to non-populist governments, and these reasons stem from the above-mentioned ideational understanding of populism.2 In fact, the very focus on the ‘true people’ automatically implies an effort at distinguishing such people from a set of ‘others’: these others are certainly domestic elites (the targets of populists’ anti-elitism), but they can also entail actors beyond national borders or rival countries. The fact that populists claim to speak in the name of the ‘true people’ or even to embody the popular will (Urbinati, 2019) can also contribute to make them less amenable to compromise in international disputes. Making concessions to international competitors can easily be considered as betrayal to the people. Moreover, the literature on populism tells us that populist governments, after coming to power, face a peculiar challenge: they now form the political elite against which they had previously mobilized, claiming to speak in the name of the people. What happens, then, is that they need to find new ways to keep popular support alive and to mobilize their followers (Müller, 2017; Urbinati, 2019)—and foreign policy issues are usually very suitable for domestic political mobilization. In fact, the literature on the rally-around-the-flag effect tells us that international tensions and crises can easily be used for domestic political mobilization (Tir, 2010), while the diversionary theory of war even argues that governments might shore up international crises to generate domestic support (Hagan, 2019). Additionally, the literature that highlights the discursive character of populism would argue that populists in power will likely face difficulties in reaching compromises in international disputes. According to this literature, in fact, populists have a Manichean 2

 For a similar discussion, see Destradi et al. (2021).

9  POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN ASIA 

227

worldview, constantly depicting the world as a battle between ‘good’ and ‘evil’—with the ‘good’ obviously being embodied by the righteous and morally pure people and the ‘evil’ by corrupt elites of different kinds (Hawkins, 2009, p. 1043). In such black-and-white world, compromises are not desirable solutions and would rather count as a betrayal to the people. Such assessment is confirmed by approaches that consider populism to be a ‘style’ more than an ideology. Moffitt (2016), for example, argues that populists will tend to conjure up crises, while Ostiguy (2017) points out that populist actors will employ an antagonistic discourse, thereby making it more difficult for them to compromise. Furthermore, theoretical approaches to populism that conceptualize populism as a discourse or a logic of articulation would emphasize that the construction of enemies and ‘others’ is always an important component of populism (cf. Destradi et al., 2021). Such enemies can also be international actors (or the foreign aides to malevolent domestic elites), which would lead to a confrontational rhetoric as well as to the discursive construction of antagonistic identities. While previous research has shown that not all populists will be inclined to start or escalate conflicts all the time, and that they will not automatically pursue more aggressive policies in all cases (Destradi & Plagemann, 2019), there are several theoretical arguments that should lead us to expect populists to be less willing to compromise in international affairs. In the following sections, we will analyze to what extent the hypothesis that populist governments will pursue less cooperative, more conflict-­ prone policies as compared to non-populist governments carries explanatory power in the cases of India and the Philippines.

The Case of India As was mentioned above, for the case of India we compare populist Prime Minister Modi of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with his non-populist predecessor Manmohan Singh of the Indian National Congress. Narendra Modi is a populist to the core, who employs a political discourse that combines anti-elitism and people-centrism. Anti-elitism was particularly evident during the first election campaign in 2014, when Modi capitalized on a series of corruption scandals involving the Indian National Congress. In contrast to the dynastic Congress, dominated by the Nehru-Gandhi family for four generations, Modi portrayed himself as an ‘aam admi’ (a common man), who came from humble origins working

228 

S. DESTRADI ET AL.

at a tea stall. Claiming to be a self-made man and one-of-the-people, Modi attacked the Congress and the Nehru-Gandhi family often using provocative language aimed at distinguishing him from their elitist, refined conduct and vocabulary. He referred to Italian-born Sonia Gandhi as ‘Pastaben’ (Sister pasta) (Ghose, 2018) or ‘Shetangana’ (the white woman) (Jaffrelot, 2021), and to Rahul Gandhi as ‘hybrid calf’ (ET Bureau, 2019), ‘naamdaar’ (dynast) (Ghose, 2018), or ‘shehzada’ (prince of a Muslim dynasty) (Tharoor, 2019) and congratulated Congress for the beginning of ‘Aurangzeb Raj’ (Mughal’s violent ruler Aurangzeb’s reign) when he filed for party presidency in 2017 (Prabhu, 2017). Much of this anti-elitist rhetoric dates back to the time Modi was Chief Minister of the state of Gujarat. At that time, he referred to the Congress-led central government as the ‘Delhi Sultanate’ (Express News Service, 2008)—drawing a parallel with the eleventh-century sultanate of Muslim invaders in India, and thereby explicitly equating the political elite with the enemy image in Hindu-nationalist rhetoric. While campaigning in 2013 and in 2022, Modi also called for a movement to create a Congress-free India (Modi, 2013, 2022), much like the Quit India Movement that had called for an end to British colonialism, and in line with the delegitimation of political opponents that is so typical of populists’ anti-pluralism (Müller, 2017). As opposed to elitist Congress politicians, Modi portrayed himself as honest and working tirelessly to safeguard the interest of the Indian people. Especially during the campaign that led to his re-election in 2019, he branded himself as the ‘chowkidar’ (guardian, gatekeeper) protecting the people (Times Now, 2019). In his monthly radio speeches, Modi stages a direct contact with the ‘people’ who can communicate with him via his ‘NaMo’ app and send him letters and messages (Press Trust of India, 2014). An almost textbook-like claim to embody the ‘popular will’ (Urbinati, 2019) can be found in statements like this one from the Independence Day speech of 2017: ‘I am merely an instrument. It is not one single person who makes that address, but it is the collective voice of 1.25 billion of my countrymen that resounds from the Red Fort. I try to give words to their dreams’ (DNA Web Team, 2017). The thick ideology espoused by Modi is that of Hindu nationalism. This ideology emerged at the time of British colonial rule and fomented fears among members of the Hindu community, who had been stereotyped as a ‘puny race’, of succumbing to Muslims (Jaffrelot, 2021). In his book Hindutva: Who Is a Hindu? V.D. Savarkar, one of the chief ideologues of Hindu nationalism, in 1923 developed the notion of a Hindu

9  POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN ASIA 

229

identity and nationalism based on territory and a common language, Sanskrit (‘mother of all languages’ per Hindu nationalists), while practice of Hindu religion was originally a less relevant criterion (Jaffrelot, 2021). In essence, Savarkar defines Hindus as a ‘people’, and as the true people of India. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and a whole ‘family’ of Hindu nationalist organizations emerged based on this ideology, with the BJP ultimately constituting the political arm of the RSS.  Modi himself, like most functionaries of his party, was socialized as a member of the RSS. Overall, the question of whether Prime Minister Modi actually brought substantive change to India’s foreign policy has been a subject of much debate over the past years. Especially in the first years after taking office, Modi certainly was very active in the field of foreign policy, with a huge number of foreign visits (Sidharth, 2019) and high-profile events like the much-publicized invitation of US President Obama as the chief guest of India’s Republic Day in 2015. Some authors put much emphasis on highlighting Modi’s more activist foreign policy, arguing that Modi was a ‘policy entrepreneur’ (Tremblay & Kapur, 2017) in foreign affairs. They also highlight how Modi brought India much closer to the US and the West, openly embracing a strategic partnership with Washington (Pant & Joshi, 2017; George, 2018). Still, most authors emphasize the elements of continuity in Modi’s foreign policy (Basrur, 2017; Ganguly, 2017; Hall, 2019). According to this interpretation, the core objectives and principles driving India’s foreign policy have remained unchanged. They entail the quest for recognition as a great power at the global level as well as efforts to stabilize India’s difficult regional neighborhood and expand India’s influence in Southeast Asia (be it under the label ‘Look East’ of previous governments of ‘Act East’ of Modi). Moreover, one important commonality in the foreign policy of successive Indian governments is the effort to pursue a possibly autonomous, independent foreign policy. This idea dates back to the times of Non-Alignment, but was later reframed as ‘strategic autonomy’ (Khilnani et al., 2012)—and also under the BJP-led government of Narendra Modi we can observe that India continues to diversify its international partnerships, moving closer to the US, but still trying to keep good relations with Russia (including in the months following the invasion of Ukraine in 2022) (Sharma, 2022) and building partnerships with multiple (at times opposing) actors, for example, in the Middle East with Israel (Gupta et al., 2019) but also with Iran and Saudi Arabia. In this contribution, we focus particularly on India’s approach toward Pakistan and China, India’s most difficult neighbors. The case of Pakistan

230 

S. DESTRADI ET AL.

is indeed one in which we can observe some shifts in India’s approach under the populist Prime Minister Modi. His predecessor, the non-­ populist Manmohan Singh, had taken a very moderate approach vis-à-vis Pakistan, carrying forward the so-called comprehensive dialogue and reacting with great moderation even after the deadly Mumbai terrorist attack of 2008, which was carried out by terrorists coming from Pakistan. By contrast, Modi’s approach toward Pakistan was less conciliatory, confirming our expectation concerning populists’ more limited willingness to compromise. While Modi, immediately after coming to power, made some conciliatory gestures vis-à-vis Pakistan like a surprise visit to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on his birthday in 2015 (The Indian Express, 2015), relations soured soon. After attacks on Indian soldiers in Uri (Ahmad et al., 2016) and Pulwama (BBC News, 2019) carried out by militants operating from Pakistan, the Indian government retaliated with covert operations against training camps in disputed territories controlled by Pakistan (2016) as well as airstrikes on Pakistani territory (2019), which marked a new level of escalation. Modi’s populist government put much emphasis on publicizing those operations as perfectly executed ‘surgical strikes’ (ET Online, 2016). The deterioration of bilateral relations with Pakistan was also accompanied by a more confrontational rhetoric on the part of New Delhi. For instance, an Indian press statement from 2020 reads as follows: ‘We have seen a so-called “political map” of Pakistan that has been released by Prime Minister Imran Khan. This is an exercise in political absurdity, laying untenable claims to territories in the Indian State of Gujarat and our Union Territories of Jammu & Kashmir and of Ladakh. These ridiculous assertions have neither legal validity nor international credibility. In fact, this new effort only confirms reality of Pakistan’s obsession with territorial aggrandizement supported by cross-border terrorism’ (Ministry of External Affairs, 2020). India’s approach vis-à-vis China also developed in a somewhat more confrontational direction, even though changes were subtler. Like for the case of Pakistan, the years of the non-populist United Progressive Alliance I and II governments under the leadership of Manmohan Singh had seen a constructive approach to bilateral relations on the part of India, despite unresolved border disputes (the entire region of Arunachal Pradesh, Aksai Chin, and a middle sector of the Line of Actual Control west of Nepal are disputed) and numerous other contentious issues like India hosting the Dalai Lama. With the shift to Modi’s populist government, India’s approach toward China did not change dramatically. Indeed, bilateral

9  POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN ASIA 

231

relations are multifaceted. As Pardesi (2022) points out, India continued to cooperate with China in multilateral forums like the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), while at the same time refusing to become part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). India’s closer collaboration with Western powers in the so-called Quad in the Indo-Pacific can certainly be read as a response to China, but India has been unwilling to commit too extensively and continues to be wary of joining any kind of formal alliance. In the bilateral disputes with China, the populist Indian government put great emphasis on presenting its policies as more decisive and muscular as compared to the past. In 2017, Indian and Chinese troops confronted each other in a standoff in an area called Doklam, which is disputed between Bhutan and China (Chengappa, 2017). At that time, ‘India surprised China by deploying troops into territory under Chinese control—but also claimed by Bhutan—to prevent China from extending a track in the area. China viewed the Indian action as a clear violation of its sovereignty’ (Fravel, 2020). In 2020, tensions along the disputed border reached a new high, possibly also due to India’s increased road construction activities and military presence along the Line of Actual Control (Fravel, 2020). Indeed, Pardesi (2022) argues that India has adopted a policy of deterrence vis-à-vis China. Despite this somewhat more decisive Indian position, rhetoric vis-à-vis China did not become openly aggressive or much more confrontational under Modi’s populist government as we had expected. In official statements by the Indian government, we find instances of criticism openly addressing China, but the tone is not as harsh as in statements addressed at Pakistan, for example: ‘Significantly, to date, we have yet to receive a credible explanation for the change in China’s stance or reasons for massing of troops in the border areas’ (Ministry of External Affairs, 2021). While India did not shy away from skirmishes on the LAC, which led to a number of casualties unprecedented since the 1962 Sino-Indian war, the populist government also called for boycotts of Chinese goods and banned a number of Chinese apps like TikTok and WeChat (Abi-Habib, 2020). Ultimately, however, data reveal that calls to boycott Chinese products did not have an impact on India-China trade relations (Press Trust of India, 2022). Indeed, India still has multiple economic dependencies on China, India’s bilateral trade with China grew by 44% in 2021, imports grew by 46%, and exports were up by 35% (Singh, 2022)—strongly recovering from the shock related to the pandemic. India’s trade deficit stood at USD 69.4 billion in 2021, compared to USD

232 

S. DESTRADI ET AL.

45.9 billion in 2020 and USD 56.8 billion in 2019. Overall, therefore, India’s approach vis-à-vis China became slightly more confrontational under the populist government of Prime Minister Modi as compared to his non-populist predecessor, but ultimately displaying substantial elements of continuity with the policies of previous non-populist governments.

The Case of the Philippines Duterte’s campaign slogan ‘change is coming’ was an omen of the contentious shifts that would occur in the Philippines’ foreign policy. Among the many controversies that shrouded his leadership, those that captured international attention were his deadly war on drugs and the sudden antagonistic relations with the US, while the Philippines started gravitating toward China. Like Narendra Modi, Rodrigo Duterte is almost a textbook-like populist leader, even though his anti-elitism and people-centrism had very different connotations. Indeed, one of the factors that catapulted Duterte to power was his personalistic approach to politics. He presented himself as the only leader strong and decisive enough to save the nation (Timberman, 2019). His campaign centered on fighting against drugs, criticizing the Manila-based elite, and shifting to federalism. Even though the administration of Duterte’s predecessor, Benigno Aquino, was characterized by six years of political stability and high growth (Thompson, 2016), Duterte was able to disregard said progress by highlighting the issue of crime and drug abuse. In doing so, he segmented the population into corrupt drug users and pushers, and the pure non-users. He successfully championed his claim that drug dealers are the country’s major internal political enemy, branding drugs as the root cause of evil (Adel, 2017) and arguing that getting rid of them might require violating human rights (BBC News, 2016). Severe criticisms from both the local and international community did not hinder Duterte’s war on drugs which, according to the documents submitted as part of an investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC), has resulted in between 12,000 and 30,000 civilian casualties between July 1, 2016, and March 16, 2019 (The Economist, 2021). Duterte’s narrative to pit the two groups against each other was so extreme that he practically issued regular citizens a license to kill drug users: ‘If you know of any addicts, go ahead and kill them yourself’ (Human Rights Watch, 2017). While drug addicts are not an elite, this kind of discourse

9  POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN ASIA 

233

ultimately involved a division of society and the marginalization of a minority group seen to be a cause of societal ills, which therefore is put outside of ‘authentic’ society (Canovan, 1999). Curato (2016) aptly identifies this as a case of ‘penal populism’, which involves the political practice of courting votes by preying on citizens’ anxieties about security and safety, through the promotion of punitive short-term solutions to address criminality, often at the expense of human rights (Ramos, 2020). Along with the juxtaposition of drug users versus the pure people came the creation of opposing relations between ‘imperial Manila’ and the rest of the country. Though this classification was not as popular as that made for the war on drugs, it played an important role in Duterte’s election campaign and mobilization efforts. According to Duterte, the central government’s policies had allowed oligarchs to take control of mines near his home in Davao City, which he claimed to combat like ‘fighting a monster’ (Macaraig, 2016). He pledged that Mindanao, a region often said to be neglected by the government, would be a priority for government assistance. When Duterte assumed office in 2016, he also vowed to end the domination of ‘imperial Manila’ by transforming the country into a federal state (Heydarian, 2018), a plan that however ultimately did not take off. Identifying Duterte’s thick ideology is not as straightforward as classifying him as a populist. The shortcut would be to identify him as a socialist given that he has claimed to be one, stating ‘I am a socialist, not a communist. We, socialists, are for the people’. But Duterte’s policies speak a different language: he put little emphasis on progressive social policies, instead issuing a conventional ten-point policy agenda to reassure nervous business leaders, and once in power following the neo-liberal orthodoxy of his predecessors (Batalla 2016 as cited in Thompson, 2020, p. 8). The tough law-and-order approach pursued by Duterte has rather induced several observers to classify him as a right-wing populist. David (2016) coined the term ‘Dutertismo’ to capture the leader’s brand of right-wing populism (Heydarian, 2017). According to Thompson (2016, p.  51), Duterte should be classified as an illiberal ‘right’ populist given his portrayal of a corrupt elite that coddles drug dealers and addicts. Unlike left-­ wing populists, Duterte does not focus on abstract, structural factors (‘globalization’ and ‘capitalism’) but rather on a specific group deemed subhuman and worthy of extermination, namely, drug dealers and users (Thompson, 2016). Ultimately, we can conclude that Duterte’s populism is not combined with a full-fledged and clearly defined thick ideology.

234 

S. DESTRADI ET AL.

Such haziness in ideology is not distinct to Duterte but a general feature of Philippine politics. Politicians are mostly voted based on their personal characteristics and not their platforms. It is a patronage-based system where political rivalries continue to be based largely on personality and faction rather than on ideology or identity (Kenny, 2020). An unclear ideology is thus not a specificity of Duterte as a populist leader but a structural feature of Philippine politics. In terms of foreign relations, upon assuming the presidency, Duterte vowed to pursue closer relations with China and Russia at the expense of the bilateral relations with the US (Balboa, 2020). Relations with traditional partners like the European Union also soured, and Duterte criticized the United Nations. In 2017, Duterte referred to EU officials as ‘stupid European Union guys’, while threatening to reject all European aid (Deutsche Welle, 2017). He also joked that he would expel all European diplomats within 24 hours after Brussels criticized major human rights abuses committed by his government (Hutt, 2021). When the United Nations condemned extrajudicial killings in the Philippines, he cursed at them and threatened to withdraw from the organization (Gavilan, 2020). Triggered by the International Criminal Court’s initiation of an investigation into the war on drugs in the Philippines, Duterte unilaterally withdrew from the ICC in 2019 (Devarajan, 2021). All this constituted a major break with the past policies of the preceding non-populist government since under Aquino’s term, no strain in the relations with any of these organizations was recorded. When it comes to bilateral relations, the beginning of Duterte’s presidency led to a shift in the country’s relations with China and the US— something almost revolutionary for the hitherto ever-predictable Philippine foreign policy. From the early twentieth century until the end of the Cold War, the U.S. military served as the backbone of Philippine national security. But with the expiration of the base agreements and the collapse of the former Soviet Union, the Philippine government had by 1992 terminated the U.S. military presence in the country. The weakening of defense cooperation, as a result of the absence of the U.S. military on Philippine soil, left a regional power vacuum, which China sought to fill (Heydarian, 2010). The US and the Philippines remained allies under the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty but the US significantly downgraded the importance of its political and military relations with the Philippines (De Castro, 2003). This is why understanding Filipino-Sino relations is pegged on the framework of the Philippines-US-China triangle.

9  POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN ASIA 

235

One of the most contentious issues was the territorial dispute over the South China Sea. From Aquino’s challenging policy, Duterte pursued a more conciliatory stance toward China (De Castro, 2016). To counter China’s assertiveness in the disputed islands, Aquino had resorted to a series of policies that focused on strengthening the Philippine–US security relations. One of them was the signing of the 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) (De Castro, 2016). The agreement allows the US to rotate troops into the Philippines and to build and operate facilities on Philippine bases. The height of Aquino’s confrontational policy against China was filing a case at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, seeking a decision on exactly what territorial claims in the SCS their country was owed under UNCLOS, which would subsequently judge the validity of China’s broad claims, among other things (Westcott, 2016). Winning the case in 2016 on almost all counts was an undeniable win for the Philippines. When Duterte came to power in 2016, he radically changed course in the Philippines’ approach toward China—and, relatedly, the US. In fact, he decided to downplay the Permanent Court of Arbitration’s ruling, describing it as a ‘piece of trash paper with four corners’ (Tan, 2021). In the same year, at the Philippines-China Trade and Investment Forum, he announced ‘[…] my separation from the United States, both in military but economics also’ (Ranada, 2016). He turned to China for investments and got the Chinese government to pledge to fund an array of major construction projects for his signature ‘Build, Build, Build’ program. Increasingly tense relations with the US ran in parallel to this sudden shift toward China. For one, Duterte personally attacked President Obama for criticizing his war on drugs (BBC, 2016) and ordered the termination of the Visiting Forces Agreement—only to retract the decision in 2021. He later stated that the vaccine donations of the US led him to restore the VFA (Wong, 2021). Overall, these developments suggest that, in the case of the Philippines, the shift to a populist government led to a major re-shuffling of foreign policy priorities and to a ‘rupture’ (cf. Panizza & Miorelli, 2009) and a break with past policies, most likely related to the high degree of personalization in foreign policy decision-making under Duterte. However, the rapprochement with China and the parallel worsening of relations with the US were not fully consistent and ultimately short-lived. In fact, when President Trump replaced Obama, we could already see an improvement in bilateral relations with the Philippines’ traditional ally. Trump visited

236 

S. DESTRADI ET AL.

the Philippines in 2017 and stated: ‘And now we have a very, very strong relationship with the Philippines, which is really important—less so for trade, in this case, than for military purposes’ (Viray, 2017). The meeting also made headlines as Duterte was recorded singing in front of ASEAN members ‘upon the orders of the commander in chief of the United States’ (Esmaquel, 2017). Beyond the personal sympathy between the two populist leaders, US-Philippine foreign and security ties run deep (The Economist, 2021). Under the Biden administration, there was an increase in joint military exercises, and the US reportedly committed to backing up the Philippines should there be an attack by the Chinese (Price, 2021). Duterte’s retraction of the termination of the Visiting Forces Agreement is also a clear sign of the rejuvenation of US-Philippine relations. When it comes to ties with China, from 2021, Duterte criticized Chinese encroachment on the disputed areas in the strongest terms. In November 2021, the president, who usually left the task of criticizing China to his cabinet members, stated at the ASEAN-China special summit that he ‘abhors’ the recent altercation with Chinese ships in the South China Sea (Presidential Communications Operations Office, 2021). Grossman (2021) and Heydarian (2021) argue that this change in Duterte’s approach vis-à-vis China was mainly driven by a disappointment with the economic gains derived from cooperating with Beijing. Only three out of fourteen envisaged China-funded projects started construction by 2021 (Calonzo, 2021). Calonzo (2021) also found that China originally agreed to provide $9 billion in soft loans but its loans and grants to the Philippines amounted to only $590 million in 2019. It also pledged $15 billion worth of direct investments, yet approved investments totaled $3.2 billion from 2016 to 2020. The projected economic benefits of Duterte’s pivot to China have thus not materialized. Moreover, Beijing did not substantially change its approach toward the Philippines despite Duterte’s rapprochement and treated the Philippines like other countries such as Vietnam, which had remained steadfast in its approach toward disputed maritime claims (Kurlantzick, 2021). Ultimately, Duterte’s pivot to China, though initially touted as revolutionary especially for an ever-­ predictable Philippine foreign policy, failed to come to fruition both in economic and in political terms. Moreover, the shift toward China did not have much backing among voters: according to a PEW survey, a majority of the public had a more positive view of the US than of China in 2017 (Pew Research Center, 2017).

9  POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN ASIA 

237

Populist Foreign Policy in India and the Philippines: How to Make Sense of the Differences The discussion of foreign policy change with a transition to populist governments in India and the Philippines has shown important differences. In the case of India, the formation of a populist government did not lead to major disruptions in the country’s foreign policy course, even though India’s foreign policy vis-à-vis its two most important rivals, Pakistan and China, became certainly less cooperative. In the case of the Philippines, the takeover of populist President Duterte implied a sudden and unprecedented change in the country’s foreign policy course, which tried to emancipate itself from its traditional ally, the US, and to reach a rapprochement with an alternative partner, China. As we have seen, however, this attempted change proved to be short-lived, and toward the end of his presidency, Duterte largely returned to business as usual in the Philippines’ relations with the US and China. What lessons can we learn from these two cases from the Asian region for the broader theorization of populism and foreign policy? First, these cases show that the impact of populism is less straightforward than we might expect and that a number of factors can mitigate it. These include, as also suggested in the introduction to this volume, structural factors: middle-sized countries like the Philippines or emerging powers like India are still subject to a number of constraints in their foreign policy, especially when dealing with powerful neighbors like China or important partners like the US. Both populist governments were keen to show that they were doing something new and different as compared to the policies of past elites. However, they were constrained in their ability to really bring about substantive change. Duterte was ultimately disappointed by China, which did not fulfill his expectations concerning infrastructure investments and economic cooperation and did not make concessions on the territorial disputes. Turning back to the US, the Philippines’ traditional security guarantor, was a logical consequence for the Philippines in the face of the threat posed by China. In the case of India, we saw the Modi government being less accommodating vis-à-vis Beijing and refusing to join the BRI—and therefore taking a rather confrontational position. Indian deterrence along the de-facto border with China (Pardesi, 2022) also fits with this generally more determined foreign policy. However, Modi was careful about not provoking China beyond a certain point. Indeed, an analysis of Modi’s foreign policy

238 

S. DESTRADI ET AL.

rhetoric vis-à-vis China has revealed that the populist Indian government did not adopt a much more bellicose tone or a more critical rhetoric toward China as compared to the preceding non-populist government (Destradi et al., 2022a). Overall, the analysis of two cases from the Asian region, which is characterized by strong rivalries, territorial disputes, and the menacing presence and growing influence of China, reveals the continued importance of structural constraints to populist foreign policy. In this regard, we see parallels with other regions where populists must contend with regional hegemons, for example, the US in the Americas or Germany in Europe. Excessively politicizing rivalry with China is far too dangerous, and this might explain the rather limited policy changes in a case like India. Another factor that might contribute to explaining the differences in foreign policy change between the two governments analyzed is thick ideology. As was outlined above, Duterte did not follow any consistent thick ideology. This also implies that there was no ideational framework he had to stick to in order not to disappoint his followers and to keep his domestic legitimacy. This allowed him to break with past traditions in the foreign policy of the Philippines and to subvert (albeit for a short while) the long-­ established security partnership with the US.  The fact that he did so despite a large approval of the US among the public of the Philippines does not contradict the ideational approach to populism: the claim to embody the ‘popular will’ is in many cases just a claim, and what exactly might constitute such will is often shaped by populist leaders. Still, it is somehow surprising, and it might ultimately reflect the low salience of foreign policy issues among the public of the Philippines, which made it possible for Duterte to adopt a rather unpopular policy without having to fear substantial consequences, focusing instead on political mobilization on the topic of the ‘war on drugs’. In the case of Duterte, foreign policy issues therefore did not play a crucial role in domestic political mobilization. They were sometimes useful to generate laughter and sympathy among his audience when using an abusive tone to address world leaders like Obama. But they certainly did not play a central role in rallying popular support as in other cases from different world regions, from the permanent anti-American discourse of left-wing populists in South America to the Euroscepticism of right-wing populists in Europe.3 In the case of 3  For a detailed discussion of contemporary populists seeking transnational legitimation, see Wajner (2022).

9  POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN ASIA 

239

India, by contrast, thick ideology plays an important role in explaining the overall worsening of relations with Pakistan. Hindu nationalists constantly suggest a link between India’s Muslim minority, which they ultimately claim does not belong to the ‘true people’, and India’s arch-enemy Pakistan. Fears of being marginalized due to a growth of the Muslim population are intimately connected with the troubled history of the Partition of British India and the formation of Pakistan as a homeland for the Muslims of South Asia. Indeed, calls for ‘Akhand Bharat’, an ‘undivided India’ including Pakistan and Bangladesh, were raised time and again by Hindu nationalist groups. It is therefore not surprising that Modi pursued a more conflictive approach vis-à-vis Pakistan as compared to his predecessor. An analysis of his government’s statements targeted at Pakistan has indeed revealed that criticism and harsh rhetoric increased substantially as compared to the preceding UPA II government (Destradi et al., 2022a). Also, India’s overall more assertive (albeit not radically different) approach vis-à-vis China can be traced to Hindu nationalist thick ideology, which entails the notion that India should pursue a more ‘assertive’ approach in international politics (Ghosh, 1994). In the case of India, calls for boycotts of Chinese goods were used to politicize the conflict and make it an object of domestic political debate. Still, as was mentioned above, Modi paid attention not to drive this politicization too far. Indeed, his government took a comparatively moderate tone in addressing China. An analysis of all of Modi’s radio speeches in fact revealed that foreign policy issues were rarely addressed by Modi when he spoke directly to the ‘people’, and he did not resort to China-bashing to mobilize domestic political support (Destradi, Plagemann, & Taş, 2022b). This suggests a very strategic use of communication on the part of Modi, but also a weariness about going too far in attacking China or in fomenting anti-China sentiments among the broader public, with the potential consequence of increased pressure on the government to live up to its anti-China rhetoric. The fear of provoking a powerful rival—and, therefore, ultimately the plain issue of capabilities—can play an important role in mitigating the expected impact of populism. To conclude, while Asia is far too large and diverse as a region to be analyzed as a single entity, the comparison of India and the Philippines reveals that, in different subregions of Asia (South- and Southeast Asia, respectively), the overarching issue of tense relations with China played an important role in shaping populist governments’ foreign policies and in mitigating the expected impact of populism. In the case of Duterte, there

240 

S. DESTRADI ET AL.

was a clear ambition to change foreign policy radically, but ultimately disappointment with China led to a renewal of the previous partnership with the US.  Here, change seems to have been mainly driven by Duterte’s personalistic approach to policy making. In the case of India, there was a hardening of attitudes vis-à-vis Pakistan and China, much in line with Hindu nationalist thick ideology—but one that did not go so far as to escalate the conflict with China beyond a certain point.

References Abi-Habib, M. (2020). India Bans TikTok, WeChat and Dozens of Other Chinese Apps. The New York Times, June 29. Retrieved April 22, 2022, from https:// w w w. n y t i m e s . c o m / 2 0 2 0 / 0 6 / 2 9 / w o r l d / a s i a / t i k -­t o k -­b a n n e d -­ india-­china.html Adel, R. (2017). Duterte Vows to Keep Drug War Amid Human Rights Concerns. The Philippine Star, July 24. https://www.philstar.com/headlines/ 2017/07/24/1721141/duter te-­v ows-­k eep-­d r ug-­w ar-­a mid-­h uman-­ rights-­concerns. Ahmad, M., Rich, P., & Berlinger, J. (2016). Uri Attack: Indian Soldiers Killed in Kashmir—CNN.  Retrieved April 22, 2022, from https://edition.cnn. com/2016/09/18/asia/india-­kashmir-­attack/index.html Balboa, J. (2020). Duterte’s Foreign Policy Pivot and Its Impact on Philippine Trade and Investments: An International Political Economy Perspective. Philippine Political Science Journal, 41(1–2), 127–160. Basrur, R. (2017). Modi’s Foreign Policy Fundamentals: A Trajectory Unchanged. International Affairs, 93(1), 7–26. Batalla, E. V. (2016). Divided Politics and Economic Growth in the Philippines. Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs, 35(3), 161–186. BBC. (2016). Philippines’ Duterte Tells Obama to ‘Go to Hell’, October 4. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-­asia-­37548695 BBC News. (2016). Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte in Quotes. Retrieved April 22, 2022, from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-­asia-­36251094 BBC News. (2019). Kashmir Attack: Tracing the Path That Led to Pulwama. BBC News, January 5. Retrieved April 22, 2022, from https://www.bbc.com/ news/world-­asia-­india-­47302467 Calonzo, A. (2021). China Yet to Deliver Promised Billions Despite Duterte’s Pivot. Bloomberg, July 4. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/ 2021-­0 7-­0 4/duterte-­s -­p ivot-­t o-­c hina-­y et-­t o-­d eliver-­p romised-­b illions-­ in-­infrastructure Canovan, M. (1999). Trust the People! Populism and the Two Faces of Democracy. Political Studies, 47(1), 2–16.

9  POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN ASIA 

241

Chengappa, R. (2017). India-China Standoff: All You Need to Know about Doklam Dispute. Retrieved April 22, 2022, from https://www.indiatoday.in/ magazine/cover-­story/story/20170717-­india-­china-­bhutan-­border-­dispute-­ doklam-­beijing-­siliguri-­corridor-­1022690-­2017-­07-­07 Curato, N. (2016). Politics of Anxiety, Politics of Hope: Penal Populism and Duterte’s Rise to Power. Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs, 35(3), 91–109. David, R. (2016). ‘Dutertismo’. The Philippine Daily Inquirer, May 1. https:// opinion.inquirer.net/94530/dutertismo#ixzz5MnDSO63X De Castro RC. (2003). Special Relations and Alliance Politics in Philippine-U.S.Security Relations, 1990–2002. Asian Perspective, 27, 137–164. De Castro RC. (2016). The Early Duterte Presidency in the Philippines. Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs, 35(3), 139–159. Destradi, S. (2012). Indian Foreign and Security Policy in South Asia. Routledge. Destradi, S., & Plagemann, J. (2019). Populism and International Relations: (Un) predictability, Personalisation, and the Reinforcement of Existing Trends in World Politics. Review of International Studies, 45(5), 711–730. Destradi, S., Cadier, D., & Plagemann, J. (2021). Populism and Foreign Policy: A Research Agenda (Introduction). Comparative European Politics, 19(6), 663–682. Destradi, S., et al. (2022a). Populists’ Foreign Policy Rhetoric: More Confrontational, Less Consensual? Paper prepared for the workshop ‘Populism, Political Communication and Performative Leadership in International Politics,’ 4 May 2022. Destradi, S., Plagemann, J., & Taş, H. (2022b). Populism and the Politicisation of Foreign Policy. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations. 136914812210759. Deutsche Welle. (2017). Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte Threatens to Eject EU Ambassadors. Deutsche Welle, October 12. https://www.dw.com/ en/philippine-­president-­rodrigo-­duterte-­threatens-­to-­eject-­eu-­ambassadors/ a-­40929413 Devarajan, S. (2021). Philippines Supreme Court Dismisses Petition against ICC Withdrawal. https://www.jurist.org/news/2021/03/philippines-­supreme-­ court-­dismisses-­petition-­against-­icc-­withdrawal/ DNA Web Team. (2017). Full Text of ‘Mann ki Baat’ | GST Demonstrates Collective Strength of Country, Ushers in a New Culture: PM. DNA India, July 30. Retrieved April 22, 2022, from https://www.dnaindia.com/india/ report-­f ull-­t ext-­o f-­m ann-­k i-­b aat-­g st-­d emonstrates-­c ollective-­s trength-­o f-­ country-­ushers-­in-­a-­new-­culture-­pm-­modi-­2518208 Esmaquel, P., II. (2017). Duterte Sings ‘Upon the Orders’ of Trump. Rappler, November 13. https://www.rappler.com/nation/188229-­duterte-­sings-­ orders-­trump-­asean-­summit-­2017-­philippines/

242 

S. DESTRADI ET AL.

ET Bureau. (2019). Congress Recalls Modi’s ‘Jersey Cow’, ‘Hybrid Calf’ Remarks While Condemning Mani Shankar Aiyar. Economic Times, May 15. Retrieved April 22, 2022, from https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/elections/lok-­s abha/india/congress-­r ecalls-­m odis-­j ersey-­c ow-­h ybrid-­c alf-­ remarks-­w hile-­c ondemning-­m ani-­s hankar-­a iyar/articleshow/69334603. cms?from=mdr ET Online. (2016). 4 Hours, Choppers and 38 Kills: How India Avenged the Uri Attack. Economic Times, September 29. Retrieved April 22, 2022, from https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/army-­c onducted-­ surgical-­strikes-­on-­terror-­launch-­pads-­on-­loc-­significant-­casualties-­caused-­ dgmo/articleshow/54579855.cms?from=mdr Express News Service. (2008). Modi Poses as Warlord, Targets ‘Delhi Sultanate’— Indian Express. Retrieved April 22, 2022, from http://archive.indianexpress. com/news/modi-­p oses-­a s-­w arlord-­t argets%2D%2Ddelhi-­s ultanate-­/ 263689/. Fravel, T.  M. (2020). Why are China and India Skirmishing at Their Border? Here’s 4 Things to Know. The Washington Post, February 6. Retrieved April 22, 2022, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/06/02/ why-­are-­china-­india-­skirmishing-­their-­border-­heres-­4-­things-­know/ Ganguly, S. (2017). Has Modi Truly Changed India’s Foreign Policy? The Washington Quarterly, 40(2), 131–143. Gavilan, J. (2020). Duterte’s Tirades, Threats vs United Nations: ‘Useless’ to ‘sunugin ko pa iyan’. Rappler, September 22. https://www.rappler.com/ newsbreak/iq/rodrigo-­d uterte-­t irades-­t hreats-­statements-­a gainst-­united-­ nations/ George, V.  K. (2018). Open Embrace: India-US Ties in the Age of Modi and Trump. Penguin. Ghose, S. (2018). Gandhi Bashing Is a Tired Old Formula that’s Not Paying Off. Times of India, December 15. Retrieved April 22, 2022, from https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/bloody-­mary/gandhi-­bashing-­is-­a-­tired-­old-­ formula-­thats-­not-­paying-­off/?source=app&frmapp=yes Ghosh, P. S. (1994). Foreign Policy and Electoral Politics in India: Inconsequential Connection. Asian Survey, 34(9), 807–817. Grossman, D. (2021). Duterte’s Dalliance with China Is Over. https://www. rand.org/blog/2021/11/dutertes-­dalliance-­with-­china-­is-­over.html Gupta, S., et al. (2019). Indian Foreign Policy under Modi: A New Brand or Just Repackaging? International Studies Perspectives, 20(1), 1–45. Hagan, J. D. (2019). Diversionary Theory of War in Foreign Policy Analysis. In W.  R. Thompson (Ed.), Oxford Research Encyclopedias of Politics. Oxford University Press. Hall, I. (2019). Modi and the Reinvention of Indian Foreign Policy. Bristol University Press; Project Muse.

9  POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN ASIA 

243

Hawkins, K. A. (2009). Is Chávez Populist? Comparative Political Studies, 42(8), 1040–1067. Heydarian R (2010). The China-Philippines-U.S. TRIANGLE. https://fpif.org/ the_china-­philippines-­us_triangle/. Heydarian, R. (2017). The Rise of Duterte: A Populist Revolt against Elite Democracy. Palgrave Pivot. Heydarian, R. (2018). The Implications of Duterte’s Proposed Constitutional Changes. https://www.cfr.org/blog/implications-­dutertes-­proposed-­constitu tional-­changes Heydarian R (2021). After Duterte: Is the Philippines Pivoting Back to the U.S.? https://www.chinausfocus.com/foreign-­policy/after-­duterte-­is-­the-­philippines-­ pivoting-­back-­to-­the-­us Human Rights Watch. (2017). “License to Kill”: Philippine Police Killings in Duterte’s “War on Drugs”. https://www.hrw.org/report/2017/03/02/ license-­kill/philippine-­police-­killings-­dutertes-­war-­drugs Hutt, D. (2021). Philippines and EU Repair Relations Despite Human Rights Concerns. Deutsche Welle, March 9. https://www.dw.com/en/philippines-­ and-­eu-­repair-­relations-­despite-­human-­rights-­concerns/a-­56818996 Jaffrelot, C. (2021). Modi’s India: Hindu Nationalism and the Rise of Ethnic Democracy. Princeton University Press. Kenny, P. (2020). Why Is There No Political Polarization in the Philippines? https://carnegieendowment.org/2020/08/18/why-­is-­there-­no-­political­polarization-­in-­philippines-­pub-­82439 Khilnani, S., et al. (2012). Nonalignment 2.0: A Foreign and Strategic Policy for India in the Twenty First Century. Kumar, Y. (2018). The Philippines and ASEAN-Building Synergies. Jindal Journal of International Affairs, 2(2). Kurlantzick, J. (2021). Duterte’s Ingratiating Approach to China Has Been a Bust. https://www.cfr.org/article/dutertes-­ingratiating-­approach-­china-­has-­ been-­bust Macaraig, M. (2016). Duterte Wants to Shift Power from ‘Imperial Manila’. ABS CBN News, June 28. https://news.abs-­cbn.com/focus/06/28/16/duterte-­ wants-­to-­shift-­power-­from-­imperial-­manila Mietzner, M. (2018). Fighting Illiberalism with Illiberalism: Islamist Populism and Democratic Deconsolidation in Indonesia. Retrieved April 22, 2022, from https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/paaf/paaf/2018/00000091/ 00000002/art00003 Ministry of External Affairs. (2020). Press Statement on So-called ‘Political Map’ of Pakistan. Retrieved April 22, 2022, from https://www.mea.gov.in/ Speeches-­S tatements.htm?dtl/32870/Press_Statement_on_socalled_ political_map_of_Pakistan

244 

S. DESTRADI ET AL.

Ministry of External Affairs. (2021). Keynote Address by External Affairs Minister at the 13th All India Conference of China Studies. Retrieved April 22, 2022, from https://www.mea.gov.in/Speeches-­Statements.htm?dtl/33419/Keynote_ Address_by_External_Affairs_Minister_at_the_13th_All_India_Conference_ of_China_Studies Modi, N. (2013). Need of the Hour Is to Bid Goodbye to the Congress, Which Has Failed on All Fronts: CM at BJP Public Meeting in Pune. Narendramodi, July 14. Retrieved April 22, 2022, from https://www.narendramodi.in/ need-­of-­the-­hour-­is-­to-­bid-­goodbye-­to-­the-­congress-­which-­has-­failed-­on-­all-­ fronts-­cm-­at-­bjp-­public-­meeting-­in-­pune-­5392 Modi, N. (2022). ‘Congress Mukt Bharat’ Has Become the Resolve of the Nation: PM Modi. Retrieved April 22, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=s4KijdPhct0 Moffitt, B. (2016). The Global Rise of Populism: Performance, Political Style, and Representation. Stanford University Press. Mudde, C. (2004). The Populist Zeitgeist. Government and Opposition, 39(4), 541–563. Müller, J.-W. (2017). What Is Populism? Penguin Books. Ostiguy, P. (2017). Populism: A Socio-Cultural Approach. In C. Rovira Kaltwasser, P. A. Taggart, P. Ochoa Espejo, & P. Ostiguy (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Populism (pp. 73–97). Oxford University Press. Panizza, F., & Miorelli, R. (2009). Populism and Democracy in Latin America. Ethics & International Affairs, 23(1), 39–46. Pant, H. V., & Joshi, Y. (2017). Indo-US Relations under Modi: The Strategic Logic Underlying the Embrace. International Affairs, 93(1), 133–146. Pardesi, M.  S. (2022). India’s China Strategy under Modi Continuity in the Management of an Asymmetric Rivalry. International Politics, 59(1), 44–66. Pew Research Center. (2017). People in the Philippines Still Favor U.S.  Over China, but Gap Is Narrowing. Retrieved April 22, 2022, from https://www. pewresearch.org/global/wp-­c ontent/uploads/sites/2/2017/09/Pew-­ Research-­Center_Philippines-­Report_2017.09.21.pdf Phongpaichit, P., & Baker, C. (2008). Thaksin’s Populism. Journal of Contemporary Asia, 38(1), 62–83. Plagemann, J., & Ufen, A. (2017). Varieties of Populism in Asia. Retrieved April 22, 2022, from https://www.giga-­hamburg.de/en/publications/giga-­focus/ spielarten-­des-­populismus-­in-­asien Prabhu, S. (2017). PM Narendra Modi’s ‘Aurangzeb Raj’ Dig as Rahul Gandhi Set to Become Congress Chief. Retrieved April 22, 2022, from https://www. ndtv.com/india-­news/gujarat-­assembly-­election-­2017-­pm-­narendra-­modis-­ aurangzeb-­raj-­dig-­at-­congress-­after-­rahul-­gandhis-­n-­1783312 Presidential Communications Operations Office. (2021). Intervention Duterte-­ ASEAN-­China-Special-Summit 22.11.21.

9  POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN ASIA 

245

Press Trust of India. (2014). Citizens Can Write Letters to Me: PM Modi. Economic Times, February 11. Retrieved April 22, 2022, from https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-­and-­nation/citizens-­can-­write-­ letters-­to-­me-­pm-­modi/articleshow/45011482.cms?from=mdr Press Trust of India. (2022). India-China Trade Grows to Record $125 Billion in 2021 Despite Tensions in Eastern Ladakh. Economic Times, January 14. Retrieved April 22, 2022, from https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/ news/economy/foreign-­trade/india-­china-­trade-­grows-­to-­record-­125-­billion-­ in-­2021-­despite-­tensions-­in-­eastern-­ladakh/articleshow/88900383.cms Price, N. (2021). On the Situation in the South China Sea. News Release. November 19. https://www.state.gov/on-­the-­situation-­in-­the-­south-­china-­ sea/ Ramos, C. (2020). Change without Transformation: Social Policy Reforms in the Philippines under Duterte. Development and Change, 51(2), 485–505. Ranada, P. (2016). Duterte Announces Military, Economic Split from US. https:// www.rappler.com/nation/149806-­duterte-­announces-­military-­economic-­ split-­from-­us/ Sharma, S. (2022). India Abstains from Voting in UN on Ukraine Resolution— This Time Brought by Russia. The Independent, March 24. Retrieved April 22, 2022, from https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/india/india-abstains-russia-un-ukraine-b2042924.html Sidharth, A. (2019). Narendra Modi vs Manmohan Singh on Foreign Visits: Fact-­ Checking Amit Shah’s Claim. Alt News, November 10. Retrieved April 22, 2022, from https://www.altnews.in/narendra-­modi-­vs-­manmohan-­singh-­on-­ foreign-­visits-­fact-­checking-­amit-­shahs-­claim/ Singh, K. (2022). Explained: India’s Bilateral Trade with China in 2021. The Indian Express, January 26. Retrieved April 22, 2022, from https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/india-­china-­trade-­explained-­7740518/ Tan, B. (2021). Friend or Foe: Explaining the Duterte Administration’s China Policy in the South China Sea. The Cornell International Affairs Review, 14(2), 9–51. Tharoor, S. (2019). ‘Shehzada’ Rahul & Ahmed ‘Mian’ Aren’t Routine Jibes on Congress, They Are Modi’s Bigotry. ThePrint, April 20. Retrieved April 22, 2022, from https://theprint.in/opinion/shehzada-­rahul-­ahmed-­mian-­arent-­ routine-­jibes-­on-­congress-­they-­are-­modis-­bigotry/224135/ The Economist. (2021). How Many People Have Been Killed in Rodrigo Duterte’s War on Drugs? The Economist, November 22. https://www.economist.com/ graphic-­detail/2021/11/22/how-­many-­people-­have-­been-­killed-­in-­rodrigo-­ dutertes-­war-­on-­drugs. The Indian Express. (2015). Narendra Modi, Nawaz Sharif Walk Hand-in-Hand, Pakistan Welcomes India’s Initiative. The Indian Express, December 25. Retrieved April 22, 2022, from https://indianexpress.com/photos/picture-­ gallery-­others/modi-­in-­lahore-­nawaz-­welcomes-­birthday-­guest/

246 

S. DESTRADI ET AL.

Thompson, M. R. (2016). Bloodied Democracy: Duterte and the Death of Liberal Reformism in the Philippines. Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs, 35(3), 39–68. Thompson, M. (2020). Explaining Duterte’s Rise and Rule: “Penal Populist” Leadership or a Structural Crisis of Oligarchic Democracy in the Philippines? Philippine Political Science Journal, 41(1–2), 5–31. Timberman, D. (2019). Philippine Politics Under Duterte: A Midterm Assessment. https://carnegieendowment.org/2019/01/10/philippine-­politics-­under-­ duterte-­midterm-­assessment-­pub-­78091 Times Now. (2019). ‘Chowkidar Narendra Modi’: PM Renames His Twitter Handle. Economic Times, March 17. Retrieved April 22, 2022, from https:// economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-­a nd-­n ation/chowkidar-­ narendra-­modi-­pm-­renames-­his-­twitter-­handle/videoshow/68450197.cms Tir, J. (2010). Territorial Diversion: Diversionary Theory of War and Territorial Conflict. The Journal of Politics, 72(2), 413–425. Tremblay, R. C., & Kapur, A. (2017). Modi’s Foreign Policy. SAGE Publications. Urbinati, N. (2019). Me the People: How Populism Transforms Democracy. Harvard University Press. Viray, P. L. (2017). Highlights of Trump’s Visit to the Philippines, November 15. https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2017/11/15/1759167/highlights-­ trumps-­visit-­philippines Wajner, D. F. (2022). The Populist Way Out: Why Contemporary Populist Leaders Seek Transnational Legitimation. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 24(3), 416–436. Wajner, D. F., & Giurlando, P. (2023). Introduction to Populist Foreign Policy (PFP). In P. Giurlando & D. Wajner (Eds.), Populist Foreign Policy: Regional Perspectives of Populism in the International Scene, Palgrave. Westcott, B. (2016). Philippines vs China: Why the South China Sea Ruling May Change Asia. CNN, July 12. https://edition.cnn.com/2016/07/04/asia/ south-­china-­sea-­un-­case-­explainer/index.html Wong, A. C. (2021). Duterte’s Back-Down on US Forces in Philippines. Retrieved April 19, 2022, from https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-­interpreter/ duterte-­s-­back-­down-­us-­forces-­philippines

CHAPTER 10

Aotearoa New Zealand and the Quasi-­Populist Foreign Policy of New Zealand First David MacDonald

In their introduction to this edited volume, Wajner and Giurlando (2023) have rightly signalled that the nature and scope of foreign policy can depend on structural variables such as geographic and population size, location, economic and military power, and other factors. This is certainly true of NZ. In every sense of the term, this is a small state, in terms of population (just over 5 million in 2022 or 125th in the world), geographic size 264,537 sq. km (77th in the world), and Real GDP (purchasing power parity) $215.6 billion (2020 est.) which is 65th between Kenya and Kuwait (Central Intelligence Agency, 2022). While it is highly vulnerable to regional and global economic changes (Brady, 2020), it is geographically isolated and insulated from many of the dangers of the surrounding

D. MacDonald (*) London School of Economics, London, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 P. Giurlando, D. F. Wajner (eds.), Populist Foreign Policy, Global Foreign Policy Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22773-8_10

247

248 

D. MACDONALD

world. It has the virtues of being one of the world’s least corrupt countries, with a well-functioning liberal democracy, a relatively strong social safety net, and a vibrant civil society. Its maritime estate (its territorial ocean size) is the fifth largest in the world, and it has sufficient arable land to sustain 90 million people (Brady, 2019, p. 2). Foreign policy in NZ is centralized and largely controlled by the Prime Minister. Certainly, Foreign Ministers can place their own stamp on the tone and character of policy, but they are very much sandwiched between the PM and the entrenched bureaucracy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT), where approximately 1800 people conduct most of the day-to-day diplomacy with state and non-state actors. NZ may seem an unlikely host for an electorally successful populist party. New Zealand First is known for its disdain of political correctness and identity politics, its anti-elitism, and its dog whistle politics against Asians, Muslims, and some aspects of biculturalism between settlers and Indigenous Māori. At the same time, the party is composed of Māori and Pakeha (its leader Winston Peters traces his Māori ancestry to Ngāti Wai) and has also had Pacific and South Asian MPs in its parliamentary caucus. Peters has been described as a “maverick populist,” “arch populist,” “irascible,” New Zealand’s version of Donald Trump, with NZF denounced as a “small anti-immigrant party” (Daly, 2017a). Nevertheless, NZF has had an outsized role in foreign policy given its small electoral base and has managed to survive and sometimes thrive for almost three decades in a political system which has decimated almost all smaller parties. NZF has polled between 2.4 and 13.3 percent of the popular vote since 1993 and has only been out of Parliament twice: between 2008–2011 and from 2020. Three times they have been involved in governing the country, through a coalition with the right of centre National Party in 1996–1998; a confidence and supply agreement with the left of centre Labour Party in 2005, and a coalition with Labour in 2017. This has been beneficial to Peters, who has secured numerous cabinet positions: Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer in 1996; Minister for Foreign Affairs and Racing in 2005 (outside cabinet); and in 2017: Deputy Prime Minister, Foreign Affairs, State Owned Enterprises, Racing, and Minister for disarmament and arms control. Others within the party have also gained cabinet-­level positions, including control of Defence, Infrastructure, and Internal Affairs. In defining populism, I draw from the work of Mudde, Moffitt, Canovan, and others, who have identified many standard characteristics of

10  AOTEAROA NEW ZEALAND AND THE QUASI-POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY… 

249

populism. First, a discourse of dichotomy is common, which, as Mudde explains, stresses division between “two homogeneous and antagonistic groups, ‘the pure people’ versus ‘the corrupt elite’” (Mudde et al., 2017). Populists (especially but not exclusively those on the right) often draw distinctions between the goodness of the people (including appeals to ethno-cultural purity) and the negative qualities of elites and/or others within society who are not seen to be part of the people. Populist leaders may denounce “political correctness” and make a show of violating social taboos (Greven, 2016, p. 1). Tied to this (although more often to the right of the political spectrum) is nostalgia for a mythical golden age when things were better, when secure jobs were available, when the country was more culturally homogenous and national identity and patriotism were far less contested, when the economy was controlled by domestic industries and not foreign corporations. Rising immigration and foreign investment may also be targets. Multiculturalism may be viewed with suspicion as the party engages in romanticism, harkening back to “a supposedly more certain, secure and moral past” (Miller & Mintrom, 2006, pp. 51–54). Globalization and neoliberal trends are frequent targets of some populist leaders. Verbeek and Zaslove have observed anti-globalization rhetoric as characteristic of a populist style. Populists tend to focus on the losers in globalization with respect to wages, access to housing, employment security, social welfare benefits, and so on (Bertjan & Andrej, 2017, pp. 2; 9). In addition to globalization, Galston sees poorly managed “waves of immigration” playing a key role not only in creating new competition for employment opportunities, but also in potentially “threatening established cultural norms and public safety” (Galston, 2018, pp. 7–8).

Populism and Foreign Policy In their introduction, Wajner and Giurlando outline five key schools of thought or foci for analysing populist foreign policies, which are important to consider. Of these, the fourth and fifth foci apply well to NZF.  Populist leaders promote narratives of restoration: regaining the greatness and certainty of a better (even “great”) past. This can be manifested in anti-immigrant discourses and policies, and in criticism of elites who admit “foreign” populations into the state, thereby changing its character. Fifth, the authors focus on foreign policy output to compare and engage populist foreign policies. Here, international trade and

250 

D. MACDONALD

cooperation are problematized for undermining domestic economies and national sovereignty. Protectionist policies and bilateral agreements are both advanced by populist leaders as ways to maximize domestic economic well-being and security. On the fourth point, Peters certainly did engage in anti-immigrant rhetoric, and this has long been a staple of his electioneering. However, he never sought to restrict immigration while in office, confining populist anti-immigrant messages to political campaigns only. As to the fifth point, we might say that Peters was slightly more protectionist and trade-wary than leaders in mainstream parties, and his electioneering promoting a degree of scaremongering about Asian investment and trade. However as foreign minister he very much toed the government line. Overall, the case of NZF is consonant with Chryssogelos’ observation that populist foreign policies have rarely “diverged significantly from their countries’ previous orientation.” There is certainly a change in discourse in many cases, but not necessarily a change in the substance of foreign policy actions when compared with mainstream parties (Chryssogelos, 2021). Peters generally practiced a foreign policy which differed little from the dominant views in the coalition government, and his policies did not diverge much from those of his ministerial predecessors from either major party (i.e., Labour or National). Further, his views were often closely aligned with those of NZ’s MFAT, suggesting that he regularly took advice from foreign policy elites. While serving as foreign minister, Peters continually stressed the importance of geopolitical, institutional, and ideational constraints on foreign policy. He regularly argued that as a small state, NZ has limited resources and needed to be a responsible team player, an honest broker regionally, and a country which was dependable and could forge alliances with its traditional Commonwealth allies as well as its Asian and Pacific neighbours. However, if we take time to carefully parse NZF’s record on foreign policy, we can isolate four issues which might have developed into more populist-oriented foreign policies if hypothetically Peters had gained more political power in terms of a larger number of seats and ministries. As I will outline, these are a stronger rhetorical support for Brexit than any other party, stronger pro-American rhetoric regarding world order and security in the Pacific region, a higher degree of ambivalence about Russian power than other parties (alongside a push for a Russian FTA), and relatively more disparaging comments about China and Chinese influence than other party leaders (but only during some time periods). These suggest an affinity for Vladimir Putin and the wish to counterbalance the EU and China.

10  AOTEAROA NEW ZEALAND AND THE QUASI-POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY… 

251

The Political Fortunes of New Zealand First Wynston Raymond Peters was born in 1945, raised in the rural north in relative poverty by a Māori father and Scottish mother. After obtaining a law degree, he was eventually recruited by the governing right of centre National Party in the late 1970s, winning a seat in 1979 (Miller & Mintrom, 2006, p. 63). Peters stayed as a National Party MP during the 1980s and early 1990s and served as Minister of Māori Affairs from 1990 to 1991. However, he grew increasingly critical of National’s neoliberal turn and was sacked from cabinet and then from the National caucus in 1992. In 1992, Peters formed New Zealand First with a small group of supporters, claiming to champion the victims of economic reform (2006, p. 63). From the 1993 elections onwards, NZF secured two important electoral constituencies—poorer older Pakeha (or white NZers) and young Māori, two demographics which have been alienated in many of the neoliberal reforms (Liu & Mills, 2006, p. 91). In its Indigenous support base and leadership NZF thus shares something with Latin American populist movements. For example, we have Indigenous leaders like Bolivia’s Evo Morales in 2005, or in Ecuador, Lucio Gutierrez in 2002, and Rafael Correa in 2006. Hugo Chavez in Venezuela was very popular amongst Indigenous peoples for promoting Indigenous rights and land reform (and he was part-Indigenous himself). What differentiates these movements and parties, however, is that they are all very much of the left, something NZF is not (Madrid, 2008, p. 60; Kearns, 2013). NZF has an eclectic mix of national conservatism and statism, which focuses primarily on domestic policies. These include an expansive and comprehensive welfare state, domestic manufacturing, affordable housing, law and order, good state-run schools, and healthcare, and strong but not excessively expensive defence capabilities. Journalist Danyl Mclauchlan credits Peters during the late 1990s for having incredible foresight into the key cleavages that would later dominate conservative politics: “the backlash against globalisation and neoliberalism leading to the rise of ethno-nationalist populism, the collapse of the traditional left and abandonment of workers by left-wing parties.” Further: “He saw that if you demonised the media and labeled your critics corrupt liars then you could do and say anything you liked because you were no longer accountable to any standards of truth or ethics. He saw that race and age would become dividing lines in modern politics” (Mclauchlan, 2020). Peters’ playbook

252 

D. MACDONALD

has changed little over the last three decades, and his messaging has also remained consistent. Peters has typically described the party promoting “the very traditional New Zealand values that once saw this great country among the world’s leaders—hard work, fair pay, valuing our citizenship and building a sense of community” (Peters, 2017a). Nostalgia for a mythical golden age of community and prosperity formed a central part of the party’s campaign message in 2017: to “change New Zealand back to the way it used to perform” (Peters, 2017a). Peters argued recently that his formative period was during the 1980s, when Labour embarked on a dizzying pace of neoliberal reforms “an upside-down revolution … a terrible disaster,” which led to massive foreign ownership of NZ assets. Peters’ contrasts NZ’s radical experiment to the Australian Labour government’s “pathway of incremental change” (Maniapoto, 2020). In an interview with me in 2013, Peters described his party as “a conservative party, but with a huge proviso, we call ourselves responsible conservatives.” He put it: “We understand the philosophy of conservatism; we’re responsible in the context, that in conservatism, as with capitalism, it’s no value of anyone without the following features to promote; life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for everybody, that’s the difference” (Interview with Peters, MacDonald, 2013). As is typical of many populist parties, NZF promotes an anti-elitist message. Peters’ focus during the 2017 campaign was on promoting stability, with issues such as economic uncertainty, the decline of home ownership, growing student debt, law and order, unemployment, currency volatility, overreliance on exports, and the decline of manufacturing (Indian Newslink, 2017). Elitism is largely tied here to globalization and to the selling off to state assets to cronies and to foreign elites as well (2017b). Peters has also denounced political correctness, lamenting how hypersensitivity, claims of offence and hurt feeling by “the ‘PC brigade’” have stifled meaningful debate on immigration and Indigenous issues (Peters, 2017b).

Dog Whistle Politics and NZF Consistent with the rhetoric of other right of centre populist parties, NZF started out being roundly critical of high immigration, and they have consistently called for a reduction of annual immigration levels to about 10,000 (Wong & Ritchie, 2017). NZF makes similar demands each

10  AOTEAROA NEW ZEALAND AND THE QUASI-POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY… 

253

election cycle, but reduced immigration has never been a condition for the Party joining government. Rather, NZF engages in a predictable narrative. Political commentator Bryce Edwards noted of the 2008 elections that “Peters blamed immigrants for everything from ‘placing a significant strain on education and health services’ to causing high home mortgage rates” (Edwards, 2008). This rhetoric began in 1996, when Peters campaigned on the fear that NZ was becoming “a paradise for foreign take-over merchants” (Gustafson, 2006, p.  63). In 2005, the NZF, in a press release entitled “New Zealand—The Last Asian Colony,” warned that “Māori will be disturbed to know that in 17 years’ time they will be outnumbered by Asians” (New Zealand First, 2005). Another focus of attack has been Islam, and Peters has historically, like many other populist figures, contrasted the supposedly peaceful and tolerant traditions of western democracy with the “anti-Semitic, anti-Christian, and anti-gay … intolerance” of fundamentalist Islam (Myles, 2016, pp. 144–145). He toned down much of his overt dog whistle politics, especially after gaining the foreign minister position in 2005.

Institutional Constraints and Opportunities Peter’s longevity and uncanny ability to survive and work closely with both mainstream parties have made him what former US Ambassador William McCormick referred to as “the master chameleon” of NZ politics. In 2008, McCormick highlighted initial State Department fears about Peters as “an anti-immigration and protectionist populist.” A relieved McCormick reflected: “Peters has proved his worth in the role” and “caused no ugly scenes, offence or uncertainty in foreign capitals.” Indeed, Peters was lauded both for his constructive role in further NZ relations with the US through personal diplomacy and for his deft handling of Pacific regional issues (Scoop Independent News, 2008). Arguably, Peters and his party deploy a populist style when it suits them and choose to avoid such discourse when it doesn’t. As Foreign Minister, Peters was also legally constrained. He would be expected to toe the line, as Prime Minister Helen Clark observed in 2005: “our government has very well-established foreign policy positions— Ministry of Foreign Affairs briefs, ministers go with briefs, they represent government policy, nothing can be clearer than that.” Further, Peters was obliged to adhere to the Cabinet Manuel, which specifies the duties of each minister and their responsibilities. Peters could criticize the

254 

D. MACDONALD

government in areas that were not his responsibility, such as the environment or trade, but could not criticize Labour in foreign policy (Scoop Independent News, 2005). The 2005 agreement NZF negotiated with Labour contained provisions for a review of immigration legislation and practices but did not specify any reductions, and foreign policy requirements were almost non-­ existent. Peters could have asked for more, but he didn’t. The bulk of the agreement dealt with domestic issues (NZF, 2005). As foreign minister from 2005 to 2008, Peters did nothing to halt non-European immigration, and while disparaging Asian investment, he took a role in negotiating the free trade agreement with China (Mclauchlan, 2020). In 2017, when reflecting on Peters’ time as foreign minister, Helen Clark opined: “on no occasion did NZ First let us down. In the business of government, we had a very functional and good working relationship” (Daly, 2017b). Due perhaps to his too-close cohabitation with Labour, NZF was voted out of power in 2008 and remained unrepresented in Parliament until the 2011 elections. One might speculate that Peters’ institutional constraints while in cabinet could be unshackled when back in opposition. However, little changed in NZF’s foreign policy stances when out of power, and the party continued to subscribe to a form of liberal internationalism. As Peters articulated in 2014, NZF’s approach to international relations was “to be realistic,” which implied “strengthening bonds with our trusted allies—Australia and the United States.” While “keeping an even keel in our political and diplomatic relationship with Japan and China,” Peters was cognizant that NZ existed within a multipolar world, marked by the decline of American power and the rising influence of China. NZ, Peters recognized, was “a small state … in a world of giants” (Peters, 2014, p. 11). In such a world, NZ’s core interest was “national self-preservation.” The threats he identified were of a common range: “population growth, climate change, poverty, dislocation to the world economy occasioned by the Western financial crisis, corruption, terrorism” (2014, p. 11). In 2017, NZF gained 7.2 percent of the vote and 9 seats in Parliament and came back out of the wilderness. After weeks negotiating with both National and Labour, Peters chose a formal coalition with Labour. The 2017 coalition agreement reiterated the importance of both Labour and NZF ministers being bound by the Cabinet Manual and the principle of collective responsibility. The key issue was that decisions made by Cabinet were to be supported by all Ministers, “unless ‘agree to disagree’

10  AOTEAROA NEW ZEALAND AND THE QUASI-POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY… 

255

provisions apply” which would have to be negotiated in advance (p. 2). Whatever a populist foreign policy for NZ might looked like, there is little evidence that NZF was keen to promote one. Indeed, the coalition agreement prioritized domestic politics. The only discussion of foreign policy was an agreement to “undertake a comprehensive register of foreign-­ owned land and housing” and “Work towards a Free Trade Agreement with the Russia-Belarus-Kazakhstan Customs Union and initiate Closer Commonwealth Economic Relations” (New Zealand Cabinet Office Circular, 2017, p. 15).

The People’s Republic of China The long-standing anti-Asian stance of the NZF during election campaigns has sporadically translated into China-critical rhetoric. Much of this has concerned foreign ownership of NZ’s resources, which is less a critique of the PRC than a lament against the weakness of successive NZ governments to protect domestic industry and housing stock. In 2008 nearing the end of his time as foreign minister, Peters refused to back Labour’s Free Trade Agreement with China. He cited problems related to the $3.6 billion trade deficit between the two countries and highlighted specific provisions of the Agreement. Part of this was posturing. NZF sought to differentiate itself from Labour during an election campaign, and Peters also knew the Agreement would easily pass without his support. Out of Parliament, NZF had little to say about China, and by 2016, China was NZ’s second largest trading partner, with $22 billion in two-­ way trade, much of it in primary products such as dairy products, wood, and meat (Steff & Dodd-Parr, 2019, pp. 3–5; 15). There was inconsistency in Peters’ views on the PRC, which vacillated between criticism and reassurance. This reflects a stark reality that NZ depends heavily on China for its trade and investment, bringing with it considerable opportunity but also vulnerability. Peters took a stronger line against some aspects of the PRC than his predecessors but was very careful not to have this threaten the trading relationship. In 2017, he sought to balance criticism and respect, noting in a speech to Chinese dignitaries: New Zealand and China do not always see eye to eye on every issue; we are different countries and New Zealanders are proudly independent. However, China and New Zealand have a close, constructive and increasingly mature relationship. Where we do have different perspectives, we raise these with each other in ways that are cordial, constructive and clear. (Peters, 2017a)

256 

D. MACDONALD

Within the coalition, foreign policy analyst Robert Ayson identifies a “good cop-bad cop routine” with Peters’ more pessimistic tone contrasted with Ardern’s focus on “optimism and opportunity rather than risk and threat.” However, Ayson observes with respect to China: By the halfway point of Ardern’s first term, there was enough evidence to suggest that a change in New Zealand’s foreign policy priorities had well and truly occurred. Trends which began in the later years of John Key’s Prime Ministership had been turbocharged under the new coalition. Concerns about regional security increasingly crowded out optimism about regional markets. In both cases, China’s rise was the dominant factor. (Ayson, 2021)

International relations scholar Patrick Köllner has noted a dissonance between Peters and Ardern over China, which he saw as ambiguous and inconsistent. Peters, he argued, seemed to draw closer to Australia’s more China-critical rhetoric, seeking closer alliance with Australia and the US. Ardern was less interested in counterbalancing and by 2019 “effectively took charge of China policy in spring 2019, seeking to stabilise bilateral ties and to ward off possible economic damage.” In practice, NZ pursued policies which were less anti-China, continuing to engage with the Belt and Road Initiative and not taking a strong stand against Huawei and 5G as did the UK and Australia. However, it is certainly true that NZ drew closer to Australia in its criticism of China, even if it did so more cautiously due to its much smaller size. Köllner puts it: “Whereas, metaphorically speaking, the two Australasian partners still do not always sing the same hymns when it comes to China, they at least have come to use the same hymn book more often under the Ardern government” (2021, p. 426). There are academic differences over to what extent Peters was more anti-China in terms of policy or rhetoric than his predecessors with both Ayson and Köllner seeing Peters as more anti-China than Ardern, but both also noting a larger change in tone under Labour as compared to National. This makes Peters’ approach to foreign policy similar to that of Ardern. Of course, there were changing geopolitical realities. China under Xi was becoming far more assertive, and it was also the case that NZ was becoming increasingly dependent on and vulnerable to Chinese influence. As Brady notes by 2020: “50 percent of New Zealand imports are from China. New Zealand is strategically dependent on China for 513 categories of goods … 33 percent of New Zealand’s dairy exports, 41.9 percent

10  AOTEAROA NEW ZEALAND AND THE QUASI-POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY… 

257

of meat exports, 58.3 percent of logs and timber exports, 37.5 percent of seafood exports, 46.5 percent of wool exports go to China. 28.5 percent of New Zealand’s international education income comes from China” (Brady, 2020, p. 3). The rising influence of China seems to have had an impact on Peters’ views of the US and the Pacific, with a closer US alliance seen as crucial to preventing PRC encroachment into NZ’s strategic neighbourhood.

The US and the Pacific Peters forged strong relationships with the US during his time as Clark’s foreign minister and played a constructive role in 2007 when he visited North Korea as part of a delegation to halt its nuclear weapons programme. Returning to the job in 2017, Peters developed cordial relations with then US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, to the point where the US was said to be involving NZ in a “secret project” in the Asia-Pacific. Peters expressed interest in again intervening in the North Korean situation, “as a small country, but as an informed one” (Cheng, 2020). Whatever plans were hatched at this time did not later materialize into anything concrete. Peters also sought closer relations with the US as a counter to Chinese influence in the Pacific. A seminal event is the 2018 speech Peters gave at Georgetown University, when he implored American policymakers to take a more active role in the Pacific. Specifically, Peters sought to “enlist greater US support in the region closest to New Zealand. We unashamedly ask for the United States to engage more, and we think it is in your vital interests to do so. And time is of the essence.” He was clear that the US was not a stranger but was “intrinsically part of the region.” His request for additional US assistance was couched in an interesting allusion to World War II and the Japanese threat: “In 1942, the United States came to the defence of New Zealand in a very direct sense” (Peters, 2018a). Tied to this pro-American policy was a stronger focus on the Pacific. Under Peters, the government initiated a “reset” in early 2018. He articulated the view that “New Zealand is a Pacific country, linked by history, culture, politics, and demographics,” and as NZ’s geostrategic neighbourhood, “the Pacific is where New Zealand matters more, wields more influence, and can have a more positive impact.” His reset focused on three points: interconnectedness of NZ with the Pacific and the vastness of the territorial space, shared national security challenges, and shared economic and other opportunities (Lowy Institute, 2018). Central to the reset was

258 

D. MACDONALD

more funding for the region and the need to reduce the impact of an encroaching China. He did not say so directly, but in many speeches the meaning was clear, not to dominate Pacific Island states but to work “with our Pacific family to be independent and self-sufficient.” The focus, he promised was to be on “doing what is right,” which included “standing up for fairness, good governance, democracy, the rule of law, human rights, free media, and sustainable and fair economic development.” He also warned against “zero sum power politics” (Peters, 2018b). Anna Powles in her analysis of Peters’ foreign policy notes his strong commitment to the Pacific and the significant budget boost to the region (NZ$714 m or a 30 percent increase over four years) for a range of development and diplomatic activities. In practice this would amount to 60 percent of NZ’s aid budget. Powles is in no doubt that “the Reset was driven in part by concerns about China’s rising influence in the Pacific” (Powles, 2021, p. 35). The Pacific focus and a sense of Chinese threat became more obvious when NZF sought to increase the NZ defence budget. NZF MP Ron Mark was minister of defence from 2017 to 2020. He was able to land two major defence procurements, both of which were arguably needed due to the country’s antiquated military infrastructure. Mark, a veteran himself who has previously suffered from PTSD, was generally well liked amongst military personnel. The first of the two procurements were controversial as it involved upgrading NZ’s maritime surveillance aircraft with P8 Poseidons, which had combat capabilities the previous ones did not have as well as the ability to detect submarines (Ayson, 2021). The 2018 Strategic defence policy statement outlined a growing Chinese influence around the world and the need for NZ to safeguard its neighbourhood. The statement was clear that China “has not consistently adopted the governance and values championed by the order’s traditional leaders.” They continue: “China holds views on human rights and freedom of information that stand in contrast to those that prevail in New Zealand” (New Zealand Ministry of Defence, 2018).

The UK and Brexit As befits his first name, Winston Peters is pro-British, and his love of all things British including the monarchy is well known and has helped cement electoral support amongst older conservative Pakeha voters. Brexit support is not unusual amongst populist leaders, such as Donald Trump,

10  AOTEAROA NEW ZEALAND AND THE QUASI-POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY… 

259

and National Rally’s Marine Le Pen has also sought a Brexit-style option for France. Peters has been pro-Brexit for some time, seeing it as a way of distancing Britain from the EU and promoting the rise of a Commonwealth free trade area, which would heal a “rift dating back 43 years.” In May 2016, Peters addressed the British House of Lords and promoted Brexit as a “bold and courageous” move for the British electorate. Peters put himself in British shoes, empathizing with the British dismay at the “invasion of EU nationals from countries like Poland and Romania,” while also deriding the EU’s “ridiculous laws, drafted by high-paid minds” bureaucracy, and elites. He concluded: “The British people stand on the cusp of an exciting future” (Moir, 2016). Peters formed a friendship with Nigel Farage, with whom he enjoyed watching cricket in the UK in April 2018. Farage was the former head of the UK Independence Party and a key architect of Brexit. The focus of their conversation seems to have been the growing influence of the Commonwealth in the aftermath of the Brexit vote (NZ Herald, 2020). Peters also became close friends with the British entrepreneur and Leave. UK backer Arron Banks, who spent several months in New Zealand in 2020, ostensibly helping NZF.  Peters was linked to various other key Leave.UK operatives such as Andy Wigmore in the run up to the election. Banks, who funded both the Leave.UK campaign and the UK Independence Party, saw a kindred spirit in Peters and tweeted on one occasion “New Zealand does remind me of happier times in the UK,” while also sharing numerous Peters and NZF tweets from his personal account. Some of the more edgy rhetoric of NZF’s 2020 election campaign, including his salvos against “woke” people, may be traced to Peters’ involvement with the so-­ called Bad Boys of Brexit (Giovannetti, 2020).

Peters’ Pro-Russian Views Certainly, many populist parties have adopted relatively more pro-Russia and pro-Putin policies than mainstream parties. This pro-Russian focus certainly shifted to some extent when Russian invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Before the invasion at least, and in some cases, populists of the right and left in Europe have seen Russia as an important counterweight to the influence or Washington DC or Brussels. This certainly seems to be true of Austrian and Italian populists, as well as National Rally in France and the UK Independence Party (Weiss, 2020). Putin has had a particular allure for some right-wing populist movements for purportedly standing

260 

D. MACDONALD

up to Islamic extremism, critiquing international institutions, restricting immigration, promoting nation-first policies, while discouraging secularization and cultural liberalism (Brownstein, 2017). However, this varies considerably by country, and in countries which were formerly communist and/or bordering Russia, such as Hungary, Poland, Estonia, Sweden, and Finland, populist parties can be hawkish on Russia and may see NATO as the lesser of two evils (Chryssogelos, 2021). Peters stood out in the NZ political environment for long advocating a relatively more Russia-friendly foreign policy than any other NZ political leader. While there were obvious tensions between NZ and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, the relationship improved after, and in 2010 Russia and NZ started working on negotiations on a free trade agreement between NZ and the Customs Union of Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, today called the Eurasian Economic Union. Talks were put on hold in 2014 after the Russian annexation of Crimea. Despite Peters’ claims (about which more below), the economic potential would have been negligible—estimated at approximately $27 million NZD annually (Headley, 2019, pp. 216; 221). Peters was determined to push for the idea of restarting trade negotiations with Russia, and during the National party government of John Key, Peters routinely used his question time to criticize the government over their suspension of trade talks. This suggests little change of focus in foreign policy interests when navigating from opposition to government. Peters strongly advocated free trade with Russia and its Eurasian neighbours throughout the 2000s. He pushed the issue in 2015 in Parliament to the Prime Minister, advocating on behalf of “struggling Kiwi farmers” to “prioritise access to the Russian market” (New Zealand Parliament, 2015a, p. 5188). The issue was revisited several times again. In a lengthy exchange in Parliament in March 2016, Peters lambasted the Trade Minister for “allow[ing] more dairy farmers to go bust while he remains tied down by an informal, off-the-cuff golf course agreement with President Obama.” Peters advocated for Russians: “800 million consumers who definitely want to buy something,” and accused Key of “den[ying] farmers a chance to trade with the world’s second-biggest dairy importer, Russia” (New Zealand Parliament, 2016, p.  9425). And again in 2017 Peters took aim at the government for “collaps[ing] our chance of getting a decent deal with the second-biggest dairy and beef importer in the world, namely Russia” (New Zealand Parliament, 2015b, p. 5394).

10  AOTEAROA NEW ZEALAND AND THE QUASI-POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY… 

261

Peters’ pro-Russian focus was the only foreign policy item inserted into the coalition agreement: to “Work towards a Free Trade Agreement with the Russia-Belarus-Kazakhstan Customs Union.” Peters’ seeming tone deafness to Russian human rights and electoral meddling caused a blip in coverage during 2017 and early 2018, with the European Union ambassador Bernard Savage impolitically stating only a month into the coalition that any NZ attempt to improve relations with Russia would be seen in a “very negative” way. Media reports stressed how Peters might be endangering a $20 billion annual trade relationship with the EU for the prospects of a much smaller commercial relationship with an international pariah (New Zealand Parliament, 2017, p. 6), which suggests he was not really motivated by economic gain. Ayson concludes that while the “source of Peters’ warmth towards the former superpower remains unclear,” it resulted in New Zealand having very unclear policies with regard to Russian in 2018, when two Russian expatriates were poisoned (presumably at the behest of Putin) in the UK. Due to Peters’ desire to seed doubt about Russian involvement, NZ failed to parallel the strong stance of its fellow Five Eyes members, making the government look indecisive (NZ Herald Staff, 2017). Peters’ pro-­ Russian views were subtle but insistent. The data does not support the notion that Peters was simply interested in large new markets for primary products. Rather, as with some other populist leaders (including his Brexit friends), Peters may have an affinity for Russia as an embodiment of old-­ world values. He may also see Russia as a counterweight to the European Union and China.

Conclusions During election campaigns, Peters operated as what some would see as a textbook populist, promoting anti-elitism, myths of a pure people (albeit a people who are both Māori and Pakeha), standing against political correctness, while calling for reduced immigration, more police, a crackdown on gangs, and more funding for schools and healthcare. At the same time, many of these policies were abandoned when Peters had the chance to be in Cabinet. In foreign policy, Peters shared pro-Brexit and pro-Russian sentiments with populist leaders in other countries. Both views in a NZ context are anomalous amongst foreign policy elites and the public. However, in general, Peters’ foreign policy views are within the normal range of standard

262 

D. MACDONALD

garden-variety NZ foreign policy options—we could say that they diverged in terms of degree but not of kind. As part of the Commonwealth and the Five Eyes, successive NZ governments have adopted policies which favour the country’s traditional allies. They also, like Peters, have adopted policies favourable to the Pacific, NZ’s geostrategic neighbourhood. Similarly, the growing wariness of the PRC has been reflected by many western governments, and while Peters has at times been more publicly fearful of Chinese influence than some other political leaders, his rhetoric while in office has been measured, and not out of step with the views and statements of his former Labour colleagues. Much of this, as referenced throughout, has to do with NZ’s small size and remote geographic location. NZ policymakers practice the art of the possibly, but for small countries, the possible is relatively constrained. In the October 2020 elections, NZF failed to secure the necessary 5 percent threshold to seat any list of MPs and failed in its bid for electoral seats. Closed borders, a declining economy, and media focus almost exclusively on Ardern and her Director-General of Health made it almost impossible for Peters to score any political points. He was recognized neither for strong contributions to public policy as a relevant part of a coalition government nor as a watchdog against Labour’s excesses (what Peters called a “handbrake on Labour”). There was little foreign policy travel during the COVID era and declining public interest in foreign policy. These realities were reflected in NZF’s 2020 44-page policy manifesto, which buried discussion of foreign affairs and trade. These themes covered just two-thirds of page 26, just before forestry, and only slightly more in terms of content than NZF’s policies on horse racing (New Zealand First, 2020). In his speech at the Party’s annual general meeting in June 2021, Peters optimistically promised: “We are a phoenix that will again arise as the public wake up to the inexactitude of this Government and a hapless National Party.” His primary focus was domestic politics and his fears of a “haughty autocracy” promoting pro-Māori policies in a politically correct way (i.e., “the new wokeage,” “separatism,” and “co-governance”). Problems of law and order and “anemic” economic productivity were the other key messages. Foreign policy, China, and Russia were not mentioned and were seemingly irrelevant to Peters’ voter base (New Zealand First, 2022). NZF is hardly alone amongst populist parties however—the COVID-19 pandemic focused attention far more on domestic policy concerns. A closed border meant no immigrants could get in, foreign investment was reduced,

10  AOTEAROA NEW ZEALAND AND THE QUASI-POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY… 

263

and supply chain issues radically reduced the potential for foreign goods to erode NZ’s domestic economy. This domestic focus is thus typical rather than aberrant in this historical period for populist parties.

References Ayson, R. (2021). New Zealand’s Foreign and Defence Policy, 2017–2020. Open Access Te Herenga Waka-Victoria University of Wellington. Chapter in S.  Levine (Ed.), Politics in a Pandemic: Jacinda Ardern and New Zealand’s 2020 Election. Victoria University Press. https://doi.org/10.25455/ wgtn.16894108.v1 Bertjan, V., & Andrej, Z. (2017). Populism and Foreign Policy. In C. R. Kaltwasser (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Populism (pp. 2; 9). Oxford University Press. Brady, A.-M. (2019). Small Can Be Huge: New Zealand Foreign Policy in an Era of Global Uncertainty. In A.-M. Brady (Ed.), Small States and the Changing Global Order (pp. 1–10). Springer. Brady, A.-M. (2020). Brave New World: New Zealand Foreign Policy in the COVID-19 Era. In A.-M.  Brady (Ed.), Small State and the New Security Environment. University of Canterbury. Brownstein, R. (2017, January 8). Why the European Right Wing loves Putin. The Atlantic. Retrieved August 8, 2022, from https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/01/putin-­t r ump-­l e-­p en-­ hungary-­france-­populist-­bannon/512303/ Central Intelligence Agency. (2022, August 02). New Zealand—The World Factbook. Retrieved from The World Factbook: https://www.cia.gov/the-­ world-­factbook/countries/new-­zealand/#economy Cheng, D. (2020, September 21). US Seeks Out Peters for Special Project. NZ Herald. Chryssogelos, A. (2021). Is There a Populist Foreign Policy? In Policy File. The Royal Institute of International Affairs. Daly, M. (2017a, September 24). How to Explain Winston Peters—Overseas Reporting on the New Zealand Election. Retrieved from Stuff: https:// www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/97188960/how-­t o-­e xplain-­w inston-­ peters%2D%2Doverseas-­reporting-­on-­the-­new-­zealand-­election Daly, M. (2017b, October 19). Helen Clark: Winston Peters Won’t Let the Labour Government Down. Stuff. Retrieved August 8, 2022, from https:// www.stuf f.co.nz/national/politics/98074958/helen-­c lark-­w inston-­ peters-­wont-­let-­the-­labour-­government-­down Edwards, B. (2008, November 26). [NZ First Party History] 14: The Anti-­ immigration Surge. Liberation. Retrieved August 7, 2022, from http:// liberation.typepad.com/liberation/2008/11/nz-­first-­party-­history-­14-­the-­ antiimmigration-­surge.html

264 

D. MACDONALD

Galston, W. A. (2018). The Populist Challenge to Liberal Democracy. Journal of Democracy, 29(2), 5–19. Giovannetti, J. (2020, July 1). The Curious Case of Winston Peters and ‘Brexit Bad Boy’ Aaron Banks. The Spinoff. Retrieved August 8, 2022, from https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/01-­07-­2020/the-­curious-­case-­of-­winston-­ peters-­and-­brexit-­bad-­boy-­arron-­banks Greven, T. (2016). The Rise of Right-Wing Populism in Europe and the United States: A Comparative Perspective. Friedrich Ebert Foundation. Gustafson, B. (2006). Populist Roots of Political Leadership in New Zealand in Political Leadership in New Zealand (R. Miller & M. Mintrom, Eds.). Auckland University Press. Headley, J. (2019). Russia Resurgent: The Implications for New Zealand. In Small States and the Changing Global Order (pp. 213–229). Springer. Indian Newslink. (2017, July 16). New Zealand Is Heading Towards Political Upset. Indian Newslink. Retrieved August 7, 2022, from https://indiannewslink.co.nz/new-­zealand-­is-­heading-­towards-­political-­upset/ Kearns, R. (2013, March 13). Indigenous Latin Americans Mourn the Death of Hugo Chavez. Indian Country Today. Retrieved August 7, 2022, from https://indiancountr ytoday.com/archive/indigenous-­l atin-­a mericans-­ mourn-­the-­death-­of-­hugo-­chavez Köllner, P. (2021). Australia and New Zealand Recalibrate Their China Policies: Convergence and Divergence. Pacific Review, 34(3), 405–436. https://doi. org/10.1080/09512748.2019.1683598 Liu, J., & Mills, D. (2006). Modern Racism and Neo-liberal Globalization: The Discourses of Plausible Deniability and Their Multiple Functions. Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology, 83–99. Lowy Institute. (2018, March 2). Winston Peters on New Zealand in the Pacific. Lowy Institute. Retrieved August 8, 2022, from https://www.lowyinstitute. org/publications/winston-­peters-­new-­zealand-­pacific MacDonald, D. (2013) Interview with Winston Peters, Bowen House, Wellington, 19 November. Madrid, R. L. (2008). The Rise of Ethnopopulism in Latin America. World Politics, 60(3), 475–508. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0043887100009060 Maniapoto, M. (2020, October 10). A Man of Contradictions. E-Tangata. Retrieved August 7, 2022, from https://e-­tangata.co.nz/ korero/a-­man-­of-­contradictions/ Mclauchlan, D. (2020, October 4). The Boxer and the Towel: A Short History of Winston Peters, Politician. The Spinoff. Retrieved August 7, 2022, from https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/04-­10-­2020/the-­boxer-­and-­the-­towel-­a-­ short-­history-­of-­winston-­peters-­politician Miller, R., & Mintrom, M. (2006). Political Leadership in New Zealand. Auckland University Press.

10  AOTEAROA NEW ZEALAND AND THE QUASI-POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY… 

265

Moir, J. (2016, May 13). Winston Peters Backs Brexit: ‘Be Bold, Ditch the EU’. Stuff. Retrieved August 8, 2022, from https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/ politics/79953876/winston-­peters-­backs-­brexit-­be-­bold-­ditch-­the-­eu Mudde, C., Espejo, P. O., Kaltwasser, C. R., Taggart, P., & Ostiguy, P. (2017). Populism: An Ideational Approach. In C.  R. Kaltwasser (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Populism. Oxford University Press. Myles, R. (2016). Winston Peters “Puts His Hand to the Plow”: The Bible in New Zealand Political Discourse. Journal of the Bible and Its Reception, 3(1), 135–153. https://doi.org/10.1515/jbr-­2016-­1010 New Zealand Cabinet Office Circular. (2017). Labour-New Zealand First Coalition, with Confidence and Supply from the Green Party: Consultation and Operating Arrangements. CO, 17, 10. https://dpmc.govt.nz/sites/ default/files/2017-­12/coc-­17-­10.pdf New Zealand First. (2005). Confidence and Supply Agreement with New Zealand First. Retrieved from Beehive.govt.nz: https://www.beehive.govt.nz/sites/ default/files/NZFirst.pdf New Zealand First. (2020, October 1). New Zealand First Policy Manifesto 2020. Issuu. Retrieved August 8, 2022, from https://issuu.com/newzealandfirst/ docs/policy_pdf New Zealand First. (2022, June 20). Winston Peters Speech to AGM. New Zealand First. Retrieved August 8, 2022, from https://www.nzfirst.nz/ speech_winston_peters_campaign_launch_2020 New Zealand Ministry of Defence. (2018, June 7). Strategic Defence Policy Statement 2018. https://www.defence.govt.nz/publications/publication/ strategic-­defence-­policy-­statement-­2018 New Zealand Parliament. (2015a, July 22). Rt Hon Winston Peters (Leader—NZ First) to the Prime Minister. Oral Questions—Questions to Ministers, Questions to Members—New Zealand Parliament. Retrieved August 8, 2022, from https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/ hansard-­d ebates/rhr/document/51HansS_20150722_00000189/ peters-­winston-­oral-­questions-­questions-­to-­ministers New Zealand Parliament. (2015b, August 19). Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement Rt Hon Winston Peters. Oral Questions—Questions to Ministers, Questions to Members—New Zealand Parliament. Retrieved August 8, 2022, from https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/ hansard-­d ebates/rhr/document/51HansS_20150819_00000427/ peters-­winston-­oral-­questions-­questions-­to-­ministers New Zealand Parliament. (2016, March 8). Rt Hon Winston Peters (Leader—NZ First) to the Prime Minister. Oral Questions—Questions to Ministers, Questions to Members—New Zealand Parliament. Retrieved August 8, 2022, from https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/

266 

D. MACDONALD

hansard-­d ebates/rhr/document/51HansS_20150819_00000427/ peters-­winston-­oral-­questions-­questions-­to-­ministers New Zealand Parliament. (2017). Coalition Agreement between the New Zealand Labour Party & New Zealand First Party (p. 6). https://www.parliament.nz/ media/4486/362429780labourandnewzealandfirstcoalitionagreement.pdf NZ Herald. (2020, September 22). Winston Peters Enjoys a Spot of Cricket with Brexit Architect. NZ Herald. Retrieved August 8, 2022, from https://www. nzherald.co.nz/nz/foreign-­minister-­winston-­peters-­enjoys-­a-­spot-­of-­cricket-­ with-­brexit-­architect-­nigel-­farage/Z227WHPIUQB2PDXS4WA3Y44MGY/ NZ Herald Staff. (2017, November 4). Winston Peters Is Already Upsetting Foreign Leaders with Russia Trade Plans Back on the Table. Newstalk ZB. Retrieved August 8, 2022, from https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/news/ business/winston-­peters-­is-­already-­upsetting-­foreign-­leaders-­with-­r ussia-­deal-­ back-­in-­the-­plans/ Peters, W. (2014). New Zealand and the World: Challenges We Must Meet: Winston Peters Outlines New Zealand First’s Approach to International Affairs. In New Zealand International Review (Vol. 39, p. 11–). New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. Peters, W. (2017a, December 5). Anniversary of Diplomatic Relations with China. The Beehive. Retrieved August 8, 2022, from https://www.beehive.govt.nz/ speech/anniversary-­diplomatic-­relations-­china Peters, W. (2017b, September 23). It will be ‘Battle for New Zealand’. Indian Newslink. http://www.indiannewslink.co.nz/new-­z ealand-­i s-­h eading-­ towards-­political-­upset/ Peters, W. (2018a, June 29). Next Steps. The Beehive. Retrieved August 8, 2022, from https://www.beehive.govt.nz/speech/next-­steps Peters, W. (2018b, December 15). Pacific Partnerships—Georgetown Address, Washington, DC. The Beehive. Retrieved August 8, 2022, from https://www.beehive.govt.nz/speech/pacific-­partnerships-­georgetown-­address-­washington-­dc Powles, A. (2021). Identity, National Security and Influence: The Pacific Reset and Shaping New Zealand’s Relations with the Pacific Islands. Development Bulletin, 82, 32–36. Scoop Independent News. (2005, October 25). Agenda Transcript: Helen Clark, Winston Peters. Scoop Independent News. Retrieved August 7, 2022, from https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU0510/S00409/agenda-­t ranscript-­ helen-­clark-­winston-­peters.htm Scoop Independent News. (2008, May 7). Cablegate: FM Peters to Adjust Behavior as Election Nears. Scoop Independent News. Retrieved August 7, 2022, from http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WL0805/S00158/cablegate-­fm-­ peters-­to-­adjust-­behavior-­as-­election-­nears.htm Steff, R., & Dodd-Parr, F. (2019). Examining the Immanent Dilemma of Small States in the Asia-Pacific: The Strategic Triangle between New Zealand, the US

10  AOTEAROA NEW ZEALAND AND THE QUASI-POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY… 

267

and China. Pacific Review, 32(1), 90–112. https://doi.org/10.1080/0951274 8.2017.1417324 Wajner, D. F., & Giurlando, P. (2023). Introduction to Populist Foreign Policy (PFP). In P. Giurlando & D. Wajner (Eds.), Populist Foreign Policy: Regional Perspectives of Populism in the International Scene. Palgrave. Weiss, A. S. (2020, February 27). With Friends Like These: The Kremlin’s Far-­ Right and Populist Connections in Italy and Austria. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Retrieved August 8, 2022, from https://carnegieendowment.org/2020/02/27/with-­friends-­like-­these-­kremlin-­s-­far-­right-­and-­ populist-­connections-­in-­italy-­and-­austria-­pub-­81100 Wong, S., & Ritchie, O. (2017, April 27). Winston Peters Targets Students in Immigration Crackdown. Newshub. Retrieved August 7, 2022, from http:// www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2017/04/winston-­p eters-­t argets-­ students-­in-­immigration-­crackdown.html

CHAPTER 11

Conclusions: Populist Foreign Policy in a Comparative Perspective Philip Giurlando and  Daniel F. Wajner

This edited volume aimed to provide answers to two key questions: what is distinctive about Populist Foreign Policy (PFP), and what are the domestic and international factors that enable and constrain PFP.  The answers to these questions are increasingly pressing given the changes in global politics, as demonstrated by the various electoral outcomes of 2022 including the legislative elections in France on June 19 and the Italian parliamentary elections on September 25, which saw important gains among populist parties, and the US legislative elections on November 8, which highlighted the continued strength of Trump’s wing in the Republican Party. These outcomes are not surprising, given that some P. Giurlando (*) Department of International Studies, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Suzhou, China e-mail: [email protected] D. F. Wajner Department of International Relations and The European Forum, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 P. Giurlando, D. F. Wajner (eds.), Populist Foreign Policy, Global Foreign Policy Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22773-8_11

269

270 

P. GIURLANDO AND D. F. WAJNER

structural and sociological trends fueling current populism—increased levels of inequality, economic distress, political polarization, the global shift of power away from the West—were accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine and are expected to remain and even grow in the coming years (Eatwell & Goodwin, 2019; Ministerio de Defensa Español, 2019). Unique to the existing literature on the subject, the present work has examined PFP from a regional perspective, employing cross-country comparisons to distill lessons about PFP in geographically and/or culturally contained regions of the world: Latin America; North America; Northern, Southern, and Eastern Europe; the Middle East; Africa; East and Southeast Asia; and Oceania. To this end, we brought together the growing scholarship on the intersections of populism and foreign policy in these areas. The value-added of this approach includes taking account of the phenomenon in multiple, often-contiguous countries, with a shared history and culture but also with considerable distinctive features, permitting a sharper focus on the factors that explain PFP not only between countries, but also between regions. The observed differences are particularly important: although all the populists in discussion interpret the political universe both within and beyond their borders through the “pure people, corrupt elite” scheme, this is inevitably shaped through various ideational, domestic, international, and structural factors. Hence, for example, whether countries are situated in the Global North or Global South determines the histories of colonial and post-colonial domestic structures that likely play a role in how populism (and thus PFP) develops in different parts of the world. It follows that taking account of populism in these disparate regions, rather than focusing exclusively on developed Western countries, can advance scientific knowledge. In the conclusions that follow, therefore, we make both intra- and cross-regional comparisons, trying to identify similarities and differences in PFP patterns and in the international and national features that constrain or enact these patterns. In addition, we delve into several topics that remain to be discussed more intensively, as well as normative and policy-­ oriented issues to be considered, in the hope this will serve as an agenda for further research.

11  CONCLUSIONS: POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN A COMPARATIVE… 

271

Distinctive Populist Foreign Policies One important conclusion of this edited volume is that, contrary to commonly accepted views, populists do not necessarily pursue a foreign policy that is always ‘nationalist’, ‘isolationist’, ‘unilateralist’, or ‘protectionist’ in character. For most of the populists discussed in this volume, popular sovereignty should be the main organizing principle of international relations, understood to mean that ‘the ordinary people’—not the ‘elites’ who staff the ever-expanding tentacles of financial markets, multilateral institutions, or regional hegemons—must have the final say on decisions that strongly impact society. Here, the ideational construction of the people and the elites and their ensuing antagonism often transcends borders, as demonstrated by left-­ wing populists in Southern Europe and Latin America, who define the collective as victims of the capitalist, imperialist, and foreign exploitation. But this transnational projection of the core populist features is also visible among right-wing populists in Eastern Europe, Islamic populists in the Middle East, and “messianic” leaders in Uganda and Rwanda, who understand this “pure people” and its political mission in civilizational terms. Other interesting similarities in how the “people” is perceived and discursively accommodated can be found in Chaps. 6 and 10—while in some cases in Latin America (Venezuela) and Oceania (New Zealand) the “original people” includes indigenous populations, in other cases (e.g., Brazil, Australia) nativists prevail. Meanwhile, in the North, nostalgia for the restoration of an ‘imperial’ status is prevalent among right-wing populists, most notably in France, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Spain, as Chaps. 2 and 3 reflect. Although they show important nuances on who the main “enemies” are, in all these cases, for both left- and right-wing populists, the corrupt ‘elite’ tends to be a combination of domestic and international ‘establishments’—an alliance of cultural, economic, and technocratic like-minded elites. Often called ‘globalists’, with a social base among major city centers with globalized industries and cosmopolitan identities, these ‘elites’ are accused of having betrayed the pure people due to the ‘corrupted’ way in which they deal with issues that are inherently transnational, including international security, trade, migration, and human rights. Most of the book’s chapters illustrate how the populist understanding of political conflict between the pure people and the corrupt elite(s) motivates the politicization of topics whose implications are ‘intermestic’: both

272 

P. GIURLANDO AND D. F. WAJNER

international and domestic. For example, a key tool endorsed by populists of all political stripes is referendums, which encourage citizens to weigh in on better policies that transcend national borders. The most salient illustration can be found in Chap. 3 on PFP in Southern Europe. Indeed, in Greece, where Alexis Tsipras made a big bet, which he subsequently lost, by allowing Greeks a say on the austerity politics emanating from the ‘globalist’ elites: financial markets, the IMF, Brussels, Berlin, and Frankfurt. The political aftermath of this failed referendum transcended Greek borders in more ways than one; in Great Britain it would eventually play a significant role in the referendum that would accomplish populists’ goals, namely, Brexit, where many voted to leave the EU (in part due to Greece’s perceived humiliation). Other examples of the transnational diffusion of these trends can be found in Chap. 2 on Northern Europe; in the Netherlands, populists from both the left and the right endorsed referendums on key questions related to international trade and regional integration. Similarly, Italian populists (unsuccessfully) supported referendums on the country’s Eurozone membership, even though referendums on international agreements are explicitly prohibited in the Italian constitution. In all cases, the underlying motivation was the politicization of foreign policy, under the assumption that the “pure” people could make better decisions on fundamental international issues than career politicians or high-level bureaucrats, who are perceived to be corrupt, egocentric, or disloyal. Populist programs of regional integration are also motivated by the assumption that populist leader should be at the forefront of the joint struggle of a multiplicity of betrayed ‘people’ who demand to ‘take control back’. This radical centralization of foreign policy decision-making and personalization of diplomacy are expressed through the euphoric encounters between populist leaders, who embody the affective solidarity between their peoples and their political associations. Malleability and symbolism characterize populist preferences toward regionalism. Therefore, while backlashing against supranational institutions guides populist regionalist stances in Western, Southern, and Central-Eastern Europe, as Chaps. 2–4 illustrate, the construction of alternative, ad-hoc frameworks of regional cooperation is prominent in the Global South. Indeed, existing regional organizations (such as global ones) are perceived as instruments to promote the neoliberal interests of the hegemon and its accused domestic lackeys, namely non-majoritarian institutions and traditional parties. Populists, in response, claim to promote alternative

11  CONCLUSIONS: POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN A COMPARATIVE… 

273

organizations that can circumvent the ones controlled by the accused ‘foreign’ establishment. As Chap. 6 shows, the most salient example is the creation by Hugo Chávez’s and Nicolás Maduro’s Venezuela of regional organizations organized around the notion of a Bolivarian revolution and a ‘Nuestramerican’ identity, which essentially excluded Washington, Madrid, and their regional allies. In practice, however, Latin American regionalist dynamics became dominated by personalist performances, centralization of decision-making, and client-patron transnational networks (see Wajner & Roniger, 2022). Chapters 7, 8, and 9 show that similar symbolic, leader-­ oriented regionalist attempts were also promoted by populists in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia with few substantive outcomes. The people-elite dichotomy also influences the preference among most Global South populists for a multipolar world and their wish to pursue soft-balancing strategies to maximize leverage, which is the flip side of their opposition to elite policymakers within regional or global hegemons. Of course, different populists target distinct hegemons. For example, in Latin America, Washington, Wall Street, and the International Monetary Fund are often blamed for regional ills, while in Europe, Berlin, Frankfurt, and Brussels are portrayed to be the culprit for the imposition of neoliberalism and austerity (among left-wing populists) or for promoting multiculturalism and open borders (among right-wingers). In both cases, populists are wary of talking of “universal values”, “international institutions”, or the “liberal international order”. Below the surface of claims about universal norms and values, populists perceive state powers as maximizing their interests and weaponizing morality to justify their dominance and therefore agree with IR realists (see Drezner, 2017). Material power, realists assume, can only be countered with power; this explains ‘peripheric’ populists who follow this logic of seeking a multipolar world order as their best way to challenge regional hegemons, while ‘hegemonic’ populists (for instance in the US and Germany) return to power-balancing strategies to make their countries ‘great again’. This is regardless of whether the interlocutor is authoritarian or liberal/democratic, as long as they help to further the political, security, or economic goals of their own ‘people’ (as defined by populists). An interesting recurring pattern among the chapters in this edited volume is sympathy for President Vladimir Putin and, consequently, for Russia. Notably, this pattern is observable among both left- and right-wing populists in most of the regions under discussion, and in both the Global

274 

P. GIURLANDO AND D. F. WAJNER

South and the Global North. Naturally, they have different reasons—the left tends to favor Putin’s Russia for its counter positionality to the Pax Americana, while the right for its ‘muscularity’ and defense of traditional values of the Christian/Western civilization. That said, in practice, almost all types of populists favored establishing closer ties with Russia as a way to balance against perceived rivals in Washington or Berlin, or, as in New Zealand, potentially against China and the EU. Many populists are also motivated by sentiments of sympathy for, and friendship with, Vladimir Putin rather than cold calculations of power (see Wajner, 2022). Since mainstream parties and technocrats, by contrast, tend to view Putin and/ or Russia as a hostile enemy to be challenged, this has become one of the main dividing lines between populists and non-populist domestic rivals, such that being pro-Putin’s Russia can often be an indicator, certainly in many Western countries, on whether audiences have anti-establishment attitudes. That said, the most recent Russian invasion of Ukraine has in some cases modified, at least at the level of rhetoric, Western populists’ views on Russia. It is yet an open question whether this represents a substantive change, given that many populists continue opposing sending offensive weapons to Ukraine and call for a diplomatic solution, which in practice would mean de facto recognition of Russia’s gains in Crimea, Luhansk, and the Donbass. Furthermore, the war in Ukraine also revealed the divide in this regard between the Global North and Global South, as most members of the latter have aligned themselves in their refusal to join North America’s and Europe’s attempts to isolate Russia, tacitly or explicitly (Fuentes, 2022). It is perhaps no coincidence that populists in many Western countries and members of the Global South are aligned on this issue, perhaps due to a shared contempt for centrist elites in the Global North, sympathy for Russia, or a combination of both. In contrast, populists’ preferences and policies vis-à-vis China are harder to generalize, in part because there is much more differentiation in terms of how the country is perceived by different populist audiences in different parts of the world. Unlike in Russia, the left-right spectrum seems to be of significant importance here: whereas left-wing populists tend to be favorable to the rise of a China that counters the US (see Chap. 3), right-wing populists tend to be cool, critical, or outright hostile toward Chinese political moves, consistent with their civilizational understanding of the “pure people” and entrenched anti-communist attitudes.

11  CONCLUSIONS: POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN A COMPARATIVE… 

275

This is visible in Southern Europe and Latin America, as Chaps. 3 and 6 show, where left-wing populists favor closer diplomatic ties with China as a way of soft balancing against Berlin and the US, respectively. Meanwhile, populists in New Zealand, India, and obviously the US were sometimes hostile to China, not necessarily out of civilizational connotations, as right-wing populists elsewhere; rather, China’s rising power seemed to be the key determinant. An analogous example can be found among rightwing populists in Poland and their hostility to Russia (and Germany). These exceptions to the trend highlight that, sometimes, historical legacies and regional rivalries can trump populism in accounting for PFP patterns.

PFP International Restrictors/Catalysts The edited volume confirms the value of a comparative approach to demonstrate how PFP is significantly enabled or constrained by a country’s international position. Chapter 5 on PFP in the US, for example, suggests that the Trump presidency had much more leverage than other populist governments in executing a rupture in the country’s foreign policy trajectory. This is evidenced by the withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord, the undermining of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and the development of closer ties with various autocrats while openly berating long-standing allies. As the declining but remaining global hegemon, with continued possession of military and economic instruments of coercion and influence, there are fewer international constraints for the execution of PFP in the US (an observation that could be critical in making sense of policy after the presidential elections of 2024). At the other extreme in this volume is New Zealand where, as contemporary populists themselves explicitly acknowledge, survival in a world of giants was the main motivation; under these conditions, PFP necessarily had to take a backseat to more primordial considerations. This can partly explain why New Zealand experienced much more continuity than change despite having a populist leader, Winston Peters, as foreign minister. His insistence on closer ties with Russia, for example, had to contend with the economic heft of the EU, which warned against such a move, as seen in Chap. 10. Between these two extremes can be found almost every other case study in the edited volume, in regions as diverse as Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Southeast Asia, where populists had to navigate

276 

P. GIURLANDO AND D. F. WAJNER

between their preference for reform (and even revolution) and external constraints that pushed to continue with the policies of the previous mainstream governments. Here, the relative role of international pressures and populists’ distinctive worldview is more ambiguous. In practice, their room for maneuver heavily depends on the policy domain, highlighting once again the added value of examining not only PFP tout court, but in specific areas of international politics. This is demonstrated by Chap. 3 on Southern Europe, particularly in Italy, which does not enjoy the status of Great Power that France has, but which is not on the periphery either; nonetheless, Italian populists’ possession of full executive power in 2018 could not avoid the economic dependence on the EU, and this militated against a major rupture. On the other hand, populists in Italy had more leeway to defy its partners when it prevented migrants from landing on its shores, or when it signed the Belt and Road Initiative. Populist governments in Eastern Europe, similarly, could challenge Brussels, Berlin, and Paris on the migration file, but were more constrained on rule-of-law issues, in part because Brussels was willing to withhold money from the Next Generation EU Fund. Furthermore, as illustrated in Chap. 6, most populist governments in Latin America faced strong international pressures to restrain radical reforms in terms of finance, industry, and trade that could affect powerful international actors, with most generally showing pragmatism. Chavismo displayed exceptional actions in this regard, particularly during the petrodollar bonanza period, since Venezuela’s national oil revenues allowed the government to be less reliant on previous international commitments. Chávez and Maduro used oil resources not only to give his own foreign policy greater margin of maneuver, but also to support the policies of allied governments, most notably by buying Argentina’s national debt in the times of Kirchnerismo, allowing Cuba to evade sanctions, and investing in social, like-minded networks in Nicaragua, Bolivia, Ecuador, Honduras, and several Caribbean countries (see Wajner, 2021). Similar patterns are present in the Middle East, North and East Africa, and Asia, as became evident in Chaps. 7, 8, and 9, where most countries showed restraint in carrying out shifts in terms of foreign policy, mostly when related to international security issues, when international actors and institutions signaled that major changes would be intolerable. Examples of populist structural pragmatism include regional powers such as India, Iran, Israel, the Philippines, and Turkey, although in these cases restraint

11  CONCLUSIONS: POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN A COMPARATIVE… 

277

was generally accompanied by highly mediated performances aimed to portray at home the defense of their national pride abroad. Therefore, one conclusion of this edited volume is that international restraints are not necessarily decisive; populists will have a different calculation of external pressures depending on their status in the international system and whether they are deciding in the realm of economics, security, human rights, and the environment.

PFP Domestic Restrictors/Catalysts Another contribution of the comparative regional approach adopted in this work is to highlight how the domestic political system constitutes a formidable barrier or catalyst to the populists’ ability to execute a major rupture. Typically, bureaucracies are staffed by career administrators who prefer continuity to disruptive change. Populists have the tendency to launch ideological crusades, while career politicians and diplomatic technocrats are often immersed in the less sensational aspects of foreign policy and defense, including cultivating ties with long-standing foreign partners, or engaged in the drudgery of formulating documents that take account of the below-the-scenes, nitty-gritty elements of international relations. Moreover, since bureaucrats have often been placed in their positions by decision-makers from the mainstream parties of the right or the left, they tend to converge on some of the fundamental questions of foreign policy. Administrators may be more sensitive to the costs of major policy change, given the time invested in certain patterns of foreign policy; moreover, they cannot easily be replaced by those who are more in tune with the populists’ revolutionary zeal. Consequently, when populists take power, either fully or as members of coalition governments, they are likely to face an entrenched bureaucracy that favors the status quo. This was the case of Donald Trump, as shown in Chap. 5, who was barely able to defy the Pentagon and the State Department, partly explaining his failure to withdraw or dismantle many of the multilateral institutions he claimed were “ripping off ” the US or were tools of exploitation by US “enemies”. Meanwhile, in Southern Europe, the bureaucracy quietly but powerfully pressured the executive to avoid clashes with partners in Berlin, Paris, and Brussels, with mixed success. Evidence of this was also seen in New Zealand, where the foreign policy establishment hampered Peters’ preference for closer ties with Russia through trade agreements. In the Global South, bureaucracy was likely less impactful in countries with a

278 

P. GIURLANDO AND D. F. WAJNER

less-developed state apparatus, as shown in multiple cases in Latin America, Africa, South Asia, and the Middle East (except Israel and, at some specific moments, in Turkey). The edited volume also highlights that several other features of domestic political systems mattered. The existence of check and balances between the different branches of the government is key in this sense. As Chap. 3 shows, where Southern European populists seized full executive power— Italy and Greece—attempts to radically alter the country’s foreign policy traditions met with resistance from heads of state, legislatures, and the courts. For example, the Italian president of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, frequently intervened to prevent the Italian populist coalition from crossing his red lines, in particular on Italy’s remaining in the Eurozone, even as populists’ confrontational approach against Brussels and Berlin enjoyed majority support among Italians (see Giurlando, 2021). Parliamentary systems also seem more likely to restrain PFP patterns, although in pure presidential systems like the US, this pattern seems to apply as well. Indeed, Trump faced serious resistance from Congress in his attempts to undermine the US’s traditional alliances, particularly NATO. In Latin America (see Chap. 6), first and foremost in Bolsonaro’s Brazil, Kirchner’s Argentine, and Maduro’s Venezuela, the congresses managed to contain the decisions of the populists on the non-fulfillment of regional integration commitments and the rupture of international trade agreements and financial obligations. Meanwhile, in today’s France, populists can potentially block the executive’s will in the National Assembly, and this can potentially encourage President Macron to negotiate with Putin rather than escalate the Ukraine war, as several allies in Washington or Eastern Europe are demanding. Regardless of the presidential versus parliamentary divide, PFP is more likely to influence political systems where decision-making is highly centralized, as shown by different cases in the Middle East (Egypt, Turkey, Iran), Africa (Rwanda, Uganda), and South Asia (the Philippines). The level of (de-)centralization also helps to explain the difference in two countries within the same region that managed to “maneuver” their PFP, as illustrated in Chap. 4 on Central-Eastern Europe by the (centralized) case of Hungary in comparison with the (decentralized) case of Poland. Furthermore, whether a populist party was a major or minor member of a coalition also matters. For instance, in the case of Spain (see Chap. 3) Podemos’ status as a junior partner in the PSOE-led government limited its expressed desire to weaken ties with NATO and the European Union

11  CONCLUSIONS: POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN A COMPARATIVE… 

279

or stop sending offensive weapons to Ukraine, although in exchange it obtained relatively more weight in the promotion of domestic proposals to combat economic precariousness. The edited volume also highlights more subtle mechanisms of influence, indirectly via public opinion. In Chap. 2, for example, the AFD in Germany, while in opposition, prodded the government led by the non-­ populist, mainstream parties to take a more hawkish stance vis-à-vis Greece during the Eurozone crisis and toward Syrian immigrants after the migration crisis, in part because in both cases they were channeling views widely shared among Germans. The ability of populists to communicate directly with citizens through both mass media and social media, regardless of whether they are in government or opposition, and to connect with them on a level that traditional or mainstream parties have trouble with is common to all cases in this edited volume, and we believe it remains an important and understudied mechanism of global populism influencing foreign policy.

Debates and Future Research The analysis of the PFP patterns and its constraints and catalysts at both international and domestic domains is very much conditioned by the assumed ontology of populism, as stated in the introductory chapter. Indeed, according to the increasingly mainstream ‘ideational approach’ to populism, regardless of country or region, the fundamental conflict in society shaped by populist discourse is between the “corrupt” elite and the “pure” people. Many critics say that this represents a Manichean divide that ignores the pluralism at the heart of modern society (Müller, 2017), but it is difficult to see how other categories of political analysis are different in this regard. Marxism, for example, says that the fundamental conflict is between workers and capitalists; for neoliberalism, between individuals and the state; for conservatives, between established traditions/institutions and progressives; for environmentalists, between humans and the environment. This pattern confirms Schmitt’s (Schmitt, 2009) observation that the fundamental feature of all politics is the identification of the enemy, or, more accurately, the entity that stands in the way of the ideal social order according to the ideology of the movement or the group. Just as we can expect non-populists to interpret fundamental conflicts in society to shape the foreign policies they prefer and pursue, populists’ understanding of societal divides between the elites and the

280 

P. GIURLANDO AND D. F. WAJNER

people will influence how they behave in the international system and will ultimately affect international interactions and institutions. The character of the groups that form each side of the political divide will change depending on context, ideological blending, and if acting as governments fully formed or as crucial members of coalitions. Here too, populists are not unique, as all categories of political analysis show plenty of divisions about which social characteristics stand in the way of their ideal society. Naturally, this conclusion does not resolve the fundamental question about the ontological character of populism. Most of the current literature on populism, including in this edited volume, understands populism as a thin ideology, meaning that it usually attaches to underlying thicker ideologies such as Hindu nationalism (see Chap. 8), or the extreme right and extreme left (see Chaps. 2, 3, and 4). It follows from this understanding that the foreign policies preferred or executed by populist governments will most likely reflect underlying thick ideologies. In these examples, populism, rather than being a coherent ideology with programmatic content, resembles a discourse to maximize appeals to cross-sections of voters during electoral campaigns, or a political style or strategy to have similar outcomes in terms of winning elections against mainstream opponents. Following this approach, PFP, rather than a substance, is mainly a strategic, discursive, or communicative style of doing politics. On the other side of the debate are those who assert the ideological underpinnings of PFP. They point to international changes, such as the various forms of globalization, which have led to sociological changes which raise questions about the continued relevance of traditional left and right ideological categories. As a result of these international changes and their impacts on domestic society, the growing dividing line, particularly in Western countries, is between “globalist”/“cosmopolitan” and “sovereigntist”/“communitarian” ideological approaches to global politics (see De Wilde et al., 2019; Giurlando, 2019). From this perspective, PFP will probably tend to have distributional consequences of political and economic goods which favor the sovereigntist camp and penalize the globalist one. Their fights against austerity, free trade, and open borders may be motivated by these considerations. Further evidence of the declining importance of underlying thick ideologies, and the growing relevance of the globalist-sovereigntist divide, is that under specific circumstances populists of the left and right have shown a willingness to cooperate against the “globalist enemy”. This is demonstrated in the Netherlands, in Chap. 2, where populists of all stripes aligned during referendums on

11  CONCLUSIONS: POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN A COMPARATIVE… 

281

European treaties, and in Chap. 3, where Southern European populists on left and right found common ground on how the Eurozone crisis was interpreted. Even when the formal cooperation ends and they return to contestation, populists have agreed on important foreign policy issues. This was the case in Italy, where both the League and the 5SM wanted to stop sending offensive weapons to Ukraine, which contributed to the weakening  of the technocratic and Brussels-friendly government of Mario Draghi. Evidence of PFP producing distributional consequences which are favorable to the sovereigntist or communitarian camp is provided by other chapters, particularly Chap. 5, where Trump’s tariffs against trading partners, and opposition to free trade agreements as well as to efforts to reduce fossil fuels, were endorsed by workers in “traditional” industries like mining, oil and gas, and manufacturing, while they were opposed by globalized industries centered in Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and Hollywood, which remained bastions of support for the Democratic Party. This was also visible during the Eurozone crisis among Southern Europe populists, who tried to challenge the neoliberal austerity promoted by the IMF, Berlin, Brussels, Frankfurt, and their ‘northern’ allies. It was workers who faced the brunt of these budget cuts and the “structural reforms” intended to liberalize the economy and place it on a stronger foundation, and they—not surprisingly—were more likely to vote for parties, particularly the 5SM and the League, who challenged these policies (Giurlando, 2020). These dynamics need to be further explored in other contexts, far from the Global North. Future research can therefore engage with the debate between those who argue that PFP mainly arises from the underlying thick or host ideologies, or whether PFP, ipso facto, provides an independent ideological variable. Evidence which would support one or the other side of the debate might be whether the distributional consequences of the PFP chosen by populists are consistent with the social conflicts inherent in the “host ideology” or the “sovereigntist-globalist” divide. In both cases, populists will ultimately have to contend with the various international and domestic constraints and catalysts examined in this edited volume, which will produce different pressures in disparate policy domains; future research could also account for these patterns, particularly in understudied regions of the Global South. The international effects of populist governments’ simultaneous global rise are also worth exploring more deeply in future studies on the subject. Although it seems clear that the populist performances of recent years

282 

P. GIURLANDO AND D. F. WAJNER

have left an imprint on the world stage, it remains difficult to assess the scope and scale of this mark. There is a growing recognition that IR scholars need to do more to develop theory- and policy-oriented understanding of populism’s potential impact in specific under-examined issue-areas, including international security, the international trade, regional integration, and ecology. Particularly important after the war in Ukraine, since the Crimean events in 2014 but mainly since the Russian full invasion in 2022, are the implications of populist governments dealing with international security. Do the PFP patterns make the international scene less safe and predictable? Is the international order increasingly prone to radicalization, polarization, and violence? In this sense, it will be key to see the results of the war and how they would affect the populist narratives regarding the decline of the Pax Americana and their own willingness to display more revisionist, counter-hegemonic attitudes in the future. Equally important will be gradually adopting a longitudinal perspective on the impact of the Brexit implementation on the future of Britain and Europe to understand the broader effects of populism in global governance, regional integration, and multilateral cooperation. Similarly, as populism feeds off the socio-economic grievances of global crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic and current macro-economic challenges linked to inflation and recession, we have yet to see what the implications of populists catalyzing transnational disparities would be, as well as backlashing against central banks, multinational corporations, foreign aid agencies, and global markets. More generally, this volume also invites inquiry into whether the PFP backlash against international institutions is effectively delegitimizing and thus undermining the liberal international order, and indeed ‘The’ international order itself, in association with other forces proposing alternative world orders (on these debates, see Börzel & Zürn, 2021; Kacowicz & Wajner, 2021; Lake et al., 2021).

Normative and Policy-Oriented Considerations This volume’s findings also raise fundamental normative and policy-­ oriented questions about democratic institutions and the direction in which they may evolve. One of the most complex issues facing national democracies is the proper balance between majoritarian institutions and practices, such as elections and legislatures, on the one hand, and technocratic bodies that rely on expertise held by small numbers, on the other hand, such as central banks, the courts, regulatory agencies, and supranational organizations. In this sense, this follows the traditional debate,

11  CONCLUSIONS: POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN A COMPARATIVE… 

283

which is normative in great part, about whether populists represent democratic correctives or only strengthen anti-pluralistic, illiberal, and authoritarian threats (see Rovira-Kaltwasser & Taggart, 2016; Levitsky & Ziblatt, 2018; Müller, 2017). Indeed, a key legitimizing claim made by populists is that economic globalization, neoliberalism, and technological change have decisively tilted the balance of power toward the technocratic, non-majoritarian side of democratic politics (see Diamond, 2017; Mounk, 2018; Schäfer & Zürn, 2021). This is particularly the case in Europe, perhaps the most advanced project of regional integration organized around neoliberal values of open trade and free movement of capital and people. There, supranational agencies and courts regulate major integrationist achievements like the common currency, the Schengen regime, and the Common Market. Inevitably, these agencies are staffed by experts who face the complex task of taking into account the competing interests and objectives inherent to a political project with hundreds of millions of people and dozens of languages, and countries with important cultural and historical differences. Under these conditions, frustration is almost guaranteed and provides fuel to the populist flame that out-of-touch elites are overriding the people’s will. Attempts to democratize these developments through the EU parliament, at the time of writing, have not calmed the popular claims and, thus, populist complaints. Meanwhile, major decisions continue to be made in the Council of Ministers, the Commission, and informal institutions such as the Franco-German couple or the Eurogroup (the latter is composed of Eurozone finance ministers), particularly in times of destabilizing change, as evidenced during the Eurozone debt crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In all cases, decisions about bailouts, vaccines, and energy were made at the supranational level in ways that created winners and losers, and hence distributional conflicts. Similarly, Chap. 5 on Trump’s foreign policy highlighted how he challenged what former President Obama condescendingly called the “blob”— that is, the collective of journalists, academics, CEOs, policymakers, and other elites who advocated a US grand strategy to uphold the Liberal International Order, including promoting free trade, financing and supporting global governance institutions, and, when necessary, carrying out military interventions to overthrow authoritarian governments disliked by Washington. When Trump came to power, most US citizens were not in favor of the policies of the foreign policy establishment, so Trump (as well

284 

P. GIURLANDO AND D. F. WAJNER

as the wing of the Democratic Party led by Bernie Sanders) portrayed this policy change on imposing tariffs and weakening global governance institutions as the realization of the will of the majority. That said, there are exceptions to this trend. As Chap. 7 shows, the former president of Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, attempted to soft balance the US through closer ties with China, but did not enjoy the support of the majority of Filipinos, who tended to favor pro-US stances. In general, then, the PFP represents a shift in the balance of power away from non-majority institutions, be they formal like central banks or informal like the “blob” or the Eurogroup. But this majoritarian bias of PFP can undermine parts of the institutional system necessary for both national democracies and international systems to function. In this regard, the chapter on Eastern Europe is the clearest example: populists in Poland and Hungary enjoyed widespread, even majoritarian support, as is amply demonstrated in their ability to continuously win elections, but they also seriously weakened independent media and the courts without which liberal democracy cannot function, while resisting pressure from Brussels and other European capitals to change their ways. Populists in Rwanda and Uganda, as Chap. 6 shows, went far in relying on majority support while undermining institutional checks and balances, an outcome not unrelated to the challenges associated with the historical legacies of colonialism, under-development, and ethnic conflict. Similarly, autocrats in Turkey, Egypt, Iran, Philippines, India, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and other countries in the Global South evidently enjoyed the support of the majority of the population in a specific context to subsequently legitimize policies that undermined the institutions of liberal democracy, including human rights and political freedoms (see Chap. 4). Populists in all the cases examined in this edited volume may retort that the non-majoritarian institutions at home and abroad have been corrupted, which is why the “people” revolted in the first place, while liberals continue to accuse them of promoting authoritarian practices in national democracies and revisionist attitudes in the international order. This edited volume cannot resolve these fundamentally normative questions in the general sense, since different approaches can arrive at different conclusions about what the proper balance is between the collective and the individual in different regions and societies. The challenge remains to find a balance to mitigate the populist cleavages to confront the national and international crisis of legitimacy; even more so as we progressively encounter new socio-economic and security crisis, influencing political cultures and

11  CONCLUSIONS: POPULIST FOREIGN POLICY IN A COMPARATIVE… 

285

representative institutions in the long term, including long after populist forces leave power. We hope that this collective work has contributed knowledge and lessons in that direction as well. Overall, regardless of these outstanding questions and disagreements, we remain confident in the relevance of this collaborative effort on PFP and the findings of its comparisons across regions, in the conviction that the study of global populism and its intersection with foreign policy will stay for long. Populist leaders, parties, and movements are likely to persist and even grow in the future, arriving to ‘unexplored’ geographic and thematic areas. More importantly, populist transnational dynamics are expected to strengthen in the foreseeable future, in parallel with the dramatic socio-economic changes that the globalization, regionalization, and digitalization of international relations continue to provoke. This makes the scientific study of the international sources, patterns, and effects of global populism even more compelling.

References Börzel, T. A., & Zürn, M. (2021, April). Contestations of the Liberal International Order: From Liberal Multilateralism to Postnational Liberalism. International Organization, 75(2), 282–305. Cambridge University Press. De Wilde, P., Koopmans, R., Merkel, W., & Zürn, M. (Eds.). (2019). The Struggle over Borders: Cosmopolitanism and Communitarianism. Cambridge University Press. Diamond, L. (2017, November). When Does Populism Become a Threat to Democracy? FSI Conference on Global Populisms (pp. 3–4). Stanford University. Available at: https://diamond-­democracy.stanford.edu/speaking/speeches/ when-­does-­populism-­become-­threat-­democracy Drezner, D. (2017). The Angry Populist as Foreign Policy Leader: Real Change or Just Hot Air? The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, 41(2), 23–43. Eatwell, R., & Goodwin, M. (2019). Nacionalpopulismo. Diagonal. Fuentes, A. (2022). Perder el Sur Global. El Pais, July 1st. Giurlando, P. (2019). France’s Déclassement in the Eurozone. International Journal, 74(4), 559–580. Giurlando, P. (2020). This Was Not Supposed to Happen! Betrayal, Populism, and the Demand for Control. Populism, 3, 1–20. Giurlando, P. (2021). Populist Foreign Policy: The Case of Italy. Canadian Foreign Policy Journal, 27(2), 251–267. Kacowicz, A. M., & Wajner, D. F. (2021). Alternative World Orders in an Age of Globalization: Latin American Scenarios and Responses. In Latin America in Global International Relations (pp. 11–30). Routledge.

286 

P. GIURLANDO AND D. F. WAJNER

Lake, D. A., Martin, L. L., & Risse, T., Eds. (2021). Challenges to the Liberal International. International Organization (75th Anniversary Issue). Levitsky, S., & Ziblatt, D. (2018). How Democracies Die. Broadway Books. Ministerio de Defensa Espanol. (2019). Globalización e Identidades: Dilemas del Siglo 21. Instituto Español de Estudios Estratégicos. Mounk, Y. (2018). The People vs. Democracy: Why Our Freedom Is in Danger and How to Save It. Harvard University Press. Müller, J.-W. (2017). What Is Populism? Penguin. Rovira-Kaltwasser, C., & Taggart, P. (2016). Dealing with Populists in Government: A Framework for Analysis. Democratization, 23(2), 201–220. Schäfer, A., & Zürn, M. (2021). Die demokratische Regression. Suhrkamp-Verlag. Schmitt, C. (2009). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford. edu/entries/schmitt/#ConPolCriLib Wajner, D. F. (2021). Exploring the Foreign Policies of Populist Governments: (Latin) America First. Journal of International Relations and Development, 24(3), 651–680. Wajner, D. F. (2022). The Populist Way Out: Why Contemporary Populist Leaders Seek Transnational Legitimation. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 24(3), 416–436. Wajner, D. F., & Roniger, L. (2022). Populism and Transnational Projection: The Legitimation Strategies of Pink Tide Neo-Populist Leaderships in Latin America. Comparative Political Theory, 3(1), 1–30.

Index1

A Africa, 2, 4, 23, 181, 187, 200–208, 211–212, 215–217, 270, 273, 275, 278 Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), 38–40, 44, 44n1, 45–49, 56–58, 279 AMLO, 160–162 Asia, 37, 159, 201, 223–240, 273, 276 B Brexit, 2, 6, 10, 22, 178, 250, 258–259, 261, 272, 282 Brussels, 6, 11, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 42, 48, 50, 51, 54, 66, 70, 72–74, 77, 80, 83, 84, 91, 95, 100, 105, 110, 111, 234, 259, 272, 273, 276–278, 281, 284

C China, 3, 18, 20, 21, 67, 69–75, 83, 90, 90n2, 91, 93, 98, 102, 122, 123, 127, 128, 130, 131, 135, 137, 157, 161, 181, 202, 224, 225, 229–232, 234–240, 250, 254–258, 261, 262, 274, 275, 284 Comparative politics, 2, 148 D Duterte, Rodrigo, 122, 224, 225, 232–240, 284 E Erdoğan, Recep Tayyip, 20, 21, 122, 172, 172n2, 175, 176, 179, 179n4, 180, 180n6, 181, 181n7, 185, 187, 188, 188n11, 190

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 P. Giurlando, D. Wajner (eds.), Populist Foreign Policy, Global Foreign Policy Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22773-8

287

288 

INDEX

Europe, 2, 5–6, 17, 18, 20, 26–27, 43, 46, 46n3, 47, 48, 51–53, 55, 56, 58, 65, 67, 76, 77, 80–81, 99, 102, 106–109, 154, 155, 174, 177, 178, 180, 199–201, 238, 259, 273, 274, 282, 283 European Union (EU), 6, 24, 38–40, 42–51, 53–58, 64, 66–76, 79–83, 89, 90, 90n1, 91–103, 103n15, 104–111, 122, 155, 180, 180n5, 181, 185, 234, 250, 259, 261, 272, 274–276, 283 Euroscepticism, 44, 55–57, 66, 238 F 5SM, 66, 68, 75, 81, 83, 84, 281 Foreign policy, 1, 2, 4–19, 21–23, 25, 37–58, 63–67, 69, 71, 74–76, 79–81, 90, 90n2, 91–93, 93n5, 94, 95, 98, 100–103, 106–111, 117–138, 148–154, 156, 158, 159, 161–163, 171, 173–180, 180n5, 180n6, 181–183, 185, 187–191, 200, 205–208, 211, 215, 216, 224–227, 229, 232, 234–240, 247–250, 253–256, 258, 260, 261, 270–272, 275–281, 283, 285 G Globalists, 16, 18, 21, 24, 26, 70, 83, 121, 129, 136, 172, 191, 271, 272, 280 Globalisation, 3, 5, 10, 38, 40, 48, 58, 68, 71, 121, 125–129, 151, 159, 160, 162, 163, 212, 233, 249, 251, 252, 280, 283, 285

Global South, 11, 19, 51, 69, 83, 157, 158, 177, 191, 270, 272–274, 277, 281, 284 Greece, 6, 16, 17, 20, 22–24, 49, 52, 63–77, 79–83, 272, 278, 279 H Hegemony, 48, 68, 120, 121, 124, 125, 137, 155, 182, 183, 185, 224 Hungary, 16, 18, 21, 43, 67, 89–111, 119, 260, 278, 284 I International Monetary Fund (IMF), 6, 11, 17, 83, 102, 103n15, 201, 212, 272, 273, 281 International organizations, 4, 10, 11, 16, 26, 42, 43, 45–47, 173, 191, 216 Italy, 6, 16–18, 20, 22, 24, 42, 43, 63–75, 77, 78, 80–83, 154, 276, 278, 281 K Kagame, Paul, 200, 201, 206, 208–217 M Mélenchon, Jean-Luc, 65, 70, 84 Middle East, 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 20, 21, 23, 72, 132, 137, 181, 183, 190, 229, 270, 271, 273, 275, 278 Middle East and North Africa (MENA), 171, 172, 172n1, 173–192

 INDEX 

Modi, Narendra, 25, 178, 186, 224, 227–232, 237, 239 Multilateralism, 39, 40, 45–48, 121, 124, 126, 135, 137, 158, 161 N New Zealand, 128, 247–263, 271, 274, 275, 277 Non-governmental organizations, 10 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 45, 47, 47n4, 48n5, 49, 67, 74, 76, 103, 104, 106, 107, 122–124, 135, 138, 260, 278 NZF, 248–255, 258, 259, 262 O Orbán, Victor, 89, 90, 90n1, 92n4, 95, 96, 98–101, 101n14, 102, 103, 103n15, 104–105, 105n16, 107, 110, 119, 186 P Personalization, 13, 119, 135, 175–179, 185, 235, 272 Podemos, 6, 17, 22, 64, 66–69, 71, 76, 78, 79, 81, 83, 278 Poland, 16, 21, 67, 69, 89–111, 259, 260, 275, 278, 284 Populism, 1, 38, 64, 89, 118, 147, 172, 199, 223, 248, 270 Populist, 1, 38, 63, 89, 118, 147, 171, 199, 223, 248, 270 Populist Foreign Policy (PFP), 1–27, 39–56, 63–83, 89–111, 118, 119, 132, 137, 147–163, 171–192, 199–217, 223–240, 255, 269–285

289

R Referendums, 2, 6, 42, 45, 50, 51, 53–55, 57, 67, 78, 81, 272, 280 Russia, 18, 20–21, 24, 47, 48, 48n5, 49, 67–76, 80, 81, 83, 84, 90–93, 96, 98, 101–105, 107–110, 122, 123, 134, 137, 156n2, 157, 161, 177, 181, 229, 234, 259–262, 273–275, 277 Rwanda, 199–217, 271, 278, 284 S Sanders, Bernie, 24, 67, 126, 127, 284 Singh, Manmohan, 224, 227, 230 Socialism, 3, 23, 25, 41, 160 Soft balancing, 18, 20, 69, 75, 83, 273, 275 Sovereigntist, 71, 77, 101, 107, 280, 281 Sovereignty, 10, 15, 17, 24, 26, 41, 42, 45, 46, 48, 51–53, 55–57, 69, 70, 75, 76, 79, 82, 94n7, 95, 107, 159, 160, 163, 187, 214, 231, 250, 271 Syriza, 6, 17, 66, 68, 71, 72, 75–77, 79–81, 83 T Thick ideology, 3, 24–25, 41, 57, 225, 228, 233, 238–240 Thin ideology, 3, 41, 57, 280 Trump, Donald, 2, 5, 19, 22, 24, 26, 67 Turkey, 18, 20, 21, 76, 172–175, 179, 180, 180n5, 180n6, 181, 181n7, 185, 187, 188n11, 190, 192, 276, 278, 284

290 

INDEX

U Uganda, 199–217, 271, 278, 284 UK Independence Party (UKIP), 16, 24, 259 Ukraine, 48n5, 54, 55, 84, 89–111, 122, 161, 229, 259, 270, 274, 278, 279, 281–283

United Nations (UN), 11, 45, 182n8, 185, 234 V Vox, 10, 17, 64, 66–69, 78, 79