A populist wave is sweeping across many countries around the world, becoming one of the most important topics in current political and social science debates. Many on the right herald populism as an improved and more direct form of democracy, which seeks to upend decades of social disintegration , promising action against political and economic elites in favor of a long-suffering āsilent majorityā. Those on the left (though not exclusively) often present populism as a threat to democracy and civil society, and the harbinger of authoritarian rule, threatening to overturn the modern human rights movement . 1 One side denounces identity politics , political correctness, and the expansion of the welfare state, while the other side fears a return to European-style fascism of the 1930s. 2 The proliferation of articles and books on the topic has grown exponentially in the wake of the UKās Brexit vote in 2015 and a string of electoral victories for populist parties across Europe. On both sides of the Atlantic, populist leaders from what we might see as the left and right of the traditional political spectrum have either become the government (through promising major change ) or have entered legislatures as a vocal opposition to politics as usual. This includes the administration of Donald Trump, whose populist style and policies may radically alter American politics and International Relations (IR) as it has been studied since the end of the Cold War , but also numerous governments in Europe, Latin America , and Asia. 3
Populism Research and IR: The Missing Link
Despite significant attention paid to the phenomenon, populismās inter- and transnational aspects remain underexplored, much to the detriment of both IR and populism research. Populism researchers have mainly focused on theoretical issues, or have examined individual national cases (in isolation or in a comparative fashion), while IR scholars have largely elided the phenomenon. Only recently has IR as a discipline turned to populism, mainly as a result of Trumpās rise to the U.S. presidency. This emerging literature on the populism-world-politics nexus suffers from two shortcomings. First, aside from a few exceptions, studies have been primarily concerned with individual leadersā effect on world politics . Thus, a large proportion of the literature is, for instance, concerned with the potential negative effects of a Trump presidency on āthe Westā and liberal world order more generally. 4 Systematic and more general (beyond individual leaders) reflections on how populism and different aspects of world politics (e.g., foreign policy, international conflict, and cooperation or world order) hang together are still rare. 5 This concerns both the effects of populism on world politics and vice versa.
This aspect is linked to the second problem, namely that many IR studies draw on an underspecified concept of populism that does not differentiate between left and right or moderate and extremist groups 6 ālet alone other dimensions used to distinguish between different forms populism, such as inclusionary/exclusionary forms of populism. 7 As a consequence, a vastly heterogeneous group of parties, movements and individuals is listed as examples of populism, ranging from the right-wing extremist French Front National to the radical leftist Syriza in Greece, from moderate social democrat Bernie Sanders to illiberal but democratically elected leaders like Viktor OrbĆ”n and Jaroslaw KaczyÅski to authoritarian rulers like Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip ErdoÄan and Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte .
This becomes even more problematic once we turn to an analysis of the potential consequences of populism for established social institutions. Most notably, the question to what extent populism is a danger to democracy, European integration, the transatlantic alliance or the liberal world order has been the subject of significant debate both in the media and increasingly academic scholarship as well. 8 Unfortunately, most contributions do not sufficiently differentiate here between different types of populism but, quite to the contrary, lump vastly heterogeneous actors and ideologies together and make a sweeping statement labeling all of them a danger to democracy, Eu...