Contesting the “Corrupt Elites,” Creating the “Pure People,” and Renegotiating the Hierarchies of the International Order? Populism and Foreign Policy-Making in Turkey and Hungary

Abstract

This article explores the link between populism and hierarchies in international relations by examining the recent foreign policy-making in Turkey and Hungary—two countries run by populist leaders. We argue that when populists bring populism into foreign policy, they do so by contesting the “corrupt elites” of the international order and, simultaneously, attempt to create the “pure people” transnationally. The populists contest the “eliteness” and leadership status of these “elites” and the international order and its institutions, that is, the “establishment,” that these “elites” have come to represent by challenging them both in discourse and in action. The creation of the “pure people” happens by discursively demarcating the “underprivileged” of the international order as a subcategory based on religion and supplementing them with aid, thus mimicking the distributive strategies of populism, this time at the international level. We illustrate that when populist leaders, insert populism into foreign policies of their respective states, through contesting the “corrupt elites” and creating the “pure people,” the built-in vertical stratification mechanisms of populism that stems from the antagonistic binaries inherent to populism provide them with the necessary superiority and inferiority labels allowing them to renegotiate hierarchies in the international system in an attempt to modify the existing ones or to create new ones.

Transnationalization of Opposition Strategy under Competitive Authoritarianism: Evidence from Turkey and Hungary

“…While the extant literature has already noted the rising similarities between the Orbán and Erdoğan regimes (Hisarlıoğlu et al 2022; Kaufman and Haggard 2019; Onis and Kutlay 2019), the opposition's control of strategic subnational executive offices provides another prospect for comparing and drawing generalizable lessons from the two contexts. The local actors that we examine in our study are the two mayors, each of whom is among the leading figures of opposition in their respective countries.…”

Governance of religious diversity in Central Europe: A religious nationalism inspired illiberal turn in Hungary and Slovakia?

“…The ruling elite claims to represent the nation and attempts to monopolize discourse on national religious identity, representing themselves as the guardians of Christianity and Churches as well. In line with the basic populist tool to claim to represent the people against a supposedly evil elite (Mudde, 2004), the ruling elite presents itself at the representative and protector of a pure Christian Hungarian people (Hisarlıoğlu et al, 2022) against a secular leftist-liberal elite domestically and globally as well. This ethno-religious nationalist (Triandafyllidou 2020) stance creates a very clear normative space in which the state is able to give preferential treatment to certain religious groups over others.…”