Undermining the West from Within: European Populists, the Us and Russia

Abstract

Populist parties of the Right and Left are on the rise in Western Europe, but little has been said about their foreign policy positions. This article will try to sketch the basic elements of the positions of some important radical Right and Left populist parties on transatlantic relations, NATO, European security and EU-Russia relations. An examination of these positions reveals that European populist parties of the Right and Left are united by a common aversion to the ongoing modernisation and liberalisation of society and the economy-and that this aversion is reflected in foreign policies that conceptually and practically challenge the notion of the West. The centre--right is urged not to let populists appropriate yet another issue. Instead, it needs to challenge them (and particularly the populist Left) by consistently defending the merits of the Western community of values.

The impact of populist radical right parties on foreign policy: the Northern League as a junior coalition partner in the Berlusconi Governments

“…Scholars have largely neglected the foreign policy of PRR parties (for exceptions, see Schori Liang, 2007a; Chryssogelos, 2010). Nevertheless, their ideology possesses a foreign policy component.…”

Contestations of the Liberal International Order

“…To get to the core of how regional cooperation fits into the strategies of populist leaders, we follow Chryssogelos's (2010Chryssogelos's ( , 2017 argument that the domestic logic of populist politics translates into certain dispositions regarding foreign policy. In line with this 'second image' approach, we analyse populist strategies of regional cooperation on two levels: frames and institutional preferences.…”

“…'Liberalism' serves as a frequently employed codeor, in Laclau's (2005) terms, a floating signifierfor populists' construction of the Other that deprives the 'ordinary people' of what is rightfully theirs (Canovan, 1999: 19;Galston, 2018). This is especially true beyond the nation-state, where anti-liberalism provides grounds for rejecting what populists perceive as a hegemonic approach to domestic and international 'good' governance advanced primarily by Western states and liberal elites (Börzel & Zürn, 2021;Chryssogelos, 2010). Through inter-and supranational institutions, these elites are said to act against the interests of the people (Miller-Idriss, 2019: 25;Mudde & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2017: 35).…”

Populism and President Trump’s approach to foreign policy: An analysis of tweets and rally speeches

“…Most scholarship to date has focused on populist parties in Western Europe (e.g. Chryssogelos, 2010, 2011, 2017; Liang, 2007; Verbeek and Zaslove, 2017) finding that they tend to dislike the United States, globalisation and military interventions outside of Europe, with far-right populists strongly opposed to immigration, Islam and the European Union, but supporting Russia. Another key characteristic of European populists has been their foreign policy inconsistency, as shown by the Front National’s pro North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and anti-Soviet preferences during the Cold War, while cultivating sympathies with like-minded Russian politicians (Shields, 2007).…”