National role conceptions and populist parties in Europe between heterogeneity and convergence

Abstract

Drawing from the National Role Conceptions (NRCs) framework, this paper seeks to assess whether, beneath the ideological, structural or discursive differences exposed in the literature, a pattern of convergence among the foreign policies of populist parties in Europe can be identified in how these conceive the orientation and tasks that their countries should follow in the international system. Comparing the NRCs which emerge from the foreign policy discourse of three populist parties of diverse persuasions—Front National/Rassemblement National in France, Movimento 5 Stelle in Italy, Podemos in Spain—the paper argues that these parties share the underlying conception of a decisively pro-active, transformative and value-based role for their countries in both European and global perspectives, which the different articulations of the people/other dichotomy in their foreign policy discourse affect and differentiate in terms of goals and preferences..