Populist Neo-Imperialism: A New Take on Populist Foreign Policy

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

“…One of the few substantive points of agreement in the specialized literature is that 'populist foreign policies are diverse and not monolithic' (Wehner and Thies 2020, p. 16). This is a fundamental finding whether sets of populist foreign policies are investigated in the current European stream (Balfour et al 2016;Falk and Stahl 2022), in Latin America, where populism is, as mentioned, historically established and more homogenous across the diverse phases of its evolution (Hawkins et al 2019;Wajner 2019), or are addressed globally across leaders with similar ideological or cultural perspectives (Frahm and Lehmkuhl 2022).…”

“…Ideational approaches, however, are prevalent, and often explain heterogeneity in foreign-policy making pointing to the prior host ideology to which populism is attached (Destradi et al 2021), that is, the 'ideological bedfellow' which steers populists' positions regarding international challenges and, hence, their foreign policy preferences (Verbeek and Zaslove 2017, p. 398). Some scholars, in fact, have recognized in peculiar experiences, such as in the 'neo-imperialism populism' of autocratic parties in Turkey and Russia, a specific and genuine 'thick' ideologic nature (Frahm and Lehmkuhl 2022). However, the majority of studies that focus on ideational factors consider populism as a 'thin centred' ideology, that is, a set of ideas that is limited in ambition and scope (Mudde 2004) and, therefore, do not provide fully articulated and coherent perspectives regarding the social and political world (Verbeek and Zaslove 2014).…”

“…Applying the NRCs framework to the analysis of the discourse of selected parties, this paper seeks to set the stage for an original conceptual and analytical perspective to grasp similarities and differences between a variety of populist expressions in Europe, including those who have not fulfilled significant governmental responsibilities. In addition, it expects to contribute to more systematically relating insights among the external orientations of diverse populist parties in the continent, and to complement recent attempts to explain and compare populist foreign policy at both global (Friedrichs 2022;Frahm and Lehmkuhl 2022) and regional levels (Destradi et al 2021, p. 665;Falk andStahl 2022: Burrier 2019;Wehner and Thies 2020;Wajner 2019).…”