Varieties of populism and the challenges to Global Constitutionalism: Dangers, promises and implications

Abstract

This article analyses the rise of populism and its discursive challenge to global constitutionalism (GC). It shows that populist contestation is more ambivalent than often suggested: its challenge depends on the populist variety and can both undermine or support liberal principles of GC. Building on the ideational approach to populism and a framework of transnational politicisation, a proposed typology identifies both communitarian types of populism and cosmopolitan types of populism. Illustrative case studies of the Alternative for Germany, the Polish Law and Justice Party, the Democracy in Europe Movement and Peru’s Alberto Fujimori substantiate these empirically. While all cases contest a perceived lack of popular sovereignty in a largely non-majoritarian global constitutional order, varieties of populism present contrasting responses: communitarian types push for global de-constitutionalisation in line with illiberal nationalist majoritarianism, while cosmopolitan types support global constitutionalisation according to liberal and democratic principles. Further, neo-socialist populists campaign against neoliberal principles in GC, but remain divided about supporting political principles beyond the state. These findings suggest an emerging politicisation of the process of global constitutionalisation at the societal level according to principles of democratic legitimacy; and global constitutional differentiation depending on outcomes of these normatively ambivalent and empirically contingent political contests.

Mainstream Voters, Non-Voters and Populist Voters: What Sets Them Apart?

“…The latter have received much less academic attention, in part because they are less common and less electorally successful across the region. Yet, PRL parties such as Die Linke in Germany, La France Insoumise in France, Podemos in Spain, SYRIZA in Greece and the Socialist Party in the Netherlands have made important electoral inroads in the last years and contest mainstream parties from different ideological angles (Katsambekis and Kioupkiolis, 2019; Koch, 2020). Existing research on this topic shows that those who support the PRL tend to be younger citizens supportive of democracy and with higher levels of education and liberal positions on both moral issues and immigration (Ramiro, 2016; Rovira Kaltwasser et al, 2019).…”

Varieties of Nationalism in the Age of Covid-19

“…At the rhetorical level, ethnopopulists reconfigure the idealized sovereign community so restrictively that large swaths of the population are deliberately left out of its imagined boundaries-implying that they are to be excluded from the full protections of the state. Ethnopopulism "blends these threats "by propagating narratives whereby enemies from beyond (migrants, immigrants, ethnic minorities) couple or even conspire with enemies from above (the EU, UN, IMF [International Monetary Fund], 'global elites' or foreign powers) to undermine or even de-nationalize the nation-people" (Jenne 2018, 549; see also Vachudova 2020;Zellman 2019;Stroschein 2019;Bieber 2018;Hronešová 2021;De Cleen and Stavrakakis 2020;Heiskanen 2020;Koch 2020;Jovanović 2020). Conspiracy theories perform a vital function in mobilizing support for right-wing populist movements by identifying nefarious elites believed to be scheming with globalists and national others to destroy the "true" people (Wojczewski 2021).…”

Populism meets EU Foreign policy: the de-Europeanization of Poland´s Foreign policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

“…The Europeanisation of Polish foreign policy institutions also involved a transformation of the administrative culture of Polish diplomacy, which became deeply involved in the CFSP's multi-level governance system (Kaminska 2007(Kaminska , 2014Pomorska 2007). Poland's representatives in Brussels were the first to become socialized into the procedural norms and practices of the CFSP's 'culture of cooperation', such as mutual consultation, information sharing, consensus-seeking and the respect of previously agreed EU foreign policy positions.…”