Populism Beyond the Nation: Regionalism in Populist Foreign Policy

Abstract

In recent years, there has been a growing body of research on populist foreign policy, highlighting how populists often adopt uncooperative and confrontational stances toward international organizations, favoring unilateralism and bilateralism instead. This behavior is rooted in populists’ tendency to frame “elites” as the “Other” in opposition to the “people,” who are the in-group in their rhetoric. International organizations are often positioned as part of the elite, reinforcing the populists’ antagonistic attitude toward them.

This paper argues that it is crucial to distinguish between universal international organizations and regional organizations when analyzing populist foreign policy. The rationale for this distinction lies in the fact that regions can sometimes serve as a source of in-group formation through the regional identity. In this context, the binary opposition of “us” versus “other” in populist rhetoric can place the “region” on the side of “us,” rather than on the side of the “other” or the “elite.” In other words, regions can be framed as part of the “people,” rather than as an external or elite entity. Consequently, populists’ discourse regarding regional organizations and regionalism may be more positive and supportive compared to their discourse on universal international organizations.

Under this perspective, this paper undertakes a comprehensive analysis by selecting populist leaders from various regions across the globe, without bias, and systematically collecting their discourses through diverse sources. The goal is to uncover trends in how populists frame regional organizations. The findings reveal a common pattern in which the in-group, or “people,” is constructed not only at the domestic level but also at the regional level. As a result, regional organizations can be framed in a more favorable light by populists. However, it is important to note that such framing is not observed among all populists. For regional organizations to be positively positioned, certain conditions must be met—specifically, the degree to which member states have transferred their sovereignty and the level of “regionness.”

The contributions of this paper are twofold. First, it challenges the existing research on populist foreign policy by demonstrating that the relationship between populism and international organizations, as well as international cooperation, is more complex than previously thought. Second, it suggests that there is significant potential for populism to extend beyond nationalism, indicating that populism can indeed find resonance at the regional level, offering a nuanced understanding of the dynamics between populism and regionalism.