Introduction to special issue: The study of populism in international relations
| Author | Georg Löfflmann |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/13691481221103116 |
| Published date | 01 August 2022 |
| Date | 01 August 2022 |
https://doi.org/10.1177/13691481221103116
The British Journal of Politics and
International Relations
2022, Vol. 24(3) 403 –415
© The Author(s) 2022
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DOI: 10.1177/13691481221103116
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Introduction to special issue:
The study of populism in
international relations
Georg Löfflmann
Abstract
The rise of nationalist populism, its challenge to representative democracy and the populist impact
on the liberal international order have emerged as one of the most significant phenomena in
international politics in recent years. This special issue brings together a group of researchers
from a wide range of theoretical, disciplinary and epistemological backgrounds, including political
science, populism studies, foreign policy analysis and critical security studies, to examine the
international dimension of populism and the practical impact of populism on foreign policy and
international security. Empirically and conceptually, it presents audiences in political science,
international relations and related disciplines with a timely review of the scope of research on
populism in international relations. Our specific aim is to explore and evaluate what challenges a
populist mobilisation of anti-elitism and anti-globalism presents to both the contemporary study
of international politics, and the structure of the international system and key actors within it.
Keywords
foreign policy, international relations, international security, political rhetoric, populism, voter
mobilisation
The election of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States and the success of
Brexit in the European Union (EU) referendum campaign in the United Kingdom in 2016
are two of the most prominent examples of a populist disruption of the status quo in inter-
national politics in recent years. Alternatively described as ‘wave’ (Aslanidis, 2016),
‘surge’ (Mudde, 2016) and ‘explosion’ (Judis, 2016), the global rise of populism and the
prominence of populist leaders in government in the Global North and South – for exam-
ple, Jair Bolsonaro (Brazil), Rodrigo Duterte (Philippines), Recep Erdoğan (Turkey),
Alberto Fernández (Argentina), Boris Johnson (UK), Narendra Modi (India), Viktor Orbán
(Hungary) and Donald Trump (USA) – has greatly increased academic interest in the inter-
national and transnational aspects of this populist phenomenon, and how populists in
power impact individual foreign policy outcomes, as well as the interaction of populism
with globalisation and the structure of the liberal international order at large (Chryssogelos,
2017; Plagemann and Destradi, 2019; Verbeek and Zaslove, 2017; Wajner, 2020).
Department of Politics and International Studies (PAIS), University of Warwick, Coventry, UK
Corresponding author:
Georg Löfflmann, Department of Politics and International Studies (PAIS), University of Warwick, Coventry
CV4 7AL, UK.
Email: g.lofflmann@warwick.ac.uk
1103116BPI0010.1177/13691481221103116The British Journal of Politics and International RelationsLömann
research-article2022
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