Introduction to the special issue: Elections, rhetoric and American foreign policy in the age of Donald Trump

Date01 February 2021
Published date01 February 2021
DOI10.1177/0263395720935376
Subject MatterSpecial Issue Articles
https://doi.org/10.1177/0263395720935376
Politics
2021, Vol. 41(1) 3 –14
© The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/0263395720935376
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Introduction to the special
issue: Elections, rhetoric and
American foreign policy in the
age of Donald Trump
Corina Lacatus
University of Edinburgh, UK
Gustav Meibauer
London School of Economics and Political Science, UK
Abstract
This introduction presents the special issue’s conceptual and empirical starting points and situates
the special issue’s intended contributions. It does so by reviewing extant scholarship on electoral
rhetoric and foreign policy and by teasing out several possible linkages between elections, rhetoric
and foreign policy. It also discusses how each contribution to the special issue seeks to illuminate
causal mechanisms at work in these linkages. Finally, it posits that these linkages are crucial to
examining the changes brought about by Trump’s election and his foreign policy rhetoric.
Keywords
Donald Trump, elections, foreign policy, populism, rhetoric
Received: 20th September 2019; Revised version received: 27th January 2020; Accepted: 13th February 2020
This special issue examines the significance of the 2016 election and of the first years of
Trump’s presidency, considering how they have changed and challenged the norms, style,
and content of American foreign policy discourse. Ever since Donald Trump’s surprising
victory in 2016, a great deal of research has been exploring new trends in contemporary
American domestic politics and foreign policy. Scholars have examined the rise of pop-
ulism, crisis talk, racially charged discourse, as well as arguably unprecedented degrees
of partisanship and polarisation (Chernobrov, 2019; Homolar and Scholz, 2019; Jacobson,
2017; Lacatus, 2019; MacWilliams, 2016; Oliver and Rahn, 2016; Trubowitz and Harris,
2019). Others have focused on Trump’s (and the Trump administration’s) rhetorical style
and modes of communication (Appel, 2018; Bostdorff, 2017; McDonough, 2018; Savoy,
Corresponding author:
Gustav Meibauer, Department of International Relations, London School of Economics and Political Science,
Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, UK.
Email: g.m.meibauer@lse.ac.uk
935376POL0010.1177/0263395720935376PoliticsLacatus and Meibauer
research-article2020
Special Issue Article

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