The nexus of populism and foreign policy: The case of Latin America
| Published date | 01 June 2021 |
| Author | Leslie E Wehner,Cameron G Thies |
| DOI | 10.1177/0047117820944430 |
| Date | 01 June 2021 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0047117820944430
International Relations
2021, Vol. 35(2) 320 –340
© The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/0047117820944430
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The nexus of populism and
foreign policy: The case of
Latin America
Leslie E Wehner
University of Bath
Cameron G Thies
Arizona State University
Abstract
The term populism has recently gained visibility in the media and policy world to describe the
foreign policy principles, rhetoric and strategies of political actors in the United States and some
European states. Yet, populism is nothing new in Latin America where it has enjoyed a long
tradition among leaders of various countries. Populism has thus far largely been treated as a
national phenomenon with few international manifestations. Thus, this article adopts the concept
of populism and its core components such as anti-elitism, the people, and the general will within
a role theory framework to trace the foreign policy roles that populist governments play as a first
step to improving our knowledge on the nexus of populism and foreign policy. We examine this
framework in the context of the foreign policy of Carlos Menem of Argentina and Hugo Chávez
of Venezuela.
Keywords
Argentina and Venezuela, populism-foreign policy, role change, roles
Introduction
Populism has recently gained appeal in describing the foreign policy principles, rhetoric
and strategies of actors such as the United States under Trump, the United Kingdom in
the light of Brexit and in Europe as different populist movements counter the liberal
Corresponding author:
Leslie E Wehner, Department of Politics, Languages and International Studies, University of Bath, Claverton
Down, Bath BA2 7AY, UK.
Email: l.e.wehner@bath.ac.uk
944430IRE0010.1177/0047117820944430International RelationsWehner and Thies
research-article2020
Article
Wehner and Thies 321
values of the European Union (EU). However, populism is nothing new in Latin America.
Presidents Perón (Argentina) and Vargas (Brazil) between the 1930s and 1950s, Menem
(Argentina) and Fujimori (Peru) in the 1990s, and Morales (Bolivia), Correa (Ecuador)
and Chávez (Venezuela) in the 2000s have become icons of populism. Despite this, we
have little knowledge of their resulting foreign policies. Thus, we analyse the type of
foreign policy populist governments advance by addressing the following two questions:
What roles do populist governments conceive and play internationally? How do popu-
lists use these roles for their own political projects?
We argue that populist foreign policies come in different forms as the type of roles
populist leaders play internationally depends on the thick or thin ideologies that they pair
with populism. We assume populism to be a thin-centred ideology.1 While populism has
a core (anti-elite, pro-people and general will) that is used by the populist leader to justify
the selection of roles to be played internationally, the role conceptions under populist
leadership are also informed by a thick ideology, like neoliberalism or socialism, or a
another thin one like nationalism. Hence, a comparison of two cases of populisms can
shed light on the type of international behaviour they seek to advance and discredit the
notion that there is only one type of populist foreign policy.
The international dimension of populism has only recently received academic atten-
tion.2 Yet, this literature tends to neglect the diversity of populist foreign policies and the
different contexts in which it unfolds. In fact, the literature considers populism’s interna-
tional dimension as a monolithic social phenomenon, conceived of as anti-plural, anti-
democratic and anti-cosmopolitan.3 For instance, Donald Trump is depicted as a risk to
democracy and the liberal world order.4 Similarly, right-wing populist movements in
Europe are presented as a risk to the order cemented in the EU integration project.5
Recent scholarship also includes work on the nexus of populism and international poli-
tics,6 develops conceptual approaches to the study of populism and foreign policy7 and
analyses the rhetoric a populist leader advances internationally.8 However, these contri-
butions usually study one case and neglect the diversity of populist foreign policies.
Recent studies have forgotten Latin America, with the exception of Burren’s work com-
paring populist and non-populist government’s foreign policies using a sophisticated
model lacking theorisation, Dodson and Dorraj’s comparison of Venezuelan and Iranian
populist foreign policies, and Sagarzazu and Thies’ analysis of the anti-imperialist, popu-
list rhetoric of Hugo Chávez.9 This is particularly odd as this region has experienced at
least three waves of populist leadership, and therefore, should provide a treasure trove of
theoretical intuition and empirical evidence on populist foreign policy.
We focus on the cases of Presidents Carlos Saúl Menem (1989–1999) of Argentina
and Hugo Chávez (1999–2013) of Venezuela. These cases capture the last two waves of
Latin American populism, the former driven by a neoliberal leitmotiv, and the latter by
the promotion of socialist ideas. We adopt a role theory framework that can be applied to
other cases of populism as well. The framework considers the interaction of the national
and international dimensions of populist leadership and includes the core properties of
populism (anti-elitism, pro-people and the general will). At the national level, we expect
populist governments to adopt additional thick or thin ideologies. At the international
level, we consider the principles of autonomy and dependency and whether a leader is
pro- or anti-core that are informed by the other ideologies adopted domestically.10 These
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