The populist way out: Why contemporary populist leaders seek transnational legitimation
| Author | Daniel F Wajner |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/13691481211069345 |
| Published date | 01 August 2022 |
| Date | 01 August 2022 |
https://doi.org/10.1177/13691481211069345
The British Journal of Politics and
International Relations
2022, Vol. 24(3) 416 –436
© The Author(s) 2022
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DOI: 10.1177/13691481211069345
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The populist way out:
Why contemporary populist
leaders seek transnational
legitimation
Daniel F Wajner
Abstract
This article aims to contribute to the growing academic debate on the transnational drivers
and patterns of contemporary populism. As populist leaderships expand both politically and
geographically, the very nature of the populist phenomenon is changing, as it is increasingly being
projected on the international stage. Contemporary populist leaders show a growing willingness
to transfer the discursive construction of a struggle between ‘the people’ and ‘the elites’ to the
regional and global levels as a way of obtaining internal and external legitimation. In so doing,
they exploit the symbiotic two-level game that links national and international (de-)legitimation
dynamics, seeking to gain ‘abroad’ the kind of legitimacy that they cannot obtain ‘at home’. This
article suggests three mechanisms that explain the populist ‘way out’ from various legitimation
traps based on the traditional distinctions between input, throughput, and output legitimacy. The
article’s argument is illustrated with reference to prototypical cases of populism in Europe, the
Americas, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. The incorporation of the literature on international
legitimacy enhances our understanding of the strategic activation of populist attitudes through the
transnational articulation of empty signifiers, the global diffusion of this phenomenon, and the
possibilities for its contestation and mitigation.
Keywords
international interactions, international legitimacy, international relations, legitimation, political
leadership, populism, populist foreign policy, transnationality
Introduction
Once upon a time, populism was almost purely a matter of domestic politics. ‘Canonical’
populist leaders in the Americas, Europe, and elsewhere strategically used the local scene
to construct a Manichean ideational antagonism between ‘the people’ and ‘the elites’.
However, current populist trends are increasingly projected on the international stage (see
Löfflmann’s introduction to this special issue). Not only are populist leaders emerging
around the world; the nature of the phenomenon itself is changing, and it is becoming
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel
Corresponding author:
Daniel F Wajner, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mt. Scopus, 9190501 Jerusalem, Israel.
Email: daniel.wajner@mail.huji.ac.il
1069345BPI0010.1177/13691481211069345The British Journal of Politics and International RelationsWajner
research-article2022
Special Issue Article
Wajner 417
both inherently and strategically transnational. Contemporary populist leaderships are
taking advantage of the persistent processes of democratisation, globalisation and dena-
tionalisation to project this struggle between people and elites into the regional and global
spheres, with the aim of legitimising their power both locally and externally.
Above all, populist transnational performances have become an intrinsic part of elec-
toral politics. There are numerous examples of this. Former US President Donald Trump
triumphantly visited the border wall between the United States and Mexico to demon-
strate his tough attitude towards Hispanic migrants, while exploiting the ‘victory picture’
of his ‘deal-making’ summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Right-wing popu-
lists across Europe and beyond disseminate pictures of themselves with Russian President
Vladimir Putin to enhance by association their own symbolic appearance as assertive,
muscular leaders. Members of the Visograd club, which is led by Hungary’s Viktor Orbán
and Poland’s Jaroslaw Kaczynski, broadcast to their respective constituencies’ images in
which they jointly challenge the European Union (EU). Much like right-wing European
populists, including France’s Marine Le Pen, Italy’s Matteo Silvani and the Netherlands’
Geert Wilders, left-wing European populists, such as Greece’s Alexis Tsipras, Spain’s
Pablo Iglesias and France’s Jean-Luc Mélenchon, have jointly expressed their alliance
against domination by ‘Brussels’, ‘Frankfurt’ and ‘Wall Street’. Venezuela’s Nicolas
Maduro and Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega recruited a transnational grassroots network to
ensure the aesthetics of festive mass mobilisation at their rallies around Latin America, in
opposition to unpopular, ‘Yankee’-oriented regional frameworks. Indian Prime Minister
Narendra Modi, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro
and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan promoted large-scale receptions among
their national diasporas in their pre-election travels abroad. Israel’s former Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu used images of himself with Trump, Putin and Modi in television
commercials and on large posters to emphasise his electoral slogan: ‘a league of his own’.
All these performances of warm encounters with other populist leaders and audiences are
counter-intuitive and therefore puzzling, if we consider the widespread view of populists
as nationalist, isolationist and inward-looking political leaders.
How can the growing use of a ‘way out’ among contemporary populist leaders be
explained? What are populists looking for ‘abroad’ that they cannot get ‘at home’? To
answer these questions, this study draws on the literature of international legitimacy and
develops an understanding of populism as a macro-strategy of legitimation. This macro-
strategy is grounded in the narrow ideational core of populism; the discursive construc-
tion of a perpetual struggle between ‘the people’ and ‘the elites’ (Hawkins et al., 2018;
Mudde, 2004: 543–545). Based on this approach, the article argues that current populist
leaders are trapped in their inability to legitimise themselves at the national level and are
therefore driven to find a legitimating escape by projecting the categories of ‘people’ and
‘elites’ transnationally. In this way, populists take advantage of the two-level game that
symbiotically combines the internal and external dynamics of (de-)legitimation. Given
that the needs for legitimation and the forms that it takes tend to be diverse, the study
suggests three distinct mechanisms that underlie populist leaders’ increasing tendency to
seek transnational legitimation. These mechanisms are based on the traditional classifi-
cation of the following three legitimacy standards: input, throughput and output (Risse
and Kleine, 2007; Scharpf, 1999; Steffek, 2007; Zürn, 2000). Drawing on this model, the
article argues that populists exploit these evaluation standards to indicate to their con-
stituents that their leadership is right (input legitimation), that their approach to the
struggle is adequate (throughput legitimation) and that their policies are fair (output
legitimation).
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