Four Ways for Populists to Affect Foreign Policy

Populism has been a huge growth industry in the past 15 years. Yet sparse attention has been paid to the impact of populism and its exponents on states’ foreign policy. This is unfortunate. Many issues salient to populists are part of the foreign policy agenda, since the domain of foreign policy has been expanding from traditional security to any issue with transborder characteristics; populists are particularly concerned with migration, globalization, European integration, social policies etc. This paper seeks to theorize on the mechanism through which populists may impact the foreign policy agenda of democratic states. We distinguish between four avenues for populists to have influence: (1) by participating formally in government (2) by officially supporting a government without holding a formal position in the cabinet (3) as opposition party in parliament (4) as a force of opposition outside parliament. The paper will produce four illustrative cases of these theoretical possibilities.