The rise of the intercontinental populist right

While cooperation between populist parties on the right has been increasing for at least a decade within Europe, a more recent phenomenon has been the rise of such cooperation across continents. This has largely been fuelled by growing links at youth wing and senior party levels between nationalist populists from Europe and the United States. However, we have also seen the participation at events of representatives from countries such as Australia, Brazil, India and Israel. Although cooperation within Europe has been studied by researchers, intercontinental cooperation has received less attention. This paper asks two questions: What does nationalist populist intercontinental cooperation consist of? Why do they cooperate? To answer them, it uses interviews with nationalist populist actors from youth wings, senior parties, and relevant associations, all of whom cooperate across continents. It finds that cooperation reflects not only the conviction that nationalist populists face transnational challenges requiring a transnational response, but also the belief that, by cooperating now, they are finally catching up with the globalist left which has (allegedly) long done so very effectively.