“Sovereigntists not Globalists”: Transnational Networks and Populist Radical Right Diffusion

Despite conflicting historical grievances and narratives and a preference for strongman leadership, populist radical right parties (PRRPs) have become increasingly institutionalized and, surprisingly, increasingly cooperate across borders. The conditions under which these nativist, authoritarian, and populist parties can successfully cross-national borders remain unclear (Mudde, 2004). Scholarship has identified significant challenges around creating a transnational “people” (Moffitt, 2017), a transnational nationalist community (Stier et al., 2021), or in creating transnational legitimacy while also rejecting transnational politics (Wajner, 2022). Regardless of these challenges, though, PRRPs are engaging in just this transnationalisation via increasingly extensive and formalized networks of PRRPs, think-tanks, research institutions, and non-governmental organisations (Ramos and Torres, 2020). This paper investigates the role that these networks play in supporting, shaping, or, perhaps, constraining the transnational diffusion of the PRR, identifying initial conditions for the successful diffusion of the PRR via these networks and the role the networks play in generating and promoting PRR policy. Taking transnational PRR networks in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) as a case study, this paper investigates the ways in which the network structures map onto the diffusion of a variety of political and policy positions such as COVID policy, rule of law, and support for or opposition to Ukraine. Specifically, it conducts a social network analysis of identified PRR groups in CEE from 2020-2024, paired with elite interviews, to identify the extent to which these groups shaped or were shaped by various political cleavages and, according to the participants, why this was the case. Conditions for successful network diffusion are identified in the literature, drawing the literature of epistemic communities and policy diffusion. These conditions are then modified as per the ontology of the PRR, being as it is hostile to the politics of expertise. Both conditions are then tested against the observed network and interview data to understand under what conditions transnational PRR networks supported or constrained the diffusion of PRR public policy in the region.