Populist and radical framings of the Russia-Ukraine War in the European Parliament and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe

The paper analyses how the political salience of the institution, politicians’ ideology, national party affiliation influence foreign policy positions represented in international parliamentary institutitons (IPIs), using debates on the Russia-Ukraine war in the European Parliament and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe as a comparative case study. Using all plenary speeches by populists and radicals delivered between February 2022 and May 2024, we conduct qualitative frames analysis and identify 24 frames about how resposibility for the war, the participation of warring parties and Europeans, European support to Ukraine, and European action to address the consequences of the war were depicted. Using a series of statistical tests, we show that institutional setting, ideology, and national party affiliation all had significant effects on frame use. We confirm the existance of significant heterogeneity within ideological categories which underscores the primacy of national context on foreign policy matters.