The Politicization of Foreign Policy: Populists and the Geoeconomic Turn in Europe

In recent years, foreign policy has become increasingly politicized, driven by a growing fragmentation of international and domestic politics and by the rise of populism. This paper develops a conceptualization of politicization with reference to foreign policy, arguing that, in a nutshell, politicization is primarily about using foreign policy issues for domestic purposes, thus contributing to a deeper-than-usual intertwining of domestic politics and foreign policy. Issue salience is relevant in enabling the politicization of specific topics as opposed to others, and populist parties have been particularly active in politicizing foreign policy as part of their ‘permanent’ campaigning. The empirical section of the paper explores to what extent and in which ways European populist parties have politicized the so-called geoeconomic turn of the EU.