Connected Conservatives: the Dynamics Behind Transnational and International Populism

“A global coalition of anti-globalist forces” - the ambition behind the third consecutive organization of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Budapest (April2024) was clearly stated by one of Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orban loyalists. CPAC, a large assembly of political conservatives, with its first gathering held in 1974, has internationalized strongly, with several events being organized around the world (MosMacedoPiovezan2024). Besides CPAC, several other ideologically similar initiatives exist, of which the influential U.S.-based Heritage Foundation is a well-known example (Holden1981). The ideological messages of networked political leaders, lobby organizations, foundations, and think tanks strike as paradoxical: They emphasize a need for international collaborations to protect “the nation”. The dominant narrative conveys a populistic message, with an outspoken anti-elite, anti-feminist, and anti-globalist ideology placed central (SandersJenkins2023). This led to the conceptualization of two scientific phenomena: (1) international populism, with which the international alliances between (typically right-wing) populists are meant (McDonnellWerner2020), and (2) transnational populism, where populistic leaders present themselves not just as the saviors of their nation, but of a combination of nations, such as of the “European” people against the European Union (McDonnellWerner2020; Vittonetto2025). These two phenomena are expected to grow in popularity, and do so in an increasingly intertwined manner (McDonnellWerner2020). Studies on international and transnational populist communication clearly and consistently show how both the content and stylistic elements of conventional populism are reflected in their social media communication (e.g., Facebook (PetersSchlußmeier2025), or the combination of Facebook and X/Twitter (Engesser2017)) and cross-platform (Ernst2019). However, results indicate that there are differences between national contexts (McDonnellWerner2020; MiheljJimenezMartinez2021) and platforms (Engesser2017). Building upon these important findings, two research gaps persist. First, the findings typically result from restricted samples of social media posts from a limited set of platforms, for which they fail to map the scale at which international and transnational populist ideologies are promoted. Specifically, for international populism, findings are scattered over individual actors instead of highlighting their networked interrelatedness. Second, although acknowledged as crucial to political communication, the visual elements are excluded (GeiseXu2025; Schill2012). This study aims to address these two gaps by applying (1) relational network analysis to (2) exclusively multimodal media (here: Instagram posts*). The positive relational network is built by digging the Instagram profiles of Western populist actors as nodes, where flirts with allies define the edges. These edges are coded in a mixed inductive/deductive design on their multimodal communicative indent, where codes include, but are not limited to, the following: emphasizing sovereignty of the people, advocating for the people, attacking elites, ostracizing others, and invoking the heartland (built upon Engesser2017). Moreover, we track explicit compliments allies make. In parallel, we build a negative relational network, in which the same logic is applied in reverse; i.e., we keep track of the enemies that populists attack and in what way. Expected results will help us map the dynamics of the international populist network, to what extent they speak of transnational responsibilities, and against which (inter)national political enemies they crusade.