Disentangling Populism and Nationalism as Discourses of Foreign Policy

• In Event: Populism and Nationalism in Comparative Perspective

Abstract

In the current political climate, populism and nationalism are often lumped together in journalistic accounts and public debates as phenomena challenging international cooperation, European integration, and the institutions of global governance. This paper argues that, while populism and nationalism have significant similarities and overlaps, they are analytically distinct in some key respects that also carry important policy implications. The main similarity between populism and nationalism is their focus on sovereignty as the supreme value of politics. As such, both can be viewed as phenomena that prima facie inhibit international cooperation and potentially fuel conflict in the international system. However, there are important differences in how the ‘people’ and the ‘nation’ are articulated as discursive frames and political strategies. Drawing primarily on the work of Laclau, this paper argues that populism can be distinguished from nationalism in that the political community it mobilizes is temporally and territorially circumscribed and parochial. Despite its obvious exclusionary nature, nationalism on the other hand is a discursive frame with a more universal perspective in space and time of the political community it represents. Second, populism and nationalism differ substantially in how they view the relationship between the political community and the state as the main actor of international politics and the locus of political contestation. Taken together, these two differences imply that populism and nationalism can cue quite different attitudes with regards to national foreign policy, incl. policy towards internal ethnic minorities and ethnic kin living as minorities abroad. The article illustrates its argument through a historical comparative analysis of cases of nationalism and populism in Greek foreign policy from the early twentieth century to today.

Author

• Angelos Stylianos Chryssogelos, SAIS Johns Hopkins