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Contents
1. Introduction.........................................................................................................................................2
2. Populism..............................................................................................................................................2
3. How populism threatens global liberal order......................................................................................3
3.0 A more conflict-prone bilateral relation...............................................................................................3
3.1 Weakening of global governance and its institutions..........................................................................4
3.1 More centralized and personalized foreign policymaking..................................................................5
4. How globalization minimizes the threat of populism..........................................................................7
5. Conclusion...........................................................................................................................................8
6. References...........................................................................................................................................9
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1. Introduction
Globalization and populism are terms that suffer from elusive definitions. They are used
widely by researchers and commentators to mean negative and affirmative things. Sometimes
globalization means lowering trade barriers, while other times it means an aggressive foreign
policy through international organizations like North Atlantic Treaty Organization or supporting
a global bureaucracy like the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, or the World
Trade Organization (McMaken, 2018).

Similarly, populism can be treated as the holy grail of democracy, which supports majority rule,
while it can be deemed as a political strategy to reap short-term gains, yet at the price of long-
term pain (Rovira Kaltwasser, 2016). The ongoing wave of globalization has helped increase
growth in the world economy by promoting specialization and the division of labor, but it has
simultaneously brought about social and economic insecurity.

Globalization and its ensuing influences on trade in goods and services, capital mobility, and
labor migration have mostly contributed and at times reinforced the inception of populism. The
backlash against decades of international economic integration reflects discontent by its losers
and left-behinds and instigates populist candidates who seek to obtain a mandate to change the
direction of globalization. This essay focuses on to what extent is the rise of populism a threat to
the global liberal order.

2. Populism
Populism is a political approach that strives to appeal to ordinary people who feel that
their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups. Economic insecurity and cultural
backlash (Iglehart and Norris, 2016), are the driving forces for today’s populism, have a relation
with the gathering traction of globalization. Ferguson (2016) argues that globalization eventually
entails a backlash from populism, and based on the historical experience he suggests five
ingredients that lead to populism: a rise in immigration, an increase in inequality, the perception
of corruption, a major financial crisis, and the demagogue since populist demagogues react
aggressively against the first four.
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Populism can be traced back to the rise of fascism in Europe, related movements in Latin
America particularly Argentina, Brazil, and Chile in the 1930s, Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal
in the US (Rodrik, 2018), or the “Mass Line” from China’s Mao Zedong (Dai and Shao, 2016).
Recently, some new political parties in Europe have been termed “populists”, both in the right-
wing, such as the Netherlands’ Partij Voor de Vrijheid, Germany’s Alternative fur Deutschland
and in the left-wing, such as France’s La France insoumise and Greece’s Syriza. Other recent
events have also been labeled as being related to “populists”, such as the pro-Brexit movement in
the UK, the election of Donald Trump as US president, the new wave of leftist movements in
Latin America, or some Asian politicians such as the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte and many
more. Populism appears to be a worldwide phenomenon and encompasses many different parties
and movements.

3. How populism threatens global liberal order

3.0 A more conflict-prone bilateral relation

Anecdotal evidence suggests that populists pursue a more ruthless and confrontational foreign
policy course as compared to their non-populist counterparts for instance Trump’s hostility to
Mexico. As one observer put it, the former British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and Us
president Trump share a recklessness that looks like courage in the eyes of their supporters but
also sabotages the work of policymaking and diplomacy. In theoretical terms, such recklessness
might indeed be a result of populists’ tendency to portray the world in simplistic terms of good
versus evil. This could ultimately lead to the proliferation of international disputes and a less
peaceful world. The defense of true people by populists whom they allegedly alone represent
might induce them to be less inclined to compromise in international disputes.

A typical feature of a populist in power is the continuous mobilization of their support base.
Once in government, they need to perpetuate an anti-elitist stance in a new way for example by
portraying themselves as victims, or by blaming elites acting behind the scenes, whether at home
or abroad for any of their failures. Additionally, the claim to be the true representatives of the
people is in constant need of performative verification. According to Jan Werner Mullers,
populists are permanently on the campaign trail and they continue to polarize. A politicization of
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selected international issues for domestic mobilization can therefore be expected to be

particularly intense under populist governments.

Nevertheless, we do not expect populists to indiscriminately adopt a more aggressive foreign

policy. Instead, their use of foreign policy for domestic mobilization should reflect a
combination of their populist thin ideology with their underlying thick ideology. Based on thick
ideology, populists may exclude specific sections of the population from their definition of real
people for example migrants. Populists should therefore target foreign countries that are closely
associated with such excluded section of their population- primarily for domestic mobilization
associated with such excluded section of their population.

Depending on their thick ideology, populists will have different understandings of what counts as
the elite of which we expect a more conflictual attitude towards single countries that are
identified with such elite. All this leads to escalation of international disputes with specific
international actors but not necessarily to a generally more polarizing, conflictive approach to
world politics.

Overall, populist government formations do not seem to lead to more aggressive or conflict-
prone foreign policies across the board. The dangers of populists using aggressive foreign
policies for domestic mobilization purposes are mitigated by their thick ideologies and by the
imperatives from countries’ positions in the international system.

3.1 Weakening of global governance and its institutions

The rise of populism will produce a weakening of the established international order with its
international institutions and global governance. Besides anecdotal evidence from Western cases,
there are theoretical reasons to expect populists in power to undermine international institutions
and global governance mechanisms. Populism is often described as a backlash of a perceived
growing influence of international bureaucracies and the weakening of the nation-state at the
hands of a transnational elite. An incipient strand in the literature on the international dimensions
of populism stresses how populism has emerged as a consequence of global developments,
including the growing authority and politicization of international organizations.
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Populists’ domestic ant-elitism would therefore likely dovetail with a disregard for transnational
elites and allegedly elitist international institutions detached from the real people. Populist
leaders can be expected to perceive international institutions as limiting their government’s room
to maneuver. Once the populists form a government, we expect them to sideline such institutions
as they do with intermediate institutions domestically. Additionally, the blashing of elitist
international institutions in the name of national sovereignty becomes an important instrument of
domestic mobilization for populist leaders. Italian Interior Minister Salvini explaining
schoolchildren the notion of ‘sovranismo’ as independence from EU interference in a television
show is one of the examples among others.

Populist governments can be expected to be less willing to carry the costs of global public good
provision as compared to non-populist governments. In theoretical terms, we expect populists’
focus on narrowly defined people to lead to a limited readiness to contribute to the wellbeing of
those not belonging to it. Research on European populist radical rights parties confirms that they
tend to oppose global governance efforts on issues like climate change mitigation.

However, there might be instances in which contributions to global governance entail substantial
benefits of a different kind for populist governments. For instance, rising powers might use
global public goods provision to show that they behave as responsible members of the
international community by fulfilling the expectation that with powers comes responsibility.
Moreover, populists’ specific thick ideology may either reinforce their skepticism of global
governance in specific policy fields. For example, right-wing populists might be more inclined to
make concessions on trade liberalization as opposed to those espousing a leftist thick ideology

Generally, populists’ global engagements reveal that their focus on the people at the domestic
level does not necessarily translate either into a complete rejection of international institutions or
into a wholesale refusal to provide global public goods. Instead, status considerations can induce
populists to behave like good global citizens.

3.1 More centralized and personalized foreign policymaking

According to Destradi and Plagemann, populist politicians are the only true representative of
the people, and epitomizing the popular will is one of the core features of populism. Diplomacy
is the domain of an exceptionally elitist and exclusive community, comprised of unelected
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foreign policy bureaucrats, politicians, and academic think-tankers. For populists, the global
perspective heralded by such elites embodies the distance between the people and their
government.

The centralization and personalization of foreign policy in the hands of heads of states are not
unique to the populist government but constitute a broader trend. Centralization under populist
leaders is not only more pronounced but also more personal. The anti-pluralist dimension of
populism entails the claim that only the populist leader- and nobody else- can speak in the name
of the true people. As a result, the populist leader will be more personally involved in foreign
policy-making as opposed to non-populist predecessors.

The many instances of erratic foreign policy decisions by populist leaders like Trump cab traced
back to such centralization and personalization of foreign policymaking. In theoretical terms,
populists’ immediate relation to their people may result in unexpected foreign policy sentiments.
Hence, the personalization of foreign policymaking may contribute to the politicization of
foreign policy, as well as to its greater contingence on individual leaders’ perceptions and
personality traits.

Accordingly, Drezner suggests that populism asks for a more profound incorporation of leaders’
personalities in the study of policy and international relations. However, the effects of such
personalization might be mitigated by populists’ thick ideology. If populists embrace a full-
fledged and consistent thick ideology with clear [prescriptions for the field of international
politics, they will rather stick to it and will avoid sudden turnarounds that might undermine their
credibility. By contrast, populist leaders who are not bound by a strict thick ideological frame
will have greater freedom to politicize foreign policy or to engage in shocking moves to impress
a domestic audience

The impact of populists’ centralization and personalization of foreign policy decision-making is

therefore mitigated by the strength and coherence of their thick ideology. Unpredictability is not
an automatic consequence of populist government formation.
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4. How globalization minimizes the threat of populism

Globalization is a complex phenomenon that has had far-reaching effects. Not

surprisingly, therefore, the term globalization has acquired many emotive connotations and
become a hotly contested issue in current political discourse. At one extreme, globalization is
seen as an irresistible and benign force for delivering economic prosperity to people throughout
the world. On the other, it is blamed as a source of all contemporary ills. Nevertheless, it is
widely accepted that the key characteristics of globalization have been the liberalization of
international trade, the expansion of FDI, and the emergence of massive cross-border financial
flows. This resulted in increased competition in global markets.

It is also widely acknowledged that this has come about through the combined effect of
two underlying factors: policy decisions to reduce national barriers to international economic
transactions and the impact of new technology, especially in the sphere of information and
communications. These developments created the enabling conditions for the onset of
globalization. The effects of the new technology have also given a distinctive

character to the current process of globalization, as compared to similar episodes in the

past. The natural barriers of time and space have been vastly reduced. The cost of moving
information, people, goods, and capital across the globe has fallen dramatically, while global
communication is cheap and instantaneous and becoming ever more so. This has vastly expanded
the feasibility of economic transactions across the world. Markets can now be global in scope
and encompass an expanding range of goods and services
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5. Conclusion
The rise of populism can be justified as a response to the discontent present in modern societies
that are associated with the current developments of globalization, along with a lack of any
convincing response on the side of the elites. Despite the dearth of a homogeneous
characterization of all the groups labeled as “populist”, the solutions they provide are mostly
simplistic and short-sighted. For the immediate future, the question is whether democratic
societies will be able to answer the challenges and insecurities faced by modern societies,
without falling into populist oversimplification. If the global liberal order is to survive, then it
should provide an appropriate answer to the intricate relationship between globalization and
populism.
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6. References
Destradi, S. and Plagemann, J., 2019. Populism and International Relations:(Un)
predictability, personalization, and the reinforcement of existing trends in world politics. Review
of International Studies, 45(5), pp.711-730.

Drezner, D.W., 2008. All politics is global. Princeton University Press.

Ferguson, N. (2016), “Populism as a Backlash against Globalization – Historical

Perspectives,” Horizons – Journal of International Relations and Sustainable Development,
Autumn, 12-21.

Inglehart, R.F. and P. Norris (2016), “Trump, Brexit, and the Rise of Populism:
Economic Have-Nots and Cultural Backlash,” Faculty Research Working Paper 16-026, Harvard
Kennedy School, Cambridge, MA.

McMaken, R. (2018), “The Difference between Good Globalism and Bad Globalism,”
Mises Wire, March 28; available at https://mises.org/wire/difference-between-goodglobalism-
and-bad-globalism

Muller, J.W., 2017. Populism and constitutionalism. In The Oxford handbook of

populism.

Rovira Kaltwasser, C. (2016), “Populism in Latin America and Beyond: Concept Causes,
and Consequences,” in Golder and Golder (2016), 72-76.

Zurn, M., 2004. Global governance and legitimacy problems. Government and

Opposition, 39(2), pp.260-287.