Diary of a Populist A qualitative analysis into the populist construction of foreign policy discourse

Abstract

The role of populism in foreign policy has been discussed extensively in academics throughout history. However, no decisive answer has been found to the question whether or not a coherent populist foreign policy exists. This study looks into different approaches to populism and investigates if the discursive approach to populism can support the idea of a coherent foreign policy among populist political leaders. The research examines the relation between populist meaning-making and foreign policy discourse through a critical discourse analysis of three cases; Donald Trump, Hugo Chávez, and Viktor Orbán. An analysis is conducted of three prominent foreign policy speeches. In the analysis, the speeches are interpreted in depth based on foreign policy orientation, hidden meaning, context, and populist rhetoric. The results of the analysis are structured through three different foreign policy areas: sovereignty orientation, external threat construction, and vision of the international order. Through interpreting patterns in each populist political leader’s framing of reality through populist principles and similarities across the different discourses, the overall conclusion is drawn that populist logic indeed can shape foreign policy discourse. This does not make foreign policy output predictable based on populist ideals, nor is it proof of all populist political leaders producing the same foreign policy output. Rather, it helps explain foreign policy output after the fact based on who is identified as ‘the people’ and ‘the elites’ and indicates a common populist logic among populist political leaders.