Populists have risen to power in many states around the world. What does this mean for the future of world order? Many observers fear that populist state leaders will exploit and aggravate the crisis of established international organizations and multilateral agreements. However, we see that some populists in power actually engage quite actively in international cooperation. My research explores populists' ambivalent stance on the world stage.
Watch my video on populism with Akademisk kvart:
Script of Regional Cooperation" in the Cambridge Elements in International Relations series (2021), my co-authors Fredrik Söderbaum, Agnese Pacciardi and I investigate the emergence of a populist 'script' of regional cooperation. This script frames regional cooperation in a way that makes it consistent with their domestic political strategies of pitting 'the people' against 'the elites'. It therefore enables populist leaders to engage in regional organizations despite their often nationalist ideological leanings. The book thus helps understand the role of populism in the crisis of liberal international order and its implications for the future of multilateral cooperation. I introduce the research behind the book in this video abstract:
Since 2024, I am part of the Supervisory Board of the Horizon MSCA Doctoral Network "The International Dimensions and Effects of Populism (IDEoPOP)", which allows eleven PhD students across seven different European research institutions to pursue doctoral research on populism in International Relations.
What happens when populists get voted out of office? Do their challenges to international norms and institutions disappear with them? From 2025-2027, I will be investigating these questions in the project "A return to normalcy: Post-populist foreign policy in Poland and Brazil", funded by a NAWA Ulam Fellowship of the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange.
Comments