Does the Notion of Populism Have Any Bearing on Foreign Policy?
Cult of the People and Decline of Democratic Leadership
Donald Trump, President of the United States of America, hands a personalized jersey, symbolizing national sports, to President of the Republic of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro. March 19, 2019. Photo: Isac Nóbrega/PR. Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/palaciodoplanalto/32479318607
In a recent paper, I mentioned the sometimes euphemistic use of the term “populism” to designate criminal and dictatorial regimes. I also pointed out that this is often the case with the adjective “authoritarian”, a way of saying that could lead to the attenuation of a much more serious reality: a so-called authoritarian regime may be harsh, undemocratic and not entirely respectful of the balance of power, and in this respect it is of course condemned and condemnable, but it does not necessarily commit crimes against humanity or war crimes, does not always torture in its prisons, and does not in all cases order political assassinations.
In other words, I was arguing for the use of a certain gradation. It matters both in terms of fundamental freedoms and rights, but also, and even more so, in terms of international relations. The point is not to exonerate authoritarian regimes or “populist” leaders—I will try to come up with an acceptable definition of the term, on which there is a considerable bibliography—but to introduce distinctions that are useful for analysis, especially international analysis. As is often the case, broadening the scope of concepts too much ends up removing all meaning from them; narrowing it in order to make them more pure leads to a failure to grasp all their dimensions. Most reference books on the subject deal with the notion in its heterogeneity.
In fact, this differentiation of bad regimes is not new: we already find it in Plato, Montesquieu and, later, Hannah Arendt. The latter, not without creating controversy, thus isolated, as it were, the concept of totalitarianism, which it seemed to her to be decisive to distinguish from “dictatorship”, or even from tyranny. The analysis of regimes does not only imply describing the behavior of political power, but also the way it interacts with society, forges its narratives, controls the economy and structures its first circle of cronies.
Often the increase in degree also changes the nature of the regime: this is true of corruption, which is always detestable and dangerous for the unity of society in particular, but whose importance also helps to define the nature of oppression by the regime in place—since corruption is also a form of oppression. It is inconceivable to have a deeply corrupt democracy, and it is impossible, probably even more so today than in the past, to have a dictatorial or tyrannical regime without a high, or even very high, level of corruption, whose impact is systemic. Moreover, one could add a kind of axiom: the more such a regime benefits from an opening to the West—trade, personal travel of its elites, access to the financial system—the higher the level of corruption and the more repressive the system becomes to protect it.
Therefore, by indiscriminately placing all kinds of regimes, parties or personalities in the “populist” category, we lose specificity, and therefore understanding. It also seems essential not to classify the worst dictators on the planet (Putin, Xi Jinping, Kim Jong-un, Assad, Lukashenka, Berdimuhamedov, among others) in the category of populists.
However, it was pointed out to me, not without reason, that, conversely, populism should not be minimized and that it was intrinsically dangerous and that it was incorrect to make populism a harmless political practice. In sum, it was unacceptable to euphemize populism, which is indeed a component of fascism.
In sum, as I summarized in my response, we were faced with two pitfalls: the use of the word to euphemize much more serious realities, and the euphemization of populism itself—to put it simply, as if it did not involve the destruction of democracy and a form of “fascism”, using the word in precise reference to Mussolini’s regime. Moreover, if it was not the equivalent of Nazism, Stalinism or Maoism, it is too often forgotten that it was a deeply criminal regime (political assassinations, complicity in the deportation of Jews, war crimes, etc.).
A detour through the analysis of international relations will undoubtedly make it possible to affirm this notion and give it its rightful place in the scale of serious violations of democracy and the rule of law. Let us also remember this obvious fact: as for all regimes—after all, this was already mentioned by Plato and Aristotle—a regime cannot be studied in a static way. It is its evolutionary dynamics, in other words, its logic, that must be considered.
The nebula of populism
Criticizing the use of the term “populism” to designate various movements is not necessarily unfounded. The fact remains that there are elements common to movements, parties or political personalities qualified as such. We can undoubtedly conclude that the word is valid as a first approach, even if it is certainly insufficient and too global as soon as we go into details. There are different stages in the evolution of populism, especially when it comes to power, which are not always realized, at least not in the same way. The local context, the specific tensions of a given society and its polarization in socio-economic terms, the political and social history of the country, its degree of development, the strength or weakness of civil society, among other things, are fundamental elements of differentiation.
However, some common trends have been noted by analysts. These include the opposition of the people and the elites, the scapegoating of social groups, minorities, “community” groups, experts, etc., a certain indifference to facts, truth, reason and science, as well as a contempt, if not hatred, for checks and balances (the media, academics) and independent authorities (the judiciary and the law in general, especially as derived from the constitution and the bills of rights). Finally, most populists distrust international institutions and rules and favor a national people deemed “sovereign”, which goes hand in hand with a distrust of all that is foreign. In short, populism, in the name of a supposed direct democracy, unravels the essentials of a realized democracy: checks and balances, judicial oversight, pluralism of civil society, intermediary institutions and democratic spirit.
This populism can be as much of the right as of the left or, more precisely, of the extreme right and extreme left. Bridges can exist between these two tendencies, particularly in Europe, against a background of rejection of European construction and NATO and of defense of dictatorships, Russian, Syrian and sometimes Chinese. Since the collapse of Soviet communism, “tankism” and the extreme right have often gone hand in hand. The hatred of foreigners among populists and the sovereignty that often characterizes them stops as soon as it comes to supporting criminal regimes, because basically they support the same refusal of a binding international norm, of human rights and of a liberal and cosmopolitan ideal. Populism, in some of its forms, is indeed dedicated to the weakening if not the destruction of a law-based international order, which is what dictatorships also seek.
In sum, populism is linked as much to a desire for disorder as to an alleged demand for authority. This national disorder, which takes the form of demonstrations and sometimes violent insurrections, goes hand in hand with the international disorder that they advocate without recognizing it. The desire of populists to rely on an authoritarian “guide” who is supposed to know and express the “will of the people” is accompanied by a refusal of authority as analyzed by Hannah Arendt: in other words, of higher principles that go beyond the present and fluctuating will of an uncertain people and the fashions of the moment. Populism brings politics into the era of instability and brutality—a form of annihilation of politics. It is no coincidence that, in several cases, militias have become adjuncts of populist regimes.
Two of the leading analysts of populism, Cas Mudde and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser, emphasized that populism is characterized by a “thin-centered ideology," that is, paradoxically, like political liberalism, principles without much doctrinal density. They thus took up Michael Walzer’s classic distinction between thin and thick values, or between “cold” and “hot” principles, the former being specific to the proponents of philosophical liberalism (from Isaiah Berlin to John Rawls) and the latter to the so-called “communitarian” movement—a movement that is far more complex and nuanced than what is referred to as “communitarianism” in the general public today.
This observation is largely accurate: populist movements have a fairly simple worldview, do not have an elaborate doctrine, and speak more in quick slogans than they do in nuanced elaboration. They play on fears and, without doubt, even more on the atomization of society and the poverty of the social and intellectual link. However, they can become carriers of “hot values”, sometimes tinged with religiosity, and aim at installing a semblance of closed community by excluding the “others”, even if it is a derisory remedy against atomization. The designation of scapegoats, which has become compulsive on social networks, desperately tries to recreate an impossible solidarity by the negation of any “intruder”.
The rhetoric of what is now called populism is not new. It was already present in Mussolini’s fascism, Peronism and Nazism in the 1920s. More recently, it has been seen embodied in Chávez, Trump, Bolsonaro, Orbán, Salvini, Morales, Modi, Dutertre, Johnson, Babiš, Fico and Kaczyński, among others, not to mention parties and movements whose leaders have never come to power—from Le Pen to Farage to Wilders and Kast. It would be too quick to assume that the origin of these populist movements is unique, and there are limits to comparisons: no one could reasonably compare India and Bolivia or Hungary and the Philippines. It makes more sense to analyze how the international scene can be affected by heterogeneous movements and how, beyond the specificity of these regimes, there can be a convergence in the effects.
The unpredictability of populism
On the international level, populism is characterized not only by a closing in on the national territory and the erection of borders, often physical, but even more so mental, but also by the formation of a “mentality”. This makes citizens susceptible to the propaganda of dictatorships. Populism combines nationalism, the cult of national identity, the refusal of universalism and the rejection of any superior norm with the immediate and sometimes brutal expression of a challenge to constitutional rules, both national and international. The latter, through the treaties committing the States in the long term, are most often integrated into the national Constitution.
In this respect, populism translates, when it comes to power, into a mode of government that is not bound by any rule and that is, by nature, devoid of any stability. It should also be noted that dictatorships have this same congenital instability, since effective stability can only be ensured by constitutional rules that are set in stone over time. This instability can be seen in the international behavior of certain populist regimes. It has also been pointed out that, although this is true of the populisms of the global South, it does not prevent populist regimes from seeking alliances, from aiming to play a significant role in international organizations and from asserting their own form of doctrine. However, the concentration of power, the limited diversity in the groups that advise the leaders—and, in any case, the limited impact of internal debates in the circles of power—and their lack of a vision of the world beyond their country, create a form of unpredictability.
In sum, populist regimes are, for democracies, regimes that are difficult to consider reliable. No doubt, unlike dictatorships, they will hardly provoke wars, abruptly change course and try, for reasons of domestic policy, to maintain an ambiguity that may result in multiple and contradictory alliances. But they can also, sometimes for reasons of corruption, especially in Western Europe, break the established front against revisionist regimes. Indeed, as was identified several years ago, some formally democratic regimes can appear as “swing states” whose positions can work against the strengthening of democracy and human rights on a global level. This will happen even more easily if democratic countries do not seek to contain such erratic behavior. “Emerging democracies” are far from having a foreign policy that is likely to meet democratic standards, especially when they are plagued by populism.
It is not certain that populism is always the determining factor—it is rather aggravating. If we look at the formation of the BRICS, which was largely an attempt by two dictatorships to attract countries at a tipping point, it was launched long before Bolsonaro and Modi came to power. In 2009, when the BRIC group was created, if Lula certainly had a populist dimension, Manmohan Singh did not. But it was under President Zuma, who fits the definition of the term, that South Africa joined the group in 2011. The disruptive scope of the BRICS has been limited by major political divergences and different initial ambitions: essentially to strengthen their economic status for Brazil and South Africa, to appear as a global player for India, despite a foreign policy that is not very conspicuous, to contribute to changing the rules of the game for Russia and China, with also for the latter an ambition of influence and market penetration.
Nevertheless, there is also a continuity in Brazilian foreign policy, which is not very visible beyond its own area, and which is not illustrated by a marked advocacy of democracy. As for India, in addition to the major factor of its deadly antagonism with Pakistan and its rivalry with China, it has often chosen not to choose and not to clarify its alliances and orientations, in particular between the United States and Russia. As for Dutertre’s Philippines, it maintains a policy that is ultimately based on a few fundamentals that a more vocal attitude towards Manila would probably not change: a concern to contain Chinese power and to avoid too much influence and, to do so, an unfailing alliance with Washington. Such continuity can be found in Malaysian policy, including the periods when Mahathir was in power: an ambition to represent South Asia, more proclaimed than real, but also Asian Islam—a role partly abandoned by Indonesia—, a hostile discourse towards Israel, sometimes flirting with anti-Semitism, and unconditional support for Palestine, without much consequence, and an assertion of hostility, especially rhetorical, towards the United States. This does not prevent the implicit recognition of their usefulness in the face of the main threat, for reasons primarily linked to the social fabric of Indonesia: that of China. The years of the “populist” Mahathir have no particular singularity other than being of the order of nuance and posture.
Rather, the main problem with the fragile, albeit established, democracies of these southern regions is that they in some ways foreshadow populism in many ways, as if they offered some of its matrix elements: lack of political maturity of a part of society, social divisions that offer the possibility for a ruling party to stigmatize certain groups (Indians and “dangerous classes” in Brazil, Chinese in Malaysia, Muslims in India, different “ethnic” groups in South Africa), buying of political clienteles, high corruption), often use of nationalism as a substitute for social unity, and sometimes presence of private groups, independent or more or less controlled by the ruling power, to establish “security”. In terms of foreign policy, there are two divergent cases: countries that are unlikely to remain true allies, mainly India, and to a large extent Brazil, and others that it is still possible to control, even if they cannot be full allies: Malaysia, the Philippines and, probably for a long time to come, South Africa.
American populism and European populisms are otherwise problematic internationally. The Trump years have been marked not only by an attitude towards the Russian regime that is troubling at best, but also by a questioning of international organizations and regulations decided at the global level (withdrawal from the Paris Agreement). The United States became under his era an unpredictable ally that no one could trust. A second term in office would have destroyed America’s credibility because of the major infringements of the rule of law and democratic principles, and would have been marked by worrying developments—complacency towards Putin’s Russia, lack of any restraint on the behavior of dictatorships, erratic policy in the Middle East, total neglect of Europe and hostility towards it, and even leaving NATO. Despite all the criticisms that can be leveled at the Biden administration, a second term for Trump would have taken the United States into another world.
The evolution of Viktor Orbán’s Hungary poses major risks for the European Union, particularly with the increased permeability of Russian and Chinese influences. While the European framework may still be able to contain these disruptive effects—Hungary has continued to vote for sanctions against Russia—Budapest’s presence within the Union is becoming increasingly complicated. The PiS government in Poland does not pose a fundamental problem in terms of alliance, but its populist discourse weakens its position in relation to the Russian regime, which it combats with remarkable firmness but whose discourse on “traditional values” is close to its own. This sometimes leads him to inconsistencies, as when the Polish Prime Minister receives the French far-right leader, Marine Le Pen, whose very indulgent stances towards the Kremlin are in contradiction with Polish positions. Both expressed their distrust of the European Union’s rules of law. The evolution of the Serbian government towards positions that are more and more favorable to Moscow and quite open to Beijing’s influence constitutes an even greater danger.
Finally, Erdoğan’s Turkey, which borrows several traits from populism, continues to appear in part as an unpredictable NATO member—as its attempted rapprochement with the Kremlin and its support for Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict showed at one point. But it is not a state that has truly and entirely fallen apart. It is also possible to re-articulate Ankara to the Alliance in moments of major tension, as we have seen with the supply of lethal weapons to Ukraine and its willingness to oppose Russian threats against Ukraine, and before that with its opposition to the actions of Assad and his partners in Syria. This poses formidable problems for the inclusion of less than perfectly democratic regimes in alliances based on democratic principles.
In sum, the first issue for free and democratic countries—and this also applies mutatis mutandis to certain Gulf monarchies to which the label “populist” cannot be applied—is to contain these states, to exert diplomatic pressure to limit their dangerous or inconsistent policies and to try to prevent their populist rhetoric from perverting the organizations of which they are members. As has been pointed out, populist regimes should not be understood statically, but dynamically—and it is in this respect that democracies have a role to play. But there is one thing that these regimes have not mastered and that democracies have not been able to deal with successfully: the way in which populist discourse profoundly changes the public mind.
The destruction of society
The risk to the security of democracies posed by populism, however, also comes from its effects on the domestic political scene, including in countries where a populist party is not in power, but is sufficiently present in the formation of a part of public opinion to create a ripple effect, if not an imitation. One could apply to populism the strong and fact-checked hypothesis that the Belgian historian Marie Peltier has made about conspiracy: just as there is a conspiracy rhetoric and narrative that affects mainstream politicians, so moderate leaders can borrow certain language gimmicks from populism. They think they are combating populism by picking some of its phrasings, but in fact they are helping to popularize it. This is the case when they dare to criticize the media, to designate opposition groups as systematically acting in bad faith, to make specific accusations against international organizations, or even to scapegoat factors of resistance within the state apparatus—classic “deep state” rhetoric.
In terms of foreign policy, the influence of populism can also be seen in certain silences of moderate governments. This is the case when they are reluctant to defend the human rights that populists abhor, when they keep silent about the crimes against humanity or war crimes of dictatorships, when they are shy about defending the values of an open society or when they keep silent about the virtues of international norms. The fear, certainly largely justified, that populist groups inspire in them sometimes leads them insensitively not to erect counter-fires or counter-discourses. They become timid in stating the principles of democracies and in opposing the heralds of populism with positive rhetoric about what brings us together across borders. They can thus take up statements that, here too, can lead to the legitimization of populism: protection of the nation, distrust of immigration, even if regulated, suspicion of asylum seekers and, in Europe, regular criticism of—including long-term—enlargement projects. Nor do they always oppose dictatorships with a sufficiently firm discourse, involuntarily leading to the idea of continuity between democracies and dictatorships, rather than an absolute differentiation, being installed in public opinion. This is exactly the message that populist parties try to convey when they denounce the dictatorship of representative democracies.
Just as conspiracy is based on confusion, populism, which has become partly mainstream, leads to obscuring in the minds of part of the population the differences between regimes opposed to the values of freedom and openness and liberal and democratic regimes. The search for, or even the cult of, an untraceable people is always accompanied by a decline and erosion of democratic leadership.
What this indifferentiation proper to populism leads to can be summarized by a qualification: depoliticization effect. This depoliticization translates into a lack of perception of the fundamental issues at stake because governments do not state them, in particular, for those that concern the international domain, the threats of dictatorships which are also threats to the fundamental rights and principles that are supposed to animate a civilized international scene. The lack of education, the predominance of entertainment and the anecdotal over the essential, the dilution of the hierarchy of values and, in a way, the oblivion of crime are the breeding ground for populist groups. They blunt our resistance and lead us to look the other way.
It is far from certain that, beyond the risk that populism represents for the traditional groups in power, they have perceived the danger that populism poses for our resistance to its hold. One day, perhaps, the dikes will burst.