Une fois n’est pas coutume, je relaie ici un article en anglais co-écrit avec ma collègue Caroline Gondaud, pour l’excellent War on the Rocks:

Populism, the European Elections, and the Future of E.U. Foreign Policy

Populism has never been so scrutinized, analyzed, and questioned. One aspect of populism, however, remains less studied: its impact on countries’ foreign policies and on their interstate relations in an international system in flux. There is no single “populist foreign policy,” but populism impacts foreign policies: It holds a particular vision of international relations, a vision that carries increasing weight amid today’s tumultuous attempts to redefine the international system.

The recently concluded European Parliament elections highlighted the influence of populists, illustrating the fears and anxieties of many European citizens in a complicated global environment, but also their uncertainty about the role of the European Union in this context. Notably, although the European Union and the multilateralism associated with it have historically been a common target for populists, today’s populist factions seem to have shifted away from advocating outright removal from the union. Rather, they seem poised to sow discord and dysfunction in the European Parliament from the inside. In this way, the impact of populism on the European Union may be even more concerning: The movement can affect not only the union’s political agenda but also its functioning — and ultimately its overall relevance — by proving the populists’ major contention about the bankruptcy of multilateral institutions.

Read the article on War on the Rocks