This article argues that anti-populism, in itself and in its dialogical interaction with populism, feeds the politicisation of foreign policy. Anti-populism inverts but mirrors the populist logics of differentiation, legitimation, and mobilisation, and as such translates in a similar proclivity to use foreign policy as a terrain to attack and mark a difference with political adversaries. In testing and illustrating this argument, this article analyses how the Russia-Ukraine war has featured in the anti-populist strategies of governing parties in Czechia and France. In both countries, patterns of anti-populist politicisation have preceded dynamics of populist politicisation and were articulated in support of opposite policy options: anti-populist politicisation backed economic and military aid to Ukraine while populist politicisation, seeking to capitalise on war fatigue politically, criticised its extent. Overall, the choreography between populist and anti-populist politicisation contributes to redefine the link between politics and policy.

Depuis l’invasion de l’Ukraine, les visions stratégiques de Paris et de Varsovie ou Prague n’ont jamais été aussi convergentes : il s’agit de bâtir la défense européenne contre la Russie et avec les voisins orientaux de l’Europe. Mais des dissonances persistent sur le rapport aux États-Unis.

France and Central European states have long been incarnating opposite sides of the European debates on how, where, and with (or against) whom to build the continent’s security. As this forum contribution will show, however, the major exogenous shock of the 2022 Russia-Ukraine war has altered this state of affairs. Deep-seated changes in France’s policies towards Russia and the Eastern neighbourhood, and Central European states’ greater (though relative) opening towards self-standing European security initiatives, have made their strategic outlooks more convergent than ever. Studying their variegated geopolitical visions, their evolutions, and the imaginaries that underpin them, reveal particularly fruitful to explore the realm of the possible when it comes to re-organising European security.

This article argues that populism in power translates into a greater tendency to politicize foreign policy, in the sense of defining and articulating foreign policy preferences in opposition to political predecessors, using foreign policy as an instrument and ground to battle political opponents, and over-prioritizing domestic incentives and considerations over external ones. Paradoxically, compared to other classical determinants of foreign policy, how populism relates to domestic political competition has received scant attention. Yet, populist actors' strategies in dealing with political opposition are at the same time distinctive and consequential. This article advances a typological theoretical framework shedding light on the pathways, patterns, and implications of populist politicization, which it illustrates empirically with reference to the case of Poland. Este articulo argumenta que el populismo en el poder se traduce en una mayor tendencia a politizar la politica exterior, en el sentido de definir y articular las preferencias en materia de politica exterior en oposicion a los predecesores politicos, de utilizar la politica exterior como instrumento y terreno para combatir a los oponentes politicos, y de priorizar en exceso los incentivos y las consideraciones internas sobre las externas. Paradojicamente, la forma en que el populismo se relaciona con la competencia politica interna ha recibido escasa atencion en comparacion con otros determinantes clasicos de la politica exterior. Sin embargo, las estrategias de los agentes populistas para hacer frente a la oposicion politica son, al mismo tiempo, distintivas y consecuentes. Este articulo propone un marco teorico tipologico que pretende arrojar luz sobre las vias, patrones e implicaciones de la politizacion populista, la cual ilustramos empiricamente con referencia al caso de Polonia. Cet article avance que le populisme au pouvoir se traduit en une propension accrue a la politisation de la politique etrangere, en termes de formulation et d'articulation des preferences de politique etrangere en opposition de celles des gouvernants precedents, d'utilisation de la politique etrangere comme un instrument et une arene pour attaquer les opposants politiques, et de priorisation a l'exces des considerations et motivations de politique interieure au detriment des dynamiques et finalites internationales. De facon paradoxale, en comparaison des autres determinants traditionnels de la politique etrangere, la facon dont le populisme se rapporte a la competition politique nationale n'a recu que peu d'attention. Pourtant, les strategies des acteurs populistes a l'egard de l'opposition politique sont a la fois distinctives et portent a consequence. Cet article propose un cadre theorique typologique qui met en lumiere les vecteurs, caracteristiques et implications de la politisation populiste et qui est applique empiriquement au cas de la Pologne.

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the international dimensions of populism, by now a major political phenomenon around the world. This interest, however, has been confined largely to the state level, especially the influence of populism on foreign policy. In this Forum, we argue that it is important for analysis to move beyond the state level and view populism as a concept and phenomenon of international relations (IR) rather than simply a factor of foreign policy. The Forum discusses implications of the rise of populism for IR theory, the role of international systemic change in the emergence of populism in national arenas, and the ways that regime type, state structure and institutions, ideational content, and the political strategies of populists condition the impact of populism on world politics. In this way, the Forum identifies specific directions for the study of populism in IR that scholars can follow in the future.

This article analyses how, in Poland, the populist political orientation of the ruling party (Law and Justice-PiS) has coloured the historical discourse of the government and has affected, in turn, its foreign policy and diplomatic relations. We argue that the historical discourse of the PiS government is a reflection of the party's reliance on populism as a political mode of articulation in that it seeks to promote a Manichean, dichotomic and totalizing re-definition of the categories of victim, hero and perpetrator-and of Poland's roles in this trinity. The article details the direct and indirect repercussions of PiS populist-inspired historical posture on Poland's foreign policy by analysing its policies towards-and relations with-Ukraine and Germany. As such, the article sheds light on the under-explored links between populism and historical memory and makes a contribution to the nascent scholarship on the foreign policy of populist governments.

Emmanuel Macron’s initiative for a renewed political dialogue with Moscow had raised eyebrows, if not alarms or outright criticisms, in a number of European quarters. As such, it invites some reflection on its rationale and determinants as well as, more generally, on the drivers of France’s policies towards Russia.

The worldwide rise of populist governments represents one of the most crucial political developments of recent years. In Europe in particular, a range of populist parties and leaders have been voted into power and have formed (or joined) governments over the past decade—this is true, for instance, in Austria, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Italy or Poland. As populist actors leave the opposition to seize the reins of executive power, they have entirely new possibilities to directly shape not only domestic policies, but also their countries’ foreign policy and European politics more generally. This could have important repercussions on the European integration project, on relations among European member states and with external powers such as Russia and China, on EU policies in areas such as migration or support to democratization, and on international norms and organizations more generally. Yet, surprisingly, how and to what extent populist government formation (or participation) concretely influences foreign policy has not been studied systematically so far. Particularly after the election of Donald Trump in the United States, this question has been the object of many (often sensationalist) comments in the media and in policy debates. Also, the literature on the international dimensions of populism has been growing rapidly (see below), but methodical, theory-driven and evidence-based analyses of the impact of populism on foreign policy are still scarce. While the literature on the domestic causes and manifestations of populism has been thriving for decades in the field of Comparative Politics (see, among many others, Meny and Surel 2002; Rooduijn 2018; Norris and Inglehart 2019; Taggart and

The EU is increasingly concerned with the diffusion and uncertainty of risks and threats in the neighbourhood, and resilience appears as a useful and pragmatic policy framework to address risks in areas of limited statehood and contested orders. The working paper draws from extensive report analysis and semi-structured interviews with EU officials to examine the diplomatic, economic, and military instruments that the EU mobilizes in a resilience-informed external action. The main contribution is that these instruments are increasingly facilitating resilience through multiple, long-term, and indirect actions. First, instruments have expanded and diversified to undertake as many different actions as possible. Second, they are sustained over long periods of time, even when there are no risks or threats or after peace and stability have been reached. Third, since resilience emerges “from below”, building on societies’ own resources and tools, EU instruments facilitate resilience indirectly, through constant engagement in the neighbourhood.

[...] What drives Czech foreign policy and what prompted the changes noted above in particular? Are these changes the mark of a profound change of direction in Czech foreign policy or simply punctual contradictions resulting from domestic politics spilling over into foreign policy? What are Prague’s diplomatic priorities and foreign policy preferences at the EU level? How is the Czech Republic likely to position itself in the changing international and European contexts? This chapter purports to shed some light on these questions by contrasting Czech foreign policy then and now. It begins by presenting the historical background, domestic sources, and past traditions in this policy. It then focuses in turn on three issue areas of key importance for Prague in EU foreign policy—namely, relations with the United States, relations with Russia, and policies toward the Eastern neighborhood—and traces the evolution of Czech positions on these dossiers. The conclusion summarizes the findings and discusses the likely future direction of Czech foreign policy. [...]

David Cadier is a researcher in EU foreign policy at CERI-Sciences Po since March 2018. He’s also an Adjunct Lecturer at Sciences Po’ Paris School of International Affairs (PSIA) and an Associate at LSE IDEAS (London School of Economics). His research focuses mainly on Foreign Policy Analysis, Central and Eastern Europe, and EU-Russia relations. At CERI-Sciences Po, he coordinates the Horizon 2020 project EU-LISTCO along with Professor Christian Lequesne. David has agreed to answer some of our questions on his background, his current research focus, the EU-LISTCO project, but also on the forthcoming European elections. Interview by Miriam Perier

The European Union’s (EU) foreign policy software needs updating: it appears to be increasingly out of sync with the operating system of international politics. At the turn of the millennium, many had hoped that the EU’s internal model and institutional nature – as a transnational multilateral governance platform based on international law and soft power – would make it well prepared for, and even a potential leader in, the world to come (Howorth, 2010). Yet, postmodern Europe has not seen the advent of the kind of post-Westphalian international system it had hoped for. Instead, the EU finds itself rather ill-equipped in the new era of great-power competition. Its distinctive approach to foreign policy, which has mainly consisted in the export of democratic governance and economic standards, is increasingly under strain at a time where it is both tested externally and contested internally...

Since the outbreak of the Ukraine crisis in 2014, the idea that the EU and Russia are engaged in a geopolitical contest over their common neighbourhood and that the Eastern Partnership (EaP) is Brussels' instrument in this context appears 'common sense'. Yet, the reality of the EaP as a policy programme hardly corresponds to such representation, whether in its original purpose, actual content or effects on the ground. To unpack this discrepancy, this article presents a genealogy of what is conceptualised here as the geopoliticisation of the EaP, a notion set forth to designate the discursive construction of an issue as a geopolitical problem. While Russia's actions in Ukraine certainly contributed to deepen and reinforce this dynamic, the article shows that the geopoliticisation of the EaP was neither merely exogenous nor simply reactive. It was also carried forward from within the European policy community by a discourse coalition which, based on its own political subjectivities and policy agenda, came to frame the EaP as an endeavour aimed at 'winning over' countries of the Eastern neighbourhood and 'rolling back' Russia's influence.