PopulistFP SIGNED

Project "PopulistFP" data sheet

The following table provides information about the project.

 Partnership

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 Project objective

The emergence of new political cleavages and the increasingly polarized nature of political debate in democracies have profound implications for the politics of foreign policy decision making. International issues are becoming more salient in domestic politics. Meanwhile, rising populist parties on both left and right use international affairs to differentiate from mainstream parties and harness widespread public hostility towards the consequences of globalization. This suggests that partisan debates on foreign policy may be becoming more polarised. States may therefore find it increasingly difficult to pursue coherent foreign policy agendas, and it may be all the more difficult for the EU to build and sustain a coherent Common Foreign and Security Policy. Indeed, studies of European identity have highlighted a distinct divide across the EU over what Europe stands for: whether a beacon of universal democratic and human rights values, or a distinct ‘Judeo-Christian civilization’. Yet we lack a comparative picture of how the changing nature of political contestation in EU member state shapes how foreign policy questions are addressed by politicians and political parties. This project will fill this gap with a comparative analysis of partisan debates in Britain, France and Germany over intervention against the Assad regime, including in-depth interviews in each country, and comparing the results to a previous study of partisan debates over intervention in the Balkans in the 1990s. Through the project the ER will gain new skills in European politics, comparative politics, and systematic qualitative analysis, laying the groundwork for a career uncovering the changing politics of foreign policy, with outputs of significant value to scholars and practitioners.