This chapter explores what is original and distinctive of populist foreign policy in Latin America and what are the factors that enable and constrain it. The chapter proceeds as follows: first, we introduce the conceptual dimensions of populism and its more common use in terms of foreign policy analysis. This section also provides an eclectic analytical framework that captures the tradition of populism and its ability to shape the present (temporal dimension), how populists make sense of the international within their regions and in the global arena (spatial dimension), and the creative dimension of the populist leader (agential dimension). Second, we provide a historical contextualization of early populist experiences in Latin America and their key foreign policy principles and tradition. Third, we analyse the different waves of populism especially from the 1990s onwards along the lines of tradition, geopolitics, and leadership. Finally, we conclude with a comparison of the Latin American populist foreign policies in terms of commonalities and differences as well as we outline further research avenues.

This edited volume aimed to provide answers to two key questions: what is distinctive about Populist Foreign Policy (PFP), and what are the domestic and international factors that enable and constrain PFP. The answers to these questions are increasingly pressing given the changes in global politics, as demonstrated by the various electoral outcomes of 2022 including the legislative elections in France on June 19 and the Italian parliamentary elections on September 25, which saw important gains among populist parties, and the US legislative elections on November 8, which highlighted the continued strength of Trump’s wing in the Republican Party. These outcomes are not surprising, given that some structural and sociological trends fueling current populism—increased levels of inequality, economic distress, political polarization, the global shift of power away from the West—were accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine and are expected to remain and even grow in the coming years (Eatwell & Goodwin, 2019; Ministero de Defensa Espanol, 2019).

This book aims to introduce readers to the emerging and developing field of populism and foreign policy, highlighting some of the more important scientific advances in the past decade and setting the stage for future contributions to this growing research program. Across its different chapters, this edited volume examines what is distinctive about populist foreign policy (PFP) in parallel to its diversity in cultural, socio-economic, and political terms. Moreover, by exploring how populist governments addressed their foreign policies in Latin America, North America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Southern Europe, the Middle East, East and Southeast Asia, Oceania, and Africa, the book analyzes the domestic and international conditions which enable or constrain PFP in each region.

This chapter explores the foreign policies of populist governments in several countries of Southern Europe, notably France, Greece, Italy, and Spain. These Mediterranean countries show similar characteristics in terms of not only geography, culture, and political system but also a dense presence of populist leaderships with governmental power (or close to having it, in the French case), both from the right and from the left. A comparative analysis of Populist Foreign Policy (PFP) in this sub-region allows us to unravel some of the distinctive ways in which populists shape foreign policy, especially in relation to the EU, and how this is influenced by structural positions in the regional distribution of power and the relative strength of domestic parties and institutions.

This chapter examines the foreign policies of contemporary populist leaderships in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). We adopt a comparative regional approach to “populist foreign policy” (PFP) in MENA, seeking to identify commonalities and differences that distinguish PFP in these countries, as well as national and international factors that allow or limit these regional trends. We place special emphasis on four cases: Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Turkey (2003–), which is probably the most “paradigmatic” case of contemporary populism in the region, and three more “controversial” cases in terms of the theoretical applicability of populism as a category of political analysis—Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s Egypt (2014–), Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Iran (2005–2013), and Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israel (1996–1999, 2009–2021). Although the four cases differ greatly from each other, especially in their varied approaches to democracy, freedom, human rights, and the rule of law, we can still benefit from a comparative perspective of their PFPs. MENA’s PFP must be understood considering the geopolitical background of this region, which includes a combination of internal struggles, military conflicts, and external interventions. The study also highlights the role of civilizational and ethno-religious components in promoting and limiting collective action, as well as the differences in terms of PFP between countries with well-established democratic/authoritarian regimes and between parliamentary/presidential systems.

This book explores the global phenomenon of populism in relation to states' foreign policy, addressing two key questions: How do populists mold their foreign policies? What are the domestic and external factors that enable and constrain it? To this end, the book brings together a diverse group of scholars who have already researched on populist foreign policies (PFP) in specific countries to contribute shared chapters that examine their drivers, patterns, and effects according to distinctive regions: North America, Western Europe, Southern Europe, Central-Eastern Europe, Latin America, South-East Asia, the Middle East, Oceania, and Africa. The empirical analysis sheds new light on how populists’ distinctive conception of a world divided antagonistically between “the people” and “the elites” influences behaviour towards multilateral organizations such as the United Nations and the European Union, and regional or global hegemonic powers like the United States, Germany, Russia, and China. The book also shows how ideas related to identity, ideology, status and emotions, impinge on populists’ conduct vis-à-vis other international actors, and how national and international structures affect the implementation of populist foreign policies in the regional, interregional, and global arenas. The wide geographical diversity and regional representation are also valuable in identifying cultural similarities and differences. Hence, the findings contribute to lively debates on whether there is a unified and coherent foreign policy among populist leaderships, and whether populism leads to a gradual “corrective” of transnational trends in contemporary politics or, conversely, to a more radical, structural shift in the liberal international order.

Under what conditions do populists embrace or reject “the international”? Some scholars of populism argue that populist leaders tend to neglect political (inter-)action in the international arena due to their stated preference for isolationist, nationalistic, and protectionist stances. Meanwhile, others claim that through their promotion of performative encounters and transnational solidarities between “People(s),” populists are actually more likely to engage with actors, ideas, styles, and agendas coming from abroad. This article explores this apparent contradiction, hypothesizing that three main elements influence the “populist mindset” to narrate the external world and thus adopt or rather resist new contingencies originating internationally: legitimacy, support, and opportunity. To examine the combination of these behavioral patterns, we compare two populist presidents who are paradigmatic of a fourth wave of populism in Latin America: Brazil's Jair Messias Bolsonaro and Mexico's Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO). A comparative analysis of Bolsonaro's and AMLO's discursive responses to numerous foreign policy issues reveals how these three mechanisms condition their engagement or apathy toward external developments in bilateral frameworks of cooperation, regional integration schemes, multilateral organizations, and global governance institutions. The findings of this study can contribute to a greater understanding of populist foreign policies and their outcomes, with a special emphasis on Latin America and the Global South, and more generally to the emerging research on populism in international relations.

Digital technologies are revolutionizing the way we study and understand history. Historical sources and material evidence are increasingly being transformed into digital objects and integrated into larger databases, offering new ways of researching history in the digital age. This article reviews dominant practices that deal with new forms of historiography. It does so by offering digital curatorial practices and outlines a new methodological concept of digital visual history. For that purpose, the article explores a particularly challenging test case of historical visual sources, which not only had a lasting effect on the collective historical imagination but has also increasingly turned digital: the difficult visual heritage of the Holocaust. Highlighting significant aspects of the afterlife of these visual sources, the article uses as an example the digital infrastructure developed in the framework of the EU Horizon 2020 project ‘Visual History of the Holocaust: Rethinking Curation in the Digital Age’ (VHH) (2019–2023) that aims at (re)contextualizing Allied atrocity records as relational and migrating images. In doing so, the article demonstrates how, through the combination of historiographic practices of curation and digital technologies, the visual heritage of past events is revealed as dynamic and interconnected.

This Article examines the right to be acknowledged as the first inventor of a new technology in patent law. Technological inventions usually result from cumulative research and development, and several people sometimes arrive at the same invention almost simultaneously. However, only one person is usually considered to be the “inventor,” and receives all the credit and honor. This Article focuses on the legal systems of Germany and the United States, comparing how they conceptualize the right to be seen as inventor. These systems have developed in substantially different philosophical and cultural climates: while the German legal system has been deeply influenced by Kantian and Hegelian thought, the American legal system has been inspired more strongly by liberal and utilitarian ideas. These two schools of philosophical thought have different perspectives on the relationship between personal identity and work; while the German tradition emphasizes the deeply personal relation between individuals and their work, the Anglo-Saxon approach is, in general, more instrumentalist and utilitarian with regard to work. One way in which these differences express themselves is the different ways in which the right to be acknowledged as the first inventor is understood and regulated. The right to be acknowledged as the first inventor is deeply connected with one’s identity as a professional, whether an engineer, technician, or scientist. On the other hand, this right does not necessarily have pecuniary significance. Hence, the protection of the right to be considered as the first inventor allows a glimpse into the different visions of identity and work found in these legal systems. This Article examines to what extent German and American legal systems recognize and protect the right to be perceived as the first inventor. It demonstrates that the two legal systems differ profoundly in the ways they perceive and protect the right to be considered as the first inventor. True to its visions of professional dignity, German law carefully protects this right, independently from any pecuniary interests. In contrast, American law grants a remarkably weak protection to the right to be considered as the first inventor, focusing primarily on its monetary aspects. Hence, one can here discover different visions of the role of individuals in society, and specifically of the role of individuals as creators and not just consumers. What is at stake here is whether questions of honor, dignity, and symbolic property, above and beyond material benefits, are recognized as playing a role in the economic system.

The historical parallels between Jews and Armenians have long been widespread in both popular and academic spheres: two diasporic, ‘middlemen minorities’ with distinctive religious, cultural, and socio-economic traits whose repeated marginalization and oppression during the nineteenth century culminated in genocide during the twentieth.Footnote2 Throughout history, both peoples have drawn upon their ties to sacred lands to establish some of the most deeply rooted narratives of ethnic identity: the Jews, as biblical dwellers of the land of Israel; the Armenians as guardians of Mount Ararat, where Noah's Ark is said to have come to rest. As Anthony D. Smith wrote, ‘we might think of first-century-C.E. Jews and fifth-century Armenians as approximating to the ideal type of the nation’.Footnote3 It is also this distinctive ethno-religious identity that simultaneously strengthened their diasporic networks of trade, and often singled them out for discrimination in the territories they inhabited.