The Foreign Policy of Populists in Power: Contesting Liberalism in Poland and Hungary

2020/03/29 by Mihai Varga, Áron Buzogány · 1 citation
Social Sciences · #Populism, Right-Wing Movements #European Union Policy and Governance #Eastern European Communism and Reforms

paper · doi:10.1080/14650045.2020.1734564

openalex publication_date 2020/03/29 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

Ruling right-wing populist parties in Europe have significantly changed foreign policies and advanced criticism against core values of liberal democracy, including dismissive stances vis-à-vis the European Union. This paper argues that the reorientation of foreign policies in Hungary and Poland is consistent with ideas developed by incumbent populist right-wing parties and intellectuals of statecraft in the wider conservative movement supporting them. The contribution studies the foreign policy conceptions of right-wing forces and builds on critical geopolitics to trace these back to ideas shaped in broader right-wing networks that have played leading roles in developing a right-wing ideological alternative to liberalism.

Citations

• Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory
• The Contemporary American Conservative Movement
• International Norm Dynamics and Political Change
• Political safeguards against democratic backsliding in the EU: the limits of material sanctions and the scope of social pressure
• Trojan Horses in EU Foreign Policy
• The end of liberal international order?
• The ideational foundations of the illiberal backlash in Central and Eastern Europe: the case of Hungary

Cited by

• Liberalism in Poland [wikipedia]