Populism and Global Politics

The rise of populist movements and parties the world over in recent years has spurred much academic interest in the subject. Waves of rising insurgent parties and movements across Europe and Asia, the association of the Brexit vote with populism, and the election of Donald Trump as US president on an anti-establishment ticket have all raised the salience of populism in the discipline. While populism was often (but not always) considered a matter for scholars of domestic political processes, the seemingly coordinated rise of such movements in recent years, the extent of engagement between self-declared populist actors across borders, and the observance of a number of commonalities in the foreign policy positions of populist leaders and parties—most notably among populist radical right parties—has led to a greater interest in the topic by scholars of international and global politics. Scholars are increasingly motivated to ask about the international sources of rising populism, the reach of populist actors outside a country’s borders, the transnational linkages between populist parties, and the implications of populism for the future of the liberal international order. The time seems ripe, then, to offer an overview of populism in global politics as a field of study. This bibliography showcases works on populism (and allied concepts) that have an explicitly international angle, including those on the global determinants of populism, comparisons between movements, the foreign policies of populist parties, and transnational engagement between populist actors. Brexit and Donald Trump are considered also given their prominence in the debate on populism, but generally speaking individual cases are not the subject of this resource. The bibliography draws on literature from within political science, principally from the sub-disciplines of comparative politics and international relations, and from related fields of study. The study of populism and global politics lies astride this important disciplinary boundary, and many of the works contained herein discuss the reasons for this divide, and the problems associated with it. Only recently have sustained efforts been made to bridge this disciplinary divide, and the study of populism and global politics is thus continually evolving.