Contesting the “Corrupt Elites,” Creating the “Pure People,” and Renegotiating the Hierarchies of the International Order? Populism and Foreign Policy-Making in Turkey and Hungary

Abstract

Abstract This article explores the link between populism and hierarchies in international relations by examining the recent foreign policy-making in Turkey and Hungary—two countries run by populist leaders. We argue that when populists bring populism into foreign policy, they do so by contesting the “corrupt elites” of the international order and, simultaneously, attempt to create the “pure people” transnationally. The populists contest the “eliteness” and leadership status of these “elites” and the international order and its institutions, that is, the “establishment,” that these “elites” have come to represent by challenging them both in discourse and in action. The creation of the “pure people” happens by discursively demarcating the “underprivileged” of the international order as a subcategory based on religion and supplementing them with aid, thus mimicking the distributive strategies of populism, this time at the international level. We illustrate that when populist leaders, insert populism into foreign policies of their respective states, through contesting the “corrupt elites” and creating the “pure people,” the built-in vertical stratification mechanisms of populism that stems from the antagonistic binaries inherent to populism provide them with the necessary superiority and inferiority labels allowing them to renegotiate hierarchies in the international system in an attempt to modify the existing ones or to create new ones.