Description
Multilateral collaboration through international organisations (IOs) is among the key characteristic of the liberal international order (LIO). Populist leaders are often described as challengers to this order since, from their view, it is held to benefit the “elite” at the expense of the “people”. But do populists represent an unequivocal challenge to international organizations and the LIO more broadly? This paper explores the public engagement of three populist leaders – Brazilian President Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and US President Donald Trump – with various IOs in different policy areas: the World Trade Organization (trade); the United Nations with a particular focus on the UN Security Council (security); and the International Criminal Court (law). The paper suggests that rather than representing an outright challenge, populists in power exhibit a more nuanced approach to IOs. States’ geopolitical position and the specific nature of international regimes lead populist leaders to adopt varying stances on international organizations. What populism does is provide a coherent ideational and discursive frame to evaluate the nature of IOs and legitimize varying, often contradicting positions.
