Description
It has become conventional wisdom that domestic political interests, popular attitudes and movements are inserting themselves in new ways in foreign policy from Brazil to the EU to India to the United States. But is this process different from the past ways in which domestic interests and sentiment influenced foreign policies in the past? Is it possible that just the voices and constituencies have shifted and not the ways those have been articulated and their concrete impact on public debate over foreign policy and specific policies?
Using case studies in Europe, the Americas and Asia, this roundtable will explore three key questions: 1) to what extent are domestic politics shaping foreign policy decisions? 2) to what extent is the influence of domestic politics and constituencies different then in the past? and 3) what if any change is this provoking rhetorical, symbolic and – most important – substantive changes in foreign policies? Discussion will also examine the role of transnational movements in affecting these changes.
Participants will discuss the effect of populist movements and governments in India and Europe on the symbolism and content of foreign policy. Another participant will examine long-term trends in US popular sentiments toward foreign policy and attempt to trace those attitudes, their articulation and representation in specific movements and partisan factions and their impact on concrete policy initiatives across a range of issues.
Chair: Dr Renata Dwan, Deputy Director Chatham House
• ‘New India, New Foreign Policy?’, Dr Gareth Price, Senior Research Fellow, Chatham House;
• ‘Is European Foreign Policy Populism that Different?’, Dr Angelos Chryssogelos, Associate Fellow, Chatham House;
• ‘Just No-Nothings and John Birch-erism Updated? US Foreign Policy under Trump and the Hangover’, Dr Christopher Sabatini, Senior Research Fellow, Chatham House
• ‘Brazil, Bullets, Beef and the Bible: Bolsonaro’s Politics Meet the World’, Elena Lazarou, Associate Fellow, Chatham House
