Conference Program

The foreign policy conducted by Jair Bolsonaro's administration had far-reaching implications. Not only did it erode domestic rules and democratic values, but it also impacted regional cooperation and international institutions. Taking the case study of Brazil in the period between 2019 and 2022 as an example, this research maps a combined approach to study ideational structures through actions, discourses and performances. In addition, it proposes a codebook based on 15 semi-structured interviews with Brazilian experts and practitioners to study the ideational structures of Bolsonaro's foreign policy. These tools can contribute to the scholarly debate about how to address populism as a driver for contestation in South America.

A ‘populist’ turn in IR is here to stay, certainly in FPA. However, the growing research on populist foreign policy (PFP) still suffers from analytical inflexibility, whereby structural and contextual issues affecting the implementation of foreign policy are largely overlooked. As a result, accounts of foreign policy change in PFP remain undertheorized. This study explores how changes in the distribution of power, both locally and externally, affect the way populists accommodate behavior in their international interactions. To this end, a dynamic two-level game model is applied, in which domestic and international political structures act as either catalysts or barriers to PFP according to changing combinations of scenarios. Empirical evidence from cases of contemporary populist leaderships in Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East is shown to illustrate the dynamic impact of (inter-)national political structures on PFP. The findings can contribute to the further understanding of the role of parties, coalitions, allies, and enemies in the way populist leaderships impact current global politics.

The primary objective of the paper will be to identify the populist rhetoric present in Joe Biden's re-election campaign in the 2024 US presidential election. The distinctly populist stance evident throughout the 2020 presidential campaign course and in the 2024 primaries in Donald Trump's speeches has been very well described in the literature of the subject, while less attention has been paid to the narrative employed by Joe Biden, which has been qualified as rather pluralistic. Nevertheless, some elements of populism can be observed during Joe Biden's (pre)election speeches, which are worth identifying and analysing in the context of their possible impact on Joe Biden's eventual victory in the electoral contest. Particular attention will be paid to those elements of the populist narrative relating to foreign policy. The primary source identifying the populist position (or lack thereof) will be Joe Biden's key speeches delivered during the 2024 re-election campaign.

The populist foreign policy implemented by Jair Bolsonaro during his single mandate as President of Brazil (2019-2022) has been the target of different academic contributions trying to assess its broader impact in Brazil’s international standing. In the present contribution, we focus on how Bolsonaro’s populist foreign policy was influenced by his training and socialization as a Brazilian Army officer during the Cold War period. We identify that several elements associated with a worldview developed by the Brazilian Armed Forces during the Cold War have provided ideological support to foreign policy initiatives implemented under Bolsonaro’s administration, including in his choice of advisors with similar military background. Our analysis will focus on three specific elements that gained prominence as part of Brazil’s populist foreign policy: environmental nationalism with an emphasis on sovereignty over the Amazon rainforest; political and military alignment with the United States which included an anti-Communist component and an understanding of Brazil as a Christian and Western nation, which reflected on strong support for Israel as well as anti-LGBT policies at the multilateral level.