Wednesday, 16 December 2020

Bellende Hunde beißen nicht: Why European Right-wing Populists Achieve so Little in Foreign Policy

WZB Distinguished Lecture in Social Sciences by Andrew Moravcsik, Princeton University

Moderated by Michael Zürn

What effects do extreme-right populist parties in Western democracies have on foreign and EU policy? Surprisingly little existing theory or empirical research addresses this question. An analysis of the 27 EU member states plus the United Kingdom suggests that over the past decade such parties have had surprisingly little concrete impact. The most plausible explanation of their impotence rests on causal structures that liberal international relations theory views as common to foreign policy-making in all democratic societies: the distribution of social preferences, the structure of domestic representative institutions and the relative national power as mediated by interdependence. This finding has policy implications beyond Europe and even beyond the democratic state as such.

Andrew Moravcsik is Professor of Politics and Director of the European Union Program at Princeton University.

Michael Zürn is Director of the WZB Research Unit Global Governance.

 

The lecture is part of the WZB Distinguished Lectures in Social Sciences.

 

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