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Photo: “Manifestacja przeciw islamizaji Europy Ruch Narodowy Młodzież Wszechpolska plac Zamkowy 2016“, by Adrian Grycuk licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 PL. Hue modified from the original

Varga, Mihai, and Aron Buzogany. “The Foreign Policy of Populists in Power: Contesting Liberalism in Poland and Hungary.” Geopolitics 26, no. 5 (March 29, 2020): 1442–63.

Abstract

Ruling right-wing populist parties in Europe have significantly changed foreign policies and advanced criticism against core values of liberal democracy, including dismissive stances vis-à-vis the European Union. This paper argues that the reorientation of foreign policies in Hungary and Poland is consistent with ideas developed by incumbent populist right-wing parties and intellectuals of statecraft in the wider conservative movement supporting them. The contribution studies the foreign policy conceptions of right-wing forces and builds on critical geopolitics to trace these back to ideas shaped in broader right-wing networks that have played leading roles in developing a right-wing ideological alternative to liberalism.

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The Illiberalism Studies Program studies the different faces of illiberal politics and thought in today’s world, taking into account the diversity of their cultural context, their intellectual genealogy, the sociology of their popular support, and their implications on the international scene.