Monika Brusenbauch Meislová has published a new article in International Affairs - one of the world's leading journals!

Monika Brusenbauch Meislová has published a new article, co-authored with Angelos Chryssogelos from London Metropolitan University, in International Affairs. International Affairs is one of the world's leading journals of international relations, founded by and edited at Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London, and published by Oxford University Press.

The article is titled “The ambiguous impact of populist trade discourses on the international economic order” and argues that populism affects trade not by expressing consistent economic preferences, but by operating as a discourse that articulates external policies as a struggle for popular recognition. Monika and Angelos analyse trade discourses of Donald Trump and Brexiteers following their victories in the 2016 United States presidential election and the referendum on European Union membership in the United Kingdom. These populist movements expressed opposing trade preferences: Trumpism was identified with protectionism, while Brexiteers supported free trade. However, they both articulated trade as a way to regain popular sovereignty from elites and hostile outsiders. The authors take a discursive approach which helps them identify a common logic in how populists articulate foreign relations despite pursuing nominally opposing policies. While this populist logic pertains primarily to domestic mobilization, it has implications for the international order as well, as evidenced in the persistence of protectionist instincts in the US under President Biden and the acceptance of a ‘global’ trade policy outside the EU as the new frame of reference for UK external economic relations.

Thanks to the support of Masaryk University the article is open access and free to read for all at this link .

The article is part of International Affairs special section titled “The Effects of Global Populism”, edited by Daniel Wajner and Sandra Destradi. You can read other interesting contributions in this special section here .