This project analyzes the impact on international affairs of extreme right populist (ERP) movements, parties, and beliefs in advanced democracies. It examines in detail their concrete and consequential impact on foreign policy; proposes and tests explanations of how and why that impact varies across time, countries, and issues; and evaluates potential policy responses. While the primary focus is on Europe and North America, additional attention is paid to the developing world.

Scholarly and policy research devoted to ERP parties in advanced democracies is more extensive than that on all other political parties combined. Most of this work focuses on defining ERP ideology, parsing the nature and structure of its rhetoric, uncovering the reasons why voters support such parties, and tracing their impact on domestic political processes in areas such as partisan competition and democratic backsliding. Relatively little empirical, theoretical, or policy work focuses on the concrete, consequential, and costly policy outcomes that result, particularly with regard to foreign policy. This project aims to redress that neglect.

The project catalogs the concrete foreign policy changes comparatively, examining dozens of issues in Hungary, the US, Italy, Poland, Germany, Britain and other countries across two decades. In explaining variation in impact, the project explicitly theorizes possible demand-side and supply-side sources of ERP influence. Such a firm empirical and theoretical understanding of policy influence can also serve as data-based foundation on which to develop policy responses.

In conducting this research, Prof. Moravcsik has been supported by the Berlin Prize awarded by the American Academy in Berlin; the European University Institute in Florence, Italy; Perry World House at the University of Pennsylvania; and the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, as well as the Liechtenstein Institute.

Events

In addition to Princeton University, research results have been presented at the Free University of Berlin, European University Institute (Florence, Italy), University of Salzburg, University of Göttingen, Erasmus University Rotterdam, London School of Economics, Hertie School of Governance (Berlin), Appalachian State University, College d’Europe (Bruges), Harvard University, University of Mannheim, University of Frankfurt, University of Lüneburg, University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, the American Academy in Berlin, Università di Perugia, University of Trento, Trento Economic Conference, University of California at Berkeley, Stanford University, and various professional and policy conferences.