This paper has shown that the perception of populism as a mortal danger to the international liberal order needs to be qualified, at least with respect to the foreign policy of European populists. There is much heterogeneity among populists in Europe – even while in opposition, when one would expect them to have more space to adopt ideological readings of foreign policy. Populists seem to be more conditioned by the strategic culture of their respective country. One would expect populists to oppose their dominant strategic culture as something designed by elites. This, however, seemed to be truer for populists of the left than those of the right. But when they come to power, both left-wing and right-wing populists rarely implement foreign policies that are substantially different from those of non-populists.
Although populists may not pursue substantially different foreign policies, they may present them somewhat differently – in particular, as being against the international system – than centrists who are more adept at using the language of liberal internationalism while promoting national goals. Thus the effect of populism is seen more in terms of different discourses, styles and emphases than actual policy change. The ‘thinness’ of populism as an ideology means that its actual impact on policy is rather small. In fact, at least in foreign policy, it may be better to see populism as a discourse rather than an ideology – a new way of talking about foreign policy while doing largely the same things.
To the extent that populists do threaten the liberal international order, they do so in different ways. Continental nationalists are certainly opposed to the West as a strategic project. In particular, they are sceptical of NATO, which is sometimes seen as one of the key institutions of the liberal international order – and governments led or influenced by continental nationalists will be difficult alliance partners. Atlanticist nationalists, on the other hand, support the idea of the West but want to reinvent it along cultural or civilizational lines. They are supportive of NATO and of other international institutions that they see as a bulwark against non-Western powers and in particular China. Meanwhile, anti-imperialist internationalists do not so much oppose the liberal international order as seek to reform it – particularly its economic element.
The obsessive focus on populism distracts from the real source of disruption in European foreign policy debates: differences between the national interests of European countries and the way they have been exacerbated by the crises within Europe and wider shifts in international politics. In this respect, populism is more of a symptom than a cause – a symptom of structural forces that have been accentuating national divides in Europe for almost a decade now. In other words, if there is a crisis of the liberal international order, populists are not to blame. Populism is simply the face of big systemic changes in international politics that are putting national interests and the liberal international order at odds with each other.