In the contemporary global world populism is increasingly becoming part of the international political scene. Especially, the populist radical right (PRR) and their Eurosceptic discourse in the European Union (EU) have made significant gains over the years. But how is regional integration adapting towards the rising form of right-wing populism and their foreign policies? And vice-versa what systemic characteristics are used by the PPR to alter the regional integration process? A two dimensional case study, where I use both in-depth content analysis as well as critical discourse analysis, is employed to analyse actions taken by two sides during the three major European crises situations(euro crisis – migration crisis – Covid-19 crisis). The Dutch PRR party Partij voor de Vrijheid (Party for Freedom) is used to analyse the inside-out perspective and responses from European institutions are taken from an outside-in perspective. The thesis demonstrates that systemic characteristics on the one hand, like the cultural divide and the transnational cleavage of the EU are conveniently manipulated by the PRR to construct its message around the representational claim of the ‘people’. On the other hand, the European institutions also use the identity game to weaken the PRR’s popularity. Both parties are thus influenced by each other, with European institutions and member states trying to side-line the PRR in times of crises, and the PRR radicalising its stance on the EU as a result of this diversion. Furthermore, the PRR utilises its own universalist discursive approach as a counter-discourse, to justify itself as the democratising factor against the established elite in the international community. Therefore, this study confirms that populism can be perceived as being a distinct discourse in international relations.
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