ABSTRACT
The rise of populist radical-right parties in Europe over the past decade has drawn political and academic attention to domestic issues politicised by such parties – especially their rejection of immigration and multicultural societies. As these parties have grown increasingly successful, the range of politicised issues has expanded party agendas from the domestic arena to foreign relations and security policies. Scholars and practitioners have begun to analyse the extent to which such populist parties exhibit a homogenous worldview on international affairs, and the extent to which their preferences vary from one state to another. This chapter examines the anti-foreign development narratives, as well as the programmatic positions advanced by the most relevant radical-right populist parties in Europe. Also considered is the extent to which such populist parties have influenced mainstream domestic and European actors, directly or indirectly. It is argued that anti-foreign aid narratives fit within the ‘thin’ ideology of radical-right populist parties. The world-wide nationalism endorsed by such parties rejects international institutions and redefines the scope and goals of foreign policies. But being nationalistic, populist parties exhibit varied perspectives in terms of foreign aid. France and countries that follow the master frame set by the French National Front link nationalism to their foreign aid, and foreign aid to their immigration policies. Populist parties of a relatively liberal stripe (as in Denmark, the Netherlands, and Finland) have leveraged their coalition potential to reduce budgets for foreign aid. Overall, the direct and indirect impacts of populist parties in the reduction of foreign aid has been uneven and have been hidden by the overall impact of the Great Recession on the ODA budgets of EU countries.
