ABSTRACT
The introduction to the monograph provides an overview of the contemporary rise of nationalist populism and its political significance and considers the study of populism in International Relations (IR). It introduces the concept of populism as socially constructed and politically communicated antagonism between popular sovereignty and an established order of institutional and representational mechanisms of liberal democracy and the international system. The chapter engages substantially with the populism studies literature, focusing on the discursive qualities of populism especially. The chapter argues that populist concepts of popular sovereignty and national identity operate through discursive and practical means that manifest both domestically and internationally and interlink both spheres in their appeals to voters by imagining a range of domestic and foreign hostile Others, following an antagonistic logic of politics. From here, the introduction outlines the analytical framework of a populist security imaginary that is located at the intersection of critical security studies (CSS), political communication, and political psychology and details how the subsequent chapters apply this conceptual lens to the study of the security dimension of populism under the Trump presidency and its aftermath, and its various discursive manifestations in American politics, media, and society.
