The role of populist radical right parties in framing the multipolar world order

Abstract

The potential transformation of the existing world order has been one of the most prominent topics in International Relations’ (IR) academic sphere and literature in recent years. However, several IR scholars have argued that in order to truly justify states’ actions, the impact of domestic players in shaping the foreign policy agenda of a state should be investigated as well. During the recent decades, one of the main emerging domestic players have been populist radical right (PRR) parties whose impact, thanks to their recent boost in electoral votes as well, can be seen not only in the domestic policy sphere but also in IR in general. Furthermore, its role in shaping multipolar world order is currently an understudied topic. Derived from that, the aim of this thesis is to investigate the role of PRR parties in framing the multipolar world order and for that, an interpretative compare-and-contrast case study was conducted, with a focus on four relevant PRR parties in Europe: The League (Italy), The Freedom Party (Austria), The Finns Party (Finland) and Conservative People’s Party of Estonia. According to the results, the main factor contributing to the way how PRR parties frame the multipolar world order is their negative stance on globalisation and the bigger power the PRR has in terms of governance, the grater its impact on the anti-hegemonic drift.