Beyond nativism: New mobilising issues on the transnational populist radical right

Transnational cooperation on the populist radical right is on the rise. From the United States to India, populist radical right (PRR) parties are increasingly adopting a discourse which juxtaposes a transnational ‘us’ with a transnational ‘them’. While scholars have looked primarily at nativism, and in particular Islamophobia, as the glue that links these actors transnationally, this paper investigates new issues on which the populist radical right is mobilising in the transnational arena. To do so, it asks: What issues are prominent in the PRR transnational discourse, and how has the salience of these issues changed over time? The empirical analysis draws on an original corpus of over two hundred speeches of PRR party actors at transnational events which occurred between 2016 and 2024. Using Structural Topic Models, I find that the transnational populist radical right has moved beyond nativism and increasingly mobilises on issues like gender, attacks to the media, and the economy.