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Stories of Loss: The Common Narratives of Populism in the Context of International Politics

International Relations
National Identity
Political Psychology
Populism
Campaign
Communication
Memory
Alexandra Homolar
University of Warwick
Alexandra Homolar
University of Warwick

Abstract

Populist rhetoric is known for constructing virulent images of insecurity and for portraying countries as facing imminent societal collapse. This paper builds on the growing body of literature in International Relations that explores how populist narratives entwine individual existential anxieties with concerns about economic, societal, and political change at the domestic and global levels. Based on the analysis of an original dataset of populist rhetoric UK and the US since 2016, it focuses on how right-wing populist narratives create the imaginary of a present in existential crisis and why this matters for international politics. As this paper shows, populist stories of loss are built around the creation of a rupture between a country’s past greatness and its bleak present. They bring to the fore fundamental questions of autobiography at the level of the individual and the collective Self. This nurtures a nostalgic desire for a simple, stable, and certain storyline that aligns socio-political preferences with the need for reconstructing identity around radical resistance against policies, practices, and people associated with ‘progress’.