Populism and the decline of the liberal international order: a comparative analysis of disruptive strategies in the foreign policy of populist leaders

Abstract

This article analyzes how populist leaders are reshaping the Liberal International Order (LIO) through their foreign policy strategies. The cases of the United States (Donald Trump's first term), Brazil (Jair Bolsonaro), Mexico (Andrés Manuel López Obrador), and Hungary (Viktor Orbán) are analyzed, integrating official discourse, strategic documents, and public statements. The theoretical framework articulates approaches that conceive populism as a political logic, communicational style, and ideology in dispute with transnational elites. Methodologically, a comparative case study is used, with content analysis of primary sources and thematic coding structured under emerging analytical categories. The findings identify four recurring patterns: economic nationalism, anti-global elite rhetoric, personalized diplomacy, and multilateral selectivity/deinstitutionalization. Far from implying a clean break with the LIO, these strategies reveal an internal reconfiguration that undermines norms, weakens institutions, and displaces the founding principles of liberal multilateralism, making it necessary to rethink traditional analytical categories of foreign policy.