Populism and the use of ‘foreign elite' notion in Turkish politics

Abstract

Most of the populism literature concentrates on assessing the impact of populism on domestic politics without fully exploring a foreign policy-populism nexus. This paper seeks to address this particular gap through an analysis of the discourses toward the United States adopted by the leaders of the three mainstream parties in Turkey namely the AKP CHP and MHP from 2016-2023. The paper argues that even though all the party leaders engage with populism the specific populist elements they adopt in their discourses while addressing an external actor as part of the foreign elite show some significant variations. © 2025 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.