How does the participation of populist parties in party competition shape the transfer of national sovereignty to international organizations (IOs)? Decisions to transfer sovereignty to IOs are taken by domestic political actors, notably political parties and the governments they form, in a specific domestic context of which populism has become a central element in many democracies worldwide. The proposed project investigates this populism-sovereignty transfer linkage.
We seek to identify broad trends and patterns in the transfer of national sovereignty to IOs (WP1) and develop (WP2) and test cross-regionally (WP3) mid-range theory on the populism-sovereignty transfer linkage. The empirical focus of the project is on Latin America and Central and Eastern Europe, regions of intense democratization during the third wave and in which “liberal” regional IOs – Mercosur and the EU – have their authority increasingly contested by populist actors.
The project is funded by the German Research Foundation (2026-2029) and conducted in collaboration with Co-PI Alexandr Burilkov (Leuphana University of Lüneburg).