Fascism and Foreign Policy: Trumpism and the Politics of National Decline and Rebirth

The global rise of radical-right leaders, parties, and movements and events such as the US Capitol riots and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have triggered debates about the reincarnation of fascism. This article adds an International Relations perspective to these debates and explores the nexus between fascism and foreign policy. Bringing together ideational- and practice-oriented approaches to fascism through a poststructuralist theoretical lens, the article conceptualizes fascism as a discourse that produces a distinct national identity through three frames: (1) crisis, decline, and victimhood, (2) Othering and elimination, and (3) rebirth. It argues that foreign policy can become a site for fascist politics, serving not only as a space of dangers, Otherness, and enmity against which an identity of the besieged nation can be constituted but also as a practice through which the nation can be rejuvenated and achieve a mythical wholeness and purity. Using the case of Trumpism in the United States, the article identifies fascist frames and themes in the discourse, such as national decline and rebirth and eliminationist rhetoric, but also shows where it differs from fascism. However, it regards fascism as a useful corrective to the predominant concept of right-wing populism by drawing attention to the fascist potential of Trumpism.