Abstract
This chapter introduces the theme of the volume, populism and international law, as well as its chapters. It does so by first discussing the Dutch political reality with its increasingly populist tendencies that was on the minds of the Editors when deciding to devote a volume to this theme. Subsequently, it explores briefly the many faces of populism and the different manifestations of the relationship between populism and international law. Rather than taking the so-called populist backlash against globalisation, international law and governance, at face value, this volume aims to dig deeper beyond mere ‘backlash’ rhetoric and wonders ‘what backlash are we talking about, really?’ While populism is contextual and contingent on the society in which it rises and its relationship with international law and institutions thus has differed likewise, this chapter’s historical reflections assist in our examination of what we find so dangerous about populism and problematic in its relationship with international law. It concludes by introducing the chapters individually and to some degree in relation to each other.
Janne Nijman is Professor of History and Theory of International Law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Amsterdam, and member of the board and the academic director of the T.M.C. Asser Instituut in The Hague. Wouter Werner is Professor of International Law at the Centre for the Politics of Transnational Law of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
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Notes
- 1.
Fortuyn 2002.
- 2.
Lijphart 1968.
- 3.
See Zonderop 2018, at 49.
- 4.
Gruszczynski and Lawrence, Chap. 2 in this volume.
- 5.
Mudde 2004, at 544.
- 6.
VPRO, Buitenhof 13 januari: Mark Rutte, 13 January 2019, https://www.vpro.nl/buitenhof/kijk/afleveringen/2019/Buitenhof-13-januari-2019.html, accessed 23 April 2019.
- 7.
Mark Rutte addressed a group of Turkish-Dutch youth upon their obstruction of a Dutch national broadcasting camera crew reporting on them being out in the streets at the night of the military coup in Turkey. VPRO, Zomergasten, 4 September 2016.
- 8.
BBC, Dutch election: Wilder’s defeat celebrated by PM Rutte, 16 March 2017, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39287689, accessed 24 April 2019.
- 9.
Their research shows that populists (far-left and far-right together) have tripled their votes in the past 20 years. P Lewis et al., Revealed: one in four Europeans vote populist’, The Guardian, 20 November 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2018/nov/20/revealed-one-in-four-europeans-vote-populist, accessed 9 May 2019.
- 10.
The Guardian has published a whole series on ‘The New Populism’, and in The Netherlands both leading newspapers NRC Handelsblad and the Volkskrant (repository ‘Populisme in Europa’) have been very active on the topic.
- 11.
See, for example Time Magazine’s 2016 Person of the Year was Donald Trump and with him ‘The Populists’ see S Shuster, The Populists, Time, http://time.com/time-person-of-the-year-populism/, accessed 9 May 2019.
- 12.
- 13.
Martti Koskenniemi, ‘International Law and the Far Right’, Fourth Annual T.M.C. Asser Lecture, 29 November 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHRiBH2g15I, accessed 9 May 2019, (written version forthcoming).
- 14.
Koskenniemi is more ambivalent about the latter aspect. While he emphasises the backlash as being related to white male supremacy thinking, he argued that those in the populist movements do not want to be taken up into the dominant culture of cosmopolitanism, human rights, and liberal globalisation.
- 15.
See also M Goodwin, ‘National populism is unstoppable – and the left still doesn’t understand it’, The Guardian, 8 November 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/08/national-populism-immigration-financial-crisis-globalisation, accessed 9 May 2019; Martti Koskenniemi ‘International Law and the Far Right’, Fourth Annual T.M.C. Asser Lecture, 29 November 2018.
- 16.
Mouffe 2018, at 1.
- 17.
Ibid.
- 18.
Klein 2017.
- 19.
- 20.
See for example Madsen et al. 2018.
- 21.
Alston 2017.
- 22.
B Milanović, The greatest reshuffle of individual incomes since the Industrial Revolution, VOX, 1 July 2016, http://voxeu.org/article/greatest-reshuffle-individual-incomes-industrial-revolution, accessed 23 April 2019.
- 23.
Ibid.
- 24.
Posner 2017, at 2.
- 25.
Q Slobodian, Populists are also globalists, New York Times, 23 October 2018, print edition, at 1 and 11.
- 26.
Lewis 1935.
- 27.
Kaltwasser et al. 2017, at 2.
- 28.
Urbinati 2017, at 578.
- 29.
- 30.
Vervaet 2016, at 223.
- 31.
Von Ungern-Sternberg 2006, at 104.
- 32.
E.g. the 2018 Abel Herzberg Lezing by Minister Sigrid Kaag.
- 33.
- 34.
Kelsen 1999, at 172.
- 35.
Canetti 1980, at 274–282.
- 36.
Nijman 2004, at 157.
- 37.
Nijman 2004, at 84–243.
- 38.
Einstein asks Freud: ‘Wie ist es möglich, dass die soeben genannte Minderheit die Masse des Volkes ihren Gelüsten dienstbar machen kann, die durch einen Krieg nur zu leiden und zu verlieren hat’, and ‘Wie ist es möglich, dass sich die Masse durch die genannten Mittel bis zur Raserei und Selbstaufopferung entflammen lässt? Die Antwort kann nur sein: Im Menschen lebt ein Bedürfnis zu hassen und zu vernichten.’
- 39.
Jaspers 1932.
- 40.
See Nijman 2004, pp. 84–243.
- 41.
- 42.
See, for example, the discussion by Joshua Kurlantzick (J Kurlantzick, Southeast Asia’s Populism Is Different but Also Dangerous, Council on Foreign Relations, 1 November 2018, https://www.cfr.org/article/southeast-asias-populism-different-also-dangerous, accessed 9 May 2019); also Kenny 2018.
- 43.
Gruszczynski and Lawrence, Chap. 2 in this volume.
- 44.
Fichtelberg, Chap. 3 in this volume.
- 45.
Rodiles, Chap. 4 in this volume.
- 46.
Schwöbel-Patel, Chap. 5 in this volume.
- 47.
Bikundo, Chap. 6 in this volume.
- 48.
Bílková, Chap. 7 in this volume.
- 49.
- 50.
Kulamadayil, Chap. 9 in this volume.
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Nijman, J.E., Werner, W.G. (2019). Populism and International Law: What Backlash and Which Rubicon?. In: Nijman, J., Werner, W. (eds) Netherlands Yearbook of International Law 2018. Netherlands Yearbook of International Law, vol 49. T.M.C. Asser Press, The Hague. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6265-331-3_1
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