CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2025
| Author | Pavel, Andrei |
|---|---|
| Title | Populist Diplomacy: Navigating Ideology and Mediation |
| Summary | This thesis investigates the impact of populist political logic on the structure of diplomacy, by developing a theoretical framework that understands diplomacy as constituted by two different functions: the mediative and the ideological. The role of the latter is to perform and sustain a coherent subject that is represented through ideological interpellation, while the former aims to maintain the space for meaningful interaction, by suspending the ideological drive to totalize. The relationship between the two functions is being explored by analyzing a high-level diplomatic encounter between U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. This investigation is performed by drawing on Laclauian - Mouffian discourse theory and the analytical categories defined by the two functions. This framework enables us to make sense of the impact of populism not as a disruption or a shift, but as an intensification of an already-existing tension that is inherent to diplomacy. |
| Supervisor | Roe, Paul |
| Department | International Relations MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2025/pavel_andrei.pdf |
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