“Hawking” territorial conflict: ethnopopulism and nationalist framing strategies

Abstract

ABSTRACTDoes ethnopopulism increase domestic support for revisionist foreign policies? This question is especially relevant for former socialist bloc countries, where claims regarding cross-border kin and lost homelands imbue ethnopopulist discourse. Distinguishing between hawkish and irredentist publics, this article argues that irredentists’ ideological commitments actually limit their receptivity to ethnopopulists’ non-ideological claims. This proposition is tested via survey experiments in Serbia and Israel: two formal democracies with assertively nationalist publics and disputed international boundaries in dissimilar geopolitical contexts. Common findings suggest generalisable limits on ethnopopulists’ ability to mobilise popular support even among core constituencies, with critical implications for Eastern Europe and beyond.