Bargaining hard or hardly bargaining? Brexit and the populist renegotiation of international agreements

Populist leaders increasingly oppose agreements negotiated by their predecessors, claiming their more forceful approach can offer a ‘better deal’. Yet third parties have no incentive to negotiate a worse outcome for themselves with these leaders, who often negotiate from a less propitious bargaining position than their predecessors. How, then, can populist leaders claim success in negotiations? This article claims populist leaders weaken previously ambitious demands to successfully achieve new agreements. By de-scoping their negotiating demands,<br/>identifying symbolic wins and narrating conflictual interactions with negotiating partners, leaders can obtain novel agreements to sell to their domestic base. Empirically the article examines Boris Johnson’s ‘renegotiation’ of the EU-UK Withdrawal Agreement and negotiation of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) post-Brexit, drawing on elite interviews. The findings suggest renegotiation is a more cooperative venture than populist leaders portray and show how negotiating ambition can be traded for symbolic victories.