From Global Governance to National Interest: Populism and the Reconfiguration of International Development Cooperation in the United States of America and Nigeria

Abstract

This study examined how the contemporary rise of populism reshaped international development cooperation by reorienting state behaviour from multilateral, rule-based global governance toward sovereignty-centred and national-interest–driven engagement. Using the United States of America and Nigeria as comparative cases, the study conceptualized populism as a thin-centred ideology grounded in anti-elitism, moralized constructions of “the people,” and claims to restore popular sovereignty, and explored how these ideas extended beyond domestic politics into foreign and development policy. Drawing on a qualitative, literature-based comparative design, the study synthesized theoretical and empirical scholarship on populism, global governance, and development cooperation, alongside policy analyses of aid, trade, climate governance, and regional integration. The findings showed that in both countries populist discourse delegitimized multilateral institutions by portraying them as elite-driven constraints on national autonomy, thereby encouraging selective compliance, transactional diplomacy, and a preference for bilateral or executive-centred arrangements. In the United States of America, populist nationalism contributed to reduced commitment to multilateral agreements and institutions, the politicization of development assistance, and the reframing of trade and climate cooperation in security and competitiveness terms, with systemic implications for the legitimacy and capacity of global development regimes. In Nigeria, populism was intertwined with post-colonial era and sovereignty-centred narratives that generated ambivalence toward external conditionality and regional integration, leading to selective engagement with and occasional defiance of Economic Community of West African States and African Continental Free Trade Area commitments, thereby disrupting African-led development frameworks. The comparative analysis further demonstrated that structural position in the international system mediated the scale and reach of populism’s effects: while a global power reshaped international norms and institutional authority, a regional power primarily influenced sub-regional and continental governance. The study concluded that populism did not eliminate international development cooperation but reconfigured it toward a more fragmented, interest-driven, and politically instrumental form, posing significant challenges to the sustainability, predictability, and legitimacy of collective action in global and regional development governance.