La estrategia populista en la política exterior de Álvaro Uribe

This article analizes from an interdisciplinary perpective how President Alvaro Uribe (Colombian President 2002 - 2010) instrumentalized foreign policy in the framework of a populist strategy. We first formulate an interpretative frame which includes the claims and concepts of the approaches applied to the study of both the classical and the so-called neopopulist fenomena in Latin America. Secondly, we establish a link between these theoretical approaches and those of constructivism of the discipline of international relations. Then, we illustrate how foreign policy is one of most effective of the symbolic policies in providing a stage for the actions of a charismatic leader. This is followed by the proposal of a cualititative model to identify the elements of the populist strategy in foreign policy, consisting of the forms, objectives and domestic and external strategies for the interpreation of this concrete example. Finally we continue with those theoretical tools to interpret the concrete populist strategy of the external policy of Alvaro Uribe.