{"title":"State Ideology, Science, and Pseudoscience in Russia","authors":"Baasanjav Terbish","doi":"10.53483/wcjx3539","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.53483/wcjx3539","url":null,"abstract":"This paper recounts the entangled histories of three distinctly Russian movements, namely: Soviet state ideology, Russian cosmism, and Eurasianism. Despite harboring pseudoscientific and mystical ideas specific to Russia, all three intellectual movements have been propagated by their followers as “universal sciences,” and all three have vied for scientific supremacy and universal acceptance. Suppressed by the Bolsheviks and their state ideology as “unscientific” in the 1920s, Russian cosmism and Eurasianism led an esoteric underground existence during the Soviet period and re-emerged during perestroika, seeking not only to reclaim their “scientific” status but also to potentially fill the perplexing vacuum left by the ensuing demise of Soviet state ideology. ","PeriodicalId":370884,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Illiberalism Studies","volume":"24 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116216782","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Nae Ionescu’s 1938 Legionary Phenomenon: A “Missing Link” between Evola and Dugin","authors":"Jason Roberts","doi":"10.53483/xclt3547","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.53483/xclt3547","url":null,"abstract":"Little has been written about the recently translated Legionary Phenomenon (Italian, 1998; English, 2022) by Romanian Legionary ideologue Nae Ionescu. Almost nothing exists in English. The present article demonstrates that the text is consciously patterned after Julius Evola’s Revolt Against the Modern World (1934) and thus constitutes an as yet unrecognized part of the corpus of fascist Integral Traditionalism. When the text was published in 1940 and republished in 1963, it was proposed as the basis for a “Legionary doctrine.” Yet its late appearance relative to important Legionary texts like Corneliu Zelea Codreanu’s Nest Leader’s Manual and For My Legionaries makes it uncertain how much influence the text might have had on the Legionary movement during the interwar period. Ultimately, the text may be most significant for its impact not on the interwar Legionary movement, but on subsequent and contemporary fascist ideologies, such as Aleksandr Dugin’s neo-Eurasianism. This article places Legionary Phenomenon in an intellectual history between Evola and Dugin, disrupting many analyses of Dugin’s neo-Eurasianism with evidence that certain ideological innovations attributed to him in fact belong to Ionescu and revealing the similarities of Dugin’s ideological output to Legionary Romanian fascism. Although these topics are not explored here, it likewise impacts the study of Ionescu’s philosophical and theological corpus, and has implications for the theory of religion of Ionescu’s student and friend, Mircea Eliade.","PeriodicalId":370884,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Illiberalism Studies","volume":"126 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116762723","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Illiberal Liberalism: A Genealogy","authors":"Frank Furedi","doi":"10.53483/wckt3541","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.53483/wckt3541","url":null,"abstract":"Illiberalism is invariably associated with right-wing authoritarian or populist movements. Yet at times liberalism itself can take an illiberal turn. This essay explores the historical and philosophical origins of contemporary illiberal liberalism. It suggests that illiberal liberalism was and remains motivated by a powerful anti-democratic impulse that is often expressed as disdain for people’s capacity to act with reason.","PeriodicalId":370884,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Illiberalism Studies","volume":"29 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123464486","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Owning and Disowning the Female Body: Mediating Gender and the Conservative Values Clash in Kazakhstan","authors":"Aida Naizabekova","doi":"10.53483/vciw3533","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.53483/vciw3533","url":null,"abstract":"This article analyzes contemporary gender representation and perception in Kazakhstan’s public sphere and the sexualization of social media required by the market economy. Through the example of a female social media influencer, Aizhan Baizakova, and her ambivalent public success, it analyzes gender and sexuality as the product of contradictory power orders: the traditional patriarchal system and retraditionalization in the name of nationhood, on the one hand, and the Soviet legacy of putting women into the labor market and the post-Soviet capitalist logic, on the other. It explores how women find themselves caught between two forms of illiberalism: a market-driven one pushing for evermore provocative online content and a conservative backlash in terms of gender roles.","PeriodicalId":370884,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Illiberalism Studies","volume":"18 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115229010","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Phantasmatic Dimension of Culture Wars: The Case of Social Conservatism","authors":"Dmitry Uzlaner","doi":"10.53483/xcls3546","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.53483/xcls3546","url":null,"abstract":"The article is devoted to identifying and describing the phantasmic dimension of the culture wars, in particular the phantasmic dimension of one side of this confrontation—social conservatism. The notion of “phantasm” is used on the basis of the Lacanian tradition of social and political theory. A phantasm is understood as stereotypical, repetitive images or visions that structure the position of “culture warriors” and are the foundation on which other levels (rational, legal, etc.) are superimposed. Conservative phantasms are actualized at the moment when society undergoes a process of radical transformation, which breaks the usual systems of differentiation; it is this process that triggers culture wars. Empirical material to illustrate these ideas is the case of Russian social conservatism.","PeriodicalId":370884,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Illiberalism Studies","volume":"2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114935577","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Forging the Body of the New Ukrainian Nation: Sport as a Gramscist Tool for the Ukrainian Far Right","authors":"Adrien Nonjon","doi":"10.53483/vciv3532","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.53483/vciv3532","url":null,"abstract":"Since Greco-Roman antiquity, the convergence of sports and politics has been a constitutive feature of political cultures. More recently, the blending of sports and politics has been revived with racist understanding by twentieth century totalitarian regimes and has remained a central promotion tool for far-right movements across the world. Due to the multiple fractures that have erupted in Ukrainian society since the Maidan Revolution and the war in Donbas, sport has become instrumental for Ukrainian ultranationalist movements. Through their direct involvement in youth sports education, Azov’s National Corps Party and the Sokil movement seek to foster a mythified Ukrainian national revival exalting physical virtue and patriotic spirit. This article discusses how sport is used by the Ukrainian far right as a Gramscist strategy to channel dialogue with authorities, to indoctrinate youth with militaristic nationalism, and to spread a fascist-minded cult of the masculine body.","PeriodicalId":370884,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Illiberalism Studies","volume":"24 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124620473","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Documents Accuse: The Post-Soviet Memory Politics of Genocide","authors":"P. Chan","doi":"10.53483/vdiu3631","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.53483/vdiu3631","url":null,"abstract":"Since the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), the Holocaust and other charges of genocide have emerged as flashpoints in memory wars between the Russian Federation and the Baltic states. This article examines the Russian government’s revival of the longstanding Soviet practice of publishing archival documents focused on Baltic participation in Nazi atrocities against Jews and other victims. It argues that state officials and historians in Russia and the Baltic countries continue to shape their usable pasts in response to one another. The Russian focus on Baltic collaboration with Hitler’s regime has fueled defensive rhetoric in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania that has diminished and denied the role that local perpetrators played in the wartime persecution of Jews. Russia, in turn, has reacted to charges of a Nazi-Stalinist “Double Genocide” in the Baltic region by launching a campaign for international recognition of genocide against the “Soviet people”—Soviet Jews among them. To date, Western political scientists and policymakers have focused on Russia as propagating illiberal movement through disinformation. This study demonstrates how the publication of wartime archival documents contributes to illiberal memory politics both at home and among Russia’s detractors in the Baltic region.","PeriodicalId":370884,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Illiberalism Studies","volume":"109 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115815186","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Armando Chaguaceda, Johanna Cilano Pelaez, Maria Isabel Puerta
{"title":"Illiberal Narratives in Latin America: Russian and Allied Media as Vehicles of Autocratic Cooperation","authors":"Armando Chaguaceda, Johanna Cilano Pelaez, Maria Isabel Puerta","doi":"10.53483/xcmw3558","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.53483/xcmw3558","url":null,"abstract":"Whether being discussed in the media, by intellectuals, or among political elites, illiberal narratives enjoy a significant presence and impact in Russia and Latin America alike. As a result of the conflict between Russia and the West over the invasion of Ukraine, the role of Russian media as a source of disinformation for the Latin American population has drawn attention. The presence of these mass media allows the Kremlin to question the democratic model in place in most of Latin America and defend the official positions of the Russian government while aligning itself with illiberal forces on the regional political spectrum—especially on the radical left.","PeriodicalId":370884,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Illiberalism Studies","volume":"873 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126976288","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Economic Nationalism Goes Global: Illiberal Governments Instrumentalizing Globalization in Eastern Europe","authors":"Paula Ganga","doi":"10.53483/wckw3544","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.53483/wckw3544","url":null,"abstract":"What are the consequences of electing illiberal leaders for the liberal international order? Traditional responses suggest they either want to increase their influence or change it radically. By understanding the illiberal domestic agenda of economic nationalism and statism in a world of increased financialization, I argue that the economic concentration taking place domestically will result in illiberal leaders instrumentalizing globalization for their political survival. This means these leaders have learned to selectively pick those parts of globalization most likely to sustain their regime—for example, criticizing multilateral organizations such as the European Union while reaping the benefits of EU membership. In this article, I begin by examining the trend of illiberal governments adopting economic nationalism and statism. I then theorize the nuanced ways in which illiberal leaders still use the liberal order for their political survival—in spite of espousing an illiberal economic agenda. I examine this phenomenon with an emphasis on illiberal leaders in Hungary and Poland and provide evidence from the last two decades of economic and political developments in Eastern Europe, as well as explore the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and the recent war in Ukraine on the future of illiberal leaders’ approach to globalization.","PeriodicalId":370884,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Illiberalism Studies","volume":"160 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132080880","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"White Rex, White Nationalism, and Combat Sport: The Production of a Far-Right Cultural Scene","authors":"René Nissen, Kiril Avramov, Jason Roberts","doi":"10.53483/vcit3530","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.53483/vcit3530","url":null,"abstract":"Most of the scholarship on far-right hooliganism in Europe and Russia mentions only marginally the Russian far-right MMA gear and tournament brand White Rex (WR). A few authors have discussed WR’s right-wing connections and activities. Yet both the structures that enabled WR and, now, other similar brands to exert ideological and political influence and the influence itself bear further examination. This paper presents a qualitative analysis of information from intelligence reports, social media, open media, and interviews to show how WR modeled and cultivated a professionalizing trend in several far-right combat sport tournaments. We argue that WR’s entrance into the Western European far-right combat sport scene was a key development in the emergence of professionally organized, fight-focused events with explicit political messaging targeted at a far-right, primarily trans-European audience and a surrounding infrastructure of far-right organizations shaping the character of this developing scene. The business model that WR developed in Russia proved to be something the emerging European far-right combat sport scene could adopt in order to grow. Finally, we elaborate on how WR’s founder, Denis Kapustin, was able to establish a Western European network that temporarily gave him influence over one of the far right’s most significant cultural scenes.","PeriodicalId":370884,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Illiberalism Studies","volume":"43 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129281824","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}