{"title":"The Transnational Networks of the European Radical Populist Right and the Beacon of Hungarian Illiberal Democracy","authors":"Jean-Yves Camus","doi":"10.53483/wcjv3537","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.53483/wcjv3537","url":null,"abstract":"Radical right parties in Europe have been in negotiations since 2018 in order to form a single, unified group in the European Parliament. Today, there are two competing caucuses: one, which is considered the “extreme right” by European standards; and another, which is a collection of far-right, Euroskeptic parties. A unified caucus would challenge the leadership of mainstream conservatives and Christian Democrats in the Parliament and be a show of strength by the radical right. For those who are at the origin of this attempt, namely Marine Le Pen from the French National Rally and Matteo Salvini, leader of the Italian Lega, the goal is also to mainstream their ideology by reaching an alliance with the Hungarian Fidesz party and the Polish Law and Justice Party. Both have become the beacons of illiberal democracy and role models for Western parties that used to be labeled “extreme right” and in need of a break from their past. However, tactical as well as ideological issues have, so far, prevented this unification of the radical right from becoming a reality.","PeriodicalId":370884,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Illiberalism Studies","volume":"16 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":"122234356","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":"From Counter-Hegemonic Dialogue to Illiberal Understanding: Russian-Latin American Relations (2000–2023)","authors":"Diego Soliz","doi":"10.53483/xcmv3557","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.53483/xcmv3557","url":null,"abstract":"Russia’s return to Latin America since the 2000s now presents a mixed picture. Initially forged with a view to economic growth and trade diversification, the ties between Latin American countries and Russia have gradually become more political in nature, with public diplomacy in both emphasizing the rejection of liberalism and the West. Russia has thus been able to deploy a soft power strategy based on two pillars: its media of influence, which have been favorably received by “pink tide” governments, as well as the militant leftist networks in the Spanish-speaking world. In this article, I show that the counter-hegemonic dialogue between the various components of the Latin-American left and Russia can be described as “illiberal.” First, it is entirely context-dependent and does not follow any political line underpinned by a common dogma. Second, it can be explained by an ideological framework largely inherited from the Soviet past that is present on the Latin American left and exploited by Russia today. Third, it operates through a collection of narratives that echo the main historical struggles of the Latin American left: anti-Americanism, anti-colonialism, and anti-liberalism.","PeriodicalId":370884,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Illiberalism Studies","volume":"295 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":"123238630","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 New Knight: The French Far Right’s View of the Middle Ages","authors":"Stéphane François","doi":"10.53483/vcht2524","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.53483/vcht2524","url":null,"abstract":"The far right has always taken an interest in the Middle Ages. For the French revolutionary far right, which shares an ideological matrix influenced by Julius Evola, fascination with the Middle Ages revolves around the image of the Holy Germanic Roman Empire as a political model for Europe opposed to the modern nation-state. The romantic image of the medieval knight also offers a watered-down way to celebrate and legitimize violence without having to allude to a taboo National Socialism. This obsession with the Middle Ages contrasts with the reality that these revolutionary far-right movements were rather pro-Arab during the Cold War decades. This shift reveals the transformation of their thinking and the new dominance of the Identitarian notion of ethnic withdrawal, with the knight as the symbol of a pure racial warrior defending his society against Muslim invasion.","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":"123879086","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 Great Convergence: How the Italian Far Right and COVID Deniers Tried to Seize the Momentum","authors":"G. Savino","doi":"10.53483/vchu2525","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.53483/vchu2525","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores how the pandemic crisis resulted in a confluence of neo-fascist groups such as Forza Nuova and CasaPound, national-populist parties such as Lega and Brothers of Italy, the Orange Vests of former General Pappalardo and COVID-19 deniers. Since March 2020, the Italian far right has consciously based its strategy on spreading conspiracy theories about COVID-19 and opposing any type of restrictive measures, from the lockdown to mask mandates and vaccination. The attempts to build a mass anti-vaccine movement permeated with neo-fascist influences may have stalled, but it would be mistaken to think that the battle has been lost: the impact of COVID deniers on the political landscape goes beyond poll results. The contemporary ideological fluidity favors mainstreaming negationist slogans, for instance through the unexpected overlap between the far right and New Age culture. The real struggle is conducted in the field of ideas and cultural hegemony, where a profound illiberal, anti-scientific, and conspiracy sentiment continues to gain support in Italy thanks to the overlap between neo-fascists, national-populists, and COVID deniers.","PeriodicalId":370884,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Illiberalism Studies","volume":"54 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":"129556635","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":"Illiberalism in Brazil: From Constitutional Authoritarianism to Bolsonarism","authors":"Emilio Peluso Neder Meyer","doi":"10.53483/xcmt3554","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.53483/xcmt3554","url":null,"abstract":"This article provides an overview of the juridical discourse that acted as a basis for the historical development of Brazilian illiberalism. Without setting aside the question of an inner tension between liberal and illiberal theories of Brazilian constitutionalism, but focusing primarily on antiliberal and illiberal positions, this article presents the leading theories of Brazilian constitutional scholars. It shows that the seeds of illiberalism were planted under the flag of a specific type of authoritarian constitutionalism, which was developed under different constitutions, but which mainly refers to the 1937 Constitution. It discusses the theories of movements such as integralismo, the legal thought of authors such as Francisco José Oliveira Viana and Francisco Campos, and concepts such as national security. The article also explores, under the 1988 Constitution, the authoritarian reminiscences that favored the structuring and diffusion of the current Bolsonarist illiberalism. Finally, it debates the chances for the endurance of illiberalism in Brazil and whether or not it could benefit from wider popular acceptance.","PeriodicalId":370884,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Illiberalism Studies","volume":"1 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":"129827343","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":"Guillaume Faye (1949-2019): At the Forefront of a New Theory of White Nationalism","authors":"Stéphane François, Adrien Nonjon","doi":"10.53483/wcjt3535","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.53483/wcjt3535","url":null,"abstract":"Despite being under-studied, Guillaume Faye (1949-2019) is probably one of the most central figures of the current Euro-American Identitarian movement, and a key inspiration for global white nationalism. Whether it is of “archeofuturism” or the “convergence of catastrophes”, his concepts are still widely commented on and taken up throughout the world within the far right, becoming nowadays more and more popular. His transition from pro-Arabism in the 1980s to a violent rejection of Islam at the end of the following decade is symptomatic of the evolution of the nationalist-revolutionary far right. Both biographical and analytical, this article proposes to return in detail to this major figure of today’s white nationalism.","PeriodicalId":370884,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Illiberalism Studies","volume":"4 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":"128795793","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":"Political Conversion to Islam Among the European Right","authors":"Gulnaz Sibgatullina, Tahir Abbas","doi":"10.53483/vcis3529","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.53483/vcis3529","url":null,"abstract":"This paper introduces three cases of politicians from Western European countries who in the past have been affiliated with populist parties and recently converted to Islam. This article examines how an act of conversion to Islam enables these politicians to continue advancing their agendas. We argue that the public announcement of conversion allows these individuals to transmit their conservative political program directly to their audiences, circumventing the autocracy of leaders of their respective populist parties. In the converts’ rhetoric, Islam—universalized and freed from ethnocultural associations with Muslim minority communities—fulfils social and ethical functions abandoned by a “secularized” Christianity and, thereby, wages a struggle against cultural liberalism. We posit that conversion to Islam among politicians who have been previously associated with populist parties does not necessarily mean a 180-degree turn from outspoken anti-Muslim sentiments to fully embracing the culture of “the Muslim Other.” Instead, it manifests a movement within the right of the political spectrum: from open anti-multiculturalism to cultural conservatism, from defining European identity as exclusively secular and rational to seeing it as inherently spiritual yet compatible with the Enlightenment ideas on rationalism.","PeriodicalId":370884,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Illiberalism Studies","volume":"1 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":"123532687","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":"Book Review: Routledge Handbook of Illiberalism, edited by András Sajó, Renáta Uitz, Stephen Holmes (Routledge, 2022, ISBN 9780367260545)","authors":"Maria Snegovaya, Mihai Varga, Julian G. Waller","doi":"10.53483/xclx3551","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.53483/xclx3551","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":370884,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Illiberalism Studies","volume":"54 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":"131885229","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":"Karl Polanyi’s The Great Transformation: The Critique of Liberalism and the Emergence of Illiberalism","authors":"Tuğberk Samur","doi":"10.53483/wcku3542","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.53483/wcku3542","url":null,"abstract":"Nineteenth-century Western civilization was based on four institutions: the balance of power, the international gold standard, the liberal state, and the self-regulating market. For Polanyi, the source and “matrix of the system” was the self-regulating market, which was the governing law of a liberal economy. The latter was a stark utopia that annihilated the substance of society. In his view, society would react to this by attempting to protect itself. Polanyi called this process, which destroyed nineteenth-century Western civilization, double movement. The origin of the destruction is rooted in “the utopian endeavor of economic liberalism to set up a self-regulating market system.” Fascism and socialism were responses to that self-regulating market. Polanyi’s thesis and analysis look very similar to the resurgence of illiberalism today. The expansion of neoliberal ideology brought about the “countermovement” of radicalism, which, at its root, is a reaction to the liberal utopia Polanyi mentioned. How can we understand Polanyi’s critique of liberalism and its relevance to contemporary liberalism in the sense of “double movement”?","PeriodicalId":370884,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Illiberalism Studies","volume":"19 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":"131498181","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":"Regimes of Cheating and the (A)morality of Illiberalism","authors":"András Sajó","doi":"10.53483/wckv3543","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.53483/wckv3543","url":null,"abstract":"In their exercise of power, illiberal democracies—as plebiscitarian leader democracies—rely on systematic falsification of facts and ideas and rule by cheating. This type of governance is related to state-centered domination over the public sphere and society. The illiberalism of these regimes is partly related to the needs of domination and partly responds to the regimes’ constituencies’ clear authoritarian predispositions and historically determined collective narcissism. These factors contribute to the inherent anti-rationality of the regime, which precludes liberal public discourse. The institutionalization (normalization) of cheating has serious moral consequences: moral indignation in the context of public affairs is numbed. ","PeriodicalId":370884,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Illiberalism Studies","volume":"1 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":"116304317","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}