Taking New-Right Thinkers Seriously: Perspectives on Europe, Russia, and the US

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

The proliferation of right-wing populist parties throughout Europe, Russia, and the U.S. in the 2010s has been accompanied by the appearance of an ever-expanding number of New Right thinkers. Polemicists, publishers, and occasional politicians--such as Götz Kubitschek (Germany), Steve Bannon (USA), Mikhail Remizov, Boris Mezhuev, and Vladeslav Surkov (Russia), Roger Köppel (Switzerland), Thierry Baudet (the Netherlands), and the re-enlivened Alain de Benoist (France)—argue that they do not reject democratic institutions and ideas. They insist that their intent is to take political power out of the hands of corrupt elites, entrenched bureaucrats, and crony capitalists and return their countries to their true foundations.
In the 1990s, it might have been easy to dismiss these thinkers as nothing more than isolated agitators and cranky extremists. But, there are two good reasons for taking them seriously today. First, they are closely associated with leading populist politicians who seek their help in legitimizing their policies; in turn, the latter legitimize these thinkers by including them in the political process. Second, unlike populist elites, who rely on malleable, or “thin,” ideologies that can be adapted to changing conditions, these New Right thinkers aspire to create coherent, or “thick,” ideologies that simultaneously transcend the pursuit of electoral goals and, in some cases, offer solutions that are not even populist at all. In fact, their arguments may already give us a glimpse into the kind of ideological thinking that could supplant conventional understandings of liberal democracy in the decades to come.
The participants in this panel will seek to take New Right thinkers seriously by comparing and contrasting their views on multiple themes related to the contemporary crisis of democracy. These themes include conceptions of citizenship, representative government, national sovereignty, political tolerance, and free market capitalism. By considering several different cases from Europe, Russia, and the U.S, the panelists will ask whether these figures share enough in common to speak about a New Right ideology. They will also ask whether New Right thinking is actually new, rather than being merely a rehashing of old themes associated with European, Russian, and American extremism. Finally, the panelists will consider the conditions under which these examples of New Right thinking might become a lasting feature of European and American politics.
In general, the ideas and ideologies of New Right thinkers have not been widely studied by political scientists, especially from a comparative perspective. For this reason, this panel is likely to be of interest to scholars among multiple fields in the discipline, including those who specialize in comparative democratization, authoritarianism, political theory, and contemporary European, Russian, and American politics.

Sub Unit

• Theme Panel

Cosponsor

• DIVISION 44: Comparative Democratization

Individual Presentations

• Alain de Benoist, Beyond Left and Right? - Jean-Yves Camus, Institut de relations internationales et stratégiques

• Russia’s ‘Young Conservatives:’ Revamping Conservatism à la Russe - Marlene Laruelle, George Washington University

• The Plague of Bannonism - Ronald Beiner, University of Toronto, Mississauga

• Götz Kubitschek’s Rebellion against the Values of 1968 - A. James McAdams, University of Notre Dame

Chair

• Jeffrey Kopstein University of California, Irvine

Discussant

• Stephen E. Hanson College of William and Mary