Towards great ethno-civilizations and spiritual empires? How the European New Right imagines a post-liberal world order

Abstract

Far-right parties and pundits are often portrayed as parochial nationalists obsessed with the idea of national sovereignty. Opposed to a liberal world order, they prefer a rogue world of nation-states on the loose. This essay seeks to complicate that narrative. It suggests that alongside political parties with a nationalist agenda, an increasing number of voices on the radical Right are now pushing for a re-spiritualized world order in which cultures, civilizations, and empires are to set the scene. This vision of global order echoes Christopher Coker’s recent claim that “we now live in a world in which civilization is fast becoming the currency of international politics.” But, why does this strand of the far-right prefer civilizations to nation-states? To ponder this question, this essay zooms in on the European New Right and more precisely two of its main luminaries, Alain de Benoist and Aleksandr Dugin. It shows how the New Right stretches back to classical geopolitics to imagine a future polycentric world order in which large civilizations are set free from American hegemony. The empires of the future are no longer underpinned by nation-states but by ethnopluralism—a “blossoming variety” of local, ethnic, agrarian polities.