The Alt-Right

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Hawley
Keyword(s):  
Identity Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
White Identity ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Conservative Movement ◽  
Nationalist Movement ◽  
News Stories ◽  
Clear Explanation ◽  
Racial Polarization

In recent years, the so-called Alt-Right, a white nationalist movement, has grown at an alarming rate. Taking advantage of high levels of racial polarization, the Alt-Right seeks to normalize explicit white identity politics. Growing from a marginalized and disorganized group of Internet trolls and propagandists, the Alt-Right became one of the major news stories of the 2016 presidential election. Discussions of the Alt-Right are now a regular part of political discourse in the United States and beyond. In The Alt-Right: What Everyone Needs to Know® , George Hawley, one of the world's leading experts on the conservative movement and right-wing radicalism, provides a clear explanation of the ideas, tactics, history, and prominent figures of one of the most disturbing movements in America today. Although it presents itself as a new phenomenon, the Alt-Right is just the latest iteration of a longstanding radical right-wing political tradition. The Alt-Right represents a genuine challenge to pluralistic liberal democracy, but its size and influence are often exaggerated. Whether intentionally or not, President Donald Trump energized the Alt-Right in 2016, yet conflating Trump's variety of right-wing politics with the Alt-Right causes many observers to both overestimate the Alt-Right's size and downplay its radicalism. Hawley provides a tour of the contemporary radical right, and explains how it differs from more mainstream varieties of conservatism. In dispassionate and accessible language, he orients readers to this disruptive and potentially dangerous political moment.

scholarly journals Who Is Open to Authoritarian Governance within Western Democracies?

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Ariel Malka ◽  
Yphtach Lelkes ◽  
Bert N. Bakker ◽  
Eliyahu Spivack
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
The United States ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
World Values Survey ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Political Preferences ◽  
Economic Attitudes ◽  
Cultural Conservatism ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Western Democracies

Recent events have raised concern about potential threats to democracy within Western countries. If Western citizens who are open to authoritarian governance share a common set of political preferences, then authoritarian elites can attract mass coalitions that are willing to subvert democracy to achieve shared ideological goals. With this in mind, we explored which ideological groups are most open to authoritarian governance within Western general publics using World Values Survey data from fourteen Western democracies and three recent Latin American Public Opinion Project samples from Canada and the United States. Two key findings emerged. First, cultural conservatism was consistently associated with openness to authoritarian governance. Second, within half of the democracies studied, including all of the English-speaking ones, Western citizens holding a protection-based attitude package⸺combining cultural conservatism with left economic attitudes⸺were the most open to authoritarian governance. Within other countries, protection-based and consistently right-wing attitude packages were associated with similarly high levels of openness to authoritarian governance. We discuss implications for radical right populism and the possibility of splitting potentially undemocratic mass coalitions along economic lines.

Crossroads of Conservatism

2018 ◽  
pp. 28-54
Author(s):  
Kyle Burke
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
The United States ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Conservative Movement ◽  
Fidel Castro ◽  
South Vietnam ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Conflict In Africa ◽  
Hearts And Minds

The rise of the US conservative movement in the 1960s opened new possibilities for the anticommunist international. Marvin Liebman, William F. Buckley, Clarence Manion, and other leaders helped create an international crossroads that linked conservative activists, students, businessmen, politicians, and media figures from the United States to kindred forces abroad. In the Caribbean basin, these influential Americans allied themselves with authoritarian right-wing regimes in Nicaragua and Guatemala, and lent support to Cuban exiles bent on retaking their homeland from Fidel Castro. In Southeast Asia, they joined leaders from Taiwan, South Korea, and South Vietnam in calling for greater Asian involvement in the Vietnam War. They also collaborated on psychological warfare campaigns to sway the hearts and minds of ordinary people in Vietnam and other zones of conflict. In Africa, conservative Americans worked on behalf of Moïse Tshombe’s breakaway regime in the Congo, before shifting their efforts to the newly independent, white-supremacist state of Rhodesia. Moving in ever-wider arcs abroad, U.S. conservatives brought home parables about the kinds of action needed to purge the United States of any vestige of communism.

The Flames of Anticommunist Revolution

2018 ◽  
pp. 12-27
Author(s):  
Kyle Burke
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Conservative Movement ◽  
Common Cause ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
Us Government ◽  
Freedom Fighters ◽  
The Cold War

The anticommunist international emerged in the early years of the Cold War. As many right-leaning movements around the world grew dissatisfied with the US government and its response to the apparently rising tide of communism, they sought common cause with each other. In the United States, activist Marvin Liebman, an erstwhile socialist turned fierce anticommunist, labored tirelessly to link the burgeoning US conservative movement to new allies abroad. Journeying through Asia, Latin America, and elsewhere, Liebman bonded with an array of right-wing groups, especially the Asian People’s Anti-Communist League and the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations. Through these connections, leading US conservatives grew convinced that homegrown forces—especially paramilitaries they called “freedom fighters”—were in the vanguard of an unfolding international revolution.

scholarly journals White Identity Politics Benefit Conservative and Undermine Liberal Political Politicians Regardless Politician Race

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hui Bai
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Racial Identity ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
White Identity ◽  
White Americans ◽  
White American ◽  
Attitudes And Behaviors ◽  
Black Politicians ◽  
And Behaviors

Despite historically being omitted as a socially invisible identity, recent studies suggest that racial identity can play an important role in predicting White Americans’ sociopolitical attitudes and behaviors, demonstrating an emergent trend of White identity politics in the United States. However, whether the effects of White identity politics are more “ideological” or “racial” remains an unclarified question. Four studies using White American samples show that the evidence consistently supports the “ideological” explanation of White identity, the idea that White identity predicts support for conservative politicians and opposition for liberal politicians for their ideology. The evidence is limited for the “racial” explanation, the idea that White identity predicts support for White politicians but opposition for Black politicians for their race. Thus, this paper clarifies the theories about White identity politics as well as implications for whom might benefit from the rise of White identity politics.

scholarly journals Who is Open to Authoritarian Governance within Western Democracies?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ariel Malka ◽  
Yphtach Lelkes ◽  
Bert N. Bakker ◽  
Eliyahu Spivack
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
The United States ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
World Values Survey ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Political Preferences ◽  
Economic Attitudes ◽  
Cultural Conservatism ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Western Democracies

Recent events have raised concern about potential threats to democracy within Western countries. If Western citizens who are open to authoritarian governance share a common set of political preferences, then authoritarian elites can attract mass coalitions that are willing to subvert democracy to achieve shared ideological goals. With this in mind we explored which ideological groups are most open to authoritarian governance within Western general publics using World Values Survey data from fourteen Western democracies and three recent Latin American Public Opinion Project samples from Canada and the United States. Two key findings emerged. First, cultural conservatism was consistently associated with openness to authoritarian governance. Second, within half of the democracies studied, including all of the English-speaking ones, Western citizens holding a protection-based attitude package — combining cultural conservatism with left economic attitudes — were the most open to authoritarian governance. Within other countries, protection-based and consistently right-wing attitude packages were associated with similarly high levels of openness to authoritarian governance. We discuss implications for radical right populism and the possibility of splitting potentially undemocratic mass coalitions along economic lines.

The Oxford Handbook of the Radical Right

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Electoral Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
The Past ◽  
Book Covers ◽  
To Come

The resurgence of strong radical right-wing parties and movements constitutes one of the most significant political changes in democratic states during the past several decades, particularly in Europe. This resurgence has attracted interest from political scientists, sociologists, historians, and other scholars, most of whose research focuses on party and electoral politics. This book covers that literature, focuses on how the radical right manifests itself as movements rather than parties, and include a number of case studies both in Europe and beyond. The chapters cover concepts and definitions; ideologies and discourses; a range of contemporary issues including religion, globalization, gender, and activism; and cases such as France, Russia, the United States, Australia, Israel, and Japan. By integrating various strands of scholarship on the radical right, the book provides an authoritative and state-of-the-art overview of the topic and sets the agenda for future scholarship on the radical right for years to come.

Patterns of commemorative street and place renaming in India’s two mega-cities: Mumbai and New Delhi

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (s5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rani Rubdy
Keyword(s):  
Identity Politics ◽  
Cultural Nationalism ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
New Delhi ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
National Pride ◽  
Bharatiya Janata Party ◽  
Shiv Sena

Abstract This paper presents a small-scale case study of commemorative street and place renaming patterns in Mumbai and New Delhi. Three distinct waves of such renamings are identified, driven by dramatic shifts in political and ideological orientation: the first signifies a break with India’s colonial past and the reclaiming of national pride and identity; the second is marked by the rise of the Shiv Sena, a radical right wing political party known for its strident form of identity politics; and the third reflects the resurgence of cultural nationalism and populism since 2014 with the coming to power of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), intent on pursuing its Hindu nationalist agenda – with each wave undeniably transforming the cityscape.

scholarly journals The People’s Champ: Doug Ford and Neoliberal Right-Wing Populism in the 2018 Ontario Provincial Election

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 171-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Budd
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Conservative Party ◽  
The United States ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Special Interests ◽  
Liberal Party ◽  
The People ◽  
Right Wing Populism ◽  
Ideological Commitment

The 2018 Ontario provincial election marked a decisive shift in the political direction of Canada’s most populous province. The election brought an end to the long reign of the Ontario Liberal Party (2003–2018), whose government devolved into a series of scandals that resulted in a third-place finish. The Liberal’s defeat came at the hands of the Progressive Conservative Party led by former Toronto city councillor, Doug Ford. The Progressive Conservative’s victory was propelled on the back of Ford’s deeply populist campaign where he promised to reassert the interests of ‘the people,’ expel the influence of elites and special interests, and clean up government corruption. This campaign discourse led many political opponents and media pundits to accuse Ford of importing the nativist, xenophobic, and divisive rhetoric of other radical right-wing populist leaders. This article advances the argument that rather than representing the importation of ‘Trumpism’ or other types of radical right-wing populism, Ford’s campaign is better understood within the tradition of Canadian populism defined by an overarching ideological commitment to neoliberalism. In appealing to voters, Ford avoided the nativist and xenophobic rhetoric of populist leaders in the United States and Western Europe, offering a conception of ‘the people’ using an economic and anti-cosmopolitan discourse centred upon middle class taxpayers. This article makes a contribution to both the literatures on Canadian elections and populism, demonstrating the lineage of Ford’s ideological commitment to populism within recent Canadian electoral history, as well as Ford’s place within the international genealogy of right-wing populism.

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