World of the Right: new Velux-sponsored research project

DIIS is launching a new and timely research project on the World of the Right (WoR). Drawing on experts and perspectives from both history, sociology and political science, WoR will unpack the contemporary rise of right wing politics beyond simple slogans of ‘populism’ or ‘protest’.

More specifically, the researchers involved in WoR will explore the historical and ideological roots behind the new Western Right and its many and often complex national variations. Of particular interest to this study, is the question of the Right and foreign policy: what visions of international order drives the new Western Right and what founding ideas – about culture, race, nation, soil, loss, war, peace, technology – support and sustain these?

While the project has an important comparative design, placing the study of national or regional variations center stage, one theme seems particularly, consistently, and cross-nationally central: the idea of an imminent Western civilizational decline. Over the next three years, WoR will host seminars, invite speakers, launch podcasts and publish books and articles on the new Rights radical narrative of decline and the ways in which this ties into a broader re-emergence of ‘geopolitical’ and ‘civilizational’ logics in Western foreign policy.

The researchers and case-studies involved in the project are: Senior Researcher Manni Crone (France), Senior Researcher Fabrizio Tassinari (Italy and Germany), Senior Researcher Vibeke Schou Tjalve (the US and US/German connections), Post Doc Matthew Fallon Hinds (the US and UK), and PhD student Minda Holm (Russia and Eastern Europe).

The project is run by Vibeke Schou Tjalve. It is also part of a larger international research network on the World of the Right. Main international research partners are Professor Michael C Williams, University of Ottawa, and senior lecturer JF Drolet, Queen Mary University, London.