Rita Abrahamsen, Jean-François Drolet, Michael C. Williams, Srdjan Vucetic, Karin Narita, and Alexandra Gheciu, World of the Right: Radical Conservatism and Global Order – Cambridge University Press, June 2024

The contemporary radical Right is not merely a series of nationalist projects but a global phenomenon. This book shows how radical conservative thinkers have developed long-term counter-hegemonic strategies that challenge prevailing social and political orders both nationally and internationally. At the heart of this ideological project is a critique of liberal globalisation that seeks to mobilise transversal alliances against a common enemy: the ‘New Class’ of global managerial elites who are accused of undermining national sovereignty, traditional values, and cultures. ‘World of the Right’ argues that while the radical Right is far from a unified political movement, its calls for sovereignty, civilisational orders, and multipolarity enable complex, strategic convergences with illiberal states such as China and Russia, as well as states and people in the Global South. The potential consequences for the future of the liberal world order are profound and wide-ranging.

• Provides an historical, inter-disciplinary analysis of the global rise of radical conservative parties and movements, showing how different disciplines can interact
• The wide geographical coverage clearly demonstrates how radical Right movements are operating across the world, often taking inspiration from each other’s ideas
• Traces the ideological strategies behind globalization of the Right, including its appropriation of key ideas traditionally associated with the Left, as well as introducing the radical right’s critique of the liberal international order and the call to replace it with multipolarity and civilizationalism
• Explains how many of the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci’s core ideas concerning cultural hegemony, historic blocs, and counter-hegemonic movements have been self-consciously and strategically appropriated by the radical right, demonstrating how there is a logic and a strategy linking many radical parties and intellectuals