A Global New Right? The International of Conservative Intellectuals
Valentin Behr – CESSP- Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University
Where: University of Bath and Online
When: 18 November – 1.15pm (GMT)
How to attend: please contact Aurelien Mondon (a.mondon@bath.ac.uk)
This talk is hosted by the Department of PoLIS at the University of Bath.
Abstract
While there is a growing body of academic literature devoted to the far-right and illiberalism, the transnational dimension of this phenomenon has been little explored. So far, it has been perceived and analysed mainly through the connections between political leaders, for example in the European Parliament or through the organisation of CPAC in Budapest. Its ideological drivers, through the intellectuals who contribute to it, remain a relatively unexplored area. It is also a promising avenue of research, given the transnational circulation of actors, ideas and discourses. Transnational flows of actors and ideas in Europe and between Europe and the United States take the form of meetings, think tanks and conferences that bring together not only intellectuals, but also policymakers, think tankers, and activists.
At the intersection of intellectual history and the sociology of intellectuals, this talk examines the International of Conservative Intellectuals from the perspective of its actors. After a brief presentation of the networks that form the International of Conservative Intellectuals, I focus my analysis on ‘Western guests’ in Hungary and Poland since the 2010s. Gathered around think tanks (Danube Institute), universities (Mathias Corvinus Collegium, Collegium Intermarium), outlets (The European Conservative) and conferences (Polska Wielki Projekt), they reflect a desire to constitute an ‘intellectual conservatism’ and testify to an ongoing reconfiguration of the Global Right along illiberal lines. Finally, I reflect on the role of intellectual entrepreneurs in political mobilisation and on the privileged space that Central Europe represents for this reconfiguration of the Global Right.
Biography
Valentin Behr holds a PhD in political science from the University of Strasbourg (2017). He is a CNRS research fellow at the CESSP- Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University. He was a research fellow at the Paris Institute for Advanced Study in 2021‒2022. His research topics include history and memory politics, the sociology of political elites, the sociology of intellectuals, and intellectual history. His work now focuses on the production and circulation of conservative (especially illiberal) ideas, in Europe and between Europe and the United States. His latest publications include the book Science du passé, politique du présent. La politique historique en Pologne (éditions du Croquant, 2023) ; and the special issue “The shaping power of anti-liberal ideas”, European Politics and Society, 2021 (edited with Ramona Coman and Jan Beyer).