Introduction to special issue: exploring far right utopias in practice

Contemporary scholarship hardly lacks titles on the rise of the radical right. Historic parallels to 20th century mass politics however loom large over this growing literature, recycling labels and explanations that cast the past as a prelude: populism, nationalism, or fascism with its toxic combination of charismatic leaders and irrational, affect-driven crowds.

This special issue seeks to do something else entirely. It aims to explore the contemporary far-right as a product of trends distinct to the 21st century – an entirely new era in which the human destruction of the planet, neo-liberal capitalism, and apocalyptic imaginaries have prompted urgent calls for new forms of politics and ways of life.

Beyond the parliamentarian far right movement and parties, the radical right that this special issue spotlights is different in its intransigent, utopian rejection of the current political order as well as in the radical, surprising, and sometimes ‘exotic’ alternatives it puts forth. By approaching the radical right through the prism of ‘utopianism’, we seek to open an inquiry into some of the less visible, arcane facets of the radical right that tend to escape academic and media attention.