The French New Right: Differentialism and the Idea of Ethnophilian Exclusionism

In: Polity: the journal of the Northeastern Political Science Association, Volume 33, Issue 2, p. 283-303

Abstract

While liberal & democratic theories have dealt with the question of cultural demands on liberal society, few essays focus on how a modernized & theoretically demanding New Right has turned the idea of racist exclusionism into a libertarian concept of differentialism, cultural pride, & radical multiculturalism. Indeed, the idea of challenging the concept of a liberal republican tradition of citizenship by means of a pluralist, antiliberal view of "difference" rooted in the edition of counterrevolutionary political thought appears to be one of the most distinctive innovations emanating from the French New Right. This essay, following the pathbreaking studies of Pierre Taguieff, attempts to introduce these ideas within the confines of the American debate on liberal citizenship, communitarianism, & multiculturalism. The basic claim is that a radical support of multiculturalism & cultural rights of ethnic groups is not only a feature of democratic theory but also of neo-fascist right-wing political theory. Adapted from the source document.