This paper recounts the entangled histories of three distinctly Russian movements, namely: Soviet state ideology, Russian cosmism, and Eurasianism. Despite harboring pseudoscientific and mystical ideas specific to Russia, all three intellectual movements have been propagated by their followers as “universal sciences,” and all three have vied for scientific supremacy and universal acceptance. Suppressed by the Bolsheviks and their state ideology as “unscientific” in the 1920s, Russian cosmism and Eurasianism led an esoteric underground existence during the Soviet period and re-emerged during perestroika, seeking not only to reclaim their “scientific” status but also to potentially fill the perplexing vacuum left by the ensuing demise of Soviet state ideology.
{"title":"State Ideology, Science, and Pseudoscience in Russia","authors":"Baasanjav Terbish","doi":"10.53483/wcjx3539","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.53483/wcjx3539","url":null,"abstract":"This paper recounts the entangled histories of three distinctly Russian movements, namely: Soviet state ideology, Russian cosmism, and Eurasianism. Despite harboring pseudoscientific and mystical ideas specific to Russia, all three intellectual movements have been propagated by their followers as “universal sciences,” and all three have vied for scientific supremacy and universal acceptance. Suppressed by the Bolsheviks and their state ideology as “unscientific” in the 1920s, Russian cosmism and Eurasianism led an esoteric underground existence during the Soviet period and re-emerged during perestroika, seeking not only to reclaim their “scientific” status but also to potentially fill the perplexing vacuum left by the ensuing demise of Soviet state ideology. ","PeriodicalId":370884,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Illiberalism Studies","volume":"24 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116216782","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Little has been written about the recently translated Legionary Phenomenon (Italian, 1998; English, 2022) by Romanian Legionary ideologue Nae Ionescu. Almost nothing exists in English. The present article demonstrates that the text is consciously patterned after Julius Evola’s Revolt Against the Modern World (1934) and thus constitutes an as yet unrecognized part of the corpus of fascist Integral Traditionalism. When the text was published in 1940 and republished in 1963, it was proposed as the basis for a “Legionary doctrine.” Yet its late appearance relative to important Legionary texts like Corneliu Zelea Codreanu’s Nest Leader’s Manual and For My Legionaries makes it uncertain how much influence the text might have had on the Legionary movement during the interwar period. Ultimately, the text may be most significant for its impact not on the interwar Legionary movement, but on subsequent and contemporary fascist ideologies, such as Aleksandr Dugin’s neo-Eurasianism. This article places Legionary Phenomenon in an intellectual history between Evola and Dugin, disrupting many analyses of Dugin’s neo-Eurasianism with evidence that certain ideological innovations attributed to him in fact belong to Ionescu and revealing the similarities of Dugin’s ideological output to Legionary Romanian fascism. Although these topics are not explored here, it likewise impacts the study of Ionescu’s philosophical and theological corpus, and has implications for the theory of religion of Ionescu’s student and friend, Mircea Eliade.
最近翻译的《军团现象》(意大利语，1998;(英文，2022年)，作者是罗马尼亚军团理论家奈·伊内斯库。英语中几乎不存在任何东西。本文表明，该文本有意识地模仿了朱利叶斯·埃沃拉的《反抗现代世界》(1934)，因此构成了法西斯整体传统主义的一个尚未被认识到的部分。当该文本于1940年出版并于1963年再版时，它被提议作为“军团主义”的基础。然而，相对于重要的军团文本，如Corneliu Zelea Codreanu的《巢穴领袖手册》和《For My Legionaries》，它的出现较晚，这使得人们不确定它在两次世界大战之间的时期对军团运动有多大的影响。最终，这本书最重要的影响可能不是它对两次世界大战之间的军团运动的影响，而是对后来和当代法西斯意识形态的影响，比如亚历山大·杜金的新欧亚主义。本文将《军团现象》置于埃沃拉和杜金之间的思想史中，通过证明杜金的某些意识形态创新实际上属于约内斯库，打破了对杜金新欧亚主义的许多分析，并揭示了杜金的意识形态输出与罗马尼亚军团法西斯主义的相似性。虽然这里没有探讨这些话题，但它同样影响了对约内斯库哲学和神学语料库的研究，并对约内斯库的学生和朋友米尔恰·埃利亚德的宗教理论产生了影响。
{"title":"Nae Ionescu’s 1938 Legionary Phenomenon: A “Missing Link” between Evola and Dugin","authors":"Jason Roberts","doi":"10.53483/xclt3547","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.53483/xclt3547","url":null,"abstract":"Little has been written about the recently translated Legionary Phenomenon (Italian, 1998; English, 2022) by Romanian Legionary ideologue Nae Ionescu. Almost nothing exists in English. The present article demonstrates that the text is consciously patterned after Julius Evola’s Revolt Against the Modern World (1934) and thus constitutes an as yet unrecognized part of the corpus of fascist Integral Traditionalism. When the text was published in 1940 and republished in 1963, it was proposed as the basis for a “Legionary doctrine.” Yet its late appearance relative to important Legionary texts like Corneliu Zelea Codreanu’s Nest Leader’s Manual and For My Legionaries makes it uncertain how much influence the text might have had on the Legionary movement during the interwar period. Ultimately, the text may be most significant for its impact not on the interwar Legionary movement, but on subsequent and contemporary fascist ideologies, such as Aleksandr Dugin’s neo-Eurasianism. This article places Legionary Phenomenon in an intellectual history between Evola and Dugin, disrupting many analyses of Dugin’s neo-Eurasianism with evidence that certain ideological innovations attributed to him in fact belong to Ionescu and revealing the similarities of Dugin’s ideological output to Legionary Romanian fascism. Although these topics are not explored here, it likewise impacts the study of Ionescu’s philosophical and theological corpus, and has implications for the theory of religion of Ionescu’s student and friend, Mircea Eliade.","PeriodicalId":370884,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Illiberalism Studies","volume":"126 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116762723","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Illiberalism is invariably associated with right-wing authoritarian or populist movements. Yet at times liberalism itself can take an illiberal turn. This essay explores the historical and philosophical origins of contemporary illiberal liberalism. It suggests that illiberal liberalism was and remains motivated by a powerful anti-democratic impulse that is often expressed as disdain for people’s capacity to act with reason.
{"title":"Illiberal Liberalism: A Genealogy","authors":"Frank Furedi","doi":"10.53483/wckt3541","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.53483/wckt3541","url":null,"abstract":"Illiberalism is invariably associated with right-wing authoritarian or populist movements. Yet at times liberalism itself can take an illiberal turn. This essay explores the historical and philosophical origins of contemporary illiberal liberalism. It suggests that illiberal liberalism was and remains motivated by a powerful anti-democratic impulse that is often expressed as disdain for people’s capacity to act with reason.","PeriodicalId":370884,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Illiberalism Studies","volume":"29 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123464486","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article analyzes contemporary gender representation and perception in Kazakhstan’s public sphere and the sexualization of social media required by the market economy. Through the example of a female social media influencer, Aizhan Baizakova, and her ambivalent public success, it analyzes gender and sexuality as the product of contradictory power orders: the traditional patriarchal system and retraditionalization in the name of nationhood, on the one hand, and the Soviet legacy of putting women into the labor market and the post-Soviet capitalist logic, on the other. It explores how women find themselves caught between two forms of illiberalism: a market-driven one pushing for evermore provocative online content and a conservative backlash in terms of gender roles.
{"title":"Owning and Disowning the Female Body: Mediating Gender and the Conservative Values Clash in Kazakhstan","authors":"Aida Naizabekova","doi":"10.53483/vciw3533","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.53483/vciw3533","url":null,"abstract":"This article analyzes contemporary gender representation and perception in Kazakhstan’s public sphere and the sexualization of social media required by the market economy. Through the example of a female social media influencer, Aizhan Baizakova, and her ambivalent public success, it analyzes gender and sexuality as the product of contradictory power orders: the traditional patriarchal system and retraditionalization in the name of nationhood, on the one hand, and the Soviet legacy of putting women into the labor market and the post-Soviet capitalist logic, on the other. It explores how women find themselves caught between two forms of illiberalism: a market-driven one pushing for evermore provocative online content and a conservative backlash in terms of gender roles.","PeriodicalId":370884,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Illiberalism Studies","volume":"18 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115229010","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The article is devoted to identifying and describing the phantasmic dimension of the culture wars, in particular the phantasmic dimension of one side of this confrontation—social conservatism. The notion of “phantasm” is used on the basis of the Lacanian tradition of social and political theory. A phantasm is understood as stereotypical, repetitive images or visions that structure the position of “culture warriors” and are the foundation on which other levels (rational, legal, etc.) are superimposed. Conservative phantasms are actualized at the moment when society undergoes a process of radical transformation, which breaks the usual systems of differentiation; it is this process that triggers culture wars. Empirical material to illustrate these ideas is the case of Russian social conservatism.
{"title":"The Phantasmatic Dimension of Culture Wars: The Case of Social Conservatism","authors":"Dmitry Uzlaner","doi":"10.53483/xcls3546","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.53483/xcls3546","url":null,"abstract":"The article is devoted to identifying and describing the phantasmic dimension of the culture wars, in particular the phantasmic dimension of one side of this confrontation—social conservatism. The notion of “phantasm” is used on the basis of the Lacanian tradition of social and political theory. A phantasm is understood as stereotypical, repetitive images or visions that structure the position of “culture warriors” and are the foundation on which other levels (rational, legal, etc.) are superimposed. Conservative phantasms are actualized at the moment when society undergoes a process of radical transformation, which breaks the usual systems of differentiation; it is this process that triggers culture wars. Empirical material to illustrate these ideas is the case of Russian social conservatism.","PeriodicalId":370884,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Illiberalism Studies","volume":"2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114935577","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Since Greco-Roman antiquity, the convergence of sports and politics has been a constitutive feature of political cultures. More recently, the blending of sports and politics has been revived with racist understanding by twentieth century totalitarian regimes and has remained a central promotion tool for far-right movements across the world. Due to the multiple fractures that have erupted in Ukrainian society since the Maidan Revolution and the war in Donbas, sport has become instrumental for Ukrainian ultranationalist movements. Through their direct involvement in youth sports education, Azov’s National Corps Party and the Sokil movement seek to foster a mythified Ukrainian national revival exalting physical virtue and patriotic spirit. This article discusses how sport is used by the Ukrainian far right as a Gramscist strategy to channel dialogue with authorities, to indoctrinate youth with militaristic nationalism, and to spread a fascist-minded cult of the masculine body.
自希腊罗马时代以来，体育与政治的融合一直是政治文化的构成特征。最近，体育和政治的融合在20世纪极权主义政权的种族主义理解下重新焕发了活力，并一直是世界各地极右翼运动的主要宣传工具。自独立广场革命和顿巴斯战争以来，乌克兰社会爆发了多重裂痕，体育已成为乌克兰极端民族主义运动的工具。通过直接参与青少年体育教育，亚速的国家军团党(National Corps Party)和索基尔运动(Sokil movement)试图培养一种神话般的乌克兰民族复兴，弘扬身体美德和爱国精神。本文讨论了乌克兰极右翼如何利用体育作为一种葛兰西主义策略，引导与当局的对话，向年轻人灌输军国主义民族主义，并传播法西斯主义思想对男性身体的崇拜。
{"title":"Forging the Body of the New Ukrainian Nation: Sport as a Gramscist Tool for the Ukrainian Far Right","authors":"Adrien Nonjon","doi":"10.53483/vciv3532","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.53483/vciv3532","url":null,"abstract":"Since Greco-Roman antiquity, the convergence of sports and politics has been a constitutive feature of political cultures. More recently, the blending of sports and politics has been revived with racist understanding by twentieth century totalitarian regimes and has remained a central promotion tool for far-right movements across the world. Due to the multiple fractures that have erupted in Ukrainian society since the Maidan Revolution and the war in Donbas, sport has become instrumental for Ukrainian ultranationalist movements. Through their direct involvement in youth sports education, Azov’s National Corps Party and the Sokil movement seek to foster a mythified Ukrainian national revival exalting physical virtue and patriotic spirit. This article discusses how sport is used by the Ukrainian far right as a Gramscist strategy to channel dialogue with authorities, to indoctrinate youth with militaristic nationalism, and to spread a fascist-minded cult of the masculine body.","PeriodicalId":370884,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Illiberalism Studies","volume":"24 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124620473","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Since the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), the Holocaust and other charges of genocide have emerged as flashpoints in memory wars between the Russian Federation and the Baltic states. This article examines the Russian government’s revival of the longstanding Soviet practice of publishing archival documents focused on Baltic participation in Nazi atrocities against Jews and other victims. It argues that state officials and historians in Russia and the Baltic countries continue to shape their usable pasts in response to one another. The Russian focus on Baltic collaboration with Hitler’s regime has fueled defensive rhetoric in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania that has diminished and denied the role that local perpetrators played in the wartime persecution of Jews. Russia, in turn, has reacted to charges of a Nazi-Stalinist “Double Genocide” in the Baltic region by launching a campaign for international recognition of genocide against the “Soviet people”—Soviet Jews among them. To date, Western political scientists and policymakers have focused on Russia as propagating illiberal movement through disinformation. This study demonstrates how the publication of wartime archival documents contributes to illiberal memory politics both at home and among Russia’s detractors in the Baltic region.
{"title":"Documents Accuse: The Post-Soviet Memory Politics of Genocide","authors":"P. Chan","doi":"10.53483/vdiu3631","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.53483/vdiu3631","url":null,"abstract":"Since the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), the Holocaust and other charges of genocide have emerged as flashpoints in memory wars between the Russian Federation and the Baltic states. This article examines the Russian government’s revival of the longstanding Soviet practice of publishing archival documents focused on Baltic participation in Nazi atrocities against Jews and other victims. It argues that state officials and historians in Russia and the Baltic countries continue to shape their usable pasts in response to one another. The Russian focus on Baltic collaboration with Hitler’s regime has fueled defensive rhetoric in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania that has diminished and denied the role that local perpetrators played in the wartime persecution of Jews. Russia, in turn, has reacted to charges of a Nazi-Stalinist “Double Genocide” in the Baltic region by launching a campaign for international recognition of genocide against the “Soviet people”—Soviet Jews among them. To date, Western political scientists and policymakers have focused on Russia as propagating illiberal movement through disinformation. This study demonstrates how the publication of wartime archival documents contributes to illiberal memory politics both at home and among Russia’s detractors in the Baltic region.","PeriodicalId":370884,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Illiberalism Studies","volume":"109 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115815186","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Armando Chaguaceda, Johanna Cilano Pelaez, Maria Isabel Puerta
Whether being discussed in the media, by intellectuals, or among political elites, illiberal narratives enjoy a significant presence and impact in Russia and Latin America alike. As a result of the conflict between Russia and the West over the invasion of Ukraine, the role of Russian media as a source of disinformation for the Latin American population has drawn attention. The presence of these mass media allows the Kremlin to question the democratic model in place in most of Latin America and defend the official positions of the Russian government while aligning itself with illiberal forces on the regional political spectrum—especially on the radical left.
{"title":"Illiberal Narratives in Latin America: Russian and Allied Media as Vehicles of Autocratic Cooperation","authors":"Armando Chaguaceda, Johanna Cilano Pelaez, Maria Isabel Puerta","doi":"10.53483/xcmw3558","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.53483/xcmw3558","url":null,"abstract":"Whether being discussed in the media, by intellectuals, or among political elites, illiberal narratives enjoy a significant presence and impact in Russia and Latin America alike. As a result of the conflict between Russia and the West over the invasion of Ukraine, the role of Russian media as a source of disinformation for the Latin American population has drawn attention. The presence of these mass media allows the Kremlin to question the democratic model in place in most of Latin America and defend the official positions of the Russian government while aligning itself with illiberal forces on the regional political spectrum—especially on the radical left.","PeriodicalId":370884,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Illiberalism Studies","volume":"873 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126976288","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
What are the consequences of electing illiberal leaders for the liberal international order? Traditional responses suggest they either want to increase their influence or change it radically. By understanding the illiberal domestic agenda of economic nationalism and statism in a world of increased financialization, I argue that the economic concentration taking place domestically will result in illiberal leaders instrumentalizing globalization for their political survival. This means these leaders have learned to selectively pick those parts of globalization most likely to sustain their regime—for example, criticizing multilateral organizations such as the European Union while reaping the benefits of EU membership. In this article, I begin by examining the trend of illiberal governments adopting economic nationalism and statism. I then theorize the nuanced ways in which illiberal leaders still use the liberal order for their political survival—in spite of espousing an illiberal economic agenda. I examine this phenomenon with an emphasis on illiberal leaders in Hungary and Poland and provide evidence from the last two decades of economic and political developments in Eastern Europe, as well as explore the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and the recent war in Ukraine on the future of illiberal leaders’ approach to globalization.
{"title":"Economic Nationalism Goes Global: Illiberal Governments Instrumentalizing Globalization in Eastern Europe","authors":"Paula Ganga","doi":"10.53483/wckw3544","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.53483/wckw3544","url":null,"abstract":"What are the consequences of electing illiberal leaders for the liberal international order? Traditional responses suggest they either want to increase their influence or change it radically. By understanding the illiberal domestic agenda of economic nationalism and statism in a world of increased financialization, I argue that the economic concentration taking place domestically will result in illiberal leaders instrumentalizing globalization for their political survival. This means these leaders have learned to selectively pick those parts of globalization most likely to sustain their regime—for example, criticizing multilateral organizations such as the European Union while reaping the benefits of EU membership. In this article, I begin by examining the trend of illiberal governments adopting economic nationalism and statism. I then theorize the nuanced ways in which illiberal leaders still use the liberal order for their political survival—in spite of espousing an illiberal economic agenda. I examine this phenomenon with an emphasis on illiberal leaders in Hungary and Poland and provide evidence from the last two decades of economic and political developments in Eastern Europe, as well as explore the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and the recent war in Ukraine on the future of illiberal leaders’ approach to globalization.","PeriodicalId":370884,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Illiberalism Studies","volume":"160 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132080880","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Most of the scholarship on far-right hooliganism in Europe and Russia mentions only marginally the Russian far-right MMA gear and tournament brand White Rex (WR). A few authors have discussed WR’s right-wing connections and activities. Yet both the structures that enabled WR and, now, other similar brands to exert ideological and political influence and the influence itself bear further examination. This paper presents a qualitative analysis of information from intelligence reports, social media, open media, and interviews to show how WR modeled and cultivated a professionalizing trend in several far-right combat sport tournaments. We argue that WR’s entrance into the Western European far-right combat sport scene was a key development in the emergence of professionally organized, fight-focused events with explicit political messaging targeted at a far-right, primarily trans-European audience and a surrounding infrastructure of far-right organizations shaping the character of this developing scene. The business model that WR developed in Russia proved to be something the emerging European far-right combat sport scene could adopt in order to grow. Finally, we elaborate on how WR’s founder, Denis Kapustin, was able to establish a Western European network that temporarily gave him influence over one of the far right’s most significant cultural scenes.
{"title":"White Rex, White Nationalism, and Combat Sport: The Production of a Far-Right Cultural Scene","authors":"René Nissen, Kiril Avramov, Jason Roberts","doi":"10.53483/vcit3530","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.53483/vcit3530","url":null,"abstract":"Most of the scholarship on far-right hooliganism in Europe and Russia mentions only marginally the Russian far-right MMA gear and tournament brand White Rex (WR). A few authors have discussed WR’s right-wing connections and activities. Yet both the structures that enabled WR and, now, other similar brands to exert ideological and political influence and the influence itself bear further examination. This paper presents a qualitative analysis of information from intelligence reports, social media, open media, and interviews to show how WR modeled and cultivated a professionalizing trend in several far-right combat sport tournaments. We argue that WR’s entrance into the Western European far-right combat sport scene was a key development in the emergence of professionally organized, fight-focused events with explicit political messaging targeted at a far-right, primarily trans-European audience and a surrounding infrastructure of far-right organizations shaping the character of this developing scene. The business model that WR developed in Russia proved to be something the emerging European far-right combat sport scene could adopt in order to grow. Finally, we elaborate on how WR’s founder, Denis Kapustin, was able to establish a Western European network that temporarily gave him influence over one of the far right’s most significant cultural scenes.","PeriodicalId":370884,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Illiberalism Studies","volume":"43 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129281824","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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