Description
Abstract: While Francis Fukuyama’s concept of the end of history has been thoroughly rejected in most serious analysis, including by his own account, it continues to grip much of our political imaginary. Whatever happens in the current state of polycrisis can only be read within the boundaries of the liberal hegemony and its understanding of democracy. Any challenge is read as exceptional, abnormal and ultimately irrelevant. It is through that lens that reactionary ‘shocks’ to the system such as the (re-)election of Donald Trump, the Brexit victory in the UK’s referendum on the EU and the wider rise of the far right and its accession to power in many countries have generally been understood. Far from being analysed as originating from the failure(s) of the liberal hegemony, they have been covered and treated as exceptional and unrelated events. Therefore, despite countless lamenting headlines and articles about the rise of the far right, ‘populism’, ‘polarisation’ and ‘illiberalism’, there has been very little reflection in mainstream elite discourse on the wider implications of the failure of the liberal hegemony. Instead, there was at first a naïve optimism, that liberalism would almost naturally triumph against illiberalism, followed by widespread panic since it has become clear that this is not the case. This context will form the basis of this presentation which will examine the current stage of mainstreaming of far-right, reactionary politics. Rather than focusing on far-right, reactionary actors as is often common, the analysis will highlight the top-down nature of the process of mainstreaming and the role played in particular by ‘really existing liberalism’.| Period | 18 Dec 2025 |
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| Event type | Seminar |
| Location | Thessaloniki, GreeceShow on map |