Cracking the Right’s Playbook

BY GEORGE HOARE

A new book explores how the radical right has reshaped political conflict, challenging the Left’s anemic response. The book’s provocations urge the Left to reconsider its strategic approach in the face of an increasingly successful global movement.

The great strength of World of the Right: Radical Conservatism and Global Order by Rita Abrahamsen, Jean-François Drolet, Michael C. Williams, Srdjan Vucetic, Karin Narita, and Alexandra Gheciu lies in its insistence that the contemporary right should be taken seriously rather than dismissed out of hand. As the authors note, the study of the Right in general is “complicated by mutual suspicion between the contemporary academy and conservative movements.” Even if most academics might not be predisposed to like right-wing parties and ideas, maintaining this mutual suspicion seems a poor strategy given the reality of a second Trump presidency and the necessity of understanding a Right that seems increasingly dominant across the globe.

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