The New Right: The Recognition/Exclusionism Syndrome

This article studies a seeming paradox—the adoption of multiculturalist strategies and arguments by the neo-fascist European New Right. Why would neo-fascists adopt such a theoretical framework, and why has multiculturalism failed in Europe? In this article, I argue that the European New Right employs a multiculturalism framework, which I define as recognition/ exclusionist one, in order to create a new discourse of “legitimate exclusionism” of non-authentic European immigrants. In short, multiculturalism, by celebrating differences between ethnic and cultural groups, inherently admits that there exist such differences between individuals. This allows neo-fascists to distinguish between themselves and “others,” immigrants not sharing their cultural heritage, and to claim the need for protecting such a cultural heritage through exclusion of others. As this article attempts to claim, immigrants will not benefit from multiculturalism but the radical integralist right in its different versions.