2000/01/01 by Roger Griffin · 1 citation
Social Sciences · Arts and Humanities · #Communism, Protests, Social Movements #Vietnamese History and Culture Studies #Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis #Ideology #Politics #Democracy #Fell #Mindset #Sociology #Political science #History #Aesthetics #Law #Epistemology #Philosophy #Cartography #Geography
paper · doi:10.1057/9780333981153_12
openalex publication_date 2000/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/04/28
Ever since its foundation in January 1968 there has been considerable uncertainty about where to locate the Nouvelle Droite (ND) in political space. Scholars are still divided over whether in its hey-day of the 1970s and 1980s it legitimately fell into the remit of students of rightwing extremism in general and fascism in particular. Using insights drawn from recent developments in the scholarly understanding of fascism as a generic ideology, this essay argues that at the height of its fame the ND had indeed retained much of fascism’s mythic foundations and ground-plan despite the extensive structural alterations and redecoration it had carried out to the visible ideological edifice. It also considers the relevance to an evaluation of the contemporary ND, now that it has apparently adopted a low profile as an active participant even in ‘meta-political’ debate, of a particular stance consciously assumed by some neo-fascists concerning the tactics to be applied in a postwar climate inhospitable to fascism. It will suggest that some representatives of the ND may have assumed this stance to camouflage their continuing fidelity to an extreme right-wing mindset and network of affiliations, and applied this ploy so successfully that their democratic credentials are sometimes vouched for even by the most astute observers of the ND’s evolution.