Li Li and Zhou Aimin: "Scars of Democracy": Critical Theory's Critical Response to the New Right
As early as 1997, the renowned German sociologist Ralf Dahrendorf predicted that the 21st century might become the century of authoritarianism. He realized that "stagnating or even falling incomes for low- and middle-income earners have made the real income growth widely expected for many years unachievable; meanwhile, the incomes of high earners—and even those in the top 10%—have grown substantially." This outcome led to the exclusion of vast numbers of people from society, including an "increasingly fragile middle class," leaving them "unable to enter the labor market, unable to participate in relevant social activities (such as shopping at supermarkets or watching matches at football stadiums), and unable to participate in political activities."
Dahrendorf’s prediction from over 20 years ago seems to be coming true in the Western world today. Over the past two decades, we have witnessed the rise of New Right populist parties in Europe; furthermore, this phenomenon is not limited to Europe but has now spread globally. Their electoral success and growing influence indicate that this is by no means a transitory phenomenon. To explore this phenomenon and its challenge to the global political order more clearly, it is necessary to gain a deep understanding of fundamental issues such as the origins, dynamics, and appeal of the contemporary New Right. By analyzing the history and claims of the New Right, this article argues that the critical theory of the Frankfurt School can provide important intellectual resources for answering these fundamental questions.
I. The Historical Evolution and Claims of the New Right in the US and Europe
The term "New Right" was initially used primarily to describe a force of extreme conservatives in Western countries that splintered off from social conservatives. Depending on the degree of moderation or radicalism in its ideological claims, the New Right encompasses a spectrum of views ranging from non-radical to the far-right. The 2008 economic recession was one of the key turning points for the emergence of the New Right as a global phenomenon. Since then, the New Right has risen rapidly, showing a momentum of vigorous development on the political stages of Europe, America, and parts of the Global South. Given space constraints, this article primarily analyzes the evolution of the New Right in European and American countries.
(1) The Origins, Evolution, and Claims of the American New Right
In the United States, the New Right has also been defined as a "grassroots alliance of American conservatives," and its currents of thought and movements can be traced back to 1964, with its primary strength coming from the Republican Party. At that time, the Republican Barry Goldwater, known as America's "Mr. Conservative," declared during his presidential campaign that big government posed the greatest threat to American liberty. He argued that government regulations restricted economic growth and the development of individual freedom, and that social spending and welfare should be cut to lighten the tax burden on individuals and families. Goldwater's campaign marked the resurgence of the American right-wing conservative movement.
During the 1960s and 1970s, as the tearing of the social fabric in the US intensified, the New Right movement gradually expanded, beginning to take on distinct populist colors and shared demographic characteristics. These included whites, the middle class, Protestants, and suburban residents who felt frustrated by the decline of moral standards in American society; it was also usually closely linked to the Religious Right. Their concerns covered several controversial social issues, such as abortion, drug abuse, public sexual behavior, rising crime rates, racial unrest, the civil rights movement, and anti-Vietnam War protests. New Right conservatives blamed these problems on liberalism, believing that it was liberalism that fostered the federal government's mismanagement and corruption.
After Richard Nixon was elected US President in 1968, the policies he pursued continued to drive the development of the New Right movement and caused it to exhibit three characteristics: its supporters were mainly distributed in the American South or Midwest; its backbone forces did not hesitate to confront the leadership within the Republican Party out of firm conviction; and it emphasized strategic planning when promoting the conservative movement, establishing an extensive network of grassroots organizations and coordination mechanisms between different New Right groups. The Christian Right was an important component of the New Right movement during this period. It criticized the liberal media for corrupting American youth, accused the courts of excluding religion from public schools, and supported private Christian academies and homeschooling as alternatives. Recognizing the potential of mass media, it also established the Christian Broadcasting Network to spread its messages and ideas. Like most movements, the New Right movement also contained extremist elements, such as racial hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party.
In the late 1980s, the American New Right developed into a new stage. The New Right of this period leaned toward neoliberalism economically, advocated interventionism diplomatically, was more conservative in religious principles, and gradually became one of the most influential factions within the Republican Party. The election of Republican Ronald Reagan as president played an important role in the direction of the New Right during this period. Reagan accepted donations from the New Right and received its support during the campaign. In his inaugural address, he once famously declared: "Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." However, after being elected, Reagan shifted on economic issues to emphasize redirecting government to serve new goals; in foreign policy, he advocated "peace through strength" and used Latin America as a stage to demonstrate new American policies.
After the end of the Cold War, the New Right evolved further against the backdrop of dual shifts in domestic and international situations, exhibiting characteristics different from those of the Cold War period. In the history of modern conservatism, the most fundamental concept is known as "fusionism"—an alliance of social conservatism, economic liberalism, and foreign interventionism, which were united in the second half of the 20th century by a shared hostility toward communism. However, with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, this tripartite alliance began to lose its meaning. Particularly during the George W. Bush administration, the disaster brought by the Iraq War caused the concept of foreign intervention within "fusionism" to be called into question. Subsequently, the arrival of the global financial crisis and the economic recession further shook economic liberals and their free-market dogmas. The election of Donald Trump as US President marked the formal abandonment of economic liberalism and internationalism. While continuing to cater to some social conservatives in the old alliance, Trump did not hesitate to shatter the conservative dogmas of free trade and international relations.
Having experienced the Iraq War and the global financial crisis, the current New Right forces in the US have undergone a shift in economic concepts and foreign policy, yet they remain steadfast in their conservative positions, focusing primarily on various issues that cause social fragmentation. Specifically, regarding economic concepts, the New Right clearly expresses support for government economic intervention in terms of tariffs and industrial policy, believing such intervention can revitalize the heartland and ensure the dignity of the working class. Regarding social policy, the New Right places the family in the primary position and advocates for an all-out struggle against the influence of "wokeness" in school boards, state legislatures, corporate boardrooms, and university campuses. In the fields of science, education, and culture, the New Right distrusts capitalism and holds a skeptical attitude toward tech companies, believing the American corporate class has subverted American culture and betrayed the American people; it advocates using state power to regulate large tech companies like Twitter and Amazon until these companies fully accept the principles of free speech. On the issue of immigration, the New Right advocates building a border wall to completely block illegal immigration and reducing the entry of foreign workers into the US to protect domestic jobs and wage levels. Regarding foreign policy, the New Right has moved toward realism, emphasizing "America First," arguing that the geopolitics of the past 30 years have been a disaster and that the wars the US launched abroad were the product of liberal internationalism—which itself is the evil fruit of the dominant domestic liberal ideology, an ideology that poses a dual threat to the American people and the nation.
(2) The Origins, Evolution, and Claims of the European New Right
The European New Right originated in the context of the May 1968 events in France (the "May Storm") with the founding of the "Research and Study Group for European Civilization" (Groupement de recherche et d'étude pour la civilisation européenne, GRECE) by Alain de Benoist and others. Its core concept is what de Benoist calls "metapolitics." "Metapolitics" emphasizes conquering the political sphere by controlling the discursive fields of philosophy, culture, and identity. Theoretically, the European New Right inherited the legacy of European right-wing thinkers such as Martin Heidegger, Ernst Jünger, Julius Evola, and Carl Schmitt, fused social activism with certain ideas from conservative thinkers, and drew on the theory of cultural hegemony from the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci. It distinguished between direct political rule and the concept of "hegemony," defining hegemony as the control a regime exerts over a people by winning their free consent. In practice, the European New Right abandoned fascist modes of behavior such as paramilitary marches, street violence, and direct parliamentary politics, and rejected the Nazi anti-Semitic racial policies based on pseudo-scientific biological theories. After the 2008 global financial crisis and the European debt crisis, the European New Right ushered in a new wave of development, characterized by the sudden emergence of far-right forces and breakthroughs in elections across European countries through political parties.
The theoretical claims of the European New Right primarily include the following aspects. First, regarding the economy, the European New Right holds an opposing stance toward various forms of liberal economics, including the free market; it has a deeply hostile relationship with the economic internationalism advocated by the likes of Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman. They believe that unregulated free markets ignore or oppose local traditions, religion, community, the state, and even the natural environment. Differing from the American New Right, the European New Right draws on Marxist cultural theory, emphasizing that the cultural commodification of late capitalism leads to the devaluation of everything, destroys families and solidarity, and increases disparities between countries and regions. Second, the European New Right opposes universal values and advocates for the "right to difference" (right to difference). De Benoist and other figures of the European New Right strongly criticize the ideology of human rights that advocates for human equality and downplays cultural and racial differences, arguing that so-called "human rights" are nothing more than a "non-organic, foreign, abstract, and intolerant religion." They accuse the postmodern Left, humanism, and the universalism of the Christian tradition of symbolizing the "destruction of difference." To this end, the European New Right proposed the concept of the "right to difference," opposing the assembly of irreconcilable cultures in a multicultural melting pot. Finally, the European New Right opposes globalization and immigration, views the dilution of the European Union and national identity with skepticism, and advocates for nationalism and identity.
In recent years, although the influence of the European New Right varies across different countries, it has still gained widespread support in elections throughout Europe. Some notable examples include: In Central and Eastern Europe, right-wing nationalist parties have made significant progress in countries like Hungary and Poland, with the Fidesz union led by Viktor Orbán repeatedly winning Hungarian general elections and pursuing a nationalist agenda that emphasizes national sovereignty and the protection of national culture during its tenure. In Western Europe, the German right-wing nationalist party Alternative for Germany (AfD) became the largest opposition party in the Bundestag, and Vox, representing Spanish far-right forces, became the third-largest force in the Spanish Parliament. In Northern Europe, Sweden's most extreme right-wing party, the Sweden Democrats, jumped to become the second-largest party in parliament last year, and the right-wing nationalist Danish People’s Party has also gained a certain level of influence. In Southern Europe, the Northern League (Lega Nord) is Italy's most prominent right-wing populist political force, playing an important role in Italian politics and forming alliances with other right-wing parties. Overall, right-wing nationalists have achieved political influence in many parts of Europe. Within the European Parliament, nine far-right parties have formed a new group called "Identity and Democracy."
Viewed as a whole, the New Right emerged as a counter-movement to neoliberalism in Europe and America during the 1960s. In its early stages, the European and American New Right shared conceptual similarities, such as an emphasis on socially conservative values; however, differences persisted, particularly regarding the role the government should play in the economy. Subsequently, the Western New Right underwent several waves of development, manifesting new characteristics following the 2008 global financial crisis. First, the ideologies of the European and American New Right have gradually converged; for instance, the American New Right has steadily abandoned economic liberalism in favor of state regulation and industrial policy to promote economic development. Second, far-right forces have ascended within the New Right, entering the political arena through political parties and elections, exerting a significant impact on the domestic and foreign policies of Western nations. Third, the ideological trend of the Western New Right has begun to spread globally, influencing other countries—particularly those in the Global South such as Brazil, India, the Philippines, and South Africa—leading to the political phenomenon of a "far-right turn" in these nations.
II. Intellectual Resources of Early Critical Theory: State Capitalism and the Authoritarian Personality
"Early Critical Theory" refers to the stage of the formation and development of Critical Theory driven by Max Horkheimer after he assumed the directorship of the Institute for Social Research (Institut für Sozialforschung). This period spans roughly from the early 1930s to the late 1960s. In addition to Horkheimer, its primary representatives included Friedrich Pollock, Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, Leo Löwenthal, Erich Fromm, and Walter Benjamin. Guided by Horkheimer’s vision for interdisciplinary social-philosophical research, the early critical theorists produced abundant theoretical results. Horkheimer’s fundamental premise was to "unfold" a continuous dialectical penetration between philosophical theory and concrete scientific practice around the "relationship between socio-economic life, the psychological development of the individual, and changes in the realm of culture in the strict sense." Regarding the choice of specific topics, influenced by the tectonic historical shifts of the time, the critical theorists pivoted from investigating why socialist revolutions or liberation movements failed in the West to researching why fascism was able to sweep across Europe. Despite this shift in research direction, the objects of empirical study did not change significantly; they remained focused on the working-class groups in society (including both blue-collar and white-collar workers).
As John Abromeit has pointed out, the rise of the contemporary New Right shares similarities with the crisis caused by the development of liberal capitalist economics in the 1920s and 1930s—a crisis regarded at the time as a "systemic crisis" brought about by neoliberal economic policies [5]. He argues that the early Critical Theory research into working-class families and social psychology, as well as the study of the propaganda strategies of fascist demagogues, can be directly applied to analyze the rise of the American New Right (such as the Tea Party) and Trump’s electoral victory. Similarly, the German sociologist Ferdinand Sutterlüti has explicitly noted that through detailed empirical research on the relationship between social structure and social psychology, early Critical Theory recognized very early on that Germany was bound for the road to fascism. He believes this remains a vital research agenda; specifically for understanding the emergence of right-wing populism and extremism, the tradition of Critical Theory can provide many valuable insights. These outputs include collective research reports—such as the early Studies on Authority and the Family and the five-volume Studies in Prejudice (the latter including Adorno et al.’s The Authoritarian Personality and Löwenthal et al.’s Prophets of Deceit: A Study of the Techniques of the American Agitator)—which continue to receive scholarly attention and discussion. They also include individual theoretical reflections, such as Horkheimer’s Egoism and the Freedom Movement and The Jews and Europe, Franz Neumann’s Behemoth, Adorno’s Freudian Theory and the Pattern of Fascist Propaganda and Aspects of the New Right-Wing Extremism, and Horkheimer and Adorno’s co-authored Dialectic of Enlightenment. By integrating the contemporary scholarly rediscovery of early Critical Theory's empirical research, we can clarify the heuristic significance of its theoretical propositions for analyzing the contemporary New Right from three perspectives.
First, at the level of social integration, early Critical Theory provides a macro-social explanatory framework for understanding the rise of the far-right, viewing its emergence as a result of the "breeding ground" provided by capitalist society. Horkheimer once explicitly stated: "Whoever is not prepared to talk about capitalism should also remain silent about fascism." In his view, fascism was not the antithesis of liberal capitalism but rather "the truth of modern society," a manifestation of its latent irrationality pushed to an extreme. Years later, when analyzing the resurgence of far-right forces in post-war Germany, Adorno held the same view, believing that the social breeding ground for fascism still existed. This type of perspective is easily misread as a claim by early critical theorists that fascism was not an essentially different form of political organization, but merely a new form serving finance monopoly capitalism. This misunderstood view has been regarded by contemporary commentators as "adventurous, excessive, or even quite mad," because "the market economy was not, in the end, swallowed by Nazism. Furthermore, all successful Western societies after 1945 were more or less influenced by liberalism." Regarding this interpretation, Löwenthal once expressed clear opposition: "Horkheimer, Fromm, and I never believed or suggested that fascism was merely a new political strategy of monopoly capitalism." Therefore, a more accurate interpretation would be: "Developed capitalist society produced the socio-economic conditions in which fascism could develop. But when the political institutions of a society organized by capital fall into the hands of fascists, the system takes on a new character that is no longer compatible with the interests of finance capital." Adorno argued that these socio-economic conditions primarily included the trend toward capital concentration and the resulting "declassing" (Deklassierung) of the bourgeoisie, the threat of technological unemployment, and the diminished status of the nation-state after joining global super-blocs.
Second, at the level of individual socialization, early Critical Theory provides a micro-level explanatory path for the rise of the far-right. Influenced by Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory—particularly Wilhelm Reich’s concept of the "sadomasochistic character" and his discourse on the relationship between the family and fascism (i.e., the family as the primary cell of authoritarianism)—the early critical theorists believed that the family possesses an important individual pedagogical function within socio-historical transitions, acting as a "social cement." Studies on Authority and the Family, the first collective research output from the Institute for Social Research, was produced under this conceptual guidance. The study argued that the patriarchal structure of the family is itself both a product of the social authoritarian system and a vital institution for maintaining its existence; the patriarchal family nurtures individuals with the characteristics of what Adorno called the "authoritarian personality." The authoritarian personality is a summary of a range of behavioral traits and value preferences, including a preference for strongmen, hostility toward scapegoated minorities and out-groups, and rigid traditional beliefs, along with a demand for severe punishment for individuals who do not conform to these norms. During World War II, the Institute, while in exile in the United States, organized extensive interviews with American workers (later published as The Authoritarian Personality), which empirically verified this view once again. Based on empirical research, early Critical Theory maintained that the danger of fascism existed within 1940s American society. Adorno provided a detailed summary of these findings, noting that "the instinctual patterns of fascism and the entire technique of the fascist demagogue are authoritarian."
Unlike Gustave Le Bon’s discourse on mass psychology in The Crowd, the early critical theorists—especially Horkheimer and Adorno—did not adopt an essentialist attitude. They believed that the authoritarian personality is not innate, nor is it an inevitable product of collective gathering, but rather a product of the historical conditions of contemporary capitalist society. Therefore, their critique was not directed at individuals or specific groups, but at the social structure. In their view, even if democratic institutions exist within a capitalist society to prevent the formation of authoritarian personalities, as long as the underlying social structure remains capitalist, this personality type will continue to germinate and spread. After the Institute for Social Research moved back to Germany after the war, its members conducted a study during the winter of 1950–1951 to investigate German attitudes toward the fall of the Nazis and the Allied occupation. They called this research the "Group Experiment." As with their previous empirical research in the United States, they collected a vast amount of interview data, recording nearly 6,400 pages. The study found that "anti-democratic" attitudes, a lack of guilt, and a reluctance to accept responsibility were still widespread. In a qualitative analysis report titled Guilt and Defense, Adorno pessimistically argued that the authoritarian system had penetrated the individual psyche through sociological, technological, and economic trends and persisted to that day. Today, this micro-level explanatory path proposed by early Critical Theory from the perspective of individual socialization continues to offer heuristic significance for the academic community in dissecting New Right movements through the lens of the authoritarian personality.
Finally, regarding the study of far-right propaganda strategies, early Critical Theory, combining research on social psychology and mass culture, pointed out that such propaganda "aims to win support by exploiting people’s subconscious mechanisms, rather than by presenting ideas and arguments." In an article titled Anti-Semitism and Fascist Propaganda, Adorno summarized the Frankfurt School’s research findings on propaganda strategies. From a psychological perspective, the characteristics of fascist propaganda include: personalized propaganda—where the content is not primarily aimed at objective developments but focuses on the demagogue personally and the audience; substituting the goals of propaganda with the means of propaganda—continually repeating the greatness of the movement itself without addressing its specific objectives or the concrete role of the organization; and propaganda itself becoming a mechanism for wish-fulfillment—where the public’s desire to "peek behind the curtain" is both encouraged and satisfied through the "revelations" of the propaganda. In Adorno’s view, "cynical soberness" might more accurately describe the fascist mentality: "If it is to be called irrational, then it is more like an applied irrationality, a psychological technique similar to the calculated effects evidently present in today's mass culture, such as films and radio programs."
Adorno emphasized that the demagogue does not seek to convey any new ideas or emotions to the audience, but rather attempts to establish a harmonious emotional resonance. Drawing on analyses of radio advertising sales and rituals, he pointed out that the creation of this harmonious emotion depends on: (1) The stereotyped nature of propaganda materials: "Not only does each speaker repeat the same patterns over and over, but different speakers also use the same clichés. Most important, of course, is the dichotomy of black and white, friend and foe. This stereotypy applies not only to political ideas—such as the vilification of Jews, the condemnation of communism or bank capital—but also to seemingly very distant things and attitudes." (2) Creating the impression of a widely recognized ritual repeatedly performed by a "community" through the use of religious language and forms. (3) The worship of something inherent, such as existing cultures or folk customs. (4) Attacking non-existent things through innuendo.
These views of early Critical Theory were later echoed by many other theorists. For example, Ralf Dahrendorf, when evaluating the characteristics of populism, summarized: "Populism is simple, democracy is complex." This concise summary is clearly a borrowing of the ritualistic characteristics of propaganda elaborated by Adorno. Contemporary researchers of populism, such as Jan-Werner Müller, Bernd Stegemann, and Philip Manow, basically agree with Adorno’s propositions. Müller has noted that beyond opposing the establishment elite, the most core claim of right-wing populists is an either-or moral demand: "Only the populists represent the real people, and all other so-called representatives of the citizens are in some way illegitimate."
In summary, the extensive and profound research by early critical theorists regarding the social-structural origins, individual psychology, and propaganda strategies of the far right has provided intellectual resources for contemporary studies on the New Right. This research aids in analyzing the rise and spread of the contemporary New Right and in understanding its essence and hazards. At the social level, the rise of the New Right is linked to the basic framework of the contemporary capitalist system, particularly neoliberalism; at the level of individual psychology, the authoritarian personality—which persists within Western democratic societies—provides nourishment for the New Right’s ascent; in terms of propaganda methods, the use of means to replace ends aims to satisfy the subconscious authoritarian character requirements of the masses, a phenomenon that remains widespread. Therefore, as Adorno advocated in his time, one of the strategies for countering New Right propaganda today remains exposing its falsehoods and alerting the public to the self-destructive consequences it may produce.
III. Intellectual Resources of Contemporary Critical Theory: Systemic Crisis and Supranational Solutions
Some of the conclusions and propositions drawn by early critical theory based on the historical background of the 1930s and 1940s may not necessarily apply to the explanation of New Right ideological trends that have emerged since the 1960s. A new generation of critical theorists, such as Jürgen Habermas and Claus Offe, has provided important supplementary explanations in this regard, and their macro-social theories are partially capable of responding to the challenges of the contemporary New Right. As early as the 1970s, Habermas noticed that a "legitimation crisis" [6] still existed within Western high-welfare capitalism, a point he discussed in detail in his 1973 book Legitimation Crisis. Subsequently, he revised and refined his basic analytical approach in his classic work, The Theory of Communicative Action. In several recently published articles, he continues to uphold his early fundamental theoretical propositions and attempts to provide a theoretical response to the development of the contemporary New Right. Habermas's analytical framework has long dominated the interpretive paradigm of contemporary critical theorists; Axel Honneth, Rainer Forst, Nancy Fraser, and Stephan Lessenich have all been influenced by Habermas. The basic logic of this interpretation is to view the development of New Right ideological trends as a crisis of contemporary capitalist democratic politics, and then to view this crisis as the product of the development of inherent contradictions within the capitalist system. Therefore, the emergence and development of the New Right are not entirely antithetical to the capitalist democratic system; rather, borrowing Adorno's classic expression, they can be viewed as the "scars of democracy" (Narbender Demokratie).
First, Habermas continued the perspective of totality analysis [7] from early critical theory. Although he opposed the concept of totality based on the "philosophy of consciousness" proposed by early critical theory, he continued to insist on viewing capitalist crisis from the perspective of totality at the level of social theory. In this perspective, the crisis of capitalism is not merely the product of the internal logic of the economic sphere—such as the falling rate of profit—but rather the result of conflicts between the economic system, as a sub-system, and other social sub-systems. In Habermas's view, post-war European and American high-welfare capitalist states successfully managed capitalist economic crises through state intervention and assumed additional crisis-management functions. As Fraser has pointed out, although Habermas's optimistic judgment has been refuted by subsequent historical developments, his main argument remains valid: while the inherent economic crises of capitalism were temporarily overcome, capitalism's inherent contradictions were not resolved but were instead displaced into the political sphere. Habermas distinguished between the different forms of crisis appearing at the "output" and "input" ends of the political system. On the one hand, the political system needs to "input" as much mass loyalty as possible; when the legitimate political system "fails to meet the control requirements assumed by the economic system and cannot maintain the required level of mass loyalty," a "legitimation crisis" (Legitimationskrise) arises as an input crisis. On the other hand, when the administrative system "cannot satisfy the control imperatives received from the economic system and make them compatible," a "rationality crisis" (Rationalitätskrise) arises as an output crisis. The generation of a legitimation crisis occurs in two situations: one is when the rationality crisis of the administrative system may be converted into a withdrawal of legitimacy through "disturbances in the state apparatus," thereby becoming a legitimation crisis; the other possibility is that state intervention causes citizens' existing identities to waver—for example, by questioning the de-politicized structure of the public sphere and the system of formal democracy that guarantees the private appropriation of the means of production.
Secondly, in the theory of late-capitalist crisis, the rise and spread of New Right populism can be viewed as a sign of the legitimation crisis appearing in late capitalism. Habermas's crisis theory can explain the New Right phenomenon in capitalist welfare states from two aspects: one from the perspective of a rationality crisis causing a legitimation crisis, and the other from the perspective of the state's continuous "colonization" [8] of the socio-cultural sphere to resolve the legitimation crisis. In the former interpretive framework, the New Right can be seen as a reaction by the populace to the state falling into disorder because it cannot handle the various imperatives of the economic system; in the latter framework, the New Right can be seen as a conservative response to a destabilized cultural identity. From the late 1960s to the early 1970s, Western society experienced a comprehensive legitimation crisis, which the latter framework can explain. As Fraser said, what threatened the regime was not an economic crisis but a political one; not a conflict over distribution, but a boundary struggle over the structural system of capitalist society. To escape the crisis, Western welfare states did not move toward socialism as left-wing scholars of the time had hoped; instead, to liberate the economy from its "political cage," they implemented a process of finance-driven globalization, thereby changing the structural relationship and power balance between the market and the political-administrative systems of Western welfare states. However, the development of global financial markets and global capital flows did not produce the so-called "trickle-down effect"; on the contrary, it further intensified economic inequality within and between nations. The rapid development of the contemporary New Right can be seen as a defensive reaction to the rationality crisis of the political-administrative system, and its rise can therefore be explained from the perspective of a rationality crisis causing a legitimation crisis.
Some scholars have used Habermas's crisis theory to view the rapid development of the New Right after 2008 as the result of the superposition of long-term structural factors and systemic shock factors. Long-term structural factors refer to the "globalization of capital, trade, and finance," which represent the long-term structural shift between the state and the market since the 1980s—namely, the weakening of the welfare state's control over economic life—while the systemic shock factor was the sudden outbreak of the financial crisis. "The current legitimation crisis can be seen as a perfect storm in which long-term structural shifts and short-term shocks are superimposed, leading the political order of Western welfare states to lose its legitimacy." Habermas has emphasized this point in several recent articles, arguing that the rise of right-wing populism is a defensive reaction to current political impotence. In a 2018 speech upon receiving the "German-French Journalism Prize" (Deutsch-Französischer Journalistenpreis), he clearly pointed out that the anti-immigrant prejudices held by the middle class who support right-wing populism and their fear of modernization are not the root of the disease, but merely the symptoms. Regarding the European Union, he believes the root cause lies in the EU's current lack of necessary political power to contain the widening trend of social inequality within and between its member states. Therefore, the fundamental reason for political regression is the public's obvious disappointment with the EU's political power. In an interview published in the first issue of Leviathan in 2020, Habermas reiterated his view and explicitly opposed the "cultural struggle" [9] interpretive path represented by German sociologist Andreas Reckwitz. Habermas believes that contemporary cultural conservatism and right-wing movements are actually defensive reactions to disappointment with real-world politics, a disappointment directed at the following phenomenon: "The consideration of repeatedly invoked international competitiveness limits the scope of public budgets, thereby limiting the state’s capacity to act."
Finally, regarding how to respond to the development of the contemporary New Right, Habermas particularly emphasizes supranational solutions. Concerning the current ways European countries handle the New Right domestically, he points out bluntly that these methods have been moving in the wrong direction from the start. Unlike politicians who treat right-wing forces with caution, he advocates for fierce confrontation with right-wing populists, arguing that the correct anti-New Right strategy should be "de-thematization" (Dethematisierung)—that is, not giving too much weight to their demands or bargaining with them, as this only increases their visibility. To achieve de-thematization, political debate must be pulled back to the real issues. The most core and urgent political issue today is: "How do we regain political power to counter the destructive forces of unleashed capitalist globalization?" This question should become the subject of political debate regarding the phenomenon of "democratic polarization."
Habermas's position in this debate is very clear: he advocates for the continued strengthening of political power within the EU to counter the power of capital, thereby reshaping today's unequal power structures. He points out: "As a rational alternative, I believe the only viable option is supranational cooperation, which can both address the current state of savage financial market capitalism and escape the problem of 'nationalism' or left-wing nationalism returning to the already hollowed-out nation-state. The goal of supranational cooperation is the pursuit of a socially acceptable political shaping of economic globalization." Although extremely dissatisfied with the political opportunism practiced by most current politicians, Habermas remains optimistic. He believes, on the one hand, that according to the latest research results from the research group led by Jürgen Gerhards, there exists within EU member states not only a broad sense of European identity but also a high level of support for EU policies regarding the cross-border redistribution of wealth; on the other hand, in normative terms, there is no reasonable alternative to European constitutional principles, nor is there any visible form of "illiberal democracy" that could be stable and compatible with the functional requirements of modern society over the long term.
In summary, contemporary critical theorists represented by Habermas have partially inherited the theoretical achievements of early critical theorists' research on Nazism. They believe that the rise and development of the New Right should not be simply attributed to socio-psychological or socio-cultural struggles; at the macro level, it is a symptom of the systemic crisis of Western capitalism. Unlike early critical theory, which emphasized democratic education and committed to piercing the falsehood of fascist propaganda, Habermas clearly points out that the way to counter the New Right is to shift the battlefield, moving the focus of political debate to whether to engage in renewed political intervention against neoliberal-dominated capitalism.
IV. Conclusion
In the nearly century-long history of the Frankfurt School's critical theory, far-right ideological trends and organizations have always been among its primary subjects of concern. By critically analyzing the social, political, and cultural phenomena of capitalism, critical theory provides us with a theoretical framework and methodology for the in-depth analysis of the rise and development of the far right. Although some specific ideas and conclusions of critical theory may no longer be directly applicable due to changing times, the tradition of critical theory can still provide valuable directions for reflection in principle. When facing the challenges of the New Right, critical theory emphasizes that the danger of the New Right lies not only in its direct opposition to Western democracy but in the fact that it always germinates within the Western democratic system. Therefore, opposing the New Right requires going deep into the level of reflecting on the inherent contradictions of Western democratic politics. Critical theory emphasizes the need for an in-depth analysis of the mechanisms of inequality, exploitation, and the exclusion of minority groups and immigrants within the capitalist system, while also paying attention to social justice, equality, and pluralistic values, and responding to the challenges of the New Right by promoting social change and democratic participation. We must carry out the critical absorption and transformation of the aforementioned viewpoints to respond to the changes in the international political landscape triggered by the rise of the Western New Right.
(Authors: Li Li, Department of International Relations, Shanghai University of International Business and Economics; Zhou Aimin, School of Marxism, Tongji University)