New Right
The New Right is a political movement that emerged in the late 20th century, advocating for free-market capitalism, limited government intervention in the economy, and a focus on individual responsibility. It emphasizes the importance of traditional values, national identity, and a strong stance on law and order. The New Right has had a significant influence on conservative politics in various countries.
8 Key excerpts on "New Right"
- Ronald W Cox(Author)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...The emergence of the New Right was to some extent consciously encouraged (not to mention actively funded) by conservative business leaders, and to some extent it was an independent development that nevertheless complemented the aims of the newly-emerging elite industrial coalition. The New Right is important to study when analyzing the emergence of the second cold war since it, more than any other section of the right wing, served as a catalyst in connecting right-wing business interests and hard-line anticommunist sentiments with the electoral strategies and policy goals of the Republican Party. The New Right (in its secular-political, religious, and intellectual manifestations) was a central political actor in justifying the revival of military intervention as a legitimate instrument of government policy. While much has been written on the New Right's domestic agenda, there has been a relative paucity of attention to its active engagement in the evolving political debate around foreign and military issues. For example, Paul Weyrich's Committee for the Survival of a Free Congress (now known as the Free Congress Foundation) organized regular luncheon meetings on foreign policy issues with congressmen and their aides to brief them on defense and foreign policy topics. In 1982, the Free Congress and Education Foundation created a committee to support the Contras. The Heritage Foundation, a New Right think tank with offices on Capitol Hill, presented Reagan with a blueprint program for "raising defense spending by 35 billion dollars, unleashing the CIA, using food as a foreign policy weapon, and restoring Congressional internal security committees." 30 New Right leaders were also instrumental in forming the Madison Group, a group of conservative Congressmen concerned with foreign policy and security issues, which met regularly to coordinate lobbying strategies...
- B. Williams(Author)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Palgrave Macmillan(Publisher)
...2 The ‘New Right’ and its impact on Conservative social policy This chapter focuses on the development and evolution of the specific ‘New Right’ ideology in its guise as a contemporary and modern variant of Conservative political thought. As a viewpoint with a global context and influence, it aspired to revive the individualistic values of the liberal ‘free-market’ economic environment that prevailed in the mid to late 19th century, while seeking to dismantle the post-1945 welfare settlement. This ‘neo-liberal’ economic outlook subsequently established itself as a distinct influence within the British Conservative Party during its period of political dominance in the 1980s, rejecting much of the party’s paternalistic social policy of the post-war period in the process. In exploring precisely what the beliefs and key principles of this brand of Conservatism are, it is necessary to analyse its origins and assess how it has developed as a political concept within the modern political framework, as well as how it became firmly attached to the policy-making agenda of Margaret Thatcher from 1975 onwards. We will see how the New Right’s ideological thrust influenced the welfare and social policies of the Thatcher government between 1979 and 1990, and how it potentially continues to influence party policy to the present day. The Origins and evolution of the New Right Having gained influence over the direction of the Conservative Party in the mid-1970s with the accession of Margaret Thatcher to the party leadership, the challenge for the advocates of the ‘New Right’ was to craft specific policies that could be implemented while in power...
eBook - ePubThe Rise of the Dutch New Right
An Intellectual History of the Rightward Shift in Dutch Politics
- Merijn Oudenampsen(Author)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...The neoliberal and neoconservative strands that made up the New Right were more radical in nature, and aimed to unsettle and undermine the previous social contract, reconstructing the free market and restoring – or rather reinventing – moral authority. Faced with the magnitude of this task, the New Right ditched the traditional scepticism and relativism of the Old Right, and embraced a belief in social engineering that is more commonly associated with the left. There is Ronald Reagan’s Hollywoodian idea of a government that encourages us in reaching for the stars: ‘We must always ask: is government working to liberate and empower the individual? […] Is it encouraging all of us to reach for the stars?’ 22 And there is Thatcher’s famous statement at the start of her first term: ‘Economics are the method, the object is to change the heart and soul’ of the nation. 23 In working towards those ambitious goals, the New Right has pursued a politics of ideas. Following the philosophy of Friedrich Hayek, a foundational figure for both the British and American New Right, shaping the intellectual climate is seen as a precondition for taking power. New Right versus populist radical right It is not my intention to argue that the New Right should supplant radical right-wing populism as the analytical framework of choice. Both have strengths and weaknesses and can contribute to a fuller understanding of the recent wave of right-wing anti-establishment movements. Since it refers to an eclectic ideological coalition rather than a political party, the label of the New Right is definitely more diffuse than that of the populist radical right, which refers to a concrete party family. It does, however, shed light on a series of aspects that have thus far been underappreciated by scholars. First of all, it foregrounds the crucial role of the 1960s, and the conservative discomfort with the legacy of this period...
eBook - ePub- Maurice Mullard, Paul Spicker(Authors)
- 2005(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...The home domain is their criticism of big government, the welfare state and the liberal establishment, including the economics of Keynes, the new public sector professionals and collectivist values. The New Right argues for the reduction of the role of government in the provision of welfare services, substituting individual responsibility and individual choice. The control of inflation is the primary issue in the conduct of economic policy; the New Right argues that government and public sector deficits have devalued the currency. The objection to intervention is not straightforward. Part is liberal; part may be seen as pluralist, in the sense that intervention which is permissible in one sphere may not be accepted in another; and part is pragmatic, based on the view that some forms of intervention are established and work, while others are not established or do not. At the same time, a number of conservative arguments point towards intervention: emphasis on the value of the family, a stress on social order, a concern with heritage. Despite the emphasis in some quarters on a minimal state, few conservatives or liberals are actively opposed to the state being involved in, for example, education or conservation. The Christian Democratic approach in western Europe goes further, arguing for moral intervention, a recognition of social responsibility (or solidarity) and a stress on social cohesion. Although there are areas of agreement, the New Right also reflects a series of tensions and contradictions. The Economic New Right argues that the individual is rational and is capable of making decisions and that therefore market exchanges should be seen as the moral transactions between competent individuals. By contrast, the Moral New Right favours a state which is highly moralistic, which seeks to cement society together through ethics of responsibility, allegiance, authority and tradition...
- Peter H. Merkl, Leonard Weinberg, Peter H. Merkl, Leonard Weinberg(Authors)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...The novelty of this mounting conservative response does not lie in the issues or the underlying philosophy itself but in the fact that it is an alliance of traditionally left-of-centre groups, both at the élite level and at the mass level, with traditionally conservative groups against the new challenge on the new, value-based conflict axis, that is, the New Politics dimension. Thus, neo-conservatism reflects the materialist end of the new cleavage. It is not simply the revival of traditional conservatism in the Old Politics sense – that is, opposition to the welfare state and to the redistribution of income, or the return of church-based religious traditionalism – but a new coalition of forces which see their common enemy in the post-materialist New Left and its political agenda. The parties of the New Right radicalize this neo-conservative reaction and fuse its tenets with a populist, anti-establishment and anti party thrust. Thus, the New Right is not simply the extension of conservatism towards the extreme right but the product of a restructuring of the political spectrum and a regrouping of the party system. Constituencies of established parties tend to realign according to the New Politics cleavage rather than the Old Politics cleavage. In the context of European politics, a sense of political crisis in the 1980s and the immigration issue have fed this radicalization process and related dealignment and realignment trends in the electorate. 15 The crisis phenomena (a growing split in the economy and rising unemployment, and political scandals involving government and opposition parties) have considerably damaged the public support for the established parties and governments...
eBook - ePubBelonging
Solidarity and Division in Modern Societies
- Montserrat Guibernau(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Polity(Publisher)
...The new radical right stands as an example of a return to tradition insofar as it seeks to re-establish and preserve the idea that ‘pure identities’ are still viable through the exclusion of those deemed ‘too different’ and ‘unfit’ to belong. The new radical right advocates assigned membership based upon ethnicity and, in so doing, it closes down the possibility of belonging by choice. This represents a set-back to democracy and clearly stands in opposition to the emancipatory politics promoted by a myriad of social movements in the second part of the twentieth century. I begin by examining whether it is accurate to conflate new radical right parties with traditional fascism. The new radical right versus traditional fascism If we examine the fascist regimes of the 1922–45 period, we find a movement – to be precise, an anti-movement, in Juan Linz’s view 8 – defined as anti-liberal, anti-parliamentary, anti-Semitic (except in Italy), anti-communist, partially anti-capitalist and antibourgeois, and anti-clerical or at least non-clerical. All these anti-positions, combined with exacerbating nationalist sentiments, led in many cases to pan-nationalist ideas, which posed a challenge to existing states and accounted for much of the aggressive expansionist foreign policy of some fascist regimes. In contrast, the new radical right is primarily liberal. It accepts the rules of parliamentary democracy, in spite of being strongly anti-establishment, and although, in some cases, it endorses anti-Semitism, it doesn’t generally do this in an open manner. Against the corporatist and state-controlled economies defined by a strongly hierarchical political leadership, the radical right favours small government. Anti-communism is no longer its key concern and a major justification for its existence; the collapse of communism and the disintegration of the former USSR after 1989 are responsible for this significant shift...
eBook - ePubThe Religion of American Greatness
What's Wrong with Christian Nationalism
- Paul D. Miller(Author)
- 2022(Publication Date)
- IVP Academic(Publisher)
...Regardless, Wilcox and Larson argue that joining “the Christian Right is rational for Christian conservatives as is joining the Sierra Club or National Organization for Women for environmentalists or feminists . .. because these groups articulate their religious, moral, and political sensibilities.” 3 Wilcox and Larson are close to the mark, but defining the Christian Right as a social movement geared toward “conservative” political action takes its stated beliefs too much at face value. Insofar as they recognize that Christian conservatives join the Christian Right to advocate for their particularistic group interest and their definition of American identity, they describe a reality—that the Christian Right is a form of identity politics or tribal nationalism—but mislabel it as conservatism. Conservatism and republicanism are the Christian Right’s stated ideology, but only part of their embodied practice. I would amend Wilcox and Larson’s definition to say that the Christian Right is “a social movement that attempts to mobilize evangelical Protestants and other orthodox Christians into both republican and nationalist political action.” In this chapter, after reviewing some historical context, I argue that the Christian Right contains an uneasy mix of Christian republicanism and Christian nationalism. I show that, on the surface, the Christian Right’s articulated ideology is Christian republicanism (with a small r), which is a good and defensible political theory. Republicanism stresses that individual civic virtue is necessary to sustain political liberty. But the Christian Right interprets “virtue” in a unique way: it asserts that Christian values are the necessary precondition of individual virtue. Thus, to sustain the American experiment in liberty, citizens must honor Christian values. This political theory is false—even though its component parts (Christianity and republicanism) are separately true...
eBook - ePubEducation Policy and the Political Right
The Burning Fuse beneath Schooling in the US, UK and Australia
- Grant Rodwell(Author)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...and giving it back to you, the American People” (Washington Post Staff, 2017, n.p.). For some commentators, due to their conceptual similarities, right-wing populism is a gateway for neoliberalism, the both sharing conceptual similarities,” and “potentially mutually reinforcing each other” and provide the basis for a new form of authoritarian neoliberalism (Pühringer and Ötsch, 2018, 200). “As the hegemonic form of political economy,” wrote Davidson and Saull (2016, 707), “neoliberalism has been articulated via a number of political vernaculars and agents, encompassing both the ‘centre-left’ and centre-right.” Perhaps, this statement comes as no surprise to observers of the politics during the 21st century of the three countries under consideration here. Of course, reference here is made to such politicians of the extreme Right as Donald Trump, Nigel Farage in the UK, and Pauline Hanson in Australia. Consequently, Davidson and Saull (2016, 707) argued these political tensions have come to fundamentally reshape the terrain upon which socio-economic issues and politics are debated and understood across the world; it has engendered new forms of ‘common sense’ associated with new parameters and limitations of politics, and the possibilities associated with democratic political deliberation and decision-making. Attracted to the massive contradictions appearing in the relationship between an increasingly crisis-ridden neoliberal capitalism and neoliberalism, and the emerging political bite of the extreme Right, Davidson and Saull (2016) looked closer to this phenomenon. Indeed, “the neoliberal redrawing of the political, both as a social space for collective and democratic deliberation and the imaginaries derived from and promoted by that space, has helped to create important and historically unique opportunities for the far-right,” wrote Davidson and Saull (2016, 707)...
