A3 Book section, Chapters in research books
A Russian Radical Conservative Challenge to the Liberal Global Order : Aleksandr Dugin (2020)

Backman, J. (2020). A Russian Radical Conservative Challenge to the Liberal Global Order : Aleksandr Dugin. In M. Lehti, H.-R. Pennanen, & J. Jouhki (Eds.), Contestations of Liberal Order : The West in Crisis? (pp. 289-314). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22059-4_11

JYU authors or editors

Backman, Jussi

Publication details

All authors or editors: Backman, Jussi

Parent publication: Contestations of Liberal Order : The West in Crisis?

Parent publication editors: Lehti, Marko; Pennanen, Henna-Riikka; Jouhki, Jukka

ISBN: 978-3-030-22058-7

eISBN: 978-3-030-22059-4

Publication year: 2020

Pages range: 289-314

Number of pages in the book: 384

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Place of Publication: Cham

Publication country: Switzerland

Publication language: English

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22059-4_11

Publication open access: Not open

Publication channel open access:

Publication is parallel published (JYX): https://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/65301

Abstract

The chapter examines Russian political theorist Aleksandr Dugin’s (b. 1962) challenge to the Western liberal order. Even though Dugin’s project is in many ways a theoretical epitome of Russia’s contemporary attempt to profile itself as a regional great power with a political and cultural identity distinct from the liberal West, Dugin can also be read in a wider context as one of the currently most prominent representatives of the culturally and intellectually oriented international New Right. The chapter introduces Dugin’s role on the Russian right-wing political scene and his international networks, Russian neo-Eurasianism as his ideological footing, and his more recent “fourth political theory” as an attempt to formulate a new ideological alternative to liberalism as well as the two other main twentieth-century ideologies, communism and fascism. Dugin’s fourth ideology, essentially meant as an alternative to a unipolar post–Cold War global hegemony of victorious liberalism, draws inspiration from the German conservative revolutionary movement of the Weimar era. In particular, Martin Heidegger’s philosophy of history, with its thesis of the end of modernity and another beginning of Western thought, and Carl Schmitt’s pluralistic model of geopolitics are highlighted as key elements of Dugin’s eclectic political thought, which is most appropriately characterized as a form of radical conservatism.

Keywords: political theory; political philosophy; right-wing ideology; conservatism; liberalism (ideologies); Eurasian school

Free keywords: Russia; political theory; radical conservatism; liberalism; Eurasianism; conservative revolution; Aleksandr Dugin; Martin Heidegger; Carl Schmitt

Fields of science: