Michael C. Williams teaches politics at the University of Ottawa and is a research fellow at Queen Mary, University of London. His latest book is World of the Right: Radical Conservatism and Global Order.
Civilizationalism, the idea that world politics revolves around culturally bounded civilizations led by great powers, is energizing the Right on both sides of the Atlantic. It is key to the effort to dismantle universalism and remake the international order.
Liberals often explain today’s disorder as the work of authoritarians or populist agitators. What they miss is that the postwar consensus depended on conservatives, whose defection has left it in crisis.
One of the most energetic factions of today’s Right flirts with monarchy, myth, and high-tech transcendence. Drawing on the anti-modern sensibility of the fin de siècle Decadents, they reject democracy and seek to use imagined pasts to shape the future.