The French New Right: Differentialism and the idea of ethnophilian exclusionism

While liberal and democratic theories have dealt with the question of cultural demands on liberal society, few essays focus on how a modernized and theoretically demanding New Right has turned the idea of racist exclusionism into a libertarian concept of differentialism, cultural pride, and radical multiculturalism. Indeed, the idea of challenging the concept of a liberal republican tradition of citizenship by means of a pluralist, anti-liberal view of "difference" rooted in the tradition of counter-revolutionary political thought appears to be one of the most distinctive innovations emanating from the French New Right. This essay, following the pathbreaking studies of Pierre Taguieff, attempts to introduce these ideas within the confines of the American debate on liberal citizenship, communitarianism and multiculturalism. The basic claim is that a radical support of multiculturalism and cultural rights of ethnic groups is not only a feature of democratic theory but also of neo-fascist right-wing political theory.