Introduction: THE rise of far-right globalisation criticism requires a new role for the degrowth movement. ‘Progressive de-globalisation’ could be the counter-project that is urgently needed.
After the German and Austrian elections, it becomes clear once more that the rise of the new far-right is not a temporary phenomenon. Neither the difficult Brexit negotiations nor the missteps of Donald Trump are stopping new nationalism’s upward trend, as one could have hoped. Consequently, Yannis Varoufakis diagnosed the long-term emergence of a nationalist international: nationalist and far-right authoritarian leaders, parties, movements, NGOs and media that are gaining ground and interconnect on a global scale. They bring about what left-wing mass movements and parties were not able or willing to do in the ten years since the financial crisis: they formulate an alternative to the discredited ideology of neo-liberalism. A strong narrative of national empowerment, paired with religious, racist, anti-feminist and anti-ecological resentments is becoming a serious challenger of neoliberalism’s TINA principle (‘There Is No Alternative’). Although the new far-right questions only some aspects of neoliberal economic policy and radicalises it in other aspects, it nevertheless acts as an ideological countermovement to the neoliberal and post-democratic political model.