The thesis seeks to demonstrate the importance and the impact of conspiracy rhetoric within populist and far right speeches in Europe and the United States. We argue that a so-called “New World Order” plot gives to populist and far right parties an opportunity to develop a rhetoric based on the rescue of democracy despite their obvious rejection of the values and principles which set up democracy. The key question of the autonomy of the people and the nations in a globalized world is asked by populist and far right parties through a specific reading of history and politic which is using a “worldwide conspiracy against people and nations”. This interpretation gives to those parties a way to keep themselves in the democratic side of the political debate.
The thesis proceeds with a multidisciplinary context which makes use of political science, political philosophy, sociology and to some extent history.
The manuscript first describes in a complete chapter the general outline of conspiracy theory. Second, it defines populism and far right by using an important part of the French and English literature on those political trends in Europe and the United States. Third, it offers links and analyses between populism and far right on the first hand, and some usual examples of conspiracy theories on the other hand.
We explore the meaning of populism and far right and the confusion between the two concepts in the literature. We argue that if populism and far right seem to describe similar or close political phenomena, a deep analysis of the literature leads towards two very different realities. We focus mainly on projects, ideas and values carried out by both populist and far right parties and we illustrate the discomfort and the confusion that mark literature when trying to define those concepts. We point out that if populism does not carry an ideology, it offers though a specific and original vision of the world: in the populist narrative, history and politics are scaled down to an aggressive opposition between homogeneous, in the majority and hard-working people and heterogeneous, in the minority and lazy elite. As opposed, we show that far right carries a consistent ideology with almost nothing in common with populism. The ideology of far right rests on three different axioms: the existence of deep inequalities and hierarchies between humans, races and cultures; the necessity of ethno-nationalism as a way to protect the social body against “parasites” and “enemies” from inside and outside the nation; and radicalism as a way to carry out purposes.
The previous steps let us argue that if xenophobia, racism and anti-Semitism are fully part of the ideology of the far right, they are not central in the definition of populism. In the conclusion of the theoretical part, we show that populism and far right are partially close when the “enemy/parasite” from inside in the far right ideology fits with the “elite” in the populist ideology, and when both are part of a conspiracy against people and nations.
The manuscript illustrates the central role of the conspiracy rhetoric in two specific discourses from Jean-Marie Le Pen in France and Pat Buchanan in the United States. The first one, leader of the Front national, is a long-time known representative of the far right in Europe and many times a presidential candidate. The second, as a challenger during primaries in the Republican Party (1992 et 1996) and as official presidential candidate for the Reform Party (2000), is a long-time known representative of the paleoconservatism trend within the Republican party in the Unites States. The comparative analysis of dozens of speeches and books performed and written during 20 years (1986-2006) by both Jean-Marie Le Pen and Pat Buchanan leads us to discover a unique, common and specific lay-out which is able to resist the cultural, political and institutional differences between France and the United States.
The deep analysis of both Le Pen and Buchanan speeches and books shows that if the ideology of far right drives to the dismissal of foreigners, xenophobia and racism, homophobia, rejection of parliamentarism, use of conspiracy theories, opposition to democratic values (i.e. diversity, tolerance, human rights), all those features make sense together only within the context of a conspiracy theory about a “New World Order against nations, races and people”. We show first how this conspiracy can be used as a common vision of the world in a cross-national perspective with some national variations, and second how the conspiracy theory is finally more central in the definition of populism and far right than it is said in the literature.
We show that if some specific national, cultural and institutional characteristics explain variations and bring to the light the limits of a French/US comparison, several important marks show the predominance of conspiracy rhetoric in a cross-national perspective. Finally, the analysis gives a better understanding of the articulation of such speeches and shows why those are attractive to the electorates in a globalized and complex world.
http://www.imiscoe.org/publications/imiscoe/