Research project
For several years now, in Central Europe as in many other parts of the world, nationalists have not only been successful in national, regional and communal elections, but also in global networking. Or more precisely, they have been performing a ‘nationalist international’ that presents itself as an emerging political force mobilizing millions of supporters all around the globe. This spectacular form of nationalist internationalism is often thought of as something new, even though there is quite some research on the transnational cooperation between right-wing nationalists of various stripes since World War I. This chapter aims to situate the recent developments in this long history of nationalist internationalism and sketches how, since the interwar years, the transnational collaboration of the far right has been contributing to normalize nationalism in Central Europe, thus creating and sustaining the conditions for today’s illiberal constitutionalism. It also shows that Viktor Orbán, who declared the nationalist regimes of Central Europe as models for the world, was so confident in his cause that he advocated no longer referring to the global far right as ‘patriotic’, but rather as ‘nationalist’ — a self-description normally used by fascists. That is why the chapter also invites us to rethink nationalism and patriotism.
