Ethnopluralism and its ambiguities: racism with and without race

Abstract

ABSTRACT Ethnopluralism has gained great significance as a political ideology with the rise of right-wing populism in Europe in recent years. It is now the dominant ideology of most radical-right parties and movements in France, Germany, and Italy. With the adoption of ethnopluralism, the radical right has performed a ‘cultural turn’. They have ostentatiously moved away from biological racism and replaced it with ethnopluralism – which has also been described as ‘cultural racism’ or ‘differentialist racism’. This study looks at the foundational texts of ethnopluralism and traces the evolution of this cultural turn in the thinking of their authors. The crucial works of the most important ethnopluralist writers are examined: Alain de Benoist, Guillaume Faye, Henning Eichberg, and Martin Lichtmesz. This analysis is complicated by the fact that there are several ambiguities in these texts, especially when it comes to the distinction between biological and cultural racism. The evidence supports the assumption of a ‘cultural turn’ in radical-right thought. It was also found that there are still elements of biological racism in the texts of these radical-right thinkers, particularly where they connect ethnopluralism with the idea of the heredity of culture and with biological determinist interpretations of territoriality.