A brave old world: The nuanced combination of state-national retrotopia and trans-national populism by an assembled radical-right family

Abstract

The current management of global crises is coordinated by international and multilateral organizations. However, it is contested by the Western radical right, which is successfully attracting a growing proportion of the citizenry. Its electoral-winning discourse has consisted of promoting a state-national retrotopia, meaning the definition of a future based on a return to the ‘golden age’ of sovereign nation states taking back control for the good of the people and opposed to the global elite and others, such as migrants. One can also note that this radical right circulates a trans-national populism by positioning the people in space beyond nation states. This can be the case during international summits, although it remains rarely researched. How are state-national retrotopia and trans-national populism combined when the Western radical-right family is assembled to represent late modernity and its desirable future? Based on a critical discourse analysis of speeches during an international demographic summit hosted by Viktor Orbán in 2021, the research shows that this combination and the way it is diffused vary depending on the speakers and the geo-historical context channelling their narratives. State-national retrotopia and trans-national populism are nevertheless always complementary to deliver a crisis performance that includes a dystopian present.