Authors

Discussion

While there is a growing body of academic literature devoted to illiberalism, the transnational dimension of this phenomenon has been little explored. So far, the illiberal international has been perceived and analysed mainly through the connections between political leaders, for example in the European Parliament or through the organisation of CPAC in Budapest. Its ideological drivers, through the intellectuals who contribute to it, remain a relatively unexplored area. It is also a promising avenue of research, given the transnational circulation of actors, ideas and discourses. Transnational flows of actors and ideas in Europe and between Europe and the United States take the form of meetings, think tanks and conferences that bring together policymakers, experts and activists. Illiberal worldviews are not specifically Central European: Western politicians (such as Marion Maréchal and Éric Zemmour) and intellectuals (Rod Dreher, Douglas Murray) have more or less come to defend the Hungarian and Polish illiberal democracies.

At the intersection of intellectual history and the sociology of intellectuals, this paper examines the Illiberal International from the perspective of its political actors. It focuses on intellectuals and the ideas they generate. To this end, I concentrate my analysis on the transnational networks of intellectuals that have gathered around Hungary and Poland since the 2010s. Gathered around think tanks (Danube Institute), universities (Mathias Corvinus Collegium, Collegium Intermarium) and conferences (Polska Wielki Projekt), these networks reflect a desire to constitute an ‘intellectual conservatism’ and testify to an ongoing reconfiguration of the global right along illiberal lines. Focusing on ‘foreign’ (mainly Western) guests in Hungary and Poland, I reflect on the privileged space that Central Europe represents and what this might mean for a general mapping of conservative and illiberal ideas. Finally, I try to assess the extent to which it is possible to speak of a common discursive universe shared by conservative and illiberal actors on a global scale, as illustrated by the outlet The European Conservative.