Global Conservatism: Mapping the Networks of Right-Wing Internationalism beyond the North-South Divide
This project explores the global conservative movement of the 1970s and 1980s. It looks at transnational networks of conservative activists and writings emerging in the same years, and explores how the Middle East and the Global South have contributed to right-wing conservatism, usually portrayed as a Western phenomenon. Whereas the internationalism of the Left has been studied in its various facets, right-wing internationalism has only been examined through the case of fascism or in counter-insurgency studies. Kattar explores links existing between minority groups, religious orthodoxy and political conservatism and the types of diplomacy among them. She starts the inquiry into these transnational conservative networks through Charles Malik’s case, a Lebanese diplomat, philosopher and theologian whose thought brought together Heideggerian phenomenology with Christian personalism. Malik has received attention in recent years for his work as a dogged advocate of human rights at the United Nations (UN), and collaboration with Eleanor Roosevelt on the Human Rights Council (HCR). Kattar, however, wants to shift attention to his late career. This, she argues, can shed light on right-wing internationalism or solidarity – a transnational alliance of conservative activists who worked together to counter-act what they perceived as the all-encompassing existential threat of leftism and radicalism.
