# The Radicalization of ‘Intellectual Conservatism’ in the Illiberal Moment: The Case of The European Conservative

Valentin Behr, Eve Gianoncelli

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Valentin Behr, Eve Gianoncelli. The Radicalization of ‘Intellectual Conservatism’ in the Illiberal Moment: The Case of The European Conservative. Journal of Illiberalism Studies, 2025, 5 (3), pp.59 - 74. 10.53483/zcrw3612. halshs-05515985

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# The Radicalization of ‘Intellectual Conservatism’ in the Illiberal Moment: The Case of *The European Conservative*

VALENTIN BEHR AND EVE GIANONCELLI

## Abstract

Taking the journal *The European Conservative* as a “laboratory” in which to examine the evolution of conservatism in Europe and beyond in the 21st century, this article focuses on intellectuals and the ideas they produce, showing how the current illiberal moment is being driven by earlier networking by conservatives at the transnational level. As a key platform for this emerging International of conservative intellectuals, *The European Conservative*—with its relative autonomy, capacity to federate ideologically diverse conservative individuals and organizations, and ambition to promote an “intellectual conservatism”—provides a unique source from which to examine the ideological trends and reconfigurations of the global right. In particular, we show how electoral successes of far-right politicians and parties have accompanied a radicalization in the content of the journal and the actors surrounding it. At the same time, the illiberal moment is seen as validating the efforts of the journal to help legitimize self-labelled conservative political entrepreneurs in Europe by supplying them with an ideological corpus. Our main finding is that conservatism, understood here as a reactionary ideology, has radicalized across Europe.

Keywords: conservatism; illiberalism; radicalization; ideology; International of conservative intellectuals

Valentin Behr
Chargé de recherches, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, France
valentin-behr@cnrs.fr

Eve Gianoncelli
Postdoctoral Fellow, Nord Universitet, Norway
eve.gianoncelli@hotmail.fr

DOI: 10.53483/ZCRW3612
Valentin Behr and Eve Gianoncelli

A growing body of scholarship has been dedicated to the study of the global right and its reconfiguration along more radical stances.<fnref n="1" /> Scholars have paid attention to the development of a Conservative International that brings together politicians and intellectuals.<fnref n="2" /> Thus, a redefinition of the center of gravity of conservatism has been taking place in the last 15 years, in which Central Europe has emerged as a promoter of illiberalism and identity politics.<fnref n="3" /> Yet what it means in terms of a general mapping of conservative and illiberal ideas remains to be explored: How to account for the reconfiguration of right-wing forces along more radical lines? Is it illiberal, i.e., fairly new and contextual? To what extent does it draw on a legacy of conservative and reactionary ideas stemming from the history of right-wing thought in the *longue durée* and its ideological core, i.e., a genuinely inegalitarian worldview?<fnref n="4" />

To show that the illiberal moment draws on previous conservative mobilizations at the transnational level, we inquire into the relationship between the intellectual and political spheres. This relationship is facilitated by intellectuals' multi-positionality, i.e. their ability to navigate in between different social spheres (academia, the media, politics) and their ability to establish themselves as major intellectual figures in the first place. We focus on the journal *The European Conservative (TEC)* and the transnational networks of intellectuals that have gravitated around it since the mid-2000s. Its autonomy and capacity to federate conservatives across Europe, along with its desire to constitute an "intellectual conservatism," highlight the increasing interconnectedness of right-wing political parties across borders and their ideological reconfiguration, since the 2010s. *The European Conservative* has promoted various forms of production (e.g., articles, essays, interviews, and reviews) and welcomed a diversified set of authors into its columns. This case study enables us to examine the extent to which a common ideology and a sort of intellectual pressure group could be shaped. It constitutes one of the main platforms of what is an emerging International of conservative intellectuals, which appears central to understanding the broader ideological reconfiguration of the global right.

The choice of *TEC* as our object of study is justified for three main reasons. First, the journal is an emanation of the Centre for European Renewal (CER), a pan-European club of conservative intellectuals established in 2006. It draws on a legacy of transnational collaboration between intellectuals and party politicians, which permits us to grasp the personal and ideological evolution of this group up to the current day. Second, the journal has welcomed a variety of contributors, from both Western, Central and Eastern Europe, but also from the US, which has made it a genuinely transnational, transatlantic and long-lasting production. Third, its understanding of intellectual conservatism has been broad enough to cover topics such as populism, neoliberalism, illiberalism and post-liberalism, and to account for

<footnote n="1">¹ Rita Abrahamsen et al., *World of the Right: Radical Conservatism and Global Order* (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024); Mihai Varga et al. Aron Buzogány, “Genealogies of Illiberalism,” in *The Oxford Handbook of Illiberalism*, ed. Marlene Laruelle (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024), https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197639108.013.3; Clifford Bob, *The Global Right Wing and the Clash of World Politics*, Cambridge Studies in Contentious Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012); Cas Mudde, “The Far-Right Threat in the United States: A European Perspective,” *The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science* 699, no. 1 (2022): 10115, https://doi.org/10.1177/00027162211070060.</footnote>

<footnote n="2">² Valentin Behr, “From Anticommunism to Antiliberalism. Polish Conservative Intellectuals’ Involvement in the Transnational Circulation of Ideas,” in *Politics of Symbolization Across Central and Eastern Europe. Strategies, Conflicts, Solutions*, eds. Elżbieta Halas and Nicolas Maslowski (Peter Lang, 2021), 24159; Eve Gianoncelli, “The unification of the ‘New Right’? On Europe, identity politics and reactionary ideologies,” *New Perspectives* 29, no. 4 (2021): 36475, https://doi.org/10.1177/2336825X211052967.</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³ Eve Gianoncelli, “The Unification of the ‘New Right’?”, *loc.cit.*; Aron Buzogány and Mihai Varga, “Illiberal Thought Collectives and Policy Networks in Hungary and Poland,” *European Politics and Society* 24, no. 1 (2023): 40–58, https://doi.org/10.1080/23745118.2021.1956238; Valentin Behr, “Towards a Transnational and Social History of Anti-Liberalism. Insights from the Trajectory of Ryszard Legutko,” *European Politics and Society* 24, no. 1 (2023): 22–39, https://doi.org/10.1080/23745118.2021.1956237.</footnote>

<footnote n="4">⁴ Edmund Fawcett, “Illiberalism and Conservatism,” in *The Oxford Handbook of Illiberalism*, ed. Marlene Laruelle (Oxford University Press, 2024), https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197639108.013.42; Marlene Laruelle, “Introduction: Illiberalism Studies as a Field,” in *The Oxford Handbook of Illiberalism*, ed. Marlene Laruelle (Oxford University Press, 2024), https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197639108.013.49.</footnote>
*The Radicalization of 'Intellectual Conservatism' in the Illiberal Moment*

the evolution of the global right, its common motto and its dividing lines, in the last
past 20 years. Hence, *TEC* offers a unique observation point for the study of this
evolution.

The study of *TEC*, as both a journal and a group of intellectuals, allows us to
understand the ideological reconfiguration of the global right, by looking not only
at major intellectual figures (such as Ryszard Legutko or Roger Scruton) but also
at some “minor” authors, beyond the canon.<fnref n="5" /> The study presented here is based on
content analysis of the journal. We took into account the whole period of the journal’s
existence, from the first issue published in 2008 to the 18th issue published in 2020,<fnref n="6" />
as well as numerous publications on the journal’s website, up to the most recent
ones. Our qualitative content analysis has focused on contributions summarizing the
annual Vanenburg Meeting of the CER and contributions presenting CER members,
in order to get a sense of the composition of the network; in addition, we have
carefully read all articles and interviews in the journal discussing the definition of
conservatism and its relationship to liberalism, in order to account for the authors’
self-understanding of conservatism and their latter embrace of illiberal political
actors. Lastly, and in a less systematic way, we have also paid attention to the
journal’s book review sections and to online publications, which allowed us to gain a
more granular understanding of the relationship between conservative intellectuals
and party politics. The biographical information provided in this text was collected
through online research.<fnref n="7" />

We thus treat *TEC* as a “laboratory” to examine the convergence of different forms of conservatism. Our main argument is that, through a close look at *TEC* and the people who have made the journal, it is possible to glimpse some of the ideational foundations of the International of conservative intellectuals—which seeks to fuel the global right ideologically—and to account for its radicalization.

We argue that *TEC* is a metapolitical project, a tool in the culture wars.<fnref n="8" /> As we shall
see, from the very beginning, the CER and *TEC* gathered self-labelled “classical
conservatives,” who understood themselves as right-wing dissidents. Dissatisfied
with European center-right parties, concerned with morality issues, advocating
a conservatism understood primarily in cultural terms, with an emphasis on
Christianity as a key element of Western identity, these intellectuals were at first
skeptical of European far-right parties and looked at the American conservative
movement with envy. Although at least some of them were already very critical of
liberalism and of the “philosophy of the Enlightenment,” it is the illiberal moment
that has contributed most to the reconfiguration of *TEC*'s conservatism. In the
context of the electoral successes of illiberal and far-right political entrepreneurs in
Central Europe in the 2010s, followed by others in a variety of countries, a certain
radicalization can be observed in the journal's columns, both at the level of ideology
and rhetoric, and at that of political parties and agendas, as evidenced by the open
endorsement of political leaders such as Viktor Orbán and Donald Trump.

This radicalization is illustrated by a growing share of reactionary contributions.
The rejection of liberalism constitutes a minimal way of defining what is common

<footnote n="5">⁵ Quentin Skinner, *Visions of Politics: Volume 1: Regarding Method* (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).</footnote>

<footnote n="6">⁶ As subsequent issues of the journal are no longer freely accessible, we were able to access only their table of contents. At the same time, the website of *TEC* allows access to additional content from the most recent years, including some articles that were also published in the print edition of the journal (as is the case, for instance, with interviews).</footnote>

<footnote n="7">⁷ Sources include published interviews and biographies in journals and on websites (of universities, publishers, etc.).</footnote>

<footnote n="8">⁸ Eliah Bures, “The Intellectual as Culture Warrior: Metapolitics and the European New Right,” *Fascism* 12, no. 1 (2023): 126, https://doi.org/10.1163/22116257-bja10055; Eve Gianoncelli, “The Metapolitics of Reactionary Ideologies,” International Workshop ‘Reactionary Ideas and Ideologies Online&Offline’ (2021), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iR6ewUUtdU.</footnote>
Valentin Behr and Eve Gianoncelli

to what presents itself as conservatism today.<fnref n="9" /> In this respect, we argue that illiberalism should be understood as part of the broader history of conservatism, whose structurally inequalitarian nature tends sometimes to be dismissed under a rather tautological definition of conservatism as “what wants to conserve,” also defined as the traditionalist perspective. Illiberalism helps illuminate the reactive or reactionary nature of conservatism,<fnref n="10" /> whose variations—which may be visible in its different trends—lie in the degree of radicalism and the forms or media through which inequality and the critique of liberalism are expressed.<fnref n="11" />

Speaking of conservatism is not, in our understanding, a way of taking at face value the self-description of the intellectuals under study. Rather, it is a means of studying and historicizing the radicalization of contemporary conservatives, whose personal and ideological trajectories extend beyond the illiberal moment.

By “radicalization” we mean, in a broad sense, forms of rejection of liberalism—cultural, political and increasingly economic. Radicalization also implies different forms—and thus, from a general point of view, an indeterminate—return to the “sources,” with reaction to be identified with a revolutionary claim, which itself reflects the original counterrevolutionary perspective. However, getting back to the roots of conservatism also means reframing conservatism as an anti-egalitarian project, which might have been obscured by the institutionalization of conservatism in the Anglo-American world, in particular, a “liberal” strand.

We treat illiberalism less as a concept than as a context, in which radical-right and far-right political entrepreneurs have achieved electoral successes in a variety of countries by emphasizing their critique of liberalism and/or liberal democracy (in Hungary, Poland, Italy, the UK, and the US, among others).<fnref n="12" /> These successes have been accompanied by the activity of intellectual entrepreneurs, such as those around *TEC*, whose work has legitimated illiberal moves and hence contributed to the mainstreaming of the far-right.<fnref n="13" />

In this regard, the case of *TEC* enables a balancing of the analysis of Western conservatism with that of Central and Eastern European conservatism, which has grown more frontally critical of liberalism after 1989.<fnref n="14" /> Central European scholars with close ties to parties such as Fidesz in Hungary (András Lánczi) and Law and Justice (PiS) in Poland (Ryszard Legutko) have been involved in *TEC* from the very beginning. Central European illiberal governments, and a fantasized vision of these countries as the last strongholds of Western civilization, have nurtured a more radical conservatism—hostile to immigration, advocating a majoritarian conception of democracy, and critical of the rule of law and international organizations like the EU—while at the same time providing examples of respectable conservative

<footnote n="9">⁹ Laruelle, “Introduction”; Fawcett, “Illiberalism and Conservatism.”</footnote>

<footnote n="10">¹⁰ Here, we use the terms “reactive” and “reactionary” interchangeably. For us, conservatism is characterized by rereaction, which is intrinsic to this ideology – a quality captured by the adjective “reactionary,” but whose increasingly vague usage, often as a reference to a fantasized past, tends to obscure. Our use of the term “reactionary” will, however, primarily follow the usage adopted by the protagonists of *TEC*, that is, as referring to a counterrevolutionary perspective, or a “conservative revolutionary” stance.</footnote>

<footnote n="11">¹¹ Corey Robin, *The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Donald Trump* (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2nd ed. 2018).</footnote>

<footnote n="12">¹² Aurelien Mondon, “I Was Gonna Fight Fascism...The Need for a Critical Approach to Illiberalism,” *Journal of Illiberalism Studies* 4, no. 1 (2024): 9-18, https://doi.org/10.53483/XCOS3564.</footnote>

<footnote n="13">¹³ Katy Brown, Aurelien Mondon, et Aaron Winter, “The far right, the mainstream and mainstreaming: towards a heuristic framework,” *Journal of Political Ideologies*, 28, no. 2 (2023), 162-179, https://doi.org/10.1080/13569317.2021.1949829.</footnote>

<footnote n="14">¹⁴ Valentin Behr, “The Illiberalism(s) of Polish Conservative Intellectuals,” in *The Oxford Handbook of Illiberalism*, ed. Marlene Laruelle (Oxford University Press, 2023), https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197639108.013.35; ed. Pavel Barša, Zora Hesová, and Ondřej Slačálek, *Central European Culture Wars. Beyond Post-Communism and Populism* (Prague: Filozofická fakulta UK, 2022).</footnote>
*The Radicalization of 'Intellectual Conservatism' in the Illiberal Moment*

policymakers, not coming from far-right movements with a fascist past, but from the
moderate, center right of European politics.<fnref n="15" />

This article is structured as follows. In the first section, we present *TEC* and its history to account for the formation and evolution of the International of conservative intellectuals in the 21st century, by focusing on the mobilization of dissident intellectuals, their engagement in a metapolitical project, and their understanding of conservatism, which included a radical dimension from the outset. In the second section, we focus on the contextual embrace of illiberalism and examine the journal's content and evolution to account for the radicalization of intellectual conservatism, especially in its relation to liberalism.

**Intellectual conservatism à la TEC: A reaction against liberal hegemony**

*A transnational mobilization of dissident intellectuals*

The evolution of *The European Conservative* has been remarkable in terms of form, content and people. The first issue was published in 2008 as a newsletter of the Vanenburg Society and the Centre for European Renewal. Its first editorial was signed by Andreas Kinneging, a professor of philosophy of law at Leiden University. As head of the Dutch Edmund Burke Stichting (foundation), Kinneging was the initiator of the Vanenburg Meeting, which has gathered, since 2006, intellectuals from across Europe for annual meetings. In 2007, the Vanenburg Society established the CER as a pan-European think tank and club. It was inspired by the American Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI)—founded in 1953 by Frank Chodorov with William F. Buckley Jr. as its first president—and was meant to build a transatlantic network of conservative intellectuals and institutions. Early gatherings and programs explicitly sought to emulate ISI's educational model, and figures connected to ISI have served on CER's board of trustees and advisory council. The CER also implicitly reflected intellectual currents associated with publications such as *The American Conservative*.

Born in the context of growing European integration, with EU enlargement to the East in 2004 and the adoption of the Lisbon Treaty in 2007, the CER and *TEC* emerged as a platform for transnational cooperation between conservatives who, as remarked by Kinneging in the first issue of the journal in 2008, needed to organize internationally "like the Left": "By force of circumstance and the accidents of history, we are compelled to temper the more exclusive and local of our commitments for the sake of what binds us in the West together."<fnref n="16" />

Writing in his first editorial about the “cultural revolution of 1968” (which was also the topic of the 3rd Vanenburg Meeting, held in July 2008 in Madrid), Kinneging conveyed the concerns of the CER members who reflected on ways to spread their ideas across Europe, in particular, about morality issues (such as abortion, gender equality, and LGBTIQ rights), as well as education and culture, which they saw as heavily dominated by left-wing ideology.<fnref n="17" />

Key participants of the first CER meetings included major figures like Roger Scruton, Chantal Delsol, Ryszard Legutko, Roman Joch, and András Lánczi. This network, established on the basis of Cold War bonds—since many of these intellectuals had been involved in anti-communist dissent (in the East) or organized support for it from the West—revived and gained influence from the mid-2000s onward.<fnref n="18" /> The

<footnote n="15">15 Julian Waller, "Another World is Possible: East-Central European States as Illiberal Exemplar Regimes," *Revue d'études comparatives Est-Ouest*: forthcoming.</footnote>

<footnote n="16">16 Andreas Kinneging, "A Future for Conservatism in Europe," *The European Conservative* 1 (2008): 1.</footnote>

<footnote n="17">17 Ibid.</footnote>

<footnote n="18">18 Behr, "Towards a transnational and social history of anti-liberalism."</footnote>
Valentin Behr and Eve Gianoncelli

CER thus appeared to be a network of networks, or a network of organizations.<fnref n="19" /> Most of its members were affiliated with conservative think tanks and foundations in their home countries: Institut Thomas More (Delsol), Századvég (Lánczi), the Czech Civic Institute (Joch), and Ośrodek Myśli Politycznej (Legutko). The first issues of *TEC* were generally structured as to present a summary of the CER's annual meeting and the participants' organizations, together with papers on the history of conservative political thought in a given country. Numerous references to anti-communism and anti-totalitarianism, as well as occasional sharp critiques of the center right, illustrate the fact that these intellectuals considered themselves to be dissidents in a context in which they perceived the right as subjugated by the Left, lamenting liberal hegemony.

The expression “intellectual conservatism” has been used several times in the columns of *TEC*.<fnref n="20" /> Although the label may be seen as limited in that conservatism can be comprehended as both intellectual and political, it is also relevant to talk about the ways in which the journal has presented itself to a broader audience over time. In its 9th issue, in 2014, we read that “*TEC* extends a ‘latitudinarian’ welcome to all of the many varieties of ‘respectable conservatism,’ including, among others, anti-statists, traditionalists, free-market enthusiasts..., constitutional monarchists..., and strict anti-communists (Daniel Kelly in *Living on Fire*).” The reference to Kelly, as well as the mention of monarchists and anti-communists, is dropped in the next issue.

In its 17th issue published in 2020, *TEC* (re)defines itself as “publish[ing] articles, essays, interviews, and reviews reflecting the different varieties of conservative, traditionalist, reactionary, and right-wing thought from across Europe and around the world.” It adds: “Our interests are primarily academic, intellectual, theoretical.”<fnref n="21" /> Since then, on its website, this description has been kept intact, with one exception: The word “academic” has been deleted.

The evolution of the journal's presentation shows the variety of right-wing trends of thought represented in the journal, as well as an attempt to federate European conservatives. It is noticeable that in the description adopted in 2020, the terms “respectable conservatism” and “free-market enthusiasts” have been dropped while the reactionary trend, supposedly not the less controversial one, has been introduced. The focus on theoretical and intellectual matters across various trends also seems to acknowledge the possibility of intellectual dissensus among columnists. Additionally, it implies a distance from politics. But this is questionable when, as we see, the term “right-wing” has been steadily introduced in the journal's description. We could thus define *TEC*'s main goal as to contribute to the unification of a global new right, both intellectually and politically.

*A metapolitical project*

To overcome their perceived minoritarian position on the right of the political spectrum, dissident intellectuals gathered around *TEC* articulated a metapolitical strategy, which entailed efforts first and foremost in the realm of culture, with a strong interest in the history of ideas.

A review of Johann Baptist Müller's *Konservatismus-Konturen einer Ordnungsvorstellung*, published in the first issue of *TEC*, reads, “Müller's last exhortation to conservatives in the book is that they have to present as much theoretical work as European liberals and socialists. This book is a valuable

<footnote n="19">¹⁹ Sidney Tarrow, “Transnational Politics: Contention and Institutions in International Politics,” *Annual Review of Political Science* 4 (2001): 120, https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.polisci.4.1.1; Bertil Haggman, “A Revival of Conservative Ideas in Europe?,” *The European Conservative* 1 (2008): 3.</footnote>

<footnote n="20">²⁰ G.K. Montrose, “T.E. Hulme’s Hard Words,” *The European Conservative* 9 (2014):42; “The 2014 Vanenburg Meeting in Poland,” *The European Conservative* 11 (2015): 58; Harald Bergbauer, “Caspar Von Schrenck-Notzing: Conservative Founding Father,” *The European Conservative* 15 (2015): 49.</footnote>

<footnote n="21">²¹ *The European Conservative*, “contents,” (2020): 2.</footnote>
*The Radicalization of 'Intellectual Conservatism' in the Illiberal Moment*

vademecum for all European conservatives. It signals an important call to revival of European conservative thinking in the public arena.”<fnref n="22" />

The successive presentation of organizations composing the network of the CER clearly testified to this metapolitical strategy. The presentation of the Dutch Edmund Burke Schtichting (EBS) in the second issue (2009) indicates that “EBS does not exist to transform its interests into power but believes in the power of ideas and the importance of a healthy, cultural and societal debate for future political decisions” and that “for young people who are interested in ideas, EBS seeks to serve as an intellectual oasis where they can ‘reconnect’ with their three-thousand year old tradition.”<fnref n="23" />

The Czech Civic Institute (CI) is described in *TEC* by one of its founders, Roman Joch, as a “happy warrior... pushing the public and intellectual discourse—and the whole society—as far to the right as is reasonably possible.” It also stresses a direct lineage between anti-communism and opposition to the contemporary left: “Born out of the resistance to Communist totalitarianism and having opposed socialism and moral relativism, the CI now fights against the ideologies of multiculturalism, radical feminism and political correctness. They fight for Western traditions and values and, above all, for ordered liberty.”<fnref n="24" />

The establishment of the French Institut de Formation Politique (4th issue, 2010), a private higher education institution, is described as a reaction toward the domination of the left in this realm: “After personally experiencing the political ‘openness’ and ‘fairness’ of the contemporary university toward conservatives, three young men—Alexandre Pesey, Jean Martinez, and Thomas Millon—joined together to create a solution for conservative French students who are punished by professors and students alike for their beliefs.”<fnref n="25" />

All share a metapolitical repertoire of intellectual activities, like publishing books (including translations of classic authors of conservatism like Burke, neoliberal like Hayek, and neoconservatives like Leo Strauss); doing educational work (with lectures, as well as training schools for young conservatives); maintaining a public profile (in the media notably); setting up online communities; and supporting alumni in politics, civil society organizations, and state bureaucracies.

In addition, the metapolitical strategy entailed establishing connections between conservative intellectuals and conservative civil-society organizations, often centered around the Christian faith and a pro-life agenda. Such links are visible in *TEC* columns, for instance, addressing in vitro fertilization, euthanasia, and abortion, sometimes authored by key figures of transnational advocacy networks, like Sophia Kuby—a founder and the executive director of European Dignity Watch (EDW) in Brussels, she is now the director of strategic relations and training at Alliance Defending Freedom International, an American nonprofit conservative Christian legal advocacy group.<fnref n="26" />

Most of the authors published in *TEC* are full- or part-time university lecturers, who maintain close links to political parties as well. Although the Dutch EBS claimed that “instead of writing specific policy proposals, we found it much more effective to organize seminars on conservative ideas for young, promising liberal and Christian-democrat politicians, journalists, students and others,” its “Burke Lecture,” designed

<footnote n="22">²² Bertil Haggman, “A Revival of Conservative Ideas in Europe?,” *The European Conservative* 1 (2008): 3.</footnote>

<footnote n="23">²³ Diederik Boomsma and Jonathan Price, “Edmund Burke Slichting. Nine years of progress in the fight against ‘progress’,” *The European Conservative* 2 (2009): 4.</footnote>

<footnote n="24">²⁴ Roman Joch, “Civic Institute in Czech Republic,” *The European Conservative* 3 (2009): 2.</footnote>

<footnote n="25">²⁵ Alexandre Pesey, “Institut de formation politique,” *The European Conservative* 4 (2010): 2.</footnote>

<footnote n="26">²⁶ Sophia Kuby, “The EU & Stem Cells,” *The European Conservative* 6 (2012): 3.</footnote>
Valentin Behr and Eve Gianoncelli

for a wider audience (up to 300 guests), was also reportedly attended by “members of parliament and cabinet ministers.”<fnref n="27" />

Similarly, several members of the CER network had ties with political parties: Legutko was a senator in Poland and a member of the Polish government between 2005 and 2007; Kinneging was a member of the Dutch People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) until 1999; and Joch was a member of several Czech political parties and even vice-president of the Conservative Party (KONS) in 2001-2003.

Emphasizing the necessity of conquering cultural hegemony in order to prepare for political victory, and of renewing the younger generation of conservatives by both addressing it and embodying it, also characterizes the ambition of Francesco Giubilei, who has become one of the members of TEC's editorial team in 2021. One of the principal architects of the conservative renewal in Italy, to which he contributes by publishing various conservative authors (such as Russell Kirk, Rod Dreher, Yoram Hazony, or Alain de Benoist), as well as through his own works, within his publishing house Giubilei-Regnani, he has also briefly served as a special adviser to the Minister of Culture Gennaro Sangiuliano in Meloni's government from December 2022 until June 2023.

The metapolitical strategy was thus hardly far from party politics, a recurring topic in the journal. In an editorial in *TEC*, the 2009 departure of the British Tories from the European People's Party to form the European Conservatives and Reformists, together with the Polish PiS and the Czech Civic Democratic Party (ODS), was praised, together with the "swing to the political right" following the European elections the same year.<fnref n="28" /> The editorial also emphasized as important the election of Legutko to the European Parliament.

Yet before *TEC* embraced the illiberal governments of Fidesz in Hungary and PiS in Poland, it is hard to identify a political movement or figure that would meet the requirements of its intellectual conservatism. Articles devoted to "populism," for instance, testify to a certain unease. While critical of the use of "populist" as a political insult, or as a means to delegitimize one's adversaries in politics, Kinneging considers that "both the establishment politicians and the so-called populists are incapable of a serious discussion of these weighty issues. They remain stuck at the level of slogans."<fnref n="29" /> By weighty issues he is referring to the European Union and the Muslim presence in European countries. Kinneging continues writing, "What Europe needs is truly non-populist politicians, politicians who represent what is best in human nature, leaders who are genuinely on the lookout for what is reasonable and universal."

The kind of conservatism praised by *TEC* contributors is, above all, cultural. It places a strong emphasis on the Christian legacy of the West and has had a critical attitude toward liberalism from the outset.

*Culture, conservatism and liberalism in the initial issues of TEC*

A closer look at the journal will examine the ways in which such attitudes are translated and articulated in its pages.

The report on the 4th Vanenburg Meeting in Budapest (3rd issue, 2009) mentions a discussion on the topic “Culture: What is it? Have we lost it?” The lecture was delivered by “an American,” as described in the article without further precision. It noted that “Not all conservatives understand or value the concept of culture.

<footnote n="27">27 Diederik Boomsma and Jonathan Price, “Edmund Burke Stichting”: 5.</footnote>

<footnote n="28">²⁸ Editorial, "Conservative Breakthrough in the European Parliament?," *The European Conservative* 3 (2009): 1.</footnote>

<footnote n="29">29 Andreas Kinneging, “Europe’s Populist Problem,” *The European Conservative* 6 (2012): 16.</footnote>
*The Radicalization of 'Intellectual Conservatism' in the Illiberal Moment*

Neoconservative followers of political philosopher Leo Strauss, for example, do not typically talk about culture, preferring instead to focus on the sovereignty of politics.” This was followed with a critique of the US military intervention in Iraq under President George W. Bush, who was said to have thought “He could change the institutions and structures of that country and then change the culture.” In contrast, the speaker noted, “Traditionalist conservatives like Russell Kirk adamantly believe that while politics is more important than economics, culture is more important than politics.”<fnref n="30" />

During the discussion, “Most participants seemed to agree that the love that used to be held in common among members of a cohesive society today seems to have been forgotten—or, what is worse, privatized. In fact, along with the rise of the ‘liberal regime’, there has been growing belief in the principles of ‘justice’ and ‘rights.’ As a consequence, the public sphere in which the Augustinian ‘love in common’ was shared has been replaced by impersonal contractual relations based solely on reason and choice.”

This is a good illustration of the kind of cultural, Christian-inspired conservatism that dominated the initial issues of *TEC*: a conception of society grounded in faith and traditional values, which, already in the journal's first issues, leads to a critique of liberalism as a “regime” and a dominant ideology.

Hence, all organizations and think tanks that compose the CER network refer, in their own presentation in the journal, to family values, the importance of history, and Western culture, if not to Christendom directly. This is also visible in lamenting the decline of the founding traditions of the Christian West, as well as the recurring presence of Catholic thinkers, like Rémi Brague.<fnref n="31" /> Following the 9/11 terrorist attack, the journals and the network of organizations forming the CER grew more concerned with the issues of Islam in Europe, demographic challenges and security.

Culture is a more prevalent topic than economics in the journal. Critiques of capitalism nonetheless appear in some contributions, describing free-market economics as a potential threat to cultural values, with the risk being eroding of those values or relativism.

The final session of the 4th Vanenburg Meeting addressing the question “How to revitalize our culture?” was opened by “a Dutch academic,” who emphasized “the importance of having and raising children” and criticized welfare states and free-market capitalism for fueling the rise in childless couples. The speaker also insisted on the “restoration of traditional European schools and a return to the classical idea of a university” across Europe, in order to “raise a new European intellectual elite,” concluding that “We are not market fetishists.”<fnref n="32" />

The most common ideology that is palatable to the reader of the first issues of *TEC* is of a “fusionist,” liberal-conservative nature. Joch’s presentation of the Civic Institute, for instance, exposes a worldview combining the free market and “pro-family” stances.<fnref n="33" /> Similarly, Scruton’s contribution on “Conservatism and Liberalism” places the free market and “freedom” at the core of the conservative doctrine, although it emphasizes the notion of limits to freedom.<fnref n="34" /> In addition, Margaret Thatcher appears prominently on the cover of the 9th issue, positioned centrally alongside figures such as Burke, Scruton, and Kinneging, among others. Several articles directly tackle the

<footnote n="30">³⁰ Alvino-Mario Fantini, “The 4th Annual Vanenburg Meeting,” *The European Conservative* 3 (2009): 4-6.</footnote>

<footnote n="31">³¹ Diederik Boomsma and Yoram Stein, “Yellow Ants’, Fundamentalists and Cowboys. Interview with Rémi Brague,” *The European Conservative* 4 (2010): 1-3.</footnote>

<footnote n="32">³² Alvino-Mario Fantini, “The 4th Annual Vanenburg Meeting”: 6.</footnote>

<footnote n="33">³³ Roman Joch, “Civic Institute in Czech Republic”: 2-3.</footnote>

<footnote n="34">³⁴ Roger Scruton, “Conservatism and Liberalism,” *The European Conservative* 5 (2010): 3-4.</footnote>
Valentin Behr and Eve Gianoncelli

relationship between conservatism and liberalism, some of them referring explicitly to a liberal conservatism.<fnref n="35" />

Meanwhile, a critique of liberalism is already noticeable from the very beginning. Though referred to as “classical conservatives,” members of the EBS are presented as fighting “against progress” and “left-liberal” thought.<fnref n="36" /> The shaping of a conservative tradition around, from the beginning, reactionary figures and events such as the French nationalist and monarchist Charles Maurras and the German Conservative Revolution also highlights distancing from liberalism. A telling example is a positive review of *Konservatismus-Konturen einer Ordnungsvorstellung*, which places Joseph de Maistre and Maurras among the French conservative critics of the French Revolution and of modernity, and refers to Armin Mohler’s book on the German Conservative Revolution in a laudatory way.<fnref n="37" />

One of the main intellectual figures of the journal at the time, Kinneging, is quite explicit in his article titled “Reflections on Conservatism,” published in *TEC* (Issue 9, 2014), in which he defines conservatism as “in essence nothing but the defense and vindication of these traditions against other, conflicting intellectual and moral traditions,” identifying liberalism and socialism as the “principal conflicting traditions.”<fnref n="38" /> But Kinneging goes even further: “I believe that neither liberalism nor socialism are conservatism’s real antagonists. The real antagonists are other, more profound philosophies, of which liberalism and socialism are mere practical, political offshoots. What I have in mind is the Enlightenment and Romanticism.”<fnref n="39" />

Illiberalism appears thus less as a turn than as a certain political context, highlighting radical tendencies that were already well present in the writings of conservative intellectuals.

## Contextual embrace of illiberalism and conservative radicalization

*Central Europe as a source of inspiration*

The emergence of illiberal democracies in Hungary and Poland has placed these countries at the center of intellectual conservatism and encouraged its radicalization toward a growing critique of political liberalism (e.g., the rule of law; independent, international courts) and support for authoritarian moves (a stronger and less accountable executive). Tellingly, this has been accompanied by significant changes in the journal's form. Alvino-Mario Fantini, an American journalist working and living in Europe, took up the job of editor-in-chief in 2012. Previously a member of the CER board of trustees and of the Mont Pelerin Society, Fantini sought to increase the journal's scope and reach.<fnref n="40" /> It also developed a website, which provides shorter pieces reporting on social and political news, with a focus on right-wing actors. The journal is professionally organized, including an editorial board, an advisory council, and an academic advisory board, whose composition reflects the “federative” character of the journal, bringing together scholars, politicians, journalists, and pundits from a variety of European countries.

<footnote n="35">35 Elio. A. Gallego, “Why Conservatives are not Liberals” *The European Conservative* 7 (2013): 13-15. Nils August Andresen, “Conservatism & the Liberal Mind,” *The European Conservative* 8 (2013): 18-21.</footnote>

<footnote n="36">36 Diederik Boomsma and Jonathan Price, “Edmund Burke Stichting”: 4-5.</footnote>

<footnote n="37">37 Bertil Haggman, “A Revival of Conservative Ideas in Europe? Review: Johann Baptist Muller-Konservatismus. Konturen einer Ordnungsvorstellung,” *The European Conservative* 1 (2008): 3-4.</footnote>

<footnote n="38">38 Andreas Kinneging, “Reflections on Conservatism,” *The European Conservative* 9 (2014): 22.</footnote>

<footnote n="39">39 Ibid.</footnote>

<footnote n="40">40 Mátyás Kohán, “An Interview with Alvino-Mario Fantini, Editor of *The European Conservative*,” *The European Conservative*, 10.09.21: https://europeanservative.com/articles/interview/interview-with-alvino-mario-fantini/.</footnote>
*The Radicalization of 'Intellectual Conservatism' in the Illiberal Moment*

The editorial team at *TEC* has recently moved to Budapest, where it found more favorable grounds to operate and grow, including thanks to public funding.<fnref n="41" /> Interestingly, it is hosted at the same address as Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC), Hungary's largest private university, established by Fidesz supporters as a training school for the party's elite.<fnref n="42" /> The MCC board of trustees is chaired by Balázs Orbán, a political advisor to Viktor Orbán (no relation)—this makes Balázs Orbán an “official intellectual” of sorts.

The relocation of *TEC* from Amsterdam to Budapest illustrates the illiberal impulse that has benefited the International of conservative intellectuals, backed by governments in Hungary (since 2010-present) and in Poland (2015-2023). In an interview, originally published in Hungarian, Fantini sets his aim as to “expand the ‘conservative media space’,” i.e., “take back that ‘space’ that’s been so aggressively taken away from us” by the “liberal authoritarianism of the progressive Left.”<fnref n="43" /> He also illustrates the radicalization of intellectual conservatism: “It’s time we were more courageous and firmer on matters of principle—like the dignity of human life, like national sovereignty, like sexual morality.”<fnref n="44" />

The repeated electoral victories of Fidesz and PiS, their membership in the respectable right wing (Fidesz was a member of the European People's Party until 2021), and their firm stance on migration policy and national sovereignty (especially in confrontation with the EU) have made them objects of interest for many right-wing political actors. Fidesz and its intellectual supporters have successfully presented themselves as role models for conservatives around the world.

Yet the embrace of Central European illiberalism, at least as it can be perceived in *TEC*, did not translate into any sort of ideological innovation. As far as the use of the concept is concerned, illiberalism is very poorly addressed in the journal. The adjective “illiberal” is for instance used in the defense of “liberal conservatism,” drawing from Edmund Burke and presented as oriented toward the preservation of a “good society.”<fnref n="45" /> Illiberalism is commonly used in a pejorative sense.

Although he was at the time the head of the Századvég Foundation, a think tank close to Fidesz, Láncri's piece on "Conservatism in Hungary" in the 2nd issue of *TEC* in 2009 reads as a rather moderate account of the history of conservative thought in Hungary.<fnref n="46" /> It emphasizes the key role of Christian theology, as well as the challenges of rebuilding an ideological canon after the communist experience, which virtually erased conservatism from the public sphere. Láncri mentions translations of classics of conservatism (such as Edmund Burke, Michael Oakeshott, and Leo Strauss) as a key part of the undertaking to rebuild an ideological canon.

Legutko went further in the expression of opposition to liberal principles. Published in the 5th issue of *TEC*, his piece titled "Communism and Liberal Democracy: An East European Perspective," summarizes the arguments he would later develop in his book *Triumf człowieka pospolitego* (2012), translated as *The Demon in Democracy* (2016).<fnref n="47" /> Looking at postcommunist changes in Central and Eastern

<footnote n="41">41 See David Engels, "Don't just criticise, create! #1' - Interview with Alvino-Mario Fantini, *delibeRatio*, 23 February 2023: https://deliberatio.eu/en/opinions/dont-just-criticise-create-a-interview-with-alvino-mario-fantini.</footnote>

<footnote n="42">42 Andrea Pető, "The Illiberal Polypore State and Its Science Policy," in *The Many Faces of the Far Right in the Post-Communist Space*, ed. Ninna Mörner (Centre for Baltic and East European Studies, CBEES, Södertörn University, 2022), 33-41.</footnote>

<footnote n="43">43 Mátyás Kohán, art. cit.</footnote>

<footnote n="44">44 Ibid.</footnote>

<footnote n="45">45 Nils August Andresen, "Conservatism and the Liberal Mind," *The European Conservative* 8 (2013): 18-21.</footnote>

<footnote n="46">46 Andras Láncri, "Conservatism in Hungary," *The European Conservative* 2 (2009): 2-3.</footnote>

<footnote n="47">47 Ryszard Legutko, "Communism and Liberal Democracy: An East European Perspective," *The European Conservative* 5 (2010): 1-3.</footnote>
Valentin Behr and Eve Gianoncelli

Europe, Legutko considers that they have been characterized by more continuity
than discontinuity between the old and the new regime. This is explained by the
“overlap” between socialism and liberal democracy, as “Both political projects
display formal similarities as regards their ideological structures and the mental
attitudes these structures evoke.”<fnref n="48" /> This is his core argument. Similarities between
socialism and liberalism concern primarily their egalitarian dimension, opposed
to the inegalitarian dimension of conservatism: “Both communism and liberal
democracy are egalitarian”: “hierarchy is, by definition, dubious”; “the distance
between the high and the low—between parent and child, teacher and student, high
culture and low culture, good and bad—is becoming smaller and smaller.”<fnref n="49" />

The radicalism of this position, formulated by a philosopher who is not only a
prominent conservative figure in Poland, but at the time already a politician in the
European Parliament, testifies to an ideological reconfiguration of the global right.
This reconfiguration has gained traction and has been developed in the columns of
TEC following the electoral successes of Fidesz in Hungary and of PiS in Poland—as
if these successes proved the correctness of the critique of liberalism. Indeed, many
contributions to TEC can be read as attempts to legitimize Central European illiberal
democracies.

In a later piece, Lánczi refers to Orbán and the conceptual work which led to
“illiberal democracy,” preceded by the formulation of the category of “illiberal state”
in 2014, then “illiberal thought,” in 2018. Lánczi distinguishes democracy from
the “problematic teachings of modern liberalism,” which are presented as Orbán’s
concern.<fnref n="50" /> Illiberalism is based upon an alliance with Christianity, a “Christian
freedom” highlighted as the classical view of freedom, as opposed to a modern,
liberal one. If it goes beyond political freedom, it is still portrayed as integral part of
democracy. Presenting Christian democracy as an alternative to liberal democracy is
still a way to claim to be a democracy.

Among the advocates of illiberal democracies, TEC also published Hungarian
philosopher Attila K. Molnar, who wrote in defense of the constitutional reform put
forward by Orbán’s government in 2011, along with its motto of “God, Fatherland, and
Family.”<fnref n="51" /> Molnar depicts the Hungarian government as bravely resisting a hostile
international environment, with the EU at the forefront, in an epic confrontation with
progressive forces, echoing Legutko’s conflation of socialism and liberalism: “So, in
the same way that progressives facilitated the Communist takeover of Hungary in
1945, with the assistance and complicity of international organizations and foreign
powers, today progressives are joining forces with the self-proclaimed ‘agents
of progress’ across Europe and within the EU’s administrative and bureaucratic
structures. Their goal is to delegitimize Hungary’s Easter Constitution, the country’s
most successful attempt to re-discover—and best hope for a renewal of—its historical
traditions.”<fnref n="52" />

*The European Conservative* also published papers by Kálmán Pócza and John O'Sullivan, respectively academic director and president of the Danube Institute, established in 2013 in Budapest as a think tank, indirectly funded by the Hungarian government to promote its understanding of conservatism, especially to the English-speaking world. It allocates fellowships to scholars, and pundits from across the world, most of them from Western Europe and the US. Pócza and O'Sullivan also edited a book praising Orbán as an inspirational figure for contemporary conservatives.<fnref n="53" />

<footnote n="48">⁴⁸ Ibid.: 1.</footnote>

<footnote n="49">⁴⁹ Ibid.: 2.</footnote>

<footnote n="50">⁵⁰ Andras Lánczi, “Towards a True Europe,” *The European Conservative* 17 (2020): 32.</footnote>

<footnote n="51">⁵¹ Attila K. Molnar, “Hungary’s Easter Constitution,” *The European Conservative* 6 (2012): 1, 4-5, 8.</footnote>

<footnote n="52">⁵² Ibid.: 8.</footnote>

<footnote n="53">⁵³ Ed. John O'Sullivan et Kálmán Pócza, *The Second Term of Viktor Orban: Beyond Prejudice and Enthusiasm* (London: Social Affairs Unit, 2015).</footnote>
*The Radicalization of 'Intellectual Conservatism' in the Illiberal Moment*

Beyond blueprints for imitation, the Hungarian and Polish illiberal democracies are held up as examples of a break with the “EU establishment,” affirming their sovereignty in social and cultural matters, hence illustrating a potential departure from the liberal-democratic consensus.<fnref n="54" /> The endorsement of illiberal democracies by *TEC* is evidenced by several contributions from its assistant editor, Filip Mazurczak, and interviews with prominent Polish and Hungarian political figures, such as Legutko,<fnref n="55" /> V. Orbán,<fnref n="56" /> and B. Orbán.<fnref n="57" />

The emergence of illiberal democracies in Hungary and Poland has therefore positioned these countries at the center of intellectual conservatism and fostered its radicalization toward a growing critique of political liberalism (in particular, the rule of law and independent, international courts), of international organizations (with the EU at the forefront), of cultural liberalism (as a threat to the natural, hierarchical order), and even support for authoritarian moves (a stronger and less accountable executive).

"Illiberalism" thus appears above all as a window of opportunity for intellectual entrepreneurs seeking to seize the moment to redefine conservatism along more radical lines, breaking with liberalism and the fusionist consensus, while mainstreaming political stances previously associated with the far-right. Significantly, around the same time, Trump's election in 2016 was accompanied by similar moves from both "National Conservatives" around Yoram Hazony—a political philosopher who established the Washington-based Edmund Burkle Foundation in 2019 in an attempt to rebrand conservatism in opposition to liberalism<fnref n="58" />—as well as so-called post-liberal thinkers like Adrian Vermeule, Patrick Deneen, and Gladden Pappin. Through the National Conservatism (NatCon) conferences, they have attempted to provide a doctrine to the Republican party after Trump's accession to the White House. All have been published in *TEC*, demonstrating a broader reconfiguration of the right.<fnref n="59" /> *The European Conservative* has also been listed as a cosponsoring institution of the NatCon conferences, held annually since 2019. Other cosponsors of the NatCon conferences include the Danube Institute and MCC.

*Conservative radicalization*

The trajectory of some of the main authors, regularly published in *TEC*, also allows us to understand how these apparently disparate trends can coexist within an individual. A contributor to the journal and member of its editorial board, Sebastian Morello, argued that Scruton's definition of conservatism was intrinsically connected to love when he pleads for the recognition of virtue as one of conservatism's main and most distinguishing characteristics. The connection is directly made when Morello introduces himself as having been trained in philosophy by Sir Roger Scruton.<fnref n="60" /> This seems to connect Scruton and Morello to an "original," traditional conservatism. But Scruton, while emphasizing love, defends a very hierarchical vision of the arts, criticizing modern architecture for the ugliness it supposedly has created in the world, and opposes the popularization of culture, particularly with regard to the sacred. Scruton also contributed to the diagnosis of Europe as a continent in

<footnote n="54">54 Filip Mazurczak, "Poland & Hungary Under Fire," *The European Conservative* 13, (2016): 8-11.</footnote>

<footnote n="55">55 Kai Weiss, "A Sea of Trouble in Europe: An Interview with Ryszard Legutko," *The European Conservative* 15 (2018): 8-11.</footnote>

<footnote n="56">56 Jan Mainka, "We Hungarians Are a Freedom-Loving People": An Interview with Viktor Orbán, 30.10.22: https://europeanconservative.com/articles/interviews/mainka-interview-with-viktor-orban.</footnote>

<footnote n="57">57 Alvino-Mario Fantini, "Hungarian 'Safe Space': An Interview with Balázs Orbán, Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister's Office," *The European Conservative* 16 (2019): 24-27.</footnote>

<footnote n="58">58 Yoram Hazony and Ofir Haivry, "What Is Conservatism?," *American Affairs* 1, no. 2 (2017), https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2017/05/what-is-conservatism/; Patrick Deneen, *Why Liberalism Failed* (Yale: Yale University Press, 2018).</footnote>

<footnote n="59">59 Marc F. Plattner, "Illiberal Democracy and the Struggle on the Right," *Journal of Democracy* 30, no. 1 (2019): 519.</footnote>

<footnote n="60">60 Sebastian Morello, "Patriotism and National Identity," *The European Conservative* 18 (2021): 12.</footnote>
Valentin Behr and Eve Gianoncelli

decline: “emasculated Europe, purged of its religion, governed by abstract principles of equality and rights, and expressly turned against the traditional forms of marriage and the family.”<fnref n="61" /> According to him, this unmanly, weak Europe has been the driver of declining values, against which alternative visions of Europe, respectful of gender and racial hierarchies, ought to be advanced—which he intended to participate in. While this final position can be seen as a form of political radicalization, it ultimately extends the notion of hierarchy already embedded in the defense of hierarchy in the arts—arguing against making culture accessible, adapting it to its time, or, simply put, popularizing it.

Other evidence of radicalization is the different ways in which the traditionalist trend is addressed. The distinction between traditional conservatism and traditionalism as a (neo)fascist approach (the latter is less present) can be read in the evolving definitions of the journal and its content as reactionary, already mentioned above. Traditionalism refers to a counterrevolutionary or reactionary trend—according to the most-used characterization. References to works of the leader of the “new right,” as embodied by Alain de Benoist, have also appeared in the journal. This apparent diversity of views pertaining to the idea of tradition also reveals the encompassing nature of exclusion—intellectual, cultural and political—of the so-called conservative project. De Benoist emphasizes that “Ultimately, liberalism and conservatism are fully irreconcilable,” in a text that includes Scruton and Oakeshott, as well as the “Christian roots” of conservatism “in its reactionary version.”<fnref n="62" />

Paradoxically, efforts to preserve Thatcher's legacy have persisted alongside this shift. Robin Harris, her former advisor, has consistently argued in the journal that she was a true conservative rather than a liberal, countering contemporary critiques—often aimed at both Thatcher and Reagan—by emphasizing Thatcher's belief that limited government, free institutions, and free markets are essential conditions for prosperity and the foundation of a fully lived life.<fnref n="63" /> This singular rejection of liberalism is visible here, a trend that will continue for the journal.

An article published in *TEC* by one of its founders, Kinneging, who has since distanced himself from both the journal and the CER network, is particularly revealing in the way it breaks with the liberal-conservative trend.<fnref n="64" /> He identifies three types of conservatism: the counterrevolutionary tradition, dating from Burke; the liberal-conservative (which he calls contemporary conservatism); and philosophic conservatism (which he also calls traditionalism, anti-modernism). While considering that “Contemporary conservatism is really a kind of liberalism,” Kinneging identifies himself with the third type of conservatism: “Contemporary conservatism and progressivism are both children of the revolution. They both embrace the revolutionary principles of liberty and equality as the highest principles there are, which makes, them both liberal.”<fnref n="65" />

On the contrary, philosophic conservatism is, according to Kinneging, the type that dominated the right from the 1830s until World War II: “It is the heir of the counterrevolution, the essence of which is opposition to the revolutionary principles of freedom and equality. Instead of equality it upheld hierarchy as a fundamental principle—in the cosmos, in society, and in the soul. Equality it held to be unnatural, and so is a hierarchy in which what ought to obey, rules; and what ought to rule, obeys.”<fnref n="66" />

<footnote n="61">61 Roger Scruton, "Europe and the Italian Nation," *The European Conservative* 16 (2016): 58.</footnote>

<footnote n="62">62 Alain de Benoist, "Conserve What? The Equivocations of Conservatism," *Telos*, no. 183 (2018): 139, https://doi.org/10.3817/0618183135.</footnote>

<footnote n="63">63 Robin Harris, "Margaret Thatcher's Character and Legacy," *The European Conservative*, 28.11.2023: https://europeanconservative.com/articles/essay/margaret-thatchers-character-and-legacy/.</footnote>

<footnote n="64">64 Andreas Kinneging, "On True (and False) Conservatism," *The European Conservative* 15 (2018): 4-7.</footnote>

<footnote n="65">65 Ibid.: 6.</footnote>

<footnote n="66">66 Ibid.: 6.</footnote>
*The Radicalization of 'Intellectual Conservatism' in the Illiberal Moment*

While Kinneging finds this conservatism “more abstract and philosophical than its predecessor,” in other words more detached from applied politics, he is unequivocal in his conclusion, writing that it should serve as a source of ideological renewal for contemporary conservatism.

A close look at the *TEC* (both the journal and the website) provides some more examples of radicalization, such as interviews with Marion Maréchal (in 2020⁶⁷) and NigelAGE in 2017⁶⁸) published in the journal. In 2023 a posthumously published essay from the French new right figure Dominique Venner was published.<fnref n="69" /> The same year appears a reexamination of Latin American dictatorships, including some reflections about Augusto Pinochet, “A Defamed Counterrevolutionary.”<fnref n="70" /> In 2024, there is an interview with “Italian general, controversial author, and newly-elected member of the European Parliament Roberto Vannacci,” who had previously written an explicitly racist, sexist and homophobic pamphlet that became a best-seller in Italy;<fnref n="71" /> 2024 also featured papers devoted to French writers Jean Raspail and Renaud Camus, both obsessed with the “Great Replacement.”<fnref n="72" /> The assassination of Charlie Kirk was followed by several endorsements of his radical views.<fnref n="73" /> The move toward reactionary and post-fascist stances is here plain to see.

The evolution toward a more radical ideological stance, encompassing these views but in a more acceptable way for the public (as far as the author is concerned), is well exemplified by the promotion of a British conservative philosopher, John Gray, in the journal. He endorses the label “illiberal” in a book titled *The New Leviathans: Thoughts After Liberalism*, published in 2023 and reviewed by Rod Dreher, former senior editor of *The American Conservative* who has become one of the most prominent voices at *The European Conservative*.<fnref n="74" /> The endorsement is articulated through a double rejection of cultural liberalism defined as “the mindless embrace of the Other,” and economic liberalism. This rejection is also expressed through a retaliation strategy which consists in reappropriating what is presented as the true meaning of liberalism—one that genuinely defends “values such as tolerance, free speech,<fnref n="75" /> and freedom of religion [that] are for more likely to survive in historically Magyar Hungary than in European countries.” To counter this double impact of cultural and economic dispossession, Gray significantly calls the English audience to read a recently published collection of essays by Renaud Camus, *The Enemy of The Disaster*, which is the first authorized translation of his political writings into English, and which includes the famous 2010 piece on “the Great Replacement.”

Analysis of *The European Conservative* allows us to enlarge the domains and meaning of conservatism in its various shades, including the most radical—articulated in exclusion, political violence, and authoritarian practices, as in the case of Pinochet.

<footnote n="67">⁶⁷ Johnathon Van Maren, "Scion of the French Right," *The European Conservative* 17 (2020): 23-27.</footnote>

<footnote n="68">⁶⁸ Karl-Gustel Wärnberg, "At the European Freedom Awards. An Interview with NigelAGE," *The European Conservative* 14 (2017): 43-44.</footnote>

<footnote n="69">⁶⁹ Dominique Venner, "Jeanne and the French Mystery," *The European Conservative* 27 (2023).</footnote>

<footnote n="70">⁷⁰ Robin Harris, "A Defamed Counter-Revolutionary," *The European Conservative* 28 (2023).</footnote>

<footnote n="71">⁷¹ Álvaro Peñas and José Papparelli, "'Today normality has become revolutionary': An Interview with Roberto Vannacci," *The European Conservative* 31 (2024).</footnote>

<footnote n="72">⁷² *The European Conservative* 29 (2024).</footnote>

<footnote n="73">⁷³ Rod Dreher, "Charlie Kirk Shows the West the Way Home," *The European Conservative*, 23.09.2025; https://europeanconservative.com/articles/commentary/charlie-kirk-shows-the-west-the-way-home/; Edouard Bina, "Students in Memory of Charlie Kirk: A Joint Statement," 5.10.2025; https://europeanconservative.com/articles/commentary/students-in-memory-of-charlie-kirk-a-joint-statement/.</footnote>

<footnote n="74">⁷⁴ Rod Dreher, "John Gray's Thoughts After Liberalism," *The European Conservative*, 01.12.2023; https://europeanconservative.com/articles/dreher/john-grays-thoughts-after-liberalism/.</footnote>

<footnote n="75">⁷⁵ Ibid.</footnote>
**Conclusion**

*The European Conservative* appears to be one of the key scenes of an emerging International of conservative intellectuals and its main outlet as a journal of intellectual conservatism. It represents a network that has developed in parallel with the interconnection of political parties and figures across borders, which it may in some ways have favored, although this would require further research.

The role played by Hungarian and Polish illiberal democracies as blueprints for a conservative revival in the political realm, and by illiberalism as a fuzzy and euphemizing concept, in this process shall not be underestimated. Beyond Trump's references to Orbán, a more general shift, of an ideological nature, is taking place: namely, the radicalization of intellectual conservatism, through the activities of an International of conservative intellectuals, organized at the transnational level. These intellectuals are of a particular kind: Multi-positioned in academia and the media, with close ties to party politicians, they have growing influence, which has been heavily dependent on resources provided by political parties and governments. An examination of the content of the journal and the networks around it allows us to conclude that this intellectual conservatism has moved to widen electoral successes that seemed to confirm its positions (especially those of Fidesz and PiS, and later Trump), while seeking to legitimize its political entrepreneurs by offering them an ideological corpus.

The radicalization of intellectual conservatism we have described in this article is also a result of the growing interconnection between organizations and actors of the conservative International, illustrated by TEC's involvement in the “NatCon” movement, the European Conservatives and Reformists party, and its foundation, New Direction. Growing circulation of actors and ideas may have favored radicalization to some extent, by aggregating national figures who are sometimes controversial (Kirk, Vannacci, Camus), but which are somehow automatically associated with the broad right-wing family fighting against the left and progressives. This is all the more the case given that the intellectual repertoire of engagement and the metapolitical strategy aimed at culture wars are both keen on provocation.

The underlying political project, facilitated by the inclusion of radical thinkers and politicians in the journal's columns, is a blurring of the political divide between the right and the far-right, which can only lead to the abolition of the “firewall” designed to isolate the far-right—especially in the European Parliament—and contribute to the formation of new, more radical right-wing alliances at the transnational level.

A close look at TEC invites us to consider a diversity of trends that can be subsumed under the label conservatism. The illiberal moment appears here as a specific, globalized movement, which redefines relationships between the East and the West, as well as the legitimate actors in the struggle, while allowing us to address the plural and fundamental nature of conservatism: not just a turn toward radicalization but also a display of its core inequalitarian morphology, what has also been called “proactive conservatism.”<fnref n="76" />

This evolution should be considered as key to the understanding of the genealogy of illiberalism, as well as the ways in which it is part of a broader story aiming to spread conservatism in Europe.

This work benefited from funding by the French National Research Agency under France 2030, reference ANR-11-LABX-0067.

<footnote n="76">76 Paul Maritz, “Keeping your room clean: A Vision for Proactive conservatism,” *The European Conservative*, 18.06.2023: https://europeanconservative.com/articles/commentary/keeping-your-room-clean-a-vision-for-proactive-conservatism/.</footnote>