Телеграм канал «Политическая теория и философия (Political theory and philosophy)»

Laboratories of counter-hegemony. Orbán, Trump and the transatlantic far-right ecosystem

This study maps the international infrastructure scaling Orbán’s counter-hegemonic project. The roots of this counterhegemonic project go back to the exhaustion of liberal globalism, which created fertile ground for far-right challengers. Instead of progressive correction, the far right seized the initiative, treating the crisis of globalization as an opening for a long-term counter-hegemonic project. Viktor Orbán’s Hungary emerged as a frontrunner of it. Orbánism is not routine governance or a mere electoral platform but an integrated strategy to reshape the state, civil society, and culture, building an alternative order that can endure and reproduce itself over time. A small country cannot sustain such disruptive politics in isolation; therefore, Orbán’s strategy extended beyond Hungary’s borders to embed his national transformation within a broader far-right bloc.

Within the European Union, Orbán wages counter-hegemony from inside the liberal order’s own institutional architecture, converting EU funds, veto rights, and single-market access into resources for building a pan-European far-right bloc. But Orbán’s priority has been the United States. The study traces transatlantic linkages from their origins in the 1990s to the consolidation of an organized influence ecosystem. At its core are foundations channeling substantial Hungarian public funds into scholarships, fellowships, and media platforms that embed Orbán’s politics within US conservative circles, complemented by lobbying contracts, orchestrated media collaborations, and institutional partnerships. This dual position simultaneously drains liberal institutions from within and links illiberal templates across the Atlantic, making Orbán’s counter-hegemonic project uniquely dangerous and instructive.

https://feps-europe.eu/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/PS_Laboratories_of_counter_hegemony.pdf

«Сделано в СССР». Вещи как посредники между государством и обществом

В чем особенность советской материальности? Как в СССР уживались антимещанская идеология бытового аскетизма и повседневный консюмеризм? И можно ли увидеть в сегодняшнем интересе к советским вещам не только ностальгию, но и попытку вернуть себе частную историческую память?

В этом эпизоде подкаста «За фасадом советского гламура» говорим о книге «Сделано в СССР. Материализация нового мира» под редакцией Александра Фокина. Обсуждаем ее с историками Александром Фокиным и Игорем Нарским, а также с культурологом Ириной Глущенко.

00:58 — Тема и гости выпуска
02:11 — Власть идей vs власть вещей
09:04 — «Бабушкины вещи» и фантомная ностальгия
13:25 — О попытке создать общество потребления в СССР
17:15 — Советские вещи и авангард
23:40 —Жажда исторической памяти и исторические вещи
29:55 — Дистанция и новый контекст для советских вещей
32:00 — Вещи как пропаганда
36:55 — «Стулья Шумана»: Восточная Европа

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ma7fJrcJ-M

Conspiracist Manifesto

What if capitalism and its social machine were the outcome of a conspiratorial strategy? This anonymous book considers evidence that they must be that. Further, it argues in favor of passionate counter-conspiracies as the logical form of revolt in our time, when our very souls are said to be at stake.

“The Conspiracist Manifesto should prompt a reconsideration of the question raised previously by both Jameson and Latour: Can the reflexive skepticism of “critical theory” be distinguished from that of “conspiracy theory”? What is and what should be the proper relation between these two bodies of “theory,” both ostensibly defined by radical suspicion?” (Geoff Shullenberger, The Chronicle of Higher Education)

“As the events of January 6th dramatically illustrated, the conspiracy, as both an organization and way of thinking, is capable of mobilizing many folks in potentially powerful and/or devastating ways. In an era of politics defined by half-truths, out-right lies, and misrepresented data, conspiratorial thinking seems like a double-edged blade, as likely to hurt the credibility and effectiveness of leftist political mobilization as it is to help. The Conspiracist Manifesto provides the most compelling and pragmatic attempt to wield that weapon to date”. (Mira Mason, The Columbia Review)

Thomas Meaney - Normcore

It is sometimes forgotten that Habermas was at the start considerably to the left of his elder colleagues Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno at the University of Frankfurt Institute for Social Research. He was a student of Wolfgang Abendroth, one of the few other operating Marxists at a German university in the 1950s. His closest kinship philosophically with anyone associated with the Frankfurt School was Herbert Marcuse. Stefan Müller-Doohm, in his biography, quotes an amusing letter from New York in which Habermas jokes with a friend that he’s just met the ‘terrible reactionary’ Hannah Arendt. Indeed, until he broke with the student movement in June 1967, Habermas was much more vociferous than his elders in his opposition to both the Vietnam War and the direction of West German society. Horkheimer found Habermas’s constant crying of fascism overblown, and worried he had an irresponsible radical on his hands, whose idea of ‘revolution’ called for social democracy with the full participation of all German citizens (better not try that again!). They eventually reconciled, but Habermas was always closer with Adorno even though it was Adorno’s thought which came in for a more complete revision in the Habermas programme. In his mature writings, preserving the ‘lifeworld’ meant improving the conditions for democratization and communicative rationality, which he privileged over Adorno’s striving for non-capitalist consciousness.

https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/normcore

Stuart Elden - Foucault at Buffalo in 1970 and 1972: The Desire for Knowledge, The Criminal in Literature, and The History of Truth

This article provides a survey of the material in the University at Buffalo archives concerning Foucault's two visits in 1970 and 1972. The 1970 visit was Foucault's first trip to the United States, and he gave a course advertised as "The desire for knowledge or the phantasms of knowledge in French literature in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries." On his return in 1972 as the Melodia E. Jones Chair he gave two courses: a seminar on "The Criminal in the Literature of the 18thand 19th Centuries" and a lecture series on "The Origins of Culture," renamed as "History of Truth." Using the personnel files and correspondence with his host John K. Simon, as well as the audio recordings of the 1972 lectures and parts of the 1970 course, this article reports on what we know of his teaching and its role in his initial reception in the United States. Particular attention is given to how much of the 1970 course has been published in different places, without its overall organization and linking theme being previously recognized.