Alain de Benoist, ethnopluralism and the cultural turn in racism

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to analyse critically the idea of ethnopluralism (also known as ethno-differentialism and droit à la difference) as formulated by Alain de Benoist, one of the founding fathers of the Nouvelle Droite and one of the most important far-right intellectuals of the last decades. Rueda locates this ideal as part of what will be called ‘the cultural turn in racism’, that is, the passage from biological and pseudo-scientific racism to alterophobic discourses based on culture and ethnicity among European far-right intellectuals. Moreover, the article will explore the impact of ethnopluralism on both increasingly mainstream radical-right parties and fringe extremist organizations since the 1980s.