This article examines the dynamics and implications of practices of socialization enacted by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization~NATO! in post-Cold War Central and Eastern Europe+ With particular emphasis on the Czech Republic and Romania, I argue that NATO relied extensively on mechanisms of teaching and persuasion to project a particular set of liberal-democratic norms of security into the former Eastern bloc+ Several interrelated conditions affected NATO's ability to teach new norms to Central and East European actors: the parties' mutual recognition of their respective roles as "teachers" and "students"; the socializees' identification with the Western security community that NATO claimed to embody; and systematic interactions between teachers and students+ In teaching new liberaldemocratic norms, NATO exercised significant power: the power to shape its socializees' interpretations of the world and ideas about proper ways of acting in that world+ The shared ideational framework established via teaching also empowered subsequent persuasive appeals launched in the name of liberal-democratic norms+ NATO conducted a socialization process that targeted-and often affected-not simply the behavior of Central and East European socializees, but also their definitions of national identity and interests+ For extremely helpful comments on previous incarnations of this article, I am grateful to the editors of International Organization, two anonymous reviewers, Jeffrey Checkel, Michael Zürn, Alastair Iain Johnston, Michael C+ Williams, and all the participants in the IDNET workshops+ International Organization 59, Fall 2005, pp+ 973-1012
The rise of radical right-wing leaders, parties, movements, and ideas have transformed not only domestic political landscapes but also the direction and dynamics of international relations. Yet for all their emphasis on nationalist identity, on “America First” and “Taking Back Control,” there is an unmistakable international dimension to contemporary nationalist, populist movements. Yet these movements are also often transnationally linked. We argue that a constitutive part of this globality is the New Right's (NR) own distinctive international political sociology (IPS). Key thinkers of the contemporary NR have, over several decades, theorized and strategically mobilized globalized economic dislocation and cultural resentment, developing a coherent sociological critique of globalization. Drawing on the oft-neglected tradition of elite managerialism, NR ideologues have borrowed freely from Lenin and Schmitt on the power of enmity, as well as from Gramsci and the Frankfurt School on counterhegemonic strategies. Against the temptation to dismiss right-wing ideas as “merely” populist and by implication as lacking in ideological and theoretical foundations, we are faced with the much more challenging task of engaging a position that has already developed its own international political sociology and incorporated it into its political strategies.
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