On 18 September at 14:30 George Spencer Terry will defend his doctoral dissertation "Demanding subjectivity: the radical right’s use of discursively empty referent objects within a post-foundational logics framework" for obtaining the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (in Political Science).
Supervisor:
Professor Andrey Makarychev, University of Tartu
Opponent:
Professor Eirikur Bergmann, Bifrost University (Iceland)
Summary:
The past decade has witnessed a surge in populist and radical right movements, challenging the status quo. This dissertation reconceptualizes the radical right as a dispositional logic rather than a fixed ideology, focusing on how it constructs subjectivity through self-interpellation, around discursively empty referent objects. Building on Ernesto Laclau’s post-foundational approach to discourse, the dissertation argues that inequality, enmity, and exclusivity constitute the core demands around which radical right identity coheres. These demands are not reducible to specific ideological content but form the structural conditions enabling radical right discourse to function.
Three articles illustrate these dynamics. The first examines Italy's Matteo Salvini, showing how international relations are used to position the nation as morally superior, while adversaries are blamed for societal failures. The second explores the competition within Italy’s right, revealing how populist and post-fascist actors vie to define the nation’s position, using enmity and negation to assert authenticity. The third focuses on Estonia's radical right, showing how Finno-Ugric identity serves as a civilizational marker to justify action.
While these examples reaffirm a shared structural logic, they also highlight its adaptability. For instance, Italian actors self-interpellate through idealized visions of sovereignty, whereas Estonian actors fixate on civilizational identity. Despite these differences, all cases reflect the radical right’s ability to exploit ambiguous points of reference to situate exclusionary identities.
This dissertation concludes that the radical right operates as a constellation of demands centered on inequality, exclusivity, and enmity, reacting against the logics of liberal democracy. Treating the radical right as a logic rather than a fixed ideology, the study offers an alternative lens of analysis how these movements adapt in different contexts.
