The recent history of the Ukrainian authoritarian far right is one of paradoxes. If one looks at the polls, it has performed poorly; its modest successes have been regional and short-lived. On the other hand, it has been highly successful in terms of shaping memory politics in the country. It has had a disproportional influence on history writing, having invested significant efforts into building an effective structure in the field of memory management. Radical nationalists have also come to staff senior positions as deans and vice chancellors at Ukraine’s top universities, the ministry of education, the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory (UINP), and the archives of the Ukrainian Security Service (HDA SBU). The hard right has gained a disproportionate influence on “soft issues” of identity and the shaping of “national memory” – not only by running the governmental memory institutes, but also by hands-on drafting of memory laws outlawing “disrespect” for the OUN, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), and other historical far-right groups. This study seeks to trace and contextualize the repatriation of the ethnonationalist hard right from emigration and its role in shaping an infrastructure of memory production – in particular, under presidents Yushchenko (2005–2010) and Poroshenko (2014–2019).

El proceso de retorno del exilio, iniciado después de la caída del poder de Juan Manuel de Rosas en la Confederación Argentina, llevó a una compleja trama de reinserción profesional. Este artículo examina la incorporación de los proscriptos en los cargos asociados a la formación de las instituciones políticas argentinas. Para ello, recurrimos a una base de datos de 891 casos que utilizamos para seguir los recorridos socioprofesionales antes, durante y después de la emigración. En los principales sitios de asilo en Bolivia, Chile y Uruguay, los emigrados integraron las ocupaciones asociadas a la construcción institucional: desde cargos públicos, en el ejército y hasta profesiones liberales como la abogacía y el periodismo. Postulamos el exilio como experiencia fundadora que permitió la adquisición del saber gubernamental necesario para el desarrollo de las instituciones políticas argentinas en la segunda mitad del siglo XIX. Nuestro estudio es un ejemplo de cómo los fenómenos transnacionales jugaron un papel determinante en la formación de los Estados nación contemporáneos.

In this special issue, our contributors move the academic conversation beyond methodological nationalism and approaches that analyze far-right movements only within their respective state contexts by interrogating the circulation of ideologies, funds, and people across sociopolitical boundaries. Our goal is to scrutinize the far right in post-communist Eastern Europe by examining the multitudinous and multidirectional ties that exist between groups at the local, regional, national, and transnational levels. Attention, moreover, is paid not just to those factors that facilitate such linkages, but also to the obstacles that hamper these flows via various detours, omissions, and other forms of resistance. In this introduction, we offer a theoretical overview and discussion of contributors’ findings to argue that conduits for the dissemination of far-right discursive frames are hardly unidirectional in nature. As a result, the transitological narratives of progress and regress typically invoked to explain the emergence of the far right offer only a partial understanding of how it mobilizes, builds alliances, and circulates ideas. We unpack the conceptual pitfalls and fallacies of transitological narratives and instead foreground the concept of multidirectionality, which opens up new avenues through which to understand how far-right groups mobilize and disseminate their narratives.

This article examines ‘diasporic geopolitics’ as a significant factor in the future of global politics. Whereas discussions of global order in IR have been highly spatialised, we instead highlight the extent to which different regions of the world are entangled via ongoing migration processes, and their legacies in the form of global diasporas. We examine the significance of these interconnections by focusing on rising powers and their relations with the existing international order. Major migration-sending states such as China, India, and Turkey are now aspiring great powers that seek to exert global influence in international affairs. In this context, their diaspora governance policies are also undergoing a transformation, with diasporas increasingly understood as important assets for promoting sending states’ geopolitical agendas and great power ambitions. We examine three mechanisms by which such states exert power transnationally via their diaspora engagement policies. States can treat ‘their’ diasporas as economic assets that facilitate trade and foreign investment; as soft power assets that contribute to the promotion of ‘civilisational’ politics; and as diplomatic assets that can be strategically mobilised or repressed. We conclude by discussing the implications for thinking about the nature of global order and power politics in the coming 50 years.

For the past two decades anti-abortionists in the Global North have been aggressively instrumentalising disability in order to undermine women’s social autonomy, asserting, falsely, there is an insuperable conflict between disability rights and reproductive rights. The utilisation of disability in struggles over abortion access is not new, it has a history dating back to the interwar era. Indeed, decades before anti-abortionists’ campaign, feminists invoked disability to expand access to safe abortion. This paper examines the feminist eugenics in the first organisation dedicated to liberalising restrictive abortion laws, the Abortion Law Reform Association (ALRA), established in England in 1936. ALRA played a vital role in the passage of the Abortion Act 1967 (or the Act) that greatly expanded the grounds for legal abortion, a hugely important gain for women in Britain and beyond seeking legal, safe abortions. In addition, the Act permitted eugenic abortion, which also had transnational effects: within a decade, jurisdictions in numerous Commonwealth countries passed abortion laws that incorporated the Act’s eugenics clause, sometimes verbatim. This essay analyses ALRA’s role in codifying eugenics in the Abortion Act 1967 and argues that from the outset, ALRA was simultaneously a feminist and eugenist association. Initially, ALRA prioritized their feminist commitment to ‘voluntary motherhood’ in their campaign whereas starting in the 1940s, they subordinated feminism to negative eugenics, a shift that was simultaneously strategic and a reflection of genuine concern to prevent the birth of children with disabilities.

This article seeks to make sense of the rise of global religious philanthropy in relation to disaster. Global religious philanthropy refers to the transnational activities of religious organizations to respond to humanitarian crisis. These organizations can be faith-based initiatives or religious groups or denominations that have created humanitarian services for the specific purpose of relief and recovery in other countries. The first part spells out what we mean by the rise of global religious philanthropy in disaster response. It is not so much a shift as it is a rediscovery of the religious roots of humanitarian work. But at the same time, it is also a contemporary development that is part of the globalization of risk, humanitarian aid, and religion itself. The second part will explain the rise in two ways. First, faith-based and religious organizations hold what we describe as a global imaginary. In this imaginary, the world is in crisis and it offers an opportunity to demonstrate global compassion. Second, the rise of global religious philanthropy is also tied to the expansion of religious movements, some of which are in emerging economies. The expansion renders the religious field competitive. This is why, in a paradoxical manner, their humanitarian activities are also acts of strength and power that contend with the state and other players in the religious field.

This article links the study of transnational and imperial fascism in the context of the Italian occupation of Albania by examining how Italian authorities sought to turn Albanians abroad into assets rather than liabilities. Organising and monitoring Albanians occurred through conferences, youth institutions and consular activities. Studying such concrete contacts and negotiations allows us to explore the practical issues latent in expanding fascist political subjectivity in transnational and imperial contexts. On the one hand, Italians hoped to verse Albanians in a fascist identity by using existing organisational strategies while silencing or converting potential anti-Italian critics. On the other, many Albanians expressed and offered support for these Italian efforts, though with reservations and conditions, raising questions as to what it meant to be an Albanian nationalist and/or fascist in the years of occupation. The Albanian case therefore contributes to our understanding of the tensions inherent in ‘universalising’ fascism for colonial subjects.

This study explores and understands transnational activism in Asia, specifically focusing on the crucial role played by individuals, particularly Thai youth activist Netiwit Chotiphatphaisal, in shaping and constructing transnational networks and relations. The study argues that the networks individuals establish with other transnational actors serve as the primary source of inspiration for other individuals to engage in transnational activism. These networks are rooted in everyday life interactions in the era of globalisation, with activism reflecting this embeddedness and interconnectedness. The case study of Netiwit demonstrates how connections between Thai activists and activists in Hong Kong and Taiwan stem from the increased mobility of individuals in the globalised world, facilitating physical interactions. By analysing this dynamic, the study aims to offer a more nuanced explanation of transnational activism, the movement of knowledge, and the concept of globalisation in Asia.

The processes of post-socialist transformation, especially large-scale migration from Eastern Europe to the Western hemisphere, are creating an ‘expansion of space’ from the local to the supra-local. This process involves the expansion of personal-, familial- and friendship-based networking practices which acquire significance as transnational mobile livelihoods and as significant dimensions of urban dynamics in global cities like Chicago. What are the networks, attachments and social bonds of Eastern European migrants in Chicago? Ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Chicago in 2013 among recent Lithuanian immigrants brought out the importance of a cultural identity of East European-ness involving contested loyalties and limited integration. While living locally, Lithuanian immigrants are expected both to be bound to the ethnic community and to be immersed in the multicultural life-style of the mega city. However the research has shown that livelihoods and social relations among ‘one's own people’ are involved in trans-ethnic networks and that the bonds of intimacy and the alliances among ‘one's own people’ run through homeland roots and patrimonial linkages rather than through the citizenship loyalties of the state (the United States and/or Lithuania). The circle of ‘one's own people’ implies extensive reciprocity and social networking among ‘friends’ and co-workers based on ‘one's own resourcefulness’ a kind of social capital. Thus, ‘sharing important acquaintances’ ought to involve ‘doing favours’ and livelihood experiences transplanted from oversees are practised in Chicago as ‘local’ life-styles and are used for transnational networking, securing in the process the social status of those involved.