Book Review: The Conservative Challenge to Globalization: Anglo-American Perspectives, by Ray Kiely

• DOI: 10.1177/00905917211037065
• Published date: 01 June 2022
• Author: Thomas Biebricher
• Date: 01 June 2022
• Subject Matter: Book Reviews

534 Political Theory 50(3)

histories that go into the thinking of the idea of “the political.” These are

rooted and local stories that also invite a moving beyond the provincialism of

European political theory that is mired in its too proximate histories of nation-

hood, citizenship, and democracy.

Note

1. B. R. Ambedkar, The Annihilation of Caste (1936), accessed June 24, 2021,

https://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/projects/mmt/ambedkar/web/section_4.html.

The Conservative Challenge to Globalization: Anglo-American Perspectives, by Ray Kiely.

Newcastle: Agenda Publishing, 2020, 256 pp.

Reviewed by: Thomas Biebricher, Department of Management, Philosophy and

Politics, Copenhagen Business School, Copenhagen

DOI: 10.1177/00905917211037065

To this day, many observers consider 2016 to be a political annus horribilis,

as it marked not only the Brexit vote in the United Kingdom but also the elec-

tion of Donald Trump. Both events continue to have strong reverberations in

public debate and they have also left a mark on discussions in the social sci-

ences and their attempt to understand these outcomes that took almost every-

one by surprise—including Trump himself, if the chroniclers of his presidency

are to be believed.

Ray Kiely’s book belongs squarely in this genre of literature, but its

approach points beyond the often rather presentist interpretations of Brexit

and Trump and, in fact, directly challenges some of the more widespread

ones. Specifically, it challenges the notion that both events signal a new

cleavage between localist “somewhere” and cosmopolitan “anywheres,” as

well as the oft-repeated assessment that the rise of populism is fueled by the

decline of social democracy and constitutes a radical break from neoliberal-

ism. Kiely generates the resources needed for such challenges by putting

Brexit and Trump in a broader perspective and placing them in the context of

conservative views on globalization, which is the main theme of the book. He

pursues it in accordance with the complex nature of this topic—that is, from

various angles that range from political theory and the history of (conserva-

tive) political thought to political economy and sociology. It is worth noting

at the outset that Kiely’s ability to maneuver such a broad range of perspec-

tives constitutes one of the strengths of the book, which excels at debunking

one-sided, inconsistent, and shallow explanations.