8 - When Liberal States Bite Back

Summary

This chapter examines a far-right American political mobilization inspired by a conspiracy theory to show how the micro-politics of local culture are undermining the global hegemon’s commitment to liberal international order. In the early 2010s, some activists set their sights on local sustainability planning. Many opposed local governments’ proposals to curb sprawl and pollution by pointing to an unexpected adversary: Agenda 21, a voluntary sustainable development initiative of the United Nations. According to activists, UN Agenda 21 is a sinister plot by totalitarian one-world government, one that is subverting American sovereignty and the property rights of the American people. The chapter identifies two ideal types of diversity regimes: a UN-led regime of globally motivated local governance, which venerates sustainability, multiculturalism, cosmopolitanism, and human rights, and a far-right regime of reactionary-nationalist local governance, embodied in the opposition to Agenda 21. The on-the-ground cultural contestation and activists’ push for a nationalist diversity regime is part and parcel of the United States’ rejection of lynchpins of the liberal hegemonic project.