Authoritarian diffusion and its reception

Narratives and discourses are a fecund field for interrogating authoritarian diffusion. A narrative is a form of context and time-specific communication, often aimed at presenting events in a particular way, while a discourse is a general pattern of communication that is not bounded to a specific context, time, place, or event. It aims at providing a general framework to read large political and historical processes (Patterson and Renwick Monroe, Reference Patterson and Renwick Monroe1998; Bliesemann de Guevara, Reference Bliesemann de Guevara2016). In her work, Gurol (Reference Gurol2023) has examined how the diffusion of Chinese narratives of success in managing the Covid-19 pandemic has had an effect in the Gulf, strengthening the idea that in international politics there are more than one hegemon to look up to for governance models. Examining al-Sisi regime's positive response to Chinese propaganda, Rasheed (Reference Rasheed2022) has theorized the concept of authoritarian reinforcement, by which local actors utilize authoritarian discourses coming from abroad to reinforce the legitimacy of their actions and ideas locally.

The study of state propaganda from the perspective of the state producing and diffusing it, has prominently featured in the study of political authoritarianism (Kurlantzick, Reference Kurlantzick2007; Von Soest, Reference Von Soest2015; Kneuer and Demmelhuber, Reference Kneuer and Demmelhuber2020). Countries such as Russia and China are active with a variety of objectives across borders. By discursively presenting themselves with distinct values and characteristics such as non-interference, sovereignty and policy efficacy, the aims of authoritarian diffusion may range from influencing foreign media systems and creating sympathetic audiences, to expanding opportunities for economic growth and investments (Nathan, Reference Nathan2015; Dukalskis, Reference Dukalskis2021). Regardless of its objective, state propaganda attracts sensitive audiences at the local level reinforcing thus the legitimacy of the authoritarian state, what it does and says. In fact, authoritarian discourse and narratives produce ‘significant imaginaries’ that are ‘a useful resource for authoritarian leaders, both to bind their audiences to their rule and to create a certain connection by appealing to people's emotions as well as by strategically projecting certain images’, creating transnational ‘linkages via attraction, persuasion or admiration’ (Yellinek, Reference Yellinek2022; Greene and Robertson, Reference Greene and Robertson2022; Gurol, Reference Gurol2023: 5). Therefore, narratives and discourses are powerful political instruments that authoritarian leaders can use to increase their appeal abroad.

Shifting the attention away from the states producing and diffusing the authoritarian discourse, less is comparatively known about the receiving ends of it and about the actors translating it for the local audiences that are targeted. The investigation of the human and material resources that enable diffusion is in fact less consolidated in the scholarship, and the debate on authoritarian diffusion has narrowly and traditionally foregrounded the motivation of the authoritarian state diffusing authoritarian policies and discourse; or, the measurement of the success of such initiatives. The ‘chain of transmission’ has been less researched, although it remains of crucial importance to diffusion mechanisms. While filling this gap, this paper also makes an intervention in the scholarly debate about whether actors on the receiving end respond to the authoritarian discourse because of interest-based calculations or ideological affinity. Following Bank (Reference Bank2017: 1346), this article argues that, contextually, ‘interest trumps ideology’, emphasizing the ‘egoistic’ contextual interest that target audiences may have in the authoritarian discourse in order to advance their own objectives and/or strengthen their own narratives. However, at the same time, ideological affinities reinforce such an interest, making it resilient in time. In the case considered, this two-fold argument is particularly fitting. In fact, the far right in Italy has today an interest in Iran's nationalist, anti-liberal, anti-‘gender ideology’ and sovereignty-centred authoritarian discourse because it reinforces its own specular discourse. However, this discursive overlap is not purely contextual or limited to the current ‘populist moment’. In fact, as mentioned earlier and discussed later in this article, an historical connection exists between the two. It is thanks to such a longer history of exchanges and shared ideals that Italy's far-right networks respond positively to the Iranian state's authoritarian discourse, stressing their ideological affinity and using it according to contextual interests.

Iran's diffusion initiatives and their reception in Italy

Despite being less powerful than Russia and China, the Islamic Republic too engages in discursive authoritarian promotion. Iran often reproduces discursive patterns similar to those of the two more powerful states, promoting the values of self-determination, sovereignty, non-interference, and highlighting the hypocrisy of what is called ‘the West’,Footnote ¹ especially when it comes to its double standards in respecting human rights. However, Iran also emphasizes its own cultural specificity that sets it apart from Russia and China, by referring to the role of religion in the public sphere and the higher moral status of its domestic and foreign politics given that both derive from Islam, so the Iranian state argues. Iran's soft power and immaterial resources for promotion are often understudied to the benefit of more ‘sensational’ aspects, such as its military activism in conflict areas. Furthermore, Iran is often portrayed as an ‘ideological state’ unable of rational choices and policies, hence its muscular approach to international and regional politics (Ansari, Reference Ansari and Katouzian2007). It follows that scholars have comparatively dedicated little attention to ideas and discourses outside of this framework.

There are, however, exceptions and studies focusing on Iran's soft power and international promotion. These have highlighted that, indeed, Iran's international effort is multifaceted and enacted through different modalities (Von Maltzahn, Reference Von Maltzahn2013; Warnaar, Reference Warnaar2013; Wastnidge, Reference Wastnidge2015). One of the most important promotional activities of the post-1979 Iranian state is the marketing of its identity. Scholars have examined how such identity is articulated, at times, emphasizing that of a great civilization contributing to the history of humanity, at other times focusing on the religious aspect of it or, on other occasions, stressing Iran's ‘resistant’ political identity as a country fighting imperialism (Holliday, Reference Holliday2016). Not only authoritarian discursive strategies vary according to the content being branded, but also to the target. Assessments on the palatability of the content are in fact never disjointed from assessments of the targeted audience, whether more general or specific. Currently, considering its unpopularity since the repression of the Woman Life Freedom uprising, Iran limits its activism by design, targeting specific audiences with dedicated contents and with the objective of cultivating discrete publics. In the case of the far right, Iran's authoritarian discourse emphasizes topics that are palatable to that audience, centring Iran's nationalism, the fight against liberalism and its willingness to support like-minded anti-imperialist efforts and organizations, regardless of their religion.Footnote ²

The Iranian institutions and state actors involved in promotion and diffusion efforts are different and might have different agendas. It would be inaccurate, in fact, to portray the Iranian state as uniform. In particular, two offices are involved in the field of public diplomacy, notably the Supreme Leader's and the presidency of the Republic. Wastnidge (Reference Wastnidge2015: 366) elaborates on the impact of this dual system on how Iranian soft power is projected and managed abroad. He explains that the ‘President performs one role in terms of representing Iran on the world stage, while the Supreme Leader maintains control over some important soft power tools, such as […] international media operations and cultural attaches and related cultural outreach centres’. Because of this duality, when the President and the Supreme Leader have different ideas about what image Iran should present abroad, such differences may become evident in the form of a conflict of narratives. This happened in the past (Wastnidge, Reference Wastnidge2016) and the reverberation of such internal factional conflicts reached the Italian converts community too, with conservative converts, connected to the far right and loyal to the Supreme Leader Khamenei, entertaining public polemics and controversy with the more liberal-minded Iranian diplomatic institutions in Italy, controlled by the President of the Republic (Mirshahvalad, Reference Mirshahvalad2020). This is not a casual pattern of conflict. Governments and presidents are elected and change, and so do their more or less liberal attitudes and foreign policy. The agenda and the public discourse of the state institutions controlled by Supreme Leader, on the contrary, are generally more impactful and discursively more stable because the Supreme Leader is an office one holds for life.

This study pays attention to a set of institutions and state actors that are under the control of the Supreme Leader and that present a more conservative, anti-Western and illiberal political discourse. However, shifting the analytical focus to the receiving end, this paper examines the role of those political and cultural entrepreneurs who pick up the state's authoritarian discourse, mediate and popularize it within specific networks in Italy, and who inhabit a liminal space between political conservative networks of Italy and Iran. Such cultural and political entrepreneurs, who can be called ‘the mediators’ for their work of translating the official discourse for the local audience, include Italy-based Iranian individuals and Italian-Iranian individuals who work for the Iranian state and/or are loyal to the Iranian Supreme Leader; and Italian organizations (such as research centres, religious associations, publishers) that entertain contacts with both the Iranian state and its ramifications in Italy, and far right organizations. It is argued that such non-state, liminal actors between Iran and Italy play a fundamental role in mediating the Iranian state's discourse, translating and contextualizing it for far-right audiences. It also is important to highlight that many of such mediators share political and ideological persuasions with the far right, as exemplified by the hostility toward the celebrations of the Italian liberation from Nazi-fascism on April 25^th. An example of this is an interview to Mostafa Milani Amin,Footnote ³ an Iranian-Italian cleric and collaborator of the Iranian International University al-Mustafa,Footnote ⁴ originally published in the rightist newspaper Il Giornale and re-published in the far-right Il Primato Nazionale, which eloquently titles ‘An Assad-less Syria would end up like Italy after April 25^th: In the hands of terrorists’,Footnote ⁵ where ‘terrorists’ refers to post-1943 Partisans' armed formations that captured Mussolini and liberated Italy from Nazi-fascism. The following section discusses the historical background to these connections, for their construction is grounded in time and consolidated in history.

Italy's far right and Iran: past and present connections

During the 20^th century, non-Western religions and Islamic mysticism (Sufism and irfan, Shi'a mysticism or gnosis) have been a pole of attraction for Traditionalist, far-right and fascist ideologues, because they were seen as uncorrupted by Western modernity (Sedgwick, Reference Sedgwick2009). Such a cultural interest also had a geopolitical aspect, as exemplified by the work of the Italian fascist thinker Julius Evola (1898–1974) and the Italian journal Geopolitica (established in 1939) whose ambition was to elaborate a fascist foreign policy (Savino, Reference Savino and Laruelle2015). According to them, the fascist state was in direct competition with other European colonial powers, Great Britain in primis. Italy had to maintain a ‘good neighbour’ policy towards, and cultural relations with, Russia and the Muslim world, its natural allies in the fight against British imperialism and soul-less industrial modernity.

Evola's work became popular in the 1970s and 1980s. During those years, an interest in and admiration for khomeinism as a force against modernity strengthened the far right's interest in Shi'a mysticism, esotericism and political Traditionalism – and in Evola's work too. Those who gathered around radical right-wing and neofascist magazines such as Orion, Avanguardia, Aurora and Dissenso considered Islam as an ally in the fight against liberal globalization and its brand of modernity. Many converted to Shia Islam, too. Examples include Dagoberto Hussein Bellucci, collaborator of Avanguardia and Eurasia, a journal founded in 2004; Pietro Benvenuto, a former member of the neofascist organization Ordine Nuovo and active in Morabitun-The World Movement of Western Muslims; and Luigi Ammar De Martino (d. 2019), another former Ordine Nuovo member. De Martino established the magazine Il Puro Islam and the association Ahl al-Bait in Naples, which has close relations with the Tehran-based mother organization which is under the control of Iran's Supreme Leader Khamenei (Ra'ees and Kamal, Reference Ra'ees and Kamal2017). From the Naples-based Ahl al-Bait split the religious Imam al-Mahdi cultural centre, with branches and associated organizations in Rome and Milan. The Imam al-Mahdi cultural centre is headed by converts Shaykh Abbas di Palma and Marco Hussein Morelli, a collaborator of the neofascist and Catholic fundamentalist magazine Fuoco.Footnote ⁶

Central to these networks, both in the past and today, are Claudio Mutti (b. 1946) and Carlo Terracciano (1948–2005). Mutti, who has been involved in far-right cultural initiatives since the 1970s, converted to Islam in the 1980s and established the Italian section of the organization Morabitun. Terracciano was editor of Orion and Avanguardia. Footnote ⁷ Since the 1990s, both have supported the need to overcome the right vs left political divide to embrace common anti-imperialist and anti-liberal positions. Mutti and Terracciano also played an important role in popularizing Aleksandr Dugin's Eurasian geopolitical vision in Italy. Dugin combined mysticism and Aryanism with geopolitics to theorize the alliance of Slavic and Muslim civilizations to oppose Western liberal imperialism and globalization, an idea that the Italian far right was already familiar with through Evola's work. In 1993, Mutti and Terracciano attended the First World Congress of the Peoples Oppressed by the New World Order in Moscow, where delegations from several countries, including Iran, met to consolidate alliances and a common anti-liberal and sovereignty-centred political discourse (Savino, Reference Savino and Laruelle2015).

With the mainstreaming of Dugin's theories since the 2000s in Italy (Piraino, Reference Piraino, Piraino, Pasi and Asprem2023), the geopolitical aspect of the far right's interest in Iran became prevalent, although interests in Islam and mysticism never disappeared. As Mutti put it during an interview, his generation's early interest in Iran and Islam was motivated by ‘the search […] the want for spiritual fulfilment and an alternative to Western existential materialism’.Footnote ⁸ However, he continued, today this spiritual approach has to be overcome in favour of a more militant one to initiate a common international struggle against global liberalism and the ‘New World Order’. In this context, the insistence on shared values aims to counter the Islamophobic sentiment prevalent today within the far right,Footnote ⁹ emphasizing that the struggle is against the common oppressor, liberal globalization.

In a similar vein, Hanieh Tarkian (an Italian-Iranian lecturer at the Rome branch of the al-Mustafa International University, a frequent commentator for far-right Italian publications such as Il Primato Nazionale, among the others, a regular contributor to the magazine Il Puro Islam, and a member of the Eurasiatist Dimore della Sapienza research centre) foregrounds the imperative of solidarity among the oppressed peoples to resist against global liberalism:

The weakening of identity and tradition, the hypocrisy of Western liberal elites, along with hostility against feminism and what they call ‘gender ideology’ (Lavizzari and Prearo, Reference Lavizzari and Prearo2019; Paternotte, Reference Paternotte2023) are the issues upon which the far right's and Iran's discourses overlap today. The following section discusses the methodology adopted to examine such overlaps.

Moral and normative superiority

The Islamic Republic self-brands as a morally superior political community through specific narratives that revolve around Western hypocrisy as opposite to Iran's commitment to justice, inspired by religion. The West's double standards in international politicsFootnote ²⁴ is an important discursive trope around which Iran has built many narratives, from the Iran–Iraq war (1980–1988) and the defence of its own nuclear programme,Footnote ²⁵ to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and, more recently, the demand that France respects the human rights of protesters during the mobilizations against the pensions reform.Footnote ²⁶ While circulating these specific narratives to Italian audiences, the mediators selectively ignore another narrative which is important to Khamenei: Western colonialism and its history of institutionalized racism,Footnote ²⁷ which are used by Khamenei to further illustrate the West's hypocrisy and double standards, especially when it comes to its commitment to uphold human rights internationally. ‘Tragedy, sacking, torture’ are defined as the ‘chef d'oeuvres’ of the West.Footnote ²⁸ In another illustration, the Supreme Leader Khamenei denounces the hypocrisy of those countries that supported Saddam Hussein, who committed major human rights violations, during the Iran–Iraq and are today presenting themselves as human rights champions.Footnote ²⁹ Khamenei also used the Western conduct vis-à-vis the Russian invasion of Ukraine as an example to uncover racism and hypocrisy: ‘everyone saw the West's racism in Ukraine. They help white refugees escape on a train, while those of colour are asked to leave that train’,Footnote ³⁰ a narrative which the mediators have purged of its reference to racism in their translation for Italy's far-right audiences. Instead, Western proactive attitude in defence of Ukraine and the contrast with its negligence of the rights of the Palestinians is used by both Khamenei and the mediators in their work of translation for the Italian audiences.Footnote ³¹

In opposition to such hypocrisy is Iran's morality, which is the result of ‘paying attention to God, the Highest, and to spirituality’, Khahemeni argues.Footnote ³² The martyrs of the Iran–Iraq war are the symbol of it,Footnote ³³ as they gave their life ‘not only for the defence of our geographical borders, but for faith, ethics, religion, culture and identity’.Footnote ³⁴ Using the hashtag ‘selfless’, the IRCG General Suleimani is celebrated as an anti-terrorism hero, ‘protector of the oppressed and advocate of the women and children suffering from oppression and foreign invasion’.Footnote ³⁵ Religious faith strengthens Iran, as demonstrated during ‘Saddam's war against Iran, when the United States, the Soviet Union, and Nato allied together to break Iran down, but they could not because the religious faith of the people defeated them’.Footnote ³⁶

Another important narrative trope is Iran's respect for women's rights, as mandated by Islam.Footnote ³⁷ According to Khamenei, in the West the commercialization of women's body is presented as emancipationFootnote ³⁸ but, in reality, the ‘Western gaze’ reduces women to objects, while Islam upholds their dignity. One of Khamenei's posts on this topic is accompanied by an image symbolizing a woman working in many sectors of life, from minding children, cleaning, and cooking, to paid employment.Footnote ³⁹ In this image, the woman is negatively affected by too many heavy burdens. It is a situation of ‘slavery’,Footnote ⁴⁰ Khamenei argues, resulting from the West's idea of emancipation, which is at the service of capitalism and patriarchy. In another post, Khamenei explains that Western feminists and capitalists pushed women into the labour market to have cheap workforce.Footnote ⁴¹ According to the Supreme Leader, this process distracts women from their primary role as mothers and wivesFootnote ⁴² and promotes the idea that sexual behaviour should be unregulated. This resulted into men having sexual satisfaction whenever they desire it at the expenses of women, and into a general ‘moral corruption’, as evidenced in the legalization of homosexual relations – something that all religions prohibit, not only Islam, Khamenei argues.Footnote ⁴³

Political and systemic superiority

The moral superiority of Iran translates into the superiority of its policies and political system. Liberal democracy is criticized, while the Islamic Republic is celebrated as more complete as it is based on both democratic and religious values.Footnote ⁴⁴ Furthermore, liberal democracy is rigged by the interests of single political parties, which transform electoral competitions into struggles for power, instead of working for the common good.Footnote ⁴⁵

The political superiority of Iran also results from its commitment to resist imperialism. In this discursive frame, Suleimani's legacy is mobilized to celebrate Iran's strategic and political achievements in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. On the anniversary of his killing, Khamenei describes the qualities of Suleimani (braveness, courage, responsibility, purity) and argues that they were forged in war and the revolution, as well as in his devotion to God.Footnote ⁴⁶ According to Khamenei, the superiority of Iran is also demonstrated by the failed attempts of the United States at interfering in its internal affairs. To this, the West reacted by fabricating anti-Iran and Islamophobic propaganda, funding groups such as the Islamic State, and orchestrating internal revolts, such as the Woman Life Freedom uprising.Footnote ⁴⁷ The issue of compulsory veiling, in particular, is discussed by Khamenei as an excuse to incite revolts, which aim at breaking Iran's independence rather than advancing women's rightsFootnote ⁴⁸ – a message that the mediators convey to the far right entirely. Commenting on the expulsion of Iran from the UN Commission on the Status of Women in December 2022, the Embassy of Iran in Italy accuses other member states of hypocrisy, as they never ratified major international conventions for the protection of human rights.Footnote ⁴⁹ The 1979 revolution has not only brought independence to Iran, but also improved the life of Iranians, including women's, Iran's state representatives – and the mediators – argue. During the Woman Life Freedom uprising, state propaganda has insisted that the revolution prompted women's emancipation through education and political representation.Footnote ⁵⁰

Performative superiority

Iran self-brands as superior also in terms of technological, economic and strategic achievements. Iran's achievements are never celebrated against the progress made by other countries but, rather, against the difficulties that Iran had to overcome as an isolated country under sanctions.Footnote ⁵¹ Narratives of resistance as a demonstration of superior strength are central. Khamenei pushed them to the point that he thanked international sanctions for motivating Iranians to do more despite the circumstances,Footnote ⁵² demonstrating ‘the nation's strength’.Footnote ⁵³ In this discursive context, hashtags #IranForte (Iran is strong) and #PossenteIran (Iran is powerful) have been used. Examples include Iran's successes in military defence and the disruption of ‘the enemies’ plans’ in reference to ‘the West's anti-Iran activities’;Footnote ⁵⁴ Iran's success in cancelling the negative effects of sanctions;Footnote ⁵⁵ Iran's achievement in the medical sector, an example of which is the Iranian anti-Covid19 vaccine.Footnote ⁵⁶

Strategic superiority too is discursively constructed building the failure of Western policies in the region, a message that the mediators covey to their Italian audience. Khamenei argued, ‘the result of Iran's activism is the defeat of the United States in three countries. They wanted power in Iraq, but they do not have it; they wanted to overthrow the government in Syria but could not; they wanted to destroy Hezbollah and Amal in Lebanon, but they could not’.Footnote ⁵⁷

A multipolar world order

These three discourses of superiority join together to form the second discourse of an emerging multipolar world order. This discourse exposes the decline of Western hegemony (not only, but mainly, American), its weakness and failure, and contrasts it against the success of countries such as Iran, Russia, and China.Footnote ⁵⁸ In this discourse, failures of Western policies are reclaimed as successes of Iran, Russia, and China, but also as a consequence of a global Islamic Awakening. This is ‘an expression of the strength of faith, Jihad and trust in God’ and a ‘rejection’ of the ‘United States’ attempt at deviating the Islamic world from its path of awakening and happiness’,Footnote ⁵⁹ observes Khamenei.

In 2022, Khamenei praised Putin as a strong leader and an important ally to Iran. Cooperation has to be reinforced, the Supreme Leader argued, to the benefit of the economy and self-defence against Nato's imperialist aggression.Footnote ⁶⁰ This discourse outlines a larger international strategic vision, with new leaders and a multipolar international system. The growth of relations between Russia and China, for instance, is praised not only because of its positive implications for Iran, but also because of its potential to transform international politics.Footnote ⁶¹ According to Khamenei, the crisis of the West is creating a shift in world power in favour of Asia, which will become ‘the world's centre of science, economy and political-military power’.Footnote ⁶² A multipolar world is one of justice, the Supreme Leader states, and equality among the nations of the world. In an illustration of this, Khamenei argues that not only the United State will stop interfering in the domestic affairs of other countries, but that the praxis of installing military bases abroad, ‘making the poorer state paying for them’, will stop too.Footnote ⁶³

Against the liberal hegemonic order

Liberalism is immoral because it corrupts and alienates human beings from their traditional ‘natural’ identities. As described earlier, this argument is present in Iran's state discourse in general and in specific cases – such as women being alienated from their ‘natural’ role as mothers and wives – and is present in the far-right discourses and narratives, too.

Overlapping with Khamenei's discourse, the Shayk Abbas Di Palma, of the Imam al-Mahdi association, frames Islam as a bastion against political and cultural alienation. Islam is a ‘living religion’, which liberalism wants to eliminate to create ‘a universal and homogeneous world order […] where religion is nothing more than a phenomenon relegated in the past, with no relevance for today’.Footnote ⁶⁵ While narratives presenting Islam as a defence of tradition are historically present in the far right, as discussed earlier, they usually are marginalized in favour of a larger and more political discourse in defence of traditions. Citing Terracciano, Hanieh Tarkian explains that liberalism is immoral because it wants to create ‘a single government (the New World Order), a single political, institutional and social system (liberalism), a single system of values (individualism-egalitarianism-the ‘human rights doctrine’) and a single lifestyle (consumerism) […] which enable the absolute power of […] the global financial elite’. To resist this threat, Tarkian argues, we must defend the peoples’ traditional identities and their right to self-determination.Footnote ⁶⁶

Another narrative that resonates with Iran's state discourse presents liberalism as a dangerous ideology for Western and Italian audiences. In an event hosted by Le Dimore della Sapienza, titled ‘Chi ha paura del Natale? I musulmani oppure…?’ (Who fears Christmas, Muslims or…?), liberal hegemony is described as a double threat. According to the speakers, liberalism, on the one hand, endangers the traditional identity of Italy. On the other hand, it deflects negative public attention on religious minorities (Muslims) presenting them as those who threaten Christian and nationalist values. This is a narrative trope often mobilized by Khamenei too, who foregrounds how Islam respects all religion, instead. This line of thinking circulates in other platforms too. For example, Il Primato Nazionale defends Christmas as a foremost Italian celebration that the ‘liberal agenda’ attacks to ‘push Italians to give up their identity and embrace an amorphous and identity-less liberal globalization’.Footnote ⁶⁷

Liberalism also informs Western foreign policy, the United States and Europe's in particular, as evidenced by their double standards when it comes to Palestine, Yemen, and Ukraine.Footnote ⁶⁸ Narratives about these two countries largely overlap with Iran's official state discourse, as discussed earlier, although they are re-proposed in different forms, centring Italy as a victim of the same double standard along with Palestine, for example. During the event titled ‘Foibe, Palestina: due tragedie così lontane ma così vicine’ (Foibe and Palestine: Two distant yet similar tragedies) organized by Le Dimore della Sapienza,Footnote ⁶⁹ the three speakers (all of whom are Italian) criticized liberalism and ‘the new world order’ for the silencing of the plight of both Palestinians today and Italians in Slovenia and Croatia at the end of World War Two. According to the speakers, who praised Iran for resisting Westernization, liberalism (which was one of the forces winning WW2) condoned violence against Italians in Slovenia and Croatia to weaken their nationalist pride and identity. While re-elaborated to resonate with specific aspects of Italian public debates and with the far right's perspective on Italian national history, Iran's state narratives about Palestine overlap with the Italian far right's nationalism in the form of a defence of nationalist identities from liberalism and its attempts at weakening them.

Anti-Feminism and anti-‘gender ideology’

Anti-feminism and, in its more recent iteration, anti-‘gender ideology’ are crucial elements in the contemporary rise of the global right (Norocel and Giorgi, Reference Norocel and Giorgi2022). The traditionalist-inspired reaction against intersectional feminism and against the critique of the gender binary rely on the naturalization of gender complementarity, which is at the core of both the Iranian state's and Italy's far-right traditionalist political discourse, as discussed earlier in the case of Iran. The magazine Fuoco dedicated a special issue, titled ‘Hanno ucciso l'uomo maschio’ (They killed the masculine man, 2021) to this issue, and during its launch, one of the contributors, Costanza Miriano,Footnote ⁷⁰ talked about ‘the lies of feminism’.Footnote ⁷¹ According to Miriano, feminism convinced women to renounce their natural role as mothers and ‘become like men’. She talked about the difficulty to reconcile a professional career with motherhood because ‘the labour market does not consider us as mothers’, concluding that ‘we are not discriminated against as women; we are discriminated against as mothers’ and that ‘it is not important to help mothers to work, but to help workers to be mothers’. Overlapping with one of Khamenei's declarations examined earlier in this paper, Miriano said that ‘feminism is a politics with no resonance in the real life of women. We know that feminism is a top-down project funded by financial elites, who are interested in convincing women to work because they are paid less […] feminism wants to convince women that it is better to obey an employer than a loving husband’.

During the same event, Tarkian followed up some of Miriano's points, emphasizing that powerful liberal media elites hide ‘evident truths, such as that a child needs a mother and a father and that there is a natural correspondence between biological sex and being a woman or a man’.Footnote ⁷² Transphobic messaging is common in far-right circles and on the mediators' (Tarkian's and Milani Amin's) social media profiles. This reflects the importance of the specific context in determining discourses and narratives. While in Italy Trans people's identity and rights are under attack by conservative forces, making it a salient issue for attracting far-right audiences, in Iran sex reassignment procedures and consequent legal adjustments are supported by the state and are not contentious religiously, therefore they are absent from Iran's official discourse.

The obsession with ‘gender ideology’ is a characteristic of contemporary transnational right-wing populism. There is a consolidated language and set of topics that most of far-right forces refer to, when talking about this issue. However there are differences too, because, as argued by Anievas and Saull (Reference Anievas and Saull2022), the far right is ‘an internationally interconnected yet ideo-politically variegated global phenomenon’. Discursively, the far right in Italy presents gender as an ideology and utilizes a codified ‘anti-gender’ discourse. As discussed earlier, this is not present as such in Iran's state discourse, which is more focused on the defence of traditional gender roles and Islam, rather than fighting against ‘gender’ as a code for a broader anti-liberal discourse. An example of how the far right in Italy operates is provided by ideologue Diego Fusaro, who has often argued that ‘gender ideology’ is a threat that comes from the globalist elites, who want to establish the New World Order by uniformizing the world population into an identity-less and docile mass of consumers.Footnote ⁷³ While the Iranian state does not engage in ‘anti-gender’ discourse, the political conclusion which the far right in Italy and the Iranian state reach, largely overlap, in their common anti-liberal and pro-gender complementarity persuasions.

Anti-Atlanticism and multipolarity

When it comes to anti-Atlanticism and multipolarity there seems to be a significant overlap between Iran's discourse and the far-right one, in how the passing of Western hegemony is exposed in favour of other, new emerging powers. Resonating with Khamenei's positions, Russia, China, and Iran are praised as ‘proud countries’ that defend their national identity and inspire a multipolar world order based on national sovereignty.Footnote ⁷⁴ There also are differences, however, such as the role Italy plays in such a scenario.

Italy is in fact presented as a ‘frustrated hegemon’, which has the power and the ambition to dominate in the Mediterranean and beyond, but is disempowered by non-nationalist liberal elites, both Italian and foreign. Utilizing expressions such as ‘tornare potenza’ (make Italy powerful again), ‘mai piú schiavi’ (we will never be slaves again) and ‘mare nostrum’ (our sea), Il Primato Nazionale and Fuoco have dedicated significant attention to the analysis of how Italy can re-establish itself as the hegemon in Europe and the Mediterranean, fulfilling its historical role.Footnote ⁷⁵ This analysis presents British geopolitical ambitions as in direct competition with Italy's, resonating with a geopolitical vision already popular within the far right. This analysis was popular during Fascism and survived thanks ideologues such as Evola, Dugin, Mutti, Terracciano and others (Piraino, Reference Piraino, Piraino, Pasi and Asprem2023). The negative role attributed to British ambitions is complemented by a negative view of American foreign policy, responsible for diffusing the liberal order – or ‘the New World Order’ – through imperial wars.Footnote ⁷⁶ In this vision, Iran is seen as an ally in the resistance against Atlanticism.