Authoritarian Populism

The article divides the history of Thatcherism into seven main stages from its pre-history before 1979 through to the revival of the neoliberal project by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition of 2010–2015. This periodization is based on the changing strategic line of Thatcherism and is related not only to Mrs Thatcher’s practice of conviction politics as a political leader but also to the defining features of neoliberalism considered as an economic and political project. The analysis then reviews the features of the neoliberal regime shift instituted under Mrs Thatcher once it had been consolidated, including the strengthening of the City of London and a finance-dominated accumulation trajectory at the expense of uneven development elsewhere in the United Kingdom and, eventually, the financial crisis that undermined the New Labour Government in 2007–10. This crisis was the pretext for the previously noted revival of the Thatcherite project. The article then considers the dialectic of authoritarian populism and statism and ends with brief remarks on how the recent and continuing fisco-financial crisis has provided an opportunity for the revival of a ‘two nations’ neoliberal austerity politics.

There has been a burgeoning interest in the sociology of the Frankfurt School as well as the oeuvre of Theodor W. Adorno since the 2016 presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump. The objectives of this study are to both illustrate the enduring importance of Adorno and to provide an important theoretical outline in making sense of Trump’s 2016 United States presidential campaign. Using Adorno’s understudied textual analysis of the radio addresses of Martin Luther Thomas and data from Trump’s 2016 US presidential campaign, we find that Trump’s own discourse can be condensed into three of Adorno’s rhetorical devices: (1) the lone wolf device or anti-statism/pseudo-conservatism, reflecting his criticism of “special interests” and his appraisal of business and (self-)finance; (2) the movement device, which amounted to glorification of action; and (3) the exactitude of error device which amounted to xenophobic, ethnonationalist hyperbole.

The article divides the history of Thatcherism into seven main stages from its pre-history before 1979 through to the revival of the neoliberal project by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition of 2010–2015. This periodization is based on the changing strategic line of Thatcherism and is related not only to Mrs Thatcher’s practice of conviction politics as a political leader but also to the defining features of neoliberalism considered as an economic and political project. The analysis then reviews the features of the neoliberal regime shift instituted under Mrs Thatcher once it had been consolidated, including the strengthening of the City of London and a finance-dominated accumulation trajectory at the expense of uneven development elsewhere in the United Kingdom and, eventually, the financial crisis that undermined the New Labour Government in 2007–10. This crisis was the pretext for the previously noted revival of the Thatcherite project. The article then considers the dialectic of authoritarian populism and statism and ends with brief remarks on how the recent and continuing fisco-financial crisis has provided an opportunity for the revival of a ‘two nations’ neoliberal austerity politics.

La Asamblea Legislativa de El Salvador, en su primera sesión
luego de su elección el pasado 28 de febrero, decidió destituir a los
magistrados de la Sala de lo Constitucional designando de inmediato
a nuevos magistrados. Todo ello, en las primeras horas de la extensa
sesión desarrollada entre la tarde del sábado 1° de mayo y la
madrugada del día 2. Esta decisión es, en su esencia, autoritaria, pues socavó las bases de la democracia constitucional. Además, se basó en la retórica populista. Con lo cual, puede ser considerada como un ejemplo de Derecho Constitucional Autoritario-Populista.

In its first session after its election on February 28, the Legislative Assembly of El Salvador decided to oust the  Constitutional Chamber's judge, immediately designating new ones. The Assembly adopted those decisions between the afternoon of Saturday, May 1, and the
dawn on the 2nd. This decision is, in its essence, authoritarian since it undermined the foundations of constitutional democracy. In addition, it was based on populist rhetoric. Therefore, the removal of the Constitutional Chamber's decision is an example of "Constitutional Authoritarian-Populist Law"

The 2016 election of Donald Trump as US president came as a surprise to many people – but generally not to farmers and rural communities. In this paper, we interrogate the politics of rural places in generating both support for and struggle against authoritarian populism. We ask: Why do the politics of the rural US seem so regressive at this current moment? What explains the rise and growth of white supremacist language, organization, action, and power? Looking to histories of small farmer and farm labor organizing in two key agricultural regions – California and the Midwest – we find some answers. California, we show, has been a principal site for honing the discourses, strategies, and tactics of consolidating right-wing power in the US. From 'Associated Farmers' front groups of the 1930s through Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, we follow the roots of authoritarian rural populism now re-emergent with Trump. The Midwest, in turn, sheds light on a rich tradition of rural organizing. Though often considered a bastion of right-wing sentiment, Heartland politics have successfully linked rural peoples to contest low crop prices, exploitative labor conditions, and regional disinvestments. In synthesizing lessons across cases, we provide a functional lens through which to understand contemporary prospects for emancipation. How can Othering and similar racialized constructs that have long been used to divide the working class and undermine rural organizing be dismantled? Can we meaningfully confront authoritarian rural populism without confronting the political-economic foundations of its development: notably, capitalism, its current manifestation in hegemonic neoliberalism, and failed approaches for reform? From these kernels of inquiry, we build towards a second paper focused on contemporary efforts to define and practice emancipatory change.

This talk was later published into an article:

Juego, Bonn (2018) "The Philippines 2017: Duterte-led Authoritarian Populism and Its Liberal-Democratic Roots," in Asia Maior 2017, Vol. XXVIII, pp. 129-164.

(See - https://www.academia.edu/36911234/The_Philippines_2017_Duterte-led_Authoritarian_Populism_and_Its_Liberal-Democratic_Roots)

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte led a phenomenal campaign to win the 2016 national election. During his first two years in power Duterte as become the protagonist and exemplar of a key new development – the social formation of a regime of authoritarian populism. Based on an analysis of news reports, public debates, survey results, and official policy documents from 2017, the article examines various features of this emergent regime and then illuminates the historical-institutional mechanisms that brought it about. The inquiry is predicated on an understanding that the old EDSA Republic’s liberal-democratic regime has been marked by intractable socio-economic crises since its installation in 1986. This triggered different political tendencies and trajectories that Duterte has been able to mould into a new mode of regulation and governance. The central discussion elucidates some of the significant features that constitute the process through which the new regime of authoritarian populism is taking shape. The conclusion highlights the mutually reinforcing features of the dying EDSA-type liberal democracy and the emerging Duterte-led authoritarian populism. This suggests that the former has been a spawning ground for the latter.

In this chapter, we analyze how a majoritarian Hindu nationalism has been inscribed into law in unprecedented ways under Narendra Modi. In doing so, we start from Hindu nationalist attempts at redefining the Indian nation through grassroots mobilization and violence from the 1990s. The chapter then analyzes the more recent attempts by the Modi regime at mobilizing law in order to align the nation with the core tenets of Hindu nationalism. This, we argue, is in effect an attempt at legally locking in Hindu nationalist claims to the nation in ways that make it exceedingly difficult to reverse such claims in the future, and which erodes democratic rights in dramatic ways.

Of all the changes that have swept India’s polity since the late 1980’s, among the most significant is the nearly simultaneous rise of Hindutva forces and those favouring economic ‘liberalisation.’  Both were once pariahs in India’s political scene, and both have now reached the centre stage, with the latter now regarded as unquestioned by both our national parties.  The nature of the links, if any, between neoliberalism and social reaction – particularly the Hindu right – is not entirely obvious.  Typically, these forces’ simultaneous rise is identified either as a reflection solely of common class interests or as the result of a one-way causal relationship.  For instance, one common argument has been that Hindutva’s “emotive issues” have either been a conscious diversion from or an unconscious result of the social stresses caused by neoliberal reforms. 
I seek here to explore a different dimension, namely that Indian neoliberalism and Hindutva share deeper, common political goals and hence also share a potential project of political action.  I explore the possible existence of a political alliance (though not a merger) between neoliberalism and Hindutva, particularly during the NDA period.

The upward land grabbing trend in Eastern Europe has remained understudied, as well as its strong interlinkages with political narratives - more specifically with the ones proposed by Euroskepticism and populism. The current paper looks at how land grabbing has emerged as a topic that fits the Euroskeptic populist discourse in Romania, despite the high levels of trust in the European Union that has characterized the country ever since its EU accession in 2007. European integration was perceived by small landowners as an opportunity to prosper, but vulnerabilities such as obsolete agricultural technologies and lack of know-how in applying for European funding have hampered their plans. Our paper suggests that the populist discourse that emerged in Romania used such popular dissatisfaction to undermine the benefits of European integration and the main ”threat” that this discourse pointed at was the ”foreigner” – framed as an individual or company that used their financial power to buy large portions of land in Romania in the detriment of the country’s citizens, while in reality apart from the ‘foreigner’ paradigm; research reveals that oligarchs and national (state) elites are as deeply involved in the land grabbing discourse in Romania as foreigners. We finally argue that the concept of authoritarian populism can theoretically help to rethink and reframe the post-communist land grabbing discourse towards more inclusive emancipatory politics with a specific focus on the needs of rural communities.

This article demonstrates that the authoritarian populist strategy is most appealing when leaders create a sense of crisis and present themselves as having the only solution. The article underlines three performative methods of how Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil offered simple answers for a crisis and portrayed other political actors as the responsible ones to be removed. Firstly, nativism presents a conservative view on how politics should be structured by perceiving all "non-natives" as threatening. Secondly, messianism, the fetishism of Bolsonaro as a "messiah" who leads the way in the battle between "good" and "evil, " serves to reinforce the support of the Evangelist base against "PT members. " Finally, conspiracism provides an easy way to eradicate ambiguities and helps to fuel an antagonism against the "enemy.

Abstract

Paper Title: ‘Strong Leaders’, Authoritarian Populism and Indian Developmentalism: the Moment in Historical Context.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi is part of a worldwide wave of strong ‘populist’ leaders who have emerged in the context of the crisis of neoliberalism, and among whose appeal is their claims to put their economies back on a growth trajectory by the authoritarian implementation of core neoliberal reforms. Nothing its relative lack in relevant literatures, I build an account of ‘strong leadership’, based on Modi’s record in government, as it mediates between ‘authoritarian populism’ and ‘neoliberal restoration’. Such leadership, I show, is based on a serial creation of a ‘people/enemy’ divide in society, and mobilising this division to win large electoral mandates, which in turn support authoritarian projects of majoritarianism and of neoliberal economic reforms. Modi has drawn on leadership practices contextual to postcolonial India, such as earlier iterations under Nehru and Indira Gandhi. However, his project has moved beyond these earlier iterations of ‘strong leader’ politics into an authoritarian and, in some crucial ways, fascist directions. Coming to power to solve the ‘crisis of neoliberalism’, it has made most advance in instituting a majoritarian Hindu nation, first constructing it as a pre-figurative community, and now giving it shape as constitutional fact. These new modes of ‘embodying the nation’ and exercising spatial control have been made possible through the domination of media and social media that create serial ‘radical exclusions’ of nominated ‘enemies of the people’.

Keywords: Authoritarian populism; neoliberal restoration; authoritarian liberalism; strong leaders; Hindutva; Modi.

This article is an attempt to contribute to current debate on the historical relations, linkages and changing potentials between the recent rise of right-wing populism, autocratic regimes and fascism(s) using the case of Turkey. The scope of this article is limited to events and discussions until the legalization of Erdogan’s one-man regime.

Canada’s Conservative Party and former government’s (2006-2015) attempts to define and at times shift Canadian identity and notions of citizenship, immigration and multiculturalism to the right have been part of a significant political project featuring a uniquely creative and Canadian form of authoritarian populist politics in these realms. Their 2006 minority and 2011 majority election victories represented the culmination of a long march to power begun with the 1987 founding of the Reform Party of Canada. While they have at times purged themselves of some of the most blatant, anti-immigration elements of the discourses of their predecessor parties, continuities in its Canadian brand of authoritarian populist politics have continued in new forms since the founding of the new Conservative Party in 2003. This political project’s features and contradictions are constitutive of a disciplinary neoconservative variant of multiculturalism and Canadian nationalism. These are examined through a mix of critical discourse analysis of leading party figures’ speeches, platforms, government documents and policy analysis.
This paper outlines characteristics and realities of neoconservative multiculturalism, including references to the Conservatives’ time in office and dynamics since their defeat in the 2015 election. These characteristics include 1) pragmatically adapting themselves to common sense notions of multiculturalism and immigration in Canada while also seeking to shift the politics of multiculturalism in Canada rightward by 2) seeking to empty it of anti-racist content and bind its remnants to a neoconservative worldview and 3) engaging in practices and discourses of exclusion, including a) engaging in clash of civilizations and Islamophobic discourses and policies, b) re-ethnicizing Canadian citizenship, c) targeting asylum seekers and 4) bolstering and collaborating with anti-multicultural civil society voices and actors.
Overall, neoconservative multiculturalism is a creative and flexible ideological project enforcing and advancing a highly regressive form of politics and public policy. In part conceding to public opinion in favour of multiculturalism and Canada’s demographics, it includes pragmatic nods to diversity but hollows out potentially more progressive interpretations of multiculturalism while demanding adherence to disturbing forms of nationalism and patriotism that police and weaken public debate. While the party’s direction is somewhat open with Erin O’Toole having been chosen as their new leader by the party membership in August of 2020, on many fronts Conservative Party and extra-party right discourses have continued to degenerate in this realm since the party’s 2015 defeat.

The essay in progress, the longer form of a talk to be delivered at the Tisch College of Civic Life on Friday, September 23, argues that Civic Studies suggests an epistemology of agency and a citizen-centered politics, different than the distributive, expert-centered politics which dominates in today's liberalism and social democracy, and also different than the authoritarian politics of identity represented by Donald Trump.

In a time of contentious politics, it becomes conspicuous that studies of populism and of constituent power rarely mention one another. This is true despite the fact that "the people" are regularly asserted as the preferred political subject for populism and constituent power alike, pitting them against elites and even the constitution. But if opponents of populism are right that its appeal to the people's will is normatively suspect, how do we ensure that their willas the foundation of modern politics-is not undercut completely? I claim that the theory of constituent power can solve this dilemma through a comparison with populism that assesses their respective positions on political subjectivity and identity, political temporality, political will, and the appropriate kind of rule. Critics are wrong to depict either approach as intrinsically cynical and unprincipled. However, comparing their ontological assumptions confirms that constituent power offers a theoretically rich and complex frame for contentious politics, one that is superior to and reinforces concerns about populism, especially the kind of authoritarian populism-and its democratic masquerade-that is dominant today.

Transcript of the speech at European Left Summer University, 10-14 July 2019, Fiuggi, Italy. Plenary: Capitalism is a predatory system – for the planet and on our lives, 12 July 2019, Friday 17.00

Abstract
It is a great honour being here, in a moment when the new rise of neo-fascism and authoritarian neoliberalism places a huge responsibility on us. This short lecture is about the authoritarian nature of capitalism and its cooperation with state autocracy. I am arguing here that the new militarist and imperialist nature of capitalism is the permanent state of exception. I am trying to put a specific emphasize on the unprecedent dangers raised by authoritarian regimes in the era of climate and ecological emergency.

This dissertation assesses the modern Conservative Party of Canada and governments (2006-2015) discourses, political approach and policy record in the fields of citizenship, immigration and multiculturalism. This is done in the context of the partys evolution from its Reform Party and Canadian Alliance predecessors on the terrain of a Canadian settler colonial state with significant racialized and ethnicized (im)migrant and refugee populations from whom some electoral support is required to achieve and exercise power. The main argument of this dissertation is that the Canadian Alliance Partys absorption of the former Progressive Conservative Party of Canada saw the birth of a new Conservative Party that at its core remained an exclusionary political force whose authoritarian populist approach to politics and policy reinforced and further intensified existing social hierarchies between settler colonial and (im)migrant Canadians, particularly with their treatment of Muslims, refugees,...

- Please note: Extended German excerpt from the article  follows the short Englisch abstract -

The article discusses the rise of authoritarian populism in the context of Turkeys neoliberalisation experience since 1980. For long time, populist politics in Turkey successfully claimed to be the voice of the suppressed against the ruling. In fact, they used an oppositional political language meanwhile processing the material interests of the hegemonic forces. This established hegemonic stream in Turkish politics has been represented since 2002 by AK Parti, which has been evaluated by many observers as a force contrary to an assumed 'status quo'. With the use of this terminology, AK Parti has been evaluated by many academics within the termini of it's own discourse – a precondition for overlooking the authoritarian transformation taking place in Turkey for long years on the shoulders of selectively implemented EU-reforms. Despite receiving considerable support, particularly from the European public, authoritarian populism fell into an deep crises throughout the recent years – the result is its radicalisation which is mistakenly debated as the start of populism in Turkey.

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“Wie verschieden Erdoğan in den letzten Jahren wahrgenommen wurde, ist eng mit dem Populismus in der Türkei verbunden – namentlich, ab dem Zeitpunkt, als westliche Öffentlichkeiten begannen, von den autoritär-populistischen Tendenzen in der Türkei zu berichten. Als diskursiv-medialer Wendepunkt kann die brutale Niederschlagung der Juni-Revolte von 2013 ausgemacht werden. Bemerkenswert daran ist, dass die Adalet ve Kalkınma Parti/Partei für Gerechtigkeit und Entwicklung (AKP), die zur jener Zeit seit über 10 Jahren regierte, international als eine Kraft wahrgenommen wurde, die sich entschieden der Demokratisierung des Land verschrieben hatte. Breite, bislang nicht repräsentierte Bevölkerungsgruppen, schienen nun erstmals in der Geschichte gegen „den“ kemalistischen Staat politisch und kulturell repräsentiert zu werden. Als „Populismus der Herrschenden“ (Laclau 1979: 174) stellte diese Erzählung ihre zentrale national-populare Anrufung der Massen als etwas dar, was der herrschenden Ideologie widersprach, weil das Grundelement kritisch und herrschaftsaffirmativ gegenüber dem kemalistischen Staat zugleich war und das Fenster für eine islamistische Gesellschaftspolitik öffnete. Dies hegte das antagonistische Potenzial der popularen Massen ein und schuf zunächst Zustimmung zur Neoliberalisierung, indem sie diese als Technik der Überwindung der autoritär-staatlichen Bevormundung propagierte. Während die AKP so ökonomisch wichtige Herrschaftsverhältnisse reproduzierte, verschränkte sie ihr eigenes Herrschaftsprojekt erfolgreich mit dem EU-Projekt, das als externer Anker des Neoliberalisierungsprozesses fungierte.
Doch offenkundig befindet sich die populistische Bewegungen in der Türkei an einem anderen Punkt als jene in Europa: Was seit 2013 gerade im Ausland als eine autoritäre bis islamistische Gesellschaftstransformation debattiert wird, ist vielmehr eine seit Jahren anhaltende Krise des autoritären Populismus der AKP. Der autoritäre Populismus bildet seit Jahrzehnten die Agenda verschiedener Regierungen in der Türkei. Seine Radikalisierung, Krise und Transformation gehen darauf zurück, dass er zu lange hegemonial war, um noch erfolgreich als etwas Oppositionelles zu gelten. Wer sich mit der gegenwärtigen Krise des türkischen Populismus beschäftigt, wird schnell merken, dass jener zentral für die Neoliberalisierung seit 1980 war. Genau daran mangelt es dem westlichen, stark auf Erdoğan fixierten, Diskurs, der implizit den Mythos einer bis 2013 demokratisch-progressiven AKP aufrechterhält. Zudem basiert er – wie die herrschaftsaffirmative Kemalismuskritik – auf einem sehr oberflächlichen Staatsbegriff, der nicht in den Blick nimm, welche gesellschaftlichen Verhältnisse sich im Staat verdichten.
(...)
Die hier kritisierte Lesart türkischer Staatlichkeit bildete nicht nur seit 1980 die wichtigste Argumentationsfigur des Populismus der Herrschenden, der sich in seiner national-popularen Anrufung der Bevölkerung anti-etatistisch gab, sondern avancierte zugleich in den kommenden Jahren zum ideologischen Kern der sich formierenden AKP. International gelang es dagegen nicht, die spezifische Form des autoritären Populismus zu dekonstruieren: Stattdessen betrachteten europäische Eliten die Integration der – primär religiös-konservativ wahrgenommenen – Mehrheitsbevölkerung in die regionale neoliberale Ordnung als Voraussetzung für die langfristige Stabilität der Türkei, was eine schlichte Vereinfachung der komplexen Verhältnisse war. Im beschriebenen politischen Umfeld konnte der reformierte politische Islam auf explizit islamistische Referenzen verzichten und seine Agenda leicht in einer Semantik artikulieren, die national wie international ein breiteres politisches Spektrum ansprach. An Stelle der Forderung einer religiös begründeten Ordnung trat ein antijakobinischer Diskurs, der für ähnliche Inhalte neue, scheinbar säkulare Codes prägte, namentlich die „lokalen“, „authentischen“, „kulturellen“ Werte der eigenen politischen Identität (exemplarisch Akdoğan 2006). Während die AKP herrschende Klasseninteressen vertrat und bereits im Prozess ihrer Gründung im Jahr 2001 wichtige Exponent_innen des konservativ-liberalen Spektrums absorbierte und in ihre ökonomische Agenda integrierte, vertrat sie einen (scheinbar) oppositionellen Anti-Establishment-Diskurs. Letzterer bildete eine Form des Populismus der Herrschenden, der in seiner Anrufung der Massen deren antagonistische Potenziale absorbierte (Laclau 1979: 174). Autoritär-populistische Elemente (ebd. 174) waren also von Beginn an in das AKP-Projekt eingeschrieben – freilich ohne von den westlichen Öffentlichkeiten wahrgenommen zu werden. In diesem Sinne war sämtliche Politik der AKP und ihrer Vorgängerinnen immer eine populistische gewesen, denn sie präsentierte sich gegenüber der Ideologie des herrschenden Blocks antagonistisch, d.h. „dem“ kemalistischen Staat.

Wie kann die verschobene Wahrnehmung der türkischen Entwicklungen erklärt werden? Handfeste materielle Interessen spielten eine mindestens ebenso bedeutende Rolle für die Akzeptanz der AKP unter den gesellschaftlichen Eliten in der Türkei, wie im Ausland. Indem die neugründete AKP sowohl den Mehrheitsflügel des politischen Islam als auch seine konservativ-liberale Strömung organisierte, verkörperte sie jene Einheit des Machtblocks, die Ende 1960er Jahre verloren gegangen war, als sich wichtige Teile des politischen Islams von der konservativ-liberalen AP abgespalten hatten. Von den ökonomischen Eliten in der Türkei; die sich wesentlich im Unternehmensverband TÜSİAD organisierten, wurde die Wiedervereinigung des zuvor vielfach gespaltenen konservativen Spektrums als großer Fortschritt gewertet: Für sie galt die politische Zerstrittenheit als Haupthindernis für ökonomische Strukturreformen."

Diversos livros têm sido lançados sobre a onda iliberal que varreu o mundo na última década. Pouco se tem debatido tanto na ciência política, e nas ciências humanas em geral, quanto a recessão democrática mundial. A atenção é tanta, que dois livros com praticamente o mesmo título e ideias foram lançados com um espaço de pouco mais de seis meses: Como a democracia chega ao fim, de David Runciman; e Como as democracias morrem, de Steven Levitsky e Daniel Ziblatt.

In Discursive Disruption, Populist Communication and Democracy, Elena Block explores the links between declining democratic discourses, populist communication, and reflects on the communicative and moral dimensions of populism.

Block proposes the concept of discursive disruption to help to identify, analyze and understand the disruptive power of populist speech, turning to the communicative styles of Venezuela’s late President Hugo Chávez and the US’s President Donald J. Trump to illustrate and support this new conceptual and analytical tool. While the mainstream political class and media traditionally sought to manage the processes of political communication, the book contends that they have now been displaced and their role has been undermined. Middle ground politics and journalism have been substituted by the adversarial rhetorical styles of populists, multiplied through multi-fragmented channels, texts and voices. With this book, Block continues her introspection in the conceptual, communicative and mediatic dimensions of populism by adding a perspective that draws on democratic and discursive theories.

Discursive Disruption, Populist Communication and Democracy is ideally designed for scholars and professional communicators in political science and communication studies eager to understand the connection between weakening discourses of modern democracy and the pervasiness of confrontational styles of populist communication in contemporary political exchanges.

'Apart from Vladimir Putin, Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, was the only significant world leader reluctant to congratulate US President-elect Joe Biden. It wasn’t until six weeks had passed, after the Electoral College results were formalised, that the Brazilian president finally conceded a Biden win. In his address congratulating Biden, Bolsonaro stated: “I will continue to build a Brazil-United States alliance, in defence and sovereignty, democracy, and freedom of thought throughout the world.” However, Bolsonaro’s reluctance, some argue, might signal a contentious US-Brazil relationship under Biden'.

The present text is dealing with a new form of populism, namely authoritarian populism in countries of the Western Balkans. The big picture of reforms processes taking place in some of them in a 10 year period toward the EU enlargement finished with more authoritarianism than democracy. The EU technocratic officials miss the real conclusions in this situation, and turned out to be supporters of the new generation of authoritarian rulers who are impressed more by Putin than EU-values. Brussels conclusion that something is wrong in this region is not followed by a scrupulous analysis of what is going on and in which direction. Bureaucrats generally underestimate the seriousness of authoritarian populism as an “alternative” to democracy in the region.

This article presents and empirically substantiates a theoretical account explaining the making and stabilisation of illiberal hegemony in Hungary. It combines a Polanyian institutionalist framework with a neo-Gramscian analysis of right-wing hegemonic strategy and a relational class analysis inspired by the political economy tradition in anthropology. The article identifies the social actors behind the illiberal transformation, showing how ‘neoliberal disembedding’ fuelled the rightward shift of constituencies who had erstwhile been brought into the fold of liberal hegemony: blue-collar workers, post-peasants and sections of domestic capital. Finally, the article describes the emergence of a new regime of accumulation and Fidesz’s strategy of ‘authoritarian re-embedding’, which relies on ‘institutional authoritarianism’ and ‘authoritarian populism’. This two-pronged approach has so far allowed the ruling party to stabilise illiberal hegemony, even in the face of reforms that have g...

On 6 January 2021, an angry crowd stormed the United States Capitol. The insurrection was prompted by Donald Trump’s refusal to accept his November election loss. The President claimed victory had been stolen through fraud, sought to persuade state election officials to falsify results, contemplated martial law, and partly financed and organised the mob that descended on Washington. Behind all this, Trump’s ‘Big Lie’ has torn a fissure through the Republican Party. While the immediate cause of the fissure was Trump’s post-election behaviour, it’s the result of a decades-long process by which the Grand Old Party (GOP) unshackled itself from its core conservative principles, as it harnessed itself to opposition and identity politics, exploited white low-income voters’ fears of cultural change and economic displacement, and embraced anti-democratic action. The upshot is that the political organisation formally known as the Republican Party became the Trump Party, a party that has more in common with Marine Le Pen’s National Rally than Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats.

Cambodia’s ruling party cracked down on the press, civil society, and opposition in the lead up to the 2018 national elections. Drawing on interviews with Cambodian journalists who lost their jobs, as well as long-standing research on rural struggles in Cambodia, we argue that the Cambodian state’s crackdown on media is part of an ongoing transformation of authoritarian populism that has reduced the space for rural collective action. The state’s repression and co-optation of media also signals a change in the ruling party’s brand of populist authoritarianism: from simultaneously courting and spreading fear amongst rural voters, to casting rural people aside. The media is a space of both emancipatory and authoritarian potential, and for the journalists who saw themselves as building the post-conflict democratic state, the crackdown signals the loss of a more emancipatory, democratic imaginary. This study contributes to analyses of authoritarianism as practice by drawing attention to the various scales and spaces in which it is produced, enacted, and imagined. This paper is part of the ‘JPS Forum on Authoritarian Populism and the Rural World.

This essay, inspired by the huge outpouring of research generated in
and around the Emancipatory Rural Politics Initiative, reflects on the
challenges of analysing authoritarian populism and particularly its
rural expressions. The paper first examines key features of
authoritarian populism and early populist movements in the
Americas and Russia. Then it turns to ‘illiberal’ neoliberalism and
the origins of neoliberalism under brutal dictatorial regimes in
Indonesia and Chile. The paper scrutinizes the scepticism about
populism in the work of prominent liberal and neoliberal media
pundits and scholars. The affinities and tensions between different
authoritarian populist rulers, the worrisome transnational linkages
of their support bases and the massive flows of right-wing donor
money between white supremacist and nationalist movements in
different countries suggest the emergence of a fractious axis, not
as consolidated as the fascist axis of the 1930s and 1940s, but a
rising threat to democracy nonetheless. The paper considers the
degeneration of progressive populisms, such as Venezuelan
chavismo, and the problem of resorting to ‘automatic’ or
‘unconditional’ solidarities as a factor in the delegitimizing of left
alternative voices. The last sections discuss emancipatory politics,
the recent phenomenon of pandemic authoritarianism and the
rising protest movements that constitute a possible opportunity
for progressive forces.