Global Dynamics of Authoritarian Populism

Global Dynamics of Authoritarian Populism

roundtable participants
  • Events
  • Workshop
October 2020
SSMS 2135
Alison Brysk, convenor

Authoritarian nationalism seeks to mobilize a populist base through casting bearers of globalization and modernity as a threat to the body politic, with the ultimate goal of subverting fragile democratic institutions that could check the rising power of a reactionary elite.  As in previous eras, fascist ideology invoked by a wide swath of contemporary authoritarianism locates the threat to the imagined body politic from modernizing gender regimes, migration, and independent intellectual critique.  Repression, institutional attacks, and scapegoating are constructed in reference to historical models and transnational emulation—and in this sense, represent a form of anti-global globalization. Thus, we see gender violence and homophobia in Brazil, Russia, and the Philippines; demonization of migrants and minorities in the U.S., Hungary, India, Israel, and Turkey; and persecution of academics in Turkey and Hungary, among others.  In each case, the targeted group is depicted as a threat to national security and values, which is connected with the destabilizing consequences of economic and political globalization: rising inequality, demographic change, and deflation of national political authority.  What are the common patterns and national distinctions of the worldwide wave of nationalist violence? How can we contest these patterns and reconfigure the international rights regime and democratic institutions to address them?

Presenters
*Zehra Arat, University of Connecticut: “The Politics of Populism in Turkey”

*Gershon Shafir, UC San Diego: “Ethno-nationalist Displacement of Democracy in Israel”

*Carol Wise, USC: “Political Economy of Populism in Eastern Europe and Latin America”

*Alison Brysk and Jesilyn Faust, UCSB: “Womens Rights in the Philippines in an Era of Authoritarianism"