Authoritarian Populism and Atavistic Nationalism: 21st-Century Challenges to Peacebuilding and Development

Keywords:

• authoritarian populism
• atavistic nationalism
• agonism
• liberal democracy
• neo-liberalism

The 20th century was the most violent and bloodiest of any in human history. The end of the ‘cold war’, however, was accompanied by a growing transnational recognition that most global problems (e.g. poverty, development, war, climate change, pandemics) required coordinated multilateral solutions. Indeed, at the turn of the century, most progressive academics and policymakers hoped that multilateral institutions would be able to catalyse collaborative solutions and in the process expand support for a rules-based global order (Brown 2017). Unfortunately, despite higher levels of global integration, the 21st century has produced some deeply negative dynamics, including an upsurge of authoritarian populism and atavistic nationalism, which challenge the liberal world order. The Trump presidency, the Brexit vote in the UK, and the expansion of right-wing movements around the world (but especially in Europe) have created a globally permissive environment for authoritarian politics and intolerant, extremist ideologies which pose dilemmas for those supporting the democratic project.

Development and peacebuilding processes build on globalist assumptions that focus on postcolonial global solidarity, interdependence and an egalitarian, pluralist conception of world order. Both authoritarian populism and atavistic nationalism directly challenge these assumptions and place a question mark over the ability of development and peacebuilding practitioners to build empathetic consciousness and a deep awareness of local diversity and complexity. Most worryingly, populist leaders like Donald J. Trump, Viktor Orban, Rodrigo Duterte and others engage in ‘culturally repugnant othering’ of their national and international political enemies and in doing so drive division, dehumanisation and demonisation. Further, they subvert the rule of law, concentrate power, and undermine social and public media, all dynamics that are problematic for sustainable development. This special issue, therefore, not only seeks to understand the root causes of these populist and nationalist movements, but also explores how global and local efforts at peacebuilding and development are impacted by these trends, and what promising practices are arising to address the divisions and inspire new pathways.

Definitions of Authoritarian Populism and Atavistic Nationalism

Both populism and nationalism are highly contested terms in academic debates because they embody political ideologies, tactics, strategies and mobilisation mechanisms that produce different kinds of political outcomes. Right-wing authoritarian populism, often found in the US and Europe, is associated with a particular kind of identity politics that flows from and reinforces autocratic, xenophobic, and fascist movements and gives rise to what is called ‘nostalgic nationalism’ (Balthazar 2017). In contrast, left-wing populism, often found in Latin America, can challenge economic and political elites, serving a revitalising role for fragile or moribund democracies and advocating incorporation of the poor, marginalised, and stigmatised. Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser (2017) present populism as a ‘thin ideology’ that divides society into two antagonistic camps, the ‘pure people’ versus the ‘corrupt elite’. By asserting the legitimacy of a homogenous ‘people’ and delegitimising other groups, this privileging is inimical to democratic pluralism. It becomes even more toxic when those other voices are denigrated as ‘enemies’ and ‘thugs’ or dismissed as ‘fake news’.

The Oxford English Dictionary describes nationalism as ‘Advocacy of or support for the interests of one’s own nation, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations. Also: advocacy of or support for national independence or self determination’. Positive civic nationalism, for example, helps define particular moral and political communities within specific geographic, cultural and linguistic boundaries, building complex patterns of mutual obligation (Opotow 1990).

Atavistic nationalists, on the other hand, retreat behind metaphorical and actual walls and seek a return to a romanticised and idealised past when the nation was reputedly great and its culture homogenous. This challenges democratic and agonistic politics by closing down spaces for civil society actors and by reducing complex political dilemmas to propaganda, slogans and simplistic sound bites. Further, by dehumanising enemies, this type of nationalism creates conditions conducive to violence at local, national, regional and global levels.

The populist and atavistic nationalist dynamics of European right-wing movements and groups supporting Donald Trump are negatively impacting multilateralism and reinvigorating state-dominated power politics reminiscent of those that fuelled the First and Second World Wars. In doing so they challenge prospects for sustainable development, stable peacebuilding and the nurturing of institutions capable of addressing the major problems of the 21st century.

Drivers of Authoritarian Populism and Atavistic Nationalism

There are a number of different explanations for the re-emergence of authoritarian populism and atavistic nationalism. Similar to the interwar period in the 20th century, there are a range of economic drivers. Economic inequality both within and between countries has expanded dramatically over the past 20 years. The global financial crisis of 2007–2008 and the Euro crisis of 2009 resulted in growing unemployment rates and disillusionment with the capacity of state systems to provide adequate social safety nets. Compounding this scenario, manufacturing has shifted from the industrial north to the global south and within the industrialised north, male jobs have been diminishing while female service sector jobs have been expanding. The incapacity of some newly emergent democracies (especially in Eastern Europe) to cope with these shocks has nudged them in more authoritarian directions.

Second, there has been a gradual shift away from class-based politics towards identity-based politics. For the most part, 20th-century politics was defined by economic issues. The Left focused its attention on trade unions, social welfare programmes, and redistributive policies while the Right was primarily interested in reducing the size of government and promoting the private sector. Left-wing politicians in most Western democracies, for example, do not advocate the nationalisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange. Rather most Centre-left parties operate within permissive neo-liberal economic frameworks and distinguish themselves from other parties primarily by arguing for the inclusion of marginalised groups, the disabled, ethnic minorities, immigrants, refugees, women, LGBT and by the promotion of wider human rights concerns. The autocratic populist right, meanwhile, also generally accepts the neo-liberal economic framework, but focuses its attention on ‘nostalgic patriotism’, such as ‘Make America Great Again’ and the promotion of cultural, ethnic and religiously defined nationalism. As Frank Furedi (2005) argues, the right has forgotten the past that it wishes to preserve and the left has forgotten the future it wishes to achieve, thereby leaving citizens in a paralysing present where political leaders generate fear, infantilise the electorate and provide simplistic solutions to complex problems. Identity-based conflicts can easily become ‘tribal’, more difficult to resolve than interest-based politics because they are based on group membership, values and beliefs.

Third, most European and North American populism is being driven by deep national anxieties about mass immigration (e.g. Syrian refugee flows into Europe); cultural liberalisation and changing social mores (e.g. gay marriage, gender identity rights); and deep anxieties about a perceived transfer of national sovereignty to multilateral organisations like the European Union and the United Nations.

This latter concern certainly fuelled the so-called ‘Brexit’ referendum, in which British voters chose British sovereign interests over membership in the EU. Right of centre parties have capitalised on such fears by portraying left of centre parties as socially permissive and willing to cede sovereign rights to international organisations. Such dynamics come as no surprise, however, to conflict analysts who have long argued that unless individual and group needs for security, welfare and identity recognition are satisfied relationships will be fraught and prone to violence.

Addressing the Causes and Dynamics of Authoritarian Nationalism and Atavistic Populism

The articles in this volume address many of the issues outlined above. Janjira Sombatpoonsiri, for example, highlights the economic and cultural drivers of authoritarian populism, suggesting nonviolent civil society groups can resist right-wing populism by working to (i) eradicate the negative consequences of the neo-liberal agenda, particularly growing economic inequality, and (ii) develop a better understanding of what the ‘people’ means to those with a more radical progressive agenda. She argues that this will involve a cultural deconstruction and reconstruction of the notion of the ‘people’ in response to the anxieties undergirding authoritarian populist and atavistic nationalist discourses. In order to do this, she argues that civil society actors also need to understand power in collaborative rather than dominatory terms and begin identifying values and beliefs capable of unifying rather than dividing states and societies. Paul Porteous reaches similar conclusions through his practice-oriented article on the multinational Arab-Australian community, providing an excellent example of how a ‘communitarian’ orientation can help counter prejudice, bias and ethnically based populism. Porteous demonstrates that a commitment to community building and the development of collaborative problem solving processes reduces polarisation and division and builds mutuality across boundaries of ethnic difference. In particular, he suggests that community based problem solving models that examine ‘shared dilemmas’ help generate inclusion rather than division and collaboration over competition.

Vera Heuer and Brent Hierman examine the use of substate populism to critique national elites on behalf of the ‘pure’ local people. They analyse the different ways in which Narendra Modi, chief minister of Gujarat, India and Melis Myrzakmatov, mayor of Osh, Kyrgyzstan, utilised substate populist animus to catalyse deadly ethnic riots that advanced their own political interests and to delegitimise external efforts promoting post-conflict reconciliation. In contrast to Heuer and Hierman’s piece that documents how ethnically based nationalism can be activated for malign purposes, Goran Filic analyses how the city of Tuzla managed to avoid inter-ethnic conflict and radical nationalism during the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s. Despite the fact that Tuzla was surrounded by vicious ethnic fighting, the city managed to protect and sustain peace in its borders by reactivating Tuzla’s working class, anti-nationalist and anti-fascist traditions. These class-based traditions resulted in the only non-ethnic political leadership in the country during the first multiparty municipal elections. The article demonstrates how citizens and politicians were able to launch an inclusive and egalitarian effort in support of representative democracy rather than violent ethnic mobilisation.

Strategies for Preventing Authoritarian Populism and Atavistic Nationalism

A number of the contributions to this issue focus their attention on creative and radical alternatives to authoritarian populism. Mike Klein’s paper, for example, argues that nonviolent pedagogies that develop critical consciousness, social movement leadership, and democratic culture, such as those used in the Scandinavian folk school (folkehøjskoles) model, provide an antidote to radical disagreement, contradiction, and polarisation. Using the Highlander Folk School in the US as a case study, Klein argues that such education laid the foundation for the US labour, civil rights, and environmental movements. Further, as originally conceived, such schools played a critical role in the promotion of individual and collective agency aimed at advancing agonistic democracy against the politics of fear, division, and polarisation as well as the Scandinavian social welfare system that helps guard against the economic drivers mentioned earlier.

In addition to generating intolerance, bias, prejudice and discrimination internally, authoritarian populism and atavistic nationalism can also create problems for transnational relationships. Ria Shibata discusses the way ‘nostalgic patriotism’ used by right-wing populist and nationalist movements in Japan has encouraged historical amnesia about Japan’s Imperial past while promoting neo-nationalist and nationalist values for the future. She argues that economic, political and military threats to Japan’s identity and national self-esteem serve as drivers for nationalists that may result in expanded militarisation and changes to the Japanese peace constitution. Through interviews with Japanese youth, Shibata investigates how likely Japanese youth are to support revisions to the peace constitution and a stronger military defence.

Additional strategies for counteracting and preventing authoritarian nationalism and atavistic populism are identified in the briefings by Liz Hume, who suggests that using conflict assessment tools can help the United States as it faces deep internal political divisions, and by Lisa Schirch, who suggests ways for Israelis and Palestinians to avoid trauma triggers in their own narratives as a way of stimulating higher levels of empathetic awareness about the rights and needs of all parties involved. Both briefings underscore the importance of finding ways to transcend the politics of fear and develop programmes that will address needs for deep recognition, physical and emotional security, welfare, and resilience. As a counterpoint, Nick Tobia raises some fundamental questions about whether authoritarian, oppressive populists can do good in conflict zones. Despite the assumption that liberal politicians will be better equipped to design successful peace processes and generate peace agreements than populist leaders, Tobia suggests populist leaders may have leverage to take radical political moves. In an analysis of the Bangsamoro peace process in the Philippines, Tobia argues that Duterte’s populist appeal enabled him to bring the MNLF–Misuari faction into the peace process with positive consequences.

Concluding Remarks

This volume underscores the importance of understanding authoritarian populism and atavistic nationalism in all their complexity so that we might prevent the negative consequences that flowed from their flowering in the interwar period of the 20th century. In the first place, as noted by Sombatpoonsiri, it is critical to understand the diverse ways in which economic factors create ripe conditions for populist and nationalist appeals to flourish. Second, as noted by Hume, Schirch, and Porteous in this volume, culture wars and zero sum identity-based politics generate high levels of animosity towards those who are not members of significant reference groups, organisations and subcultures. There is a very urgent need to develop institutions and mechanisms for the development of respectful civil discourse across all boundaries of difference (Sennett 2003). The folk high schools discussed by Klein or the class-based alliances documented by Filic may help in this regard. Third, it is vital that populist nationalist politics do not get inextricably linked to the development and expansion of coercive agency and capacity, as noted by Shibata, Heuer and Hierman. Fourth, it is vital to have some fundamental debates about whether liberal, democratic capitalist states operating under the rule of law are capable of meeting the economic, welfare and identity needs of citizens in the 21st century. If they are not, some very urgent conversations are needed about what might replace them and they had better be capable of delivering better outcomes than what we already have. Fifth, the Centre-Left needs to focus more attention on what sort of international order it wishes to advance. If it does not and populists retain their growing popularity the existing order (such as it is) will be progressively challenged and will unravel. Finally, what can authoritarian populists and nationalists do about all the major existential challenges to human survival in the 21st century? If they have no solutions to the dilemmas posed by pollution, the control of cyberspace, global climate change, transnational pandemics, and a deeply interconnected world what can those of us on the other side of the equation propose as an alternative?

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.