Emancipatory rural politics: confronting authoritarian populism

Abstract

A new political moment is underway. Although there are significant differences in how this is constituted in different places, one manifestation of the new moment is the rise of distinct forms of authoritarian populism. In this opening paper of the JPS Forum series on ‘Authoritarian Populism and the Rural World’, we explore the relationship between these new forms of politics and rural areas around the world. We ask how rural transformations have contributed to deepening regressive national politics, and how rural areas shape and are shaped by these politics. We propose a global agenda for research, debate and action, which we call the Emancipatory Rural Politics Initiative (ERPI, www.iss.nl/erpi). This centres on understanding the contemporary conjuncture, working to confront authoritarian populism through the analysis of and support for alternatives.

Keywords:

• authoritarian populism
• emancipatory politics
• rural change

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments and suggestions. Any errors and omissions are our own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 As Gusterson (2017) explains, a range of terms are used for the same broad phenomenon, including nationalist populism, authoritarian populism, right-wing populism, cultural nationalism, nostalgic nationalism and neo-nationalism.

2 For example: Brass (1991), Paige (1978), Scott (1977) and Wolf (1969).

3 www.iss.nl/ldpi

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ian Scoones

Ian Scoones is a professorial fellow at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, and Director of the ESRC STEPS Centre.

Marc Edelman

Marc Edelman is professor of anthropology at Hunter College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Email: [email protected]

Saturnino M. Borras

Saturnino M. Borras Jr. is a professor of agrarian studies at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) in The Hague, the Netherlands, an adjunct professor at China Agricultural University in Beijing, and a fellow of the Amsterdam-based Transnational Institute (TNI) and of the California-based Institute for Food and Development Policy (Food First). Email: [email protected]

Ruth Hall

Ruth Hall is a professor of land and agrarian studies at the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. Email: [email protected]

Wendy Wolford

Wendy Wolford is Polson Professor of Development Sociology at Cornell University, USA. Email: [email protected]

Ben White

Ben White is an emeritus professor of rural sociology at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) in The Hague. Email: [email protected]