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ABSTRACT
Scoones et al. [2018. “Emancipatory Rural Politics: Confronting Authoritarian Populism.” The Journal of Peasant Studies 45 (1): 1–20] suggests that the contemporary rural world can be characterized as having distinct forms of authoritarian populism. This article argues that key aspects of authoritarian populism are not seen across the breadth and depth of the contemporary rural world, and, as such, the use of authoritarian populism can be politically misleading. Nonetheless, it is argued, the way in which authoritarian populism in the 1980s fostered particular and specific forms of political responses are of use in developing contemporary intersectional counter-hegemonic strategies capable of challenging the regressive political character of the contemporary conjuncture.
Acknowledgements
This article is a significantly revised version of my 2018 ‘The promise? Using and misusing authoritarian populism’ (Akram-Lodhi Citation2018); so significantly revised that I felt the need to change the title. There are three people that deserve special thanks for the article finally seeing the light of day: Ian Scoones, for the comradely debate; Ben McKay, for demonstrating to me that the ideas should have a wider audience; and Jun Borras, for encouragement and steering the article to its publication. The global events of the last 18 months have demonstrated to everyone the dangerous folly of reactionary nationalist populisms; and the need for a socialist future. I may not see it, but it will come. A luta continua!
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 Or what the late Peter Limqueco called ‘partisan scholars’.
2 Edelman (Citation2020), footnote 2, offers a partial list.
3 As someone who came of age in the late 1970s and early 1980s, I strongly disliked the fact that struggles over emancipatory political ideas were often framed through a Leninist lens. Contestation was polemical and confrontational, with one side being right and the other side being wrong; there was a profound unwillingness to engage in a process of inclusive learning from all of those engaged in emancipatory politics. This was not, however, an approach that many feminists, and particularly feminist scholarship in international development studies, adopted; in the late 1980s and early 1990s I found it remarkable that scholars such as Diane Elson, Nancy Folbre and Ruth Pearson entered into debates with those that they disagreed with by first identifying common ground, and in so doing were inclusive, not exclusive. Leninist approaches to questions of social theory and emancipatory political ideas are rooted in masculinist approaches to debate that must be rejected.
4 Interestingly, the other two main theorists of authoritarian populism in the United Kingdom in the early and mid-1980s are never mentioned by Scoones et al. (Citation2018): Andrew Gamble and Martin Jacques. Jacques' role cannot be overemphasized, as he not only co-authored articles with Hall but also acted as Hall's editor for all of Hall's significant interventions around authoritarian populism.
5 It is worth noting, especially in the wake of his death, that at the time Hall was vilified on much of the left for his analysis of authoritarian populism. Indeed, the principal source for Scoones et al. (Citation2018) is a response to a damning critique of the concept.
6 My thanks to an anonymous reviewer for suggesting this.
7 This is also the link between Hall's work on authoritarian populism and his work on popular culture. Culture can contribute to but also disrupt hegemony. This begs an interesting and important question: where is contemporary cultural resistance?
8 As a participant, albeit peripheral, in those debates, it is worth stressing how we were maligned as ‘Eurocommunists’.
9 Edelman (Citation2020) is correct in noting the neoliberal reforms in Chile and Indonesia predated those in the United States and United Kingdom. So too did those in New Zealand.
10 My thanks to an anonymous reviewer for pointing this out.
11 Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Alphabet, owner of Google.
12 I cannot but help think of Mark Ashton, whom I met a few times, when I bring together coal miners with LGBTQI2S+ activists in a single sentence.
13 Exemplified by Michael Portillo.
14 The dysfunctionality of the UK state was laid bare by the testimony of Dominic Cummings to a joint meeting of two UK Parliamentary Select Committees on 26 May 2021.
15 Grammatical mistakes are found in the transcription of the original lectures.
16 My sense is that this word should be competition. Perhaps he said the wrong word, or the wrong word was transcribed.
17 My thanks to an anonymous reviewer for the three factors that were added to the combustible mix.
18 Indeed, this was a characteristic of the political movement that can probably be credited for popularizing ‘populism’: Peronism.
19 This is not the space to discuss the class characteristics of fascism, and the extent to which fascism is witnessed in the contemporary rural world.
20 In personal correspondence with Andrew Gamble in 2018 he stressed that he did not believe the current conjuncture was witnessing the widespread adoption of authoritarian populism. Rather, he agreed with me that the current conjuncture represented the nadir of authoritarian populism because of the failures of its economic project, neoliberal globalization.
21 Jacques makes the important point that in 2015 48% of Americans described themselves as working class.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
A. Haroon Akram-Lodhi
A. Haroon Akram-Lodhi teaches agrarian political economy. He is Professor of Economics and International Development Studies at Trent University in Peterborough, Canada. Between 2013 and 2021 he was Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Journal of Development Studies, and he remains an Associate Editor of Feminist Economics. His next book, co-edited with Kristina Dietz, Bettina Engels and Ben M. McKay, is the Handbook of Critical Agrarian Studies (Edward Elgar, 2022).