Abstract
[full article and abstract in English] We live in a “post-neoliberal world”, as it has been discussed in the mainstream literature, but the vital link between neoliberalism and neopopulism has been rarely discussed. Nowadays in international political science it is very fashionable to criticise the long neoliberal period of the last decades, still its effect on the rise of neopopulism has not yet been properly elaborated. To dig deeper into social background of neopopulism, this paper describes the system of neoliberalism in its three major social subsystems, in the socio-economic, legal-political and cultural-civilizational fields. The historical context situates the dominant period of neoliberalism between the 1970s in the Old World Order (OWO) and in the 2010s in the New World Order (NWO). In general, neoliberalism’s cumulative effects of increasing inequality has produced the current global wave of neopopulism that will be analysed in this paper in its ECE regional version. The neopopulist social paradox is that not only the privileged strata, but also the poorest part of ECE’s societies supports the hard populist elites. Due to the general desecuritization in ECE, the poor have become state dependent for social security, yet paradoxically they vote for their oppressors, widening the social base of this competitive authoritarianism. Thus, the twins of neoliberalism and neopopulism, in their close connections—the main topic of this paper—have produced a “cultural backlash” in ECE along with identity politics, which is high on the political agenda.
Highlights
Neoliberalism can be defined as a special kind of social system, popular discourse, and approach of social sciences based on market fundamentalism
Neoliberalism has developed into a comprehensive social system, since it has embraced and transformed all social subsystems according to its internal logic
It describes a special type of ECE neoliberalism in its first wave, generating the “populism from below” or soft populism provoked by increasing inequality with social polarization and marginalization in ECE
Summary
The neoliberal social system appeared step-by-step in West European societies in all the three social subsystems, as a self-reinforcing process between these dimensions. The economic theory has used the neoliberal term, so has the media, but usually the changes in other social sectors have been introduced under other names by the advocates of neoliberalism This “neutral” approach is the best protection for the various neoliberal socioeconomic measures presented policy wise separately in order to point out, in the spirit of Margaret Thatcher, that “there is no alternative” (TINA), since this suggested step is allegedly a technical necessity. The neoliberal ideology has preached its sentences in the same way, teaching about the effectiveness of separate technical-regulatory measures from the period of extending social complexity until the collapse of the global fiscal system and its aftermath It has produced the tragedy of the global crisis, “This approach was subsequently rejected for its reductionist cause and effect understandings and reworked through an increasing attention to general complexity and resilience.” (Chandler, 2014, pp.53-54, 56).
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