Abstract
AbstractOperating within the androcentric premises that support idealized models of populist leadership, self-representations cultivated by female populist leaders often involve precarious balancing acts, compelling them to appropriate contextualized traditionalist discourses and modes of power to qualify for conventional leadership models. This article engages with the stylistic performance of populist leadership by Mamata Banerjee of the All India Trinamool Congress in the state of West Bengal, India, focusing on her adoption of the discursive mode of political asceticism, nativist rhetoric, and religious iconography. Through an interpretive analysis of selected party documents, autobiography, and semistructured interviews with Banerjee's followers and critics, the article delineates Banerjee's populist self-fashioning as a political ascetic and explores perceptions of her leadership. The article argues that while the self-makings of female populist leaders remain fraught and contested, they contribute substantially toward redrawing the boundaries of both conventional leadership models and the broader political landscapes they inhabit.
Highlights
Operating within the androcentric premises that support idealized models of populist leadership, self-representations cultivated by female populist leaders often involve precarious balancing acts, compelling them to appropriate contextualized traditionalist discourses and modes of power to qualify for conventional leadership models
Conducting an interpretivist analysis of documents and semistructured interviews, this article explores the contours of female populist leadership in contemporary Indian politics through an in-depth and contextualized focus on the political culture of West Bengal, a state in eastern India
In its analysis of Banerjee’s populist self-representation, the article engages with her autobiography, Struggle for Existence, and two official documents from the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC)
Summary
Operating within the androcentric premises that support idealized models of populist leadership, self-representations cultivated by female populist leaders often involve precarious balancing acts, compelling them to appropriate contextualized traditionalist discourses and modes of power to qualify for conventional leadership models. The article argues that while the self-makings of female populist leaders remain fraught and contested, they contribute substantially toward redrawing the boundaries of both conventional leadership models and the broader political landscapes they inhabit. I am grateful to Professor Srila Roy of the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, for her helpful comments on the draft of this article. Thank you to my colleagues at the EU Marie Curie Global India Project as well as the participants in the 2019 European Consortium for Political Research Summer School on Political Parties for their peer feedback. Research Section of the American Political Science Association
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