Abstract
This conclusion to a special issue on backlash politics develops a proto-theory of backlash politics. The special issue’s introduction defined backlash politics as a particular form of political contestation with a retrograde objective as well as extraordinary goals or tactics that has reached the threshold level of entering mainstream public discourse. While a sub-category of contentious politics, we argue that backlash politics is distinct and should not be understood as ‘regressive contentious politics’. Drawing from the contributions to this special issue, we discuss the causes of backlash politics, yet we argue that the greatest theoretical advances may come from studying backlash dynamics and how these dynamics contribute to different outcomes. We develop a proto-theory of backlash politics that considers causes for the rise of backlash movements, how frequent companions to backlash politics – emotive politics, nostalgia, taboo breaking, and institution reshaping – intensify backlash dynamics and make it more likely that backlash politics generate consequential outcomes.
Highlights
This conclusion to a special issue on backlash politics develops a proto-theory of backlash politics
United Nations (UN); anti-gay backlashes arise in places where there are no gay-rights victories to reverse; mobilisation against immigration can become a fundamental challenge to the procedural consensus of the political order; and anger-infused politics can transmute into mutual indignation that deepens polarisation and targets bystanders who may be uninvolved and mischaracterised
We suggest using backlash politics as a category that includes regressive backlashes, but that extends to all movements and politics that contain our three necessary conditions: (1) a retrograde objective, (2) extraordinary goals, tactics, and means, and (3) that has reached the threshold of entering mainstream public discourse
Summary
All contributors – including the editors – began this collaboration with the open question of ‘is there such a thing as a politics of backlash?’ We immediately agreed that backlash politics, if it is distinct, would be a variant of contentious politics and we sought to learn from existing literatures and studies. The special issue’s introduction explained that the notion of retrograde (returning to a prior social condition) is different from regressive (reversing civilisational achievements), avoiding the normativity and teleology that comes with the term regressive In line with this idea, Jack Snyder’s (2020) contribution shows how cultural revivalist movements adopt the language of rights and modernity to suggest the emancipatory nature of recovering local values and priorities. Terman suggests that deviance involves constructing a contemporary other to react against so that deviance is constitutive of backlash politics These ideas challenge our distinction between mainly retrograde movements and movements that combine retrograde goals with visions of the future, and it offers a reason why backlash agendas frequently mutate. All of these factors distinguish backlash from modernist or everyday contentious politics
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