Authoritarian Neoliberalism Research Articles

Challenging SpaceX on the US–Mexico border: Value struggles against racial authoritarian neoliberalism

SpaceX’s launch site on the US–Mexico border, in the Rio Grande Valley, is an ideal example of the interconnected relationship between racial capitalism and authoritarian neoliberalism, the neoliberal expropriation of spaces and communities, and the tapestries of resistance weaved against these processes. The privatisation of space exploration is an illustration of the development of authoritarian modes of governance that are designed to facilitate such expropriation of spaces and communities. In the case considered in this article, these processes are directly related to the development of racial capitalism on the US–Mexico border. This article places the focus on how racial authoritarian neoliberalism is a response to capitalism’s inability to successfully impose a hegemonic project.

Managing the Discontent of the Losers Redux: A Future of Authoritarian Neoliberalism or Social Capitalism?

ABSTRACT: Neoliberalism eviscerated the value-sharing ethos of the postwar golden age (1945–1973), seeking to maintain social cohesion in civil society by "managing the discontent of the losers": reconciling working households to the realities of the neoliberal labor market by means of coercion, distraction, and debt accumulation (the last serving to limit the growth of consumption inequality in the face of burgeoning income inequality). The global financial crisis undermined the process of household debt accumulation, creating a crisis of neoliberal accumulation. Key to the institutional renewal required to address this crisis is managing the discontent of the losers inherited from the neoliberal era. One possibility is authoritarian neoliberalism, which involves amplification of the "coerce and distract" elements inherited from the previous regime. The alternative is social capitalism: a renewal of social democracy that eliminates the discontent of the losers and so reduces both the need and desire for illiberalism.

Authoritarian Neoliberalism and Asylum Seekers: the Silencing of Accounting and Accountability in Offshore Detention Centres

This paper examines how accounting can both entrench and challenge an inhumane and costly neoliberal policy—namely, the Australian government’s offshore detention of asylum seekers. Drawing on Bruff, Rethinking Marxism 26:113–129 (2014) and Smith, Competition & Change 23:192–217 (2019), we acknowledge that the neoliberalism underpinning immigration policies and the practices related to asylum seekers takes an authoritarian tone. Through the securitisation and militarisation of the border, the Australian state politicises and silences marginalised social groups such as asylum-seekers. Studies have exposed accounting as a technology that upholds neoliberalism by representing policy as objective and factual. Curiously, there has been a wilful intention by successive Australian governments to silence the accounting for offshore detention. We seek to demystify this unaccounting and unaccountability by exploring counter-accounts produced by meso-level organisations that support asylum seekers. We apply a close-reading method in analysing limited governmental accounts and various counter-accounts to demonstrate how counter-accounts give visibility to practices that an authoritarian neoliberal regime has obfuscated. We also reflect on the potential for counter-accounting to foster broader social change by holding the Australian government accountable to moral and ethical standards of care for human life. This paper considers the intersections between accounting and authoritarian neoliberalism and presents counter-accounts as mechanisms that can challenge these neoliberal norms.

The Cost of Neoliberalism: How Economic Policies Are Undermining Democracy

ABSTRACT The relationship between neoliberalism and democracy has been a topic of debate among scholars for decades. Neoliberalism, an economic and political ideology emphasizing free markets, deregulation, and privatization, has gained global influence but has also been criticized for undermining liberal democratic institutions. In this article, I offer a critical perspective on the emergence of authoritarian neoliberalism and its impact on democratic governance in the twenty-first century. By examining the growing concentration of wealth and power in the age of global capitalism, the erosion of public trust in the state and other social institutions, and the privatization of essential services, it sheds light on the challenges posed by neoliberalism and the need for policies that rebalance economic and political power.

Elementos do fascismo brasileiro

This study seeks to problematize the elements of fascism considering the Brazilian political-social situation and its effects on education. Based on a bibliographical review, we start from the current political dramaturgy to discuss, on the one hand, the need for the permanent elaboration of the past as an urgent democratic task of the present as opposed, on the other hand, to the constant authoritarian elaboration of the present through production of subjectivities via fake news and other devices. In this scenario, the limits, and possibilities of still educating ourselves for democracy, for emancipation, in increasingly neo-fascist contexts associated with authoritarian neoliberalism policies are questioned. It appears that the notion of adaptation, among other elements of fascism, becomes a kind of political imperative and an end of culture and education, fostering the process of ultra-right tendencies that has emerged globally and with strength in recent years.

Authoritarian liquid transgressions: the case of P&O Ferries

AbstractOn 17 March 2022, P&O Ferries summarily dismissed 786 seafarers without notice or consultation in a clear and openly admitted transgression of legality, but two months later its parent company's chief executive officer claimed that ‘nobody was hurt’. Drawing on the work of Zygmunt Bauman and Alain Supiot, this article offers a critical account of the scandal based on three main arguments. First, it develops the new concept of an ‘authoritarian liquid transgression’ (ALT), defined as a transgression of a democratic legal norm that seeks to leave no trace or excess (that which resists immediate liquefaction), thus aiming at complete erasure. Second, it argues that the P&O event is a paradigmatic example of an attempted ALT by dissecting three main steps in the business strategy (liquefaction, effacement, and simulation) but also traces competing privatized and politicized narratives of its excess. Third, the article suggests that the event will be viewed as a liminal event for the United Kingdom's authoritarian neoliberalism since it acted as a window that offered a brief glimpse of the brutal nature of authoritarian neoliberalism at work but also of an alternative solid construction of labour law and its remedial framework.

Coconstructing (Trans-)Capitalist Realism

Recent legislation targeting transgender individuals has relied on trans-antagonistic discourses depicting transgender communities as led by a perverse ideology and as attaining the status of a cult. Trans-affirming opponents to these laws have responded with a biopolitical analysis suggesting that the state is denying the means of life to a marginalized group or that right-wing pundits are manufacturing a transgender crisis to expand state power via a state of exception. However, trans-affirming activists overlook political economy in their biopolitical analysis such that both these legislative attacks and their trans-affirming opposition validate late capitalism. In the following, I use post-Marxist theory to reveal a catch-22 whereby both anti-transgender legislation and its ostensible opponents uphold neoliberal authoritarianism qua democracy. Whereas anti-transgender legislation appears aligned with neoliberal austerity and the seemingly implacable privatization of (previously) public space, opponents continue to recapitulate medicalizing narratives for transgender subjects that are bound up in late capitalist tensions and erase class within these discourses (plausibly resourcing transgender subjects who become “respectable” through whiteness and wealth). In the process, trans anti-capitalist activisms are overshadowed or occluded, perhaps constituting a trans capitalist realism in which trans anti-capitalism is rendered impossible. Implications for global gender nonconforming communities are explored within the context of US and Global North cultural imperialisms, and more explicitly leftist opposition to legislative attacks are reviewed.

Neoliberalism and the Erosion of Democracy: Unveiling Authoritarian Tendencies and the Urgency for Economic and Political Rebalancing

ABSTRACT The relationship between neoliberalism and democracy has been a topic of debate among scholars for decades. Neoliberalism, an economic and political ideology that emphasizes free markets, deregulation, and privatization, has gained global influence but has also been criticized for undermining democratic institutions. This article offers a critical perspective on the emergence of authoritarian neoliberalism and its impact on democratic governance in the 21st century. By examining the concentration of wealth and power, the erosion of public trust, and the privatization of essential services, this study sheds light on the challenges posed by neoliberalism and the need for policies that rebalance economic and political power.

“Securing the state” in post-2011 Tunisia: performativity of the authoritarian neoliberal state

ABSTRACT In this article, I adopt the theoretical lens of authoritarian neoliberalism coupled with the concept of performativity to analyse post-transition Tunisian counterterror politics. In doing so, I argue that “securing the state” from discursively constructed “threats” such as terrorism, political Islamism and the associated instability they are perceived to engender can be understood as a performative enactment of statehood in the context of reduced sovereignty associated with neoliberal deregulation, as well as a crisis of legitimacy faced by successive post-transition governments in Tunisia. However, performative counterterror discourses and practices are aimed not only at “flexing the muscles” of the state. They also seek to construct moral panic surrounding certain groups and thus justify the roll out of repressive policing of already marginalised communities rather than merely suspected terrorists. This performance is intended to distract from some of the root causes of radicalisation in contemporary Tunisia: economic inequalities and dispossession linked to failed neoliberal deregulation. Thus, through the exploration of the Tunisian case between 2014 and 2021, I contend we can best understand (in)security in the MENA when adopting an analytical approach bringing together security studies and International Political Economy (IPE).

Curatorial Dissonance and Conflictual Aesthetics: Holocaust Memory and Public Humanities in Greek Historiography

Despite the increasingly diverse societal landscape in Greece for more than three decades within a context of migration, understandings of its fragile histories are still limited in shaping a sense of belonging that is open to ‘otherness’. While Greek communities have utilised history as a pathway to maintain identity, other parallel histories and understandings do not resonate with ‘Greekness’ for most, such as the case of Greek Jewry. Critical historical perspectives can benefit from tracing ‘re-membering’ as a feminist practice in the reassessment of societal values of inclusivity. Histories of violence and injustice can also include elements of ‘difficult histories’ and must be embraced to seek acknowledgement of these in promoting social change and cultural analysis for public humanities informing curation and curricula. Between eduscapes, art heritage spaces, an entry into contested and conflictual histories can expand a sense of belonging and the way we imagine our own connected histories with communities, place and nation. Greek Jews do not constitute a strong part of historical memory for Greeks in their past and present; in contrast to what is perceived as ‘official’ history, theirs is quite marginal. As a result, contemporary Greeks, from everyday life to academia, do not have a holistic understanding in relation to the identities of Jews in Greece, their culture or the Holocaust. Given the emergence of a new wave of artistic activism in recent years in response to the ever-increasing dominance of authoritarian neoliberalism, along with activist practices in the art field as undercurrents of resistance, in this intervention I bring together bodies of works to create a dialogic reflection with historical, artistic and feminist sources. In turn, the discussion then explores the spatiotemporal contestations of the historical geographies of Holocaust monuments in Greece. While interrogating historical amnesia, I endeavour to provide a space to engage with ‘difficult histories’ in their aesthetic context as a heritage of healing and social justice.

Democratic Autocracy: a Populist Update to Fascism under Neoliberal Conditions

Abstract What are the social dynamics behind the rise and resilience of today’s authoritarian regimes? This paper seeks to answer this question by focusing on the longest lasting elected autocracy of our era, the AKP (Justice and Development Party) regime in Turkey. Building on the authoritarian neoliberalism literature’s criticism of the scholarship on competitive authoritarianism, I point out the seeds of authoritarianism in the pro-market reforms of the 1980s–2000s. However, both literatures fail to address the popular embrace of authoritarianism. In critical engagement with analyses of fascism, I develop the concept ‘democratic autocracy’: a parliamentarised, individualised, personalistic, and relatively more market-oriented, twenty-first century version of fascism. The democratic autocracy in Turkey organises and mobilises the people through parties, youth and aid associations, paramilitary organisations, and unions. However, both unresolved economic crises and democratic autocracy’s sociopolitical dynamics set limits to its resilience, as well as to the sustainability of its parliamentarism.

Revisiting the Rise and Decline of Authoritarian Neoliberalism: A Political Economy Analysis of Akp’s Initial Decade

This paper offers a fresh and nuanced perspective by re-examining the concept of authoritarian neoliberalism in the context of the first decade of the AKP’s rule in Turkey. The study addresses two main research questions: Firstly, it explores the factors that transformed the 2000s, often seen as a period of democratization, into an era of authoritarianism. Secondly, it investigates how the AKP effectively established an authoritarian neoliberal state during this time. To tackle these questions, the paper argues that the AKP’s authoritarian neoliberal project rests on two key pillars. The first pillar involves creating a depoliticized technocratic state structure that allows for the implementation of policies aligning with the interests of the dominant capital faction. The second element involves weakening labor opposition, which plays a crucial role in shaping the authoritarian neoliberal state. The paper suggests that the waning influence of the labor movement played a central role in driving the shift toward authoritarianism in the 2000s, granting the government more flexibility in shaping policies. This paper enhances our understanding of the political and economic transformation in Turkey during this significant period, shedding light on the development of the authoritarian neoliberal state and its crisis after 2013.

Authoritarian neoliberalism between Johnson and Jupiter: Declining legitimacy and the elevation of home affairs in post-Brexit Britain and Macron’s France

In the face of protracted stagnation following the global financial crisis, democratic governments who remain committed to neoliberalism are still required to secure popular support for their programmes. This article evaluates how this dilemma has presaged a shift in the relationship between governmental attempts to maintain neoliberal legitimacy and the imposition of authoritarian reforms. We argue that, in the aftermath of the 2015 refugee crisis, this shift has consisted of the elevation of home affairs policy and the advance of a ‘mutated’ politics of legitimation characterised by explicit forms of ‘othering’ and hostility towards the wider political system. Drawing on the examples of the UK and France, we show how this deepening authoritarianism has manifested along two interconnected axes: (1) increased police powers and suppression of protests and civil liberties; (2) enhanced border security and restrictions on citizenship. Contributing to scholarship on authoritarian neoliberalism, we argue that this elevation of home affairs not only augurs the intensification of authoritarianism, but also reveals how governments have utilised popular resistance to authoritarian reforms to generate new forms of reactionary ‘consent’.

Authoritarian neoliberalism debates: A critical review of the literature in central and eastern Europe

Since communism’s collapse, Central and Eastern Europe adopted neoliberal reforms for democratization and market integration. However, democratic institutions in many countries have backslid. Scholars debate neoliberalism’s impacts and the rise of oligarchs concentrating wealth and distorting democracy. This review analyzes 50 sources from 1990-2020 through meta-analysis. Literature is assessed regarding neoliberalization’s mechanisms and effects. Privatization concentrated assets in politically-connected oligarchs, enabling state capture constraining competition. Deregulation empowered economic elites with disproportionate political influence, distorting representation toward oligarchic over public interests. Evidence partially supports the hypothesis that neoliberalism benefiting oligarchs distorted democracy, contributing to backsliding. However, grassroots resistance offers alternatives. Further research could integrate local case studies and frameworks focused on equitable distribution rather than growth alone.

A Latin American Third Way? Juan José Arévalo's Spiritual Socialism, 1916–1963

AbstractScholars and US officials mocked Juan José Arévalo Bermejo, the first democratically elected president of Guatemala (1945–51), for the opacity and alleged incoherence of his “spiritual socialism.” He was eclipsed by his successor, Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán, who introduced sweeping land reform to Guatemala and whose overthrow in a CIA-orchestrated coup in 1954 launched the Latin American Cold War. But Arévalo's ideology is not only decipherable but potentially of great value—when we trace its origins back to Karl Christian Friedrich Krause, a forgotten philosopher who was Hegel's contemporary, and the Argentine intellectuals who developed Krause's abstract theories into an approach to governance that shaped Argentina's experience in social democracy under Hipólito Yrigoyen, while Arévalo was living in exile there. Arévalo's social reforms, which improved the standard of living for workers and peasants without sacrificing individual liberties or property rights, reflect a Krausean philosophical commitment to harmonious nationalism based on ethical relationships rather than hierarchies. The experiment was foreclosed by the 1954 coup and a lesser known, US-backed coup in 1963 that denied Arévalo a second term in office. This analysis of Arévalo's writings and governing practices shows their relevance to Latin America's search for a third way between revolutionary class struggle and neoliberal authoritarianism.

Intersection of the Rights to Freedom of Belief and Gender Equality in Turkey

Abstract Despite the efforts of the women’s movement in Turkey, gender equality as a norm has been abandoned in state policies due to the rise of neoliberal authoritarianism. Our study aims to take a snapshot of religious services access and gender equality while stressing the parallel norms by focusing on justice, equality and the prohibition of discrimination. Further, since ensuring freedom of religion or belief and gender equality is the duty of the state, our research exposes the legal and institutional framework regulating the intersection of these two fundamental human rights areas and Turkey’s related policies and practices. In doing so, the study delves into the state’s adherence to international human rights treaties and elaborates on women’s positioning in the organization of religious services, as well as shedding light on human rights protections and observed violations of those rights within the spheres of family law and religious education.

The people’s budget? How business interests and fiscal constraints shaped the economic policies of the Italian populist government

Between June 2018 and September 2019, Italy was ruled by a coalition government comprising the far-right League and the anti-establishment Five Star Movement. The government, which was widely referred to as the first populist executive in a major EU member state, alarmed Italian and European elites. In fact, the coalition built its rhetoric on questioning EU legislation, particularly that concerning immigration and, of interest here, fiscal constraints and austerity policies. The executive’s first programmatic document on economic policy, the budgetary plan for 2019, triggered two months of heated negotiations with the European Commission before being approved. Although critical political economists have investigated how the ‘populist’ government furthered neoliberalism in Italy, an analysis of its organic ties with Italian capital is still missing. Our article addresses this gap by investigating, within a critical Global Political Economy perspective, the competing business interests behind the budgetary plan and how they shaped the formulation of the populist government’s economic policies. The analysis of the executive’s economic policies, together with its organic ties with capital, allows us to explain the rise of the populist government and describe its nature as well as its contradictions which explain its limited transformative potential and its inner fragility. The findings highlight the relevance of a critical Global Political Economy perspective for investigating economic and fiscal policy in the era of authoritarian neoliberalism, in particular in assessing the EU structural constraints on economic and fiscal policy but also the agency of domestic capital shaping it.

The stubborn persistence of working-class protest in Turkey in an age of authoritarian neoliberalism

ABSTRACT Under authoritarian neoliberalism, Turkey has seen the number of legal strikes plummet since the mid-1990s. Alongside deepening authoritarianism, the AKP government banned nearly all legal strikes in the 2010s. How have working-class protests fared against this bleak backdrop? Have workers become pliant victims of a repressive regime of accumulation? Or is there evidence of fight left in the Turkish working class? This article addresses these questions through protest event analysis (PEA) of an original dataset of working-class protests between 2015 and 2019. Workers are found to have managed to maintain a significant protest performance despite the increasingly authoritarian environment.

Debt and Desire: Differential Exploitation and Gendered Dimensions of Debt and Austerity

Austerity as management of public debt is at the core of neoliberal policies and proceeds as differential exploitation. To explore the gendered dimensions of debt, the paper inquires how debt is bond to desire and inscribed in bodies. After indulging in David Graeber’s, Gilles Deleuze’s and Félix Guttari’s work, the analysis focuses on accumulation through debt and dispossession. Drawing on Verónica Gago, Luci Cavallero and Silvia Federici, it reflects how current economies of debt exploit feminized work in times of authoritarian neoliberalism. The paper sheds light on solidaristic struggles against austerity that manifest a desire for social transformation and economies of care.

Rural politics in undemocratic times: Exploring the emancipatory potential of small rural initiatives in authoritarian Hungary

Constructing environmentally sustainable and democratic political regimes constitutes the most important political project of our times – an era characterised by the proliferation of authoritarianism and the growing effects of climate change. Through the case of Hungary, an example of a modern authoritarian regime, this article discusses how agricultural initiatives such as Community Supported Agriculture, permaculture, and small-scale and regenerative farming can help situate questions of sustainable rural politics into a broader agenda of democratic governance. Building on qualitative interviews conducted in Hungary and the literature on socio-environmental transformations, authoritarian populism, authoritarian neoliberalism, and emancipatory politics, our aim is to envision emancipatory rural politics grounded in democratic societal projects and sustainable ways of producing and living with the land. After laying out what we identify as the three rural pillars of the Hungarian authoritarian regime – unequal land relations, agricultural subsidies and agricultural commodity sales –, we argue for attention to what could become the rural pillars of sustainable democracy: emancipatory alliances, counter-knowledge claims, and emancipatory subjectivities. Efforts at building the latter aspects can help Hungarians (and others) reimagine democracy from the countryside, establish new collective relations, and embrace the unavoidable ambiguities of emancipatory rural politics.