Resurgent Authoritarianism Research Articles

Theories of Antifascism in the Interwar Mediterranean Part II

The current proliferation of authoritarianism across both core and periphery is one political articulation of the current crisis of the capitalist world-system. Authoritarianism similarly proliferated in previous periods of crisis, in the 1970s and 1980s in the peripheries, and in the 1930s and 1940s in the core. In Part I of this essay, I detail how world-systems analysts have long been attuned to describing and analyzing chaotic moments in between systemic cycles of hegemony, but less attention has been given to the rise of authoritarianism in these chaotic phases. The multiple crises of hegemonic transition engenders an ideological contestation between Fascism and Communism revealing the limitations of Liberalism, the foundational ideology of the world-system. In such periods of hegemonic breakdown, anarchists developed autonomous strategies of resisting authoritarian rule at both the point of production (the worker-occupied and self-managed workplace) and at the point of leisure (the autonomous zone of the infoshop or café as resources and interventions in the joint struggle against capitalism and authoritarianism. These theories are important to recover for the contemporary fight against a resurgent authoritarianism across the world-system in the current conjuncture.

Theories of Antifascism in the Interwar Mediterranean Part I

The current proliferation of authoritarianism across both core and periphery is one political articulation of the current crisis of the capitalist world-system. Authoritarianism similarly proliferated in previous periods of crisis, in the 1970s and 80s in the peripheries, and in the 1930s and 40s in the core. In Part I of this essay, I detail how world-systems analysts have long been attuned to describing and analyzing chaotic moments in between systemic cycles of hegemony, but less attention has been given to the rise of authoritarianism in these chaotic phases. The multiple crises of hegemonic transition engenders an ideological contestation between Fascism and Communism revealing the limitations of Liberalism, the foundational ideology of the world-system. In such periods of hegemonic breakdown, anarchists developed autonomous strategies of resisting authoritarian rule at both the point of production (the worker-occupied and self-managed workplace) and at the point of leisure (the autonomous zone of the infoshop or café as resources and interventions in the joint struggle against capitalism and authoritarianism. These theories are important to recover for the contemporary fight against a resurgent authoritarianism across the world-system in the current conjuncture.

China's Growing Discourse Power and Resurgent Authoritarianism

China's Growing Discourse Power and Resurgent Authoritarianism

On Politics in Comparative and International Higher Education

This paper draws attention to key conundrums facing researchers of comparative and international higher education in the age of post-truth and resurgent authoritarianism. The analysis focuses on three salient concerns: world class-universities and academic freedom; power brokerage in the internationalisation of higher education; and challenges of intellectual leadership – that dominated research agendas in the field. Situated at the crossroads of major arguments in the literature and observations derived from academic praxis in the three areas, the critique sets out to explain how politics have been gaining more weight in the construct of comparative and international higher education at a time when corporate elitism is on the rise and the freedoms of inquiry and communication are declining. The study warns about the failures of integrity in this context, and manifests imperatives for safeguarding academic freedom and critical research in the field.

The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt: A Gramscian re-examination

Regarded as Egypt’s most influential oppositional force, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) was analysed from a Gramscian lens that projected it as a counterhegemonic force par excellence. Its all-sufficient Islam, cohesive organisational structure and ability to wage a war of position were considered to represent parallels to Gramsci’s revolutionary methodology. This article contests this narrative by focusing on the MB’s inability to deal with state coercion, its intellectual inertia and failure in governance, and its passive revolutionary and neoliberal tendencies. Against the backdrop of resurgent authoritarianism and the MB’s downfall, it has become imperative to rethink our dominant understandings of (counter)hegemony and resistance. The article concludes by arguing that the MB’s failure to fundamentally challenge the hegemonic order and instigate social change should not deter other movements from continuing to do so. Instead, lessons from the MB’s limitations must be heeded with Gramsci remaining key in aiding such endeavours.

The New Fascism Syllabus: Networked Knowledge in the Digital Public Sphere

This article analyzes the New Fascism Syllabus private Facebook discussion group, which came into being in the months following the 2016 US presidential election. Through the use of several scraping, data mining, and visualization programs and Facebook’s own platform analytics software, the article posits ways we might analyze Facebook fora as a mediated digital public sphere. It argues that digital spaces like these, however fraught, help users craft arguments and points of contention around how to oppose resurgent authoritarianism. Online discussion creates affective communities that help bond participants, who in turn shape the construction of popular memory around the history and legacy of fascism.

Arab resistance in the diaspora: Comparing the Saudi dissident and the Egyptian whistleblower

Abstract While much research on Arab and Muslim diasporas in the West focuses on the War(s) on Terror, in this article, we explore how two particular diasporic groups, Egyptian and Saudi activists, work to shape public perceptions of the authoritarian regimes in their countries of origin. Contextualizing the efforts of these activists in the post-Arab Spring political and mediated environments, we investigate how these political exiles employ communication to disrupt, expose and resist the resurgent authoritarianism taking root in their countries of origin. Using a comparative framework, we analyse the discourse of two prominent activists, Mohamed Ali and Omar Abdelaziz, to illustrate the larger dynamics of online cyberactivism amongst these diasporic groups. Critically, we argue, the differences in these two activists’ communicative practices demonstrate how ostensibly similar resistance movements may lead to disparate political outcomes, as their calls for change diverge when it comes to issues of reform versus revolution. In doing so, we seek to complicate overly simplistic understandings of Arab anti-authoritarian resistance taking place online in the post-Arab Spring era.

Limits to neoliberal authoritarianism in the politics of land capitalisation in Thailand: beyond the paradox

ABSTRACT Thailand presents several paradoxes that complicate linear assumptions about capitalisation of land and consequent processes of accumulation, dispossession and concentration. These paradoxes become apparent when today's conundrums are considered in their historical contexts of commercialisation, establishment of transferable property rights and financialisation, each tempered both by state policy and by counter-movements that have maintained smallholding. Geographically, Thai capital has invested in large-scale land deals across borders rather than within its own territory. Present-day land capitalisation in Thailand is complicated by resurgent authoritarianism and competitive populism and by the gap between partial de-agrarianisation and a persistent rural identity politics.

Resurgent Authoritarianism and the International Rule of Law

Modern rule of law and post-war constitutionalism are both anchored in rights-based limitations on state authority. Rule-of-law norms and principles, at both domestic and international levels, are designed to protect the freedom and dignity of the person. Given this “thick” conception of the rule of law, authoritarian practices that remove constraints on domestic political leaders and weaken mechanisms for holding them accountable necessarily erode both domestic and international rule of law. Drawing on political science research on authoritarian politics, this study identifies three core elements of authoritarian political strategies: subordination of the judiciary, suppression of independent news media and freedom of expression, and restrictions on the ability of civil society groups to organize and participate in public life. According to available data, each of these three practices has become increasingly common in recent years. This study offers a composite measure of the core authoritarian practices and uses it to identify the countries that have shown the most marked increases in authoritarianism. The spread and deepening of these authoritarian practices in diverse regimes around the world diminishes international rule of law. The conclusion argues that resurgent authoritarianism degrades international rule of law even if this is defined as the specifically post-Cold War international legal order.

The ASA at 60: Advocacy in an Age of Tyranny

Abstract:Although the sixtieth anniversary of the ASA’s founding offers an occasion to celebrate the association’s accomplishments, it also coincides with a historical moment of resurgent authoritarianism, growing intolerance, and renascent nativism. Democratic institutions in the United States and abroad are under attack; bigotry, injustice, and incivility have become re-energized. This article reflects on the discourses, spaces, and technologies employed by Africans to contest the multiple expressions of political exclusion on the continent over the last sixty years. It finds inspiration and lessons that might guide us as we develop our own forms of political advocacy in this illiberal age.

Espionage in British Fiction and Film since 1900: The Changing Enemy by Oliver S. Buckton, Espionage and Exile: Fascism and Anti-fascism in British Spy Fiction and Film by Phyllis Lassner

Espionage in British Fiction and Film since 1900: The Changing Enemy by Oliver S. Buckton, Espionage and Exile: Fascism and Anti-fascism in British Spy Fiction and Film by Phyllis Lassner

Memory as a Field Site: Interviewing Displaced Persons

Six and a half years after the start of the Arab uprisings, the initial euphoria of popular mobilization and optimism in revolutionary change is an increasingly distant memory. While a few countries in the region are moving in the direction of greater openness, most are gripped by a resurgent authoritarianism that is ever more repressive. Some states are collapsing amid mass violence and humanitarian catastrophe. In others, threat of brutal punishment continues to enforce red lines against permissible speech and action, even as those red lines continue to shift.

The Sword of Damocles

Hybrid regime theories offer fruitful insights into how semi-authoritarian regimes maintain stability, without explaining how they cope with loss of legitimacy caused by popular protests. Under such conditions, a hybrid regime must adopt measures to restore the equilibrium, but this may spur more protest and resistance while law enforcement becomes more volatile and non-systematic, making the governance gaps increasingly evident. This article explores the content and consequences of “resurgent authoritarianism”—the Russian hybrid regime’s effort to control popular mobilization after 2011/2012 through stricter control of political space, interventions in media and society, and duplication of state institutions.

Authoritarianism Goes Global: Cyberspace Under Siege

Abstract: Far from being made obsolete by the Internet, authoritarian regimes are now actively shaping cyberspace to their own strategic advantage. This article argues that cyberspace authoritarianism has evolved over at least three generations of information controls. Moreover, authoritarians have developed an arsenal that extends from technical measures, laws, policies, and regulations, to more covert and offensive techniques, such as targeted malware attacks and campaigns to coopt social media. The article outlines the driving forces behind resurgent authoritarianism in cyberspace and questions what can be done to counter the tightening grip of authoritarians on cyberspace.

Resurgent authoritarianism: the case of Russia's new NGO legislation

Following the protest demonstrations of the 2011–2012 electoral cycle, tensions between the limited modernization efforts of Medvedev and the resurgent authoritarianism of Putin have become increasingly manifest. These are seen not only in the relationship between society and the state, but also in the “para-constitutional” institutions of the dual state. This article argues that whereas Medvedev created an arena for liberalization within these para-constitutional structures, Putin has firmly rejected these policies, among other things by revising the 1995 law on NGOs amended in 2006. Using the perspective of the dual state, the article argues that with the introduction of the Law on Foreign Agents (2012), the original law draft On Public Control (2014), a key element in Medvedev's modernization program, was delayed and substantially altered. Together, these amendments create precarious conditions for NGOs, pressuring their independence by threats of dissolution and reducing the quality of civil control over state organs.

The Democratic Entitlement in an Era of Democratic Recession

The global democratic boom, which transformed much of the world’s political landscape in the three decades between 1974 and 2004, has also had an indelible impact on international law, most notably in the development of the ‘democratic entitlement’ claim—namely, that in a world increasingly dominated by democracies there exists an emergent enforceable right to democratic governance in international law. But what would become of the democratic entitlement if the boom turned to bust? The question is no longer hypothetical. For a decade now the momentum of world politics has turned increasingly against democracy’s champions. While the dramatic gains of the late twentieth century have not been erased, the global democratic wave hit the shoal somewhere around 1999–2000, plateaued between 2000 and 2005, and has since suffered sustained reversals. This article re-examines the democratic entitlement thesis in light of these recent negative trends in democracy’s international fortunes. It argues that the right to democratic governance is a layered, and potentially severable, edifice, parts of which now seem to be eroding, but which is unlikely to be entirely undone by a reverse wave of democratic breakdowns and resurgent authoritarianism. The article then examines some of the main implications of the current democratic recession for the right to democratic governance in international law.

Nashi, Youth Voluntarism, and Potemkin NGOs: Making Sense of Civil Society in Post-Soviet Russia

By interrogating Putin-era civil society projects, this article tracks the aftermath of international development aid in post-Soviet Russian socialist space. State-run organizations such as the pro-Kremlin youth organization Nashi (Ours) are commonly read as evidence of an antidemocratic backlash and as confirmation of Russia's resurgent authoritarianism. Contributing to recent scholarship in the anthropology of postsocialism, Julie Hemment seeks here to account for Nashi by locating it in the context of twenty years of international democracy promotion, global processes of neoliberal governance, and the disenchantments they gave rise to. Drawing on a collaborative ethnographic research project involving scholars and students in the provincial city Tver', Hemment reveals Nashi's curiously hybrid nature: At the same time as it advances a trenchant critique of 1990s-era interventions and the models and paradigms that guided democracy assistance, it also draws on them. Nashi respins these resources to articulate a robust national-interest alternative that is persuasive to many young people. Moreover, rather than a static, top-down political technology project, Nashi offers its participants a range of registers and voices in which they can articulate their own individualized agendas.

The `Punitive Turn' in Juvenile Justice: Cultures of Control and Rights Compliance in Western Europe and the USA

Separate systems of justice for children and young people have always been beset by issues of contradiction and compromise. There is compelling evidence that such ambiguity is currently being `resolved' by a greater governmental resort to neo-conservative punitive and correctional interventions and a neo-liberal responsibilizing mentality in which the protection historically afforded to children is rapidly dissolving. This resurgent authoritarianism appears all the more anachronistic when it is set against the widely held commitment to act within the guidelines established by various children's rights conventions. Of note is the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, frequently described as the most ratified human rights convention in the world, but lamentably also the most violated. Based on international research on juvenile custody rates and children's rights compliance in the USA and Western Europe, this article examines why and to what extent `American exceptionalism' might be permeating European nation states.