Tag Archives authoritarian

COVID-19 | Another top priority in times of crisis: keep democratic life up and running by Isabelle Desportes

By Posted on

The coronavirus crisis seems to have reduced societal functioning to the bare minimum as an increasing number of governments have limited freedom of movement in an attempt to halt the spread of the virus. The introduction of several such authoritative measures needs to be counterbalanced by active citizens who continue to uphold democratic life and question these measures themselves, argues Isabelle Desportes, who studies how humanitarian emergencies are handled in settings where this is not the case. ‘Authoritarian dangers’ are not only a concern for far-away countries long labelled as ‘hopeless pariah states’, as European attempts are showing us these very days.

It is inherent to times of crises: many decisions and emergency legislative mechanisms will be enforced in countries all over the world these coming days and weeks. While such centralistic measures are often necessary, they also bear the risk of infringing on an effective and socially just handling of the pandemic now, and will shape our societies on the long term.

My research on disaster responses in Myanmar, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe showed that while responses to the disasters (a flood in 2015 in Myanmar and crippling drought in 2016 in Ethiopia and Zimbabwe) were mostly coordinated and efficient, the political contexts in which the disaster occurred meant that discussions on disaster preparedness and the modalities of relief were ignored. Important dynamics were observed for the three contexts: as the disasters destroyed homes, disrupted livelihoods and uprooted communities, their intense impacts had to be handled in the midst of ongoing marginalization of certain population groups at the hands of other groups and/or the state. Disaster responders were highly mobilized, but with little space to openly debate the modalities of relief, to have full insight into the extent of needs, and to raise concerns.

Following the disasters, a number of longer-term changes could be observed, according to the 271 disasters responders that I interviewed and who were active in organizations ranging from community groups to United Nations bodies:

  1. The already marginalized were impacted most strongly by the disasters, being the most vulnerable to start with (with limited coping capacities and safety nets, fewer rights, a lack of voice and bargaining power);
  2. Disaster responses were not always carried out in the common interest of societies at large and in accordance with humanitarian principles, but could serve as a conduit for violence, and to further enforce the interests of a few[i];
  3. This was mostly achieved not via bold announcements and clear restrictions, but through everyday acts. This includes how data is collected, analysed and shared as part of disaster needs assessments, or which seemingly bureaucratic conditions are tied to response mechanisms. The manner in which certain topics are routinely framed in public discourse also bears importance. When certain issues are not discussed transparently or not discussed at all, they cannot be taken care of[ii].

Myanmar seems to have embarked on a dubious handling of the coronavirus crisis already, denying cases of COVID-19 infections so far. But, crucially, the above described is not only a matter of concern for faraway countries long labelled as ‘hopeless pariah states’. In a 2019 article, political scientist Marlies Glasius highlights how authoritarianism applies not to entire regimes in an ‘all or nothing’ fashion, but to patterns of action that sabotage accountability between the people and their political representatives “by means of secrecy, disinformation and disabling voice”. Such practices can be applied everywhere, including in democratic settings.

The risk of this happening is especially high in situations of crisis, which, quite rightly so, call for urgent and extraordinary measures. Political leaders from France to Spain recently proclaimed that they were ‘waging wars’—rhetoric that bears the risk of stifling criticism and pluralistic views in the name of ‘national unity and security’. In academic jargon, such moves are termed ‘securitization’[iii]. In Israel, the transitional government just pushed through the use of mass surveillance techniques on civilians to ‘monitor the virus’. This move is not approved nor overseen by the Knesset, to the dismay of many lawyers and human rights organizations. The Hungarian parliament might have to enter a phase of imposed hibernation, and journalists could be fined for propagating ‘fake news’. In several European countries, governments are currently negotiating with telecommunication companies to track population movements. One of the advanced arguments? ‘This was effective in China’. Yet, these privacy-invading practices can also be difficult to unwind, and can set precedents.

A key democratic concern is not only how decisions are taken, but also whether they are taken in the common interest of societies at large. Our political representatives, the media, but also every one of us have a crucial role to play in this. Social and environmental issues must be kept central, not only serve as adjustment variables to the economic or political interests of a few. To take one example even closer to home: in the Netherlands, the government is currently likely to financially support airline company KLM, which would quickly go back to launching its climate-destroying 500,000 flights a year. If such an action really is in the collective long-term interest in our times of climate breakdown deserves to be discussed.

So yes: stay home, wash your hands. But also, depending on your possibilities and preferences, and picking your fights such as to not enter into senseless clicktivism: keep our democracies alive and ensure that institutions are held accountable for the decisions they take now. This crisis can be a political turning point, and it is for all of us to make that future a desirable one.

Follow parliamentary debates and news on government decisions, interact with your political representatives, check whether political and technical institutions act in line with their mandates, keep informed about social realities different from your own, send in reader letters and challenge the media to relay these different social realities and issues, financially support independent media and civil society advocacy groups, join ‘online demonstrations’ (see for instance the alternatives proposed for the Belgian march against racism last weekend), keep mobilized within your party, union or civil society collectives, or even create your own.  And any other basic to creative means you might come up with, and would like to share in the comments?

[i] In Myanmar for instance, the government has long aimed to homogenise its multi-ethnic and religious peoples into a unified Buddhist and Bamar entity. During the response to 2015 cyclone Komen, state aid was biased against religious and ethnic minority groups, and self-help and non-state aid initiatives to help those groups were grossly hampered. Muslim communities were forcibly relocated in military vehicles following the floods, state aid was distributed from monasteries not accessible to non-Buddhist groups, and the Rohingya minority was framed in public discourse as not worthy of support.
[ii] This is linked to self-censorship practices, which I discussed with colleague Roanne van Voorst in another blog.
[iii] The term is generally associated with the Copenhagen School.

This article is part of a series about the coronavirus crisis. Find more articles of this series here.

IsabelleAbout the author:

Isabelle Desportes is a PhD researcher involved in the research project ”When disaster meets conflict” at the ISS.

 

 

Confronting authoritarian populism: building collaborations for emancipatory rural resistance by Sergio Coronado

By Posted on

Authoritarian populism is increasingly resisted across the world. Such contestations and expressions of resistance against oppressive authoritarian regimes are being understood as emancipatory rural politics. The Emancipatory Rural Politics Initiative (ERPI) through a conference hosted by ISS on 17 and 18 March 2018 sought to explore the dynamics of authoritarian populism and pathways of resistance.

 

The ERPI Conference: A meeting place for activists

The phrase ‘a new political momentum is underway’1 was embodied on 17 and 18 March 2018 when more than 250 scholars, activists, practitioners, and policymakers representing more than 60 countries gathered at the International Institute of Social Studies to discuss the rise and effects of authoritarian populism at the ERPI’s ‘Authoritarian Populism and the Rural World’ conference.

Authoritarian populism is a contested and highly debated concept. In a recent blog by Ian Scoones, it is described as follows: ‘In Gramscian terms, authoritarian populisms can emerge when the “balance of forces” changes, creating a new “political-ideological conjuncture”. Drawing on populist discontents, a transformist, authoritarian movement, often with a strong, figurehead leader, is launched, mobilising around “moral panics” and “authoritarian closure”, and being given, in Hall’s words, “the gloss of populist consent”.’

On the surface, it seems that academics, practitioners, and the media use this concept to broadly describe political circumstances within different countries. One of the primary expectations of the conference was to capture the attention of a wider community of scholars and activists to promote a collective reflection about the ongoing political momentum surrounding this topic, and mainly to figure out whether the proposed definition of authoritarian populism is useful to understand what is happening.

At least three academic debates captured the attention of the participants of the conference. First, some conference participants critiqued the use of the notion of authoritarian populism to describe the uprising of conservative politicians after the crisis induced by the undelivered promises of neoliberal governments. Trump, Duterte and other populists are seizing political power in their countries partly because of the failure of neoliberal regimes to successfully transform poverty and to deliver the fulfilment of social and economic rights for the vast majority of poor classes.

Second, the debates focused on the use of this concept to generalise uneven and even contradictory situations, particularly concerning matching, yet different kinds of political regimes regardless of their political orientation. Notably, in the Latin American context, there could be an apparent coexistence of left-wing and right-wing populist regimes with different goals and political dynamics that prevent them from being comparable in these specific terms.

Third, the debates reflected on the accuracy of the concept to understand the current political phenomenon. For instance, some argued that the conceptualisation of authoritarian populism by Stuart Hall is more nuanced and specific than that by the authors of the ERPI framing paper, but they argue that Hall’s definition does not necessarily inform the complex dynamics of the current rural world.

IMG_2903.JPG

The result of the conference was an endowment of the debate around this concept. Authoritarian populism has been challenged by scholars, activists, and scholar-activists participating in the conference. Different critiques of this mode of governance have enriched understandings of the concept in multiple, innovative and exciting ways. During the conference’s first working groups session, participants discussed the realities of authoritarian populism via the cases and contexts described in the 70+ conference working papers.

Despite the lack of consensus on the concept, significant commonalities were found: even though the contexts of countries such as Indonesia, Brazil and Turkey differ significantly, authoritarian modes of governance are recognisable in all of these contexts: the shift toward nationalism; the existence of iron-fist leaders concentrating political power; the legitimation of repressive policies by appealing to the presence of external threats; and increasing human rights violations committed against people demanding democracy. Therefore, although these are clearly different situations, the existence of standard features helps illuminate common ground for comparing, understanding and confronting this problematic.

Making alternative rural politics visible

Alternatives to authoritarian populism are also visible in the rural world. One of the most important political forces confronting the rise of conservative populism is agrarian social movements such as La Via Campesina—a paradox, because populists seek social legitimation by appealing to traditions deeply rooted in the countryside. This contradiction vividly illuminates how rapidly the rural world is transforming, not only because of the enlargement of large-scale capitalist agriculture and the dispossession of the rural poor, but also because of the emergence of alternatives to such developments, constructed by rural people and social movements.

In her recent blog on Open Democracy, Ruth Hall describes how in South Africa rural social movements, like the Alliance for Rural Democracy, are contesting the state, market and chiefly power through claims for the protection of communal rights over land. Particularly, such movements focus on the demands for the democratisation of customs that currently enable chiefs to subscribe to prejudicial agreements with private investors, affecting the rights to land of people that depend on its access for their subsistence.

Such contestations and expressions of resistance against oppressive authoritarian regimes are being understood as emancipatory rural politics. This conference explicitly aimed to bring together academics and activists, and discuss ways in which emerging emancipatory politics can be supported. However, a huge challenge remains of providing security to the people on the front lines of such struggles. A shocking amount of violence is exerted against movement leaders, and threats against their lives are increasing globally. Social movements have constructed innovative strategies for self-protection.

A way to promote and support alternatives to the effects of authoritarian populism on people living in the countryside is through facilitating a deeper understanding of the phenomenon and clarifying the nuances between different regions and countries. Resistance towards authoritarian populism has multiple expressions; although social mobilisation is the most prominent, other kinds of political activities are taking place everywhere.

IMG_2905.JPG

“Sin fiesta no hay revolución”

“Sin fiesta no hay revolución”: without a party, there is no revolution. After the conference, the ERPI collective aims to continue growing as an expanded community of activists and scholars, aiming to construct critical understandings of authoritarian populism and to critically engage with emancipatory politics emerging in the rural world. Artists like Boy Dominguez and Rakata Teatro are now part of this process of the enlargement of the ERPI community and show how to diversify ways of expressing resistance.

We hope to take this initiative even further: follow us on Twitter @TheErpi, and Facebook to become involved and stay updated.

 

1This expression opens the Emancipatory Rural Politics Initiative (ERPI) framing paper, published almost one year ago in the Journal of Peasant Studies. The article aims to raise awareness among a global community of academics and activists working in the rural world about the rise of populist politics around the globe and the agrarian origins and the impacts of these politics on rural lives.
Main picture: Populismo by Boy Dominguez, launched at the ERPI conference.

Also see: Confronting authoritarian populism: challenges for agrarian studies by Ian Scoones

IMG_0160 2About the author:

Sergio Coronado is a PhD researcher affiliated with both the Free University Berlin and the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS). Currently, he is writing his dissertation on peasant agency and institutional change in Colombia, and co-coordinates the Emancipatory Rural Politics Initiative (ERPI) secretariat. Email: sergio.coronado@fu-berlin.de.