Category Archives: Right-wing Populism
Walden Bello: The Mess in Argentina
At the heart of Buenos Aires lies the lovely Calle Florida. The experience of walking through this street that is exclusively dedicated to pedestrians was anything but lovely though since in the one kilometer from one end to the other I was besieged—albeit politely–by some 200 men and women barking, “cambio, cambio,” competing to give […]
Alex de Jong: Geert Wilders’ election victory: The left must concern itself with being a real opposition
Last week, Geert Wilders’ far-right Freedom Party (PVV) won the largest number of parliamentary seats in the Dutch national elections. The political figure is known internationally for his Islamophobia, and demands for, among other thing, the closing of all mosques in The Netherlands. Crucial to his victory is the radicalisation of former supporters of the […]
Menara Guizardi: Notes on the Political Capitalization of Anguish and Hope in Argentina (and the American Southern-Cone)
In recent work, several authors in anthropology have analyzed how the extreme right is being configured and acquiring a considerable pull on the mainstream (see: Kalb, 2023a; Semán & Wilkis, 2023, https://www.focaalblog.com/2023/05/11/pablo-seman-and-ariel-wilkis-rebellion-of-the-bastards-the-rise-of-the-extreme-right-in-argentina/). I want to take their reflections further and focus on the uncomfortable question about the role of “traditional” political forces in paving the […]
Pablo Semán and Ariel Wilkis: Rebellion of the bastards: the rise of the extreme right in Argentina
The growth of extreme right-wing forces in the Argentine political process expresses the combination of global trends and specific trends associated with local political history. It also expresses the need to understand the embeddedness of these political preferences in the social experiences shaped by the generalized decline of the middle and popular classes, sedimented in […]
Ewald Engelen: Another ‘populist’ shake-up in the Netherlands: the BBB revolt
The shock among the Dutch chattering classes on 16 March was palpable. The right-populist Farmer–Citizen Movement (BBB) – established in 2019 by a small communications firm, bankrolled by the powerful Dutch agrifood complex and led by a former journalist for the meat industry – had in one go massively increased its vote share in the […]
Abram Lutes: Anatomy of an Autogolpe: On the consolidation of Nayib Bukele’s power in El Salvador
For the first time since El Salvador’s mid-20th century military dictatorship, a single political party dominates both the legislative and executive branches of the government, and by all accounts aims to control the judiciary soon as well. The Nuevas Ideas or “New Ideas” party, the political vehicle of populist president Nayib Bukele, recently used its […]
Flávio Eiró: On Bolsonaro: Brazilian democracy at risk
Picture a street handcraft market in a touristic village called Porto de Galinhas in Pernambuco, Northeast Region of Brazil. A few days before the second round of the 2018 presidential elections on 28 October, I observed the following conversation on the market. “You can vote for him, don’t worry, he won’t kill gay people,” says […]
Carlos de la Torre: Trump: Fascist or populist?
Douglas Kellner in American Nightmare writes, “certainly [Donald] Trump is not Hitler and his followers are not technically fascists, although I believe that we can use the term authoritarian populism or neofascism to explain Trump and his supporters” (2016: 20). Kellner is not the only analyst who uses the terms fascism and populism interchangeably to […]