Soft Authoritarianism, a concept that appears contradictory, aims to capture the current fuzziness of democracies sliding into authoritarian rule the world over. Formal elections bolster the power of strongmen, majoritarian democracies undermine the rights of minorities, the rule of law is hollowed out using the constitution, and discourses of freedom of expression are deployed to dismantle fundamental human rights.
Our Research Group studies in comparative perspective the fluid and flexible political, juridical, social and discursive configurations which blur the line between democratic and authoritarian practices of rule. It examines how soft authoritarianisms of various varieties are established and contested in different contexts. How are these new forms of rule legitimized discursively, implemented institutionally? How are responsibilities and accountability watered down, power centralized and its transfer impeded? What forms of mobilization and action by citizens attempt to stem the slow and systematic erosion of liberal democratic institutions? In what ways has the Covid-19 pandemic exacerbated authoritarian tendencies and are they here to stay?
Our four contrastive case studies linking ethnography with discourse analysis and documentary research focus on Poland, France, India, and Turkey/the Turkish-European diaspora.
Brazil between the first and second rounds of general elections
On October 2, Brazilians went to the ballots to vote for president, state governors, senators, as well as federal and state representatives. In the presidential race, the center-left-wing former president…
The Future Meloni Government and the Long Drift of Italian Democracy
“Rome wasn’t build in a day” – and neither is a radical right-wing government like the one now forming in Italy following the elections held in September 2022. The result…
Zwischen Apathie und Hoffnung
Zum „sanften“ Autoritarismus in der Türkei. Die strategische und flexible Verflechtung von demokratischen und nicht-demokratischen Praktiken ist ein Charakterzug ‚sanfter‘ Formen autoritärer Regierung. Ein Verständnis von der Produktion von Affekten wie…
The Weaponization of Republican Values in France
There is an ongoing battle for cultural hegemony in France. Far-right ideologies are being normalized, their stigmatizing vocabulary thus not only gains public acceptance but also comes to shape the…
Introducing Podcast Series: Democracy in Question
S08E06: Michael Woldemariam on Challenges Facing African Democracy (Part 1)
This episode explores political and military conflicts in Ethiopia and more broadly, in the Horn of Africa. Why has Ethiopia’s process of democratization eroded in recent years? And what is…
S08E05: Vivek Maru on Legal Empowerment for Communities
This episode explores environmental justice and the democratization of law. What does it take to turn the law into something that ordinary people can use to protect themselves? And how…
S08E04: Oleksandra Matviichuk on Human Rights and Ukraine
This episode explores human rights in relation to Russia’s full-scale aggression on Ukraine. How do accountability gaps play a role in restorative justice? And what are effective approaches for documenting…
S08E03: Dilip Gaonkar on the “Degenerations of Democracy”
This episode explores contemporary fears about the decline of democracy. Is the current downward spiral actually part of a rhythmic oscillation of democracy? And given its centrality to modern political…
State Anti-Intellectualism & the Politics of Gender and Race. Illiberal France and Beyond
Book presentation with Éric Fassin (Paris 8)
In this guest lecture, Éric Fassin will present his new book State Anti-Intellectualism and the Politics of Gender and Race (CEU Press) in which he examines the trend of state anti-intellectualism in France using the nation as a case study to demonstrate that this tendency is not limited to ostensibly illiberal regimes. He argues that today’s world requires an examination of this phenomenon beyond Cold War geopolitical divisions and highlights a global shift towards authoritarian neoliberalism. His book is a plea for the political urgency of intellectual work in a global moment of political anti-intellectualism.
The book covers the period from President Sarkozy to Prime Minister Valls and includes both firsthand and public cases of attacks against academics, not only in France, but also in Brazil, Hungary, Russia, Turkey, and the United States, with examples of state racism and the argument of the state against anti-racism. The book also considers issues of censorship and cancel culture, concluding with Fassin’s firsthand account of attacks on him from the far-right.
YISARES 2024: Demographic Imaginaries: Soft Authoritarianism, Majoritarian Identity Politics and Demographic Anxieties.
International summer school convened jointly by the Research Group Soft Authoritarianisms, University of Bremen, Worlds of Contradiction, the Research Training Group Contradiction Studies and the Central Europan University’s Open Society University Network (OSUN)
Conservative governments and far-right movements across different country contexts share a set of strikingly similar strategies that can be summed up as ‘demographic imaginaries.’ They facilitate a backlash against progressive reproductive and women’s rights, same-sex marriage, and LGBT+ communities, the use of coercive policies and rhetoric against religious, ethnic, and other minorities, or anti-immigration policies. Demographic anxieties are nurtured by conspiracy myths such as the narrative of the “great replacement,” just as much as by other forms of majoritarian identity politics which imagine the majority (be it: white, Christian and heterosexual, Hindu National, Turkish Sunni Muslim, or European etc.) as threatened by political, ethnic, religious, sexual and other minorities and their struggles for equal rights.
These demographic imaginaries are at the core of soft authoritarian attempts to reconstitute the body politic, transforming the population along ethnic and social lines to uphold the electoral majority. A wide range of tactics from gerrymandering to neo-Malthusian development policies and population control, anti-abortion legislation, anti- and pro-natalist discourses and policies, are used to secure power. By the inherently contradictory concept of soft authoritarianism, we mean to emphasize the specific ways in which democracies are currently being undermined from within. It describes a specific form of government that deliberately blurs the lines between democratic and authoritarian rule.
This Summer School will address the central role of these demographic imaginaries in facilitating soft authoritarian politics in different parts of the world. It aims to approach this topic from an interdisciplinary and globally comparative perspective. Looking into the specific political, juridical, cultural, technological, and discursive practices in the different country contexts, will problematize how these narratives and policies remain entangled with longstanding nationalist, racist, and sexist notions and colonial fantasies. It will examine how they are reframed today and the technological infrastructures and data-political presumptions they involve. The Summer School therefore has the overall goal of grasping the extent of these politics, their contradictions and effects, and the dangers that they entail for democratic and peaceful living together.