1 - Locating Authoritarian Populism in Asia: Political Economies, Structures of Feeling

The onset of the Asian century has witnessed the emergence of authoritarian populism as a political force to be reckoned with. Centred on an ideological narrative that posits a binary opposition between an authentic people and their ominous Other, and underpinned by cross-class constituencies, authoritarian populism as a political project has succeeded in gaining power in several Asian democracies since the early 2000s. The consequences of this shift towards the far right for democracy on the continent are potentially very serious, and as such, Asian authoritarian populism warrants critical scholarly attention. This paper develops an analysis of the rise of authoritarian populism across sub-regions of the continent – from Turkey in West Asia, via India in South Asia, to the Philippines in Southeast Asia – with a focus on the interplay between political economy and structures of feeling. The central contention is that while countries across the region has experienced strong economic growth, growth processes are deeply unequal and fundamentally precarious. Uneven and unequal development spawns structures of feeling in which anxieties and aspirations intersect, and these structures of feeling, in turn, are easily harnessed by authoritarian populism as a political project. The paper concludes by reflecting on what it might mean to cultivate other and oppositional political subjectivities in the context of Asia’s turn to the right.

Co-Author 1
Alf Nilsen (single-authored)