Man surrounded by crowd holding a banner with the message about racism in a peaceful protest against racism and US police brutality in Palma de Mallorca, Spain on June 07 2020.

Why Race Still Matters?

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Colak, F.Zehra. (2021). “Why Race Still Matters?” ECPS Book Reviews. European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). December 20, 2021. https://doi.org/10.55271/br0005

 

Alana Lentin’s book Why Race Still Matters offers key insights on how racism is denied and why naming racism is seen as offensive based on cases in politics and media across US and Australia. These cases, Lentin clearly explains, underlie the systemic redefinition of racism to serve white agendas and make it challenging to bring racial literacy into public discourse.

Reviewed by F. Zehra Colak

“How to be both free and situated; how to convert a racist house into a race-specific yet nonracist home. How to enunciate race while depriving it of its lethal cling?” Toni Morrison asks this question in her essay called “Home,” published in 1997. More than two decades after Morrison, Alana Lentin, a race critical scholar, partly answers this question as she calls on her readers to be race-cognizant while defying its terms of reference: “How do we explain race and oppose the dehumanization and discrimination committed in its name if we do not speak about it?” This is the key question that Lentin thoroughly engages with in Why Race Still Matters.* Her main argument draws on the view that dismantling racism and unpacking its impact can only be possible by speaking about it as leaving racism out of the conversation harms those exposed to it. Most importantly, she does this at a time when there is increasing backlash against academic studies of race, gender, post-colonialism, and scholars working in these fields are being targeted by right-wing governments across and beyond western Europe (Colak & Toguslu, 2021). 

Drawing on the work of influential scholars like Stuart Hall, Lentin defines racism as “a technology for the management of human difference” which produces, reproduces, and sustains white supremacy at various levels (p. 5). Her work underlines how approaching racism as a pathology fails to acknowledge the role of institutions, structures, processes, and practices in upholding a racially categorized view of the world. More and better racial literacy pedagogy among public, Lentin rightly argues, can challenge such individualized notions of racism and normalize conversations about (institutional) whiteness. Racial literacy “emphasizes the relationship between race and power … [and] constantly interrogates the dynamic relationship among race, class, geography, gender, and other explanatory variables” (Guinier, 2004: 114–15, as cited in Lentin, 2020: 11). Nevertheless, western educational systems fail to acknowledge the importance of racial literacy as they attempt at practicing neutrality and color-blindness that reproduces Eurocentric notions of race. This, Lentin underlines, deprives us from acquiring the tools that we need to counter pseudoscience racial ideas and myths (e.g., White genocide) that are taking a strong hold on social media and in the public sphere.  

How can then an anti-racist discourse challenges the recent resurgence of ‘race realists’ and their false premises of racial science beyond proposing that race is a social construct? This is an especially relevant question that offers valuable insights to move beyond the limited explanatory frameworks that are currently adopted by anti-racist scholars and activists. 

As noted by Lentin, “antiracists are very good at denying the biological facticity of race, but not very good at explaining what is social about race” (p. 31). Entering an insightful dialogue with scholars of race, Lentin discusses various critiques of social constructionist approach, which emphasizes that race needs to be discussed within the political context that reproduces it along with ideas about how it can be dismantled. Still, Lentin shows how race is present in medical practice, biomedical research, and genetics as can be seen in associations of certain diseases such as sickle cell anemia with the Black people despite obvious evidence to the contrary. At the same time, Lentin recognizes the ways racialization processes unequally impact on groups, requiring specific forms of treatment. In other words, race is not biology, but racial rule has biological effect due to persistence of white supremacy, colonization, and structural inequities. Increasing control of migration along racial lines and discriminatory policies that reproduce race by western governments exemplify nativist racialized body politics that construct ‘Others’ as out of place, which is also noted by scholars of far right and nationalism (Wodak, 2021).

Why Race Still Matters offers key insights on how racism is denied and why naming racism is seen as offensive based on cases in politics and media across US and Australia. These cases, Lentin clearly explains, underlie the systemic redefinition of racism to serve white agendas and make it challenging to bring racial literacy into public discourse. As such, “the question of who can control the definition of racism has grown in importance almost as a function of the lack of control that many racialized people have over the determination of their life course” (p. 58). Lentin critically engages with the historical roots of racism in Europe, showing that the commitment to racial equality was mainly associated with critiquing antisemitism and did not imply rejection of racism against colonized peoples. The current understanding of racism in Europe still relies strongly on the associations made between Holocaust and racism, leading therefore to the rejection of racism as a system of power and domination that explains ongoing anti-blackness, Islamophobia, and the criminalization of immigrants. Such common views of racism in public, Lentin suggests, are informed, and shaped by a group of academics who psychologize race and equate racism to individual attitudes while presenting critical race studies as unempirical and unscientific. 

“Why do you always make it about race?” This, Lentin explains, is a question asked not only by the right but also by ‘the white left,’ to criticize the centralization of race, gender, and sexuality in making sense of complex political questions. However, refusing “to see race is to choose simplicity and ignore the layers of power in and resultant complicity required in dealing with what race continues to do” (p. 96). Exposing the ignorance among the ‘white left’ about the challenges of antiracists, Lentin underlies the little-understood diversity of the antiracism movement. By construction of racism as a concern of ‘aloof cosmopolitan urban elites’ and racialization of working classes as white, the question of how racialized power structures function at the intersection of class, gender, and nationality is overlooked. Lentin’s thoughtful engagement with issues around anti-racism movement and identity politics drawing on discussions around contemporary Islamophobia and ongoing settler domination of Indigenous lands provides unique insights into ongoing academic and media debates. Particularly noteworthy in this discussion is her emphasis on how demands by racialized groups of people are treated as “victimhood performances” by those in power who then call themselves “victims” struggling with such demands. 

One of the interesting contributions in Lentin’s Why Race Still Matters relates to the question of how antisemitism and Islamophobia feed off one another as two forms of racism. While antisemitism is politically instrumentalized in the name of defending Jews from Muslims and anti-Zionists, Islamophobia is often seen invalid. Lentin underlies, for instance, the adoption of “Judeo-Christianity” by the right to construct Muslims and Islam in opposition to European values while concealing Christianity’s own antisemitism. At the same time, rising antisemitism in Hungary, for instance, and the attacks against the well-known Jewish philanthropist George Soros are often accompanied by anti-refugee and anti-Muslim racism. Still, “antisemitism is excused if opposition to Muslims and support for Israel are present” (p. 145), as shown by various vignettes discussed in the book. She furthermore engages deeply with questions around ‘Cultural Marxism,’ internal struggles within Jewish communities, and the persistence of antisemitism in different forms such as reduction of “the Jews” to a homogenous identity. Lentin’s insights on how European states declared their commitment to fight Judeophobia after Holocaust while continuing racial colonization abroad and exploitation of migrants at home are particularly insightful.

The conclusion offers a powerful summary of contemporary debates on racism by outlining differences among race realists (i.e., racists), race-critical anti-racists who are fighting racism, and those who remain silent about race as a way of challenging it. Lentin addresses this silent group when she argues that “talking in euphemisms or pretending that race belongs to the past” will not make race matter less (p. 172). Engaging with the root causes of why race is a difficult subject to study and talk about, she particularly underlies the role of white fragility, methodological whiteness, epistemic Eurocentrism and institutional racism, all of which contribute to the lack of racial literacy among public. For instance, an epistemically racist positivist stance argues that race cannot be understood objectively by those who experience it while imposing certain boundaries around what counts as (superior) knowledge. While calling on its readers to be attentive to race as a tool of analysis, the book ends with a hopeful message noting critical conversations that are taking place and being attended by white people engaged in challenging racial hierarchy. 

Overall, this is a valuable contribution and resource for scholars and students of race studies interested in a critical, engaging, and deeply informative analysis of historical and contemporary academic and public debates on race and racism. 

(*) Why Race Still Matters, by Alana Lentin, Polity Press, 2020. 184 pp., €17.00 (paperback), ISBN: 9781509535712

References 

Colak, F. Z. & Toguslu, E. (2021). “France’s attack on academics is an attempt to silence debate on race.” ECPS. https://www.populismstudies.org/frances-attack-on-academics-is-an-attempt-to-silence-debate-on-race/

Guinier, L. (2004). “From Racial Liberalism to Racial Literacy: Brown v. Board of Education and the Interest-Divergence Dilemma.” Journal of American History. 91(1): 92­­–118.

Morrison, T. (1997). “Home.” In: The House that Race Built: Black Americans, U.S. Terrain. Edited by Wahneema Lubiano. 3–12. New York: Pantheon Books.

Wodak, R. (2021). The politics of fear: The shameless normalization of far-right discourse. London: SAGE. 

Marine Le Pen, the leader of Front National, a national-conservative political party in France in meeting for the presidential election of 2017 at the Zenith of Paris, France on April 17, 2017. Photo: Frederic Legrand.

The Populist Century: History, Theory, Critique

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Rogenhofer, Julius Maximilian. (2021). “The Populist Century: History, Theory, Critique.” ECPS Book Reviews. European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). November 4, 2021. https://doi.org/10.55271/br0004

 

What makes Pierre Rosanvallon’s account of populism in his new book The Populist Century: History, Theory, Critique stand out is its articulation of populism with the structural challenges confronting representative democracy. Rather than simplifying popular sovereignty into populist dualisms between us and them, Rosanvallon invites us to hazard a more complex form of people power that combines notions of the ‘power of no one’ and the ‘power of anyone at all.’ Multi-faceted and challenging, The Populist Century is important reading for scholars of populism and democracy alike. 

Reviewed by Julius Maximilian Rogenhofer

The Populist Century is Pierre Rosanvallon’s most comprehensive study of populism, one that simultaneously probes the phenomenon’s anatomy, its historical origins, and its relationship with representative democracy. As such, it is both a work of conceptual clarification and critique. From the outset, the French political historian is rather unsparing of fellow populism scholars: To him existing studies of populism are confined to exploring the ‘underpinnings’ of the populist vote. The typologies of populist movements constructed by comparativists are disparaged as a ‘list without rhyme or reason’ (2021: 2, 3).

Despite such criticisms the anatomy of populism advanced in Part I of The Populist Century is remarkably consistent with the state of the art in contemporary populism scholarship. Populism, so Rosanvallon, entails a conception of the people as a singular body, a theory of democracy that is direct, polarized and immediate, the people’s embodiment by an individual leader, a security-seeking politics of protectionism and a skilful appeal to the passions and emotions of those disenchanted with representation by conventional political parties. Individually, each of these purported characteristics of populism has been widely studied. Rosanvallon, nonetheless, adds important nuances to the existing debates. For instance, he enriches discussions of the populist notion of the people as a homogenous and unified body by distinguishing between the people as a civic body (i.e., the people of a nation, a general and somewhat abstract category) and the people as a social group (with discernible characteristics). While these categories are distinct, their shared association with a common narrative and vision of democracy, both as a political regime and a form of society, allows populists to conflate the latter group with the former and, thus, to delimit the people from its enemies (on this process see Laclau, 2005).

Rosanvallon’s analysis of the adverse effects of populism in power is consistent with insights in Jan Werner Mueller’s 2016 book What Is Populism? – especially populists’ tendency to weaken, politicise and dismantle ostensibly nonpartisan intermediary institutions, such as constitutional courts. Rosanvallon situates his analysis in a robust defence of the liberal elements of representative democracy, which act as guarantors of the ‘power of anyone’ against the tyranny of majorities (2021: 130). His staunch defence of liberalism and his association of populism with the perpetual risk of ‘democratorship’ puts Rosanvallon at odds with populism scholars such as Laclau and Mouffe, who take seriously the potential of populism to revitalise democracy. Adding to this disagreement, Rosanvallon stresses what he views as the overwhelming consistencies between rightist and leftist populism, phenomena distinguishable – so Rosanvallon – primarily because of their stance towards migrants and refugees.

The history of populism at the heart of Part II of The Populist Century is distinctive both in its strong focus on French political history dating back to Rousseau, Robespierre and Napoleon III and its focus, less on widely acknowledged examples of populism, than on their proto-populist precursors. Rosanvallon’s account identifies the years between 1890 and 1914 as a double turning point, in which in early globalisation and the first crises of the democratic model would confront national protectionism and a belief in referenda as a ‘panacea’ for the ‘flaws and failures of the representative system’ (2021: 74).

I would argue that Rosanvallon’s strongest contribution is neither the anatomy of populism in Part I nor the history of populism in Part II of The Populist Century. Rather, what makes Rosanvallon’s account of populism stand out is its articulation of populism with the structural challenges confronting representative democracy (a project that dates back, at least, to his essay on LePen and the National Front in 1988, see Selinger, 2020). As a student of the late Claude Lefort, Rosanvallon has written extensively about the indeterminacy of the political, a result of what Lefort refers to as the ‘empty space’ at the heart of democracy. Lefort and Rosavallon recognise the importance of intermediary institutions to compensate for the inadequacies of electoral representation (because of its intermittent nature and the lack of distinctive options that citizens are, at times, confronted with). These institutions are weakened by the increased individualisation of society and a shift from party democracy to what Manin referred to as audience democracy – a system in which political parties exercise a diminished role and in which political leaders appeal directly to individual voters (1997). Populism for Rosanvallon is closely connected to the decline of intermediary parties and unions. Populists address resultant crises of representation by promising “true” political representation, through a single leader who embodies a unified people and takes on the corruption of the existing political order. 

The Populist Century ends with several proposed remedies to the inadequacies of contemporary democratic representation. What Rosanvallon refers to as ‘interactive democracy’ would go beyond elections to better engage with citizens, for instance, by putting their own experienced realities centre stage (2021: 156). These expressive elements of representation might be augmented by giving individuals a direct say on politics through citizens councils. Rather than simplifying popular sovereignty into populist dualisms between us and them, Rosanvallon invites us to hazard a more complex form of people power that combines notions of the ‘power of no one’ and the ‘power of anyone at all.’ Multi-faceted and challenging, The Populist Century is important reading for scholars of populism and democracy alike. 

(*) The Populist Century: History, Theory, Critique by Pierre Rosanvallon, translated by Catherine Porter, 1. Edition October 2021, 220 Pages, Wiley & Sons Ltd ISBN: 978-1-5095-4628-2

References

Laclau, E. (2005). On Populist Reason. London: Verso.

Lefort, C. (1986). The Political Forms of Modern Society: Bureaucracy, Democracy, Totalitarianism. 1. MIT Press ed. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.

Manin, B. (1997). The Principles of Representative Government. Cambridge University Press.

Mueller, J-W. (2016). What Is Populism? University of Pennsylvania Press.

Selinger, W. (2020). “Populism, parties, and representation: Rosanvallon on the crisis of parliamentary democracy.” Constellations. 27(2): 231–243. DOI: 10.1111/1467-8675.12497.

White nationalists and counter protesters clash in during a rally that turned violent resulting in the death of one and multiple injuries in Charlottesville, VA on August 12, 2017. Photo: Kim Kelley-Wagner.

Homegrown Hate – Why White Nationalists and Militant Islamists are Waging War Against the United States by Sara Kamali

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Colak, F.Zehra. (2021). “Homegrown Hate – Why White Nationalists and Militant Islamists are Waging War Against the United States by Sara Kamali.” ECPS Book Reviews. European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). August 19, 2021. https://doi.org/10.55271/br0003

 

Dr. Sara Kamali’s book illustrates why strategies to countering extremism are not effective and how they lead to the surveillance of entire Muslim communities, uncovering the complex ways such measures and policies reinforce the injustice and oppression of minority groups.

By F. Zehra Colak

In her timely book Homegrown Hate (University of California Press, 272 pg.), Sara Kamali scrutinizes the identity of White nationalists and militant Islamists, examines their grievances, hatreds, and the acts of terrorism, and lastly asks how these threats can be addressed. Drawing on in-depth interviews with key figures, as well as other primary and secondary source documents, Kamali shows how, despite differences in their motivations and goals, both White nationalists and militant Islamists share a narrative of victimhood, a shattered sense of belonging and alienation, and a perception of self-righteousness while instrumentalizing their theologies to express their disenfranchisement through violence. 

Homegrown Hate is a book of four parts. The first focuses on the beliefs, worldviews and ideologies of White nationalists and militant Islamists, offering a rich outline of their historical backgrounds, organizational structures, and shared methods. Kamali details how The Fourteen Words serves as a mission statement for all White nationalists, defining their supremacist beliefs and honing their identities and political aims while perpetuating the need for militancy to prevent the so-called racial annihilation of Whites by people of colour. The book offers an insightful glimpse into the complex and overlapping stories, anti-government sentiments, and strongly interwoven affiliations of White militant nationalists as well as the most impactful ideologies shaping White nationalist discourse, including Christian Identity, Creativity, and Wotanism. The book then offers a comprehensive overview of the political strategies and the complex and intersecting connections and theologies of prominent militant Islamist organizations, including al-Qa’ida and Islamic State (Dã’ish), which share a political desire to establish a global caliphate. Key terminology and concepts (e.g., jãhiliyya) exploited by militant Islamists to determine who is deserving of loyalty and disavowal and to justify their war as God’s command are well described.  

In the book’s second part, Kamali investigates White nationalist and militant Islamist grievances against the United States. The notion of White genocide is endorsed by the former to justify a narrative of victimhood and displacement and to support a call for a racial holy war, RAHOWA. The chapter sheds light on the role of demographic changes, economic shifts, and gun rights in understanding the grievances of White nationalists and delves further into how antisemitism, antiglobalism, Islamophobia, misogyny, and Queerphobia manifest and intersect within the White nationalist discourse. Interestingly, the role of women in upholding the norms of White nationalism is not sufficiently explored, although women have been key figures in designing a White supremacist system and promoting far-right groups like QAnon. 

In her analysis of the layered grievances of militant Islamists, Kamali shows how such narratives are rooted in a specific interpretation of Islam, US foreign policy, the Crusades, and colonialism to justify the need for self-preservation, defence against oppression, and the establishment of a global caliphate. Kamali addresses how the rhetoric adopted by many American presidents has contributed to the image of the US as a “Crusader” in alliance with Zionists, fuelling militant Islamist propaganda. Such propaganda claims that the US and its pro-Zionist allies aim to eradicate Islam and dominate Muslim-majority nations. The book acknowledges that while some of the grievances of militant Islamists regarding American foreign policy could be legitimate, their adopted methods to address such injustices are undemocratic. 

The third part of the book explores the legitimization of holy wars (e.g., RAHOWA and jihad) by White nationalists and militant Islamists who distort interpretations of traditional scriptures and theological concepts to fulfil their political ambitions. Kamali illustrates how White nationalists consider racial war essential to stopping White genocide and to establishing a White ethnostate in line with the aims of Fourteen Words. In the same vein, militant Islamists portray the West as a threat to Islam and propose holy war against all who they perceive as non-Muslim to establish a global caliphate. While many White nationalists imagine a White and Christian America inspired by the Founding Fathers’ divine vision and the sacred US constitution, militant Islamists envision a future where the US is part of a global caliphate. 

Kamali also illuminates how both movements utilize apocalyptic and violent eschatological visions to justify their terrorism. These grand narratives about the End Times, Kamali argues, offer a sense of belonging and meaning to members of both groups, who believe they play a central role in establishing God’s kingdom through fighting against evil. She explains the role of the internet in bolstering such narratives legitimizing violence and amplifying the voices of militant Islamists and White nationalists. Social media platforms, for instance, are often used to recruit followers and cultivate a sense of community feeding off a narrative of victimhood and hatred towards the “Other.” Questioning the myth of the “lone wolf,” the book highlights the key role of (virtual) communities, transnational ideological connections, and complex psychosocial and political dynamics in explaining the violent actions of an individual. 

In the conclusion, Kamali proposes a new approach to counterterrorism by critiquing the current counter-terrorism strategies as bolstering Islamophobia and failing to recognize White nationalism as a legitimate security threat. The framework, named holistic justice, is founded on principles of anti-oppression and empathy and aims at rectifying the systemic inequities (e.g., structural Islamophobia, institutionalized White privilege) underlying the current counterterrorism approaches. This approach, Kamali explains, holds White liberals accountable for using their privilege to enact institutional change and calls on Muslim Americans to organize at a grassroots level and build solidarity with minority groups. While Kamali’s holistic justice framework aims at rectifying systemic inequities, the role of empathy in bringing about structural change is not sufficiently explored. Although intergroup empathy might contribute to the formation of critical consciousness, encouraging individuals to reflect on their histories and privileges, it is not clear whether empathy is seen as a pre-condition for mobilizing for systemic change or an outcome of anti-oppression work. 

The book illustrates why strategies to countering extremism are not effective and how they lead to the surveillance of entire Muslim communities, uncovering the complex ways such measures and policies reinforce the injustice and oppression of minority groups. The lack of a federal statute criminalizing domestic terrorism, for instance, works to the benefit of militant White nationalists who cannot be prosecuted as terrorists on a national level unlike militant Islamists. Although racial disparities and injustices targeting people of colour are recognized in the book, the question of how systemic racism impacts the psychosocial circumstances of already vulnerable people who are driven to militancy remains insufficiently addressed.

Overall, Homegrown Hate is a valuable up-to-date resource not only for scholars and policymakers but for anyone who is looking to gain an in-depth understanding of current security threats and political violence facing the United States and many other countries around the world. The range and breadth of the complex layers of White nationalism and militant Islamism scrutinized are beyond comparison. The book is a significant contribution to the field—deeply informative and written in an engaging manner.

Hungarian government's anti-immigration billboard says "STOP the refugees" in Budapest, Hungary on April 4, 2018.

Dynamics and appeal of populist nationalism in Europe

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Colak, F.Zehra. (2021). “Dynamics and appeal of populist nationalism in Europe.” ECPS Book Reviews. European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). April 30, 2021. https://doi.org/10.55271/br0002

 

Cathrine Thorleifsson (2019) Nationalist Responses to the Crises in Europe: Old and New Hatreds. Routledge. 134 pp… Drawing on multi-sited fieldwork conducted in England, Hungary and Norway in 2015, Thorleifsson’s book offers timely and critical insights into how hostility and racism toward migrants and minorities are situated within the material conditions, historical events and social contexts. 

Reviewed by F. Zehra Colak

The recent resurgence of populist far-right across much of the west has attracted scholarly attention, with research investigating socio-economic, structural and globalized dynamics to explain their appeal for an increasing segment of the population. While there is a growing body of literature addressing the rise of exclusivist nationalism, such focus fails to fully account for the role of the everyday dynamics and appeal of nationalism for those who make and sustain it, mainly the supporters of the populist radical right (PRR) parties. This book is a welcome intervention in this regard. The essential aim is to explain the causes, dynamics, and local appeal of populist nationalism in contemporary Europe through an analysis of PRR parties and politicians as well as the PRR supporters’ concerns and motivations. Situating individual experiences within the wider socio-political, historical, economic and cultural context, the book focuses not only on the supply but also on the often-ignored demand side of populist nationalism.  

The ethnographic study is based on fieldwork carried out in multiple sites across England, Hungary and Norway amongst the voters and supporters of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), Fidesz and Jobbik, and the Norwegian Progress Party. It is acknowledged that these parties differ in their history, ideology and orientation, but what is notable is their convergence in constructing Muslim migrants and minorities as a threat to security, culture and national identity to instrumentalise sentiments of anxiety and fear. In addition to analyzing the role of PRR party leaders in shaping populist nationalism, Thorleifsson offers a comprehensive and clear account of how the supporters of these parties negotiate their belonging at the intersection of ethnicity, nationality and race. 

Thorleifsson defines populist nationalism as “the exclusionary and polarizing nationalism that pits morally ‘pure’ and virtuous insiders against a set of internal and external others who are depicted as threatening to the nation-state” (pg. 2). The author interprets the rise of PRR parties as part of an attempt to downgrade the globalization processes rooted in the crisis of economy, culture and displacement. Furthermore, the resurgence of anti-immigration parties is attributed to working class resentments of economic insecurities, symbolic threats, and political discontent. Playing upon such anxieties and tapping into the grievances of disillusioned segments of the population, the PRR parties choose to frame migrants as a threat and capitalize on the so-called refugee crisis to strengthen national boundaries. Still, it is emphasized that the specific social context, historical background, structural circumstances and economic realities shape the manifestation and appeal of exclusionary populism across England, Hungary and Norway.  

The book shows how in Doncaster, England, the UKIP breakthrough takes place against a background of neoliberal restructuring, economic transition and rapid demographic change, which is interpreted to have an overheating effect. It is explained that the party’s main support group is lower-educated working class, whose grievances and cultural or economic anxieties are addressed by UKIP as the party makes promises to restore the coal industry and protect the national borders from the so-called ‘job-stealing migrants’. Previous invisible privileges tied to whiteness became more prominent over the fight for resources and rights even though the local Shikh minority are also attracted to the protectionist vision of UKIP. 

The notions of nostalgia and coal nationalism are adopted to explain the nature of exclusive nationalism and the political strategies adopted by UKIP in the industrial town of Doncaster. Similarly, it is elaborated how strategies such as dual essentialization are used during Trump and UKIP Brexit campaigns to foster white superiority through racializing the white working class as pure and authentic and non-white people as a threat to security, culture, and identity. In other words, “the Muslim Other became a spectacular projection that met the populist needs of whiteness and Englishness, of whiteness and Americanness” (pg. 46). 

Hungarian radical right’s treatment of non-European and mainly Muslim migrant Others as disposable strangers uncovers the ways populist nationalism is manifested along racial, ethnic, and religious lines following the economic crisis and global migration. The book elaborates on how the framing of predominantly Muslim migrants as an economic threat laid the groundwork for their further dehumanization by the governing PRR party Fidesz. Despite Hungary being a transit zone for an overwhelming majority of migrants, it shows how Viktor Orbán copied Jobbik’s ultra-nationalist political style and capitalized on migration flows with anti-immigration campaigns and policies. The theoretical framing is based on various anthropological and philosophical perspectives exploring the notions of purity and the wider implications of the border-crossing act for the constructed nature of citizenhood. It convincingly argues that the rise of support for PRR parties needs to be understood against the background of socio-economic factors, historical background and the increasing ethno-nationalism fueled by anti-Islamic and xenophobic far-right rhetoric. 

The discussion of the Hungarian far right is nuanced by showing how the former leader of the right-wing extremist party Jobbik (Movement for a Better Hungary), Gábor Vona, adopts a pro-Palestinian and pro-Islam stance, unlike Fidesz and many other PRR parties in Western Europe. This strategic twist on the part of Jobbik, accompanied by antisemitic and antiziganistic propaganda, is attributed to the lack of a large Muslim presence in Hungary although anti-Muslim racism is still dominant in party campaigns and debates. The demonization of the Roma minority and Jews led to the party’s breakthrough in 2010 across regions with a sizeable Gypsy population, including the industrial town of Ózd, where Thorleifsson conducted part of her research. Her interviews with Jobbik supporters underline how people rely on conspiracy theories and intertwined categories of exclusion based on a merging of antisemitism and Islamophobia as they struggle with economic anxieties. While the main research focus is on far-right supporters, Thorleifsson briefly draws attention to the forms of Hungarian civil resistance contesting racialized securitization of migrants as an existential threat. 

One of the common anti-immigration and mobilization strategies adopted by PRR across UK, Hungary, Norway and Sweden is argued to be based on a dystopian imaginary of Sweden where, supposedly, migration has created chaos and multiculturalism has failed. The book offers examples of how the imaginary of Swedish dystopia is reproduced across European far-right to warn against the so-called Islamification, demographic extinction and to promote nativism as a solution to disorder. In Norway, for instance, the anti-immigration Progress Party’s rhetoric feeds off the myth around the rise of violent crimes allegedly caused by immigration in Sweden. In Hungary, the call for protection of the white nation and Christian civilization is justified through securitization of the migrant Other who threatens its so-called purity to avoid the conditions of Swedish dystopic place. 

The final chapter of the book is dedicated to unravelling the dynamics of exclusion and antiziganism targeting itinerant Roma in Norway to identify how Norwegian-ness is constructed. It provides an elaborate picture of how the dehumanization of the Roma and their inaccurate portrayal as ‘organized criminals’ are perpetuated by the populist right-wing Progress Party politicians and its supporters. Treating Roma as human waste and moralizing cleanliness, ethnic Norwegians fail to consider the role of structural conditions in creating precarious living conditions for the Roma. The book describes how, unlike in England and Hungary, the categories of difference and exclusion in Norway are not based on economic tensions but mainly rely on culturalist discourses.  

The main argument of the book is based on a convincing account of the causes, methods and appeal of populist nationalism by drawing on the individual, local, societal, and global conditions and processes. Although mainstream parties and politicians are invited in the conclusion chapter to better respond to the concerns of citizens, the role of elites (e.g., journalists, intellectuals, politicians) and liberal institutions in mainstreaming the xenophobic far-right agendas and discourses is not fully explored. For instance, in addition to the discursive practices and policies of mainstream actors, media coverage of the populist far-right can contribute to the legitimization of the far-right and shape public discourse, albeit inadvertently. Mondon & Winter (2020) note that “the mainstreaming of the far-right is not simply or even predominantly the result of popular demand or the savviness of the far right itself,” calling for more attention to the systemic failures of liberalism (pg. 290). 

Also, despite references to the concerns of voters to protect the white race from the racialized immigrant Other, a more critical engagement with the concepts of white privilege and white supremacy and their relationship to the rise of far-right remains absent from the discussion. For instance, the nostalgia for the past is not only an outcome of radical socio-economic change and uncertainty but also reflects a deep yearning for an ethno-racial pure nation without undesired non-whites. In this respect, nostalgia narratives involving idealized representation of a racially homogenous past are adopted to strengthen and reproduce white supremacy drawing on the conviction in the inherent superiority of the white people. Exposing such internalized racism can throw more light on the link between the reproduction of whiteness within the existing socio-political and cultural structures and the growing appeal for the far-right actors and discourses.  

Overall, this book is an important contribution to the continuing debate on the rise of right-wing populism and throws much-needed light on the agency and motivations of PRR supporters based on a critical ethnographic approach. The analysis generates new insights into various factors and processes that explain local support for populist right-wing parties across Europe. The research also opens up avenues for further study, especially on the concerns and experiences of the disillusioned citizens of Europe, who actively contest, negotiate and draw the boundaries of nationhood. 

 

Erdogan supporters gather in Takism square after an attempted coup d’etat in Istanbul, Turkey on July 19, 2016. Photo: John Wreford

What Went Wrong in Turkey?

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Demir, Mustafa. (2021). “What Went Wrong in Turkey?” ECPS Book Reviews. European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). April 6, 2021. https://doi.org/10.55271/br0001

 

The volume titled Islamism, Populism, and Turkish Foreign Policy, edited by Burak Bilgehan Ozpek and Bill Park (Routledge, 2019), reveals that Islamism and populism have long united forces in Turkey to mobilize the masses from the periphery to the center to capture the state “by” the support of the people, but neither “for” nor “with” them. 

Reviewed by Mustafa Demir
 
What went wrong in Turkey? This was the question in the minds of the contributors who embarked on the intellectual journey that gave birth to Islamism, Populism, and Turkish Foreign Policy. As an observer of Turkish politics, I welcome this work, not only as a contribution to the literature but also as an effort, concordant with intellectual and scholarly responsibility, to critically contextualize and record another important shift in the life of modern Turkey, one that has been dubbed the “Islamist populist turn” in Turkish history (Yilmaz, 2021).

The book is a collection of articles first published in a special issue of Turkish Studies dealing with Islamism and populism in Turkey and its impact on Turkey’s foreign policy. It consists of six comprehensive articles in which the concepts of Islamism and populism serve as connective tissues. 

The book begins with an editorial introduction by Bill Park. He provides a concise contextual background from which the AKP has emerged as a force of democratization and discusses how “a decade and a half later” the AKP has completed its “domination of Turkey’s political life” as an authoritarian regime. Park also explains how the AKP regime masterfully mobilized the “hitherto alienated masses” and captured the secular Turkish state with their help. He highlights how the expected “consolidation of democracy” as an end product of the AKP era has been superseded by the current reality of “centralisation of power, growing authoritarianism… and a purge of all kinds of political opposition.” Park also briefly points out the shift in the country’s foreign policy from a Western-oriented emerging soft power in its region to an aggressive, revisionist actor with worsening relations with the West that reflect the country’s internal shift towards authoritarianism. Following this quick depiction of Turkey’s internal and external picture, Park presents the central question that ties all six articles together: “What went wrong [in Turkey]?” 

Burak Bilgehan Ozpek and Nebehat Tanriverdi-Yasar highlight the tension between democracy and secularism in Turkey and explain how the AKP regime has exploited this tension to craft its Islamist populist appeal against the country’s secular establishment. They also discuss how the EU membership process has been instrumentalized/weaponized and used in the marginalization of the Kemalist military and institutions and their depiction as the “internal” enemy of the “real” people of the country. Finally, the authors highlight that all attempts to destroy the Kemalist system are justified in the eyes of the “real” people of the country. 

Birol Baskan’s article is also a significant contribution that details the Islamist foreign policy perspective of the AKP. He places the worldview and policies of Turkey’s former foreign minister and prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu under the microscope to lay out what an Islamist foreign policy perspective looks like. Baskan details how a “civilizationist–populism” came to be adopted in forging foreign relations and how — seen through this lens — the world can be reduced to one unified Muslim civilization versus the rest. He also rightly argues that this understanding has shaped “neo-Ottomanism” and informed Turkish foreign policy decisions during the Arab uprisings. Indeed, the author notes how artificially demarcated borders and the impact of the Arab uprisings brought forth a millennial opportunity to remedy historical “problems” to create a culturally, politically, and economically integrated region. This understanding also reflects a major departure from Kemalist foreign policy towards the region. 

Another article by Mustafa Serdar Palabiyik focuses on post-2010 Turkey. It looks at how the current regime politicizes history to create populist binaries. Here, the Kemalists and their precursors are portrayed as internal collaborators of the Western powers, “the enemy” of the “real” people in Turkey. In this narrative, Kemalists and their historical precursors are cast as the scapegoats for all the losses and defeats the Porte faced before its demise. This revised history has been crucial in the justification of current foreign policies since the regime and its elite are presented as the vanguard of an Ottoman revival. 

Mustafa A. Sezal and Ihsan Sezal’s contribution is a critical attempt to analyze the role of Islamist ideology in the AKP. This chapter explains in detail how Islamism as an ideology has empowered the AKP ruling elite and provided them with “efficient” tools to alienate the Kemalist establishment, coding them as a foreign element and presenting them as an enemy of and threat to the “real” people of the country. This chapter argues that Islamism has been the central dynamic shaping the AKP’s worldview from the outset. The authors contend that Islamism has been the core principle of the AKP and has been applied to both its internal and external relations. However, I think this conclusion does a disservice to many former members of the party—like Reha Camuroglu, Ertugrul Gunay, Yasar Yakis, and many others—who waged a genuinely heroic struggle to democratize the country within AKP ranks during its first two terms (2002–2010). All departed the party following its anti-democratic turn and once its authoritarian tendencies became salient after 2010. 

Neatly complementing the Sezals’ discussion, Menderes Cinar’s article highlights the transformation of the AKP from a moderate democratic Islamic party to a more populist party with a civilizationist outlook and growing anti-democratic tendencies and practices. I suggest that Cinar’s article be read alongside that of Mustafa Sezal and Ihsan Sezal. Cinar highlights how “the AKP’s nativist practices have aimed at redefining as a Muslim nation by using a civilizational discourse” (p. 8). He also argues that the AKP’s ideology was “unformed” when it was established, after which the party gradually developed a populist authoritarian character. 

However, alternatively, I would suggest that when the party first came to power, it was a rather motley coalition of different segments.  Only gradually did the Islamist partner come to dominate the other parts, either through cooptation or purges. Thus, it would be beneficial to highlight the internal changes within the party that saw it transform within a decade from a coalition of reformist progressive liberals and former Islamists (who claimed they had become “pro-European conservative democrats”) to an anti-Western, revisionist, and populist Islamist political party. 

This point of mine is also endorsed by Park in the introduction. Park says that none of the contributions “in this volume draw attention to the change in the AKP after it assumed power” (p. 5). However, I think this point requires further attention because overlooking transformation within political parties is not specific to the chapters in this volume. It is an understudied topic in Turkey and the AKP era overall. And it requires further research to produce a more complete and nuanced view of the topic.

Turkish academia has long assumed that political parties are “fixed units” that carry certain ideologies. This oversight is a real problem not only for Turkey in the AKP era but in general. For example, without discussing the transformation within the CHP over time, it would be difficult to properly understand the party’s shifting foreign and domestic/security policies towards ethnic and religious minorities and practicing Muslims. It would also do a disservice to the reformist, progressive liberals—like Canan Kaftancioglu, Sezgin Tanrikulu, Ahmet Unal Cevikoz, and many others—who have been championing progressive reformist politics within the party’s ranks in recent years. 

The final chapter has been written by Mustafa Kutlay and Huseyin Emrah Karaoguz. It focuses on the economic aspects of recent AKP rule. Although the article seems to stay out of the frame of Islamism and populism, it provides an important account of the lack of “bureaucratic autonomy” in Turkey and an important discussion of the political economy of Turkey’s populist present. Here, the arbitrary authoritarian interference by political forces in the economic sphere (mirroring political interference in civil spheres) is seen as the central driver of Turkey’s recent economic turmoil. The authors contend that this interference—especially in the allocation of funds and resources— “in the formulation and implementation of R&D policies” stems mainly from the regime’s “populist motivations” (p. 123).

Islamism has long served as a sub-strata political ideology in Turkey. Attempts to surface it were retarded by secular state forces up until the end of the 20th century (for further details, see Cizre and Cinar, 2003). However, managed to find a crack in the surface, rising to inundate and subsume the socio-political spectrum in Turkey in the last decade.    

By addressing Islamism and populism, the edited volume offers an account of the rise of authoritarianism in Turkey as well. However, instead of dealing with these two terms as separate phenomena, it would have been beneficial to underline the interconnectedness of the authoritarian turn and the rise of Islamist populism under the AKP regime in Turkey. Certainly, some of the articles discuss these notions together. However, given the conceptual discussion on the links between Islamism and populism is relatively shallow, it would have helped to provide a stronger theoretical frame to structure the chapters.

In general, this book reveals that Islamism and populism have been constants in modern Turkey and have been deployed to bring the masses from the periphery to the center (Mardin, 1973) and capture the state and its institutions “by” mobilizing the support of the people, albeit neither “for” nor “with” them. However, neither in the book nor in my observations of Turkish politics in general—and the AKP era in particular—is it clear whether the Turkish populists have combined their “thin-centered” populist ideology with Islamism or if the Islamists in Turkey have used populism as a vehicle and strategy to “conquer” the secular state. This seems to be the “chicken and egg” question of scholarship on populism —namely, whether it best understood as an ideology (Mudde, 2004) or a strategy (Barr, 2009; Moffit, 2017).

References

Barr, Robert R. (2009). “Populists, Outsiders and Anti-Establishment Politics.” Party Politics, 15(1), 29–48. 

Cizre, U. & Menderes Cinar. (2003). “Turkey 2002: Kemalism, Islamism, and Politics in the Light of the February 28 Process.” South Atlantic Quarterly. 102(2-3): 309–332.

doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/00382876-102-2-3-309.

Yilmaz, I. (2021). “Islamist Populism, Islamist Fatwas, State Transnationalism and Turkey”s Diaspora.” In Akbarzadeh, S (ed), Routledge Handbook of Political Islam. Routledge, Abingdon, Eng., pp.170-187, doi: 10.4324/9780429425165-14. 

Mardin, Ş. (1973). “Center-Periphery Relations: A Key to Turkish Politics?” Daedalus, vol. 102, no. 1, pp. 169-190.

Moffit, B. (2017). “Transnational Populism? Representative Claims, Media and The Difficulty of Constructing A Transnational “People”.” Javnost: The Public. 24(4), 409–425. DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1080/13183222.2017.1330086

Mudde, C. (2004). “The Populist Zeitgeist.” Government and Opposition. 39(4), 541–563.