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Confronting Authoritarian Populism

Published on 13 March 2018

Authoritarian populism is on the rise, boosted in part by support from rural areas. This weekend over 250 researchers and activists from all over the world will gather in The Hague to examine why, and explore the alternatives. What are the social and political processes in rural spaces that resist or respond to regressive, authoritarian politics? How can they be mobilized and supported?

You can find out more about the event here, including the programme, list of speakers and papers. If you want to watch the plenary sessions on 17-18 March, you can view the livestream here. For the event, use the hashtag #ERPI2018 and follow @TheERPI

The event is co-organised by the ESRC STEPS Centre, as part of this year’s focus on ‘transformations’. Building on the framing paper for the Emancipatory Rural Politics Initiative, we will be discussing the causes and consequences of ‘authoritarian populism’ in rural areas, as well as strategies of resistance and transformative alternatives.

A series of short articles exploring these issues for different places have been published in collaboration with OpenDemocracy. Have a look now to get a flavour of the discussions:

Confronting authoritarian populism: the rural dimension Ian Scoones, Saturnino M. Borras Jr., Lyda Fernanda Forero, Ruth Hall, Marc Edelman, Wendy Wolford, and Benjamin White

Hindu authoritarianism and agrarian distress Achin Vanaik

Why #DefendAfrin? Confronting authoritarian populism with radical democracy Amber Huff, Salima Tasdemir, and Patrick Huff

Sacrifice zones in rural and non-metro USA: fertile soil for authoritarian populism Marc Edelman

Islamophobia gastronomica – on the food police, rural populism and killing Raj Patel

Authoritarian elitism and popular movements in Brazil / Élites autoritarias y movimientos populares en Brasil Wendy Wolford and Sergio Sauer

The demise of emancipatory peasant politics? Indonesian fascism and the rise of Islamic populism Laksmi Savitri, Devi Adriyanti, Hanny Wijaya, Ciptaningrat Larastiti, Abdul Rahman, and Ben White

How populism directed against minorities is used to prop up Myanmar’s ‘Democratic’ revival Khin Zaw Win

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