Right now: contemporary forms of far-right populism and fascism in the Global South

• Published in: Acta academica (Bloemfontein, South Africa) South Africa), 2022-12, Vol.54 (3), p.1-11
• Main Authors: Latecka, Ewa, Du Toit, Jean, Swer, Gregory Morgan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0587-2405; 2415-0479
• DOI: 10.18820/24150479/aa54i3/1

Recent years have seen the global emergence of populist political formations, leading certain scholars to term our present age the “age of populism” (Krastev 2011, Nandy 2019, Ricci 2020) and some politicians, such as Hungary’s current prime minister Viktor Orbán, to proclaim that “the era of liberal democracy is over” (Santora and Bienvenu 2018). Contemporary forms of populism are characterized by ‘us’ (often ‘the people’ in an ethnic or communal sense) versus ‘them’ (usually liberal elites, the establishment, minorities, or immigrants) forms of binary thinking (Berman 2021). For some, the rise of contemporary populism inherently represents the resurgence of forms of reactionary populist nationalism, ranging from the ‘radical’ to the ‘extreme’ right, and the revitalization of forms of ideology that may be termed ‘neo-fascist’. The great challenge for contemporary democracies is that, in contrast to dictators who seize power via coups, the aforementioned political movements come to power via the ballot box (Levitsky and Ziblatt 2018).