Authoritarian populism, democracy and the long counter-revolution of the radical right

• Published in: Contemporary Political Theory
• Main Author: Kochi, Tarik
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Palgrave Macmillan 2023
• Subjects: North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/110090/; http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/110090/1/Authoritarian%20Populism,%20Democracy%20and%20Counter-Revolution%20Accepted%20Version.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1057/s41296-022-00611-3

Jan-Werner Müller’s analysis of ‘authoritarian populism’ represents a highly limited approach to the issue that is typical of many mainstream approaches within populism studies and liberal-democratic constitutional theory. Through a critique of Müller, the article develops an account of the historical emergence of authoritarian populism as a ‘long counter-revolution of the radical right’ against the values and institutions of the social-democratic welfare state. Focussing on the USA and UK, the article shows how, rather than being a novel phenomenon emerging from the fringes in the 1980s and 1990s, authoritarian populism emerges from the middle of the twentieth century as a highly successful form of hegemonic struggle over the Republican and Conservative parties and over American and British societies. The political success of a highly contradictory ideological framework of the radical right has helped to largely normalise a language, rhetoric and imaginary of authoritarian populism and place it at the centre of contemporary politics and culture. By largely ignoring such a development, and the highly contingent nature of North Atlantic ‘democracy’, theorists and commentators like Müller fail to grasp the depth of the current authoritarian populist threat and offer only liberal-democratic mythology in response to the ranting and chanting of ‘fake news’.