Economic Drivers of Contemporary Processes of Fascistization (Workshop)
(Veranstaltungssprache/Language: Englisch/English)
Our historical moment seems to resist the clarity of names. “New Right,” “far-right extremism,” “populism,” “authoritarianism,” “post-democracy”, “late fascism” – these terms each capture certain aspects of our current political trajectory, yet none fully encapsulates the transformations underway. How should we name our present? What concepts are useful to understand the contradictions that fracture the current moment? And how do we interpret the rightward shifts in the ideological and political landscapes of most capitalist societies – both in the Global North and South, at the center and periphery of the world-system? This workshop does not seek to settle on fixed labels or static categories. Rather, it aims to explore the ongoing, unresolved processes that have not yet crystallized into a stable political-ideological configuration. The processual term "fascistization" seems to be a proper starting point to capture this dynamic situation.
In the wake of the Trump election and the early elections in Germany, there have been debates both in the public sphere and in trade unions about how economic concerns and grievances act as a key driver of anti-democratic attitudes – see, for example, the debate around the buzzword "anti-fascist economics" (Isabella Weber). The workshop aims to discuss the hypothesis that the economic conditions experienced by workers today – precarization, informal work, job insecurity, impoverishment, declining purchasing power, and the erosion of social mobility – are crucial factors in creating a greater susceptibility to authoritarian and exclusionary ideologies and fueling the processes of social fascistization. Contemporary capitalism certainly has disruptive and destructive impacts on workers' material living conditions. But how do objective economic dynamics and actual experiences of economic deprivation relate to subjective and sociocultural processes of sensemaking? What narratives circulate in which economic problems are addressed and interpreted in right-wing populist terms? And how can we conceptualize and theorize these processes and relations? By presenting case studies from both Argentina and Germany, we will bring empirical evidence to investigate these questions situatedly and comparatively.
Please register: anmeldung@ifs-frankfurt.de (registration deadline on June 23)
Program
10 – 10.30: Introduction
10:30 – 12.30: Case Study I: Argentina
- Agustín L. Prestifilippo (University of Buenos Aires): Inflation and Social Suffering: The Experience of Dispossession Among Argentine Far-Right Sympathizers
12:30 – 13:30: Lunch break
1:30 – 3:30 Case Study II: Germany
- Leo Roepert (University of Hamburg): Identity or Interest: Does Right-Wing Populism Have Economic Causes?
- Lisa Pfeifer/Marc Blüml (Institute for Social Research): Neoliberal Independence. An investigation of German Finfluencers Promises
3:45 – 4:30 Open (comparative) discussion
