The neo‐nationalist ascendency: further thoughts on class, value and the return of the repressed

March 2020. On the borders of EU Europe, with Covid pandemic threatening human lives, sociality and welfare everywhere, Syrian refugees on ‘Balkan Route’, bombed out Idlib, are being beaten in forests wooden clubs by Romanian border guards before they thrown back onto Serbian territory for further humiliations.11 This episode other ones related next three paragraphs a selection from reports Financial Times, The Guardian NRC Handelsblad (the Netherlands) last week first days April Thanks to Oana Mateescu pointing discussions social networks. return migrants, fleeing Italian Spanish Corona lockdowns en masse, told over networks that should never have come back, contagious as imagined be danger woefully underfunded public health system which not paid taxes. Further South, Mediterranean is once again heavily policed cemetery migrants civil wars Middle East North Africa – collateral damage Western imperial delirium hubris Greece hailed European President ‘shield’ behind Europe can feel safe supposedly associated criminality. Viktor Orbàn, meanwhile, has secured his corrupt autocracy Hungary another indefinite stretch years after parliament gave him powers singlehandedly fight its long-run economic after-effects name Magyars face subsiding threats outside nation. Orbàn will also continue, even more powerfully so now, immigrants, gypsies, gays, feminists, cultural Marxists, NGOs, George Soros, population decline, EU, everyone else who might way. Critique Budapest rejected ‘motivated politics’. Vladimir Putin, too, just been asked Russian stay indefinitely regal position, safeguard Russia’s uncertain national future. Erdogan Turkey sure inspired renege ongoing unprecedentedly brutal crackdown domestic dissent ‘traitors nation’ while armies Syria Libya. Turkish prisons continue overflow. All these, manifold events mentioned here, part processes continuous (as ‘continuous history versus discontinuous history’) at least decade, all surprisingly steadfast direction. They appear diverse, occasioned ethnographically deeply variegated therefore apparently contingent events. Anthropologists, professionally spellbound local fieldwork, easily swayed describe them their singularities. But singular appearance misleading. These similar systemically rooted, interlinked, produced an uneven bundle global, scaled, historical forces ‘field forces’) cascade into become incorporated within differentiating terrain political theatres relationships produce paradox singularly surprising outcomes uncanny family resemblances. summarily described gradual unfolding collapse global regime embedded multi-scalar solidarity arrangements anchored Fordism, developmentalism Cold War, interregnum neoliberalised Darwinian competition rivalry scales, rising China lurking background. Neo-nationalism appears this field contradictory bind seeks enact and/or re-enact, domestically abroad, hierarchy deservingness, including necessary flip side, humiliation. That one aspect argument I trying make since end nineties (for example Kalb 2000, 2002, 2004), when such began stir sites was working living in: Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Poland. universalising corroborated west continent, paint similarly cohesive though phenomenologically picture.22 paper written worldwide lockdowns, major shift politics towards collective debts distribution grants cheap loans particular financially most stretched nations periphery. strategic (temporary?) architecture already generating important changes landscapes (without undoing paper). In wake assumption premiership Mario Draghi, former Central Bank, Salvini neo-nationalist right Italy abandoned anti-EU stance fragmenting. It silenced Le Pen’s critique seems disadvantage Hungary/Poland intricate nationalist bargaining ‘domestic authoritarianism’ Brussels Europe. sudden governance conditioned course need response crisis. condition possibility based Brexit UK would vetoed it) Trump attack EU/NATO speeding up fracturing ‘the alliance’. Together experience, it prefigured leftist Green countries, key EU-naysayer, often implemented though. With Black Lives Matter keeping pressure imaginations (often highly culturalist ways though), narrow loss US elections, unprecedented Biden stimulus coming in, latter overwhelmingly supported among ‘broadly working-class populations’ USA, right-wing ascendency given temporary blow. What concluded above capitalist learnt failures dealing financial crisis; look IMF OECD recommendations. Marine Pen Matteo still credibly democratically overthrow liberal globalist governments France behalf ‘people’ nation’, against elites, left finance capital. Dutch politicians, coronavirus calamity, believe cannot send money South lest spent ‘alcohol women’. Anonymous comments press less newspaper articles echo tone claimed Southern countries were mere ‘dilapidated sheds … our do repair work’ (NRC 30 2020, ‘Europese solidariteit juist ook het Nederlandse belang’). Until impressive policy turn-around April/May 2020 fast-escalating fragmentation amid world hostile great powers, German government did disagree. Angela Merkel herself set leaders newly conceived ‘frugal’ flank under banner Hanseatic League down federalist redistributionist South. suggested penny-counting, competitive mercantilism austerity, practical corollary, imposed ‘merit’ ‘successfulness’, must hang eternally Britain, valiantly elected leave order ‘take control’ what Boris Johnson imagines ‘brilliant British (The Economist January 2020). like refuse any labour mainland, seek future Anglosphere, beefed revitalised Commonwealth where hopefully, comes ceremony, juridical equality but nostalgia deference rule (see Campanella Dassu 2019). Anthropologists continent retrospect done profoundly anticipatory, indeed uncommonly predictive, work rise neo-nationalism long broke hold (Holmes 2019; Gingrich Banks 2005; 2006; 2009; Halmai 2011), younger generation continues build that.33 For claim completeness, excuses those out): Buzalka (2008, 2018, 2020); Cammeli (2017); Keskula (2015); Koch (2016, 2017); Makovicky (2013); Pasieka Scheiring (2020); Stacul (2014, 2018); Shoshan (2016); Szombati (2018); Teitelbaum Thorleifsson (2017, See also: Bangstad et al. (2019). As disciplines, there alternating overlapping use terms focus ‘far right’ ‘populism’ ‘illiberalism’ ‘neo-nationalism’. single currently competing authoritarian populism or illiberalism because produces confusion covers cases.44 Stuart Hall’s notion ‘authoritarian populism’ very popular English-speaking world. However, present context decidedly different early 1980s coined. Authoritarian overlooks anti-cosmopolitan capital/anti-elites component, essential xenophobia racism. ignores nature deep contemporary trouble left. Neo-nationalism, emphasise, seen here primarily sum individual opinions. baked misconception much science sociology research methodological individualism survey methodologies poll outcomes.55 Hence tendency scientists attribute immigration, ‘white shift’, rather than broader transformations Mudde Kaufman 2018). Their surveys simply repeat people think know about themselves moment time, don’t effect hegemonic push pull. We see way around: context, conjuncture if you like, generated structured knowable undergirds it. While Holmes, Gingrich, Banks, myself others may evinced appropriate theoretical instinct 20 ago, we struck clairvoyance. centre exposed profound these (also true India; Blom Hansen 1999). Veneto, Poland avant-garde continental cases ascendency. could potentially general properties, obvious differences, going on. sped turmoil austerity aftermath crises, only 2016, referendum, insights attained aura Northern universality noted non-Europeanists. Anglo-Saxon media preceding had regularly shrugged off populisms reference fascism communism continent: good democrats, historically, continentals, explicit suggestion, point problems memory old truth representative electoral systems made organic visible strike heart state. contrast, systems, majoritarian winner-take-all two-party stark oligarchic tendencies case, permit subterranean trends crystallise overwhelming. Britain Fremdkörper referendum party elites broken. USA required, surprisingly, maverick billionaire real estate, gambling show business finance, technology, oil defence–industrial complexes establishment wrestle hegemony Republican Party. both cases, switch allegiance ‘socially conservative classes’ provinces Midwest, North, ‘red wall’ etc.), Lind (2020) simplifyingly called them, populist decisive, includes refusal white, black Latino classes vote Hillary Clinton. Electoral abstentions process change talking about: active beneficiaries defend seemed little defended. unlike happened 1989 communists Eastern fact, now witnessing culmination second ‘de-communisation’. time slow-motion hitting democrats liberals West. UK, anthropologists Gillian Evans Jeannette Edwards (Evans 2012; 2012) how turning ‘white’ ethnic, thus abandoning orbit labour, breakthrough. Nothing exceptional here. Everywhere classes, lowly educated, decades increasingly stopped voting (Mair 2013). Illusions inherent Anglo-liberal exceptionalism compared politically uncouth permitted bubble lasted, evaporated 2016. West whole appeared illiberal loud bang epoch close. Anglophone realised preferred study overtly liked favoured politically, shown interest right. became aware generally ignored questions class, white class’. summary feeling, put too cryptically perhaps American Ethnologist special issue dedicated 2017 Gusterson 2017; Walley also, stage debate, Maskovsky Bjork-James two issues intimately connected. speak connects cases. emerging obviously classic civic nationalism 19th-century nation-state making earlier wave writing anthropology oriented (Eriksen 1993; Gellner 1983; Hobsbawm 1992, 1992; Ranger Smith 1995; Anderson 1991). ethnic (or ethno-religious) nationalisms, pervaded nostalgias golden times greatness unjustly broken humiliated believed destined sheer force majority excellence. Such visions fed combination historically objective well imaginary (self) victimisation hand alliances between actors, bureaucrats, transnational capital, culturally cosmopolitan state-elites betraying nation, immigrants minorities protected rights regimes open borders. Some Trumpism, Italian, indulge variously painting ‘cultural marxism’, ‘sexo-marxism’ antifascist anarcho-communism deeper enemy Seymour complex politico-cultural product stagnation, decline inequalities. replays memories victory Second World War glorious forlorn empire cinematic, literary theatre. new constitution expanding museums Budapest, Orbàn’s celebrates hierarchy, ‘estates’ socio-cultural property propriety Habsburg Empire, itself brilliant co-owner. debt Schuld, although privately indebted societies fetishising mercantilist ‘gold standard’, embodied current Euro carefully curated triple A rating, forgotten misery sticking 1930s (1936) free gift actual pricing exports derived sharing creditworthy import-dependent countries.66 (2018b, 2018b) detailed comparative discussion players own (opposite) category. 2021, painfully decades-long campaign benefit cheats scroungers, accelerated 2010 declaring Netherlands no longer state ‘participation society’ (Orbán’s declared ‘worker state’ interestingly), led gratuitously ruining tens thousands families child benefits, many ‘xenophobically profiled’. finance. Nostalgias distortive seemingly lived acted everywhere Importantly, many, all, neo-nationalisms are, rhetorically, left–right socialisms strictu sensu. Neo-nationalist claims demand protection recognition entrepreneurs stock. Quite few anti-neoliberal (with exceptions ‘Hanseatic’ unfortunately space elaborate here). act sums about. driven contradictions neoliberal globalisations 40 years. resolution contradictions, keep embodying prolonging twisted ways. Contradictions abstract Marxian sense concretely operating transformative of, daily lives situated subjects; worked dispossessive disenfranchising sometimes violently so, producing pervasive feelings abandonment. abandonment routinely denied, obscured, misrecognised, existing vocabularies, technocratic knowledges paradigms. Fake news, favourite object concern liberals, nothing almost ‘expertly’ scripted through biased forms accounting, centred GDP growth, accounts quantitative averages everything. basic relational contextual insight confronting grist anthropological economy approach my collaborators promoting Headlines subtexts class (2011; 2011, 2015, 2018a, Nowadays, course, parts same repeated journalists, commentators theorists eye (recently, example, 2020; Goodhart Krastev 2017). 2000s, surely fresh discovery accidental articulate There reasons vanguard role (hardly acknowledged elsewhere). An empirical one. network mostly junior researchers converging University dynamics Central/East urban settings. rich intellectual geographic-political focal globalisation So CEU subsequently forcefully expelled transformed gripped assertive politics.77 recall energising professional atmosphere young (2003) Department Sociology Social Anthropology expelled, enabling hope recreate Vienna campus. shared critical attitude out, piecemeal, incrementally, period, studying. Those sites, post-socialist Györ (Bartha (Halmai Cluj (Petrovici 2011; Faje Wrocław (Kalb 2009, 2014) Kikinda (Vetta Marche industrial district (Blim 2011) Ticino region central (Stacul sensibilities eyes. articulated movements, unions proto-party formations. reason anthropology’s lay framework offered Jonathan Friedman’s hardly read USA. late seventies 2000s creatively assembled ‘double polarisations’ de-nationalisation capital consequence over-accumulation core, consequent demise statism compromises Friedman, worth noting, developed vision Giovanni Arrighi (1994), keener potential left-wing consequences (Friedman 2003, 2015; Friedman 2008). Sadly, gone native.88 ‘PC worlds’ (2019), arguably descended himself, embarrassing slide structural Marxism. intellectually enabled structuralism, conceptual global/local, ‘elites’ instead relative neglect conceptually ‘on ground’. Trémon (2020). To trajectories everyday fields, doing, powerful bring ground run responsible 2013, 2015). Class absent presence absence (and illiberal) right.99 Edelman Scoones (2018) place crisis workers peasantries, farmers disinvested countryside. Note quarrel explicitly included definitions. problem ‘peasants’. numerical weight north small, strictly speaking. taste bit Chayanov’s admit lean Lenin debate fate peasantry, certainly Brass ‘Broadly class’ represent reproduction minimally ‘peasantry’. Let me clarify claim, logically statement, neither absences nor presences. write mobilised banners people’. somehow empirically correct studying book, meant covering law exclusivist claim. Also, prefix ‘broadly’ supposed some serious understated work, sotto voce invoking twist. clearly 20th-century icon, blue collar referring too. Our definition allowed likelihood fact precariats, entre-precariats, small entrepreneurs, direct producers, technical managers, lower clerical personnel, shopkeepers, higher educated ones, teachers, accountants retired workers. assumed ‘positions’ defined, shifting, fixed signified, turbulent Nor ‘work’ income. Biographies Marx’s ‘living labour’, habitats, aiming at. sphere households lacked access high-value property, marketable ‘human capital’, spatial contexts polarising logic capital: ‘common people’ common places reasonably pitched twist middle broadly aspiration myth inscribed machine, feeling inescapable degrading value aspects Mollona 2018; 2014; Therborn Kracauer 1998 case process). Recent does offer lots evidence picture, mobilisations rely classical older suburban outlays, electorates Tories Republicans. coalitions mobilised, electorally successful without broad support. ideologically ‘classist’, symbolic feast ‘American workers’, ‘working-class families’, ‘working middle-class ‘Magyar people’, ‘la profonde’ etc. ‘class Further, keen metropolitan dynamic markets, susceptible stagnating provinces, secondary cities, suburbs exurbs, hunch. divides capitalism, reflected policies investment, redistribution planned abandonment, story playing out. call ethno-nation poses devalued outer boroughs, inhabitants ‘their life’, swinging sexually libertarian capitals metropoles (except Denmark Netherlands). Finally, leaderships level necessarily origin. absurd empiricist reduction account substantial support neo-nationalisms, break chain. Workers, conceived, abandon democratic parties scales. while. something ‘third way’ didn’t anymore: enemy, and, redistribution.1010 Thomas Frank presciently pointed substitution advance Democrats cancelling (Frank 2004). turned insight. th