Populism Continues Despite Pressure From Elites

 Issue 06 | September 2017

The rise of right-wing populism in democratic countries has disrupted those of democratic-pluralists. Various elements of right-wing populist supporters are claimed as abnormal.  In Indonesia, the Islamist groups are labeled as the enemy of democracy. On the other side, the groups who back status quo as the hegemonic narrative, hide under the idea of Pancasila, democracy, economic growth, and human rights as something sacred, undeniable, uncontested, and finished. Thus, politics itself is narrowly defined because it is perceived as dealing with morality and ethics per se. The essential dimension of politics—that politics is an unfinished and continuous contestation among competing interests—is being left aside from its own discussion. The currently rising right-wing populism is a consequence of politics' reduction in meaning.

Right-wing populism started gaining attention since the emergence of National Front Party (NFP) in French general election 2002. It acquired 17.8% of vote in 2002 and consequently opened chances for NFP to propose its first candidate for president, Marie Le Pen (The Guardian, 2002). In French election 2017, NFP gained 33.9% of vote and again proposed Le Pen as its president candidate. Along with the rise of NFP in 2002, other right-wing parties in Europe were slowly successful to emerge as a rival of the traditionally dominant parties. These parties often rise within the context of anti-immigrant, anti-pluralism, and anti-establishment sentiment.

European countries are not the only case. Right-wing populism also caught its momentum in the United States of America—who claimed itself as the face of democracy—with the racist Donald Trump chosen as president. Asia is no exception. India, Philippines, and Japan, to a certain degree, also experience the similar thing—if we refer to Aksi Bela Islam 411 and Aksi Bela Islam 212. Albeit each having different context, populism as a mode of articulation of social, political, and ideology, creates polarization between them who see themselves as people against the established regime – still looks obvious within those cases. Why does right-wing populism rise and catch its support lately?

In post-structuralist thinker's perspective, Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, right-wing populism emerges because the dominant narrative which exists today has blurred the political dimension of politics. So that there is no alternative space left for public to voice out its aspiration but through right-wing discourses which is perceived as the most accommodative and open to their aspirations. "The political" disappears as the public being hegemonized by various discourses which are seemingly treated as consensual products. Consequently, the hegemonic narrative will never be contested.

Liberal democracy as the current dominant discourses has no capacity to grasp the basic character of politics as a continuous contestation among various different claims (Mouffe, 1993). Various different groups within a political community produce various contesting and conflictual discourses. Thus, contestation and plurality make politics political (Mouffe, 2005). Since the conflictual narratives of communism versus liberalism has ended with the fall of Uni Societ in 1989, neoliberalism and globalization as the dominant narrative blurred the contesting discourses. The two omits the political atmosphere of many public issues and make them seem like a moral obligation, such as human rights, tolerance, and good & transparent governance. In a more popular sense, politics has become 'business as usual'; whether it sustains inequality born out of capitalism or merely engages narratives that counter status quo in a very much legalistic manner.

In Western politics, social-democrat parties, conservative parties, and liberal parties support capitalism and not providing a space for any other alternatives. The same conditions applied to Asian countries such as Indonesia, India, or Philippines, whose parties possess no specific ideologies, nor specific policies to take side. They have become catch-all parties. Society has been demanded to see political contest as a moral and ethics competition. The rise of right-wing populism is the consequence of this de-politicization. Masses who unable to get their political narrative to the public have now gotten a medium which consist of primordial identity, such as races, religions, and other ethnic markers (Mouffe, 2005).

Populism works by creating narratives which polarize society to become us and them;popular sovereignty andestablishment; radicals and democrats; nationalists and moderates. Both try to exclude one another. Both narratives actually are impregnated with various opinions, discourses, and claims. However, this 'plurality' finds coherence under the 'heading' which represents those claims and discourses (Laclau, 2005; Mouffe, 1993). The idea about popular sovereignty emerged because liberal democracy in democratic countries leaves no opportunities for society to participate in important decisions. This rupture in democracy is used by right-wing groups to claim themselves as people's representatives. In many populism phenomena these few years back, the most apparent label attached to 'the people' is religious and race fundamentalism. Both fundamentalism 'haunt' democracy as they have exclusive feature. Religions are infamously treated as a political tool which benefits few actors. However, for many other people, their identities as religious adherents are sufficient to represent their resistance against the current social and economic conditions.

One example of many right-wing parties is Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in India which proposed Narendra Modi as India's prime minister. BJP is a Hindutva-affiliated party whose aim is to change India become fully Hindi society. Modi has got its position now because of cross-castes cooperation. These castes feel pressured with the evolving Muslim elites and middle class. Previously, Manmohan Singh era maintained secularism to avoid ruptures in society and decided to wholly focus on economic development and fast economic liberalization. India has then become one of the world's major economy power. However, development and economy project in Singh era tended to disregard the rising Hindu's major constituents,other backward caste (OBC), from the castes of kshatriya and vaishya. OBC itself never received any affirmative action. This group attempted to defend its position to maneuver in the middle of urban competition against the evolving Muslim middle-class. Modi appeared in political contest with OBC backing him. Modi called OBC neo-middle class—giving cue that this group will determine Modi's economy project (Sridharan & Varshney, 2001). In this case, BJP, a traditionally Hindutva-leaning party, provided a ride for the under pressured cross-caste to voice out their aspirations. Secularism, as a long perceived consensus, is now questioned in such condition.

Similar thing happened in the United States and European countries. Economic privilege of white middle-class group is threatened to lose because they have to compete with immigrants from other identities, such as Muslims and people of color. The absence of social security in the USA, the slack of economy in both Europe and USA, as well as non-representative elites have influenced their choices to support right-wing movements and ultranationalist leaders because apparently these leaders articulate their aspirations in their campaign (The Guardian, 2016). On the other hand, the moderate elites show affirmation towards LGBT, climate change, and also give quota for immigrants—matters which white working class considers exhaustive and non-representative for them.

Right-wing groups are also apparent in Indonesia. Islamist groups appear stronger because they possess narratives that put Islam seemingly being lost and marginalized by the status quo. Aksi 411 and Aksi 212—protest against Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (Ahok), Christian governor who accused of blasphemy —had massive support from Muslims community in Jakarta. Those who support the 'peace' protest were most likely the society whose lives been put in disadvantages and opinions not taken into account by the rulers for the sake of prioritizing the middle class' interests. These included evictions without lawful and respectful process just to turn the urban poor's living space to be middle-class' playground, unfriendly working condition for the poor, eliminations of public spaces and changed them to malls—deceitful public spaces, reclamation, the endless growth of skyscrapers and other development projects in Jakarta which left urban poor at loss. All of them combined had triggered disappointment towards Ahok.

However intense the campaign from the center-wing (jargons revolving around Pancasila, unity in diversity, tolerance), the middle-class moderates still failed to link their vision back to the suffering of the urban poor. Instead, the radical Islam was the group successfully channeled their disadvantaged condition.  The radicals always have a different conception of what tolerance, democracy, and Pancasila are supposed to be. Hence, these conceptions are not given or uncontested. Thus, right-wing populism is a disruption to business-as-usual politics; it exposed the nature of politics which has always been conflicts and contestations.

As a consequence of de-politicization, right-wing populism doesn't mean democracy losing its relevance. As long as there isn't attempt to isolate the political arena, then contestations between narratives signal that democracy still exists. After all, right-wing populism still follows the procedure of democracy for them in order to voice their political aspirations. Although at some points, it has to be admitted that this also brought some violent precedents, such as white supremacist violence against black people in Charlottesville, boycott of religious events, and many other vigilant actions.

Every player within the political arena legitimately owns chances to participate and create hegemonic narratives. Those who claim as liberals or moderates need to be more open not only to primordial plurality, but also narratives plurality (poly-logic) which exist in the public spaces. They also need to see the bigger picture behind racist, xenophobic, supremacist jargons. By trying to grasp the ideas from the other side of the debate, the moderates also maintain pluralist dimension of democracy and at the same time evaluate their own ways of representing the society.

—

Naomi Resti Anditya
Research Assistant at Institute of International Studies,
Department of International Relations, Universitas Gadjah Mada
naonugroho@gmail.com

—

Footnote

[1] Catch-all party is a term for political party which doesn't have a particular ideology. This party tries to attract support from various constituent in a big amount.

—

References

• Laclau, E. (2005).On Populist Reason. London: Verso.
• Mouffe, C. (1993).The Return of The Political. London: Verso.
• Mouffe, C. (2005). The 'End of Politics' and the Challenge of Right-wing Populism. Dalam F. Panizza,Populism and the Mirror of Democracy 1. London: Verso.
• New York Times. (2016, 4 December). Europe's Rising Far Right: A Guide to the Most Prominent Parties. Dipetik tanggal 31 Agustus 2017, dari New York Times:https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/world/europe/europe-far-right-political-parties-listy.html?mcubz=1.
• Sridharan, E., & Varshney, A. (2001). Toward Moderate Pluralism: Political Parties in India. Dalam L. Diamond, & R. Gunther,Political Parties and Democracy. Maryland: John Hopkins University Press.
• The Guardian. (2002, 22 April).Le Pen vote shocks France. Dipetik tanggal 31 Agustus 2017, dari The Guardian:https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/apr/22/thefarright.france.
• The Guardian. (2016, 9 November).Why did people vote for Donald Trump? Voters explain. Dipetik tanggal 18 September 2017, dari The Guardian:https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/09/why-did-people-vote-for-donald-trump-us-voters-explain.

—

The opinions expressed in IIS Brief do not necessarily represent the official policy of the Institute of International Studies

jonessompery94.blogspot.com

Source: https://hi.fisipol.ugm.ac.id/en/iis_brief/right-wing-populism-in-democratic-countries-the-return-of-the-political/