Description
In a context of generalised stagnation, neoliberal governments throughout the globe have elevated home affairs policy and advanced a ‘mutated’ politics of legitimation characterised by forms of ‘othering’ and hostility towards the political system. While scholars of authoritarian neoliberalism have mapped these shifts in some good detail, the literature has yet to offer a fuller theorisation of legitimation in late authoritarian neoliberalism. Through a mixed Marxist-Foucauldian framework, we conceptualise the contradictions of this “authoritarian legitimation” as it is both faced by, and feeds off, resistance from below. We argue that legitimation increasingly depends on, and cultivates, a “reactionary” form of common sense that aims to restore and defend the normalcy of an inward-looking, regressive and fossil-fuelled neoliberalism. We offer a case study of the legitimation of the emerging authoritarian neoliberal climate regime, looking at both the neoliberal “heartlands” and Global Southern neoliberal states. We show that this regime, characterised by the rolling out of undemocratic green transitions paired with the repression of climate protest, seeks to maintain electoral support for the collapsing status quo among limited segments of the population who may be aligned with authoritarian values. In this context, governments seek to re-enlist citizens to shore up a neoliberal project based on a fossil-fuelled mode of living and economy, while simultaneously facing political and geoeconomic pressure towards decarbonisation. The contradictions of these late authoritarian neoliberal governing strategies point to both renewed strengths and fragilities in neoliberalism’s armour.
