Spectrology of Authoritarian Neoliberalism

In the face of the global rise of authoritarian phenomena – from Trump in the US to Macri and Milei in Argentina, Bolsonaro in Brazil, Modi in India and Erdogan in Turkey and the increasing traction of Vox in Spain and the AfD in Germany – Gisela Catanzaro argues for the continued relevance of the concept of ideology for understanding contemporary social processes and political struggles.

Catanzaro places particular emphasis on the transformations of neoliberalism and its authoritarian traits, from its origins in Latin America where it was forced onto societies through bloody coups during the seventies, through a second phase, linked to globalization, that spread to many parts of the world in the late 1990s, and a more recent phase that gained prominence after 9/11 and especially after the 2008 financial crisis. In this later phase the authoritarian spirit of neoliberalism comes again to the forefront but this time in the midst of formal democracies and an expansion of its punitive, sacrificial dimension. In Argentina, the shift to this new form of authoritarian neoliberalism occurred during the government of Mauricio Macri (2015-19) and prepared the way for the emergence of Javier Milei. Using Argentina as a paradigmatic case but ranging more widely, Catanzaro shows that the authoritarian neoliberalism of the present is driven by, and at the same time exacerbates, an elitist, punitive, sacrificial, anti-egalitarian and anti-intellectual ideology which has left its traces in subjectivity and social processes.

By providing a rigorous exploration of the logic of authoritarian neoliberalism, this book makes a major contribution to understanding an ideology that is increasingly shaping our social and political world.