The current manifestations of this kind of counterrevolution are the movements against liberal democracy, both in the global South and the global North. The second type of counterrevolution explored in the book is the one that is a reaction not to an insurgent challenge but to the failure of a paradigm of rule, a regime, to deliver on its promises on the part of groups that had initially put their faith in it. Also, while they refer to the so-called glories of the past, the past they offer is an imagined ersatz past that is fabricated to cater to the values, interests, and prejudices of their mass base. The third type, the counterrevolutionaries, are the most interesting theoretically and dangerous politically, since they adopt both the mass mobilization style associated with the left and expropriate some of the left’s issues, at least rhetorically, in order to advance an anti-progressive agenda. Here I borrow the great social and diplomatic historian Arno Mayer’s classification of the actors of what he calls the “anti-revolutionary triad:” the reactionaries who want to bring back the past, the conservatives who may not want to bring back the past but defend the status quo, and the counterrevolutionaries. Using a revolution-counterrevolution paradigm, we can also appreciate the play of various actors. In the case studies I take up in the book, the processes that unfold in fascist Italy in 1920-22, Indonesia in 1965, Chile in 1970-73, and Thailand from 2001 to 2014, fall into this category of counterrevolution. This challenge may not be revolutionary but reformist in its strategy but it is nevertheless seen as very threatening to the survival of the status quo. The first is the counterrevolution that is a response to a revolution, revolution being defined here broadly as an insurgent challenge from below to change the social and political regime. In the book, I look at two types of counterrevolutionary movement. Instead of populism, I have elected instead to describe these movements of the far right as “counterrevolutionary” because the term gives us a much better sense of what drives them. Thus there are populists of both the left and the right, and I fully agree with Australian National University Professor Paul Kenney who describes both Indira Gandhi and Narendra Modi, despite their radically different politics, as populists. Populism is a political style, one marked by a direct appeal to the people that seeks to mobilize them beyond the channels of institutionalized parliamentary politics. I prefer not to use the term populist to describe movements of the far right because populism does not offer any substantive light on the character, programs, and directions of these movements. The title of my talk is “Democracy in the Era of Charismatic Politics in and India.” But what I would like to do, first of all, is to place this topic in the broader context that is the subject of my recently released book, Counterrevolution, which looks at the rise of the far right in a number of contemporary societies in the Global South. Talk delivered to audiences in Canberra, Perth, and Melbourne during a book promotion tour, November 26-December 10, 2019. Democracy in the Era of Charismatic Politics in India and the Philippines
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