International Research Group on Authoritarianism and Counter-Strategies | IRGAC

(Post)neoliberal Fascistization: Materiality, Affects, and Dispositifs

The Authoritariat: An Interview with Rosana Pinheiro-Machado on Work, Subjectivity and the Far-Right

Interview Across the Global South, platform work is transforming the labour market and the political imagination of the working class. In this interview, anthropologist Rosana Pinheiro-Machado discusses her concept of the "authoritariat" — segments of the platformised working class drawn to reactionary populism through a mix of precarity, aspiration and the desire for autonomy. Drawing on long-term ethnographic research in Brazil, India and the Philippines, she examines how digital entrepreneurship, coach influencers and the collapse of collective identities are reshaping the political subjectivities of our time.

By Ülker Sözen and Gustavo Robles

"Algorithms of social media companies often function like the editor of a racist newspaper”-Interview with Bansree AS

Interview Bansree AS is a rationalist and content creator whose YouTube channel aims to make non hegemonic intellectual discourses accessible to the general public. In this interview he discusses how digital platforms owned by big technology companies accentuate the visibility of certain narratives while casting other voices to obscurity, reflects on anti-caste politics and the difficulty to build a space for non hegemonic ideas within the public sphere.

By Fathima Nizaruddin

"We should recognize the agency of the Iranian regime and the people who oppose it": Nader Talebi

Interview Iran is going through dramatic times and tectonic shifts. In this interview, Nader Talebi reflects on the Islamic regime and its tensions between a neoliberal state project and a messianic Shia imaginary, and on the waves of uprisings against a regime that enforces gender apartheid and destroys the means of reproduction of life. Against this, Talebi insists on what connects the mobilizations of the last years — a politics of life, cross-ethnic solidarity, and a revolutionary tendency that makes any dictatorship hard to sustain.

By Ali Yalçın Göymen, Sara Cufré and Melehat Kutun

New generations and (not so) new authoritarianism in Bolivia

In Perspective The rise of right-wing discourses in Latin America presents itself as a promise of change, appealing to meritocracy, pragmatism, and economic recovery. Yet behind this language of renewal lies a familiar political logic. In a context of crisis, uncertainty, and generational weariness, these narratives recycle conservative and authoritarian measures while positioning themselves as “real solutions,” gaining particular traction among young people who navigate vulnerability, disillusionment, and the search for stability.

By Claudia Cuellar

SELF-HELP’S AUTHORITARIAN EDGE

In Perspective The explosive growth of social media self-help culture promises quick solutions to intimate crises, from restoring “feminine energy” to reclaiming “masculine power.” Yet beneath its language of empowerment lies a deeper political logic. As neoliberal societies produce a growing “care deficit,” self-help influencers transform insecurity into a market while promoting survivalist individualism, gender essentialism, and authoritarian fantasies of control that increasingly echo the moral agendas of contemporary far-right politics.

By Ülker Sözen

Late fascism as a mode of crisis management: An Interview with Şebnem Oğuz

Şebnem Oğuz examines late fascism as a contemporary mode of crisis management, distinct not only from neoliberal authoritarianism and right-wing populism but also from classical fascism. How does capitalist crisis reorganize the state around war, racialized violence, and coercive accumulation? And what does this mean for anti-fascist struggle in Turkey?

By Melehat Kutun and Ali Yalçın Göymen

Latin America

Venezuela and the ‘Donroe Doctrine’: Military Intervention and Imperial Fascism

In Perspective The U.S. military intervention in Venezuela signals a renewed phase of imperial escalation in what is understood as the Western Hemisphere. Framed through the so-called “Donroe Doctrine,” it reveals the convergence of geopolitical domination, extractivist interests, and the authoritarian restructuring of U.S. power into a project of imperial fascism.

Calls

From (Individual) Fears to (Collective) Cares

Theory & Research Neoliberalism has dismantled the social structures that offered security and orientation to life. The far right successfully channels the resulting fears and anxieties towards purist, social Darwinist fantasies. Politics of care stands as a defiant response to that. In an era defined by uncertainty and precarity, care emerges as survival, resistance, and imagination. Care is a counter-normative project: sustaining and (re)generating social life while embracing contradiction and resisting the demands for purity.

By Firoozeh Farvardin and Gustavo Robles

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