Right-Wing Populism: The Theory of Showing Fascism as Moderate
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Red Dawn / Issue 18 / Winter 2018-19

The rise of neo-fascist movements has naturally intensified theoretical discussions and analyses on fascism.
What really matters is the focus on developing a practical anti-fascist struggle and mobilizing working class and the oppressed masses. Nevertheless, analyses and theoretical premises on fascism, but moreover, works on revealing the methods and ways that enables fascism to transform masses into militants of an enemy system against their essential interests, are definitely crucial with respect to illuminate the path of the anti-fascist practice.
One part of these analyses and premises are going around theoretical discussions about the definition of fascism, analyzing its political and class content. In this regard, debates on whether it is authoritarianism or fascism, have now extended to those questioning whether it is right-wing populism or fascism. In this context, "populism" has been transformed into a cluttered concept as a result of referring several movements in an uncompromising conflict, such as from the revolutionary democratic populist movements, to the reformist populists, the demagogue parliamentarian leaders, and of course, to the fascist ones.
"Left-Wing and Right-Wing Populism": Is it a Needless Theory Anymore?
The theory of populism was mostly developed during the post-World War process in the '50's and '60's by liberal writers . In his book "Political Man" written in 1960, Libsed critically used the notion of populism in terms of "populist extremism" of both left and right movements posing risk and danger to the liberal parliamentarian regime. His characterization was implying also the capability to create a mass movement through popular rhetorics.
After the '60's, the need to re-raise this notion had stemmed from the interests of the world monopolies particular to the period of the neoliberal economic policies. In this regard, it is no coincidence that the theory of "left-wing and right-wing populism" was re-introduced in the early '80's, as the neoliberal economic aggression had started to be intensified. 1
In today's conditions, where production and surplus value can be realized in a world-wide extend rather than being limited within national borders, production is moving to the cheap labor areas mainly by the world monopolies, as a method of maximizing profit by reducing the labor costs, as well as of controlling the world production. Therefore, the necessity for the world monopolies to make concessions to the struggles of the working class within national borders has substantially been eliminated. Again in a similar way, this fact has brought an uncompromising attitude against the rural petty-bourgeoisie, together with the intensification of a brutal corporate/company agriculture.
The ideological meaning of these developments found itself in the discourse "there's no need for populism anymore".
This ideological aggression led by Reagan and Thatcher in the political arena, had spread over the world in waves, throughout the '90's, including not only the conservative parties but also the social democratic politicians as well. In this regard, Blair's uncompromising line against workers and the people became dominant policy of the world social democracy in terms of non-populism.
Before, the aids of the world monopolies endowing from their enormous surpluses was sufficient to be the primary concession policy of the world bourgeoisie. Besides, since the reflection of this policy was extending to the charities and religious organizations, it was also creating an ideological dependence for the poor sections of the working class to the "endower" bourgeoisie together with its institutions.
Thus, the understanding of "left-wing and right-wing populism" had been used as an ideological mean to restrain the struggle of the working class.
In this regard, just as how Hannah Arendt's totalitarianism theory proclaims that fascism and proletarian dictatorship are the two extreme twins of the evil, this new theory, which places "left-wing and right-wing populism" on the same pattern as Arendt and applies to such varied figures as Hitler, Roosevelt, Mao Zedong, Putin, Chávez, Le Pen, Bernie Sanders, and Trump,2 serves for the same purpose: Capitalism is the end of history, the ideal political regime is the liberal bourgeois democracy and the "left-wing and right-wing populism" is dangerous!
"Right-Wing Populism" to Substitute Fascism
While describing neo-fascist movements, the bourgeois ideologues and monopoly corporate media have substituted the notion of fascism with others which actually rasp the public enemy character of fascism: "post-truth period", "illiberalism", "authoritarianism", "autocratism", "the rightist alternative" or "right-wing populism".
All these concepts do share a common characteristic feature of protecting fascist movements, whether in the government or far from it, with an attack of the historical anti-fascist consciousness, also when these concepts are used by antifascists as well.
It is also seen that, liberal democratic movements and even the revolutionary democratic ones are substituting "right-wing populism" with two categories: fascism and fascism of the new period.
Liberal commentators are characterizing both neo-fascist movements and governments as "right-wing populists"; just as how the historians Federico Finchelstein and Pablo Piccato wrote in Washington Post op-ed on Trump's presidency: "Racism and charismatic leadership bring Trump close to the fascist equation but he might be better described as post-fascist, which is to say populist.... Modern populism arose from the defeat of fascism, [and] as a novel post-fascist attempt to bring back the fascist experience to the democratic path, creating in turn an authoritarian form of democracy."3
Roger Griffin's views can be a good example, to see the liberal democratic approach,: "Dealing with the analysis of fascism ... I propose to use the term 'populist ultra-nationalism'."4 According to him, the Russian Narodniks cannot be described as populist due to their failure of bringing broad masses into the movement, however, he proposes to use populism instead of fascism just because it is able to mobilize the people, even on the basis of ultra-nationalism.
Among left-wing liberal democrats, Ahmet İnsel, Turkish writer from Birikim magaizne, adopts the theory of populism on the basis of Laclau's populism theory, Poluntzas' limitation of fascism to Nazism and Italian fascism, as well as Arendt's conception of totalitarianism. "Political discourses which claim to speak on behalf of the people and the nation against what they call as elites, which hold the monopoly of the representation of the people and nation, are the characteristics of populist political attempts. Besides, they are its distinctive sign.5 "(Then) what the people supports becomes a populist authoritarianism."6
The concept of populism is embraced also by some Marxists. Among them, Cenk Saraçoğlu, a self-claimed Marxist writer, who goes further and reaches to theorize the notion of right-wing populism: "As the responsible of the failure of their claims to be realized even in a symbolic sense, these movements were pointing out the central bourgeois political elites, the international financial monopolies and the international organizations, the European Union in particular. These right-wing populist movements which attempt to build and represent the people on the basis of the antagonism towards these aforementioned responsibles ..." Saraçoğlu includes an extend from Erdogan to Trump, Modi and rising neo-fascist movements in his theory of right-wing populism. According to him, these political movements in the developed capitalist countries are not strong enough to demolish existing bourgeois institutions, however, such a probability is quite strong in the backward countries. In agreement with Toscano's view, he points out that fascism differs from the right-wing populist movements with regard to "its ability to establish a special kind of connection between past, present and future and its counter-revolutionary destructiveness." Thus, fascist parties, powers and governments which lack in terms of presenting these two characteristics theoretically go under the realm of right-wing populism.7
Ümit Akçay on the other hand, a Turkish scholar in Berlin School of Economics and Law, emphasizes that analysis equating right-wing populism with left-wing populism must be welcomed with suspicion, however, he does not see a problem to describe fascist movements as the "extreme right" of the "rising right-wing populism".8
Since these views and 'theories' come after the "left-wing and right-wing populism" discourse of the neoliberal aggression, finding both populisms as needless anymore, all of them play the role of underrating fascist movements. Thus, they help to set an ideological barrier before the historical anti-fascist consciousness to be directed towards neo-fascist movements and governments.
Populism cannot be Reduced to the Populist Demagogy of Fascism
Then what we mean by populism? Populism is the characteristic of the movements emerging in different historical conditions as the voice of the widest oppressed and exploited classes by linking their common interests. It is the ideology of movements advocating the class interests of half villain or petty-property owner peasantry (in societies where peasantry is dominant) and in areas, the common interests of the working class together with the rural-urban petty-bourgeois sections (in the relatively developed capitalist countries) in a way that the former is subjected to the interests of the second mentioned.
The origin of the notion of populism dates back to the peasant movement known as "Grangers" and Greenbackers emerged in the US during the 1870-1890 period. However, the Russian Narodniks and their successor the Socialist Revolutionaries had been the most determined and consistent representatives of populism. Representing the semi-proletarian peasants as a result of the effect of proletariat's struggle for socialism, the Left Socialist Revolutionaries were forming the left-wing of populism, however, the Right-Wing Socialist Revolutionaries, who had reconciled with the bourgeoisie after the February Revolution, were also populists as well. Narodniks and the socialist Revolutionaries were the representatives and the political vanguards of peasants emancipation, not only in economic, but also in "social" and political sense.
III. Bonaparte had gained the support of the reactionary peasants and even of the lumpen proletariat by means of populist demagogy, however, this didn't make him a populist. Rising from the basis of this support, he became the head of the state and then the emperor, but just as the 20 years under his rule proved, he had been the most determined State authority in terms of applying economic interests of the bourgeoisie. Furthermore, he was totally against the class interests of the urban and rural little bourgeoisie. His regime was a dictatorship and in this respect, he was not a populist at all but an enemy of the people.
The Nazi fascism was agitating ‘socialism' and subordinating it to the goal of rising German people which was counted as the superior race and nation. Indeed, the German nation and race at that time significated ruling bourgeoisie. The aim of rising the German nation and make it dominant in the world would render the developing German capitalism and monopolies to become dominant over the world capitalism. In this regard, the discourses of Nazi fascism such as socialism, defending the interests of small business owners against big stores, corporatism or improvement of workers' living conditions with a national unity, were all subordinated by this great goal. Towards this, Nazism not only wanted to keep masses away from a revolutionary quest, but more, it strove for destroying the working class and its communist vanguards through the mobilized masses by its demagogy.
Thus, Nazism and Italian fascism, not only during their rule but also before, had directed their violent attacks primarily to the communists, just as what was residing at the top of their programmatic and strategic goals: "We are the only force that can destroy Bolshevism'
What's more, unlike traditional conservatives and religious movements, Nazism and Italian fascism were emphasizing the goal of "revolution" and "a new order". If this demagogic aim of fascism were considered alone and isolated from its other fundamental goals, then fascism would have been in a hegemony struggle with the communist movement rather than adopting it as the major enemy. However, fascism undertook destroying the communist danger both in national and international extend as a central duty which had historically proved the entire goal of fascism: to suppress the obstacles against capitalism and monopolies in order to save them from the political crisis.
The populist demagogy of fascism as if it sides with the people or some statements supporting the struggles of workers and the oppressed is a blatant fraud with regard to the function of deceiving masses for the sake of establishing open terrorist dictatorship of the capitalist class. Fascism applies to this trick also to show its difference from the parliamentarian bourgeois politics, as well as to liquidate the parliament and non-fascist bourgeois institutions.
Of course it is normal for fascism to use this demagogy in order to get the support of the petty-bourgeoisie, to make them feel that fascism would bring them to power. In this respect, fascism may support some demands and actions of the petty-bourgeoisie or from time to time, it may practice the class collaboration of the social democracy in the name of corporatism. However, since they are all subordinated by the purpose of reinforcing the domination of the capitalist class, that such tricks do not make fascism populist.
Asserting fascism as "ideologically right-wing, but populist in the sense of siding with the people" because of this demagogy means that fascism, in some extend or other, has common characteristics with the reformist populist movements. This is nothing else than an invented theory of the liberals, the defenders of the bourgeois democracy, which denies the fact that fascism is the open terrorist dictatorship, as it is historically proved so. In addition to what historical experiences of fascism has revealed, also the very limited populist demagogy of today's neo-fascist movements and political leaders do not deserve a rewarding approach by describing them with the notion of "right-wing populism".
This populist demagogy of today's fascist movements is anyhow limited to the impression as if they side with the people and would protect workers rights through holding nationalist economic policies against the rules of the imperialist globalization, as well as through the anti-immigrant hostility.
However, as the uncompromising defenders of neoliberalism, the mainstream right-wing conservatives and the social democratic parties of the bourgeoisie have been so much integrated with the finance capital that the efforts of neo-fascism presenting a popular image, voicing -and cheekily abusing- a bunch of actual demands of the people become sufficient for them to easily gain the public acceptance, votes and the participation of workers, as well as to be characterized as "right-wing populism" by a variety of ideological and political movements from left to right.
Creating a Mass Movement does not Make Fascism Populist
The major factor which ideologically dazzles the petit bourgeois liberal democrats, leading them to reach the theory of "right-wing populism", is the success of the neo-fascist movements, parties and governments to become a mass movement. In this regard, while fascism is becoming a mass movement again in a similar way as in the period between two World Wars, it is at the same time revealing its own political character: nationalist, anti-communist and hostile towards migrant workers. In order to influence the masses, it sometimes advocates the demands of those become impoverished under the actual conditions of the imperialist globalization period, along with spreading the imagination, that they would re-gain their high wages by means of a strong nation-state, domestic protectionism, and chauvinist aggression against immigrants. Thus, it becomes able to have a popular support rapidly or to create a reactionary mass movement among the petty-bourgeoisie, unemployeds or the backward-conscious sections of the workers and the lumpen proletariat. This is what the current practice of neo-fascist movements in Europe or parties becoming fascist after seizing power in governments reveal.
However, those who are dazzled by this mass support are choosing to characterize these movements as populist, rather than considering them according to their political quality and goals.
"The fascist dictatorship" says Togliatti, "endeavors to possess a mass movement by organizing the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie" and follows: "When is this movement among the petty bourgeoisie transformed into a unified movement? Not at the beginning, but at the end of 1920. It is transformed when a new factor intervenes; when the most reactionary forces of the bourgeoisie intervene as an organizing factor. Fascism had been growing before, but had not yet become the fundamental element."
In the cases of both Italy and Germany, fascism was the movement that put a new form of class dictatorship into practice under extraordinary conditions, after bourgeoisie became not satisfied with the passive support of a section of the people towards suppressing the movement of revolutionary classes and their vanguards. Based on this historical fact, fascism is the open terrorist movement and the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, which mobilizes a section of the society towards its operation of suppressing the revolutionary forces, transforming both the form of the regime and the organization of the attacking tools according to this operation.
"Right-Wing Populism" Instead of Fascism, on the Basis of Laclau's "Populism" Theory
Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe are the post-Marxist theorists of the "radical democracy" and "populism" which were on the rise among the world left movements by the '90's. Laclau emphasizes that creating hegemony among the people is very decisive for establishing strong movements marching towards power. In this regard, left movements must mobilize the people by advocating their equivalent demands, no matter what they are. Asserting this as the "logic of political struggle", even more, as the very politics itself, he brings forward his understanding of "construction of a people".
In fact, by evaluating the classes as equivalent, Laclau trivializes the class distinction among people, meaning that the working class is no longer the basic class of the emancipation struggle from exploitation, but equivalent as others. In this context, he formulates the perspective of populism and proposes a worldwide struggle for radical democracy.
On the other hand, moving from the perspective that populism is the logic of political struggle, or even, politics itself, he considers right movements, as populists as well, according to their capability to influence and organize people against elites, those who are in power. Hence, the populist revolutionary movements and mass-based fascistoid parties, but also, communist movements and fascist movements are all go under the same category of populism. Furthermore populism is reduced to win the people through political rhetorics, tearing it away from it material class basis. For example Erdogan and his party, the Justice and Development Party ( AKP ), are counted to the populist category, together with the leftist populist movements in Latin America. So, the fundamental difference between these movement in terms of their material class interests, political functions and goals are all pushed away. Yet more, he isolates the notion of "populism" from its material class basis and reduces it to gain people's support by political discourse.
We have to admit that Laclau does not want to disappear the distinction between populisms of the dominant class and the populism of the oppressed class, however, that does not hide the truth that his theory essentially obscures both the political and class distinctions.
Apart from their nationalist, aggressive, patriarchal and homophobic existence, although these neo-fascist movements and parties, which become fascists as they come to power in governments, seem to be on the peoples' side with their discourses against neoliberal ruthlessness, corruption and decaying of the bourgeoisie, at the end of the day, they all take the opportunity of integrating with the capital oligarchy in the deep crisis conditions and become the bourgeoisie's open terrorist organizations and governments.
For instance, both the Fidezs party of Hungary's prime minister Orban and the coalition parties of Austria, the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) and the far-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) did not step back from escalating neoliberal aggression, enacting slavery laws against working class. In Germany, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) is increasingly growing its mass base by means of nationalism, strong nation state and anti-immigrant hostility policies. It is open to question whether AfD would quickly transform all former institutions or not if they come to power in government in the future, however, it is indisputable that they would follow the economic policies of the German monopolies. The same is true also for Le Pen's National Rally (NR).
Characterizing these movements from Fidezs to Jobbik, Lega Nord and other neo-fascist parties and movements of Europe not as fascist but right-wing populist, is the product of a blind analysis which dismiss the political function and quality of those movements, evaluating them according only to their feature of influencing and organizing people.
In the case of the fascist dictator Erdogan, the story is as follows: Even in the first period of the AKP government, Erdogan and his party were in an organizational unity with the political-islamist sections of the middle-sized bourgeoisie, being the part and the representative of it. After they liquidated the domination of the Turkish army's generals in the political power with the backing of the US and EU, of the capital oligarchy, it decided on adopting fascism in order to maintain its power as the representative of the growing bourgeoisie claiming the struggle for regional dominance. Thus it sharply followed the policies of suppressing the Kurdistan revolution and possible popular uprisings like Gezi, as well as escalating expansionist war and establishing subordinated powers in the region. In this direction, Erdogan has sometimes been fiercely supported by the capital oligarchy as a reward for his success to apply the neoliberal aggression of the bourgeoisie through most raving methods, other times, he has come to bow to the different capital cliques by threats. And now, he is establishing the monistic fascist power, the "fascist chieftaincy regime", which is approved - or being supported for now - by the capital oligarchy, under the conditions where bourgeois parties are unable to influence the people.
This kind of a movement cannot be characterized as populist just because it has reached to success by means of discourses mobilizing people around itself against the elites, or has replaced the political influence and power of the Turkish army with its own ‘civil' clique. Characterizing neo-fascist movements and parties according to their discourses and style amounts to a dangerous reward to them.
After all, those neo-fascist movements of today rely either on the reactionary tendencies of the people such as nationalism, immigrant hostility, homophobia, patriarchal culture, anti-democratic reaction against the hypocrisy and corruption of liberal democracy, or on the delusion that those early happy days of the "welfare state" can be reached again through the shield of nationalism. This is the way how they appeal to the people's feelings, how they grow their masses.
What is essential for these movements and parties, which hold the right-wing reactionary line but also claim some of the demands against the impoverishment of laborers under neo-liberal attacks, is the terrorist aggression against populist, progressive, revolutionary and communist forces. This political character and function makes them fascist.
Rather than its "construction of the people" in a political sense through advocating or in some cases, practicing some equivalent demands as Laclau claims, the determining factor for fascism to establish hegemony among the people has always been its nationalist demagogy, strong reaction to the parliamentarian decaying and its claim to make country overcome its crisis.
Since it obscures this political and class character of fascism, the approach of Laclau, or even of the "leftists" adopting the theory of "right-wing populism" is both groundless and decayed. It is a liberal perspective that bases itself on the success of gaining the people or creating a mass movement, whereas the political character and function of the movements are all subordinated. Moreover this theory feeds on the idea that limits fascism to its first form of historical emergence. In this respect it remains static and lacks the ability to analyse fascism under different political, social, cultural, national and historical conditions.
The Theory of the Static Understanding of Fascism
So far we have underlined how bourgeoisie needs to show fascism as moderate by limiting it to the forms of Hitler and Mussolini fascisms. This point of view is also not less common among the international revolutionary, Marxist and anti-fascist movements which are far from comprehending the fact that fascist regimes of the bourgeoisie can take different forms on the basis of different national and cultural characteristics of each given country under different historical and material political conditions. As a result of a static analysis, which focus on lacking characteristics compare to the fascist regimes of Italy and Germany, this viewpoint characterizes fascist movements as "military", "authoritarian", "autocratic", as well as "right-wing populist".
Along with his theory of fascism that asserts the paradigm of palingenesis (re-birth of the nation) as its decisive feature, R. Griffin, the British scholar, who has published a large number of books on fascism, also sets the theory of right-wing populism as a by-product. Thus, he rewards historical fascism and neo-fascism with "right-wing populism", contributing to show the notion and the practice of fascism as moderate in the eyes of the masses.
Same theoretical and political line is adopted among the self-claimed Marxists which is also pioneered by Poluntzas in the 70's with his narrow analysis of fascism caged within Nazism and Italian fascism, even though he does not advocate the theory of right-wing populism.
Similarly, Cenk Saraçoğlu appears with right-wing populism theory by referring Albert Toscano as another version of Griffin's. Saraçoğlu explains fascism by its two distinctive characteristics: creating an imaginary myth of future by referring the legacy of past empires, and demolishing today's bourgeois institutions. In this way, he limits fascism to Nazism and Italian fascism which results in constructing a theory that gathers those fascist movements extend from the European neo-fascists to Erdogan (yet, he concedes that Erdogan has started to become fascist) under the category of right-wing populism. He adds that these movements could only be described as protofascist: another type of a theoretical attitude that moderates fascism.
However, by restricting fascism to the first two forms of its historical emergence as the fundamental element of his right-wing populism theory, Saraçoğlu actually acts improperly with the political experiences of that referred period.
During the rise of fascism in the period between the two world wars, there had also been other fascist parties and governments with the capability to create mass movements in varying degrees. For example, in Hungary, the retired marshal Horty took the lead after a joint invitation from the bourgeois parties under conditions of political crisis. In Austria, Dollfuss transformed to be a fascist as he came to the power in the government. Although he owned a mass support, Dollfuss remained weak to organize paramilitary gangs and remained far behind pro-Nazi fascist forces. Franco on the other hand, brought a fascist movement to the power of which the military putschist character was on the fore.
It is necessary to analyze these such differences among movements in terms of specifying the requirements of the struggle against various forms of fascism. However, characterizing fascist movements in varying forms as right-wing populist and escalating this point of view to a theoretical level is contradictory to the fascist experiences of that period.
Throughout decades, fascism has been and still presenting itself in diverse forms such as the American backed fascist juntas, parliamentarian or paramilitary fascist movements, or even, some small fascist ecologist groups. In this regard, dismissing how this mistaken view among the left damages the anti-fascist struggle becomes nothing other than failing to grasp the need of the bourgeoisie to develop fascist movements under actual crisis conditions.
The existential crisis of capitalism is dragging mainstream bourgeois parties into ideological and political bankruptcy, breaking the masses from their influence towards both the right and the left poles. In such conditions, bourgeoisie does not remain satisfied with holding neo-fascists in reserve as opposition movements and steers for rising fascism in some countries as a result of the requirement for neo-fascist movements and parties to block the masses' tendency towards a revolutionary alternative. In this regard, neo-fascist parties are required to be in the government coalitions in terms of supplying mass support for the states to be consolidated by fascist laws. Taking the Lega Nord in the coalition by the Five Star Movement, whose ideological and political line is absolutely unclear and inconsistent, can be counted as an actual and notable example.
Another consequence of the crisis and the dissolve of the traditional bourgeois representatives is that new emerging bourgeois parties clings more to the fascist demagogy in order to strengthen their mass support so that they contribute to the transformation of the regimes into fascist ones. As its capacity to create consent through making concessions, economic ones in particular, has almost been abolished as a result of the existential crisis of capitalism, bourgeoisie seeks finding solutions in rising fascist parties in governments such as Fidezs in Hungary, Bolsonaro in Brasil or Erdogan in Turkey.
The need for more centralized and fascistoid governments in the context of imperialist aggression and war tendency, is the other dimension of this picture. The Trump administration in the US, the presidency of Chi Jin Ping, which has gained a permanent character in China or the Putin administration functioning for realizing the imperialist war potential, they are all fascistoid administrations arise from the necessity to preserve ascendancy, market and resources through imperialist aggression.
Characterizing all these fascistization processes in varied forms with the notion of "right-wing populism" just because of the movement's mass support or differences with the Nazi or Italian forms of fascism, is not only a wrong approach due to the lack of political and class content, it leads democratic and revolutionary forces to stay unarmed against fascism developing by the bourgeoisie.
Fascism takes different forms particular to different historical and social conditions, under extraordinary conditions in which deep systematical crises occur or in front of the danger of revolution, where the bourgeoisie can no longer rule as before. However the fundamental characteristic of fascism, that is, to be the open terrorist movement and dictatorship, shared by all of them.

1 See "Populism", Margaret Canovan, Junction Books, 1981

2 John Bellamy Foster, This is not Populism, monthlyreview.org

3 John Bellamy Foster, This is not Populism, monthlyreview.org

4 Faşizmin Doğası, Roger Griffin, İletişim publishers, 2014, p.75

5 Populizmler Dünyası, Ahmet İnsel, Radikal newspaper, 19.08.2014

6 Türkiye: Rastlantısal Demokrasi, Keyfi Otoriterizm, Mağdurlar Manzumesi, Ahmet İnsel röportajı, bianet.org, 02.07.18

7 Sağ Popülizm ve Faşizm Üzerine Yöntemsel Bir Tartışma: Küresel Örüntüler ve Ulusal Özgüllükleri Birlikte Anlamak, Cenk Saraçoğlu, ankara.akademia.edu

8 Popülizm, Faşist Sağ ve Liberaller, Ümit Akçay, Gazete Duvar, 27.09.17
 
 
 

 

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Right-Wing Populism: The Theory of Showing Fascism as Moderate
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Red Dawn / Issue 18 / Winter 2018-19

The rise of neo-fascist movements has naturally intensified theoretical discussions and analyses on fascism.
What really matters is the focus on developing a practical anti-fascist struggle and mobilizing working class and the oppressed masses. Nevertheless, analyses and theoretical premises on fascism, but moreover, works on revealing the methods and ways that enables fascism to transform masses into militants of an enemy system against their essential interests, are definitely crucial with respect to illuminate the path of the anti-fascist practice.
One part of these analyses and premises are going around theoretical discussions about the definition of fascism, analyzing its political and class content. In this regard, debates on whether it is authoritarianism or fascism, have now extended to those questioning whether it is right-wing populism or fascism. In this context, "populism" has been transformed into a cluttered concept as a result of referring several movements in an uncompromising conflict, such as from the revolutionary democratic populist movements, to the reformist populists, the demagogue parliamentarian leaders, and of course, to the fascist ones.
"Left-Wing and Right-Wing Populism": Is it a Needless Theory Anymore?
The theory of populism was mostly developed during the post-World War process in the '50's and '60's by liberal writers . In his book "Political Man" written in 1960, Libsed critically used the notion of populism in terms of "populist extremism" of both left and right movements posing risk and danger to the liberal parliamentarian regime. His characterization was implying also the capability to create a mass movement through popular rhetorics.
After the '60's, the need to re-raise this notion had stemmed from the interests of the world monopolies particular to the period of the neoliberal economic policies. In this regard, it is no coincidence that the theory of "left-wing and right-wing populism" was re-introduced in the early '80's, as the neoliberal economic aggression had started to be intensified. 1
In today's conditions, where production and surplus value can be realized in a world-wide extend rather than being limited within national borders, production is moving to the cheap labor areas mainly by the world monopolies, as a method of maximizing profit by reducing the labor costs, as well as of controlling the world production. Therefore, the necessity for the world monopolies to make concessions to the struggles of the working class within national borders has substantially been eliminated. Again in a similar way, this fact has brought an uncompromising attitude against the rural petty-bourgeoisie, together with the intensification of a brutal corporate/company agriculture.
The ideological meaning of these developments found itself in the discourse "there's no need for populism anymore".
This ideological aggression led by Reagan and Thatcher in the political arena, had spread over the world in waves, throughout the '90's, including not only the conservative parties but also the social democratic politicians as well. In this regard, Blair's uncompromising line against workers and the people became dominant policy of the world social democracy in terms of non-populism.
Before, the aids of the world monopolies endowing from their enormous surpluses was sufficient to be the primary concession policy of the world bourgeoisie. Besides, since the reflection of this policy was extending to the charities and religious organizations, it was also creating an ideological dependence for the poor sections of the working class to the "endower" bourgeoisie together with its institutions.
Thus, the understanding of "left-wing and right-wing populism" had been used as an ideological mean to restrain the struggle of the working class.
In this regard, just as how Hannah Arendt's totalitarianism theory proclaims that fascism and proletarian dictatorship are the two extreme twins of the evil, this new theory, which places "left-wing and right-wing populism" on the same pattern as Arendt and applies to such varied figures as Hitler, Roosevelt, Mao Zedong, Putin, Chávez, Le Pen, Bernie Sanders, and Trump,2 serves for the same purpose: Capitalism is the end of history, the ideal political regime is the liberal bourgeois democracy and the "left-wing and right-wing populism" is dangerous!
"Right-Wing Populism" to Substitute Fascism
While describing neo-fascist movements, the bourgeois ideologues and monopoly corporate media have substituted the notion of fascism with others which actually rasp the public enemy character of fascism: "post-truth period", "illiberalism", "authoritarianism", "autocratism", "the rightist alternative" or "right-wing populism".
All these concepts do share a common characteristic feature of protecting fascist movements, whether in the government or far from it, with an attack of the historical anti-fascist consciousness, also when these concepts are used by antifascists as well.
It is also seen that, liberal democratic movements and even the revolutionary democratic ones are substituting "right-wing populism" with two categories: fascism and fascism of the new period.
Liberal commentators are characterizing both neo-fascist movements and governments as "right-wing populists"; just as how the historians Federico Finchelstein and Pablo Piccato wrote in Washington Post op-ed on Trump's presidency: "Racism and charismatic leadership bring Trump close to the fascist equation but he might be better described as post-fascist, which is to say populist.... Modern populism arose from the defeat of fascism, [and] as a novel post-fascist attempt to bring back the fascist experience to the democratic path, creating in turn an authoritarian form of democracy."3
Roger Griffin's views can be a good example, to see the liberal democratic approach,: "Dealing with the analysis of fascism ... I propose to use the term 'populist ultra-nationalism'."4 According to him, the Russian Narodniks cannot be described as populist due to their failure of bringing broad masses into the movement, however, he proposes to use populism instead of fascism just because it is able to mobilize the people, even on the basis of ultra-nationalism.
Among left-wing liberal democrats, Ahmet İnsel, Turkish writer from Birikim magaizne, adopts the theory of populism on the basis of Laclau's populism theory, Poluntzas' limitation of fascism to Nazism and Italian fascism, as well as Arendt's conception of totalitarianism. "Political discourses which claim to speak on behalf of the people and the nation against what they call as elites, which hold the monopoly of the representation of the people and nation, are the characteristics of populist political attempts. Besides, they are its distinctive sign.5 "(Then) what the people supports becomes a populist authoritarianism."6
The concept of populism is embraced also by some Marxists. Among them, Cenk Saraçoğlu, a self-claimed Marxist writer, who goes further and reaches to theorize the notion of right-wing populism: "As the responsible of the failure of their claims to be realized even in a symbolic sense, these movements were pointing out the central bourgeois political elites, the international financial monopolies and the international organizations, the European Union in particular. These right-wing populist movements which attempt to build and represent the people on the basis of the antagonism towards these aforementioned responsibles ..." Saraçoğlu includes an extend from Erdogan to Trump, Modi and rising neo-fascist movements in his theory of right-wing populism. According to him, these political movements in the developed capitalist countries are not strong enough to demolish existing bourgeois institutions, however, such a probability is quite strong in the backward countries. In agreement with Toscano's view, he points out that fascism differs from the right-wing populist movements with regard to "its ability to establish a special kind of connection between past, present and future and its counter-revolutionary destructiveness." Thus, fascist parties, powers and governments which lack in terms of presenting these two characteristics theoretically go under the realm of right-wing populism.7
Ümit Akçay on the other hand, a Turkish scholar in Berlin School of Economics and Law, emphasizes that analysis equating right-wing populism with left-wing populism must be welcomed with suspicion, however, he does not see a problem to describe fascist movements as the "extreme right" of the "rising right-wing populism".8
Since these views and 'theories' come after the "left-wing and right-wing populism" discourse of the neoliberal aggression, finding both populisms as needless anymore, all of them play the role of underrating fascist movements. Thus, they help to set an ideological barrier before the historical anti-fascist consciousness to be directed towards neo-fascist movements and governments.
Populism cannot be Reduced to the Populist Demagogy of Fascism
Then what we mean by populism? Populism is the characteristic of the movements emerging in different historical conditions as the voice of the widest oppressed and exploited classes by linking their common interests. It is the ideology of movements advocating the class interests of half villain or petty-property owner peasantry (in societies where peasantry is dominant) and in areas, the common interests of the working class together with the rural-urban petty-bourgeois sections (in the relatively developed capitalist countries) in a way that the former is subjected to the interests of the second mentioned.
The origin of the notion of populism dates back to the peasant movement known as "Grangers" and Greenbackers emerged in the US during the 1870-1890 period. However, the Russian Narodniks and their successor the Socialist Revolutionaries had been the most determined and consistent representatives of populism. Representing the semi-proletarian peasants as a result of the effect of proletariat's struggle for socialism, the Left Socialist Revolutionaries were forming the left-wing of populism, however, the Right-Wing Socialist Revolutionaries, who had reconciled with the bourgeoisie after the February Revolution, were also populists as well. Narodniks and the socialist Revolutionaries were the representatives and the political vanguards of peasants emancipation, not only in economic, but also in "social" and political sense.
III. Bonaparte had gained the support of the reactionary peasants and even of the lumpen proletariat by means of populist demagogy, however, this didn't make him a populist. Rising from the basis of this support, he became the head of the state and then the emperor, but just as the 20 years under his rule proved, he had been the most determined State authority in terms of applying economic interests of the bourgeoisie. Furthermore, he was totally against the class interests of the urban and rural little bourgeoisie. His regime was a dictatorship and in this respect, he was not a populist at all but an enemy of the people.
The Nazi fascism was agitating ‘socialism' and subordinating it to the goal of rising German people which was counted as the superior race and nation. Indeed, the German nation and race at that time significated ruling bourgeoisie. The aim of rising the German nation and make it dominant in the world would render the developing German capitalism and monopolies to become dominant over the world capitalism. In this regard, the discourses of Nazi fascism such as socialism, defending the interests of small business owners against big stores, corporatism or improvement of workers' living conditions with a national unity, were all subordinated by this great goal. Towards this, Nazism not only wanted to keep masses away from a revolutionary quest, but more, it strove for destroying the working class and its communist vanguards through the mobilized masses by its demagogy.
Thus, Nazism and Italian fascism, not only during their rule but also before, had directed their violent attacks primarily to the communists, just as what was residing at the top of their programmatic and strategic goals: "We are the only force that can destroy Bolshevism'
What's more, unlike traditional conservatives and religious movements, Nazism and Italian fascism were emphasizing the goal of "revolution" and "a new order". If this demagogic aim of fascism were considered alone and isolated from its other fundamental goals, then fascism would have been in a hegemony struggle with the communist movement rather than adopting it as the major enemy. However, fascism undertook destroying the communist danger both in national and international extend as a central duty which had historically proved the entire goal of fascism: to suppress the obstacles against capitalism and monopolies in order to save them from the political crisis.
The populist demagogy of fascism as if it sides with the people or some statements supporting the struggles of workers and the oppressed is a blatant fraud with regard to the function of deceiving masses for the sake of establishing open terrorist dictatorship of the capitalist class. Fascism applies to this trick also to show its difference from the parliamentarian bourgeois politics, as well as to liquidate the parliament and non-fascist bourgeois institutions.
Of course it is normal for fascism to use this demagogy in order to get the support of the petty-bourgeoisie, to make them feel that fascism would bring them to power. In this respect, fascism may support some demands and actions of the petty-bourgeoisie or from time to time, it may practice the class collaboration of the social democracy in the name of corporatism. However, since they are all subordinated by the purpose of reinforcing the domination of the capitalist class, that such tricks do not make fascism populist.
Asserting fascism as "ideologically right-wing, but populist in the sense of siding with the people" because of this demagogy means that fascism, in some extend or other, has common characteristics with the reformist populist movements. This is nothing else than an invented theory of the liberals, the defenders of the bourgeois democracy, which denies the fact that fascism is the open terrorist dictatorship, as it is historically proved so. In addition to what historical experiences of fascism has revealed, also the very limited populist demagogy of today's neo-fascist movements and political leaders do not deserve a rewarding approach by describing them with the notion of "right-wing populism".
This populist demagogy of today's fascist movements is anyhow limited to the impression as if they side with the people and would protect workers rights through holding nationalist economic policies against the rules of the imperialist globalization, as well as through the anti-immigrant hostility.
However, as the uncompromising defenders of neoliberalism, the mainstream right-wing conservatives and the social democratic parties of the bourgeoisie have been so much integrated with the finance capital that the efforts of neo-fascism presenting a popular image, voicing -and cheekily abusing- a bunch of actual demands of the people become sufficient for them to easily gain the public acceptance, votes and the participation of workers, as well as to be characterized as "right-wing populism" by a variety of ideological and political movements from left to right.
Creating a Mass Movement does not Make Fascism Populist
The major factor which ideologically dazzles the petit bourgeois liberal democrats, leading them to reach the theory of "right-wing populism", is the success of the neo-fascist movements, parties and governments to become a mass movement. In this regard, while fascism is becoming a mass movement again in a similar way as in the period between two World Wars, it is at the same time revealing its own political character: nationalist, anti-communist and hostile towards migrant workers. In order to influence the masses, it sometimes advocates the demands of those become impoverished under the actual conditions of the imperialist globalization period, along with spreading the imagination, that they would re-gain their high wages by means of a strong nation-state, domestic protectionism, and chauvinist aggression against immigrants. Thus, it becomes able to have a popular support rapidly or to create a reactionary mass movement among the petty-bourgeoisie, unemployeds or the backward-conscious sections of the workers and the lumpen proletariat. This is what the current practice of neo-fascist movements in Europe or parties becoming fascist after seizing power in governments reveal.
However, those who are dazzled by this mass support are choosing to characterize these movements as populist, rather than considering them according to their political quality and goals.
"The fascist dictatorship" says Togliatti, "endeavors to possess a mass movement by organizing the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie" and follows: "When is this movement among the petty bourgeoisie transformed into a unified movement? Not at the beginning, but at the end of 1920. It is transformed when a new factor intervenes; when the most reactionary forces of the bourgeoisie intervene as an organizing factor. Fascism had been growing before, but had not yet become the fundamental element."
In the cases of both Italy and Germany, fascism was the movement that put a new form of class dictatorship into practice under extraordinary conditions, after bourgeoisie became not satisfied with the passive support of a section of the people towards suppressing the movement of revolutionary classes and their vanguards. Based on this historical fact, fascism is the open terrorist movement and the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, which mobilizes a section of the society towards its operation of suppressing the revolutionary forces, transforming both the form of the regime and the organization of the attacking tools according to this operation.
"Right-Wing Populism" Instead of Fascism, on the Basis of Laclau's "Populism" Theory
Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe are the post-Marxist theorists of the "radical democracy" and "populism" which were on the rise among the world left movements by the '90's. Laclau emphasizes that creating hegemony among the people is very decisive for establishing strong movements marching towards power. In this regard, left movements must mobilize the people by advocating their equivalent demands, no matter what they are. Asserting this as the "logic of political struggle", even more, as the very politics itself, he brings forward his understanding of "construction of a people".
In fact, by evaluating the classes as equivalent, Laclau trivializes the class distinction among people, meaning that the working class is no longer the basic class of the emancipation struggle from exploitation, but equivalent as others. In this context, he formulates the perspective of populism and proposes a worldwide struggle for radical democracy.
On the other hand, moving from the perspective that populism is the logic of political struggle, or even, politics itself, he considers right movements, as populists as well, according to their capability to influence and organize people against elites, those who are in power. Hence, the populist revolutionary movements and mass-based fascistoid parties, but also, communist movements and fascist movements are all go under the same category of populism. Furthermore populism is reduced to win the people through political rhetorics, tearing it away from it material class basis. For example Erdogan and his party, the Justice and Development Party ( AKP ), are counted to the populist category, together with the leftist populist movements in Latin America. So, the fundamental difference between these movement in terms of their material class interests, political functions and goals are all pushed away. Yet more, he isolates the notion of "populism" from its material class basis and reduces it to gain people's support by political discourse.
We have to admit that Laclau does not want to disappear the distinction between populisms of the dominant class and the populism of the oppressed class, however, that does not hide the truth that his theory essentially obscures both the political and class distinctions.
Apart from their nationalist, aggressive, patriarchal and homophobic existence, although these neo-fascist movements and parties, which become fascists as they come to power in governments, seem to be on the peoples' side with their discourses against neoliberal ruthlessness, corruption and decaying of the bourgeoisie, at the end of the day, they all take the opportunity of integrating with the capital oligarchy in the deep crisis conditions and become the bourgeoisie's open terrorist organizations and governments.
For instance, both the Fidezs party of Hungary's prime minister Orban and the coalition parties of Austria, the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) and the far-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) did not step back from escalating neoliberal aggression, enacting slavery laws against working class. In Germany, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) is increasingly growing its mass base by means of nationalism, strong nation state and anti-immigrant hostility policies. It is open to question whether AfD would quickly transform all former institutions or not if they come to power in government in the future, however, it is indisputable that they would follow the economic policies of the German monopolies. The same is true also for Le Pen's National Rally (NR).
Characterizing these movements from Fidezs to Jobbik, Lega Nord and other neo-fascist parties and movements of Europe not as fascist but right-wing populist, is the product of a blind analysis which dismiss the political function and quality of those movements, evaluating them according only to their feature of influencing and organizing people.
In the case of the fascist dictator Erdogan, the story is as follows: Even in the first period of the AKP government, Erdogan and his party were in an organizational unity with the political-islamist sections of the middle-sized bourgeoisie, being the part and the representative of it. After they liquidated the domination of the Turkish army's generals in the political power with the backing of the US and EU, of the capital oligarchy, it decided on adopting fascism in order to maintain its power as the representative of the growing bourgeoisie claiming the struggle for regional dominance. Thus it sharply followed the policies of suppressing the Kurdistan revolution and possible popular uprisings like Gezi, as well as escalating expansionist war and establishing subordinated powers in the region. In this direction, Erdogan has sometimes been fiercely supported by the capital oligarchy as a reward for his success to apply the neoliberal aggression of the bourgeoisie through most raving methods, other times, he has come to bow to the different capital cliques by threats. And now, he is establishing the monistic fascist power, the "fascist chieftaincy regime", which is approved - or being supported for now - by the capital oligarchy, under the conditions where bourgeois parties are unable to influence the people.
This kind of a movement cannot be characterized as populist just because it has reached to success by means of discourses mobilizing people around itself against the elites, or has replaced the political influence and power of the Turkish army with its own ‘civil' clique. Characterizing neo-fascist movements and parties according to their discourses and style amounts to a dangerous reward to them.
After all, those neo-fascist movements of today rely either on the reactionary tendencies of the people such as nationalism, immigrant hostility, homophobia, patriarchal culture, anti-democratic reaction against the hypocrisy and corruption of liberal democracy, or on the delusion that those early happy days of the "welfare state" can be reached again through the shield of nationalism. This is the way how they appeal to the people's feelings, how they grow their masses.
What is essential for these movements and parties, which hold the right-wing reactionary line but also claim some of the demands against the impoverishment of laborers under neo-liberal attacks, is the terrorist aggression against populist, progressive, revolutionary and communist forces. This political character and function makes them fascist.
Rather than its "construction of the people" in a political sense through advocating or in some cases, practicing some equivalent demands as Laclau claims, the determining factor for fascism to establish hegemony among the people has always been its nationalist demagogy, strong reaction to the parliamentarian decaying and its claim to make country overcome its crisis.
Since it obscures this political and class character of fascism, the approach of Laclau, or even of the "leftists" adopting the theory of "right-wing populism" is both groundless and decayed. It is a liberal perspective that bases itself on the success of gaining the people or creating a mass movement, whereas the political character and function of the movements are all subordinated. Moreover this theory feeds on the idea that limits fascism to its first form of historical emergence. In this respect it remains static and lacks the ability to analyse fascism under different political, social, cultural, national and historical conditions.
The Theory of the Static Understanding of Fascism
So far we have underlined how bourgeoisie needs to show fascism as moderate by limiting it to the forms of Hitler and Mussolini fascisms. This point of view is also not less common among the international revolutionary, Marxist and anti-fascist movements which are far from comprehending the fact that fascist regimes of the bourgeoisie can take different forms on the basis of different national and cultural characteristics of each given country under different historical and material political conditions. As a result of a static analysis, which focus on lacking characteristics compare to the fascist regimes of Italy and Germany, this viewpoint characterizes fascist movements as "military", "authoritarian", "autocratic", as well as "right-wing populist".
Along with his theory of fascism that asserts the paradigm of palingenesis (re-birth of the nation) as its decisive feature, R. Griffin, the British scholar, who has published a large number of books on fascism, also sets the theory of right-wing populism as a by-product. Thus, he rewards historical fascism and neo-fascism with "right-wing populism", contributing to show the notion and the practice of fascism as moderate in the eyes of the masses.
Same theoretical and political line is adopted among the self-claimed Marxists which is also pioneered by Poluntzas in the 70's with his narrow analysis of fascism caged within Nazism and Italian fascism, even though he does not advocate the theory of right-wing populism.
Similarly, Cenk Saraçoğlu appears with right-wing populism theory by referring Albert Toscano as another version of Griffin's. Saraçoğlu explains fascism by its two distinctive characteristics: creating an imaginary myth of future by referring the legacy of past empires, and demolishing today's bourgeois institutions. In this way, he limits fascism to Nazism and Italian fascism which results in constructing a theory that gathers those fascist movements extend from the European neo-fascists to Erdogan (yet, he concedes that Erdogan has started to become fascist) under the category of right-wing populism. He adds that these movements could only be described as protofascist: another type of a theoretical attitude that moderates fascism.
However, by restricting fascism to the first two forms of its historical emergence as the fundamental element of his right-wing populism theory, Saraçoğlu actually acts improperly with the political experiences of that referred period.
During the rise of fascism in the period between the two world wars, there had also been other fascist parties and governments with the capability to create mass movements in varying degrees. For example, in Hungary, the retired marshal Horty took the lead after a joint invitation from the bourgeois parties under conditions of political crisis. In Austria, Dollfuss transformed to be a fascist as he came to the power in the government. Although he owned a mass support, Dollfuss remained weak to organize paramilitary gangs and remained far behind pro-Nazi fascist forces. Franco on the other hand, brought a fascist movement to the power of which the military putschist character was on the fore.
It is necessary to analyze these such differences among movements in terms of specifying the requirements of the struggle against various forms of fascism. However, characterizing fascist movements in varying forms as right-wing populist and escalating this point of view to a theoretical level is contradictory to the fascist experiences of that period.
Throughout decades, fascism has been and still presenting itself in diverse forms such as the American backed fascist juntas, parliamentarian or paramilitary fascist movements, or even, some small fascist ecologist groups. In this regard, dismissing how this mistaken view among the left damages the anti-fascist struggle becomes nothing other than failing to grasp the need of the bourgeoisie to develop fascist movements under actual crisis conditions.
The existential crisis of capitalism is dragging mainstream bourgeois parties into ideological and political bankruptcy, breaking the masses from their influence towards both the right and the left poles. In such conditions, bourgeoisie does not remain satisfied with holding neo-fascists in reserve as opposition movements and steers for rising fascism in some countries as a result of the requirement for neo-fascist movements and parties to block the masses' tendency towards a revolutionary alternative. In this regard, neo-fascist parties are required to be in the government coalitions in terms of supplying mass support for the states to be consolidated by fascist laws. Taking the Lega Nord in the coalition by the Five Star Movement, whose ideological and political line is absolutely unclear and inconsistent, can be counted as an actual and notable example.
Another consequence of the crisis and the dissolve of the traditional bourgeois representatives is that new emerging bourgeois parties clings more to the fascist demagogy in order to strengthen their mass support so that they contribute to the transformation of the regimes into fascist ones. As its capacity to create consent through making concessions, economic ones in particular, has almost been abolished as a result of the existential crisis of capitalism, bourgeoisie seeks finding solutions in rising fascist parties in governments such as Fidezs in Hungary, Bolsonaro in Brasil or Erdogan in Turkey.
The need for more centralized and fascistoid governments in the context of imperialist aggression and war tendency, is the other dimension of this picture. The Trump administration in the US, the presidency of Chi Jin Ping, which has gained a permanent character in China or the Putin administration functioning for realizing the imperialist war potential, they are all fascistoid administrations arise from the necessity to preserve ascendancy, market and resources through imperialist aggression.
Characterizing all these fascistization processes in varied forms with the notion of "right-wing populism" just because of the movement's mass support or differences with the Nazi or Italian forms of fascism, is not only a wrong approach due to the lack of political and class content, it leads democratic and revolutionary forces to stay unarmed against fascism developing by the bourgeoisie.
Fascism takes different forms particular to different historical and social conditions, under extraordinary conditions in which deep systematical crises occur or in front of the danger of revolution, where the bourgeoisie can no longer rule as before. However the fundamental characteristic of fascism, that is, to be the open terrorist movement and dictatorship, shared by all of them.

1 See "Populism", Margaret Canovan, Junction Books, 1981

2 John Bellamy Foster, This is not Populism, monthlyreview.org

3 John Bellamy Foster, This is not Populism, monthlyreview.org

4 Faşizmin Doğası, Roger Griffin, İletişim publishers, 2014, p.75

5 Populizmler Dünyası, Ahmet İnsel, Radikal newspaper, 19.08.2014

6 Türkiye: Rastlantısal Demokrasi, Keyfi Otoriterizm, Mağdurlar Manzumesi, Ahmet İnsel röportajı, bianet.org, 02.07.18

7 Sağ Popülizm ve Faşizm Üzerine Yöntemsel Bir Tartışma: Küresel Örüntüler ve Ulusal Özgüllükleri Birlikte Anlamak, Cenk Saraçoğlu, ankara.akademia.edu

8 Popülizm, Faşist Sağ ve Liberaller, Ümit Akçay, Gazete Duvar, 27.09.17