Call for Papers: Authoritarian Populism in South Asia

Panel with presentation of papers and discussion
South Asia across the Nordic Region (SANR) meeting , 27-28 May 2021, University of Copenhagen

Conveners: Ravinder Kaur, Sten Widmalm, Arild Engelsen Ruud

Partha Chatterjee in his recent I am the People: Reflections on Popular Sovereignty Today (Permanent Black, 2020) suggests that the West’s experience with populism is in its infancy while Asia has decades of experience with populism. There are the film stars of South India, the radical populism of Indira Gandhi, the sops of the likes of Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mamata Banerjee, the religious populism of the godmen gurus and Zakir Naik, and of course the authoritarian populism of Narendra Modi, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, the Rajapaksa brothers in Sri Lanka and their authoritarian brethren in Bangladesh and Pakistan.

Is there an authoritarian populism turn in South Asia? What distinguishes the South Asian variety from other global forms (Trump, Bolsonaro, Duterte, Erdogan, Netanyahu, others)? Is there a South Asian form at all, or are they incomparable national cases? What role play democracy, globalisation, new media, social media, economic crisis? And what of the opposition, the backlash against CAA, the innovative use of social media, the Shaheen Bagh protesters?

We invite contributions to these and more topics, from seasoned scholars and juniors, from tenured and untenured, fullblown papers and half-baked ones.

Please send title and abstract to Marie Yoshida by 31 March.