Authoritarian Patriarchy and Its Populism

Abstract

Theories of authoritarianism and populism are insufficient if they do not take into account the power of gender and sexuality, in relation to other social divisions, within authoritarian power and the erotics that produce populism. Patriarchal power is a more comprehensive approach, showing how the new authoritarians rely on gendered security and securitization to produce the new post-secular and the post-postcolonial nationalisms of today. While populisms are divergent in empire and postcolony, for instance in the US and India, generated by grievances and disappointments of a waning empire on the one hand, and a failed modernization on the other, their authoritarian leaders are linked not just in modes of power and governance but also through sharing technologies of surveillance, security and accumulation.