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Uruguay’s right-wing party!

Uruguay’s right-wing coalition was the winner of the country’s 2019 presidential elections. The coalition included Cabildo Abierto, which, according [[link removed]] to authors Magdalena Broquetas and Gerardo Caetano in a new NACLA report [[link removed]], was composed of “the most radical right-wing elements of the National and Colorado Parties, the ‘military family,’ and the various nuclei of reaction against the left-wing Frente Amplio, which had been in power for three consecutive terms.”

That they were elected suggested that Uruguay is not immune to general skepticism of democracy. Notably, as some part of the electorate becomes more critical of democracy, so, too, does the electorate find greater respect for the armed forces and general contentment with right-leaning institutions. “In Uruguay, with the often extreme positions of its party militants and leaders, Cabildo Abierto is the force that, as a real black swan, has come to partially express this new sensibility,” write Broquetas and Caetano.

Broquetas and Caetano explore the history and context of Cabildo Abierto. And though the party is polling below its 2019 levels, regular coverage in the media has made it seem like a more natural political actor. Uruguay has “a framework of solid parties and democracy,” and that has “buffered” several components of the party’s program. But Uruguay is not immune from changes happening elsewhere on the continent. Keeping in mind that no country is an ideological island is advisable for Uruguay — and, for that matter, for the rest of us, too.

same swisher

For The Baffler, Edward Ongweso Jr. reviews [[link removed]] Kara Swisher’s “Burn Book: A Tech Love Story.”

Ongweso articulates that the core thesis of Swisher’s book is that tech was supposed to be good, but took a dark turn in 2016, and that Swisher’s driving question is “how did a tech journalist as good and uncompromising as Kara Swisher fail to anticipate this turn to the dark side?”

Ongweso’s answer to the question is that tech media generally generated “on-demand propaganda” for the industry it was meant to be covering, and that, in the book, Swisher, who was instrumental in this process, “tries to atone for her decades of boosterism by adopting a slightly more critical posture, but the analysis, such as it is, has no bite because Swisher still, at her core, fundamentally believes in Silicon Valley.” Ongweso also makes that case that Swisher believes the problems at companies like Uber are cultural, when, in reality, the “core issue” is “a business model so destructive and extractive that it could only claim to turn a profit after losing $33 billion, eviscerating the existing taxi industry, achieving near market dominance, and undermining existing labor laws.” The review makes the case that the issue with the industry can’t be fixed with a tweak here or a different leader there — and that the same is true of the book’s author.

FORWARD TO A FRIEND [[link removed]] Lesotho’s Lessons

In Africa Is a Country, John Aerni-Flessner and Charles Fogelman suggest [[link removed]] that a lesson for South Africa in its upcoming elections is not to look to the West for examples of what a coalition government might bring, but rather to neighboring Lesotho.

The authors note that South Africa shares its second-largest border with Lesotho; that “Lesotho is one of the only African countries with multiple electoral transfers of power over the last decade”; and that, like South Africa, it has found it difficult to move beyond aging leaders.

The authors take the reader through Lesotho’s history with coalition governments. Their point is not to offer one to one comparison, but to flag some of the issues that Lesotho has experienced, like infighting, instability, and (albeit contained) political violence. Aerni-Flessner and Fogelman write that, while a coalition government could still work out, it won’t magically bring political dysfunction to an end and could mean more of a focus on politicking than good governance. The authors remind their readers that can’t only happen at the ballot box. It must also be brought about through sustained pressure from civil society regardless of who is in power.

FORWARD TO A FRIEND [[link removed]] DEEP DIVE This Must Be the Place?

Place is core to populist radical right movements — or is it? And, if it is, what, exactly, does that mean? That is the question before Kai Arzheimer and Theresa Bernemann in their paper [[link removed]], “‘Place’ does matter for populist radical right sentiment, but how? Evidence from Germany,” published by Cambridge University Press.

The authors identify four aspects of “place” that underpin current research: attitudes, like localism (the feeling of belonging to one’s locality) and resentment (perceived regional exclusion); specific living conditions; socio-demographic makeup; and local characteristics like culture and local history. The authors were also interested in how these four qualities relate to and interact with one another.

The study focused on how these four aspects mattered to the populist radical right in Germany, which they deemed well-suited to this type of research. Germany is a large European country, and the authors felt their findings should be applicable to other European countries. But Germany has been united for almost as long as it was divided, and there are no parties campaigning for regional independence. Further, Germany is constitutionally committed to addressing inequality between regions. This, the authors felt, would make evidence of geographic polarization especially interesting.

The authors stressed that their aim was two-fold: both to better understand what researchers mean by “place” and the role of “place” in relevant literature and to find out which of the relevant aspects of place matter most.

The authors used fine-grained geocoded data from before the 2017 election and found “considerable spatial variation and clustering” in populist radical right attitudes. And socio-demographic makeup and resentment accounted for a good deal of this. Resentment was especially concentrated in what was East Germany (excepting Berlin) and especially low in the more prosperous south. Socio-demographic composition basically operated as expected (men are slightly more Islamophobic, authoritarian, and populist than women, per this study).

The authors acknowledge that “this composition is difficult to alter by political means in the short term,” but say that “this finding highlights the need for long-term demographic policies and structural planning.”

Localism, on the other hand, mattered less to populist radical right attitudes, and was especially high in Thuringia and low in the rural west. Interestingly, there was no relevant interaction between localism and place resentment, which is to say that it was not the case that people who felt that they strongly belonged to their locality also felt strongly that their locality was excluded. Nor was there evidence of unique culture or history of individual places having an effect. They also found that location in former East Germany mattered a great deal, whereas other place-specific conditions, like migration or demographic decline, had no or weak effects.

The authors came across a kind of German paradox: Billions of euros are transferred every year to less advantageous areas, many of which are in the east, meaning that, objectively, regional disparities are comparatively small. But this has not closed the disparity in how strong the pull of populist radical right sentiment is for different regions.

LEARN MORE [[link removed]]

FORWARD TO A FRIEND [[link removed]] SHOW US THE RECEIPTS

Hate crimes are back in the spotlight in Greece, wrote [[link removed]] Victoras Antonopoulos. Mere weeks after Greece became the first Orthodox Christian country to legalize same-sex marriage, tens of people chased down and attacked two trans individuals in Thessaloniki, the country’s second-largest city. As Antonopoulos put it, “the anti-trans violence demonstrates that the struggle for an inclusive society has collided with the opposition of religious groups, hardline conservatives, and far-right extremists.” Antonopoulos also spoke to those who put it in a global context: a worldwide struggle for inclusion and human rights and against bigotry.

Sushmita Pathak reported [[link removed]] on adherents of Sarnaism, who are pushing for official state recognition of their religion. There are roughly 104 million indigenous people in India, known as Adivasis. “Adivasis pray to nature and don’t believe in idol worship or the concept of heaven and hell. Their main festival, Sarhul, marks the new year and falls in spring,” wrote Pathak. But the tribal religion, Sarnaism, isn’t one of the country’s official religions. “Tribal groups want to change that. They say recognizing their faith is integral to preserving Adivasi identity and culture. For over a decade, tribal groups have been calling for a separate Sarna religious code — official recognition like what other major religions in India enjoy,” wrote Pathak, noting that some argue that this lack of official religion leaves them vulnerable.

Michael Fox wrote [[link removed]] about Brazilians remembering the 1964 coup and victims of dictatorship, a period of Brazilian history during which hundreds were killed or disappeared and thousands were detained and tortured. The generals who overthrew President João Goulart said he was a communist and called the coup a revolution. As Fox explained, many on the political right and in the military still feel the coup was an act to save the country. Those who have praised it include former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. But last week, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said that he didn’t want to dwell in the past, and was trying to move the country forward.

FORWARD TO A FRIEND [[link removed]] WELL-PLAYED

I would like to look at it ( that horse [[link removed]]).

The duality of Britain [[link removed]].

And that’s the tea [[link removed]].

Personal history [[link removed]].

Thank you, Marcus [[link removed]].

Hot monkey spring [[link removed]].

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Critical State is written by Emily Tamkin with Inkstick Media.

The World is a weekday public radio show and podcast on global issues, news and insights from PRX and GBH.

With an online magazine and podcast featuring a diversity of expert voices, Inkstick Media is “foreign policy for the rest of us.”

Critical State is made possible in part by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

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