Exploring the populist ‘mind’: Anxiety, fantasy, and everyday populism

Abstract

This article is focused on the appeal of far-right populist politics in the everyday and how this appeal is related to continuity and change in the global order. Contemporary societies have witnessed an upsurge of populist movements and groups set on filling a political space by appealing to a population in search of solutions to an ever-changing political and economic landscape. Here, we specifically highlight the role of ontological insecurity, fantasy narratives, and emotional governance as critical for understanding far-right populist politics. The analysis consequently attends to the centrality of gendered and racialised narratives and to how these are fuelled by feelings of pride, shame, vulnerability, and insecurity. The aim is to show how structures and emotions work in tandem to create far-right support and how these developments are similar across Western and non-Western contexts. Particular attention is paid to far-right narratives that pertain to the Covid-19 pandemic.