Africa

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Authoritarianism, State Violence, and Vigilantism: Security Challenges Posed by Illegal Miners in South Africa

Theory & ResearchIllegal miners, colloquially known as the zama zamas — over 75 percent of whom are undocumented migrants from neighbouring Zimbabwe, Lesotho, and Mozambique — risk their lives foraging for leftover minerals, notably gold, in some of the world’s deepest mineshafts
By Kennedy Manduna

Asia

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How the Farmers in India Countered the Populist Authoritarianism of the Right

Theory & ResearchCounterstrategies need not merely emotionalize protest but to also revolutionize emotions. They need to dig deep into everyday ethics, their presence in common sense, and modes of normative evaluation. This is what happened during the Indian farmers' protests. Three years after they erupted, Ajay Gudavarthy takes a look at the successful mobilization that managed to make a dent in India's authoritarian regime
By Ajay Gudavarthy, CPS, JNU

The COVID-19 pandemic and the infrastructure of hate in India

In PerspectiveIn May 2020, while the world continued to grapple with ways of dealing with the pandemic, UN Secretary General António Guterres spoke about the “tsunami of hate” targeting specific communities in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis. One such maelstrom, targeting the Muslim community, was seen taking place in India, with allegations of ‘corona jihad’ becoming widespread during the first phase of the COVID-19 lockdown in the country.
By Fathima Nizaruddin

Europe

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Anatomy of a Revolt in Serbia

In PerspectiveSince late 2024, events in Serbia have been unfolding at breakneck speed. Each new protest action and the government’s reaction have revealed another layer of corruption at the heart of the government, while the movement's strength has been growing. Since mid-August, the Vučić government is increasingly relying on brute force against unarmed protesters. What has happened so far? What comes next? 
By Filip Balunović

“Protest for Production”: Fighting the Ethnic Authoritarian Model of Governance in Postwar Bosnia and Herzegovina

Theory & ResearchTo be in protest for production is a political axiom that cuts through the triad of insecurity-poverty-trauma. It has resonated powerfully across communities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, forging links between workers, students, war veterans, artists, and activists that continue to this day
By Damir Arsenijevic

Latin America

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New generations and (not so) new authoritarianism in Bolivia

In PerspectiveThe rise of right-wing discourses in Latin America presents itself as a promise of change, appealing to meritocracy, pragmatism, and economic recovery. Yet behind this language of renewal lies a familiar political logic. In a context of crisis, uncertainty, and generational weariness, these narratives recycle conservative and authoritarian measures while positioning themselves as “real solutions,” gaining particular traction among young people who navigate vulnerability, disillusionment, and the search for stability.
By Claudia Cuellar

North America

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Inside the Zohran Mamdani Campaign: Lessons in Socialist Strategy and its Pressing Challenges

In Perspective In a time when authoritarianism is globalized, leftist victories also have a spillover effect that inspires counter-strategies in different geographies. In this article, Özge Yaka draws some lessons from the Mamdani campaign and points to challenges for socialists around the globe.
By Özge Yaka

Resentment and Rage as Two Reactions to Violence

Theory & ResearchRabies is a virus produced in mammals, transmitted by salivary contact, but in Spanish the word rabia is often used to connote anger, irritation, hatred, ill will, and desire for revenge. This rage often leads to negative practices such as the annihilation of others. However, it is also true that on other occasions it can generate positive practices such as the fight for dignity and life
By Karla Sánchez Félix

Disappeared Is Said in the Negative: The Radical Questioning of the Concept of Disappearance and Its Usefulness

Theory & ResearchMexico has, up to date, 115,062 people reported as being disappeared. The problem is evident but raises many questions. Who counts as disappeared? How do we count disappearance? Who counts as “disappeared” and who not? Is every absence a disappearance? How valid is it to invoke disappearance in the case of absences? What do we understand when we hear that “people can disappear”? 
By César Antonio Popoca Gómez

WANA

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"We should recognize the agency of the Iranian regime and the people who oppose it": Nader Talebi

InterviewIran is going through dramatic times and tectonic shifts. In this interview, Nader Talebi reflects on the Islamic regime and its tensions between a neoliberal state project and a messianic Shia imaginary, and on the waves of uprisings against a regime that enforces gender apartheid and destroys the means of reproduction of life. Against this, Talebi insists on what connects the mobilizations of the last years — a politics of life, cross-ethnic solidarity, and a revolutionary tendency that makes any dictatorship hard to sustain.
By Ali Yalçın Göymen, Sara Cufré and Melehat Kutun

Late fascism as a mode of crisis management: An Interview with Şebnem Oğuz

Şebnem Oğuz examines late fascism as a contemporary mode of crisis management, distinct not only from neoliberal authoritarianism and right-wing populism but also from classical fascism. How does capitalist crisis reorganize the state around war, racialized violence, and coercive accumulation? And what does this mean for anti-fascist struggle in Turkey?
By Melehat Kutun and Ali Yalçın Göymen

Global

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SELF-HELP’S AUTHORITARIAN EDGE

In PerspectiveThe explosive growth of social media self-help culture promises quick solutions to intimate crises, from restoring “feminine energy” to reclaiming “masculine power.” Yet beneath its language of empowerment lies a deeper political logic. As neoliberal societies produce a growing “care deficit,” self-help influencers transform insecurity into a market while promoting survivalist individualism, gender essentialism, and authoritarian fantasies of control that increasingly echo the moral agendas of contemporary far-right politics.
By Ülker Sözen

Road to Fascization: Crisis of Social Cohesion, Alienation, and the Search for Alternatives

Theory & Research The current crisis is creating political conditions in which states are losing their ability to manage internal societal contradictions. The consequences of the crisis of neoliberalism, which has severed social bonds, have evolved into a broader crisis that is causing modern societies to lose their social cohesion, and their ability to politically organise to find adequate responses to the crisis itself.
By Ali Yalçın Göymen