The new authoritarianism as a global phenomenon: a discussion on the changing nature of world politics

Against a backdrop of growing social and ecological crisis, the new authoritarianism has found a wide appeal amongst populaces all over the world.

What is the source of this appeal and potency? What structural forces are propelling forward this challenge to liberalism and the rule of law? What are the implications of these trends for international politics? And what – exactly – can democrats do to withstand them?

Taking as its starting point the idea of ‘authoritarian protectionism’ – recently proposed as a way of understanding the appeal of these forces – this panel will address these questions, consider points of commonality and difference among cases of the new authoritarianism and discuss how democratic politics can recover its vitality with a new emancipatory agenda.

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This event was held on Monday 20 September 2021.

Meet the speakers

Dr Luke Cooper is an associate researcher and consultant at LSE IDEAS and author of Authoritarian Contagion; the Global Threat to Democracy (BUP, 2021). He has also written a recent report for LSE IDEAS, Authoritarian Protectionism in CESEE: Diversity, Commonality, Resistanceand is a co-host of the Another Europe podcast.

Prof. Priyamvada Gopal is Professor of Postcolonial Studies at Churchill College, Cambridge University. She has published widely on critical race studies and the politics and cultures of empire and globalisation. Her most recent book is Insurgent Empire: Anticolonial Resistance and British Dissent (Verso, 2020).

Ann Pettifor is a political economist and director of PRIME (Policy Research in Macroeconomics). Her most recent books are The Case for the Green New Deal (Verso, 2020) and The Production of Money (Verso, 2017). Known for her work on sovereign debt she previously led the highly successfully Jubilee 2000 campaign.

Meet the chair

Mary Kaldor is Emeritus Professor of Global Governance at the London School of Economics and Director of the Conflict Research Programme. Her most recent books are Global Security Cultures (Polity, 2018) and (with Saskia Sassen) Cities at War; Global Insecurity and Urban Resistance (Columbia University Press, 2020).

Event hashtag: #LSEAuthoritarianism

LSE IDEAS (@lseideas) is LSE's foreign policy think tank. Through sustained engagement with policymakers and opinion-formers, IDEAS provides a forum that informs policy debate and connects academic research with the practice of diplomacy and strategy.