Perfect Pretext: Populist Authoritarian Seizure of Pandemic Emergency Powers in India and the Philippines

Using Frankfurt School Critical Theory, we examine the political outcomes of how Asian populist authoritarian regimes seized the COVID-19 pandemic context for regime maintenance and power consolidation. The pandemic revealed interesting India-Philippines parallels highlighting three inter-connected...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of contemporary Asia Vol. 54; no. 4; pp. 616 - 642
Main Authors Angeles, Leonora C., Mehdi, Wajiha
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Abingdon Routledge 07.08.2024
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects
Authoritarianism
Corruption
COVID-19
COVID-19 pandemic
Critical theory
Dominance
Economic development
Economic growth
Economic inequality
Economic policy
Emergency powers
Frankfurt School
Ideological struggle
Liberalism
Mass media
nationalism
neo-liberalism
Neoliberalism
Pandemics
Political power
Populism
Power
Rent-seeking
Socioeconomic factors
India
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Summary:Using Frankfurt School Critical Theory, we examine the political outcomes of how Asian populist authoritarian regimes seized the COVID-19 pandemic context for regime maintenance and power consolidation. The pandemic revealed interesting India-Philippines parallels highlighting three inter-connected political-economic development patterns contextualising analogous state responses to COVID-19. First, how neo-liberal economic policies pursued through old and new technologies of domination accompanied phenomenal economic growth rates without addressing structural socio-economic inequalities. Second, how parallel predisposing conditions of failed political promises, increased rent-seeking opportunities, and corruption under constricted neo-liberal democracies, gave rise to populist authoritarian leaders. Third, how combined neo-liberalism and populist authoritarianism conditioned conflictual and contested government responses to the pandemic, bolstering power consolidation and regime maintenance, on the one hand, and ensuing political contestations on the other. Populist authoritarianism persists during pandemics through three significant connected elements of ideological domination propagated through mass media, the hetero-patriarchal family, and educational system.
ISSN:0047-2336
1752-7554
DOI:10.1080/00472336.2023.2245411