10.21307_borderlands-2021-016.pdf (809.3 kB)
A dangerous text: Francis Fukuyama’s mischaracterisation of identity, recognition and right-wing nationalism
Version 2 2023-06-12, 09:29
Version 1 2023-06-09, 21:35
journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-12, 09:29 authored by Tarik KochiTarik KochiFrancis Fukuyama’s work on contemporary problems of identity and recognition portrays national and international liberalism as now under significant threat by the global rise of a reactionary and exclusionary identity politics. For Fukuyama contemporary identity politics, taking place as struggles for recognition and manifestations of resentment, are emerging as dangerous, illiberal forms of right-wing populist nationalism. In critiquing Fukuyama’s position I demonstrate how he appropriates the concepts of ‘identity’ and ‘recognition’ and puts these to use to sustain a version of neoliberal rationality and neoliberal politics. Such an appropriation denies the transformative and radical potential of intersubjective recognition and depoliticises and delegitimises any non-liberal claims and struggles of identity politics that might threaten to disrupt neoliberal political order, security and capitalist accumulation. Further, I argue that Fukuyama’s account of identity is dangerous in the way that it legitimises a right-wing nationalist discourse of blame targeted at the mischaracterisation of minority and left-wing ‘identity’ politics. His account is dangerous also in the manner that he detaches a contemporary extremist and right-wing nationalist discourse from the history of a less extreme, though very similar, neoliberal nationalist discourse which, since the 1980s, has mobilised the language of identity politics as a political strategy and weapon against progressive political movements and against the welfare state.
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Publication status
- Published
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- Published version
Journal
Borderlands e-JournalISSN
1447-0810Publisher
Anthony Burke University of Adelaide (Australia)External DOI
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2Volume
20Department affiliated with
- Law Publications
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- No
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- Yes
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2020-09-15First Open Access (FOA) Date
2022-07-05First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date
2020-09-15Usage metrics
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