Contesting the Far Right: A Psychoanalytic and Feminist Critical Theory Approach

by Claudia Leeb

Why have so many people responded to the insecurity, exploitation, alienation, and isolation of precarity capitalism by supporting the far right? In this timely book, Claudia Leeb argues that psychoanalytic and feminist critical theory illuminates how economic and psychological factors interact to produce this extreme political shift.Contesting the Far Right examines right-wing recruitment tactics in the United States and Austria, where people discontented with the status quo have turned to far-right parties and movements that further cement capitalism’s adverse effects. Leeb contends that Freudian psychoanalytic theory and early Frankfurt School Critical Theory provide analytical tools to explain this apparent contradiction in psychological terms. Living under precarity capitalism generates feelings of failure and anxiety, which people experience as non-wholeness, because it has become difficult if not impossible to live up to the fetish of economic, interpersonal, and bodily success, and the far right preys on such feelings. Its psychologically oriented propaganda tactics produce the illusion of wholeness and a positive sense of self while leaving the socioeconomic conditions that cause people’s suffering intact. At the same time, they remove the inhibitions that keep people’s repressed aggression and racist and sexist attitudes in check. To demonstrate the workings of this process, Leeb compares cases including Trump and the alt-right in the United States and the Freedom Party and the identitarian movement in Austria. At once theoretically rich and politically engaged, this book also offers ways to resist the far right and counter the psychological appeal of its propaganda techniques.

336 pages, Paperback

Published April 23, 2024

About the author

Claudia Leeb is Assistant Professor in the School of Politics, Philosophy, and Public Affairs at Washington State University, as well as Research Affiliate at the Center for European Studies, Harvard University.

Reviews

[Zeyneb · Rating 1 out of 5]

Honestly, I was anticipating and excited for some really intense psychoanalytical stuff, but unfortunately, the author majorly relied on and zeroed in something called the “Frankfurt School Critical Theory,” (as she has stated herself) for the basis of the entirety of this work, which is disappointing.

But silly me. I should’ve paid attention to the synopsis and not just the title.

(Also worth pointing out is that she’s not a psychologist herself, as per her bio. So again, silly me)

So that’s why I dnf.