Conceptualising backlash politics: Introduction to a special issue on backlash politics in comparison
| Author | Karen J Alter,Michael Zürn |
| DOI | 10.1177/1369148120947958 |
| Published date | 01 November 2020 |
| Date | 01 November 2020 |
| Subject Matter | Symposium on Backlash Politics in Comparison |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1369148120947958
The British Journal of Politics and
International Relations
2020, Vol. 22(4) 563 –584
© The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/1369148120947958
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Conceptualising backlash
politics: Introduction to a
special issue on backlash
politics in comparison
Karen J Alter1 and Michael Zürn2,3
Abstract
Despite the widespread sense that backlash is an important feature of contemporary national
and world politics, there is remarkably little scholarly work on the politics of backlash. This
special issue conceptualises backlash politics as a distinct form of contentious politics. Backlash
politics includes the following three necessary elements: (1) a retrograde objective of returning
to a prior social condition, (2) extraordinary goals and tactics that challenge dominant scripts,
and (3) a threshold condition of entering mainstream public discourse. When backlash politics
combines with frequent companion accelerants – nostalgia, emotional appeals, taboo breaking
and institutional reshaping – the results can be unpredictable, contagious, transformative and
enduring. Contributions to this special issue engage this definition to advance our understanding
of backlash politics. The special issue’s conclusion draws insights about the causes and dynamics of
backlash politics that lead to the following three potential outcomes: a petering out of the politics,
the construction of new cleavages, or a retrograde transformation. Creating a distinct category
of backlash politics brings debates in American politics, comparative politics, and international
relations together with studies of specific topics, facilitating comparisons across time, space, and
issue areas and generating new questions that can hopefully promote lesson drawing.
Keywords
backlash politics, contestation, emotional politics, taboo breaking, nostalgia, public discourse, retrograde
Despite the widespread sense that backlash against globalisation and immigration are
important dynamics in contemporary national and world politics, there is remarkably lit-
tle scholarly work on the politics of backlash. Political pundits invoke the concept of
backlash, taking at face value that a protest or a rapidly mobilised counter-movement is
an important and direct negative response to a specific policy, decision or action that is
portrayed as having gone too far. For social scientists, this pundit’s version lacks validity
1Department of Political Science, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA
2Research Unit Global Governance, WZB Berlin Social Science Center, Berlin, Germany
3Department of Political Science, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Corresponding author:
Michael Zürn, WZB Berlin Social Science Center, Reichpietschufer 50, Berlin 10785, Germany.
Email: michael.zuern@wzb.eu
947958BPI0010.1177/1369148120947958The British Journal of Politics and International RelationsAlter and Zürn
research-article2020
Special Issue Article
564 The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 22(4)
since nearly identical changes may not lead to a mobilised backlash, in which case it is
hard to see the change as triggering a backlash. If mobilising in opposition to actions or
events is par for the course, then there is nothing particularly new, exceptional, or even
interesting about the causes and consequences of backlash politics. These critiques may
be correct, yet it is also true that the penchant for generalised patterns, specific terminol-
ogy, and careful causal reasoning has basically eliminated backlash as a phenomenon of
social science inquiry.
This symposium aims to correct the sublimation of backlash politics. While backlash
politics is surely a variant of contested politics, we argue that backlash politics is a par-
ticular and extraordinary variant worthy of special study not only because of its contem-
porary relevance, but also because it can instigate substantial change in societies and
political systems. Why do fights about a contained set of policies or issues – Obamacare,
the Euro, gay marriage – escalate into existential disagreements about what the larger
country or society represents or values? Why do some political disagreements – about
assault rifles, immigration rules, religious exemptions from military service – mutate,
escalate, and jump to locations that lack a triggering catalyst? The combination that is
backlash politics – retrograde objectives, extraordinary goals and tactics, and the thresh-
old of entering mainstream public discourse – explains these phenomena. When backlash
politics components combine with frequent companion accelerants – nostalgia, emotional
appeals, taboo breaking, and institutional reshaping – the results can be unpredictable and
transformative.
This special issue names, describes, and theorises about backlash politics to generate a
new agenda for scholarly inquiry, one that spans traditional political science subfields and
levels of analysis (policy, issue area, locality, state or international level). Our primary
concern in this article is to define the dynamics of backlash politics in a way that is con-
ceptually distinct and that allows for comparisons across time, space, and political arenas.
To be a concept with its own value added, backlash politics needs to be more than a coun-
ter-reaction to a specific set of circumstances; it must be a politics with its own specific
dynamics that work in similar ways, following its own logics, across different contexts.
Part 1 defines the following three necessary elements of our backlash politics defini-
tion: a (1) retrograde objective as well as (2) extraordinary goals and tactics that have (3)
reached the threshold level of entering mainstream public discourse. Backlash move-
ments are the actors mobilised around achieving retrograde goals. We then identify fre-
quent companions that often arise because of the necessary features in our definition, and
that when present, add dynamics to backlash politics. The retrograde objectives often
generate emotional appeals, including nostalgia and negative sentiments such as anger
and resentment. Extraordinary objectives often inspire taboo breaking to underscore the
extraordinary nature of the claims. Reaching the threshold level of entering mainstream
public discourse often leads to the reshaping of institutions through formal means (e.g.
rewriting policies and processes to alter future trajectories of politics) or informally
(repurposing and reinterpreting existing rules and processes). The intensifying presence
of these frequent companions may contribute to more significant, enduring, and far-
reaching effects and outcomes.
Part 2 starts to develop an analytical framework to help understand the outbreak of
backlash politics and divergent outcomes. We review existing arguments about causes
and triggers, and identify three ways backlash politics eventually ends: (1) no change:
backlash politics can be repressed and it can peter out; (2) fundamental change in the
form of new cleavages, factions, or dominant scripts that incorporate backlash move-
ments and objectives into ordinary politics, or (3) social reversion: backlash politics can
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