Preface

We are witnessing a worldwide resurgence of reactionary nationalist, religious, racist, and antifeminist ideologies and movements, as well as a rapid process of global de-democratization. Nevertheless, most studies remain tied to a methodological nationalism, while comparative research is almost exclusively limited to European countries and the USA. But authoritarian transformations in the Global South and the struggles against them have not only been at least as dramatic as in the North, they also often date back longer - and have been studied and theorized by Southern scholars for many years. This book brings together the work of 20 scholar-activists from the Global South who combine in-depth studies of national processes of the undermining of political systems with a global perspective that analyses the universal manifestations of authoritarian capitalism.