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book: Critical Theory and the Authoritarian Personality
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Critical Theory and the Authoritarian Personality

  • Geoff M. Boucher
Language: English
Published/Copyright: 2025
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About this book

Analyses the resurgence of the radical Right and the psychodynamic basis of authoritarian politics

  • Updates the thinking of Theodor Adorno in light of the work of Slavoj Zizek
  • Presents a psychoanalytic theory of authoritarian propaganda
  • Explores authoritarian dystopias as templates for terrorism
The worldwide resurgence of authoritarianism has sparked renewed interest in the Frankfurt School theory of the authoritarian personality, not as a topic of academic debate but as an urgent political factor. Critical Theory and the Authoritarian Personality brings Theodor Adorno’s critique up-to-date in light of new forms of authoritarian politics, recent kinds of authoritarian propaganda and current findings about authoritarian personalities. Drawing on the work of Slavoj Zizek and the psychoanalysis of Jacques Lacan, this is the first sustained application of psychoanalytic theory to the problem of the authoritarian personality since the classical work of the Frankfurt School. It explores a pressing problem—the resurgence of the radical Right—and proposes new solutions, grounded in the idea of an affective approach to authoritarian politics as something based on transgressive fantasies and political anxieties. Throughout, the book illustrates its theoretical claims with reference to new kinds of authoritarian literature, which today forms an important part of right-wing propaganda.

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    Frontmatter

    i
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    CONTENTS

    v
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    LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES

    vi
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    PREFACE

    vii
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    ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

    xiii
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    Introduction—Adorno Today: The Authoritarian Personality, Rightwing Populism, and the Subversion of Democracy

    1
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    1 QAnon: Dark Fantasy and the Authoritarian Personality

    34
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    2 The Classical Theory of the Authoritarian Personality

    65
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    3 A Lacanian Interpretation of the Authoritarian Personality

    93
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    4 White Pride and the Next Holocaust: The Camp of the Saints

    121
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    5 Rightwing Survivalism and the Authoritarian Personality

    145
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    6 Neofascism: The Vortex of Destructiveness

    175
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    7 Authoritarian Insurgencies: Scenarios for a Second Civil War

    204
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    Selected Bibliography

    234
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    Index

    241

Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
February 5, 2025
eBook ISBN:
9781399502160
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
Main content:
254
https://doi.org/10.1515/9781399502160
eBook ISBN: 9781399502160
Keywords for this book
Politics
Audience(s) for this book
For universities and colleges of further and higher education
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