Anti-Statist Populisms: Finding Left-Right Common Ground and a Way Forward
Abstract
The authors examine how today’s “polycrisis” is fueling polarized, anti-statist populisms on the left and right while deepening distrust in institutions and enabling authoritarian neoliberalism. Arguing that overreliance on formal politics constrains effective responses, proposed is a radical-imagination thought experiment that searches for left–right common ground without collapsing into centrism. Drawing on abolitionist, anarchist, and feminist anti-statist traditions, criteria of radical imaginaries are outlined—values, organizing principles, and practices—that shift power, rebuild democratic engagement, and mend social fractures. Advanced are three strategies: reclaim the social from market rule, reorient welfare governance toward an ethic of care, and build dialectic solidarity.
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