Descripción del proyecto
Definición de las dos partes de la psique autoritaria
El resurgimiento del autoritarismo es un fenómeno mundial en aumento, pero que no se ha analizado desde un marco que combine factores materiales y rasgos psicológicos a fin de evitar ya sea el reduccionismo económico, o una explicación demasiado individualista. El proyecto financiado con fondos europeos PhantomAiD integrará estas dos dimensiones. Utilizará el término posesión fantasma para tender un puente entre los niveles material y psicológico, guiado por la lógica de la propiedad. En concreto, el proyecto mostrará cómo la autorización dual de la violencia implícita en la propiedad (el derecho a destruir y el derecho a defender la propiedad de uno) es el elemento que estructura la movilización autoritaria en torno a cuestiones como la inmigración, el aborto, el género y la política medioambiental. Es sobre esta base que los prejuicios actúan como mecanismos de defensa y de actitud defensiva (un rasgo que define las psiques autoritarias).
Objetivo
Authoritarian political forces are a growing global phenomenon. In critical theory, this is explained either through material factors, running the risk of economic reductionism, or through psychological traits, individualizing the matter in a problematic way. To date, no theoretical framework integrates the two dimensions in a consistent way, leading to deep rifts in political analysis.
The proposed research programme introduces the term phantom possession in order to bridge between the material and the psychological level. The notion of phantom possession allows the reconstruction of authoritarianism as driven by property logic. Conceptualised as a domain requiring control and defence, the phantasmatic entitlement becomes a reference point for authoritarian mobilization. Consequently, the subject of authoritarianism can be characterized as a phantom owner.
The full theory of the authoritarian personality as phantom owner consists of three components. The first is an account of the politics of phantom owners. As Hannah Arendt mentioned in her analysis of modern mass-politics, authoritarianism is destructive in a way prefigured by early modern property discourse. I analyse destructiveness as the core characteristic of authoritarian politics. The second component investigates the psychology of phantom owners. To understand the psychological basis of authoritarianism, I link the Frankfurt School approach of authoritarian character formation with newer trends in feminist object-relations theory. On this basis, prejudices can be understood as defensive mechanisms, and defensiveness as the defining feature of authoritarian psyches.
The third component implements my account. I show how the dual license to violence implied by property – the right to destroy and the right to aggressively defend one’s property – structures current authoritarian mobilization around such disparate domains as abortion, immigration, gender, and environmental politics.
Programa(s)
Régimen de financiación
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)Coordinador
37129 Verona
Italia