Peronism, populism, cultural studies...

[Jon Beasley-Murray <jpb8@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

From way back I've occasionally been mentioning my interest in Peronism, 
populism etc.

Anyhow, I wrote a little thing about these topics--centered around the 
question of what's wrong with cultural studies, and looking in 
particular at Laclau--and this is now available from the l*st's web site.

Below I will excerpt a bit from the intro and conclusion.

Take care

Jon

Jon Beasley-Murray
Literature Program
Duke University
jpb8@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/~spoons
---------------------------------------------
     Peronism and the Secret History of Cultural Studies

     I  want  to  argue  that at the heart  of  British
     cultural  studies--and  also  impinging  upon  the
     cognate fields of communication and media studies-
     -there  is the populist sentiment. . . .  Although
     the  cultural studies approach considered here  is
     not wholly encompassed by populism, a non-populist
     cultural studies is very nearly a contradiction in
     terms:  it  is  an academic game  which  might  do
     better    calling    itself    something     else.
     (McGuigan 13)

      If it is true, as Jim McGuigan argues, not only that a
non-populist  cultural  studies is almost  unimaginable  but
also  that  "the  field  of study [of cultural  studies]  is
unintelligible without recognition of its populist impulses"
(32),  then  it  is probably also true to say that  cultural
studies  remains  for  the most part unintelligible  to  the
majority of its interpreters, who have--studiously, it might
appear--averted  their  gaze from this  necessary  populism.
Moreover,  and more importantly, to turn to the question  of
populism  in its relation to cultural studies is  more  than
merely  a  move  to  understand an  academic  movement  that
happens to be currently in vogue, but might also be a matter
of  investigating  the structure of the political  field  in
general.    For  while  cultural  studies  has  become   the
bandwagon  for a particular sector of intellectuals  looking
to  reinvent  a certain image of the left, oppositional  and
engaged,  its  populist inclinations would  seem,  at  first
glance  at  least,  to  afford it little  critical  purchase
against  a  dominant  new  right  whose  defining  trait  is
precisely  a rejuvenated populism.  British and  US  society
over  the  past  twenty  years  have  been  marked  by   the
achievements  and legacy of both Ronald Reagan and  (perhaps
especially)  Margaret  Thatcher  who  redefined   not   only
conservative politics but also the framework or orthodoxy of
the   political  field  as  a  whole.   This  they  did   by
successfully appealing to skilled manual labor and the petit
bourgeoisie  and  thus establishing an  interclass  populist
alliance  scornful of establishment orthodoxies, which  were
painted   as   the  residue  of  a  hegemonic   post-sixties
liberalism  and which were to be replaced by an aggressively
anti-statist  rhetoric of neoliberalism.   My  aim  in  this
paper  is  to  examine Latin American populism--specifically
the experience of Peronism in Argentina--and thereby also to
engage with cultural studies, not only suggesting resonances
between  this  academic  field and political  populism,  but
further looking at the importance of Ernesto Laclau's theory
of  populism  (for  which Peronism is the  prime  object  of
analysis)  as  a  model and theoretical  influence  for  the
project  of cultural studies as a whole.  It is through  the
apparent  detour  of Peronism that I hope to  construct  the
secret (unheralded, unofficial) history of cultural studies.
      The problem and challenge for cultural studies, if  it
is  to  engage  with the new state of social  and  political
discourse  (and policies and actions, such as the  reduction
of   the  welfare  system,  the  privatization  of  national
utilities and increased aggression in prison and immigration
policies)  is  for it to produce a theory  and  critique  of
populism in general--rather than micro-sociological analysis
of  subaltern resistances or piecemeal reaction to  specific
discourses of sexism, racism or homophobia etc.  I  want  to
argue  that  cultural  studies has only very  intermittently
faced  this  problem or even approached this  challenge,  in
large  part because any theory of populism has been  blocked
by cultural studies' own populist impulses.  If the impulse,
or  "desire"  as Fredric Jameson puts it (17),  of  cultural
studies is to construct a counterpopulism, a counterhegemony-
-for Jameson, "some vast Popular Front or populist carnival"
(50)--it  should  perhaps  look  more  attentively  to   its
populist context, to its own shared presuppositions with the
right's  populist  project, and to its own  theoretical  and
practical  means  of differentiating its  left  project  for
popular  hegemony.   While it may be allowed  that  not  all
populist  projects  are equal--and thus the  description  of
cultural  studies  as populist need not  be  a  slur  or  an
accusation--it  should  equally  not  be  assumed  that  the
overlap  or  continuity between right populism and  cultural
studies is insignificant.  For cultural studies to produce a
theory  of  populism will not be possible without  a  detour
through the Latin American periphery--though this may  prove
to  be less a detour than a belated examination, via Laclau,
of  a  founding  moment of cultural studies itself.   If  it
should  happen, that those who presently engage in  cultural
studies  do  indeed  wish  to  dissociate  themselves   from
populism, they may well have to think seriously, as McGuigan
suggests,  of abandoning the project of cultural studies  as
it is presently constituted.

[snip snip snip]
  
      Thus though many have criticized Laclau and Mouffe for
their  apparent abandonment of class and thus equally  their
move  from  the  priority  of the economic--such  criticisms
being  usually  leveled by Marxists against  this  unabashed
post-Marxism--this  seems  to be  the  wrong  direction  for
critique,  not  least because the fundamental  problem  with
Laclau's  position appears equally in his  earlier  work  on
populism, which does indeed argue for the priority of  class
and  the  fundamental  importance  of  the  economic  level.
Therefore, of the two absences Bocock highlights in the work
of  Laclau  and Mouffe, I would underline the importance  of
the second:
     
     There  are  two material practices, in particular,
     which  were  important in many  forms  of  Marxism
     including  that of Gramsci, and which are  present
     also  in Weber, but which are missing from  Laclau
     and  Mouffe's analysis.  These are money, the cash
     nexus  .  .  . and the coercive practices  of  the
     state.                                  (108)3
     
Moreover,  if  hegemony is the concept that  links  Gramsci,
Laclau  and  cultural studies, perhaps the  concept  of  the
state is what separates these theoretical movements.  For if
Gramsci's  turn  from  political  to  civil  society   (from
advocating  a  frontal  war  of  maneuver  to  theorizing  a
hegemonic   war   of  position)  comes  from   a   strategic
calculation, in Laclau such a turn is the result rather,  as
I  hope  to  have shown, of a rhetorical sleight of  hand--a
sleight  of  hand  that is characteristic of  populism,  and
nowadays  equally  characteristic of  cultural  studies,  at
least  in  those instances of cultural studies in which  the
concept  of  the  state  is not merely  discarded  from  the
outset,  as beyond a horizon of intelligibility already  set
by cultural studies' pre-existing populism.
      Finally,  then,  I  want to suggest that  populism--as
exemplified  by Peronism and as theorized on that  basis  by
Laclau--entails  and  is  defined by  a  systematic  set  of
substitutions.  For example, it substitutes  the  moral  for
the  ideological--as Peter Wiles points  out,  it  "is  more
moralistic  than programmatic . . . it valorizes less  logic
and  effectivity  than  the correct attitude  and  spiritual
character" (qtd. Torres Ballesteros 171).  More importantly,
however,  it  presents  hegemony  as  the  replacement   for
politics  on  other levels--for example the  structural  and
organizational--and as such presents the  expansion  of  the
state  as the increasing openness of civil society.   In  an
article  tracing  various Marxist  theories  of  the  state,
Laclau himself equivocates precisely on this point.  On  the
one  hand he notes this increasing permeation of the  social
by  the  state:  "the form of the state  defines  the  basic
articulations of a society and not solely the limited  field
of  a  political  superstructure"  ("Teor?as  Marxistas  del
Estado"   54);  however,  and  immediately  following   this
recognition,  he  disavows  it by claiming  that  "political
struggle  has passed now to extend to the totality of  civil
society"  (54).  This, however, is precisely the  repetition
of  the  populist  substitution.   So  long,  therefore,  as
political  analysis  remains  confined  to  the  theory   of
hegemony--as  is  cultural  studies--then  it  will   remain
confined  to  a logic of populism that is unable  either  to
differentiate  itself from the dominant  political  mode  of
rightwing  populism or to recognize the transformations  and
substitutions  that  political  mode  demands  and  entails.
Rather,  then, than examining the articulations  within  the
field  of civil society--a field that may indeed, one  might
suggest  with Michael Hardt, be withering away,  a  movement
that  again, perhaps, with populism begins in the  periphery
rather  than the metropolis--one might do better to  examine
the  organizational features of culture and  state,  to  re-
emphasize their difference rather than their similarity;  or
rather--and against cultural studies--again to see the state
as that which has to be explained.



     --- from list marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---