A Book, A Look: The Emotional Worlds Behind the Global Rise of Right-Wing Mass Movements – Alejandro Grimson
“Why do people vote against their own interests?”
At first glance, the question seems to suggest a simple answer: Perhaps people are poorly informed, allow themselves to be deceived, or simply act irrationally. But what if people are not actually voting against their own interests? What if, instead, we simply do not know enough about which interests, experiences, and ideas are truly decisive for them? With this seemingly simple yet far-reaching shift in perspective, Alejandro Grimson opens up the complex issue of the growing electorate of the far right and thereby touches upon a nerve of our contemporary political society.
In the Spanish publication Los paisajes emocionales de las ultraderechas masivas ¿La gente vota contra sus intereses? (German: Die emotionalen Landschaften der extremen Rechten), which was recently published in German translation by Bielefeld University Press, the Argentine professor and anthropologist turns his attention to the worldwide rise of far-right and radical-right mass movements. His analysis extends to the most recent developments up to 2024 and takes us from Argentina to the United States and Europe, ultimately leading to fundamental questions about how political reality is actually perceived, interpreted, and emotionally processed in different societies.
While this subject has already been examined extensively from a wide range of academic perspectives, Grimson introduces an anthropological approach directed against the standardization of political condemnation. At the core of his argument lies, above all, one indispensable necessity: a shift in perspective. Rather than prematurely viewing the voting behaviour of right-wing voters as irrational, uninformed, or directed against their own interests, Grimson instead examines: What do people vote for? Why does this political decision appear meaningful to them from their own perspective? What experiences, perceptions, emotions, and processes of meaning-making lie behind their political decisions? And: Are people actually voting against their own interests?
“We must understand what we reject.” This sentence becomes a central principle of the book. Here, understanding does not mean endorsing political positions on the far right. Rather, it means examining the concrete conditions under which certain political interpretations become plausible and capable of mobilizing voters in the first place and to not simply reject their examination.
A central aspect of his analysis is the book’s titular concept of emotional landscapes. The anthropologist understands this as a specific historical constellation in which emotions, perceptions, and forms of meaning-making are interconnected. He describes a combination of anger, resentment, fear, and disappointed nostalgia. In this context, Grimson examines the conditions under which these circumstances can easily develop into political mass movements. In a present characterized by uncertainty, political movements that offer simple explanations, clear culprits, and distinct forms of belonging can develop a particular appeal.
But how are these underlying conditions specifically exploited by radical-right politics, and how does society respond to them? Grimson explains: The failure of established parties to address social hardship can erode trust in democracy and open up space for authoritarian alternatives. The far-right channels this dissatisfaction by narrowing the boundaries of the demos (nativism, xenophobia, aporophobia) and intensifying social polarization. Grimson places particular emphasis on the shift between vertical and horizontal perceptions of injustice within society: While political mobilization has traditionally often focused on the opposition between the “ones up there” and “us”, perceived injustices between social groups on the same level are increasingly moving to the forefront. Therefore, questions of social distribution simultaneously become questions of belonging, recognition, and status.
According to Grimson, the observable global rise of the far right, examined in detail through the rise to power of Javier Milei in Argentina, Donald Trump in the United States, Giorgia Meloni in Italy, and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, may be understood as an expression of a long-term cultural transformation of political circumstances worldwide.
How can this development be effectively countered? Central to his argument is the affective turn. Grimson does not understand emotions as the opposite of rational political action. Rather, affect and rationality are interconnected: “There is no politics without the circulation of affects. There is not even reason or rationality without affectivity.” His focus therefore turns to an aspect of political decision-making that has often received less attention in classical economic or rational-choice-oriented explanations: the emotional perception of social reality. From this perspective, emotions in political opinion formation should not necessarily be regarded negatively; rather, they are omnipresent: “If the far right has succeeded…in mobilizing the anti-system passions of millions of people… it is because these feelings exist.” From this perspective, the task of a democratic society is first and foremost to genuinely understand these feelings and the conditions in which they emerge.
Perhaps the initial question therefore needs to be reformulated: Not Why do people vote against their own interests?, but rather Which interests do they perceive as their own, what emotions are they experiencing, and why does a particular political response appear plausible to them? This is precisely where the core of Grimson’s detailed, approximately 200-page publication lies. His combination of current empirical research and anthropological theory makes the publication particularly interesting for readers who wish to engage more deeply with significant contemporary political changes, especially the dramatic increase in right-wing electorates and the emotions associated with them.
Alejandro Grimson is Professor of Contemporary Anthropological Theories at the Universidad Nacional de San Martín and Principal Investigator at Argentina’s National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET). At the Universidad Nacional de San Martín, he heads the doctoral program in Social Anthropology and serves as head of the Doctoral College. From 2005 to 2014, he was Dean of the Instituto de Altos Estudios Sociales (IDAES) at UNSAM.
Grimson has received numerous awards for his academic work. In 2012, he received the Latin American Studies Association award for the best Ibero-American book for Los límites de la Cultura. He has also received the FELAFACS award for the best dissertation in Communication Studies and the Bernardo Houssay Award for outstanding scientific achievements. From 2017 to 2020, Grimson served as Regional Director of CALAS for the Southern Cone and Brazil. He was subsequently appointed as a presidential advisor under the government of Alberto Fernández.
Author: Jennifer Nüchter