The Challenge of Right-wing Nationalist Populism for Social Work: A Human Rights Approach 9780367174019, 9780429056536

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The Challenge of Right-wing Nationalist Populism for Social Work

Right-wing nationalist populism poses direct attacks on social tolerance, human rights discourse, political debates, the survival of the welfare state and its universal services, impacting on the roles of social work. This book demonstrates how right-wing nationalist populism can and must be countered. Using case studies from around the world, this book shows how a revitalised radical social work involving community organisation, building alliances, trade union commitment and social action can be used as a political force to speak up against discrimination and hate in accordance with human rights, social justice, and social work values. The rise of national populism signals that now is the time for social work to forge and reforge such networks, and create links with civil society and challenge right-wing populist policies wherever they manifest themselves. It will be of interest to all social work students, practitioners and academics, particularly those working on critical and radical social work, green social work, anti-oppressive practice and community development. Carolyn Noble is Former Associate Dean and Foundation Professor of Social Work at ACAP in Sydney and Emertia Professor of Social Work at Victoria University, Melbourne. She is author and co-author of several books and many chapters and peer-reviewed articles. Her research interests include social work theory, philosophy and ethics, work-based learning, professional supervision and gender justice. She is editor-in-chief of open access social issues magazines for IASSW. www.socialdialogue.online. Goetz Ottmann is Associate Professor of Social Work at the Australian College of Applied Psychology in Sydney. He has published extensively on a range of topics including the construction of citizenship in countries within the context of under-developed welfare states, and the impact of participatory budgeting and policy making on the development of effective welfare services. He has published three books and numerous peer-reviewed articles and book chapters.

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The Challenge of Right-wing Nationalist Populism for Social Work A Human Rights Approach Edited by Carolyn Noble and Goetz Ottmann

First published 2021 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 selection and editorial matter, Carolyn Noble and Goetz Ottmann; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Carolyn Noble and Goetz Ottmann to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: 978-0-367-17401-9 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-05653-6 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Taylor & Francis Books

Contents

List of figures List of contributors Acknowledgements 1 Right-wing nationalist populism and social work: Some definitions and features

vii viii xiii

1

CAROLYN NOBLE AND GOETZ OTTMANN

2 Social work, modernity and right-wing nationalist populism

15

JIM IFE

3 White fragility, populism, xenophobia and late neoliberalism

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DONNA BAINES AND VIRIGINA MAPEDZAHAMA

4 A radical tradition of community development responses to right-wing populism

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PETER WESTOBY

5 The rise of angry white men: Resisting populist masculinity and the backlash against gender equality

55

BOB PEASE

6 Right-wing populism and a feminist social work response

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CAROLYN NOBLE

7 The multifaceted challenges of new right-wing populism to social work: The profession’s swansong or the rebirth of activism?

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LUCA FAZZI AND URBAN NOTHDURFTER

8 ‘A roar of defiance against the elites’: Brexit, populism and social work IAIN FERGUSON

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Contents

9 Integration in the age of populism: Highlighting key terms in the context of refugee resettlement in the United States

111

CAREN J. FROST, KWYNN M. GONZALEZ-PONS AND LISA H. GREN

10 Citizenship, populism and social work in the Finnish welfare state

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KATI TURTIAINEN AND TUOMO KOKKONEN

11 Surveillance, sanctions, and behaviour modification in the name of far-right nationalism: The rise of authoritarian ‘welfare’ in Australia

135

GOETZ OTTMANN

12 Is welfare chauvinism evident in Australia?: Examining right-wing populist views towards Muslim refugees and Indigenous Australians

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TEGAN EDWARDS, PHILIP MENDES AND CATHERINE FLYNN

13 Resisting the rise of right-wing populism: European social work examples

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JANET ANAND, STEFAN BORRMANN AND CHAITALI DAS

14 Social workers partnering with populism

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SUSIE LATHAM AND LINDA BRISKMAN

15 ‘They live like animals’: Migrants, Roma and nationalist populism

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EVA KOUROVA AND STEPHEN A. WEBB

16 Ga ngaandu gimubi-li yalagiirrma: (To whom it may concern)

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MARCUS WOOLOMBI WATERS

Index

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Figures

9.1 Connected integration indicators by length of resettlement

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Contributors

Janet Carter Anand is Professor of International Social Work, University of Eastern Finland, and has previously worked at the University of Tasmania, Australia, The Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland, and Trinity College Dublin, Republic of Ireland. She has researched and published on the topics of quality of life and forced migration, critical cultural competence and global mindedness in social work practice. Professor Anand currently leads a research team on international migration, inclusion and justice, and coordinates a UEF summer school course on International Migration Studies and Youth, Child and Family Welfare. Donna Baines is Director and Professor of the School of Social Work, University of British Columbia, Canada. Her research focuses on anti-oppressive theory and practice, paid and unpaid care work, and race, class and gender in everyday practice. Stefan Borrmann is Professor for International Social Work Research, and Dean of the Faculty of Social Work at the University of Applied Sciences Landshut, Germany. He has researched and published on the topics of Theories of Social Work, International Social Work, Professional Youth Work, and Right-Wing Populism. He is a board member of the German Association of Social Workers (DGSA) and head of their section on theories of social work Linda Briskman holds the Margaret Whitlam Chair of Social Work at Western Sydney University. She is an activist scholar and conducts research, writes and advocates for the human rights of Indigenous peoples and asylum seekers. More recently she has been engaged with challenging the Islamophobic world in collaboration with Muslim organisations. Chaitali Das currently coordinates a project that aims to facilitate communication across disciplines at Philipps University, Marburg, Germany. She trained as a social worker in India and completed her Ph.D. at Royal Holloway, University of London. She later worked as a lecturer in Social Work at Queens University, Belfast in Northern Ireland. She has worked in various social work projects as well as taught in social work programmes

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in India, England, Northern Ireland and Germany. Her research interests are social work with minoritised communities, critical cultural competence and international social work. Tegan Edwards graduated from Monash University with a B.A. Hons in Social Work, where she majored in Human Rights and completed an honours thesis examining welfare chauvinism within Australian far-right politics. Tegan began her career as a Youth Justice case manager, working with Victorian Children’s Courts to support vulnerable young people involved in the criminal justice system. She has spent time overseas, teaching workshops with social work practitioners in Cambodia. Tegan currently practises as a hospital social worker at Peninsula Health, and assists Monash University on a research project examining the impacts of compulsory income management on welfare recipients. Luca Fazzi is Professor of Social Work at the University of Trento, Italy. His research interests include social work, voluntary action, and nonprofit organizations. He is the Director of a Master’s programme in Management of Social Enterprises and coordinates the Graduate Course of Social Work at the University of Trento. He has written and co-edited numerous books and papers on social work education, social work and social policies, and non-profit and social enterprises. Iain Ferguson is Honorary Professor of Social Work and Social Policy at the University of the West of Scotland. Before moving into social work education, Iain worked for many years as a social worker and community worker in Glasgow. Catherine Flynn is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Social Work at Monash University, Australia. Her core research areas include the intersection of criminal justice and social work, international collaborations, and international social work. She has a keen interest in understanding and addressing the wider and unintended consequences of criminal justice and other policies. Caren J. Frost is Director of the Center for Research on Migration and Refugee Integration for the University of Utah and a Research Professor at the University of Utah’s College of Social Work. She chairs the Refugee Women’s Committee for Utah and works with refugee women’s groups to identify speakers and topics for workshops on women’s health. She is a qualitative researcher with expertise in ethnography and phenomenology. Kwynn Gonzalez-Pons is a Social Work Ph.D. student at the University of Utah, studying the intersections of gender-based violence, technology, and health. She holds a Master of Public Health from the University of North Texas Health Science Center, and a Bachelor of Business Management from McNeese State University. Prior to pursuing her Ph.D., Kwynn worked with survivors of intimate partner violence as a health advocate on a grant-funded project supported by the Office of Women’s Health.

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List of contributors

Lisa Gren is the Associate Director for the Center for Research on Migration and Refugee Integration at the University of Utah. Her research relates to measuring the integration experience of incoming populations and assessing relationships among integration and associated health and social constructs. Jim Ife is Professor of Social Work at Western Sydney University. He was formerly Professor of Social Work at the University of Western Australia and at Curtin University, where he was also inaugural Handa Professor of Human Rights Education. He has been active in various community organisations concerned with human rights and social justice. Tuomo Kokkonen is a teacher at the University of Jyväskylä, Kokkola University Consortium Chydenius, Finland. His current research interests are citizenship, social rights, participation, structural social work, activation policies and politics of social work. He has also published research concerning the welfare state, social policy and social theory. He is also an expert in conceptual analysis of political discourse. His teaching comprises courses in social problems, social services and structural social work. Eva Kourova is a doctoral student at Glasgow Caledonian University, Scotland. Her research is interdisciplinary and examines possibilities for development in the governance of Roma people in Glasgow. Her interest in researching the field of alternative Roma governance stems from her 10-years’ work experience with the Roma community in Glasgow where she experienced various equivocal forms of engagement with this disadvantaged community. Her Ph. D. aspires to address some of the current problematics of engagement with the Roma people in the locality. Susie Latham is an Adjunct Postdoctoral Fellow at Curtin University, an executive member of the Australian Association of Islamic and Muslim studies and the co-founder of Voices against Bigotry. Her Ph.D. research was on challenging Western stereotypes of Muslim women. Susie has published articles about Islamophobia in academic journals and mainstream media outlets. Virigina Mapedzahama has years of researching diversity, difference and social cohesion – in particular, lived experiences of diversity in Australia. Her research focuses on understanding the social construction of all categories of difference. She explores this interest in the context of subjective experiences of migration, diaspora, blackness, race, racism and ethnicity, sexuality and gendered violence. Her expertise includes the new African diaspora in Australia, race and ethnicity, cross-cultural identities, black subjectivities, hybridity, African feminisms, the African women diaspora and intersectionality. Philip Mendes teaches social policy and community development, and is Director of the Social Inclusion and Social Policy Research Unit (SISPRU)

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in the Department of Social Work at Monash University, Victoria, Australia. He is the author or co-author of 12 books. He recently won the Monash University Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences Dean’s Award for Excellence in Research Impact (Economic and Social Impact). Carolyn Noble is Former Associate Dean and Foundation Professor of Social Work at the Australian College of Applied Psychology in Sydney and Emertia Professor of Social Work at Victoria University, Melbourne. She is author and co-author of several books and many book chapters and peer-reviewed articles. Her research interests include social work theory, philosophy and ethics, work-based learning, professional supervision and gender justice. She is editor-in-chief of open access social issues magazines for IASSW. Urban Nothdurfter is an Assistant Professor of Social Work at the Free University of Bozen/Bolzano (Italy). He is a qualified social worker and holds a Ph.D. in Sociology and Social Research from the University of Trento. His research interests focus on the connections between social policy development and social work practice, on social work history and professionalisation, on LGBTQ+ issues, and on populism and social work. Goetz Ottmann is Associate Professor of Social Work at the Australian College of Applied Psychology in Sydney. He has published extensively on a range of topics including the construction of citizenship in countries within the context of under-developed welfare states and the impact of participatory budgeting and policy making on the development of effective welfare services. He has published three books and numerous peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. Bob Pease is Adjunct Professor in the Institute for the Study of Social Change at the University of Tasmania, and Honorary Professor in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Deakin University. He has published extensively on masculinity politics and critical social work practice, including four books as single author and fourteen books as co-editor, as well as numerous book chapters and journal articles. Kati Turtiainen is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Jyväskylä, Kokkola University Consortium Chydenius, Finland. Her research interests include forced migration studies, refugee resettlement, welfare services for migrants, multicultural social work and recognition of forced migrants. She has recently co-authored (with Johanna Hiitola, Sabine Gruber and Marja Tiilikainen) an edited volume: Family Life in Transition: Borders, Transnational Mobility and Welfare Society in Nordic Countries (2020, Routledge). Stephen A. Webb is Professor of Social Work at Glasgow Caledonian University, Scotland. He was recently awarded the prestigious Fellowship of the Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS) an award granted to leading academics of the social sciences. His work focuses on social theory and social work, the politics of social work, issues of professional identity,

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List of contributors evidence-based practice and biopolitical theory and critical social work. Stephen has published several highly cited books in social work and edited three major international reference works. His books have been translated in Polish, Dutch and Japanese.

Peter Westoby is an Associate Professor in Social Science and Community Development at the School of Public Health and Social Work, Queensland University of Technology (QUT), and a Visiting Professor at the Centre for Development Support, University of Free State, South Africa. He teaches and researches on community and social development theory and practice, dialogue studies and forced migration studies. He has published more than 10 books and over 40 professional journal articles. Recent works include Dialogical Community Development (2013, Routledge) and Soul, Community and Social Change (2016, Ashgate/Routledge). Marcus Woolombi Waters is a Kamilaroi language speaker and writer. He is a published playwright, screenwriter, journalist and academic at Griffith University, Queensland. Dr Waters was named Australian Multicultural and Indigenous Journalist of the Year in 2014. He writes a regular column for the Koori Mail and has published articles in the Guardian and the Sydney Morning Herald.

Acknowledgements

As non-indigenous editors, we acknowledge the Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander peoples, the first Australians, and pay our respect to their unique values and their continuing and enduring cultures which deepen and enrich the life of our nation and communities. We commit to acknowledge and understand the radical dispossession experienced by Indigenous peoples and the implication of this for social work practice. We thank all our contributors, for without their work this manuscript would not have come to fruition. We thank their passion and enthusiasm for this project. We also thank them for their prompt replies to the various queries, edits and re-writes encountered along the way. Thank you goes to Bicky Winkler for her help with editing the chapters and offering suggestions to us all for making our argument clearer and our grammar and phrasing consistent and readable. Thank you to Claire Jarvis at Routledge for her initial support for this manuscript, and to Catherine Jones for her assistance in its preparation and for her continued support throughout the editing and publication process. Working with so many contributors and stumbling upon unexpected hurdles and pitfalls linked to getting an edited book together with international colleagues and shifting timelines was a challenging and ultimately rewarding experience for the editors. We are grateful for the knowledge and experience we gained along the way that helped consolidate a mutually rewarding and productive working relationship. The rise of right-wing nationalist populism has highlighted the many challenges for social work, including the rights of ethnic and cultural minorities and women, and a commitment to a democratic society, social justice and human rights. We hope the chapters in this book will ignite your anger and activism, and in reclaiming the Aboriginal language and the world view of our First Nation Peoples we leave the last word to Marcus Waters, a Kamilaroi First Nation Australian Aboriginal and one of our authors: Barra! nhama gamil-baa ga-gi-gi garaydhalibaa … yalagiirrmaa-baa gaga-li … !!! (People! it’s not time to be silent … but time to scream … !!!) Carolyn Noble Goetz Ottmann

1

Right-wing nationalist populism and social work Some definitions and features Carolyn Noble and Goetz Ottmann

Introduction The rise of nationalist right-wing populism is intertwined with a neo-conservative reconstruction of citizenship in racial, ethnic and moralistic terms. This, in turn, redefines who has access to social services and under what conditions. For social workers, this generates a massive challenge. If access to social services is no longer guided by needs, rights and social justice and, instead, by ethnicity, social status and economic virtue, social work no longer exists – at least not as a social critical, human rights-based profession. Thus, if neo-conservative forces in politics and society have their way, social work will be reshaped by its wider context, transforming social workers into agents of the state, social controllers, and supervisors of thresholds that demark the limits of compliance with rules devised by an increasingly authoritarian politics. Human rights-based social workers will be forced into the margins, where they might take on the roles of lobbyists, advocates, and activists of a fragmented civil society. Nationalist right-wing populism embodies the next step in the culture wars and the neo-conservative reactions that followed the hegemony of social-democratic welfare after World War II and its liberalisation after 1968. It is the neo-conservatives’ response to the political failure of globalised neo-liberalism and technocratic statism and its short-term ‘solutions’ that barely survive a political cycle (de Sousa Santos, 2014) that translated into the current political crisis of neo-liberal social democracy (Foa & Mounk, 2016; Voss, Daugherty Bailey, Ife, & Kötting, 2018). It is fuelled by a fragmented, yet polarised electorate whose unmet demands are amplified by social media and widespread frustration in the face of cultural change and downward social mobility in the post-industrial economies of the Global North (Touraine, 1997). To be sure, the current culture wars are central to social work as their outcomes will define the profession. The aim of this volume is to bring to light the impact of right-wing, nationalist populist politics on social work and to reflect on possible responses to the corrosive forces that transform rights-based social services and, by extension, the foundation of modern social work.

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What is populism? Populism and democratic politics are intimately intertwined (see also Fitzi, 2019). Rhetoric and strategies devised to generate mass support often contain populist elements (Weyland, 2001). Because politics occurs in different sociohistorical and cultural contexts, populism can take many guises and it is difficult to settle on one specific definition. Some popular definitions focus on political style (e.g. rhetoric) (Laclau, 2005), some on political strategy (e.g. policy choices, forms of mobilisation) (Weyland, 2001), and others on political ideology (a tapestry of ideas about the nature of society and politics) (Mudde, 2016). Among the currently more popular authors on right-wing populism, Mudde (2004; 2007) argues that populism is a ‘thin’ ideology that merely sets up a binary framework, e.g. ‘pure’ versus ‘corrupt’ to which one can attach all sorts of ‘thick’ ideologies such as socialism, liberalism, nationalism, imperialism, anti-imperialism, feminism, fascism and all sorts of individuals, organisations and transactions to explain the world and justify specific agendas. Linked to a charismatic leadership, populism can accommodate a broad range of actors and groups, often referred to as ‘followers’ or ‘support base’, sometimes linking previously opposed groups in a common cause, aggregating their different demands and concerns into one rallying cry, e.g. ‘stop the boats’, or ‘build a wall’ (Noble & Ottmann, 2018). These leaders build popular support by spinning false explanations and symbolic solutions that fail to address genuine social ills (Roth, 2016). Peoples’ hopes and expectations for betterment, for dignity and a better future are stirred by the sheer ‘will to power’ and the rhetoric of nationalist leaders and the governments they form. In essence, populism operationalises a divisive and polarising strategy that pits us (the morally superior people) versus them (the corrupt elites and non-people) and claims that the interests of the people are un- or under-represented and that a strong leader is required to liberate ‘the people’ from the throngs of corrupt and thus illegitimate elites (see, for example, Fitzi, 2019; Gidron & Bonikowski, 2013). Right-wing nationalist populism is an authoritarian, anti-pluralist form of populism that uses a rhetoric featuring women and ethnic and cultural minorities as scapegoats for a plethora of social issues amid promises invoking a cultural and economic golden age (i.e. ‘make America great again’, ‘return to traditional family values’) (Abromeit, 2018; Gandesha, 2018; Rensman, 2018). Ife (Chapter 2) argues that right-wing nationalist populism is a retreat from Modernity as well as a paradoxical attempt to take refuge in Modernity. On the one hand it is a rejection of modern truth claims in search for a pre-modern ‘oracle’ easily manipulated by powerful leaders (see also Frost, Gonzalez-Pons & Gren, Chapter 9). On the other, it is a search for security and continuity in white, patriarchal Modernity’s discourses of colonial dominance (see Noble, Chapter 6, and Waters, Chapter 16). It is the search for pre-modern leaders/heroes to deliver us from an increasingly chaotic, capitalist world-order. Contributors to this volume use the term populism in this sense.

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Historical background During a moment of the late 1980s and early 1990s, it looked as if nothing could stop the spread of pluralist, liberal democracy. The disintegration of the old Soviet Union symbolically affirmed by the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the rise of the Arab Spring led some to proclaim the ‘end of history’ as humankind had reached its evolutionary potential (Fukuyama, 1992). A decade later, the modernist idea of a teleological conclusion began to unravel in the face of the rise of reactionary, right-wing populist leaders and totalitarian regimes thinly disguised as democracies. The election of Trump (USA), Johnson (UK), Bolsonaro (Brazil), Modi (India), Erdogan (Turkey), Duterte (Philippines), Netanyahu (Israel), Salvini (Italy), Kurz (Austria), and Orbán (Hungary), among others, sent shockwaves through the liberal democratic political establishment. Indeed, contributions to this volume leave no doubt that the rise of illiberal, anti-pluralist, anti-democratic forces is not limited to the fringes of the political spectrum but has also captured the centre (Fitzi, 2019; Wodak, 2019). The chapters included in this volume demonstrate how right-wing governments in Germany, Finland, the United Kingdom, France, Eastern Europe, the United States, Canada, and Australia win votes on racist, antiwomen, anti-terrorist, anti-immigration, anti-welfare, ugly intolerance of difference and diversity, anti-corruption and pro-capitalist, but anti-globalisation platforms. Contributors to this volume argue that, to varying degrees, xenophobia, welfare chauvinism, misogyny, Islamophobia, white supremacism, and anti-establishment positions have well and truly entered conventional political discourses. A few decades ago, these sentiments populated the extremes when multiculturalism, feminism, tolerance, inclusiveness, human rights and social distributive justice campaigns were part of the liberal values of previous more left-leaning governments. By becoming mainstream these increasingly authoritarian and illiberal governments have begun a gradual attack on civil liberties, muzzling or demonising any media or legal challenge or accountability, chipping away at barriers between church and state, politics and the rule of law. By spewing hateful invectives against the working class, women, migrants, asylum seekers, Indigenous peoples and communities and less powerful peoples, and by cracking down on any oppositional voices, whistle blowers and progressive journalism, they have successfully marginalised and in some cases discredited liberal or leftist alternatives.

Why did we see a rise in nationalist right-wing populism? Populist challengers tend to emerge during periods of crisis (Gidron & Bonikowski, 2013). While the socio-historical events that facilitated the rise of right-wing nationalist populism are different across countries, contributors to this volume agree that the influx into Western countries of immigrants/refugees from Asia, the Middle East and Africa and the perceived threat to an

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imagined cultural fabric, in combination with the impact of neo-liberal globalisation, the relocation of manufacturing jobs and the privatisation of core services (i.e. protective services) played an important role (see Baines & Mapedzahama, Chapter 3). Indeed, the deteriorating economic circumstances of most citizens (and particularly of the lower middle class) are key factors that right-wing populists claim to address (Mudde, 2007). In particular, the rise of China and its growing geo-political and economic influence on the world stage raises widespread fears in formerly hegemonic countries that the colonial dominance of white modernity and, associated with it, political and economic power is coming to an end (see, for example Ferguson and Woodward, 2009). In cultural terms this translated into a sense of ‘White fragility’ (see Ife, Chapter 2 and Baines and Mapedzahama, chapter 3) and ‘crisis of masculinity’ (see Pease, Chapter 5). These insecurities are used by right-wing populist leaders/politicians to generate mass support with the help of political agitators (Bourdieu, 1998) and compliant and complacent social media. The expansion of far-right movements around the world and their inclusion into the formal political realm have in their wake created a globally permissive environment for authoritarian politics, and intolerant extremist ideologies which pose dilemmas for those supporting a pluralist democratic project (Clements, 2018). Furthermore, contributors to this volume argue that the rise of right-wing nationalist populism has been aided by terrorist attacks, economic stagnation, rapid technological change, the greed and corruption of capitalist barons and corporations, growing inequality, the rise of cosmopolitan elites (the ‘winners’ of neo-liberal globalisation), the crushing defeat of trade unionism, the unevenness of ‘free’ trade, and a general decline in and regard for democratic institutions (Foa & Mounk, 2016). Ironically, the rising discontent is also aimed at supporters of the rights of LGBTI+ communities, refugees and asylum seekers and women (c.f. reproductive rights, wage equality, gender justice) (see Noble, Chapter 6), fearing that this support is at expense of the politically ‘neglected’ groups such as white working-class men (also see Pease, Chapter 5), the religious, ethnic majorities and the older generation and less educated (Mudde, 2007; Younge, 2017). Furthermore, the discontent is also directed towards artists, intellectuals, journalists, academics, and social workers – that is, those accused of living in an ‘ivory tower’ and who are also seen to be in cahoots with the political elite. This unease is further fuelled by the rapid changes in population demographics as previously homogeneous communities become more ethnically, religiously and racially diverse. Kaufman (2018) argues that, while there are some common economic threads to understanding the rise of populism in the West, the disruptions and growing disquiet currently evident in the political landscape has its roots firmly in the unrest over ethnic change. He argues that rapid population change increases discontent among those who value existential security and stability. The support for the left’s multicultural narrative, affirmative action, bilingualism, and celebration of difference and diversity made it taboo to express any concerns about loss of ethnic and cultural ground, and the trinity of

Some definitions and features

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sacred values around race, gender and sexual orientation kept the conservative politicians and their simmering discontent with demographic and cultural changes quiet. That is, until now. The populist surge seems to have captured this discontent with its anti-immigration, pro-‘golden past’ rhetoric as an effective means of expressing anxieties of the ‘other’ and the weakening commitment to the nation state (Kaufmann, 2018), and has thus captured the imagination of the common people, who subsequently voted in large numbers for these right-wing governments. Public figures such as Trump (USA), Bannon (USA), Farage (UK and EU), Le Pen (France), Hofer (Austria), Petry (Germany) and Hanson (Australia) among others have gained prominence by appealing to the common imagination in talking up (and in some instances fabricating) their countries’ ‘glorious’ past to capture the disenfranchised public’s dreams for a better life. In sum, their calls to save the West ‘from the clutches of immigrants and multiculturalists’ continue to find widespread support. Much of populist leaders’ formal and informal power is sustained by scapegoating refugees, immigrant communities, women and minorities for the rising discontent of modern, capitalist societies, using emotions such as fear, hatred and indifference to advance their cause. Contributors to this volume illustrate that truth is a frequent casuality, as are handy scapegoats (e.g. Muslims, refugees, Indigenous people, the alt-left, feminists, socialists), as fears of war or terrorist catastrophes are exploited. As a result, misogyny, nativism, xenophobia, racism and Islamophobia are on the rise (Roth, 2016, p. 2; also see Latham/Briskman, Chapter 14). All these events have left in their wake a cradle of discontent not only with politics but with social life in general. There is also the small capitalist class, who would prefer that the rest of society be excluded from this club and remain clueless and unorganised. To be successful this discourse needs the support of a complacent or compliant press to fuel crises and create scandals and conflicts as an effective way of attracting readers and capturing the populist discontent. For populist parties to succeed, their platform and rhetoric needs to resonate with sentiments and views already held by a significant part of the population (Spruyt et al., 2016). Real participatory democracy engages with people directly, in conversation. The rising discontent and polarisation indicate that there is a lack of faith in the way modern democracy responds to and reflects the popular will. Painter (2013) argues that mainstream parties have become centralised, nepotistic, self-interested, arrogant and aloof, concerned more about their ‘bottom line’, and resist calls for transparency and accountability. Many have been found to have instigated fake news and stories that conceal their interests and those of the power elites, and have therefore contributed to the increasing distrust people have in the state and the fourth estate. These parties, he argues, must take stock and look at their role in not only drifting away from their historical electorates but in creating the distrust, disillusionment, fear and unease endemic in society. As many industrialised and developing societies become more individualised and voters more independent, it has become harder for traditional political parties to muster ‘the faithful’ to continue to support their

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ideological platform and be in a strong position to offer a real alternative to the populist rhetoric. Indeed, the environment was set for a charismatic leader (critical of partisan politics) to promote a rallying call to the masses to address their grievances. By claiming to speak for the whole, populist leaders ironically create a parochial politics, providing stigmatised groups with a social identity and voice to articulate their many and varied complaints against the perceived perpetrators of their grievances. Again, paradoxically, many of these right-wing populist governments, once elected, change the rules of the democratic game so they can stay in power for as long as possible, enriching themselves and their cronies at the same time and betraying the very people who voted for them and their hyperbole (Feffer, 2019; Noble & Ottmann, 2018).

Populism and social media The rise of digital social media has amplified the role of political agitators. Whereas editorials and reports publicised by conventional news media tend to be moderated by editors and journalists who ensure that the content of articles adheres to the rules of commonly accepted truth claims and the political interests of established elites, social media has dispensed with this moderation process, allowing for unmediated infotainment to be pumped through its channels directly to consumers. For example, Brazilian video-bloggers agitating in support of right-wing politicians report that their success would have been unthinkable before the advent of social media – due to presence of editors in the conventional media (Fisher & Taub, 2019). What is more, the algorithms that drive social media are geared towards sensationalism and privilege productions that are likely to be successful in marketing terms but have little explanatory power or ethical grounding, thus fanning a kind of anti-pluralism that undermines the very premises of human rights-based politics (Zuboff, 2019). Driven by the imperative to generate ‘likes’ and cultivate followers, social media commentators are rewarded for producing outrageous and sensational claims that stand out and shock – the veracity of such claims is secondary (Hendrickson & Galston, 2017). The current generation of right-wing populists simply discard established protocols around truth claims and continue making claims that are clearly not factual but, for that very fact, entertaining. The media heightened the entertainment value of untrue ‘truths’, enhancing the popularity of political actors that uttered them. News was refered to as ‘fake news’ if it did not come from the populist leaders themselves. Degrees of truth have come to be measured by focusing on the affective social distance to the original source. Accounts of lived experience cast as a conversation among friends broadcast by social media come out on top. These weapons are preferred tactics of narcissistic and aggressive personalities hell bent on doing whatever it takes to gain and maintain a position of advantage over others (Keane, 2018, p. 5).

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Even greater sections of the population are ready to ignore facts and even accept obvious lies willingly. Not the claim to truth, but the expression of the ‘felt truth’ leads to success in the post factual age. (Keane, 2018, p. 2) At the same time, populist right-wing advisors strategically ‘revise’ ideological core concepts that carried negative connotations, rendering ideological markers acceptable to current audiences. For example, in Brazil Robert Alvin, the Bolsonaro government’s former Minister of Culture, made headlines paraphrasing a speech by Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Minister of (Nazi) Propaganda. While this ultimately led to Alvin’s resignation, the statement resulted in a fairly superficial debate of right-wing nationalist ideas broadcast by mainstream media that focused on the historical context but failed to explain why the ideas are abhorrent (see, for example, Cowie, 2020), thus opening the door to the trolls of political correctness. As a result of such epistemological micro-challenges, terms such as National Socialism, fascism, authoritarianism and totalitarianism have been cast off from their historic moorings, making their symbolic meaning acceptable to the wider public (Wodak, 2019). Adapting far right ideology to contemporary democratic settings, successful right-wing politicians have adopted a far softer rhetoric that is interwoven with neo-liberal and liberal arguments in defence of an illiberal anti-humanism that demonises minorities, is authoritarian in its claims, and anti-pluralist in outlook (Schellenberg, 2009). To be sure, social media is a contested space where right-wing trolls are trolled by pro-human rights trolls and protest groups trying to restore some semblance of truth if not balance (see Noble, Chapter 6).

The business of populist politics Social media and the advent of the gig economy have given rise to a new commodification that supercharges right-wing populist politics, turning political identity, infotainment, and ideology into economic capital. A new generation of social media influencers, political agitators, populist politicians and creators of bots are financially rewarded for making contentious claims geared to social media echo chambers cultivated by marketing companies (Zuboff, 2019). Political ideology has become a commodity traded at public speaking spectacles around the globe where right-wing agitators find an audience and contribute to the pan-national strategies of globalised nationalist right-wing populist movements. Social media audiences have become commodified by the current wave of ‘surveillance capitalism’ that assigns a value to big data intelligence and the probability of behavioural choices that allow social media strategists (e.g. Cambridge Analytica) to target and influence audiences with specific traits and preferences (Zuboff, 2019). Populist politics has become big business, and social media accounts are harvested for the political attitudes expressed in

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‘clicks’ and ‘likes’ as individuals’ preferences and profiles are linked to attitudes and behaviours that are increasingly manipulated by powerful marketing firms (Zuboff, 2019). Populist politics and marketing and technology companies have become intertwined to a point where the internal policies of tech giants such as Facebook can have a bearing on election outcomes in the United States (Zuboff, 2019). The ground rules, processes (e.g. elections), and political institutions that underpin representative democracy are no longer held sacred and immutable but constitute a spectacle for the masses that legitimises the control excercised by political, economic, and financial elites (Baudrillard, 1984). The commodification of every aspect of social and political life, in conjunction with revelations of the internal mechanics of how votes are being shaped by the new public sphere of social media, have produced an unsatisfactory imitation of politics, ideologies, and truth (Baudrillard, 1984). The meaning of concepts, symbols, philosophies and ideologies that were once grounded in historical events, such as the bloodshed of World War II, are no longer so, as political statements are judged by their entertainment and commercial value and not their potential to create a society we would like to inhabit.

The challenge of right-wing nationalist populism Human rights have been developed and sanctioned as a means of legislative and moral commitment to a universal protection of peoples from repressive and coercive governments. The rising tide of right-wing, authoritarian populism spearheaded by a strongman archetype, according to Roth (2016), represents a real challenge to the social, political and cultural protection of the people from repression, violence, incarceration, cultural genocide, discrimination against women, Indigenous people, gays and lesbians and other minority interests and, importantly, undermining the independence of the law and the judiciary, leading to gradual extermination of individual and group freedom generally. This selective interpretation of rights has legitimised white supremacist ideology and stripped Indigenous people and other minorities of their socio-political significance (see Waters, Chapter 16). This book demonstrates that concern about the loss of state protection and growing authoritarian interference in the lives of vulnerable ‘citizens’ is not exaggerated. Right-wing populist parties are paradoxically gaining power by promoting policies that appear to be rooted in human rights (see, for example, Turtiainen and Kokkonen, Chapter 10). However, the rights that populist parties are promoting are narrowly defined – i.e. protection from the terrorist suspect, the asylum seeker and cultural lefties, and economic safety for an ethnically and morally defined few (see also Roth, 2016, p. 2). People are being convinced that upholding universal human rights comes at a cost that would negatively affect their wealth, life-style choices, and cohesion of an imagined national ‘community’.

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This is not the first time that populist politicians have embarked on a quest to render humanism as an exclusionary ideology. During the 1930s, Germany’s National Socialists facilitated a transition from a universal to an exclusionary ‘humanism’ defined along ethnic and nationalistic lines. This false humanism provided the (im-)‘moral’ foundation for the state-sponsored project to eliminate ‘worthless’ or ‘inferior’ individuals that were seen to divert resources from valuable, economically productive citizens. Contributors to this book suggest that we are, again, experiencing a historical moment of such a ‘regressive modernity’ (Nachtwey, 2016) where false humanisms are used to justify the ill-treatment of targeted minorities. Clearly, the historical constellation in the early twenty-first century is different from that of the twentieth century. Nevertheless it contains a number of common threads that are worth bringing into view: growing economic insecurity, the rise of anti-humanist ideologies, threats to universal human rights agendas, and a dehumanising rhetoric and practices targeting ‘undeserving’ minorities (see, for example, Kurova & Webb, Chapter 15, and Edwards, Mendes & Flynn, Chapter 12) in conjunction with new forms of mass media facilitating the dissemination of divisive messages. Observers largely agree that we are witnessing a deconsolidation of liberal democracy, and a growing number of citizens are no longer of the opinion that liberal democracy is the best way to govern a country and are increasingly tempted to consider authoritarian alternatives linked to populist leaders (Foa & Mounk, 2016). Other commentators highlight the perceived threat to culture and tradition, pointing at the rise of xenophobia in relatively ethnically homogeneous communities faced with the arrival of immigrants and refugees groups dislodged by savage geopolitics (Merkel, 2016; Mudde, 2007; also see Anand, Borrmann & Das, Chapter 13). After decades that enabled social movements to voice democratising demands in the public sphere, giving rise to a socially inclusive politics that enshrined the rights of minorities such as women and LGBTI+ communities (Nachtwey, 2016), social groups opposing this cultural opening are increasingly resorting to exclusionary populism, undermining the social policy achievements of these progressive social movements (see Noble, Chapter 6). This culturally defensive populism can take right-wing nationalist forms that radically reshape ‘civil’ society, turning it into a ‘surveillance’ society that monitors population groups that are earmarked as ‘different’ for their breaches of cultural norms (see Fazi & Northdurfter, Chapter 7; Latham & Briskman, Chapter 14; Turtiainen & Kokkonen, Chapter 10; Frost et al., Chapter 9; and Ottmann, Chapter 11 ). Here we can see the anti-pluralist and anti-humanist populist discourses being played out. With people’s ‘way of life’ under threat, vulnerable ethnic and social minorities become the target for unscrupulous politicians who channel anger and frustration at the status quo (Altman, 2017). Current populist leaders are building their political platforms around the destruction of the inclusive democratic institutions, turning universal entitlements into the privileges of an increasingly restrictive citizenship (Standing, 2011).

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Exclusionary humanism, social policies and social work The current ethno-nationalist populist wave is fundamentally reshaping social policies (see Anand et al., Chapter 13; Turtiainen & Kokkonen, Chapter 10; Ottmann, Chapter 11). Contributions in this book reveal that social policies are becoming more selective, conditional, narrower in scope, socially exclusive, and authoritarian. Harking back to the era where welfare recipients were blamed for their ‘irresponsible actions’ such as losing their job, their homes, their ability to provide for themselves and their families, social workers are once again finding themselves increasingly controlled by economic rationalist managements supported by a nationalist agenda of deserving and non-deserving ethnic groupings where the ethnic majorities are favoured over the ethnic minorities for support from the state’s coffers when in need. Essential services are being directed to ‘our people first’, in a departure from the social contract to help and resource the less fortunate in society irrespective of ethnicity, class, gender and social standing. This change has the potential to turn social workers into enforcers of an increasingly brutal nationalistic, neo-liberal rationality disengaging the profession from its humanitarian principles and universal human rights principles and transforming it into a facilitator of an authoritarian surveillance state.

What is to be done? Ife (Chapter 2) argues that the world where human rights and social justice were generally seen as desirable is no longer, and that those ideas no longer hold the symbolic power they once did, resulting in a crisis of international norms and the erosion of the commons. Ife impresses upon us that we need to re-examine the premises of social justice and human rights within the context of a changing role of the state in order to develop a universalism that can serve as a basis for progressive social work into the future. We need to take a stand, Ife argues, and advance a new agenda of non-violence that has the emotional appeal to mobilise the wider public and lead to strong political action. For progressive political observers, the answer to this challenge rests with a radical reworking of democracy that harks back to John Dewey’s political experimentalism that sees political procedures and institutions as being permanently constructed as they are justified only as long as they fulfil their purpose (Dewey, 1927). The rise of populist nationalism seems to indicate that it is time to, in Dewey’s sense, reshape political institutions and redefine citizenship to make them more representative. For those working in the heartland of nationalist populism will find it useful to be supported by a network of like-minded, experienced social workers. It is also possible that political parties will have to be reformed to allow for grassroots participation that extends beyond canvassing and donations. It also demands that social workers make links with political parties and trade unions and build counterveiling forces through community agency to

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fight for minority interests (see Anand et al., Chapter 13); in other words, to reinvigorate the radical politics of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s (see Ferguson & Woodward, 2009, Westoby, Chapter 4; Gray & Webb, 2013). Contributors to this book argue for a revitalised radical social work where community organisation, building alliances and trade union political commitment and social action can be used as political forces to speak up against discrimination, bigotry, sexism, xenophobia and hate in accordance with human rights, social justice, social work values and commitments. The rise of nationalist populism signals that now is the time for social work to forge and reforge such networks, create links with civil society and challenge right-wing populist policies wherever they manifest themselves. Freire-inspired education campaigns fostering an anti-oppressive humanism are also likely to play a key role in the fight against right-wing nationalist populism (see, for example, Westoby, Chapter 4). What happens to social work practice if governments no longer endorse the core values of social work, and what can be done about it? Social work’s commitment to human rights and progressive social justice has been given a contemporary relevance, an opportunity to speak up and act. After years of being subjected to the demoralising impact of austerity, to the neo-liberal agendas of conservative governments and the re-emergence of ‘conditional welfare’ (Foa & Mounk, 2016), the time is right for a concerted resistance. Rather than succumb to the destructive influences of right-wing populism, its exclusive, divisive rhetoric and increasingly rigid and authoritarian welfare policies, progressive social workers must provide social work with a clear incentive to regenerate a critically-informed radical practice response based on reinvigorated human rights principles (Noble & Ottmann, 2018, p. 18). What happens to social work practice if governments no longer endorse the core values of social work, and what can be done about it? It is this important question that contributors to this volume examine in several ways. The following chapters outline a number of strategies that might be useful in the fight against right-wing nationalism:    

  

Work in solidarity to develop and support a humanist society; Affirm and recommit to a practice with an anti-oppressive human rights agenda and become more politically and morally active as role models; Re-commit to anti-racist, anti-oppressive and critically-informed social work practice; Educate social workers and enable them to recognise oppressive rightwing nationalist policies, reflect on oppressive identities (e.g. whiteness, masculinity, exclusionary tribal identities), identify ‘false facts’, and flush out our implicit biases; Bear witness to and confront the human toll of subjugation, oppression, racism and structural disadvantage; Challenge the ‘dual loyalty’ dilemma of clients’ rights vs. government policy of social control and resist the banality of evil associated with the latter; Confront ‘false news’ and its underpinning epistemology and truth claims;

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Publicly fight for political accountability, transparent democracy and a social justice agenda in policy and human service practice; and Join unions, peak organisations and other progressive organisations and encourage them to challenge populist policies wherever they manifest themselves; and engage in collective action.



If social work whose epistemology is committed to promoting human rights and social justice to address the root causes of poverty, oppression, marginalisation and inequality fails to act, then who will? (Fazzi, 2015).

Toward a conclusion Most contributions to this volume outline how the confluence of neo-liberalism and nationalist right-wing populism is creating a new authoritarian, neo-liberal project that radically breaks with the social democratic welfare state and associated notions of citizenship (see also Pühringer & Ötsch, 2018) – and thus with the ethical premises that form the basis of critical social work. How this new authoritarian dystopia targeting women, welfare recipients, asylum seekers, diverse ethnic minorities, and Indigenous people affects those targeted and with what implications for social work is the question contributions to this volume seek to answer. Fazzi and Northdurfther (Chapter 7) argue that although the growing debate about new right-wing populism and social work inevitably emphasises the negative influences on social work, it is important to remind ourselves that the transformative effects of the phenomenon are probably not only harmful to the profession but represent the possibility of a criticallyinformed social work rejuvenating itself, creating a new, leading social and political role for the profession. It is this tension at the centre of the current historical juncture that this book seeks to explore and make sense of.

References Abromeit, J. (2018). Frankfurt School critical theory and the persistence of authoritarian populism in the United States. In J. Morelock (ed.), Critical Theory and Authoritarian Populism. London: University of Westminster Press. Altman, D. (2017). Discontents: Identity, politics and institutions in a time of populism. Retrieved from https://theconversation.com/discontents-identity-politics-a nd-institutions-in-a-time-of-populism-80882 Baudrillard, J. (1984). Amérique. Paris: Grasset. Bourdieu, P. (1998). Acts of Resistance: Against the New Myths of Our Time. New York: The New Press. Clements, K. P. (2018). Authoritarian populism and atavistic nationalism: 21st-century challenges to peacebuilding and development. Journal of Peacebuilding and Development, 13(3), 1–6. doi:10.1080/15423166.2018.1519354 Cowie, S. (2020, 18 January). Brazil culture secretary fired after echoing words of Nazi Goebbels. Guardian, online. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/world/ 2020/jan/17/brazil-culture-minister-goebbels-roberto-alvim-nazi?

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Dewey, J. (1927). The public and its problems. In J. Dewey (ed.), The Later Works, Vol. 2 (pp. 235–372). Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. Fazzi, L. (2015). Social work, exclusionary populism and xenophobia in Italy. International Social Work, 54(4), 595–605. Feffer, J. (2019). The rising tide of the populist right. Foreign Policy in Focus. 13 May. Retrieved from https://fpif.org/the-rising-tide-of-the-populist-right/ Ferguson, I., & Woodward, R. (2009). Radical Social Work Practice: Making a Difference. Bristol: Policy Press. Fisher, M., & Taub, A. (2019, 11 August). How YouTube radicalized Brazil. New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/11/world/americas/ youtube-brazil.html Fitzi, G. (2019). Political populism as a symptom of the great transformation of democracy. In G. Fitzi, J. Mackert, & B. S. Turner (eds), Populism and the Crisis of Democracy. London and New York: Routledge. Foa, R. S., & Mounk, Y. (2016). The democratic disconnect: The danger of deconsolidation. Journal of Democracy, 27(3), 5–17. Fukuyama, F. (1992). The End of History and the Last Man. New York: Free Press. Gandesha, S. (2018). Understanding right and left populism. In J. Morelock (ed.), Cultural Theory and Authoritarian Populism. London: University of Westminster Press. Gidron, N., & Bonikowski, B. (2013). Varieties of populism: Literature review and research agenda. Working paper series. Cambridge MA: Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University. Gray, M., & Webb, S. A. (2013). The New Politics of Social Work. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Hendrickson, C., & Galston, W. A. (2017, 28 April). Why are populists winning online? Social media reinforces their anti-establishment message. Brookings TechTank. Retrieved from https://www.brookings.edu/blog/techtank/2017/04/28/why-are-pop ulists-winning-online-social-media-reinforces-their-anti-establishment-message/ Kaufmann, E. (2018). Whiteshift: Populism, Immigration and the Future of White Majorities. London: Penguin. Keane, J. (2018). Power and Humility: The Future of Monitory Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Laclau, E. (2005). On Populist Reason. London: Verso. Merkel, W., & Scholl, F. (2018). Illiberalism, populism and democracy in East and West. Politologický cˇ asopis/Czech Journal of Political Science, 25(1), 28–44. Mudde, C. (2004). The populist zeitgeist. Government and Opposition, 39(4), 541–563. Mudde, C. (2007). Populist Radical Right-Wing Parties in Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mudde, C. (2016). Populist radical right parties in Europe today. In J. Abromeit, B. Chesterton, Y. Norman, & G. Marotta (eds), Transformations of Populism in Europe and the Americas: History and Recent Tendencies (pp. 295–307). New York: Bloomsbury. Nachtwey, O. (2016). Die Abstiegsgesellschaft. Ueber das Aufbegehren in der regressiven Moderne. Berlin: Suhrkamp. Noble, C., & Ottmann, G. (2018). Nationalist populism and social work. Journal of Human Rights and Social Work, 3, 112–120. Painter, A. (2013) Democratic Stress, the Populist Signal and Extremist Threat: A Call For a New Mainstream Statecraft and Contact Democracy. London: Policy Network. Pühringer, S., & Ötsch, W. O. (2018). Neoliberalism and right-wing populism: Conceptual analogies. Forum for Social Economics, 47(2), 193–203.

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Rensman, L. (2018). The persistence of the authoritarian appeal: On critical theory as a framework for studying populist actors in European democracies. In J. Morelock (ed.), Critical Theory and Authoritarian Populism (pp. 29–48). London: Westminster University Press. Roth, K. (2016). The dangerous rise of populism: Global attacks on human rights values. Journal of International Affairs. Retrieved from https://www.hrw.org/worl d-report/2017/country-chapters/dangerous-rise-of-populism Schellenberg, B. (2009). Strategien zur Bekaempfung des Rechtsextremismus in Europa. Munich: CAP Verlag. Sousa Santos, B.de (2014). Epistemologies of the South: Justice against Epistemicide. London and New York: Routledge. Spruyt, B., Keppens, G., & Van Droogenbroeck, F. (2016). Who supports populism and what attracts people to it? Political Research Quarterly, 69(2), 335–346. Standing, G. (2011). The Precariat. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Touraine, A. (1997). Le populisme? Neuf réponses. Vingtième Siècle, 56(4), 224–242. Voss, T., Daugherty Bailey, J., Ife, J., & Kötting, M. (2018). The threatening troika of populism, nationalism, and neoliberalism. Journal of Human Rights and Social Work, 3, 109–111. doi:10.1007/s41134-018-0072-5 Weyland, K. (2001). Clarifying a contested concept: Populism in the study of Latin American politics. Comparative Politics, 34(1), 1–22. Wodak, R. (2019). The micro-politics of right-wing populism. In G. Fitzi, J. Mackert, & B. S. Turner (eds), Populism and the Crisis of Democracy. London and New York: Routledge, pp.11–29. Younge, G. (2017). My travels in white America: A land of anxiety, division and pockets of pain. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/nov/06/my-travels-inwhite-america-a-land-of-anxiety-division-and-pockets-of-pain?CMP=fb_gu. Accessed 16/11/2017. Zuboff, S. (2019). The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. London: Profile Books.

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Social work, modernity and right-wing nationalist populism Jim Ife1

Introduction Right-wing nationalist populism presents significant dilemmas and challenges for what has become conventional politics, both in Western and non-Western countries. Social work, located within the political discourse of the nation state, and the epistemological discourse of Modernity, is affected by these challenges, and will need to address right-wing nationalist populism effectively if it is to remain relevant in a turbulent world. Rightwing nationalist populism is likely to be a continuing part of the practice context of many social workers, and this trend will almost certainly increase as the world approaches multiple crises – economic, ecological, social and political – and as what appeared to be certainties melt away. It is a natural and probably inevitable consequence of the world view established and sustained by white Western Modernity. To pretend that it will be ‘business as usual’ in the future is to be naïve, deluded and dangerous. In such a world, social work can be part of the movements that hold out some hope for an alternative way forward, but it can seem like a flickering candle in the face of the storm, and in the current climate of uncertainty the future of social work, as currently understood and practised, is far from secure.

Understanding right-wing populism The terms ‘populism’, ‘populist’ and ‘right-wing populism’ are used in different ways by different authors and journalists. It is not easy to come up with an agreed-upon meaning, especially as the experience of right-wing populism is different in different nations and cultures (Wodak, 2015). For the purposes of this chapter, and its focus on social work, two sources are particularly important. One is the analysis in the context of the USA by Berlet and Lyons, (2016), which has relevance across a number of national contexts. They describe the phenomenon as producerist politics. Producerists are those who are, or wish to be, engaged in material work, usually manual, which they see as ‘real work’ in the ‘real world’, as the only truly ‘productive’ work, and which they value above the work of anyone else. They see themselves as being

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squeezed from above by increasing numbers within the ‘elites’, which include bankers, government bureaucrats, professionals, secular humanists, socialists, liberals, globalists and corrupt politicians, none of whom do ‘real’ productive work. They also see themselves squeezed from below by ‘lazy sinful parasites’, including welfare recipients, immigrants, refugees, feminists, People of Colour, social justice activists and community organisers. Both these groups are perceived, in the producerist narrative, as doing useless work or no ‘work’ at all, as a drain on the nation’s resources, being divorced from the ‘real world’, and working against the needs of the producerists who are the ‘real people’. The use of the idea of ‘real’ in this narrative is important; the world of the producerists is the ‘real world’, and the producerists themselves are ‘real people’; by implication, those outside the producerist world do not qualify as ‘real’ and so they and their opinions do not count. Both ‘real world’ and ‘real people’ narratives are widely used in advertising, in opinion pieces, and social commentary, often uncritically, and this use of the ‘real’ is powerful. It represents a form of anti-intellectualism, a negation of expertise, and a mistrust of experts; this is why right-wing populists reject the science of climate change. The ‘real world’ narrative also insidiously reinforces discrimination against immigrants, refugees, Indigenous People, welfare recipients, and others in the ‘parasite’ group, who are also not seen to be ‘real’. Social workers are therefore doubly excluded from the ‘real world’ of the right-wing populists. As educated professionals they are identified as part of the dreaded elites who cannot be trusted and who work against the interests of ‘real people’. But social workers are also social justice advocates who work with, and promote the interests of, the ‘lazy sinful parasites’. This means that social workers will be doubly rejected by right-wing-populism; they will be seen as part of the problem, and they therefore cannot be part of the solution. An important aspect of Berlet and Lyons’ analysis is that producerists, in seeking a way out from being ‘squeezed’ both from above and from below, do not embrace traditional socialist or Labour solidarity institutions, such as trade unions and labour parties. Instead, they are drawn to the political right. They may identify with conventional conservative politics, such as the US Republican Party, the UK or Canadian Conservative parties, the Australian Liberal Party, and so on. Or they may move to more extreme right-wing parties such as UKIP in the UK, the Front National in France and One Nation in Australia, or to various smaller ultra-right groups. This suggests that a traditional socialist or Marxist analysis is inadequate for dealing with right-wing populism; the producerists do not have a ‘working class identity’ in the traditional socialist sense, and are certainly not uniting for a collectivist, socialist revolution. Rather, influenced by neo-liberalism, they see themselves as individuals who have been denied opportunities to realise the capitalist dream. Goodhart (2017), a UK writer, describes the phenomenon in rather different terms. He contrasts two classes of people in ‘developed’ economies: the ‘somewheres’ and the ‘nowheres’. For the former, the local context, local identity and a feeling of belonging are important. The ‘nowheres’, however,

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are less attached to place, and embrace globalisation, high levels of mobility, and cosmopolitan identity. The ‘nowheres’ are typically younger, better educated and in technical or professional work, and will readily relocate for professional or lifestyle opportunities, while the ‘somewheres’ are likely to remain in one place for longer, and will be reluctant about relocating. Globalisation effectively favours the ‘nowheres’ who are able to maximise their opportunities in the global economy, while the ‘somewheres’ experience isolation and exclusion in the face of globalisation. It is thus the ‘somewheres’, who feel the loss of local identity, that are driving right-wing populism. While this is a simplistic binary, bypassing the complexity of right-wing populist movements (Wodak, 2015), it has three important implications for social work. The first is that, unlike the much fuller analysis by Berlet and Lyons, it emphasises the importance of globalisation, and sees right-wing populism as primarily a reaction against it. The second is that it emphasises the importance of place-based, community level social work if social work is to address the needs and concerns of right-wing populists. The third is that it further problematises a social work response; although social work has opposed the excesses of globalisation, and in that sense has some commonality with right-wing nationalist populism, social work has also pursued an internationalist cosmopolitan agenda, with its emphasis on human rights, which is the antithesis of right-wing nationalist populist rhetoric. This contradictory relationship between social work and right-wing nationalist populism will be taken up later in this chapter. There is now an extensive literature about right-wing nationalist populism, which defies easy summary, as right-wing nationalist populism has become an important component of the context within which we all live and work. In a world of uncertainty and potential catastrophe caused by global warming and other ecological crises, together with the rise of surveillance capitalism and an unstable global economy, right-wing populism represents an additional dimension not just concern, but alarm and even panic, as we contemplate the future. It is hard to generalise about right-wing populism, as it displays different features, and is also somewhat different in varying national and cultural contexts. What applies in USA right-wing nationalist populism (Giroux, 2017) will be somewhat different from its manifestation in Europe, and indeed the French, German, Hungarian and Italian versions will vary from each other (Wodak, 2015). Within right-wing populism there are also different identities and different scapegoats, for example fundamentalist religion is important for some populist groups, but not for all. Right-wing populism will be partly shaped by local historical trajectories, dominant personalities and political processes And explicit overt racism, though characteristic of many extremist right-wing groups, is far from universal among the followers of right-wing populism (many populists will insist ‘I am not racist’), though it is evident that implicit or covert racism is far more widespread. But we must not be misled by these regional variations into seeing rightwing populism as a series of local problems. Despite this variation in its

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manifestation, the phenomenon of right-wing populism extends beyond national and cultural boundaries throughout at least the Western world, and the causes are clearly systemic: they are to be found in global institutional structures and dominant discourses, not just in specific political contexts. In seeking to respond to right-wing populism, it is necessary to consider broader structural and discursive issues, not just local circumstances. This chapter will explore the contrasting relationships of right-wing populism and social work to Enlightenment Modernity. In each case the relationship is complex. Both right-wing populism and social work represent reactions to the challenges of Modernity, at the same time both rejecting and embracing Modernity, but each chooses different elements to reject, and different elements to embrace. This analysis can inform possible ways forward for social work, facing a more hostile ideological environment.

Modernity and right-wing nationalist populism Right-wing nationalist populism can be seen as a form of fundamentalism, in its insistence on a single narrative and a total belief in the rightness of the cause. Like other fundamentalisms (see Sim, 2004), it is both a retreat from and a retreat into Modernity. Retreating from the threats of Modernity, it harks back to pre-Enlightenment times, with its strong acceptance of conservative religion – especially, in the West, fundamentalist Christianity – and its denial of intellectual inquiry and the secular rationality of science, evident in its mistrust of evolution, of climate change, and of expertise in general. This anti-intellectualism is a denial of the Enlightenment and its valuing of intellectual rationality (Hind, 2007; Edelstein, 2010), and so it is hard for many social workers, socialised so completely into the Western Enlightenment world-view, to understand or accept. It is in part a retreat from the need to think: if ready answers are provided, by religion, by a charismatic leader, or by a carefully marketed set of pre-packaged ideas, we can accept them as given and are absolved from the need to apply any critical analysis. Moreover, the intellectual tools to apply that critical analysis are themselves rejected. This is instinctively appealing for many people who are suffering from the impacts of hyper-modernity, especially at a time when more dogmatic and extreme views have become the norm, and when nuance, compromise and genuine dialogue are somewhat out of fashion in public discourse. Right-wing populism is a reaction to Modernity in that it represents a retreat into an earlier, apparently more comfortable world, a fantasy past that is romanticised, but that in reality was only made possible by the oppressions of class, race, colonialism, gender, sexual identity and physical and intellectual ability. This idealised past is far removed from the reality of the time, especially for those who were the victims of those structures of oppression, but the idea is strong, and its very pervasiveness serves to reinforce racism, whiteness, patriarchy, colonialism, homophobia and ableness without even naming them.

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On the other hand, right-wing populism is also a retreat into Modernity, in the face of an increasingly post-Modern world. Modernity is characterised by the search for uniformity and predictability, and has consistently tried to develop a world of sameness and certainty, with single ‘right answers’, and with no surprises, rather than a world of chaos, diversity and unpredictability; indeed, these are seen as problems, needing to be stamped out (Stove, 2003; Nicholson, 1999). Within Modernity this has been the goal of unifying discourses, of managerialism, of increasing control, and of authoritarianism. It has been the aim of a good deal of research and intellectual inquiry, seeking universal laws, predictability, ‘best practice’ and the ideal world of utopian thinking. It has also been behind the colonial imperatives of Modernity (Chowdhry & Nair, 2004), seeking the imposition of a single ‘best’ way to do things, and by implication a ‘best’ culture, a ‘best’ race, a ‘best’ language, a ‘best’ democracy, and so on, constructed in the paradigm of the dominant (colonising) culture. It is little wonder that this aspect of Modernity has such appeal for fundamentalists, attracting racists and right-wing nationalist populists. Right-wing nationalist populism, although often fuelled with the rhetoric of rugged individualism, is also quite conformist and mistrustful of dissent within its own ranks. In this way it is also comfortable with conformist Modernity.

Modernity and social work Historically, social work was born out of Modernity (Tascón, 2018; Howe, 1994), and is part of Modernity’s project, despite the interest in Postmodernism by a minority of social work scholars in recent decades (see Pease & Fook, 1999). Like other professions, it arose as part of a technocratic, expert response to problems and issues. It has privileged expertise, scientific rationality, evidence and professional competence in the way it has addressed human suffering and social problems (Ife, 2012). The institutional structure of the profession, with accreditation, practice standards, codes of ethics, supervision, scholarly journals, professional conferences, and the appeal to universalist meta-narratives of social justice and human rights, represents classic Modernity. This has caused problems for social work, in that it has replicated the problems of Modernity: the disempowerment of the recipients of social work services in the name of professional expertise, the blindness to diversity, the colonialist practice that has resulted from the imposition of a single implicit world-view, the inherent racism and patriarchy that inhabits the structures of Modernity, the disembodied understanding of what counts as ‘knowledge’ and so on. There have been movements within social work that have sought to overcome these problems, often with considerable success (e.g. Allan & Briskman, 2009), but it is still clear that the heritage of Western Modernity, with both its strengths and its blind-spots, is strong in much of social work, especially as practised in nations of the Global North.

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There is also, however, some ambivalence in social work towards its heritage of Enlightenment Modernity. The development of ideas of so-called ‘critical social work’ (Webb, 2019; Morley, Ablett & Macfarlane, 2019) and ‘antioppressive practice’ (Dominelli & Campling, 2002), including anti-racist social work, post-colonial social work, feminist social work and socialist/Marxist social work, have inevitably included critiques of Modernity. More recently, Green social work (Dominelli, 2012; 2018; Gray, Coates & Hetherington, 2012) has sought to develop social work practices that are genuinely sustainable and that inevitably challenge the growth fetish of Modernity. Social workers in community development have always worked with communities of diversity, chaos and contradiction rather than of certainty and uniformity. And all social workers know that chaos, confusion and uncertainty are the norm both for the people with whom they work, and also for the organisations where social workers are employed. The reality of social work is a long way from the ordered certainty of Modernity, and many social workers understand that seeking to impose the one-size-fits-all solutions of Modernity through managerialism and technocratic evidence-based ‘intervention’, does not fit well with the reality of people’s lives (Tascón, 2018). So, while social work institutionally has largely located itself within the tradition of Enlightenment Modernity, the reality of practice, for many social workers, is rather different. Thus social work, like right-wing nationalist populism, also has something of an ambivalent relationship to Modernity, though that ambivalence works itself out in rather different ways. The social work reaction against Modernity is not so much a moving back as a moving forward, accepting the reality and even the desirability of postmodern messiness and paradox, though with a recognition of the need to work within the structures of Modernity if social workers are to be effective in providing services to people within the existing order.

Commonalities, and a possible dialogue? There are three areas where social work and right-wing nationalist populism share some commonalities. The first is that they both assert the importance of grass-roots empowerment, and the experience and wisdom of ‘ordinary’ people at the local level. But the two versions of empowerment are different. The right-wing version gives people a sense of ‘karaoke’ empowerment (Kunnen, 2005) through persuasion and through a rhetoric that makes people feel that they ‘belong’ and are important in spite of the reality of their relative powerlessness. By contrast, social work claims to provide a more genuine and experienced form of empowerment, not just telling people they are powerful, but by establishing structures and processes so that this empowerment can be achieved at the level of lived experience. There is often a tension between this and the ‘professional’ approach to social work, but this is a tension social workers have always worked with, and they have consistently maintained that ‘empowerment’ is an essential part of social work practice.

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The second area of commonality is that social work and right-wing nationalist populism are united in their opposition to neo-liberalism. Each has understood the bankruptcy of the neo-liberal world, and is seeking a better alternative. But while they may share a dislike of neo-liberalism, their contrasting value bases, and contrasting constructions of ‘the elites’, result in very different visions for an alternative future. The problem for social work is that right-wing nationalist populism has been quite successful in presenting itself in public as the only possible alternative to neo-liberalism, and has attracted followers accordingly. The third area where right-wing nationalist populism and social work have much in common is their ambivalence about globalisation, as mentioned earlier. Both resort to the universalising narratives of Modernity and seek to generalise their views of social justice (in the case of social work) and libertarianism (in the case of right-wing nationalist populism). But both are also mistrustful of globalisation. For social work, globalisation has resulted in widespread inequality and injustice, and the exacerbation of inequality. For right-wing nationalist populism, globalisation represents the institutionalised power of ‘elites’ denying the legitimate values and goals of ordinary people, and raising the threat of ‘world government’ which is seen as inherently evil. These different forms of mistrust of globalisation result in very different outcomes. For social workers, it has meant an attempt to re-invigorate an internationalism that is based on the values of humanity rather than the values of profit, while for right-wing nationalist populism it has meant the unleashing of forms of exclusive localism, xenophobia and division. Both social work and right-wing nationalist populism, while having some concerns about globalisation, have sought to establish their own global networks and to embrace alternative globalisations. For social work, the idea of International Social Work has been important, and social workers do like to communicate across national and cultural boundaries. Two important international social work bodies, the International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW) and the International Association of Schools of Social Work (IASSW), have sought to promote an internationalism and an internationalist agenda for social workers, and social workers also participate in international research or professional organisations based on specific fields of practice and areas of interest, such as health, disability, migration, Indigenous recognition, and so on. Right-wing nationalist populism has also made attempts to establish a more globalised presence: international visits by right-wing nationalist populist gurus, international conventions, seeking to adopt the successful policies of right-wing populism groups in other countries (e.g. the Australian ‘Shooters and Fishers’ party seeking to replicate US gun deregulation), and so on. These represent seriously alarming attempts to establish a global rightwing nationalist populist agenda, however contradictory this may seem. These three areas of ‘commonality’ are therefore actually more apparent than real. They represent very different forms of empowerment, very different oppositions to neo-liberalism, and very different forms of anti-globalisation.

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There is no doubt that right-wing nationalist populism represents a negation of many of the values on which social work is based, and is a serious challenge to those seeking to practise social work and to establish a future based on principles of social justice and human rights. Apparent similarities, in terms of a disillusionment with the world of Western Modernity, rejection of neo-liberalism, opposition to globalisation, and a wish to re-value the local, weaken and disappear with more thorough analysis. This casts serious doubt on any possibility of dialogue, as there are so few substantive common views with which to start. Dialogue is of course intrinsically appealing to social workers, who prefer dialogue as a way to move forward, who value a plurality of ideas, and who promote dialogical change as a key component of practice. However, in addressing right-wing populism, this is a path fraught with danger for social work.

Dialogue and reasoned argument Dialogue with right-wing nationalist populism is effectively a contradiction. Reasoned argument and nuanced analysis are anathema to the right-wing populist movement. The idea that reasoned and reasonable argument is all that is needed to change people’s minds and assure progress has always been something of a myth, as it does not take account of emotion, ideology or vested interests, but it is one of the strongest pillars of Enlightenment thinking. The projects of the university, of scientific research, and of parliamentary democracy all have at their core the belief in the power of rationality, reason, debate, dialogue and dispassionate argument, however much they may fall short of this ideal in reality. Social work has often accepted this as a given: social work is taught in universities, it has its journals, its research agendas, its conferences, and so on. And many community development principles, employed by social workers, are based on assumptions around consciousness raising, maximising participation, building consensus and democratic decision-making, all of which assume rational reasoned argument, debate and dialogue. However, the rise of right-wing populism has starkly challenged these assumptions. This is a fundamentalist movement that is impervious to reasoned argument and rational debate, and yet it attracts increasing numbers of followers. Despite the demonstrable inconsistencies, contradictions and inadequacies of Donald Trump, which any logical thinker can demolish with ease, his followers still believe in him and his policies, and appeals to reason and logic are unheard. The same applies in other contexts: if people applied logic and rationality, Brexit would never have happened, the far right in France and Germany would be unrepresented in parliament, drug use would have been decriminalised, the USA would have significant gun control, Fox News and the Murdoch press would have no audience, the proposed Adani coal mine in Australia would be unthinkable, and there would have been serious and substantive efforts throughout the world to reduce carbon emissions for at least the last 20 years. Rationality does not rule; it never really has, of course, but social workers, like many others, have often tried to convince

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themselves that it does, and have acted accordingly. It is not just rationality that motivates and persuades people: it is also such things as tradition, emotion, love, fear, threat, hope, rejection, reassurance, recognition, excitement, and feelings of belonging to a movement and espousing a cause. Failure to recognise this has allowed right-wing populism to develop without effective challenge. But while reasoned rational argument may not always be persuasive, we are worse off without it. With the decline of reasoned argument goes the decline of complexity, ambiguity and nuance. Most of the issues social workers need to deal with, whether at the level of the individual, the family, the community or the society, are complex. They require analysis, and do not lend themselves to simplistic, obvious answers. This is well known to social workers who are used to working with complexity. Yet right-wing nationalist populism is an ideology of simplicity: the answers are simple and obvious, and are repeated with terrifying certainty. This simplicity has obvious appeal, especially as there is a strong anti-intellectual streak in right-wing populism; anyone trying to make things complicated is mistrusted, as part of the rhetoric of ‘anti-elitism’. The identification of analysis and thought with ‘the elite’ is a particularly insidious characteristic of right-wing populism, effectively giving people an excuse not to engage deeply or crucially with complex issues, and defining intellectual work as only of concern to a minority, and as inherently suspect. This makes any attempt to challenge the simplistic answers of right-wing nationalist populism, which are presented as self-evident truths, extremely difficult. There is an additional problem about trying to establish dialogue with rightwing nationalist populism. Dialogue requires participants to lay themselves open and vulnerable, to accept that they do not know everything, and to be willing to learn and change. Right-wing nationalist populism, however, will not accept those premises. Like all fundamentalists, right-wing nationalist populists are convinced that they are right, and will not allow themselves the vulnerability of genuine dialogue. If social workers attempt to dialogue with right-wing populists, they may well place themselves in a position of well-intentioned weakness allowing right-wing nationalist populism to control them. The Australian example of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in 2017–18 is instructive: when, as a well-known moderate, he became leader of the Liberal (conservative) Party he presumably thought that he could build a consensus within the party, and was prepared to compromise, only to discover that the right wing of his party was totally uncompromising, saw his consensus position as weakness, and took everything he offered while giving up nothing in return. More liberally-inclined politicians in the USA have found the same thing; their preparedness to compromise for the sake of unity, consensus and ‘the national interest’ is ruthlessly exploited by the right wing and is ultimately seen as weakness. Social workers need to accept that dialogue with the fundamentalist right wing is simply not possible. One cannot dialogue with right-wing populist politicians, and their followers will reject dialogue and nuance as tools of the hated ‘elites’. Dialogue is not only a form of communication they do not value or understand, it represents a world-view and a way of being – an

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ontology – that they simply cannot embrace or validate. It is a waste of effort even to try to persuade them otherwise. There is, indeed, the danger that social work principles (such as maximising participation, building social movements, ‘power to the people’) may be coopted by right-wing nationalist populism to promote its agenda, as they develop their own version of social movements. There are, of course, historical precedents: the Hitler Youth, Mao’s Red Guards, The Khmer Rouge and Apartheid South Africa. Social work processes can be co-opted to serve and legitimise particularly nasty agendas, and this is another danger of ‘dialogue’ and of social work being seen to allow right-wing populism any legitimacy.

Other social work responses If we reject the response of ‘dialogue’, what are possible directions for social work in relation to the rise of right-wing nationalist populism? First, it is essential that social work not allow itself to be co-opted by right-wing populist agendas. A recent Australian example illustrates this danger. Some social workers, through the Australian Association of Social Workers, sought funding to participate in a Government program of ‘de-radicalisation’ of Muslim youth (see Latham & Briskman in Chapter 14). This can readily be justified on the grounds that social workers have the necessary skills, and that it is better that this work be carried out by social workers than by others operating from a different value base. However, this ignores the significant problems with ‘de-radicalisation’ programs, which reinforce scapegoating, racism, profiling, and the labelling of young Muslim people as ‘problems’ and potential terrorists. These programs have resulted in increasing feelings of vulnerability in the Muslim community. By seeking to participate in this program, social workers would be helping to legitimise such dangerous and discriminating practices, to reinforce Islamophobia, and to support the policies of a government that has succumbed to the pressures of right-wing populism in order to maintain electoral power. Such complicity by social workers also weakens the potential of the social work profession to take a strong stand against the racist and stigmatising policies of the government. Similar arguments were also made in Australia about the role social workers have played in the immigration detention centres on Manus Island and Nauru, where the Australian Government has chosen to house asylum seekers in conditions that have been labelled ‘concentration camps’ and have been strongly condemned by the UN (Guardian 2016). These detention centres represent flagrant human rights abuse, and yet some social workers have worked in those centres. The work they did, though well-intentioned, probably had limited value given the context of the camps, and some of those social workers subsequently resigned as a matter of principle, but the effect was that it rendered social workers complicit in a regime of serious human rights abuse (Briskman & Doe, 2016). Rather than attempting to engage with right-wing nationalist populism, or to work in programs reflecting extreme right ideology, a more fruitful

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direction for social work is to seek to establish, validate and support strong community-based alternatives, based on the primacy of human rights, social justice and diversity. This will begin to address the causes of right-wing populism, as many people will simply follow right-wing populist leaders because they can see no alternative to provide meaningful and secure lives for themselves. Social workers can seek to demonstrate and advocate genuine alternatives to the right-wing dystopia (see, for example, Anand, Borrmann & Das in Chapter 13). Social work is not alone in this, of course, and can join with various community activists and occupational groups who are resisting the dominant neo-liberal and right-wing discourse. But in doing so, social work must be careful not to be seduced into joining forces with right-wing nationalist populism in its attack on neo-liberalism; this rests on different premises and aims for very different results. Social workers now must accept that the values of human rights and social justice – underlying values for their work – are not necessarily shared by others. The world where human rights and social justice were more or less universally seen as desirable, at least within Western democracies, has now passed, and those ideas simply do not have the power that they once did. In some contexts they are ridiculed as ‘soft’, and in other contexts they are criticised as Western colonial meta-narratives, with little relevance for a cosmopolitan world. Social workers can no longer assume that others will support those values, because of the dominance of the selfish neo-liberal narrative in recent decades, the breakdown of internationalist norms, and the constant erosion of the commons. This means that social workers will need to articulate and argue their value base more strongly and clearly in the public arena. And that argument needs to be contextual, grounded in people’s lived experience rather than in abstracted ideals, if it is to have traction in an increasingly fragmented postmodern world. Another area where social work needs to rethink its position, at least in Western societies, relates to the role of the state. Social workers have tended to see the state as adopting a generally benign role, in support of social work, and providing necessary resources either directly or indirectly. Social work has generally supported a strong welfare state for the meeting of human need, and has worked to achieve this. But the role of the state is now not so benign (see also Ottmann in Chapter 11). Some critics would argue it never has been, but now the coercive, hegemonic and surveillance aspects of the state are revealed in all their ugliness for all to see, and no longer are disguised by polite rhetoric (Keller, 2017). Social work, funded directly or indirectly by the state, is certain to experience further constraints on practice, especially in relation to advocacy and activism. In addition, the coming ecological and economic crises will inevitably result in a crisis for the state, and funding for social work is likely to diminish, at the very time it will be most needed. Right-wing nationalist populism, of course, tends to regard the state as evil and wishes to dismantle it, except for the control and surveillance functions of the police, army and security services. If right-wing nationalist populism

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becomes electorally successful and can form majority governments, social work will face either a significant loss of resources, or strong pressure to conform to a right-wing agenda, or both (see, for example, Fazzi and Northdurfter in Chapter 7). Alternative, community-based resources for social work will be an important area for social workers to explore, and in this regard the community development perspective of supporting resources from within communities as a basis for practice becomes of greater significance (Ife ,2016). In order to counter the increasingly universalist narratives of right-wing nationalist populism, social work does need to embrace some form of universalism or, to use a term from the 1990s with even more relevance today, globalisation from below (Brecher & Costello, 1994), although this has to be heavily nuanced, given the need for all humans, and indeed non-humans, to live together in one world. Parochial exceptionalism and exclusion are simply not acceptable. The challenge is to prevent this universalism from becoming a totalising utopia, especially given the colonialist legacy of social work. It is important to articulate this universalist perspective as a clear counter to that of right-wing populism. One important way to do this is to outline a universalism of diversity as a more cosmopolitan framework for social work both locally and internationally. It is important to recognise that right-wing nationalist populism is an ideology of violence. Right-wing populists will often directly advocate violence, while at other times supporting it indirectly. The ready resort to the coercive power of the state, the militarisation of the police, the embracing of intrusive security activities, the sabre-rattling regarding global tensions, the devaluing of civil liberties, the support of citizens’ militia, the promotion of violent demonstrations, support for the death penalty, and tacit support for torture and police brutality, especially against People of Colour, are all present in right-wing populist rhetoric and action. This amounts to both an advocacy of increased state violence, and also of violence by non-state actors, which is an assault on the original social contract proposed by Thomas Hobbes, where citizens cede to the sovereign the right to use violence, in return for the state protecting their basic rights; this is widely regarded as a central foundation of the modern state. The violence practised, advocated or tacitly allowed by right-wing nationalist populism groups must be a cause for major concern. Social workers can only counter this with a strong advocacy for, and practice of, non-violence, in its various manifestations (Nepstad, 2015). Social work must also ensure that it moves beyond simply rational, analytical, logical argument in trying to articulate an alternative vision to the dystopia of right-wing nationalist populism. Social workers need to appeal to the emotions, to address the legitimate fears, and challenge the illegitimate fears, of many of the population, and to use not only rational argument, but also art, music, film, poetry, dance and drama to articulate the values and processes of collective and diverse humanity. However, this must not involve an embrace of anti-intellectualism; this would simply serve to reinforce the right-wing populist world-view. Strong intellectual analysis and argument remain important for social work, but this is not the only way that social work should present itself or do its work.

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A historical perspective is always important, but perhaps never more so than at the present historical moment. Understanding history will help to contextualise the re-emergence at this time of right-wing nationalist populism, and to warn of its serious, indeed catastrophic, dangers. It also opens social work up to other ways of thinking, knowing and doing, and reminds us that nothing is permanent. Right-wing nationalist populism will eventually decline (hopefully with a whimper rather than a bang), and it is important to be thinking creatively and imaginatively about what might come next. Social work needs to position itself at this historical moment and recognise the possibilities that will undoubtedly open up in the future, especially in a world where that future is both uncertain and, for many people, seriously threatening. In doing so it is imperative for social workers to take strong, uncompromising political stands against neo-liberalism and right-wing populism. We have reached a time when the choices facing society are stark, and the forces of greed, consumerism, individualism, racism, patriarchy, xenophobia, and capitalism in general are threatening not only the values of human rights and social justice, but also the very future of some form of sustainable human ‘civilisation’. Activism, protest, public advocacy and civil disobedience are necessary, and social work needs to be a part of this. Social work also has a continuing commitment to work for change at grass-roots level. To provide people in communities with genuine empowerment alternatives to the right-wing populist appeal must be a major commitment. This will not be easy, given the complexity of communitybased empowerment and the attractive simplicity of right-wing populism, but in the long run there is surely no alternative.

Note 1 This chapter is a reworking and extension of an earlier publication: Ife, J. (2018), ‘Right-wing Populism and Social Work: Contrasting Ambivalences about Modernity’, Journal of Human Rights and Social Work, 3(3), 121–127.

References Allan, J. & Briskman, L. (eds) (2009). Critical Social Work: Theories and Practices for a Socially Just World, St Leonard’s NSW: Allen & Unwin. Berlet, C. & Lyons, M. (2016). www.rightwingpopulism.us Brecher, J. & Costello, T. (1994). Global Village or Global Pillage: Economic Reconstruction from the Bottom Up, Boston: South End Press. Briskman, L. & Doe J. (2016). Social Work in Dark Places, Social Alternatives, 35(4), 73–79. Chowdhry, G. & Nair, S. (eds) (2004). Power, Postcolonialism and International Relations: Reading Race, Gender and Class, London: Routledge. Dominelli, L. (2012). Green Social Work: From Environmental Crises to Environmental Justice, Cambridge: Polity Press. Dominelli, L. (ed.) (2018). The Routledge Handbook of Green Social Work, London: Routledge.

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Dominelli, L. & Campling, J. (2002). Anti-Oppressive Social Work Theory and Practice, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Edelstein, D. (2010). The Enlightenment: A Genealogy, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Giroux, H. (2017). The Public in Peril: Trump and the Menace of American Authoritarianism, London: Routledge. Goodhart, D. (2017). The Road to Somewhere: The Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics, London: Hurst & Co. Gray, M., Coates, J. & Hetherington, T. (eds) (2012). Environmental Social Work, London: Routledge. Guardian. (2016). https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/aug/13/united-na tions-reiterates-demand-for-australia-to-close-dire-detention-centres Hind, D. (2007). The Threat to Reason: How the Enlightenment Was Hijacked, and how We Can Reclaim It, London: Verso. Howe, D. (1994). Modernity, Postmodernity and Social Work, British Journal of Social Work, 24(5), 513–532. Ife, J. (2012). Human Rights and Social Work: Towards Right-based Practice (3rd edn), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ife, J. (2016). Community Development in an Uncertain World: Vision, Analysis and Practice (2nd edn), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Keller, W. (2017). Democracy Betrayed: The Rise of the Surveillance Security State, Berkeley CA: Counterpoint. Kunnen, N. (2005). Participation in Community Practice: Karaoke or Fugue? Ph.D. thesis, Curtin University, Perth, Australia. Morley, C., Ablett, P. & Macfarlane, S. (2019). Engaging with Social Work: A Critical Introduction (2nd edn), Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. Nepstad, S. (2015). Non-Violent Struggle: Theories, Strategies and Dynamics, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nicholson, L. (1999). The Play of Reason: From the Modern to the Postmodern, Buckingham: Open University Press. Pease, R. & Fook, J. (eds) (1999). Transforming Social Work Practice: Postmodern and Critical Perspectives, London: Routledge. Sim, S. (2004). Fundamentalist World: The New Dark Age of Dogma, Crow’s Nest NSW: Allen & Unwin. Stove, D. (2003). On Enlightenment, New Brunswick NJ: Transaction Publishers. Tascón, S. (2018). Visual Communication for Social Work Practice: Power, Culture, Analysis. London: Routledge. Webb, S. (ed.) (2019). The Routledge Handbook of Critical Social Work, London: Routledge. Wodak, R. (2015). The Politics of Fear: What Right-Wing Populist Discourses Mean, London: Sage.

3

White fragility, populism, xenophobia and late neoliberalism Donna Baines and Virigina Mapedzahama

Introduction This chapter discusses right-wing nationalist populism and xenophobia, as well as the way that these two forces are undergirded by, overlap with, and reinforce a process known as white fragility. The chapter will define these three concepts and analyse their effects in social work workplaces and practices that are increasingly restricted and managerialized in the context of late neoliberalism. The chapter also provides two practice examples and suggests ways to resist white fragility, xenophobia and right-wing populism, and to expand the spaces for critical reflexivity and practice aimed at full social inclusion, equity and social justice.

Discussion of terms: populism, xenophobia and white fragility This chapter is particularly concerned with a set of individual and institutional practices and commonsense ideologies known as white fragility (DiAngelo, 2018; Keger, 2016; Waters, 2016). Drawing on her many years as a trainer on racial and social justice issues, DiAngelo (2018) observes that the mere suggestion that being white has ‘meaning and dominance’ often ‘triggers a range of defensive responses’ including feelings of anger, fear and guilt and behaviors such as arguing, silence and withdrawal (p. 2). These feelings and behaviors make it very difficult to discuss or resolve racism or any other problems. Instead, they effectively shut down challenges to racism and reestablish the status quo, namely the dominance of institutions, policies and practices that protect largely invisible white privilege (DiAngelo, 2018, p. 2). DiAngelo (2018) argues further white fragility is not actually a weakness but ‘a powerful means of white racial control and the protection of white advantage’ (p. 2). Acting fragile and defensive around the idea that whiteness is a source of power rests on the widely held belief that to be racist is to be a deeply flawed individual who intends to hurt others, rather than recognizing that racism operates at the systemic level, that society is fundamentally racist and that no one is exempt from the forces of socialization. DiAngelo and other white fragility scholars (Baines & Waugh, 2019; Corrigan, 2016; Keger, 2016;

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Waters, 2016) assert that racism should be understood as a system into which everyone is socialized; racism is the norm, rather than the aberration; and that rather than ask ‘if ’ white dominance is manifest in any particular practices or policies, one should ask ‘how’ white advantage is manifest (DiAngelo, 2018, p. 129). DiAngelo (2018) argues that this level of analysis permits the development of more white stamina rather than white fragility in the face of efforts to challenge white cultural and institutional dominance, as well as humility and openness rather than dismissiveness, accusations of reverse racism, silence and refusal to engage, and so forth. It also lays the groundwork for white people to join others who are taking responsibility for changing racist and oppressive behavior, policies, practices, larger systems and institutions. The goal of white fragility scholars is to ‘make visible how one aspect of white sensibility continues to hold racism in place’ and to provide critical skills in terms of putting one’s individuality aside in order to see and enact positive changes in larger systems and social processes’ (Corrigan, 2016; Keger, 2016). This project dovetails neatly with Critical Race Theory (Cho et al., 2013; Crenshaw, 1991) which draws attention to the ways that words can wound, and the ways that white dominance is seamlessly recreated, even in environments committed to enlightenment such as the university classroom (Delgado & Stefancic, 2017; Matsuda, 2018). Fernando and Bennett (2019) assert a similar argument, warning that unless culturally safe practices are used in social work and other classrooms, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island students can be re-traumatized through the defensiveness, resentment, and desensitization of non-Aboriginal students. This frequently silent but very present backlash generates an unquestioned re-assertion of white settler, colonial discourse as well as the re-marginalization of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island students within the university environment. Kwansah-Aidoo and Mapedzahama (2018) observe a similar dynamic at play in the experience of African-Australians, who find that there are few spaces or experiences that are not saturated with race-based discrimination and the re-assertion of white systemic/cultural dominance, including those moments where racialized people resist racist speech and actions. White fragility can be seen to underlie these dynamics, reinforcing and legitimizing whiteness as the unquestioned and overriding cultural norm which effectively subdues all challenges. A strong undercurrent of white fragility can also be seen in the xenophobia of right-wing populist politicians and their supporters, who assert that whitemajority countries such as the US, UK or Germany are open-minded and non-discriminatory. Reflecting a deep fragility, they blame those outside the white majority for introducing racism and social problems and accord nonwhite groups (as well as some white groups, such as Jewish people), with malicious intent to break the country and impede its attempts to be great once again (Brioch, 2018; Hockenos, 2013; Wright, 2018). In the current context, xenophobia is frequently a feature of right-wing populism.

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Populism involves a distrust of existing political parties and institutions. Populist leaders try to get elected or take over government institutions in order to make a serious break with the status quo (Judis, 2016). Populism can take a left-wing form (such as SYRIZA in Greece), advocating for community empowerment, an end to austerity and greater equity for all (Muddle, 2017), but in most of Europe, Australia and North America, populism more often takes on a right-wing form. As the chapters in this collection confirm, right wing populism targets and blames social problems on those constructed as ‘foreign’ and ‘undesirables’, particularly racialized people, and others outside of the populist movement’s notion of authentic citizens and those entitled to opportunities and security in life (Turtiainen, 2017). Right-wing populism tends to be highly xenophobic (Fazzi, 2015; Judis, 2016; Ottmann, 2017). The election of Donald Trump in the US, the success of the Brexit movement in the UK in leaving the European Union, and the election of right-wing populist politicians in many countries, all pivot on the idea that outside groups, particularly immigrants and refugees, are undermining economic stability, and threatening the social fabric and moral order (Taras, 2012; Yakushko, 2009). These political groupings frequently include ultra-right and fascist groups, which brings these often violent, white supremicist groups out of the margins of society and into the arena of power and legitimacy (Foa & Mounk, 2016; Wright, 2018). Ultra-right/fascist populists support and perpetuate violence against those speaking out against white racism. In a tragic example, in 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia a neo-Nazi revved his car into a crowd of peaceful protestors, injuring 19 and killing one young woman, before fleeing the scene (Stolberg & Rosenthal, 2017). More recently, a right-wing white supremacist gunman opened fire on Muslim worshippers at attending Friday night prayers at a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, killing 50 people (Regan & Sidhu, 2019). These ultra-right and fascist forces are deeply disturbing, with faith communities, human rights groups, social justice movements, a wide spectrum of centre, left and even some right-wing politicians warning of the dangers of fascism, its doctrines of hate and violence and the need to halt its spread (Fazzi, 2015; Brioch, 2018; Hockenos, 2013; Wright, 2018). Populism generally develops in contexts where there is deep dissatisfaction with the economy, the government and those perceived to be power elites, such as the heads of corporations, political parties and, sometimes, social movements, unions and religious institutions. Thirty years ago, the wealthy countries began adopting and enforcing neoliberal policies that cut and privatized government services in order to provide the private market with an unimpeded space in which to operate, with few constraints or regulation, and a highly competitive, individualistic labour market. Rather than a general growth in wealth, as trickle-down economics claims, the expansion of the neoliberal private market has resulted in an emphasis on individual responsibility rather than community or social solidarity, and an economy in which the richest portion of the population have increased their wealth amidst an

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overall decline in average take-home pay, the growth of poverty and precarity, and less and less government services left to buffer these negative impacts (Harvey, 2007; Stanford, 2015). In the polarized and competitive context of late neoliberalism, discontent and cynicism are widespread. Unfortunately, this disaffection has created a fertile ground for populist leaders who promise a break with the past and simple solutions to complex problems. As noted above, in much of the industrialized world populism has been interwoven with xenophobia and racism. Rather than halting the unsuccessful experiment in neoliberalism, the general financial crisis of 2008 (a near world-wide economic recession) generated calls for further neoliberalism and austerity, in the form of deeper cuts to social programs and the expanded dominance of the private market (Baines & McBride, 2014). Peck (2010) characterizes the post-2008 era as zombie neoliberalism or as a system that is dead or in rapid demise, though it continues to act like it is viable and devours those who stand in its path. Others characterize this same era as late neoliberalism, which for social workers was a period in which social work and social services have been restructured repeatedly to more closely reflect private market ideology, often failing to meet community and service user needs, and limiting the spaces for critical thought, policy and practice (Kennedy Kish et al., 2017; Morley, 2011; Pease et al., 2016). This means that there are few opportunities to develop shared understandings of the challenges facing service users, social workers and broader society or to collectively develop strategies to address growing needs and social tensions (Kennedy Kish et al., 2017). Right-wing populism calls for cuts to government funding, further exacerbating the effects of neoliberal and austerity policies on social workers. These cuts increase the precarity and poverty in communities served by social workers and adds to their own job insecurity and work intensity as cash-strapped social service agencies increase workloads and reduce staff wages and hours to balance their budgets. Fazzi (2015) argues that social workers need to be well-educated in arguments against right-wing populism and xenophobia and involve themselves in social change efforts and activism in order to defend ourselves, service users and communities (see also Noble, 2017). In order to avoid succumbing to xenophobia and right-wing populism, this education needs to keep the bigger, global picture in mind. Social work is based in specific communities and populations, which means that it is vulnerable to arguments that put local or national concerns over international ones. Turtiainen (2017) warns that this may unintentionally perpetuate xenophobic ‘processes of othering, which can exclude those who do not fit into national ideals’ (p. 12) and ‘accept without question the moral panic linked to the influx of refugees and asylum seekers without understanding the global nature of social problems and transnational processes of (forced) migration’ (p. 13). Similarly, social work can unintentionally ally with right-wing populist notions that racism is rare and that society is largely equal. This frequently takes the form of virtuously claiming to view all people as equal and treating all people in the exact same way. Mapedzahama (2019) identifies this as raceblind practice and colour-mutism, which only succeeds in re-asserting white

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cultural and institutional dominance, rather than embracing diversity. Like DiAngelo’s (2018) call for white people to foster humility and develop stamina in the face of exchanges about whiteness, Mapedzahama (2019) invites social workers and community workers to recognize that racialized structures and systems shape our social world and that social workers need to involve themselves in ‘courageous conversations’ to challenge and dislodge the social practices that hold race-based injustices in place.

The managerialized workplace Though much of social work practice in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the UK claims to be committed to social justice and critical perspectives, a rich literature substantiates that neoliberalism has significantly decreased professional discretion and significantly increased the complexity and intensity of the problems facing service users and communities (Harris, 2014; Kennedy Kish et al., 2017; Pease et al., 2016). Professions like social work value their capacity to make autonomous decisions about how to best work with any given individual, family or community, and to challenge and change measures that prescribe narrow solutions to the complexity of social problems. However, under the systems of management and cost control introduced in the past 30+ years of neoliberalism, social work’s autonomy has been seriously restricted (Baines, 2017; Harris, 2014; Pease et al., 2016). Claiming to promote accountability and efficiency, neoliberal management models such as New Public Management introduced increasingly strict outcome targets and measures of work which diminish social workers’ discretionary space. The numbers associated with these measures do not represent the full range of interventions, communications, and relationship building that is part of every good social work endeavor (Harris, 2014; Noble & Irwin, 2009; Rogowski, 2011). Instead, these metrics narrowed the bountiful complexity of social work practice and introduced increasingly restricted, routinized practice (Baines & Waugh, 2019; Carey, 2007; Rogowski, 2011). Standardization is regarded as an effective way to cut costs and increase caseloads rather than hire more workers and meet outcome targets. Standardization simultaneously reduces decision-making capacity and reduces or removes practices that are difficult to measure, including those associated with building social justice, promoting human rights and the ongoing work of sustaining the dignity of service users and excluded communities. These practices include: open-ended, dignity-enhancing relationship building; ongoing, participatory assessment and case planning; advocating with and for individuals and communities; policy debates and critique; and community development and mobilization (Harris, 2014; Kennedy Kish et al., 2017). Standardizing social work practice also means that the work can be broken down into smaller, more simplified, repetitive pieces and undertaken by lower paid, less qualified workers and sometimes volunteers. This undermines hard won gains in terms of wages, respect and better conditions in the highly gendered and lower paid social services sector (Baines, 2018; Carey, 2007).

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Narrow, managerialized practice tends to reflect white, cis-gendered, male, middle-class cultural and institutional practices, which pass as the uncontested and unexamined norm from which all others deviate and are blamed for their presumed deficiency. Standardized practice means that not only do workers have less autonomy and discretion to use equity-engaged practices, they also have less time and space to critically think beyond the dominant culture and have fewer resources, time and capacity to respond to the specific and new needs of service users and communities. This includes the many, often racialized individuals and communities impacted by rightwing populism and xenophobia. Mapedzahama (2019) argues that a colour-blind and putatively non-racist ideologies are problematic because they conceal the operation of racialized practices and institutions and ‘indirectly contribute to the very (racial) injustices they seek to combat’ (p. 14). However, in order to resist racist practices and institutions, develop racial stamina and exercise humility in the face of challenges to white dominant practices, social workers need the time and space to use their social analyses, undertake critical reflexivity, and build individual and collective social justice strategies. As discussed above, managerialism has reduced the space available for professional autonomy and non-standardized practice. However, as will be discussed below, some social workers continue to find ways to build critical analyses of social problems and undertake social justice strategies.

Resistance When asked to engage with global issues, social workers can feel overwhelmed by the immediacy of demanding caseloads and feel ill-equipped to participate in these discussions. Many social workers joined the field because they want to make positive change and be part of social justice projects. In the context of xenophobia and right-wing populism, this moral project will necessarily involve resistance and critical thought as they are desperately needed, in part to counter the notion of ‘impossiblism … that is, that nothing can be done about global suffering’ (Mallel, 2008, p. 215). Through constructive and non-defensive participation in debates about white supremacy and continued dominance, social workers can assist each other, services users and communities. This kind of work is called ‘ally-ship’ in which people commit themselves to work on the issues and priorities of others, in order to advance social justice for all. To avoid recreating existing racialized and other systems of dominance, critical thought and theorizing, including white fragility and Critical Race Theory, need to be central tools used in change strategies. Building social organizations with anti-racist/anti-oppressive perspectives and learning more constructive ways of inclusively working together is also key to countering xenophobia and right-wing populism. Ottmann (2017) argues that after 30 years of neoliberalism, it is time to re-forge networks and create links with civil society to combat individualism and isolation (p. 34).

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He argues further that social workers need to develop groups of like-minded, experienced peers and community members (Ottmann, 2017, p. 34). Working with social movements, advocacy groups and unions representing social and human service workers can provide resources and a broader analysis to resistance in social work arenas locally and internationally, as well as help to develop much needed links and cross-connections (Lundy, 2011; Kennedy Kish et al., 2017). These resistance practices help to position social work as a moral project that challenges global and local injustices and inequities.

From the frontlines This section presents two vignettes and draws out an analysis emphasizing practices and dynamics. Vignette one Tapuwa is a social work graduate who recently commenced work as a caseworker for an organization that provides post-resettlement services to newly arrived refugees and asylum seekers. She is excited to join an organization that works with communities that she considers herself to be a part of, and that also espouses the same values she upholds (equality, diversity, elevation of minority voices, etc.). As a person of colour – a former African refugee – she views her insider positionality as a powerful resource that can be mobilized within the organization to deliver culturally sensitive and appropriate, client-centred social work. Tapuwa’s enthusiasm soon turns to frustration when she realizes that rather than being a welcomed resource within the organization, her ‘difference’ is constructed as problematic. For example, while the organization claims itself as ‘inclusive’ space that promotes diversity of views and opinions, Tapuwa notices that whenever she offers her views in meetings, they are seen as ‘biased’ and inimical to ‘the way things are done around here’. She is often accused of ‘taking things too personally’ because she is an African and she is encouraged to remember that she is the social worker not the client. Tapuwa increasingly feels marginalized in meetings, and that her views as a person of colour are seen as a threat to the white order of things. During a meeting to discuss a proposal for a new program to ‘help’ refugees and migrants ‘integrate’, Tapuwa suggests consultations with clients to get an understanding of their perceptions of what ‘successful integration’ means for them and how it can be achieved. She explained that in so doing, the organizations moves from a ‘helping paradigm’ to one of co-ownership of the programs and processes of integration with their clients. She is frustrated when her manager immediately dismisses this as too time-consuming and ‘opening Pandora’s box – after all who knows what “they” will come up with’. He insists that the organization does not have the time and resources for lengthy consultations and cautions Tapuwa that she needs to remember that their role as service providers is to deliver services in the most timely and

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efficient manner. Tapuwa tries to convince her supervisor by explaining that, as a recipient of similar services in the past, she felt marginalized by the same processes that were meant to make her feel included. Her (non-black) supervisor and colleagues, however, insist that they have never received this kind of complaint and attribute Tapuwa’s troubling experience to the agency she dealt with at the time. Eventually, Tapuwa recognizes that the organization is saturated with white fragility and white dominance, and that they have effectively silenced her voice. She knows this to be racist and regretfully decides to leave the organization. Managerialism is almost always presented as a practice devoid of racial and racist bias, neutrally promoting the interests of all people (Baines, 2018). In contrast, using a Critical Race Theory (Cho et al., 2013; Crenshaw, 1991) lens, it is possible to view managerialism as a set of practices born out of a whitecentric, racial frame (Feagin, 2009) that quietly and effectively reinforces the dominance of white-centric approaches in social work workplaces. CRT’s ‘unique person of colour thesis’ (Delgado & Stefanic, 2017) provides a useful lens for understanding this one aspect of this limitation. The voice of colour thesis holds that: because of their different histories and experiences with oppression, black, Indian, Asian, Latina/o writers and thinkers may be able to communicate to their white counterparts matters that the whites are unlikely to know. Minority status in other words brings with it a presumed competence to speak about race and racism. (Delgado & Stefanic 2017, p. 139) However, rather than invite and value Tapuwa’s contributions, her colleagues and supervisor discount her ideas and experience. Her supervisors’ quick dismissive and defensive response to her suggestions that the organization should consult people of colour highlights how white hegemony and white fragility are sustained with arguments that do not appear to be openly racist. By disregarding her important insights (from an important but frequently silenced population), her supervisor re-marginalizes her and excludes the racialized groups she wishes to consult, while simultaneously reproducing white dominance in the organization and in his relationship with Tapuwa. The organization displays a notable lack of racial stamina, as it seems unable to engage constructively with diverse voices and alternative ways of knowing and being, despite a commitment to diversity and promoting multiple voices at the level organizational rhetoric. In this case, ‘difference’ is largely erased, and diversity is merely celebratory rather than part of practice and policy change. By failing to acknowledge white racial power, the organization not only maintains workplaces as hierarchically racialized, xenophobic white spaces, it also resists black/racial minority-led activism, as exemplified by Tapuwa’s decision to leave the organization.

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Vignette two When no one steps up to take the lead on a new website design and new information leaflets for the agency, though she is very new in her job, Inez volunteers. Though Inez’s supervisor warns her to keep up with her case load or documentation, she tells Inez that she is excited to see the new ‘look’ for the agency materials and thanks Inez for volunteering. Drawing on her experience in social change organizations, Inez uses her own time to consult extensively with colleagues, supervisors, service users, active community members and other social service and social justice organizations in the vicinity. In the process, Inez models and displays humility and openness to feedback and critique. She also quickly scans the Internet for articles on marketing, developing high impact messages and ways to ensure that materials are inclusive and reflect the increasingly diverse community, which includes a growing number of racialized immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers. Based on this information gathering, Inez proposes materials that reflect the social justice mission of the agency and that feature racialized people and diverse perspectives. The staff meeting at which she presents this is very quiet, with only a few of the other new staff members contributing ideas or expressing muted support for Inez’s work. Later that day, a senior staff member who has a reputation as an advocate for marginalized people sends an email to the entire staff, arguing that they may upset their ‘regular’ service users by centring non-white voices and that the ‘regular’ service users need to be represented in agency materials. Another longtime staff member adds that it would be wrong to raise the expectations of racialized people, only for them to find that the agency is largely white. Inez is shaken but knows from her social justice work that white superiority takes many forms and that she needs to draw on stamina, rather than being fragile. She is surprised and disappointed that the opposition came from those colleagues, as she had expected support from them. Inez continues to have to argue strongly at every step of production, with some colleagues refusing to participate, and others participating reluctantly or anxiously. The final materials are high quality and aspirational. They promote the social justice mission of the agency and challenge the centring of white experience and voices. They are very well received in the community and as the praise for the work grows, the agency collectively forgets its opposition and starts to take credit for Inez’s work. The setting for this vignette is a diverse community like many serviced by social work in the industrialized world. It includes racialized and Indigenous people, immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers. However, these populations are not represented in agency materials and likely are not reflected in the composition of the staff or board, despite the agency’s social justice mission. Inez uses skills she developed in social change groups such as broad-based consultation and racial stamina when she carefully shifts the representation of the agency as white-dominant in its publicly available materials. Her co-workers display white fragility in their silence at the meeting where her ideas are

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presented and then by later criticizing the ‘exclusion’ of white people (though Inez has not excluded white people, just foregrounded racialized people). The staff do not see any link between their behavior and white dominance, xenophobia and right-wing populism. They would be very hurt if this was pointed out to them and would likely react even more defensively and dismissively, even though Inez has presented strong evidence to back her ideas for a new image for the agency. Inez donates unpaid work to this project, which demands a great deal of skill, commitment and patience. She likely feels anxious and disappointed in her colleagues and wonders whether she has a future at the agency. As time passes, the agency conveniently forgets its initial opposition and enjoys the praise for Inez’s work. This represents an expropriation of Inez’s labour and ideas, as well as a way that white dominance is reformed in one aspect (representation in materials) but remains unshaken and unreflective at the systemic and structural levels.

Conclusions White fragility blends with right-wing populism and xenophobia in the context of late neoliberalism to produce a social work context in which many workers undertake volunteer and activist work outside of the workplace in order to feel that they are part of a larger moral project and to learn the activist skills that will be necessary to protect social justice (Baines, 2017; Noble, 2017). Like other skills, the only way to get better at organizing and activism is by participating. Thirty years of neoliberalism have left our communities more individualized and fragmented, and far less in the way of social organizations, social skills and solidarity between people. The only way to reweave the social justice-based social fabric is to start working on it and to hone our skills in the development of new initiatives and optimism. The internet is full of resources and ideas, and many organizations are looking for allies in these social justice efforts. As DiAngelo (2018) notes, though her project is to make visible one strand of how white sensibility continues to hold racism in place, she also notes that people are simultaneously oppressed by class, gender, sexual orientation, (dis) ability and so forth (see Crenshaw, 1991 on intersectionality). These intersecting strands of oppression (Baines & Waugh, 2019; Cho et al., 2013) also need to be challenged with stamina and humility, setting aside our ‘sense of person uniqueness’ in order to ‘see the big picture of society’ (DiAngelo, 2018; p. 13). These skills dovetail well with those used in the building of social justice organizations and effective alternatives to xenophobia and right-wing populism. To this same end, Noble (2017) challenges social work to re-commit to antiracist, anti-oppressive and critically informed social work practice, as well as to work in solidarity to develop and support a humanized society (p. 3). Such a recommitment requires the centring of diversity and multiplicity of voices within the profession, particularly when it comes to non-white social workers who may have unique insights into the world of communities with which social work

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regularly engages. Within this context, anti-racism becomes a collaborative social justice project that recognizes the important positionality of non-white social workers and promotes white racial stamina that works to engage constructively with challenges concerning racialized behaviors, speech and actions. In an era of neoliberalism marked by xenophobia, right-wing nationalist populism and white fragility, it is in these (re)commitments and contributions that social work can ground its moral project and deepen social justice in all its complexity and possibility.

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Fernando, T. & Bennett, B. (2019) Creating a Culturally Safe Space when Teaching Aboriginal Content in Social Work: A Scoping Review. Australian Social Work, 72(1), 47–61. Foa, R. & Mounk, Y. (2016) The Democratic Disconnect: The Danger of Deconsolidation. Journal of Democracy, 27(3), 5–17. Harris, J. (2014) (Against) Neoliberal Social Work. Critical and Radical Social Work, 2(1), 7–22. Harvey, D. (2007) A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Cambridge MA: Oxford University Press. Hockenos, P. (2013) Free to Hate: The Rise of the Right in Post-communist Eastern Europe. London: Routledge. Judis, J. (2016) The Populist Explosion: How the Great Recession Transformed American and European Politics. New York: Columbia Global Reports. Keger, A. (2016) The Sugarcoated Language of White Fragility. Huffington Post. www.huf fingtonpost.com/anna-kegler/the-sugarcoated-language-of-white-fragility_b_10909350. html (Accessed September 10, 2017). Kennedy-Kish, B., Sinclair, R., Carniol, B. & Baines, D. (2017) Case Critical: Social Services and Social Justice in Canada. Toronto: Between the Lines. Kwansah-Aidoo, K. & Mapedzahama, V. (2018) ‘There Is Really Discrimination Everywhere’: Experiences and Consequences of Everyday Racism among the New Black African Diaspora in Australia. The Australasian Review of African Studies, 39 (1), 81–109. Lundy, C. (2011) Social Work and Social Justice: A Structural Approach to Practice. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Mallel, D. (2008) Is Change Possible? In Smith, J. & Brownlee, G. (eds), Social Theory and Social Change. New York: St. Martin’s Press (pp. 212–218). Mapedzahama, V. (2019) Race Matters: (Re)thinking the Significance of Race and Racial Inequalities in Community Development Practice in Australia. Social Work and Policy Studies: Social Justice, Practice and Theory, 2(1), https://openjournals. library.sydney.edu.au/index.php/SWPS/article/view/13232 Matsuda, M. (2018) Words That Wound: Critical Race Theory, Assaultive Speech, and the First Amendment. New York: Routledge. Morley, C. (2011) How Does Critical Reflection Develop Possibilities for Emancipatory Change? An Example From an Empirical Research Project. British Journal of Social Work, 42(8), 1513–1532. Muddle, C. (2017) SYRIZA: The Failure of the Populist Promise. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Noble, C. (2017) What Is This New Thing Called ‘Populism’? Social Dialogue Magazine, 17, 8–9. Noble, C. & Irwin, J. (2009) Social Work Supervision: An Exploration of the Current Challenges in a Rapidly Changing Social, Economic and Political Environment. Journal of Social Work, 9(3), 345–358. Ottmann, G. (2017) Nationalist Populism and Social Work. Social Dialogue Magazine, 17, 33–34. Pease, B., Goldinjay, S., Hosken, N. & Nipperess, S. (2016) Doing Critical Social Work. Transformative Practices for Social Justice. Melbourne: Allen & Unwin. Peck, J. (2010) Zombie Neoliberalism and the Ambidextrous State. Theoretical Criminology, 14(1), 104–110.

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Regan, H. & Sidhu, S. (2019) 49 Killed in Mass Shooting at two Mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. CNN, March 15, 2019, https://edition.cnn.com/2019/ 03/14/asia/christchurch-mosque-shooting-intl/index.html Rogowski, S. (2011) Managers, Managerialism and Social Work with Children and Families: The Deformation of a Profession? Practice, 23(3), 157–167. Stanford, J. (2015) Economics for Everyone: An Everyday Guide to Capitalism. London: Pluto Press. Stolberg, S. & Rosenthal, B. (2017) Man Charged After White Nationalist Rally in Charlottesville Ends In Deadly Violence. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/12/us/ charlottesville-protest-white-nationalist.html Taras, R. (2012) Xenophobia and Islamophobia in Europe. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Turtiainen, K. (2017) Recognition as a Moral Yardstick against Nationalistic Social Work Practice. Social Dialogue Magazine, 17, 12–13. Waters, M. (2016) White Fragility, White Fear: The Crisis of Racial Identity in Australia, and Beyond. Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/ nov/23/white-fragility-white-fear-the-crisis-of-racial-identity-in-australia -and-beyond. (Accessed September 10, 2017). Wright, R. (2018) Madeleine Albright Warns of a New Fascism – and Trump. New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/madeleine-albright-warns-of-a -new-fascism-and-trump (Accessed March 21, 2019). Yakushko, O. (2009) Xenophobia: Understanding the Roots and Consequences of Negative Attitudes toward Immigrants. The Counseling Psychologist, 37(1), 36–66.

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A radical tradition of community development responses to right-wing populism Peter Westoby

Introduction There have been many efforts to radicalise social work in Australia. Jim Ife’s popular Human Rights and Social Work (2012), would be an example, along with the more recent collection Radicals in Australian Social Work: Stories of lifelong activism (Noble, Pease & Ife, 2017). Recognising that there are many ways to radicalise social work, my focus is on community development’s (CD’s) contribution to that. As mentioned above, CD has been more or less marginalised within social work curricula within Australia, yet there is a rich trove of literature, from Healy’s Social Work Method and Skills (2011) through to more recent work such as Forde and Lynch’s Social Work and Community Development (2015). However, acknowledging CD’s presence in the social work literature, there has been a lack of edgy (Kenny, 2011) or radical CD (Gilchrist, 2004), hence my focus on how the popular education tradition of CD could be revitalised as a social work response to right-wing nationalist populism. Posing the question: ‘What does history right now, in this “populist moment” require of community development (CD) within social work?’ does not imply that right-wing nationalist populist groups have only just arrived in history. Many commentators rightly argue that they have been around for a long time. Yet, something has shifted, connected to the new organising possibilities through social media that connect groups across nations, and also appear to have lifted the lid of Pandora’s Box, making possible the kind of leadership Donald Trump represents. In asking the question above I also assert that there is no ‘essence’ of CD, no CD ‘as a thing’, in the same way as there is no ahistorical concept of ‘populism’. Instead, there are diverse histories, contexts, theories and practices, held in dialectic tensions that produce particular community development praxis. For example, diverse theories can orient CD in conservative, pluralist and radical directions (Gilchrist, 2004). Because of this non-essentialist view, it is impossible to say definitively something like ‘CDs response to populism is …’ In turn, this chapter reflects the aspirations of a more radical CD orientation that could be reinserted into the social worker’s repertoire. Explicitly, the word ‘radical’ is used in a particular way, as per the definition of Brookfield and Holst

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(2011, p. 3) whereby radical is ‘getting to the roots of something’. In this sense, CD’s historical roots involve citizens coming together to make sense of their experiences within the world for the purposes of collective action, ideally with a structural analysis of the cause of poverty and marginalisation. At the same time as reaching for a radical CD praxis response within social work to the populist moment, I draw on the phenomenological tradition of inquiry, shining a light inwards, on or into myself, wondering how analysis is shaped by what is going on ‘within’ the inquirer.

The problem of right-wing nationalist populism Trump’s election, Brexit in the UK, the revival of the extreme right in recent European elections, the October 2018 Brazilian elections, and the revival of Pauline Hanson in Australia, are phenomena that can be imagined or understood as right-wing nationalist populism. I have in other writings also referred to it as ‘nativist’, ‘sham’ and ‘malignant populism’ (Westoby, 2018). Others have called it ‘authoritarian populism’, referring to Hall’s seminal work in the 1970s and 1980s that tried to make sense of the movements behind the rise of Thatcherism (Hall & Jacques, 1983). The historian Finchelstein (2017, p. 101) develops a typology of populism and talks of current right-wing populism as ‘neoclassical of the right and extreme right’, contrasting it with classical, neoliberal, and neoclassical of the left. While some commentators focus on the worrying features of authoritarian populism that do challenge liberal democracy, my approach is that populism is not necessarily a bad thing in itself, often with potential radical and egalitarian energies. Importantly, because populism is not a bad thing in itself, with commentators such as Chantal Mouffe making a case for a left populism (Mouffe, 2018) – although Slavoj Žižek argues that a left populism would be a mistake (e.g. Žižek, 2017, p. 248) – it is important to be clear about the particular characteristics of right-wing nationalist populism. Accordingly, I focus this chapter on community development’s possible response to rightwing populism, not left-wing populism. A synthesis of the literature suggests that the key tenets of right-wing populism include: 



An animating force fuelled by anger – both directed at elites who have betrayed the people, and importantly, against out-groups, who are felt to threaten them – e.g. ‘taking jobs’. This is the ‘nativist’ element, drawing on forms of nationalism, and patriotism. For Žižek the current formation is an ‘anti-immigrant populism … it speaks in antagonisms, of Us against Them’ (Žižek, 2017, p. 241); Removing any doubt in a complicated world – transforming complexity and ambiguity in political controversies into a search for enemies (usually more vulnerable groups such as asylum seekers, refugees and migrants, but also the unemployed). This is the ‘sham’ element, as it is often profoundly deceitful;

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A political style which matches intolerance of those various out-groups with a style of attention-seeking/confrontational argument whereby offensiveness implies authenticity (Tiffen, 2017, pp. 13–14).

To name the problem as ‘right-wing’ nationalist populism is not to suggest there are not contemporary forms of left-wing populism, as evidenced a left populist movement in Spain (Indignados, Podemos) and in Greece (Syriza) and also represented by the kinds of energies harnessed by Bernie Sanders in the US. But right now, as per Buber’s injunction to ‘read the historical moment’, it is more often ‘the right’ that are mobilising in the way indicative of the tenets above. As per the energies being harnessed by Sanders in US and in Greece and Spain, it is important to be very careful in employing the concept of populism. As said earlier, avoiding Platonic thought, populism, like community development, is not a thing and is therefore not a concept to be imposed on history, but is a contextual concept understood within historical processes (Finchelstein, 2017, p. 128). Likewise, for Savage, populism is a ‘universal discursive formation’ which is understood in particular historical contexts – with his work shining the light on the US and Venezuela (Savage, 2018, p. 1). Alluding to my earlier comment that populism is not a bad thing in and of itself, US political writer Jim Hightower argues that populism has been the chief political impulse in America’s body politick – determinedly democratic, vigilantly resistant to the oppressive power of corporations and Wall Street, committed to grassroots percolate-up economics. (Hightower quoted in Frazer, 2017, p. 70) For example, Frazer discusses how the American Populist Party was formed in 1892 ‘to stand up to the corporate robber-barons of the late 1800s’ (Frazer, 2017, p. 71). In doing this it was ‘populist determination … what compelled the established powers in the US to grant the vote to underprivileged people’ (Frazer, 2017, p. 71). Also, as noted in a recent Oxford University debate, Populism always has the genetic predisposition to be dangerous and devastating. But it does not always start that way. It starts as the proverbial canary in the coal mine that warns of toxicity, constriction of oxygen and the possibility of imminent danger. (Rasool, 2018) Importantly for this chapter, populism – as a proverbial canary – similarly indicates the presence or emergence of grievance, discontent, alienation and humiliation. I will return to this below, because the everyday discontent of people is also historically the energy that community development praxis builds from, moving private concerns/private pain into public action.

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Why the ‘populist moment’? Understanding populism also requires a clear understanding of how the contemporary phenomenon of populism interacts with a democratic project that appears to be in a current crisis (Grayling, 2017). Understanding it also requires acknowledgement of the long history of populism, which can only really be understood by ‘addressing the different contexts of its political history and theory’ (Finchelstein, 2017, p. 100). Just to take one perspective, for political scientist Chantal Mouffe the key issue is the current collapsing of the neoliberal hegemony. Argued historically (and it is not possible to do justice to the nuances of her argument in this short précis), her case is that before Margaret Thatcher, modern politics held a tension between ‘liberal forms of democracy’ (rule of law, separation of powers) and the ‘democratic tradition’ (alive since the French Revolution, signified by the ‘will of the people’ and aspirations to justice and equality). However, Thatcher and the globalising neoliberal project managed to delegitimise the latter tradition, creating a new hegemonic formation of liberal democracy infused with neoliberal economic commitments to free market, protection of private property and consumerism. For Mouffe, this hegemonic formation, maintained for well over 30 years, is now collapsing, creating a crisis for democracy. Of course, there are also many discussions around whether this hegemony is really collapsing and if there is a real crisis of democracy, and if so what are the causes. One significant analysis is that an impending ecological catastrophe and climate change is the key driver, even accounting for the Syrian war (sometimes seen to be the first climate change-caused war) that drove millions to migrate and seek asylum in Europe (precipitating the recent mobilisation of right-wing populism there). Other analyses would include the growing social divide of inequalities, or the new world of proliferating social media with its radical restructuring of the media world (considered a key fourth estate of democracy). Mouffe sees the need to create a left populism as a decisive intervention in this crisis, an opportunity not to be missed, and one that must be mobilised in an adversarial politics. As Žižek sums up, Mouffe wants a left populism that, while retaining the basic populist coordinates (the logic of Us against Them, of the ‘people’ against a corrupted elite), fills them with a Leftist content: ‘They’ are not poor refugees or immigrants but financial capital, technocratic state bureaucracy, etc. This populism moves beyond the old working-class anti-capitalism: it tries to bring together a multiplicity of struggles, from ecology to feminism, from the right to employment to free education and healthcare … (Žižek, 2017, p. 246) Žižek’s critique of Mouffe is that she ignores the big question of why the left abandoned the logic of us-against-them some time ago. His argument is that

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abandonment was due to deep structural changes with globalised capitalism that left (or right) popular mobilisation cannot undo. Žižek’s counter-argument to Mouffe is that the current populist moment has arisen because there is now an ‘ongoing disintegration of the predominant mode of “manufacturing consent” which opens up the space for public vulgarity: liberal and populist’ (ibid., p. 248). He unequivocally argues that we should reject both the Trump (right) and Sanders (left) equivalents, suggesting that neither can deal with the real contemporary crisis of democracy. This ‘manufactured consent’, now collapsing, leads to ‘false solutions’ such as Brexit, or Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again’, which is actually obscuring the big questions, such as ‘how to fight “agreements” like TTIP [Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership], which present a real threat to popular sovereignty, how to confront ecological catastrophes and economic imbalances, which breed new poverty and migrations, etc.’ (Žižek, 2017, p. 252). Building on this, various analyses suggest that this is a historical time of profound anxiety and fear due to these many structural violences at play, whether people can ‘see’ them or not – such as Žižek’s analysis of globalisation, or the above mentioned growth of inequalities, climate change and accompanying forced migration, social media and so forth. Because of such anxiety and fear, often manifest as rage and vulgarity, people are ‘sorting’ themselves into groups, hunkering or bunkering down into group-think, or homogeneous communities (the ‘Us’ versus ‘Them’ antagonism). Clearly many of the fears and anxieties are founded in rational thinking, even if people’s understandings of real solutions are not rational, in the sense of clear analysis of the root causes of their grievances. There are many aspects about the future that are hard to make sense of, hence simplistic answers offered by populist politicians (such as ‘Make America Great Again’) provide a sense of fraught yet brief security from those fears and anxieties. If this analysis among others, is, as Buber suggests, the key to understanding the contemporary moment, then a crucial question concerns what community development and social work scholars, practitioners and educators, can offer. Are there any key interventions such as community development within social work?

Interlude #1: memory-work and moments In the phenomenological tradition, it is important to ‘observe, observe, and observe again’ the phenomenon scholars and practitioners alike are trying to perceive, and this is what we are doing in relation to populism. Everyone is also challenged to examine themselves, because it is the quality of consciousness of the researcher that is equally important to the research. A researcher is not an outsider looking in, we are in relation to the phenomenon. I still remember the day Trump won the election. I was working from home in Brisbane, Australia marking a substantial pile of student assignments. Like many, the idea of a Clinton dynasty (to mirror the Bush dynasty) left a distaste in my mouth, yet the thought of celebrating the first ever female US

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president was a worthy second-best prize. Then by midday the newsfeed started to alert me to what was unfolding. Initially disbelieving, I turned on the television, and I found myself glued to the screen. Seeing that Trump was going to become president was like watching a runaway train race to the edge of a cliff, taking a plunge that would imply certain death. I could not turn away. It was addictive TV. The same had been true in June 2016, living in Amsterdam for three months on a writing sabbatical. As I was about to take the Euro-train to London, I heard that Brexit had become a reality. I still remember the shock, and also the somewhat shocked faces of many as I arrived in London. Sitting on a train heading to my cousin’s place to Kingston, London I remember watching a Polish family huddled together in quiet conversation. Their world had just shifted, as it had for so many in the UK. My inner response was a mix of disbelief, shock and horror. Slogans and abstractions ran through my ossified mind, captivated by my lazy analysis of those who had voted for Trump and Brexit – racists, bigots, bastards and so on. And then, over the weeks following each of those two big events, I entered a reckoning with reality, a deeper delving into understanding. I attempted to open myself to ‘dialogue’ with the people who voted for Him and for Out. I did not want to. I wanted to rage. I wanted to call those people stupid. I wanted to maintain a liberal cosmopolitan outrage. But I felt those feelings and then pushed myself into a humanising place. Alongside being open to dialogue with people (not the leaders of those people, the Pauline Hansens) I committed myself to a deepening, yet profoundly difficult practice of agonistic conflict – maintaining a commitment to respectful conflict with opponents – as opposed to slipping into antagonistic conflict where I would demonise a so-called enemy. I am still living with those two commitments – dialogue and agonistic commitment among family, friends, colleagues, strangers and students. I fail almost daily.

Community development and right-wing nationalist populism As alluded to above, many people who see themselves as community development practitioners, or use community development approaches as social workers, would share some of the concerns of contemporary populisms. There is a mistrust of elites and many institutions of liberal democracy (commercial media, political parties, even the state as it is increasingly captured by corporations), and many have been raging, and feeling a deep sense of anxiety about the future. Yet, community development and social work practitioners do not share the same response as populists to this mistrust, rage and anxiety. Instead, there is a more nuanced understanding of ‘the state’ and ‘the media’, recognising the pluralistic dimensions – that there are many diverse players within the state and media. Furthermore, as per Žižek’s analysis, many community development workers are conscious of the causes of structural violences causing poverties and insecurities, and in turn reach for a more radical community development praxis.

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Because of this, my argument is that a radical CD within social work practice could have a very precise role to play in the historical moment. Whether the building of a left popular movement is or is not a strategic approach to pushing back against the rising tide of right-wing nationalist populism, is beside the point (acknowledging the kinds of debates raised above). What community development within social work can offer, not one aligned to left-or-right party politics, is quite specific. As per the Introduction, drawing on the radical community development traditions, it is important to acknowledge that CD has been deeply enriched by the notion of ‘the popular’, aka ‘popular education’. Drawing on Paulo Freire’s radicalising of CD, or at least the adult education tradition of CD (Freire, 1972), ‘popular’, particularly the Latino version of the word, equals ‘the people’s education’ – education ‘for the people, by the people, with the people’, combined with the principles of collective and political action. Clearly there is a profound difference in popular education to the kind of simplistic slogan-oriented ‘education’ of right-wing nationalist populism. Importantly, Freire’s popular education is dialogical, and it is committed to, as Freire put it, love and humility (Freire, 1972), which is nothing like what is seen from right-wing nationalist populism. Contemporary right-wing nationalist populism tends to manifest in anger, rage, and significantly, deception from the leadership. Instead, community development praxis offers a different popular education, inclusive of structural and post-structural analysis, making sense of complexity, and offering concrete hope in the form of action (from accurate collective analysis, not just rage). The problem is – and here the critical gaze is turned upon radical community development theory and practice – little has been offered from community development. Right-wing nationalist populism has been more effective at mobilising people and offering some kind of alternative future. In contrast, co-opted by a social planning and social service approach to CD, or conservative and reformist traditions at best, social workers drawing on community development have not offered a way forward for those who are anxious, aggrieved, and raging.

A community development intervention Recognising the need to offer a way forward as an alternative to right-wing nationalist populism, the following section signposts four key community development contributions. While located within a radical tradition of community development, as argued earlier, the particular use of ‘radical’ is as Brookfield and Holst’s (2011) definition. First, our work in re-emphasising social life One of the key consequences of the 30+ years of economically-oriented policy (economic rationalism, neoliberalism) is the undoing of society and the

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resultant fragmentation of community – sometimes described as atomisation. One of the problems of atomisation and fragmentation is that more and more people are isolated (hence the crisis of loneliness). Furthermore, people who are isolated and feel alone are vulnerable to joining the kind of ‘Us’ versus ‘Them’ antagonism that populism offers. In response to this ‘Us’ versus ‘Them’ politic, a community development intervention pushes in a different direction, either connecting people back into embodied and online social networks – creating the social activities than enable people to connect – or building on organic movements in which people are rebuilding community (downsizing, community garden movement, and so forth). Crucially, this kind of community building, re-asserting the primacy of the social over the economic, requires a nuanced and sophisticated understanding of intersectionality and multiplicity. It is to avoid ‘community as unity’ (as per the work of Nancy, 1991; Gibson-Graham, 2006; Derrida, 2001). The work in re-weaving community as sites of the social and ethical decisionmaking (Gibson-Graham, 2006) is crucial in undermining the conditions that make right-wing populism thrive. People who feel socially connected are less likely to feel fear, be vulnerable to national anxieties, and so on. I am not suggesting that people will not find ‘community’ within ethno-nationalist movements or simply hunker down with people who are only ‘like them’; but I am asserting that community development can support particular kinds of communities, not based on ‘ethno-nationalist’ identities, as per Nancy, GibsonGraham, and Derrida’s injunctions. Second, clarity about the important site of ‘community’ as a site of democratic struggle and the crucial role of popular education However, re-emphasising or rebuilding the social is not enough. Crucially, radical community development can insert popular education practices, or political education into some of these social networks, ensuring there are spaces for a revival of deliberative democracy and historical-political education at local levels. These deliberations and educational efforts are important for people to make sense with others of the unfolding democratic and potentially demographic crises. Importantly, while popular education can occur in an embodied way as people-in-localities sit ‘in circles’ learning and deliberation about key issues, the key issues are uniquely now local and global. For example, three of the most significant political questions of our time are to do with: solutions to global climate change, solutions to mass migration, and also innovating new models of ownership and regulation of big data. Like land in earlier history (signifying a division between the aristocracy and commoners) and the means of production in most-recent history (signifying a division between capitalists and proletariat), data is now the defining feature of power. Those who own data own the future, and unless citizens find places to learn and deliberate around such issues, new patterns of domination and inequality will become

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entrenched with little community or social resistance. The new age of surveillance capitalism will become further entrenched (Zuboff, 2019). The French philosopher Jacques Derrida (2001) argued that ‘community’ is a significant site of struggle – and in this site there are people for more boundaries, excluding ‘the other’, and there are those for hospitality. This site of community is then part of our struggle as practitioners and could form the basis of a popular education campaign, of grassroots education focused on these crucial local-global issues. Community practitioners at the front-line of place-based work can support visions for hospitality, and platforms that enable authentic deliberation. Importantly, such education should not be prescriptive, for example, pushing onto people a utopian vision of ‘welcoming diversity’, but should be dialogical starting with people’s experience and stories. Where are the spaces and places where people are learning? If community workers dream of supporting a politics of inclusion and hospitality, if they support a praxis of mobilising around collective solutions to complex social, cultural and technological challenges, then there is a need to reorient the work towards place-based embodied popular education. This could be done by social workers working in community or neighbourhood centres using popular education, hosting movie evenings or study circles – or working to integrate popular education initiatives around issues such as anti-racism into local sports clubs.

Interlude #2: encountering ‘Jack’: In September 2016, I was co-facilitating a community-based course called Building Better Communities, a popular education initiative of Community Praxis Co-operative (see Buckley, 2012). In this instance, we were working in partnership with a neighbourhood centre in inner-city Brisbane which had invited about 20 residents to a 20-hour learning process. During the first three-hour circle people introduced themselves and gave a sense of why they were in the room. There was a good energy and I was excited to be journeying with these 20 people. Then we got to Jack (a pseudonym). He was a late middle-aged Caucasian man and his response to the question of what we wanted to get out of the circle work, was, ‘to learn to get rid of the foreigners’. About half the room, who had already introduced themselves, were foreigners. The room was gracious, and I opted to just say ‘thanks Jack’, avoiding the impulse to any ‘anti-racism’ rant. But over the break I asked him what he meant, and he affirmed that he ‘votes One Nation and life is hard and it’s because of the foreigners’. I inquired some more of where he lived, and he shared his story of being unable to work, of health issues, and of living in his six-unit public housing block down the road, ‘filled with foreigners who make loads of noise all night and cook funny food’. I listened, and affirmed that life sounded hard, and that we were glad he had come to be a part of this. But I also let him know that we would have to ask him to leave the group if he said things that are really offensive to others. He heard me out, and we shook hands on the agreement.

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He hung in there for the eight weeks. The others hung in there with him too. He was on the edge of offensive occasionally, but mostly he was quiet and listened. In the last week, during a reflective evaluation, I remember him sharing how, ‘this course has changed my life. I’ve met you people who are different and I’ve learned to listen to you, as you have of me. Thanks.’ I still muse over Jack, this movement from the abstract mass of populists, to a man with a story, complex, multi-layered and filled with pain. Where is the private pain of Jack’s story going to play out? Of course, this has always been a question for community development – the move from private pain to shared public action is at the heart of praxis. If community workers or residents filled with the values of tolerance and peace are not there alongside Jack, then who is? The Jack’s of the world, alienated from community, are profoundly vulnerable to what right-wing populism has to offer. Third, building a countervailing organisational force Popular education is not just about the political learning and platforms for learning explained in the second point above, it is also about organising. And organising is crucial as one way of building a countervailing organisational force. Not everyone is like Jack, willing to go on a dialogical learning journey. For example, I recently read a story from Nowra, Australia in the Griffith Review (Adcock, 2017), which is illustrative. In this story, many homeless people had moved onto the camping grounds in the town showgrounds. There they could access toilets, showers and electricity. But eventually angry local residents organised to have them removed. In the Griffith Review account, there was a very vocal town council meeting where the angry ‘anti-homeless people’ had a strong voice, and the mayor was forced to act on their behalf. The ‘voice’ of ‘the people’ perhaps. But the real problem was that angry loud people got their way because there was no organised countervailing force. All the local service providers and community practitioners were consumed with the problem of housing provision, and no-one had done any organising work that could ensure there was a different resident voice at the town council meeting. I would suggest that every place has those willing to learn under the conditions of dialogue, care, respect. We need to work with those people and build an organised countervailing force in place to fight (and I mean fight because it is sometimes a fight) against those who wilfully choose for exclusion and dehumanising and are, at times, willing to do violence to others. In contrast, as discussed above, social workers drawing on a radical community development tradition would argue for hospitality towards those who are homeless, while advocating for structural responses around housing provision. Of course, such organising needs to occur locally, with progressive people’s organisations, but such organisations need to also be linked in trans-local work. In community development literature this is sometimes referred to as the meta-level work (Kelly & Westoby, 2018) – which is the formation of

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networks, federations and coalitions, ensuring local issues are also articulated into policy-oriented and institutional activity. Increasingly, this meta-work also needs to enter the local–global nexus of practice. Fourth, be pro-social state and pro-politics Finally, community practitioners need to move beyond a cynical feeling about the state, and instead be advocating ‘for the state’, not confusing state capture by corporations, or the institutional racism, sexism, ableism and so on, as a problem of the state per se. I would suggest that while we rebuild associational life at a local level, as per my first point above, that we also advocate for the ‘social state’ through forming or participating in social movements that have a broader scope, whether it be regional, national or international. One person in my home town of Brisbane recently suggested that neighbourhood and community centres should form a new national civic movement named something like ‘communities for political integrity’. I specifically point to the ‘social’ state, signalling the role of the state in addressing its own internal racisms, alongside structural marginalisation – both in terms of redistribution and recognition (Fraser & Honneth, 2003), which is the best way to avoid the conditions that are ripe for right-wing populism. Such a social state would need to also focus on a reanimated multicultural project, acknowledging that diversity is here to stay, while recognising that over-emphasising diversity without accompanying unity can also undo social cohesion (as does economic inequality).

In conclusion Social workers drawing on community development approaches do need to engage locally, and globally, bringing our particular skills in creating spaces, places and platforms for associational life, filled with dialogical and agonistic conflict. Remembering and reinserting the radical tradition of community development is a crucial component of responding to right-wing populism, offering an alternative to what has been offered in recent years by that phenomenon. This tradition was alive and well in the 1970s radicalising of community development (often known as the ‘Freirean turn’), and yet has more or less disappeared as welfare oriented service delivery has marginalised autonomous community practices. It is the job of social workers using radical community development to create the places where people can put aside their rage, and learn the disciplines of conversation and deliberation, heard, while not affirmed as necessarily right. In a nutshell, the work of reconnecting. These are the basic qualities of a revitalised democracy also infused with a radical egalitarian spirit, new checks and balances related to the contemporary challenges of social media, and a functioning society.

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The recipe for a truly popular agenda – which is what community development praxis would dream of – lies in how apparently divergent discontent is cohered into a set of public demands; how communities and people learn to mobilise and organise inclusive campaigns around those demands; how to construct alliances and federations (meta-level work) through careful negotiation around grievance and common purpose; and how, in turn, the language of anger and outrage can be harnessed for the ‘common good’, and not the malignant appetite of any corrupted populist leader.

References Adcock, B. (2017) Rush to Judgement: Stigmatising the Homeless in Nowra. In Perils of Populism, ed. Griffith Review, 57, Brisbane, QLD: Griffith University, pp. 59–69. Brookfield, S. and Holst, J. (2011) Radicalizing Learning: Adult Education for a Just World. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Buckley, H. (2012) Building Community Leadership from the Inside Out: The Story of the Building Better Communities Training Course in South East Queensland. In Westoby, P. & Shevellar, L. (eds), Learning and Mobilising for Community Development: A Radical Tradition of Community-Based Education and Training. Farnham: Ashgate Press, pp. 95–106. Derrida, J. (2001) On Cosmopolitanism. New York: Routledge. Eatwell, R. & Goodwin, M. (2018). National Populism: The Revolt Against Liberal Democracy. London: Random House. Finchelstein, F. (2017) From Fascism to Populism in History. Oakland: University of California Press. Fraser, N. & Honneth. A. (2003) Redistribution or Recognition: A Political-Philosophical Exchange. London: Verso. Frazer, P. (2017) When Everybody Does Better. In Perils of Populism, ed. Griffith Review 57, Brisbane, QLD: Griffith University, pp. 70–79. Freidman, M. (1991) Encounter on the Narrow Road. New York: Paragon House. Freire, P. (1972) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. London: Penguin Books. Gilchrist A. (2004) The Well-Connected Community: A Networking Approach to Community Development. Bristol: Policy Press. Gibson-Graham, J.K. (2006) A Post-Capitalist Politics. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Grayling, A.C. (2017) Democracy in Crisis. London: Oneworld Publications. Hall, S. & Jacques, M. (1983) The Politics of Thatcherism. London: Lawrence and Wishart. Healy, K. (2011) Social Work Methods and Skills. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Ife, J. (2012) Human Rights and Social Work. Port Melbourne, VIC: Cambridge University Press. Kelly, A. & Westoby, P. (2018) Participatory Development Practice, Using Traditional and Contemporary Frameworks. Rugby: Practical Action Press. Kenny, S. (2011) Developing Communities for the Future. 4th edn. South Melbourne: Cengage Learning Australia. Midgley, J. & Livermore, M. (2005) Development Theory and Community Practice. In Weil, M. (ed.), The Handbook of Community Practice. London and Thousand Oaks CA: Sage, pp. 153–168.

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Morley, C. & Ablett, P. (2016) Introduction: The Renewal of Critical Social Work. Social Alternatives, 35(4), 3–6. Mouffe, C. (2018) For a Left Populism. London and New York: Verso. Nancy, J.L. (1991) The Inoperative Community. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Noble, C., Pease, B. & Ife, J. (eds) (2017). Radicals in Australian Social Work: Stories of Lifelong Activism. Redlands Bay, QLD: Connor Court Publishing. Ranis, P. (2016) Cooperatives Confront Capitalism. London: Zed Books. Rasool, E. (2018) Is Populism Creating a Crisis for Democracy? The Daily Maverick, 8 June 2018. Accessed at: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/ 2018-06-08-is-populism-creating-a-crisis-for-democracy/ Savage, R. (2018) Populist Discourse in Venezuela and The United States. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Snyder, T. (2017) On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. London: Bodley Head. Tiffen, R. (2017) The Restoration Impulse. In Perils of Populism, ed. Griffith Review, 57. Brisbane, QLD: Griffith University, pp. 11–22. Westoby, P. (2016) Creating Us: Community Work with Soul. Brisbane, QLD: Tafina Press. Westoby, P. (2018) Community Development’s Response to ‘Sham’ Right-wing Nativist Populism: Contributions to a Thinkery, New Community, 15(4), 19–23. Westoby, P. & Dowling, G. (2013) Theory and Practice of Dialogical Community Development: International Perspectives. Abingdon: Routledge. Whyte, W.F. & Whyte, K.K. (1988) Making Mondragon: The Growth and Dynamics of the Worker Cooperative Complex. New York: ILR Press. Williams, C. & Briskman, L. (2015). Reviving Social Work Through Moral Outrage. Critical and Radical Social Work, 3(1), 3–17. Žižek, S. (2017). The Courage of Hopelessness. Brooklyn and London: Melville House. Zuboff, S. (2019). The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. New York: Public Affairs.

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The rise of angry white men Resisting populist masculinity and the backlash against gender equality Bob Pease

Introduction This chapter examines the gendered dimensions of populism and how it is expressed in the grievances of angry white working-class and middle-class men. Such men constitute one of the main expressions of contemporary populism’s effort to roll back the gains and accomplishments of feminism and other emancipatory social movements such as anti-racist, LGBTI and climate change movements (Johnson, 2017; Pascoe, 2017; Grant & MacDonald, 2018; Roose, 2018). To critically analyse populism, it is thus important to interrogate white masculinity and the sense of entitlement associated with it. While many class-privileged white men feel excluded and aggrieved in spite of their privileges, they fail to recognise how many of the disadvantages they experience are the conditions of the very advantages they receive. Other working-class white men experience a sense of aggrieved or thwarted entitlement resulting from economic restructuring and the crisis of global capitalism. Rather than acknowledging their experiences as an outcome of neoliberalism, they face a crisis in their masculinity and feel a sense of powerlessness manifested as an experience of emasculation and impotence. Populist rhetoric claims to ‘make men great again’ (Pascoe, 2017) in opposition to movements for racial and gender equality and is thus grounded in an ideology of masculinism and hegemonic masculinity. Social workers need to understand why so many white men feel aggrieved by what they experience as the loss of gendered and racial entitlement (Kimmel, 2013) and they need to develop strategies of active resistance against rising white male populism.

Gendering populism White men voted for Trump disproportionately to other groups (Gelfer, 2016). Given Trump’s misogynistic and patriarchal hyper-masculinity, it is unclear whether white men supported and endorsed his misogyny and sexism, or whether it was simply not an issue for them. His misogynist and sexist views and practices obviously did not deter them, and some would say that perhaps such views were even seen as a positive drawcard (Francis, 2018).

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Recent research (Cox et al., 2017) shows that economic hardship itself was not a significant factor in why working-class and middle-class voters were more likely to vote for Trump. Rather, it was fears of cultural displacement, support for deporting immigrants living in the country illegally, economic fatalism and support for traditional gender roles that were key factors, all of which were exacerbated by gender differences. All male populist leaders, from Trump in the United States to Duterte in the Philippines, are renowned for their misogyny and sexism as well as their hyper-masculine style of leadership. Such a leadership style encourages aggression and even violence against one’s political opponents, emphasises militarisation as a solution to international conflict and promotes the subordination of women and pre-1970s family values (Tanyag, 2018). There is considerable empirical validation of the connections between right-wing populism and masculinity (Spierings et al., 2015; Schmitz & Kazyak, 2016; Francis, 2018; Grant & Macdonald, 2018; Norocel et al., 2018; Stiernstedt & Jakobsson, 2018). Most populist parties promote patriarchal values and resist feminist ideals of gender equality. While men are the main promoters of this anti-feminism, the masculinist values underpinning the discourse are also espoused by some women. Right-wing women also advocate a return to a gendered division of labour with men in power in the public world and women confined to domestic responsibilities in the home (Geva, 2018; Grant & MacDonald, 2018). The roots of populism are varied and contested. Some commentators claim that racism and ethnic demographic change is a defining aspect of right-wing populism, while others argue that it is a backlash against neo-conservative politics and globalisation. The aim of this chapter is not to contest these alternative arguments for the rise of populism, but rather to gender them and to explore the links to anti-feminist male backlash. As some commentators point out, some of the historical roots of right-wing populism can be found in the men’s rights backlash against feminism (Nicholas & Agius, 2018; Stiernstedt & Jakobsson, 2018). Fathers’ rights groups and men’s rights groups have been part of the organised backlash against feminism and gender equality for many years. They have taken the form of resistance to perceived challenges to existing hierarchies of power and have espoused a commitment to return to an idealised past in which structural inequality was normalised (Flood et al., 2018). Such groups can be seen as the forerunner of elements of right-wing populist politics. They share the same anger and rage at women and what they perceive as ‘female-biased’ institutions such as the Family Court, which allegedly discriminate against men. They embody the same narrow construction of masculinity that is unable to come to terms with social changes in gender roles. While some views of these groups were deeply misogynist and chauvinistic expressions of angry men, more recently some of these elements of backlash have become more mainstream, just as populism has attracted so many people.

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The alt right also wants to return to an era when white men’s dominance was more legitimated (Nicholas & Agius, 2018). Although the alt right is not specifically regarded as a men’s rights organisation, it is informed by the same sense of aggrieved entitlement felt by anti-feminist men’s groups. There are thus clear links between the alternative right, anti-feminism and white men’s sense of victimhood (Stiernstedt & Jakobsson, 2018). Johnson, (2017) refers to these men’s experiences of powerlessness as ‘the art of masculine victimhood’, whereby they claim victimisation in spite of their inherited male and white privilege.

Populist masculinity as aggrieved entitlement Trump’s popularity and support in the US elections is linked to the anger of white men (Norocel et al., 2018). Understanding masculinity, and how it is reproduced in men, illuminates why men are more likely to become involved in right-wing populist movements. The alt right is consumed by an experienced loss of traditional manhood, framed by these men as emasculation (Grant & MacDonald, 2018). Kimmel (2013) refers to this as ‘aggrieved entitlement’, where masculinity is more an entitlement to power than an experience of power. Many men believe that they are entitled to power, and if they do not have the opportunity to realise that entitlement, they feel thwarted and emasculated. This sense of entitlement can no longer be guaranteed and it is sometimes unlikely to be achieved. These white men thus direct their anger at women and immigrants, partly because they perceive them as taking jobs which they believe belong to them. Because these men adhere to traditional forms of masculinity, the sense of being aggrieved threatens their sense of what it is to be a man. They want to reclaim and restore a more traditional and patriarchal form of manhood. It is such aggrieved entitlement that is the basis of men’s rights advocacy and backlash responses to feminism. In recent years, this has taken the form of men’s responses to what they experience as their thwarted sexual entitlement to women’s bodies, which has been challenged by the #metoo movement. Right-wing populism appeals to men’s emotions, especially those of anger and rage. Kimmel, (2013) thus suggests that men’s identity is the main motivation to explain why men are attracted to right-wing movements. Such men endeavour to embody a brutish form of aggressive and violent masculinity, which they associate with being a ‘real man’ in contrast to other men who are perceived as being too soft or feminine. Men are promised that by joining such groups they will be able to regain their sense of masculine entitlement by positioning themselves against others they perceive as the cause of the troubles they face. In many ways, such men’s masculinity is quite frail and requiring constant re-affirmation. Some men feel that their very right to be men is attacked by feminists (Allan, 2016). Many men believe that they are ‘victims’ of feminism because some of their privileges and entitlements have been challenged and other

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advantages have been eroded by broader political and economic transformations. Such subjective experiences of some men also co-exist with continuing male privilege at many levels throughout society. However, at a psychic level, these men feel that their masculinity and their manhood are at stake. Allan (2016) suggests that such men use feelings not to express genuine fears and anxieties, but rather to manufacture a sense of crisis and to frame themselves as ‘victims’ of feminism.

Restoring traditional manhood Alt right-wing populist movements throughout the world seek to restore a form of masculinity that was more valued in the past. Narrow forms of masculinity which emphasise sexual conquest, aggression and dominance are emphasised in the alternative right. While the alternative right makes an appeal to a particular way of being a man, there is a tension in their expression of masculinity. On the one hand, such men present strength, aggression and dominance, while on the other hand, they seek to cover up insecurity about their masculinity in the face of challenges to their social standing (Grant & MacDonald, 2018). The dominant form of masculinity portrayed by Trump and his followers is not only aimed at dominance over women, it also aims to marginalise other men as weak, feminine and un-masculine (Pascoe, 2017). Trump has turned the putting down of men he disagrees with as ‘losers’ and ‘weak’ into an art form. He portrays himself as a fighter and a protector, moulding himself into a particular expression of successful masculinity (Messerschmidt & Bridges, 2017). Trump even went so far as to emphasise his penis size in a presidential televised debate. Such masculinist sexual imagery seems to resonate with the feelings of many men who feel disempowered by what they perceive as feminist excesses (Page & Dittmer, 2016). The promise to ‘make America great again’ was interpreted by many men as to ‘make men great again’ (Pascoe, 2017) by rolling back gender equality initiatives and what was perceived as a ‘political correctness’ and ‘do-gooder’ mentality. Since Trump has been in power (less than three years at the time of writing), he has appointed conservative male judges to the Supreme Court, cut funding to reproductive health services, rolled back legislation that forces companies to disclose salaries by gender and supported cuts to maternity leave (Olson, 2019).

Masculinity, class and economic restructuring under neoliberalism The scholarship on working-class masculinities is useful in understanding how class-based social divisions between men fuels some men’s anger and rage. Working-class masculinity emphasises embodiment, physical prowess and strength. The extensive literature on masculinity and work makes it clear that stable, well-paid and fulfilling employment is the main pathway to traditional manhood through being able to provide economically for a family. The

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workplace is a central site, especially for working-class men, to form and nurture masculine culture. For many men, the shopfloor is one of the last bastions of male culture and this is why the entry of women to male-dominated workplaces is so strongly resisted. The dehumanising and degrading of women who would enter male workplaces helps men to preserve some sense of masculinity. Men in general, and working-class men in particular, prefer all-male workplace cultures in which to rail about the wider world in particularly masculinist ways (Roberts, 2012). However, with the massive transformation of manufacturing and the rise in mass production, many of the skills of tradesmen are made redundant. This poses a fundamental challenge to working-class men’s identities (Meyer, 2016). Many working-class men (and working-class women) have insecure and meaningless work. They constitute what Standing (2011) refers to as ‘the precariat’, where insecure income and insecurity about their work govern their lives. Such men and women experience anger in their frustration at not achieving meaningful work, and anomie through alienation and the insecurity of their work. Standing has not, however, identified the gendered dimensions of these experiences and how masculinity shapes and exaggerates this disengagement from the work process. This gendering of the precariat illuminates how these men are vulnerable to being recruited to reactionary politics. Vandelo and Bosson (2013) use the language of ‘precarious manhood’ to identify the stress and anxiety men experience over their gender status. This notion explains why challenges to traditional masculinity and manhood causes distress to men, and also why they will often use risk-taking, aggression and violence to re-establish their masculinity. If men are not doing the kind of physically demanding work that affirms their masculinity, they are likely to be particularly sensitive to other challenges to their status as men (Ward, 2012). White working-class men’s experience of disempowerment is at odds with their internalised sense of masculinity. Many working-class men in the new economy feel a lack of respect and honour and thus are vulnerable to rightwing populism, which promises a new world order that will restore them to a position of authority and power. Male politicians like Trump who project forms of hyper-masculinity are attractive to such men (Roose, 2017). In the context of white men’s insecurity about their masculinity and their status, the brutish and aggressive masculine style embodied by Trump, who ridicules what he sees as the ‘political correctness’ and softness of his opponents, fosters identification and support. Trump’s denigration of women and non-white people connects with the sense of disenfranchisement that many white working-class men feel in the current political context (Hustvedt, 2017). Many working-class communities have been decimated by economic restructuring which has resulted in large-scale job losses and unemployment. However, rather than directing their antagonism towards those creating the economic hardship, they focus their anger on ‘foreigners’ and women, who they perceive as taking ‘their’ jobs. It is thus important to understand white men’s anger in the context of increasing economic inequality that impacts not only on working-class white

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men but middle-class white men as well. Disaffected working-class men, who have been rejected by the new economy, express anger and rage at their plight. Such men are no longer able to give expression to traditional masculine traits such physical strength and toughness, which was a hallmark of manual labour. White-collar men are also experiencing greater work insecurity as more women enter the professional workforce (Roose, 2018). Messner (2016) locates white men’s backlash in the context of social, cultural and economic changes occurring in Western societies. He points to a series of interrelated social changes that he argues create the possibilities for backlash responses. Such changes include the emergence of a post-feminist sensibility among many men and women, the institutionalisation and professionalisation of feminism, and the rise of neoliberalism and the primacy given to the economic market. Notwithstanding the significance of social media organising and the entry of feminists into the policy-making machinery of government, traditional social movement organising by women in civil society has weakened. This decline in social movement feminism has also paralleled a sense that feminism is no longer needed, as women have supposedly attained equal rights with men. While some post-feminists acknowledge the accomplishments of feminism, the concerns about gender inequality and women’s oppression are seen to belong to the past, and consequently feminist activism is no longer required because it has allegedly achieved its aims (Messner, 2016). Post-feminist discourse makes it more difficult to identify sexism and forms of resistance to gender equality. Because women are represented more in public life (although far from enjoying equal status with men), liberal feminist notions have become more internalised in popular culture. Feminist energies are focused on more limited areas of social reform and are less likely to be grounded in feminist social movement politics and more radical changes in gender relations. Such post-feminism sits comfortably within the current neoliberal focus on individual rights. In this context, men’s rights are framed within the language of equality. Anti-feminism in the form of resistance and backlash is thus more implicit and consequently more likely to gain greater community acceptance (Messner, 2016). In Australia, we have witnessed conservative politicians taking up these framings, while their commitment to neoliberal policies is responsible for many of the issues men are facing.

A ‘crisis of masculinity’: what crisis? Schmitz and Kazyak (2016) locate backlash responses by men in the context of the so-called ‘crisis of masculinity’, which alt-right groups seek to address. It is posited that men are in crisis due to lack of support and negative impacts on them resulting from changes in work, education and family. The ‘crisis of masculinity’ discourse has been a feature of discussion in masculinity studies for some time (Horrocks, 1994; Coyle & Morgan-Sykes, 1998; McDowell, 2000). Lingard, (1998), in the context of the ‘what about the

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boys?’ backlash in education, argues that attempts to make out that men are the ‘new disadvantaged’ and that masculinity is under siege and in crisis as a result of feminist reforms, is a form of recuperative masculinity politics. Bennett and Fox (2014) suggest that men use the refrain of ‘what about the men?’ to derail and silence conversations about misogyny and sexism. Many commentators report on the ways in which men feel under threat from feminism (Lingard, 1998; Kimmel, 2013; Meer, 2013), as men draw attention to their health problems and longevity, and what they see as unfair divorce and custody arrangements and claims of violence by women. Saatchi and Saatchi (2013), for example, argue that Australian men are under attack from overempowered women who are undermining masculinity, and as a result face mental and physical illness, violence, suicide and relationship breakdown. Blais and Dupuis-Deri (2012) point out that essentialist beliefs based on evolutionary psychology lead to the view that men’s traditional roles have been destabilised by feminism. Masculinists and mythopoetic men’s advocates seek to restore what they see as a natural form of masculinity rooted in myths and sacred symbols (Bly, 1990). Such approaches to masculinity are premised upon essentialist and natural notions of the masculine and the feminine. These men see themselves as victims of women in general and feminism in particular. Framing men and masculinity in crisis as a response to feminism leads to anti-feminism and the promotion of traditional masculinity (Blais & Dupuis-Deri 2012). The issue of male suicide is often used to ‘prove’ the claim that men and masculinity are in crisis (Jordan & Chandler 2018). Issues facing males in relation to boys’ schooling, men’s crime, absent fatherhood and health issues are all claimed to be symptoms of a crisis in masculinity. For some, male heterosexuality itself is under threat, as noted by Garcia-Favaro and Gil (2016), where men feel ‘emasculated’. Feminists are characterised as ‘extremists’ who have ‘gone too far’ and demonised men. Jordan Peterson (2018). who has risen to popstar-like fame in recent years for his opposition to gender neutral pronouns and his critique of feminism, is a recent proponent of the notion of men in crisis. While most advocacy of men and masculinity in crisis is advanced by antifeminist critics and men’s rights activists, some feminist commentators and pro-feminist supporters have also used this notion (Field, 2017). Jordan and Chandler, (2018), for example, identify both conservative and progressive arguments in support of the notion of masculinity in crisis. Conservative proponents of the crisis narrative regard these issues as an outcome of threats to traditional forms of masculinity and manhood. For them, the solution is to return more fully to traditional gender roles and norms. They do not see any negative consequences of traditional masculinity for women or men. Progressive proponents, however, use the notion of men in crisis to argue that it results from traditional gender norms that also harm men; so instead of returning to traditional gender roles, they need to be transformed, although this transformation is still to occur within the framework of masculinity rather than beyond it.

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In the wider public discourse, the language of ‘toxic masculinity’ is used to describe such brutish male behaviour. Proponents of this concept are at great pains to emphasise that they are not criticising masculinity per se but only this particularly narrow version of it, while anti-feminist men perceive this language as a ‘broad brush’ condemnation of masculinity and all men. In this context, it is difficult to problematise the notion of masculinity itself because it leads to being positioned as ‘anti-male’. Right-wing populism is attractive to men who are experiencing this socalled ‘crisis of masculinity’. Men’s rights advocates and anti-feminist activists draw attention to men’s insecurity about their manhood in response to what are perceived as anti-male sentiments among feminists’ critique of patriarchy, male violence and ‘toxic masculinity’ (Schmitz & Kazyak, 2016). Men’s rights and populist movements promise to resolve this ‘crisis of masculinity’ by affirming men’s anger and resentment towards feminism and proponents of gender equality and social justice. When masculinity is threatened, it can lead to violence both in the private realm of the family, as in men’s domestic violence, but also in the public world where political and collective violence is enacted. Populist defenders of hate speech and supporters of Trump’s ‘locker room talk’ argue that these are ‘just words’ and are unrelated to violence or discriminatory practices. In contrast, feminist scholars interpret such ‘locker room’ talk as a form of symbolic violence which constitutes a rape culture that encourages sexual violence against women (Pascoe, 2017). We see such violence reflected in cyber bullying, and on-line trolling in what is called the ‘manosphere’, a network of men’s groups and organisations that are focused on men’s rights, including ‘incels’ and ‘red pill’ activists (Zuckerman, 2018). Rage and anger are directed at asylum seekers, immigrants and women because their presence seems to contribute to further marginalisation of white men’s concerns. In a context of increasing unemployment, increased insecurity of work and low wages, these men are vulnerable to right-wing political movements which promise great economic prosperity and a return to traditional gender roles.

How should social work respond to white male populism? As many social work writers have noted, populism challenges the principles of social work that are associated with human rights and social justice (Fazzi, 2015; Ife, 2018; Noble & Ottmann, 2018). Populism fuels the issues that social workers are required to address: backlash to gender equality and multiculturalism, terrorism, resentment and anger associated with increasing economic inequality and work insecurity, and class-based sexism and racism. Social work educators need to prepare students to critically engage with populism, as it arises in their practice, in the wider public arena and in their own professional associations and networks. Social work clients may express populist attitudes, and the profession itself may be pressured to accommodate to populist policy directions.

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Social workers in working-class communities need to understand the consequences of neoliberalism, globalisation and economic restructuring for the lives of white working-class men. So when such men express anger and rage about ‘others’ who are ‘taking their jobs’, they can be encouraged to see the wider context of the social forces at play. They need to develop some form of sociological framing of their plight so as not to blame others, who are also suffering, for their own loss of privilege and social status (Dominelli, 2016). Ironically, there is little attention given in social work education to dealing with class, whether it be in the forms of class analysis, professional class privilege or working-class subjectivities and identities (Hosken, 2016), let alone the intersection of masculinity with working-class experiences. Consequently, social workers seem ill-equipped to deal with the challenges facing workingclass male clients who experience distress in relation to their lost identities and privileges and who enact aggression and violence as ways of trying to restore some form of dominant masculinity. As many commentators in the literature note (Kaye & Tolmie, 1998; Salter, 2013; Messner, 2016), it is important to acknowledge that many men face real problems. We should acknowledge the pain and distress of these men, while refuting their distorted analysis of the causes of their distress. As noted earlier, such problems are primarily a result of globalisation, economic restructuring and unintended effects of patriarchy on men. Thus, the problems facing these men need to be reframed to address this form of backlash and the populism that fuels it. When white men articulate their claims in the language of rights and equality, they need to be challenged about the sense of entitlement that drives them. This sense of entitlement can also be used to understand fathers’ rights groups’ criticisms of family law and backlash responses to challenging men’s violence against women (Kimmel, 2013). Some policy and advocacy responses to this loss of power argue that men need to be restored to their ‘proper’ place as breadwinner and head of the household, and only then can they be ‘real men’ again. However, strategies to address men’s anger must focus on ways to encourage men to abandon their sense of male entitlement and to untangle themselves from traditional forms of masculinity on which that sense of masculine entitlement is based. Men must be encouraged to see the costs of having to continually ‘prove’ masculinity and live up to unrealistic expectations of manhood. This means challenging male peer cultures that validate traditional forms of masculinity. It also means locating men’s experiences in the context of the deindustrialisation and the elimination of manufacturing jobs that has occurred (Messner, 2016). Counter-hegemonic educational work with men in relation to men’s violence against women may provide some guidelines for engaging men more generally in understanding the social context of their lives (Pease, 2017). If angry white working-class men are to be a target group, social workers will need to understand the gendered and class-based dimensions of populism, and why it is attractive to so many white men.

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While it is important that social workers engage publicly to counter populist ideologies in the public media and to provide alternative views of controversial social and political issues, direct dialogue with some proponents of populism may not be fruitful. At one level, it is relatively easy to demonstrate the false premises of many populist claims; however, it will not negate men’s feelings. Coston and Kimmel (2013) argue that it is important to acknowledge the pain and anguish men feel. Otherwise, political arguments about the real causes of their situation will not be heard. Some commentators (Gelfer, 2016; Ife, 2018) note that one cannot oppose populism by rational argument and facts. This is because populism is fuelled by feelings that are often not connected to reality. Also, many such proponents are so deeply embedded ideologically that they are not open to a constructive dialogue about alternative ideas. Those of us who have attempted to engage in dialogue with men’s rights activists know how frustrating such encounters are. Such men use rhetorical tricks to derail views they do not agree with (Zuckerman, 2018). The populist backlash against feminism, however, involves a wide range of different political stances. Not all supporters of populism would embrace the more misogynist and violent expressions of anti-feminism held by men’s rights and alt-right groups. Populist masculinity is not homogeneous. Rather, there is a range of populist masculinities divided by class, culture and power (Gelfer, 2016). Some of the forms of loss that white working-class men experience in relation to white male privilege should not be lamented. However, the loss of wages due to economic restructuring resulting from transformations of global capitalism should not be dismissed. The fracturing of men’s identities in response to economic changes needs to be engaged with, but in ways that go beyond the crisis of masculinity discourse. In engaging with institutionalised men’s privilege and power, we must remember that all men do not share the benefits of patriarchy equally (Connell, 1987). Thus, a focus on gender dominance to the exclusion of class will not address the subjective experiences of men who are marginalised by the global economy. There is a danger in acknowledging the validity of some experiences of men within populism, that it may normalise and legitimate some populist concerns. However, it is important to recognise that those at the bottom of the class hierarchy within populism do have different class interests than those at the top. Thus, some forms of alliance could be made with more progressive class-based movements (Gelfer, 2016). It is important in framing resistance to male populism and men’s violence that counter-responses do not reproduce the very forms of masculinity that are being critiqued. As I have noted elsewhere (Pease, 2017), some forms of anti-violence work by men reproduce the patriarchal gender order. Pascoe (2017) suggests that some forms of anti-Trumpism also promote forms of dominant masculinity, whereby attempts are made to frame anti-Trump proponents as ‘decent men’ and ‘good men’ in contrast to Trump and his supporters as ‘bad men’.

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It is understandable that in response to the misogyny, sexism and racism of white men, so-called ‘good men’ who oppose these values and practices will themselves express anger and hostility towards these supporters of right-wing populism. What is needed is a nuanced critique of the society that encourages men to develop entitlements associated with particular forms of masculinity and then denies these men the structurally-based opportunities to achievement them (Pascoe, 2017). We thus need to understand and address the conditions under which some white men become marginalised and disenfranchised from the system.

Responding to white male populism in the social work classroom Populism dismisses progressive viewpoints by labelling them ‘elitist’ and in conflict with ordinary people’s concerns, which they claim to speak for (Mahdawi, 2017). Populism relies upon so-called ‘common sense’ over research and theory to advance its arguments. Populists also tend to frame alternative intellectual viewpoints as feminine or weak in contrast to their emphasis on authoritarian forms of masculinity (Read, 2018). Populism’s critique of ‘elites’ extends to intellectuals within universities, who are also seen to be out of touch with ordinary working people (Read, 2018). As many scholars have noted, populism has crept into higher education and is often embodied in student resistance to progressive ideas (Burke & Carolissen, 2018; Gray & Nicholas, 2018). Social work education is not immune from these influences. White male social work students sometimes say that they are ‘victimised’ because they are white males in the same ways expressed by white men in the wider community (Gibbons et al., 2006). They have also internalised the masculinist ideology that reinforces an epistemology of dominance and a dismissal of feminist and Indigenous understandings of the world (Gray & Nicholas, 2018). When white male social work students express the view that they too suffer bigotry and discrimination, they place themselves on a level ‘playing field’ rather than acknowledging their privileged positioning in hierarchical power relations. They use their subjective experiences and feelings as representing a truth about the wider society that does not need any validation beyond their personal feelings. Thus, we must remind ourselves in social work that populism is not just ‘out there’ (Roher, 2018). It is also sometimes in the social work classroom, and social work educators need to develop pedagogical strategies for challenging it. The aim of this chapter has been to provide an intellectual basis for this critical engagement.

References Allan, J. (2016) Phallic affect, or why men’s rights activists have feelings. Men and Masculinities, vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 22–41. Bennett, K. & Fox, K. (2014) Please shut up about ‘not all men’. Guerilla Feminism, 17/10/2014. Blais, M. & Dupuis-Deri, F. (2012) Masculinism and the antifeminist countermovement. Social Movement Studies, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 21–39. Bly, R. (1990) Iron John: A Book About Men. New York: Addison-Wesley.

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Burke, P. & Carolissen, R. (2018) Gender, post-truth populism and higher education. Teaching in Higher Education, vol. 25, no. 5, pp. 543–547. Connell, R. (1987) Gender and Power. Stanford CA: Stanford University Press. Coston, B. & Kimmel, M. (2013) White men as the new victims: Reverse discrimination cases and the men’s rights movement. Nevada Law Journal, 16 May. Coyle, A. & Morgan-Sykes, C. (1998) Troubled men and threatening women: The construction of crisis in male mental health. Feminism and Psychology, vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 263–284. Cox, D., Lienesch, R. & Jones, R. (2017) Beyond economics: Fears of cultural displacement pushed the white working class to Trump. PRRI: The Atlantic Report, www.prri.org/research/white-working-class-attitudes-economy-trade-immigration-elec tion-donald-trump Dominelli, L. (2016) Beyond marginality: The exclusion of white working class men from a prosperous Europe – What can/should social workers do? Unpublished paper, University of Stirling. Fazzi, L. (2015) Social work, exclusionary populism and xenophobia in Italy. International Social Work, vol. 58, no 4, pp. 595–605. Field, N. (2017) Farewell manly strength: Masculinity and the politics of emotion. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Toronto. Flood, M., Dragiewicz, M. & Pease, B. (2018) Resistance and Backlash to Gender Equality: An Evidence Review. Brisbane: Crime and Justice Research Centre, Queensland University of Technology. Francis, R. (2018) Him, not her: Why working-class white men reluctant about Trump still made him president of the United States. Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World, vol. 4, pp. 1–11. Garcia-Favaro, L. & Gil, R. (2016) ‘Emasculation nation has arrived’: Sexism rearticulated in online responses to lose the Lads’ mags campaign. Feminist Media Studies, vol. 16, no. 3, pp. 379–397. Gelfer, J. (2016) Populist masculinity: What it is and how to beat it. Paste, https:// www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2016/12/populist-masculinity-what-it-is-and-howto-beat-it.html Geva, D. (2018) Daughter, mother, captain: Marine le Pen, gender and populism in the French National Front. Social Politics, Summer, pp. 1–26. Gibbons, J., Crofts, P., Schott, P., Critchley, A. & Patterson, L. (2006) Mentoring male social work students through a feminist-orientated social work program. Unpublished manuscript, University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia. Grant, J. & MacDonald, F. (2018) The new alt right, toxic masculinity and violence. Paper presented at the Conference of the Canadian Political Science Association, University of Regina, Saskatchewan. Gray, E. & Nicholas, L. (2018) ‘You’re actually the problem’: Manifestations of populist masculinist anxieties in Australian higher education. British Journal of Sociology of Education, vol. 40, no. 3, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01425692.2018. 1522242 Horrocks, R. (1994) Masculinity in Crisis. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Hosken, N. (2016) Social workers, class and the structural violence of poverty. In B. Pease, S. Goldingay, N. Hosken & S. Nipperess (eds), Doing Critical Social Work: Transformative Practices for Social Justice. Sydney: Allen and Unwin, pp. 104–120. Hustvedt, S. (2017) Not just economics: White populism and its emotional demons. NORMA: Nordic Journal of Feminists and Gender Research, vol. 25, no 1, pp. 62–65.

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Ife, J. (2018) Right-wing populism and social work: Contrasting ambivalences about modernity. Journal of Human Rights and Social Work, vol. 3, pp. 121–127. Johnson, P. (2017) The art of masculine victimhood: Donald Trump’s demagoguery. Women’s Studies in Communication, vol. 40, no. 3, pp. 229–250. Jordan, A. & Chandler, A. (2018) Crisis, what crisis? A feminist analysis of discourse on masculinities and suicide. Journal of Gender Studies, pp. 467–474, doi:10.1080/ 09589236.2018.1510306 Kaye, M. & Tolmie, J. (1998) Discoursing dads: The rhetorical devices of fathers’ rights groups. Melbourne University Law Review, no. 162, pp. 162–194. Kimmel, M. (2013) Angry White Men: American Masculinity and the End of an Era. New York: Nation Books. Lingard, B. (1998) Contextualising and using the ‘What about the boys?’ backlash for gender equality goals. Change: Transformations in Education, vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 16–30. Mahdawi, A. (2017) Populist correctness: The new pc culture of Trump’s America and brexit Britain. Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/19/p opulist-correctness-new-pc-culture-trump-america-brexit-britain McDowell, L. (2000) The trouble with men: Young people, gender transformations and the crisis of masculinity. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 201–209. Meer, S. (2013) Feminist contributions, challenges and claims. Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equity, vol. 27, no. 1, pp. 90–99. Messerschmidt, J. & Bridges, T. (2017) Trump and the politics of fluid masculinities. Gender and Society, https://gendersociety.wordpress.com/2017/07/21/trump-and-the-p olitics-of-fluid-masculinities/ Messner, M. (2016) Forks in the road of men’s gender politics: Men’s rights vs feminist allies. International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 6–20. Meyer, S. (2016) Manhood on the Line: Working-Class Masculinities in the American Heartland. Champaign: University of Illinois Press. Nicholas, L. & Agius, C. (2018) The Persistence of Global Masculinism: Discourse, Gender and Neo-Colonial Re-Articulations of Violence. Chan, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. Noble, C. & Ottmann, G. (2018) Nationalist populism and social work. Journal of Human Rights and Social Work, vol. 3, pp. 112–120. Norocel, O., Saresma, T., Lahdesmaki, T. & Ruotsalainen, M. (2018) Discursive constructions of white Nordic masculinities in right-wing populist media. Men and Masculinities, pp. 1–22. doi:10.1177/13675494.1876423 Olson, E. (2019) How two years of Donald Trump have shaped women’s rights in the US. ABC News. www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-19. Page, S. & Dittmer, J. (2016) Donald Trump and the white-male dissonance machine. Political Geography, vol. 54, pp. 76–78. Pascoe, C. (2017) Who is a real man? The gender of Trumpism. Masculinities and Social Change, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 119–141. Pease, B. (2017) Men as Allies in Preventing Violence Against Women: Principles and Practices for Promoting Accountability. White Ribbon Research Series. North Sydney, NSW: White Ribbon Australia. Peterson, J. (2018) Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos. Toronto: Random House. Read, B. (2018) Truth, masculinity and the anti-elitist backlash against the university in the age of Trump. Teaching in Higher Education, vol. 23, no. 5, pp. 593–605.

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Roberts, S. (2012) Boys will be boys … won’t they? Change and continuities in contemporary young working-class masculinities. Sociology, vol. 47, no. 4, pp. 671–686. Roher, J. (2018) It’s in the room: Reinvigorating feminist pedagogy, contesting neoliberalism, and trumping post-truth populism. Teaching in Higher Education, vol. 23, no. 5, pp. 576–592. Roose, J. (2017) Citizenship, Masculinities and Political Populism. In J. Mackert and B. Turner (eds), The Transformation of Citizenship. London: Routledge, pp. 56–76. Roose, J. (2018) ‘Ideological masculinity’ that drives violence against women is a form of violent extremism. The Conversation, http://theconversation.com/ideological-ma sculinity-that-drives-violence-against-women-is-a-form-of-violent-extremism-99603 Saatchi, M. & Saatchi, C. (2013) The modern (Aussie) man white paper, https://trove. nla.gov.au/work/190046181?q&versionId=206913244 Salter, M. (2013) Are Australian men truly under attack? Guardian, 20 November. Schmitz, R. & Kazyak, E. (2016) Masculinities in cyberspace: An analysis of portrayals of manhood in men’s rights activist websites. Social Sciences, vol. 5, no. 18, pp. 1–16. Spierings, N., Zaslove, A., Mugge, L. & de Lange, S. (2015) Gender and populists: Radical right politics. Patterns of Prejudice, vol. 49, nos. 1–2, pp. 3–15. Standing, G. (2011) The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class. New York: Bloomsbury. Stiernstedt, F. & Jakobsson, P. (2018) Defusing the male working class: Populist politics and reality television. European Journal of Cultural Studies, pp. 1–18. doi:10.1177/1367549418786423 Tanyag, M. (2018) Duterte, hypermasculinity and the key to populism. Monash University. https://lens.monash.edu/2018/03/06/1327081/duterte-hypermasculinity-and-thekey-to-populism Vandelo, J. & Bosson, J. (2013) Hard won and easily lost: A review and synthesis of theory and research on precarious manhood. Psychology of Men and Masculinity, vol. 14, no 2, pp. 101–113. Ward, M. (2012) The emos: The re-traditionalisation of white working-class masculinities through the ‘Alternative Scene’. Working Paper Series, vol. 1, 150, Cardiff: Cardiff University. Zuckerman, D. (2018) Not All Dead White Men: Classics and Misogyny in the Digital Age. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.

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Right-wing populism and a feminist social work response Carolyn Noble

Introduction Even though right-wing nationalist populism is typically associated with powerful men, most definitions and populist rhetoric say nothing or very little about gender roles and issues. Conceptually, the current right-wing populism is presented as having no specific relations to gender; but if considered at all would regard differences between women’s interests and concerns, for example, to be secondary or irrelevant to the main battle of ‘the people’ against the ‘elite’. However, it doesn’t take much to see that their promotion of traditional understandings of gender and ‘family values’, as well as the emergence of a broader anti-gender movement, as sidelining gender equality as a political goal (Mudde, 2016). The values espoused, such as anti-immigration, xenophobic opinions and a certain conservatism manifested in traditional views against gender equality rights, abortion, genderneutral marriage, gender theory, sex education in schools and LGBTI+ rights can be found in most right-wing nationalist populist manifestos (Moghadam, 2018). Gender here is performed in conservative, traditionalist ways, manifesting the strict and insurmountable gender roles ascribed for men and women (Wendt & Moulding, 2016). This rigidity is in strong opposition to the challenge of feminists, who argued then and now that biology is not destiny and that understandings of gender (and stereotypical roles ascribed to male and female) are culturally constructed and a repetitively performed trait that is constantly negotiated within the socio-political and cultural context, and not a fixed binary structure (Wendt, 2019; Wendt & Moulding, 2016). Herein lies a struggle, between the emotional and political ideology amongst conservative views of gender relations and that of the feminist critique arguing not only for equality but for an end to patriarchal power altogether. Despite the fact that patriarchy seemed to have incorporated many of women’s demands for political, cultural, social, sexual and legal rights, and that a new generation of women felt freer to explore their untapped potential in the world outside the family unit, we find that this situation is now on shifting ground. The previously discredited stereotypes of women’s roles, sexist prejudices, predatory sexual violence, and legal and cultural oppression

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pertaining to women are once again finding national and international acceptance as male populist leaders flaunt misogynistic attitudes and behaviours. As a result, thousands of women across the globe are rallying against the rise of right-wing populism and its misogynist subtext, while many thousands of women vote for these men and their populist politics. Anti-genderism, or gender populism, which has found its expression in the rise of right-wing populism, probably implies that patriarchy was afraid of feminism from the beginning and waiting for a time to mount its resistance to having to share power with women and change their patriarchal values and behaviours. It also suggests there are many women who agree with this anti-genderism and are happy to support the traditional gender roles imbedded in the right-wing political rhetoric. What, then is this anti-gender or gender populist stance?

Anti-genderism or gender populism Gender populism or anti-genderism has unique importance to a right-wing hegemony project, uniting disparate groups such as conservative Catholics, evangelical Christians, neo-Nazi and populist right-wing parties in resisting the politically correct gender-neutralisation of language and a liberal-orchestrated agenda to abolish (fixed) gender identity (von Redecker, 2016, p. 4). This gendered populism subscribes to the view that there are fundamental differences between men and women, where femininity and masculinity are viewed as opposite but complementary and that these natural differences must be preserved at any cost. Gender populist discourse considers maleness, heterosexuality and middle-class status as normative for being human, and serving as unmarked categories of power (Pease, 2010). Men and women are thus situated in hierarchical locations in terms of positions of authority and influence. Evening up the gender differences, for example, in wages, political representation and participation, employment and promotional opportunities is unnecessary, irrelevant, and a distraction from the natural order of gender where male and females complement rather than compete with each other. This populist, anti-gender movement has come to displace the feminist discourse, or at least challenge its ontological belief that equality between men and women can only occur as a result of changes in power relations between the sexes. This analysis argues that the family unit is the constant bedrock underpinning the stable democracy/government, education, legislation and religion, and an irreplaceable environment for the raising of children (de Lange & Mügge, 2015; Saresma, 2018). The traditional family unit should be protected, and any challenge to traditional family values must be resisted at all costs. The aggressive use of the language of ‘family values’ hides an illiberal gender populism characterised by opposition to gender equality and delegitimising the social justice claims of feminists in relation to their position in a patriarchal society. In this analysis, gender is seen as an empty signifier, a flexible synonym for demoralisation, abortion, non-normative sex, sex confusion, deregulation of sexual norms and opposition to women’s reproductive

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rights (including family planning and IVF). As a global movement, the players, such as the Catholic church, religious and lay conservative NGOs, right-wing politicians and some grass roots mobilisation of white supremacists, have achieved a great impact in hindering the passing of progressive laws or ratification of international treaties advancing human rights, and cutting funds for promoting gender equality. For example, the protests in Paris in 2013 against same-sex marriage turned into a protest against gender theory being taught in schools. The same protests have been evident in Australia, Italy, Germany, Poland and the Nordic countries, from groups known for their pro-life, profamily positions and lobbying activities. These groups argue that heterosexual marriage, filiation, reproduction and parental authority are core, normative values that need restoration. Anti-genderism interpolates subjects (mostly men and conservative women) as victims of a global conspiracy, arguing that feminism and its challenge to the natural gender order is acting like a coloniser, destroying the healthy (Christian) core of western societies and corroding community and family (Korolczuk & Graff, 2018, p. 813) Equating genderism with colonialism as applied by right-wing populist discourse is presented as a powerful signifier for humiliation that needs to be resisted even in countries with no obvious colonial history (Korolczuk & Graff, 2018). Calls to protect the ‘natural’ or ‘genuine’ gender order can be a means for heterosexual white men to strengthen their own masculine identity by despising marginalised others, be they women, non-heterosexuals or people from different ethnic backgrounds. It is about the sense of entitlement, the feeling of deserving to be privileged and the feelings of resentment and anger when privileges are restricted if not taken away all together (Saresma, 2018; Pease, 2010). We are seeing this ‘playbook’ writ large on the stage, with America’s President Trump, Britain’s Prime Minister Johnson, President Bolsonaro in Brazil, and other right-wing populist leaders referred to in this volume. Constructing and perceiving enemies and adversaries and creating scapegoats are essential elements of right-wing populist othering (Wodak, 2015). We see the politics of power struggles between genders being played out publicly and privately. Gender populism is dividing people into ‘them’ and ‘us’. It presents feminist arguments as going too far, or as women wanting to take over the political and cultural stage. The appropriate response to this challenge, it is argued, is that ‘traditional’ values need to be restored. Feminists advocating for women to live lives without limits and to fight against the restriction of traditional gender roles need to be silenced. Underneath this populist rhetoric is the sinister oppression of all women’s rights to equality and self- expression and the notion that white heterosexual men’s right to rule needs defending. Right-wing populists tap into the threat posed by feminist calls for gender justice and equality, and their gender populist rhetoric is presented as a case of patriarchy/heteronormativity/fighting back. Gender is politics, and is always linked with other power struggles and with the desire to dominate (Saresma, 2018). Mudde (2007) observes a consistent gender ideology with right-wing populist parties which he outlines as:

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1 2 3

Equating women’s politics with family politics; Staunch defence of ‘natural differences’ between the sexes; and The idea that, since women are the only sex that can give birth and create offspring, they are vital to the survival of the nation, and should be protected.(pp. 92–94)

To this we can add a fourth item. When male privilege is threatened, then the full force of patriarchal power comes into play. As tempting as it is simplifying to identify a patriarchal fightback as the main reason for the rise of anti-gender politics, it must be noted that there are other factors at work that also need addressing.

Right-wing populism and ‘white’ women Coste (2010) argues that conservative, traditional, Christian ‘white’ women have consistently opposed feminism from its early days. Indeed, white women have a long history of oppressing other women for the purpose of supporting white male superiority. Their main concern was that their traditional roles as mothers and homemakers were being challenged and undermined as these newfound freedoms outside the home gathered widespread support and policy and legislative changes were introduced. The social, cultural and legislative changes that freed women from the domestic sphere and allowed for a work/ life balance option which enabled mothers to return to the workplace while still being able to care for their children, posed a direct threat to women whose values are linked to their traditional roles as wife and mother (Moghadam, 2018). Homemakers who find security in the traditional sexual division of labour fought against this newfound freedom, and in joining with their men maintained a strong resistance to feminist demands for gender equality. Many of these conservative women are members or supporters of the right-wing populists and vote in large numbers for these parties and their (mostly) male leaders (Moghadam, 2018; Hamad, 2019). So it should be no surprise to find that as many as 53 per cent of white American women voted for Trump (against a women candidate), and 34 per cent of seemingly all-white American women believed Professor Ford’s claim of sexual harassment against a US Supreme Court Judge’s nominee, and 54 per cent of Turkish women (mainly housewives) voted for Erdogan in 2011 (Hamad, 2019; Akman, 2017). The first response from feminists was that these conservative women were ‘gender traitors’ by choosing whiteness over gender. But, argues Schuller (2018), they were in fact performing their womanhood, as mothers, wives and daughters protecting male privilege and the traditional gender order, essential to their perceived wellbeing. Summers’ (1975) early account of sexism in Australia gave an important analysis of this divide between women in relation to patriarchy. She posits a ‘them’ and ‘us’ situation. Women were regarded as either victims of male misogyny or perpetrators who internalised this

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misogyny and then wielded it like a weapon against other women who were fighting for or modelling alternative ways of doing gender (Fenstermaker & West, 2013; Summers, 2012). Hamad (2019), argues that white women’s role as supporters of white manpower should be seen as such women exercising their own agency. She sees the role of these women as ‘smoothing over’ the flow of feelings or misconduct of their ‘white’ men so that these men may continue to accumulate political power or indeed not have their entitled progress interrupted by sexist (cf. scurrilous) claims of misconduct (Hamad, 2019, p. 117). Referring to Australia, Schuller (2018) elaborates on this point when she argues that white women have been a stabilising force of western civilisation from the period of early colonisation, in which their role was to smooth over the attack on white men in the public sphere, ensuring that white men remained relatively free from the encumbrances of critique and accountability for their actions, and whitewashing their public record, especially their crimes against women, by presenting men as victims or misunderstood. By downplaying male violence and misogyny, these conservative women ensure that power stays firmly in white men’s hands (cf. status quo) (Summers, 2012). This analysis might go some way towards providing answers as to why white women seem to be supporting gender populist discourse and voting for the misogynist and blatantly sexist leaders of these parties and their policies. It seems that while the feminist revolution held centre stage, anti-feminist resistance continued to simmer, and is now finding an avenue of expression that had been stifled by the feminist revolution of the 1960s and onwards. An anti-feminism stance is also gaining popular ground as feminist politics faces a backlash from within.

Anti-feminism – women supporting conservative gender politics Women supporting an anti-feminist ideology and joining with their male counterparts in fighting against feminist sentiment became a more prominent phenomenon in the 1980s, when a backlash against activist/progressive feminists gathered momentum. Faludi (2010) argued that this backlash can in some ways be attributed to feminists themselves. For example, she argues that feminists’ normative stance about women’s position of equality and antioppressive practices did not embrace women who oppose their staunch position on, for example, abortion, or those who do not view heterosexual encounters as rape, and those who prefer to stay at home with young children, and see some sense in single-sex education and do not want every workplace flirtation to be punished as sexual harassment (Faludi, 2010; Fox-Genovese, 1992). This position alienated women with more conservative views of gender relations but who also wanted equal pay and gender equality. In asserting their resistance to feminist politics, these anti-feminists distanced themselves from more aggressive/radical feminist politics and labels because they felt that those women hated men, played the victim, and viewed conservative women as weak, dependent and controlled ideologically by patriarchy. It was also

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argued that feminists looked down on women who chose motherhood over other careers and personal aspirations and chose to stay in a heterosexual marriage and raise sons! Wanting to distance themselves from the ‘I hate men’ tag, anti-feminists describe feminists as prissy, victim-mongering, philistine and whining, views held by Sarah Palin in her 2008 US vice presidential campaign. Hillary Clinton’s calling her out as sexist, at the same time that the public seemed to embrace Sarah Palin’s feminism, also found little favour among those anti-feminists who see any criticism of patriarchy as questionable and counter-productive to the feminist cause (Coste, 2010, p. 30). Paglia (2008) for example, calls herself an antifeminist feminist, arguing with others that the feminist goal of gender equality has been achieved and that fighting against men is unproductive to the cause. These anti-feminists argue that feminism undercuts men’s role as supporters and champions of women’s superiority in the private sphere, creating an antagonistic relationship and unwelcomed rivalry between the sexes (Akman, 2017, p. 13). Feminism was seen as an assault on the right to be a man, on his masculinity from which traditional women get their superiority and security. Others argued that gender equality is irrelevant as men and women are socially, biologically different. This difference is complementary to their functions and roles in society and the family. Men and women, it is argued, are clearly two different groups of people distinguished by their biology, their looks, and their different roles in the family and the society. At its core, this conservative backlash was viewed by feminists as a movement aimed at reducing women’s rights. Feminists fought back, arguing that women who opposed equal rights legislation were ungrateful and failed to see that their success in academia or politics or the workplace had been made possible by the real gains of feminism over the last 40 years. Such anti-feminist politics sits nicely within the more general anti-genderism being spouted by largely male right-wing populist leaders trying to ‘gaslight’ activist feminists into submission (Coste, 2010). Gender populism is not only linked to anti-feminism in general and its attack on academic feminists as part of the elite that the common people need defending against, for ordinary people know how to experience and live their gender, but also to the rise of anti-intellectualist and anti-elitist arguments espoused by many rightwing populist parties.

Anti-genderism and neoliberal capitalist globalisation Anti-genderism is also regarded as a gendered backlash against the ills of neoliberal capitalist globalisation and its attendant liberal values. Dissatisfaction includes discontent with the status quo, established parties, the media, and elites, a suspicion of external influences and preferences for the nation-state, hostilities towards – or at least, suspicion of minorities, immigrants and refugees and recourse to traditional values and conservative norms. (Moghadam, 2018, pp. 294–5)

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The expressed discontent has created a space for people to vent their anger and dissatisfaction with the politics of austerity, increased level of unemployment and poverty and widening gap between the rich and the poor. It’s a reaction against liberal democracy and the claims for equality, freedom, religious tolerance and non-corrupt politics that social democrats once promised but failed to deliver (Grzebalska, 2016). Cuts in welfare, loss of jobs, privatisation of services and severe austerity programs have made people, especially women, vulnerable to poverty, unemployment, violence, loss of identity and feelings of betrayal and hopelessness. Many people have lost faith in the democratic system. Lots of people are hurting as a result of the neoliberal policies and practices that failed to give people stability, prosperity, rights and freedoms, and they are expressing this discontent in many sometimes conflicting and ambiguous ways (Grzebalska, 2016). Another example of where liberal democracy has proven unworkable is the United Nations’ (UN) focus on Human Rights as universal and applicable to all people, everywhere, when in fact the universalistic and non-negotiable human rights framework is seen as marginalising certain alternative or antagonistic positions as sexist and misogynist, obfuscating the debates even within progressive movements (e.g. the pros and cons of same-sex marriages, abortion, sex education in schools, non-binary gender movement [gender neutrality], and trans-genderism). This unyielding normative stance, it is argued, excludes an understanding of difference, and is characterised by intolerance of debates and questioning, which stifles alternative views and challenges to the legitimacy of the moral imperatives being promoted as normative (Kováts, 2018). Different gender positions on human rights become morally non-negotiable, and those who disagree or have alternative positions are accused of perpetrating symbolic violence, while antagonistic views are not allowed or stifled, providing fertile ground for gender populism to gain favour (Kováts, 2018). If the adversarial position is silenced, or when the democratic frontiers become blurred, then mobilisation around other types of collective identity such as nationalist, religious or ethnic forms grow as replacements (Kováts, 2018). Clearly this non-negotiated normative stance has contributed to right-wing anti-genderism, as well as to an anti-immigration position as more scapegoats are created and exploited for popular gain.

Gender and anti-immigration The rise of right-wing populism and the increase in migrants and asylum seekers arriving in Europe and elsewhere have also inspired a combination of sexist, nationalist and xenophobic attitudes. After the incidences of pickpocketing and sexual harassment in Cologne and Hamburg (2015–2016) were linked to North African refugees, the sexual and moral panic over the exposure of women to immigrant men’s sexual violence that followed resulted in a mood swing against immigration and was accompanied by an increase in racist attacks against Muslim male immigrants (von Redecker, 2016, p. 2).

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This gendered, racist rhetoric which aimed to protect the nation’s women against the violence of other cultures’ men meant that the policies of closed borders and racialised distinctions between ‘us’ and ‘them’ captured growing support for right-wing nationalist parties and reinforced their role as protectors of their women and children and champions of traditional Christian family values (von Redecker, 2016). Moreover, right-wing populist views on gender and immigration are also linked in contradictory ways to the general attack on feminists’ claim for equality and autonomy. That is, anti-Islamic views have become explicitly gendered. In these cases, however, the reverse logic is used, in that right-wing populist rhetoric argues that Islamic practices leave no room for freedoms such as free speech, freedom of religion, equality between men and women and the separation between the church and state (Grzebalska, 2016). Cultural practices that violate women’s rights such as female genital mutilation, honour killings, forced marriage or polygamy, import brides, violence against women and the separation of men and women in public spaces are increasingly used to justify the right-wing populist anti-immigration stance. These criticisms are then also used to create a ‘them’ and ‘us’ divide. As a totalitarian ideology, it is argued, Islam represents a threat to individual freedom and liberal democracy; this can also be seen in the mass moral panic about migrant families. For example, in Poland immigrant women who leave their children behind in the East to look for work in Western Europe to support their families have been accused of being deviant and egoistic, their families are ostracised as broken and pathological, while the emotive figure of the Euro-orphan has been used to create what Grzebalska (2016) calls a ‘patriarchal moral panic’ around migrant families in order to call for a return to the nuclear family and traditional family values as a solution to the emergent problems of transnational families. Calls for closed borders, reduction in family reunification and immigration numbers, and forced assimilation are informed by the view that nation states should be inhabited exclusively by natives. Mass, uncontrolled migration presents serious threats to the ‘ideal homogeneous nation-state in which territory and nation collide’ (de Lange & Mügge, 2015, p. 4). The sanctity of the nuclear family and traditional gender roles are hidden within this rhetoric as dog whistling for gender-populist politics.

Gender, white men and class conflict The rise in gender populism can also be interpreted as a facet of class conflict at the core of right-wing populist extremism, which was exposed in the wake of the economic crisis of 2008. Perpetuated by greed and recklessness linked with global capitalism, it was working-class men who felt its destructive forces and were ultimately left with economic hardships such as home mortgage foreclosures, loss of manufacturing (blue collar) jobs and wages, while the super-rich white men fled with golden parachutes and government bailouts and no goal terms for their role in the economic crash (Kimmel, 2013).

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Gender populism aptly reflects the growing frustration of white men with no economic power who are turning to patriarchal values rather than addressing the economic sources of their miseries. It feeds on these men’s anxieties from the permanent state of precariousness produced by neoliberalism and the economic downturn. Feminists arguing for gender equality also feed into the moral panic around the alleged destabilisation of the natural gender orders. White men in particular see the feminist gender movement as heralding the end of patriarchy and men’s power and contributing to the present day masculinity crisis as argued by the Men’s Rights Movement (https://goodmenproject.com/ethics-values/m eet-the-mens-rights-movement/; also see Pease in Chapter 5). Kováts (2018) argues that anti-genderism is not only a threat to women’s calls for equality and justice but rather, and more sinister, it is a real threat to liberal democracy, a Trojan horse wanting to make much broader and deeper changes to our political system (Grzebalska, 2016, p. 3). Its emergence is a systemic reaction against the established hegemonic ideas of consensus in liberal democracy. For right-wing populists and nationalists, free trade, open boarders, ‘unbridled’ immigration, multicultural policies, refugees, and liberal values such as providing a genuine space for inclusion, diversity, multiculturalism, freedom and democracy have failed the general polis (Moghadam, 2018). The rise of anti-genderism is anathema to the aims and goals of feminists who seek redistributive and intersectional justice, where feminists recognise race, class, gender, sexuality, disability, legal status and language as interlocking systems of oppression and pay attention to the ways in which each particular interaction generates agency and solidarity for different kinds of women. It seems as if calls for modest reforms in the name of gender justice are now involved in pitched battles for survival. It’s time to recommit to a feminist politics and have another look at feminist social work practice as pivotal to framing a contemporary feminist response. The time for fence-sitting is past and feminists must take a stand. Will we (women) continue to pursue ‘equal-opportunity domination’ while the planet burns? Or will we reimagine gender justice in an anti-capitalist form – one that leads beyond the present crisis to a new societ? (Arruzza et al., 2019, back page)

Feminist response A more general feminist response, I argue has two distinct pathways. The first is to ignore the white supremacist, patriarchal backlash, right-wing antagonism and colonising impact of anti-genderism by, for example, adopting what is called a ‘lean-in feminism’ stance (Sandberg, 2013) which seeks to use persuasion, argument or pleas to the good nature of men to move over and make space for policy and behaviour change. Women are encouraged to step up to take control and seek or demand equality in the workplace, public spaces and at home. Toughness in the business world is the royal road to gender equality

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(Sandberg, 2013). Even though a tremendous amount of energy goes into the maintenance of oppressive political, cultural and social systems and the many ways in which women are sacrificed to those systems, is has been almost impossible to penetrate patriarchal power, let alone break through it (Pease, 2010). So this ‘lean-in’ response and its individualistic, corporate-inspired version of feminism that seeks women’s inclusion in institutions rather than their transformation may be an easy option given the complexity and violence facing feminists who want total transformation of the imperial, capitalist, patriarchal politics of the current system. The second response revives a more radical politics. This position focuses on the myriad issues and problems facing women. Women across the global still experience high levels of poverty, homelessness and underpayment/ unemployment. Family and sexual violence are for many women a constant threat. Inequality in social, cultural and political power is still forced on women on class, gender and racist grounds. Women are still fighting to protect their right to reproductive care and access to affordable childcare, and the right to work with equal pay and conditions. The #metoo movement is calling out sexual harassment at work. In developing and low income countries, women still struggle to secure the basic necessities of life, such as food, water and shelter for themselves and their children (https://cdn.americanprogressa ction.org/wp-content/uploads/issues/2008/10/pdf/women_poverty.pdf). So, despite the push for equality and many of the legislative and political changes enacted since the 1970s in Western democracies, feminist women are still arguing for social, political and economic justice. Critical issues and problems remain. It is the second option that has more potential for a feminist revival. To address women’s disadvantage and link it with cultural, social and political transformation, a progressive feminist politics needs to be revisited.

Progressive feminism On International Women’s Day in 2017 we witnessed women’s renewed agency emerging. In Poland, Argentina, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Turkey, Peru, the USA, Mexico, Chile and dozens of other countries we saw many hundreds of thousands of women strike for women’s rights and social justice (Arruzza et al., 2019). It is hoped that the new found militarism by feminist activists withdrawing paid and unpaid work, sex and smiles, and campaigning against the casualisation of labour, wage inequality, homophobia, transphobia and xenophobic immigration policies, will disrupt existing alliances and redraw the political map towards women’s empowerment (Arruzza et al., 2019; Emejulu, 2017; 2011). The goal of this militarism is both international and grassroots anti-imperialist, anti-heterosexist and anti-liberal feminism. The problems of capitalism, it is posited, have been magnified by the proliferation of the thought-normalising, disciplinary propaganda of the anti-feminist, anti-genderism of right-wing platforms (Emejulu, 2017). Calling themselves ‘Feminism for the 99%’, this new

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wave of militant feminists seeks to co-opt the language and practice of populist politics and is a direct challenge to the anti-feminist feminism which is dismissed as a handmaiden of patriarchy and capitalism (Arruzza et al., 2019). ‘Feminism for the 99%’ argues that liberal feminism such as the ‘lean in’ movement no longer (if it ever did) serves women’s interests, especially on the grassroots issues facing the majority of women across the globe (Arruzza et al., 2019). Kick-back feminists (as they like to be called) have no interest in breaking through the glass ceiling and leaving the vast majority to clean up the shards. Indeed, they claim that liberal feminism and its place in neoliberal mores of, for example, individual advancement and corporate success, privileges a few over the many, is bankrupt, and that it’s time to get over it and move on! (p. 15). This brand of feminism has attracted broad support from groups opposing austerity, not only from women and gender-nonconforming people but also men who have joined the movement’s massive demonstrations to protect health care, housing, transport, equal wages and political representation and the environment. To fight back, women need to fight for equality, justice and individual freedom that is ‘calibrated based on freedom for all’ (Arruzza et al., 2019, p. 85). Militant feminism is discovering the idea of the impossible, demanding both bread and roses; ‘the bread that decades of neoliberalism have taken from our tables but also the beauty that nourishes our spirit through the exhilaration of rebellion’ (Arruzza et al., 2019, p. 10). In seizing on the idea of the populist call to ‘majoritarianism’ and expanding its call to arms and its overwhelming commitment to transnational solidarity, Feminism for the 99% presents itself as a collective consciousness, identity and action by harnessing women’s grievances and cultivating a renewed solidarity politics for feminist activism across the globe (Arruzza et al., 2019; Emejulu, 2017; 2011). Feminism for the 99% embraces class struggle and the fight against institutional racism. It champions the needs and rights of the many – ‘of poor and working class women, of radicalised and migrant women, of queer, trans and disabled women, of women encouraged to see themselves as middle-class, even as capitalism exploits them’ (Arruzza et al., 2019, p. 14). Not content to focus exclusively on women’s issues, these radicalised women propose joining up with every social movement that fights for the 99%. Joining with for example the environmental, anti-capitalist, anti-war, anti-imperialist, anti-colonialist activists to dismantle the social relations and the institutions that oppress, will see the political outcome needed to address the ills of capitalism and the misogyny and sexism of right-wing populism. They are clear about their goal: it is time to take on the system and fight for total social transformation. Many feminists also use this ‘feminist call for action’ as a call for men to free themselves from the patriarchal yoke of colonialism, domination and violence. Women have a choice. In moving forward from where we are now, we can commit to forging a different future from the situation we currently find ourselves in. This is especially one that is complicated by right-wing populist discourse which demeans women who are in the public sphere and agues for their confinement to the private sphere. The accessibility of the new social

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media can be an ally. The increasingly open and accessible online environment has facilitated a rise in commentaries about the needs for feminism where vast numbers of people can be made aware immediately of incidences of sexism, violence, harassment, and abuse of women as well as other issues. Feminism for the 99%’s manifesto is highlighted across the internet, and the marches and strikes have live streaming coverage in which feminists can communicate with one another immediately and efficiently. Bypassing the more traditional avenues of academic and long-form news reporting, the rise of social media platforms can facilitate as well as increase engagement with the issues quickly and build a response to the socio-political, economic and cultural issues analysis presented above (Emejulu, 2017). Feminism provides a much-needed politicised context for social work and a much needed challenge to the right-wing nationalist and neoliberal context whose aim is to silence women’s voices; it can create policies and services that respond to such threats to women’s freedoms.

Feminist social work Feminist social work is part of anti-oppressive, anti-discriminatory practice. Feminist practitioners feel that the mission of social work is to work towards social, racial, economic and environmental justice (Dominelli, 2012). Feminist social work argues that individual problems are located in unequal power relations where discrimination, oppression, violence and poverty impact disproportionately on the lives of women as well as other less powerful groups. Focussing on structural injustices and inequalities as well as lack of resources and opportunities, feminist social work seeks to understand discrimination and oppression in structural terms. That is class, race, gender, sexual preference, age and ability determine your social position and access to power and privilege (Zufferey, 2016; Carrington, 2016). Feminist social workers have embraced intersectional feminism because it highlights the simultaneous and intersecting powers of gender and racial oppression as well as class, sex, age and ableism as impediments to full citizenship (Wendt, 2019). It has become a significant means to frame social work advocacy across practice, education, research and policy (Zufferey, 2016). It demands that practitioners examine how unequal relations of power, privilege and oppression are related to gender, race, class and heterosexism and impact on such issues as unemployment, poverty, violence, homelessness and access to resources and services, to make a fruitful life for women experiencing oppression and discrimination, violence and poverty (Wendt, 2019). These features offer social work much in terms of practice with women and their children, their families and their communities and countries (Wendt, 2019). Feminist social work aims to de-gender practice and education and promote a pro-feminist stance in the world. Feminist social work seeks to improve the conditions in which women live, work and flourish from their own lived situation. Women are encouraged to name and share their

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experiences of patriarchal oppression and to seek collective responses and analyses (Dominelli, 2002). Feminist social work calls for the end of male privilege, opening public and private spaces for women’s issues to emerge and be addressed. Using a feminist lens to view social issues and structural inequalities provides a space for all women to grow in their awareness of their own and other women’s experiences, deepen their analysis and show respect for a wide range of women’s perspectives and the stories of their lives and their hopes and aspirations. Story telling is such a feminist gift to political discourse; not only does it open spaces for hidden and marginalised voices to be freed, it also hints at a collective experience of shared oppression, pain and otherness. Collectivism and collaboration are foundational tenets of feminist practice. Populism’s construction of a homogenised and reified people does not allow for complexity, analysis, deep thinking and refection on issues big and small ,and professes an open hostility to the notion of intersectionality. Its call towards a crude majoritarianism doesn’t allow for analyses and action that centres on race, class and gender, since the supposedly controversial issues could potentially fracture the unified people. Despite an unacknowledged ethno-nationalism and gender populism embedded in populist movements, the simple and single-issue focus of right-wing populism which regards the ‘people’ as a homogeneous group, as true patriots seeking to restore past national glories and build a brighter future for ‘us’, cannot accommodate subversive intersectional positions that undermine these nationalist mythologies and spotlight the imperial, white supremacist, capitalist and patriarchal foundations of the nation. By re-engaging with all women, irrespective of race, ethnicity, class, ability, privilege and sexual preferences, intersectional feminist practice can address the misogynist and sexist rhetoric of right-wing populism in policy, practice and the classroom, thus opening up cracks in its populist, anti-genderist discourse.

Conclusion As with so many political phenomena, right-wing populism is mostly associated with powerful men, despite enjoying some electoral support from some white women (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2015). Moreover, generally right-wing populism is seen as a prime example of machismo politics, the antithesis of feminism, promoting sexist ideas and policies, hindering rather than advancing women’s political social and political rights. In this context, right-wing populism is deadly for feminists. A radical feminist movement demands social transformation by dismantling oppressive social, political and cultural relations. Intersectional social work, feminism’s advocacy, education, policy and practice, criticises the essentialism of white-identity politics (with its emphasis on race and gender), names the sites of oppression in the lives of women and provides a significant analytical tool to reshape their experiences of victimisation and oppression and provides the opportunities once again for women to seek and attain autonomy and empowerment. The question remains: If women do not rise up and resist this challenge from right-wing anti-genderism now, then when?

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References Akman, C.A. (2017). The rising tide of populism and women’s authoritarian inclusion in Turkey under the justice and development party governance. https://ecpr.eu/Files tore/PaperProposal/3d1a95ae-446c-4977-ba5a-88de0ec81821.pdf Arruzza, C., Bhattacharya, T. and Fraser, N. (2019). Feminism for the 99%: A Manifesto. London: Verso. Carrington, A. (2016). Feminism under siege: Critical reflections of neoliberalism and managerialism on feminist practice. In B. Pease, S. Goldingay, N. Hosken and S. Nipperess (eds), Doing Critical Social Work: Transformative Practices for Social Justice. Sydney: Allen and Unwin, pp. 226–240. Coste, F. (2010). Conservative women and feminism in the United States: Between hatred and appropriation. French Journal of English Studies, 22, 167–176. de Lange, S. and Mügge, L. (2015). Gender and right-wing populism in the Low Countries: Ideological variations across parties and time. Patterns of Prejudice, doi:10.1080/0031322x.2015.1014199 Dominelli, L. (2002). Feminist Social Work Theory and Practice. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Dominelli, L. (2012). Green Social Work: From Environmental Crises to Environmental Justice. Cambridge: Polity Press. Emejulu, A. (2011). Can the people be feminists? Analysing the fate of feminist justice claims in populist grassroots movement in the United States. Interface: Special Issue on Feminism, Women’s Movements and Women in Movements, 3(2), 123–151. Emejulu, A. (2017). Feminism for the 99%: Towards a populist feminism?https://www. lwbooks.co.uk/soundings/66/towards-populist-feminism Faludi, S. (2010). Backlash: The Undeclared War against Women. London: Vintage. Fenstermaker, S. and West, C. (eds) (2013). Doing, Gender, Doing Difference. London: Routledge. Fox-Genovese, E. (1992). Feminism without Borders: A Critique of Individualism. San Francisco: University of California Press. Grzebalska, W. (2016). Why the war on ‘gender ideology’ matters – and not just to feminists. https://visegradinsight.eu/why-the-war-on-gender-ideology-matters-and-not-justto-feminists/ Hamad, R. (2019). White Tears Brown Scars. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press. Kimmel, M. (2013). Angry White Men: American Masculinity and the End of an Era. New York: Nation Books. Korolczuk., E. and Graff, A. (2018). Gender as ‘Ebola from Brussels’: The anticolonial frame and the rise of illiberal populism. Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 43(4), 798–821. Kováts, E. (2018). Questioning consensuses: Right-wing populism, anti-populism, and the threat of ‘gender ideology’. Sociological Research Online, pp. 1–11. doi:10.1177/ 1360780418764735 Mudde, C. (2007). Populist Radical Right-wing Parties in Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mudde, C. (2016). The Populist Radical Right: A Reader. Abingdon: Routledge. Mudde, C. and Kaltwasser, C.R. (2015). Vox populi or vox masculine? Populism and gender in Northern Europe and South America. Patterns of Prejudice, 49(1–2), 16–36. doi:10.1080/0031322x.2015.1014197

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Moghadam, V. (2018). Gendering the new right-wing populism: A research note. Journal of World-Systems Research, 24(20), 293–303. Paglia, C. (2008). Feminism, past and present: Ideology, action and reform. ARION, 16(1), 1–18. Pease, B. (2010). Undoing Privilege: Unearned Advantage in a Divided World. London: Zed Books. Sandberg, S. (2013). Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead. London: W.H. Allen. Saresma, T. (2018). Gender populism: Three cases of Finns Party actors’ traditional anti-feminism. http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en Schuller, K. (2018). The trouble with white women. Duke University Press Blog, 11 January. Summers, A. (1975). Dammed Whores and God’s Police: The Colonization of Women in Australia. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press. Summers, A. (2012). The Misogyny Factor. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press. von Redecker, E. (2016). Anti-genderismus and right-wing hegemony. Radical Philosophy, 198(July/August), 2–7. Wendt, S. (2019). Feminist ideas in social work. In M. Payne and E. Reith-Hall (eds), The Routledge Handbook of Social Work Theory. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 361–370. Wendt, S. and Moulding, N. (eds) (2016). Contemporary Feminisms in Social Work Practice. Abingdon: Routledge. Wodak, R. (2015). The Politics of Fear: What Right-Wing Populist Discourses Mean. London: Sage. Zufferey, C. (2016). Homelessness and intersectional feminist practice. In S. Wendt and N. Moulding (eds), Contemporary Feminisms in Social Work Practice. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 238–248.

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The multifaceted challenges of new right-wing populism to social work The profession’s swansong or the rebirth of activism? Luca Fazzi and Urban Nothdurfter

Italy: birthplace of new right-wing populism in Europe? Italy may be considered the birthplace of the new right-wing populism that is currently spreading throughout Europe (Tarchi, 2015) and may provide a tool for better understanding this movement. However, processes and mechanisms that led to the rise of varieties of populism must be contextualised, taking into account their close connection with historical-cultural and political-institutional backgrounds (Ruzza, 2018a) as well as with recent economic and more long-lasting political and cultural crises (Caiani & Graziano, 2019). This chapter therefore contextualises the rise of populism in Italy by pointing out its cultural origins, the historic nationalism and past voters’ ‘search for a strong man’ while also highlighting new aspects of right-wing populism in the country. According to some scholars, current populism in Italy has its origin in the Italian fascist regime which culturally shaped an entire generation of Italians from the 1920s to the 1940s (Tranfaglia, 2014). Current right-wing populism shares with fascism the idea of a ‘folkish nationalist entity’ termed ‘the people’ who are ruled in an authoritarian way rather than on the basis of liberal and democratic citizenship. In the aftermath of 20 years of fascist rule and World War II, Italy had, in the years after 1945, seen a democratic renewal, with democratic parties breathing life into a new constitutional political direction inspired by the principles of universalism, non-discrimination and the active economic and social inclusion of citizens. Although a far-right and nostalgic neo-fascist political minority was always present in the parliamentary spectrum of the First Republic, the economic growth and the stability of the Italian party system in the post-war decades offered limited opportunities for the success of divisive and authoritarian populist movements (Ruzza, 2018a). During the 1990s, the Italian political system based on the dominance of established parties was shaken by severe corruption scandals that led to the rise to power of Silvio Berlusconi. With Berlusconi, a real estate and television entrepreneur, began a period of strong populist growth based on an

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approach of a more direct relationship through communication between the ‘leader’ and the ‘people’ as well as on never realised promises of new economic growth for all (Ginsborg & Asquer, 2011; Ignazi, 2014). Furthermore, the era of Berlusconism was characterised by the progressive incorporation into its government coalitions of far right-wing parties such as the National Alliance (Alleanza Nazionale) and the Northern League (Lega Nord). In particular, the Northern League, born as a party representing the claims of agricultural and small businesses in the North and therefore peripheral to the centre of national politics, became a constant partner in all the national cabinets led by Berlusconi. Strengthened by its role as coalition partner on the national level, the Northern League managed to consolidate its central position in many regional and local governments in the Northern part of the country (Albertazzi & McDonnell, 2010; Albertazzi et al., 2018). Since Berlusconi stepped down, there have been several majority governments at the national level. The decline of Berlusconism, caused by the scandals involving the tycoon as well as unpopular political measures in the wake of the economic crisis that hit the country in 2011, brought to power a new centre-left coalition in a national government led by the young premier Matteo Renzi. Attempting to take a new direction, Renzi transformed his party, the centre-left Democratic Party (Partito Democratico), into a political organisation centred on its leader and using increasingly populist strategies of political communication. However, the coalition under Renzi failed to grasp and react to social discontent, thus losing electoral support. The persistence of the economic crisis in Italy and the challenges of the European migration and refugee crises, in which Italy felt abandoned by other EU countries, eroded both electoral support and internal consensus and led to the demise of the centre-left coalition in 2018. Against this background, anti-establishment and new right-wing populists gained new space and popular support and got into government after the elections of 2018. The populist leader of the League (Lega), Matteo Salvini, who focuses his political propaganda on sovereigntist, ultra-xenophobic and anti-immigration discourses, became the spearhead of a new national government formed by a coalition between the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (Movimento 5 Stelle) and the League. The formerly territorial Northern League, which had promoted an ‘us in the North’ against ‘those in the Centre of Italy’ line now changed to create a dividing line between ‘good Italian people’ and the ‘corrupt elites’. The party also began using migrants and asylum seekers as scapegoats (Ruzza, 2018b; Albertazzi et al., 2018). During a recent government crisis launched by Salvini himself, the League kicked itself out of the majority government and a new government was formed from the anti-establishment Five Star Movement and the Partito Democratico. While the consequences of this new political constellation are not yet foreseeable, the League can again concentrate exclusively on propaganda without having to account for outcomes of government actions.

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Despite the particular vicissitudes of Italian national politics, this Italian case study demonstrates the continuity of a deeply rooted, nostalgic neo-fascist sentiment (Caramani & Manucci, 2019) which since the 1990s paved the way for a new direction towards populist political communication under Berlusconism. At the same time, what characterises new right-wing populism is also observable in the successful propaganda of Salvini’s League. New right-wing populism is characterised by its proximity to, or even an increasing symbolic and political alignment with, positions deconstructing liberal democracy and its institutions (Galston, 2018). This incremental departure from the basic principles of liberal democracy is reflected in the propaganda of ideological alternatives and the simple solutions that increasingly involve a renunciation of human rights and democratic and pluralist ideals (Ottmann, 2017). Another characteristic of new right-wing populism lies in a much stronger, culturally defensive rhetoric (Ottmann, 2017). Culture, tradition and religion are presented as being in danger due to the arrival of immigrants and refugees, but also due to the influence of other groups like LGBT people and religious and ethnic minorities. In this context, the separation of religion and politics is clearly undermined by the targeted use of religious symbols, a practice frequently adopted by Matteo Salvini. Furthermore, new populism is characterised by the targeted and manipulative use of means of communication, especially social media, which allow instant communication and whose contents and mechanisms tend to reinforce populist rather than moderate positions (Ottmann, 2017; Antonelli, 2018). The rise of new right-wing populism has affected the Italian social welfare system which, despite its many reforms, is still characterised by strong regional fragmentation with a lack of national standards and the strong influence of local politics on the organisation of services, as well as by lower economic investment compared to other European countries. Efforts made since the 1990s by centre-left governments to build a system of universal protection and social service provision had already been aborted due to the financial and economic crises and the low rates of economic growth during the last decade, as well as the difficulty of reconciling diverse interests, including private sector corporations, not-for-profit organisations, labour unions and regional and local levels of government (Maino & Neri, 2011). With the rise of new right-wing populism at all levels of government, the path to building a welfare system based on the modern principles of universalism and inclusion seems to have reached a dramatic end, making Italy an early example of the effects of crises in political systems based on the idea of social rights and equal access to resources (Fazzi, 2015) but exposed to right-wing leaders.

Inclusive welfare under attack In recent years, new right-wing populism with its more authoritarian and hostile traits has become a challenging phenomenon, with a significant impact on ideas and practices of social work based on the ideal of social inclusion and anti-discriminatory and anti-oppressive approaches. It is helpful to analyse this impact of new right-wing populism.

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Analysing the changing attitudes to minority groups of welfare beneficiaries is one way of assessing the impact of new right-wing populism. New populist actors have built a political rhetoric that regards individuals who belong to minority groups, especially migrants and refugees, as one of the causes of the country’s economic, social and demographic crises (Ruzza, 2018b). The pitch of this rhetoric has been raised recently, exploiting the problem of the increasingly difficult management of migratory flows from the Mediterranean and the closure of borders by neighbouring European countries such as France and Austria. In this context, the leader of the League, Matteo Salvini, has built his image as a defender of the national borders, by prohibiting NGO boats access to Italian ports when they approach with migrants recovered from makeshift craft in the Mediterranean Sea. Even in the regions governed by the League, there are regular announcements of decisions to stop immigration. In Lombardy, the most industrialised Northern region, for example, the governor has recently announced a cut in funding to municipal authorities that welcome refugees. In Friuli Venezia Giulia, a region recently conquered by populists, the new government has decided to make substantial cuts in reception and integration funds, which are to be used instead for the repatriation of migrants and refugees. These blatant initiatives have definitively restored an attitude of institutionalised political hostility, contributing to the creation of a very negative social climate for immigration and minority groups. The episodes of violence against migrants and refugees, but also against Sinti, Roma and LGBT people, have multiplied over the last years. But even in terms of public opinion, ostracism of foreigners and minorities has increased enormously, as shown by the striking increase in support for the League and extreme right-wing groups. The concept of welfare promoted by right-wing populism thus incorporates notions of solidarity and entitlement that collide head-on with the founding principles of social work. The impact of populism can also be analysed more directly by investigating its effect on policies, the organisation of services, and social work practices. Italy has been at the forefront when it comes to managing the flows of foreigners and refugees from the Mediterranean. Spending on reception and integration services amounted to €4.3 billion in 2017, with reception facilities taking in more than 193,000 people. The commitment to reception and integration was decided at central government level in agreement with the other European Union countries in compliance with the Dublin III Regulation. However, the problems of integrating foreigners and refugees are not managed centrally but have been delegated to local authorities that apply local principles of welfare (Campomori & Caponio, 2013; Ambrosetti & Paparusso, 2018). Research has shown that the rise to government of new right-wing populist parties at local levels has led to widespread pressure to reduce institutions’ commitment to providing social benefits to non-conventional social groups (Fazzi, 2015). This is not a homogeneous phenomenon; nevertheless it is possible to describe an often observed relationship between the rise of

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populist parties and the implementation of discriminatory policies against individuals not belonging to the dominant group. There are also cases of local authorities governed by populist governments that have not implemented actions against minority groups. However, the trend towards a reduced political commitment to members of minority groups and, in particular, migrants and refugees is a distinctive feature in the majority of administrations governed by populist right-wing parties. Reducing resources for minority groups is part of a broader process of rationalisation of public spending to tackle the consequences of the financial crisis and the stagnant economy. In Italy, the continuing economic crisis has imposed significant spending contingency measures on local administrations. Social services have been subjected to cuts and reforms that have contributed to a climate of widespread dissatisfaction and uncertainty among social workers (Bertotti, 2016). In local authorities governed by right-wing populist parties, spending reductions have often been achieved by cutting funding for reception and integration projects and services for immigrants. Moreover, the rise of populist forces has often led to a reduction of investments in planning and regional coordination of services (Fazzi, 2015). Minority groups have thus become the target of a political battle intended not only to stigmatise ‘the Others’ as ‘profiteers’ of welfare benefits, but also to compete for the political support of citizens who have already suffered the consequences of the cuts in service resources. Through measures that discriminate against individuals who have, according to the populist rhetoric, fewer rights than Italian citizens, the populists launch a message intended to reassure members of the dominant national group with regard to the risk of erosion of their socioeconomic status. At the same time, the twin-track approach to welfare cuts symbolically reaffirms the centrality of the native populations in their societies, providing them with a greater sense of security than is justified by the circumstances in which they live. Thus, the outcome of the rise of new right-wing populism is a frontal attack on the very foundations of welfare. Principles such as universalism, social justice and inclusion are heavily debated both on a political and cultural level, as well as on the level of resources and work practices applied to integrate the most vulnerable individuals. The idea of equal rights is fiercely rejected in favour of that of a society in which some have more rights than others according to their citizenship, origins, spoken language and skin colour.

‘Is this job still worth doing?’ How do social workers react to the rise of new right-wing populism? What attitudes do they develop and what types of strategies are developed to deal with this phenomenon? Although new right-wing populism has become a reality social workers must deal with every day, there are as yet very few empirical studies that address this issue. While taking into account the

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limitation of the shortage of studies, initial research findings seem to reveal a phenomenon that has significant consequences on the identity, attitudes and practices of social work (Fazzi, 2015). Research indicates that new right-wing populism is a factor that considerably increases the struggle and the identity crisis of the profession. This applies equally to social workers who work in services that are under-resourced relative to demand, to those who are less skilled and to social workers who work in more difficult organisational conditions. For them, new right-wing populism is a further ‘storm cloud’ on the already difficult professional horizon. In order to understand this attitude, we must remember that new rightwing populism in Italy is positioned within more than a decade of reorganisation of the management and bureaucracy of social services. The professional autonomy of social workers, always claimed as a distinctive feature of the profession, has been severely tested by the economic crisis. The crisis has reduced resources available to services, reduced staffing levels and increased the workloads for social workers. These trends have contributed to an increased sense of ‘disorientation’ of social workers’ professional identity, a distinctive feature historically always upheld by the professional social work community (Bertotti, 2018). In Italy, social work has a fragile professional identity (Boccagni & Barberis, 2014) and compared to other welfare professionals, such as psychologists or medical doctors, social workers are in a much weaker position (Ruggeri, 2011). Although the work that social workers perform is very complex and requires high professional skills, they are often compared by the common people to bureaucrats who perform their tasks in accordance with administrative rules. There is also limited access to careers in management in public administration, which goes to reinforce the image of social work as an executive occupation (Facchini & Lorenz, 2013). Social work education is also strongly assimilated into academic curricula that marginalise social work courses in favour of stronger disciplines such as sociology and political science. From the offset, the professional identity of social workers is consequently much weaker than that of their colleagues in other countries. The emergence of populism consequently occurs within a situation of organisational and professional dynamics deeply scarred by widespread uncertainty, struggles and frustration. Within this framework, new right-wing populism has the effect of dramatically increasing the identity crisis of many professionals. It is not only the probability of working with inadequate resources and tools, and insufficient time, that is brought into question by many professionals, but also the founding objectives of the profession, such as social justice, equality and social inclusion. Also being questioned is the role of the social worker and therefore, ultimately, the social and institutional recognition of social work. The feelings provoked in such circumstances were summarised by a child protection social worker as follows: ‘It’s like being a doctor who has to work with patients who no longer believe in medicine.’

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‘Is this job still worth doing?’ This becomes a question that is hard to answer objectively when working in direct contact with local politicians who openly despise people referring to social workers or who, at best, are disinterested in their fate. So, a substantial number of social workers experience the rise of new right-wing populism not just as a challenge for the profession but also as a further sign of social and political weakening of the social work profession.

The tacit acceptance of new right-wing populism A further characteristic of the attitude of social workers towards new right-wing populism can be described as ‘tacit acceptance’. Tacit acceptance is an attitude characterised by the search for how to exist within the new dominant political and cultural climate. Tacit acceptance pushes different social workers to build their own space in which to practise the profession in compliance with the founding principles of social work without entering into conflict with the pressures exerted on a political and administrative level with regard to the discrimination of individuals belonging to non-conventional social groups. This means that in their personal judgements, social workers may be critical of populist policies, but in practice they do not make efforts to use their professional discretion to counteract the effects of penetration of such policies within social services. The discretion exercised in social work (Lipsky, 2010; Evans & Harris, 2004) consists of the negotiated capacity that practitioners can exercise in relation to the institutional mandate by virtue of the areas of uncertainty they are able to control. As noted by Evans, the exercise of discretion for social professions is based on both professional assumptions and personal assessments related to the values or cost–benefit calculations that each practitioner makes in relation to practice decisions (Evans, 2010). The attitude of tacit acceptance of new right-wing populism can be explained, from this point of view, as the result of a rational evaluation motivated by two separate interests. The first is to preserve a space of professional autonomy for social workers in order to do their job properly. In this case, actively opposing populist rhetoric is renounced to preserve a role for social work that it is feared may otherwise be questioned, even in the performance of activities addressing traditionally disadvantaged groups. The second factor encouraging social workers to accept new right-wing populism tacitly is reduction in the anxiety that permanent conflict would cause in the workplace. In this case, there is the prevailing attitude towards guaranteeing peaceful working conditions for social workers. Tacit acceptance is an understandable position, but it is very dangerous for social work. In fact, social workers carve out a field of work for themselves that is ‘tolerated’ by the institutions. This field, however, excludes or heavily marginalises activities that fall distinctively within the professional mandate of social work, such as advocacy, the protection of the rights of the weakest individuals, and the defence of human rights and

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social justice. From this perspective, tacit acceptance risks having the effect of a sort of ‘self-mutilation’ of social work. Social work is made up of several elements that are the result of a long process of maturation of professional identity and are codified in the form of principles enshrined in international and national ethical codes (Beckett & Maynard, 2005). Among these different aspects – respect for people, attention to inclusion, orientation towards social justice and advocacy, non-discrimination on the grounds of gender, sexual orientation, religion, language, ethnicity or age – a complementary relationship exists that allows social workers to acquire and experiment with a repertoire of skills that are coordinated to function in the different situations. When complementarity is lacking because one or more elements are not expressed, professional identity is impoverished and ends up crippled and increasingly unrecognisable. The risk of tacit acceptance of new right-wing populism is therefore not just a setback for social work; it alters the professional remit and professional identity of social work, recasting the profession in ways that purge concerns for human and social rights.

Values in competition New right-wing populism does not only generate attitudes of frustration or professional powerlessness, but paradoxically also risks producing the effect of supporting the new political course, especially on the part of social workers who experience increasingly precarious professional circumstances. The belief that ethical principles can be an antidote to the loss of professional identity and value is widespread in the debate on social work (Reamer, 2013; IFSW, 2018). However, values are never absolute and universally accepted. In modern societies values are diversifying and increasingly in competition in relation to the degree they respond to the preferences of individuals and social groups (Freese, 2009). From this point of view, the assumption that social workers’ awareness of the values and principles of social work is really an antidote to the spread of new right-wing populism cannot be taken for granted. One of the emerging characteristics of new right-wing populism is its ability to influence very large sections of the population. Empirical research identifies those most vulnerable to these populist ideologies as low-income individuals who have been most affected by the economic crisis (Muis & Immerzeel, 2017). Many social workers do fall into this category of citizens. Since the middle of the last decade, the working and contractual conditions of social workers in Italy have deteriorated strongly, especially among the younger generations. Half of all new contracts are fixed-term. The continued low investment in resources for social services, the increase in workloads and the low social recognition of the work performed further weaken the sense of professional belonging and inevitably undermine its core values. Populist ideologies are likely to find fertile ground for diffusion among those social

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workers who hold less secure positions and who suffer from greater exposure to particularly stressful working conditions. Furthermore, research indicates that it is precisely the younger and more poorly trained social workers who are more vulnerable to populist ideologies (Fazzi, 2015). If placed in positions or bodies where there are few opportunities to work together with more experienced colleagues, these social workers are likely to find themselves squashed between the pressure for help that is difficult to deal with and the demands of a political class that insists on conveying a problematic image of the members of the social groups that social workers find themselves working with. Populist influence particularly affects professionals who are forced to work in more precarious organisational and professional conditions with clients often seen as ‘difficult’, such as foreigners or individuals belonging to cultural groups that are difficult to integrate such as Sinti or Roma. Especially for younger, less experienced and less well-prepared social workers, having few tools and resources available to respond to very complex needs leads to the risk of encouraging the development of strong defensive attitudes. The responsibility for the difficult management of situations tends to be attributed directly to service users, especially when they are immigrants or other members of socially less conventional groups who are considered ‘guilty’ of failing to solve problems because of their congenital characteristics. In this way, the difficulty of responding to needs tends to transform itself into the driver for the acceptance of new right-wing populist rhetoric that functions as ‘self-absolution’ from the failure to solve problems. Cronyism is also an element that should not be underestimated in explaining the hold of new right-wing populism on social workers in Italy. Cronyism is a widespread practice, especially in southern Europe, through which politicians reward voters with favours or facilitate their access to public resources (Ferrera, 2010). This is a difficult subject to investigate because it is part of a grey area of behaviour and not easily detected through questionnaires or interviews. However, as critical contributions to the literature from other countries have shown (Alayón, 2010; Ferguson et al., 2018), even social workers may be selected based on their proximity to the preferences and values of the political class of reference. These social workers can therefore be selected as flag-bearers or sympathisers of new right-wing populism. Although empirical evidence is still limited, what emerges is that social workers are not immune to changes in the material conditions, culture and rhetoric of the time in which they live and practise. Recalling the values of social work is useful for reinforcing the capacity for reflection and the awareness of professionals. The effects of the economic, political and social contexts are, however, very complex and provide references that can compete with social work ethics in a much more articulated way than may be imagined.

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Activism and strategies to combat new right-wing populism Although the growing debate about new right-wing populism and social work (Ottmann, 2017; Duarte, 2017; Noble & Ottmann, 2018; Ife, 2018) inevitably emphasises the negative influences on social work, the transformative effects of the phenomenon are probably not only harmful to the profession. For numerous social workers, the challenge of new right-wing populism represents the possibility of regenerating their own models of action in terms of emancipation and a new leading social and political role for the profession. One example among many is that of a social worker who works in an area where right-wing populist parties have broad electoral support. Providing reception services to foreign families proved to be very problematic for social workers, in part because of the stereotypes and widespread prejudices within the local population and politicians’ hostility to promoting integration. To counteract the spread of hostility towards foreigners, a social worker organised a public information evening in co-operation with local associations. During the evening, some young refugees were asked to talk about their flight from Africa to Italy, and some elderly residents were also asked to talk about their experiences of immigration when they were young. The aim of the meeting was to help local people understand the similarities between the life stories, motivations and expectations of the foreigners and elderly locals. Many of those who took part in the evening left the room with a different view of the presence of foreign immigrants in their area. Instead of being perceived as invaders or enemies, they assumed the more familiar appearance of individuals who simply wanted to build a better future for themselves and their children by integrating themselves constructively within the new host community. This episode highlights the fact that new right-wing populism can also be a regenerating opportunity for social workers. Faced with the pressures of new right-wing populism, social workers are encouraged to look for new solutions and working models that push them towards building alliances beyond the traditional sphere of professional social services. Such alliances can lead to mediation with local authorities, as in the case just described, or may stand in clear opposition to them. This happens, for example, for social workers who actively collaborate, often outside of their working hours, with associations and volunteers protecting the rights of migrants or other marginalised minority groups. Due to its integration in public policy, the culture of social work is often characterised by strong adherence to the administrative bureaucratic model (Fazzi, 2019). Over time, many social workers have thus become specialised in managing administrative tasks and in one-to-one relationships with clients. With its intrusiveness, new right-wing populism pushes social work into a corner, but also encourages professionals to re-explore little-known terrain, such as working with the community, the restoration of advocacy and repositioning the theme of rights at the centre of professional action. By building alliances and promoting the active participation of the local community,

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social work can reinstate its anti-oppressive and transformative agenda (Baines, 2007). This constitutes an important opportunity for emancipation from the way social work in Italy is traditionally experienced and perceived. From this perspective, new right-wing populism is a ‘two-faced monster’ for social work. One face is that of a creature which tries to bite off and chew up the ethical foundations of social work. The other face seems to scream and clamour for the political ‘re-awakening’ of activist professionals from the gradual subjection to work practices and priorities of intervention that risk enclosing social work in a cage of procedures for the control and bureaucratic management of social interventions at the expense of social and political empowerment and inclusion. The conditions that explain the rebirth of activism naturally constitute the area to be investigated and analysed in order to take advantage of the opportunities for re-launching the profession opened by the advent of new right-wing populism. Activism is an attitude that seems to be widespread, especially among social workers who have a strong awareness of the values of social work, have greater professional skills, who work in groups and who have previous experience of working with the community. These characteristics are not easily found in the profile of the typical Italian social worker, who is seen to strongly identify with the role of the public official, whose professional training has been affected by the weakness of the educational system, who has a strong background in individual work with clients but has little experience of working with the community. Activism thus seems to be the result of contingent circumstances and individual vocation, or of small groups, rather than a structured professional and educational path. On the one hand, this characteristic of activism can be a weakness of the profession. From another perspective, evolution always occurs through new forms of adaptation to changes in the environment, and in this sense changes in ecosystems provide new transformation and regeneration opportunities for those living in them.

Conclusions New right-wing populism in Italy has unleashed an institutionalised political hostility towards minority groups that is contrary to the idea of inclusive welfare and other founding principles of social work. The important question for social work is how populism is reflected and becomes a factor that concretely influences social work policies, organisations and practices. Studies tackling these issues are still limited, but early research findings indicate a direct impact both on the working methods and on the identity of the profession (Fazzi, 2015; Lehnert & Radvan, 2016; Milbradt & Wagner, 2017; Noble & Ottmann, 2018). Within local administrations in the hands of rightwing populists, social workers are often confronted with the contraction of both resources and commitment to unconventional groups, especially in relation to services for asylum seekers and refugees and support for immigrants.

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This trend increases the fatigue and the identity crisis of a profession already characterised by a fragile identity and at risk of disorientation in the face of political choices that impact on working practices. Initial research findings highlight that social workers’ reactions to new rightwing populism are varied and not yet organised in the form of a clear strategy for action. Professional experience, age, political orientation, organisational constraints and cultural context influence social work’s positioning when faced with new right-wing populism. The threats of new right-wing populism to the principles and values of social work are clearly visible from an external perspective. However, several factors can hinder social workers becoming fully aware of the impact that new right-wing populist ideologies can have on the profession and on the very foundations of social welfare. Some social workers implement both rational and subconscious adaptation strategies, for example by focusing on demarcated areas of intervention consistent with the principles of the profession and avoiding conflict and confrontation with the demands of the new political class. Avoiding a clear stance towards new right-wing populism risks, however, losing sight of the political and cultural influences that threaten to profoundly erode the very nature of social work. In this sense, it can be said that new rightwing populism pushes social work into a corner, requiring practitioners to choose sides (Noble & Ottmann, 2018). New right-wing populism, thus, appears as the two-faced ‘Janus’. On the one hand, it attacks and infringes on the values and ethics of the profession in a very aggressive manner. On the other hand, it could also become an opportunity for a ‘reawakening’ of the pride and professional consciousness of social workers and for redesigning intervention models that bureaucratic processes of professionalisation and institutionalisation of welfare have backgrounded. In the face of new right-wing populist pressures, social work could be called to develop and (re-) discover strategies of activism and advocacy in favour of protecting the rights of marginalised people and the principles of humanity and social justice. Admittedly, all this does not happen automatically, but requires specific skills and a critical and reflexive attitude on the part of both individual social workers and the professional community that is aware of its values and its political role. Furthermore, working and contractual conditions also affect social workers’ ability to emancipate themselves and to oppose, even within service contexts, the dominant cultural and political climate that is hostile to the philosophy of social justice. In any case, responses can only be developed through solutions and working modes that are open to alliances, promote the active participation of other professions and, in this sense, must probably go beyond what are traditionally considered the most ‘orthodox’ perimeters of professional intervention.

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‘A roar of defiance against the elites’ Brexit, populism and social work Iain Ferguson

Introduction: making sense of Brexit The vote by the British people in a referendum on 23 June 2016 to leave the European Union was by any criterion an historic one. Britain may no longer be the political and economic powerhouse it was at the beginning of the twentieth century (a fact that some sections of the Conservative Party still struggle to come to terms with), but in 2019 Britain was still a member of the UN Security Council and the British economy was the fifth largest in the world and, in terms of GDP, the third largest in the EU. The potential political and economic consequences of Brexit, therefore, for both Britain and for the EU economy are considerable (if unknown). My main concern here, however, will be less with the potential political and economic consequences of Brexit (which in any case remain highly unpredictable) and more on the political meaning of the vote, why it went the way it did and what Brexit might mean for social work and social care in the UK. In the first part of the chapter I will explore some of the reasons for the 2016 vote. The dominant explanation from much of the centre left in British politics and the media is that this was essentially a right-wing nationalist or even racist vote. Here I shall challenge that narrative and argue that the reasons for the vote were more complex and contradictory. This is not to downplay the role played by racism on both sides of the Brexit campaign (a point to which I shall return below) nor to minimise the significant increase in racist attacks since June 2016, most notably affecting Muslim women but also including the murder of MP Jo Cox by a neo-Nazi. However, as I shall show below, a narrative which portrays the 17 million people who voted for Brexit as stupid, racist or even protofascist is not only factually inaccurate and analytically flawed but is also politically dangerous. Based on that analysis in the next part of the chapter I shall look more closely at the material roots of what is now commonly referred to as ‘populism’ in Britain and elsewhere. Drawing on the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci’s concept of contradictory consciousness, I shall suggest that what we are seeing in the UK and across much of the globe at present is not simply a gallop to the right but rather a process of political polarisation, fuelled by

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three decades of neoliberal inequality and more than a decade of austerity policies. Clearly the dominant direction of that polarisation is towards a dangerous growth in support for racist ideas and far right organisations on a scale not seen since the 1930s. However, it also offers opportunities, I shall argue, for the radical Left (including more radical forms of social work) to mount a challenge to neoliberal capitalism and the ideology and policies which have resulted in misery and despair for so many people. In the final part of the chapter I will reflect on some of the implications of Brexit for social work in the UK, and consider how the profession can respond and develop in a world where the politics and the certainties of the post-war period no longer apply.

Why Brexit? It should be obvious to even the most distant or casual observer of the Brexit debate in the UK that the traditional party of the British ruling class – the Conservative Party – is hopelessly divided over Brexit (as also is the main opposition party, the Labour Party, though for different reasons). This should not, however, be allowed to obscure the fact that all the main institutions of the British ruling class were fairly united in supporting Remain. As one astute analysis from a Lexit (Left Exit) perspective observed: The British vote on 23 June 2016 to leave the European Union was a bitter blow for the establishment, big business, the international financial institutions, the rich and the politicians. With only minor exceptions they had united to support a Remain vote. (Kimber, 2016, p. 21) The dominant narrative on the liberal left of British politics (which is also strongly pro-Remain) has regularly portrayed Brexit as a nationalist/racist vote, particularly through its mouthpiece, the Guardian newspaper. There is no question that the anti-refugee and anti-immigrant rhetoric which was a prominent feature of the Leave campaign in particular helped to legitimise racist views and to create a space in which far-right individuals and parties have felt more confident about articulating views which would previously have been seen as odious and unacceptable. It is also true that the period since the Brexit vote has seen a spike in racist attacks in the UK as well as the growth of anti-Muslim street movements such as the Football Lads Alliance (after a split, the Democratic Football Lads Alliance), led by convicted football hooligan and former British National Party member Tommy Robinson (real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon). The year 2018 saw some of the largest farright demonstrations in Britain since the 1930s, when thousands of people took to the streets in London to support Robinson following his imprisonment for videoing Muslim men charged with child abuse as they entered court (and thus risking jeopardising the outcome of their trial) (Dearden, 2019)

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Challenging that racism in all its forms, including anti-semitism and anti-Roma racism as well as the dominant Islamophobia, is a priority for all progressive forces in the UK, a point to which I shall return below. However, to see the growth of racism as solely attributable to the Leave campaign and the impact of subsequent Brexit vote is wrong for three reasons. First, it ignores the extent to which racism, and particularly anti-immigrant racism, has been promoted for several years by the political establishment and was a feature of both sides of the Brexit campaign. In January 2017, for example, leader of the Remain side, Prime Minister David Cameron, contemptuously dismissed thousands of refugees and asylum seekers fleeing conflict and living in squalid conditions in camps in Calais (including large numbers of unaccompanied children) as ‘a bunch of migrants’ (Independent, 2016). The previous year, at the height of the refugee crisis in July 2015 when hundreds of refugees were drowning in the Mediterranean on a weekly basis he echoed the racist language of Margaret Thatcher when he argued that ‘You have got a swarm of people coming across the Mediterranean, seeking a better life, wanting to come to Britain because Britain has got jobs, it’s got a growing economy, it’s an incredible place to live’ (BBC, 2016). Meanwhile, Cameron’s then Home Secretary and successor as Prime Minister, Theresa May, also pro-Remain, was responsible for the infamous ‘Hostile Environment’ Policy which as early as 2013 saw Government vans driving around London sporting billboards with the slogan ‘In the UK illegally? Go home or face arrest’ (Guardian, 2018a). She was also complicit in the notorious Windrush Scandal of 2018 which resulted in 57, 000 Commonwealth migrants, many long-term British residents, being faced with losing their citizenship (Guardian, 2018b). In reality, both the Remain and the Leave camp often seemed engaged in a ‘Dutch auction’ to see who could appear most anti-migrant and most committed to ending immigration. And while the rhetoric of the Labour Party under the leadership of veteran left-wing MP Jeremy Corbyn was certainly very different from both the dog-whistle and the often overt racism emanating from the Conservative benches in the House of Commons, Labour is also committed to ending freedom of movement, thus making a huge concession to the (false) idea that immigrants somehow contribute to unemployment or are responsible for worsening welfare conditions (Wadsworth et al., 2016). Second, to see the vote simply as a right-wing, nationalist and/or racist vote ignores the often contradictory reasons why people voted Leave and the roots of these contradictory ideas in people’s real life experiences. Thus a poll carried out by the British peer Lord Michael Ashcroft based on interviews with 12,369 people immediately after they had voted, and widely accepted as providing the most authoritative account of why people voted the way they did (despite Ashcroft’s rather dubious political credentials as a tax exile and former treasurer of the Conservative Party), found that opposition to immigration, while significant, was not the only, or even the main reason for people voting the way they did (Ashcroft, 2016). Rather, nearly half (49 per

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cent) of leave voters said the biggest single reason for wanting to leave the EU was ‘the principle that decisions about the UK should be taken in the UK’ (Ashcroft, 2016). Control of immigration was the next reason given, with one third (33 per cent) saying that the main reason was that leaving ‘offered the best chance for the UK to regain control over immigration and its own borders’ (Ashcroft, 2016). So Ashcroft’s poll is helpful in beginning to make sense of the reasons why people voted the way they did, but to understand the underlying reasons for the vote it is necessary to pull back and look at the wider context, both recent and longer-term. One important feature of that context in 2016 was a widespread sense of anger and disillusionment with the political establishment. The Leave vote came in the aftermath of the MPs’ expenses scandal in the UK Parliament, a scandal which reinforced many people’s contempt for politicians and ‘the elites’. As Kimber has argued, driving the vote alongside that scandal there was the decades-long sense that the political parties are now all the same, the widespread contempt for the ‘pillars of society’, the lies told to launch the Iraq war and the resentment that comes from sensing that a tiny group at the top of society are making millions while you’re suffering – and they are also laughing at you. (Kimber, 2016, p. 22) In addition, while the desire to ‘take back control’ cited by Ashcroft’s respondents as their main reason for voting Leave may be misguided in seeing the EU as the primary source of their sense of powerlessness, arguably the vision of the European Union as a bastion of human rights and guarantor of progressive economic policies put forward by supporters of the Remain campaign was scarcely less misguided. As the London-based Greek academic Costas Lapavitsas has written, in an incisive discussion of the changing image of the EU during the 1990s and 2000s: The image that the EU increasingly sought to project during those decades was of ‘soft power’ – a beacon of democracy, individual rights and social protection. A novel political entity appeared to have been created in Europe, a monument to solidarity and peace after the blood baths of the twentieth century, which seemed to combine political liberalism and economic neoliberalism. The global crisis of 2007–9 and, even more, the Eurozone crisis of 2010–12 have left that image in tatters. The response of the EU to the crisis pointed to cold calculation rather than solidarity as its operating principle … The policies of the EU to confront the Eurozone crisis have further favoured capital while worsening the conditions of labour. (Lapavitsas, 2019, pp. 3–5)

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Thus the costs of rescuing the euro, the primary concern of the EU’s leaders, were imposed on its weakest member states. The Greek working class was the main victim of that strategy, but EU-imposed austerity also dramatically worsened the lives of millions of people across Europe, above all in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Britain. Also challenging the image of the EU as a liberal institution was its response to the refugee crisis of 2015–6. In reality, as Kimber notes: The EU’s much-vaunted freedom of movement has always been highly limited: some freedom for those inside the EU; barbed wire fences, detention camps and a panoply of security forces to push back those from outside. As migrants poured from the war zone of Syria and elsewhere, such a policy turned the Mediterranean into a mass graveyard as thousands of people died in the desperate attempt to find safety. Internal barriers went up and border controls were reintroduced. (Kimber, 2016, p. 24) To understand why so many people voted to leave, however, it is necessary to go deeper still and to look at their day-to-day life experience. While factors such as age and geography were undoubtedly important (with younger people and Scotland, for example, more likely to vote to remain), as Ashcroft’s poll showed, the most striking feature of the vote was its class element. Thus, based on the Registrar General’s classification of occupations, Ashcroft’s survey found that the AB social group (higher managerial, administrative and professional) was the only one where a majority, 57 per cent, voted Remain (Ashcroft, 2016). The C1 group (supervisory, clerical and junior managerial) had a small Leave majority, the C2 (skilled manual) and DE groups (semi-skilled, unskilled, unemployed) voted 64 per cent Leave. There was also a clear correlation between income and the Leave vote; the poorer you were, the more likely you were to vote Leave (Ashcroft, 2016, table 2). The fact that Leave voters in general had a lower level of education than Remainers has been the pretext for some extremely patronising discussion in the liberal media. At best this has suggested that Leave voters were lied to and hoodwinked by the official Leave campaign into voting the way they did. At worst it has drawn on a stereotype of the typical Leave voter as a thick, white working-class man with no understanding of the issues involved and whose only concern was to ‘make Britain great again’. There is no doubt that the leaders of the Leave campaign (including several prominent Conservative Party politicians) were guilty of promoting some blatant falsehoods (most notoriously, a poster on their campaign bus claiming that the National Health Service would be better off by £350 million a week if Britain were to leave). It is also true as noted above that racism was an important contributory factor to the final vote. However, the most plausible explanation for so many people voting to leave is to be found in the material realities of their lives and the way in which these

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realities have been transformed by three decades of neoliberal policies and more than a decade of austerity. An editorial in the New Statesman magazine in April 2019 summarised that transformation as follows: The promise of the Conservatives was that the burden of austerity would be shared by all and that the poorest would not be the hardest-hit. Yet in a decade of public spending cuts, […] those promises have been broken. In 2018, as new data from the Office for National Statistics has recently shown, the incomes of the poorest fifth contracted by 1.6 per cent, while those of the richest fifth rose by 4.7 per cent. Income inequality, which the Tories long boasted had not risen since the 2008 financial crisis, is now beginning to increase. Relative child poverty has risen for four consecutive years and now stands at 4.1 million despite a fall in the number of workless households to 13.7 per cent from 20 per cent when records began in 1996. (New Statesman, 2019, p. 3) And as the writer noted, despite the fact that employment in the UK is now at a record level, the hollowness of the claim by both Conservative and New Labour governments that ‘work is the route out of poverty’ is exposed by the fact that the biggest group in poverty is now the working poor, due to a combination of low wages, insecure employment and weak trade union organisation, while more generally, average wages are barely higher than they were prior to the recession. In this context, the prospect of a holiday home in southern Spain or cheap holidays abroad was hardly likely to be uppermost in the minds of many of those voting in June 2017, victims of what one prominent pro-Remain commentator described as ‘shit-life syndrome’ (Hutton, 2018).

Gramsci and contradictory consciousness The discussion above has highlighted some of the reasons why a majority of people in the UK voted to leave in 2016. It would be a mistake to think, however, that the conditions which led to that vote – the distance between the self-enriching elites and the mass of working-class people, the deteriorating quality of people’s day-to-day life, poverty, a continual barrage of anti-immigrant and Islamophobic propaganda from politicians and the popular press – will inevitably push people in a right-wing direction based on the scapegoating of minorities. Rather, what the prominent Labour Party MP and anti-racist campaigner Diane Abbott described in the aftermath of the referendum as ‘a roar of defiance against the Westminster elites’ (BBC, 2016) can also flow in a very different direction, one which challenges not Muslims or refugees but rather the politicians whose neoliberal policies have wreaked misery and the rich and powerful who have benefitted from these policies. With all its limitations and contradictions, the gilets jaunes movement which began in France in 2017 is an example of how popular anger from below can force governments to retreat and change their policies (Lichfield, 2019).

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The fact that the anger and bitterness which so many people feel can flow to the left or the right is best explained by the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci’s concept of contradictory consciousness. Gramsci’s starting point was to distinguish between two forms of consciousness which, he argued, exist simultaneously and in a dynamic but contradictory fashion in the heads of working-class people. ‘A worker …’, he wrote: has two theoretical consciousnesses (or one contradictory consciousness): one which is implicit in his [sic] activity and which in reality unites him with all his fellow workers in the practical transformation of the real world; and one, superficially explicit or verbal, which he has inherited from the past and uncritically absorbed. (Gramsci, 1971, p. 661) One of these forms of consciousness, ‘common sense’, is made up of the dominant ideas in the society, ideas which serve to maintain the status quo and which are reinforced on a daily basis by politicians, the tabloid press and the political establishment: the idea, for example, that austerity is necessary because the country cannot afford welfare services, or that immigration is the cause of low wages and unemployment. Such ideas tend to reinforce the status quo and discourage people from seeking change. It is important to emphasise that the reason these ideas appear to make sense – to be ‘common sense’ – is not because people’s heads are empty vessels into which reactionary ideas can simply be poured – akin to what Paulo Freire critiqued as the ‘banking’ model of education (Freire, 1970). Rather it is because when people feel atomised and powerless (which is most of the time) at a superficial level these ideas seem to make sense. Alongside, these ideas, however, is a second form of consciousness – what Gramsci called ‘good sense’ – which is rooted in workers’ daily experience of being part of a collective in the workplace and which emerges above all in the course of collective struggle. During such episodes, dominant ideas – for example about the role of the police, the neutrality of the media, racist and sexist ideas – can be more easily challenged. The movie Pride, for example, is based on the inspiring story of how during the Great Miners’ Strike of 1984–5 in Britain a group of South London lesbians and gays collected money in solidarity with the striking miners and travelled to South Wales to hand the money over. They were initially met with suspicion and a degree of homophobia by some of the miners and their families. However, as the strike went on and the solidarity continued, the miners began to get to know the lesbians and gays as people like themselves and the old reactionary ideas began to fall away, to the extent that, as the movie portrays, the 1985 London Pride march was led off by the South Wales Miners’ brass band! No – it’s a movie. Many more examples could be given of how ideas can change in the course of collective struggle. The recent experience of British workers, however, has not been one of mass struggle. On the contrary, according to the Office for

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National Statistics, the number of workers who went on strike in Britain last year fell to its lowest level since the 1890s, when Queen Victoria was on the throne. And this at a time when workers are going through the worst period for wage growth since the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, when working conditions are getting worse and when the post-war welfare state is being dismantled through a combination of cuts and privatisation (Partington, 2018). That lethal mix of savage and unprecedented attacks on working-class living standards on the one hand and the abysmal failure of the labour and trade union movement to offer any serious resistance on the other goes a considerable way towards explaining the Brexit vote. Echoing Diane Abott’s comment in the title of this chapter (even if from the other end of the political spectrum) the Economist magazine argued that: ‘The vote for Brexit looks like – and to some extent is – a cry of fury by those who have borne the burden of European integration without benefiting proportionally from its advantages’ (Economist, 2016). This way of understanding Brexit also provides a framework for making sense of the rise of ‘right-wing national populism’, racism and also the new fascism across much of the globe. Will Hutton’s description of families in the United States experiencing what doctors there have dubbed ‘shit-life syndrome’ (and which is leading to early death for many) could equally apply to many families living in the de-industrialised areas of the North of England (as well as many other parts of Europe): Poor working-age Americans of all races are locked in a cycle of poverty and neglect, amid wider affluence. They are ill-educated and ill trained. The jobs available are drudge work paying the minimum wage, with minimal or no job security. They are trapped in poor neighbourhoods where the prospect of owning a home is a distant dream. There is little social housing, scant income support and contingent access to healthcare. Finding meaning in life is close to impossible; the struggle to survive commands all intellectual and emotional resources. Yet turn on the TV or visit a middle-class shopping mall and a very different and unattainable world presents itself. Knowing that you are valueless, you resort to drugs, antidepressants and booze. You eat junk food and watch your ill-treated body balloon. It is not just poverty, but growing relative poverty in an era of rising inequality, with all its psychological side-effects, that is the killer. (Hutton, 2018) Clearly the most effective way both of challenging ‘shit-life syndrome’ and the material conditions that give rise to it would be a new wave of struggle against these many attacks on living standards. However it would be both wrong and fatalistic to suggest that we can do nothing until such a wave of struggle breaks out. The question of which ideas predominate in people’s heads depends not only on the level of struggle but also on the extent to which an alternative way of making sense of their experience is available. The

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remarkable (and wholly unexpected) support for the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders for example in the US 2016 elections and the more recent election in the US of the radical young Democratic Socialist politician Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (as well as the election of several Muslim women) shows that where an alternative exists which connects with people’s ‘good sense’, then the despair which leads them to look to right-wing or reactionary ideas can be transformed into the hope that change is possible.

Social work in a post-Brexit Britain Turning finally to social work, what might be some of the implications for the profession of the Leave vote? In reality of course, as with every other area affected by Brexit, there are so many ‘known unknowns’ (to borrow a phrase from the odious Donald Rumsfeld, US President George W. Bush’s Defense Secretary), so much that is unpredictable – socially, politically, economically – that inevitably such an exercise can be little more than conjecture. At the time of writing (November 2019) it is not entirely clear that Britain will leave the EU. Nevertheless, some very provisional conjectures can be made. The first and perhaps rather obvious point to make is that, whatever the outcome of the Brexit process, it is not a given that the social work profession in the UK will play a progressive role – or indeed any role – in the coming struggles around racism, inequality and austerity. Whether it does so or not will depend on the ideas and forms of practice that predominate in the next few years and on the outcome of debates within the profession As the social work academic Bill Jordan observed more than three decades ago: Social work has played various roles in contrasting systems of social provision, and has served a number of political ends. Its great virtue – that it is almost infinitely adaptable to circumstances – also makes it open to exploitation for any kind of policy objectives. (Jordan, 1984, p. 114) In this connection, social work in the UK does not enter the new post-Brexit era in rude health, or as a strong and confident profession. On the contrary, as a considerable literature now attests, professional social work in the UK has been a major casualty of the neoliberal dismantling and reconstruction of the welfare state of the past three decades. So to paraphrase the old joke, if we wanted to design a social work capable of promoting social justice and challenging neoliberalism in the post-Brexit era, we wouldn’t be starting from here. Writing as long ago as the mid-1990s, two leading critical academics, Chris Jones and Tony Novak, warned that ‘until the political climate changes and there is a widespread revulsion against current trends and inequalities, social work might continue as an occupation but perish as a caring and liberal profession’ (Jones & Novak, 1993, p. 211). In reality, far from changing, the market-driven trends to which Jones and Novak referred continued and

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intensified under the New Labour governments of the late 1990s and early 2000s. These trends consolidated the development of what John Harris in an important 2003 study labelled ‘The Social Work Business’, a business which gave rise to what Harris would later describe as ‘neoliberal social work’, driven by processes of marketisation, managerialism and consumerisation (Harris, 2003; Harris, 2014). These processes have been accompanied by the increasing marginalisation of social work as a government-sponsored way of addressing social and personal problems, particularly in areas such as criminal justice and mental health (Bamford, 2015). Not surprisingly, therefore, morale in the profession is low. So whatever the eventual outcome of the Brexit process, social work’s contribution as a significant, if junior, pillar of the post-war welfare state has already been considerably reduced over more than three decades of neoliberalism. In the short to medium term, the trends that have led us to this situation are likely to continue. There is, however, another more positive side to this rather gloomy picture. For while many of us would have wished for a greater level of collective resistance to the attacks on services and assaults on benefits and living standards which have been the dominant feature of the austerity years, it would be wrong to say that there has been no resistance or no victories during this period. In early 2019, for example, 8,000 women workers in Glasgow, most of them employed in social care services, won a historic victory for equal pay against the City Council, following strike action which saw them picket out (and gain active support from) male Glasgow bin workers. Local union organiser Rhea Wolfson described the announcement as a ‘hugely significant moment’, adding, This has been hard won and wouldn’t have happened if the claimants hadn’t taken decisive action last October. The strike succeeded in its aim of making the council take these claims seriously. It was also a spectacular event that put equal pay for low-paid women on the national agenda. (Guardian, 2019) Similarly in 2018, university lecturers, members of the University and College Union (UCU), won a victory in their UK-wide fight to protect their pensions following all-out strike action. What both of these strikes demonstrated was not only the necessity of collective action to protect services but also the way in which people’s confidence and ideas are transformed through the experience of such collective action. As one striking UCU lecturer commented: A lot of us have been saying that the university on strike is more like a university than it is when we aren’t on strike … We actually have time to talk to each other. It’s exciting and there are so many debates happening. (cited in Robinson, 2018)

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For social workers and social care workers too, defending collective organisation and protecting services, difficult as it often is, is an essential precondition for any form of progressive practice. Overworked, underpaid staff working with few or no resources are hardly in a position to address the needs of service users. But the forms of resistance which have emerged within social work in the UK and elsewhere in recent years have not only addressed resource issues. They have also been concerned with fashioning new models of social work which have social justice at their core and which, while reiterating the importance of good relationship-based work, also seek to develop collective ways of working, whether in response to the needs of refugees and asylum seekers (Greece, France, Britain), to attacks on democratic rights (Hong Kong) or to poverty and austerity (Hungary, Spain). We have documented some of these new organisations and movements more fully in a recent publication (Ferguson et al., 2018) but examples include the Progressive Welfare Network in Hong Kong, the Orange Tide Movement in Spain and the Social Work Action Network in Britain, Ireland and Greece. While these groups vary enormously (and inevitably rise and fall, as activists move on or become tired), perhaps their underlying credo is best expressed by the New Approach Group in Hungary when they write: As an action group we are committed to the profession and to drawing the public’s attention to the situation of those excluded. We seek to be a professional community that is not afraid to stand up for those in need. (cited in Ferguson et al., 2018, p. 173). In conclusion, in 2004 as part of a challenge to the rise of neoliberal social work, some of us launched a social work manifesto ‘for a new engaged practice’ (Jones et al., 2004). As well as critiquing the direction in which social work was then moving, we also sought to identify ‘resources of hope’ on which a progressive social work could draw. At the time these included the new anti-capitalist movement which had emerged out of the demonstrations against the proceedings of the World Trade Organisation in Seattle in 1999. We also pointed to the various service user movements which had developed in the previous decade, including the disability movement based around a social model of disability. Inevitably these movements have gone up and down while other new movements such as Occupy Wall Street (and of enormous significance despite its sometimes tragic conclusion, the Arab Spring of 2011) have emerged. What is remarkable, however, is the way in which new social movements continue to emerge, seemingly from nowhere. Sometimes it takes the actions of an individual or a small number of people to raise awareness of injustices. Examples would include Rosa Parks, whose refusal to give up her seat on a bus to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955 sparked off the US Civil Rights Movement; or Tarek el-Tayeb Mohamed Bouazizi, the young

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Tunisian street vendor who set himself on fire on 17 December 2010, as a protest against unemployment and whose death became a catalyst for the Tunisian Revolution and the wider Arab Spring against autocratic regimes. In our own time, the courage shown by a few brave women to speak out about the sexual harassment they had experienced has given rise to the powerful #MeToo movement, while the willingness of 15-year-old Greta Thunberg to go on strike from school and protest outside the Swedish Parliament has resulted in a global school students’ movement with tens of thousands of young people taking strike action in 2019 to force politicians to act on climate crisis. What these movements show, as do the other examples of left electoral victories mentioned above, that the frustration and anger that working-class people in so many countries feel need not inevitably flow in racist or nationalist directions. And if social workers in the UK and elsewhere can engage with, and learn from, the experiences of these movements and collectively think through how they can help contribute to new social justice-based forms of practice, then social work as a profession may continue to have a contribution to make to the creation of a world which is not divided by racism, poverty and inequality.

References Ashcroft, Lord (2016) How the United Kingdom voted on Thursday … and why. http s://lordashcroftpolls.com/2016/06/how-the-united-kingdom-voted-and-why/ Bamford, T. (2015) A Contemporary History of Social Work: Learning from the Past. Bristol: Policy Press. BBC (2015, 30 July) David Cameron: ‘Swarm of migrants’ crossing Mediterranean. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-33714282/david-cameron-swarm-of-migra nts-crossing-mediterranean BBC (2016, 24 June) EU referendum: England leads UK to exit. https://www.bbc.co. uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36606245 Dearden, L. (2019) Far right protests ‘attracting biggest numbers since 1930s, amidst Brexit chaos’, report warns. Independent, 18 July. https://www.independent.co.uk/ news/uk/home-news/far-right-uk-brexit-muslims-tommy-robinson-protests-extrem ism-a9011171.html Economist (2016, 2 July) The politics of anger. https://www.economist.com/leaders/ 2016/07/02/the-politics-of-anger Ferguson, I., Ioakimidis, V. & Lavalette, M. (2018) Global Social Work in a Political Context: Radical Perspectives. Bristol: Policy Press. Freire, P. (1970) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Herder and Herder. Gramsci, A. (1971) Selections from the Prison Notebooks. London: Lawrence and Wishart. Guardian (2018a, 19 April) May was not opposed to ‘go home’ vans, official accounts suggest. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/apr/19/theresa-may-was-not-opp osed-to-go-home-vans-official-accounts-suggest Guardian (2018b, 10 June) Theresa May defends UK government’s Windrush response. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jun/10/theresa-may-defends-uk-go vernments-windrush-response

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Guardian (2019, 7 April) Councils spend millions on social work agencies. https://www. theguardian.com/society/2019/apr/07/social-work-recruiting-woes-see-councils-pa y-millions-to-agencies Harris, J. (2003) The Social Work Business. London: Routledge. Harris, J. (2014) (Against) neoliberal social work. Critical and Radical Social Work, 2 (1), 7–22. Hutton, W. (2018) The bad news is we’re dying early in Britain – and it’s all down to ‘shit-life syndrome’, Guardian, 19 August. https://www.theguardian.com/commentis free/2018/aug/19/bad-news-is-were-dying-earlier-in-britain-down-to-shit-life-syndrome Independent (2016, 27 January) David Cameron sparks outrage referring to Calais refugees as ‘a bunch of migrants’. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/pm qs-david-cameron-calais-refugees-bunch-of-migrants-jeremy-corbyn-a6836566.html Jones, C. & Novak, T. (1993) Social work today, British Journal of Social Work, 23(3), 95–212. Jones, C., Ferguson, I., Lavalette, M., & Penketh, L. (2004) Social work and social justice: A manifesto for a new engaged practice. https://socialworkfuture.org/2011/ 09/30/social-work-and-social-justice-a-manifesto-for-a-new-engaged-practice/ Jordan, B. (1984) Invitation to Social Work. London: Martin Robertson. Kimber, C. (2016) Why did Britain vote leave? International Socialism, October, 152, http://isj.org.uk/why-did-britain-vote-leave/ Lapavitsas, C. (2019) The Left Case Against the EU. London: Polity. Lichfield, J. (2019) Just who are the gilets jaunes? Observer, 9 February. https://www. theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/09/who-really-are-the-gilets-jaunes New Statesman (2019, 5–11 April) Editorial: The plight of the working poor. Partington, R. (2018) UK worker strike total falls to lowest since 1893. Guardian, 30 May. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/may/30/strikes-in-uk-fall-to-lowes t-level-since-records-began-in-1893 Robinson, S. (2018) University strikes squeeze bosses and transform mood on campus. Socialist Worker, 7 March. Wadsworth, J., Dhingra, S., Ottaviano, G. & Van Reenen, J. (2016) Brexit and the impact of immigration on the UK. LSE. http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/ brexit05.pdf

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Integration in the age of populism Highlighting key terms in the context of refugee resettlement in the United States Caren J. Frost, Kwynn M. Gonzalez-Pons and Lisa H. Gren

Introduction This chapter explores how concepts linked to the rise of populist rhetoric – defined as a movement that champions the common person as opposed to ‘the elite’ – in the US has impacted refugee resettlement. Refugees, like immigrants and asylum seekers, are considered displaced persons; however, refugees have been recognised by the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR) as a special category with particular protections related to resettlement and attendant responsibilities for ensuring integration into their new communities. The current populist discourse is replete with non-supportive language for those who do not qualify as the ‘common man’ that has impacted the ability of refugees to successfully integrate into the US, and in many instances refugees have been targets of racist attack. In the following sections we explore the concepts associated with populism in the US and examine the concept of integration and its significance in the resettlement context. The chapter concludes with a discussion about the role of social work in the public space in supporting refugees through the integration process.

Immigration in the United States In 2015 there were 7.7 billion people globally, and more than 65 million of them were considered displaced persons (MPI, 2017a). Of these individuals ‘21.3 million … were refugees, 40.8 million were internally displaced persons (IDPs), and 3.2 million were asylum seekers’ (MPI, 2017a). In 2015, President Obama increased the number of refugees who could be resettled in the US to 110,000 for fiscal year 2017, which represented the largest increase since the 1990s (MPI, 2017a). This effort was to assist in managing the increasing number of refugees from the conflicts in the Middle East, but was not aimed at assisting immigrants and refugees from the Global South. Following the 2016 elections, President Trump reduced the number of refugees allowed into the US to 50,000, with an added statement that this number could further decline (MPI, 2017a). In addition, the Trump administration issued US Executive Orders (EOs) that denied entry for people from seven Islamic

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countries even if they were classified as refugees by the UNHCR. That decision was based on ‘national security’ concerns. EOs are rules that a US president can issue without having the support of the Congress or Senate. Even though there have been federal court orders that stay these US EOs, there is considerable confusion about who can enter the US as a refugee and there is a negative public view about refugees entering from the US–Mexico border. According to the US State Department’s website: Since 1975, the United States has accepted more than 3.3 million refugees for permanent resettlement – more than any other country in the world. The United States will continue to prioritize the admission of the most vulnerable refugees while upholding the safety and security of the American people. (U.S. Department of State, 2019. https://ng.usembassy.gov/statem ent-by-secretary-of-state-pompeo-united-states-commemora tes-world-refugee-day/ June 20, 2018) This language contextualises the resettlement of displaced persons such that the US underscores the public-facing statement about permanency for refugees. As the US Department of State’s website notes: The vast majority of these refugees will receive support in the country to which they fled until they can voluntarily and safely return to their home country. A small number of refugees will be allowed to become citizens in the country to which they fled, and an even smaller number – primarily those who are at the highest risk – will be resettled in a third country. (U.S. Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migrants, 2019. https:// 2009-2017.state.gov/j/prm/ra//index.htm) This statement suggests that the US is working specifically with those individuals who are at high risk of not being able ‘to return to their country of origin … because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution’ (MPI, 2017a). In addition, the US Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migrants (PRM) notes that, ‘According to the UNHCR, fewer than 1% of refugees worldwide are ever resettled’ due to prescriptions by high income countries about which individuals they will accept (2019). This issue is a global issue and not just a US concern. The PRM states that ‘resettlement often is the durable solution of “last resort”’ (2019). The concept of last resort is a relatively new frame for this discussion. Thus, it appears that the US federal government has taken the view that resettlement may not be the preferred mechanism for aiding vulnerable groups such as refugees. One of the reasons for this language is most likely linked to how people in the US define ‘populism’ and the arbitrariness of fear about newly arriving refugees (Bauman, 2016). So, in 2018, for the first time, the US was no longer the country that resettled the largest number of refugees (Pew Charitable Trust, 2019).

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Defining populism in the US The current global political, economic, and legal climates are replete with discussions about the concepts of populism and anti-populism without providing concrete definitions of either of these terms. In fact, it appears from the literature and the news media that these definitions differ depending on world regions. As Ostiguy and Roberts state, ‘populism is a force of “creative destruction” that breaks down or erases traditional political alignments and restructures socio-political space around a different – and often highly polarizing – competitive axis’ (2016). It ‘is routinely conceptualized as an antagonistic division of political space between “the people,” however defined, and some type of elite’ (Ostiguy & Roberts, 2016, p. 25). Its success is due to ‘the ability of populism to politicize an orthogonal dimension of socio-political difference’ (Ostiguy & Roberts, 2016, p. 26). Indeed an important component of the idea of populism is that ‘in Europe, the populist label has traditionally been assigned to radical-right nationalist and anti-immigrant parties that define “the people” in nativistic terms against an “other” that is usually socio-culturally subordinate,’ which is an element of what is happening in the US as antiimmigrant and anti-refugee voices have become louder since the 2016 elections (Ostiguy & Roberts, 2016, p. 28; Walters, 2018; Bonikowski, 2016; Ahluwalia & Miller, 2016). As Rabel has explored, ‘assertively nationalist’ ideas have been around since before World War II (2019, p. 10). He notes that President Woodrow Wilson ‘outlined … [a] commitment to liberal internationalism that involved a so-called New Diplomacy… based on democracy, self-determination, free trade, freedom of the seas and collective security’ (Rabel, 2019, p. 10). Since a 1918 speech by Wilson, this commitment meant the United States was not simply another great power wielding strength and pursuing strictly national interests … President Franklin D. Roosevelt took up key elements of that vision again during the Second World War … [and] the United States has been a more magnanimous great power because of this liberal internationalist impulse. (Rabel, 2019, p. 10) However, there have been competing forces at work in the US, with some groups being more supportive of a non-intervention nationalist mentality and other groups supporting liberalist internationalism. Indeed by 2008, there was ‘widespread fatigue about the messy Middle East, frustrations in some quarters about changing demographics and resentment at the costs of globalisation, with a changing economy that was producing uneven patterns of growth – all alongside deep political polarisation between Democrats and Republicans,’ which have led to less support for internationalization and acceptance of incoming groups to the US (Rabel, 2019, p. 13). Democrats and Republicans are the two main political parties in the US, with Democrats

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espousing the importance of federal rights and governance, while Republicans support a more states’ rights view of governance. As Rabel highlights, ‘internationalism has been strongest when it appears to be aligned with American national interests and when the United States is thriving economically’ – for many in the US today this alignment with either national interests or economic prosperity does not appear to be present (Rabel, 2019, p. 13). Donald Trump’s ascent to the US presidency was largely fueled by his platform that promised to ‘Make America Great Again’ (MAGA). Appealing to blue-collared conservatives who fear a changing, more global society, Trump promised to protect American manufacturing jobs, which would put American workers first and catapult the US back to the top of the world order where it so rightfully belongs (Qui, 2016). To do this, he launched an offensive attack on several ‘others’: the terrorist, the alien, and the media, to name a few. In his tenure thus far, President Trump has issued EOs that purposefully discriminate against individuals from Middle Eastern countries, authorized the separation and subsequent detention of families migrating into the US at the southern border, and even let his own government close for 35 days while demanding $5 billion to support the building of a physical wall between the US and Mexico. His nation-under-fire rhetoric extended beyond addresses and press conferences to the popular social networking platform Twitter, where he engaged and attacked leaders domestically and abroad. A self-proclaimed nationalist (Forgey, 2018), President Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric on social media serves as documentation of the aforementioned instances where the President encouraged nationalism, ‘AMERICA FIRST!’, over the general health and wellbeing of diverse and newly arriving populations, as well as over the health and wellbeing of native citizens as government-funded activities are pushed aside to pay for a nationalist agenda. In Trump’s tweets and other pronouncements, there is no distinction among refugees, immigrants, and asylum seekers – they are all groups from outside the US and to be feared. There is no recognition and/or understanding that refugees are people in need and can work for the US’s best interests as they integrate during the resettlement process. The United Nations’ 1951 definition of refugees allowed people who were displaced to have ‘a newfound moral identity sanctioned in international law’ (Ignatieff, 2017). This idea is crucial, since being a displaced person locates an individual in a liminal state between having an identity and a space in the global world or having none. The issue today is that refugees, while still having an identity that is endorsed in a legal sense, are now being categorized ‘as the invasive other’ (Ignatieff, 2017, p. 223; Bauman, 2016). This categorization plays into the definition of nativist populism, wherein non-native people are marginalized and discussed as being threats to specific ways of life within that country. These marginalizations are based on religious and racial/ethnic identities such that Muslims and people of colour who are from the Global South are determined to threaten white, Protestant ideas and values (Ignatieff, 2017). In addition, based on threats from the Islamic world (e.g., ISIS) and from the Global

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South (e.g., gangs and drug cartels), refugees are ‘tainted’ individuals who are made further vulnerable by stereotypic and uneducated understandings and vocabulary about why they are trying to escape from their heritage countries. Thus, there has been a ‘collapse of the space for generosity and compassion,’ which was a common thread in international work since the 1950s, with populism being a view of the world that is not supportive of the liberal ideal of a ‘common humanity’ (Ignatieff, 2017, p. 224). To further this disjointedness about identity, there is additional consideration about how marginalized individuals are to blend in as they are resettled in the US. The White House has moved away from terms like ‘acculturation’ and ‘integration,’ and into a more colonialist promotion of the term ‘assimilation.’ Two of these terms (i.e., assimilation and acculturation) are quite dated and, when used, move the US back to earlier centuries and its inhumane treatment of non-white individuals. Specifically, assimilation means that an individual changes to become indistinguishable from the dominant group – an element of force is inherent in this term and is seen in the interactions with American Indian groups in the US. Acculturation ‘refers to the process of culture change that individuals undergo as a result of cultural contact’ (Birman et al., 2014, p. 60). As Berry noted in the 1970s, there are various types of acculturation and ‘integration or biculturalism characterized by high involvement in both the heritage and the host culture is identified as most adaptive’ (Birman et al., 2014, p. 60). Although acculturation seems to be a positive process, it is one-sided, with the newly arriving individual doing all the adapting and the host individual not responsible for any adapting. It is with this view that the concept of ‘integration’ is explored below and connected to populist perspectives.

Integration Since 1950, the US has experienced an overall increase in immigration (MPI, 2017b). Factors contributing to this high rate of movement include (1) political and social turmoil that has forced many from their homes in search of safety and stability, and (2) changes in climate that require individuals to relocate to maintain their livelihood. The diverse motives for migration contribute to the complexity of both the integration process and understanding that process. Further, there is no universally accepted definition of integration in the resettlement context. The online Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines integration as the ‘incorporation as equals into society … of individuals of different groups (such as races)’ (https://www.merriam-webster.com/). Ideally, integration includes both those who are arriving (migrants) and those who are already there (hosts), thus, implying a ‘give and take’ process. One useful framework for considering how to measure integration of newly arriving populations has been provided by Ager and Strang (2004) (see Figure 9.1). Working in the area of refugee resettlement, the authors identified ten key indicators of integration. The US resettlement process is quite well defined and involves settling refugees physically into housing and working toward enrollment

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Caren J. Frost, Kwynn M. Gonzalez-Pons and Lisa H. Gren Basic indicators Education

Employment

Health

Housing

Connecting indicators Length of resettlement in new country

Social bonds

Social bridges

Social links

Facilitator indicators Language and cultural knowledge

Safety and stability

Rights indicators Rights and citizenship

Figure 9.1 Connected integration indicators by length of resettlement Source: Adapted from Ager & Strang, 2004.

in school for children and youth, and employment for adults. Attention to health needs is addressed with enrollment into health insurance programs. These four basic indicators – education, employment, health, and housing – comprise needs that must be addressed immediately upon arrival. These indicators need to be built on to support a successful integration process. Three additional indicators are: social bonds (connections to individuals who share similar cultural, religious, and/or ethnic backgrounds); social bridges (connections to individuals who come from other backgrounds, such as the host country or other migrants); and social links (connections to institutional entities, such as schools and governments). While social bonds and social bridges have to do with interpersonal connections, social links relate to the ability to navigate systems and obtain information or services. If resettled individuals do not connect to others from their heritage countries and if they cannot make new connections with individuals from the country of resettlement, the integration process suffers. Language and cultural knowledge as well as safety and stability are the facilitating mechanisms for understanding and feeling comfortable in a new society. Language acquisition is a necessary skill for integration, and often overlaps with the education and employment indicators, as well as impacting the ability to participate in social interactions. Cultural knowledge is necessary for negotiating the nuanced social interactions with individuals. Safety refers to having a sense of physical, psychological, and emotional safety in a new environment. Stability overlaps with safety, and is linked to having a sense of predictability relative to housing, employment/school, and health. Thus, individuals who have higher facility with language and cultural knowledge, and who experience higher levels of safety and stability, are likely to be better integrated with their new surroundings.

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The last indicator is rights and citizenship. Foundational to a new arrival’s experience is the concept that they have rights as a human. In participating in resettlement activities and welcoming the integration of new arrivals, a host community signals its recognition of those human rights. The culmination of rights and citizenship is the ability of a refugee to become a citizen. Yet, even without attaining citizenship, a refugee can become civically engaged by working for the good of a community rather than just for one’s self and family.

Social service landscape It can be challenging to provide resources to address each of these indicators of integration for newly arriving individuals. Harris et al. reported on the extent of integration services that could be readily identified on websites related to refugee resettlement, and found variation across the indicators in all 50 states (2017). Notably, the indicators that were less frequently documented on resettlement websites were social bridges (42 percent), social bonds (32 percent), and safety and stability (10 percent), while the remaining indicators were documented on 70–90 percent of websites. A body of evidence suggests that positive correlations exist among mental wellness, social integration, economic attainment, and language acquisition. In other words, high attainment for one of these indicators is associated with high attainment for the others (Birman et al., 2014; Schick et al., 2016). Further, the impact of successful integration in one generation has longerterm implications, as seen in studies that document associations between better physical and mental health and educational outcomes for children when their parents/caregivers had higher attainment in language acquisition and employment, and/or better health (Hooper et al., 2016; Trentacosta et al., 2016; Bryant et al., 2018). In addition to the benefits within families, there are broader, positive societal impacts associated with supporting a long-term, resource-intensive approach to integration. Refugees with greater support in language acquisition and technical training achieve living wage status as much as 10 years earlier than those who don’t receive such support (Nibbs, 2016). Researchers have shown that within about two decades of arrival, long-term integration support results in refugees attaining economic parity at the host community’s median income level (Capps et al., 2015; New American Economy, 2017), with some estimates showing this achievement occurring within the first decade after arrival (Fratzscher & Junker, 2015; Vijaya et al., 2017). Further, refugees are positioned to significantly contribute to the US and local economies: (1) by participating in the workforce, paying taxes and slowing population decline in resettlement areas; (2) by having higher entrepreneurship rates than native-born Americans, thus creating a substantial number of new businesses; and (3) by having a higher percentage of working-age individuals than native-born Americans, thus lessening the

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future strain on workforce and entitlement programs (New American Economy, 2017; CHMURA, 2017). Beyond economic considerations, communities may also appreciate the increase in ethnic and cultural diversity that accompanies the arrival of New Americans (CHMURA, 2017). Basic indicators (i.e., education, employment, health, and housing) are those most easily addressed in the context of social services activities. The question remains of how to promote more social work activities and intervention development to address the other indicators highlighted in Figure 9.1. Social work education is a key component for assisting agencies in designing and delivering services for resettling individuals and families.

The response of social workers in the US In the US, the National Association of Social Workers (NASW), founded in 1955, created a Code of Ethics detailing how (a) social work should be practiced, and (b) clients should be treated. Part of the preamble of the Code of Ethics states that ‘the primary mission of the social work profession is to enhance human well-being and help meet the basic human needs of all people’ (NASW, 2017). The Code of Ethics highlights six core values: service, social justice, dignity and worth of the person, importance of human relationships, integrity, and competence (NASW, 2017). Overall, these values link to principles for social workers to articulate in their everyday work environments, ensuring that people are respected and that positive and supportive relationships are developed. These principles, which are used to teach social work students how to provide services to clients, especially under-served groups, create quite a contrast to the current populist climate in the US. Consistent with their mission to promote social justice and respect for all persons, the NASW has consistently condemned anti-migrant actions carried out during Trump’s tenure, as well as his hateful rhetoric on Twitter. The NASW called Trump’s racist tweets ‘deplorable’ and a contradiction of NASW’s efforts: ‘NASW and the nation’s social workers have long been committed to ending racism in this nation and the societal ills that result from racism’ (NASW, 2019b). Here, the NASW’s call to action was for the president to stop tweeting and work to address systemic factors exacerbated by racism, including poverty, healthcare, and access to housing (NASW, 2019b). Further, the NASW calls on social workers to advocate for immigrant clients, both in direct practice and in macro work, by ‘promoting sound immigration policies’ (NASW, 2019a). They call on social workers to share their expertise to advocate for immigrant communities at the local and state levels, including standing against harmful legal decisions. For instance, the NASW put out a press release condemning the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold portions of Trump’s travel ban on individuals from Muslim nations, saying the decision ‘reflects a hostility to the immigrant community as a whole’ (NASW, 2019c). Both in their role of treating individual clients and the macro role to promote sound policy, social workers adhere to the aim specified in the preamble of

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the NASW Code of Ethics to ‘enhance human well-being and help meet the basic human needs of all people’ (NASW, 2017). Such an aim is foundational to the ideal that New Americans achieve full integration as equals in society.

Conclusion Refugee integration into the US is threatened when the nation’s president levies nationalist tirades, authorizes deportations and family separations without regard for long-term psychological harm, and restricts travel into the country due to one’s religious preferences. Where nationalism triumphs, inclusion suffers. The NASW has spoken publicly and consistently against nationalist speech and harmful immigration policies; still, work remains. First, we need to move away from the language about the refugee crisis and toward language about humanitarianism and social development. As the national verbiage continues to consider the displacement of peoples as a crisis, it will appear as though there is an end in sight, and that other governments and countries have a bigger responsibility than the US to create a landscape that addresses the issues associated with large-scale displacement. This discussion clearly has a social justice element, which is a keystone value of social work’s activities. Second, there should be an alternative manner in which we state facts and address incorrect statements. At the current time, much of the public discourse uses subjective language and ideas rather than those based on evidence. Discussions that counter nationalist ideas with fact-based information could be one method that would speak to statements that are xenophobic and discriminatory. For social work, advocacy work and policy development are two activities that should be strengthened to tackle these discussions. In addition, highlighting the importance of social work research activities is crucial for developing the necessary evidence base for this work. Third, the social services infrastructure needs to be developed so that a broad spectrum of integration services is designed and launched to address the ten indicators for refugee resettlement. Evaluation of these services may provide evidence that supports their application to other groups in need. Finally, having a diverse workforce is a benefit for any society. One of the key ideas linked to refugees and immigrants is that within a few years of resettlement newcomers can be economically and socially successful if they are provided the appropriate resettlement tools and skills. In order to develop these tools, the Ager and Strang integration framework should be used to create these opportunities. Social workers are well placed to serve as case managers for newly arrived individuals accessing services, as well as to plan and evaluate program successes in connecting refugees and immigrants to appropriate services. Social work should take the lead in promoting the importance of working with diverse groups and providing evidence that highlights the benefits of new social and cultural ideas in the name of a broader national, and global, vision for the US.

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References Ager, A. & Strang, A. (2004). Indicators of integration: Final report. U.K. Home Office Development and Practice Report #28. London: Home Office. Ahluwalia, P. and Miller, T. (2016). Brexit: The way of dealing with populism. Social Identities, 22(5), 453–454. Bauman, Z. (2016). Zygmunt Bauman: Love. Fear. And the network. Retrieved from https://032c.com/zygmunt-bauman-love-fear-and-the-network/ Birman, D., Simon, C.D., Chan, W.Y. & Tran, N. (2014). A life domains perspective on acculturation and psychological adjustment: A study of refugees from the former Soviet Union. American Journal of Community Psychology, 53, 60–72. Bonikowski, B. (2016). Three lessons of contemporary populism in Europe and the United States. Brown Journal of World Affairs, 23(1), 9–24. Bryant, R.A., Edwards, B., Creamer, M., O’Donnell, M., Forbes, D., Felmingham, K. L., Silove, D., Steel, Z., Nickerson, A., McFarlane, A.C., Van Hooff, M. & HadziPavlovic, D. (2018). The effect of post-traumatic stress disorder on refugees’ parenting and their children’s mental health: A cohort study. Lancet Public Health, 3, e249–258. Capps, R., Newland, K., Fratzke, S., Groves, S., Fix, M., McHugh, M. & Auclair, G. (2015). The integration outcomes of U.S. refugees: Successes and challenges. Washington, D.C.: Migration Policy Institute. CHMURA Economics & Analytics (2017). Economic impact of refugees in the Cleveland area, calendar year 2016. Cleveland, OH: CHMURA. Forgey, Q. (2018, October 22). Trump: ‘I’m a nationalist’. Retrieved from https://www. politico.com/story/2018/10/22/trump-nationalist-926745 Fratzscher, M. & Junker, S. (2015). Integrating refugees: A long-term, worthwhile investment, Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung Economic Bulletin, 5(45/46), 612–616. Harris, M., Greene, J., Jorgensen, K., Frost, C. & Gren, L. (2017). State refugee services indicators of integration: How are the states doing? Available from the Center for Research on Migration and Refugee Integration at the University of Utah. Salt Lake City, UT: Center for Research on Migration and Refugee Integration. Hooper, K., Zong, J., Capps, R. & Fix, M. (2016). Young children of refugees in the United States: Integration successes and challenges. Washington, D.C.: Migration Policy Institute. Ignatieff, M. (2017). The refugee as invasive other. Social Research, 84(1), 223–231. MPI (Migration Policy Institute) (2017a). Refugees and asylees in the United States. Retrieved from https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/refugees-and-asylees-united-states MPI (Migration Policy Institute) (2017b). Legal immigration to the United States, 1820–2017. Retrieved from https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/ us-immigration-trends National Association of Social Workers (NASW) (2019a). NASW Condemns Trump administration’s nationwide removal raids on immigrant families. Press release. Retrieved from https://www.socialworkers.org/News/News-Releases/ID/1973/NASW-CondemnsTrump-Administrations-Nationwide-Removal-Raids-on-Immigrant-Families National Association of Social Workers (NASW) (2019b). NASW demands President Trump immediately stop racist tweets and instead unite nation to address racism, violence and poverty. Press release. Retrieved from https://www.socialworkers.org/ News/News-Releases/ID/1974/NASW-demands-President-Trump-immediately-stop -racist-tweets-and-instead-unite-nation-to-address-racism-violence-and-poverty

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National Association of Social Workers (NASW) (2019c). Supreme Court ruling in Muslim travel ban case is a severe blow to protections against religious discrimination. Press release. Retrieved from https://www.socialworkers.org/News/News-Relea ses/ID/1667/Supreme-Court-Ruling-in-Muslim-Travel-Ban-Case-is-a-Severe-Blow-toProtections-against-Religious-Discrimination National Association of Social Workers (2017). Code of ethics. Retrieved from https:// www.socialworkers.org/About/Ethics/Code-of-Ethics/Code-of-Ethics-English National Security andDefence (2017). Executive order protecting the nation from foreign terrorist entry into the United States. Retrieved from https://www.whitehouse.gov/presi dential-actions/executive-order-protecting-nation-foreign-terrorist-entry-united-states-2/ New American Economy (2017). From struggle to resilience: The economic impact of refugees in America. Retrieved from http://research.newamericaneconomy.org/wp -content/uploads/sites/2/2017/11/NAE_Refugees_V6.pdf Nibbs, F. (2016). Moving in the fastlane: Understanding refugee upward mobility in the context of resettlement. Forced Migration Upward Mobility Project. Retrieved from www.fmump.org/docs/moving-into-the-fastlane.pdf Ostiguy, P. & Roberts, K.M. (2016). Putting Trump in comparative perspective: Populism and the politicization of the sociocultural low. Brown Journal of World Affairs, 23(1), 25–50. Pew Charitable Trust (2019). Canada now leads the world in refugee resettlement, surpassing the US. Retrieved from https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/06/ 19/canada-now-leads-the-world-in-refugee-resettlement-surpassing-the-u-s/ Qui, L. (2016, July 15). Donald Trump’s top 10 campaign promises. Retrieved from https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2016/jul/15/donald-trumps-top -10-campaign-promises/ Rabel, R. (2019). Donald Trump, populism and the shallow roots of American internationalism. New Zealand International Review, 44(2), 10–13. Schick, M., Zumwald, A., Knöpfli, B., Nickerson, A., Bryant, R.A., Schnyder, U., Müller, J. & Morina, N. (2016). Challenging future, challenging past: The relationship of social integration and psychological impairment in traumatized refugees. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 71–79. doi:10.3402/ejpt.v7.28057 Soboroff, J. & Ainsley, J. (2018). Migrant families separated at border may get a second chance for asylum in the U.S. Retrieved from https://www.nbcnews.com/news/ us-news/migrant-families-separated-border-may-get-second-chance-asylum-u-n909176 Trentacosta, C.J., McLear, C.M., Ziadni, M.S., Lumley, M.A. & Arfken, C.L. (2016). Potentially traumatic events and mental health problems among children of Iraqi refugees: The roles of relationships with parents and feelings about school. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 86(4), 384–392. U.S. Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migrants (2019). About PRM. Retrieved from https://www.state.gov/j/prm/about/index.htm U.S. Department of State (2019). Refugee admissions. Retrieved from https://www.sta te.gov/refugee-admissions/ Vijaya, R.M., Miller, M. & Fletcher, D. (2017). Within 7 years, refugees are self-sufficient and contributing to the U.S., on average. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost. com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/08/15/within-7-years-refugees-are-self-sufficient-a nd-contributing-to-the-u-s-on-average/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.31756ff525e2 Walters, S.D. (2018). Currents: Feminist key concepts and controversies: In defence of identity politics. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 43(2), 473–488.

10 Citizenship, populism and social work in the Finnish welfare state Kati Turtiainen and Tuomo Kokkonen

Introduction This chapter analyses the relationship between social work, populism and social citizenship in the context of the Finnish welfare state. Traditionally Finland, as well as other Nordic welfare states, namely Norway, Sweden and Denmark, has had universal welfare policies managed by a strong public sector. This kind of social policy was in the past strongly supported by most political parties and by voters. Social workers accepted and worked within the state-centred ideology of the socio-political system and bureaucratic management (Askeland & Strauss, 2014, p. 251; Marjanen et al., 2018). During recent decades, right-wing nationalist populism in Finland has received increased voter support following a similar trend in other Nordic countries as well as elsewhere in Europe. Although populist parties are usually categorised as politically right-wing, their policies typically mirror some of the platforms of the social democratic parties which claim a commitment to social justice and welfare. Until recently, Finland had a low number of immigrants compared to other Nordic countries. In the last few years Finland has also experienced large-scale migration and the traditional distribution of social rights throughout the nation is being increasingly challenged as asylum seekers and other forced migrants also lay claim to these social rights. The rise of right-wing nationalist populism has strengthened the nationalistic tendency of the Finnish welfare state. Instead of seeing the welfare state as an institution unconditionally protecting human beings, one of the key themes of populism in Finland is to ‘protect’ the welfare state by restricting social solidarity to the ‘original citizens’ of the nation state (Fryklund, 2018, p. 30). The growing right-wing nationalist populism has created discussions about the meaning of social citizenship and the extent of social rights. Instead of operating on the traditional political antagonism of left and right, populistic political discourse attacks the idea of humanism and common humanity. From the perspective of advocates of the welfare state, this phenomenon is characterised by degree of severity and named either welfare nationalism, welfare chauvinism or welfare exclusionism (Keskinen, 2014; 2017). In

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Finland, the current rise of right-wing populism is a challenging political trend for social work practitioners because it is contrary to social work’s professional ethics that are based on the notion that human rights and social citizenship should be available to all people (e.g. Ife, 2008; Staub-Bernasconi, 2014), not just ‘original Finns’. Right-wing nationalist populism also aligns with climate change deniers and ignores other global challenges such as the need for sustainable lifestyles. In addition, right-wing populism opposes human and social rights by engaging in identity politics.

Evolution of social citizenship in Finland Historically, the question of solidarity within the nation state was effortlessly transformed into the political idea of the welfare state. During the years immediately after the Second World War, T. H. Marshall (1950, pp. 6–7, 18) crystallised the idea of modern social citizenship as a status based on ‘full membership of the community’. The original foundations of liberalism were civil rights and political rights, but during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries liberalism was challenged by emerging demands for social rights, culminating in the 1950s which saw the beginnings of welfare states. Marshall considered the introduction of social rights as a radical turning point in the history of liberalism because they created a universal right to real income for all citizens while also limiting the free market and its economic system (1950, pp. 27–33). It is also important to note that Marshall did not limit his idea of social rights to social legislation, but rather saw them in the context of humanism and ‘human equality’. Marshall’s concept of social citizenship was also incorporated in the structure of the Nordic welfare states – indeed it was refined and further developed. Even today the mainstream understanding of the theory of social policy is deeply influenced by Marshall (1950). One example of this is the seminal book by Gosta Esping-Andersen (1990, pp. 21–26), The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, where he analyses income redistribution in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Esping-Andersen was critical of Marshall’s idea of social citizenship, but not from the viewpoint of nationalism or its equation with the nation state. According to Esping-Andersen, Marshall’s idea of social citizenship did not sufficiently prevent poverty because it did not adequately increase income redistribution within the welfare state. Marshall’s thinking reflected the British tradition of welfare state building that restricted public social responsibility to securing a flat rate basic income, and saw social benefits based on income as a matter of collective bargaining taking place in the labour market. While the British tradition of a welfare state limited social services and flat rate social benefits to only those living in poverty, the Nordic welfare state includes all the aforementioned policies as well as fairly generous incomebased social benefits. The difference between the two systems has become a topic of passionate discussion. In the Nordic model, austerity policies hit not

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only the very poorest but also the middle class – especially families with small children – that had previously enjoyed the whole scope of the welfare state, ranging from health and day care services to income based social benefits such as maternity and family leave, and unemployment benefits. In this political context, where welfare cuts are affecting the daily lives of people who identify as the ‘majority’ in society, it is politically easy to claim that there is an overburdening of the state, caused by ‘the others’, namely migrants. In the historical context ‘the others’ were those who did not want work, belonged to sexual minorities, lived a morally culpable life due to alcoholism or mental illness, or were guilty of welfare fraud. However, in the current political climate, immigrants have taken the place of prime ‘contributors’ to the overloading of the state. For the ‘common people’, it can appear rational and morally sound to ‘close the borders’ and restrict social solidarity to those with inherited citizenship (van Oorschot & Meuleman, 2012; Kamali & Jönsson, 2018.) Suvi Keskinen (2013; 2014; 2017; Keskinen et al., 2016) has underlined the importance of recognising the link between the concepts of welfare state and nationalism. Welfare nationalism, welfare chauvinism and welfare exclusionism are classifications of various nationalistic political strategies of social political systems in the context of Finnish immigration politics and policies. ‘Welfare nationalism’ refers to discourses and ideologies that intertwine welfare provision with inherited citizenship. According to Keskinen (2014) welfare nationalism describes the way asylum seekers and non-western migrants are considered within Finnish politics. She follows Suszycki’s (2011, p. 56) understanding that welfare nationalism is a ‘commitment to welfare that is aligned with national interests and ideas’, where the welfare state is presented as a national concern that should be the focus of politics and the economy. Welfare nationalism can be considered as a political mindset that is very close to the mainstream thinking in welfare state discourses of the latter part of the twentieth century, such as is present in the thinking of Marshall and Esping-Andersen. ‘Welfare chauvinism’ refers to the political strategies that not only categorise the deserving and underserving as citizens or non-citizens, but also define citizenship according to nationalist criteria and non-citizenship as ‘otherness’. In its political strategies welfare chauvinism is racist. Keskinen (2014) writes that, in Finnish policies, right-wing populist parties, but also other political actors, ‘use this kind of rhetoric and build their political agenda on such a view’. ‘Welfare exclusionism’ proponents consider that welfare is only for those who live and work in the country and have citizenship – not residence permits. Additionally, welfare exclusionism advocates may demand special conditions, based on language, culture, working status, incomes and length of residence for non-citizens as criteria for access to benefits. Keskinen (2014) shows that welfare exclusionism extends welfare chauvinist arguments that seek to exclude people from welfare services on the basis of their national identity and thereby limit access to benefits for those perceived as ‘others’.

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All three definitions (Keskinen, 2014) shed light on current Finnish politics and policies based on who is considered to belong, or not, to the nation. It is also important to note that the nation state, national culture, and the division between ‘us’ and ‘them’ were not a significant problem for the early reformist movement as the everyday life of the people at the bottom of social stratification as well as the economy framing it were largely issues for Finns. After World War II, the political promise of the welfare state concept was to turn the austerity of a war economy into a national welfare economy where the equitable contribution of every citizen was traded for social citizenship and a rising standard of living. Thus, the concept of solidarity in a welfare state was, by and large, a nationallyendorsed concept of solidarity. The most important exceptions to this historical trajectory were the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UN, 1948) and the 1961 European Social Charter and its constant renewal process. The European Pillar of Social Rights (1991), Finlex 44/1991, was a practical attempt to extend the concept of social citizenship beyond the context of the nation state. Its goal is to secure equal opportunities, fair working conditions, social protection and inclusion for all citizens of EU nation states irrespective of their ‘race’, gender, religion or political opinion. Moreover, the European Pillar of Social Rights obligates EU member countries to combat social exclusion and discrimination, promote solidarity, protect the rights of children and improve the quality of the environment. The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UN, 1948), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR, 1966), ratified by Finland in 1976, and the European Pillar of Social Rights (1991) are important developments of social citizenship because they mark the path to social development that is the alternative to nationality-based welfare states – a path that has seen the emergence of discourses about multicultural citizenship and human rights – and by extension social rights – as unrestricted by the boundaries of a nation state (Kymlicka & Norman, 1994). These changes within the emancipatory outlook of citizenship give rise to the transnational human rights movements within social work. These movements are positioned squarely against the nation-based political outlook of populism. Isin and Turner (2007) examine the complex relationship between the human rights of people and the rights of citizens, stating that ‘While human rights are regarded as innate and inalienable, the rights of citizens are created by states.’ Isin and Turner (ibid.) differentiate between the concept of a global citizenship and a cosmopolitan citizenship, suggesting that global citizenship implies a ‘global’ state whereas cosmopolitan citizenship relates to rights across borders, including rights of asylum and rights of migrant labour, and also concluding that ‘Social rights are entitlements … within a sovereign state’.

Outlining right-wing nationalist populism in Finland Populism is a ‘thin political ideology’ (Stanley, 2008) that is difficult to grasp in a single definition. In fact, more than a form of a political ideology,

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populism is a multifaceted and chameleon-like political movement. The actual appearance of populism has varied greatly during its history and there is considerable diversity within it. Instead of conceptual coherence, populism is haunted by ‘conceptual slipperiness’ (Gherghina & Soare, 2013). There are some defining elements that have been observed within right-wing populistic movements, of which nationalism and statism, driven by xenophobia and faith in the authority of a strong leadership, are the most important. Additionally, right-wing populist movements typically draw on religion and a nostalgia, combined with anti-elitism and intensive use of conspiracy theories and apocalyptic visions of the future (ibid., pp. 3–4; Roth, 2016). Populism is a reactive political movement by its nature. Considered to have originated in late nineteenth-century politics in the United States, populism has drawn its energy from economic and social distress among ‘common people’ and the resultant uncertainty about life. In this sense, people wanting to protest against the elites of their society are found in the supporting structures of populism (Argersinger, 2014). Historically, populistic protests have been mobilised against the expansion of free trade or against changes to the industrial society resulting from technical innovations. Classic examples of historical populism are the links with agrarian movements or the call for a stronger role for the state in developing the nation. Moreover, the link between populism and fascism has been – and is still – evident (Mișcoiu, 2013). It is also obvious that one of the most important themes of contemporary right-wing nationalist populism is the criticism of the welfare state. However, the welfare state per se is rarely criticised by right-wing populistic movements, but neoliberals’ cuts to welfare benefits are denounced. In rightwing populistic discourse, dismantling of the welfare state is seen as a threat to the lives of ‘the common people’ as is the welfare state’s commitment to democracy, human rights, emancipatory identity politics, multiculturalism and increasing international co-operation. Modern theories of social citizenship (Isin & Turner, 2007; Isin et al., 2008) is the extreme political opposite to populism even though both – although in a different way and for different reasons – support the welfare state. Contemporary neo-populism, advanced populism or twenty-first-century populism, are radicalised forms of a political movement. A typical feature of contemporary neo-populism is a mix of identities, social classes and ideologies, as can be perceived in the politics of Marine Le Pen in France, or Donald Trump in the United States (Mișcoiu, 2013, p. 18). Using the concepts of Ernesto Laclau (2005), it can be argued that neo- or advanced populism often takes the form of ‘an empty signifier’ that is capable of seizing almost any social or economic phenomena in society and criticising it following the basic principles of populism, typically nationalism, xenophobia and faith in the authority of a strong leader. By doing so, populism also constantly reinvents its social and political foundation by recreating new political dichotomies based on ‘us’ versus ‘them’. These dichotomies do not only attack other parts of society, including the ‘liberal’ welfare state ‘favouring immigration and

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multiculturalism’, but they also inspire populistic political rhetoric, including hate speech (Kovala & Palonen, 2018). Right-wing nationalist populism in Finland reflects the general outlines of historical development of the political ideology. The forerunner of the current leading populist party in Finland, the True Finns, was the Rural Party, which was founded in 1959. It had its roots in the political struggle to improve the social situation of poor agrarian people in an increasingly industrialising society. The Rural Party defined itself as a political party speaking for the agrarian ‘forgotten people’ (Fryklund, 2018). Despite being a strictly political movement, the Rural Party largely lacked the xenophobic tones that are typical of contemporary right-wing populism in Finland and other countries. The Rural Party existed at a time when nationalism and, in the case of Finland, ‘Finnishness’ had a positive undertone and was not contested as it is currently. Instead of xenophobia, its core themes were the voice of the poor people and criticism of the elites. Although sharing many political goals with left-wing parties in terms of building the welfare state and extending the system of social benefits, the Rural Party differed from the labour movement due to its agrarian background. It adopted a populist outlook rather than embracing socialist ideology. The Rural Party was at the peak of its political power in the late 1960s and especially after the 1970 general election when it sent 18 members to the 200-member Finnish parliament (ibid.). During recent decades right-wing nationalist populism has manifested itself very clearly in general elections around Europe. This trend has also been clear in Finland, where the populist successor to the Rural Party, the True Finns, received 17.7 per cent of the vote in the parliamentary election of 2015, acquiring 38 seats out of 200. The True Finns Party was also invited into the right-wing coalition government formed after the election of 2015, despite having a political platform typical of other western European populist parties. In Sweden other parties have refused to co-operate with the Swedish Democrats – a populist party closely resembling the True Finns Party. In Finland, due to the political pressures within a coalition government, the True Finns Party has split into two, with a considerable proportion of the most prominent populist politicians continuing in government as the Blue Reform Party. However, despite the stormy period in government, and despite the party splitting in two, the True Finns Party continued its success in the 2019 general election by getting 17.5 per cent of the vote. The party has only one seat less than the largest party, the Social Democrats. Along with steady and relatively large political support, populism has left a clear imprint on Finnish society. Most importantly, it has led to more restrictive immigration policies and more conservative values in family policies, education and international politics. During the time of the 2015–2019 coalition government, Finnish populism also enabled the right-wing parties to exercise austerity policies that included many fiercely criticised welfare cuts (Fryklund, 2018). Through their tight grasp on political power, the two

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populist parties have also managed to create a political atmosphere in Finland where the idea of the welfare state has been associated with nationalism, and where the political agenda and vocabulary of politics is directed by populist discourses (Kovala & Palonen, 2018). This nationalist undertone of political thinking is clearly presented in the concept of ‘internal solidarity’, used in the publications of the leading populist party in Finland, the Finns Party. Nationalistic and just policy includes the idea of helping underprivileged and marginalised Finnish people. We would like to support people in need primarily inside our own country. We call that internal solidarity. (The Finns Party, 2018, authors’ translation and emphasis)

Social work and boundaries of social citizenship in Finnish welfare services The birth of populism draws broadly from the same processes of modernisation of society as the formation of modern social work in the classical works of Jane Addams, Beatrice Webb and Mary Richmond. Like social work, populism also strives to give a voice to citizens living in conditions of scarcity and uncertainty, and to change the world according to their needs and political will (Mișcoiu, 2013). Populism and social work both readily identify the capitalist market as a source of social problems. The end of feudal society and the increasing power of market forces, the rise of liberalism, together with industrial urbanisation, poverty, and homelessness, were equally important for the development of populism as well as social work. During the evolution of the welfare state, and in the time of near-continuous economic growth until the early 1990s, social workers could respond to the needs of people in fragile life situations. During the time of welfare state building, social work in Finland, as in other countries, was a national issue. Globalisation and the so-called neoliberal transformations of the welfare state have in recent decades undermined the balance of the national context of social work. Generally, the changes have consisted of a combination of austerity policies leading to increased uncertainty in the labour market, increasing income inequality, and the decline of welfare services and benefits (Pierson, 2006; Kananen, 2014). Also, social policy has now transformed into policies that strive for increasing economic efficiency of the market (Heiskala, 2006). This dilemma has been extensively reflected in social policy and social work research (e.g. Närhi & Kokkonen, 2014; Marjanen et al., 2018; Fazzi, 2015). After the growing neoliberalisation of the welfare state, social workers have managed to restructure their position within the changing political landscape by resisting changes through creative practices and engaging their service users in counter-actions (Nordberg, 2018). However, neoliberal changes have put social work into a difficult position as a welfare state profession, where it has to mediate between underprivileged people facing social problems and the changing public policies. The ethical challenges for social workers, caused by

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this difficult position, are linked to neoliberal economic pressures (Mänttärivan der Kuip, 2016; Tiitinen & Kauppi, 2014). In practice, national and local budget cuts have been aimed at those social and health services which mostly deal with people living in vulnerable situations in Finnish society. There have also been cuts in welfare benefits, and access to social security has been restricted and put under stricter control. At the same time the number of long-term unemployed is increasing. These changes, together with the rise in work activation policies, have led to a growing number of unfair situations for individuals (Metteri, 2012) as well as the polarisation of society (Marjanen et al., 2018, p. 87). These changes are a serious challenge to social work practice, as well as providing fertile ground for increasing populism. The most topical issue of contention between populism and welfare services, and especially between populism and social work practice, is over enhancing the basic and human rights of asylum seekers and undocumented migrants. Traditionally, in Finland the number of migrants has been much smaller than in other Nordic countries, but along with many other European countries Finland was affected by large scale migration in 2015. At the same time the True Finns Party became a coalition partner in government and managed to weaken the Alien Act and its interpretation, make it harder for forced migrants to be granted asylum, and making family reunification impossible for many forced migrants. Moreover, even though the Finnish Constitution and the country’s commitment to the EU Social Charter guarantee basic rights to all people living in Finland, many local municipalities deny access to basic rights for undocumented migrants. In Finland, the mainstream social work profession has not supported radical social work or social mobilization (Nordberg, 2018), for example by making alliances with civil society activists (see Briskman, 2014). However, research shows that people working for the integration of migrants, including social workers, are also using activist and critical approaches. However, there are sites of control, such as the asylum process, where experts exercise more control rather than using their ethical obligations to forced migrants (Sotkasiira, 2018a.) Even when migrants integrate, it does not sufficiently improve their wellbeing as active and critical citizens (e.g. Sotkasiira, 2018b; Hiitola & Peltola, 2018; Turtiainen et al., 2018). Moreover, even though the Finnish welfare state provides income redistribution to migrants who have residence permits, the redistribution of power and knowledge remains weak (Heino & Veistilä, 2015; Nordberg, 2015), which is the consequence of intentional or unintentional discrimination. Failure to encourage active social citizenship and achieve human rights for asylum seekers, as well as undocumented and other migrants, is an opportunity for social work to demonstrate its ethical dimension. In general, the adversarial societal climate promoted by right-wing nationalist populism creates acts of, or silent acceptance of, racism and discrimination against different minorities in everyday contexts.

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Conclusions The authors conclude that right-wing nationalist populism is a political force that favours authoritarian policies as being solutions to all the problems and imperfections of liberal ‘open societies’, of which Finland with other Nordic welfare states is a prominent example. The ideas of ‘voice’ as well as ‘people’ in populism fundamentally differ from the idea of Nordic welfare states and social work as a human rights based profession. Historicallly, populism has played a part in integrating poor and underprivileged social classes into the project of nation building, although at the cost of embracing an imagined glorious past and a unified consensualism as a basis of identification of ‘us’ (e.g. Roth, 2016). Even though the populist distinction between ‘the people’ and ‘the elite’, or ‘us’ and ‘them’ (Laclau, 2005) motivates political action by voicing the frustration that exists within marginalised groups, this division is in essence diametrically opposed to social work ethics. This is because such a distinction is contrary to the fundamentally social nature of human beings, as all people have a deep dependence upon each other to satisfy biological, psychological and sociocultural needs. (Staub-Bernasconi, 2010, p. 17). In Finland, the roots of right-wing nationalist populism arose from the Rural Party promoting the rights of agrarian, ‘forgotten people’ (Fryklund, 2018). Recently, the True Finns Party, the Rural Party’s successor, encapsulated populism in a similar way to other European populist parties, primarily by calling for closed borders and limited social citizenship for asylum seekers and other migrants (e.g. Fazzi, 2015). The authors connected populism to these nationalistic and xenophobic right-wing political movements. These political movements aim to reinforce nationalism and exclude migrants from social citizenship, but also idealise a view of history that is hostile to those of unconventional gender and many other minority groups. Further, right-wing populist political ideology creates antagonistic divisions between imagined national identities, being hostile to migrants, sexual and many other minorities. As Hirvonen and Pennanen (2019, p. 39) write, populism limits the selfunderstanding of ‘the people’ ‘by defining themselves only in opposition to an imagined other’. These factors taken together together cause social pathologies instead of reinforcing human and social rights as well as human dignity for all people (ibid.). This anti-humanistic political environment that avoids commitment to human rights and idealises welfare exclusionism creates a challenging environment for an ethically sound social work practice (Roth, 2016; Keskinen, 2014). Rightwing populism forces social work to look for a new political position to balance itself within the tensions of neoliberal policies and populism. In Finland these tensions challenge social work practice in at least five areas intended to guarantee social rights and human protection for all people (Staub-Bernasconi, 2014; Ife, 2008). First, social work practice must rethink the state’s mandate, because social rights based public policies may exclude people living in vulnerable situations, such as asylum seekers and undocumented people. Second, rethinking the

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state’s mandate may also have consequences for the structure of social work in order for social workers to be able to advocate for those service users whose rights are weakened – on the one hand by neoliberal policies resulting in poverty, homelessness and other social problems and, on the other hand, by right-wing nationalist populist policies that deny asylum seekers and undocumented migrants access to basic rights. Third, the needs of marginalised and poor people must be met in practice by enabling access to social benefits and services that create the circumstances for a dignified future. Fourth, social work must create sites for participation and dialogue where human rights and dignity can be promoted. Finally, social work must promote sustainable approaches which can find ways to reconcile the global economic, environmental and social dimensions manifested in the local lives of people. These local, national or global eco-social approaches (Matthies & Närhi, 2017; Dominelli, 2012) are needed to oppose the populist denial of climate change and its consequences for the global economy.

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11 Surveillance, sanctions, and behaviour modification in the name of far-right nationalism The rise of authoritarian ‘welfare’ in Australia Goetz Ottmann Introduction Right-wing nationalist populism has the capacity to radically change the basis on which welfare is being provided (see also Hogan, 2015). Focusing on the case of Australia, the chapter highlights how the demands of far right nationalist movements are all too readily grafted onto the failed neo-liberal policies of the 1980s and 1990s (dogmatic belief in deregulation, small state, laissez faire) creating an authoritarian state paternalism that discards rights-based welfare in favour of a behaviour change apparatus enforced by increasingly sophisticated surveillance technology and punitive sanctions (see also Mendes, 2013). Boaventura de Sousa Santos has argued that ‘a situation in which the power inequalities between parties in the civil contract are such that the weaker party, rendered vulnerable for having no alternative, accepts the conditions imposed by the stronger party, however costly and despotic they may be’ amounts to ‘contractual fascism’ (de Sousa Santos, 2014). This chapter outlines how the ‘soft’ authoritarian policies facilitated by right-wing populists over the last 20 years are stripping those reliant on ‘welfare’ of alternatives, pushing them deeper into the ‘dark recesses of an authoritarian state’ (Giroux, 2015, p. 11) where behaviour previously regarded as ‘private’ is monitored and sanctioned and where the right to privacy, self-determination, and social integration becomes ultimately a function of financial self-sufficiency. This chapter provides an overview of the rise of authoritarian welfare in Australia and its link to right-wing populism. It documents the shift from rights-based welfare to a punitive behaviour change model bringing to the fore two core policies designed to police compliance. It outlines how this policy shift in conjunction with AI-enabled surveillance and the outsourcing of social services has weakened systemic safeguards built into the system to ensure that clients are protected from arbitrary sanctions. Further, the chapter illustrates how the rise of authoritarian ‘welfare’ is impacting on clients and human services professionals (i.e. social workers and other professional groups) and concludes with a reflection on ways to uphold social work values in the face of right-wing nationalist populism.

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There are two sides to populism: a politico-strategic aspect and corresponding sentiments generated by the public (Mudde, 2016). In this sense, the term ‘right-wing populism’ refers to (top-down) political strategies and rhetoric used by opportunistic politicians. ‘Far right’ denotes bottom-up mobilisations originating within the populace. In Europe, right-wing populism has been characterised as xenophobic, reactionary and authoritarian, embracing strong social hierarchies and leadership (Fitzi, 2019). In Australia, right-wing populism also harbours a more general contempt for individuals, and particularly cultural minorities (i.e. Indigenous Australians, refugees, non-citizens) reliant on welfare payments (see also Edwards et al., in Chapter 12).

Political shift to the right In the current political context, it is easy to forget that during the 1980s, Australia was widely viewed by the international press as an example of successful multiculturalism (Jamrozik, 2002). However, during the same decade the influx of immigrants, particularly from Asia, generated ‘unease’ among segments of the electorate (Jamrozik, 2002). A number of opportunistic mainstream politicians (e.g. John Howard and Tony Abbott) began to cultivate this ‘unease’ by casting asylum seekers and immigrants from Asia and the Middle East as ‘invaders’ destroying ‘our Australian way of life’ (Jamrozik, 2002). This opportunistic, xenophobic politics became entrenched with the election of the Conservative Coalition in 1996. The 1996 election marked the beginning of a political trajectory that redefined social citizenship giving it, what would later become more evident, welfare chauvinist and authoritarian inflections appealing to electorates attracted to right-wing nationalist populist rhetoric. Politicians advancing this strategy were able to draw on the support of tabloid journalists and shock jock talk-back radio ‘moderators’ who regularly claimed their right to speak hatefully in the name of ‘free speech’, thus overstepping Australia’s feeble anti-vilification laws that right-wing politicians subsequently tried to further weaken (Gelber & McNamara, 2016). There is growing research evidence that this kind of political endorsement of xenophobia is correlated with a dramatic increase in the number of hate speech incidents on social media and with an increase in actual crimes against ethnic and religious minorities (Williams, Burnap, Javed, Liu & Ozalp, 2019). Yet, by the late 1990s, the right-wing political rhetoric aggravating racial hatred had already captured the conservative mainstream, laying the foundations for authoritarian solutions, the welfare chauvinism, and the exclusion of welfare recipients from the civic contract in the decades that followed. In Eastern Europe support for right-wing nationalist parties began to increase during the second half of the 1980s and gathered pace during the 1990s. Over the same period, the support in Europe for right-wing parties grew from less than 3 per cent during 1986–1990 to around 20 per cent in 2011–2015 (Rodrik, 2017). The outcome of this rightward shift of European

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mainstream parties is, in Fitzi’s words, ‘a lingering legitimation of xenophobic, reactionary and authoritarian political vision’ (Fitzi, 2019, p. 3) that shapes the political agenda over the course of numerous electoral cycles. Indeed, European research suggests while right-wing extremism has morphed into new forms, the core orientation of this new right is still the same as that of previous incarnations. It is anchored in xenophobia, discrimination against minorities, and an authoritarian outlook that favours social hierarchies and ‘strong’ political leaders (Fitzi, 2019; Mudde, 2016; Williams et al., 2019; Zick, Küpper & Höwermann, 2011). In Australia, support for right-wing nationalist political parties is comparatively small. During the Australian federal election in 2019, right-wing parties received only 5.83 per cent of first preference votes for the House of Representatives. While this represents an increase of 1.19 per cent over the 2017 election (AEC, 2019), the overall endorsement of right-wing nationalist political parties declined between 1996 and 2016 (Cameron & McAllister, 2016). Thus, on the surface, Australia is a notable exception considering the rising tide of electoral support for the far right in most ‘developed’ countries. However, a more detailed analysis of Australian politics suggests otherwise. For example Fleming and Mondon (2018) argue that rather than immunity to the lure of right-wing nationalist populist politics, the absence of electoral support for right-wing fringe parties can be explained in terms of an ‘ability and willingness of mainstream politics to readily and openly officially absorb’ the values of far right mobilisations (Fleming & Mondon, 2018). In Australia, far right ideals are legitimised by a handful of politicians, activists, ‘journalists’, media outlets, and social media opinion makers. While relatively small in numbers, they successfully promote policies that undermine core democratic values as well as basic civic, legal, and social rights among a much larger segment of the electorate. Whereas in Europe, right-wing nationalist populist challengers are often at the helm of movements that, at least initially, are not affiliated with established political parties (see, for example, Fitzi, 2019), in Australia, the most powerful authoritarian populist challengers to the established political order are associated with conservative mainstream parties.

Neo-liberalism and the origins of conditional ‘welfare’ Most authors locate the beginnings of Australia’s foray into compliance-focused social assistance in the second half of the 1990s (McDonald & Marston, 2006; McGann, Nguyen & Considine, 2019; Taylor, Gray & Stanton, 2016). Social policies are often conditional in the sense that they are means tested or require compliance with a set of rules (such as looking for work when receiving unemployment benefits). However, social democratic welfare policies were based on the assumption that unemployment, for example, is caused by a lack of employment opportunities and not by irresponsible behaviour (Mendes, 2013). This changed with the rise of the neo-liberal ideology that regarded welfare

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dependency as the result of an individual’s psychological pathology rather than structural problems (Mendes, 2013). The translation of structural issues into behavioural pathologies opened the way to ‘solutions’ that had been politically impossible for much of the second half of the twentieth century: to use conditionality as a means to prevent and pre-empt behaviour regarded as problematic by policy makers. This step introduces a clear break with the ideal of a welfare state based on universal rights (McDonald & Marston, 2006; McGann et al., 2019; Mendes, 2013; Taylor et al., 2016). The idea that the poor do not need to be educated to be free – as Freire would have it – but forced to be responsible and self-disciplined (Mead, 1997) became the key populist rhetorical device of consecutive Conservative governments (e.g. Joe Hockey’s ‘Lifters and Leaners’, Scott Morrison’s ‘Taxed and Taxed-Nots’) from the late 1990s onward. Being economically self-sufficient became the measuring stick of whether Australians were deserving citizens or irresponsible individuals that had to be educated – if recalcitrant, by force. This populist message played well with neo-liberal, socially conservative, as well as far right electorates with a penchant for authoritarian solutions. Yet, this proposition employs a logic that is also used to legitimise the labour camps of totalitarian regimes past and present. Clearly, Australia’s forays into authoritarian welfare cannot compete with the scale of the re-education initiatives of totalitarian regimes, nor do they make use of physical force to ensure adherence and compliance. Still, the rapid advances in surveillance technology used to detect transgression and non-compliance, combined with severe sanctions, raise fears that vestiges of totalitarian power survive comfortably within a democratic regime (Agamben, 1998 [1995]; Giroux, 2015).

Towards the next policy failure? There is growing evidence from the UK and Australia that, when entered into involuntarily, behaviour change-focused ‘welfare’ is in most cases ineffective, causes considerable hardship, is expensive to administer, increases welfare dependence, and can lead to the disengagement of vulnerable individuals and families from the welfare system (Bray, Gray, Hand & Katz, 2014; Dwyer, 2018; McGann et al., 2019; Parkinson, 2015). Furthermore, the impact of sanctions when applied to family services can have a ‘spill-over effect’ on children and their peers that has been poorly explored. The study observes that sanctions and even the threat of sanctions impact on children, their siblings and their school friends to the point where sanctions and their social implications are being potentially internalised by children (Brollo, Kaufmann & Ferrara, 2017). Despite its numerous unintended and undesirable outcomes that impact negatively on the targeted clients and their families, successive Australian governments have remained committed to authoritarian ‘welfare’, raising the question of why compliance-focused ‘welfare’ has not been discarded. The principle reason for this, Dwyer (2018) argues, is that authoritarian policies resonate well with rightleaning electorates.

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Conditional welfare in Australia In Australia, conditional ‘welfare’ was enabled with the passing of the Mutual Obligation Legislation (MOL) in 1998 (McDonald & Marston, 2006). The MOL asserted that it is ‘fair and reasonable’ to expect unemployed people to engage in activities (e.g. attending employment service provider appointments, undertaking job search activities, attending job interviews, accepting any offers of ‘suitable’ work, undertaking activities) that are seen to improve their chances to find employment (Australian Government, 2019). Mutual obligation requirements are referred to as an activity test that participants have to satisfy under social security law in order to qualify for ‘welfare’. A refusal to satisfy mutual obligation requirements can lead to the suspension or cancellation of payments. The test-case for the MOL was the reconfiguring of Maternity Allowance scheme in 1996 tying benefits to age-appropriate immunisation of children (Taylor et al., 2016). Incidentally, this is the only Australian policy within this new framework for which there is convincing evidence that it meets the identified objectives (Taylor et al., 2016). By the late 2000s, mutual obligation requirements had been applied to a wide range of welfare programs including family services schemes. More recently, the MOL has been translated into two policies enshrined in the Social Service Administration Act that govern conditions and sanctions imposed on welfare clients: the Targeted Compliance Framework (TCF) and Conditional Income Management (CIM).

The Targeted Compliance Framework (TCF) Introduced in July 2018, the TCF seeks, in official terms, to reduce welfare reliance and intergenerational welfare dependency, increase female labour force participation, and help close the gap in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employment (Commonwealth of Australia, 2019, Section 1.11). As will become evident, the TCF has introduced an ‘authoritarian edge’ to social services that, on the one hand is meant to deter non-deserving clients and, on the other, lends credence to a rhetoric that is tough on the vulnerable who are ‘economically and socially irresponsible’, a proposition that resonates strongly with the far right (see, for example, the stance of One Nation’s Pauline Hanson on Cashless Debit Cards). The sanctioning process underpinning the TCF is based on a three-tiered demerit point system (the Green Zone, the Warning Zone, and the Penalty Zone). Government documents make it clear that ‘[p]roviders are responsible for managing job seekers’ non-compliance by using payment suspensions and the accrual of Demerits’ (Australian Government, 2018, p. 1). With increasing demerit points, the client moves from the Green Zone to the Warning Zone and, finally, into the Penalty Zone. The current penalty system differentiates between ‘no show’ (failure to attend a scheduled meeting) and ‘failure to reconnect’ (failure to comply with specified conditions, such as job seeking

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activities). Furthermore, benefits such as Newstart (unemployment benefits) are conditional upon the acceptance of low-paid farm labour (HenriquesGomes, 2019). In the Penalty Zone, benefits are reduced until the person complies with a requirement. For serious breaches (e.g. causing unemployment as a result of a voluntary act or because of misconduct), a payment can be withheld for 8 and in some cases 12 weeks. Some penalties can be back-paid once the person complies with the imposed conditions (Social Service Administration Act 1999). Furthermore, 15 per cent of welfare payments can be quarantined for the payment of overdue fines (HenriquesGomes, 2019). The TCF contains a number of safeguards that potentially ensure that only ‘undeserving’ clients are sanctioned. For example, government documents focusing on unemployment assistance outline that the TCF has been designed to ‘ensure only those job seekers who are persistently and wilfully non-compliant incur financial penalties while providing protections for the most vulnerable’ (Australian Government, 2018, p. 1). Furthermore, the Social Security Administration Act (1999) states that when investigating breaches, agents of the state are only to focus on ‘failures that occurred intentionally, recklessly or negligently’ but not those that were beyond the control of the person. Penalties can be waived if the person would suffer serious financial hardship (Social Service Administration Act 1999, see for example, Section 42M, Serious Failure for Persistent Non-compliance).

Conditional Income Management Conditional Income Management (CIM) is another punitive policy tying welfare payments to the display of desirable behaviour (Parkinson, 2015). The aim of CIM schemes as stated in the Social Security Administration Act (1999) is to ‘reduce immediate hardship and deprivation by ensuring that the whole or part of certain welfare payments is directed to meeting the priority needs of ’ recipients and their dependents’ (Section 123TB, pp. 210). Over the last decade, CIM has been rolled out more broadly across the Australia’s social security system. According to the updated Social Security Administration Act 1999, people receiving welfare and categorised as the following can be forced to accept conditional income management:      

having a child protection notification vulnerable welfare recipient ‘disengaged’ youth long term welfare payment recipient (at least 52 weeks out of a 104 week period) not meeting a child’s school enrolment requirements having a child with unsatisfactory school attendance (Social Security Administration Act 1999, 123T).

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The range of social security payments that are linked to CIM are still increasing. While programs based on the CIM scheme target people across all Australian States and Territories, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are generally over-represented (Bray et al., 2014; Taylor et al., 2016). The CMI approach is modelled on the Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER) implemented in 2007. Under the NTER, welfare support was made conditional upon maintaining children’s school attendance; safeguarding children from abuse and neglect; avoiding convictions for family violence, substance use, gambling or substance use offences; and adhering to public housing tenancy conditions. Initially, the NTER exclusively targeted Aboriginal communities, which required the suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Hinkson, 2007, cited by Mendes, 2013). If a welfare recipient is deemed to be non-compliant with a set of behavioural markers, a portion typically between 50 per cent and 100 per cent of the social security payment is placed in an account that can be used only for essential household items (e.g. rent, food, clothes, personal hygiene, household items, bills, medication, transport), ruling out the purchase of excluded items, such as alcoholic beverages, tobacco, pornography, gambling, or other non-specified items (Social Service Administration Act 1999, Section 123TI). Research suggests that most CIM schemes do not generate the desired outcomes when entered into involuntarily, are expensive to administer, and give rise to a plethora of undesirable results (see, for example, Parkinson, 2015). As Mendes has pointed out, CIM interventions cut across welfare clients’ fundamental rights (i.e. self-determination) transferring to junior public servants powers that equal those of tightly regulated Guardianship Boards presiding over people’s mental capacity to make personal and/or financial decisions (Mendes, 2013). Albeit attractive to voters on the far right, it is difficult to see why the scheme that is costly to administer, does not deliver in terms of anticipated outcomes, and has negative side effects for participants has become a centrepiece of Australia’s social services.

Surveillance and social services Surveillance technology is becoming increasingly intelligent and seamless, making it more and more difficult for citizens to escape the gaze of the state. Indeed, the growth and integration of mass surveillance and new digital technologies allows for unprecedented, invasive, and potentially oppressive surveillance capabilities. The use of surveillance technology increased dramatically after the attack on New York City’s World Trade Centre in 2001 (Lyon, 2003). The attack allowed populist politicians to legitimise the use of mass surveillance – and loss of privacy – by linking surveillance to ‘border security’ and the defence against home-grown Islamic extremism (Sarre, 2017), a measure that resonated well with the authoritarian, anti-minority agenda of voters on the far right (Engesser, Ernst, Esser & Buechel, 2017).

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The deployment of surveillance technology to monitor the enforcement of social policies is not a new phenomenon in Australia. The late 1990s saw a marked increase in the use of surveillance technology to monitor Australian income support policies (Parker & Fopp, 2005). However, over the last 15 years, surveillance technology has become infinitely more powerful, making its use potentially problematic. The ability to crossreference various data streams (e.g. credit card statements, school attendance and child protection data; biometrics, and GPS tracking systems) and the ability to retain data in combination with developments in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and particularly facial recognition, have ‘supercharged’ surveillance (Introna & Wood, 2004). Also, surveillance technology is getting cheaper. For example networked surveillance cameras come at a fraction of the cost of hard wired CCTV, making it potentially viable to cover much larger areas with the next generation of ‘intelligent’ CCTV equipped with recognition (e.g. number plates, faces), matching and tracking technology (Smith & Brooks, 2013). Furthermore, the Conservative government is set on expanding its surveillance capability. In 2018, the Australian government tabled the Identitymatching Services Bill to build a national facial recognition data base (making use of Australians’ passport and driver’s licence photos) that could be used, according to government sources, for monitoring and enforcement tasks (Taylor, 2019). The bill was rejected and is being revised due to privacy concerns raised by a joint committee in late 2019 (Martin, 2019). Other surveillance measures trialled and considered for implementation include their use in the testing for illegal drugs, where welfare benefits would become conditional upon being ‘clean’ (Henriques-Gomes, 2019). Furthermore, the evaluation of surveillance data is being automated, and decisions that might lead to sanctions are increasingly made by IT systems. Sanctioning decisions are only transferred to poorly-trained low level case managers if the system flags a special condition, such as financial or other hardship. A case in point is the Robodebt scheme (the automated invoicing of estimated overpayments based on minimal evidence placing the onus of proof on the recipient – and subject of a class action) that highlights how the transfer of sanctioning decisions to computers can give rise to utterly deplorable outcomes for clients (Eddie, 2019). In many cases this automated demand for repayment for overpayment was found to be false and caused great hardship (including suicides) for those unfairly and unjustly pursued. When deployed as an integral part of behaviour change-focused ‘welfare’, the rapidly expanding surveillance technology of the state, facilitated by segments of the electorate with a penchant for authoritarian ‘solutions’ that ‘rein in’ those on social benefits, potentially turns into an authoritarian human rights challenge (Dstbaz, Halpin & Wright, 2013) whose impact is only slowly being acknowledged.

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Authoritarian culture Over the last two decades, the above-described shift towards compliancefocused social assistance has altered the culture within social service agencies and shifted the emphasis towards punitive measures and away from compassion and the safeguards that are supposed to protect the vulnerable from unreasonable sanctions and the hardship that accompanies them (Commonwealth of Australia, 2019). Since the implementation of the TCF and CIM, welfare clients subjected to the schemes consistently highlight the punitive culture that underpins the management of conditional welfare programs in Australia (ABC, 2018; Commonwealth of Australia, 2019; Kelly, 2017; Reeves & Loopstra, 2017). The following statistics lend support to their claims. While government documents claim that the TCF was created to curb intentional breaches of mutual obligation requirements bearing in mind the vulnerability of the client, the outcome of conditional welfare often fails to match this rhetoric. For example, in the first three months of 2018, after the launch of the TCF in Australia, of the around 50,000 people considered homeless or at risk of homelessness across five welfare programs, 39 per cent received at least one ‘demerit point’; over 300 homeless people accumulated sufficient demerit points to be handed a financial penalty; and payments were suspended for a total of 161 homeless people due to ‘work refusal’ or ‘unemployment failure’(Henriques-Gomes, 2019a). The fact that homeless people are sanctioned clearly highlights that systemic safeguards that are supposed to protect people who face, in the above case, financial hardship, are ignored by frontline staff and their managers. The ParentsNext pre-employment program represents another case in point. ParentsNext was designed to assist ‘disadvantaged parents, particularly early school leavers and those assessed to have high barriers to employment, to plan and prepare for future study or work before their youngest child commences school’ (Commonwealth of Australia, 2019, Section 1.8). Parents ordered to participate in the program are subjected to the TCF. The national roll out of the program began in July 2018. At 31 December 2018, 95 per cent of participants were women, 19 per cent were Aboriginal, and around 48 per cent were affected by domestic violence. By 31 January 2019, around one third experienced payment suspension. Of the 33,620 parents receiving ParentsNext ‘benefits’ who had their payments suspended during the 2018/19 financial year, around 80 per cent had a valid reasons that justified their non-compliance (Henriques-Gomes, 2019b). Also, community groups pointed out that the program did not meet its stated aim (HenriquesGomes, 2019a). Mounting public criticism led to the formation of a Senate Commission Inquiry. The Senate Inquiry revealed that the majority of ParentsNext clients experienced ‘frustration, fear, and negative impacts’ (Commonwealth of Australia, 2019, Section 1.27). In particular, the clients raised concerns about the ‘punitive nature of the TCF, in particular payment suspension’ (Commonwealth of Australia, 2019, Section 1.28). Providers also failed to consider the

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needs of domestic violence survivors in the way they administered the program. Staff members forced participants to sign a voluntary privacy waiver (in essence relinquishing control over how their personal information is being handled by allowing agencies to share client data). Domestic violence survivors were particularly anxious about this, stating that staff would consider their refusal to sign the privacy waiver as a breach of conditions: I know the privacy statement is not mandatory but the manager told me I HAD to sign it or they couldn’t sign me up to their ParentsNext program as not signing they couldn’t help me get access to programs and I was going to be referred back to Centrelink if I refused to sign so I told them and showed them proof I didn’t have to sign but they still wouldn’t accept that information so I felt I had no option but to sign it in case I get a [demerit] point. (Commonwealth of Australia, 2019, Section 1.39) Furthermore, the report highlighted concerns that data obtained was used by providers in a fashion that did not serve the purpose of employment referrals but was used to book medical appointments for participants or to obtain health information about the participant. In other words, the privacy waiver was used arbitrarily, in intrusive ways that had no bearing on the overall aim of the program. Employment plans developed by service providers were often generic and of little use to participants as the activities contained within them (e.g. attending swimming lessons, library story telling programs, or playgroup with their children) did not prepare them for paid employment. Also, providers mandated for children to be taken out of kindergarten to participate in these activities. Some human services professionals required that participants change their courses of study, and did not recognise the original courses as an approved activity (Commonwealth of Australia, 2019). Approved providers caused serious distress by failing to record an approved activity, claiming that participants did not attend the activity. Participants were often asked to send text messages or provide photographic evidence that they had attended prescribed activities, leading to an impression that they were ‘under constant surveillance’ (Commonwealth of Australia, 2019). Some participants required emergency relief because their providers had suspended their payments over a weekend or holiday period (Commonwealth of Australia, 2019). Overall, the above-reviewed information suggests that a significant proportion of frontline workers fail to adhere to policies that are meant to safeguard clients from the imposition of arbitrary sanctions and come down hard on Australia’s most vulnerable.

Weakening safeguards A number of observers have commented that the hardening attitudes towards the unemployed by right-wing populist politicians and far right segments of

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the electorate are changing the culture of the Australian social services sector (Dwyer, 2018; McGann et al., 2019; Mendes, 2013; Taylor et al., 2016). Two decades ago, researchers observed that Centrelink social workers used their professional discretion to ameliorate the impact of harsh sanctions imposed on clients as a result of recorded breaches of conditions, highlighting structural factors underlying individual breaches and lobbying management for a more moderate approach (McDonald & Marston, 2006). Over the course of the last decade, this moderating influence of frontline human services workers has come under considerable pressure, leaving clients more exposed to the punitive aspects of compliance-focused welfare policies (McGann et al., 2019). The reasons for this culture shift are various. Approved providers responding to the above-mentioned Senate Commission commented that the TCF creates a fundamental shift in focus from flexible assistance to strict compliance. Further, the extremely unequal power balance between service providers and clients. and the absence of an independent complaints process. unleashes a form of coercive compliance (Commonwealth of Australia, 2019). The Senate Committee report highlights that staff, unaware of systemic safeguards, were under-qualified and insufficiently trained to deal with the ethical dimensions of their decisions (Commonwealth of Australia, 2019). Recent research based on a longitudinal study explores human services frontline workers’ attitudes toward their unemployed clients and foregrounds yet another factor. The research highlights that the marketisation of care with its tightly monitored contractual obligations, in conjunction with a government discourse that sees the unemployed as morally corrupt, is impacting on how frontline human services professionals are thinking about their clients (McGann et al., 2019). While the new punitive culture that has spread among social service agencies has a number of root causes, it is clear that the values that underpin it and the actions it seems to inspire are diametrically opposed to the ethics and ethos that underpin social work.

Where to from here? Over the last 20 years, the rise of right-wing nationalist populism facilitated a dramatic shift in the way social services are being delivered, transforming rights-based welfare into compliance-focused assistance that is no longer compliant with social work values. This suggests that we can no longer take for granted that the state is a ‘generally benign force’ in support of social work (see Ife in Chapter 2). To pretend otherwise could lead to a transformation of social work by stealth and turn social workers into correctional officers and counsellors to victims of senseless punitive measures. Indeed, it is astonishing that the Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW) has remained relatively quiet in the face of this transformation that affects the core of the social work profession. What is currently missing is concerted political action in defence of the rights of Australia’s most vulnerable. This would include the active involvement of the AASW in collaboration with

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other human services peak organisations to that end. We must ensure that Australia’s welfare system is rights-based, that surveillance does not become invasive and oppressive, and that safeguards designed to protect clients from unjustified sanctions are strengthened and professionals are encouraged to use them effectively in practice. Furthermore, clients should be able to access an independent complaints pathway; they should also be able to rely on the advocacy of human services professionals who are properly trained and have a good knowledge of clients’ rights. The authoritarian implementation of policies such as the TCF depends to some degree on frontline human services professionals’ willingness to enforce harsh guidelines and thresholds. For some commentators, this creates opportunities to disrupt the punitive impact of welfare programs and to reinstate a sense of advocacy, working alongside clients (ABC, 2018; Dwyer, 2018). However, this presupposes that frontline professionals are well-trained. We need a higher education curriculum for social work and the human services that enables students to identify authoritarian recesses within the state apparatus wherever they occur and that turns the defence of clients’ rights into a core subject. Many new social workers did not experience a rights-based welfare state and might experience the current arrangements as familiar and normal. They need to be taught the difference between rights-based and compliance-focused ‘welfare’ and apply this insight in practice. While the rise of surveillance technology over the last two decades has increased the state’s ability to monitor much more closely the meeting of targets, thus limiting the space where disruptions are possible, frontline human services workers continue to have a degree of latitude to advocate for clients (Dwyer, 2018; McGann et al., 2019). Clearly, there are formidable challenges facing those working within authoritarian recesses. Indeed, research conducted by McGann et al. (2019) suggests that human services professionals can be co-opted by political discourses, turning them into unwitting and eager collaborators who exacerbate the impact of authoritarian policies. Again, this has important implications for curriculum design and pedagogy. In order to resist the current pressure within the social services to sanction, social workers and human services professionals need a strong grounding in ethics, human rights, advocacy and community development, delivered in a way that transcends the classroom, making it applicable and relevant to contemporary welfare programs. Agamben argues that the treatment of individuals plunged into authoritarian recesses depends on the humanity of those working in that space (Agamben, 1998 [1995]). Social work students should be aware of and taught to take seriously their role and responsibility as human services professionals when assuming a position in programs that are not aligned with the values of the profession. Most importantly, we need to develop political strategies that prevent the convergence of conservatism, senseless punitive policies, and the state bureaucracy ‘into a common, authoritarian project’ (Mason, 2019, p. 260). We need to chip away at the support for right-wing nationalist populism and

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neutralise the power of populist politicians and their allies, so that the authoritarian legislation at the core of Australian welfare can be replaced with legislation that is humane and that actually works.

Conclusion In 1967, after half a lifetime spent researching the rise of fascism, Theodor Adorno summarised his findings, and declared that ‘fascism was not a coincidence’ (Adorno, 1967, cited in Kraushaar, 1998, p. 328). Fascism is the outcome of a series of decisions that ultimately link the dissatisfaction of the electorate with the political agenda of ‘strong’ leaders and the authoritarian project of the state. The emergence of such an authoritarian project was the topic of this chapter. The nationalist populist turn in Australian politics has facilitated a shift from an assistance-focused welfare system grounded in universal rights to a punitive, compliance-focused behaviour-change model that is reminiscent of the education programs of totalitarian regimes. The chapter illustrated how over the last two decades behaviour-change programs have become more punitive and are ultimately geared to keep clients off benefits. While they largely fail to generate the desired outcomes, compliance-focused ‘welfare’ programs have become the centrepiece of Australian social assistance. The senseless sanctioning that currently underpins Australia’s social services would suggest that ‘assistance’ programs are increasingly integrated into a ‘common authoritarian project’. It is the unfortunate legacy of the victor of past wars to believe in the moral righteousness of its leaders past and present and to deal with ethical hazards in such a cavalier fashion. Eager to institutionalise its forays into authoritarian ‘welfare’, the right-wing political establishment has managed to turn this new authoritarianism into a project that has become acceptable to Australian voters. It is time to change this.

References ABC (2018, 5 December). Does conditional welfare help the unemployed to find work? Retrieved from https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/program/bigideas/doesconditional-welfare-help-the-jobless-find-work/10572790 AEC (2019). Federal election: House of Representatives, first preferences by party. Retrieved 16 July, 2019, from http://tallyroom.aec.gov.au/Downloads/House FirstPrefsByPartyDownload-24310.csv Agamben, G. (1998 [1995]). Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Palo Alto CA: Stanford University Press. Australian Government (2018). Targeted Compliance Framework. Canberra: Australian Government, Jobactive. Australian Government (2019). Guides to Social Policy Law: Social Security Guide Version 1.257. https://guides.dss.gov.au/guide-social-security-law/1/1/m/160 Bray, J. R., Gray, M., Hand, K. & Katz, I. (2014). Evaluating New Income Management in the Northern Territory: Final Evaluation Report to the Department of Social Services. Canberra ACT: SPRC and ANU.

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Brollo, F., Kaufmann, K. M. & Ferrara, E. L. (2017). Learning about the Enforcement of Conditional Welfare Programs: Evidence from Brazil Discussion Series. Bonn: IZA Institute for Labour Economics. Cameron, S. M. & McAllister, I. (2016). Trends in Australian Political Opinion: Results from the Australian Election Study 1987–2016. Canberra: School of Politics and International Relations, Australian National University. Commonwealth of Australia (2019). ParentsNext, Including Its Trial and Subsequent Broader Rollout. Canberra ACT: Community Affairs Reference Group, The Senate, Commonwealth of Australia. de Sousa Santos, B. (2014). Epistemologies of the South: Justice against Epistemicide. London and New York: Routledge. Dstbaz, M., Halpin, E. & Wright, S. (2013). Chapter 10 – Emerging technologies and the human rights challenge of rapidly expanding state surveillance capacities. In B. Akhgar & S. Yates (eds), Strategic Intelligence Management. Oxford: ButterworthHeinemann, pp. 108–118. Dwyer, P. (2018). Welfare conditionality: sanctions, support and behaviour change. Paper presented at the ACOSS National Conference, Sydney NSW. www.acosse vents.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Welfare-conditionality-sanctions-support-a nd-behaviour-change-Peter-Dwyer.pdf Eddie, R. (2019). Thousands of welfare recipients to sue government over robodebts. Sydney Morning Herald, 20 November. Engesser, S., Ernst, N., Esser, F. & Buechel, F. (2017). Populism and social media: How politicians spread a fragmented ideology. Information, Communication and Society, 20(8), 1109–1126. Fitzi, G. (2019). Political populism as a symptom of the great transformation of democracy. In G. Fitzi, J. Mackert & B. S. Turner (eds), Populism and the Crisis of Democracy. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 1–10. Fleming, A. & Mondon, A. (2018). The radical right in Australia. In J. Rydgren (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Radical Right. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gelber, K. & McNamara, L. (2016). Anti-vilification laws and public racism in Australia: Mapping the gaps between the harms occasioned and the remedies provided. UNSW Law Journal, 39(2), 488–511. Giroux, H. (2015). Dangerous Thinking in the Age of the New Authoritarianism. Boulder CO: Paradigm. Henriques-Gomes, L. (2019, 7 July). Coalition committed to ‘brutal’ plan to dock welfare for non-payment of fines. Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardia n.com/australia-news/2019/jul/07/government-committed-to-brutal-plan-to-dockwelfare-for-non-payment-of-fines Henriques-Gomes, L. (2019a, 31 January). Homeless Australians given financial penalties under coalition’s welfare regime. Guardian. Retrieved from https://www. theguardian.com/society/2019/jan/31/homeless-australians-given-financial-penaltie s-under-coalitions-welfare-regime? Henriques-Gomes, L. (2019b, 15 September). ParentsNext: 80% of recipients who had payments suspended not a fault, data shows. Guardian. Retrieved from https://www. theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/sept/15/parentsnext-80-of-recipients-who-ha d-payments-suspended-not-at-fault-data-shows? Hinkson, M. (2007). Introduction: In the name of the child. In J. Altman & M. Hinkson (eds), Coercive Reconciliation: Stabilise, Normalise, Exit Aboriginal Australia (pp. 1–12). Melbourne: Arena Publications.

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Hogan, J. (2015). Floods, invaders, and parasites: Immigration threat narratives and right-wing populism in the USA, UK and Australia. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 36(5), 520–543. Introna, L. & Wood, D. (2004). Picturing algorithmic surveillance: The politics of facial recognition systems. Surveillance and Society, 2(3), 177–198. Jamrozik, A. (2002). From lucky country to penal colony: How politics of fear have changed Australia. Paper presented at the Refugees and the Lucky Country Forum, RMIT, Melbourne. Kelly, M. (2017). Single Parent Families, Benefit Conditionality and Wellbeing: Why Conditionality Is Unnecessary, Unjust and Ineffective. Glasgow: One Parent Families Scotland. Kraushaar, W. (1998). Frankfurt Schule und Studentenbewegung (vol. 2). Hamburg: Zeitausandeins. Lyon, D. (2003). Surveillance after September 11. Cambridge: Polity Press. Martin, S. (2019, 24 October). Committee led by Coalition rejects factial recognition database in surprise move. Guardian. Retrieved from www.theguardian.com/austra lia-news/20198/oct/24/committee-led-by-coalition-rejects-facial-recognition-databa se-in-surprise-move?CMP=Share_IOSApp_Other Mason, P. (2019). Clear Bright Future: A Radical Defence of the Human Being. London: Allen Lane. McDonald, C. & Marston, G. (2006). Room to move? Half a citizen: Life on welfare in Australia. Australian Journal of Social Issues, 41(2), 171–182. McGann, M., Nguyen, P. & Considine, M. (2019). Welfare conditionality and blaming the unemployed. Administration and Society, online. doi:10.1177/0095399719839362 Mead, L. (1997). The New Paternalism: Supervisory Approaches to Poverty. Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press. Mendes, P. (2013). Compulsory income management: A critical examination of the emergence of conditional welfare in Australia. Australian Social Work, 66(4), 495–510. Mudde, C. (2016). Populist radical right parties in Europe today. In J. Abromeit, B. Chesterton, Y. Norman & G. Marotta (eds), Transformations of Populism in Europe and the Americas: History and Recent Tendencies (pp. 295–307). New York: Bloomsbury. Parker, S. & Fopp, R. (2005). Mutual obligation? Regulating by supervision and surveillance in Australian income support policy. Surveillance and Society, 3(1), 99–106. Parkinson, S. (2015). The Effectiveness of Child Protection Income Management in Australia: A Report to the Child Protection Systems Royal Commission. Adelaide SA: Australian Centre for Child Protection, University of Adelaide. Reeves, A. & Loopstra, R. (2017). ‘Set up to fail’? How welfare conditionality undermines citizenship for vulnerable groups. Social Policy and Society, 16(2), 327–338. doi:10.1017/S1474746416000646 Rodrik, D. (2017). Populism and the Economics of Globalization. Cambridge MA: John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Sarre, R. (2017). Metadata retention as a means of combatting terrorism and organised crime: A perspective from Australia. Asian Journal of Criminology, 12(3), 167–179. Smith, C. L. & Brooks, D. J. (2013). Chapter 7 – Integrated identification technology. In C. L. Smith & D. J. Brooks (eds), Security Sciency: The Theory and Practice of Security. Oxford: Butterworth Heinemann. Taylor, D. R., Gray, M. & Stanton, D. (2016). New conditionality in Australian social security policy. Australian Journal of Social Issues, 51(1), 3–26.

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Taylor, J. (2019, 17 November). Porn, public transport and other dubious justifications for using facial recognition software. Guardian. Retrieved from www.theguardian. com/technology/2019/nov/17/porn-public-transport-and-other-dubious-justificationsfor-using-facial-recognition-software?CMP=Share_IOSApp_Other Williams, M., Burnap, P., Javed, A., Liu, H. & Ozalp, S. (2019). Hate in the machine: Anti-Black and anti-Muslim social media posts as predictors of offline racially and religiously aggravated crime. The British Journal of Criminology, online. doi:10.1093/ bjc/azz049 Zick, A., Küpper, B. & Höwermann, A. (2011). Die Abwertun der Anderen: Eine europäische Zustandsbeschreibung zu Intoleranz, Vorurteilen und Diskriminierung. In N. Langenbacher (ed.), Auseinandersetzung mit dem Rechtsextremismus. Berlin: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung.

12 Is welfare chauvinism evident in Australia? Examining right-wing populist views towards Muslim refugees and Indigenous Australians Tegan Edwards, Philip Mendes and Catherine Flynn Introduction Since the 1980s, right-wing populist parties have experienced steady global growth across most Western democratic political systems. To date, 14 European countries possess at least one significant right-wing populist political party. Right-wing populist parties are characterised by their advocacy of what they define as national interests, and their aggressive hostility towards ethnic minorities, including particularly recent immigrants (Davies & Deole, 2017; Golder, 2016). Traditionally, right-wing populist parties espoused a vigorous neoliberal critique of the welfare state (Mendes, 2017), seeking to substantially reduce government spending on social welfare services and payments for disadvantaged groups. However, in more recent years, they have mostly reverted to what is called a welfare chauvinist approach. Welfare chauvinism is not opposed to the welfare state, and in fact often endorses generous assistance for deserving citizens. However, immigrants are to be excluded from accessing these social rights on grounds of culture, race, religion or ethnicity (Careja et al., 2016; Ennser-Jedenastik, 2018; Fenger, 2018). One study labelled this monocultural approach as linking ‘left-wing economic attitudes to redistribution with right-wing cultural views on deservingness’ (Schumacher & van Kersbergen, 2016, p. 301). To date, there has been no application of welfare chauvinism to Australia. According to Esping-Andersen’s (1990) famous comparative model of welfare states, Australia is one of a cluster of mostly English-speaking liberal welfare states characterised by the selective provision of residual benefits with few social rights guaranteed outside labour market participation. Neoliberal policies have exerted considerable influence in recent decades, as reflected by the introduction of measures to make income support payments more conditional, and subject to judgements about the good behaviour of recipients (Mendes, 2017).

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Australia has two right-wing populist parties represented in the Commonwealth Parliament: Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party, and the semi-defunct Australian Conservatives Party. These parties operate within a context of increasing political contention around policies towards refugees and asylum seekers, with public opinion often being inflamed by far-right groups targeting those who are of Muslim faith. Some of these groups earlier attacked Asian immigrants (Sparrow, 2019). To be sure, Australia has a highly diverse population and an official policy of multiculturalism, reflecting the fact that one in four Australians were born overseas (AHRC, 2014). Yet, Australia currently maintains a uniquely hard-line policy of mandatory offshore detention for asylum seekers. This approach has provoked significant international controversy, but seems to enjoy popular local support despite its negative impact on groups who have experienced vulnerability and trauma (Newman, Proctor & Dudley, 2013). There has also been significant public contention around policies assisting Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population, whom we will refer to as Indigenous Australians throughout this chapter, except where alternative terms are used by One Nation in source documents. Governments have allocated significant resources to reducing the gap between Indigenous Australians (who are highly disadvantaged in key areas such as health, education, employment and housing) and non-Indigenous Australians, but these measures appear to have enjoyed limited success (Mendes, 2019). Recent government policies such as compulsory income management – that is, the quarantining of a large percentage of income support payments into a special account for the exclusive purchase of essential household items such as food, rent, clothing and energy bills, that is disproportionately targeted at Indigenous communities – seem intended to divert attention from structural influences on disadvantage (in this case historical experiences of colonialism, dispossession and racism) to instead target the responsibility of disadvantaged individuals and groups for their own (allegedly dysfunctional) choices and outcomes (Mendes, 2019). The One Nation Party, Australia’s largest right-wing populist party, has maintained an ongoing political presence, including some minor representation in national or state and territory parliaments, from 1997 to 2019, which we will discuss further below. One Nation has had extensive input into both of these debates concerning policies towards refugees and Indigenous Australians. Hence, it seems relevant to examine whether their views reflect a welfare chauvinist approach, or alternatively are influenced more so by a neoliberal agenda. Whilst the emphasis of this study is on far-right parties, it should be acknowledged that mainstream Australian parties – particularly centre-right Liberal–National Party coalition governments – have actively incorporated some of the far-right agendas concerning immigrants and refugees, and Indigenous Australians into policy. This is reflected in diminished access to income support payments and the increasingly paternalistic approach to Indigenous affairs. However, these initiatives have mostly been

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integrated into a broader neoliberal programme to reduce spending, rather than being justified by an openly racist perspective (Mendes, 2019).

A review of existing literature The following section examines empirical evidence of welfare chauvinism which has arisen from European regions. Despite the prominence of far-right parties across the globe, contemporary understandings have primarily originated from these regions. The following studies consider what may be broadly characterised as: those which address the supply side of welfare chauvinism, namely the positions and policies of far-right parties; and those which address the demand side, or the attitudes and preferences of the voting demographics to which populist far-right parties are seeking to appeal (Careja et al., 2016). Finland Keskinen (2016) implemented a discourse analysis to distinguish between types of welfare-related immigrant discourses circulating across political parties in Finland. She identified three varieties of welfare discourse: ‘welfare nationalism’, whereby welfare provision is closely associated with national identity and economic interests; ‘welfare chauvinism’, which employs criteria based on ethnicity and often race to categorise deserving recipients of welfare; and ‘welfare exclusionism’, which limits welfare provision to citizens, and excludes recent immigrants. Through analysis of the immigration programmes of all political parties from 2007 to 2015, and specific examination of policy documents and parliamentary debates pertaining to asylum policy from 2009 to 2011, it was found that the far-right True Finns Party most consistently adopted a welfare chauvinistic approach to welfare. Conversely, the centreright government which introduced major reductions in asylum seeker entitlements from 2009 to 2011 justified these reductions on economic nationalist, rather than cultural and racial grounds, and mainstream support for the social inclusion of migrants remained strong (Keskinen, 2016). This study is relevant because it presents a useful and appropriate methodological approach, based on large scale analysis of party documents and parliamentary debates, which has guided choices in the current study. However, it is in part limited by the methodological timeframe chosen. Given that the True Finns experienced considerable growth in the 2011 and 2015 parliamentary elections, receiving almost one-fifth of votes (Wahlbeck, 2016), inclusion of policy data from that later period would have considerably increased this study’s contemporary relevance. Whilst most of the studies explored in this review specifically address welfare chauvinism relating to migrant groups, Wahlbeck (2016) uses the theoretical work of Kymlicka (2011) to extend its application to minority groups more generally. Through an analysis of party programmes and statements by the True Finns Party from 2011 to 2015, he examined their

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views on both immigrants and other minority groups such as the Indigenous Samis. He concluded that True Finns broadly opposed policies of ‘multiculturalism and minority rights’ as undermining the rights of the majority population (p. 584). This research is significant for the present study in a number of ways. First, its focus on minorities other than immigrants is important for the Australian context, given the political contention around Indigenous welfare issues. Additionally, this study’s methodological findings hold implications for the present study given that a combined analysis of parliamentary programmes and public statements from Members of Parliament was required to present a full account of the party’s views. As such, this study indicates that a triangulation of methods may be necessary to obtain the most accurate account of far-right views in the Australian context. Sweden Norocel (2016) explored the welfare chauvinist views of the far-right Sweden Democrats via an analysis of their formal political documents and partyendorsed parliamentary policy statements from 2010 to 2014. The party presented themselves as defenders of the ‘folkhem’, the Swedish people’s home, against threats from ‘undeserving migrants’. Particular attention was drawn to the alleged cultural superiority of the Swedish people in contrast to Muslim migrants who failed to incorporate gender equality. This study assisted the research presented here by offering an account of how welfare chauvinism may be culturally conceptualised within national-specific contexts, given that nostalgic appeals and gender-based cultural othering are not present within other studies. Netherlands In contrast to the studies discussed which have focused on ‘supply’, studies in the Netherlands have heavily focused upon the demand aspect of welfare chauvinism. De Koster, Achterberg, and Van der Waal (2012) utilised a postal survey to explore the electoral relevance of what they called welfare chauvinist and welfare populist views amongst the Dutch population. They defined welfare populism as a strong critique of the institutions of the welfare state, which are presented as favouring the interests of the well-paid bureaucrats and those undeserving of support, rather than meeting the needs of the disadvantaged ‘common man’ (p. 7). The survey questionnaire, which was administered in 2006, was completed by 1,972 people. It revealed that whilst high levels of both welfare chauvinism and welfare populism were identified amongst voting populations, welfare populism, rather than welfare chauvinism, underpins electoral support for far-right parties.

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Hungary Lugosi (2018) used a critical frame analysis of party manifestos and leading speeches by two Hungarian right-wing populistparties, Fidesz and Jobbik, to dissect their positions on five social welfare issues from 2010 to 2017. She argued that whilst populist appeals to the common people were present, Hungarian parties mostly employed a nationalist framing that identified outsider groups as undeserving. This exclusivist perspective was actively applied to the Roma people living in Hungary, as well as more recent immigrants. Noticeably, Fiddek, as the ruling government party, seems to utilise both neoliberal and welfare chauvinist approaches in its welfare measures. Denmark Careja et al. (2016) proposed a theoretical distinction between direct and indirect welfare chauvinism in order to understand the strategies employed by far-right parties to successfully transfer their social welfare preferences into policy. They defined direct welfare chauvinism as resulting from legislative changes which explicitly exclude or reduce social protection for ethnic minorities, and indirect welfare chauvinism as emanating from policy changes such as cuts to family payments which in principle effect both citizens and immigrants, yet in practice impact most negatively on immigrants. Through a mixed-methods analysis of labour market reforms in Denmark from 1975 to 2011 that included a qualitative assessment of policy changes from 2001 to 2011, during which time the Danish People’s Party (DPP) held the balance of power in Parliament, they found that the DPP clearly influenced the welfare chauvinist direction of social policies over that decade. Multi-country studies A number of studies have examined welfare chauvinism across multiple jurisdictions. Van der Waal, De Koster and Van Oorschot (2013) employed institutional theory in an attempt to explain diverse levels of welfare chauvinism across social democratic, conservative and liberal welfare regimes in Europe. Using multi-level modelling, 10 countries were ranked on the basis of population attitudes to whether or not immigrants should have access to welfare supports (i.e. welfare chauvinism). The study found that those living in liberal or conservative welfare regimes were far more likely (11.7 and 9.6 per cent respectively) than those in social democratic regimes (only 3.6 per cent) to deny social rights to immigrants. Ennser-Jedenastik (2018) theorised that different types of social welfare, derived from differing redistributive justice principles (equity, equality and need), will generate differing degrees of welfare chauvinism from far-right political parties. This argument was tested through a qualitative content analysis of 13 election manifestos from four Western European democracies from

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2000 to 2015. He found that equity-based programmes (also known as social insurance programmes) which function in proportion to a citizen’s own contributions, such as aged pensions or unemployment payments, attracted considerably less welfare chauvinistic appeals than equality or needs-based programmes, such as universal healthcare and means-tested social assistance. This research provides a theoretical framework that could inform the patterns of welfare chauvinist appeals by far-right parties towards various aspects of the welfare state in Australia. Nordensvard and Ketola (2015) examined how Nordic right-wing populism has precipitated a nationalist reframing of the welfare state. They relied mostly on a policy analysis of public party documents produced by the True Finns and Swedish Democrats between 2009 and 2012, but also used some interviews and opinion pieces from leading party spokespersons that illuminated party views on the welfare state and nationalism. This study found that both parties seek to preserve the social citizenship rights of the native working class, whilst excluding non-citizens on grounds of ethnicity. Schumacher and Van Kersbergen (2016) examined how mainstream European parties responded to the welfare chauvinist ideas proposed by far-right parties. Their study used a mixed-method approach incorporating quantitative cross-country analysis of both the attitudes of mainstream and right-wing populistparties to welfare and multiculturalism from 1980 to 2012, and an indepth qualitative examination of the Danish and Dutch cases from 1990 and 2002 respectively. They concluded that there was significant variation in the response of mainstream parties, but that mainstream right parties were more likely to accommodate the demands of far-right parties by taking anti-multicultural and pro-welfare stands. The above discussion has provided a review of current literature addressing welfare chauvinism and its application by far-right parties within the European context. There is currently an absence of comparable empirical studies pertaining to Australia, which this study seeks to address. In the following section, we briefly introduce the dominant right-wing populist groups in Australia, and discuss associated social welfare issues.

Australian far-right parties The largest Australian right-wing populist party is Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, which was formed in 1997 (Mols & Jetten, 2017). One Nation currently holds two seats out of 76 in the Australian Senate (Upper House), and also holds a total of six seats in other State and Territory parliaments. One Nation is a populist party which advocates measures to protect Australian jobs and industry from foreign intervention. The party is critical of high levels of immigration (particularly pertaining to Muslims), multiculturalism, and any welfare assistance for refugees. They also oppose affirmative action measures by government to assist Indigenous Australians (One Nation, 2019).

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To date, there are no empirical studies of One Nation’s views on social welfare, but some secondary sources shed light on their perspective. Marr (2017) notes their consistent rejection of extra government assistance to Indigenous Australians on the basis that the disadvantaged should only be supported due to demonstrated need rather than racial background. However, their current prime target is Muslim immigrants and refugees, whom they attack on cultural grounds. Additionally, One Nation are critical of those they label ‘welfare cheats’ (Marr, 2017, p. 88) and endorse cuts to welfare spending except for aged pensioners whom they perceive as deserving of support. Broinowski (2017) similarly discussed One Nation’s opposition to the longterm reliance of some families on taxpayer-funded income support payments, and their belief that individuals should take responsibility for their own welfare. She also explored and critiqued their view that government assistance to Indigenous Australians was ‘reverse racism’ (p. 95), noting the major gap between their opportunities and those available to non-Indigenous Australians. As a whole, these sources suggest a neoliberal opposition to the welfare state other than the aged pension, and a hostility to assistance for Muslims and Indigenous Australians that may reflect a range of philosophies including alignment with a welfare chauvinist distaste for government support to minority groups. These negative views of refugees, including particularly Muslims and the Indigenous community (Marr 2017; Mols & Jetten, 2017) appear to be shared by many Australians, and may have the potential to further reinforce existing prejudices. They are of specific concern to the social work profession given our strong support for multiculturalism and opposition to racism (AASW, 2010). Consequently, we sought to answer the following research question: to what extent is welfare chauvinism apparent in One Nation’s views of social welfare policies in relation to refugees and asylum seekers, and Indigenous Australians?

Methodology In light of the absence of existing knowledge relating to the social welfare views of One Nation, we utilised an exploratory design which commonly involves the collection of in-depth data to gain initial understandings of an area of knowledge (Flynn & McDermott, 2016). Given the focus upon holistic knowledge development within exploratory designs, such studies typically draw upon qualitative data and methods (Flynn & McDermott, 2016), seeking to capture people’s experiences, as well as build new theories and knowledge from the patterns which emerge. An absence of prior knowledge in this area means that it is necessary to gain a general picture of how welfare chauvinism may be conceptualised by One Nation, thus requiring rich and multidimensional data, best acquired through qualitative methods (Alston & Bowles, 2012). As the focus of this research was on a clearly defined population, a nonprobability sampling approach was purposively used to access specific secondary data which addressed the study aims (Flynn & McDermott, 2016).

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Systematic processes and search strategies were utilised in obtaining preexisting data across various sources, which were recorded in a research journal, thereby providing a clear audit trail. For example, relevant parliamentary speeches, party policy documents and press releases were identified by using search terms such as refugees and immigration, Indigenous issues and social welfare. Additionally, newspaper articles were searched via Google using search terms such as One Nation coupled with indigenous welfare, aboriginal welfare, Muslim welfare, refugee welfare, Islam welfare, immigrant, Centrelink, cashless debit card, and the Aboriginal industry. A similar process was used for searching the Pauline Hanson Youtube video channel, and other broadcast media programmes. The final data set consisted of publicly accessible statements by One Nation on social welfare issues from 1997 to 2018. In total, 80 One Nation documents were examined, including 48 parliamentary and committee participation speeches, 3 media interviews, 13 video format interviews, 7 party policy statements, 8 press releases, and 1 biographical text. The review of One Nation data specifically targeted material which presented their views regarding refugees and asylum seekers, and Indigenous Australians. However, there were some documents which addressed other themes correlated to the topic – particularly discussion of prioritising welfare funds for ‘deserving’ welfare groups such as the ‘aged, sick and needy’. Given the exploratory, qualitative nature of this study, the researchers adopted a thematic analysis framework in analysing the data collected (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Thematic analysis encompasses the process of systematically identifying, organising and making meaning of patterns, or themes, across data sets (Flynn & McDermott, 2016). The implementation of thematic analysis was primarily informed through a latent approach, whereby themes were identified through analysis of underlying ideas, assumptions and ideologies which informed the explicit, or semantic, content of the data (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Coleman and Unrau (2014) describe coding as the procedure of shifting through collected data in order to identify important groups of words to assist in answering the research question, and allocating each meaning unit a code. The researchers engaged in an ongoing analytic process of coding in order to develop and refine key themes, which were largely derived from protocol coding from previous studies, and documented the process in a coding book in order to enhance the trustworthiness of this study (Flynn & McDermott, 2016). The lead author spent a significant amount of time reading and re-reading the collected secondary data in order to develop the major themes. She then analysed each population group separately, beginning with refugees/asylum seekers. Each category of documents was examined separately, and all identified codes were recorded in a coding book. After all codes were compiled, they were condensed where appropriate, and further themes began to be derived from an ongoing process of code analysis and examination of the existing literature.

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Results The findings are based on data from the 80 One Nation documents discussed above. The centralised theme from this data set was the concept of welfare conditionality, whereby the receipt of benefits is tied to the fulfilment of requirements and personal responsibility (Mendes, 2013). This theme is applied to two population groups: refugees and asylum seekers, and Indigenous Australians. The One Nation Party actively operated within two distinct parliamentary periods in terms of Commonwealth representation: the party’s initial elected period from 1997 to 1998, and its current period which recommenced in 2016. Each of these parliamentary periods is examined as a distinct data set, and will be referred to throughout this chapter. Refugee and asylum seeker views and policies Prioritisation of local welfare recipients The prioritisation of Australian-born welfare recipients was a significant feature of One Nation’s refugee and asylum seeker welfare rhetoric. This was evidenced across all examined data sets and was strongest in One Nation’s contemporary parliamentary period. How long do we have to feed these foreign criminals for, when so many of our own people are hungry and 40,000 young Australians live on the streets? (Pauline Hanson, parliamentary speech, 1997) When I have families living in their cars … this is how people in Australia are living. Yes, I feel sorry for refugees and people around the world, but we have 60,000 refugees in total, probably even more. We can’t look after everyone. I want to look after our own backyard first. (Pauline Hanson, media interview, 2017) Deserving welfare recipients Despite a preference for supporting Australian-born recipients, party support only extended as far as highly selective aspects of the Australian welfare state. One Nation held a clear primacy for Aged Pension recipients which was unwavering throughout both parliamentary periods. They constructed this payment as a right which was earned through paying taxation, and hence should not only be protected, but increased. In addition, One Nation made concessions for other welfare recipients they deemed to be in ‘genuine need’, as well as Veteran pensioners in the earlier parliamentary period. To a fluctuating extent, One Nation expressed support for Disability Support Pension (DSP) recipients. However, this sympathy was sporadic, and the DSP was also often criticised due to alleged false claims and overuse.

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Refugee and asylum seeker welfare was framed as unfairly detracting from these ‘deserving’ groups. Clean up your own backyard before flooding our country with more people who are going to be a drain on our society. I call for a halt to further immigration and for government to first look after our aged, the sick and the helpless. (Pauline Hanson, second maiden speech, 2016) We don’t need these refugees, who are coming into OUR country, they’re getting on disability pensions, they’re not working, they’re in public housing, they’re getting looked after, all their health and all the rest of it and they’re taking us for fools. That’s right, fools. (Pauline Hanson, media interview, 2017) Othering: the targeting of Muslims One Nation initially came to prominence for their attack on Asian immigrants in the 1990s. In more recent years their principal target has been Muslim Australians, and there were explicit negative references to Muslims in more than half of the refugee and asylum seeker welfare sources examined. One Nation asserted that Muslims were chronically unemployed, highly welfare dependent, and used fraudulent methods, including the use of polygamist practices, to abuse the Australian welfare system. The party also claimed that Muslim recipients presented a threat of terrorism. Australian Muslims are a significant drain on the public purse, because of the rates of unemployment and dependence on social welfare. (Pauline Hanson, parliamentary speech, 2017) Muslim men marrying multiple wives, under their laws, then having multiple children at our expense while they collect thousands of dollars a week from the taxpayer. (Pauline Hanson, parliamentary speech, 2017) … And he said, ‘Allah will provide’. Well, in this country, Allah is the taxpayer. (Pauline Hanson, media interview, 2017) Community isolation An associated belief was that refugee and asylum seeker populations segregate themselves from broader Australian society, refusing to engage through language, culture or ethos, and that Australian welfare payments fund and perpetuate this seclusion from others.

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Some migrants from the Middle East have formed culturally separate communities where they keep the language, custom and culture of their homeland in an attempt to recreate the villages of their birth. They reject our way of life and our values – but not our welfare system and not our free health system. (Pauline Hanson, parliamentary speech, 2018) The strength of these views was consistent between current parliamentary and media statements, however, there was an absence of references to Muslims in the earlier One Nation parliamentary period examined (1997–1998). Exploitation of the welfare system by immigrants One Nation presented claims of rampant welfare cheating and deception by immigrant groups, particularly through polygamous practices. The party alleged conscious intent and malice, and a strong desire of this population to illegally manipulate the Australian welfare system. South Australian Imam Mohammad Tawhidi recently told me of a polygamous man with four wives and 11 children who had managed to pay off more than one home while living exclusively on Centrelink benefits. (Pauline Hanson, media interview, 2018) Lastly, on numerous occasions throughout both parliamentary periods, One Nation expressed the belief that Australia is an established international target for people seeking to exploit the ‘overly generous’ national welfare system. Are we mugs being taken for a ride? You bet we are. We are regarded as the treasure island of the world. (Pauline Hanson, parliamentary speech, 2018) These views were consistent across all data mining domains examined, but they intensified in the most recent parliamentary period, and in media sources. Economic concerns Throughout both parliamentary periods, One Nation emphasised the squandering of government funds as a result of welfare dependence and cheating by the immigrant population. The Australian people are suffering terribly from the mismanagement of past and present governments and are tired of the intolerable waste of public money on foreign miscreants and parasites who, in many cases, receive better clothing, food, housing and legal aid than the law-abiding taxpayers footing the bills. (Pauline Hanson, parliamentary speech, 1997)

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The party also referenced the national welfare debt as rationale for the need for more rigorous and restrictive welfare policies. They will come here under a visa and turn around and abuse the whole system. We don’t need any more people on our welfare system. We cannot afford it, because by 2019–20 we will be reaching $191 billion. We cannot afford it any longer. (Pauline Hanson, parliamentary speech, 2017) Welfare policies Whilst consistently derived from the above themes, One Nation’s welfare policies towards refugees and asylum seekers varied in terms of their specific targets and agendas across, and within, parliamentary periods. The earlier parliamentary period was characterised by a recommendation to discontinue family reunification programmes for those from poverty-stricken nations due to welfare costs; a proposed two-year exclusion from unemployment benefits for those not deemed genuine refugees; and a right to only temporary asylum with no associated access to permanent residency or entitlement to welfare benefits. The parent category from countries without an adequate transferable social security net will be discontinued, as these people have been an enormous drain on our social security services. (One Nation immigration policy, 1997) In the present parliamentary period, One Nation policy predominately addressed perceived welfare abuse through proposed implementation of an ‘identity card’ to access welfare services. Whilst this policy was not solely directed at immigrants, it was frequently discussed in relation to refugees, particularly those of the Muslim faith. One Nation will introduce an identity card for those Australians who are accessing taxpayer-funded services. Some foreigners, illegal immigrants and Australians are rorting our health and welfare systems because they cannot be positively identified. This is causing a drain on our taxpayer-funded services, leading to skyrocketing welfare and health budget blowouts. (One Nation welfare policy, 2017) Views and policies concerning welfare for Indigenous Australians Support for compulsory income management Throughout the current parliamentary period, One Nation offered strong support for the unique conditional welfare measure called compulsory income management (IM). They strongly supported its expansion into other

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geographical areas, and believed this policy should be implemented across all welfare cohorts, not just in Indigenous communities. They justified support for IM, which disproportionately affects Indigenous Australians (Mendes, 2013), on the basis that the policy is necessary to combat social problems prevalent in Indigenous communities, such as substance abuse, poverty, poor financial management skills, and crime. The party argued that previous policies enabling autonomy over welfare payments have failed, and present rates of ‘wasted’ expenditure on Indigenous welfare cannot continue, in the interests of all Australians. Senator Lines (ALP Senator) said that they have a right to shape and mould their own future. Clearly, that is not the case, because over the years that has not been happening. Billions of dollars have been poured into, as I said in my maiden speech, the Aboriginal industry that is happening in this country. (Pauline Hanson, parliamentary speech, 2018) They also attacked parliamentary figures and parties who opposed IM, labelling them as ‘bleeding hearts’ unwilling to defend the interests of the Australian taxpayer. Critique of the ‘Aboriginal industry’ A core theme throughout all data sets was One Nation’s derogatory use of the term ‘Aboriginal Industry’. Although not formally defined in any party document, this term was used to summarise negative party views of Indigenous welfare programmes and payments. In particular, it alleges Indigenous citizens are inter-generationally welfare dependent, receive preferential welfare treatment without genuine need, and unfairly benefit from a lucrative, billion-dollar welfare ‘industry’, which is protected by both individuals and Indigenous welfare agencies. An associated belief was that Indigenous Australians receive ‘privileges’ on the basis of race rather than need, that these positive discrimination policies create separatism within Australian society, and that they are unfair to the interests and needs of the majority of Australians, particularly as taxpayers. This theme was present throughout all examined data sets, but was particularly significant during One Nation’s earlier parliamentary period, where it was evident in the majority of sources examined. There is no doubt the long-term goal of the Aboriginal industry is to create a separate indigenous nation within Australia: a separate country that the allegedly guilty non-Aboriginal Australians will pay for. (Pauline Hanson, parliamentary speech, 1997) The special laws based on race have led to reverse discrimination and the rorting of taxpayers’ money without helping the Aborigines in most need. (Pauline Hanson, parliamentary speech, 1997)

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Accountability A further theme across data sets was One Nation’s demand for greater accountability from Indigenous welfare recipients. The party argued that welfare funds should be spent in a responsible way to protect the interests of the Australian taxpayer. This would also enable a reduction in wasted spending so that extra funds could be allocated to those identified as more ‘deserving’ populations, in particular the aged and those deemed in genuine need. If we do not start calling for accountability, we will not have the moneys to provide for those in need in times to come – whether they be the aged, the sick or the young. There has to be responsibility. (Pauline Hanson, parliamentary speech, 2018) Welfare policies In summary, One Nation rejected what they perceived as positive discrimination in favour of Indigenous Australians. They argued that welfare should be allocated on the basis of need, and that Indigenous heritage should not enable access to welfare payments which were not available to the majority of the Australian population. One Nation’s welfare policies towards Indigenous welfare recipients were considerably more exhaustive in the earlier parliamentary era. One Nation supports the concept that by treating all Australians equally, with benefits solely based on individual need, the determination of Aboriginality ceases to be an issue when related to the receipt of benefits. (One Nation welfare policy, 1997)

Discussion One Nation displayed ideological views consistent with well-established characteristics of far-right parties internationally, such as hostility to immigration, and exclusionary and often openly discriminatory appeals concerning access to welfare supports. One Nation presented strong arguments in favour of limits being placed on refugee and asylum seeker populations accessing Australian welfare. Overall, these views were indicative that welfare chauvinism is highly apparent within One Nation’s beliefs concerning this population group. One Nation presented a clear preference for prioritising the needs of Australian-born welfare recipients. This aligns with core welfare chauvinist beliefs that a country’s welfare system should be reserved only for the national majority population (De Koster et al., 2012). However, their endorsement of welfare rights only included selected deserving recipient groups such as aged pensioners and those

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regarded as genuinely needy. One Nation argued that refugees and asylum seekers were unjustly depleting the level of welfare resources available to these ‘deserving’ recipients. One Nation’s defence of the aged pension is consistent with previous findings that equity-based programmes based on prior contribution are less likely to stimulate welfare chauvinist claims than equality/ universalistic or needs-based welfare payments (Ennser‐Jedenastik, 2018). Additionally, One Nation’s negative targeting of refugees and asylum seekers, as reflected particularly in attacks on those of Muslim faith, and accusations of segregation and exploitation of the welfare system, was congruent with findings from Europe, whereby welfare chauvinist groups used nationalist, racist and othering rhetoric to justify the exclusion of minority groups (Keskinen, 2016; Norocel, 2016; Lugosi, 2018). In contrast, One Nation’s attack on the welfare rights of Indigenous Australians was motivated by a different range of arguments, including accusations of unfair positive discrimination, belief in a self-interested Aboriginal welfare industry, a paternalistic approach to Indigenous disadvantage, and demands on behalf on taxpayers for greater accountability of outcomes from spending. There is also some overlap with a single study in Finland by Wahlbeck (2016), which examined the application of welfare chauvinism to minority groups other than immigrants who were viewed as unfairly benefiting from preferential treatment. This suggests that further research is needed to explore the relationship between perceptions of unreasonable positive discrimination in favour of Indigenous minority groups and welfare chauvinism. Overall, the findings suggest that One Nation’s perspective on Indigenous welfare does not align with existing understandings of welfare chauvinism. Rather, their perspective matches a conventional neoliberal critique of the welfare state as typically advanced by mainstream conservative political advocates (Mendes, 2017). In particular, One Nation’s critique of the socalled ‘Aboriginal Industry’ equates with the standard neoliberal argument, based on public choice theory, that social welfare professionals utilise welfare programmes for their own professional advantage. Additionally, paternalistic calls by One Nation for greater accountability and control over Indigenous welfare programmes and recipients calibrate with the neoliberal belief that recipients have obligations as well as rights. Those who fail to meet their obligations are then labelled as the undeserving poor, and subjected to conditional welfare measures to alter their self-defeating behaviour (Mendes, 2017).

Limitations and further research First, this study only examined One Nation’s perspective regarding two select welfare recipient groups: refugee and asylum seekers, and Indigenous Australians. These welfare cohorts were purposively selected, given they enabled a concise comparison to existing international studies on welfare chauvinism. However, this study was not an exhaustive examination of far-right welfare

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views in that it did not substantially explore One Nation’s approach to other welfare cohorts and policy debates in areas such as disability, substance use, child welfare, homelessness and unemployment. A further study might also utilise the findings of Ennser-Jedenastik (2018) to ascertain whether certain welfare programmes are more likely to be targeted by welfare chauvinist critiques than others. Second, it would be useful to assess where there is commonality between One Nation’s hostility to Indigenous welfare, and the attitudes of far-right groups in other English-speaking countries such as the USA, Canada and New Zealand towards their Indigenous populations. Finally, the study only examined public policy documents and statements. Further research would ideally include direct consultations with representatives of One Nation and other right-wing populist parties to try and uncover more detail about the values and ideas that underpin their welfare perspectives.

References AASW (Australian Association of Social Workers) (2010). Code of ethics. Canberra, ACT: AASW. AHRC (Australian Human Rights Commission) (2014). Face the facts: Cultural diversity. Sydney: AHRC. Alston, M. & Bowles, W. (2012). Research for social workers. Crow’s Nest, NSW: Allen & Unwin. Braun, V. & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77–101. Broinowski, A. (2017). Please explain: The rise, fall and rise again of Pauline Hanson. Sydney: Random House Australia. Careja, R., Elmelund‐Præstekær, C., Baggesen Klitgaard, M. & Larsen. E. (2016). Direct and indirect welfare chauvinism as party strategies: An analysis of the Danish People’s Party. Scandinavian Political Studies, 39(4), 435–457. doi:10.1111/ 1467–9477.12075 Coleman, H. & Unrau, Y. (2014). Qualitative data analysis: A step-by-step approach. In Social work research and evaluation: Foundations of evidence-based practice, edited by Richard Grinell and Yvonne Unrau, pp. 554–572. New York: Oxford University Press. Davies, L. & Deole, S. (2017). Immigration and the rise of far-right parties in Europe. IFO- Institut/Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, 15(4), 10–15. http://hdl.ha ndle.net/10419/181254 De Koster, W., Achterberg, P. & Van der Waal, J. (2012). The new right and the welfare state: The electoral relevance of welfare chauvinism and welfare populism in the Netherlands. International Political Science Review, 34(1), 3–20. doi:10.1177/ 0192512112455443. Ennser‐Jedenastik, L. (2018). Welfare chauvinism in populist radical right platforms: The role of redistributive justice principles. Social Policy and Administration, 52(1), 293–314. doi:10.1111/spol.12325 Esping-Andersen, G. (1990). The three worlds of welfare capitalism. Cambridge: Polity Press.

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Fenger, M. (2018). The social policy agendas of populist radical right parties in comparative perspective. Journal of International and Comparative Social Policy, 34(3), 188–209. doi:10.1080/21699763.2018.1483255 Flynn, C. & McDermott, F. (2016). Doing research in social work and social care. London: Sage. Golder, M. (2016). Right-wing populistparties in Europe. Annual Review of Political Science, 19(1), 477–497. https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-p olisci-042814-012441 Keskinen, S. (2016). From welfare nationalism to welfare chauvinism: Economic rhetoric, the welfare state and changing asylum policies in Finland. Critical Social Policy, 36(3), 352–370. doi:10.1177/0261018315624170 Kymlicka, W. (2011). Multicultural citizenship within multination states. Ethnicities, 11 (3), 281–302. doi:10.1177/1468796811407813 Lugosi, N. (2018). Radical right framing of social policy in Hungary: Between nationalism and populism. Journal of International and Comparative Social Policy, 34(3), 1–24. doi:10.1080/21699763.2018.1483256 Marr, D. (2017). The white queen: One Nation and the politics of race. Quarterly Essay series. Melbourne: Black Inc. Mendes, P. (2013). Compulsory income management: A critical examination of the emergence of conditional welfare in Australia. Australian Social Work, 66(4), 495–510. doi:10.1080/0312407X Mendes, P. (2017) Australia’s welfare wars. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press. Mendes, P. (2019) Empowerment and control in the Australian welfare state. London: Routledge. Mols, F. & Jetten, J. (2017). One nation’s support: Why ‘income’ is a poor predictor. Australasian Parliamentary Review, 32(1), 92–100. Newman, L., Proctor, N. & Dudley, M. (2013). Seeking asylum in Australia: Immigration detention, human rights and mental health care. Australasian Psychiatry, 21 (4), 315–320. doi:10.1177/1039856213491991 Nordensvard, J. & Ketola, M. (2015). Nationalist reframing of the Finnish and Swedish welfare states: The nexus of nationalism and social policy in far‐right populist parties. Social Policy and Administration, 49(3), 356–375. doi:10.1111/ spol.12095 Norocel, O.C. (2016). Populist radical right protectors of the Folkhem: Welfare chauvinism in Sweden. Critical Social Policy, 36(3), 371–390. doi:10.1177/ 0261018315621991 One Nation (2019). History of One Nation. https://www.onenation.org.au/history/ Schumacher, G. & van Kersbergen, K. (2016). Do mainstream parties adapt to the welfare chauvinism of populist parties? Party Politics, 22(3), 300–312. doi:10.1177/ 1354068814549345. Sparrow, J. (2019). Fascists among us: Online hate and the Christchurch massacre. Melbourne: Scribe. Van der Waal, J., De Koster, W. & Van Oorschot, W. (2013). Three worlds of welfare chauvinism? How welfare regimes affect support for distributing welfare to immigrants in Europe. Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice, 15 (2), 164–181. doi:10.1080/13876988.2013.785147 Wahlbeck, Ö. (2016). True Finns and non-true Finns: The minority rights discourse of populist politics in Finland. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 37(6), 574–588. doi:10.1080/07256868.2016.1235020

13 Resisting the rise of right-wing populism European social work examples Janet Anand, Stefan Borrmann and Chaitali Das

Rising world right-wing populism This chapter explores the rise of right-wing nationalist populism in Europe and the shifting professional spaces and growing resistance of social workers in response to injustices arising out of right-wing populist and neo-liberal politics. Populism has its historical roots and definition in the discipline of political science. It has gained general attention given the rise of neo-liberal right-wing political movements across Europe and the globe. As an ideology, populism exploits the moral distinction between ‘the people’ and ‘the elite’ (Hawkins & Kaltwasser, 2017). Different forms of populism (i.e. left-wing and right-wing) reflect the diverse ways in which this dichotomy is categorised. Right-wing populism, for example, tends to be defined in terms of a ‘nativism’ where ‘the people’ (the ‘in group’) belong to the native group and where non-native peoples (the ‘out group’) such as migrants and refugees are explicitly excluded. The ‘non-natives’ are often cast as a threat to the nation state and the way of life of its ‘natives’ or citizens. Patriotism, nationalism and defence of national interest are key arguments in right-wing populist discourses. Right-wing populism often takes the form of xenophobia, racism and forms of socioeconomic and political exclusion (Grigat, 2017); while populism is driven by anger in response to the concerns and frustration of ‘the people’ of not having their voice heard. Migrants and minority groups are often categorised as ‘non-native’. For example, the framing of refugees and migrants as ‘outsiders’ acts to mobilise the interests of the ‘in-group’ or ‘native’ members of a society. Stereotypes and prejudices regarding refugees and migrants are strategically used to reinforce stronger ‘in-group’ sentiments against a common ‘enemy’, which becomes the single source of all economic and social problems faced by the state. Right-wing populist ideology presents a simplistic explanation of the disenfranchisement of people by blaming the social system as being biased against the common people and biased towards minority groups such as migrant groups and refugees. Racism and discrimination against migrants, therefore, become morally justified based on unsubstantiated claims that migrants take the jobs of local people, exploit the health care service, are responsible for the elevated crime rate, and so on.

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If right-wing populism takes on the form of powerful movements it may also erode democracy, human rights and the welfare state, exacerbating a sense of economic, cultural and political insecurity. The social and digital media, with vast and often non-transparent and anonymous networks across the globe (Ife, 2018b) actively generates fears and insecurities in response to global trends. The insecurity and vulnerability felt by people results in their diminishing stakes in liberal democracies and a readiness to forgo human rights as well as democratic and pluralist ideals in favour of populist rhetoric that promises easy solutions and a return to the ‘good old days’ of the past (Lanzone & Woods, 2015; McSwiney & Cottle, 2017). Historical analysis suggests that populism is temporary, and when the polarising issues have been addressed by the parties in power, the high popularity of right-wing populism often fades or dissipates (Galston, 2018). However, currently right-wing populist ideology represents one of the major challenges facing social work’s commitment to universal human rights, humanitarianism and the welfare state.

Shifting occupational spaces and resistance in European social work European social work has always been dependent on changing political ideologies and different welfare state regimes (Harris, 2008, p. 662). The impact of right-wing populism on social work has many parallels with other ideological shifts, such as neo-liberalism, libertarianism and capitalism (Hawkins & Kaltwasser, 2017). The way social issues are interpreted and understood shapes the structural context of social work and places boundaries on the professional space occupied by social workers, including their day-to-day role and practice. The professional spaces of social work are constantly negotiated between the agendas of the government and the ideas of equality and welfare in civil society. Pinkerton and Campbell (2002) call these the ‘occupational spaces’ of social work. European social work has been closely aligned to the welfare state and therefore government. However, history has demonstrated that the profession has the capacity to respond to social injustice by aligning itself more closely with marginalised and oppressed groups and more generally with civil society rather than the government (Pinkerton & Campbell, 2002). European social workers have resisted and continue to resist in various ways the neo-liberal and right-wing populist agenda (Corrigan & Leonard, 1978; Pinkerton & Campbell, 2002). The concept of professional resistance refers to integrated, constructive non-cooperation in professional practice (Atkinson & Mattiani, 2013). Resistance, however, is somewhat overlooked in contemporary social work theory, practice and education. Theoretical and philosophical approaches to resistance in social work are arguably under-researched. Historically, social workers have engaged in actions that oppose oppression, but have also been coopted into helping with the implementation of policies and legislation that are oppressive. Currently, a sense of ambivalence and powerlessness permeates the profession across Europe, due to the increasing dominance of right-wing populist ideology. This has also affected social workers’ clients. In the context

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of neo-liberal Europe, the response of social workers appears to be focused on the mitigation of social problems, rather than ensuring human rights for all and the pursuit of sustainable change. Of course, resistance, may have negative personal consequences for social workers, such as the risk of losing their job or withdrawal of support, or imposed barriers to career advancement. The resistance of social workers may also have indirect consequences for vulnerable clients if agency support to the social worker is withdrawn. Social workers, nevertheless, must find a way to deal with their sense of powerlessness in not being able to fulfil their commitment to human rights and humanitarian values. Failure to do so will not only result in eroding the value base of social work, but also render the profession incapable and unable to follow an empowerment agenda in the future (Das et al., 2016). The future of the profession itself is at stake if social workers cannot resist the forces that endanger their commitment to human rights and liberation. The current climate of right-wing populism and neo-liberalism creates considerable challenges for social workers, by changing structures and processes that limit social workers’ capacity to seek change on behalf of vulnerable groups (Borrmann et al., 2017). To facilitate an understanding of the role and opportunities for resistance in professional practice, an operationalisation of the concept is required. Singh and Cowden (2009) conceptualise resistance as involving three active processes, namely uncovering, confronting and resisting. Uncovering injustice is frequently an intellectual actively involving the critical analysis or reflection on internal contradictions and paradoxes of the populist debate. External reference to empirical evidence and a global perspective offers practitioners alternative insights, explanations and truths (Findley & McCormack, 2005); while social justice, rights and citizenship are key social work concepts for conceptualising injustice (Jordan, 1990). Confronting involves the use of professional power, knowledge and the developing of alliances with the excluded groups and other key stakeholders to expose and challenge the internal inconsistences and paradoxes of populist debate. For example, alliances with migrants, other health professionals, trade unions and feminists can widen and deepen the scope and power base of resistance. Use of international social work platforms and links with national and international human rights organisations may also provide strategic opportunities to confront issues such a refugee deportation, refugee health care and legal rights, without putting oneself at personal or professional risk. Confronting is a challenging process, as social workers are more comfortable empowering their clients and less forward about exerting their own professional power. Finally, resistance involves action, and answering the critical questions (Bourdieu, 1998; Fitzsimons, 2000) as to what might now be done to interrupt populistic trends. Uncovering, confronting and resisting are the basic processes of professional resistance. These processes are inter-related and dialectical in nature and should not be thought of as a simple linear progression from one stage to the other.

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Of course, not all forms of resistance are successful and there are limitations to the extent of professional action. Furthermore, the scale of action/ resistance reflects the availability resources and opportunities in a specific context. However, oppressive practices and ideas, such as those promoted by populism, may be effectively interrupted and disturbed by a single or simple act of dissonance at the individual practice level, i.e. professional discretion, or on a higher level, through national or global organisations, initiatives or movements. White (2009) talks about the spaces for resistance where populist policies and practices may be challenged. Practitioners must assess and decide whether resistance can be operationalised inside or outside of the organisational agency context. In many cases, alliances with other professionals and advocacy organisations represent more strategic practice. We will proceed to highlight the processes of uncovering, confronting and resisting through European examples in response to the oppressive treatment of migrants and refugees.

Social work resistance and anti-immigration populism Anti-immigration politics provides an ideal context to explore the impact[?] of right-wing populism on European social work practice. Right-wing populism as exemplified by the politics of Theresa May in the UK, Donald Trump in the USA and Marine Le Pen in France (Postill, 2018) has been instrumental in fuelling anti-immigrant sentiment. The migration of millions of asylum seekers from the Middle East and Africa to Europe and other parts of the world in 2015 and 2016 has reignited old debates regarding the social order and human rights. Central to these debates are changing societal frameworks in many European countries, namely the assaults of neo-liberalism, the shrinking of the welfare state, and increasing globalisation. These developments have not benefitted all, and there is a significant section of the population that feels left behind (see Frieden’s 2018 discussion on America – similar processes can be argued for Europe). It can be argued that this has resulted in an increasing shift towards nationalist populist politics that scapegoat migrants for a variety of existing social issues (Hadiz & Chryssogelos, 2017). The plight of refugees and asylum seekers, once perceived in international humanitarian terms, has been publicised and perceived as a primary threat to national identity, economic sustainability and security in Finland, Germany and England. Since 2015, the growing anti-migration sentiments have shaped the outcomes of many European national parliamentary elections. This has subsequently resulted in more restrictive and harsher refugee and migration policies negatively affecting social workers and their immigrant clients, and raising central questions as to social work’s role in working towards a more just society (Ife, 2018a; 2018b). Noble and Ottmann (2018) have also outlined that social workers must develop strategies to resist the dehumanising of people, and learn from past mistakes where social workers colluded with state forces, resulting in deeply oppressive practices.

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Anti-migrant sentiments in right-wing populism have led to significant contradictions in terms of social work values and roles that social workers play. In many European welfare states there is a belief amongst citizens, including social workers, that the state will champion and protect the human rights of vulnerable and minority groups. However, the growth of right-wing populist polices in response to immigration has placed a question mark against what can be assumed. Social work values such as equality, non-discrimination and social justice are constantly challenged by populist politicians and citizens who vote them into power. Inevitably, many social work practitioners experience frustration with this context, which contributes to a loss of professional vision and identity (Baines, 2006). Social workers are required to perform tasks that oppress and exclude refugees and asylum seekers from available services and support. Understandably, some social workers have developed strategies to shield themselves from professional and personal stress associated with prescribed roles that contradict professional ethics, and have sought positions in more clinical or therapeutic areas of practice that do not necessarily have to address structural issues (Lorenz, 2005). The following examples from Germany, Finland and the UK illustrate how social workers have resisted populist anti-migrant sentiments influencing social work practice with refugees in different European countries. The examples demonstrate a recurring pattern of social exclusion and denial of human rights and basic services to refugees and asylum seekers. Yet, each example illustrates how social workers deliberately uncover, confront and resist oppressive structures and processes (Strier & Bershtling, 2016). These structures and processes encompass a diverse range of arrangements that seek to disempower and oppress and include policy documents, funding arrangements with seemingly benign implications, non-transparent workflows, laws that exclude services for some groups, and so on. The examples also highlight the ambivalence and precariousness of social workers employed by the government or social workers in jobs that rely on the government for funding and access to clients. In some examples, front line social workers were not able to resist, or had been consciously co-opted to ensure continuation of basic support to migrants and refugees. In other examples the resistance moved from the micro level to the level of social work networks, as well as to creating alliances and associations with other allied professional/resistance groups and becoming active in social and political movements. United Kingdom: effects of austerity and anti-immigrant policies Uncovering The British example illustrates the effects of neo-liberal policies, austerity and rising right-wing populism in creating complex challenges for social work with refugees and asylum seekers. Neo-liberal policies, including cuts to public spending and welfare benefits, increased market discipline, and the

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disciplining of trade unions, were first introduced in the UK by the Thatcher government in the 1980s (Ishkanian & Glasius, 2017). This has been followed by austerity policies following the rescue of the banks in the financial crisis of 2008. These austerity policies since 2010 have included cuts to public sector spending and welfare provision; as well as the privatisation of public services (including the National Health Service [NHS]) and the introduction of user fees (including fees for higher education) (Ishkanian & Glasius, 2017; Cummins, 2018; Strier and Bershtling, 2016). For social work, these policies have meant a focus on increasing efficiency, prioritisation, risk management, promotion of markets via individual budgets and the erosion of universal services (Spolander et al., 2014). To further drive down costs, provision of services has shifted to the private or voluntary sector (Ferguson, 2004; Spolander et al., 2014). While the effects of austerity have been felt across all sections of society, refugees and asylum seekers have been particularly vulnerable. Not only are fewer resources available to them, but they are also systematically cut off from the welfare system. Policies shaped by anti-immigration and populist agendas have dealt additional devastating blows to this user group. Local communities are positioned as being in conflict with migrant communities, particularly in times of austerity, often resulting in refugees and asylum seekers being perceived as being in competition for resources or as a threat, and thereby limiting the support, safety and services available to refugees and asylum seekers (Robinson, 2014). Confronting Confronting means investigating the systematic ways in which this has occurred, and the evidence. Dowling and Sextone (2010) note the various items of legislation, such as: the 1993 Asylum and Immigration Appeals Act that withdrew asylum seekers’ access to social housing; the 1996 Act that ended their right to social security benefits unless they had children; and the 1999 Act that created a separate welfare regime for asylum seekers and their families, with food vouchers at levels significantly below the official poverty line. Furthermore, the 1999 Act introduced the compulsory allocation of residential locations to asylum seekers, thus dispersing them from their local communities and consequently cutting them off from the informal support of their ethnic communities. This was followed by the 2002 Act that abandoned vouchers and dispersal in favour of warehousing in prison. The subsequent Asylum Acts of 2004 and 2006 further tightened the monitoring of asylum seekers and accelerated the processes of detention and removal of asylum seekers by the withdrawal of their legal rights. The IARS (2014) report indicates further policies under development that undermine the legal representation available to refugees and asylum seekers and limit the conditions and the funding for legal aid. Mayblin and James (2017) also note that asylum seekers cannot enter the labour market and are hence completely

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dependent on the £36.95 per person per week support available to them. Asylum seekers and refugees are thus often driven into destitution. The fear of poverty, destitution, hostile environments and deportation are in fact all strategies employed by the state to discourage asylum seeking and reduce pull factors that make UK attractive for migrants and asylum seekers (Robinson, 2014; Dowling & Sextone, 2010). Given the lack of support available for this group, community and voluntary organisations have stepped in to fill this gap (Mayblin & James, 2017; Spolander et al., 2014). NGOs and private sectors have, however, increasingly been incorporated into the regulatory systems and have thus become more dependent on government funding, which has weakened their ability to advocate for social change (Spolander et al., 2014). Resisting Social workers and the British Association of Social Workers (BASW) have time and again attempted to address austerity policies and expressed their dedication to working with the most vulnerable groups in society, including refugees and asylum seekers. The British Association of Social Workers (BASW) clearly identified neo-liberalism and austerity as problematic when their ‘Manifesto for Social Work’ called on the profession to act to end austerity policies that cause harm to children, adults and families (BASW, 2017). Furthermore, social workers have come together to form organisations such as Social Work Without Borders, established in March 2016 in response to the unfurling safeguarding crisis in the unofficial Calais refugee camp (SWWB, online). Many NGOs, community workers and organisers have led political protests, as was seen in the OCCUPY protests in London, campaigning against growing poverty, inequality, precarity (un/underemployment), and the loss of dignity (Ishkanian & Glasius, 2017). In 2004, social workers in Liverpool went on strike for three months to protest the ‘erosion of professional social work’ (Ferguson & Lavalette, 2006). Moth, Greener and Stoll (2015) have also reported on resistance of practitioners and service users against government policies of austerity and neo-liberal restructuring of mental health services in England. Social workers have also resisted in other ways, and their strategies have ranged from writing memos; refusing to be dispassionate about clients and the impact of lack of support on team members; challenging meanings of certain actions, values, and commitments; having personal meetings with directors to voice professional concerns regarding the social costs or unethical character of new policies; organising expert round tables to counter the consequences of those policies; assembling client testimonies; writing policy papers that offer alternative options to socially damaging policies; and mobilising social work associations to support collective professional disobedience (Strier & Bershtling, 2016). It can be argued that this resistance has not always borne fruit or had the impact necessary to change policies or address fundamental issues that these

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neo-liberal ideas have set into motion. In working specifically with refugees and asylum seekers, many social workers do not feel they have the adequate training, knowledge or even clarity in terms of their roles in asylum teams (Dowling & Sextone, 2010). In addition, social workers are increasingly expected to work as gatekeepers, to integrate their roles with the Home Office and participate in the processes of deportation (Dowling & Sextone, 2010). Finland: alliances to address the health and wellbeing of undocumented refugees and the potential of structural social work Uncovering Finnish social workers and health care professionals find themselves caught between constitutional humanitarian values and the increasing societal intolerance shown towards recent refugees. Over 32,000 asylum seekers from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan crossed the Finnish border in 2015 (Gadd, 2017; Gadd et al., 2017) and applied for asylum. Many failed to gain this status and became undocumented migrants, lacking the appropriate legal status that would give them valid medical insurance or unlimited access to public social and health services in Finland. Undocumented migrants may receive urgent care provided by the public health care system, but at their own cost. In 2018, there were an estimated 3,000–4,000 undocumented refugees (locally referred to as the ‘new paperless’ people) (Gadd et al., 2017). The health care needs of these refugees are complex and involve digestive disorders, musculo-skeletal problems, respiratory illnesses and gynaecological problems (Keskimäki et al., 2014). It is well documented in the literature that undocumented migrants who do not have access to health care in the European Union are subjected to significantly higher health risks (Woodward et al., 2014). Undocumented migrants are therefore a particularly vulnerable population group whose circumstances are made more difficult as a result of illnesses, inadequate health care and living conditions, and poverty. Confronting Contributing to this lack of sympathy for the plight of paperless people in Finland is the popular misperception that undocumented migrants entered the country illegally. On the contrary, they had a legal right to seek asylum but were unsuccessful and, as a result, became ‘undocumented’ because they remained in Finland after a negative decision or because they did not follow the asylum-seeking process (Jauhiainen et al., 2018, p. 24). Given their ‘undocumented’ status, the Finnish government refuses to take responsibility for their health and wellbeing. Compared to the Netherlands, Italy, France and Spain (Dauvrin et al., 2012), which provide health care to certain groups of ‘undocumented’ migrants, Finland has been reluctant to draft legislation that would make health care available for ‘undocumented’ migrants, despite the fact that it has ratified and is bound by the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

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Resisting In response to this situation and to promote the protection of refugees’ human rights, a small non-government organisation comprised of health and social care professional volunteers, including social workers, established global clinics in Helsinki and other regional centres throughout Finland, to offer much needed services to people not entitled to public health care regardless of their migration status or nationality. Services offered include confidential and free of charge information on rights and health and social care services. The unmet health and social care needs of migrant women and children spurred concerned professionals to mobilise and offer an alternative to government policies, and in so doing highlighted their inadequacies. However, aid and volunteer activities are not sustainable solutions for safeguarding the health care of ‘undocumented’ persons. Finish social workers are also aware of the need to lobby for structural reform and ensure that refugees’ rights are enshrined in legislation and social policy. The responsibility of social work professionals to bring to the attention of government existing injustices and inequalities in Finnish society is enshrined in Finnish legislation (Laki Sosiaalihuollon ammattihenkilöistä 817/2015). Social workers and other health and social care professionals have a duty to aid those in need and, in the case of social workers, a legislative obligation to voice the need for structural and policy reform (Keskimäki et al., 2014). Germany: ‘We are social workers and not deportation assistants’ Uncovering The following case example highlights how in Germany the Bavarian state government tried to silence social work in the case of providing counselling to asylum seekers. Social work practice in Germany, in most cases, is bound by the legal framework of laws and regulations of the German federal states. In 2017, the Bavarian government issued an order to social work agencies to cease providing legal and practical information to asylum seekers who face deportation after their application for asylum has been rejected. The government threatened to cut funding completely and permanently to those agencies who continued to provide such legal advice. The Bavarian government called for social work counselling to be solely limited to providing information about resettlement in their countries of origin on a voluntary basis. The order was based on the claim that social workers were acting as legal counsellors but without the legal education and qualifications to do so. They were therefore accused of transgressing the mandate and professional boundaries of their profession, and indirectly failing to comply with the funding and policy requirements of the social work programmes/services in question (Bayerisches Ministerium des Inneren, für Bau und Verkehr, 2016). For the involved social work agencies, NGOs and refugees facing deportation, it was clear that the

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Bavarian government had issued this order to apply pressure on social workers. The conservative Bavarian government ‘needed’ to show larger numbers of deported refugees because it wanted to respond to the shift in public opinion from a ‘pro-refugees’ towards a ‘no more refugees’ climate in 2016. This was in response to the increasing popularity of the right-wing populist party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). The government wanted to demonstrate that it was willing and capable to reduce the numbers of refugees and asylum seekers in Bavaria. Confronting The order in question was brought to the attention of the public by a small group of social work activists, the ‘Working Group for Critical Social Work Munich’, in a position paper entitled ‘We are Social Workers and not Deportation Assistants’ (Arbeitskreis Kritische Soziale Arbeit München, 2017). Other associations followed suit and argued against this order. They stated that the order was inspired by right-wing populist politics and had no professional legitimacy. The ‘German Association for Social Work’ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Soziale Arbeit – DGSA) argued that refugees have the right to politically neutral counselling that includes providing all information as well as possible options and alternatives to enable a comprehensive understanding of their own personal situation. In addition, the DGSA working group on ‘Flight, Migration, Critique of Anti-Semitism and Racism’ highlighted the professional standards by issuing a position paper on independence and openness as guiding principles in cases of deportation (DGSA, 2017). In summer 2018, the DGSA intensified the involvement of social workers in the public discussion by issuing an extensive position paper (DGSA, 2018) focusing on the role of social work, professional standards and requirements in its work with refugees. The ‘appeal for global solidarity and the safeguarding of the right to asylum’ was submitted in July 2018 to the German Government. It emphasised that the position of the social work profession was to defend refugees and asylum seekers from nationalist populist suggestions. It argued that refugees must have access to independent, free and comprehensive counselling and that every refugee has his or her own specific experience of migration, and there is a corresponding multiplicity of reasons for seeking asylum. It stated: We criticise the politically motivated dismantling of the legal and social standards for protection of vulnerable groups, and the discrediting of critical social initiatives and solidarity with refugees by misrepresentations and changes of procedure. […] We strongly oppose such attempts to exploit the profession of social work for illegitimate political actions, intended to compel asylum seekers into leaving the country ‘voluntarily’. We demand guaranteed and unrestricted access to open and comprehensive social and legal counselling for asylum seekers. This is a universal

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Resisting Resistance to the government order was not widespread amongst Germany’s social workers, given their knowledge of the political sensitivity of the issue and the risks involved. Some social workers complied fully because they agreed with and supported the order despite the concerns outlined by the DGSA. Some agencies and social work employees complied because of fear of losing funding, despite agreeing with the position paper criticising the order. Social workers may have justified this lack of resistance in terms of the danger of not being able to provide services at all to refugees if government funding were to be withdrawn. Other agencies resisted and continued to offer services secretly. Yet most telling was that almost none of the agencies resisted openly. Social workers decided it was safer to contact and activate their professional networks and associations, and associated voluntary welfare organisations (which play a major role in German social work). Resistance has therefore shifted from individual action to the building strategic alliances. The increased role of German social work as a political player in addressing human rights may well be a reaction to the increasing right-wing political scenario and growth of nationalism in Germany. Social work as a profession is visibly trying to be more active in defending a society that is based on human rights. The latest statement of the DGSA also represents an alternative vision for social work practice that focuses on equal rights and participation of refugees.

Lessons in professional resistance for application in practice, education and research The examples illustrate how the combination of right-wing populism and neoliberalism represented potent challenges to the vision of the profession and the practice of social work. The fields of practice available to social workers within neo-liberal welfare regimes greatly limit the profession’s opportunities to challenge and resist systems of injustice and structural oppression. However, it can’t be ignored that Europe’s right-wing populist governments present additional threats to already marginalised and vulnerable people through exclusionary policies. Therefore social workers must learn to engage in resistance and rework their professional alignment with society. Social workers have successfully confronted such barriers by creating new spaces for dialogue, debate, alliances, engagement, and exchange, as demonstrated by the examples provided above. Social workers have effectively utilised critical and

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evidence-based perspectives to reflect upon and question false news and ways of thinking as well as harmful policies and practices. Useful strategies include building alliances across networks and working with politicians, policy makers and administrators, as illustrated above in the United Kingdom’s case. In some cases the role of critiquing the impact of social policy on people has been embedded in national definitions and responsibilities of social work, as in the case of Finland; while national professional organisations have become increasingly important as platforms for resistance, as demonstrated in Germany and the United Kingdom. The examples presented here demonstrate that it is essential to consider the occupational space of social work in relation to civil society and government. Support and opportunities for resistance may come from existing social and civil movements, as demonstrated by the struggles of the women’s movement, the black lives matter movement, the gay rights movement and the trade union movement (Thompson, 2002; Ferguson, 2004). Given the arguments as to why social workers must be concerned with right-wing populist government policy (Ferguson & Lavalette, 2006), more attention must be given to promoting critical social work pedagogy (Spolander et al., 2014) and research. Social work students have a right learn about critical theories and practices, including community development, activism and anti-oppressive practices (Noble & Ottmann, 2018; Das et al., 2016). Achieving this aim will require significant changes to the existing social work curriculum, including the introduction of relevant new methods and theories pertaining to resistance and strategies for social change (Preston et al., 2014).

Conclusion: where do we go from here? As argued, the goal of social work in promoting a just and inclusive society based on human rights is currently jeopardised by neo-liberalism and rightwing populist politics. Resisting such trends is currently a central challenge for social work practice around the globe. This chapter has highlighted the opportunities and barriers that social workers face. The European examples provided above help contextualise the opportunities and processes involved in resistance work. It has been demonstrated that resistance is not an easy path, yet can be more effectively navigated using strategic processes such as uncovering, confronting and resisting. The concept of resistance and associated strategies should become central to social work education in order to inform and further theorise practice; this should be supported by forms of research. European social work must be flexible and ready to reposition itself, making use of strategic professional, social and civil society alliances. In conclusion, the practice of social work requires a more structural and political mindset, in order to undertake a more active role in identifying new forms of social injustice and human rights violations.

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14 Social workers partnering with populism Susie Latham and Linda Briskman

Introduction In this chapter we contemplate the re-routing of social work from a paradigm of social justice to becoming an actor in repressive state policies and practices. In an age of right-wing nationalist populism, social workers are not immune from Islamophobic media discourses or government policies which institutionalise Islamophobia. When the social work profession implements these policies, it can (even unwittingly) pit the profession against its core mission, ethics and values. We argue that not only has social work failed to systematically speak out against Islamophobic narratives and practices consistent with its anti-racist human rights mission, it has actively colluded with populism through enabling harmful and discriminatory policies that amount to state sponsored right-wing nationalist populism. This phenomenon is explored through the case study of Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) programs in the United Kingdom (Prevent) and in Australia (Building Resilience and Preventing Radicalisation to Violent Extremism), the latter sponsored by the AASW. Since the attacks on the United States in 2001, Islamophobia in the Western world has escalated. Public discourse has been framed by what Sherene Razack (2007) identifies as the interconnected tropes of dangerous Muslim men, imperilled Muslim women and ‘civilised’ Europeans. Through the example of CVE, the chapter focuses on the ‘dangerous’ Muslim, the would-be terrorist who is deemed to threaten Western societies and ill-defined ‘Western values’. CVE is a component of Islamophobic Muslim-as-terrorist mindsets incorporated into policies of Western governments, a phenomenon increasing sharply with the rise to power of populist leaders including US President Donald Trump and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Policies which institutionalise Islamophobia include Trump’s ‘Muslim ban’ prohibiting entry to the US by citizens of several majority-Muslim countries (Hauslohner, 2019). Although not quite as blatant, but an equal concession to right-wing antiMuslim populists, is Australia agreeing to take refugees from war-torn Syria but, unlike most other countries, prioritising Christians (Le Grand, 2018). When Muslims become demonised through political processes, state-directed

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prejudice is more likely (Patrick, 2017). From a Foucauldian perspective, this exemplifies governmentality in action (Yassine & Briskman, 2019). CVE is underpinned by populist discourses and practices and represents a new turn in policies and programs whose foundation is the ‘War on Terror’. CVE constitutes the preventive arm (as opposed to former military interventions), a form that is more palatable to social work and cognate disciplines, where ‘prevention’ of perceived social harms is core business. CVE assumes that potential terrorists can be identified and diverted prior to planning or committing a crime. Although its incarnations vary, CVE often involves training citizens, such as teachers, social workers and doctors, in frequent contact with young people (who are deemed most susceptible to committing such acts) to spot signs that a person could become a terrorist. In the UK and Australia, these and many other professionals have undergone training to identify possible signs of ‘radicalisation’ – a vague and contested concept – and been provided with pathways to report suspicions to authorities. This approach is deeply entrenched in the UK, where it was first introduced in 2003 and since 2015 has involved mandatory reporting (Qureshi, 2019). It also operates in the US and is evolving apace in other countries including Australia. CVE dovetails with one of the Islamophobic ideas around which right-wing populist nationalism has galvanised – that all Muslims are potential terrorists. Although CVE advocates often claim that it aims to prevent all forms of extremism, this policy in its origins, its ongoing focus and in its deployment in societies where Islamophobia is rampant, primarily targets Muslims. We show that this targeting has traumatised and further stigmatised an already marginalised group. We argue that social work should oppose policies that compound injustice. Using the example of the AASW delivering CVE training to over 600 Australian social workers in ‘Building Resilience and Preventing Radicalisation to Violent Extremism’ in 2018 and 2019, we contend that social work abandoned its responsibility to critique harmful policies. Worse, it legitimised a populist discourse despite the pleas of Muslim social workers, who recognised its impact on Muslims, for it to stop doing so. It is noteworthy that Britain’s CVE program, Prevent, is far more ‘advanced’ than Australia’s in co-opting social workers to report potential extremists through mandatory reporting requirements. Robust critiques of Prevent have been made by social workers. In Australia, social work interrogation of CVE is minimal. We first briefly discuss the phenomenon of Islamophobia, then look at some of those who promote populist anti-Muslim ideas. We show that CVE is not, as claimed in the AASW training manual, ‘ideologically neutral’, but rather that it amplifies populist ideas that target Muslims. We discuss how social work’s involvement in CVE impacts the Muslim clients and colleagues of social workers, and maintain that social workers should be joining with others to organise against CVE rather than legitimising it.

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Globalised Islamophobia and its impact In this chapter, we adopt the definition of Islamophobia developed by the Centre for Race and Gender at the University of California (Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project 2018): Islamophobia is a contrived fear or prejudice fomented by the existing Eurocentric and Orientalist global power structure. It is directed at a perceived or real Muslim threat through the maintenance and extension of existing disparities in economic, political, social and cultural relations, while rationalizing the necessity to deploy violence as a tool to achieve ‘civilizational rehab’ of the target communities (Muslim or otherwise). Islamophobia reintroduces and reaffirms a global racial structure through which resource distribution disparities are maintained and extended. Some of these resource disparities are the product of colonialism. For example, Muslims are much more likely to live in underdeveloped countries, earn less and have their children die before the age of five. They are also much less likely to hold positions of influence in global political power structures, including the United Nations and International Monetary Fund (Stewart 2010, pp. 278–279). Others disparities are exacerbated by Islamophobia For example, Australian Muslims are more likely to finish school but less likely to be employed. Muslims earn less and Muslim children live in poverty at double the rate of non-Muslims (Hassan, 2018). With social work ethics guiding the social work profession to a commitment ‘to the values of social justice, human rights, poverty alleviation and anti-oppression’ (Penketh 2014, p. 151), it seems clear that social workers should seek to work with Muslim communities to redress these inequities and actively oppose Islamophobia. While we can safely assume that peak bodies and most individual social workers condemn the most flagrant manifestations of Islamophobia, including personal physical and verbal attacks and right-wing group actions, we suggest that social work as a profession is betraying its own principles by not only failing to condemn the more insidious and arguably more dangerous manifestation of institutional Islamophobia, but also by active collusion. We maintain that social work needs to challenge hegemonic and subjugating responses that are driven by populism. It behoves the profession to examine its own position within Western societies which value homogeneity and exclusion despite their rhetoric of pluralism, inclusion and multiculturalism. As in the European Union, where the question of ‘Europeaness’ remains a contested issue (Sajjad, 2018), notions of Australianess or being ‘unAustralian’ reflect the dominance of Western constructs and a gaze toward the ‘racialised other’. We concur with Sajjad (2018), writing in the refugee asylum context, that there is a popular assumption that there is something unique about Islam that

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makes it incapable of peaceful co-existence within secular political systems. In arguing our position, we recognise the limited formal power of social work to challenge the strong arm of the state, particularly at a time when a blend of securitisation and fear interact to fuel populism. Yet social workers are in a credible position to take a lead in social movement activities, as they have direct knowledge of the impact of harmful state and professional practices on vulnerable people.

Populist influencers Promoting and exploiting Islamophobia has been so profitable for a range of actors who have used it for political and personal gain that it has been termed an industry (Lean, 2012). Among mainstream actors that perpetrate myths about Islam and Muslims are politicians, sections of the media and anti-Muslim, exMuslim commentators. This latter group is less obvious in the public sphere but in many ways is more deceptive. While it may be that right-wing violence comes from the fringes of society, encouragement comes from the centre (Younge, 2019). On a global scale, Islamophobia has moved from the margins to the mainstream of political domains. Although this phenomenon preceded Trump’s elevation to United States president, his ‘Muslim ban’ is one of the most blatant examples. In Australia, Islamophobic attitudes are most obviously attributed to fringe parties such as One Nation, led by staunch anti-Muslim advocate Pauline Hanson. Another political outlier is former senator Fraser Anning, who after the 2019 murder of Muslims in a New Zealand mosque, blamed Muslim immigration as a cause (Baker, 2019). But the mainstream ruling Coalition (conservative) Party has consistently engaged in Islamophobic rhetoric, policy and practices with various members of parliament, including successive prime ministers, making public criticisms of Muslim birthrates, Muslim women’s clothing, Muslims’ supposed lack of integration, halal food and the threat posed to ‘us’ by Muslim terrorists (Latham, 2019a). Much mainstream online, print, television and radio media perpetuate the stereotypes that fuel populist discourses and amplify those that emerge from the political realm. In the United Kingdom, Khan and Mythen (2018, p. 94) postulate that media representations of Muslims are not static or uniform but ‘indexed to broader social, political and cultural currents’. This is evident within the Australian context, where hostility to Muslims is provoked by the influential Murdoch press, eager to seize upon perceived affronts to AngloAustralian culture (Patrick 2017). Murdoch’s national broadsheet, The Australian, ran a 2015 campaign described as ‘an open-minded but unflinching series of articles analysing Muslim Australia’ (The Australian, 2015). A 2017 study found that five Newscorp newspapers published an average of almost eight negative stories about Muslims every day that year. But the focus on Islam is not confined to the Murdoch press. Within mainstream media there is barely any contestation of anti-Islam and anti-Muslim stories (Brull, 2018). And celebrity television

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presenters are also complicit. An example is commercial television presenter Sonia Kruger, who called for Australia to close its borders to people of Islamic faith (Whitbourn, 2019). Social media is the most difficult to control, and interaction between social media and mainstream media arguably fosters bigotry and hatred. Furthermore, there is little critical analysis of the boundary between free speech and hate speech (Briskman, 2019). The most egregious accounts of Islam and its purported association with terrorism arise from commentators such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali, often championed in Murdoch publications. She grew up as a Muslim in Somalia and Kenya in a difficult family environment. She underwent female genital cutting, joined an extremist group and escaped to the West to avoid an arranged marriage. Hirsi Ali uses her personal story to make gross generalisations about all Muslims, which has brought her fame and fortune while fuelling populist anti-Muslim discourses. She has promoted her story as a right-wing Dutch politician, while working for conservative US think tank the American Enterprise Institute, and in her best-selling memoirs. She is influential among not only right-wing politicians and groups in a number of countries, but has also captured the hearts and minds of more left-leaning Westerners who find her views about the superiority of Western culture, particularly in relation to women, compelling. Hirsi Ali has on multiple occasions described Muslim women as weak victims and explicitly linked mainstream Islam, and therefore ordinary Muslims, with terrorism. When asked to clarify in an interview whether she thought radical Islam, rather than Islam in general, was a threat to the West she replied, No. Islam, period … we are at war with Islam. And there’s no middle ground in wars … you look them in the eye and flex your muscles and you say, ‘This is a warning. We won’t accept this anymore.’ There comes a moment when you crush your enemy. (Cited in van Bakel, 2007)

Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) CVE is based on the premise that terrorist acts can be prevented through the early identification and diversion of people that have ‘radicalised’ to the point where they are prepared to commit violence in support of their ideology. In Australia, it is funded by federal and state governments who argue that responsibility for identifying and reporting these potential criminals extends beyond the police to ordinary citizens. Between 2013 and 2019, the Australian Government spent $53 million on CVE (Dias, 2019). That figure is dwarfed by UK Government spending on its CVE program, Prevent, which totalled £186,760 million between 2008 and 2011 (O’Toole et al., 2016). Spending would have increased markedly from 2015, when Prevent mandated professionals to watch for signs of radicalisation and to report, exacerbating distrust between Muslims and the government (Spalek & Davanna, 2018).

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CVE training of social workers in Australia has been facilitated and hosted by the AASW, undertaken on a voluntary basis as Continuing Professional Development. In the UK, over 550,000 public sector workers had undergone mandatory training by mid-2016 (Jeory & Cockburn, 2016) and over 1 million public health workers have watched a CVE training video (Taylor, 2018). In Britain, social work is one of many institutionalised settings for state surveillance of Muslims under the Prevent program, along with council workers, dentists, doctors and other members of the ‘caring professions’. The AASW is the only Australian peak professional body to have contracted with government to deliver CVE training to its membership, despite government interest in extending it to doctors, psychologists and psychiatrists. The principal justification for this given to the authors was the diversification of income streams for the Association.

CVE is not ‘ideologically neutral’ Declaring something to be ‘ideologically neutral’ does not make it so. CVE programs were developed and continue to be funded to address terrorism committed by Muslims. In Australia, CVE training programs being rolled out to social workers, teachers and the general community were developed by Monash University’s Global Terror Research Centre with Victoria Police, Victoria Corrections, Victorian Department of Premier and Cabinet and the Australian Federal Police. They are based on the ‘behavioural indicator model’, which looked ‘primarily on “jihadist” terrorism’. Most peer reviewed publications, media articles and conference presentations arising from this project have been on Islamic terrorism (Latham, 2018). When Australian Government MP George Christensen spoke at an antiMuslim ‘Reclaim Australia’ rally in 2015, then foreign minister Julie Bishop told ABC radio, I don’t know anything about the organisation. I certainly haven’t been briefed on it. I’ve been briefed intensively and extensively on Islamic extremism and other threats to national security but I can certainly say that the security forces in Australia are keeping a very close eye on any form of extremism. She also remarked that of 400 extremists were being monitored by the government, none were right-wing (Hunter, 2015). Muslims remain the ongoing focus of CVE programs. Four years after Julie Bishop’s comments, and six months after an Australian right-wing terrorist slaughtered 51 Muslims in two New Zealand mosques, the Australian Government’s National Terrorism Threat Advisory System still advises that ‘the primary terrorist threat in Australia is from a small number of Islamist extremists’ (Australian National Security, 2019). Most reports to Prevent authorities in the UK are for concerns about ‘Islamist’ extremism despite them being a minority of the population.

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After the terrorist killings in New Zealand, while first drafting this chapter, we thought the tragedy might prompt reflection on the conflation of Muslims and terrorists and state ideology where surveillance of entire Muslim populations has become the accepted norm. But just weeks later, former Liberal MP Amanda Vanstone, a moderate, wrote an article in a mainstream newspaper in which she argued concerns about Muslim immigration were reasonable, saying, ‘The problem we all face is the not knowing who is and who is not a terrorist’ (Latham, 2019b). Despite similar comments previously creating a public outcry, there was no reaction to Vanstone’s remarks. The idea has become thoroughly normalised. Risk factors listed in CVE education as signs of potential radicalisation use coded references to Muslims and imprecise indicators. A fact sheet for social workers developed with the AASW under the auspices of the Australian New Zealand Counter Terrorism Committee lists as possible radicalisation triggers: confrontations with family or friends; changes in living or employment situations; health, addiction, anger and social problems; and ‘overseas events that harm their community, family or friends’. Advice to health workers about the UK’s Prevent program notes that its aim is to stop people becoming terrorists, that it is ‘about identifying people and behaviour BEFORE it becomes criminal’ (NHS, 2017, p. 22) and that health workers ‘may notice unusual changes in the behaviour of patients and/ or colleagues’ (NHS 2017, 23). Factors that may indicate a cause for concern include people feeling ‘both distant from their parents/family and cultural and religious heritage, and uncomfortable with their place in society around them’ (NHS 2017, p. 24); family tensions; limited career options; and grievances including a rejection of UK foreign policy, distrust of Western media and perceptions that UK public policy like Prevent is discriminatory. Another reason CVE is not ‘ideologically neutral’ is because it is being implemented in a global political context of widespread, mainstreamed Islamophobia in which Muslims and terrorism are conflated. Over 40 per cent of the general population has admitted to having concerns about Muslims when given the chance to express their opinion anonymously online (Yosufzai, 2017). Over half of surveyed Muslims report having experienced discrimination in an Australian healthcare setting (Blair et al., 2017, p. 13). Research on Prevent training in the NHS raised concerns that Invoking ‘gut feeling’ and intuition as the bases upon which staff should make referrals is unscientific, and our survey shows that staff are inclined to use popular culture representations as guides to radicalisation. This reliance on ‘intuition’ also risks allowing unconscious bias to influence referrals. (Heath-Kelly & Strausz, n.d., p. 51) Failing to acknowledge the bigoted context in which ‘neutral’ training is rolled out deepens the vulnerability of an already marginalised group. CVE is a form of ‘disciplinary power’, a type of power that ensures subjects, in this case young Muslims, are always monitored; CVE policies and practices

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ensure that the power to ‘see’ the young Muslim is vastly expanded (Yassine & Briskman, 2019). Despite the fact that Australian and US terrorists from the extreme right have murdered over 100 people in the past two years, the Western public still overwhelmingly associates terrorism with Muslims. Andersen and Mayerl (2018) argue that high-profile terrorist attacks by Muslims and a political climate in which both populists and the right-wing of established political parties link the threat of terrorism to Muslims have created an inextricable link between Islam and terrorism in the minds of many Germans and other Europeans. In an Australian survey of government stakeholders, community leaders and general community members, an overwhelming majority believed that there was a strong and well-established perceived link between Islam and terrorist ideology and activity in public discourse and in the community (Tahiri & Grossman 2013, p. 77). Another Australian study found fear of terrorism is strongly related to Islamophobia and that ‘contact with Muslims has a salutary impact in alleviating fear of terrorism’ (Hassan & Martin 2015, p. 43). People understand the connection between Muslims and terrorism, extremism and radicalisation, even if these connections are denied. Grossman et al. (2016, pp. 34–35) concluded that ‘the tensions inherent in the term radicalisation and the multiplicity of ways that it can be interpreted has ultimately, if inadvertently, resulted in the securitisation of Muslims and the creation of suspect communities’. This was reflected in the Australian CVE training run for social workers by the AASW, which received government funding to run workshops on ‘Building Resilience and Preventing Radicalisation to Violent Extremism’. In 2018, around 300 social workers participated in these workshops and, in early 2019, more workshops were held, some of which booked out shortly after a Melbourne murder by a Muslim man in what was deemed to be a terrorist incident. The training material for the AASW workshops reflects its background of primarily being aimed at ‘Islamist’ terrorism. An earlier incarnation of the training manual declared, ‘the violent extremist ideology which presents the major threat to Australia is that perpetrated or inspired by terrorist groups such as Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), al Qa’ida (AQ) and other similar groups’. It further argued, ‘membership of far-right groups has never been particularly high, and Australia has not experienced anything like the levels of right-wing extremism and violence that has impacted Europe and North America’ (AASW 2018, p. 6). While these and other direct references to Muslims as the targets of the training have been removed from the current training manual, other statements make the same associations by making coded references to the number of Australians killed by ‘violent extremists’ overseas and to those who have been killed ‘actively fighting in conflicts overseas’ (AASW 2019, p. 18). Comments made by trainers and participants in the training, which was attended by the authors in two different states, demonstrate the assumption that the training is primarily aimed at Muslims, even if it is not explicit and

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even though the training manual includes examples of other extremists. For example, comments about violent extremism included: ‘faith and radicalisation are intertwined’; ‘migration’; ‘different cultures’; ‘an emerging issue that is rare but with a high impact’; ‘not just terror, mental health and cultural issues cross over’; ‘now the focus is on religious aspects’; ‘every religion has extremist elements’; and ‘martyrdom can be a factor’. CVE programs are justified in the name of safeguarding individuals from being exploited by terrorist recruiters. Younis and Jadhav (2019, p. 405) argue, ‘British healthcare staff are currently trained in counter-radicalisation within the purview of safeguarding, placing radicalisation alongside other safety concerns such as child abuse’. But we argue this is dishonest. As a respondent in a report into CVE training in Britain’s NHS said, ‘When you do safeguarding, the person sat in front of you is your main concern because you’re trying to protect that person; whereas with [Prevent], you’re protecting the state from that person’ (Heath-Kelly & Strausz n.d., p. 23). A whistleblower who has delivered Prevent training in the NHS had similar concerns, observing that Safeguarding duties only apply to adults deemed vulnerable, with care and support needs, who are experiencing, or are at risk of, abuse or neglect and are unable to protect themselves against such treatment. Local authorities will dismiss a safeguarding concern if the individual does not meet those criteria … I have never, ever had a concern raised to me about a white, non-Muslim or far-right person. Concerns have only ever been raised about Muslims. (Taylor, 2018) Social workers working with Muslims also understand the connection between Muslims and CVE. In 2016, Western Sydney University conducted research funded by the federal Attorney General’s Department to determine whether social service organisations in Western Sydney, many of which employed social workers, were prepared to accept referrals of those at risk of ‘violent extremism’ from a national security hotline. The researchers tried to avoid having the professionals they interviewed conflate violent extremism with terrorism and Islam, but found this imposible. Their report states, ‘Without Islam being mentioned, all research participants were cognizant of the CVE rhetoric being directed at the Muslim population of Australia’ (Dunn et al. 2016, p. 19). Although the research mainly targeted services which engaged with Muslim youth, none of those interviewed saw radicalisation to violent extremism as a major issue. Many made the point that in an economically deprived area, disengagement from school, homelessness, drugs, alcohol, mental health, crime and unemployment were far more urgent problems. They suggested that addressing these issues required long-term structural change but that they received inadequate and unstable funding to work towards this.

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A recurring theme among the stakeholders was that young Muslims had no ‘safe space’ in which to express political opinions about war or religion without this drawing negative attention from authorities. Most organisations thought that politicians and the media contributed to the isolation of young Muslims. CVE was seen as a top-down approach associated with government and police that exacerbated the lack of belonging felt by many young people and stigmatised the entire Muslim community. Some services refused to even discuss accepting referrals from the national security hotline. Several participants acknowledged stereotyping Muslims was a major issue. One worker explained how discussing CVE affected the organisation’s relationship with the community it served, including rejecting CVE funding as it was seen as aligning with government assumptions about Muslims.

CVE harms Muslims Under the UK’s Prevent program, Muslim children have been reported for using common Arabic words such as alhamdulillah (thank God) and Allahu akbar (God is great); starting to wear a headscarf; drawing a ‘cooker bomb’ (later found to be a cucumber) in kindergarten; receiving toy guns as presents from their parents; pro-Palestinian activism; and borrowing a book about terrorism from the school library. On investigation, 95 per cent of all Prevent referrals for ‘Islamist’ extremism in 2016–17 were found not to warrant counter-terrorism intervention, including those of 1,000 children aged under 15 and 900 aged between 15 and 20 (UK Home Office, 2018). As Qureshi (2019) points out, if right-wing referrals to Prevent were triggered at the same level as they are for Muslims, the system would very quickly be completely overwhelmed. Significant numbers of mainstream politicians, journalists and public commentators would fall into its orbit, let alone the tens of thousands of people who support or make comments inciting hatred and violence against Muslims online. The reality is that right-wing extremism falls under the radar in populist constructions of ‘terror’ even though, as other chapters in this book emphasise, right-wing populism is sweeping the world. The consequences of being mistakenly reported as a Muslim extremist have been profound. Not surprisingly, many children, their families and friends lost trust in the professionals, including social workers, who reported or investigated them. Children became reluctant to speak up in class, moved schools and lost friendships and community connections. In a scathing report by Human Rights Watch UK (2016), Prevent was said to have led to a series of human rights violations, including the right to education, freedom of expression, freedom of religion and privacy. Muslim health workers report feeling frightened to voice dissent about Prevent training in healthcare settings. Younis and Jadhav (2019) interviewed psychiatrists and psychologists who said they felt unsafe, or reported that they cried, and/or felt angry and upset during the training. Most remained silent

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because they feared the consequences of speaking out, but a Muslim psychiatrist trainee who during training cited the Royal College of Psychiatrist’s statement against Prevent was later investigated. She said, ‘everyone who was Muslim and non-white, their reaction was: “why did you say anything?” Their reaction was one of horror and disbelief. Not at what happened, but horror and disbelief that I had said something in the training – like, “how stupid can you be?”’ (Younis & Jadhav 2019, p. 411). Another NHS employee was reported by her colleagues because she started wearing the hijab after Ramadan. Summoned to a meeting with Human Resources and later visited by police at home, she described being emotional and unsure of what would happen to her next. She later left her job (Forster, 2016). In the AASW training, social workers expressed concern about risk averse workplaces, and the impression we were left with after the training was that it would make people more likely to report suspicions to alleviate themselves of responsibility should an incident then occur.

Social work should stand with Muslims against CVE programs Governments are unlikely to wind back CVE programs without significant public pressure. It is therefore incumbent on civil society to take collective action against them. A letter to the Guardian newspaper signed by almost 400 lawyers, activists, academics, and Muslim organisations stated that Prevent wasn’t making anyone safer but was instead damaging the fabric of trust in society, silencing Muslims and dissent, and institutionalising Islamophobia (Guardian, 2016). Social workers are bound by ethical codes that stress the importance of social justice. Katherine van Wormer (2018) posits that a theory of social justice must examine concepts of domination and oppression. Cultural safety is a term that has entered the social work vernacular. Cultural safety implies a need for both practitioner and institutional cultures to avoid victim-blaming in the provision and delivery of services, as well as privilege the client’s perspective in the helping process including outcomes (Ow, 2019). This is nigh impossible within a CVE framework where power imbalances are even more obvious than in less contentious spheres of practice. The Prevent program has operated for longer, mandates reporting of concerns, and includes a far greater range of ‘caring professionals’. In the context of generalised criticism of Prevent, some social workers are actively organising against the Prevent agenda, with the British Association of Social Workers convening meetings with other stakeholders to discuss the damaging impact the Prevent program has on Muslim children and families. In Australia, a small number of individual social workers have discussed their concerns about the AASW offering CVE training with its officers over the past two years. As of yet, the organisation has made no concrete commitment to stop this. However, in the wake of the Christchurch massacre, Lobna Yassine, a Muslim member of the AASW, received endorsement for a

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letter condemning its involvement in providing CVE training from more than 40 social work academics and social workers in less than 24 hours. The letter, dated 19 March 2019, read, in part: The attack on Muslims in Christchurch a few days ago has prompted me to write this letter … Although I have grave concerns about the overall impacts of the CVE package itself, I am even more concerned about the AASW’s lack of 1) critical approach and questioning of the CVE package and 2) the absence of consultation with Muslim social workers on the matter of CVE. … For a profession that prides itself on the inclusion of marginalised voices, I am deeply disappointed that consultation was not sought by the people affected most by this CVE package. Every single time the AASW advertises this training, it is like rubbing salt into the wound … Additionally, this decision by the AASW brings the whiteness of the Association centre-stage, highlighting how deeply embedded it remains … This letter is asserting that the AASW should re-consider its participation in a governmental program that is Islamophobic, antiMuslim, and inherently racist, regardless of what individual social workers choose to do, or not do, with the ‘awareness training’ they receive. We have seen how this type of rhetoric ends for Muslims … please hear me when I say that we, Australian Muslims, are literally fearing for our lives. Our lives are at risk, and CVE policies and programs are complicit. Please prioritise our lives over reputation, bureaucracy and politics.

Concluding comments In an era of right-wing nationalist populism, adherence to core social work values is faced with rupture. Social work requires depth of understanding and critical thinking skills to work confidently with Muslim communities, particularly given the socio-political domain of competing tensions (Crabtree, Husain & Spalek, 2017). Practitioners need to come to non-biased understandings of Islam and avoid stereotyping, a difficult task given that for a majority of the population knowledge is gained from inaccurate and sensationalised media reporting (Robinson et al., 2017). By colluding with the state, social work is at risk of aligning itself with Western imperialism, inequality, racism and Islamophobia in particular. Additionally, cooperating in securitisation approaches creates harms to Muslim communities, whose members are under surveillance and subject to prosecution. Social workers become active participants in Lean’s 2012 construct of the ‘Islamophobia industry’. The perception of Muslims as suspects (Hussein, 2016) rather than as people with rights afforded by the nation state and performed through social practices including in the professions, is a matter which should be of great concern to social work academics, policymakers and practitioners.

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Social work cannot challenge this alone, but can join in alliances that push back against the increasing incursion into societies of right-wing nationalist populism and its uncritical adoption by institutions within those societies. Alliances with organisations that reject hate have the potential to expose instances where collusion and partnerships have superseded core values and ethical relationships.

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Whitbourn, M. (2019, February 15). Sonia Kruger ‘Vilified’ Muslims in Today Show Segment. Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved from: https://www.smh.com.au/enterta inment/tv-and-radio/sonia-kruger-vilified-muslims-in-today-show-segm ent-20190215-p50y11.html Yassine, L. & L. Briskman (2019). Islamophobia and Social Work Collusion. In D. Baines, B. Bennett, S. Goodwin and M. Rawsthorne (eds), Working Across Difference: Social Work, Social Policy and Social Justice. London: Red Globe Press, pp. 55–70. Yosufzai, R. (2017, November 29). Why Do 25 per cent of Australians Feel Negativity Towards Muslims? SBS News. Retrieved from: https://www.sbs.com.au/news/ why-do-25-per-cent-of-australians-feel-negativity-towards-muslims Younge, G. (2019, April 5). White Supremacy Feeds on Mainstream Encouragement. That Has To Stop. Guardian. Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/comm entisfree/2019/apr/05/white-supremacy. Younis, T. & S. Jadhav. (2019). Keeping Our Mouths Shut: The Fear and Racialized Self-Censorship of British Healthcare Professionals in PREVENT Training. Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry 43(3), 404–424. doi:10.1007/s11013-019-09629-6

15 ‘They live like animals’ Migrants, Roma and nationalist populism Eva Kourova and Stephen A. Webb

Introduction Derogatory talk which likens humans to animals is commonplace in elitist discourse. Rachel Johnson, sister of Tory Party leadership contender Boris Johnson, went on a ‘poverty safari’ for the posh magazine The Lady and reported to the Radio Times about the poverty-stricken working classes, saying ‘There’s this terrible sense of human waste. They’re existing, rather than living, like battery hens. Apart from the telly and the cigarettes, they are living like animals’ (Independent, 2018). In 2013, describing a New Year’s Eve bar brawl in which several people were seriously injured and some of the attackers were reportedly Roma, Hungarian journalist and founding member of the ruling Fidesz party, Bayer said ‘a significant part of the Roma are unfit for co-existence. They are not fit to live among people. These Roma are animals and they behave like animals.’ He went on to say ‘They are incapable of human communication. Inarticulate sounds pour out of their bestial skulls’ (Guardian, 2013). In 2016 Bayer, sparked further outrage in Hungary for comparing Roma to animals and saying they ‘shouldn’t be allowed to exist’ (Der Spiegel, 2013). Similarly, Nigel Farage on visiting a Roma camp outside Sofia in 2013 said ‘The whole thing was truly shocking, I mean living like animals’ (Bienkov, 2013). Zsolt Bayer was talking about the Roma, who are the largest and, arguably, most discriminated minority in Europe. Roma are Hungary’s largest minority group, with 600,000 to 700,000 members. In July 2013, Jean-Marie Le Pen, member of the European Parliament and president of the Front National party, said ‘I’ll give you a prognosis: you have some concerns, it appears, with a few hundred Roma who have a stinging, let’s say stinking, presence in the city … that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I announce that within 2014 around 50,000 Roma will arrive in Nice.’ Following which the European Roma and Travellers Forum (Ertf), SOS Racisme and the French Union of Travellers Association joined to launch legal proceedings against Le Pen (International Business Times, 2013). There is a growing body of evidence which suggests that Alt-Right organisations are spreading this sort of dehumanising hate speech on a wide scale. Forscher and Kteily’s (2017) survey study of Alt-Right activists shows how they regard other non-white groups as hunched-over proto-humans on a measurement scale.

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In November 2013, Labour Party MP and former UK Home Secretary, David Blunkett, warned that British cities could face race riots as an influx of Roma migrants creates ‘frictions’ with local people. Anti-social behaviour by Roma people in his Sheffield constituency resulted in ‘understandable tensions’ among the indigenous community that must be addressed to avert disorder. Mr Blunkett went on to say, ‘Roma migrants from Slovakia must change their culture and send their children to school, stop dumping rubbish and loitering in the streets in order to soothe tensions’ (Daily Telegraph, 2013). Farage later applauded Blunkett for his ‘courage’ for speaking out and invited him to join UKIP.

The rise of right-wing nationalist populism Cas Mudde (2007) suggests that populist politics is a loose set of ideas that share three core features: anti-establishment, authoritarianism, and nativism. First, populism is understood as a politics that emphasises faith in the wisdom and virtue of ordinary people (the silent majority) over the ‘corrupt’ establishment, who during the Brexit process were often referred to as ‘self-serving liars destroying our Nation’. Second, right-wing nationalist populists also characteristically ‘display authoritarian leanings, favouring personal power exerted by strong and charismatic leadership which is thought to reflect the will of the people’ (Inglehart & Norris, 2016, p. 6). Third, right-wing nationalist populism typically emphasises ‘nativism or xenophobic nationalism, which assumes that the ‘people’ are a uniform whole, and that states should exclude people from other countries and cultures’ (ibid., p. 7). Right-wing populism favours racial homogeneity over multiculturalism, national self-interest over development aid, and closed borders over the free flow of peoples (ibid., p. 7). It feeds into insecurities by promoting a hostile approach to ‘outsiders’ such as immigrants. As Goodwin (2018) states in reviewing the literature, the ‘majority of academic studies over the past three decades have found that objective economic indicators such as income have only a weak effect or none at all when it comes to explaining the appeal of right-wing national populism’. Inglehart and Norris (2016) maintain that it is largely grievances against rapid cultural change that explains the rise of authoritarian populism. In a later study using large data sets, they show how ‘This triggers an authoritarian reflex – emphasising the importance of maintaining collective security by enforcing conformity with traditional mores, a united front against outsiders, and loyalty to strong leaders’ (Goodwin, 2018, p. 13). Fear, threat and danger can work effectively in favour of right-wing nationalist populist propaganda. The ethnic groups they target are heavily affected by poverty, precarity and social exclusion. Most vulnerable are unemployed youth, destitute women and children (Goodwin, 2018). Rightwing politicians have cultivated stereotypes by spreading fear of an imminent and catastrophic threat represented by migrants, Muslims, Jews, Africans, Turks and Roma among others. In this sense we can understand far-right

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populist racism directed at Roma as a type of politically racist response based on moral exclusion and sentiments of loathing. According to the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (2012, p. 12), there are 6 million Roma in the European Union, the majority living in Eastern Europe. Amnesty International (2012) estimates that with 1.85 million Romani, Romania is home to the largest Romani population in Eastern Europe, followed by Bulgaria (750,000), Hungary (700,000) and Macedonia (197,750) (Thorton, 2015). Historically, Roma have shunned the moral economy, the proprietorialism and material values of Western capitalism. Describing the Romani’s continued resistance in the 1980s and 1990s to both sedentary forms of wage labour as well as ‘proletarianisation’, Robbie McVeigh felt that ‘In a period of Thatcherite/Blairite hegemony they represent the continued possibility of alternatives; indeed, the continued possibility of resistance’ (1997, p. 25). Racial persecution of Roma in Europe was experienced in its most violent form with the Romani Holocaust – also known as the Porajmos, the Pharrajimos, and the Samudaripen – a genocide conducted by Nazi Germany and its World War II allies against Europe’s Romani people. Across Europe today it is relatively straightforward to find examples of far-right populist violence, intimidation and demonstrations against Roma people. Moreover, some government policy explicitly discriminates against Roma, with the radical right increasingly framing social policy in Hungary, Italy, Austria, Denmark, Switzerland and Ukraine. In the UK the Independent newspaper reported that Roma gypsies have been warned about the risk of deportation after Brexit if they fail to possess the correct paperwork, amid fears of a Windrush-style crackdown by the UK Home Office. They will be forced to prove they have lived in the UK for more than five years. Immigration lawyer Christopher Desira warned that ‘travellers should start gathering paperwork such as tax documents, education certificates, bank statements or employment contracts if they do not have a passport’ (Independent, 2018). In the authors’ home city of Glasgow, Roma people habitually carry around their employment contracts in fear of deportation. There are an estimated 300,000 Roma living in the UK. In this context, the opposition to Roma is compounded by hostility to Romanians and Bulgarians. An Institute of Race Relations report (Burnett, 2013) on racial violence states that: political parties have vied with each other to prove to be ‘tougher’ on issues relating to ‘race’, immigration and asylum, in part as a strategy to ensure that voters do not turn to far-right groups. Arguably though, the opposite has happened, with far-right groups benefiting from having their core messages legitimized. (Burnett, 2013, p. 4) UKIP’s leader Nigel Farage makes extensive use of anti-Roma discourses to gather political support (Riley-Smith, 2013). In Italy, the far-right interior

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minister, Matteo Salvini, said Roma should be counted and classified, and if they are foreign, expelled. Salvini has consistently taken aim at Italy’s Roma, repeatedly calling for their ‘nomad camps’ to be bulldozed because he says they are hotbeds of crime. He called for ‘a mass cleansing, street by street, piazza by piazza, neighbourhood by neighbourhood’ and said ‘We need to be tough because there are entire parts of our cities, entire parts of Italy, that are out of control’ (Reuters World News, 2018). Reporting on the nomad camps in Italy, Sigona (2003) argues the Roma have been portrayed, by the likes of Salvini, as the ‘inner enemy’ and a ‘threatening internal other’ against whom non-Roma groups must build communities of identity and a sense of unity. She claims the rhetoric of urban decay merges with prejudice against the Roma to construct the ‘nomad camps’ as securitised spaces of pollution threatening populations (Clough Marinaro & Sigona, 2011). The Romani scholar Ian Hancock observed that ‘The idea of a register, which is not limited to Italy, smacks of neo-Nazism’ and goes on to say this ‘simply reinforces the notion that this is a population nobody wants’ (Al-Jazeera, 2018). Hepworth (2012) notes that Romani camps are to be found all over Italy and host around 40,000 residents. They are known as ‘nomad camps’, implying that their inhabitants are vagrants who do not settle in one place. She investigates how cultural concepts such as nomadism are employed in Italy to legitimise segregation policy. The Konik refugee camp operating in Montenegro since 1994 was mostly comprised of Roma and Balkan Egyptian inhabitants living in appalling conditions and forgotten by nearly everyone in Europe (Bass, 2017). It was officially closed in December 2018. In Greece, hostility to Roma and a reasserted Orthodox identity were the key ingredients to the success of LAOS (the ‘Popular Orthodox Rally’). In April 2018 in the Ukraine, a Romany camp at Kyiv’s Lysa Hora nature reserve was attacked after dark by more than a dozen members of the farright nationalist group C14. Serhiy Mazur, a prominent C14 member, boasted the attack was a celebration of Hitler’s birthday, in a widely shared Facebook post that included a photograph of a man dressed in a C14 jacket standing beside a burning tent (Radio Free Europe, 26 April 2018). The Roma inhabitants were sprayed with tear gas by C14 gang members. Roma communities were attacked again in Lviv, Ukraine on 10 May and 23 June 2018. The C14 leaders have boasted that they are ‘cleaning up Ukraine’s cities’ (New York Times, 2018). In March 2013, a small far-right group in western Romania proposed paying €300 (£254) to any Roma woman who came forward to be sterilised. The head of the National Liberal Party’s youth wing, Rares Buglea, voiced his support for the idea on Facebook (Independent, 2013). The notion of cleansing as it relates to a racist trope of abjection is discussed in the next section (see Kourova, 2019).

Abject citizens and racialised cleansing Julia Kristeva, in Powers of Horror (1982) dramatically illustrates how abjection occurs in acts of repulsion, loathing and rejection through a perpetual process or series of acts through which the indigenous subject comes to

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constitute itself through the expulsion of that which it is not. The abject threatens the subject with contamination and defilement, inducing violent reactions, repulsions and convulsions; those ‘dark revolts of being’ (1982, p. 1). Judith Butler (1993) further comments on the concept of the abject as threatening the boundaries of the self: This exclusionary matrix by which subjects are formed thus requires the simultaneous production of a domain of abject beings, those who are not yet ‘subjects’, but who form the constitutive outside to the domain of the subject. The abject designates here precisely those ‘unliveable’ and ‘uninhabitable’ zones of social life which are nevertheless densely populated by those who do not enjoy the status of the subject. (1993, p. 3) Abjection bears similarities to the affective dimension of disgust in that both involve aversion to and rejection of a source that gives rise to feelings of repulsion. Disgust and contamination by association figures powerfully in the sentiment that the abject conjures between the ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ (Manning, 2010). Roma gypsies are often represented in far-right populist literature as abject and a blight on a ‘civilised Europe’. To give a feel for this, an AskReddit (2014) discussion post – which generated 1,500 responses – asked ‘What makes Europeans hate Gypsies so much? Are they really that bad?’ The responses – which assign a precise meaning and demonstrable content – are entirely negative and hateful in localising the Roma as contagion as: killing and eating swans; ‘fat ginger pikeys’; stealing lead pipes; refusing work or turning up late; kidnapping white babies; leaving trash on the streets; having no concept of a future; breeding aggressive dogs; stealing hubcaps; representing a parasitic infestation of host cultures; refusing to pay taxes; wearing the skimpiest of clothing; leeching social security payments; superstitious about frogs; partaking in child prostitution; selling and eating horses; shitting on sidewalks and pissing against trees; begging for money; nicking roof tiles and garden tools; raping lonely white women; having no fixed address; slum dwelling in dirty caravans; manipulating and lazy ‘scumbags’; refusing to integrate; robbing old women; trading metal for cash; swimming in dirty pools; selling lavender heather flowers; Flamenco dancing; using kids to rob pedestrians; school refusal; cursing innocent people; selling children for adoption; and increasing knife crime. There is no common ground here. One anonymous commentator graphically reported that: Also a few years back a friend of mine heard this really weird creepy howling coming from the petrol station which their house backed onto. Definitely human but animalistic [italics added]. It turned out later that was the sounds the gypsies were making when they were kicking the solo petrol station attendant there to death.

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Another expressing far-right sentiment towards the Roma said: Think of it this way: If Adolf Hitler had focused entirely on the Gypsies, and ignored everyone else like Jews or homosexuals, all of Europe, from the Normandy Coast of France to the gates of Moscow even, would be happy, goose-stepping, nuclear-armed Nazis today. (AskReddit, 2014) In reply another respondent asked, ‘So the Nazis had the right idea against the gypsies?’ At the time of writing this chapter France 24 reported on a group representing ethnic Roma calling on French authorities for protection after several communities were targeted by vigilante attacks sparked by false rumours of attempted child kidnappings. They proclaimed: We are calling today on the interior ministry […] for immediate protection by way of round-the-clock police presence, Anina Ciuciu, a lawyer and spokesperson for The Voice of Roma group, told French media. She blamed the rumours on ‘a revival of the medieval stereotype’ of Roma in which ‘gypsies are likened to thieves and child-catchers’. (The World and All Its Voices, 2019)

Roma as dirt, filth and loathing1 In a report commissioned by Stonewall (2004) Roma people were criticised in cultural terms for not belonging to a community and allegedly having a negative impact on the local environment. They are described as unsightly, dirty or unhygienic (p. 12) with hard distinctions drawn between the racially homogenised tribe and the Romani ‘aliens’. In this section we show how categories of dirt and filth are particularly useful tools to access racial prejudices against Roma. As Newell (2016) states that highly charged discourses of ‘racism, ethnocentrism, and homophobia stem from a history of (re)iterations of cultural difference through the supposedly empirical category of dirt’ (p. 12). For the European extreme right, ethnicity is not so much part of the populist distinction between the people and the elite, who are part of the same ethnic group, but rather of the cultural distinction between ‘natives’ and ‘aliens’, in which the latter are considered to be part of neither the people nor the elite (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2017). Populism involves a predominantly ‘moralistic imagination’ which characterises different forms of life by opposing a small minority of people who are positioned outside the ‘authentic people’ or else reluctantly accepted as ‘strangers within’ but do not share the authentic racial culture. It is evident that authenticity is a historically contingent concept and ideologically motivated category of racial value. According to Opotow, ‘moral exclusion occurs when individuals or groups are perceived as outside the boundary [with]in which moral values, rules and considerations of fairness apply’ (1990, p. 1). The term ‘delegitimisation’ is

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relevant here because it involves a social psychological process that permits moral exclusion. For Bar-Tal, delegitimisation constitutes the extreme case of stereotyping and prejudice (1989). So, the stakes are high because valuations of morality and worth, in other words the way that people live, are brought into question. This does not mean that Roma are outside society. Romani are assimilated as an element within society (just as the outlaw is always ‘in the law’) and a type of inclusive exclusion takes place whereby the inside is already marked by what it wants to exclude. Roma is included through exclusion, hovering between the inside and the outside, the ‘self ’ and the ‘other,’ the citizen and the non-citizen. The concept of ‘inclusive exclusion’, developed by Agamben (1998) in his analysis of regimes of power in Nazi death camps, shows how sovereign power relies on the ability to decide on whether certain forms of life are worthy of living. Controversially, he argues that any politics organised around human rights cannot help but reproduce sovereign or state violence. From this perspective we can understand racist population management control of Roma as control of liminal subjects, whose relationship with the remainder of society is best characterised by this notion of inclusive exclusion. As liminal subjects Roma are most accurately positioned at the nexus of the concepts of surplus, abjection, and dangerousness. With liberal discourse, on the other hand, there is a ‘colour blind’ approach involving a coupling of humanitarian and liberal values; that is, asking the ‘authentic’ people to see Roma as individuals with humanity, assuring ‘us’ (the hosts) that ‘they’ are really just like ‘us.’ The ‘civilising role’ of the normative indigenous white community is to make Roma more like them and turn them from ‘idle loafers into real workers’. However, in the more extreme right-wing national populist imagination the perceived aliens do not belong and have appropriated citizenship and rights under false pretences. This elicitation of ‘illegitimacy’ and of a ‘threat to European citizenship’ (Kóczé, 2018, p. 463) therefore stereotypes Roma as fake neighbours with no community. Moreover, as Tileaga˘ (2007) explains, this kind of extreme prejudice and difference is also marked by an absence: ‘Romanies have no homeland like other nations. As such, extreme prejudice contains or implies the “differentiating power” of the absence of a national space’ (p. 733). Research consistently shows that Roma are often portrayed as the ‘inner enemy’ against whom the indigenous non-Roma groups must build communities of identity and sense of unity to fend off (Sigona, 2003). According to the right-wing national populists, we must somehow immunise ourselves against this ‘threat’ and be rid of conspiracies to undermine ‘white democracies’. It doesn’t take a big stretch of the imagination to see how the Nazi slogans about the racial purity of the people emanate from this notion of authenticity. Here we want to illustrate more closely how dirt and filth are the mediating categories for the intercultural encounter between different forms of life – the European ‘natives’ and so-called Roma ‘aliens’.

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Throughout the centuries, the Roma ‘othering’ in Europe has not stayed the same, but by the turn of the twentieth century it had become quite a specific policing practice (Willems, 1997). In 1899 a conference in Munich called ‘The Gypsy Filth’ was held, and the ‘Central Office for Fighting the Gypsy Nuisance’ was created. The plan was to round up Roma, and a system was proposed whereby bells would be rung in village halls as a means of signalling their presence (Hancock, 1987). Accordingly, Roma people became variously described as vermin, filth and dirt and possibly infectious. As Newell comments, the category of dirt puts matter firmly into place, it ‘fixes it in an interpretive hierarchy that relates to the sight and behavior of people and draws what is hidden into view’ (2016, p. 8). Similarly, Mary Douglas claimed that dirt marks the limits of a society’s understanding of itself and signifies people’s need to withdraw from any habitus that is perceived to be dirty, and, in reaction, to re-assert their own interpretive boundaries (2002, pp. 117–140). For Douglas, ideas of (im)purity and danger hold members of a society to account to one another, and they do so with a character and visceral intensity that stems from and rebounds upon that particular form of society. Therefore, for Douglas the ordering of dirt and filth is intimately tied to power structures that prescribe ‘schemes of classification’ around any threats. Fear of pollution and loathing of the ‘dirty native’ is a matter of moral classification. As Kourova says about racial purity and pollution ‘The question to ask is when and how does one become dirty and when and how does one become clean?’ (2019, p. 2). Newell (2016) further reminds us that the figure of the ‘dirty native’ helped legitimise European cultural expansion into the most intimate corners of Africans’ daily lives. In the eyes of imperial commentators, ‘dirty natives’ were far more dangerous than objects discarded by the wayside, or urban trash, and their ubiquitous presence in colonial cities caused colonial governments to enforce regimes of sanitation and urban racial segregation. If cleanliness is constitutive of a civilised society, dirt is indicative of the loathing of ‘heathen’ and ‘barbarian’ society. Roma are often described in racist literature in terms of smells, odours and putridity. The Daily Express, reporting on a ‘migrant Roma camp’ in the French town of Nanterre, crafted a sensationalist headline: ‘Smell from Migrants’ Centre Is Making Locals’ Lives “a Living Hell”’ (13 September 2016). A racist olfactory with specific tropes of hygiene and cleanliness locates Roma on a grid of threat and value. As Connor (2011) describes: Cleanness withdraws; dirt advances or invades. Cleanness encloses; dirt exposes. This is why alien peoples are so often characterised as themselves a kind of dirt. They embody the admixtures and corruptions of time. When we loathe or are revolted by the dirty other person or people, we are recoiling from the invasive or erosive temporality they embody. (p. 9) In connecting this to ‘states of exception’ Agamben (2005) explains that the concentration camp creates dirt by reducing space, and thereby turns its very

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occupants into a kind of dirt. In his analysis of the violence of the state of exception he traces the connection between racism, colonialism, biopolitics and the camp.2 To describe Roma people as ‘living like animals’ is not only indicative of racist language, but also represents a form of speciesism, based on assumptions about human exceptionalism. ‘Speciesism’ was coined by Richard Ryder in 1970 to describe the anthropocentric practice of regarding different species as having unequal moral value, with humans being most valuable of all (Ryder, 1970). The net effect of speciesist populist discourse is to dehumanise the Romani by invoking and building a socio-moral order linked to notions of lesser humanity, or in this case non-humanity and abjection. Bar-Tal (1989) suggests that dehumanisation is a form of delegitimisation which serves to exclude certain ethnic groups from the realm of acceptable norms and values. Moreover, it is used to legitimise their inhumane treatment. Dehumanisation is seen as a form of moral exclusion, i.e. placing individuals or groups ‘outside the boundary in which moral values, rules and considerations of fairness apply. Those who are morally excluded are perceived as nonentities, expendable, or undeserving’ (Opotow, 1990, p. 1). Given the ideological aspects of speciesism – whereby pests and bugs are the most excluded animals from the scope of justice – it can also be argued that dehumanisation, too, serves to justify the system and to legitimise the social exclusion of certain ethnic groups, such as the Romani. Our broader argument links the way racism against groups such as Roma rests on an anthropocentric rationality which places human exceptionalism at the apex of all forms of life. Casting Roma as less than human and more like animals relies on this type of anthropocentric speciesism (Lynch, 2019).

Social work, bordering practices and racism In the UK it is evident that frontline social work takes place in a ‘hostile environment’ in relation to migrants and Roma people. Farmer (2017) shows that Roma and destitute migrant women are at significant risk of having their children taken into care and threatened with legal sanctions by social workers when it comes to issues of no resort to public funding. She demonstrates how the ‘Hostile Environment’ creates tensions between immigration legislation and social services’ statutory duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of Roma and destitute families with children. The Home Office’s 2012 Hostile Environment policy is a set of administrative and legislative measures deliberately designed to make staying in the United Kingdom as difficult as possible for people without leave to remain, in the hope that they may ‘voluntarily leave’ (Kirkup & Winnett, 2012). Under the Hostile Environment, fear and penury are systematically imposed on undocumented migrants and Roma (Broomfield, 2017). It is also apparent that an extreme-right nationalist populism is increasingly evident in the national media and that mainstream politicians are increasingly using right-wing nationalist populist

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rhetoric (Inglehart & Norris, 2018). Recent incendiary, populist language employed by the new British prime minister Boris Johnson, whereby he sets the ‘people against Parliament’ in his bid to drive through a no-deal Brexit, are indicative of this trend. The implications for the way this will impact on coal-face judgements, decisions and interventions in social work is unclear. We are aware from local ethnographic studies in Glasgow that social services work with Roma is often regarded as a Cinderella service (Kourova, 2019; Lynch, 2019). We are also cognizant that social workers are largely blind to the differences within Roma communities, often treating them as a homogeneous group. However, the extent to which far-right populist assumptions are smuggled into front-line practice is uncertain. We don’t properly understand if, in front-line practice, there is a logic of transmission and amplification of populist-influenced discrimination against Roma people. Without empirical research it’s not possible to discern the extent to which social work is vulnerable to the dangers of populist rhetoric. It thus remains an open question, since we have no supporting evidence or empirical findings to make any strong claims in this respect. We are able, however, to report with reference to media stories and representations as well as research on social work with Roma, on the potential effects of far-right populist extremism on social work. In the concluding section below, we focus on the way social work is increasingly drawn into bordering practices with Roma people, especially as it relates to child protection work. In 2012, Greek and Irish social services departments did something truly ironic. In three separate incidents, they took blond, blue-eyed children away from their Roma families and put them in state care. Why? They saw their light skin and assumed the children must have been stolen from their true families (USA Today, 2013). Allen and Riding (2018) have recently reported that Romani children in England are much more likely to be taken into state care than those of the majority population, and the numbers are rising. This research uses UK Department for Education (DfE) figures. Between 2009 and 2016 the number of Irish Travellers in care has risen by 400 per cent and the number of Romani children has risen 933 per cent (2015 & 2018). The DfE concludes that social workers ‘appear reticent to challenge their own presuppositions and assumptions toward the conceptual ‘Gypsy’. For this reason, they fail to recognise and understand the context in which their own automatic prejudice emerges and endures” (2018, p. 7). Gaba SmolinskaPoffley, an experienced specialist family case worker for the Roma Support Group, confirmed that ‘We have definitely seen an increasing number of enquiries and we hear more often from community members telling us there are more people being involved in child protection cases’ (Traveller Times, 2017). Using legal powers of statutory Care Proceedings (Section 20c in England & Wales), usually held in a family court, abuse and neglect are most frequently cited when social workers remove Roma children from their families. Allen and Riding conclude that child protection social workers are increasingly risk-averse and ‘overemphasise deficits and failures’, based on

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anti-Gypsy stereotypes, when it comes to working with Roma families (2018, pp. 29–31). Child protection professionals have distorted perceptions of ‘family culture’, which is attributed to a ‘close knit community’, and these are given as the main reasons why Romani and Traveller children are at more risk of harm than any other child (ibid., p. 41). While most of the Roma children taken into state care are accommodated in foster care placements, there is a history of placing them in residential secure units, often resulting in high rates of absconding. (One author recalls how, when they were working in a children’s residential secure unit in Derbyshire, England, the unit’s manager wryly remarked upon the reception of two Roma children: ‘They won’t be here long. These kids have an uncanny ability to escape from these types of secure accommodation.’ Sure enough, they had absconded within a week.) Social work is increasingly involved in bordering practices, as evident in the UK’s ‘Prevent’ strategy, which attempts to control the mobility, security and radicalisation of individuals brought to its notice (Vaughan-Williams & Pisani, 2018; also see Latham and Briskman chapter, 14). Social workers can be powerful gatekeepers in relation to racialised bordering practices such as the UK’s Hostile Environment policy on migration. These are administrative and street-level practices implemented by various state and non-state actors which regulate Roma residence permits and their access to health care, schooling, accommodation and welfare benefits. Health and social care practitioners also frequently refer Roma to immigration authorities such as the UK Home Office (e.g. the NHS Digital and NRPF Connect databases which allow the sharing of intelligence regarding cases reported, the identification of potential fraud, and the joint resolution of cases). ‘Deportability’ is at the heart of the unequal power relations associated with bordering practices of state and non-state gatekeepers. Social workers are charged with upholding the internal boundaries of the nation state by enforcing policies that are often expressly designed to avoid creating ‘incentives’ for unwanted Roma populations, in the above mentioned ‘Hostile Environment’ of the UK. Walsh (2018) argues that social workers pigeonhole Roma and migrant family members in terms of their immigration status and their subsequent entitlements, often at the expense of considerations about the welfare of children. In doing so they reify government policy in their decision-making processes. This prevalent UK practice can be described as ‘everyday bordering’: processes by which state bordering practices extend into everyday life (Tervonen et al., 2018). From an ethical perspective, social work needs to be vigilant about how ‘darker’ care(less) encounters – such as biased, disguised compliance claims, counter-terrorism officers dictating safeguarding, threshold indicators as the sole justification for intervention, and threats to remove children to state care – can reinforce the fears Roma people have about bordering practices. Previous experience of discrimination means that Roma people are distrustful of public institutions. It is likely that Roma families fear social work intervention and avoid visits to local authorities because of the risk of becoming entangled in legal wrangles about migration status, accommodation or child welfare and safety.

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Right-wing nationalist populist parties could win as many as a third of MEPs in the coming European Parliament elections. It’s clear that the cruel machinations of authoritarian populism – and its politics of exception – must be actively challenged. But before that can be done, it must be recognised and understood by professions such as social work. The racist treatment of the Roma is an acute and visible paradigm of the political space of contemporary Europe, which constantly disguises itself in often erratic ways. It is necessary that we learn to recognise its changing shape and content. This book goes some way to addressing this situation as it relates to social work, and offers solutions to mitigate Alt-Right and nationalist populist trends, recognising the importance of social work’s mission for social justice and human rights.

Notes 1 Throughout this chapter, the term ‘Roma’ is used to ‘refer to the many different sub-groups of Roma, belying the common assumption that the Roma are a single homogeneous minority’ (Amnesty International, 2012). 2 In drawing attention to the affective dimensions of racism, Patricia Clough (2010) refers to this as the ‘biomediated body,’ a definition of the body in terms of ‘what it can do – its affect’. When considering fear or loathing, this points to the potential for affectivity to characterise and to inform the operationality of matter itself (206–207).

References Agamben, G. (1998) Homo sacer: Sovereign power and bare life. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Agamben, G. (2005) State of exception. Translated by Kevin Attell. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Al-Jazeera (2018) Far-right calls to register Roma ‘echoes’ Europe’s dark history. 9 July. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/07/calls-register-roma-echoes-europe-dark-his tory-180705171831676.html [03/10/2019]. Allen, D. (2015) Protecting the cultural identity of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller children living in the public care system. Today’s Children Tomorrows Parents 40–41(1): 122–139. Allen, D. & Riding, S. (2018) The fragility of professional competence: A preliminary account of child protection practice with Romani and Traveller children in England. Budapest, Hungary: European Roma Rights Centre. Amnesty International (2012) Left out: Violations of the rights of Roma in Europe. [Online] Available: https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/36000/eur01021201 0en.pdf [03/10/2019]. AskReddit (2014) What makes Europeans hate Gypsies so much? Are they really that bad?https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1f3bok/what_makes_europea ns_hate_gypsies_so_much_are/ [03/10/2019]. Bar-Tal, D. (1989) Delegitimization: The extreme case of stereotyping and prejudice. In D. Bar-Tal, C. Graumannn, A. W. Kruglanski & W. Stroebe (eds), Stereotyping and prejudice. New York: Springer Verlag, pp. 169–182.

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Bass, T. (2017) A report from Europe’s longest running refugee camp (which you’ve never heard of). Open Democracy, 21 August. https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/ca n-europe-make-it/report-from-europes-longest-running-refugee-camp/ [03/10/2019]. Bienkov, A. (2013) Nigel Farage: Romanians want to move to a ‘civilised country’. 6 September. https://www.politics.co.uk/news/2013/09/06/nigel-farage-romanians-wa nt-to-move-to-a-civilised-country [03/10/2019]. Broomfield, M. (2017) How Theresa May’s ‘hostile environment‘ created an underworld. New Statesman, 19 December. https://www.newstatesman.com/2017/12/how-theresa -may-s-hostile-environment-created-underworld [03/10/2019]. Burnett, J. (2013) Racial violence: Facing reality [Online]. Institute of Race Relations. Available: http://s3-eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/wpmedia.outlandish.com/irr/2017/04/ 26155304/Racial-violence-facing-reality.pdf [03/10/2019]. Butler, J. (1993) Bodies that matter: On the discursive limits of sex. Oxford: Routledge. Clough Marinaro, I. & Sigona, N. (2011) Introduction: Anti-Gypsyism and the politics of exclusion: Roma and Sinti in contemporary Italy. Journal of Modern Italian Studies 16(5): 583–589. Clough, P. T. (2010) The affective turn: Political economy, biomedia, and bodies. In M. Gregg & G. Seigworth (eds), The affect theory reader, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 206–225. Connor, S. (2011) Smear campaigns. Talk given at the Unclean Beings Symposium, Wellcome Collection, London, 16 July. http://stevenconnor.com/smearcampaigns. html [03/10/2019]. Daily Express (2016) Smell from migrants’ centre is making locals’ lives ‘a living hell’. 13 September. https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/710186/Smell-migrants-cen tre-making-locals-lives-living-hell [03/10/2019]. Daily Telegraph (2013) Roma migrants could cause riots in cities, warns Blunkett. 11 November. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/10442352/Roma -migrants-could-cause-riots-in-cities-warns-Blunkett.html [03/10/2019]. Department for Education and Skills (DfES) (2015). Ethnicity and education: The evidence on minority ethnic pupils (Research Topic Paper RTP01-05). Nottingham: DfES. Available: www.dcsf.gov.uk/research/programmeofresearch/projectinforma tion.cfm?projectid=14488&resultspage=1 Department for Education and Skills (DfES) (2018). Ethnicity and education: The evidence on minority ethnic pupils aged 5–16. Nottingham: DfES. Available: www. dfes.gov.uk/research/data/uploadfiles/0208-2006DOM-EN.pdf Der Spiegel (2013) Hungary’s racism problem: Orbán friend says Roma ‘shouldn’t be allowed to exist’. https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/hungarian-journa list-says-roma-should-not-be-allowed-to-exist-a-876887.html [03/10/2019]. Douglas, M. (2002) Purity and danger. London: Routledge. European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) (2012) ECRI Report on Italy: Fourth monitoring cycle [Online]. Available: http://www.coe.int/t/dghl/monitoring/ ecri/Country-by-country/Italy/ITA-CbC-IV-2012-002-ENG.pdf [03/10/2019]. Farmer, N. (2017) No recourse to public funds, insecure immigration status and destitution: the role of social work? Critical and Radical Social Work 5(3): 357–367. Forscher, P. S. & Kteily, N. (2017, 9 August) A psychological profile of the alt-right. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/c9uvw [03/10/2019]. Goodwin, M. (2018) Why national populism is here to stay. New Statesman, 3 October. https://www.newstatesman.com/2018/10/why-national-populism-here-stay [03/10/2019].

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Guardian (2013) Anger grows in Hungary over anti-Roma article. 8 January. https://www. theguardian.com/world/2013/jan/08/anger-hungary-anti-roma-article [03/10/2019]. Hancock, I. F. (1987) The pariah syndrome: An account of Gypsy slavery and persecution. Ann Arbor, MI: Karoma Publications. Haraway, D. (2008) When species meet. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Hepworth, K. (2012) Abject citizens: Italian ‘nomad emergencies’ and the deportability of Romanian Roma. Citizenship Studies 16(3–4): 431–449. Independent (2013) The truth about Romania’s gypsies: Not coming over here, not stealing our jobs. 11 February. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ the-truth-about-romanias-gypsies-not-coming-over-here-not-stealing-ourjobs-8489097.html [03/10/2019]. Independent (2018) Poor ‘live like animals’ says Boris Johnson’s privately educated sister after going on ‘poverty safari’. 5 March. https://www.independent.ie/worldnews/europe/poor-live-like-animals-says-boris-johnsons-privately-educated-sister-a fter-going-on-poverty-safari-30066287.html [03/10/2019]. Inglehart, R. F. & Norris, P. (2016) Trump, brexit, and the rise of populism: Economic havenots and cultural backlash. HKS Working Paper No. RWP16-026. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2818659 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2818659 Inglehart, R. F. & Norris, P. (2018) Understanding brexit: Cultural resentments versus economic grievances. American Political Science Association Convention, Boston. https://www.pippanorris.com/new-conference-papers [03/10/2019]. International Business Times (2013) Jean-Marie Le Pen sued for calling Roma Gypsies ‘smelly’. https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/roma-travellers-group-sue-far-right-leader-491937 [03/10/2019]. Kirkup, J. & Winnett, R. (2012) Theresa May interview: ‘We’re going to give illegal migrants a really hostile reception’. Telegraph, 25 May. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ news/uknews/immigration/9291483/Theresa-May-interview-Were-going-to-give-illega l-migrants-a-really-hostile-reception.html [03/10/2019]. Kóczé, A. (2018) Race, migration and neoliberalism: Distorted notions of Romani migration in European public discourses. Social Identities 24(4): 459–473. Kourova, E. (2019) Biopolitics and the transformative powers of life in the case of Roma people in Glasgow. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Glasgow Caledonian University. Kristeva, J. (1982) Powers of horror: An essay on abjection. New York: Columbia University Press. Lynch, H. (2019) Esposito’s affirmative biopolitics in multispecies homes. European Journal of Social Theory 22(3): 364–381. Manning, E. (2010) Always more than one: The collectivity of a life. Body and Society, 16(1): 117–127. https://doi.org/10.1177/1357034X09354128 [03/10/2019]. McVeigh, R. (1997) Theorising sedentarism: The roots of anti-nomadism. In Thomas Acton (ed.), Gypsy politics and Traveller identity. Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press. Mudde, C. (2007) Populist radical right parties in Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mudde, C. & Kaltwasser, C. R. (2017) Populism: A very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. New York Times (2018) Attacks on Roma force Ukraine to confront an old ethnic enmity. 21 July. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/21/world/europe/ukraine-roma-atta cks.html [03/10/2019].

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16 Ga ngaandu gimubi-li yalagiirrma (To whom it may concern) Marcus Woolombi Waters

Introduction (Burra-li yulu-gi) I write a regular editorial column for the Koori Mail, Australia’s longest running independent Indigenous newspaper. A small voice that in reality is nothing more than a drop in the ocean against the wave of conservatism and mainstream media, a side dish of vegetables among a constant wave of fast food that censors the voices of those most in need. This chapter reproduces articles published over the last five years dealing with the rise of neo-fascist politics and right-wing populist nationalism. Burrows (2016) conducted an extensive review of social media literature that identified mainstream media as portraying Aboriginal People and those most vulnerable as ‘outsider[s]’ (Roth, 2005, p. 214). Squires (2002, p. 460) agrees, stating that digital media has created an alternative truthtelling to mainstream media in reaching the ‘counterpublic’ phase. My writing comes from this ‘counterpublic’ phase in consideration of those most vulnerable in our society. That is to say those most dependent on social work, welfare and service delivery – those right at the bottom of the social ladder, the unemployed young people, the sick, the poor, the aged, the mentally ill and the disabled, and yes, my own Aboriginal people. Before writing for the Koori Mail, I had been published by the National Indigenous Times, The Conversation, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Guardian. Having broken into mainstream news publications was something, considering my background, of which I felt very proud – but there was also conflict. I felt compromised, because in coming from this most vulnerable demographic I found my writing was moving away from those I wanted to represent most. The first article you are going to read below was published in the Sydney Morning Herald on 21 November 2015, titled: ‘Whether you’re listening or not, Australia is a nation of White privilege’. For the sake of copyright and word count, the nemesis of writers and publishers alike, I have paraphrased much of the original articles.

Dhu-rri maal (Article one) I have just returned from Jamaica, where I gave a keynote address on Black Consciousness as part of the country’s Heritage Week Celebrations. I spent a

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week feeling ‘Black, loud and proud’, embraced for my Aboriginality and acknowledged by my international peers as an authority in my field. But I returned home to discover yet another storm of racial vilification brewing back in Australia. This time it was targeted against actress Miranda Tapsell, whose only crime was to be honest and heartfelt when interviewed about racism, saying as an Aboriginal woman she has never felt ‘Australian’ (Noyes, 2015). Then last week, a video showing a group of black African students being asked to leave an Apple store in Melbourne went viral. It clearly showed an Apple staff member telling the boys that they had to leave the store because staff were concerned they were going to shoplift (Wells, 2015). Apple later apologised. It doesn’t take long as an Indigenous Australian returning from overseas to be reminded that we are a nation of White privilege. One thing you notice flying overseas is the people of colour who are on the plane with you – maybe even as many as 30 per cent are Black, Brown or at least coloured. Everywhere we travel overseas as a family we are asked our ethnicity. People are generally shocked to find out we are Indigenous Australians. Why? Because they had no idea Black people, let alone Indigenous Black people, come from Australia. They think blond hair and blue eyes or Nicole Kidman. It hits you when you arrive at the gate to fly home to Australia … you get to the gate and 90 per cent are White. It’s like a sea of Whiteness; many of you will have seen this but missed it due to your own White privilege. Then there is the look from other Australians when overseas which quickly turns to shock; let’s be honest, you just don’t expect to see a dark skinned Aboriginal family flying across the USA. This reaction is then replaced by a dismissive look we Aboriginal people see all our lives. People look down as we pass them, or slide across in public seats so we can’t sit next to them. Yes, this happens. And we see it, we feel it – and yes, it hurts. The situation almost becomes surreal on the plane. Generally every staff member is White on every major Australian airline [I have to be honest: I have noticed this is changing since I wrote this article]. The greatest demonstration of White privilege is that Australia consistently ranks near the top in the annual United Nations Human Development Index – which measures health, economic well-being and life expectancy. But if Australia’s Indigenous population were to be ranked separately, it would come 100th out of nearly 200 nations (Cooke et al., 2007). In other words, Australia is one of the richest Western countries in the world, built on an industry of mining the lands of Aboriginal people who continue to live in Third-world poverty. As with actress Miranda Tapsell, Black African students denied access to Apple stores, and being able to enjoy an international flight home as an Aboriginal family without being confronted by parameters of race, the atmosphere is toxic. It affects us all and we have to call it for what it is: White privilege.

More important than the article itself was the way it went viral. At the time I wanted to write on the challenge to my identity and practice as an Aboriginal man, especially on my belief/rights as part of a universal citizenship, in questioning the rights of ethnic and cultural minorities. To just picture what such

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a thing would look like where social justice and human rights are no longer orchestrated within public protest but emerging sensibilities of White (sorry, right) and wrong. For that to happen we have to first state the problems contained within the world we live.

Warragiil guwaa-li (Straight talking) Even within the protest movement today, whether it be Black Lives Matter in the US or yet another Aboriginal death in custody in Australia – there is a clear separation between Black and White. As our people of colour march for survival our White contemporaries march for climate change, intellectually posing the question of why so many progressive voices have been so slow in responding to the changing social, economic and political climate. Literally, as I am writing this chapter, news has just come over my news feed that a young Black male has died after being shot by police in a remote Aboriginal community in Australia. In compliance with the theme of this book and the chapter, all medical and clinical staff had been evacuated weeks earlier: Northern Territory police have confirmed that Mr Walker, 19, was unable to receive proper medical treatment after being shot because at the time there were no clinic staff in Yuendumu, a community of about 1000 people 300km northwest of Alice Springs. Mr Walker subsequently died and a decorated constable, Zachary Rolfe, 28, has been charged with his murder. Mr Walker’s death has sparked a national outcry, several inquiries and possible civil litigation. (Aikman, 2019) The article goes on to claim: Two sources said they believed clinic staff had been explicitly targeted in the days before they were evacuated, but others suggested their safety fears were overblown. The Australian also heard allegations of service provider staff frustrating police by helping hide wanted youngsters and claims that some attacks on workers’ property were coordinated forms of retribution. (Aikman, 2019) How is it in a western developed country we have the war zone portrayed here, where medical and clinical staff are hiding locals from police and then having to evacuate for fears of their own safety, which this article states were ‘overblown’, only making national headlines after a fatal police shooting? Yuendumu is in no means on its own; below is another example of an Aboriginal community, Camel Camp, lacking in essential services, taken from an article I wrote in 2017 for the Guardian (Waters, 2017).

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Less than three hours drive out of Alice Springs is Camel Camp, one of the 16 Utopian communities funded by government. Nothing prepares you for the aged care witnessed there – any thought of race politics was out the window. This was a disconnection from humanity – the only question was how was this allowed to happen. Kathleen Ngale, one of Australia’s most revered contemporary Aboriginal artists, is 85 years old and living in conditions I can only describe as hell. Gerry Georgatos, who accompanied me at the time, wrote: ‘There was no ventilation, no air-conditioning, no in-house services, no anything, only dank concrete, decrepit and filthy – it is however visited by government “services” and some food drop-offs: pitiful. People lay on the concrete swatting flies, holding together, resilient, while denied dignity and the respite that their years on this Earth should have accumulated. Indeed, sadly, I have seen better “aged-care facilities” in the poorest regions of third-world nations.’ Kathleen has lost 5kg in the last month. She has a mattress on a concrete floor and her blankets look as if they have never been cleaned. (Waters, 2017) There is, I believe, so much denial of the past and current events preventing Australia from moving forward as a truly diverse and tolerant society, and these are issues that need to be addressed. Just over a month before the police shooting in Yuendumu, an Aboriginal woman, Joyce Clarke, 29, was fatally shot by a police officer in Western Australia after her sister called the emergency help line when she began acting erratically (Meachim, 2019). Then literally days after the Yuendumu shooting an inquest related to another Aboriginal death in custody found that ‘corrective services officers involved in’ the death of David Dungay, another young Aboriginal man, who died in a prison hospital, were not motivated by malicious intent but acted as a result of a ‘misunderstanding’ (McKinnell, 2019). Dungay was dragged to another cell by guards, held face down and injected with a sedative by a Justice Health nurse. In harrowing footage shown to the court and partly released to the public, Dungay said 12 times that he couldn’t breathe, before losing consciousness and dying. (Allam, 2019) Unlike the death in Yuendumu there were medical staff present, but the Coroner stated the medical services at the time were not adequate in preventing Mr Dungay’s death, saying that: The life support provided to Mr Dungay was inadequate and found the clinical staff were ‘overcome by the enormity and stress of the situation’ as it was the first time they needed to apply their training in a real-life situation. (McKinnell, 2019)

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These are only three current examples; there are hundreds more I could draw on. It appears that the impact of right-wing nationalist populism on human services that allow for capable and adequately prepared and trained medical/clinical staff is not defined in Australia by whether or not you a live on a remote Aboriginal community but by the colour of your skin, as Mr Dungay and Joyce Clarke were killed in major Australian cities after services had arrived or were already present. And yet somehow, within such highly emotive politics, it’s not people of colour but western, White, middle class, particularly men who have somehow declared themselves as the most threatened demographic due to multiculturalism (Gresson, 2015). This is despite middle class White men holding most job security, home ownership, economic power and political influence. White Fragility is a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviours such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation. These behaviours, in turn, function to reinstate White racial equilibrium. (DiAngelo, 2011, p. 54) We are witnessing is a world where populist leaders continue to highlight the deficiencies of contemporary democratic systems as a symptom of White fragility while claiming to fix them – which within the impact of right-wing nationalist populism appears to be the disposing of political freedoms, limiting democratic processes, reducing human rights, and curtailing the freedom of the press. My next article below was published on 14 May 2014 in the National Indigenous Times, titled ‘Time to Wake Up Aboriginal Australia – Our Services Are Not Going They’re Gone: The 2014 Budget’.

Dhu-rri bulaarr (Article two) The 1945 novel Animal Farm written by George Orwell is described as the first book in which Orwell tried, ‘with full consciousness’ to remain aware of what he was doing in constructing a curtain narrative that reflected the world he saw at the time. He would later state that he wanted, ‘to fuse political purpose and artistic purpose into one whole’. Orwell stated that the idea for the book came from the following: ‘… I saw a little boy, perhaps ten years old, driving a huge carthorse along a narrow path, whipping it whenever it tried to turn. It struck me that if only such animals became aware of their strength we should have no power over them, and that men exploit animals in much the same way as the rich exploit the proletariat (workers/poor).’ Federal Treasurer Joe Hockey’s 2014 budget smacked of George Orwell’s Animal Farm. As in Orwell’s novel, this budget tells us clearly that within Australian contemporary society ‘some are more equal than others’, and the

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contribution Hockey calls on the country to make isn’t equal. It is about segregating the ‘haves’ from the ‘have nots’. Hockey makes it very clear, the focus of this government is all about strengthening the business environment, with measures including cutting company tax by 1.5 per cent for many businesses and spending billions on a new infrastructure plan. When the Prime Minister Tony Abbott came to power, he said he wanted to be remembered as the Prime Minister for Infrastructure. If only Labor showed as much conviction to its constituency as Abbott has done. Labor was meant to represent the workers and families, but in becoming neo-conservative they lost the plot and now we are witnessing a ruthless attack on families and low-income workers like never before. There is simply no alternative to the ultra-right. What we are witnessing is what happens when real alternatives become complacent and no longer fight for the rights of those they are meant to represent. The truth is we only have ourselves to blame. The overall message of this government back in 2014 with release of the budget is they were here to play hardball, Labor does not supply any real alternative and therefore the welfare and social services of the past that once, at least, attempted service delivery to the most vulnerable have gone – not going – gone. Back in 2014 more than half a billion dollars was slashed over five years within Indigenous social services in transferring more than 150 programs into only just five, all to be run out of Premiers and Cabinet. One can only imagine the reaction if such a reduction in policy occurred in mainstream non-Aboriginal support services. The people hit the hardest through this budget are those people right at the bottom of the ladder, the unemployed young people, the sick, the poor, and the aged and disabled pensioners – but like us Blackfellas, who really cares about them? Justification was given at the time that the highest wage earners in this country were to have their tax increased. What this increase amounted to is that someone in the top 4 per cent of taxpayers on $200,000 a year would now be paying an extra $7.70 a week in tax. [I now write with some reflection five years later, that the present conservative Liberal/National Coalition Government won the 2019 Australian election on a promise of $158 billion in income tax cuts, giving money back to middle-to-high-income Australia ( Worthington & Dalzell, 2019).] And if you were wondering … no, those low-income and most vulnerable who lost essential services in 2014 did not have them restored, as those most privileged again benefited by having further tax breaks five years later. There is one image that I can’t forget since the 2014 budget, and it might be the one that defines Treasurer Joe Hockey’s career in politics. And this was the image released of both Hockey and the Minister for Finance Mathias Cormann sitting back enjoying a cigar as they plotted this device to finally screw the most vulnerable and poor of their community (Howden, 2014). The cigar has always been the first refuge of the fat cat, so to be caught puffing on a Cuban while telling other Australians it is their patriotic duty to share the pain affirmed the true heart of this government both then and today. It was an image that takes me back to the novel Animal Farm, at the point when the pigs, having run the revolution against the farm, now no longer represent the other animals but only themselves – as some animals become

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Minya yilawa-y-ga gaay-giirruu? (What happened to truth?) The quote above is especially pertinent 75 years later in 2020 in an age we now accept as post-truth (Suiter, 2016). Where populist leaders can peddle lies and self-serving claims as truth, despite evidence to the contrary. Like seriously, when did that happen, post truth … where truth is manipulated (blatantly now, without fear of rebuke) where political gain and personal and familial power are sought by highly emotive discourse rather than policy and economics. These are truly troubling times. Arguably, what we are witnessing is a toxic combination of policy blunders on austerity, war and globalisation coupled with a new hybrid media and political system dominated by reality TV. Social media and filter bubbles. Combined with what has been dubbed ‘post-truth politics’: where appeals to emotion are dominant and factual rebuttals or fact checks are ignored on the basis they are mere assertions. (Suiter, 2016, p. 25) Such fear mongering feeds into global issues such as terrorism and conflict against ‘the Other’ which many would claim brought about the election of Donald Trump, which was the topic of my next article published in 2016 titled: ‘White Fragility, White Fear: The Crisis of Racial Identity in Australia, and Beyond’.

Dhu-rri gulibaa (Article three) With the US election now decided it’s interesting watching the fallout asking how this could have happened. I read an article last week that provided some insight. ‘Behind 2016’s Turmoil, a Crisis of White Identity’ was written by Amanda Taub and published in the New York Times. It highlighted the rise of White supremacists across the globe under the veil of conservative nationalism. Taub claims White anxiety has fuelled 2016’s political turmoil in the west, referencing Britain’s exit from the European Union, Donald Trump’s Republican presidential ascension and the rise of right-wing nationalism in Norway,

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Hungary, Austria, Germany and Greece. Taub quotes Michael Ignatieff, a former Liberal Party leader in Canada, who said that in the west, ‘what defined the political community’ for many years ‘was the unstated premise that it was White’. The rejection of racial discrimination has, by extension, created a new, broader international community. The United States has had their first Black president, London a Muslim mayor and Melbourne a Chinese lord mayor. But rather than advancement many Whites feel a painful loss and it is here we are seeing the rise of Trump. Meanwhile across the west we see hate against Muslims, refugees and ethnic minorities with the racist catch cries, ‘I want my country back,’ ‘we are full,’ ‘Australia for Australians,’ and, of course, ‘let’s make America great again’. Lecturer and author Robin DiAngelo, calls this movement ‘White fragility’, which leads to feelings of insecurity, defensiveness, even threat. It creates a backlash against those perceived as the ‘other’. One example is terrorism seen as an act of people of colour, but never perpetrated by White people. Remember the mass murder in the US city of Charleston, where a White man killed nine Black people in a church, seen to be motivated by depression, alienation and mental illness – not terrorism (Sack, 2017). In Brisbane, Australia, again depression was cited as the cause when a White man burnt an Indian bus driver, Manmeet Alisher, 29, to death. Anthony Mark Edward O’Donohue committed the attack as the bus pulled up, lighting a backpack filled with petrol and diesel, and threw it in the bus causing an explosion that trapped 14 passengers inside. Queensland police and media were quick to suggest, one, the attack was not terrorism and two, not racially motivated. Could you imagine if it was a man of colour killing a White man while trapping passengers on public transport? Consider the task force established in Kalgoorlie following the tragic death of Aboriginal teenager Elijah Doughty, who was run down by a 55-year-old White man. The man was sentenced in July 2017 on one count of dangerous driving causing death for running over Elijah, who was riding a motorcycle the man believed stolen from his house. The motorcycle belonged to Elijah. A jury found the man not guilty of the higher charge of manslaughter, and he received a 25% reduction in his sentence for earlier pleading guilty to the dangerous driving charge, serving less than one year for killing an Aboriginal teenager (Wahlquist, 2018). The task force is focusing on 30 ‘at risk families’ rather than attempting to close down websites that Debbie Carmody from the Tjuma Pulka Media Aboriginal Corporation said, ‘incite violence, and murder towards Wongatha (Aboriginal) youth, and literally tell people to go out and kill’. Colin Barnett, premier of Western Australia, said that a new safe house would likely offer young children somewhere to go to late at night ‘if their parents aren’t around or they’re not capable at the time’. The undercurrent of racism within the comment takes away from the circumstances of Doughty’s death, suggesting problems associated towards Aboriginal families led to a young Aboriginal boy killed while riding his motorcycle rather than overt racism. Kalgoorlie’s mayor John Bowler went as far to say ‘social problems’ in his town ‘begin with Aboriginal parents’, while claiming that each generation of Aboriginal people is ‘worse than the one before’ (Dingle, 2016).

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Marcus Woolombi Waters Kalgoorlie is home of the biggest open pit mine in Australia, where its website proudly claims it donates $460m to the local community each year. So why are our people not benefiting from such support? I will tell you who is benefiting – the local golf club that just had a $10m renovation approved by the local council. As stated by Mick Gooda, co-chair of the royal commission into the detention of children in the NT, such mining towns do nothing to lift the quality of life of our people, instead establishing Aboriginal fringe communities out of town ‘like we’ve got in places like Kalgoorlie, Darwin and Alice Springs’. It’s the same in Port Hedland, Australia’s largest distribution centre for iron ore, where in March 2016 a record of 39.6m tons was exported. Port Hedland boasts $1m bungalows and apartment blocks, but in South Hedland, where Ms Dhu, another infamous Aboriginal death in custody, occurred (Klippmark & Crawley, 2018) – our people continue to live in squalor and poverty. Andrew Bolt writing in his blog for the Herald Sun, complained ‘How activists use Aborigines to censor debate’ where the blog stated the Human Rights Commission was ‘disgraceful’ and the Racial Discrimination Act was ‘sinister’, when writing about the controversial and racist Bill Leak cartoon going viral on social media (Bolt, 2016). The cartoon was in reaction to the Royal Commission into the abusive treatment of children in the Northern Territory juvenile justice system. It showed an Aboriginal father drinking alcohol who didn’t know the name of his son, who is being held by a police officer. At the time many protested saying the cartoon demeaned Indigenous people, causing enormous hurt following the frightening footage of mistreatment, torture and abuse of young Aboriginal people on a national current affairs show the week before. Andrew Bolt in defending the cartoon went on to add, ‘so many journalists are on the side of the censors, attacking the free speech they should be defending to the death’. This anger against ‘censorship’ witnessed over and over again by the White privileged is explained by Amanda Taub who writes in her article: ‘For many western Whites, opportunities for reaching the top of the hill seem unattainable. So their identity, their Whiteness feels under threat and more important than ever.’ In other words, if you were supported for the majority of your life in a world that reinforced Whiteness, settlement and colonisation of great White pioneers via invasion and genocide, with Whites as superior and Blacks as inferior and in need of civilisation, rather than embrace a deconstruction of the truth, you become fearful as such truth goes against the very foundations of your identity. And therefore rather than accept the truth, you fear this truth will destroy or diminish an identity you cherish, and because you have no understanding of a world beyond Whiteness, you have no culturally acceptable way to articulate what you perceive as a crisis. In watching the destruction of Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and other third world nations of colour around the world at the hands of White developed countries, the days of thinking of domestic terrorism as the work of a few Klansmen or belligerent skinheads are over. As Morris Dees and J. Richard Cohen wrote in the New York Times in their 2015 article ‘White Supremacists Without Borders’: ‘We know Islamic terrorists are thinking globally, and we confront that threat. We’ve been too slow to realise that White supremacists are doing the same.’ They are just better organised, resourced and firmly embedded into our institutions and structures.

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Gaalanha guwiinbaa, dhuurranmay nganbinganbi warran (And further, leading to a conclusion) The final article, which also draws this chapter towards a conclusion, was first published on Wednesday 20 November 2019 in the Koori Mail. The chapter demonstrates the damage caused through the rise of neo-fascist politics and right-wing populist nationalism to social work, mental health and delivery of basic services to our Aboriginal people and our communities. The article shows, together with the other articles chosen, how over the last five years the rights of ethnic and cultural minorities, those most vulnerable have been devastated within a rapacious neo-fascist political right-wing populist nationalism. It also demonstrates the rise of a platform of White supremacy that divides people on race, colour, gender and socioeconomic status leading to Aboriginal people dying as they are denied basic services the White community takes for granted as essential human rights. As austerity politics ravage funding to social services and delivery to those most in need. The final article titled ‘Time To Make Our Voices Loud’ captures my own personal journey, where I now write exclusively in my own Aboriginal voice, no longer chasing mainstream acceptance but instead focusing on my own people, our own voice, our own publication.

Dhu-rri buligaa (Article four) I live in a country where Traditional Owners are treated as trespassers on their own land and a young man is shot dead by police and the government calls those who protest for change ‘indulgent and selfish’. The Wangan and Jagalingou traditional owners only heard that Indian coalmining giant Adani was granted exclusive possession of freehold title over their lands, while in a meeting with the Queensland government. They were seeking a halt on leases being issued for mine infrastructure, including an area currently occupied for ceremonial purposes. The Institute of Energy Economics and Financial Analysis concluded that over its 30-year project life Australian governments would give $4.4bn in effective subsidies to Adani’s Carmichael coal project. Without Government funding the coalmine would otherwise be ‘unbankable and unviable’. The Adani coalmine and a young man being shot dead by police on a remote community with no medical services, is about a colonial mindset embedded deep within Australia’s contemporary consciousness. Science, climate change, social justice and truth mean little to the coloniser. Its one of the reasons I hate the use of ‘Neo Colonialism’ or ‘Post Colonialism’ in contemporary writing. There is no Neo Colonialism or Post Colonialism in Australia – only Colonialism. The Wangan and Jagalingou Native Title lands were extinguished and nineteen-year-old Kumanjayi Walker shot dead in his community here and now in November 2019. The Prime Minister spoke in Brisbane against anti-mining protesters where he railed against ‘progressives’, accusing them of denying people’s liberties and freedom. He went on to slam environmentalists for targeting businesses that

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Marcus Woolombi Waters invest in non-renewable industries. ‘I hear a lot about progressivism at the moment’, he said. ‘It gives you a warm glow. I will tell you what it means: Those who claim the title want to tell you where to live, what job you can have, what you can say and what you can think – and tax you more for the privilege of all of those instructions that are directed to you.’ ‘Apocalyptic in tone, it brooks no compromise. It’s all or nothing. Alternative views are not permitted,’ Mr Morrison said … What is Apocalyptic in tone is the two million fish dying in our rivers earlier in the year due to climate change (Moritz et al., 2019); the 90 plus bush fires burning out of control in New South Wales and Queensland where lives have been lost with homes and communities destroyed; an Aboriginal community burying a loved one as an old woman is left crying after discovering that her grandson was shot dead by police around the same time she was mourning her son being lowered into the ground. In praising the fire fighters and condemning protestors Scott Morrison has been very quiet on climate change causing the extreme weather causing these fires, the mass fish kill, and even more silent on the death of Kumanjayi Walker and the lack of services provided on our remote communities. ‘Unprecedented’ is a word that we are hearing a lot as New South Wales and Queensland residents are told to brace for ‘unprecedented’ conditions as the fatal bushfires continue. Unprecedented dryness, reductions in long-term rainfall and low humidity with high temperatures and wind velocities increase the fire spread and ferocity. This is an established long-term trend driven by a warming, dry climate. The numbers don’t lie, and the science is clear. Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said in condemning environment protesters: ‘This is not about free speech, it is not about the ability to protest – these people are completely against our way of life.’ Then, the same week we learn that a 19-year-old man has been killed, shot by police in Yuendumu, a town so remote it is a five-hour drive to its nearest major town, Alice Springs. I watched a video taken by one of the mob gathered around the police station after the killing. Its night, its dark and the police station is locked down. The crowd gathered in groups appear very calm and well behaved considering the circumstances. You can hear people speaking in Warlpiri (traditional Aboriginal language). Suddenly you hear ‘Ambulance, ambulance.’ Others are saying ‘Task force.’ Another voice, its sounds like the man holding the phone saying, ‘It must be other policemen, reinforcement.’ Then confirmation; ‘It’s bloody ambulance. After two to three hours the ambulance finally comes, you’re late. You’re late, ambulance, you’re late. It happened three hours ago and you’re late.’ Then in scenes hard to describe we see what looks like ambulance drivers standing outside, waiting, with no response from the police. The crowd are gathered around them, the restraint of our people under such circumstances speaks volumes compared to the hostility and hate spread by those most privileged in this country. You hear one of the ambulance drivers say, ‘They must have seen the ambulance. We had the sirens on as we arrived.’ You finally see police moving from inside as you hear someone say, ‘That’s one of the police that shot him, they’re hiding inside.’

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What country do we live in when police lock themselves in a station refusing to serve the people of their community having just shot dead one of its young? After protests across the country a police officer has now been charged with murder over the shooting, with little mainstream media covering the event. My niece Ruby Wharton, one of the organisers of the protest in Mianjin (Brisbane), wrote on Facebook: ‘When you turn on the mainstream news this morning you will not hear the name Kumanjayi Walker being mentioned or how the people of Yuendumu anticipate the worst. When you pick up your newspaper it won’t be on the front cover. When you go to work and school your colleagues/mates won’t know about the events that have transpired in Yuendumu leading to the killing of a young man on a remote community with no basic services.’ It’s not time to be silent Australia … its time to scream!

Waarran (Conclusion) The problem of service delivery in social services lacking for those most vulnerable and people of colour dying while in health care and incarceration is not due to the individual motives or personality of prime minsters or presidents, or even the government in power. The problem is the electorate, and the conservative media that support the views of the silent majority who voted these neo-fascist right-wing populist nationalist politicians into power. The politicians are only sticking with the Government policy that had them elected. They remain firm to their own dogma, their arrogance and pride in representing those most privileged, and in doing so maintain denial towards everything else from climate change to institutional racism. What we are witnessing is the rise of a dark, at times overwhelming, challenge to our humanity reflective of a cruel and indifferent world. The neo-fascist politics and right-wing populist nationalism movement is a powerful indictment of neoliberalism and ‘gangster capitalism’ (Holmstrom & Smith, 2000), a totalitarian culture that casts a dark shadow over western governance, which has moved from welfare to warfare against those most vulnerable. The institutions that were meant to limit human suffering and misfortune and protect the public from the greed of the market economy have been either weakened or abolished (Giroux, 2017). The social contract that defines a civilised society in how we look after those most vulnerable has all but been removed from the principles of our democracy. A mean-spirited heart contained within a rapacious nature of those most privileged that derails any notion of empathy and compassion. The consequences of which is the emerging authoritarianism that welcomes us into the second decade of the twentyfirst century; in short, what we are witnessing is the emergence of an unprecedented survival-of-the fittest benefiting those most privileged at the cost of our environment and those most vulnerable in sacrificing what is left of our humanity.

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Moritz, C., Blackall, L., Davis, J., Flannery, T., Godden, L., Head, L. & Williams, J. (2019) Investigation of the causes of mass fish kills in the Menindee region NSW over the summer of 2018–2019. Australian Academy of Science. Retrieved from: https://www.science.org.au/files/userfiles/support/reports-and-plans/2019/academy-sci ence-report-mass-fish-kills-digital.pdf Noyes, J. (2015) Miranda Tapsell on racism: ‘I don’t feel like an Australian’. Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved from: www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/celebrity/pop-culture/m iranda-tapsell-on-racism-i-dont-feel-like-an-australian-20151016-gkb1di Orwell, G. (1945) Animal farm [online]. Ebooks.adelaide.edu.au. Retrieved from: http s://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/o/orwell/george/o79a/ Roth, K. (2016) The dangerous rise of populism: Global attacks on human rights values. Journal of International Affairs. Retrieved from: https://www.hrw.org/worl d-report/2017/country-chapters/dangerous-rise-of-populism Roth, L. (2005) Something in the air: The story of First Peoples television broadcasting in Canada. Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press. Sack, K. (2017) Trial documents show Dylann Roof had mental disorders. New York Times. Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/02/us/dylann-roof-charles ton-killing-mental.html Squires, C.R. (2002) Rethinking the black public sphere: An alternative vocabulary for multiple public spheres. Communication Theory, 12(4), 446–468. Suiter, J. (2016) Post-truth politics. Political Insight, 7(3), 25–27. Taub, A. (2016) Behind 2016’s turmoil, a crisis of white identity. New York Times, Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/02/world/americas/brexit-dona ld-trump-whites.html Wahlquist, C. (2018) Man who killed Indigenous teenager Elijah Doughty given parole. Guardian. Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/ 2018/mar/27/man-who-killed-indigenous-teenager-elijah-doughty-given-parole Waters, M. (2019) Time to make our voices loud. The Koori Mail. Lismore, NSW: Budsoar Pty Ltd. Waters, M. (2017) Utopia? Kathleen Ngale is 85 years old and living in conditions I can only describe as hell. Guardian. Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/ commentisfree/2017/jan/24/utopia-kathleen-ngale-is-85-years-old-and-living-in-condi tions-i-can-only-describe-as-hell Waters, M. (2016) White fragility, white fear: the crisis of racial identity in Australia, and beyond. Guardian. Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/ nov/23/white-fragility-white-fear-the-crisis-of-racial-identity-in-australia-and-beyond Waters, M. (2015) Whether you’re listening or not, Australia is a nation of white privilege. Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved from: https://www.smh.com.au/opinion/whetheryoure-listening-or-not-australia-is-a-nation-of-white-privilege-20151121-gl4le3.html Waters, M. (2014) Time to wake up Aboriginal Australia – our services are not going they’re gone: The 2014 budget. National Indigenous Times. Sydney: Destiny Productions. Wells, R. (2015) ‘We’re worried you might steal something’: Apple ejects six black students, then apologises following claims of racism. Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved from: www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/were-worried-you-m ight-steal-something-apple-ejects-six-black-students-then-apologises-following-claim s-of-racism-20151111-gkwkd0?occupyapple Worthington, B. & Dalzell, S. (2019) Government’s $158b tax cuts pass Parliament, giving Coalition first win since election. ABC News. Retrieved from: https://www.abc. net.au/news/2019-07-04/full-federal-government-tax-cut-passes-the-senate/11277002

Index

#MeToo 109 AASW 24, 145, 183, 188, 190–191, 193–194 abjection 202–203 ‘Aboriginal Industry’ 163 Aboriginal people see Indigenous Australians accountability 5, 12, 33, 73, 164 acculturation 115 activism: constraints on 25; and education 32; feminist 60, 78–79; strategies 93–94, 129; and white fragility 36, 38; see also resistance administration see bureaucracy Adorno, Theodor 147 adult education, popular 48–51; see also Freire, Paulo advocacy 27, 35, 90, 91, 146 Africa 3, 35–36, 93, 171, 200, 206, 215 African Australians 30, 215 Agamben, G. 146, 205, 206–207 aged pension 106, 156, 157, 164, 165 Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) 177 Alvin, Robert 7 Amnesty International 201 Anand, Janet Carter 168–182 anger 43, 51, 56, 60, 62–63, 103 Animal Farm (Orwell) 218–220 anti-feminism 64, 73–74 anti-democratic 3 anti-genderism 74–75, 77; see also gender populism anti-globalisation 3, 21 anti-immigration populism, and resistance 171–178 anti-pluralist 2, 3, 7, 9 anti-welfare 3 Arab Spring 3, 109 Arabic 192

Ashcroft, Michael, post-Brexit poll 100–102 assimilation 76, 89, 115, 205 Asylum Acts 173 asylum seekers see immigrants/refugees; refugee crisis, 2015–6 austerity 11, 32, 75, 99, 102, 103, 107, 127, 173–174 Australia: and authoritarian welfare 135–147; Conservatives, conservatism 73, 152; CVE program. See CVEdetention centres 24; Liberal Party 16, 23, 152, 189; neo-conservatism 219–220; One Nation Party 16, 43, 152, 156–166; police violence 216–218, 223–225; and Syria 183 Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW) 145, 183, 188, 190–191, 193–194 authoritarianism, authoritarian 1, 3, 84, 200; and masculinity 65; welfare, Australia 135–147; see also populism Baines, Donna 29–41, 94, 172 Bannon, Steve 5 Bavaria, refugees/asylum seekers 176–178 Bayer, Zsolt 199 behaviour change model of welfare 135, 138–147 belonging 16, 192 Berlet, C. 15–16 Berlusconi, Silvio 84–85 big business 7–8 big data 49–50 Black Africans 215 Blunkett, David 200 Bolsonaro, Jair 3, 7, 71, Bolt, Andrew 222 Borrmann, Stefan 168–182

Index Bouazizi, Tarek el-Tayeb Mohamed 108–109 Brazil 6, 7, 43; Brazilian 6, 43 Brexit 31, 47, 98–106, 200; and anti-immigration racism 100; media narratives on 98, 99; and Roma 201 British Association of Social Workers (BASW) 174 British National Party 99 Briskman, Linda 19, 24, 129, 183–198 Bulgaria 199, 201 bureaucracy, and social work 89, 93 Butler, Judith 203 Cameron, David 100 capitalism, globalised 46; see also globalisation; neoliberalism Canada 3, 33, 166, 221; Canadian Conservative parties 16 Catholicism 70 CCTV 142 children: and conditional welfare 138, 139, 140–141; Muslim 185; Roma 208–209 Christchurch massacres 188–189, 193–194 Christensen, George 188 citizenship: inherited 124, 125; and integration 117; neo-conservative reconstruction of 1; restrictive 9; social 122, 123, 125, 136 civil society 11, 34–35, 169 Clarke, Joyce 217–218 class: and Brexit 102–103; conflict 76–77; middle 4, 34, 56, 60; working 56, 58–60, 63 climate change 16, 45, 109, 224 collective action see activism; resistance; strikes; collective struggle collective struggle 104 colonialism 2, 19 colour-blindness 34, 205 commodification, of social and political life 7–8 commonalities, social work and populism 20–22 communities: homogeneous (‘Us’ vs. ‘Them’) 46; isolation of 160–161; precarity/poverty in 32 community centres 50, 52 community development 26, 42–53 Community Praxis Co-operative 50 compliance see behaviour change model of welfare

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compulsory income management 162–163 computers, and sanctioning 142 concentration camps 205, 206–207 Conditional Income Management (CIM) 139, 140–141 conservatism and Conservatives 16, 23, 69, 70–71, 146; Australia 136, 137, 138, 142; and Trump 114; white women 72–73 contradictory consciousness 104 control 19; see also social control Corbyn, Jeremy 100 corruption 84, 85 cosmopolitan identity 17 cost control/cutting 33 counselling 176, 187 Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) see CVE counter-terrorism 192; see also CVE Cox, Jo 98 criminal justice 107; see also CVE Critical Race Theory 34, 36 cronyism 92 cultural displacement, fear of 56 cultural knowledge 116 CVE 183–184, 187–195 Das, Chaitali 168–182 data 49–50, 142 death camps 205 debate 22 dehumanisation 59, 171, 199, 207 delegitimisation 204–205 democracy: crisis of 45–46; deliberative 49; reworking of 10 Denmark 155 deportation, risk of 201 ‘de-radicalisation’ 24 Derrida, Jacques 50 Dewey, John 10 DGSA 177–178 dialogue 22–24, 47 DiAngelo, R. 29–30, 33, 38, 218 digital technologies 141; see also surveillance technology dirt/filth 204, 205, 206–207 discourse; anti-Roma 100, 201; colonial 2, 4, 19, 25, 30, 71, 115, 223; elitist 65, 199; emotive 218, 220; epistemological 15; government 145; human rights 8, 9, 25, 33, 75, 126, 146, 178; liberal 205; media 183; neoliberal 32, 43, 45, 60, 75, 80, 103, 128, 130, 151, 157, 165; political 15, 81, 122; populist 9,

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70, 71, 73, 79, 111, 128, 168, 184, 186, 207; public 18, 62, 119, 183, 190; right-wing 25; welfare 153 discrimination 16, 114, 129; see also feminism displacement 114; see also immigrants/ refugees distributive justice 3 diversity/difference 4–5, 19, 52, 118; see also white fragility domestic violence 62, 63, 143–144 Douglas, Mary 206 Dungay, David 217–218 Duterte, Rodrigo 3, 56 Eastern Europe 136 Economist (magazine) 105 economy: Australia, tax cuts 219; economic deprivation 191; Italy, crisis 85, 87, 89; refugees’ contribution to 117; and wellbeing 215; work inequalities/insecurity 59–60, 64; see also austerity; poverty education: children of refugees 117; grassroots/popular 48–51; higher 65, 107; see also social work education Edwards, Tegan 151–167 efficiency 33, 173 elites 16, 43, 65, 74, 126, 168 employment see labour market; unemployment empowerment 20 Enlightenment 18, 20, 22 equal pay 73 equality/needs-based welfare see needs-based welfare equity-based programmes see social insurance Erdogan, Recep Tayyip 3, 72 Esping-Andersen, Gosta 123 ethics/values, social work 91, 118–119 ethnic minorities: and social policy 10; see also minorities ethnicity 204 European Commission against Racism and Intolerance 201 European Roma and Travellers Forum (Ertf) 199 European Union 31, 185; and austerity 101–102; Roma in 201; see also Brexit and Brexit campaign evangelical Christians 70 exclusion 205; see also dehumanisation; racism

Executive Orders (EOs), US 111–112, 114 experts 16, 19 extremism, right-wing 188–189, 190, 192, 193–194 Facebook 8, 202 facial recognition 142 fake news 6–7; false news 11, 179 family law, and fathers’ rights groups 56, 63 family values 69, 70–71 Farage, Nigel 199, 200 fascism 84, 147; see also authoritarianism; totalitarianism fathers’ rights groups 56, 63 Fazzi, Luca 12, 31, 32, 62, 84–97, 128, 130 feminism: and anti-genderism 71, 77; backlash against 56–58, 61–62, 64; and conservatism/anti-feminism 72–74; ‘lean-in’ response 77–78; and post-feminism 60; progressive 78–80; radical response 78; and social work 80–81 Ferguson, Iain 4, 11, 92, 98–110, 173, 174, 179 financial crisis, 2008 32 Finland: migration to 122, 129; refugees, and social work resistance 175–176; rise of populism 122–123; welfare/welfare discourse 123–131, 153–154 Finns Party 128 Fitzi, G. 2, 3, 136, 137, Flynn, Catherine 151–167 food vouchers 173 forced assimilation 76 forced migrants 129; see also immigrants/ refugees; refugee crisis, 2015–6 France 16, 87, 103, 126, 171, 175 Freire, Paulo 48, 104, 138 French Union of Travellers Association 199 Frost, Caren, J. 111–121 fundamentalist 17, 18, 23; fundamentalist movements 22 gender 69, 71–72, 75–76 gender equality 56, 60, 74 gender populism 70–72; see also anti-genderism genocide 201 German Association for Social Work (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Soziale Arbeit (DGSA) 177–178

Index Germany 9, 71, 171, 176–178; see also Nazism globalisation 4, 17, 21, 46, 74–75 Global North 1, 19 Gonzalez Pons, Kwynn 2, 111–121 Goodhart, D. 16–17 Gramsci, Antonio 104 grassroots 10, 20 Greece 102, 202 Gren, Lisa 111–121 Griffith Review 51 Guardian (newspaper) 99, 107, 193, 214, 216–217 gypsies see Roma Hanson, Pauline 43, 152, 163; see also One Nation Party, Australia Harris, John 107 health care: and Prevent 189, 191, 192–193; undocumented migrants 175–176; universal 156 higher education 65, 107 Hirsi Ali, Ayaan 187 Hobbes, Thomas 26 Hockey, Joe 218–220 Hofer, Norbert 5 homeless people 143 ‘Hostile Environment’ policy 100, 207 housing 50, 51, 173 human rights 17, 90, 129, 205; and citizenship 117; individual 60; social 125; threats to 8–9; and universalism 75; values, erosion of 25; violations 192 humanism 9 Hungary 108, 155, 199, 201 Hutton, Will 105 Ife, Jim 42 immigrants/refugees 9, 32, 94, 114, 129, 136; anti-immigration policies 171–178; detention centres 24; gender and 75–76; and populist rhetoric 114–115; resettlement 111–112, 115–118; and social work activism 93; and welfare/welfare conditionality 151–162, 164–165; to the West 3–4; see also minorities; Roma inclusion 50, 78, 86, 89, 125, 153 income inequality 102; see also austerity income redistribution 123, 129 Indigenous Australians: higher education 30; and police violence 216–218; and welfare/welfare conditionality 139, 141, 152–153, 154, 156–159, 162–164; and White privilege 215

231

Indigenous people 5, 8, 12, 16, 37, 222 individualism 31, 34 inequalities 21, 45, 78, 105 Influencers 7, 186–187 infotainment 7 Institute of Race Relations 201 integration 111, 115–118 International Association of Schools of Social Work (IASSW) 21 International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW) 21 internationalism 17, 21, 113–114 Irish Travellers 208–209; see also Roma Islam see Muslims Islamic extremism 141 Islamophobia 24, 99, 100, 183–187, 189; see also CVE Italy 84–95, 202 Johnson, Boris 183 Johnson, Rachel 199 Jones, Chris 106 Jordan, Bill 106 Kaufman, E. 4, 5 Keskinen, Suvi 124, 153 Kimber, C. 99, 101, 102 Kimmel, M. 57, 64 Kokkonen, Tuomo 122–134 Koori Mail 223–225 Kourova, Eva 199–213 Kristeva, Julia 202–203 Kurz, Sebastian 3 Labour and labour parties 16, 100, 105 labour market: exclusion from 173–174, 191; income redistribution 123, 129; working poor 103; see also trade unions; unemployment; ‘welfare’/ welfare state Laclau, Ernesto 126–127 Latham, Susie 183–198 law and judiciary 8 Le Pen, Jean-Marie 199 Le Pen, Marine 171 leadership: right-wing, reactionary 3, 5; ‘strong’ 2, 126, 147, 200 League (Italian political party) 85–86, 87 left-wing populism 31, 43, 45 legal aid 173 LGBT people 86, 86 LGBTIQ see LGBT people liberal democracy 3, 9, 74–75, 77 liberal internationalism see internationalism

232

Index

liberalism 123 local identity, and the ‘somewheres’ 16–17 Lombardy, Italy 87 London Pride March 104 Lyons, M. 15–16 Macedonia 201 managerialism 19, 33–34, 107 manufacturing 4, 63, 114 Mapedzahama, V. 32–33, 34 Mendes, Philip 135, 137, 138, 141, 145, 151–167; marginalization 35–36 marketing and technology companies, and social media 7–8 marketisation of social work 106–107; see also neoliberalism marriage, same-sex 71 Marshall, T. H. 123 masculinity, white 55–65 masculinity; crisis of 4, 60–62, 64, ; dominant 63, 64; hegemonic 55; hyper- 55, 59, ; men’s 57, ; populist 55–68; traditional 59, 61; toxic 62; violent 57; white 55; working class 58 May, Theresa 100, 171 means-tested welfare 156 media: on Brexit 98, 99, 102; and Islamophobia 186, 187; see also social media; individual names of publications men’s rights groups 63, 64 Mexico 112, 114 Middle East see Middle Eastern countries Middle Eastern countries 114 migrants see immigrants/refugees militarism, feminist 78–79 miners 104, 222 minorities: demonisation of 7, 9; Finland 165; Italy 85, 87–88, 94; see also immigrants/refugees misogyny/sexism 55, 59, 70, 72–73 Modernity: and populism 18–19; and predictability/uniformity 19; and rightwing nationalist populism 2; and social work 19–20; see also hypermodernity Modi, Narendra 3 Montenegro 202 moral exclusion 207 Morrison, Scott 224 motherhood/maternity 72, 74, 139 Mouffe, Chantal 43, 45–46 MPs’ expenses scandal, UK 101 Mudde, Cas 2, 71–72

multiculturalism 154, 157 Murdoch, Rupert 186, 187 Muslims: cultural practices 76; and ‘de-radicalisation’ 24; and populist rhetoric 114–115; refugees/migrants 154, 157, 165; and welfare/welfare conditionality 157, 160, 165; see also CVE; Islamophobia Mutual Obligation Legislation (MOL) 139 nation state 5 National Association of Social Workers (NASW) 118–119 National Health Service (NHS), UK 102, 189, 191 nationalism 113, 114, 126; Finnish 122, 124–125, 128; and welfare 153, 156 nativism 200 nativism 5, 168, 200 Nazism 7, 9, 201, 204, 205; see also neo-Nazis; National Socialism needs-based welfare 155–156 neo-conservatism 1, 56, 219 neo-fascism 223 neoliberalism 21, 31–32, 170; collapse of 45; discontent with 74–75; and individual rights 60; managerialism 33–34; origins of conditional welfare 137–138; and social work 106–107, 128–129; UK policies 172–174; and welfare chauvinism 152–153; and white masculinity 55; see also austerity neo-Nazis 70, 98, 202 Netherlands 154 Netanyahu, Benjamin 3 New Labour 107 New Zealand, terrorist attacks 188–189, 193–194 Newell, S. 204, 206 news media see media Noble, Carolyn 1–14, 32, 33, 38, 42, 62, 69–83, 93, 94, 95, 171, 179 ‘nomad camps’ 202; see also Roma Nordic countries 122 Nothdurfter, Urban 84–97 Novak, Tony 106 Obama, Barack 111 Occupy movement 108, 174 One Nation Party, Australia 16, 43, 152, 156–166 oppression 18, 169 Orban, Viktor 3 Orwell, George 218–220

Index Ostiguy, P. 113 Ottmann, Goetz 1–14, 31, 34, 62, 86, 93, 94, 95, 135–150, 171, 179 out-groups 43, 44 outsourcing 135 Paglia, Camilla 74 Palin, Sarah 74 ParentsNext program 143–144 Pease, Bob 19, 32, 33, 42, 55–68, 70, 71, 78 pensions see aged pension police violence, Australia 216–218, 223–225 policies, authoritarian 139–141, 143–145 political identity, commodification of 7–8 political institutions 10; see also democracy political parties: discontent with 5–6; and the grassroots 10 popular education 48–51 popular sovereignty, threat to 46 population demographics 4–5 populism: and anti-immigration policies 171–178; anti-intellectual 18; and big business 7–8; definitions 2, 113–115, 200; exclusionary 9; historical background/analysis 126–127, 169; ideology 91–92, 168; left-wing 31, 43, 45; neo- or advanced 126–127; populist influencers 186–187; populist parties 5, 8, 56, 71, 74, 87, 88, 93, 122, 124, 127, 128, 130, 151–152, 166, 210; right-wing, reactionary 43; understanding 15–18; see also xenophobia post-feminism 60 poverty 105, 222; Indigenous Australian 163; Muslim 185; and precarity 32; and social benefits 123; and the working poor 103 power structure 206 precariat 32, 59 press see media Prevent, UK 187–193, 209 prioritisation 173 privacy 135, 141–142, 144, 192 private market, ideology of see neoliberalism privatisation/private sector 173, 174 producerists 15–16 professional competence 19, 118 professional discretion 33 professional identity and ethics 89, 91

233

professional resistance, and anti-immigration policies 171–179 protests 71 Rabel, R. 113–114 racism 17, 29–30, 34, 221, 222; see also dehumanisation; Islamophobia; police violence; white supremacists; xenophobia radical community development see community development radicalisation see CVE rationality 22–23 refugee crisis, 2015–6 102; see also immigrants/refugees religion: Christian fundamentalism 18; Italy 86 Renzi, Matteo 85 reproductive rights 70–71 resistance 34–35, 108, 169–179; see also activism; social movements, progressive; strikes rhetoric 2, 114, 127, 199 rights see human rights right-wing populism see populism risk/risk management 173, 208 Roberts, K.M. 113 Robinson, Tommy 99 Robodebt scheme 142 Roma 87, 92, 199–210 Romania 201 Roth, K 2, 5, 8, 126, 130, 214 Rural Party 127 Ryder, Richard 207 safety and stability 116 Salvini, Matteo 85, 86, 87, 202 sanctions, Australian ‘welfare’ 138–141, 143–145 Sanders, Bernie 106 scapegoats 2, 5, 17, 24, 71, 103 Schuller, K. 72, 73 sexual harassment 78, 109 Sinti 87, 92 social benefits see ‘welfare’/welfare state social citizenship 122, 123, 125, 136 social contract 26 social control 11 social housing 173 social insurance 155–156; see also ‘welfare’/welfare state social justice 11, 88, 89, 91, 108 social media 4, 6, 46, 202; and big business 7–8; Bill Leak cartoon 222;

234

Index

hate speech 136; and Islamophobia 187; Italy 86; and Trump 114, 118 social movements, progressive 9, 35, 108–109 social policies 10 social rights 122, 123 Social Security Administration Act (1999) 140 ‘social’ state 52 social welfare see ‘welfare’/welfare state social work education: assimilation 89; and authoritarian welfare 146; and class 63; and critique of elites 65; and refugee resettlement 118 social work/workers: and antiimmigration policies 171–178; and autonomy 33; and civil society 169; complicit in ‘de-radicalisation’ and detention 24; and feminism 80–81; internationalism 17; Italy, activism 93–94; and Modernity 19–20; and neoliberalism 128–129; ‘occupational spaces’ 169; and populism, commonalities 20–21; post-Brexit Britain 106–108; professional identity and ethics 91; revitalisation of 11–12; and social justice/rights 11–12; USA 118–119; vulnerability to populist ideology 91–92; see also AASW SOS Racisme 199 Soviet Union 3 stamina and humility 34, 36, 38 standardization 33–34 Standing, G. 59 state, the: coercion 25, 26; ‘social’ 52; and social work 25–27; surveillance 25, 26; and violence 205 strikes 104–105, 107, 109 structural disadvantage 11 suicide, male 61 surveillance/surveillance technology: capitalism 7–8, 9, 50; and extremism 141; and social services 141–142, 144; see also sanctions, welfare sustainability 20 Sweden 154 Sydney Morning Herald 214–215 Syria 183 tacit acceptance 90–91 Tapsell, Miranda 215 Targeted Compliance Framework (TCF) 139–140 targets 146 tech giants 7–8

television, and Islamophobia 186–187 terrorism: extreme right 188–189, 193–194; Islamic 141; white/white fragility 221; see also CVE Thatcher, Margaret 43, 45, 173 Thunberg, Greta 109 Torres Strait Island students 30 totalitarianism 138 trade unions 16, 31, 35, 103, 105, 107, 173, 179 Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) 46 Travellers 208–209 troll(s)/trolled 7, 62 True Finns 127, 129, 130, 153–154 Trump, Donald 22, 31, 47, 183, 220–221; anti-immigrant, and ‘Muslim ban’ 171, 183; and anti-Trumpism 64–65; female supporters 72; nationalist agenda and rhetoric 114; refugees 111–112; rolling back of gender equality initiatives 58; style and attitudes of 55, 59 TTIP 46 Turkey 72 Turtiainen, Kati Twitter 114, 118 UK: MPs’ expenses scandal 101; Roma, and Brexit 201; welfare state 105, 106, 123, 173; see also anti-immigration policies; Brexit; Prevent, UK UKIP 16, 200 Ukraine 202 unemployment 124, 129, 191; benefit 156; and conditional welfare 137, 139, 140, 143–145; protest against 109 United Nations (UN) 75, 185; High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR) 111, 112, 114; Human Development Index 215; Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948 125 United States (US or USA) 16, 126; Civil Rights Movement 108; elections, 2016 106, 113; migrants and refugees to 111–112, 115–118; National Association of Social Workers (NASW) 118–119; Republican Party 16; ‘shit-life syndrome’ 105; see also Trump, Donald universalism 26, 75, 88 universities see higher education vigilante attacks 204

Index violence 26; domestic/gender 62, 63, 78, 143–144; male, and conservatism 73; against minorities 87; racist attacks 98, 99; ultra-right/fascist 31; see also police violence voluntary sector 33, 173, 174 Walker, Kumanjayi 216, 224–225 ‘War on Terror’ 184, see also war on terrorist catastrophises warehousing 173 Webb, Stephen 20, 199–213 welfare chauvinism 124, 136, 151–166; welfare exclusionism 124, 153 welfare populism 154 ‘welfare’/welfare state: Australia 135–166; Italy 86–95; Nordic countries 122–131, 153–154; recipients of 10; UK 105, 106, 123, 173; see also anti-immigration policies; United States (US)

235

wellbeing 215; see also health care Westoby, Peter 42–54 white fragility 29–30, 36, 37–38, 218, 221 white modernity see Modernity white privilege 215, 222 white supremacists 8, 71, 220, 222, 223 Wilson, Woodrow 113 Windrush Scandal 100 Wodak, Ruth 3, 7, 15, 17, 71, women: and gender ideology 72; welfare programs 139, 143–144 Woolombi Waters, Marcus 214–227 working-class masculinities 58–60, 63 World Trade Centre attacks, 2001 141 World War II 1, 8, 84, 113, 123, 201 xenophobia 9, 30–31, 34, 36, 69, 75–76, 85, 93, 126–127, 136, 200 Žižek, Slavoj 43, 45–46 Zuboff, S. 6, 7, 8, 50