Vanguards, Sacralisation of Politics, and Totalitarianism: Category-based Epistemology and Political Religion

Gray, Phillip W.

doi:10.1080/21567689.2014.957686

Cited by 9 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…This notion of particular political religion reflects the essence of totalitarian thinking much more accurately than the concept of ideology. 31 Ideology is non-specific to totalitarianism and may be efficiently produced, distributed, and redistributed in all types of political regimes.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Challenging the theoretical framework of the totalitarian syndrome

Bäcker¹,

Rak²

2021

sfzh

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The article is of methodological nature and aims to evaluate the content validity of Carl Joachim Friedrich and Zbigniew K. Brzezinski’s totalitarian syndrome, that is, the extent to which this theoretical framework accurately represents the social phenomena to which it refers. It introduces the critical analysis of the individual concepts extracted from the totalitarian syndrome as the indicators of totalitarianism and the model as a whole as a research tool for measuring political regimes. The paper begins with the discussion on an alternative concept of totalitarianism formulated by Nicholas Timasheff to illustrate the context in which the authors of the theoretical categories of totalitarianism created them. Then, the article goes on to analyze the nature and major characteristics of Friedrich and Brzezinski’s totalitarian syndrome as well as these reviews of Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy, which addressed the validity of the model. Social scientists have widely criticized Friedrich and Brzezinski’s totalitarian syndrome. The most serious objection concerns the non-specific essential features collected and combined to define totalitarianism. The taxonomic nature of the model has allowed researchers, who blindly adopted the framework, to classify discretionarily political regimes of numerous states as totalitarian. Friedrich and Brzezinski failed to advance any clear criteria for coding. They did not establish a line between meeting and not meeting the listed essential features. Furthermore, it is unknown what character the features enumerated under this syndrome have. This generates a question if the six “indicators” are essential, distinctive, significant, co-decisive, contours, features, factors, frames, pillars, or mechanisms. Although Friedrich and Brzezinski’s totalitarian syndrome fulfilled a prominent educational role mostly for US citizens by showing that there could be social worlds completely different from those in which one lives, the proposed understanding of totalitarianism is insignificant in defining such regimes. This theoretical framework inaccurately represents the social phenomena to which it refers. The paper finishes with the argument against applying the syndrome to scrutinize political regimes because of its considerably limited content validity.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Challenging the theoretical framework of the totalitarian syndrome

Bäcker¹,

Rak²

2021

sfzh

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“…102 In its essence, the AKP's imagery of the community of elect is based on 'the belief that a specific group holds a particularly important place in social/historical development, with its unique position providing privileged access to 'truth''. 103 This elect group is 'entitled to determine the future, lead the country and write history. … Not only is the population capable of "seeing", but also is the driving force for History's completion (or at least its move to a "higher level")'.…”

Section: Constructing a Community Of The Elect And New National Identitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Fuzzy Borders between Populism and Sacralized Politics: Mission, Leader, Community and Performance in ‘New’ Turkey

Yabancı

2020

Politics, Religion & Ideology

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Why do right-wing populist leaders routinely resort to religious appeals? How should the religious symbolism in populist politics be interpreted? To address these questions, this study shifts attention to symbolic, ritualistic and emotive mobilization by populism through insights from cultural sociology and 'sacralization of politics'. Populists in power sacralize the political arena by attributing nominally secular entities such as the nation, the state and the leader 'religious' traits as objects of loyalty and faith. By creating a syncretic amalgamation of the secular and religious domains, they perpetuate the dichotomy between the people and the powerful enemy, despite changing boundaries of both categories. Using the case of Turkey as illustration, the study examines three features of sacralized politics: (1) mission led by a sacrosanct leader, (2) consecration of elect community/the nation, and (3) performance politics that substitutes democratic participation. The findings suggest that beyond the instrumental use of religious tropes for political gain, right-wing populists rally support by selectively evoking the 'cultural toolkit' available to them. They also construct a specific group identity by evoking collective memory. Researchers should pay more attention to populists' embeddedness in cultural structures in which religion remains a powerful pillar and resonate well with their audiences. In 2015, the Turkish president Erdoğan was holding a copy of the Quran in Kurdish at an electoral rally in Diyarbakir, the largest Kurdish city in the country. He assured the audience by stating that 'nobody could dare to split the motherland, divide the nation and destroy the flag' and invited the Kurdish people to support the AKP's revivalist 2023 goals 1 and unite behind 'one nation, one flag, one motherland and one religion'. 2 In 2018, in a completely different context, a billboard featured a photo of Trump with the slogan 'Make the Gospel Great Again' and a verse from the Bible. Hours after, Trump delivered a speech themed

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“…Since the meaning of gnosis has been changed many times to perform diverse exploratory and explanatory tasks in various scientific fields (Varshizky, 2002, p. 315), its semantic field is vague to some extent. In political sociology and philosophy, the term of gnosis occurs with a predicate of political, and the notion of political gnosis applies to describe the phenomena considered to be the sources of radical evil and the embodiment of the use of excessive political violence, such as revolution, terrorism (Pellicani, 2003), anarchism (Bamyeh, 2013, p. 192), Maoism (Grelet andSmith, 2014), Marxism, Leninism, Bolshevism (Besançon, 1981), totalitarianism (Gray, 2014), pathological sickness of political mindset, and lethal neoplasm of Western Civilization (Voegelin, 1952, p. 317;1987, p. 112;Jonas, 1952). Those approaches are criticized for being value-laden (Miley, 2011, p. 34;Gerschewski, 2016).…”

Section: революция которая не произошла: потенциал возрождения русского национализмаmentioning

confidence: 99%

Deconstruction of Natural Order. The Legacy of the Russian Revolution

Diec¹

2017

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Vanguards, Sacralisation of Politics, and Totalitarianism: Category-based Epistemology and Political Religion

Cited by 9 publications

References 4 publications

Challenging the theoretical framework of the totalitarian syndrome

Challenging the theoretical framework of the totalitarian syndrome

Fuzzy Borders between Populism and Sacralized Politics: Mission, Leader, Community and Performance in ‘New’ Turkey

Deconstruction of Natural Order. The Legacy of the Russian Revolution

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