It might be useful for South Africans, especially policymakers, to read economist Dani Rodrik’s 2017 analysis of populism and the economics of globalisation because it provides analytical clarity on what is happening in South Africa today.
Rodrik, whose work covers globalisation, economic growth and development and political economy, sought an answer to what explained the emergence of right-wing versus left-wing variants of populism globally. He concluded the variant of populism depended on the forms of globalisation shock a society felt.
Globalisation — a country’s openness in short — refers to the phenomenon of greater integration of national economies, enabling the freer movement of goods, services, technology and labour. South Africa has since the early 1990s become globalised, with all the associated shocks such as trade and movement of people.
Rodrik explains that when the shock arising from a country’s economic openness is most salient in terms of immigration and refugees, the greater the likelihood a right-wing variant of populism will arise.
Right-wing populist politicians mobilise along ethno-national/cultural cleavages, which emphasise outsiders or people who are not “part of us”. This, says Rodrik, is what happened in Europe’s advanced economies, where immigration was exploited by right-wing political forces. This is what has been happening on South Africa’s streets recently.
The left-wing variant of populism mobilises along income/social class lines. South Africa has this variant too, which was also most pronounced in Latin America and southern Europe.
Rodrik makes another important point: economic anxiety and “distributional struggles exacerbated by globalisation” don’t necessarily determine populism’s political orientation. They merely create a base — what he terms the demand side — for populism.
“The relative salience of available cleavages and the narrative provided by populist leaders are what provides direction and content to the grievances. Overlooking this distinction can obscure the respective roles of economic and cultural factors in driving populist politics.”
He adds that the economic anxiety, discontent, loss of legitimacy and fairness concerns rarely come with obvious solutions or policy perspectives. “They tend to be inchoate and need to be channelled in a particular programmatic direction through narratives that provide meaning and explanation to the groups in question.”
This is where populists, the supply side, come in. “They present a story that is meant to resonate with their base, the demand side: here is what is happening, this is why, and these are the people who are doing it to you.”
That’s the mobilising narrative for South African populists: immigrants are competing for jobs, taking our women, congesting public services to the detriment of the natives.
Of importance too is that the success of populist movements depends on how well they use issues that have salience in everyday experiences of the citizens. As Rodrik argues: “What may look like a racist or xenophobic backlash may have its roots in economic anxieties and dislocations.”
He concludes that it is important to disentangle the demand side of populism — that is the issues shaping citizens’ daily experiences — and the supply side — the meaning-making by populists. That is because populist politicians “highlight and render salient societal cleavages”.
In South Africa’s case it is simplistic to dismiss the citizens who have taken to the streets as only being “xenophobes” without understanding their daily experiences. But key too is an understanding of what meaning the populists who are organising these protests have given to these issues as part of their mobilisation tactics.
• Sikhakhane, a former spokesman for the finance minister, National Treasury and South African Reserve Bank, is editor of The Conversation Africa. He writes in his personal capacity.
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