Organising populism: from symbolic power to symbolic violence

Kerr, Ron; Robinson, Sarah; Śliwa, Martyna

doi:10.1177/00187267221129181

Organising populism: from symbolic power to symbolic violence

Kerr, Ron; Robinson, Sarah; Śliwa, Martyna

Authors

Ron Kerr

Sarah Robinson

Professor Martyna Sliwa martyna.sliwa@durham.ac.uk
Professor

Abstract

This article contributes to developing a management and organisation studies perspective on political organising by focusing on: (a) populism; (b) the exercise of political power; and (c) the organisation of politics. We address two questions: in what ways have English populist politicians in the 20th and 21st centuries utilised language along with other aspects of campaign organising to build and enhance their symbolic power? And: how do populist political organisations convert symbolic power into symbolic violence? Drawing on a range of concepts from Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology, most specifically his work on symbolic power, symbolic violence, political ontology and the performativity of language, we conduct a comparative analysis of texts from four waves of right-wing English populism culminating in Brexit. We develop a three-step framework to explain the organisation of right-wing populism via what we term populist political methodology: (1) establishing the symbolic power of the leader and the message; (2) organising power and the division of labour of domination; and (3) reinforcing symbolic violence in targeted sections of society. Understanding how populist politics is organised can support us in resisting, challenging and disrupting right-wing populism, providing lessons for organisations campaigning against racism and xenophobia.

Citation

Kerr, R., Robinson, S., & Śliwa, M. (2022). Organising populism: from symbolic power to symbolic violence. Human Relations, https://doi.org/10.1177/00187267221129181

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Sep 19, 2022
Online Publication Date	Oct 31, 2022
Publication Date	2022
Deposit Date	Sep 13, 2022
Publicly Available Date	Sep 13, 2022
Journal	Human Relations
Print ISSN	0018-7267
Electronic ISSN	1741-282X
Publisher	SAGE Publications
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1177/00187267221129181
Public URL	https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1192036

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Copyright Statement
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).