LIAS Alumnus Dr Gary Hussey: Ideologies in Stone

Your research shows how political ideologies materialise in urban space. To what extent are monuments and architecture active tools of political power?

The urban environments reflect political power. Monuments which often tend to commemorate, let’s say in case of military statues; the major victories through which a political order was established or defended and other things. Such material objects in a sense ‘make real’ or tangible the foundation myths of a socio-political order. These are material ‘nodal’ or anchor points in political discourse that give an ideological consistency to space. They serve to ‘naturalise’ a political regime. 

The remodelling of Budapest by right-wing populist forces is a central theme of your research. Do you see parallels to other European cities where right-wing populist governments are claiming public space for their ideologies? 

This work on the materialities of populism in Budapest, is very much a new area for me and I have yet to do deeper comparative work situating Budapest alongside other contemporary European cities. But I am interested in doing such work in the broader post-socialist space, from Belgrade to Sarajevo. What I am particularly interested in here, is the response to certain forms of urban development which took place after the fall of socialism, and how such developments dashed the democratic hopes in these societies, which in turn helps to drive the rise of right-wing populism.

You are investigating how illiberal forces are reshaping Budapest. What forms of resistance are emerging against these transformations, and which actors are playing a central role in them?

My research on Budapest up until now has been very tightly delimited in terms of its spatial focus. Instead of taking the entire city as a case study, I have examined one district in a much more fine-grained manner – District IX, to be precise. I chose this district as a case study, as it is something of an oppositional space. The practices of resistance I look at are mostly at cultural level and modes of everyday resistance. The key actors are ‘ordinary’ people who mobilise to re-claim their own neighbourhoods, exercising their own political agency. That is not to neglect the good work done by many political figures and activists.

Critics of post-foundational theory accuse it of not providing a clear normative basis. How do you address this objection, particularly in relation to your research on political polarisation?

Such criticisms are located within the broader criticisms of post-structuralism or what is regularly mis-identified as ‘post-modern’ theory. It must come as little surprise that I disagree with such assertions. If there is any ethical ‘foundation’ or imperative in my work, it resides precisely within its ‘nothingness’ - the lack of any ultimate foundations. Instead, approaches such as mine interrogate how such normative foundations become instituted and taken for granted. The lack of a final ground or foundation is precisely where political possibility resides in the radical sense of politics.

Political polarisation is often described as a threat to liberal democracies. However, your research approach emphasises antagonism as a constitutive element of the political. In your view, are there any ‘productive’ forms of antagonism?

I do not see polarisation as a threat to democracy - in fact its relative absence is often a function of technocratic anti-politics. A productive mobilising of antagonism may involve the directing the rage people feel at their social situation and re-draw the frontier against those who perpetuate and profit from a system of profound inequality. This could very well reinvigorate democracy in the more radical way. 

Many political processes take place in digital spaces. Could your methodology, such as archive research and discourse-analytical approaches, be transferred to digital architecture and virtual public spheres?

For sure. The approach I locate myself within, namely, Political or Post-Foundational Discourse Theory (PDT), in so far as it concerned with political discourse has taken an interest in political discussions taking place in various online spaces. In fact, there has been a number of developments in the last decade or so to translate the rather abstract categories into empirical research. All of which is well placed to grasped the political dynamics of the online space. Still, we are in a shifting terrain with the rise of artificial intelligence and its popular usage. We will have to adopt our methods and tools accordingly.

You have also conducted research on Northern Ireland. What lessons can be learned from the conflict resolution mechanisms there for other divided societies?

I think its hard to extrapolate any universal lessons from any particular context, as it is critical to really understand the particularities of each conflict. One thing I could say, is that in the case of Northern Ireland and lets also take the Dayton accords in the former Yugoslav Wars, that these peace processes did not end antagonism - they merely tamed it. It takes a huge amount of political and societal commitment to maintain peace. The underlying structural violence must really be addressed, such as forms of exclusion and poverty.

Thank you for the interview

Gary Hussey is a social theorist currently working on post-fundamentalist analyses of the spatial aspects of violence. He holds a PhD from the School of Political Science and Sociology at the National University of Ireland in Galway and researches contemporary social, political and spatial theories. His publications focus on the spatial aspects of violence in Northern Ireland in the 19th and 20th centuries. He also researches the history of populism, which has threatened democracies at various historical junctures, while conversely proving to be a democratizing force in its more egalitarian manifestations.