Protecting the people: populism and masculine security in India and Hungary

Abstract

The article contributes to a comparative understanding of populism, securitization, and ontological security by demonstrating how masculinity plays a central role in invocations of insecurity. We argue that masculinity, understood as a set of gendered relations that helps in forging affective communities between populist leaders, the people, and objects of securitization, can provide useful insights into the political practice of populism and securitization. Building upon an analysis of the speeches of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, this article shows how right-wing populist constructions of security function by accommodating objects of securitization within an imaginary of family and kinship and invoking a familial bond between the populist leader and the objects of securitization. These constructions of security and terrorism are built upon similar gendered relations and influences across national contexts. In their constructions of security, both populist leaders invoke love and pride in gendered ways to create a familial bond between the populist leader and the people, even as they engage in acts of violence toward objects of securitization within a familial order by deploying idioms of kinship and the family.