Rebel populism

Download or read book Rebel populism written by Philip Proudfoot and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2022-05-17 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Workers from the Syrian diaspora have maintained a presence in Lebanon for decades, building multimillion-dollar apartment complexes, toiling for backbreaking hours in grocery stores. From the mid-2000s, liberalising reforms saw accelerating levels of poverty among workers, often paid as low as $20 per day. Instead of ‘opportunity’, workers faced the prospect of indefinite economic exile, the unending drudgery of hard labour, and a constant struggle to make ends meet. But in 2011, revolution came to Syria. Rural towns and villages exploded in revolt, but even those workers who remained in Beirut found means to protest at a distance. Their movement, which this book identifies as ‘rebel populism,’ represents an early instance of an increasingly common global contentious political formation, a form of mass politics that emerges not via a charismatic orator or developed ideological convictions, but through the weaving together of grievances aimed at the ruling class.