Led by Prof Rosana Pinheiro-Machado and the team, the WorkPoliticsBIP project investigates the nexus between labour precariousness and authoritarian politics in Brazil, India, and the Philippines (BIP). 

In the early 2000s, emergent economies were promising global democratic powers. Yet, democratic consolidation faces significant challenges in the face of  BIP nations electing populist authoritarian politicians. The understanding of such a process remains fragmented or limited to a global North repertoire. This project proposes a framework that examines emerging economies’ development contradictions, namely economic growth that fostered new aspirational classes amidst labour precariousness. 

Strong evidence shows that sectors removed from poverty supported authoritarian politicians in the BIP countries. We interrogate why and how this occurs. 

A key problem in the scholarship of radical right supporters is to rely exclusively on reactionary emotions of anger, hate, resentment, and nostalgia in contexts of impoverishment and recession. In contexts of economic growth, we must understand reactive emotions alongside active drivers of aspirations and self-fulfilment stimulated by the entrepreneurial ideal. 

An innovative combination of intensive ethnography and extensive data science analyse the ideological nexus between precarious platform workers’ and authoritarian politicians’ values in the BIP countries. 

Simultaneous 12-month ethnography in each country and data mining scrutinise confluences and divergences between the two axes. This comparative research examines how culture and technology shape political subjectivity and aspirations in different countries and platforms.

The research team explores two intertwined phenomena: (a) the sociological roots related to platform labour precariousness that makes this convergence possible (sense of authenticity, isolation, individualism, competitiveness, entrepreneurial spirit), and (b) the technological infrastructure that promotes and reconfigures interactions between the two axes.