Populism, Right-Wing MovementsBalkans: History, Politics, SocietyDecolonial Thought and Epistemologies

B. Filipovic, Z. Lazar

2026.1.1Philosophy and Society-Filozofija i Drustvo

DOI: 10.2298/fid241008002f

Abstract

Contemporary changes in favor of the populist matrix thematization involve examination of the signifier-inaugural power of conspiratorial discourses as a symptom and political method of Serbian society democratic structure marginalization. Admittedly, the state?s re-dramatization of conspiracists? phantasms of the enemy?s horrifying hidden actions is not interpreted exclusively in the light of the political contagion that global, populist mind employs to write contemporary history. It is neither the central epistemic structure of the post-factual world which mandates the state?s manipulation of paranoid fear should be exclusively interpreted as part of the competition of multiple discourses for a hegemonic position. This study suggests political effects of creating phantasmatic content are reflected in maintaining the counter-revolutionary fervor of populist rule and traditional affiliation politics. Fully comprehending democratic standards? self discrediting relies on psychoanalytical assumptions about the predetermination of the subject by its phantasms having been placed in the field of the unconscious and the Lacanian anticipation of the permanent impossibility of bearing one?s own self and desires. Ensuring proofs that the systemic incitement of irrational suspicion through the regime?s media supports the self-establishment of ruling-class credibility, as well as getting to know the way in which the familiar dramaturgy of guilt is applied to ensure new legitimization procedures points to the interpretation of change as a difference in the relationship between social and phantasmatic forces.

Citation format

FILIPOVIC, B.; LAZAR, Z. The populist matrix of obsessive-oppressive power and its phantasmatic novelty: Towards a deliric sameness of changes. Philosophy and Society-Filozofija i Drustvo, 2026: 2.