The right words: mapping the ideological language of authoritarian populism in post-apartheid South Africa

South Africa currently finds itself in a crucial conjuncture with the emergence of an exclusionary politics, which centres the Other as the cause of a structural multidimensional crisis. The once strong hegemony of the ANC, which dominated the country for close to three decades, has unravelled. In this gap, an ecosystem of right-leaning political parties has emerged, moving South Africa swiftly towards a new type of politics. This article tracks the emergence of a unique type of ideological language associated with this ecosystem, how it seeks to construct South Africa’s crisis, and how it seeks to construct a new, competing hegemony. This article specifically draws on Stuart Hall’s writings on authoritarian populism to provide a framework of analysis, with theories of sociolinguistics underscoring the way in which an ideological language of authoritarian populism is emerging in contemporary South Africa.