Anton Jäger, a 32-year-old lecturer at Oxford, has gained attention for his book 'Hyperpolitics: Extreme Politicization without Political Consequences,' which offers a framework for understanding modern political movements that are intense but lack institutional roots. Jäger, who describes himself as a Marxist, argues that we have moved through four eras: mass politics (1914-1989), post-politics (1989-2008), anti-politics (2008-2020), and now hyperpolitics.
What Is Hyperpolitics?
Hyperpolitics, according to Jäger, is characterized by high politicization but low institutionalization. Movements like Black Lives Matter and the January 6 Capitol rioters share organizational similarities: they are fleeting, lack membership rolls, and struggle to impose discipline. Jäger quotes political theorist Paolo Gerbaudo's phrase 'bodies without organs' to describe these movements as concentrated but without internal metabolism.
Jäger emphasizes that hyperpolitics is not just a concept but is backed by empirical data. He measures institutionalization through union membership, church attendance, and other forms of belonging, and politicization through election turnout, strikes, and political violence. The height of mass politics was between the wars, illustrated by the dense civic organizations in the Rhenish hamlet of Marienthal during the Great Depression.
The Destruction of Institutions
Jäger attributes the decline of political organizations to the union-busting policies of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. Unions were defanged, workers impoverished, and industries collapsed. Cultural shifts in the 1960s and 1970s also led people to seek emancipation from collective institutions. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 marked a clear break, ushering in the post-political era where politics seemed irrelevant to large-scale change.
Jäger notes that the destruction of institutions also affected the right. Thatcher dismantled popular Conservatism, replacing it with PR and private funding. Today, the right is as inconsequential as the left, with movements like Reform UK heavily dependent on leaders like Nigel Farage and private donors rather than party infrastructure. Jäger acknowledges that the right has more money, citing Elon Musk, which helps hyperpolitics on the right achieve more tangible results.
Bonapartism, Not Fascism
Jäger controversially argues that Trump's movement is not fascism but Bonapartism, relying on passive support from impoverished masses, as Marx described in 'The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.' He contends that the left overestimates its strength by calling opponents fascists; the far right is a function of liberalism's crisis, not the left's strength. While acknowledging that ICE resembles a standing army, Jäger maintains that the differences with 20th-century phenomena are more striking than the similarities.
Neal Lawson, a political commentator, applies Jäger's ideas to UK politics, noting that leaders like Andy Burnham must navigate volatile hyper-political swarms without secure political footings. Jäger warns that incentives for leaving rather than joining organizations are high, but repoliticization has increased consciousness that politics matters. The challenge remains to rebuild institutions in a hyperpolitical age.
