The Rise and Fall of Post-Politics in Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract

Documenting the historical sequence running from the post-war ‘New Deal’ and corresponding economic boom up until the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, this thesis outlines the rise of post-politics internationally. With the collapse of the former Soviet-states signalling the left’s capitulation to neoliberal capital under the guise of the ‘third way’, this period marked the ostensible ‘End of History’ and the dawn of post-politics. Here, politics is no longer about contestation, antagonism or disagreement but is reduced to its purely administrative function, whereby its primary purpose is to facilitate the continuous and successful operation of the economy. Drawing on the theoretical frameworks of Chantal Moffe, Jacques Rancière, Alain Badiou and Slavoj Žižek, this thesis demonstrates that post-politics does not result in the evisceration of politics but, rather, the repression of politics. The outcome of this is the inevitable return of the repressed, this being politics ‘proper’. In the wake of the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 and the emergence of Occupy, Trump, Brexit, and numerous other revolts and uprisings, this period signals the fall of post-politics and the ‘Rebirth of History’, witnessing the emergence of politics ‘proper’. An explicit exercise in self-clarification, this thesis ultimately documents the international rise and fall of post-politics, exploring how this maps onto the local context in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Drawing on Dylan Taylor’s identification of a ‘third phase’ of Aotearoa/New Zealand’s left, characterised by a potential ‘period of renewal’, this thesis seeks to inquire into whether this trend has continued. Given that Taylor’s thesis was completed immediately prior to the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, an ‘updating’ is therefore required to account for the events of the last ten years. Coinciding with international fall of post-politics, this thesis ultimately identifies the emergence of a new politics outside of the parliamentary sphere, potentially indicative of a ‘fourth phase’ of Aotearoa/New Zealand’s left.