Symbolic despotism as hypocrisy, desire and violence: The Ironies of Humanitarianism in Spain’s Asylum System

Abstract

In an era when humanitarian credentials often serve as a moral badge, the Spanish asylum system reveals a paradox: those tasked by providing care can become unwitting agents of subtler form of tyranny. Beneath the veneer of altruism, the front-line social workers everyday interactions with asylum seekers -often operating within overstretched bureaucraciesexemplify what we conceptualize as symbolic despotism, where the desire for control is entrenched in the rhetoric of virtue.