The Shape of the People. Rethinking Populism Beyond Laclau
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1285/i20398573v7n2p29Keywords:
Populism, People, Ideology, Ernesto Laclau, Chantal MouffeAbstract
In the theoretical discussion of populism, two main options can be identified: a perspective conceives the populism as a thin-centered ideology; a second perspective believes that populism is a set of rhetorical, stylistic and organizational tools, which can be used by any political force. With respect to these two perspectives, Ernesto Laclau’s proposal outlines a further strategy. This article examines the merits and limitations of Laclau’s proposal. This paper highlights two problematic aspects: for Laclau, populism is not only a logic of political discourse, but also a political proposal; furthermore, ‘populism’, in his perspective, is not a specific phenomenon, because it is the mechanism by which every political identity is produced. The paper suggests that a solution consists in recovering the distinction between the logic of equivalence and the logic of difference, which was advanced by Laclau and Mouffe during the 1980s.
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