This article deals with theories and political projects that can be defined as ‘left populism’. It begins with a reading and critique of the work of Ernesto Laclau on the theory of populism and then moves to recent debates about the possibility of left-populist movements. In contrast to these positions it attempts to present an alternative theoretical framework based on Gramscian notions, in order to rethink the notion of the people in ways that do not de-link it from class analysis (...) and social relations of production. (shrink)

In October 2018, Slavoj Žižek published a two-part contribution titled ‘Should the Left’s answer to rightist populism be really a ‘‘me too’’?’. In this text, Žižek reproduced his diachronic skepticism on populism as a fruitful strategy for the Left. In a critical vein, we believe that Žižek’s latest interventions join - unconsciously or not - an avalanche of anti-populist discourses that usually emanate from elitist politicians and journalists, and reproduce a moralist, alarmist stance against populism. As a consequence, anti-populist elitism (...) blurs the concept of populism even more thereby hampering our possibilities to capture the changing politico-historic reality in the age of collapsing neoliberalism. (shrink)

Two recent books on populism represent more than any other the new mainstream in populism studies. Through a reconstruction of the main arguments advanced by Jan-Werner Müller, on the one hand, and Cas Mudde and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser, on the other, this article aims to highlight both the significant accomplishments as well as the main limitations of this orientation. Special attention is given to the way in which the two projects deal with the relationship between populism and democracy. In this (...) respect, substantial differences emerge between them, largely due to the different scope of each intervention: Müller articulates a polemical argument, while Mudde and Kaltwasser seem to encompass a more nuanced research agenda. And yet, despite all their differences, the two books share a common definitional basis when they identify moralization and moralism as the kernel of populist ideology. It is here, however, that the shaky basis of the new mainstream is revealed. Apart from betraying substantive continuities with a discredited Cold War pluralism, this moralistic stress seems ultimately inadequate to function as the central criterion for the differential identification of populism. (shrink)