Rethinking populism. Towards a radical and agonistic democracy

Abstract

Populism, a polysemic word if any, around which important philosophical, sociological and historiographical trends focus on, showing it’s most aberrant aspects, or in this case, it’s redeeming elements, in its close relationship with democracy. Even the populist phenomenon is uncertain, being considered political style, a political system, or a way of representation, or perhaps as an implementation of popular national policies, among others. Taking all this into account is that we need to open a window to air a room with too much smoke that has influenced the minds of those who set to think, far away from historical reality, on what we consider a possible false dilemma, which in political theory has already gone through several years, the one that contrast populism with democracy and vice versa. This paper relates the ontological conception of populism presented in Ernesto Laclau, combined with Chantal Mouffe´s contributions about the constituent element of politics as inherent to the same phenomenon. At the same time, in an attempt to go further in the topic, we question the interpretation of Benjamin Arditi and M. Canovan, who understand it as a negative aspect, spectral and dangerous, in the authoritarian limits of democracy, suggesting the psychoanalytic term “projection” as a characteristic feature of populism. To conclude, taking Chantal Mouffe’s contributions, we try to overcome the antagonistic logic suggesting an understanding/interpretation of populism as an agonistic and radical icon of democracy.