ABSTRACT
This article aims at reflecting on leftist populism and how this specific type of political construction could foster radical democracy. We believe that leftist populism, unlike the right-wing one, is democratic in the sense of being structurally associated to inclusive, emancipatory discourses, while right-wing populism is based on discourses of exclusion. For that, the article is divided in three main sections. First, we will present a brief survey of current debates on the concept of populism, focusing our attention on the work by Cas Mudde and Cristóbal Kaltwasser, Margaret Canovan, and Ernesto Laclau. Here we will present what we call a minimal definition of the populist phenomenon, which we posit as a political, antagonistic construction of a people against its enemies. The second section will explore a key distinction to the understanding of contemporary forms of populism: right-wing and leftist populism. Afterwards, we shift our focus to the analysis of contemporary experiences of leftist populism in order to articulate it with the notion of ‘will of equals’, a concept we claim to be useful to the understanding of inclusive forms of populism. Finally, we will discuss the theoretical, methodological, and ethical consequences of the distinction of left and right populism.
Keywords:
populism; left-wing populism; right-wing populism; will of equals; radical democracy.