The People as Community of Affections. Social Demand and Overflow of Liberal Democracy in Populist Political Theory

The article is based on Ernesto Laclau's theory of populism, and explores the category of social demand, as well as the differentiation between democratic and popular demands. Based on the analysis that we propose of these central categories, we analyze the relationship between populism and representative democracy, as well as the point from which the danger of its blocking would happen. Finally, we propose to think the legitimacy of populism as being, simultaneously, an excess -compared to the legitimacy that characterizes liberal democracy- and a kind of deficit -in relation to community legitimacy.

Keywords
Populism; Democracy; Representation; Social demand; Affection