We, the Peoples: Populist Leadership, Neoliberalism and Decoloniality

• Lars Cornelissen ^[1]
  1. [1] Radboud University Nijmegen

     Radboud University Nijmegen

     Países Bajos

     
• Localización: Araucaria: Revista Iberoamericana de Filosofía, Política, Humanidades y Relaciones Internacionales, ISSN 1575-6823, ISSN-e 2340-2199, Vol. 21, Nº 42, 2019 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Monográfico I. Tocqueville. Monográfico II. Narratives of Power: Demagogues, Politics and Morality at the Start of the 21ST Century), págs. 529-551
• Idioma: inglés
• DOI: 10.12795/araucaria.2019.i42.23
• Títulos paralelos:
  • Nosotros, los pueblos: liderazgo populista, neoliberalismo y descolonización
• Enlaces
  • Texto completo (pdf)
• Resumen
  • español

    Este artículo aborda los límites de la teoría del populismo de Ernesto Laclau centrándose en la lógica de la identificación popular. El argumento central es que el marco laclauiano es incapaz de dar cuenta de formas recientes de populismo que articulan un contexto de identificación descolonizador. Más específicamente, el artículo muestra que para Laclau el liderazgo y la exclusión son componentes necesarios de la identificación popular, en la que la identidad de “el pueblo” depende de la articulación simbólica previa de un enemigo y un líder. Aunque esta teoría populista es suficiente para explicar cómo se articula el liderazgo populista en distintas modalidades populistas latinoamericanas de mediados de siglo, zozobra cuando se enfrenta a formas más recientes de identificación populista. Un análisis cuidadoso de los populismos ecuatorianos y bolivianos contemporáneos muestra que éstos rechazan implícitamente el modelo laclauiano de identificación, articulando en cambio un modelo descolonizador que defiende la pluralidad de identidades y moviliza historias nacionales vivas de resistencia anticolonial.

  • English

    This article engages with the limits of Ernesto Laclau’s theory of populism, focusing on the logic of popular identification. The central argument is that the Laclauian framework is incapable of accounting for recent forms of populism that articulate a decolonial mode of identification. More specifically, the article shows that for Laclau, leadership and exclusion are necessary components of popular identification, in which the identity of ‘the people’ depends on the prior symbolic articulation of both an enemy and a leader. Although this theory of populism is well-positioned to explain how populist leadership functioned in several mid-century Latin American varieties of populism, it founders when faced with more recent forms of populist identification. Careful analysis of contemporary Ecuadorian and Bolivian populisms shows that these implicitly reject the Laclauian model of identification, articulating instead a decolonial model that advocates the plurality of identities and mobilises rich national histories of anti-colonial resistance.

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