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Populism is the name of a global phenomenon whose definitional precariousness is proverbial. It resists generalizations and makes scholars of politics comparativist by necessity, as its language and content are imbued with the political culture of the society in which it arises. A rich body of socio-historical analyses allows us to situate populism within the global phenomenon called democracy, as its ideological core is nourished by the two main entities—the nation and the people—that have fleshed out popular sovereignty in the age of democratization. Populism consists in a transmutation of the democratic principles of the majority and the people in a way that is meant to celebrate one subset of the people as opposed to another, through a leader embodying it and an audience legitimizing it. This may make populism collide with constitutional democracy, even if its main tenets are embedded in the democratic universe of meanings and language. In this article, I illustrate the context-based character of populism and how its cyclical appearances reflect the forms of representative government. I review the main contemporary interpretations of the concept and argue that some basic agreement now exists on populism's rhetorical character and its strategy for achieving power in democratic societies. Finally, I sketch the main characteristics of populism in power and explain how it tends to transform the fundamentals of democracy: the people and the majority, elections, and representation.

When voters' trust in politicians collapses, they demand simple policies that they can easily monitor. Disenchanted citizens therefore prefer committed delegates to politicians who propose themselves as competent policy makers but without a specific policy commitment (trustees). In a two-party competition, the unique asymmetric equilibrium is such that voters with lower interest for the common good select a committed delegate, while those with higher interest for the common good appoint a trustee. In this equilibrium, we show that the committed delegate also chooses all the strategies typically associated with populism in the literature. Hence, this paper puts forward a commitment theory of populism.

The relationship between populism and democracy is contested among scholars. While some propose that populism is inherently harmful for democracy because it is anti-pluralist and confrontational, others argue that populism can reinvigorate worn-out democracies in need of greater popular participation. In A Dynamic Theory of Populism in Power, Julio F. Carrión advances this debate by examining the empirical relationship between populism in power and democracy. Does populism in power always lead to regime change, that is, the demise of democracy? The answer is no. The impact of populism on democracy depends on the variety of populism in power: the worst outcomes in democratic governance are found under unconstrained populism. Carrión presents the permissive and productive conditions for why and how populism becomes unconstrained, as well as a dynamic theory of change that shows how the late victories of populists build on early ones, resulting in greater power asymmetries. A Dynamic Theory of Populism in Power provides an analysis of five Latin American populist presidencies, all located in the Andes. In four of them (Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela), populism became unconstrained and regime change followed. In one case, Colombia, populism in power was successfully contained and democracy survived. The concluding chapter places the Andean cases in comparative perspective and discusses how unconstrained populism in other cases (Nicaragua and Hungary) also led to the end of electoral democracy. Where populism in power was constrained (Honduras and the United States), regime change did not materialize. Carrión advances a theory of populism in power that helps us understand how democracies transition into non-democracies. To that extent, the book illuminates the processes of democratic erosion in our time.

Defining populism as a political articulation, rather than a specific ideology, Laclau has been one of the first scholars to show why the form and content of this phenomenon are strictly related. According to him, stylistic features such as vague, polarising and strong emotive discourse are not merely epiphenomenal elements of populism, which prove the irrationality of its ideology. They are constitutive elements of populism as they are necessary to create and maintain the division of society into two antagonistic blocs. Laclau's theory of populism, however, has also been criticised for implicitly endorsing an authoritarian view of power. In this paper I argue that to better identify the source of the democratic deficit in such theory, we need to explore the combination of form and content it endorses. In order to do this I analyse Laclau's account of the articulatory practices of populism, focusing on their rhetorical character in particular. My argument is that this account is democratically problematic, since being based on a merely formal understanding of rhetoric, inevitably reduces the rhetorical dimension of these practices to an instrumental and thus potentially manipulative logic. This logic presupposes and promotes a homogenised, passive, and unreflective idea of the 'people'. ; This study was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) under the scope of the strategic funding of UID/BIO/04469/2019 unit and BioTecNorte operation (NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000004) funded by the European Regional Development Fund under the scope of Norte2020 - Programa Operacional Regional do Norte. The authors also acknowledge the support, through the Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionalização (COMPETE2020) and by national funds, through the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), of the POLY-PrevEnTT project (PTDC/BTM-SAL/29841/2017 POCI-01-0145-FEDER-029841). ...

The "will of the (national) people" is the ubiquitously invoked reference unit of populist politics. The essay tries to demystify the notion that such will can be conceived of as a unique and unified substance deriving from collective ethnic identity. Arguably, all political theory is concerned with arguing for ways by which citizens can make e pluribus unum—for example, by coming to agree on procedures and institutions by which conflicts of interest and ideas can be settled according to standards of fairness. It is argued that populists in their political rhetoric and practice typically try to circumvent the burden of such argument and proof. Instead, they appeal to the notion of some preexisting existential unity of the people's will, which they can redeem only through practices of repression and exclusion.

El siguiente artículo presenta un recorrido histórico y conceptual de la categoría populismo en la obra de Laclau, desde sus primeros trabajos inscriptos en el marxismo hasta su teoría madura del populismo en el campo postmarxista. La teoría política del populismo de Ernesto Laclau es una de las más sofisticadas y polémicas respuestas a la pregunta sobre el origen de esta categoría. El estudio que se propone el autor muestra las potencialidades de la categoría para el análisis político y también las dificultades teóricas que debe resolver para consolidarse en un mundo en constante evaluación de sus criterios de organización y participación en los ámbitos político, económico y social. ; The following article presents a historical and conceptual overview of the populism category in Laclau's work from his earliest works inscribed in Marxism to his mature theory of populism in the postmarxist camp. The political theory of populism by Ernesto Laclau is one of the most sophisticated and controversial answers to the question about the origin of this category. The study proposed by the author shows the potential of the category for political analysis and also the theoretical difficulties that must be solved to consolidate in a world in constant evaluation of its criteria of organization and participation in the political, economic and social spheres. ; Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación