The Antinomies of Populist Reason. What Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe Tell Us About Politics and What They Don't Know About Democracy

Abstract

Populism is one of the most studied political phenomena of our time. However, what do we mean by this term? Many scholars have attempted to remedy the vagueness and uncertainty of the concept of populism. Among these attempts at theorizing, the one developed by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe has met with some success. Populism is not just one aspect of their philosophy, but the key to reading all of their work. This article proposes to show how their theory of populism provides an extremely stimulating political ontology but a particularly poor theory of democracy. ; Peer reviewed