On Cracks and Ruptures: Populism Seen as a Process. A Socio-Historical Analysis Based on the Populist Theory of Ernesto Laclau ; Sobre grietas y rupturas: el populismo visto como un proceso. Un análisis socio-histórico a partir de la teoría populista de Ernesto Laclau

Abstract

Despite its undoubted contributions and originality, several authors have beenpointing out the limitations of Ernesto Laclau's theory of Populism, mainly fromthe developments in The Populist Reason. Whether because of its formalism, theopposition between Mobilization and Institutionalization (shared with ChantalMouffe) or the conflation of populist logic with that of politics in general, recentcriticisms aim to go beyond Laclau. In this article we seek to sociologize Laclau'stheory including in its formal logic an ontic and structural logic linked to cleavagetheory. From this perspective, we propose to understand populism as a project anda political regime that is explained by what we call a Populist Process thatdistinguishes three instances: moment, phenomenon and regime. For this purposewe make, in the first place, a general reference to the formal character of thepopulist articulation and how the mobilization-institutionalization border is builtin Laclau and Mouffe; then we inquire about what we mean by populist process;and finally, we raise the possibility of studying populism from a logic based onwhat we have called horizontal and vertical cleavages, a proposal that although itis not dependent on processual theory, converses with it by also demanding aperspective of sociological analysis and not only of political events when talkingabout populist cleavage. ; Más allá de sus indudables aportes y originalidad, varios autores vienen señalandolas limitaciones de la teoría de Ernesto Laclau sobre el populismo, principalmentea partir de los desarrollos en La Razón Populista. Sea por su formalismo, por laoposición entre movilización e institucionalización (compartida con ChantalMouffe) o por la fusión de la lógica populista con la de la política sin más, lascríticas recientes apuntan a ir más allá de Laclau. En este artículo buscamossociologizar la teoría de Laclau dotando a la lógica formal de un contenido ónticoy estructural vinculado con la teoría de clivajes. Bajo esta perspectiva, proponemosentender al ...