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With the rise of both populist parties and social movements in Europe, the role of emotions in politics has once again become key to political debates, and particularly in the Spanish case. Since 2011, the Spanish political landscape has been redrawn. What started as the Indignados movement has now transformed into the party Podemos, which claims to address important deficits in popular representation. By creating space for emotions, the movement and the party have made this a key feature of their political subjectivity. Emotions and affect, however, are often viewed as either purely instrumental to political goals or completely detached from 'real' politics. This book argues that the hierarchy between the rational and the emotional works to sediment exclusionary practices in politics, deeming some forms of political expressions more worthy than others. Using radical theories of democracy, Emmy Eklundh masterfully tackles this problem and constructs an analytical framework based on the concept of visceral ties, which sees emotions and affect as constitutive of any collective identity. She later demonstrates empirically, using both ethnographic method and social media analysis, how the movement Indignados is different from the political party Podemos with regards to emotions and affect, but that both are suffering from a broader devaluation of emotional expressions in political life. Bridging social and political theory, Emotions, Protest, Democracy: Collective Identities in Contemporary Spain provides one of the few in-depth accounts of the transition from the movement Indignados to party Podemos, and the role of emotions in contemporary Spanish and European politics.

Much attention has been devoted to how right-wing populists in Europe challenge the consensus on the benefits of European integration, but left-wing resistance to the EU is less discussed. Existing analyses tend to distinguish between three constructions of political community: a postnational EU, the populist right invoking national sovereignty, and the populist left invoking popular sovereignty. However, empirical analyses struggle to find consensus on how left populists relate to the EU, and if they invoke claims to national or popular sovereignty. This article argues that this empirical impasse stems from that populism and Euroscepticism are performative categories and not simply analytical tools, and serve to produce exclusion. There are two dichotomies in this exclusionary frame: emotional populists/rational EU, and the postnational EU/nationalist populists. Through an analysis of Podemos in Spain and the UK Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn, I show how the lines between the postnational EU, the national sovereign, and the popular sovereign are frailer than previously thought. The article concludes that these categories are less analytically astute than they are politically motivated, and analyses of the populist left in Europe must consider the performative dimension of its key terms.

Populists are often excluded from political life on the basis that they are too emotional. Both social movements as well as political parties who are labelled as populist are accused of using demagoguery and manipulation in order to attract support and new membership. Often, these critiques emanate from the political establishment, creating a division between emotional and rational actors in politics. In this article, I argue that instead of seeing populism as a nominal or ordinal category, we should look at how the term itself has performative properties. The article is interested in how populism as a concept is used as a tool for exclusion, and how being 'too emotional' is used as justification for excluding certain actors. This article first contends that this perspective is endemic to political and social theory, and has long been utilised to marginalise women, non-Europeans, or young people. Second, the article demonstrates how this perspective also pervades much of contemporary studies on populism, which do not sufficiently recognise the political implications of employing a strict divide between emotion and reason. Third, the article further contends that by using a Laclauian framework which sees politics as equal to hegemony as equal to populism, one can conclude that populist actors are no different from other political actors; emotions and affects are always central to any political identity. Instead, the division between emotional and rational in politics serves to sediments exclusionary practices against newcomers and challengers of the status quo. I conclude by using the Laclauian framework, focus can be turned to the performative function of populism, and its political implications.

Muchos ven en PODEMOS la continuación natural del movimiento de los Indignados. Sin embargo, cabe preguntarse ¿qué sucede cuando un movimiento se transforma en un partido político? En este proceso los líderes intelectuales de PODEMOS han sido influenciado profundamente por las teorías de Ernesto Laclau, y han adoptado sus ideas sobre hegemonía y articulación política. En los últimos tiempos, sin embargo, PODEMOS también ha comenzado a emplear el concepto de soberanía. En este artículo se argumenta que el concepto de soberanía utilizado por PODEMOS podría llevar consigo consecuencias políticas no deseadas. Se destaca el hecho de que PODEMOS emplea la soberanía en sus dos versiones, nacional y popular, y se señala cómo esto apunta directamente a la tensión entre horizontalidad y verticalidad. Sin embargo, al no reconocer suficientemente esta tensión, cabe la posibilidad de que PODEMOS ya no se asocie a la idea de una política radical. Hay, pues, dos implicaciones políticas: en primer lugar, el uso de la soberanía pone más énfasis en la verticalidad y el liderazgo que en la base popular y, en segundo lugar, la soberanía tiene fuertes lazos históricos con un electorado más reaccionario ; Podemos is, by many, seen as the natural continuation of the Indignados movement. However, what happens when a movement transforms into a political party? Podemos' intellectual figureheads have in this process been heavily influenced by the theories of Ernesto Laclau, and they have adopted his ideas on hegemony and political articulation. As of late, however, Podemos has also begun to employ the concept of sovereignty. In this article, I argue that the concept of sovereignty used by Podemos might carry unintended political implications. I demonstrate that Podemos use sovereignty in both national and popular versions, and I point to how this illustrates the inherent tensions between horizontality and verticality. However, if not sufficiently recognising these tensions, Podemos are risking association with claims not readily compatible with a radical politics. There are therefore two political implications: firstly, the use of sovereignty places more emphasis on verticality and leadership than on the popular base and, secondly, sovereignty has strong historical ties to a more reactionary electorate

Podemos is, by many, seen as the natural continuation of the Indignados movement. However, what happens when a movement transforms into a political party? Podemos' intellectual figureheads have in this process been heavily influenced by the theories of Ernesto Laclau, and they have adopted his ideas on hegemony and political articulation. As of late, however, Podemos has also begun to employ the concept of sovereignty. In this article, I argue that the concept of sovereignty used by Podemos might carry unintended political implications. I demonstrate that Podemos use sovereignty in both national and popular versions, and I point to how this illustrates the inherent tensions between horizontality and verticality. However, if not sufficiently recognising these tensions, Podemos are risking association with claims not readily compatible with a radical politics. There are therefore two political implications: firstly, the use of sovereignty places more emphasis on verticality and leadership than on the popular base and, secondly, sovereignty has strong historical ties to a more reactionary electorate.

Muchos ven en PODEMOS la continuación natural del movimiento de los Indignados. Sin embargo, cabe preguntarse ¿qué sucede cuando un movimiento se transforma en un partido político? En este proceso los líderes intelectuales de PODEMOS han sido influenciado profundamente por las teorías de Ernesto Laclau, y han adoptado sus ideas sobre hegemonía y articulación política. En los últimos tiempos, sin embargo, PODEMOS también ha comenzado a emplear el concepto de soberanía. En este artículo se argumenta que el concepto de soberanía utilizado por PODEMOS podría llevar consigo consecuencias políticas no deseadas. Se destaca el hecho de que PODEMOS emplea la soberanía en sus dos versiones, nacional y popular, y se señala cómo esto apunta directamente a la tensión entre horizontalidad y verticalidad. Sin embargo, al no reconocer suficientemente esta tensión, cabe la posibilidad de que PODEMOS ya no se asocie a la idea de una política radical. Hay, pues, dos implicaciones políticas: en primer lugar, el uso de la soberanía pone más énfasis en la verticalidad y el liderazgo que en la base popular y, en segundo lugar, la soberanía tiene fuertes lazos históricos con un electorado más reaccionario. Podemos is, by many, seen as the natural continuation of the Indignados movement. However, what happens when a movement transforms into a political party? Podemos' intellectual figureheads have in this process been heavily influenced by the theories of Ernesto Laclau, and they have adopted his ideas on hegemony and political articulation. As of late, however, Podemos has also begun to employ the concept of sovereignty. In this article, I argue that the concept of sovereignty used by Podemos might carry unintended political implications. I demonstrate that Podemos use sovereignty in both national and popular versions, and I point to how this illustrates the inherent tensions between horizontality and verticality. However, if not sufficiently recognising these tensions, Podemos are risking association with claims not readily compatible with a radical politics. There are therefore two political implications: firstly, the use of sovereignty places more emphasis on verticality and leadership than on the popular base and, secondly, sovereignty has strong historical ties to a more reactionary electorate.

Podemos is, by many, seen as the natural continuation of the Indignados movement. However, what happens when a movement transforms into a political party? Podemos' intellectual figureheads have in this process been heavily influenced by the theories of Ernesto Laclau, and they have adopted his ideas on hegemony and political articulation. As of late, however, Podemos has also begun to employ the concept of sovereignty. In this article, I argue that the concept of sovereignty used by Podemos might carry unintended political implications. I demonstrate that Podemos use sovereignty in both national and popular versions, and I point to how this illustrates the inherent tensions between horizontality and verticality. However, if not sufficiently recognising these tensions, Podemos are risking association with claims not readily compatible with a radical politics. There are therefore two political implications: firstly, the use of sovereignty places more emphasis on verticality and leadership than on the popular base and, secondly, sovereignty has strong historical ties to a more reactionary electorate. ; Muchos ven en PODEMOS la continuación natural del movimiento de los Indignados. Sin embargo, cabe preguntarse ¿qué sucede cuando un movimiento se transforma en un partido político? En este proceso los líderes intelectuales de PODEMOS han sido influenciado profundamente por las teorías de Ernesto Laclau, y han adoptado sus ideas sobre hegemonía y articulación política. En los últimos tiempos, sin embargo, PODEMOS también ha comenzado a emplear el concepto de soberanía. En este artículo se argumenta que el concepto de soberanía utilizado por PODEMOS podría llevar consigo consecuencias políticas no deseadas. Se destaca el hecho de que PODEMOS emplea la soberanía en sus dos versiones, nacional y popular, y se señala cómo esto apunta directamente a la tensión entre horizontalidad y verticalidad. Sin embargo, al no reconocer suficientemente esta tensión, cabe la posibilidad de que PODEMOS ya no se asocie a la idea de una política radical. Hay, pues, dos implicaciones políticas: en primer lugar, el uso de la soberanía pone más énfasis en la verticalidad y el liderazgo que en la base popular y, en segundo lugar, la soberanía tiene fuertes lazos históricos con un electorado más reaccionario.

Since 2011, the Indignados have been a prominent feature of Spanish politics. Based on the emotional characteristics and framing of the movement, this article argues that our common notions of how democracy and legitimacy should work, and in particular ideas of deliberative democracy, consistently favour political behaviour of a certain kind, namely that of rational action. This article argues that ideas of radical democracy, especially those of Jacques Rancière, could help broaden the idea of politics, in arguing that only recognising rational actions is an exclusionary practice. The article thus uses the case of the Indignados in order to rethink some dimensions of democratic theory. It starts out with an outlook on the current situation in Spain and then moves on to describe the main tenets of deliberative democracy and the problem the Indignados pose to such a theory. In opposition to this it introduces Rancière's works, and argues that this has much higher bearing for our contemporary problems of democracy. The article concludes by saying that deliberative democracy lacks explanatory power when it comes to the Indignados. By requiring a unified sovereign, a distinction between voice and noise, and a consensual form of legitimate decision-making, the Indignados are not deemed political subjects in deliberative democratic theory. This can be seen as an exclusionary practice, since the Indignados still form a noticeable presence in today's political landscape. Therefore, there is a need for revising what constitutes a political subject and a political action.

This article analyzes how populism is conceptualized and studied in International Relations (IR) and argues that it should be seen as a political logic instead of a political ideology. It does so by demonstrating that populist foreign policy looks radically different when analyzing the populist left, refuting the possibility of any distinctly 'populist' foreign policy positions. We argue that large parts of IR scholarship practice a form of concept-stretching that undermines the quality of analysis as well as the ability to make meaningful policy recommendations. Using the empirical case studies of Bernie Sanders in the United States and Podemos in Spain, the article demonstrates that populism does not translate into any shared ideological positions but is a way of formulating and performing - in these cases - leftist politics through which political actors can interpellate and mobilize different societal groups and demands behind their political projects. In particular, the analysis debunks common assumptions about populism's alleged effects on foreign policy and dangers to pluralist democracy and shows that "populism" neither necessarily opposes multilateralism, migration and global public good provision nor formulates an authoritarian claim to power.