The Promise and Perils of Populism:Global Perspective

493 Pages·2015·3.011 MB·English

by  Carlos De La Torre

The Promise and Perils of Populism
THE PROMISE AND PERILS OF
POPULISM
Global Perspectives
E C T
DITED BY ARLOS DE LA ORRE
Copyright © 2015 by The University Press of Kentucky
Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth, serving Bellarmine University, Berea College, Centre
College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University, The Filson Historical Society, Georgetown
College, Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University, Morehead State University, Murray
State University, Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University, University of Kentucky,
University of Louisville, and Western Kentucky University.
All rights reserved.
Editorial and Sales Offices: The University Press of Kentucky
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www.kentuckypress.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Torre, Carlos de la.
The promise and perils of populism : global perspectives / edited by Carlos de la Torre.
pages cm
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-8131-4686-7 (hardcover : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8131-5330-8 (pbk. : alk. paper)
— ISBN 978-0-8131-4687-4 (pdf) — ISBN 978-0-8131-4688-1 (epub) 1. Populism. 2. Democracy.
I. Title.
JC423.T643 2015
320.56'62—dc23
This book is printed on acid-free paper meeting the requirements of the American National Standard
for Permanence in Paper for Printed Library Materials.
Manufactured in the United States of America.
Member of the Association of American University
Presses
publication supported by Figure Foundation
CONTENTS
Introduction: Power to the People? Populism, Insurrections,
Democratization
Carlos de la Torre
Part I The People and Populism
1. Political Theology and Populism
Andrew Arato
2. Power to Whom? The People between Procedure and Populism
Paulina Ochoa Espejo
3. The People as Re-presentation and Event
Benjamín Arditi
4. Insurgencies Don’t Have a Plan—They Are the Plan: Political
Performatives and Vanishing Mediators
Benjamín Arditi
5. Populism, Political Mobilizations, and Crises of Political
Representation
Kenneth M. Roberts
6. Populist Mobilization: A New Theoretical Approach to Populism
Robert S. Jansen
7. Explaining the Emergence of Populism in Europe and the Americas
Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser
Part II Global Populism
8. “Free the People”: The Search for “True Democracy” in Western
Europe’s Far-Right Political Culture
José Pedro Zúquete
9. A New American Populist Coalition? The Relationship between the Tea
Party and the Far Right
George Michael
10. Contemporary Populism and “The People” in the Asia-Pacific Region:
Thaksin Shinawatra and Pauline Hanson
Benjamin Moffitt
11. Varieties of African Populism in Comparative Perspective
Danielle Resnick
12. The Contested Meanings of Insurrections, the Sovereign People, and
Democracy in Ecuador, Venezuela, and Bolivia
Carlos de la Torre
13. Popular Power in the Discourse of Hugo Chávez’s Government (1999–
2013)
Margarita López Maya
14. “El Pueblo Boliviano, de Composición Plural”: A Look at
Plurinationalism in Bolivia
Nancy Postero
Conclusion: Some Further Thoughts on Populism
Cas Mudde
Acknowledgments
Contributors
Index
INTRODUCTION: POWER TO THE
PEOPLE?
Populism, Insurrections, Democratization
Carlos de la Torre
The illness, death, and subsequent manufacturing of Hugo Chávez into a
saintlike figure in Venezuela; the coming to power in 2011 of former police
constable Michael Sata in Zambia, which ended two decades of rule by the
Movement for Multi-party Democracy (MMD); and the electoral successes
of right-wing populist movements in Europe all attest to the vitality of
populism on a global scale. Populist movements and parties are in power in
several African and Latin American nations such as Senegal, Zambia,
Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. They are also contesting the
rule of traditional parties in Western nations from Australia to France.
Rebellions and insurrections carried out in the name of the people have
taken place in nations as diverse as Turkey, Mexico, Brazil, Egypt, and
Spain. These insurrections attest to the vitality of the cry “power to the
people” and to the democratizing demand to return “power” to its original
owners: “the people.”
But to invoke the name of “the people” is to raise the possibility of a
theological conception of politics. When the term “the people” is used to
describe those who are to be liberated, alleged enemies of the people—such
as “illegal aliens” or the “evil oligarchy”—are constructed as external
“Others” who represent a threat to the purity of the homogeneous body of
the people. Claiming to incarnate “the people,” populist leaders might be
tempted to stay in power indefinitely. Alternatively, insurgents could use the
name of the people to challenge the appropriation of politics by elites, to