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2022 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

3. Populism Is Hegemony Is Politics? Ernesto Laclau’s Theory of Populism

Author : Benjamin Arditi

Published in: The Palgrave Handbook of Populism

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

Ernesto Laclau’s On Populist Reason is written in a way that renders its subject matter a continuation, enhancement and confirmation of his post-Gramscian theory of hegemony. Hegemony is the medium through which populism unfolds and it is often difficult to tell them apart. I address some conceptual knots in Laclau’s arguments. Among them, the problems of using crises as a precondition for populism, of describing the populist plebs as the sole legitimate people, of looking at populism as an analog of all politics and of posing the notion of “demand” as the basic unit of analysis of all politics. I also discuss the claim that the symbolic unification of the group around an individuality is inherent in the formation of a people.

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Title: Populism Is Hegemony Is Politics? Ernesto Laclau’s Theory of Populism
Author: Benjamin Arditi
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Book: The Palgrave Handbook of Populism
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-80802-0

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-030-80803-7

Copyright Year: 2022
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80803-7_3