What are the political logics explaining the spread of populist experiences in the contemporary world? What is involved in constructing the idea of the people? And how does this construction relate to other forms of political subjectivity—classes, corporations and other forms of association?

Laclau’s analysis of populist experiences begins with a critique of current approaches to populism, illustrated by two essential cases: the formation of a popular identity in French Jacobinism, and the dissolution of such an identity in the aftermath of British Chartism. This is followed by a discussion of the classical theories of mass psychology—by Le Bon, Tarde, Freud, etc.—and of the role of the lumpenproletariat in Marx’s work. Finally Laclau examines a series of historical examples of populism, drawn mainly from American, Canadian, Argentinian and Turkish experiences.

Ernesto Laclau is Professor of Political Theory at the University of Essex. He is the author of, amongst other books, Emancipation(s), New Reflections of the Revolution of Our Time, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy with Chantal Mouffe and, with Judith Butler and Slavoj Zizek, Contingency, Hegemony, Universality.
Publication
Cloth: March 2005
Paper: September 2007

Phronesis Series

288 pages

Paper
ISBN-13: 978 1 84467 186 1
US$19.95 / £10.99 / CAN$25