The Populist Democratic Reason. Angatonism, Heterogeneity and Postliberal Populism

Abstract

In the debates on populism and democracy, a very widespread position, including that of Ernesto Laclau  himself, assumes that populism can be democratic and authoritarian (and even totalitarian). But, how can the same political modality have such an ambivalent relationship with democracy? This paper aims to explore a possible answer to this question. After assuming liberal democracy and Laclau's populist theory as a point of reference, I address the question of "antagonism", as the antagonistic nature of populism appears as one of the main reasons that would oppose it head-on to liberal democracy. Starting from distinguishing in Laclau’s work two types of antagonisms, I argue that, based on such a distinction, two types of populism compatible with Laclau's ontology can be identified at the ontic level, one illiberal (authoritarian) and the other post-liberal (democratic). I advance, in this way, in the filling, partially, a theoretical gap in Laclau's theory  regarding the link between these divergent political  expressions at the ontic level, on the one hand, with their common ontological dimension, on the other. I take that link as a starting point to specify the features of politics in the democratic version of populism and those of the relationship of this political-institutional modality with the elements of liberal democracy and those of the logic politics that underlies it (particularly the signifiers “state” and “nation”).