For a Left Populism

We are seeing the rise of a populist moment around the world on both the left and the right. Movements like Bernie Sander, Jeremy Corbyn, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have emerged in the midst of the neoliberal crisis. In this book, leading political thinker Chantal Mouffe proposes a left-populist strategy that could bring together the manifold struggles against subordination, oppression and discrimination. In redrawing political frontiers, this "populist moment" points to a "return of the political" after years of postpolitics. This return may open the way for authoritarian solutions-through regimes that weaken liberal-democratic institutions-but it could also lead to a reaffirmation and extension of democratic values.

Autorentext

Chantal Mouffe

Klappentext

Populism, today, is the expression of a crisis of liberal-democratic politics. It is more than an ideology or a political regime. It is a way of doing politics that can take various forms but emerges when one aims at building a new subject of collective action - the people.

In this new book the leading political thinker Chantal Mouffe proposes a new way to define left populism. The political is to be constructed by establishing a political frontier that divides society into two camps, mobilising an "underdog" against "those in power". Populism, far from being a perversion of democracy, constitutes the most adequate political force to recover and reconstitute itself. This new politics must recognise its partisan character. This presents itself as more than the image of demagoguery and emotive rabbles seen across our media. Furthermore, it is an urgent struggle, because the future will be formed by the kind of populism that emerges victorious from the conflict against the current threats of post-politics and post-democracy.