Conclusions

Am I arguing that politicians such as Pepe Mujica, Lula da Silva and Barrack Obama are populists? If so, wouldn’t this claim stretch even further what is already a highly promiscuous concept? And, what about the political implications of calling such an unlikely group of politicians “populists”? I am not really arguing that. Firstly, I think it is important to take on board Kazin’s (1995, 6) warning that debates about who is or is not a true populist are often an indirect way of announcing one’s political opinions, or, shall I say, one’s aversions? Secondly, as I have argued above, populism is one among a variety of political discourses used by politicians to establish relations of identification with their audiences. That is why I use the term “populist interventions” to signify that ultimately populism refers to a discursive practice that is part of a political strategy rather than to the persona of a leader. In practice we still call some leaders “populists,” although with a few exceptions who they are and why are they populists remain hotly contested. To the extent and only to the extent that the populist mode of identification is central to the leader’s appeal and political strategy, we can say a leader such as Hugo Chavez, is a populist. Thirdly, the populist mode of identification has several dimensions, which I referred as i)“speaking like the people” (the symbolic irruption of a marker of exclusion into the public sphere); ii) “speaking for the people” (voicing the grievances of those that do no feel represented in the system); iii) a political strategy (the politics of antagonism) and; iv) a normative promise of redemption. We can think of these dimensions as a kind of political gradient that leads from lower to higher levels of “populismness”. Arguably, these distinctions are more analytical than substantive but most studies of populism have focused on the discursive construction of the antagonism between the “the people” and the established structure of power as the defining essence of populism. In populist discourse however, this antagonism is only part of a political journey of redemption leading to the full incorporation of those that regarded themselves as denied of some fundamental economic or political right to the body politic. In certain populist discourses the liberation of the people from oppression requires the re-founding of the political order. Others, however, while seeking to articulate the collective grievances of those denied recognition and representation frame the conflict between the powerless and the powerful within a shared set of democratic procedural rules and the recognition of common interests. They are aware that equality and pluralism are the two sides of a democratic political order that necessarily includes conflict and accommodation and seek to promote a more inclusive political order that gives voice and benefits to those at the bottom of society.

May be that with all the caveats and provisos outlined above we can still talk of two types of populists or at least of two kinds populist appeals: One is anti-systemic, majoritarian, polarizing and based on the logic of antagonism devoid of any mediating institutions or values. The other is a mixture of pragmatic and redemptive politics that while denouncing the failures of the democratic order and the limitations of institutions to define the true meaning of democracy, strengthens democratic pluralism by giving voice to the excluded and in the process creates a more inclusive demos. Perhaps we can call this “inclusive populism” to distinguish it from the majoritarian one.

Why then not go a step further and call the leaders that have struggled to give the people recognition and reparation but at the same time acknowledge that those on the other side of the populist divide also have legitimate interests that require compromise and reconciliation, “good populists” to distinguish them from the ones that by taking to the limits the “us against them” populist strategy end up fracturing societies and creating new forms of exclusion on both sides of the political divide? There are, I think, good reasons not to take this path lightly. First, populism is such a toxic brand that it should not be donned lightly to those that think of it as a term o abuse. Second, even if no political strategy in the real world can ever be defined purely in terms of relations of antagonism if we believe that the antagonism between “the people” and “their oppressors” is the defining element of populism, the desire to transcend it through the recognition of legitimate differences both within the demos and between the people and their adversaries, means that inclusive populism may indeed be a case of conceptual stretching. There is also a normative twist in the analysis of possible varieties of populism. Sometimes, pragmatism, reconciliation and compromise may not necessarily be a good thing. Think, for instance, of the failure of President Lula da Silva’s pragmatic political style to clean up the cesspit of Brazilian politics. Conversely, some scholars have defended populist ruptures as necessary for the creation of a more just social order in countries such as Bolivia and Ecuador and even Venezuela. There are some indications that some leaders commonly regarded as “bad [radical] populist” in Latin America are increasingly aware of this argument and may even be open to be regarded as populists. Intriguingly it is perhaps this transformative power of populism that “good populist” Pepe Mujica had in mind when he noted that within certain contexts populism can be regarded as a term of praise. The distinction between good and bad populists ultimately depends on one’s politics. It may be impossible to avoid normative judgments when we engage in political analysis but it is important to make clear on which grounds we make them and this paper has sought to highlight the grey zones that shadow a topic that has too often been presented in black and white.

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