Populism tensions in power. People and institutions in Ernesto Laclau’s theory

Abstract

One of the few conclusions shared by the growing literature on populism asserts the inherent anti-institutional character of it, so that very often seems that there cannot be populisms institutionally in power. Either because of an alleged tendency towards antagonistic conflicts, spontaneous political decisions or irresponsible governing practices, populism would tend to undermine the normal functioning of public institutions and would therefore be incapable of governing them without provoking major upheavals. Nevertheless, empirical reality increasingly indicates all the opposite: not only there are many historical and contemporary examples of governing populisms, but in fact exist numerous historical experiences of populisms acting as engines of institutional construction. The present article hence seeks to analyse, from a theoretical standpoint, the contradictions that face populism when it arrives at the government of state institutions. In doing this, the article relies on Laclau’s poststructuralist theory of populism, according to which populism and institutionalism constitute two incompatible – and at the same time reciprocally necessary – possible ways of structuring political life insofar as they are animated by two opposing discursive logics, namely the logic of equivalence and the logic of difference. Through the reworking of the dynamic relationships between these logics, the article formulates the three main contradictions that a populist discourse faces when it reaches state power: between being ‘people’ and being state, between being government and being street/opposition and between being rupture but governing continuity. Finally, through the lens provided by García-Linera’s concept of “creative tension”, the article tenses the Laclauian theoretical framework in order to open new strategic routes through which to rethink the potential political productivity of the contradictions between populism and institutionalism.