Abstract

Populism is its own measure. It suggests that all communication-political and otherwise, hinges upon the existential confrontation between 'the people' and the 'elite' or the 'powerful.' There are people and then there are anti-people. As such, populism appears to be the very condition that constitutes the crisis of parliamentary/discursive democracy and its modes of functioning. What does this unmediated assertion of the 'sovereignty' of the people imply? What does a constant heightening of non-ideological but antagonistic polarization in the socius mean for human lives and relationships, as well as for a political and cultural imagination? If populism is the unleashing of the general will, who claims to speak in the name of the people and to what aim? The book is a response to the evaluative and celebratory approaches to populism in social sciences and humanities. It seeks to study the phenomenon of populism, thoroughly consider its limits, and if possible, propose ways out to other kinds of commitment in life, living and politics. It aims to formulate responses that take on the spurious and non-dialectical dissociation between thought and action, intellect and emotion, the people and the elite.