Of Nation and People: The Discursive Logic of Nationalist Populism

How should we analyze the connections between populism and nationalism: A response to Rogers Brubaker

“…These disagreements about analytical‐conceptual strategies between Brubaker's and our work only go so far, however. There is much in Brubaker's analysis of how the horizontal and vertical dimensions interact in populist politics that furthers insight into (what we would consider) the interactions between populism and nationalism, and that is of a similar nature to our own analyses and to other recent work, some of which also partly builds on our conceptual intuitions (e.g., Anastasiou , ; Breeze ; Jenne ; Kim ). Indeed, beyond disagreement about what level of abstraction to formulate concepts on, there is much space for fruitful dialogue as our work shares not only an interest in interactions, ambiguity and multi‐dimensionality, but also an attraction to spatial/architectonic ways of thinking those interaction and dimensions (see also Brubaker ).…”

“…What are the potentials of populism for a more radically inclusionary version that does not only tolerate national others but also incorporates them into the definition of the ordinary people? It seems that indeed “a creativity of the highest order is necessitated if populist articulations are to evade the close grip of national (ist) hegemony” (Anastasiou , p. 16). At any rate, such creative political projects are not impossible, as modern history demonstrates (Stavrakakis & Katsambekis ).…”

“…Treating populism and nationalism as analytically distinct dimensions of contemporary politics also permits us to critically question the hegemonic but particular and indeed contingent view of 'ordinary people' that is so dominant in contemporary politics. It allows us to see how the meaning of the populist 'people' has often been 'overdetermined' by hegemonic nationalist imaginaries and national institutions (see Anastasiou 2019). Such a perspective could help us in denaturalizing the fact that the notion of 'the ordinary people' almost invariable conjures up the strongly nationalist image of white 'true' nationals, often also opposed to immigration and cultural diversity.…”

Nationalism and populism on the left: The case of Podemos

“…Recently, a new academic debate has flourished around the conceptual distinction between nationalism and populism, mainly in response to the ways the two terms are often conflated in scholarship on the radical Right (Anastasiou, 2019;Bonikowski, Halikiopoulou, Kaufmann, & Rooduijn, 2019;Brubaker, 2019;De Cleen & Stavrakakis, 2017. The issue at the centre of the discussion is the relationship between populism and nationalism: are they synonymous, are they distinct phenomena or can they coexist according to variable configurations of meaning?…”

Beyond populism studies

“…The focus on articulation invites detailed analyses of what kind of demands are brought together, how and in what context. Moreover, the understanding of populism as a way of constructing a particular political frontier that emphasises the (vertical) down-up relation between people and elite, not just their antagonistic relation -a position apparent in Laclau's earlier work and in some parts of his later work (see Laclau 2005b, 38-40) -highlights the specificities of populism and its interaction with other political logics (on populism and nationalism, see Anastasiou 2019;De Cleen and Stavrakakis 2017;. This more precise and modest definition also makes it apparent that the concept of populism can play a (modest) role in the analysis of political struggles in less polarized contexts (i.e., with fewer opportunities for constructing broad chains of equivalence) that might be far removed from the kind of, mainly Latin American, politics that inspired Laclau's work on populism.…”