Populism and nationalism revisited: A comparative study of the Spanish and Portuguese New Left

Abstract

Current definitions of populism are insufficiently determinate. They fail to distinguish between populism and nationalism. We propose to remedy this problem by advancing a new definition of populism as the logic of democratic resentment. We apply this new definition to a comparison between Spain's Podemos and Portugal's Left Bloc (BE), which we classify as social carriers of populism. We make two contributions to the literature. First, our findings dispute existing characterisations of the Portuguese case, which fail to distinguish between populist and nationalist claim‐making. Second, our analysis undermines depictions of Podemos as the consummate populist party in Iberia: In 2015, the little studied BE was a stronger populist carrier than Podemos. The analytical framework underpinning this conclusion offers a more refined approach to populism than the alternatives and sets a higher standard for empirical replication.

Connections between populism and nationalism: Evidence from Jair Bolsonaro's speeches

“…However, there are also sovereignist elements that emerged when he attacked the WHO. Our study matches recent findings (Custodi, 2020;da Silva et al, 2022) showing that the supposed ambiguity between populism and nationalism (Brubaker, 2020) can be resolved by an approach that clearly separates the two concepts (De Cleen & Stavrakakis, 2020;Stavrakakis et al, 2017). Hence, we concur with those authors who caution that the populist label should be used sparingly and not as a defining feature for parties or politicians (Rodi et al, 2021).…”

“…However, other authors (De Cleen & Stavrakakis, 2020;Stavrakakis et al, 2017) argue that any apparent ambiguity can be resolved by clearly separating the two concepts, which are 'to be used as tools in the detailed analysis of their entanglements' (De Cleen & Stavrakakis, 2020, p. 315). In line with recent studies (Custodi, 2020;da Silva et al, 2022), this article follows the latter suggestion to illustrate how the two concepts of populism and nationalism can be analysed separately in the official speeches of Brazil's president Jair Bolsonaro.…”