Disentangling Populism, Nationalism and Anti-politics

Disentangling Populism, Nationalism and Anti-politics identifies three basic elements that define a populist political movement; a thin populist ideology, located at the center of its discourse, which generates more electoral support from the lower classes.

These elements serve as useful criteria in order to distinguish populist political movements from anti-politics and nationalist ones, with which populism is commonly conflated. Neither nationalist nor anti-politics movements place a populist ideology at the center of their discourse nor do they always receive more support from within the lower classes. To make the above argument, the book compares and contrasts a number of populist political movements, such as Petrismo in Colombia and Correismo in Ecuador, with nationalist political movements such as Orbanism in Hungary and Trumpism in the USA, as well as with anti-political movements, such as Liberty Advances led by Javier Milei in Argentina and Bolsonarismo in Brasil. Although all of these political movements have been classified as populist, the book argues that many of them are in fact nationalist or anti-political. The criteria are useful, therefore, to overcome the widespread tendency to label every political movement that challenges the status quo as populist.

Disentangling Populism, Nationalism and Anti-politics will appeal to students and scholars of Political Philosophy, Political Theory, Political Sociology, and those researching Latin America and Eastern Europe in particular.