Abstract

The word “populism” has had an ironic misfortune: it has become popular. Having escaped the clutches of scholarly discourse, populism now thrives in the polemical space occupied by politicians, journalists and media intellectuals in polemical expressions such as “populistic drift,” “populist endeavors,” “populist peril,” etc. In this context, the term has been adopted as a pejorative category with menacing connotations as is, without first subjecting it to critical scrutiny. If this concept is to be saved, it has to be classified and elaborated. The following will seek to determine how and under what conditions the term “populism” can be fruitfully used.