Podemos and the New Political Cycle: Left-Wing Populism and Anti-Establishment Politics

303 Pages·2018·3.25 MB·English

by  Óscar García Agustín

PODEMOS AND THE
NEW POLITICAL CYCLE
LEFT-WING POPULISM
AND ANTI-ESTABLISHMENT POLITICS
EDITED BY ÓSCAR GARCÍA AGUSTÍN
AND MARCO BRIZIARELLI
Podemos and the New Political Cycle
Óscar García Agustín • Marco Briziarelli
Editors
Podemos and the New
Political Cycle
Left-Wing Populism and Anti-Establishment
Politics
Editors
Óscar García Agustín Marco Briziarelli
Aalborg University University of New Mexico
Aalborg, Denmark Albuquerque, USA
ISBN 978-3-319-63431-9 ISBN 978-3-319-63432-6 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-63432-6
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017958590
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018
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C
ontents
Part I Introduction 1
1 Introduction: Wind of Change: Podemos,
Its Dreams and Its Politics 3
Óscar García Agustín and Marco Briziarelli
Part II Genealogy 23
2 The Rise of Podemos: Promises, Constraints, and 
Dilemmas 25
César Rendueles and Jorge Sola
3 The Podemos Discourse: A Journey from Antagonism
to Agonism 49
Javier Franzé
4 Podemos’ Performative Power: Space Struggles
and/as Political Transformation 75
Susana Martínez Guillem
v
vi CONTENTS
Part III Concepts 95
5 P odemos’ Twofold Assault on Hegemony: The 
Possibilities of the Post-Modern Prince and the 
Perils of Passive Revolution 97
Marco Briziarelli
6 P opulism, Hegemony, and the Phantasmatic Sovereign:
The Ties Between Nationalism and Left-Wing Populism 123
Emmy Eklundh
7 W e the People or We the Republic? The Need for 
Republican Populism 147
Óscar García Agustín
Part IV Comparative Perspectives 171
8 P odemos and Latin America 173
Salvador Schavelzon and Jeffery R. Webber
9 R adical Left Populism from the Margins to the 
Mainstream: A Comparison of Syriza and Podemos 201
Alexandros Kioupkiolis and Giorgos Katsambekis
10 S outhern European Populisms as Counter- Hegemonic
Discourses? A Comparative Perspective of Podemos
and M5S 227
Samuele Mazzolini and Arthur Borriello
11 B etween the Populist Left and Right: Discursive
Structure and Ideological Interventions in Podemos
and the National Front 255
Michael De La Caridad Ledezma
CONTENT S vii
Part V Conclusion 279
12 L eft-Wing Populism and the Assault on the 
Establishment 281
Óscar García Agustín and Marco Briziarelli
Index 295
A A
bout the uthors
Óscar García Agustín Associate Professor at the Department of Culture
and Global Studies at Aalborg University, Denmark. With Christian
Ydesen he has coedited the book Post-Crisis Perspectives: The Common and
its Powers (2013), and with Martin Bak Jørgensen he has coedited Politics
of Dissent (2015) and Solidarity without Borders: Gramscian Perspectives on
Migration and Civil Society (2016). He is author of Discurso y autonomía
zapatista (2013) and Sociology of Discourse: From Institutions to Social
Change (2015).
Arthur Borriello Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Politics and
International Studies, University of Cambridge. His research focuses on
the political implications of the austerity discourse in Southern Europe,
including the emergence of new populist movements. His main research
interests are: political discourse analysis, political cleavages, legitimacy and
conflict within the European Union.
Marco Briziarelli Assistant Professor at the University of New Mexico.
He studies critical approaches to media and communication theory, espe-
cially as these fields intersect with broader issues in political and social
theory, intellectual and cultural history. His work has appeared in
Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, Critical Studies in Media
Communication, Journal of Communication Inquiry, Triple C, Continuum:
Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, Journalism. He is the author of the
books The Red Brigades and the Discourse of Violence: Revolution and
Restoration (2014) and Gramsci, Communication and Social Change
(2016).
ix
x ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Michael  De  La  Caridad  Ledezma PhD candidate in Comparative
Politics and Political Theory at the University of Illinois in Chicago. His
research focuses on populism, with a primary emphasis on populist parties
of the European Union. He has previously written on the impact of insti-
tutional constraints on populist party electoral success, as well as on politi-
cal discourse and identity in a number of European countries.
Emmy Eklundh Teaching Fellow in Spanish and International Politics at
the Department of European and International Studies, King’s College
London. Emmy’s research is mainly centered on the post-crisis eruptions
of protest in Southern Europe and in particular the Indignados Movement
in Spain. She is especially interested in how this ties in with questions of
democratic theory as well as social theory in general. Current research
projects include analysis of social media usage within social movements, as
well as the rise (or return) of left- and right-wing populist movements and
parties in Europe. Her work includes (with Nick Turnbull) the chapter
“Political Sociology,” in Routledge Handbook of Interpretive Political
Science (2015).
Javier Franzé Senior Lecturer, Department of Political Sciences and
Sociology, Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Lately, he has been
focusing on two topics: first, on the distinction between politics and the
political, and its consequences for a symbolic conception of politics, the
political and violence; and, second, on the populist theory of Ernesto
Laclau, with especial regard to the Podemos discourse.
Susana  Martínez  Guillem Assistant Professor, Department of
Communication and Journalism, University of New Mexico. Her
research interests are in cultural studies and critical discourse studies,
with a focus on institutional and ordinary (discursive) practices related to
migration, anti-racism, and social inequality. Her latest coauthored book
is Reviving Gramsci: Crisis, Communication, and Change (2016).
Giorgos Katsambekis Postdoctoral Researcher, Aristotle University of
Thessaloniki. He has worked as a researcher for the research project
‘POPULISMUS: Populist Discourse and Democracy’ (2014–2015). He
recently coedited the volume Radical Democracy and Collective Movements
Today (2014), and is coediting The Populist Radical Left in Europe (2018).
Alexandros Kioupkiolis Lecturer at the School of Political Sciences,
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. His research interests are
ABOUT THE AUTHOR S xi
focused on the philosophy of freedom, theories of democracy, and the
critique of power. Recent publications include “The Commons of Liberty”
(2014). He has also coedited Radical Democracy and Collective Movements
Today: The Biopolitics of the Multitude Versus the Hegemony of the People
(2014, Turkish translation: 2016) and Discourse Theory: Creative
Applications (2015).
Samuele Mazzolini Doctoral student in the Department of Government,
University of Essex. His research interests range from post-Marxist dis-
course theory, populism and hegemony, emancipatory strategy, left-wing
politics, Italian political thought, Antonio Gramsci, radical democracy,
post-structuralism, to geographical interests: Italy and Latin America,
Ecuador in particular. His works have been presented at conferences such
as the Political Studies Association and Societies for Latin American
Studies, and appeared in journals such as Populismus.gr and Debates y
Combates.
César Rendueles Professor of Sociology at the Universidad Complutense
de Madrid. He is the author of Sociofobia: El cambio político en la era de la
utopía digital (2013 and forthcoming) and Capitalismo Canalla (2015).
He has also edited classical texts by Karl Marx, Walter Benjamin, and Karl
Polanyi.
Salvador Schavelzon Professor at the Federal University of São Paulo.
His thesis was based on ethnographic fieldwork in Bolivia, focused on
indigenous peoples’ views in the Constituent Assembly that led to the
creation of the “Plurinational State.” He writes often about South
American politics, indigenous cosmopolitics, and Spanish politics.
Jorge Sola Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy and Social
Work, University of Islas Baleares. He has a PhD in Sociology, has been a
visiting researcher in the universities of Madison-Wisconsin and Berkeley-
California, and has taught in Suffolk University and George Washington
University in Madrid.
Jeffery R. Webber Senior Lecturer, School of Politics and International
Relations, Queen Mary University of London. He is the author of The
Last Day of Oppression, and the First Day of the Same: The Politics and
Economics of the New Latin American Left (2016); Red October: Left-
Indigenous Politics in Modern Bolivia (2012); and From Rebellion to
Reform in Bolivia (2011).