Arthur Borriello

• Professor
• Professor at University of Namur

The Eurozone crisis and the remarkable convergence of national governments towards austerity policies draw scholars’ attention to the discursive strategies that they have used in order to legitimate their economic decisions. This article studies the common features of austerity discourse beyond national and partisan boundaries. It relies on an in-d...

This article provides an internal assessment of Ernesto Laclau’s theory of populism. While critiques of Laclau have been made from a variety of traditions, few scholars have sought to work through the contradictions of his thought on internal terms. This article identifies some key antinomies in Laclau’s oeuvre and hints at some redemptive strategi...

After a hopeful electoral debut, left populism in Europe has undergone relative normalization. While the literature on new parties might regard the persistence of left populist forces as a success, we deem instead that such an outcome should be considered against the backdrop of the initial left populist hypothesis. Based on a discussion of the exi...

The paper reassesses the relation between the economic crisis and the rise of populist parties in the South of Europe. It argues that the former did not cause the latter directly, but rather played out as a catalyst of previously existing trends, i.e. the erosion of party democracy and the disintermediation of Western societies. It combines several...

Cet article fait l’analyse d’un corpus comprenant l’intégralité des articles du journal Le Monde consacrés au populisme en 2016-2017. Il s’inscrit dans la littérature s’intéressant à la « populologie », cet ensemble de discours académiques, politiques et médiatiques qui prennent le populisme comme objet. Combinant la textométrie et l’étude des méta...

Populism comes in so many forms, both historically and in its contemporary manifestations, that we cannot assess its relationship with democratic institutions as if it were homogeneous. In this article, we reconnect with the history of the first movements that have called themselves populists and draw on an understanding of populism as an egalitari...

Ce second numéro de la revue Populisme accueille un dossier intitulé « Un cycle populiste de gauche dans l’Europe post-2008 ». Réalisé sous la direction de Arthur Borriello et Manuel Cervera-Marzal, il fait suite au colloque Left-wing populism. History, Theory, Practice, organisé à l’Université de Liège les 14 et 15 octobre 2021. Il réunit cinq art...

Dans les années 2010, une vague idéologique a saisi certaines formations politiques de gauche soucieuses de s’emparer du pouvoir. Podemos voyait le jour en 2014, désireux de « convertir l’indignation en changement politique », et entendait, en lieu et place du clivage droite/gauche et des schémas marxistes traditionnels — à ses yeux caducs —, oppos...

This article is the English translation of a text originally published by Ernesto Laclau in French in 1981 as part of the proceedings of the colloquium Materialités Discursives held in Nanterre on 24–26 April 1980. In this text, Ernesto Laclau reflects on the subject of hegemony as a discursively constructed phenomenon. Building on research on the...

This paper offers a critical assessment of Ernesto Laclau's theory of populism in light of recent populist politics. Following the 2008 crisis and its fallout, Laclau's writings have enjoyed both practical and theoretical prominence, inspiring movements from Podemos to La France insoumise and an energetic section of discourse theory. Recent events,...

La cacophonie des commentaires politiques et médiatiques à propos du populisme est à la mesure de la confusion qui règne dans l'espace académique lorsqu'il s'agit de le définir. Peu intéressés par l'histoire du phénomène et du concept, les observateurs tendent à l'analyser au travers d'un prisme biaisé, eurocentré et anhistorique. Désirant à tout p...

Entrevue à Pierre Ostiguy sur le populisme, dans la revue Esprit, réalisée par Arthur Borriello et Anton Jager.

Cette contribution à une histoire intellectuelle du populisme replace le conflit au cœur du politique, décentre le regard en insistant sur les expériences latino-américaines, propose une mise en perspective historique et interroge la nature de la démocratie.

Le populisme au pouvoir en Italie attaque les fondements de la démocratie en opposant le peuple juste à ceux qui n’en font pas partie. Mais la démocratie peut se renouveler.

The people and the experts The rise of populism and technocracy can be understood in the context of a decline of party politics. Partly because of European integration, political movements nowadays refer to abstractions, without concrete social bases.

The revolt from below On the basis of peronism in Argentina, populism can be understood as a revolt from below, according to a social and cultural divide. Hence, populism is a crude and nativist speech, with a tendency for personalization of power.

The last decade has witnessed an explosion of commentary on the topic of ‘populism’. More than a convenient bugbear for polemicists, ‘populism’ now appears as the sign of a protracted and pervasive crisis ailing European democracies. What the contours and causality of this ‘crisis’ are, however, is seldom clear. This article remedies the indetermin...

The multiple crises that the EU has faced over the last decade have provided fertile ground for the emergence of new political movements, often labelled as ‘anti-system’, ‘populist’ and ‘Eurosceptics’. One defining characteristic of these parties is their claim to represent ‘the people’ and their reliance on the idea of sovereignty. This article ai...

In just ten years, the Five Star Movement has risen from nowhere to become Italy’s leading party, and then collapsed again. Its volatile support and eclectic politics aren’t just an Italian quirk — they show how voter binds to political institutions are crumbling across the West.

The political landscape in Europe is currently going through a phase of rapid change. New actors and movements that claim to represent 'the will of the people' are attracting considerable public attention, with dramatic consequences for election outcomes. This volume explores the new political order with a particular focus on discursive constructio...

The virtue of collective sacrifice. Antagonism and moral values in austerity discourse in Italy and Spain (2010-2013) Austerity discourse, through the depoliticization of economic issues and the denial of the existence of alternative economic policies, goes against the primacy of politics and the irreducibility of antagonism—both likely, however, t...

The rise of new populist parties in the wake of the Eurozone crisis has raised new theoretical concerns about the context and significance of their emergence. This chapter compares the rise of Podemos in Spain and M5S in Italy through a twofold research question: To what extent do these movements pertain to the same political logic and what are the...

The recent financial and debt crisis has resuscitated the debate about European federalism – a theme that seemed not to have survived the painful constitutional adventure that ended with the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty in 2009. With the adoption of significant policy and institutional measures for tightening macroeconomic and budgetary coordi...

The Symbolic Abolition of Politics, the Virtue of Necessity: Budgetary Reforms in the Speeches of the President of the Italian Council The recent debt crisis in the Eurozone has led to austerity reforms that present many common features. Going beyond the debate on their efficiency and political consequences, this article aims at understanding the s...

This study examines the pillarised and partitocratic nature of Belgian political parties via an empirical overview of their party on the ground. Two main research questions guide the study: To what extent can party membership figures in Belgium be considered as ideal-typical of pillarised or partitocratic parties? And how does the social and politi...