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Who Would Identify With An “Empty Signifier”?

Authors:
Pierre Ostiguy at University of Valparaíso
Pierre Ostiguy
Benjamin Moffitt
Benjamin Moffitt
Benjamin Moffitt
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POPULISM IN GLOBAL
PERSPECTIVE
A Performative and Discursive
Approach
 

Routledge
 
NYORKANDLONDON 
3


The Relational, Performative Approach
to Populism

lntroduction
     
 
   

           
 

 



   
 

      
  
       
          
 
        


        
 
... En los últimos años, Ostuguy y Mouffit han propuesto retener una dimensión experiencial de las significaciones ahondando en la dimensión performativa de la acción de líderes así como en la diversidad de interpretaciones que recibe de parte de sus seguidores (Ostuguy y Mouffit, 2020 En efecto, en la estructura social existen elementos que favorecen la articulación entre significantes pero que en la descripción de Laclau sobre el surgimiento de identidades permanecen relegados. Por ejemplo, la capacidad simbólica del Estado en tanto creador de categorizaciones sociales (Bourdieu, 2014) es reducida en La razón populista a una resolución diferencial (institucional) de demandas. ...
Infante y Nuñez (2023). Tensiones y desplazamientos conceptuales de lo social en la obra de Laclau.
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La diferencia entre lo social y lo político constituye uno de los núcleos temáticos de la obra de Ernesto Laclau. El artículo aborda la definición de lo social en diferentes etapas de su trabajo, teniendo en cuenta el planteo original de los años 80, su reformulación en la década siguiente y la conceptualización que lleva a cabo en La razón populista. Se sostiene que al recuperar una complementariedad entre significantes y significados, Laclau favoreció una definición de la estructura como una serie de posiciones sociales dispersas. La asimilación de lo social a la lógica de la diferencia supuso una serie de reduccionismos respecto a la formación de demandas y a las ambigüedades de significados presentes en ella. Hacia el final del artículo, se regresa sobre la definición lacaniana de la articulación entre significantes y se profundiza en la relectura llevada a cabo por Laclau, reconociendo en ella una serie de desplazamientos que llevaron a esa definición de lo social y a las aporías que la acompañan.
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... Perhaps the most popular explanation for this trend is the rise of populism. Although there is no consensus on this point (Mudde & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2014;Viviani, 2023), there is a strong assumption among populism researchers that leaders strategically use populist rhetoric to forge a quasi-direct relationship with their voters (De La Torre, 2023;Ostiguy & Moffitt, 2021;Pappas, 2020;Turnbull et al., 2024;Weyland, 2024). Conversely, researchers, particularly within the strategic and performative approaches to populism, describe charisma as a critical factor for the facilitation and success of populist politics. ...
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This article examines the complex interplay between populism, social identity, and charisma attribution in leader–follower relationships. Drawing on a survey conducted in Hungary during the 2022 election, we investigate how populist attitudes and partisan identity shape citizens’ perceptions of leaders, specifically assessing the charismatic appeal of Viktor Orbán and Péter Márki-Zay, and charisma attribution across three levels: a general need for charismatic leadership, recognition of specific charismatic behaviours, and emotional attachment. We found that while populist attitudes drive an overarching idealisation of leadership, partisan identity more directly influences the perception of leaders’ charismatic qualities and emotional connections to them. Contrary to prevailing assumptions, our findings reveal that populist attitudes do not have a direct effect on (leader) affective polarisation, while the idealisation of leadership significantly increases it. A key observation here is that while partisanship influences both positive and negative perceptions of charisma, identity strength only enhances emotional attachment in the positive direction. It has no moderating effect on negative perceptions, suggesting that rejection of the out-group leader is a foundational aspect of group membership. These dynamics underscore the role of populism and identity politics in fostering political divisions, suggesting that identity-based attachments are crucial for understanding the emotional resonance between charismatic leaders and their followers. This study contributes to the ongoing discourse on the relationship between charismatic leadership and populism, identity, and polarisation, emphasising the significance of followers’ attitudes in political dynamics.
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... The populist momentum or zeitgeist (Mudde 2004) illustrates this complex interplay between crisis, ideologies and party systems that has led to transformations in the symbolic and ideological landscape that have brought about profound alterations in party dynamics across the world. The concept of populism is subject to extensive and contested debates, with various characterisations, including a personalist strategy of mobilisation (Weyland 2001), an appeal to the "people" against the establishment and dominant ideas (Canovan 1999), a political performative style (Ostiguy and Moffitt 2021), a thin-centred ideology (Mudde 2004), or a discursive logic articulating social, political, or ideological content (Laclau 2005). Yet there is academic agreement on associating the populist worldview with a dichotomous depiction of society, that emphases the division between a virtuous "people" and a corrupt elite, while advocating for the restoration of popular sovereignty by the people. ...
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The Spanish party system has recently undergone profound changes, marked by the rapid rise and decline of several political actors, such as Podemos and Ciudadanos, who challenged the imperfect two-party system that had characterised Spain since transition. This article examines how three major crises-the global financial crisis, the Catalan secessionist challenge, and the COVID19 pandemic-, have impacted the social imaginary and created opportunities for new framing and electoral competition strategies. Our research reconstructs changes in the Spanish ideological landscape and the relative salience of political cleavages in each of these crises. We argue that they had asymmetric impacts on party politics. Anti-establishment and nationalist populist discourses were effectively used to harness and redirect public discontent against political opponents. Political parties adapted their ideology strategically. Initially, outsider parties took advantage of the drop of trust in public institutions challenging the two-party system, but in the long run, the mainstreaming of populist interpretative frames, paradoxically, ended up consolidating two antagonistic blocs and enabled the resurgence of the two major parties, the PP and PSOE, as undisputed leaders of each of them.
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  • Apr 2025
With lives, livelihoods, and entire societies at stake, immunisation was as a matter of immense political and social importance throughout the global health crisis. Using the framework of medical populism, this paper articulates the emergence of vaccines for COVID-19 as a populist trope by using three countries with diverse contexts and distinct vaccine responses – Brazil, the Philippines, and the United States – as case studies, drawing on the discourses and actions of their heads of states from March 2020 to December 2021. In the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte engaged in ‘vaccine messianism’, offering the promise of future vaccines as a simplistic solution to the pandemic. In the US, President Donald Trump dramatised his vaccine project and tied it to his ‘America First’ politics in what has been called ‘vaccine nationalism’. Meanwhile, in Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro’s ‘vaccine skepticism’ helped forge divisions between his constituencies and global elites as well as political opponents. Overall, the case studies show how medical populist performances evolved during the pandemic, and how the use of vaccine as a populist trope was linked to immunological, and often exclusionary, notions of nationalism.
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Kimonos, Ponchos and Blue Jeans: The Politics of Clothing in Alberto Fujimori’s Performative Populism
Article
  • Mar 2025
  • POLIT STUD-LONDON
This article explores the role of clothing in populism through an analysis of Alberto Fujimori, Peru’s one-time autocrat (1990–2000). Drawing on the discursive-performative approach to populism and novel primary sources, this article makes the process-traced argument fashion may be essential to the performance of populism since, from the perspective of populist leaders, clothing is capable of overcoming some limitations of discourse. Despite several rhetorical shortcomings, clothing allowed Fujimori to perform ‘the popular’. Through kimonos, Fujimori differentiated himself from Peru’s White elite, through ponchos he built identification with indigenous Peruvians and through blue jeans he embodied a hands-on governing style. Clothing allowed Fujimori to build charismatic authority without rhetorical skill, transmitted nuanced messages alongside discourse and convinced many Peruvians of the authenticity of his populist project. This analysis of Fujimori highlights the oft-neglected importance of clothing in politics while providing a methodological blueprint for scholars interested in addressing this important gap.
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Banana Populism: Exploring the Emotionally Engaging, Authentic, and Memeable Rhetoric of Populist Visual Communication
Article
Full-text available
  • Jan 2025
This study conceptualizes “banana populism,” a novel analytical framework to examine how whimsical imagery functions in in contemporary populism. Banana populism utilizes the ordinary—exemplified by the banana—for its ubiquity, inherent humor, and absurdity, transforming these elements into powerful political tools. These articulations effectively mainstream extreme ideologies, invite affective investment from broad publics, and delineate antagonistic frontiers by employing familiar cultural symbols and everyday objects, such as military attire or MAGA hats. Such performative elements not only enhance the authenticity of populist leaders but also make their messages more accessible and emotionally engaging, increasing their appeal and relatability. Furthermore, the memetic nature of banana populism underlines its adaptability and potency on social media, where these performances become part of a participatory and dynamic political discourse. This framework shows how seemingly innocuous visual articulations can profoundly impact political communication and identity formation in contemporary political landscapes.
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Who is the People’s Enemy? Performative Construction and Visual Representation Through AI of the Otherness in the Political Communication of Presidential Discourse in Mexico
Chapter
  • Jan 2025
This chapter argues that, through his construction of otherness, the populism of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador could be understood as a right-wing populism. This is because he develops a political communication strategy that seeks to eliminate from legitimate political participation those who are not part of the people he claims to represent. To develop this idea, the discursive elements of López Obrador's political project were identified through the theory of Ernesto Laclau. Then, we added a performative approach to include the concrete adjectives that the discourse associates with otherness and, with a semantic analysis using ATLAS.ti & OpenAI, we identify the performative signifiers that define his antagonistic other. These performative signifiers showed that the discourse seeks to exclude his adversaries from the democratic game.
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Disagreeing to Agree: Populism and Consensus Among Members of Parliaments and Their Voters
Article
Full-text available
  • Oct 2024
Populism is theoretically associated with an antagonistic interpretation of politics. Populists tend to morally delegitimize their adversaries, exhibit “bad manners” toward them, and sometimes even try to exclude them from “the people.” They are also more inclined to prioritize radical policy and institutional changes. Therefore, populism appears to be directly at odds with consensus politics. This research aims to empirically test this relationship. Using two original surveys focused on the Spanish context, we investigate the relationship between populist attitudes and the propensity to consensual political solutions, examining both citizens and their political representatives. Our results confirm that populist attitudes contribute to low support for consensual approaches toward politics among both members of parliament (MPs) and citizens, but this relationship depends on the individual’s specific dimensions of populism. Anti-systemic and moral Manichaean attitudes are associated with less consensual preferences both for MPs and citizens, whereas people-centrist and identitarian populist attitudes exhibit this negative effect only among citizens. These results provide new insights into the ramifications of populist attitudes and underscore the importance of empirically examining the concept of populism across its various dimensions.
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Tiempo de polarización: una mirada a la crisis de la democracia a través de la comunicación política populista
Article
Full-text available
  • Aug 2024
Este artículo tiene por objetivo ofrecer una perspectiva de la actual crisis de la democracia a partir del análisis del discurso político del populismo institucionalizado o populismo en el poder. Al analizar a esta forma de comunicación política, a partir de un enfoque performativo, se argumenta que una causa de la crisis democrática actual es la polarización afectiva, es decir, una forma de fragmentación social basada no en las diferencias políticas sino en una frontera identitaria, cuyo principal componente es la figura de un enemigo al que se despoja de su legitimidad para participar en la toma de decisiones colectivas que caracteriza a una democracia moderna. La construcción de este enemigo, por parte del populismo institucionalizado, se presenta como un significante performativo, es decir, como un elemento discursivo con el que se lleva a cabo una acción política, en este caso, la creación de un tiempo de polarización que provoca una crisis democrática entendida como una clausura de la constante búsqueda por ampliar libertades y derechos.
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