Entrenched Populism: A conceptual minimum definition departing from Laclau, Mudde and Rosanvallon forms of interpretation

• Grant number: 25/03534-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Post-doctor
• Start date: October 01, 2025
• End date: September 30, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Political Science - Political Theory
• Principal Investigator: André Vitor Singer
• Grantee: Rafael Marchesan Tauil
• Supervisor: David Howarth
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: University Of Essex, England
• Associated to the scholarship: 23/08743-4 - Political ontology, ideology and democratic indetermination: An interpretative approach based on Ernesto Laclau, Cas Mudde and Pierre Rosanvallon theoretical-conceptual formulations of populism, BP.PD

Abstract

The aim of this project is to gain a deeper understanding of the concepts and theoretical formulations of Ernesto Laclau, Cas Mudde and Pierre Rosanvallon on populism, in order to demonstrate that it is possible to jointly mobilize this theoretical construction in the formulation of a minimum conceptual definition of this political phenomenon. In addition, we seek to improve our interpretative capacity on populism based on the theoretical, methodological and epistemological frameworks of post-structuralism and discourse analysis. While Mudde and Rosanvallon start from a structuralist perspective to understand the phenomenon through the mobilization of universal notions such as people, elite, general will, ideology, democracy, among others, Laclau formulates his theory from the frameworks of post-structuralist thought and discourse analysis. Through this interpretative key, he seeks to explain populism from within mutable and unpredictable conceptual limits, which depend to a large extent on contingencies arising from political and social processes that are represented by notions such as hegemony, discourse, ideology, antagonism, representation, among others. The exercise in understanding that we propose in this research is important because in the project that we are developing at a national level, we suggest a new conceptual formulation of populism based on the theoretical constructions of these three intellectuals and their respective epistemological frameworks. This formulation seeks to answer the following question: is it possible to establish a minimum definition of populism that is capable of understanding and explaining realities as diverse as Brazil, Hungary, Germany, the United States and Russia, among others? The exercise of deepening and theoretical exegesis, which we will carry out at the University of Essex, seeks to contribute to the answer to this question and will be carried out through different stages, including: - 1 reading and systematizing works written by Laclau, Mudde and Rosanvallon and by post-structuralist intellectuals such as Foucault, Derrida, Lacan, Nietzsche, Heiddger, Lyotard, among others, under the supervision of professor David Howarth; - 2 carrying out face-to-face interviews with Cas Mudde and Pierre Rosanvallon; - 3 carrying out an exploratory empirical exercise in an attempt to understand whether the conceptual formulation we propose in Brazil can be applied to the British context; and finally: - 4 expanding academic relations with intellectuals from different locations around the world, in an attempt to create an international network of theoretical studies on populism to be coordinated from Brazil. (AU)