In the Name of the People: Populist Reason and the Subject of the Political

Abstract

The article seeks to stress the importance of two main innovations in Ernesto Laclau's recent work: what his theory of populism in On Populist Reason provides in terms of theoretical innovations is (1), a political theory of naming, and (2), a political theory of the heterogeneous. Furthermore, it is asked what it means to name, as Laclau himself does, the subject of the political "the people" and to define populism as the logic of all politics. It is argued against potential criticism that these rather strong claims, far from being overstretched, in fact must be understood in the light of Laclau's new ideas on political naming and the heterogeneous, since (1) his notions of populism and "the people" are the outcome of political nomination, that is, a political wager on Laclau's part (and not of a "merely theoretical," conceptual determination), and (2) the name of "the people," like every political name, will always cast a shadow on the heterogeneous as that which cannot be named.