Populism, an ideology without history? A new genetic approach

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article analyses the implications of the qualification of ‘populism’, which has spread massively in contemporary social sciences. Through an archaeology of the concept in political science since the 1960s, the article points to a double epistemological tropism: an-historicity and savage comparative analysis. In order to avoid them, it proposes a new genetic approach to populism, which combines historical sociology and conceptual history, and redefines it on the basis of its three founding experiences: the Russian Narodnitchestvo, the US People’s Party and the national-popular regimes in Latin America. Thanks to this socio-historical comparison, the article proposes a new definition of populism that distinguishes it from demagogy, fascism and nativism.