The tensions of populism in power: a discursive-theoretical analysis of the Catalan secessionist push (2006–2017)

Abstract

ABSTRACT The article explores one of the most under-researched aspects surrounding populism, namely the political logics followed by governing populisms, and more specifically, the transitions of populisms from ‘protest to power’. It does so from a theoretical perspective rooted in the work of Ernesto Laclau. This implies conceiving the relationships between populism and state institutions as governed by distinct types of discursive logics: as different ways in which socio-political spaces are organized and political identities enacted. The article theorizes the conflictive relationship between populism and institutionalism as expressed in four main tensions that face a governing populism: between autonomy and hegemony, between being ‘people’ and being the State, between being government and being street opposition, and between the democratic and the liberal principles. By focusing on this relationship, the article seeks to illuminate not only theoretical issues but also an empirical case that we consider particularly relevant: the recent push for secession in Catalonia (Spain). The article contends that the Catalan separatism constitutes a paradigmatic case of a populist social movement that has not only reached institutional power, but which has also remained populist once in power; a condition which implies using acquired institutional power with the aim of institutional subversion.