The frontier in Europe between the people and the ruling elite has readied the ground for a populist uprising, as defined by the Argentinian academicWhen Ernesto Laclau passed away last April aged 78, few would have guessed that this Argentinian-born, Oxford-educated post-Marxist would become the key intellectual figure behind a political process that exploded into life a mere six weeks later, when Spanish leftist party Podemos won five seats and 1.2m votes in last May’s European elections.Throughout his academic career, most of which he spent as professor of political theory at the University of Essex, Laclau developed a vocabulary beyond classical Marxist thought, replacing the traditional analysis of class struggle with a concept of “radical democracy” that stretched beyond the narrow confines of the ballot box (or the trade union). Most importantly for Syriza, Podemos and its excitable sympathisers outside Greece and Spain, he sought to rescue “populism” from its many detractors. Related: Tens of thousands join Podemos anti-austerity rally in Madrid Related: The Guardian view of Europe’s populists: left or right, they are united by a worrying xenophobia | Editorial Continue reading...
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