Critical Examination: Political Conflict in Populist Politics

This essay delves into the complex relationship between populism and political conflict, critically examining the theories of Laclau and Mouffe. It discusses how populism, often arising from a sense of being left behind, utilizes political conflict to create a unified identity against perceived elites. The essay explores the populist tendency to simplify politics, potentially undermining pluralism and democratic processes. It further investigates Laclau's perspective on populism as a means of filling the 'empty space' in politics through hegemonic works, while also acknowledging the risks of populism leading to authoritarianism by concentrating power and blurring the lines between the state and social powers. The analysis considers the Latin American context and the implications of populist movements on democratic values and the representation of diverse interests.

Running head: QUESTIONS 0
politics
MARCH 1, 2019
STUDENT DETAILS:

QUESTIONS 1
In comparative politics, the concept of populism is much-disputed concept. Particularly, the
concept of populism is debateable in Latin American studies, in which arguments continue
above definitional features. The populism only does not play a role in structuring the political
conflict in the democratic civilization; however, it also has the theoretical salience in the
theory of politics. The word populism was continuously charge with an uncertainty in respect
of moderating contributions in case of not connected with oppression. The populism is very
old concept like the democracy itself, however the previous ten years have demonstrated
specifically productive: the populist front-runners regulate the nations with mixed
populations of nearly two billion persons, when populist people are grounds in excess of
dozen democracies, most of them in Europe. In the following report, the role of political
conflict in populist politics, the use of political conflict, theory of Laclau and Mouffe, is
discussed and critically examined.
The populism originates in the carious scopes, shape. However, they have common qualities.
The groups are working jointly is majorly the view that government has unenthusiastic to
state the issues near to their heart that sense left behind1. The views curtail from these group
non-existing behind viewing top achieve all the advantages of internationalization, which
they promote for themselves. The powers felt by functioning and middle classes are
decreasing, all when government grows ever the more authoritative. Notwithstanding of how
valid or reasonable this view can be, they do not consider how practical the populist
approaches are or what the significances can be.
Wherever, the populists have strongly included in establishing the organization, they are
depended on various kinds of connected mechanisms to protect the mass populations. In
certain matters, the corporatist bond to managed parallel, class-based populations have
counterfeited, where in other parallel-managed network of supporters and customers
1 R MacNair, The psychology of peace, in , Santa Barbara, Calif., Praeger, 2012.

QUESTIONS 2
preponderate. These two methods of communal connection are only just commonly
exclusive; certain populist figures have effectively joined them together in similar
programmes and similar events. Moreover, the political conflict greatly affects the populist
politics. The political conflict controls in the populist approaches. The liberal democratic
system has continuously made efforts to hide political conflict. It may be either due to
absence of interest or due to the absence of media-worth. There may be lack of interest
because of no knowledge to handle these. In populist activities, the converse is accurate: at
the present, this is significant to emphasise on all political conflicts and cover it up strongly
in an enthusiastically indicted bundle2.
In the addition of this, the populists do really admit the political conflict from the time when,
accepting Carl Schmitt, they conceive politics in bipolar expressions as the ground, where
the opponents and supporters clash. However, the populists consider the political conflict as
the resources for or the liberating moments in a formation of the detailed confederation of
individuals. In this way, the populism honours polarization. The populism does not honour
pluralism3. Certainly, the political conflicts are used and voting processes for the sake of an
overpowering success and by way of influential to the utilisation of one part of individuals in
contradiction of others, in opinion of creating the winners the substance of the various
segments, groups, or peoples, whose limitless litigiousness this is considered deteriorates
common harmony4. Populism keeps held the multi-people methods in big doubt. Therefore,
this is renunciation of democratic demonstration that is main establishment or institution’s
sets, with the help of which practical democracy is applied. This states and conceives republic
as hegemonic conflict for authority of a famous romanticism and the views above the
elements. It is said by Robert Dahl that, it provides the demos "complete" and "ultimate
2 M Levinson, No citizen left behind, in , Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 2012.
3 J Vala, S Waldzus & M Calheiros, The social developmental construction of violence and intergroup conflict,
in , Switzerland, Springer, 2016.
4 W Mitchell & T Fazi, Reclaiming the state, in.

QUESTIONS 3
mechanism or regulation" above the political orders, that means empirically a regulation of
the majority5.
This unifying project makes politics into a work of simplification that narrows the possibility
of a space of communication open to all equally insofar as it does not belong to anybody6.
Although Laclau claims that the populist occupation of the place of power is "partial" or
never complete, the impression one has is that its impartiality and incompleteness are more a
limit that the human practice of consent formation cannot avoid or overcome than a
normative principle. Populism makes opinion public in the sense that it makes it belong only
to one public.
Claude Lefort greatly predicted the risks of populist confined in the government’s views such
as demonstrative democracy, Claude Lefort not ended up by chance by defining the
authoritarianism in an effort to hold the thrilling implications of the projects that, when
contrasting the multiplicity, targets at appearing the self-governing collective as in the case
where this was a similar actor. This procedure is defined by the Lefort as concentration
between an authority’s scope, and scope of rules and regulations. Lefort has also defined this
process as an understanding’s scope. The Populism makes concentration of powers and does
so in a try to solve the politics’ irregularity, which is defining who creates the persons. In this
way, the procedural strategy leaves the query always on, the populism desires to end this, or,
as arguments are made by Laclau to correct the ideas of Lefort that while proceduralization
of politics creates the power’s place in republics empty, it is desired by populism to fill out
the vacant space by turning politics in the production of a blankness by hegemonic works of
philosophical rearrangement of common team.
5 C Sunstein, Legal reasoning and political conflict, in.
6 Terry Eagleton, Literary Theory (John Wiley & Sons 2011).

QUESTIONS 4
The targets of populism contains in blanking the power’s place to take up again. It involves
corroding the representative area and replacing this with the power’s materiality. In other
words, this involves that the interest’s conflicts and between programs take place no long in
an institution’s process and language, however like direct expression of social powers that
create the state the instruments7. As of the recognition that the representative structure of
powers are that which endures the political commands, populism infers the duty that contains
in inhabiting and conquering that representative structure. From multiplicity of the views to
the creation of a leading narratives: it is the major work of a political procedure whose target
is to combine the variety of people, which constitute what the people call public’s view in the
independent societies8.
Further, Laclau made the political theory in two main books such as Hegemony and Socialist
Strategy, subtitled to the fundamental independent politics and co-written with the friend
Chantal Mouffe, who was famous theorist, and issued in year 1985, and over populist
reasons, issues in year 20059. Laclau is exemplary matter of the internationalized critical
philosopher. When the formal strategy of Laclau to populist address establishes the
considerable advance in the theorization of the indefinable concepts, this would be debated
that the new reflection on populism can be construed as suggestive of restrictions of the
‘formalist’ strategies. The Latin America’s origin evidently notify the current concept of the
political, specifically the difficult of ‘populism that is greatly affected by the experiences of
Personas. However, in the case where Laclau occasionally takes the position on the nation,
presently outspreading the support to the administration of Cristina Kirchner, for an instance,
the knowledgeable spaces, where he majorly moves is Anglo-American world10.
7 N Cook, Enterprise 2.0: How Social Software Will Change the Future of Work, in.
8 P Freire & D Macedo, Letters to Cristina, in.
9 Bonnie Honig, Political Theory And The Displacement Of Politics (Cornell University Press 2016).
10 Simon Thompson, The Political Theory Of Recognition (Polity 2016).

QUESTIONS 5
In year 2005, Laclau presented the critical work in the book On Populist Reason. This is
specifically so in Latin America, where Laclau’s theses resounded with an experiences of the
progressive-populist administrations that developed in year 2000, such as Ecuador of Rafael
Correa, Venezuela of Hugo Chávez and Bolivia of Evo Morales11. The occurrence of the
regimes is to be related to the great past of the Latin America that had experiences of same
regimes in previous time12. The movement of Argentina, which took place in year 1940,
frames the political life. In general terms, the objectives of Laclau are to assimilate the
occurrence, usually considered as undesirable. In this opinion, the populism is the form
supposed by the governmental in new self-governing communities. Exactly, this is the
situation to profound the key values, which regulates the fairness. Hence, the chances to
involve completely with theoretical approach of Laclau to populism and contain examples of
populist politics in 2 various different matters, has provided the structure to recognise and
discover features of the phenomenon13.
As per the above analysis, it can be concluded that comparison with the populous of the
Forum permits the people to fulfil the knowledge of populism as the power’s methods, not
clearly the famous movements. In the present time, because populist politics disdains
processes and regards the crowds in place of administrated assembly as the site of famous
authority. The most agreeable systems of selections appear to be the installation of the
leaders, in place of electing the populisms contest with demonstrative fairness on the meaning
and a strategy of protest since it aims at the more truthful certification between the indicated
and the demonstrative. This does so by creating representations fundamentally the procedure
of association of people, not also one of support and the expression of views of residents and
interest. Populism makes blur the legal and demonstrative democracy. The reason is that it
competes with the concept that the respected desire and the casual view are and should be
11 D Vittori, "European populism in the shadow of the great recession", in Acta Politica, vol. 51, 2016, 400-402.
12 Olli-Pekka Vainio, Virtue.
13 C Lasch, The revolt of the elites, in.

QUESTIONS 6
stay 2 different forms of legality that must never be recognised and disordered. The
populism’s theory of Laclau plays an important role. The populism considers representations
as the approach for the constitution of the political orders above the societies and over the
exclusion of social interest from the governments, henceforth conflicts. The accomplishment
of strong power by the choice appears to be the concealed logics of pomposity of the mass,
regardless of the appeal of populists to the general public as the real character of
governments.

QUESTIONS 7
Bibliography
Cook, N, Enterprise 2.0: How Social Software Will Change the Future of Work. in.
Eagleton T, Literary Theory (John Wiley & Sons 2011)
Freire, P, & D Macedo, Letters to Cristina. in.
Honig B, Political Theory And The Displacement Of Politics (Cornell University Press 2016)
Lasch, C, The revolt of the elites. in .
Levinson, M, No citizen left behind. in , Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 2012.
MacNair, R, The psychology of peace. in , Santa Barbara, Calif., Praeger, 2012.
Mitchell, W, & T Fazi, Reclaiming the state. in.
Sunstein, C, Legal reasoning and political conflict. in.
Thompson S, The Political Theory Of Recognition (Polity 2016)
Vainio O, Virtue
Vala, J, S Waldzus, & M Calheiros, The social developmental construction of violence and
intergroup conflict. in , Switzerland, Springer, 2016.
Vittori, D, "European populism in the shadow of the great recession.". in Acta Politica, 51,
2016, 400-402.