The agonistic path towards populism: Mouffe, the left and its democratic crossroads

The classic pejorative designation of populism currently coexists with its recent vindication. From certain left-wing political and intellectual circles, the revival of this category is part of a strategy aimed at bringing together unsatisfied demands in an emancipatory key. In line with Ernesto Laclau's theory, one of the paradigmatic examples of this tendency is Chantal Mouffe's left-populist proposal. Different critical approaches object that, in the eagerness to deepen and to radicalise democracy, these impulses often challenge its limits and flirt with political logics that could completely blur them. Thus, the feasibility of this emancipatory strategy seems to be tied to the ever-problematic compatibility between populism and democracy, especially to its possible normative and institutional modulations. This article will argue that the populist conception projected by Mouffe is relatively autonomous from Laclau's, and that, unlike Laclau's, it has its own prospects of agonism and civicrepublicanism that can make room for the institutional dimension and the normativity constitutive of the liberal democratic order.