The multiple faces of populism. Conceptual debates and moral-political contention in times of center-leftist governments in Argentina

GABRIEL VOMMARO

Gottingen

Workshop; Lineages of the People: Embedded and transregional histories of contemporary populism; 2017

Universidad de Göttingen y NYU

Populism is a twofold category, an academic concept as well as a moral label in political debates and citizens? conversation (Eliasoph, 1996). The publication of Ernesto Laclau?s book On Populist Reason invigorated theconceptual debates in the academic field. Whereas the left turn placed the label back in the public debate where this moral label serves to disqualify political opponents. For opponents to leftist governments, the Chavista version of populism became a symbol of the threats to liberal democracy and of economic and social chaos. Under a context of deep political polarization the label ?chavización? also became a way of making accountable malaise that progressive governments caused in some social sectors. Populism and Chavismo became frames (Goffman, 1974) for the experience of rejecting these governments and, in the Venezuelan version, a reason of ?moral panic? (Cohen, 2009 [1972]) in the world of business and its social environment.In this paper I analyze these faces of populism, with special interest in the way in which this category became a component of the frame of experiences rejecting progressive governments in recent Argentina. First, I make a brief consideration of the current debates in the academic field about the concept. Second, I deal with its use as a moral label in the political debate. Finally, I analyze populism, in its ?chavista? version, as a driving force for economic elites? moral panic in Argentina.