What Would Populism Be? Understanding Some Semantic Dimensions

“What would populism be? Understanding some semantic dimensions” The chapter is divided into two subsections: Democracy and movement of populistic waves and populism as movement and Ideology: Laclau’s vision, where it is addressed the theoretical issues raised by that of populisms. The chapter considers that the term “populism” carries with it a large amount of semantic inaccuracies, presents the movement of populist waves in the global context, showing that Without a theoretical definition, however, we are still not able to understand its causes and variables, which ends up making it difficult to apply countermeasures to rescue the liberal democratic system. The chapter, at the end, explores Laclau’s vision to conclude that the realization of populism in the ideological field allows us to take into account the demand side, as well as the supply side for populist politics. Rather than focusing on looking at populism, notably constructed as a strategy for a specific political elite that is moving toward an “illiberal” democracy, it also allows us to look at populist demand, understand support for populist ideas in the masses popular. It is convenient to understand what are the reasons that led or lead the masses to support demands that intend to deconstruct the old institutional order—this mapping can lead to the development of new mechanisms for the contemporary populist movement.