Anti-Neoliberal Populisms in Europe and Latin America

Populism has for a long time been in disrepute. Traditionally it was disregarded by Marxists and liberals alike as a pre-modern form of political manifestation. More recently, the concept was dismissed by globalists, free-marketeers, and institutionalists as questions around the construction of ‘the people’ ceased to matter. This was a symptom of postdemocratic thinking: politics have come to an end and we are transitioned from the realm of conflict to the sphere of bureaucracy and administration. Even worse, populism was perceived as a dysfunctional symptom, something that belonged to the polities within the peripheries of capitalism, to developing nations with unconsolidated democratic cultures, weak institutional frameworks, and a tendency to follow lunatic charismatic leaders. 

In this sense, the reader of Padoan’s book will have to overcome the first false impression evoked by the subtitle of the book (a latinoamericanisation of southern Europe?) because it does not insinuate a form of regression in southern European politics. Instead, it highlights shared traits in new political projects. While populism continues to be vilified by mainstream media and political discourse, the debate in academia is broadly split between those who loath it altogether and those who defend it as a form of emancipation in unequal and fragmented postmodern societies. Padoan does not elude this debate but, intelligently, offers a way forward by critically reflecting about populism in the light of what constitutes his object of studies: the cross-regional comparison of the anti-neoliberal political projects in Latin America and southern Europe. He defines populism as ‘a political project aiming at occupying the public institutions through electoral means in order to allow ‘the people’ to recuperate or achieve its sovereignty; while relying on an antagonistic, polarising political discourse to generate new collective identities and on varying organisational resources to overcome the problem of collective action that could arise and/or heterogeneous constituencies’ (p.9). Furthermore, the author identifies five key attributes to populism: a particular process of articulating demands, a primary focus on the search for power, a peculiar interpretation of the concept of representation, accountability, and sovereignty, a specific understanding of the concept of participation, which is present in some populist phenomena and organisational traits of some of the parties labelled populist. 

Padoan goes on to propose two ideal types of antineoliberal populism according to the kind of solution provided for making sovereignty effective: electoraldelegative and participative-mobilising populism. These typologies are effective for the scope of the comparison and general objective of the book. Furthermore, they are carefully thought through to differentiate anti-neoliberal populism from both authoritarianism and polyarchy and liberal pluralism. The most important added value of these ideal types of populism is that they capture the organisational density, the intermediation, existing in anti-neoliberal political projects, which contributes to debunk the myth that suggests that populism means more manipulation of irrational mobs than the mobilisation of actors in the pursuit of their own rational interests. Padoan rightly highlights the role of trade unions (and not only social movement organisations) in the rise of anti-neoliberalism populism in Latin America, only when they departed from corporatist practices to form part of broader coalitions. While other scholars have highlighted the same element as key driver in the reinvigoration of an alternative to neoliberalism and therefore the reinvigoration of democracy in Latin America, Padoan takes it as co-constitutive of anti-neoliberal populist political projects. The book not only develops a middle-range theory of left populist formations, but it also puts this theory in motion to capture similarities and differences in socio-political processes in Latin America and Southern Europe. 

The typologies function well to capture sociopolitical processes in Bolivia (Chapter 3), Argentina (Chapter 4), Spain (Chapter 5) and Italy (Chapter 6). Applying good comparative methodological practice, the book also studies Uruguay and Portugal as two ‘negative cases’ in the final chapter as countries where the traditional, labour-based left, grew stronger after the crisis and no populist project arose. Padoan relies on three empirical variables to observe differences in the development of antineoliberal populism across different cases: the existence or lack of political party/partisan structure, the relationship with national unions and the degree of influence social movements has in activities such as candidate selection. This is not a book that seeks to redeem populism nor to criticise it entirely. Instead, Padoan’s work is an exceptional analytical effort to articulate cutting-edge conceptualisations of populism with relevant political science perspectives in the light of an impressive number of relevant case studies. In addition, the book offers a wealth of insights into the different cases which are discussed in great depth. Lastly, while anti-neoliberalism functioned as the master-frame common ground for the constitution of progressive political identities in both sub-regions more than two decades ago, the author is right in stating that it was in Latin America where the penetration of political representation was greater because of the stronger linkages with well-rooted parties and movements rather. Does this mean that countries such as Argentina and Bolivia are better positioned to face the rise of ‘anti-populist’ movements than Italy and Spain? This question falls outside the remit of the book but, as can be seen, it provides insightful lessons that should animate future comparative research. The book is a must-read for students and researchers interested in understanding contemporary socio-political processes in Latin America and Europe.