Ensoñaciones populistas: el cuerpo del líder frente al poder de los muchos

Emphasizing the discrepancy between "politics" and "the political", Ernesto Laclau crowns his analysis of the blind spots of the Marxist tradition with a eulogy of populism. His re-centring of "the political" does not postulate a beginning epitomized by a great event. Instead, Laclau praises the ontological foundation of politics as the abyss of all politicity. This essay critically assesses the conjunction of deconstructionist and radical democratic manoeuvres through which Laclau invests the body of the populist leader with an extra-quotidian character. In Laclau's own terms, in fact, radical politics requires the figure of the populist leader who, ontologically, points the way toward emancipation. However, I will show how the assumption that the body of the leader animates political beginnings and primordially channels them restrains Laclau's previous 'deepening of the materialist project' and precludes a consideration of the role that "the many" play in democratic foundations.