ABSTRACT
The concepts of populism and the extreme right play a full part in structuring the political debate in Europe and the United States. While in some respects they refer to specific realities that are easily identifiable, they can also lead to confusion. The frequent, often incorrect use of these concepts in the media, journalism, politics and political science contributes to the conceptual vagueness that characterizes the literature on this issue. This chapter is grounded in the idea that populism is not the extreme right and does not embody the same kind of threat to liberal values and democracy. To demonstrate such an assertion, we will study and compare here the precise significance of these two categories.
