ABSTRACT
In the last few years, we have been increasingly experiencing a discursive and practical use of the existing democratic structures as an instrument of anti-immigration anxiety and sentiment, from electoral support to right-wing populist parties to anti-immigrant, xenophobic, and/or racist mobilizations in and beyond the Western world. This article argues that the origins and political histories that the concepts of demos and democracy stand on provide a firm ground to resist the attempts at their current nativist/nationalist closure. Contesting the attempts to reduce the concepts of democracy and demos to strictly limited or ethnically defined populations, the article develops a political argument that relates democracy and migration, which have been represented as opposite poles within the current political map defined by the populist surge.
