ABSTRACT
This chapter develops a critical account of populism in order to provide the theoretical and conceptual basis for the remainder of the book. It engages with competing scholarly perspectives on the relative democratic merits of populism. The chapter then delves further into characteristic features of populism, including the construction of ‘the people’; populist leadership; and aesthetic and affective qualities. This provides a basis for an evaluation of the ways that digital media complicates these features. The final section of the chapter draws on the work of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe to introduce the notion of ‘left populism’ and its suggested potential to overcome the weaknesses of populism more generally. A performance-informed analysis enables an argument that populist movements of any kind are limited in their ability to achieve pluralist inclusivity and productive forms of deliberation; to meet these goals, it is imperative to consider the role that materially embodied performance plays in political interaction.
