ABSTRACT
This introduction gives some clues to what can be expected in the rest of the book and sets out some of its main themes. It discusses the contemporary history of populism, moving between the Americas and Europe, and considers its current prestige, or lack thereof, even within self-consciously populist movements such as that of Podemos in Spain. It also contemplates a linguistic distinction between the Spanish-speaking and English-speaking worlds with regard to the topic. The chapter suggests that in order to get out of a certain contemporary impasse regarding populist politics, the latter should be retheorised, specifically by separating it from the theory of hegemony. It is explained that this should avoid potential fallacies, such as that of Chantal Mouffe, or that of Daniel Bernabé in Spain, that in a sense are in opposition to one another. Deploying Jacques Lacan’s theory of sexual difference in relation to Carl Schmitt’s original intuition regarding social antagonism, the chapter thus tries to plot a path through the material to come.
