ABSTRACT
This chapter sheds light on the emotional underpinning of populist orientations and politics in relation to nostalgia, anger, fear, efficacy, resentment, and ressentiment. It keeps a distance from the mainstream ideational approach by defining populism as a schema consisting in two principal slots through which individuals orient themselves towards the political field: the ‘people’, and the division of society between two main power blocs. Special emphasis is given to the post-authoritarian Greek populism of the 1980s, interpreted as a case of ressentiment-ful politics. The argument is heavily supported by qualitative use of fiction.
