The tremors of popular-sovereignty: a review of Left-wing populism: the politics of the people

Abstract

The careful reader will find in Óscar García Agustín’s concise book Left-wing populism: The politics of the people an industrious intervention in the debate over the political theorization of left populism, a debate moreover that at times appears to be deadlocked 1 . Is left-wing populism simply the partner-in-crime of right-wing populism, thereby reactionary and illiberal? Has ‘the people’, or the political subject populism holds in such high regard, eclipsed traditional left-wing concepts like class? Should left-wing populism be re-imagined, for high political theory at least, in terms of radical republicanism as recent authors like Camila Vergara have argued? How should we imagine the future of left-wing populist politics geographically? Are we, in the terms of Alex Sager stuck with ‘methodological nationalism’? Or is a transnational, even cosmopolitan left-wing populism viable and compelling?