Nationalist versus Populist Constructions of “the People”: Eastern Europe and Latin America in Comparative Perspective

This article argues that while nationalist discourses construct “the people” through positive identity practices, populist discourses articulate it through negative identity practices. Nationalism emphasizes who “the people” are, by identifying a number of core positive characteristics that they share, such as ethnicity, language, culture, history, religion, or political rights and civic traditions. Populism, on the other hand, defines “the people” primarily in a negative fashion in opposition to the elites. Here, “the people” do not share any positive characteristics beyond their oppression, exclusion, and marginalization by the elites. In order to empirically demonstrate the above distinction, I compare the political discourse of Rafael Correa in Ecuador during his first term in office (2007–2012) with that of Victor Orbán in Hungary, primarily during his second term in office (2010–2014). The comparison between these two political projects not only spells out important differences between populist and nationalist articulations of “the people” but also highlights different types of anti-system politics that have emerged in Latin America and Eastern Europe.