Review Essay : Populism is Hegemony is Politics? On Ernesto Laclau's On Populist Reason

The work of many of us would have never been the same without the intellectual influence of Ernesto Laclau, one of the most gifted political thinkers of his generation. It is difficult not to be bowled over by the elegance and seductiveness of his writing – the turns of phrases, the conceptual wizardry, the frequent use of examples, the ease with which he weaves his ideas by drawing from the work of philosophers, linguists, psychoanalysts, historians, and so on. He also has a knack for luring critics into his conceptual territory by reading their work through the lens of his own terminology and, when this is not a viable option, for undermining or dismissing them with responses that seem to have the force of syllogisms. On both counts Laclau follows in the footsteps of Althusser, who embraced intertextuality and always strived to present his arguments clearly and persuasively, as if they were self-evident conclusions. Althusser is no stranger to him given that his theories framed his earlier essays in Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory. Laclau, of course, parted ways with the notion of the relative autonomy of the superstructures and the determination in the last instance by the economy in his writings leading up to the publication of Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. What still resonates there, as well as in New Reflections and the more recent On Populist Reason, is Althusser’s talent for giving a semblance of seamlessness to his discourse. On Populist Reason (hereafter OPR) is a fascinating read.1 It is written in a way that renders the subject matter a continuation, enhancement and confirmation of his post-Gramscian theory of hegemony. Hegemony is the medium through which populism unfolds and, as we will see, it is often difficult to tell them apart. In the first seventy pages or so, Laclau provides an overview of the theories of Canovan, Minogue and various contributors to the Ionescu and Gellner volume on populism. He also discusses what Le Bon, Tarde, McDougall and Freud have to say about groups, crowds, and leaders. This prepares the reader for his own interpretation. Interesting as this discussion is, I concentrate on the subsequent parts of the book where he explicitly formulates his position. I avoid the temptation to write a Laclau 101 text by focusing on some conceptual knots in the arguments about populism, or politics-as-populism. In this review, I take my cue from Gaston Bachelard, for whom one truly honors a great thinker by polemicizing with his ideas, by bringing out the tensions in Laclau’s work.