Spain's Podemos party leader, Pablo Iglesias, addresses Spain's acting conservative Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, at the Spanish parliament, Oct. 27, 2016. Francisco Seco AP/Press Association Images, all rights reserved.
We are experiencing a 'populist moment' in Europe today. This is a turning point for our democracies, whose future depends on the response to this challenge. To address this situation, it is essential to discard the simplistic vision of the media, presenting populism as mere demagogy, and adopt an analytical perspective. I propose to follow Ernesto Laclau, who defines populism as a way to construct the political by establishing a political frontier that divides society into two camps, appealing to the mobilization of the 'underdog' against ‘those in power’.
