Spyros Sofos (SS): ‘Seven Essays on Populism’ is an unusual book. It’s a fiercely and uncompromisingly critical attempt to reconfigure the terms of the existing debate on populism. Not only do you attempt to recover populism from its staple association with the far-Right. But you also differentiate yourselves, and your argument, from seemingly like-minded theorists who do not accept that populism is an exclusively right-wing form of politics.
Instead, you boldly argue that populism is always radical and emancipatory – an anti-authoritarian force – and you suggest that what we call right-wing populism has none of these characteristics and belongs to a different universe, that of fascism. Arguing from a historical perspective, Federico Finchelstein reaches the opposite conclusion: that populism and fascism are contiguous phenomena. Can you tell us more about the difference between these two phenomena?
Paula Bigleri and Luciana Cadahia (PB & LC): If we accept that there is a ‘right-wing’ and a ‘left-wing’ populism, we are equating two phenomena of a very different nature. From our Latin American perspective, this is not only a theoretical mistake, but also a political one.
