Populism and Nationalism: Constructing and Representing ‘the People’ as Underdog and Nation, Vol. 24 - 2017, No. 4

Guest Edited by Benjamin De Cleen and Yannis Stavrakakis

Populism and Nationalism in Latin America

Carlos de la Torre, pages: 375-390

This article analyses the articulation of populism and nationalism in Peronism and Chavism. Despite their inclusionary policies, their redistribution of wealth and the expansion of social and political rights, Perón and Chávez built authoritarian governments. These national populist leaders concentrated power in the executive, used laws instrumentally to repress dissent and made use of the state apparatus to colonise the public sphere and civil society. Their autocratic drift is explained by a combination of four factors. First, the logic of populism transformed democratic rivals into enemies. Second, these leaders constructed the people as one, and once in power enacted policies to transform diverse and pluralistic populations into homogeneous peoples embodied in their leaderships. Third, even though these former military officers promoted national sovereignty, they acted as the only interpreters of national interests, excluding rivals from the national community. Fourth, Perón and Chávez closed institutional spaces to process dissent and conflict, exacerbating the autocratic impulses of their opponents who used any means necessary, including military coups, to try to get rid of populist presidents.

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