doi: 10.1111/1467-8675.12131

Returning Populism to History1

Federico Finchelstein

Decentering Populism the creation of populism take place. Populism is then a temporal marker for the failure, “late coming,” or suc- Modern democratic populism was originally constituted cess of such structural changes or continuities. Thus in 1945 as a post-fascist response to the left. However, some scholars, especially in Latin America, present a it was not a radical break with the past, and populism static view that fixes populism in the past (or in differ- was not engendered outside a historical continuum. For ent pasts) and disentangles it from the present. Others historians this is clear, but outside the field of history, generally equate historical contexts with a more generic populism is often regarded as a trans-historical phe- view of a cyclic or systemic crisis of democracy. As nomenon. In other words, it is regarded as a happening Alan Knight has pointed out, circularity prevails when without a historical context. crisis and populism are equated. The result is that the Populism emerged as a form of authoritarian democ- former is explained in terms of the latter.2 For Knight, racy for the post-war world; one that could adapt the to- populism needs to be studied historically from the point talitarian version of politics to the post-war hegemony of view of the style of leadership: of democratic representation. While it curtailed political rights, populism expanded social rights; and at the same Defining populism in terms of style has the virtue of it put limits to the more radical emancipatory combi- flexibility and — perhaps most important — historical nations of both. This specific historicity of populism is fidelity. That is, it seems to correspond to the histor- often lost in varied theoretical reconfigurations, includ- ical record in a way that other — often more precise ing those approaches that are (normatively) in favor of theories/models — fail to do. And it is surely prefer- or against the populist phenomenon. able to have a rough rule-of-thumb which works than a highfalutin theory which defies reality.3 Despite the recurrence of academic references to the volatility of populism as a concept and experience, pop- Knight’s criticism of the theoretical failures that reduce ulism is no mystery to scholars reading the sources. In history to an illustration that often ignores historical fact, I would argue that it is not that we lack clarity in reality is salient, especially when he argues that defining the term, but rather that our theories of pop- ulism lack history. Needless to say, the reverse is also theories which, as I said, gain in precision and sophis- true. Historians often neglect the contribution of theo- tication, but fail on the crucial criterion of historical retical approaches to populism. The result is a lack of fidelity. They are neat but wrong. Or, to put it more ac- curately, the neater they are the wronger they are. Thus, understanding between history and theory. while they do not entirely lack insight or explanatory For some political theorists populism constitutes power, they cannot form the basis of a generic model.4 a democratizing response to a widespread crisis of representation, while for others populism presents However, Knight also tends to dismiss the analytical undemocratic limitations to the present and future perspectives opened by critical theory as such. He con- of democratic representation. Thus, in mainstream flates theory as a whole with specific theories of pop- bibliographies populism is regionally presented or func- ulism, including the so-called modernization thesis. At tionally reduced to a symbol, a symptom, or even a the root of the problem with many theories of populism pathology, of democracy. At best, populism is gener- is that these specific theories of populism are often stuck ally presented as a current example of the history of in a centuries-old understanding of history as a posi- contestations of democratic representation. In these ap- tivistic discipline, whereas historians, of course, have proaches history serves a minor role as the illustration of changed their approaches in radical ways over the last theory. It works as its own example. At worst, populism two centuries, rethinking the historical discipline’s own appears as a concept without history. historicity, addressing the limits of representation and Theorists also often treat history as if it were a pas- critically combining contextualization with historical sive space, a receptacle of long-term structural change. interpretation. In this context, dynamic historical processes are often Understandably, historians have reacted against the replaced with more static trans-historical ones such as reduction of history to a cabinet of examples for theorists “modernization,” “caudillismo” and so forth. In this sit- to select when needed. This reduction represents a rad- uation, history represents the particular temporal space ical form of contextualism that is more antiquarian (as where the quasi-transcendental conditions needed for in a receptacle for the collection of things from the past)

Constellations Volume 21, No 4, 2014. C 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. 468 Constellations Volume 21, Number 4, 2014 than historiographical (the analysis and interpretation of phases of populism — from the authoritarian populism different contexts of the past vis-a-vis` their variations of the first governments of Peron´ (1946–1955) to the and continuities in the present). If some theorists dis- leftist guerrilla of Montoneros, the neofascist right play this antique, and antiquarian, view of history, other wing of Triple A in the 1960s and 1970s, and then theoretical approaches conversely stress the long history to the neoliberalism of Carlos Menem of the 1990s of the term populism without sufficiently addressing the and the neo-populism of the Kirchner administrations different contexts of its political history and theory. To in the new century. be sure, as Pierre Rosanvallon cogently points out, pop- After decades of “sky-high theory,” populism needs ulism is part of a long-term history that includes actors to be returned to its history.6 The need to put populism as varied as the sycophants of ancient Greece, Marat in its modern context is even more pressing, given the at the time of the French Revolution and the Russian current inflation of analyses of populist politics as a and American “populists” of the nineteen century.5 But political malaise that has no specific point of origin. as a contemporary concept and “case,” populism has a Returning the populist phenomenon to its transatlantic more discrete modern history. Populism is not a concept histories forces us to rethink negative stereotypes about without history. That view reduces populism to a tran- populism as a concept and to reconnect it to the context scendental (or trans-historical) metaphor of something of its emergence. What I want to insist on here is the else (be it the constitutive problems of representative need to bring history, and historiography, back to the democracy, technocracy or politics as such). theoretical debates about populism. In sharp contrast with the views presented above, I Populism presented a variety of historical possibil- propose to see populism as the outcome of a modern his- ities that included experiences on the left and right of torical process. In other words, I put forward the notion the political spectrum. Nonetheless, this ideological that populism is part of an ongoing history where the pendulum always maintained several central features: limitations and intrinsic problems of formal democracy (i) an extremely sacralizing understanding of the are met with the interwar and post-war history of con- political; (ii) a political theology that considers the testations of democracy from within and from without. people as being formed by those who follow a unique Fascism and totalitarianism are a key part of this history, vertical leadership; (iii) an idea of political antagonists but the ways in which populism is used are not limited as enemies who are potentially (or in fact) traitors to its origins. Nonetheless, it is important to study to the nation; (iv) a understanding of the leader as a this first populist moment and then assess its various charismatic embodiment of the voice and desires of historical phases from its pre-populist moments (from the nation as a whole; (v) a strong executive and the boulangism in France, to Lueger’s movement in Vienna) discursive, and often practical, dismissal of the legisla- and the interwar proto-populist precedents in Latin tive and judicial branches of government; (vi) a radical America (such as Cardenism in Mexico, Yrigoyenismo nationalism and an emphasis on popular culture, as in Argentina and Varaguism in Brazil) to its subse- opposed to other forms of culture that do not represent quent bifurcations and repercussions. These subsequent “national thought,” (vii) and, finally, an attachment to phases include (i) the free market populism of Menem in a vertical form of electoral democracy that nonetheless Argentina, Fernando Collor de Melo in Brazil, Abdala rejects in practice dictatorial forms of government.7 Bucaram in Ecuador and Silvio Berlusconi in Italy; (ii) the neoclassic populism of the left in Argentina (with the Kirchner administrations), in Venezuela (with Hugo Populism in the Present: Europe and Chavez´ and Nicolas Maduro) and in Ecuador (with Latin America Rafael Correa) and (iii) neo-classic populism of the In the present, populism has returned to Europe with a right and extreme right from the Peronist neo-fascism vengeance. But rather than being a new creation, this of the 1970s to its current predominance in movements return represents a dynamic reformulation of previous that are generally in the European opposition, including populist cases both outside and inside Europe. Most Ukip in England, the National Front in France and critics agree that euro-populists are united in their desire Golden Dawn in Greece, among many others. to undo the European Union’s transnational premises. The history of modern populism begins with the In Europe this new populism presents a return to the early Cold War post-fascist contestation of democracy nation, a vertical idea of democracy and the outing in Latin America and to a great extent, this implies the of longstanding xenophobic continental traditions that centrality of Peronism to any study of the history of were supposed to be gone. In fact, they were not gone populism. Not only does Peronism represent the first but ignored and repressed in the memories of a con- modern form of populism, created in opposition the new tinent that after 1945 was refounded on the antifascist American-led post-war liberal-democratic consensus, rejection of those ideas. Converging developments have it also fully engaged with and embodied different been apparent in the U. S. A. with the Tea Party’s recent

C 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Returning Populism to History: Federico Finchelstein 469 attack on institutions (that is, the 2013 government shut- account its past formulations, that is to say, its history, down), and other recent populist attacks against more and this history is a transatlantic one. And as far as mod- dialogical traditions, as well as the resurgence of a na- ern populism is concerned, it has a lot to do with Latin tivist, and sometimes racist, take towards Hispanics and America and, more specifically, in the way populism other minorities. was originally engendered there as an electoral form of For many Latin American observers this return of post-fascism. populism to the center signals the global dimensions I want to propose a preliminary historical framework of a political experience long associated with Latin for populism that could help understand its bewildering American history. This is not simply a stereotype. Latin pendulum between left and right and across the oceans. America embodies the populist tradition in politics. After situating my approach to populism historically From General Juan Domingo Peron´ to the late coman- as a reformulation of fascism, I will briefly present a dante Hugo Chavez,´ populism has often defined the pol- critique of the functionalist, regionalizing and transcen- itics of the region. But the strength of Europe’s engage- dental theories of populism. I will also provide a transat- ment with populist politics (from England to France, to lantic genealogy of its contextual reformulations, from Holland, Italy, Hungary, Greece, and elsewhere) forces post-fascism to neoliberalism and from neoclassic Latin Latin Americans to rethink the apparent historical pe- America leftist forms to the nationalistic rightist ones so culiarities of their histories in a broader transatlantic prevalent in Europe. In short, I would like to contribute sense.8 to a larger interdisciplinary dialogue. This is, of course, Is Latin American populism a template for Europe? a very ambitious task that cannot be fulfilled in this pre- Does its history reflect the pathos of the tumultuous liminary article. But I nonetheless think that, given the European present? In both Europe and Latin America, absence of many historians from these theoretical dis- populism invokes the name of the people to stress a form cussions and the equal lack of significant engagement of highly hierarchical leadership, to downplay political of the theorists of populism with historiography, these dialogue and to solve a perceived crisis of representation working notes can help bridge some significant gaps by way of increasingly suppressing institutional checks between history and theory.9 and balances. It does so in order to assert a direct link between the people and the leader. It relies on a form of leadership that might be best described as religious Origins of Modern Populism as Post-Fascism (in the sense of its strong tendency to deify its causes Modern populism is rooted in a post war reformula- and leaders), and finally, it conflates electoral majori- tion of fascism. Pre-modern forms of populism were ties with the people of the nation as a whole. Populism previously used to describe nineteenth-century Euro- buttresses social and political polarization in the name pean and American phenomena, especially in Russia, of the people. Fewer spaces are left for the expression France and the U. S. A. In these contexts, democ- of political minorities. Populism, in short, is an author- racy was extremely limited, in the modern sense of itarian form of democracy. extended political and social rights, or it did not ex- Modern populism was anchored in the Cold War. ist at all. This earlier use of populism as a term for a It was a response to the crisis of political representa- popular and at the same time national means to fight tion that had created fascism and then contributed to its the state equated it with policies that considered a na- demise. But if modern populism is rooted in fascism, it tionalist and more equalitarian role for the masses in is also extremely different from it. Fascism aims at dic- the context of the elitist politics of representation in the tatorship, whereas populism (as far as modern history U. S. A., or even in the context of more vertical regimes is concerned) never destroyed democracy. It often made such as the Napoleonic empire or tsarist Russia.10 Hypo- it less pluralistic in terms of political rights and more thetically, one could argue that once liberal democracy inclusive in terms of social rights. To be sure, populist had been more or less established, the term populism no democracy was nationalistic and less cosmopolitan and longer applied in the same way it had before. Authors emancipatory. However, it also increased electoral par- like Isaiah Berlin for Europe or Gino Germani for Latin ticipation and social rights. In that regard, it could also America maintained that populism could exist in soci- be seen as an enhancement of democracy. eties “standing at the edge of modernization.”11 This If current Latin American experiences with populism so-called modernization thesis is historically problem- veer towards a tense combination of a limited expan- atic precisely because populism never ceased to exist. It sion of social rights and authoritarian trends, Europe constantly reappeared well beyond the standard points seems to simply engage in the latter while neglecting of modernization across the Atlantic and beyond. Per- the former. In this sense, Europe resembles the Latin haps one could argue that as far as the modernizing American past more than its present. It would be diffi- thesis goes this was the case for all proto-populisms or cult to understand current populism without taking into for some forms of early twentieth-century populism.

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Isaiah Berlin stressed that populism lacked a clear After the fall of European fascisms in 1945 program but it was intimately linked to a totalizing view modern populism emerged first in Latin America. of society. It fused nationalism with the regenerative To be sure, there were important interwar prece- notion of the unified people, which it posed against dents such as Cardenism in Mexico, Yrigoyenismo in the state controlled by minorities. It particularly em- Argentina and Vargism in Brazil. But all these experi- phasized the existence of enemies that threatened the ments eventually turned out to be responses that were life of the “spontaneous integral group and the sense of greatly shaped by the different national, regional and brotherhood which unites them.” It was potentially or global contexts that preceded the emerging post-war practically against minorities and institutions but also order. These proto-populist regimes were very differ- stressed equality for the national group. Was this early ent from the pre-populists movements that had been populism, then, an inner contestation of democratic rep- more typical of the European and Latin American resentation at the time of oligarchic liberal regimes? cases before the Great War. Proto-populisms were first What was its connection to newer authoritarian trends? marked by the realities of revolution and counter- Berlin notes that populism is incompatible with fas- revolution, including the centrality of the Mexican cism and other forms of totalitarianism, calling the lat- and Soviet revolutions, then the recent legacies of oli- ter “pseudo-populisms.”12 But rather than being merely garchic republics, and subsequently by anti-colonialist opposites, populism and fascism belong to a converging struggles and the global war between fascism and political and intellectual history. Even when taking into anti-fascism.14 account the fact that the core of populism is democratic These forms of proto-populism were quite different but not liberal, the history of fascism is meaningfully from each other but none of them considered that lib- related to the history of populism. In fact, democracy eral democracy was their main enemy. They focused was born with its dialectical other, the contemporary instead on transcending the untouched legacies of the and reactionary counter-enlightenment that at different oligarchic states that had preceded them. These proto- times contested it from within or from the outside. Es- populist regimes presented themselves as nationally in- pecially during the period before World War I different spired “correctives” to the old forms of Latin American pre-populist movements (in Austria, France and other liberal democracy. They wanted to correct liberalism places) rooted in the counter-enlightenment but also in- but never fully broke with it. They were keen to stress corporating the masses, played the democratic game the limits of those democratic models for young na- while attempting to limit democracy from within. In tions in search of autonomy. To be sure, proto-populist the name of the people, pre-populists were xenophobic Yrigoyenismo was more linked to the conservative and racist and practised extreme forms of nationalism.13 past than its Mexican and Brazilian proto-populist While not all forms of pre-populism turned into fascism, counterparts. all fascisms had pre-populist roots. Thus, in transat- In Argentina, radical proto-populism led to the lantic contexts like Germany or Italy or Argentina and expansion of political rights but only for men and in Brazil, and especially after the practical and symbolic the context of a system that combined charismatic devastations of World War I, pre-populism was radically leadership, a strong executive, the expansion of the reformulated as fascism. army’s role in handling social unrest with sporadic but The interwar crisis of representation led to totalitar- significantly high levels of anti-leftist repression in ianism in many European countries. In short, it led to Patagonia, Buenos Aires, and other places. In Mexico the elimination of democracy and its replacement with proto-populism presented an authoritarian system totalitarian forms of dictatorship. If these forms of pre- where elections did not play an important role. At the populism often ended with the destruction of limited same time, it incorporated significant sectors of the forms of democracy, it is only after the fall of fascism population (urban sectors, peasants, and the working that populism re-emerges as a vertical, and often in- class), especially through the party and the corporate tolerant, form of democracy. These experiments in po- structure of the state. There were similar developments litical ideology radically changed populism, which first in Brazil under Vargas. Cardenism and Varguism saw originated as a regime outside Europe. In fact, historical themselves as revolutionary actors from above. Unlike, analysis shows that these modern Latin American pop- modern democratic populism (from Peronism to ulist experiences complicate the notion that populism Chavism), these proto-populisms witnessed, and at was a simple pathology of democracy. From Peronism times produced, high levels of political violence. to the Bolivian and Colombian cases, Latin American Both Cardenism and Varguism eventually opposed populisms pose significant challenges to the most neg- global fascism and locally repressed the fascists and ative dimensions of the definition of populism as anti- the extreme right. In Brazil, the first Varguist phase enlightenment. Their expansion of social rights could was a dictatorship that actually destructed the elitist also be seen as lasting enhancements of democracy. formal democracy that had preceded it. In Mexico,

C 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Returning Populism to History: Federico Finchelstein 471 the cardenista period led to the institutionalization cist tradition, and, more generally, extremist dictatorial of one-party rule, a strong but temporally limited nationalism. executive and the practical minimization of electoral For the fascists that had survived the demise of democracy. The Mexican and Brazilian proto-populist the fascist regimes, the Cold War presented a new regimes cannot be considered as fully democratic as dichotomy between the liberal-democratic forms of cap- modern democratic populism would be after 1945. italism and soviet communism. They wanted to es- And yet, much more so than Argentine Yrigoyenismo, cape this perceived dichotomy. Modern populism first Mexico and Brazil established important precedents emerged as a proposed third position aiming to over- for the populist future, including new forms of eco- come the Cold War dilemma between communism and nomic nationalism and the consequent incorporation liberalism. In its first historical instantiation, (that is, of urban working classes into the authoritarian pact. the first historical experience where this “democratic” They constitute clear precedents to the populisms that rethinking of fascism took place) populism was called emerged after 1945, and especially to Peronism. Peronism. Rather than adopting a pre-formatted version Argentine Peronism was the first attempt to “de- of Cold-War neo-fascism, Peronism in Argentina was mocratize” the anti-liberal legacies of fascism for the the first movement that attempted to adapt the legacy Cold War context. Others, including the second phase of fascism to a novel democratic framework and rep- of Varguism, the Bolivian revolution and Velasco Ibarra resented the first example of a modern populist move- in Ecuador soon followed it. Overall, these new demo- ment and regime. Rather than being the platonic form cratic populist regimes wanted to rethink the liberal that shaped all others, Argentine populism was the ac- tenets of democracy. tualization of a global concern, shared by global anti- The precedents of proto-populisms of Mexico, communist thinkers and militants, including fascists, Argentina, and Brazil were deeply influential, and in about the need to overcome liberal democracy and “real countries like Argentina they were combined after 1945 socialism.” Located far from the experiments of Eu- with more proper pre-populist and fascist legacies. This ropean fascists, and without being excessively touched does not mean that fascism was as pervasive in the by their resounding defeat, Argentina became a viable rest of Latin America, as it had been in Argentina. space in which transnational fascism, and more gen- The long-term history of liberalism in most of Latin erally anti-communism, could rethink itself in a very America, which was longer than in other places where different context.16 fascism emerged as a regime (e.g., Germany, Italy and In this article on the origins of populism, I stress Spain) constitutes a peculiarity of most Latin American the relevance of these trans-contextual connections, and cases of populism: even in the most violent places like more specifically of Latin American history, to think- Colombia, the liberal rules of the political game were ing about the universal implications of past and present too entrenched to be completely eliminated. Argentina forms of populism. In many ways I stress the need for was a different matter. The country witnessed an attack thinking the center as being seen more clearly from the against the liberal tradition that was not equalled in other margins.17 Thus, by emphasizing its fascist genealogy Latin American countries. and how it was created and changed over time, I put In the new context where liberal democracy had forward a historical framing of populism in terms of its reemerged as the most legitimate form of government contextual transatlantic spaces, from fascism to Peronist in the West, fascists worldwide, but specially and origi- populism and back. nally in Argentina, went back to fascism’s pre-populist roots and organically reframed them for the post-war context. As an illiberal outcome of modern democracy, From Athens to Buenos Aires fascism was rooted in the previous experiences of au- The longue duree´ intellectual history of populism is thoritarian pre-populist reactions to democracy from essentially transatlantic. It has a long history as part the early Bonapartism of nineteenth century France, of the itinerary of ideas of democracy (and dictator- to boulangism, to the social Christian anti-Semitism ship) and a shorter one as part of the transcontextual of Karl Lueger in fin de siecle` Vienna.15 But once in history that turned fascism to post-fascism after the power, starting in 1922 in Italy and in 1933 in Germany, end of World War II. If democracy starts in Athens, fascism destroyed democracy from within. After their modern democratic populism begins in Buenos Aires. global defeat in 1945, many fascists, and global right The other stops in this long, schematic genealogy are anti-communists, realized that, in order to gain legiti- (i) pre-imperial Rome and its grappling with the concept macy, fascism could no longer be rooted in dictatorship. of the people (as well as the role of tribunes and ple- This signaled the emergence of modern populism as beians in this earlier political context), (ii) Paris of the we know it today. The genealogy of modern populism French Revolution and its creation of a modern notion is rooted in this radical attempt to reinscribe the fas- of popular sovereignty and (iii) Rome again, along with

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Berlin, with their respective fascist revolutions against One can find this Eurocentric, North Atlantic focus the democratic legacies of the French and American on populism in the most functionalist works that replace revolutions.18 the theory and history of populism with a more quanti- While classic Athenian democracy emerged from the tative descriptive, and self-proclaimedly pragmatic ap- collapse of tyrants and monarchs and modern democ- proach. This approach does not explain the diverse his- racy emerged in the French Revolution as the product torical meanings of populism, but rather takes them for of a rejection of absolute monarchy, fascism came out granted or gives the broadest definition of populism as a of democracy.19 It was the often undesired, negatively movement defending popular sovereignty and opposing dialectical offspring of popular sovereignty. Fascism the people to the elites.22 was a dictatorial formation. It emerged from the demo- Many decades ago, Isaiah Berlin disputed the notion cratic crisis of representation that came out of the ruins of enforcing inelastic definitions. Berlin was writing at of World War I. However, it was also rooted in the mod- a different time in history before the social sciences ern democratic principles of the people and the idea returned to forms of neopositivism that downplay the that the leader represents and conveys the desires of the connections between history and theory. He playfully popular majority. presented a field of populist studies that had a patholog- Fascism often used democratic means to eliminate ical condition. The field was affected by a Cinderella democracy but constantly and paradoxically claimed complex of populism: that its dictatorial totalitarianism was the best means of popular democratic representation. Leaders like by which I mean the following: that there exists a shoe — the word “populism” — for which somewhere Mussolini in Italy or Uriburu in Argentina claimed that there must exist a foot. There are all kinds of feet which fascism and dictatorship represented higher stages of it nearly fits, but we must not be trapped by these nearly- 20 democracy. It is well known that these fascist under- fitting feet. The prince is always wandering about with standings of democracy led to the destruction of demo- the shoe; and somewhere, we feel sure, there awaits cratic forms of representation. Extreme fascist violence it a limb called pure populism. This is the nucleus of led to war, genocidal imperialism and the Holocaust. populism, its essence. All other populisms are deriva- After 1945, the result of this extreme interpretation of tions of it, deviations from it and variants of it, but the supposed desires of the “majority” led to a sort of somewhere there lurks true, perfect populism, which crisis of fascist thinking on representation that paral- may have lasted only six months, or [occurred] in only leled its lack of power and sources of legitimation in one place. That is the idea of Platonic populism, all the others being dilutions of it or perversions of it.23 the emergent Cold War era. This was the context, of the emergence of the Peronist third way as a reformu- Eurocentric views are not only the exclusive realm of lated fascism, now more rooted in democratic forms neopositivistic Platonic thinkers but are also present of representation. The result was a different political in some of the most innovative and subtle theoreti- ideology radically different from the original. Modern cal approaches to the topic. There is no denying that populism arose from the defeat of fascism, as a novel Europe has been at the center of these histories and post-fascist attempt to bring back the fascist experience their theorization, but the old continent has always been to the democratic path, creating in turn an authoritarian engaged in fluid conversations and transfers with the form of democracy that would stress social participa- Global South. In practice, Europe has always been the tion while limiting political rights. In populism, politi- province of the larger context. This is why it is prob- cal rights were highly strained but never eradicated, as lematic to simply separate Europe from other regions. it had been the case with fascism. Modern populism Studies of transnational interactions provide the con- pushes democracy to its limits but generally without text in which comparisons can be made. The field of breaking it. Early Cold War Latin America was the first populist studies has produced many comparisons but context in which such an attempt to redefine democratic not much transnational research. The latter addresses, theory and practice took place. for examples, the way that different transatlantic examples think and act in terms of their synchronic Theories of Populism and diachronic convergences, their affinities with and Despite the many theories of Latin American populism, opposition to other populist experiences. This is ex- it is not so much the historians but the political sci- actly what a transnationally focused political and intel- entists, sociologists, and critical theorists who tend to lectual history can provide to theory. But so far, few work on populism as a concept. In addition, most the- theories have seriously considered history as critical orists of populism outside Latin America explain its interlocutor rather than an object to be used for the long history (stressing the need to understand the multi- illustration of theory. This is clearly the case in semi- millennial concept of the people) without dealing with nal works, such as Margaret Canovan’s groundbreaking Latin American histories of populism.21 analysis of the trajectory of the Roman and medieval

C 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Returning Populism to History: Federico Finchelstein 473 reformulations of the concept of the people to the mod- recurrently works as a corrective to illiberal or un- ern constitution of populism as a key dimension of democratic tendencies in democracy. Latin America democracy; and the suggestive research of Pierre Rosan- is then considered to be part of the populist equation vallon on the first appearance of proto-modern populism but remains within the framework of the traditional as a result of the ambivalent and intrinsic duality of Europe/non-Europe dichotomy. Center and periphery democracy as it emerged in the French Revolution. Both are accepted as defining features in these approaches. In authors claim that the attempt to represent the will of other cases, the focus on Europe makes few connections ideal majorities without institutional mediations was a outside the continent besides giving small analogies or constitutive dimension of the inner tensions of democ- examples. For example, an influential scholar and public racy throughout its long history.24 However, while for intellectual like Rosanvallon stresses the modern Eu- Canovan populism is a legitimate member of the demo- ropean illiberal dimensions of the phenomenon while cratic club, Rosanvallon maintains that populism is failing to extensively address the key Latin American “an inverse perversion of the ideals and procedures of sides of the trajectory of populism as a concept and democracy.”25 as a democratic regime model for the development of Both Canovan and Rosanvallon have made stereo- authoritarian politics after 1945. typical references to classic Peronism and Latin America, venturing outside Europe in a way that un- dermines their influential theories of democracy. Oddly, Populism against Pluralism? when Canovan writes of populism outside Europe, she Many scholars of populism stress its authoritarian ten- conflates it with dictatorship. Yet she does not explain dencies. One of the most influential theorists of pop- how a constitutive form of democracy becomes a dicta- ulism, Carlos de la Torre, argues: “Populist disrespect torial formation in Latin America.26 of pluralism is explained by their view of the people as For Rosanvallon, populism is a specific pathology a subject with a unitary will and consciousness, and of posed against democracy. It degrades democracy to a rivals as enemies of the virtuous people.”29 circus full of apocalyptic connotations. He proposes Similarly, Jan-Werner Muller’s¨ analysis deserves a functional analysis that considers populism a “form serious attention. He also points out that populism is of political expression in which the democratic project a potentially undemocratic response to the undemo- allows itself to be absorbed and to be fully vampirized cratic tendencies of technocracy and a more general dis- by counter-democracy.” By placing populism outside trust laying at the foundations of the European post-war the democratic project, Rosanvallon concludes that order.30 “populism is the extreme of anti-politics.” Populism is For Muller,¨ as for Paul Taggard and Benjamin Arditi, for him a “political pathology” that belongs to an era populism is a symptom, and a problematic response, to “marked by the growth of counter democratic forms.”27 the actual lack of true citizen’s participation.31 Sugges- Many others share Rosanvallon’s functional idea of tively, Muller¨ notes the anti-fascist foundations of this populism as a symptom and present populism’s tra- European order, returning our attention to the view that jectory as a coda to something else. Its complexity is populism is shaped as a recurrent temporal response to confused with its indetermination as a “thin ideology.” the predominance of elites. His analysis is also attentive Scholars like Cas Mudde and Cristobal´ Rovira Kalt- to populism’s symbolic dimensions, its imagination, and wasser present a minimalist definition of populism as a its sequential political practices.32 political style that distinguishes between the people and At this point, I stress that I fully agree with De la the elite and has regional subtypes. For them, populism Torre and Muller¨ on the processual dynamism of pop- is less relevant than other concepts or ideologies. By ulism. I further propose to see populism directly in terms presenting populism as a structural, if transient, answer of its history. My proposal is a complement to these to certain political conditions, the authors construct their innovative theoretical positions. To be sure, following own version of populism as a phenomenon that has no insights from Berlin, Claude Lefort and others, authors conceptual history of its own. In contrast, other mini- like Muller,¨ De la Torre and Slavoj Ziˇ zekˇ have called our malists explore the trajectory of the concept while also attention to the affinities between populism and totalitar- claiming that the term has only recently acquired im- ianism, but without amply historicizing the connections portance in Europe and they thus include only a cursory between the two. If the European and global postwar examination of non-European cases and interpretations liberal-democratic order was cemented in anti-fascist in order to locate the European populist experience vis- foundations, it is important to highlight the fascist and a-vis` others.28 post-fascist origins of its current populist contestation. In many theories of populism Latin American cases If populism currently faces the danger of again be- appear as the symptomatic Other. In this situation, pop- coming fascist, as some observers fear, a theoretically ulism is somehow placed outside history because it inflected historiographical approach would show that it

C 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. 474 Constellations Volume 21, Number 4, 2014 effectively became fascist in the interwar years and then rethink canonical assumptions about the links between after 1945 switched back to democracy.33 Political theo- populism, unpolitical forms of deliberation (such as rists such as Jan-Werner Muller,¨ Nadia Urbinati, Carlos those of technocrats, “experts” and other non-political de la Torre and Andrew Arato have put forward a dy- authorities) and plebiscitary forms of democracy.37 namic notion of populism that historians of populism Drawing on Urbinati’s theoretical framing of pop- need to consider when historicizing the phenomenon. ulism as an idealization of democracy that leads to spe- Moving from their theoretical insights to historiogra- cific disfigurements, I would like to stress how modern phy, I emphasize how these connections emerged his- populism emerged from a Cold War disfiguration of torically, especially after the populist reformulation of fascism. The fascist model was extremely influential, the fascist totalitarian legacy. inspiring leaders that ranged widely across the political Framing populism historically helps us understand spectrum in the interwar years.38 But after 1945, Latin why its return to Europe actualized this continent’s past America presented populism as a way to reformulate xenophobic and anti-democratic characteristics. Pop- democracy in a more vertical way. To be sure, there are ulism is not a simple external response to elites and important distinctions between the histories and present bureaucracies, but is rather a criticism of democracy realities of Europe and Latin America. European pop- from within. Populists have historically regarded this ulisms are presently closer to fascist xenophobia and criticism as a radicalization of democracy by way of re- nationalism than the Latin American ones. In fact, turning the power to the people. But their answers as to Latin American populism leans left, while right-wing what this radicalization might entail have differed from populism is prevalent in Europe. left to right. The emergence of populist responses from All in all, the new dynamic of transnational right- the left to social inequality, the quality of democracy and wing populism promises more limitations to democratic neoliberal austerity measures is not in significant in the life in Europe than the social and authoritarian effects of so-called European periphery, especially in countries Latin American populism. In any case, returning pop- like Greece. These responses cannot be conflated with ulism to its postwar history allows us to situate and the Euro-right populism without losing sight of signif- analyze these distinctions. icant ethico-political and analytical distinctions.34 All Going back to the issue of populism and theory, in all, populism in Europe is mostly a right-wing phe- not all theorists exclude its transatlantic dimensions. nomenon, not only in the sense of clear-cut right-wing In the famous and seminal case of Ernesto Laclau’s populist parties but also in more conservative forms that work the provincial European view of populism is tran- eagerly adopt key features of the anti-immigrant and na- scended. Laclau in fact sometimes displays a tendency tionalist populist program of intolerance for pragmatic to overcome all national and historical boundaries. Ul- or ideological reasons. As Enzo Traverso insightfully timately, he presents populism as politics as such. This notes “populism is a transversal category which dis- transcendental, sometimes circular explanation is of- plays the porous frontier that exists between the right ten positioned outside history. Recently Andrew Arato and the extreme right.”35 The European right, in its and Nadia Urbinati have placed Laclau’s approach re- journey from fascism to post-fascism, has internalized spectively in the sphere of the political theology that democracy to the extent that it now contests democracy defines populism and the democratic disfigurations that in its own terms. But this contestation does not further it engenders.39 democracy, but rather provokes its curtailment to ethnic In sharp contrast with Arato and Urbinati, Laclau and nationalistic terms. Only some inhabitants of the is the founder of a school of thought that understands nation are acceptable as citizens. As Nadia Urbinati ar- populism as the ultimate agent of democratization. gues, populism “disfigures” democracy and potentially Laclau and his school of interpretation generally fo- threatens its future. Urbinati stresses that while pop- cus on the populist left, which tends to be presented in ulism is a democratic form of government, its republican Laclau as the true form of populism. For these scholars preoccupations tend to displace more properly demo- populism is a structurally defining element of systemic cratic ones because its polarizing tendencies promote calls for equality and against domination: populism exclusion.36 leads to political emancipation. For Yannis Stavrakakis Urbinati presents a historical and theoretical critique of populism that is rooted in a contextual understand- it seems very difficult to imagine democratic politics ing of democracy. Her analysis is attentive to the larger without populism, that is, without forms of political context where populism interacts with other notions of discourse that call upon and designate the people — democracy that equally limit its historical possibilities. and not, for example, the rating agencies or the In this context, populism might be read as pushing itself aristoi — as their nodal point, as a privileged politi- outside the political realm rather than being or becom- cal subject, as a legitimizing basis and symbolic lever ing the political as such. Urbinati’s approach forces us to to further egalitarian demands.40

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Stavrakakis shows that the tendency to demonize pop- sult is a sort of thin-layered theory filled with bouts ulism is highly problematic, conflating popular de- of data about the functioning of political parties and mands with “populism,” and often betraying unprob- other putatively more graspable units. This high theory lematized assumptions about the normative dimensions of populism waters down history and theory, while en- of liberal democracy. Similarly, for Marco D’Eramo, forcing the image of the neutral scientific researcher.42 most theories of populism have over-emphasized the As in all generic schools, the definition aims to provide current entity, the actual existence, of populism when in a closure to discussion on the subject, thereby estab- fact populism is essentially defined by its enemies.41 lishing a new consensus that overcomes previous sub- All in all, these important critiques of anti-populism ject positions and allows supposedly more neutral re- question normative assumptions about liberal democ- searchers to do the empirical work of testing the generic racy and its technocratic tendencies. They show how the definition.43 The ideal of the detached researcher who government of experts limits democratic interactions. uses definitions to analyze data replaces the need to However, the responses to anti-populism also often en- think the political from a critical theoretical perspective. gage in an idealized version of populism, especially What LaCapra has aptly termed defined as “new born Latin American populism, conflating the different uses positivism” plays along extremely well with “Up above of populism by the left (and especially in the U. S. A. the world so high” theory.44 Critical theory, on the other where populism simply means, in the terminology of hand, problematizes the ritualistic use of data to confirm its media, being concerned about or catering to popular theoretical axioms. demands) with its manifold historical meanings across In fact, this is an especially strong dimension of the the Atlantic and beyond. Thus, democratic responses to work of Laclau. We recognize in his important works inequality are more or less mechanically identified with a perceptive reading of populism, and also are able to populist discourse and practice. distinguish between his perceptive diagnosis and his While authors who adhere to the model of lib- prognosis. Populism for Laclau is a normative model to eral democracy usually see populism as a pathology, be endorsed, especially so in Latin America. Parliamen- scholars who sympathize with the notion of radical tarism, open discussion and pluralism are contrasted in democracy tend to think of populism as a positive his work as a scholar and public intellectual to the prin- force that strengthens political representation. Is it pos- ciple of incarnation, dual embodiment (by the people sible to bridge this normative gap? Cristobal´ Rovira and the leader) and what he sees as the need for vertical Kaltwasser, who often writes together with Cass Mudde, leaderships in the context of friend–enemy relations. notes both the need to do transatlantic research and also Recent examples of Latin American populism, espe- to consider the problem of how cially of leaders in countries such as a Venezuela and Argentina, provided Laclau with references to contem- analyzing the relationship between populism and democracy depends to a great extent on normative porary myths in which to ground his argument. Here the assumptions and preconceptions of how democracy often uncited and unacknowledged influence of thinkers should function. Thus, the impact of populism on like Sorel and the Carl Schmitt of the Crisis of Parlia- democracy has tended to be less an empirical ques- mentary Democracy become evident.45 tion and more a theoretical issue, which is answered Laclau’s penchant for a normative model of pop- mostly by speculations deriving from an ideal stand- ulism leads him not only to focus on Latin American point of how democracy should be. How to overcome much more than his theoretical peers but also to em- this normative bias? I maintain that the most promising body the normative idealization of the region. For Latin way is to follow those authors that develop a minimal American scholars, it is not surprising that Laclau’s con- approach to studying populism vis-a-vis` democracy. ceptual antagonist is his fellow Italo-Argentine scholar Rovira Kaldwasser’s own proposal chooses to ignore Gino Germani. It was precisely Germani who early con- the problem of one’s own subject position in relation to nected the dots between fascism and the Latin American the object of research. His presentation of a putatively populist experiment of Peronism. neutral, “less normative” definition of populism is it- Gino Germani an Italian anti-fascist intellectual who self not without normative conditions. He endorses a crossed the Atlantic and helped to remedy a provincial “minimal” definition of populism that phantasmatically European understanding of the modern political expe- performs Laclau’s own notion of populism as every- rience of populism. Surprisingly, Germani is much ig- thing that is related to the political. Ironically, Rovira nored, or merely relegated to a formal footnote in the Kaldwasser criticizes Laclau’s notion of populism as European bibliography on the subject. His work needs politics as such, but he presents an idealized, one might to be readdressed by those interested in the history and add romantic, take on “empirical data” as both replacing theory of populism.46 Germani’s interest in the relation- critical theories of populism and neutralizing normative ship between Peronism and fascism is itself related to or ethico-political subject positions in research. The re- a personal experience.47 This sociologist was a child

C 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. 476 Constellations Volume 21, Number 4, 2014 when fascism came to power and an adolescent when politics and convincing majorities that the regime rep- the totalitarian state was established in his native Italy: resented them and the nation as a whole. But while fascism mobilized the middle classes, Peronism rallied In my early youth I experienced the total ideological the working class. While fascism gave war, imperialism, climate involving the everyday life of the common cit- and racism to Europe and the world, Peronism never pro- izen, and more strongly so, the younger generations. voked war at all. Peronism was a specific post-fascist Later, in Argentina, where I went as a political refugee, response to fascism that radically reformulated it.52 I met another variety of authoritarianism.”48

This reference to the Peronist phenomenon illuminates the comparison between Argentina and Italy. From Fascism to Populism Germani stressed that, from a comparative perspec- While many scholars, including myself, argue that Per- tive, Peronist Argentina seemed to lag behind in rela- onism is neither left nor right, in fact, historically it has tion to the Italian historical process. Despite the notable been both. Indeed, this fluid Peronist transition from divergences in their social structure and political his- right to left and vice versa is a defining characteristic of tory, the two countries presented similarities that gave modern populism as a whole. way to two different forms of authoritarianism. For him, Peronism has presented spectacular historical bifur- Peronism (as populism at large) was the result of con- cations. These forking paths started with its stunning textual demographic and class structure changes. He emergence as a Cold War reformulation of fascism — presented a social explanation of populism as a vehicle that is to say, a revolutionary rejection of fascist vio- for class mobilization in underdeveloped societies. Un- lence that emerged out of a military dictatorship led by like many theorists, Germani differentiated between the Juan Peron´ but that created in 1946 the first postwar contextually situated class formations that constituted case of populist democracy — and then continued with the core of the movement. But he also tended to ignore the left-wing Peronist guerrillas and the right-wing Per- the agency of working-class actors who followed Per- onists of the 1960s and 1970s, the neoliberal stage of the onism and also the way that the populist regime, and Peronism of Carlos Menem, when Peronists joined the Peron´ himself, tried several times to expand the multi- so-called Washington consensus in 1990s and, finally, class dimensions of his movement.49 Germani’s theory the last path, with the left populism of the Kirchners was restricted to the modern form of populism that Per- (2003 to the time of writing in 2014). Throughout its onism represented. But, thanks to his ground-breaking long history, Peronism has refused to engage in a search comparative works alongside those of Argentine histo- for programmatic closure. This was a central facet of rian Tulio Halper´ın Donghi, the field of populism studies its populist ideology. Peronism (as a movement, as a started to grasp the revolutionary character of Peronist regime, and more so, as a way of doing and understand- populism and its complicated genealogical relationship ing politics) has the ability to be in a state of constant re- with fascism. As Halper´ın notes, the Peronist revolu- formulation, so that some politicians leave the political tion was confirmed by electoral procedures, giving life game but Peronism remains, with the same rich elec- to a novel regime of “plebiscitary democracy.” For him, toral machinery, perks and clientelistic relations with Peronism elevated the principle of the ruling party to the electorate. This Peronist metamorphosis represents the status of a national doctrine.50 As Halper´ın has also the floating nature of populism in its constant search noted in a famous article in 1958, the relation between for absolute majorities and total allegiances to vertical fascism and Peronism was ambiguous, but this was not forms of leaderships and, last but not least, in its ability a reason for fleeing from historical and comparative to challenge more emancipatory forms of democracy. analysis.51 Peronism is not fascism, but fascism represents a key Fascists and Peronists came to power as a result dimension of its origins.53 of the failure of liberal-democratic regimes that were Fascist leaders wanted a dictatorship whose leader thought to be solid or well-established. Both utilized denied the electoral means to justify their power. Such totalitarian politics in the sense of the organicism and was the case of Mussolini, Hitler in Germany and absolute integralism that Mussolini and the Argentine the fascists in Argentina. All of them participated in nacionalistas attributed to the term. Both regimes gave the experience of transatlantic fascism. But after 1945, a totalitarian answer to the crisis that modernity had pro- the Argentine military officer Juan Peron,´ the leader of voked in the public perception of laws, the economy, and a military dictatorship in search of legitimacy, inverted the legitimacy of the state. Both regimes were clearly the terms of the issue and, in fact, created the first form anti-liberal, anti-Communist and anti-Socialist and yet of modern populism. Unlike fascism, Peron´ embraced they treated them in very different ways. Lastly, both electoral democracy. As a practical leader of a dicta- regimes mobilized the population from the top, through torship, Peron´ won the presidential elections to become their propaganda and various actions, promoting mass a bona fide democratic leader. Peronism destroyed (or

C 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Returning Populism to History: Federico Finchelstein 477 even self-destructed) the military dictatorship to build a from the Italian in practical, and later, theoretical, terms. new postwar way of understanding democracy. Fascism sustained itself in the ideal of violence and war Peronism was a new way of understanding democr- as the sublime values of nationality and the leader’s acy, which maintained the notion of popular sovereignty persona. In military terms, it mobilized the masses but through the mathematics of elections and democratic tended to demobilize them in social terms. Peronism forms of representation, but radically enhanced the inverted the terms of the fascist equation. In doing so it figure of the leader, who was then fully presented distanced itself from the fascist models and became a as the best interpreter of the will of people. The sui generis political ideology. That Peronism reformu- followers were asked to have faith in the leaders’ lated fascism was a matter of foundational significance intuitions and constant policy changes. They were, and in the broader history of Latin American populism.56 they still are asked to trust that the leader has a will Peronism was the unexpected result for everyone, that both encompasses and surpasses their political including its creator, of an attempt at a fascist reform of understanding. In populism, the legitimacy of the leader Argentine political life. Fascism was always the model is not only based in the former’s ability to represent the Peron´ had looked to. But, as Tulio Halper´ın Donghi electorate but also on the belief that the leader’s will has suggested, “If the example of fascism couldn’t give goes far beyond the mandate of political representation. concrete orientation to the Peronist movement, instead This is so because it is argued that the leader has an it contributed very effectively by disorienting it.”57 The innate and better knowledge than the people of what fascist model tended to focus on objectives that did not they really want. In Peronism, the populist leaders are coincide with the realities of Argentine and the global the object of representation and the subject of popular postwar Cold War or with the vertical and horizontal delegation within the context of formal democracy.54 contradictions of the leadership and bases of the Peronist The elected leaders act as the personification of movement. While Argentina appeared to be ripe for popular sovereignty, exerting a great degree of auton- fascism, the world showed itself to be too ripe for it.58 omy vis-a-vis` the majorities that have elected them. In the journey traveled by Peronist ideology and Populism like fascism, liberalism, and communism practice, from the messianic idea of fascist leadership is a political ideology that historically has tended to min- to the profound transformations of unionized Peronism, imize meaningful political participation by citizens. In from Peron’s´ inspiration in fascism to the worker’s short, it is a modern understanding of the political with movement, a dynamic interaction was created that lim- unstable ideas about popular sovereignty, leadership and ited the leader’s autonomy at the same time as it mo- how a capitalist society should be organized and ruled. bilized and transformed the logic of the followers. The Populism presents a hybrid combination of the three. structural reforms of the social base accomplished by Rooted in a rethinking of fascism, and a clear rejection Peron´ and the dictatorship of 1943–1946 were not ini- of its extreme violence, populism embraces the demo- tially accompanied by formal democracy. Thus, the fol- cratic principle of electoral representation fused with lowers could not formally express their support for the radical forms of vertical leadership. Modern populism, dictatorial regime and its leading figure. This could not in its classical Peronist form, actively searches for social have been done without delegitimizing the dictatorship. reform. It insists on creating forms of state capitalism Peron´ resolved this contradiction by calling for elections and a new upper class attached to it through its links with to legitimize his leadership, up until then a dictatorship. the leader and movement that partly changed inequality Moreover, when he was removed from his dictatorial of income. positions, during the famous popular demonstrations in In many ways, classic populism represented the fas- his favor he was able to position himself as the leader cist combination of extreme nationalism and a non- of a popular coup against the dictatorship. He then won Marxist reading of the socialist tradition that fascists the presidential election in February 1946. The result like Benito Mussolini understood so well. But the pop- was a democracy that combined the expansion of social ulism of General Juan Peron´ was rooted in a complex rights with the limitation of political rights. ideological cradle that combined the legacies of fascism This novel form of politics later became the classic with those of its enemies: Peron´ maintained that case of Latin American populism. As an authoritarian version of electoral democracy, populism invokes the we are not sectarian [. . .] If there is something in name of the people to stress a form of vertical lead- communism that we can take, we take it, names don’t ership, to downplay political dialogue, and to solve a scare us. If fascism, anarchism, or communism have something good, we take it.55 perceived crisis of representation by suppressing demo- cratic checks and balances. It does so in order to as- Borrowing from the left and the right, Peron´ took the sert a direct link between “the people” and the leader. accusation of eclecticism as a compliment. This “eclec- This form of vertical leadership might be best described ticism” that Peron´ shared with Mussolini distanced him as religious, and it conflates the support of electoral

C 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. 478 Constellations Volume 21, Number 4, 2014 majorities with the will of the people of the nation as After its modern emergence as a reformulation of a whole. Populism buttresses social and political polar- fascism, populism has presented a variety of contrast- ization in the name of the people. ing histories. As Argentine political scientist Fabian´ Populism represents itself as being outside ordinary Bosoer and I have argued, in Latin America, populist politics. It presents non-electoral claims for democracy. movements have generally combined authoritarian Fewer spaces are left for political minorities to ex- plebiscitary presidential leadership, elected by popular press themselves and they are presented as traitors to majorities, and an expansion of social rights. European the “real” will of the nation or, worse, as mere pup- populism, on the other hand, generally targets immi- pets of foreign powers plotting against the country. Fi- grants and emphasizes European disintegration. On both nally, populism conflates state and movement, enforcing continents populism represents a non-pluralist response forms of clientelism that feature the leader as the incar- to neoliberal austerity measures and a widely perceived nation of the people. Indeed, Peron´ saw his leadership crisis of representation fueled by the continued presence as the eternal link between the people of the nation as of an elite of technocrats that switches from government a whole and the security apparatus of the state. As he to government and is seen to be indifferent to growing argued in an early third-person reference to himself in social gaps.61 Populism has become a political force the famous speech of October 17, 1945: in Europe. In England, Italy, France, the Netherlands, Greece and Hungary populist politicians stress the need In this historical hour for the Republic, let Colonel to return power to the “people” and take it away from Peron´ be the link of union that would make indestruc- “oligarchic elites.” Although they are often presented as tible the brotherhood between the people, the army and being outside the region, both Turkey and Russia con- the police. Let this union be eternal and infinite so this people will grow in that spiritual unity of the true and stitute clear forms of populist leadership where the op- authentic forces of nationality and order.59 position is presented as being contrary to the will of the people. Golden Dawn and the Italian Northern League, In contrast to classic fascism, which used democracy and the Jobbik party in Hungary have presented a more to destroy itself and establish a dictatorship, Peronism extreme form of populism that in many ways represents originated in a military dictatorship but established a the possibility of unmaking democratic authoritarian populist authoritarian democracy. ways of populism and returning populism to fascism. Peron’s´ brand of populism was rooted in a view On the “moderate” side, Ukip in England and the Five of secular liberal democracy as the source of commu- Star movement in Italy dismiss the European Union. nism. In Peronism, this authoritarian view of democracy They propose a return to the nation and an anti-political constituted the need to legitimize, using the popular rejection of institutions and democratic deliberation. vote, the interwar synthesis of nationalism and non- Even when they want the destruction of the European Marxist nationalist socialism. In his memoirs, Peron´ Union, most of these new European populist movements clearly identified Italian fascism and Nazism with this of the right do not attempt to destroy democracy. They “socialism with a national character.” Making reference only attempt to limit its reach and curtail its eman- to his visit to fascist Italy, he stated: cipatory potential. However, the return of fascism to Europe appears in the form of the radicalization, in I chose to do my military assignment in Italy because it some countries, of the most authoritarian genealogies was where a new national socialism was being tested. of populism. As Fabian´ Bosoer and I have argued, this Until then, socialism had been Marxist. In contrast, in Italy, socialism was sui generis, Italian: fascism.60 is not the case of most Euro-populisms; but in Greece, the Golden Dawn is a form of populism deeply rooted Peron´ radically reformulated fascism in a newly in the fascist past. The country’s financial crisis, and democratic anti-liberal key. But populism is neither the insistence by Germany and the European Union on Argentinean, Latin American, North American nor Eu- neoliberal austerity measures, have generated populist ropean. Instead, it is a global anti-liberal phenomenon responses that evoke the phantoms of interwar European with distinctive European, American and Latin Amer- fascism. The neofascist Golden Dawn party, which won ican histories. It is, and was, the outcome of the inter- 7% of the vote in Greece’s 2012 parliamentary elections, connections and transfer of political ideas and historical openly uses a logo resembling a swastika. Its supporters experiences throughout the Atlantic and beyond. have perpetrated violent physical attacks against immi- Populism first emerged as an anti-leftist democratic grants and political opponents (including murder); its solution and an attempt to overcome the Cold War di- party line includes anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial. chotomy between liberalism and communism. By way Similar sentiments are on the rise in Hungary, where of “democratizing” the non-democratic experiences the nationalistic, anti-immigration, anti-Semitic Jobbik of fascism, Peronism morphed into the first postwar party is one the most important political formations in example of a populist regime. the country.62

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As a response to liberalism but also the left, Europe anti-European Union parties — present the European is witnessing a return of a right wing form of populism brands of populism as being actually willing to return that brings it back to the authoritarian classic version populism to fascism. Going back to the dictatorial fas- of Latin American populism. But it does so without re- cism would mean the dissolution of what populism has producing the latter’s socially inclusive emphasis. Euro- been since 1945. populists replace the Latin American populist critique Classic populism rejected not only dictatorial fas- of social inequality with a jingoistic push to exclude cist forms but also high levels of political violence, ethnic and immigrant minorities from the nation. In a racism and anti-Semitism, together with war and mil- context, of increasing social inequality, European pop- itarism. To be sure, Peron´ welcomed many Nazis and ulist leaders stress the need to disentangle the citizens other fascists and Vargas also persecuted minorities in from traditional forms of party representation. For them, Brazil. But Peron´ also allowed Argentine Jews to be the leaders represent an incarnation of the “real” peo- full members of the nation as long as they declared ple as opposed to the whole of the inhabitants of the themselves Peronist Jews. Vargas’ campaigns against country and the European Union. These anti-minority minorities resembled the contemporary illiberal trends views transcend the view of the populists movements of American democracy (for example Franklin Delano and are increasingly accepted by conservative and even Roosevelt’s actions against Japanese Americans), rather social democratic politicians, for example in countries than promulgating Nazi-fascist style racist laws. Pop- like England, France and Italy. ulism implied a rejection of fascist ways. Peronism In Latin America, populisms of the right and the and other populisms polarized their societies, but did left always stressed regional integration. This is not the not engage in high levels of repression and political case of populist Europe. Although populism emerged violence. in the 1940s with Peronism as an anti-communist re- Similar authoritarian developments of democracy sponse to the left, combining social redistribution and have pervaded the last two decades of Latin American state capitalism, it later morphed in the 1990s into a new populism; populism married vertical forms of democ- anti-leftist attempt to combine vertical leaderships with racy with vertical forms of leadership. For example, the free-market economics. These austerity programs were case of Venezuela with Chavez´ and Nicolas Maduro often presented as responses to increasing economic often complicates ideal-typical pictures. Their pop- dysfunction and recession. In reality, these programs ulist regime strengthened the army and popular mili- failed in their attempts to solve both these issues, and tarism, occasionally engaged in anti-Semitism and al- contributed to a minimization of the state’s ability to though Comandante Chavez´ first participated in a coup bridge the social gaps in Latin America. The current (as Peron´ had done in 1930 and 1943), he was later Latin American populisms associated with the left are fully committed to democratic elections while limit- a clear outcome of this right-left populist cycle. As a ing other democratic procedures. Thus, Latin American response to the populism of the right, they now conflate populism, while leaving fascism behind, actually em- state and movement, enforcing forms of clientelism that braced the authoritarian forms of democracy that de- promote the leader as the effective provider for the peo- fined it so well. It is unclear whether European forms ple. Even when social gaps are bridged, political polar- of neoclassic right-wing populism are equally commit- ization prevails.63 In contrast, the recent European cases ted to formal democracy, as it has been the case of resemble the earlier forms of classic populism, although Latin American populism at large. Fascism is always in a much less inclusive and more xenophobic form than looming above the past and present history of pop- Peronism. ulism. This is especially the case in Europe. In sharp In this context, the new populism of the European contrast with the Latin American versions of populism, right — in its radical form (Greece, Hungary) or in which are firmly rooted in formal democracy, Euro smaller doses (France, Italy and the Netherlands) — is populism runs the risk of returning the populist phe- surprisingly open to its pre-democratic foundations. nomenon to its pre-populist or even fascist origins. At best, it is still ambivalent about democratic in- Unmaking the post-fascist reformulation of fascism, stitutions. At worst it wants to destroy them. The the most extreme European populisms are turning into possibility of a return of European populism to its pre- neofascism. populist undemocratic past raises the question: Would Shaped in the context of the early Cold War, pop- Euro-rightist populism, refashion itself, downplay its re- ulism represents a third way between the traditional cently acquired democratic credentials and re-actualize left and the traditional right. It disputes the logic the repressed fascist past? Taking up racist, neofas- and the idea of democracy from within. From fas- cist positions against democratic pluralism and mi- cism to Peronism and back, populism remains a pow- nority rights, Greece’s right-wing populists and their erful response, and a significant challenger to both Hungarian counterparts — along with many others conventional and more radical emancipatory forms of

C 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. 480 Constellations Volume 21, Number 4, 2014 politics. It represents an equally formidable challenge 11. See Isaiah Berlin’s comments in “To Define Pop- to any critical, and historically informed, theory of ulism,” Government and Opposition 3, no. 2 (1968): 175. See ´ ´ democracy. also Gino Germani, Polıtica y sociedad en una epoca de tran- sicion.´ De la sociedad tradicional a la sociedad de masas (Buenos Aires: Paidos,´ 1962). 12. Isaiah Berlin’s comments in “To Define Populism,” NOTES 174, 177. 13. See Zeev Sternhell, Les anti-Lumieres.` du XVIIIe 1. I want to thank Andrew Arato, Fabian´ Bosoer, Ben siecle` alaguerrefroide` (Paris: Fayard, 2006). Brower, Stathis Gourgouris, Luis Herran Avila, Andreas Kaly- 14. On these contexts, see Enzo Traverso, A feu et a` vas, Pablo Piccato and Nadia Urbinati for their comments on sang. De la guerre civile europeenne´ 1914–1945 (Paris: Stock, different versions of this text. 2007); Gilbert M. Joseph, “Latin America’s Long Cold War.” 2. Alan Knight, “Populism and Neo-Populism in Latin In Greg Grandin and Gilbert M. Joseph eds. A Century of America, Especially Mexico,” Journal of Latin American Stud- Revolution: Insurgent and Counterinsurgent Violence dur- ies 30, no. 2 (1998). Knight notes that “There is also a tautolog- ing Latin America’s Long Cold War (Durham and London: ical tendency to impute populism (or anything else) to “crisis,” Duke University Press, 2010) and Virginia Garrard-Burnett, as if “crisis” were a discernible cause, when, in fact, it is of- Mark Atwood Lawrence, and Julio E. Moreno eds. Beyond ten a loose description of a bundle of phenomena which need the Eagle’s Shadow: New Histories of Latin America’s Cold to be disaggregated. Disaggregation sometimes reveals that it War (Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, was not “crisis” which generated populism (or mobilisation, 2013). rebellion, etc.), but rather populism (or mobilisation, rebel- 15. On Bonapartism see, for example, Domenico Lo- lion, etc.) which generated crisis” 233. For a critique of static surdo, Democrazia o bonapartismo. Trionfo e decadenza del “historicist” notions of populism, see also Francisco Panizza, sujfragio universale, (Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 1993). See “Introduction,” in Populism and the Mirror of Democracy,ed. also Michele Battini, Il socialismo degli imbecili, propa- by Francisco Panizza (London: Verso, 2005), 3. ganda, fasificazione, persecuzioni degli ebrei (Turin: Bollati 3. Alan Knight, “Populism and Neo-Populism in Latin Boringhieri, 2011). America, Especially Mexico,” 233. 16. See my extensive analysis of these topics in my books 4. Ibid., 237. Transatlantic Fascism. Ideology, Violence and the Sacred in 5. Pierre Rosanvallon, La Contrademocracia. La Argentina and Italy, 1919–1945 and The Ideological Origins pol´ıtica en la era de la desconfianza (Buenos Aires: Manantial, of the Dirty War. 2007), 260–1. 17. See Etienne´ Balibar, We, the People of Europe? Re- 6. For a critique of sky-high theory, see Dominick La- flections on Transnational Citizenship (Princeton: Princeton Capra, History in Transit (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, University Press, 2004), 2. 2004), 156. 18. See Sternhell, Zeev Sternhell, with Mario Sznajder 7. For a treatment of these questions see Raanan Rein, and Maia Asheri, The Birth of Fascist Ideology: From Cul- “From Juan Peron´ to Hugo Chavez´ and Back: Populism Re- tural Rebellion to Political Revolution (Princeton, NJ: Prince- considered,” in Shifting Frontiers of Citizenship, ed. by Mario ton University Press, 1994); Zeev Sternhell, Les anti-Lumieres` Sznajder, Luis Roniger and Carlos Forment (Boston: Brill, du XVIIIe siecle` a` la guerre froide. For a recent, self-reflective 2012); See also my books, Transatlantic Fascism. Ideology, take by Sternhell, see Histoire et Lumieres:` changer le monde Violence and the Sacred in Argentina and Italy, 1919–1945 par la raison (Paris: Albin Michel, 2014) and see also Zeev (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014) and Sternhell, “How to think about Fascism and its Ideology,” The Ideological Origins of the Dirty War. Fascism, Populism, Constellations 15, no. 3 (2008): 280–90. and Dictatorship in Twentieth Century Argentina (New York 19. I thank my colleague Andreas Kalyvas for his sug- and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). gestions and insights on the birth of Athenian democracy. 8. On this topic see Federico Finchelstein and Fabian´ 20. On the fascist understanding between totalitarian Bosoer, “Is Fascism Returning to Europe?” The New York democracy and dictatorship, see Federico Finchelstein, The Times, December 18, 2013. Ideological Origins of the Dirty War, 22–2. On fascism and 9. This essay further elaborates on my historical research dictatorship, see also Paul Corner, “Italian Fascism: Whatever on populism and is part of a larger manuscript on populism Happened to Dictatorship?” Journal of Modern History 74, that I am currently working on. For my recent work on pop- no. 2 (2002): 325–51. On the notion of dictatorship, see An- ulism, see especially chap. 4 of The Ideological Origins of drew Arato, “Good-bye to Dictatorship?” Social Research 67, the Dirty War. Important exceptions of historians who engage no. 4 (2000): 926, 937; Andreas Kalyvas, “The Tyranny of Dic- with populism are Loris Zanata, Raanan Rein, Alberto Spek- tatorship: When the Greek Tyrant met the Roman Dictator,” torowski and Alan Knight. See Loris Zanatta, El Populismo Political Theory 35, no. 4 (2007): 412–42 (Buenos Aires: Katz Editores, 2014); Raanan Rein, “From Juan 21. To a lesser extent, the same might be said about Euro- Peron´ to Hugo Chavez´ and Back: Populism Reconsidered;” Al- pean populism for many scholars of Latin American populism. berto Spektorowski, The Origins of Argentina’s Revolution of 22. The schematic case of the scholar of populism Cas the Right (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, Mudde is worth mentioning as an example of this larger dual 2003); Alan Knight, “Populism and Neo-Populism in Latin tendency in the field of populism studies to detach a sort of America, Especially Mexico.” Star Chamber “high theory” from history and critical theory 10. The best example of this approach is found in while at the same insisting on the empirical nature of the task. the classic text by Isaiah Berlin, “Russian Populism,” En- See Cas Mudde, “Fighting the System? Populist Radical Right counter 15, no. 1 (1960): 13–28. See also by Berlin, The Power Parties and Party System Change,” Party Politics 20, no. 2 of Ideas (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013), 127–29. (2014): 217–26; “Thirty Yearsof Populist Radical Right Parties For the United States, see Michael Kazin, The Populist Persua- in Western Europe: So What?” European Journal of Political sion, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995). See also Ritchie Research 52, no. 1 (2013): 1–19; “The Populist Zeitgeist,” Savage’s contribution to this issue of Constellations. Government & Opposition 39, no. 3 (2004): 541–63.

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23. This comment, made by Berlin at the Conference actions can we tell them. So I want to insist that we do not of Populism at LSE in 1967, can now be read in the Isaiah just need criteria to identify populist claims; we also require Berlin Virtual Library: 5–6. http://berlin.wolf.ox.ac.uk/lists/ an account of populism as a particular sequence of actions that bibliography/bib111bLSE.pdf (accessed 14 October 2014). tend to be in line with the implications of the major claims The edited texts of the presentation of that conference were populists make. The interminable search for a static definition published in the influential book by Ghita Ionescu and Ernest is not enough; we also need to understand populism as a dy- Gellner eds, Populism: Its Meaning and National Characteris- namic process.” See Muller’s¨ important essay in this issue of tics (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1969). On this debate Constellations. see also Maria M. Mackinnon and Mario A. Petrone (eds), 33. See Jan-Werner Muller,¨ “Getting a Grip on Pop- Populismo y Neopopulismo en America´ Latina. El problema ulism,” and Slavoj Ziˇ zek,ˇ “Against the Populist Temptation” de la cenicienta (Buenos Aires: Eudeba, 1998). Critical Inquiry 32, no. 2 (2006): 551–74. For an excellent 24. See Margaret Canovan, The People (Cambridge: study of the conceptual history of totalitarianism, see Enzo Polity, 2005) and Pierre Rosanvallon, Democracy Past and Traverso, El totalitarismo. Historia de un debate (Buenos Future (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006). Aires: Eudeba, 2001). 25. See Pierre Rosanvallon, La Contrademocracia, 257. 34. See Yannis Stavrakakis and Giorgos Katsambekis, 26. See Pierre Rosanvallon, La Contrademocracia, 257 “Left-Wing Populism in the European Periphery: the Case Of and Margaret Canovan, Populism (London: Junction, 1981), SYRIZA,” Journal of Political Ideologies 19, no. 2 (2014): 12, 13, 15, 148, 169, 229–30, 294, 298. For Canovan, Pero- 119–42. nism was a “populist dictatorship.” More recently she argued: 35. See Enzo Traverso, “La Fabrique de la haine “Outside Europe, more or less dictatorial populist leaders have xenophobie´ et racisme en Europe” Contretemps 9 (2011). been particularly common in Latin America.” She mentions 36. “Populism is the most devastating corruption of Juan and Eva Peron´ and Hugo Chavez´ as examples. See Mar- democracy because it radically overturns representative insti- garet Canovan, The People, 71. See also by Canovan, “Trust tutions (notably elections and party pluralism) and transforms the People! Populism and the Two Faces of Democracy,” Polit- the negative power of judgment or opinion from one that con- ical Studies 67, no. 3 (1999): 2–16 and “Populism for Political trols and monitors politically elected leaders to one that rejects Theorists?” Journal of Political Ideologies 9, no. 3 (2004): their electoral legitimacy in the name of a deeper unity be- 241–52. tween the leaders and the people; it opposes ideological legiti- 27. See Pierre Rosanvallon, La Contrademocracia, 262, macy against the constitutional and procedural one.” See Nadia 263, 264. Urbinati, “The Populist Phenomenon,” Raisons politiques 51, 28. For them, “Due to its restricted morphology, pop- no. 3 (2013) 137–54. ulism necessarily appears attached to other concepts or ideo- 37. She argues that “Populist and plebiscitarian phenom- logical families, which normally are much more relevant than ena are incubated within democratic diarchy as a longing to populism on its own.” See Cas Mudde and Cristobal´ Rovira overcome the distance between will and opinion and achieve Kaltwasser, “Populism.” in The Oxford Handbook of Politi- unanimity and homogeneity, an idealization that has charac- cal Ideologies, ed. by Michael Freeden and Marc Stears (New terized democratic communities since antiquity.” See Nadia York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 508–9. See also Rovira Urbinati, Democracy Disfigured: Opinion, Truth and the Peo- Kaldwasser’s contribution to this issue of Constellations and ple (Cambridge: Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2014), 27. Pierre-Andre´ Taguieff, “Le Populisme et la science politique 38. See Federico Finchelstein, Transatlantic Fascism. du mirage conceptuel aux vrais problemes,”` Vingtieme` Siecle.` 39. Andrew Arato, “Political Theology and Populism,” Revue D’histoire 56, no. 1 (1997): 4–33 and the expanded and Social Research 80, no. 1 (2013); and Nadia Urbinati, Democ- updated version in his book L’Illusion populiste: de l’archa¨ıque racy Disfigured. au mediatique´ (Paris: Berg, 2002). 40. As Stavrakakis cogently notes: “anti-populist 29. De La Torre states: “Populists do not view citizens as rhetoric allegedly targets populism, the demonization of pop- a body with a plurality of opinions that deliberate in the public ulism conveniently ends up by incorporating all references sphere. Yet populists are not fully authoritarian because their to ‘the people’ as well: [. . .] the domination of a predomi- policies redistribute resources and could potentially empower nantly anti-populist logic — consciously or unconsciously, in- the poor.” See Carlos De la Torre’s contribution to this issue of tentionally or unintentionally — marginalizes the people and Constellations. its demands. It reduces politics to an administrative enterprise, 30. See Jan-Werner Muller,¨ “Getting a Grip on Popul- stripped from the elements of participation and open demo- ism,” Dissent Magazine September 23, 2011, http://www. cratic deliberation, offering no real choice between different dissentmagazine.org/blog/getting-a-grip-on-populism (acces- alternatives, leaving it prey to the supposedly objective instruc- sed October 14, 2014). In his subtle essay for this issue of tions of experts and technocrats — such as independent central Constellations, Muller¨ expands his analysis to include some bankers — who always know better.” See Yannis Stavrakakis examples from Latin American cases. “The Return of “the People,” in this issue of Constellations. 31. See Paul Taggart, Populism (Buckingham: Open 41. “The idea that populism works when regarded as a University Press, 2000) and Paul Taggart, “Populism and the certain kind of rhetoric, applied in different ways in different Pathologies of Representative Politics.” in Democracies and situations, is appealing — but in truth, merely registers its poly- the Populist Challenge, ed. by Yves Meny and Yves Surel semy and returns it to sender. However, there is a third possible (Oxford: Palgrave, 2002); Benjamin Arditi, La pol´ıtica en line of attack. It is this: populism is not a self-definition. No los bordes del liberalismo: diferencia, populismo, revolucion,´ one defines themselves as populist; it is an epithet pinned on emancipacion´ (Buenos Aires: Gedisa, second augmented ed., you by your political enemies. In its most brutal form, ‘pop- 2014). ulist’ is simply an insult; in a more cultivated form, a term of 32. Muller¨ cogently argues that populism “is a pro- disparagement. But if no one defines themselves as populist, foundly illiberal and, in the end, directly undemocratic un- then the term populism defines those who use it rather than derstanding of representative democracy. It has an inner logic those who are branded with it. As such, it is above all a use- that makes both the claims and the actions of populists hang ful hermeneutic tool for identifying and characterizing those together in a particular way; and by both their claims and their political parties that accuse their opponents of populism.” See

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Marco D’Eramo, “Populism and the New Oligarchy,” New Left 2010); Juan Carlos Torre ed. Los anos˜ peronistas, 1943–1955); Review, 58 (2013): 8. Loris Zanatta, Breve historia del peronismo clasico´ (Buenos 42. Rovira Kaldwasser argues that empirical data could Aires: Sudamericana, 2009). be used along with Cas Mudde’s “minimal definition” of 50. See Tulio Halper´ın Donghi, Testimonio de un obser- populism that Rovira Kaldwasser understands “as a distinct vador participante. Medio siglo de estudios latinoamericanos ideology that conceives society to be separated into two an- en un mundo cambiante (Buenos Aires: Prometeo, 2014), 23. tagonistic camps: ‘the pure people’ versus ‘the corrupt elite.’” 51. Tulio Halper´ın Donghi, “Del fascismo al pero- Cristobal´ Rovira Kaltwasser, “The Ambivalence of Populism: nismo,” Contorno 7–8, (1958). Threat and Corrective for Democracy,” Democratization 19, 52. Federico Finchelstein, The Ideological Origins of the no. 2 (2012): 185, 192–96, 200. See also his essay in this issue Dirty War, chap. 4. of Constellations. 53. On Peronism and fascism, see Paul H. Lewis, “Was 43. For my criticism of the same situation in the study of Peron´ a Fascist? An Inquiry into the Nature of Fascism,” Jour- fascism see “Fascism and the Holocaust,” in The Holocaust and nal of Politics 42, no. 1 (1980): 242–56; Cristian´ Buchrucker, Historical Methodology, ed. by Dan Stone (Oxford: Berghahn Nacionalismo y Peronismo (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, Books, 2012), 255–271. 1987); Alberto Spektorowski, The Origins of Argentina’s Rev- 44. See Dominick LaCapra, History in Transit, 156 olution of the Right. 45. See Carl Schmitt, The Crisis of Parliamentary 54. On delegative democracy see the influential essay Democracy, trans. Hellen Kennedy (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT by Guillermo O’Donnell, “Delegative Democracy,” Journal of Press, 1994). For a recent, insightful reading of Schmitt and Democracy, 5, no. 1 (1994): 55–69. violence, see Richard Bernstein, Violence: Thinking without 55. Peron,´ cited in Christian Buchrucker, 325. Banisters (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2013). For a criticism of 56. Federico Finchelstein, The Ideological Origins of the Laclau in this regard, see Andrew Arato, “Political Theology Dirty War, 90–91. and Populism.” 57. Tulio Halper´ın Donghi, Argentina en el callejon´ 46. This criticism does not apply to many scholars work- (Buenos Aires: Ariel, 1995), 30. ing on Latin America. Among the most suggestive, I would like 58. Ibid., 35. to mention the key works of Kurt Weyland and Carlos de la 59. See “Desde los balcones de la Casa de gobierno Torre. See Kurt Weyland, “Clarifying a Contested Concept: despidiendose´ de los trabajadores concentrados en la Plaza de Populism in the Study of Latin American Politics,” Compara- Mayo. Octubre 17 de 1945,” Coronel Juan Peron,´ El pueblo ya tive Politics 34, no. 1 (2001): 1–22; Carlos de la Torre, Populist sabe de que´ se trata. Discursos (Buenos Aires: 1946), 186. Seduction in Latin America (Athens: Ohio University Press, 60. See Tomas´ Eloy Mart´ınez, Las vidas del General 2010.) Buenos Aires (Buenos Aires: Aguilar, 2004), 2. 47. Gino Germani, Authoritarianism, Fascism and Na- 61. See Fabian´ Bosoer and Federico Finchelstein, “Pop- tional Populism (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, ulism and Neoliberalism: The Dark Sides of the Moon,” 1978). Queries 3 (2014). http://www.queries-feps.eu/populism-and- 48. ibid., vii neoliberalism-the-dark-sides-of-the-moon/ (accessed October 49. On Peronism, see for example, Juan Carlos Torre, 14, 2014). See also Bosoer and Finchelstein, “Russia Today, “Interpretando (una vez mas)´ los or´ıgenes del peronismo,” Argentina Tomorrow” The New York Times, October 21, 2014. Desarrollo Economico´ 28, no. 112 (1989): 525–48; Juan 62. Federico Finchelstein and Fabian´ Bosoer, “Is Fas- Carlos Torre ed.,Losanos˜ peronistas, 1943–1955 (Buenos cism Returning to Europe?” Aires: Sudamericana, 2002); Miguel Murmis, and Juan 63. See Federico Finchelstein and Fabian´ Bosoer, “Pop- Carlos Portantiero, Estudios sobre los or´ıgenes del peronismo ulism and Neoliberalism.” (Buenos Aires: Siglo Veintiuno Editores, 1971); Tulio Halper´ın Donghi, La larga agon´ıa de la Argentina peronista (Buenos Aires: Ariel, 1994); Raanan Rein, in the Shadow of Peron´ (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008); Mathew Federico Finchelstein is Associate Professor of History Karush and Oscar Chamosa eds., The New Cultural History at the New School for Social Research and Eugene Lang of Peronism (Durham and London: Duke University Press, College.

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