For a Left Populism

Description

We are seeing the rise of a populist moment around the world on both the left and the right. Movements like Bernie Sander, Jeremy Corbyn, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have emerged in the midst of the neoliberal crisis. In this book, leading political thinker Chantal Mouffe proposes a left-populist strategy that could bring together the manifold struggles against subordination, oppression and discrimination. In redrawing political frontiers, this "populist moment" points to a "return of the political" after years of postpolitics. This return may open the way for authoritarian solutions-through regimes that weaken liberal-democratic institutions-but it could also lead to a reaffirmation and extension of democratic values.

Chantal Mouffe is the Professor of Political Theory at the Centre for the Study of Democracy at the University of Westminster. Her books include Gramsci and Marxist Theory, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy (with Ernesto Laclau), Dimensions of Radical Democracy, The Return of the Political, The Democratic Paradox, On the Political, Agonistics, and Podemos: In the Name of the People (with Inigo Errejon).

Influencing left parties as they enter government, from Greece to Portugal to Mexico. It is a beach-sized introduction to a major left thinker of the twenty-first century. -- Paul Mason * Guardian * Refreshingly bereft of the sputtering outrage and bafflement that characterizes the growing genre of liberal self-help books, Mouffe channels populism's agonistic clarity. * n+1 * An admirable attempt to get us thinking again about what a worthwhile politics might look like, one based on notions of equality, ecology, sovereignty, solidarity and social justice. * New Statesman * Argues in favor of leftist populism as a means to combat both elitist, neoliberal technocracy and reactionary, xenophobic versions of populism. * Publishers Weekly *