This paper argues that populism is best understood not as an autonomous governmental rationality but as a critique of liberal governmentality and liberal-democratic mediation conducted in the name of the sovereign people. While populist movements may deploy governmental techniques once in power, populism itself is oriented less toward the rational management of populations than toward the direct expression of popular will. In this sense, it belongs more to the juridical-political axis of sovereignty than to the economic-managerial logic characteristic of governmentality. Nevertheless, the genealogy of governmentality opened by Foucault provides important resources for understanding populism through concepts such as population, plebs, pastoral power, and counter-conduct. Drawing on Agamben, Benveniste, and political theology, the paper develops a genealogy of ‘the people’ centred on the distinction between demos and laos . Whereas demos underpins liberal-democratic notions of citizenship and equality, laos refers to a people constituted through liturgical practices of assembly and acclamation. The paper argues that populism intensifies a partially latent acclamatory dimension internal to modern democracy, seeking to constitute a unified and sovereign people through performative acts of public affirmation and identification. Acclamatory democracy is a key challenge for liberal governmentality.
Mitchell Dean (Thu,) studied this question.