Article Review
Student name: Myrto Lada
ID:1563200800115
Reference: Savage, R. (2010) “Populist elements in contemporary American political
discourse”. The Sociological Review 58(52): 167-188.
Abstract: Granted that it would be absurd to characterize Obama as a populist
president, this paper proceeds from Ernesto Laclau’s conception of populism as
consisting of ‘the formation of an internal antagonistic frontier separating the
“people” from power’ and ‘an equivalential articulation of demands making the
emergence of the “people” possible’ (2005:74). In the 2008 election, Obama was able
to articulate a series of empty signifi ers, found in such slogans as ‘Yes We Can,’ which
came to represent a new collective identity of the ‘people’, thus constituting an
instance of populism par excellence. As support for this theory of populism and its
implications for contemporary American political discourse, this paper deconstructs
the previously held functionalist assumptions and modernization theories – especially
those propagated within Latin American case studies – that consign populism to a
developmental stage in the capitalist mode of production or a historical outcome of
underdeveloped democratic institutions in order to imagine a new science of rhetoric
capable of analysing the synecdochical, metaphorical, and metonymical components
(Laclau, 2005) in the discursive construction of ‘the American people’.
The specific journal article argues that populism as a unified discursive socio-political
phenomenon is to be found in both Latin-American and Western European cases no matter of
the Capitalist mode, developmental stage or degree of economic production. More
specifically, Ritchie Savage suggests that Laclau’s model of populism can unite the various
divergent instances of populism under a unified theoretical framework and analyze them
accordingly. In that spectrum, it is argued that not only the contemporary rhetoric of Barack
Obama contains populist elements but also that populism there functions and proliferates
itself the same way as in seemingly non-comparable populist cases of Latin-America.
Laclau’s discursive model of populism basically perceives populism as a discourse with
linguistic and relational attributes that is inextricably related to Lacan’s symbolic order of
society. That is, the symbolic order is continuously disrupted by dislocations (antagonisms
and crises within society) and the instability of Saussurean signification between signifiers
and signifieds. At that point, populism functions by giving meaning to empty signifiers (such
as ‘people’) and thus ‘restoring’ the symbolic order of society by forming political identities
of belonging to a social totality or group. The signifying totality, in turn, needs to exclude one
of its differentiated elements so as to define itself. However, when one of those elements
comes to signify totality, a hegemonic identity occurs. In taking into consideration the various
definitions provided by scholars throughout, Savage suggests that the one of Laclau’s seems
to be the most applicable one since it transcends regional, social and temporal variables and
sets the ground for a wider systematic schema of analyzing populist phenomena and that of
Obama’s populism in particular. More specifically, the author’s argumentation is further
supported by presenting and critiquing the various models that try to explain the emergence of
populism in both Latin-America and Unites states as failing attempts to grasp the
phenomenon of populism in its totality. Moreover, according to the writer, the affiliations
shared between Western European ‘New Populism’ and Latin –America populism in
promoting the same anti-system, centralized and authoritarian structures, further suggest the
above mentioned argument that populism cannot be fully explained within economic and
historical frameworks alone. Finally, Obama’s election is illustrated as an instance of
populism following Laclau’s model of analysis accordingly. In Obama’s case, it is claimed
that the symbolic order of society was disrupted by the economic crisis along with people’s
disenchantment with the up to then Republican administration. This new state of affairs had
left behind unanswered popular demands that were linked to Laclau’s “equivalential chain of
demands” and finally filled in the system of abstract signification by providing with meaning
and identity the signifier of the ‘American people’.
This article is particularly enlightening in raising awareness of how populism has been
perceived so far across cases. We as readers trace throughout it the thesis that it is insufficient
to analyze populism only in terms of historical reasons and developmental modes of
capitalism alone; One should instead apply Laclau’s model of analysis so as to draw parallels
between strikingly divergent instances of populism and understand its structural pattern. This
suggestion is convincingly supported by two theoretical assumptions. The first assumption in
support of this thesis is that despite the various populist instances, populism has always the
same discursive structure applied to all instances as well as that Laclau’s unifying model can
indeed always provide the larger theoretical framework. The second assumption which is
expressed is that the literature review of the various models of analysis in the United States,
Latin-America and Western Europe reveals itself the failure of a unified conception of
populism. In justifying these assumptions Savage extensively discusses Laclau’s model and
provides us with a historical overview of the various analyses. Savage uses her material with
awareness and cautiousness. She follows a logical order in presenting them that bridges the
gaps among the various theories and builds up a solid argumentative sequence. She is also
critical on omissions and reliability of each theory. However, some Lacanian terms used in
the article miss a proper definition. In terms of validity though, one could argue that the
specific article is not too strong. Savage provides us with an extensive literary analysis of her
topic accompanied by historical accounts on populism which altogether are thoroughly
discussed. However, their interpretation is based mostly on theoretical grounds and on the
author’s personal observation. That is to say with the exception of the empirical evidence
provided by other scholars, the specific article lacks a solid methodology used of its own.
As far as our own research project is concerned, the specific article’s contribution to our
topic is of high importance. First of all, it extensively discusses the phenomenon of
populism’s emergence in America which is of direct relevance to the formation of the
collective identity in political discourses studied by our research project. Moreover, it offers
indispensable insight on how populism systematically manipulates the sense of totality by
filling abstract significations with meaning and it explains, thus, how populism disseminates
itself across cultures. In addition, this journal article is directly associated to our study by
presenting Obama’s campaign slogans such as ‘Yes we can’, ‘Hope’, ‘We Are the People
We’ve Been Waiting For’ as genuine instances of populism. Finally, the discussed article, as
a whole, is judged to be thorough, clear and convincing enough in discussing populism
through multiple perspectives. However, there is yet one perspective which has been left
undiscussed and needs to be taken into account; the psychological one. In assuming that
populism is characterized by a structuralist pattern that is applicable to all cases its
psychological dimension is neglected. In other words, what is argued here for further
discussion is that people cannot be perceived as passive receivers of populist significations.
More or less they encompass different views, attitudes and thoughts that vary their response
even to the same instance of populism or ideology and thus affect the whole approach to
populism as such.