Outputs

Reconstructing the People: Populism and Political Change in Post-Crisis Spain and Portugal

Spain and Portugal are two Southern European democracies whose parallel histories have often warranted comparative case-study research. Yet in the wake of the “populist decade” they have presented widely divergent paths: whereas in Spain new forms of contestation and populist politics have reshaped the political system, in Portugal prior trends of political apathy have remained largely unchanged (at once, the puzzle has been further “puzzled” by the sudden rise of the populist right). Previous research has been unable to make sense of these events, and I argue these shortcomings reflect fundamental inconsistencies in how we study populism. Namely, the study of populism is characterised by a paradoxical sidelining of the identities behind identity politics. Such an empirical puzzle called for a new approach, and offered therefore an ideal comparative case-study to inform existing theories of populism.

In this project, I explore Spanish and Portuguese peoplehood from the bottom up, foregrounding the lived experience of peoplehood to make sense of how discontent citizens view politics and how they channel said discontent in widely divergent ways. The results are based on more than a year of fieldwork across four sites in Spain and Portugal. It builds on data from 93 interviews with citizens, as well as ethnographic observation and multiple interviews with civic organisations, stakeholders, etc.

Building on the exploration of the puzzle, this research makes three key contributions to the literature. First, it proposes a new framework for theorising populism and peoplehood that pushes beyond limitations in prior scholarship. Second, the findings challenge conventions in scholarship and point to unexplored dimensions of populist politics. For instance, I foreground such the ideological and organisational determinants of politics as a key factor of discontent, and the salience of everyday life as a political outlet. My analysis also offers original insights and hypotheses regarding the support bases of the populist left and right: whereas I show left populist respondents are more oriented to non-institutional forms of political realisation, I argue supporters of the populist right are not "nativist" but fundamentally concerned with curtailing obligations to society. Third, my analysis raises the need to rethink central aspects of modern democracy (party politics, national peoplehood, electoral law, etc.) with normative implications for political action and institutional reform.

By improving our understanding of the political significance of collective identities from a bottom-up perspective, the aim is not only to unveil the micro-level determinants of phenomena such as populism, but also to illuminate shifting macro-structural trends of (post)modern politics.

The project that gave rise to these results received the support of a fellowship from ‘la Caixa’ Foundation [ID 100010434]. The fellowship code is LCF/BQ/EU21/ 11890039.

Panoramic view of the city of Elvas, Portalegre, Portugal (picture by the author). The dishevelled state of housing and public infrastructure stands as a reflection of a dwindling, declining rural society. In my research, I argue bottom-up change in rural communities in Portugal is hampered by this lack of civic capital, derived largely from the reproduction of cultural repertoires that promoted social distrust. The case of Portalegre illustrates my argument that the way peoplehood is constructed creates frameworks for diagnosing political ills (in this case, endogenously) which could make electoral populism nonsensical. In turn, this lack of social energies made it possible for partisan organisations to co-opt existing civic spacces.

Entrance to Centro Social 6 de Maio, in Amadora, Lisbon, Portugal (picture by the author). In highly diverse, rapidly evolving areas of Lisbon like this one, local NGOs are key actors in sustaining the livelihoods of the poor, servicing primarily citizens associated to the postcolonial diaspora. The flags decorating the entrance to the Centro reflect the diversity of origin countries of the children that use the space. As I show in my analysis of populist right supporters, minorities and immigrants became a key target of resentment not (only) for their problematisation of cultural homogeneity, but more fundamentally for symbolising the universality of social rights that these respondents wished to challenge. They way that immigrants were constructed by populist right supporters is key to put forward my argument that populist right politics is chiefly not about refurbishing a traditional peoplehood, but about undoing it altogether through neoliberal politics.

View of the western boundary of the city of Teruel, Teruel, Spain (picture by the author). Standing out for its remarkably low population density (one of the lowest in Europe), the province of Teruel has in its capital city a reservoir of committed, highly-organised civic life that is the root of its successful rural populist party, "Teruel Exists." In my research I show the stark differences between the city and its sparsely populated surroundings were a key challenge to sustain populist momentum. The success of "Teruel Exists" serves as a case study to show populist politics relies not only on the articulation of different demands, but also on the construction of new ideas and performances of peoplehood. At once, however, the subsequent decline of the party can be understood as a result of the centrality of said performances, which blocked the possibility of more ambitious political goals.