A Podemos és a baloldali populizmus
Podemos and Left Populism

Summary/Abstract: This article examines the rise of Podemos in 2014 and its trajectory since then. Podemos was born right after the rise and fall of the Indignados movement, which was responding to the global economic crisis and subsequent austerity policies. Hassan argues that Podemos successfully avoided Indignados’ weaknesses, the traps of anti-political and anarchistic sentiments. The essay argues that Podemos’ political activity is more than an instinctive populism, as the party consciously and directly uses Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe’s post-Marxist theory of populism. However, Hassan formulates a fundamental criticism of both Laclau and Mouffe’s theory and of the politics of Podemos. As he follows the political trajectory of Podemos from 2014 to 2016, Hassan reveals that the party’s politics based on the theory of populism gave up its anti-capitalist stance, weakened its own internal democracy and consequently detached the party structure from the mass movement.

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