The study of populism has long been plagued not only by disagreement on the very meaning of its core subject of analysis but also by often inaccurate uses of the term and its careless application to unrelated phenomena. In such a context, one could therefore be forgiven for having doubts about any claim to be able to “recast” populist research. Yet, this is exactly what Yannis Stavrakakis manages to do with extreme clarity and conviction in Populist Discourse, which offers an invaluable contribution to the field.

Populism is depicted throughout the book as a form of politics with the potential to redress the imbalances and oligarchic and elitist tendencies of representative democratic systems, as it is a “people centric” and “anti-elitist” discourse. In many ways, therefore, Stavrakakis is not saying much that he has not covered in his previous work. Yet such a coherent collection of his thoughts on this topic is nevertheless refreshing, as vital arguments regarding populism have fallen either by the wayside or on deaf ears, leading to imprecise representations of the populist phenomena in both academia and the media. As a result, despite—or in some cases because of—the vast scholarly literature on the subject, populism continues to be misunderstood and subject to a great level of mystification. The book’s explicit objective to “demystify” populism as both a concept and a signifier is thus a highly welcome development (p. 17).

This book achieves its own stated aim of appealing to three different types of readers, ranging in terms of expertise from the layman to the “populism research aficionado” (p. vi). Stavrakakis manages this by adopting a clear and compelling chapter structure. The opening two chapters adopt a complementary diachronic approach, with the first providing a brief history of the phenomenon of populism and the second a genealogy of populism’s theorizations and mainstream definitions. These chapters allow for a careful deconstruction of existing approaches to populism and set the groundwork for what amounts to a reassertion of pre-existing arguments emanating from the Essex School of Discourse Theory. To this effect, the third and fourth chapters of the book draw predominantly on Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe’s work on populism as discourse. Rather than blandly rehearsing these arguments, however, the author provides a thought-provoking and—mostly—accessible summary of the main guiding principles of populist discourse theory. Ample attention is also provided to examining the psychoanalytical aspects of discourse theory, inspired by Jacques Lacan, which is increasingly important for understanding discourse’s non-linguistic features.

Two interlinked strengths of Stavrakakis’ book are the discrediting of anti-populist discourses and a clear illustration of populism’s emancipatory potential. Regarding the first point, the book tackles forms of anti-populism which frame populism—inaccurately—as associated with

This assimilation of populism to contemporary versions of illiberalism has, unfortunately, come to serve as a defining feature of most mainstream academic research on populism as well as informing many journalistic inquiries into the phenomenon. “Populism” is therefore often used as a pejorative term to discredit any adversary that proposes “progressive, popular, democratic alternatives” to the many contradictions and limitations inherent in representative democracy, whether populist or not.

Stavrakakis highlights how many of the anti-populist arguments deployed today can be traced to the work of Richard Hofstadter in the 1950s, who sought to discredit and demonize the US People’s Party (Populist Party) during McCarthy “Red Scare” era of the Cold War. By deconstructing Hofstadter’s arguments, Stavrakakis shows the reader how such fallacies have, despite their clear intellectual failings, been recycled and repeated in contemporary mainstream analyses of populism. As he states, “the (liberal) mainstream constituted in the 1950s has been succeeded by a new mainstream, which demonstrates a rather similar aprioristic rejection of populism” (p. 82). Yet throughout these critiques, Stavrakakis remains nuanced in his approach, careful to acknowledge the contributions made by scholars who do not come from the tradition of discourse theory.

In terms of the book’s second strength, Stavrakakis successfully highlights populism’s emancipatory and egalitarian potential, without depicting it as a panacea to the deficiencies of democracy. Drawing on Discourse Theory, he argues that populism plays a “crucial role within representative democracy as the main channel through which a periodic regeneration of popular sovereignty is attempted and elitist excesses are controlled” (p. 18). What this book captures is how populism acts in defence of representative democracy’s key legitimizing principle vis-à-vis “popular sovereignty” (p. 98). To this end, Stavrakakis is indeed both faithful to Laclau and Mouffe as well as consistent with his own extensive work on populism, highlighting that the demand for “popular sovereignty”—which forms the main rallying cry of populists and populisms—“operates as the founding principle, the regulative ideal, of modern democracies” (p. 18). This underlines the timely nature of the book, arriving as it does at a crucial moment of history when the tensions and contradictions underpinning many representative democracies have, arguably, never been so apparent. At the time of writing, many countries which have long been associated with liberal democracy are experiencing an illiberal turn. Governments are relying on ever declining voter turnout for popular legitimacy, while alternative forms of democracy are being curtailed by draconian laws restricting freedom of speech and assembly.

There are, however, two key provocations that Stavrakakis includes in his introduction but that are left unanswered. He notes that “both (pro)populist and anti-populist discourse can acquire progressive or reactionary, democratic or anti-democratic, relatively sophisticated, or even grotesque forms” (p. 17). Two issues arise from this claim. First, the evidence that anti-populism can take a progressive form is lacking in the book, as the author correctly highlights the way in which anti-populist logic has sought to shore up the most oligarchic tendencies of liberal democratic systems. Second, Stavrakakis convincingly explains reactionary (pro)populist forms by highlighting how “the people” defined in far-right discourse are associated with “the nation.” By associating pro-populist forms of politics with reactionary movements, the author risks falling—albeit briefly—into the same anti-populist trap that the book so carefully deconstructs and discredits.

The book too might have engaged with the nuanced and enlightening critiques directed toward the discursive approach by the late Jonathan Dean (himself from the Essex School) and his often-time co-author, Bice Maiguashca. Arguably the most prevalent of these critiques was that the Laclauian approach cannot fully capture the sui generis nature of populism when compared to other manifestations of radical politics. As a potential remedy, these authors challenged discourse theorists to engage in deeper empirical inquiry into examples/case studies of ontic manifestations of populism’s both affective and epistemic dimensions. Dialogue with this provocation might have complemented the book’s already attentive focus on Discourse Theory’s psychoanalytical features.

These are but minor critiques, however, of what is a provocative and extremely timely engagement with the phenomenon of populism. With its thoughtful blend of historical perspective, empirical depth, and clear analysis, this book is a valuable read for scholars, students, and curious readers alike.