A home for the (Death of) politics: Institutionalism in Laclau

Abstract

This article analyzes the distinction between populism and institutionalism in Laclau. The hypothesis is that when populism is identified with politics and institutionalism with the death of politics, Laclau modifies his concept of hegemony as expressed in Hegemony and Socialist Strategy which generates a tension between politics as hegemony and politics as Populism. The article deals with the main reflections of his concept of hegemony. The objective is to show that politics consists not only of impugning order, but also of reproducing it, and that the death of politics is contradictory to identity as difference. The conclusions suggest a differentiation between politics and populism considering the latter as an ontic form of the construction of hegemony.