Benjamin Arditi is Professor of Political Theory at the National University of Mexico, UNAM. He is the author of Politics on the edges of liberalism: difference, populism, revolution, emancipation (Edinburgh 2007). He co-edits the book series Taking on the Political published by Edinburgh University Press. His research focuses on political insurgencies, populism, and illiberal politics.

Preface: From the Question "What is Populism?" to the Premise "Is There Such a Thing as Populism?"

Part 1: Framing the Issue

1. Anomalies, Crises, Zombie Ideas, Provocations, and Proposals. An Introduction to what it means to ask whether there is such a thing as Populism

2. The Endless Search for Populism

Part 2: Polemicizing Populism

3. Provocation 1: Goodbye to Populism

4. Provocation 2: Use Populism to Accuse or Disqualify Adversaries

5. Provocation 3: Peronism and its Contemporaries were Populists. What Came Later was

Not

Part 3: Methodological Proposal

6. Proposal 1: The Limits of Formalism: Ernesto Laclau and Populism

7. Proposal 1¿: Differentiation needs Normative Claims

8. Proposal 2: Context-sensitivity and the Conjuncture: The Ideational Claim that Salvador Allende was a Populist.

9. Proposal 3: Polemicizing the Populist Commonplace

10. Proposal 4: The Perspective of Situated Observers

11. Proposal 5: Strategic Relations and Governing from Below

12. Epilogue: Is Populism a Promise that Lives at the End of a Rainbow?

Part 4: Responses to the Book

13. Nadia Urbinati

14. José Luis Villacañas

15. Carlos de la Torre

16. Anthoula Malkopoulou

17. Anthony Spanakos

18. Benjamin Arditi