What Is Populism: Ernesto Laclau's Theory. In Commons, 2019-04-10.

The article examines Ernesto Laclau’s theory of populism. The author points to the contrast between the pejorative connotations of the term “populism” in everyday usage and Laclau’s approach, which recognizes populism as a necessary element of democracy. The key feature of populism is identified as the ability to unite heterogeneous social demands into a chain of equivalence, with one demand subsequently singled out as a common signifier. It is argued that the common signifier, whose choice is determined by specific historical circumstances, smooths over the contradictions between the elements of the chain of equivalence. The author applies Laclau’s concept to analyze the Ukrainian political landscape, in particular the events of the Revolution of Dignity and the presidential campaigns of Petro Poroshenko and Volodymyr Zelensky.