ABSTRACT
Chapter 3 outlines one of the key Laclauian-influenced theories of populism that has been developed in recent years: the “performative-relational” approach to populism, whereby populism is understood as a socio-cultural phenomenon and a performative “political style”. This approach, developed by authors such as Ostiguy, Moffitt, and others, seeks to ground the sometimes abstract and “post-foundational” work of Laclau more sociologically, taking into account—but in Laclauian terms—the embodied and particularistic dimension of populist identification, especially with regards to the incorporation of the “excess”. The chapter’s key contribution is to introduce the notion of “overflowing signifiers”, more adequate for explaining identification and the populist logic than “empty signifiers”. “Empty” signifiers, the chapter argues, never actually become empty, but quite on the contrary, what characterizes them is the inscription of both a surplus of meaning and a “fleshy excess”, itself generally on “the low”. Identification, moreover, occurs not as the product of a mere hegemonic substitution, as Laclau suggests, but because of something in the embodied persona and praxis of the populist leader or multitudes, with traits facilitating identification coming to the fore at the moment of embodiment. The chapter thus moves beyond what might be thought of as the discursively “formal” level of Laclauian political logic, which often overlooks the mediatized nature and aesthetic dimensions of populist performances, as well as the back-and-forth processes at play between populist leaders—qua overflowing signifiers—and “the people”, in populist politics.
