Excess, Representation and Crossable Borders: «Dirty Institutions», or the Aporia of Populism in Power

Abstract

This article deals with the logic of populism, particularly in its relation to the so-called “excess” and its representation. In this regard, it examines a relative convergence between the works of Laclau, Aibar and myself, while, however, problematizing the relation between interpellation and recognition, for the subject. In this context, the notion of “plebeian grammar”, remarkably close to my own work on “the low”, takes on an underanalyzed importance. This article defends the thesis that a unique trait of populism in power is its being located on both sides of the frontier, between institutionality and demands. An aporia of populism as a mode of government reside in its being at the same time institutionality and opposition, government and claims. Together, these arguments give rise to the theoretical concept of “dirty institutionality”. The first part of the article leads to a conceptualization of populism, especially at the level of political praxis, as a flaunting of “the low”. The second part reinforces a generic definition of populism I have offered elsewhere: populism as an “unpresentable Other”, presenting itself as Self (“the ‘truest’ self” of the nation), in of the face of nefarious norms and systems that “normalize” the world.