Post-Populism: From the Defeat of “the People” to the Authoritarian Turn

Over the first two decades of the twenty-first century, populism brought “the people” back to the centre of democratic politics. Across Europe and beyond, political actors labelled as populists claimed to restore popular sovereignty against distant elites, corrupt representatives, and technocratic governance. Yet the current phase of right-wing populism in power suggests a striking reversal of this promise. Rather than strengthening the “demos”, populist government appears to coincide with the hollowing out of popular sovereignty and with an authoritarian turn. This paper traces the trajectory of contemporary right-wing populism from its “protest” phase to what can be called “post-populism”: a political configuration in which anti-elitist rhetoric is progressively displaced by “thicker” ideologies – ethno-nationalism and social conservatism – while neoliberal rationality remains largely intact. The paper addresses two interconnected questions. First, what happens to “the people” once populist movements move from opposition to government? Second, how can we explain the apparent paradox that socio-economically disadvantaged groups—often described as the “losers of globalization”—support leaders who advance anti-egalitarian policies and consolidate executive power? I argue that this paradox can be unpacked by taking seriously the conceptual ambiguity of “the people” in populist discourse. “The people” is never a stable referent: it oscillates between the sovereign demos, the socio-economic “people-as-part” (the excluded, disadvantaged, or “common” majority), and the ethno-national “people-as-nation.” Right-wing populism resolves this ambiguity not by empowering the people-as-part but by neutralizing it through two moves: (1) representing the people as an internally homogeneous and organic community, and (2) fusing the people-as-part with a nativist “we” opposed to internal and external “others.” In this shift, the conflict between “the people” and “the elite” is progressively replaced by the antagonism between “us” and “them,” displacing social and class conflict outward and legitimizing hierarchical forms of belonging. At the same time, the paper highlights an elective affinity between right-wing populism and neoliberal governance. Far from constituting a genuine rupture with neoliberalism, contemporary right-wing populism feeds on the insecurities and resentments produced by market-driven globalization while reproducing neoliberal subjectivation. It follows that, in contemporary right-wing populisms, the consolidation of executive power, the erosion of democratic checks, and the symbolic construction of an exclusionary nation converge with economic agendas that reinforce inequality. The paper concludes that the authoritarian turn marks not the triumph but the defeat of popular sovereignty: in post-populism, the nation devours the people, and populist protest is converted into the stabilization of an anti-egalitarian neoliberal order cloaked in the language of popular redemption.