Chantal Mouffe and left-wing populism

A discussion on populism, affects and Spinoza

Abstract

The aim of this article is to scrutinise Mouffe’s work, taking For a Left Populism as a starting point, since the Belgian author advocates for the first time a populist strategy on the part of left-wing parties to counterbalance the advance of right-wing parties and to gain access to power. In particular, it is worth noting that Mouffe draws heavily on Spinoza's philosophy in order to put forward this proposal, which implies a reading of the Amsterdam thinker with which we disagree. Thus, we will first study what the Belgian author means by left-wing populism, then investigate the role that affects play there and, finally, analyse whether Spinoza can be postulated as a theoretical source of this proposal.