Left-wing populism within horizontal and vertical politics: the case of Kurdish-led radical democracy in agonistic pluralism

Omer Tekdemir

Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies, 2019, vol. 21, issue 3, 335-349

Abstract: In the post-political period, the Kurdish-led Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) has offered a radical democratic political project by adopting a left-leaning populism to challenge the political establishment (elites) through the construction of a new concept of ‘the People’ (underdog) in a new political grammar. This article outlines the feasibility of applying Laclau’s populist discursive in analysing the notion of radical democracy, which is conceptualized in terms of Mouffe’s agonistic approach, as a ‘real’ alternative in the organic crisis of the ‘new Turkey’. The inclusive populism of the HDP mobilizes the collective passion in politics, with its common affects, in order to create a counter-hegemonic bloc. This left-wing populist ontology aims to reform the existing democratic institutions in terms of an egalitarian and libertarian rhetoric to challenge the Justice and Development Party's(AKP) right-wing conservative populism that has recently transformed into authoritarianism, majoritarianism and illiberalism in the post-democracy era.

Date: 2019
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DOI: 10.1080/19448953.2018.1497756

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