Colonialism and populism

The literature on populism has emphasized the importance of exclusionary and inclusionary traits when discussing the phenomenon. The present chapter argues that the colonial relationship helps to understand why most European movements are exclusionary, while most of Latin American populism is inclusionary. The chapter puts forward the claim that whether a specific populist movement will be inclusionary or exclusionary is primarily related to the ways in which a variety of populist movements in different countries conceptualize ‘the people’, and that this conceptualization is strongly linked to the position of each country in the colonial relationship. This claim will be grounded through the analysis of Latin American and European examples. The chapter will also show that three cases of European inclusionary populism - SYRIZA in Greece, Podemos in Spain and La France Insoumise in France - apparently challenge this claim, but in fact may strengthen it.