El miedo al populista latinoamericano del siglo XXI

Abstract

This article presents a critical review about the perspectives that describes Latin American populism as a political, social and economic threat. In an extensive use of the concept of populism, the vulgar anti-populist literature dismisses the differences between the classic populism and the Latin American current national-popular process. It has created an image of populism as synonymous of corruption, demagogy and political irresponsibility and this image has been wide spread through the media. In the scholar level, populism has been conceived as leadership style and discursive use. We contend that for the comprehension of the contemporary anti-populism, it is necessary to think about it through the criticism to the principles of the neoliberal ideology, among them the procedural democracy that it defends. These principles transformed in unique thought has converted the populism into the great "other" in the Latin American politics. Even more, the populism "otherness" is based in the otherness of the communism during the cold war.