Everyday Populism: affect, belonging and the idiom of popular sovereignty
Speaker:
Paolo Cossarini
Chair:
Sofia José Santos
Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences of University of Coimbra
January 24, 2024, 17h30 (GMT Lisbon/London)
This paper examines the (seemingly trivial) reproduction of discourses about ‘popular sovereignty’. Borrowing from the scholarship that draws on banal and everyday nationalism, and advancing an understanding of populism not as fact but as claim, this paper assesses the everyday routines that contribute to sustain the populist stance of people-centrism and popular sovereignty. Stressing the key spatial, temporal, and affective-symbolic dimensions involved in the discourse of popular sovereignty, this paper argues for a relational account of everyday populism. To exemplify this, this paper explores the links between affect, the politics of belonging and the idiom of sovereignty across a series of case studies.
Bio notes
Paolo Cossarini, María Zambrano Fellow at the Department of Constitutional Law, Political Science and Administration (University of Valencia), and member of the DEMOS research group (Aalborg University). He held Postdoctoral research, lectures and visit positions in Denmark, Italy, UK, and France. He has published several articles and is co-editor of many books. His research focuses on populism and nationalism, Italian and Spanish politics, protest movements, EU politics, and civil society organisations
