Çağdaş Siyaset Teorisinde Kimlik ve Popülizm
Özet
Conceptually, the difference between ‘politics’ and ‘the political’ is critical to understanding
populism in contemporary political theory. Thinking the political as a name for populism, is thinking
antagonism, hegemony and identity in Ernesto Laclau political thought. Grounded on negativity,
contingency, and antagonism, Laclau’s concept of populism is the defining characteristic of the
political. The concept is based on the left-Heideggerian ontological difference between the ontic
and the ontological, and reflects the political difference between politics and the political in the
post-foundational political thought of Oliver Marchart, which draws on Laclau's political reasoning.
In this respect, populism explains political logic and, as shown in the course of this investigation,
compounds logics both towards the political in the sense of antagonism and to a theory of
hegemony in the sense of identity. The concept of populism is distinctively important for this thesis
as it defines difference and identity in post-foundational political thought and, more generally,
gives meaning to current debates in democracy theory through its relations with social
movements. Throughout the thesis, the subject of social movements is made more
comprehensive by relating it to radical democracy in the context of Marchart's theoretical
approach. In this context, the aim of this thesis is to present an integrated approach that questions
and develops some of the basic concepts of Laclau's populism theory in terms of social
movements.