Who area the people of the "Citizen's Revolution"? An anlysis of the populist articulation of collective identities in Ecuador

Description: Rafael Correa has quickly become one of the presidents with the highest approval ratings in Latin America after having been re-elected for the third time. Skeptic observers, however, resent his frontal anti-establishment discourse which leaves no room for compromise and criticize the extreme personalization of his regime. Correa's calls for the empowerment of ordinary citizens are thus debates, this paper explores the concept of populism in relation to the contemporary political process in Ecuador. The distinctiveness of populism is that it rallies together an heterogeneous mass of social demands and stresses its sameness in terms of a shared antagonism to a threatening other. Drawing from the insights of poststrcturalist discourse theory, our discussion of populism is embedded in an attempt to assess the political articulation of collective identities. When we ask "who are the people of the Citize's Revolution?", we acknowledge that the populist articulatory practice constitutes the popular subject it claims to represent. This is both the source of populism's democratic potential, as well as its Achilles heel. It is my contention that the rise of Correa as the hegemonic agent signifying the popular camp has allowed for the transition to a more egalitarian polity. In the business of governing, however, there has been a constant displacement and re-articulation of the demands entering the representation process.

Topic: POPULISMO
REVOLUCI?N CIUDADANA
TEOR?A DEL DISCURSO POSTESTRUCTURALISTA
IDENTIDADES COLECTIVAS

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