Resumen de Populism: Uses, Abuses and Travels of an Uncomfortable Concept

Gastón Souroujon, Cecilia Lesgart

• The main objective of this chapter is to draw a map of the meanings and uses of the concept of populism, a fundamental contemporary political concept within the social sciences in general and within political science in particular. To this end, the guiding question will be as follows: what are the significant common contents that have allowed the concept to travel across different geographies? In order to provide an answer, we shall observe whether Latin American inflexions have contributed to shape the meanings of populism in the geographical contexts that are now applying the concept. In addition, what are the difficulties faced by these new conceptualisations in core countries? Last but not least, this chapter introduces the question of whether the concept of populism has managed to take a place within the tradition of discourse of political theory and science, just like other concepts before: democracy, republicanism, liberalism, authoritarianism, totalitarianism.