The Political Pleasure. speech, psychoanalysis and populism. Y. Stabrakakis
Abstract
The structure of the book consists of three large sections entitled "theory", "analysis" and "the challenge of populism" that groups ten articles, most of which did not have a translation in our language and that account for the development of the numerous investigations of the author of the Panteion University of Athens in the last twenty five years. In the writings that make up the first section, Stavrakakis presents the theoretical premises from which he achieves a confluence of psychoanalytic theory, especially in the Lacanian variant, and post-structuralist discourse analysis, predominantly from the perspective of Ernesto Laclau. The second part contains two articles dealing with the question of environmentalism -what he calls the "green ideology"- and one in which he discusses the debt problem as a subjugation strategy (both individual as well as collective) and democratic backsliding in recent decades, while presents some keys to its resistance. Finally, the third section of the book is devoted exclusively to the problem of populism, showing its relevance and the need to abandon those approaches that make it a pejorative concept and that strictly associated with de-democratization and exclusionary chauvinism.
