The Laboratory for the Study of Democracy (DemLab) in collaboration with the POPULISMUS Observatory have organized on 1 April 2026 a seminar with Professor Federico Tarragoni, entitled “Can Populism be Right-wing AND Left-wing? A Critical Reassessment” (“Gerasimos Vokos” Room, School of Political Sciences, Aristotle University of Thessalonki, 12 V. Irakleiou Street).
Abstract: With the global rise of far-right governments, the idea that the phenomenon we are experiencing could be linked to the same political logic as left-wing populism seems increasingly questionable. Two categories are available to describe this new global reactionary offensive: populism and fascism. This raises a twofold question: analytically, which is the most accurate to describe these authoritarian governments? Performatively, which is the most effective in encouraging citizens to fight against them?
Biography: Federico Tarragoni is Full Professor of political sociology at Caen University (France), where he holds the chair created by Claude Lefort in 1967, and honorary Fellow at the Institut Universitaire de France (IUF). He works on populism, which he has approached from a socio-genetic perspective, and on radical democracy. He has published L’Esprit démocratique du populisme (La Découverte, 2019) and is co-editing, with Déborah Cohen, the first English comprehensive volume on socio-historical approaches to populism, entitled The Populist Tradition. Socio-Historical and Critical Perspectives (Routledge, forthcoming 2026).
