Abstract

In Me, The People Nadia Urbinati understands populism as a new form of disfigured representative democracy, concentrating on when it conquests the political power. Urbinati underscores the capital role of the leader and the effects of de-politicization, negating that populism resolves Robert Michels’ paradox on oligarchy and excluding the possibility of a left populism. Here the socioeconomical context of the “populist momentµ is proposed again, remembering the aporias of «progressive» parties and policies in last decades, together with the link between democracy and social conflict enlightened by Niccolò Machiavelli