The "people" as an empty signifier : analysis of the post-structuralist approach to populist politics

Populists movements place the notion of the people in the center of political mobilisation. The fact that this notion is vague it is also its political force. Following Ernesto Laclau's post-structuralist approach of the people as an "empty signifier", we intend to analyse the theoretical roots of this postulate and its limits based on Vincent Descombes' critique of post-saussurean literature or what he called the "doctrines of the signifier".