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I essentially question the epistemological flaws surrounding the uses of the notion: when is it safe to call a politician, a political party or movement ‘populist’?

The stakes are high because to label someone as ‘populist’ is to imply that s/he is somehow a potential or real enemy of representative democracy. My critic refers to the ‘pernicious effects’ of populism which underlines the notion’s very negative connotation. Let me here reply to Catherine Fieschi’s major criticisms.

Cas Mudde, one of the major specialists on the subject, concedes that populism is a ‘thin-centred ideology’.

The good news is that the general election on 5 October 2014 did not, as some had feared, enthrone a populist strongman in the mould of Hungary's Viktor Orbán, Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, or Serbia’s Aleksandar Vučić. The centre-right GERB (“Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria”) headed by Boyko Borisov, a former bodyguard and police chief known for his macho persona and folksy ways, scored a victory, sweeping about one-third of the votes cast and humiliating its principal rival, the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), which trailed far behind with a paltry 15.4%. But proportional representation soured the feat: GERB saw its caucus shrink from 97 to 84 members of parliament. As a result Borisov has no choice but to share power with others in any new cabinet.  The bad news is that Bulgaria got a fragmented legislature, which bodes ill for the government that will follow, whatever its composition.

my argument is that humans are more relational, ‘gift-exchanging animals’ who are naturally disposed to cooperate for mutual benefit. In the following I will attempt to show how such an alternative anthropology can translate into a ‘civil economy’ and transformative policy ideas: rebuilding our economy and embedding welfare in communities.

In the wake of Marcel Mauss’ work on the gift, this model emerged as a legitimate way of rethinking economics: humans are naturally social animals with dispositions to cooperate in the quest for the common good in which all can partake.

Building on Polanyi and G. D. H. Cole’s guild socialism, one can suggest that an embedded model means that elected governments have the duty to create the civic space in which workers, businesses and communities can regulate economic activity and direct the ‘free flow’ of globally mobile capital to productive activities that benefit the many, not the few.

What do these political forces have in common? In truth, very little. Some are ideologically and politically poles apart. If these parties are politically different, why indiscriminately refer to them as ‘populist’?

Over the past fifteen years or so, the word’s meaning has changed quite considerably. Nowadays, it rarely defines authoritarian regimes which appeal to the masses, but rather designates left-wing or right-wing movements which are seen as challenging the dominant ideas or policies.