Populismo

[Autom. eng. transl.] At the beginning of the 21st century, populism appears to be the only political option capable of reaping success. But what is populism really? Can it be considered an ideology, with a very specific content, or is it simply a set of effective rhetorical devices? Is it a new phenomenon or just a different term to define the ancient demagogy? Should it be understood as a danger or can it represent a resource for the renewal of democratic institutions? Making the point on the contemporary discussion, this essay proposes a punctual reconstruction of the different faces that populism has shown since the end of the nineteenth century to today and tries to explain what are the reasons that in the last two decades have favored the rise of leader , movements and parties called populists.