Populism and Empire: the Impossibility of Sovereignty

Abstract

In 2000 Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri announced a new global paradigm that implied the shift
from modern sovereignty to imperial sovereignty. Until now, they have developed a theoretical and
political framework to account for the organization of multitude, a counter-Empire from below, to
overcome the multiple and decentralized modes of domination characterizing Empire. Since
multiplicity and immanence are the main features of the struggles of multitude, Hardt and Negri
have rejected the return of the state, representative politics or ‘the people’ as subject of change. This
position has made it difficult to establish a deeper dialogue with other approaches like populism (or
left-populism) by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, despite the relevant reflections and
implications for populism contained in the work of Hardt and Negri. This article engages in a
critical reading of populism from the Empire perspective where special focus is placed on the
construction of incompatible dichotomies between globalization vs. the state, multitude vs. ‘the
people’, and non-sovereignty vs. popular sovereignty. After discussing tensions and issues to
reconsider from both Empire and populist theory, the conclusion points to the application of a
multi-scalar and intersectional approach to populism in order to enrich its conceptualization and
solve some of its contradictions.