Radical Democracy, Populism and DesireInside the Yellow Vests Movement
£90.00
About this book
Explores the psychoanalytic dynamics linking democracy and populism in the Yellow Vests movement
- Bridges political theory and psychoanalysis in a striking interdisciplinary account of the Yellow Vests
- Drawing on unique psychosocial interviews with grassroots protesters, it reveals how personal stories erupted into collective mobilisation
- Makes psychoanalytic ideas—desire, fantasy, enjoyment, symptom—tangible through vivid empirical examples tested in the classroom
- Recasts populism as aesthetic transgression, bringing Lacanian theory into dialogue with radical democracy
The Yellow Vests movement (‘Les gilets jaunes’) occupied roundabouts across France in late 2018 and remains a puzzling phenomenon. Bringing together protestors across the political spectrum, the movement’s democratic character remains ambiguous. Was this populist uprising a radicalisation of democracy that gave voice to the excluded, or an undemocratic claim to speak for “the people” while entrenching hierarchies?
Radical Democracy, Populism and Desire articulates empirical analysis and theoretical reflection, using the Yellow Vests as a prism to rethink democratic theory. Drawing on psychosocial interviews with grassroots participants, it explores how identities were constructed, contested and steered within the movement. Thomás Zicman de Barros argues that the protests were driven by a desire for recognition and belonging, but that this desire could be mobilised in sharply different directions. By tracing these coexisting modes of identification, the book exposes the fraught and ambiguous ties between populism and democracy in contemporary politics.
Reviews
I cannot think of any book that covers an identical scope, combining rigorous empirical analysis with such a sophisticated articulation of conceptual and methodological angles. Zicman de Barros’ work is bound to have a truly unique impact on the scholarly areas involved (discourse studies, psychoanalysis, populism research and French politics) and on broader public debates.
Table of contents
Introduction: The Yellow Vests Enigma
1. Were the Yellow Vests Populists?
2. Were the Yellow Vests Radical Democratic?
3. The Yellow Vest as an Empty Signifier
4. Demands and Desire in a French Roundabout
5. The Yellow Vests as a Symptom
6. The Yellow Vests as Sublimation
Conclusion: What Can be Learned from the Yellow Vests?
Appendix 1: Prominent Figures among the Yellow Vests
Appendix 2: Key Documents