The "populist moment" : An expression that teaches us more about how we perceive our time than about this time itself

Four recent books believe that we have entered the “era of populism”. After thirty years of neoliberal hegemony, we would now be living a new historical period in which political life would be more and more confrontational, personalized and emotional. Through a reconstruction of the main arguments of Ilvo Diamanti, Marc Lazar, Chantal Mouffe, Pierre Rosanvallon and Arnaud Zacharie, this article aims to highlight the accomplishments and the limitations of this historical diagnosis. Special attention is given to the fact that, behind an apparent consensus, the theorists of the “populist moment” disagree on several issues : the definition of populism, its relationship with political liberalism and the existence of a populist electorate.