La articulación de la indignación del pueblo catalán: rasgos populistas en la Candidatura d’Unitat Popular (CUP)

Abstract

This article analyses populist traits in the political discourse of the Catalan left-wing pro-independence party Candidatura d’Unitat Popular (CUP). First, the article analyses the success of the CUP by placing the party in what is deemed a competition of populisms in recent years in Catalonia. As such, the nationalist movement is described as a catalyst for populist ideas in Catalonia. Specifically, it will be argued that the presence the party has had in the political panorama of Catalonia can be explained by the way in which Catalan nationalism has been expressed as a nationalism of rupture. This kind of populist language is also similar to that of the Spanish party Podemos, whose lasting effect on leftist discourse puts a certain pressure on the traditional anti-capitalist narrative. In this light, the article argues that the CUP offers a radical alternative which finds its normative foundation in the Catalan people, and that precisely by insisting on the left-right dichotomy it has, to a certain extent, been able to absorb the discontent of many Catalans.