In this article, I analyze whether the case of the Yellow Vest movement fits Paris Aslanidis’ definition of populist social movements, and find that within the discursive theoretical framework Aslanidis adheres to, it does. However, I use the case of the Yellow Vest movement to demonstrate how this discursive approach lacks explanatory potential. I therefore propose moving away from a discursive definition of populist social movements, and advocate for studying political content as a way of detecting common interests shaped by political and societal structures that are shared by participants in a populist social movement. A theory of populist social movements must look at political and economic structures as well as individual agency, framing, and collective identity as a way to explain mobilization. A discursive approach to populism, which only considers language, is therefore not sufficient to explain movements such as the Yellow Vest movement.

In this article, we investigate the political theology of populism and look at the case of the Front National (FN). Considering the writings of Carl Schmitt and Ernesto Laclau, we trace the logical core of Schmitt’s political theology and show how it is integrated into theories of the political and Laclau’s theory of populism. We argue that the theologico-political core of populism is the simultaneous disavowal and imposition of mediation and that this stance leads to an increasing formalism. Looking at the discourse of the FN on the notion of laïcité, we find that this theologico-political structure explains how the party is able to link traditionally left- and right-wing motives in its discourse. Finally, we show how in FN’s discourse, the formalist tendency of populism, which Laclau has theoretically explicated, has become overt and must be understood as part of politics, not as a universal and tran-historical logic of the political. This suggests, we argue pace Laclau, that we ought to consider both the discourse of FN and the theoretical concepts of the political or of populism, as results of one of the same historical processes which has led them to affirm their common and uninterrogated assumption: the theologico-political principle and its disavowal of the possibility of metaphysical and political mediation.

This article theorizes the connection between political distrust and conspiracy theories through a post-political framework. Following Luc Boltanski’s focus on the critical capacities of ordinary actors, it builds on interviews with participants of the Yellow Vest Movement in France who hold conspiratorial views of Covid-19 and the vaccine. The article explores how the interviewees’ critique mirrors that of post-political theorists. In particular, I use Rancière’s notion of subjectification and politics to theorize how conspiracy theories function as a means of dissent in the interviewees’ understanding of their experiences as well as in their own critique of and disillusionment with politics in France. As such, this article explores how political trust affected reactions to the pandemic, how political trust is interconnected with conspiracy theories and finally how such conspiracy theories can be viewed as biproducts of the post-political order.

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This article reviews the political views of the Yellow Vest Movement (YVM) and explores whether it can best be described as a left-wing populist movement, understood as being primarily inclusionary and focused on socioeconomic issues, or a right-wing populist movement, understood as being primarily exclusionary and attentive to struggles over ethnic identity. This examination will be done by comparing the YVM's political demands to the presidential programs of the Rassemblement National (RN) and La France Insoumise (LFI), which in this article is used as prototypes on right-wing populism and left-wing populism. Since its early beginning in 2018, the YVM has been branded as an avatar of the extreme right. By comparing the claims of the YVM to the programs of the RN and LFI, I argue that this interpretation of the YVM is not substantiated by their actual political demands, which are more aligned with LFI than with the RN.