Umberto Eco e il problema del populismo

The article reconstructs Umberto Eco’s reaction on populism, notable above all for his ability to link multiple aspects of the same problem. Unlike most of the literature on the subject, Eco studied both the aesthetic dimension and the political dimension of populism and he analyzed both contemporary and historical populism. Moreover, he explained both what populism is and how it works, and he showed how and why populism would be intrinsically linked to plebiscitarism.