Populism in Latin America. A review about Literature and its present

Abstract

Defining populism remains a pending issue in the study of Latin American politics, despite which, populism returns frequently to the research agendas. In this bibliographical study examines the major approaches, perspectives and definitions to define the study of populism. As noted in the review of the literature, the challenge lies in conceptualizing addressed. The attempt to develop the concept of populism as a category of study suggests high levels of difficulty in its use as a heuristic tool. Approaches that support each of the looks come from different areas in different historical sequences, which has led to some literature to argue that populism is more responsive to a political phenomenon with no precise doctrinal contents, which features a political category clearly defined. In that sense, populism can still be a useful approach in the study of politics in the region, since some theories and criteria for analysis provided by the Political Science from Western Europe and the United States are difficult to export to study democracy in Latin America, while populism gives us clues about the political process in countries like Venezuela and other democracies whose precarious levels of institutionalization favor the emergence of potentially populist outsiders.