Hegemony and Socialist You’ve written about the intellectual influences shaping Podemos’s approach, singling out the work of Laclau and Mouffe. There are three criticisms that could be made of them as strategic thinkers. First, unlike Gramsci’s writings, Strategy offers no analytical tools for grasping the tactics of the enemy—La Casta, or the liberal–conservative bloc of Centre Left and Centre Right. Second, their work has very little to say about capitalist dynamics, essentially treating the economic field as unproblematic—whereas the condition for the emergence of Podemos is the global economic crisis. Third, and again, unlike Gramsci, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy has much to say about discourse but little about deeds—the crystallization of a concrete minimum programme. To take the first question: elite strategy. In face of the incipient regime crisis, Spain’s rulers seem to have adopted an active policy of neutralization—eliminating potentially aggravating factors, such as Juan Carlos, replaced by a fresher-faced Bourbon, and building up Ciudadanos as a ‘clean’ liberal party; a much more effective operation than To Potami in Greece. As you say, Podemos’s space on tv has also narrowed. Have these developments altered the grounds for Podemos’s triple hypothesis? Currently, all four parties—Podemos, Ciudadanos, psoe, pp—are around 20 per cent, which makes a lib-con majority of 60 per cent, against an anti-austerity vote of 25 per cent for Podemos and Izquierda Unida combined.
Clearly the adversary plays a role and the terms of the confrontation have been changing. It’s true that the media terrain is much less comfortable for us now. Building up Ciudadanos was a smart move for them, not so much because it is taking votes from Podemos directly but because, at the level of discourse, it’s challenging our position as the option for regeneration and our place in the media. Now there is another party of ‘change’, which has very different features; Ciudadanos essentially emerged from the liberal establishment. So, yes, we are in the process of reformulating the Podemos hypothesis. Let me explain our thinking.
Our key objective was always to occupy the centrality of the political field, taking advantage of the incipient organic crisis. This has nothing to do with the political ‘centre’ of bourgeois discourse. Our challenge, in Gramscian terms, in this war of position was to create a new common sense that would allow us to occupy a transversal position, at the heart of the newly reformulated political spectrum. Right now, the political space that was up for grabs has been reduced as a result of these counter-moves by the establishment, including the promotion of Ciudadanos. So our task has become more difficult; it requires a new strategic intelligence. Also, these interventions by the adversary have created further contradictions within our field. We are facing three immediate difficulties.
The first is that this shift is relocating us on what we have considered from the beginning to be a losing axis—the traditional left–right axis. We believe that on that basis there is no possibility of change in Spain, and the risk we face now is being relocated precisely on that axis, as opposed to defining a new centrality that, to repeat, has nothing to do with the centre of the political spectrum. The second risk, or challenge, is that within this new landscape Podemos’s plebeian discourse—articulated in terms of ‘those below’ against ‘those above’, the oligarchs—may be reinterpreted as the traditional discourse of the far left; as a result Podemos risks losing its transversal appeal and the possibility of occupying the new centrality. The third challenge, which is also a potential tool, is that of normalization. We no longer appear as the outsiders; the element of novelty is being diluted. But at the same time Podemos is now stronger, with more experience and a greater capacity for representation. And we face the huge challenge ahead of being able to retune, or refine, our discourse in order to parry those counter-movements and reopen the space that is now being closed down. Those are the challenges in the coming months. They are going to be tough ones for us.
A concrete example of this is the complex scenario we’ve had today [15 April] with the visit of the King of Spain to the European Parliament. This confronts us with a difficult issue: the monarchy. Why difficult? Because it immediately takes us out of the centrality of the field. Basically there are two options. The first, traditionally taken by the left—Izquierda Unida, for example—is to say: ‘We are republicans. We do not accept the monarchy, so we will not go to the reception for the King of Spain; we do not recognize this space of legitimacy for the head of state.’ That—even if it’s an ethically and morally virtuous position, which we can recognize and acknowledge—immediately puts one in the space of the radical left, in a very traditional framework, and straightaway alienates large sectors of the population who, no matter what they think about other issues, and despite their identifying the previous King with the corruption of the old regime, feel sympathetic towards this new one. The monarchy is one of the most highly valued institutions in Spain, so that immediately antagonizes social sectors that are fundamental for political change. So, two options: one, we don’t go to the reception and stay trapped within the traditional framework of the far left, in which there is very little possibility for political action. Or, two, we go, and then Podemos appears surrounded by the parties of ‘the Caste’, respecting the institutional framework—as traitors, or monarchists, or whatever.
So what did we do, in this uncomfortable, contradictory scenario? We went, with our usual aesthetic—casual dress and so forth, disregarding their protocol; it’s a small thing, but it’s symbolically representative of the kind of things Podemos does. And I gave the King a present of the dvds of Game of Thrones, proposing it as an interpretive tool for understanding what is going on in Spain. Our aim is to dance within this contradiction, within these positionings, with an ironic message that is at the same time a plebeian gesture—and which is so far working very well in the media, by the way—that allows us to shift the axis of the discussion: not monarchy versus republic, a discourse immediately interpreted in terms of the heritage of the Spanish Civil War, which unfortunately is a losing frame in the battle for social interpretation. Instead we try to say that it’s a problem of democracy: citizens should, and must, have the right to elect their head of state. On the other hand, we don’t want to look like just another institutional party, supporting the monarchy. Thus the plebeian and ironic gesture that allows Podemos to play with transversality, despite the risks it entails. Of course, this is a complex position to maintain, but it is the only one that can at least allow the political game to remain open—that can enable Podemos to play within those contradictions and not be marginalized in a position that is pure but at the same time powerless, in order to challenge and question the status quo.
Well, one could simply have better things to do than attend a reception for the King of Spain. But how exactly was the message that the people should elect their head of state conveyed by the gift of Game of Thrones?