With the publication of the first handbooks, the study of populism is developing as a sub-discipline of comparative politics. Yet the term “populism” has become so widely used in the media that its salience as an empirical category could be called into question. In this presentation, Pr. Camroux wish to suggest three ways of looking at populism: as strategy, performative style and thin ideology, and propose, following Jan Müller, a limited definition. In looking at three contemporary leaders in Southeast Asia – Rodrigo Duterte, Hun Sen and Aung San Suu Kyi – he argues that populist theory provides a useful analytical grid for examining contemporary political practice. David Camroux’s reflections on the subject spring from a stimulating research group at Sciences Po on the ‘New Demagogues’, whose work has resulted in a first edited volume Les populismes au pouvoir.
