“In The Midst Of People”:

How to pass from populism to popularism

Abstract

The article seeks to consider the term people and authority in the Christian perspective, with particular reference to the theoretical perspective of Italian sociologist-political expert Luigi Sturzo. Starting from the observation that the the needs of the leader of his people's instances of "being in the midst of people" can take on different meanings and sometimes contradictory, the author analyzes the possible meaning of the notion of "people" in the classical "populist" tradition and in that of "popularism" as a political theory that was born as an attempt by Sturzo to historicize the principles of the Church's Social Doctrine. In order to make the difference between "populism" and "popularism" clear, the author introduces the concept of "political authority" developed by Sturzo, which, to a problematic notion of "rationality", opposes a "concrete" 'rationality of I': the principle of "transcendent unifying", able to transcend its immediate interest in making the other's reasons.