Podemos as event or not: what it looks like from Manchester

Abstract

This paper explores Podemos by way of the notion of ‘event’ as theorised by Alain Badiou, and addresses two questions that bear on the nature of Podemos as an ‘anti-political’ phenomenon. The first, the relation between academic discourse and political events, makes the point that both Badiou and the Complutense group around Iglesias intervened in the real world, and successfully so, from within the university, from within an academic frame. The second question, which concerns how we relate to events that have not happened, makes the point that the fate of Podemos today is intimately bound up with the outcome of the election of Syriza in Greece. The paper describes the positive impact of Podemos on Left Unity in Manchester, and argues for a non-academic engagement with these two formations, Podemos and Syriza as possible events whose character is yet to be determined and that have implications for Europe and beyond.