Against possibilism, or why dispute republicanism with the right

Abstract

In this paper I study a scholarly debate currently taking place in Argentina among liberal and conservative republicans, on the one side, and popular and left-wing, plebeian, republicans, on the other. This debate is taking shape a decade after the idea of the republic gained a pervasive presence in editorials in the pages of the main national journals and in the political discourses of right-wing actors in Argentinian politics. My contribution to these discussions aims at strengthening egalitarian republicanism with the idea of an articulated popular agent, able to radicalise and de-homogenise the traditional dichotomy between oligarchy and the people.