Populismo; soberanía popular; democracia constitucional; cláusulas de intangibilidad; Estado de derecho. Abstract The different definitions of populism do nothing if not reinforce the need to redefine democracy. Populism has returned to stay, so it is necessary to analyze "populist reason"; and from the post-Marxist perspective this means the work of Mouffe and Laclau. A review of different ways to understand populist movements is also imperative to confront the fiction of one 'People' versus

more »

... e real and plural population. However, constitutionalism will be our answer to resolve the democratic paradox: on the one hand, popular power is absolute; on the other hand, government by and for the citizenry and, with it, legal limit to the exercise of power. Nowadays, it is not a good idea to seek a new definition of populism (soft ideology, discourse, political strategy, pathology), but we need to condemn its symbiosis with democracy as vox populi vox dei. Populism is not the redemption of democracy, but its worst enemy. So, we have two alternatives: either populism is redirected through its constitutional anchoring in individual human dignity and intangible rights, or the unlimited power of the people and its totalitarian embodiment will mean that the democracy's days are numbered.