In the ever more abundant literature on the theme, there is a debate as to whether populism is an ideology. Various authors reject the use of this term to describe populism because, unlike liberalism or socialism, this political and social trend is not based on an articulated theory or doctrine. This difference certainly exists but in my view the ideological elements evident in populism are so strong that it may be considered an ideology, at least sui generis.             To argue this point let us take a working definition of an ideology and attempt to apply it to populism. An ideology can be understood as the use of certain IDEAS, in a REDUCTIVE manner, on the part of a GROUP, with its own INTERESTS, which finds expression in a PROJECT, often political in nature.             Applying this definition to populism we can easily identify all these elements. The two key ideas in question are “the people” and “sovereignty”… in fact populism can be understood as a particular way of understanding the relationship between the people and sovereignty. The reductive element involved in populism concerns the manner in which it takes a part of the people to be the people……