Quando novos conceitos entraram em cena: história intelectual do “populismo” e sua influência na gênese do debate brasileiro sobre movimentos sociais

The text follows the trajectory of F. Weffort's production of so-called “populism” and shows its effects in the debate of “urban social movements” (JA Moises) and also of the “new characters on the scene” (MC Paoli and E. Sader), defending an intellectual history centered on ideas and tensions between intellectuality and political expectations. The observation of inflections and continuities in the populist thesis leads to two results. The myriad concepts that marked, in part, the genesis of the Brazilian discussion of social movements are born as criticism and adherence to the Weffortian heritage. Moreover, the article also shows that the new concepts are not created in an “academic field”, but are born of the inspirations and influences of that group of intellectuals and the bets they forge in their nuclei in civil society or in relations with other civil and partisan actors.