The Five Star Movement

Abstract

The success of the Italian party Five Star Movement (M5S) has been broadly attributed to its ability to occupy the space of radical protest against “old politics”. Due to the party’s criticism, its charismatic leadership, and its aggressive electoral campaigns, the M5S has been labeled as a populist. The unexpected result of 2013 election raises crucial theoretical questions: To what extent does the M5S electorate reflect the characteristics of a protest vote? To what extent was it also a vote driven by values, by individual evaluations on a specific political issue? The first part of the article aims to investigate the extent of negative political feelings among M5S’ voters. To disentangle the meaning and impact of protest, we distinguish two dimensions: the “system discontent” and the “élite discontent,” referring to both general and focalized images, sentiments toward and the representation of political institutions, voter power, and government performances. In the second part, we bring to the analysis a further explanation based on the theory of issue voting. The goal is to measure whether voters have chosen M5S purely because of their political resentment or also given that they shared a similar position on a number of crucial policies emphasized in the electoral campaign.

Stealth democracy and the support for new and challenger parties

“…Moreover, in organizational terms, numerous parties have adopted more inclusive internal procedures (Cain et al ., 2004). However, despite these efforts, new, challenger, and populist parties make strategic use of citizens’ discontent toward their mainstream competitors (Bergh, 2004; Pauwels, 2014; Passarelli and Tuorto, 2016). Many of these parties present themselves to the public as anti-political-establishment parties, criticizing the privileges of mainstream parties and ‘politics as usual’.…”

Partisanship in times of crisis: evidence from Italy

“…During this period, a powerful new anti-establishment force emerged: the M5S, founded in 2009 by Genovese comedian Beppe Grillo. M5S gained ground among Italian voters using a mix of anti-establishment, anti-EU, and anti-immigration rhetoric (Passarelli and Tuorto, 2018). Grillo's party gained a place on the general election ballot in 2013 by catalyzing the disillusionment and emergent Euroskepticism of Italian voters (Bordignon and Ceccarini, 2015;Franchino and Negri, 2018).…”

Are they different? A comparative study of European populist party members

“…1 This work shows that in many respects, populist party members exercise an influence on the policy and direction of their parties similar to that of other parties. For example, research on the Italian Northern League suggests that it has moved beyond that of a protest party with a limited role for the membership, and instead occupies the position of a more established, programmatic party that relies on an active membership base for success (Passarelli and Tuorto, 2018; Zulianello, 2018, 2019). Comparative work on the radical right in Europe, covering such parties as the Vlaams Belang in Belgium and the National Rally in France, has come to similar conclusions (Art, 2011; Heinisch and Mazzoleni, 2016).…”