What About the Five Star Movement? Systemic Causes and Effects of the M5S Rise

Abstract

The panel intends to analyze, from different theoretical and methodological perspectives, the impact of the Five Star Movement (M5S) over the Italian party system. 'Neither Leftist nor Rightist', the M5S has refused any kind of electoral alliance, at least for now. The papers included in this panel focus on the strategies followed by the M5S in order to differentiate itself from both existing left-wing and right-wing parties and to create and strengthen a new political cleavage around the populist-antipopulist dimension. Assessing its electoral strategies, the first two papers underline the peculiarity of the Movement, respectively with reference to its anti-austerity stance and its Eurosceptic discourse. As a result of these peculiarity, which not allow to place the movement in the Left-Righ divide, the Movement contribute to give more salience to another cleavage which became relevant in analyzing the Italian party system: the populism-antipopulism divide. More in detail, the first selected article analyses how the M5S, in comparison with other anti-austerity populist experiences in Latin America and Southern Europe, positioned itself towards social movements and unions, traditionally associated with the political Left. The second article highlights how the M5S advances a peculiar Eurosceptic discourse, quite different from anti-EU critiques that, in Italy, are predominantly associated with the Radical Right. Finally, the panel includes a broad theoretical contribution seeking to generate a debate over the eventual change of the main axis of political competition in Italy and over the consequences of such a change in terms of coalition building. The latter contribution offers a discussion over the increasing salience of the populist - antipopulist cleavage, instead of the traditional left-right divide that ordered the Italian party system for decades.