The Causality of Populism in Southern and Northern Europe: The Five Star Movement and the Finns’ Party

It is often argued that the rise of populist parties in Southern and Northern Europe is motivated by similar structural factors, notably the economic crisis and immigration. This paper assesses this argument by comparing the causes for the rise in support of the Five Star Movement in Italy and the Finns’ Party in Finland between 2013 and 2015. It argues that the causality of European populism is much more nuanced than many analyses suggest, and produces fundamentally different political movements. Both the Five Star Movement and the Finns’ Party exploited the discontent caused by the economic crisis in order to strengthen their political support. However, while the Finns’ Party related the crisis to the alleged drawbacks of immigration and European economic policy, the Five Star Movement blamed primarily the inadequacy and corruption of the national political establishment. Despite the fact that the influx of migrants and refugees in Italy was much larger than in Finland in the period under investigation, opposition to immigration was not a major factor in the rise in popularity of the Five Star Movement. Drawing also on other recent studies on populism in Northern (Denmark, Sweden) and Southern (Spain, Greece) Europe, the paper contends that the Finns’ Party and the Five Star Movement reflect two broader and distinct trends of European populism. Its Northern variant stems primarily from the rejection of multiculturalism and immigration and fuels xenophobic, far-right parties. Its Southern variant originates from the rejection of the old political establishment and has produced mostly left-leaning political forces.