Beyond the Left-Right Divide: The Five Star Movement and the Populism-Antipopulism Cleavage in Italy

The emergence of the Five Star Movement (M5S) represents one of the most relevant changes of Italian politics in the last decade. One of the interesting features of the M5S is related to the fact that it is difficult to place in the classic Left-Right axis. For instance, it tends to favor ecological issues but also seems to be odds with immigration. Not by chance, those who adhere to an ideational definition of populism have classified the M5S as a case of "pure" populism, since no other thick ideology can be associated to the movement. To what extent is this particular feature of the M5S important for the structure of the Italian party system? Building on the literature on political cleavages, I argue that the emergence of the M5S - as a response of the implementation of the structural economic measures by Monti's technocratic government and of the broad anti-political sentiment in the country - deepened the partisan polarization alongside what I called the populism vs. anti-populism cleavage in the Italian party system. At the same time, I argue that the populism vs. anti-populism cleavage is gaining relevance at the expense to the traditional left vs. right divide, and in consequence, one could think about the transformation of the politics of coalition formation in Italy.