Mobilising Against Europe at the Intersection of the Protest and Electoral Arenas: The Case of Italy

The handling of the economic and migrant crises has become part of a broad-ranging debate on Europe. Hard-hit by the Great Recession, and traditionally the country of first arrival for migrants, Italy presents us with a textbook case of rising Euroscepticism. Not only did the country shift from keen to lukewarm supporter of the EU at the mass level, but it also saw Euroscepticism elevated to a majoritarian stance within representative institutions. In this article, we interrogate the oppositional frames and strategies of those Italian collective actors straddling the conceptual space between movement and party. We are essentially interested in Eurosceptic movement-like actors running for public office, as well as parties with a strong foothold at the grassroots level. The array of collective actors therefore ranges from the far-left to the far-right, from the parliamentary to the extra-parliamentary. We focus on the way discourses of crisis have permeated their Euroscepticism—i.e. how the EU is blamed for the unfolding of the multiple crises—and elaborate on their demands and mobilisation strategies. Our contribution ultimately highlights overlapping new issues and frames across the Eurosceptic left-right spectrum in times of crisis.