Populism Put to the Test: The 2019 European Elections in Italy

The European (and local) elections of 2019 will be an important test for Italy, one year after the birth of an unprecedented government characterized by the strong populist stance of both its coalition partners, the Five Star Movement and the Lega, and a growing polarization in party positions and voters’ views on a number of political issues. This article summarizes the electoral results and interprets them on a short- and medium-term basis. In the short term the framework is that of the second-order elections, based on government popularity, and the positioning of parties on the main issues during the electoral campaign. In the medium term, we analyse the most salient lines of party competition over the last years (including the 2019 elections as a point of arrival) and the varying degrees of polarization along those lines, in search of explanations for the emergence and success of populist and extreme actors. In particular, we investigate whether and to what extent the Italian party system can be best understood along the lines of a new transnational cleavage separating pro-European and Eurosceptic parties, and to what extent such emerging cleavage is compatible with the traditional one, based on preferences over economic redistribution.