Inclusionary Populism and De-Dualization: A Comparative Study of the Movimento Cinque Stelle (2018-2021) and Unidas Podemos (2020 - 2023) in office

In the 2010s new inclusionary populist parties emerged in Southern Europe, first deeply restructuring national party systems, and then accessing to government. Many excellent pieces of scholarship have been devoted to the emergence dynamics and the ideology of left/inclusionary populism. Conversely, less attention has so far been devoted to the concrete policy measures pursued (and often adopted) by inclusionary populism in government (for an exception see Bulfone e Tassinari 2021; Carella e Marenco 2022). Against this background, this paper comparatively investigates the social and labour market policies implemented by the Movimento Cinque Stelle (M5S) in Italy and Unidas Podemos (UP) in Spain, during Conte (2018-2021) and Sanchez (2020-present) governments, respectively. Through the analysis of policy documents and secondary sources, I demonstrate that the Movimento Cinque Stelle and Unidas Podemos share a commitment to ‘de-dualize’ the national labour market and welfare institutions, i.e. extending protection to outsiders. This shared orientation is manifest in key policies, such as the regulation of temporary work, the substantial raise/introduction of a statutory minimum wage, and the introduction of minimum guaranteed income schemes. I also claim that we can make sense of this shared orientation by looking at parties’ electorates, as parties would primarily defend the interests of their core support groups. Based on data from the European Social Survey (2012-2018), I indeed show that outsiders are a relevant and overrepresented constituency in both UP’s and M5S’ electorate. Despite commonalities, I argue that Unidas Podemos has gone far beyond the Movimento Cinque Stelle in de-dualizing the national labour market and the welfare state. I claim that this difference can be traced back to party ideology, as Unidas Podemos has a more radical and coherent ideology than the Five Star Movement, as largely discussed in the existing literature (Font, Graziano, e Tsakatika 2021). Ideological specificities, also explain why some policies implemented by the M5S are exclusionary towards foreign nationals. This argument is confronted with alternative – and complementary – explanations, such as the respective government composition and duration. These findings have implications for the trajectory of welfare states and politics in Southern Europe.