The Five Star Movement: Exception or Vanguard in Europe?

Abstract

The enduring economic crisis, austerity measures and corruption scandals have created a favourable environment for the advent of new political actors all over Europe. During the last general elections (February 2013), Italy was shocked by the inexorable rise of the Five Star Movement. Beppe Grillo’s creature upset the political system, occupying portions of the public sphere that had been ignored (the web) or gradually abandoned by traditional political parties (the squares). Its unusual campaigning style, its internet-based organisational structure, its atypical political positioning (beyond left and right), and its oversimplification of complex problems all help to explain its electoral performance, and distinguish it from similar anti-establishment parties that have emerged in Europe over the past decade

EU Civil Society

“…The end of the 'benevolent consensus' towards the EU is now investing the social movement sector as well. Even more marked Euroscepticism is now characterising newer political formations, such as the Five Star Movement of Italy, which spans the divide between left and right, but within which observers have noted a similarly strong ethos of civil society participation in political decisionmaking, but which clearly sides with right-wing Eurosceptic formations at national and EU levels (Mosca, 2014). This movement-party, like similar formations, is often dubbed 'populist'.…”

‘Gentlemen, all aboard!’ ICT and party politics: Reflections from a Mass-eParticipation experience

“…Due to its novelty and pioneering efforts in promoting political engagement through mass-eParticipation, the M5S can be seen as a large-scale experiment, and it is consequently the subject of great interest for many international observers (Bartlett, 2014;Scherer, 2012). Still, current literature on the M5S focuses solely on the role it plays within Italy's political landscape (Bordignon & Ceccarini, 2013), on how the source of its strength lies in the positions it has taken on local issues (Mosca, 2014) and on the democratic processes intrinsic to the organisation itself (Miconi, 2014). Hence, more research should be conducted into how the organisation orchestrates participation and activities and how these efforts are perceived amongst its followers.…”

Podemos and the Five Stars Movement: Divergent trajectories in a similar crisis

“…The unexpected success of the Five Stars Movement (M5S) in the 2013 Italian legislative elections and the impressive result of Podemos in the 2014 European elections drew the attention of European public opinion to a different type of anti-establishment party, one that cannot be identified with the radical right party family. The flourishing literature on Podemos (Kioupkiolis, 2016;Martín, 2015;Orriols & Cordero, 2016;Ramiro & Gomez, 2017;Rodríguez-Teruel, Barrio & Barberà, 2016;Ruiz Jiménez, González-Fernández & Jiménez Sánchez, 2015) and on M5S (Biorcio, 2015;Biorcio & Natale, 2013;Bordignon & Ceccarini, 2013;Corbetta & Gualmini, 2013: Maggini, 2013Mosca, 2014;Salvati, 2016;Tronconi, 2015) is mainly not comparative (Vittori, 2017a), and addresses different aspects of the parties: the political conditions within which these two movements have arisen, their respective ideologies, the reason behind their electoral breakthroughs and their relative electorates. Less attention has been given thus far to the organization of both parties (for exceptions, see Rodríguez-Teruel et al, 2016;Vignati, 2015).…”