The nation of the people: An analysis of Podemos and Five Star Movement's discourse on the nation

Abstract

This article empirically explores how populist actors talk about the nation. This is a research area mostly tackled in studies on right‐wing populism, with other forms of populist politics usually left out of the analysis. To fill this academic gap, we focus on the Spanish party Podemos and the Italian Five Star Movement (M5S). The former is a paradigmatic example of radical left populism, whereas the latter is commonly considered as a catch‐all populist party with no clear ideological connotation. Through a discourse analysis on leaders' speeches and official public declarations, we focus on the role that national identity plays in the strategies of Podemos and M5S and on the type of nation they discursively construct. Whilst Podemos' populist strategy purposely aims at contending to the right ideologically loaded concepts and signifiers to construct an idea of nation fitting the party's leftist values, M5S's strategy mostly aims at appropriating valence issues, such as the “Made in Italy” brand and the concept of “national interest”. Thus, our analysis contributes to clarify the differences between the leftist political culture of Podemos and the “post‐ideological” one of M5S, as also reflected by survey data confirming strong differences in “nationalist” attitudes between their respective electorates.

How should we analyse the patriotism of the populist Left: A response to Josep Lobera and Juan Roch

“…Contrarily, in my studies, I found that Podemos has made extensive use of nationalist rhetoric, or at least that it did so in the years I analysed, from the founding in 2014 until 2019 (whether it still does so or not is all to be seen) (Custodi, 2017(Custodi, , 2021Custodi & Caiani, 2021;Custodi & Padoan, 2022). In fact, in the discourses I analysed, Podemos' leaders recurrently declare their pride in, and love for, Spain; they praise the patria and their being Spaniards; they openly label their party's policies as 'patriotic' and fiercely accuse political opponents of 'anti-patriotism' and of being 'enemies of Spain'.…”

“…1 1 This is a claim that I have no disagreement with, and thus, I will not address it in this reply. Indeed, it is an aspect of Podemos' electorate that I also discuss in an article written with Enrico Padoan (Custodi & Padoan, 2022 forthcoming).…”

“We're socialists not nationalists”: British labour and the national question(s)

“…While New Labour largely abandoned the discourse of socialism and downplayed language of class, and Gordon Brown was (and remains) active in this space, subsequent leaders have struggled to effectively advance a narrative of nationhood which resonates with the public. This can be read as an ideological impediment, and is not unique to the Labour Party, as seen by other contributions to this special issue (Custodi & Padoan, 2022;Dalle Mulle & Kernalegenn, 2022;Dalle Mulle & Serrano, 2022;Kernalegenn, 2022).…”

The Left(s) and Nationalism(s) in contemporary Western Europe

“…In the first article, Custodi and Padoan (2022) inquire into the role that national identity plays in the strategies of Podemos and the Italian Five Star Movement (M5S) and on the type of nation that they discursively construct. Their analysis reveals an apparent paradox.…”