Introduction. Multiple Populisms. Italy as Democracy's Mirror (original) (raw)
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Academic attention to populism has sharply increased in recent years. Yet, a commonly accepted definition is still lacking, with scholars disagreeing on categorization, labels, and boundaries between its different manifestations. In this article, through an analysis of Euromanifestos and party statutes, we address the interactions between Italian political parties and populism by adopting the various definitions available in populism theory, that is, populism as (i) ideology, (ii) rhetoric, (iii) communication style, and (iv) organization. Our aim is to identify all major attributes linked to populism and empirically investigate them with lower level indicators, measuring and comparing them across Italian parties and over time. The empirical analysis, conducted through a formalized content analysis of the European electoral programmes and party statutes, considers populism not as a discrete concept but rather as a continuous one and therefore enables us to undercover the variety of ...
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In advanced democracies, populism emerges and results not only from the conditions of the socio-economic context, but particularly takes advantage of a failure of the traditional political elite. The elite’s loss of legitimacy is not caused by populist parties, but, to the contrary, it is rather the case that populist parties can prosper due to an already evolving process of delegitimization that traditional elites are subject to. Due to the disputed nature of the traditional political class, different forms of anti-politics may emerge, taking the form of an oppositional sentiment on the level of the masses, which can either manifest itself as apathy, detachment, or take the form of an active anti-politics. In this, the relationship between anti-politics and populism represents a series of contradictions, in relation to the degree of radicalism in the dispute against incumbent political representation. It would be misleading in this case to superimpose the concept of anti-politics into populism; it would be equally be misleading to superimpose populist democracy onto any type of dispute against the incumbent democratic political system. Populism tends to graft itself into ideologies that are already present in the political conflict, with parties and leaders that, even if considered as anti-establishment outsiders, are characterized as anti-party parties of the new radical right and new radical left, and not as traditional anti-system parties. What is more, populism intended as a political-ideological movement put into action by leaders and parties exists by virtue of the fact that it is representative democracy itself that makes possible populism’s political-electoral rise and manifestation.
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padova university , 2020
Political attention to populism has rocked in recent years. But we still haven’t a common definition for this phenomenon and scholars conflicting on categorization boundaries between its different manifestations. Nevertheless, these populist parties share a number of common characteristics. The first one is fighting against the prevailing political systems and division of society into two groups ‘the pure people’ vs. ‘the corrupt political elite’. Second, charismatic leaders call for radical and extremist ideas. as well as addressing issues that occupy public opinions like economic stagnation, Islamophobia, austerity, and a migration crisis. Applying to the European Union case, it faces a critical time after the 2014 European parliamentary elections, where eurosceptic and populist parties have achieved unprecedented success by winning 214 out of the 751 seats, with %28 according to estimated results issued by the European Parliament. In the light of these results, we can refer to a huge crisis in front of classical political parties. The voters want to send a message to these mainstream elites, whereas the majority still in the hand of the regular party, but maybe withdraws from their hands in the next elections. Which we see in the European realty from a fierce competition in France elections between Marie le pen and macron, the role of UKIP party in united kingdom and its success to promote Brexit campaign. Finally the big shock in Italy. In the light of these indicators will turn to populist experience in Italy, Following the general elections of 2018, for the first time ever one of the major countries of the European Union is now under the rule of Populist Party. Where the anti-establishment Five Star Movement won %32 and the Lega party won %17.4 of the total votes. Nevertheless , no party can achieve the majority requires to form the government alone and Italy had a hung parliament, which resulted in a a joint alliance that did not last long time .through this paper will discuss and understand main reasons that led to dominant of populist parties and the possible scenarios for the future of politics in Italy.
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The Italian political system has undergone significant changes over the past two or three decades. One of the most interesting attempts to interpret this change draws on the notion of populism. In Italy, as in many other countries, the electoral success of populist parties and movements has attracted considerable attention. This paper aims to assess whether the ascent of these political forces corresponds to the diffusion of 'populist' opinions and attitudes amongst citizens. In the first part of the paper, the crisis of the party-dominated Italian political system is analysed, and the conditions in which populist formations gained acceptance are described. The new political actors are introduced, with particular emphasis on their populist traits. The second part of the paper assesses whether certain elements of populism are shared by Italian citizens, including proximity to political parties, trust in representative institutions, the need for a strong leader and attitudes towards immigrants. In addition, based on the assumption that populism is a thin ideology, which can be integrated with strong and structured ideologies, the hypothesis that different forms of populism can be identified within the electorate, in line with their position on the Left-Right spectrum, is examined. Feelings of aversion towards political parties are relatively widespread within the electorate, whilst antipathy towards immigrants is most marked amongst right-wing sympathisers. The need for a strong leader appears to be shared by voters, and this perception also includes those who identify with the Left.
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Populism is a chameleonic phenomenon, able to merge with existing and developing models of political organization, and thus underlying the politicization of new political movements (Taggart 2000; Mudde 2007; Mudde and Kaltwasser 2012). The rise of populism is accompanied, on the one hand, by the depoliticization of large segments of political regulation and the establishment of public policies, especially in the field of finance, that exacerbate the ‘crisis’ of representative politics (Fawcett, Flinders and Hay 2017) and, on the other, by the cartelization of mainstream political parties (Katz and Mair 1995; 2018). In Italy, as in other European democracies, populism goes hand in hand with an increased feeling of resentment towards the political elite. This is an integral part of the silent counter-revolution that determines the polarization of winners and losers of new social processes on a global scale
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Populism is a hot topic in academia. The causes of this phenomenon have received much attention with many studies focusing on the role of the high levels of unresponsiveness of mainstream parties in triggering a populist response. In this respect, in many cases, populist parties have become a relevant electoral force in the concomitance with an electoral decline of mainstream political options, mostly in the last decades. This article considers a situation in which the whole party system’s unresponsiveness reaches its zenith, and the party system collapses. A collapse is the result of the incapacity of most of the parties in the system to fulfill their basic function, i.e., to represent voters’ interests. When this happens, none of the types of linkages—programmatic, clientelist, or personalist—that tie parties and voters are effective. Empirical observation shows that in those cases populism can perform as a sort of representation linkage to re-connect parti(es) and voters on the b...
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