Populism Put to the Polarisation Test: The 2019–20 Election Cycle in Italy

ABSTRACT

One year after the birth of an unprecedented government characterised by the strong populist stance of both coalition partners (M5S and the Lega) and amid a growing polarisation in party positions on a number of political issues, the European and regional elections of 2019–20 marked an important test for Italy. After presenting the results of the 2019–20 election cycle, the article investigates the most salient lines of party competition and the varying degrees of polarisation. Our analysis shows two kinds of polarisation: the first being the intra-coalitional polarisation which characterised the first Conte government; while the second, affecting the party system as a whole, is driven by the electoral rise of far-right parties.

KEYWORDS:

• 2019 European elections
• second-order elections
• regional elections
• Conte government
• Matteo Salvini
• Lega
• M5S
• government termination

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplementary data for this article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1080/13608746.2020.1821465.

Notes

1. A ‘centre-left coalition’ was built around the progressive PD (Partito Democratico – Democratic Party), both on its left (e.g. Free and Equals) and right (e.g. +Europe, Europe Green) and other minor local or personal lists. The PD resulted from the merger of the post-communist Democratic Left, and the parties of the leftist heirs of the Christian Democrats. The ‘centre-right coalition’ refers to the alliance formed by the Lega, FI (Forza Italia – Go Italy!) and FdI (Fratelli d’Italia – Brothers of Italy), in addition to other local or personal lists presented in the regional elections. Between 2008 and 2014 FI merged with Alleanza Nazionale to form the PDL (Popolo della Libertà – People of Freedom).

2. There is broad agreement in the literature on the inclusion of these two parties in the category of ‘populist’ parties. While the definition of the (new) Lega as a right-wing, radical right, authoritarian, nationalist, exclusionary populist party is not called into question (Mudde & Rovira Kaltwasser 2017; Albertazzi & McDonnell 2015; Passarelli & Tuorto 2018; Norris & Inglehart 2018), the connotation of the M5S as a specific type of populist actor is more problematic. Over time, M5S has been defined as a ‘centre populist’ party (Vassallo & Valbruzzi 2018), a ‘valence populist’ party (Zulianello 2020), a case of ‘post-ideological’ (Manucci & Amsler 2018; Colloca & Corbetta 2015), ‘polyvalent’ (Pirro 2018) ‘eclectic’ (Mosca & Tronconi 2019) and ‘techno’ (Bickerton & Invernizzi Accetti 2018) populism or, simply, as the expression of ‘civic populism’(Lanzone & Woods 2015). Beyond the many different adjectives, though, there is a substantial agreement on the populist nature of the party and on its non-extreme position in the political space.

3. A review of different approaches to the concept and operationalisations of party polarisation, as well as its determinants, is available in Curini and Hino (2012).

4. For European elections data, see Bakker et al. (2012), Bakker et al. (2020) and Polk et al. (2017). All data are available from https://www.chesdata.eu/. For Italian general elections of 2008 data are available from http://www.luigicurini.com/scientific-publications.html (see Curini & Iacus 2008). For 2013 and 2018 elections we use data from Di Virgilio et al. (2015) and Giannetti, Pedrazzani and Pinto (2018). We have harmonised the data in order to have all scales ranging from zero to ten.

5. Details on the operationalisations of each dimension are available in the online Appendix, Annexe 1.

6. The 15 ordinary statute regions voted on the same day from the first elections in 1970 until 2000. The de-alignment of the electoral calendar took place as a consequence of several early elections started in the early 2000s.

7. Although this might change in the near future, as the party leadership announced the birth of regional coordination bodies during the summer of 2019.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Filippo Tronconi

Filippo Tronconi is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Bologna. His research interests cover the territorial aspects of political competition, party politics and political elites. He has recently edited Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement: Organisation, Communication and Ideology (Ashgate 2015) and Politica in Italia. I fatti dell’anno e le interpretazioni (Il Mulino 2018, with C. Forestiere).

Marco Valbruzzi

Marco Valbruzzi is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Naples – Federico II. His current research interests focus on intra-party politics and the transformation of West European party systems. He has recently co-edited (with R. Vignati) Il vicolo cieco. Le elezioni del 4 marzo 2018 (Il Mulino 2018). His latest book is A Changing Republic. Politics and Democracy in Italy (Epoké 2015, with. G Pasquino).