Ruling Rome with five stars

ABSTRACT

The aim of this article is to explore how the Five-star Movement (M5s) has entered the local institutions of Rome and how it has structured its relationship with the administrative machine, considering: the level of knowledge its representatives have reached in the local administration; the kinds of issues they are aware of; what they have learned from the situations they have been involved in, or what they think they have learned from them; what they have not yet learned. The theoretical approach is informed by an institutional perspective (March and Olsen) and so deals with the process of ‘institutionalisation’ of the M5s and its elected spokespersons in the city councils of Rome. The analysis covers the period from 2013 until 2018, and the methods used are both quantitative and qualitative. The article briefly outlines the main approach adopted, explaining how the interaction between the institutional system and the new players works, followed by a short description of the evolution of the M5s from its emergence, considering the new challenges it has faced. Then the data regarding the specific case study are presented and discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Five-star movement
• institutionalisation
• Rome
• local councils

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Before the local elections of 2013 the M5s was already governing at local level, but winning in Turin and especially in Rome highlighted its governing role more than ever.

2. Interpretive methodology 'seeks to explain events in terms of actors'understandings of their own contexts, rather than in terms of a more mechanistic causality'(Shwartz-Shea and Yanow 2011, 52)

3. In the summer of 2012, the ‘Grilli Romani’ (the original name of the Meetup in Rome) debated, through Beppe Grillo’s blog, the rules surrounding the selection of candidates for the Rome city elections scheduled in 2013 (Quattromani 2015) but not for the general election of that year since the Monti government did not then show any signs of short-term instability.

4. Monti recently came to prominence for being part of a protest against the M5s during a City Council meeting held in June 2017. In 2008 she had won 44,185 votes, or 2.7% of the total, in so doing outperforming old politicians such as the recent candidate for the position of mayor of Fiumicino, Mario Baccini, who lost to the centre-left’s mayoral candidate http://gilioli.blogautore.espresso.repubblica.it/2011/06/17/serenetta-beppe-e-il-m5s/?refresh_ce.

5. There were four referendum questions put to voters with the referendum on water privatisation achieving the highest level of participation http://www.repubblica.it/politica/2011/06/13/news/referendum_la_giornata_dei_s_il_quorum _arriva_tra_le_polemiche-17645020/.

6. https://www.movimento5stelle.it/listeciviche/documenti/carta_di_firenze.pdf.

7. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/22/sports/olympics/rome-summer-games-2024-bid.html .

8. See, for instance, the cases of Parma and Quarto.

9. Not only rank-and-file activists, but MPs too expressed sharply worded opinions on the choices Raggi and her team were making, with the mini direttorio (consisting of Gianluca Perilli, Fabio Massimo Castaldo, Roberta Lombardi and Paola Taverna) having been wound up a few months earlier.

10. By mid-June 2018 an enormous scandal had engulfed the project, with arrests and investigations taking place at every administrative and political level and including the president of the public utility, Acea, providing water and electricity, and the M5s group leader on Rome city council, who as a consequence withdrew from the Movement.

11. Having had the same role in Livorno, another M5s administration, Gianni Lemmetti was sent to Rome in order to help solve this huge problem.

12. This consultative referendum, initially due to be held in the spring of 2018, was then moved to June 2018, before being finally held in the autumn of 2018. Following necessary changes to Rome’s city statute, it had been envisaged that electronic voting would be used for the referendum which in the end was held using the traditional paper ballots.

13. The city council is responsible for about 5,500 km of roads, far more than those for which other comparable cities in Italy and Europe are responsible. For example, Milan has 1,500 km of roads, Paris 1,880 km.

14. Turnout at the elections fell below 30%, due to their lack of salience. While elections held in November 2017 saw the M5s beating the centre-right candidate, in June 2018 the M5s came third behind the coalitions of the centre-left and centre-right, thus suffering its first clear defeat since the beginning of its administration.

15. See the Global Survey, ‘Trust in advertising’, reporting the results of the research carried out by Nielsen on a sample of 30,000 individuals in 60 countries, including Italy. According to the report, 74% of Italian consumers consider the advice of direct acquaintances credible, 64% the comments posted on social networks. In third place are the editorial contents of newspapers and periodicals.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Roberto De Rosa

Roberto De Rosa (Ph.D. in Communication Science and complex organizations, L.u.m.s.a. University - Rome) is Senior Research fellow/Assistant professor in Political Science and Adjunct Professor in Political Sociology. He has published several scientific works, including monographs and articles (https://ricerca.unicusano.it/author/roberto-de-rosa/), and he is in volved in a number of research projects in the area of Political Science.

Dario Quattromani

Dario Quattromani (PhD in Political Sciences – Government and Institutions), is Teaching Fellow in Political Science and Political Sociology, and Political Communications Officer at the Metropolitan City of Rome. He was previously Adjunct Professor in Political Science at the Tuscia University of Viterbo. He is currently involved in a number of research projects in the area of Political Science.