Podemos and the Five-star Movement: populist, nationalist or what?

ABSTRACT

The resounding electoral successes of the Italian Movimento Cinque Stelle (Five-star Movement, M5S) and the Spanish Podemos (We can) in recent years, have attracted the attention of many political scientists. The two parties can be considered a new kind of anti-establishment party with values incompatible with those of the radical-right parties. From a normative standpoint, two main allegations have been made against the two parties: both have been considered ‘populist’ and, in some ways, ‘nationalist’. Still, the academic literature so far lacks a detailed analysis of the nature of their alleged populism and nationalism. In this article, I argue that both parties share a populist stance, while the label ‘sovereigntists’ rather than ‘nationalists’ is more appropriate in both cases.

KEYWORDS:

• Populism
• nationalism
• Five-star Movement
• Podemos
• party politics
• comparative studies

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Davide Vittori

Davide Vittor is a PhD Student at LUISS University. His main research interests focuses on party politics, movement parties, party organisation and populism. His next publication on the Italian Political Science Review tackles the issue of the alleged cartelization within social democratic parties.