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ABSTRACT
The aim of this article is to analyse the evolution of the Movimento Cinque Stelle (Five-star Movement, M5s) in the city of Turin from its beginnings to the election of Chiara Appendino as mayor in June 2016 in order to assess the impact of the passing of the threshold of government on three distinct areas: party organisation, the party’s identity and ‘ideology’ and the Movement’s relationship with citizens, social movements and the local media. Although an organisation similar to that of traditional parties has not developed over time, the results show that with the passing of the threshold of government the M5s became more centralised, and personalisation processes emerged: in the absence of a formalised party structure, the candidates and then the elected representatives gained significant decision-making powers. Moreover, administrative constraints led the M5s to scale-down its programme, to pursue policies it had previously challenged and to normalise its relationships with political opponents. Born openly contesting traditional party structures and pledging a radical change to the system of power that had ruled the city for the previous twenty years, nowadays the M5s in Turin oscillates between two poles, halfway between its original identity and institutionalisation. On the one hand, there are the social movements that supported the M5s and from which the first activists were drawn; on the other, government responsibilities and the expectations of those who do not belong to the milieux from which the M5s originated but who voted for Appendino in 2016.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. The M5S rejects the label ‘party’ and defines itself as a ‘non-party’ or a ‘movement’. In this contribution, following the well-known definition of Sartori (Citation1976) I will define it as a party.
2. The main focus of the article is the city of Turin. Nevertheless, especially in the first part I will also refer to the Piemonte region, and this for two reasons. In the first place, Turin is the regional capital, where the regional offices are located; secondly, the election of two councillors to the Piemonte regional council in 2010 had a great impact on both local and national political dynamics.
3. Regarding the choice of interviewees, key informants at national, regional and local levels were selected, as well as rank-and-file activists. The selection process aimed to identify respondents who were well informed about the internal dynamics of the Movement, and who could offer a range of points of view on them. The criterion followed in the selection of the interviewees was, therefore, not the representativeness of the sample, but the relevance of the information that each interviewee could provide (Della Porta, Citation2010). Participant observation was aimed at understanding, from the point of view of the activists, the internal organisational dynamics and the forms of participation of a district group of the Turin M5s. For about four months, between April and June 2016, I participated in the everyday activities of a district group (meetings, stands, district councils) and in election campaign events.
4. The selection process aimed to identify key informants who were well informed about the M5s administration as well as about events occurring in the city of Turin, and who could offer different points of view on them. Information concerning the interviewees is provided in the Appendix at the end of this article.
5. There is a close association between the M5s in Turin and Piedmont, and the No Tav movement, both from the programmatic point of view and in terms of action on the ground. Mosca (Citation2015) notes that at the 2013 general elections the seven municipalities in which the M5s obtained its best results were located in Piedmont. The first one was Venaus, a small town in the Val di Susa. This result can be attributed to the proximity of the M5s to the No Tav movement. It should be noted that No Tav flags have been prominent at all the recent public events of the Turin M5s (for example, the celebrations for the victory of Chiara Appendino in June 2016 and the final rally in the campaign for a ‘No’ vote in the constitutional referendum of December 2016).
6. A large transfer of votes from the left-wing parties to the Movement was recorded in Val di Susa (the area most affected by the high-speed rail line). The small margin of victory of the centre-right coalition (by fewer than 10,000 votes) led scholars to suggest that support for the M5s had been decisive for the outcome of the elections.
7. On the other hand we know that this can vary from case to case, and that on some occasions the influence of the centre has been relevant. For example, the Code of Conduct which the mayor and city councillors in Rome signed, obliges them to pay €150,000 in the event of damage to the Movement’s ‘image’ and to consult Beppe Grillo and Gianroberto Casaleggio when making ‘high-level’ decisions. Selection of the mayoral candidate for the Genova municipal elections, in 2016, was arbitrarily annulled by Grillo after the decision had been taken by members, and he had a very conflictual relationship with the mayor of Parma, Federico Pizzarotti. Turin (as confirmed by the interviewees) seems a case in which control from the centre is less tight. For instance, in Turin the candidate mayor and the city councillors (unlike their counterparts in Rome) were not made to sign the Code if Conduct, and they were chosen in offline meetings.
8. See post the post, ‘Lettera ai Meet-up’, on Grillo’s website, 19 July 2015.
9. I must point out that at the local level, unlike the national one, there is no online enrolment procedure. The local M5s does not have a record of the number and identity of ‘official members’ (those registered online), so those considered ‘activists’ (with the right to take decisions) are those who participate in the Movement’s face-to-face activities.
10. In the period from 2010 to 2016 the M5S participated in five elections: the 2010 regional elections; the 2011 local elections; the 2013 general election; the 2014 regional and European elections. In 2014 the M5s received 93,806 votes in Turin. The candidate president was Davide Bono, and the M5s elected eight regional councillors.
11. In reality, Appendino was the only candidate.
12. At the district level, the electoral law is different and the M5s is in opposition in all eight districts of the city.
13. At the first round, Fassino won 41.8% and Appendino 30.9%. At the second round, Fassino improved his vote tally by only 8,000, while Appendino increased hers by more than 84,000. Analysis of electoral flows (Cepernich and Vignati, Citation2016) showed that most of these votes came from the centre right.
14. In 2015, a poll showed that Fassino enjoyed the approval of 60% of citizens. He was the fourth most highly rated mayor in Italy (Governance Poll 2015, Ipr Marketing).
15. In a video posted on Facebook during the election campaign, Appendino stated: ‘I live in a city divided in two: one is that of the queues in front of the museums, the other is that of the queues in front of the soup kitchens’.
16. Cepernich notes that the narrative of the ‘two cities’ was also present in public debate and in the media. This could have influenced the election results, affecting the perceptions of deprivation on the part of suburban residents.
17. Available on the website of Chiara Appendino (consulted May 2018).
18. Available on the website of the municipality (consulted May 2018).
19. Indeed, the ‘five stars’ referred to in the name of the party represent: public water, public transportation, connectivity, the environment, sustainable development.
20. C. Appendino, ‘Dai tagli ai costi della politica di Torino 5 milioni di euro per i giovani’, Il blog delle stelle, https://www.ilblogdellestelle.it/, 29 June 2016.
21. Actually, only one member of the city executive (Alberto Unia) is part of the M5s. Initially, they were all ‘technocrats’, chosen on the basis of open appointments procedures, and only later (after the events of Piazza San Carlo, see note 28) did Unia join the executive. We can also hypothesise that the lack of an M5s oligarchy – because, as we know, the M5s considers politics a temporary activity and opposes professional politicians – is a factor that made the process of change difficult.
22. A banking foundation, principal shareholder of the Intesa San Paolo bank. The municipality has the right to appoint two members of the board of directors. Fassino nominated Francesco Profumo and Barbara Graffino one month before the 2016 elections.
23. See G. Ferraris, ‘Bandi e nomine, le giravolte della sindaca Appendino’, Corriere della Sera, 23 April 2018.
24. This seems to confirm what Cepernich, Pellegrino and Cittadino (Citation2018) wrote concerning the ‘narrative’ of the two cities, that is, that the division of the city in two and the disadvantages of the suburbs are also a question of perceptions and expectations.
25. V. Raggi, ‘No alle Olimpiadi del mattone’, Il blog delle stelle, https://www.ilblogdellestelle.it/, 21 September 2016. Note that in the same post Raggi also cited the 2006 Winter Olympics as a negative example of a big event.
26. It is interesting to mention that Beppe Grillo called Chiara Appendino during a city assembly of activists to express his support for the Winter Olympics bid. It is also interesting to note that the regional M5s, and in particular Davide Bono, who is one of the most important exponents of the M5s in the region, strongly disagrees with the decision of the Appendino administration.
27. The approval rate for the city council was 54% in 2016 and 31% in 2017.
28. See A. Rossi, ‘Sondaggio: cala al 45% la fiducia dei torinesi in Appendino. È un cartellino giallo della città’, La Stampa, 29 June 2017. In June 2017, during the screening, in the Piazza San Carlo, of a football match, the crowd panicked. There were many people injured and one person died. The administration was blamed for the lack of adequate security measures and for the way in which it handled the accident afterwards. A poll published in June 2018 shows that 29% of respondents blamed Appendino for the accident.
29. For instance, the organisation, ‘Assemblea 21’ challenged Appendino on the lack of citizens’ involvement in the city budget issue, while some animal rights and environmentalist associations challenged the administration on an issue related to the opening of a zoo. There were also expressions of protest from the public water movement and finally from the movement against the Olympic bid.
30. Indeed, there is still a part of the Turin M5s linked with the social movements. For instance, during the G7 meeting that was hosted in Turin in September 2017, while mayor Appendino participated in the official openings and meetings of the convention, the deputy mayor, Guido Montanari, supported street demonstrations.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Cecilia Biancalana
Cecilia Biancalana is a PhD candidate at the University of Turin and at the University of Lausanne. Her research focuses on party change, populism and the relationship between Internet and politics.