A programme written by citizens? Agenda-setters and veto players in drafting the 2018 election manifesto of the Five-star Movement

ABSTRACT

Bottom-up policy development is integral to the concept of direct democracy and has been advertised by parties advocating this ideal as a ‘revolution’. However, as election manifestos are complex documents that embrace a wide range of policy areas, such processes typically involve external advisors or party politicians specialized in a narrow policy field. Thus, the task of writing the programme is shared among several stakeholders. This raises the question of the extent to which ‘citizens’, i.e. party activists, can serve as agenda-setters in this process, and whether they can exclude proposals they oppose from the manifesto. The article contributes to the agenda-setting literature by exploring this puzzle through analysing the case of the 2018 election manifesto of the Five-star Movement which was ‘written by citizens’ and ratified in several membership ballots. A detailed analysis of the policy development process determines the distribution of agenda-setting capacities and veto powers in the construction of the M5s’ election manifesto, which is contrasted with elite narratives gained from qualitative interviews with party representatives, and the findings of an online membership survey (n = 187). The findings suggest that although party members’ contribution to the agenda is negligible, some of the membership ballots granted them a substantial share of veto power. At the same time, the data indicates that few of them used this opportunity, which relegated membership ballots to a mere approval of top-down proposals. The findings challenge formalistic interpretations of direct democracy and highlight the importance of focusing on actual party practices instead.

KEYWORDS:

• Direct democracy
• policy development
• manifestos
• Five-star Movement
• party membership
• political parties

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Central European University Foundation, Budapest (CEUBPF) under the Doctoral Research Support Grant (DRSG) funding scheme. The theses explained herein represent the author’s own ideas, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of CEUBPF.

Disclosure statement

The author declares that no financial interest or benefit has arisen from the direct application of this research.

Notes

1. Nevertheless, Grillo has remained the ‘guarantor’ of the party, a symbolic leader tasked with overseeing the enforcement of the party’s statutory rules. The party statutes (MoVimento 5 Stelle 2017a) also prescribe that the guarantor is revocable, which marks a departure from Grillo’s previous role as the unquestionable leader of the M5s (see Vittori 2021).

2. This latter rule is not included in the rules published on the blog, but it was stressed by Danilo Toninelli, MP and member responsible for Lex Iscritti in an interview conducted by the author (see the List of Interviewees in the Appendix).

3. Unfortunately, this option was removed during the 2019 update, making it more difficult for scholars to access the platform.

4. Management of the platform was officially transferred to the Associazione Rousseau, an association founded in 2016 whose president is Davide Casaleggio, the CEO of Casaleggio Associati.

5. A more condensed, official version of the manifesto was submitted by the party to the Ministry of the Interior. The latter document can be retrieved form this address: https://dait.interno.gov.it/documenti/trasparenza/politiche2018/Doc/4/4_Prog_Elettorale.pdf.

6. The questionnaire and the raw findings of the survey may be accessed in an online Appendix, available at the following address: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/19cbJ963RnooKH2FlnTT7yPNL10BfqX90?usp=sharing.

7. The number of negative votes for a specific proposal that was subjected to a dichotomous (Yes/No) vote.

8. The number of all votes cast in favour or against the same specific proposal.

9. Individual proposals are marked with a number when several proposals within the same sub-programme were subjected to a Yes/No vote.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Central European University Foundation, Budapest (CEUBPF); Doctoral Research Support Grant (DRSG).

Notes on contributors

Bálint Mikola

Bálint Mikola is a recent PhD graduate of the Central European University (CEU) in Hungary. He recently published ‘Online primaries and intra-party democracy: Candidate selection processes in Podemos and the Five Star Movement’ in the IDP Journal (Revista de Internet, Derecho y Política), as well as a co-authored piece, on the Five-star Movement, in Hungary’s leading political-science journal (Politikatudományi Szemle). Bálint successfully defended his PhD dissertation, entitled, ‘New Party Organizations and Intra-party Democracy: A Comparative Analysis of the Five Star Movement and Podemos’, in February 2019, the findings of which he also presented at the ‘Social Movements and Parties in a Fractured Media Landscape’ symposium organized at the Scuola Normale Superiore (SNS), Florence, Italy, under the auspices of the journal, Information, Communication & Society, (iCS) at the Centre on Social Movement Studies, 1-2 July 2019. After graduating from the Central European University, Bálint worked as a researcher and project manager at Transparency International Hungary, where he focused on the regulatory aspects of party and campaign financing. He left Transparency International Hungary in June 2021 since when and has worked as a consultant.