Saturday, March 15, 2014
Empire (Omni Shoreham)
The 5 Star Movement has recently taken Italian politics by storm, by obtaining around a quarter of the votes and coming in third behind Berlusconi's Centre-Right PDL coalition and Bersani's Centre-Left PD. This new political force's main frame- their anti-establishment rhetoric- has been vastly effective, and is widely perceived to be also a very unconventional and very divisive rhetorical tool. However other grievances put forth by the 5 Star Movement are often inherited from Italy's radical left as well as, in some cases, from the populist right. Sometimes these ideas are in contraddiction (such as sentiment towards immigrants) however in other matters the movement has been able to bridge commonly held greivances (such as demands for cuts in costs in public administration, and anti-EU sentiment). This process has been especially facilitated by the radical left's inability (with the exception of Vendola's SEL) to conquer seats in 2008 and 2013, as well as by the Lega Nord's corruption scandals and consequent loss of voters' support in the buildup to the 2013 election. Thus, I argue that, although the 5 Star Movement's tactical and rhetorical novelty has been an outstanding and headline-grabbing phenomenon, the movement's supporters and policies are an aggregation of popular greivances, demands and ideologies that have been sidelined in recent Italian political history and the movement's success can be attributed to its innovative rhetoric as much as its ability to aggregate a multitude of (somewhat contraddictory) voices.
