Digital Capitalism and the End of Politics: The Case of the Italian Five Star Movement

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 585-609 ◽  
Author(s):  
Loris Caruso
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
The Political ◽  
European Politics ◽  
Political Movements ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
National Elections ◽  
Digital Capitalism ◽  
The Family ◽  
Political Organizing ◽  
Five Star Movement

In the Italian national elections in 2013, the Movimento Cinque Stelle (Five Star Movement, M5S), founded just four years earlier, gained 25 percent of votes, more than any other party. Analyses and interpretations are divided between those who consider M5S a member of the family of European populism and those who see M5S’s propositions as akin to the values of the left and social movements. The debate on M5S fits into the context of important ongoing trends in European politics: the growth of populist political movements; the emergence of outsider parties able to challenge stable political systems; changing relationships between parties and social movements; changes in the forms of political organizing. This article investigates the political and cultural nature of this party by (1) analyzing its discourse on democracy, its organizational choices and its main issues; (2) comparing these elements with populism and the left; and (3) linking its fundamental characteristics to contemporary economic processes usually termed “digital capitalism.”

scholarly journals Political Parties and Participative Approaches to Democracy

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristiano Gianolla
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Participatory Democracy ◽  
Good Practice ◽  
Representative Democracy ◽  
Political Movements ◽  
Five Star Movement ◽  
Representative Model ◽  
The Relationship

Representative democracy is currenty facing strong social criticism for its incapacity to envolve people in a way that makes them part of the decision-making process. An existing gap between the representatives and the represented is hereby emphasized. In this space, the role of political parties is central in order to bridge society with institutions. How much are parties concerned about this issue? How and in which context do they interact more with their electorate and the wider society? Participatory democracy is emerging throughout the world in different forms and with different results, but the dominant pattern of democracy remains the liberal western democratic paradigm in which people can contribute barely through electing candidates. In order to achieve what Boaventura de Sousa Santos calls ‘democratisation of democracy’ the role of political parties is therefore fundamental in particular to achieve a more participative democracy within the representative model. This article approaches this theme through a bibliographic review comparing social movements and political parties with a focus on the innovation of the Five Star Movement in Italy. Finally, it provides a reading of the relationship between political parties andparticipation, including good practice and perspectives.KEYWORDS: Participation, political parties, social movements, political movements, representative democracy, participatory democracy.

The Politics of Succession in Charismatic Movements: Routinization versus Revival in Argentina, Venezuela, and Peru

2020 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 289-315
Author(s):  
Caitlin Andrews-Lee
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Regression Discontinuity ◽  
The Political ◽  
Regression Discontinuity Design ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
National Elections ◽  
Leadership Selection ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
The World ◽  
And Control

Scholars suggest that charismatic movements must institutionalize to survive beyond the death of the founder. Yet charismatic movements around the world that have maintained their personalistic nature have persisted or reemerged. This article investigates the conditions under which politicians can use their predecessors' charismatic legacies to revive these movements and consolidate power. I argue that three conditions - the mode of leadership selection, the presence of a crisis, and the ability to conform to the founder's personalistic nature - shape successors' capacity to pick up their forefather's mantle and restore the movement to political predominance. To demonstrate my theory, I trace the process through which some leaders succeeded while others failed to embody the founder's legacy across three charismatic movements: Argentine Peronism, Venezuelan Chavismo, and Peruvian Fujimorismo. Alexander Lee, Incumbency, Parties, and Legislatures: Theory and Evidence from India Incumbent legislators in some developing countries are often thought to face an electoral disadvantage relative to challengers. This article traces this effect to high levels of centralization within the political parties and governments of these countries. In political systems dominated by party leaders, legislators face substantial formal and informal constraints on their ability to influence policy, stake positions, and control patronage, which in turn reduce their ability to build up personal votes. This theory is tested on a dataset of Indian national elections since 1977, using a regression discontinuity design to measure the effects of incumbency. Candidates less affected by centralization - those from less-centralized political parties and from parties not affected by restrictions on free parliamentary voting - have a low or non-existent incumbency disadvantage.

Incumbency, Parties, and Legislatures: Theory and Evidence from India

2020 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 311-331
Author(s):  
Alexander Lee
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Regression Discontinuity ◽  
The Political ◽  
Regression Discontinuity Design ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
National Elections ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
And Control ◽  
Incumbency Disadvantage

Incumbent legislators in some developing countries are often thought to face an electoral disadvantage relative to challengers. This article traces this effect to high levels of centralization within the political parties and governments of these countries. In political systems dominated by party leaders, legislators face substantial formal and informal constraints on their ability to influence policy, stake positions, and control patronage, which in turn reduce their ability to build up personal votes. This theory is tested on a dataset of Indian national elections since 1977, using a regression discontinuity design to measure the effects of incumbency. Candidates less affected by centralization-those from less-centralized political parties and from parties not affected by restrictions on free parliamentary voting - have a low or non-existent incumbency disadvantage.

Conclusion: Social Movements, Patronage Democracy, and Populist Backlash in Indonesia

2019 ◽  
pp. 187-202
Author(s):  
Edward Aspinall
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Social Order ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Movements ◽  
Political Arena ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Outcomes ◽  
Ethical Universalism

This concluding chapter focuses on the challenges faced by these different movements in postauthoritarian Indonesia. Having acknowledged the advances social movements have made individually and collectively, the chapter points to their structural weaknesses and failure to gain traction in the political arena as evidence of their enduring fragility. This fragility, it argues, is a product of the patterns that continue to dominate Indonesian society, namely clientelism, the reliance of extralegal means to achieve political outcomes, and the ever-growing strength of rival political movements, which seek to mobilize the disenfranchised for different, and often antiliberal, ends. This chapter contends that incrementalism is not sufficient in such circumstances if Indonesia's progressive social movements wish to prevail. Instead, the chapter concludes that they must continue to strive for “root-and-branch transformation of the social order,” with the goal of transforming Indonesia into a society based on ethical universalism, not particularism.

Party Movements

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mildred A. Schwartz
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Party System ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
System P

Party movements are organizations that have attributes of both political parties and social movements. Like parties, they desire a voice in the decisions of legislative bodies. Like social movements, they challenge existing power and advocate change, often using non-institutionalized means for expressing their message. They appear in the space left open by the failure of existing political parties and social movements to adequately represent their interests and achieve their goals. They may become independent parties or work within existing parties. Party movements can be found in most political systems. Their impact is felt whenever they are able to introduce new issues onto the political agenda, force traditional political parties to take account of their grievances, or change the contours of the party system.

Doing Moscow’s Bidding in Europe: Populist Political Movements in a Historical Continuum

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 285-305
Author(s):  
David Alenga
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
The Political ◽  
European Politics ◽  
Political Movements ◽  
Best Interest ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Eu

Abstract From the fissures of Brexit and the recent results of pan-national European Union (EU) elections, insurgent political parties are becoming a force to be reckoned with. For all their disparate centers of gravity, nearly all of them converge on the question of Euroscepticism and the liberal international order. The primary consternation, it is routinely said, is not so much their dogged populism, but that most of them are unwittingly setting themselves up to do Moscow’s bidding in Europe. Drawing on Cold War historiography, this article sets out to critique how this thesis evolved along a consistent prism of ideological meta-narratives. Its key focus is highlighting how missing links in some of the seminal moments in the history of Soviet-Western relations continue to filter into explaining contemporary political developments in the EU. This article thus makes two basic conclusions. First, that there is something to be said of the insurgent political movements as committed players in the competition for the balance of power in the political berth of Europe. And in that regard, their rhetorical association with Moscow’s positions is a pragmatic step in the grand strategy of national and pan-European politics. Second, Moscow, contrary to being the adversarial vector of liberal Europe, has historically identified its best interest with cooperating, if not outrightly, aligning with the Western-led postwar international liberal order.

scholarly journals The crisis of democracy in Latin America and the exercise of citizenship through a rereading of participatory democracy

KPGT_dlutz_1 ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 67-88
Author(s):  
Adriana Fasolo Pilati ◽  
Raimundo Oliveira Filho
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Social Exclusion ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Popular Participation ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Government ◽  
Representative System

The article cares about the actual crisis of democracy, based on themes of representativeness, seeking possibilities for overcoming the crisis through a rereading of democracy. Some countries, in particular some of Latin America, present strong problems with regards to the democratic model of representativeness and governance. Through a deductive approach, it is concluded that the process of consolidation of politic democracy, although strengthened by some Constitutions denotes particular fragility because of high levels of inequality, as well as distance between the society and the government, because of representative system. Thereby, it is believed that from the social movements is possible to build a redemocratization of the political systems, as the best way of effective popular participation of the citizenship that is based in a participatory representativeness and in the education in human rights and that result in the creation of public policies aimed at eradication of poverty and social exclusion.

scholarly journals Growing Fusion of Populism and Euroscepticism in Italy: A Comparative Analysis of the League and The Five Star Movement

Tripodos ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 13-28
Author(s):  
Selcen Öner
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Qualitative Analysis ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
European Parliament ◽  
European Politics ◽  
National Elections ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Five Star Movement ◽  
And Migration ◽  
European Parliament Elections

There has been a growing fusion of populism and Euroscepticism in European politics, especially after recent economic and migration crises. Despite being a founding EU member and one of the most Europhile countries, Italy has seen the simultaneous rise of populism and Euroscepticism, especially after the last national elections in 2018. After introducing its conceptual and analytical framework, based on the growing fusion of populism and Euroscepticism, this article compares the League and the Five Star Movement (M5S) in terms of populism and Euroscepticism and their policies before the last European Parliament elections in 2019. The qualitative analysis is based on semi-structured, face-to-face, indepth interviews with elite and expert participants conducted by the author in Italy in 2018.

The Poverty of Democracy in Turkey: The Refah Party Episode

1999 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 35-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haldun Gülalp
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Electoral Competition ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Movements ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Litmus Test ◽  
Islam And Democracy

The rise of Islamist political movements through open electoral competition has constituted a challenge to the political systems of numerous Middle Eastern countries in recent years and has led to a rethinking of the question of compatibility between Islam and democracy. Esposito and Voll (1996, pp. 193-94) have pointed out that while many unquestioningly believe that Islam and democracy are fundamentally opposed, “many Muslims have made advocacy of democracy the litmus test for the credibility and legitimacy of regimes and for political parties and opposition.”

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