Five Star Movement PROJECT - Filippo Tronconi

M5S – The Five Star Movement in the transformation of the Italian party system

 

Local Coordinator: Filippo Tronconi

Abstract (ENGLISH): The Five Star Movement has represented the most significant innovation in the Italian party system in the first decades of the 21st century. Not only did it introduce new forms of populism, but it also placed on the agenda debates on democratic innovations and the disintermediation of communication in the digital environment. Research on the Five Star Movement has explored these aspects, collecting and systematizing data and analyses on the party’s organization, its ideology, its communication, its leadership, and its electorate.

Fieldwork: 50 semi-structured interviews with M5S leaders and activists conducted between 2012 and 2015.

Keywords: Democratic innovation, digital communication, Italy, party system change, political parties, populism.

Project period: 2015–2024

Publications

  1. Tronconi, Filippo, ed. 2015. Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement: Organisation, Communication and Ideology. Ashgate.
  2. Lanzone, Maria Elisabetta, and Filippo Tronconi. 2015. ‘Between Blog, Social Networks and Territory: Activists and Grassroots Organization’. In Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement. Organisation, Communication and Ideology, edited by Filippo Tronconi. Ashgate.
  3. Tronconi, Filippo. 2015 ‘Introduction’. In Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement. Organisation, Communication and Ideology, edited by Filippo Tronconi. Ashgate.
  4. Tronconi, Filippo. 2015 ‘Conclusion. The Organisational and Ideological Roots of the Electoral Success’. In Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement. Organisation, Communication and Ideology, edited by Filippo Tronconi. Ashgate.
  5. Tronconi, Filippo. 2015. ‘The Italian Party System and the Anti-Party Challenge’. In Anti-Party Parties in Germany and Italy. Protest Movements and Parliamentary Democracy, edited by Andrea De Petris and Thomas Poguntke. LUISS University Press. http://www.luissuniversitypress.it/site/it-IT/Scheda/default.html?SchedaID=14043.
  6. Conti, Nicolò, and Filippo Tronconi. 2016. ‘Le Mouvement Cinq Etoiles: Organisation, Idéologie et Performances Électorales d’un Nouveau Protagoniste de La Politique Italienne’. Pôle Sud 45: 21–41.
  7. Mosca, Lorenzo, and Filippo Tronconi. 2019. ‘Beyond Left and Right: The Eclectic Populism of the Five Star Movement’. West European Politics 42 (6): 1258–83. https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2019.1596691.
  8. Tronconi, Filippo. 2018. ‘The Italian Five Star Movement during the Crisis: Towards Normalisation?’ South European Society and Politics 23 (1): 163–80. https://doi.org/10.1080/13608746.2018.1428889.
  9. Tronconi, Filippo, and Luca Verzichelli. 2019. ‘Il Ceto Parlamentare al Tempo Del Populismo’. In Il Voto Del Cambiamento. Le Elezioni Politiche Del 2018, edited by Alessandro Chiaramonte and Lorenzo De Sio. Il Mulino.
  10. García Lupato, Fabio, and Filippo Tronconi. 2020. ‘El Movimiento 5 Estrellas, Podemos y la Unión Europea: una evolución en tres actos’. In La dimensión ideológica en la competición partidista, edited by Ana Belén Benito Sánchez and Leticia María Ruiz Rodríguez. Centro de Estudios Políticos y Constitucionales. 
  11. Tronconi, Filippo, and Francesco Bailo. 2025. ‘The Other Side of Platform Politics. Law-Making and Online Participatory Democracy in the Five Star Movement’. Swiss Political Science Review 31 (1): 14–33. https://doi.org/10.1111/spsr.12613.