Are All Populist Voters the Same? Institutional Distrust and the Five Star Movement in Italy

To cite the article:

Davide Angelucci & Davide Vittori (2022) Are All Populist Voters the Same? Institutional Distrust and the Five Star Movement in Italy, South European Society and Politics, DOI: 10.1080/13608746.2022.2028503

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Abstract

Are all populist voters the same? We focus on a valence populist party case (Five Star Movement) to answer this question. We inquire whether faithful populist voters, new populist voters, populist defectors and non-populist voters all have the same level of institutional trust. Our focus is on the Italian political system, regarded as a promised land for populism. This paradigmatic case sheds light on whether the entrance of a populist party into the system works as a corrective to democracy, as populist voters find their voice represented in parliament, potentially increasing their trust in the institutions. Our main finding is that faithful populist voters are the most distrustful category – meaning that having parliamentary representatives is not enough for populist voters to gain trust in institutions.

Davide Angelucci is a lecturer at the Department of Political Science of Luiss University, Rome. He has been a visiting student at Royal Holloway University of London and at the Instituto de Ciências Sociais da Universidade de Lisboa. He is currently a member of the Italian Centre for Electoral Studies (CISE) and part of the editorial board of the journal Italian Political Science (IPS). His research interests include elections and electoral behaviour, party politics, class politics, and public opinion. His work has been published in journals like European Union Politics, West European Politics, South European Society and Politics, Swiss Political Science Review and others.
Davide Vittori è post-doc fellow presso la LUISS-Guido Carli. Ha pubblicato di recente per LUISS University Press "Il Valore di Uno. Il Movimento 5 Stelle e l’esperimento della democrazia diretta". È stato visting PhD presso lo European University Institute e visiting student presso la University of Nijmegen e la Johns Hopkins University. I suoi interessi di ricerca spaziano dall'analisi delle organizzazioni partitiche al comportamento elettorale e i sistemi partitici europei. Ha pubblicato contributi per la Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica, Comparative European Politics, Swiss Political Science Review e altre riviste. È co-curatore di una special issue su Digital Activism e Digital Democracy per l'International Journal of Communication. Ha collaborato alla stesura di alcuni degli ultimi rapporti CISE.

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