Movimento 5 Stelle

Populism and populist parties have been gaining relevant and intense attention in the last decade. However, definition of populism is still contested, in particular when related to rightwing parties. In fact, the association of populism and right-wing parties has naturalised, and conceptualization of populism and nationalism has overlapped. The aim of the present research is to analyse the articulation of populism and nationalism with the purpose of showing the distinction between these two concepts and shed light on the real nature of right-wing parties and populist ones based on the idea of populism as a discursive logic. In order to test this hypothesis, the research has conducted a Discourse Analysis on the Twitter accounts of two representative Italian populist and right-nationalist parties: the 5 Stars Movements and Lega, and their respective leaders Luigi Di Maio and Matteo Salvini. By comparing two different populist parties, the research aims to reveal the different articulation of the two nodal points ‘the people’ and ‘the elite’ to disclose the distinct meaning-construction the parties operate according to the logic adopted. Moreover, the research is aiming to test the articulation from a chronological perspective by analysing the tweets of the 2018 Italian national elections campaign, the Lega-5 Stars Movement’s government in 2018 and 2019 and the European elections campaign. By conducting this research, the study is meant to contribute to the field of research on nationalism and populism on social media, which is considered a relevant field of study.

The electoral growth of several ‘anti-political establishment parties’
in Europe since the end of the Cold War, was accompanied by the
growth of the use of the catch-all category of populism to
describe them. Despite the countless analyses related to
populism, less attention – with some relevant exceptions – has
been given to the impact of populism on party organizations. Still,
populist parties do organize. While it is common to compare the
organization of political parties belonging to the same party
family, the attention on the impact of populism in shaping parties
with different ideological backgrounds is scarce. This paper
focuses on this literature gap, analyzing four parties, which the
literature labels as ‘populist’. The conclusion reached in this paper
is that populism can be an ideological feature incorporated by
different parties; however, its impact on the organization differs
substantially from one party to another.

In questo capitolo discutiamo come la crescita elettorale e l’affermazione istituzionale del Movimento 5 Stelle, così come i cambiamenti nel sistema mediale italiano intervenuti fra il 2012 e il 2016, abbiano influenzato le strategie comunicative degli eletti del Movimento, le diete informative degli elettori cinquestelle e gli strumenti digitali sviluppati dal partito di Grillo per favorire la partecipazione degli iscritti. Concluderemo quindi delineando gli elementi di persistenza e quelli di cambiamento nei repertori comunicativi di élite, elettori e membri del partito di Grillo.

Digital technologies have been considered as generating new opportuni- ties to enhance democratic politics. However, political parties have generally been latecomers in appropriating digital media in their every day life. The case of the Ital- ian Movimento 5 Stelle (M5S) represents an interesting example of innovative use of digital technologies in politics. Adopting a mixed-method research design, this article contrasts the democratic vision of the M5S with its online participatory plat- form. First, the discursive production of its leaders on democracy is analysed and complemented with an examination of a law proposal focusing on direct democracy. The core elements of the M5S’ democratic conception are identified in a criticism of representative democracy and the elaboration of a cyberutopian narrative. Sec- ond, the concrete realization of democratic ideals through online instruments of par- ticipation is taken into consideration. Sixty-five online ballots and 326 discussions of draft laws that took place on the Rousseau platform between 2012 and 2017 are critically inspected and discussed, singling out explanations of a continuing decline in participation over time.

The present critical inquiry of the theory of democracy starts from the perspective that much of what is widely considered as known, unavoidable or factual is not written in stone and that democracy (theory and practice) must strengthen its inclusive capacity starting from the grassroots in order to democratise itself. Realist practices and perspectives of liberal democratic regimes largely inform the mainstream concept of democracy. This study challenges them questioning categories such as people, representation, elite and populism. It analyses the relationship of liberalism and democracy and the ‘crisis of political liberalism’ emerging as a root-condition of forms of oppression and exclusion that mainstream democratic theory condemns without being able to tackle. This research questions the understanding of the liberal democratic canon for being a system of ‘political-colonialism’, which consists of a structural fractioning of society between few representatives and many represented where the latter have very limited political power with respect to the former.
This study examines the historical, philosophical, social and political grain of political-colonialism and investigates the alternative proposed by M. K. Gandhi. Gandhi’s civilisational proposal tackles political-colonialism and provides a participatory, decentralised and duty-based paradigm founded on the holistic vision of society. Gandhi’s alternative to hegemonic power and the structural separation between the representatives and the represented fosters the relational condition of politics combining wealth, ethics, passion and spirituality.
Gandhi’s assassination drastically abridged the conditions necessary for the practical implementation of his democratic Ideas. Despite this however, they remain strongly stimulating. While the consolidation of an alternative general theory of democratisation, that is able to contend with political-colonialism, seems impossible and undesirable, a number of socio-political activists, movements and organisations are providing portions of innovation that are making it relevant to investigate democratisation. The epistemologies of the South – as elaborated on by Boaventura de Sousa Santos – are a set of theoretical and methodological inquiries that search, valorise and translate the fragmented ‘emergences’ that are struggling against political-colonialism. By mobilising the epistemologies of the South this study critically engages with the intellectual and political struggles to democratise democracy and assesses and compares their achievements and failures.
The empirical work of this study focuses on ‘party-movements’ – political forces emerging from civil society and participating in representative politics. Their discourses symbolise critical stances against political-colonialism. Additionally, they present practices for the engagement of society in participatory processes dialoguing with the representative framework. The collected ethnographic evidence (gathered in a total of eleven months) was accomplished by analysing two party-movements, the Indian Aam Aadmi Party (AAP – Party of the Common Person) and the Italian Movimento 5 Stelle (M5S – 5 Star Movement). Qualitative data were collected through a reflexive methodology from the grassroots of party-movements on up to the national level (and EU in the case of the M5S). The analysis focuses on six categories: people, leadership-structure, ethical wave, participation, horizontality-inclusion and political line.
The AAP has inherited the Gandhian approach of the group India Against Corruption, a national campaign led by the social activist Anna Hazare. Belonging to this campaign was Arvind Kejriwal, who supported it until 2012 when he left to found the AAP with other social activists. The M5S emerged through the combination of the careers of the comedian-activist Beppe Grillo and the internet specialist Gianroberto Casaleggio (1954-2016).
The ‘Gandhian democratisation’ elaborated on here is only one, partial possibility out of the many (even mutually contradictory) possibilities that emerge form Gandhi’s rich and multifaceted inheritance. It is an analytical prospective categorisation that is applied to the comparison. While Gandhi propounded a comprehensive, metaphysically founded, socio-political structural alternative to political-colonialism, the AAP and the M5S attempt to engage with the existing system in order to democratise it. Besides the fact that the M5S makes no direct structural reference to Gandhi’s theory, it shares much of its democratisation discourse with the AAP. The richness of the thesis arises from the South-North translation proportionated by the epistemologies of the South between Gandhi’s civilisational alternative and the fragments of innovation emerging from the experimental political discourse of party-movements.

Questo breve saggio si propone di investigare il sistema di cause economiche, meccanismi culturali e strumenti tecnologici che sottendono all’emergere dell’era della post-verità, tracciando una mappa per orientarsi fra i moderni populismi e la complessa rete di relazioni che li lega al sistema dei media. In questo periodo di cambiamenti di portata epocale sembra infatti aver preso vita un inedito rapporto fra media e politica, causato dalla crisi di legittimità del giornalismo e dei partiti tradizionali, e in parallelo dall’imporsi di una sfera di informazione e dibattito centrata sui social media, che ha portato alla divisione dell’opinione pubblica in fronti ideologici chiusi e bellicosi e alla diffusione di un’informazione sensazionalista, faziosa e spesso palesemente falsa.

This article discusses the use of the internet in politics focusing in particular on the case of the Movimento 5 Stelle (M5S). A description of a new organizational model called «cybercratic centralism» vis-a-vis other ways of online organization is provided. Problems concerning online polling on Grillo’s blog are then examined, stressing their limits in terms of transparency and participation. Two specific cases are presented as being particularly telling of M5S online democratic practices: the selection of candidates to the Italian parliament and the membership to a political group in the European parliament. The most recent organizational developments of Grillo’s party are finally examined, underlying the enduring problems of such model.
Keywords: Movimento 5 Stelle – internet – electronic democracy – cybercratic centralism.

In recent years ‘movement parties’ such as Syriza in Greece, the Movimento 5 Stelle in Italy, Podemos in Spain and—to a lesser extent—Bloco de Esquerda in Portugal shook national party systems, breaking the consolidated dynamics of political competition. Despite growing interest in movement parties, there has been scant attention to the role of citizens adopting unconventional forms of action and using digital media in accounting for their electoral performance. To fill this gap, four original internet-based post-electoral surveys are employed showing that protesters and digital media users are more likely to vote for these parties, despite important country differences.

in this chapter, we analyse three dimensions of the Web’s role for the M5S against the backdrop of international theoretical debates and empirical research on digital politics. First, we discuss the narratives that Beppe Grillo and his chief consultant, Gianroberto Casaleggio, have employed to talk about the democratic role of the Internet against some real-world examples of whether and how the M5s upholds democratic principles in its operations. Secondly, we investigate how the Web was employed to select candidates for the  2013 general elections. Thirdly, we assess how M5s voters use the internet to inform themselves about and participate in politics. Our purpose, therefore, is to conduct empirical scrutiny on how the M5S has used the internet as a rhetorical device, as an organisational platform, and as a tool for campaign communication and engagement.

This article contrasts the democratic vision of the Movimento 5 Stelle (M5S) with its practices of online participation. The first section focuses on the discursive production of its leaders and representatives. The main pillars of the democratic vision of the Movement concerns criticisms and possible improvements of representative democracy as well as the elaboration of a cyberutopian conception understanding the internet as a technology of freedom and an active and self-conscious subject. The second section addresses the concrete realization of the democratic ideals of the Movement by analysing its main instruments of online participation. Based on a critical analysis of 39 online ballots and 239 discussions on draft laws that took place on the ‘Rousseau’ platform between 2013 and 2016 the ongoing decline of participation over time is detected and discussed.

(co-authored with Fortunato Musella) The emergence of personalized party organizations has called for a redefinition of the concept of party institutionalization (PI). This article brings different strands of literature together and proposes a new multidimensional index of PI. PI is conceived of as the interplay of objective and internal party features with the external environment. The viability of the index is tested through its application to a prominent case of personal party, the Italian Five Star Movement (5SM). Through a detailed analysis of its history, we show that the 5SM has become more institution-alized over time; however, this has especially affected its external facet, while other specific party traits have been less involved. Findings suggest that the stabilization of internal structures to connect party echelon and rank-and-file remains a challenge

In this chapter we evaluate the online primaries of the Movimento 5 Stelle (M5S). We analyse the rules for passive and active electorate that were put in place by the party leadership and evaluate their impact on the inclusiveness of the competition and their contribution as a form of democratic innovation in the Italian political system. Since these primaries were conducted entirely online, we address the role of the internet in candidates’ repertoire of communication, particularly as regards their presence and popularity in the main social media platforms. We evaluate the outcomes of the primaries in terms of the characteristics of the candidates placed in higher positions in the party lists as a result of the online primaries. This is a very relevant factor for the internal party’s competition, since due to the aforementioned characteristics of the electoral law for the Italian Parliament, the place- ment of the single candidates in the parties’ lists mostly determined whether they were elected. Finally, we offer some reflections on the process employed by the M5S to select its candidates for the following national elections – those for the European Parliament that were held in 2014 – and some reflections on the prospects and implications of this innovative candidate selection method for the party and the Italian political system.

Luciana Parisi: "We first of all need to understand whether micro-fascism is intended as a desire of repression, and thus of negativity, or in cybernetics terms of opposing order to entropy, or as a dissemination of entropy. One has to engage with the idea of entropy itself to understand this notion of micro-fascism. Let’s assume that entropy is to information as chaos is to order, or as death drive is to life or to the self-organizing ability of a body (whether social, biological, cultural). Let’s then frame the thermodynamic thesis that informs the idea of micro-fascism. From the standpoint of thermodynamics, micro-fascism is an insane distribution of the desire for destruction, rather than creation (considered positive by many). This gap between creation and destruction upon which the concept of micro-fascism you are referring to is built, is, at best, limiting and, applied to political movements, fails to see the trajectories of micro-fascism in terms of the tension between energy and information. Not in terms of the way, according to the mathematical theory of information, information overcomes noise (and the energetic tendency of a system to collapse), but rather in relation to emergence of new information dynamisms that ignore the perspective of a subject longing for its repression. Instead, micro-fascism could be conceived as the production of new dynamisms, almost counter-entropies, which do not coincide with organic energy. I would then commence by asking what kind of entropy are we talking about, and what can it tell us about political movements at a different level of analysis. Micro-fascism does not necessarily translate to a desire for repression understood in terms of death drive." (...)

Luciana Parisi, Italian, lives and works in London. She is Senior Lecturer in Critical Theory at Goldsmiths College, University of London (UK) where she runs the PhD program at the Centre for Cultural Studies. Her research examines the links between science and philosophy, cybernetics and information, technology and policy in order to formulate a critique of capitalism and at the same time investigate the possibility of real change. During the nineties of the last century she has been working with the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit at Warwick (UK) and has written several essays in collaboration with Steve Goodman (known in the music world as dominus of dubstep as Kode9). In 2004 she published the book “Abstract Sex: Philosophy, Biotechnology and the Mutations of Desire” (Continuum, London, 2004), where she described the critical impasse between the notions of body, sexuality, “gender” and the current status of the studies of science and technology. Her latest work on architectural models is “Contagious Architecture. Computation, Aesthetics and Space” (MIT Press, USA, 2013).

Tiziana Terranova, Italian, lives and works in Naples. She is a contemporary researcher, and lecturer of " Cultural Studies and Media ' and ' Cultural Theories and New Media" at the University of Naples 'L'Orientale'. After graduating from the Faculty of Foreign Languages a​nd Literatures at the Department of American, Cultural and Linguistic Studies at University of Naples she continued her research on media, cultural studies and new technologies, driven by a passion for this area. The study of these issues took place in England where she achieved a master's degree in "Communications and Technology" at Brunel University. She also achieved the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Media and Communications at Goldsmiths' College in London. In the mid 90’s Tiziana Terranova dealt with technological subcultures, cyberpunk and published one of the first doctoral thesis on the internet newsgroups and the techno culture in California. Another important experience for her intellectual journey took place in London at the Department of Cultural Studies of the University of "East London" where she founded and directed along with Helene Kennedy one of the first courses in Multimedia, starting the new university course in "Media and New Media Studies”. Her current interests include digital culture and the phenomena that develop around it. Of international importance is her book “Culture Network” published in Italy in 2006 by Il Manifesto. Her last essay entitled 'Capitalism cognitive and neural life' was inserted in May 2013 e.Book issue called 'The state of technological mediation' by Giorgio Griziotti (Special Hypermedia - Alfabeta editions).

Luciana Parisi and Tiziana Terranova's interview on digital populism and recent European political phenomena, held on 11 December 2013 with the author of Obsolete Capitalism and Rizomatika blog.

The 5-star Movement (Movimento 5 Stelle, M5S) is a political party in Italy operating almost exclusively online. It was officially established as a political movement in 2009, and quickly became the second most important political force in Italy. Unlike traditional political parties, the Movement operates almost exclusively online, without any headquarters and non-digital types of communication (until recently, candidates were forbidden to give interviews on TV or to the press); Beppe Grillo's blog (www.beppegrillo.it), used as an aggregator by early activists, is now the main “spokesperson” of the party; it is not just a tool of communication that replaces traditional party newspapers, but an integral part of the party's life and of its history. This research will first give an overview of the relation between the 5-Star Movement and the World Wide Web, particularly the blog. In second instance, through a deeper analysis of the blog posts from 2008 until the end of 2017, the paper will try to determine what is the main political discourse underlying the M5S on two key “ideological issues”: migration and the European Union, and how the party's positions have evolved over the years.

Burbach (2001, p. 8) provocatively defines “democracy” the “catch phrase for modern societies”. Is it really an empty shell (ab)used to try to reanimate the rotten corpse of democracy? Has democracy ever been fully alive? The Universal Declaration of Human Rights has been adopted less than 65 years ago, yet the decadence of democracy has already become part of rhetoric. Similarly, the word “non-politics” has been disseminated in the media to the extent that it sounds familiar, predictable, obvious. Yet, there is still no clear definition of “anti-politics”. 
This essay revolves around the unresolved ambiguity of the word “anti-politics”. It argues that this ambiguity is inherited by the non-univocality of modern politics, which the first section describes as a multilayered and multifaceted construct resulting from the gradual superimposition of four elements (“government”, “economy”, “rationality” and “democracy”). This superimposition has been further complicated by three phenomena derived from three of the above-listed elements: “rationalisation-professionalisation” (rationality), “governmentalisation” (Foucault, 1991, p. 103)  (government) and “individualisation/universalisation” (democracy). This process is described, drawing the concept from Mulgan (1994, p. 8), as “modernisation”. What has made “modern politics” ambiguous and contradictory, it is argued, is the fact that each of the elements above listed has modernised independently, thus mining the stability of the construct.
In this sense, modernisation has been a centrifugal force with respect to politics, automatically leading to the birth of forms of structural anti-politics, which is analysed in the second section, where the “anti-politics” concept is reassessed. Special attention is paid to the divide, drawn by some scholars (Mete, 2010), between high and low levels of politics. It is argued that this distinction is reified and (ab)used by anti-political movements’ discourse, to which the third section is dedicated. This theory leads to the conclusion of this essay, which questions the novelty of anti-political phenomena, and argues instead that anti-politics is structurally embedded in modern politics.

Uno studio dei rapporti iscritto-partito ed eletto-partito alla luce delle regole civilistiche e dell'applicazione diretta delle norme costituzionali.
In particolare, un'analisi sugli effetti giuridici dei contratti conclusi da alcuni candidati nelle liste del Movimento 5 Stelle. 

estratto da: Navarretta (a cura di), Effettività e «Drittwirkung» nelle discipline di settore, Giappichelli, 2017.

The paper starts with a theoretical reinterpretation of some classical topics in the public choice literature, where specific elements of contract theory and the theory of the firm are introduced. By putting into contact these completely different fields of economics, it defines a general theoretical framework for political behaviors whose implications go beyond those determined by the standard self-interest assumption. Political organizations, as suppliers of public policies, are supposed to maximize a residual quantum consisting in the public authority that can actually be exercised after all the electoral commitments, with voters and interests groups, have been fulfilled. This residual right—which can be seen also as a degree of discretion necessary for ruling parties to deal with unforeseen contingencies—is based on the reputational capital (goodwill) accumulated over time by political organizations and represents the intangible asset that secures voters’ loyalty and, consequently, the legitimacy to exercise public authority in the long run. When a deficit of goodwill occurs, a chain of “exit” strategies by voters can lead to undesirable results unless an effective “voice” option for citizens exists.

Il 27 agosto 1981 la "terza" pagina del quotidiano Paese Sera ospita due interventi che segnano l'uscita da parte dei movimenti giovanili dal tunnel del "riflusso", l'abbandono degli ideali politici come reazione agli Anni di Piombo culminati nel 1977- 1978 col "suicidio" nel carcere di Stammheim dei terroristi Andreas Baader e Gudrun Ensslin e l'omicidio di Aldo Moro in Italia.

In a context of great political instability, the Constitutional Referendum proposed by the center-left government in Italy in December 2016 created a veritable tsunami of worries over the holding of the Italian democratic system.
This Risk analysis report aims to respond to the worries of investors and international actors about the behavior of the Italian economic and political system, faced with the growing rise of populist movements.
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Dans un contexte de grande instabilité politique, le Référendum constitutionnel proposé par le gouvernement de centre gauche en Italie en décembre 2016 a créé un véritable tsunami d'inquiétudes sur la tenue du système démocratique italien.
Ce rapport se veut de répondre aux inquiétudes des investisseurs et des acteurs internationaux sur la tenue du système économique et politique italien, confronté à la montée croissante des mouvements populistes.

This article is aimed to shed light over the political discourse articulated by the Five Star Movement MPs, by which they strongly opposed the programmatic speeches of the Prime Minister, during the parliamentary debate about the cabinet's vote of confidence in Italian Chamber of Deputies. A comparative analysis of two sets of MPs speeches is carried out, respectively held in 2013 (Prime Minister Enrico Letta) and in 2014 (Prime Minister Matteo Renzi). The results show that the populist traits fully emerge in M5S's parliamentary communication in the latter case, being more "masked" in 2013. In the conclusions, I try to account for these variations in MPs' speeches.

The focus of this chapter concerns the linkage among the movement, social conflicts and local protests. Three main dimensions shedding light on this relationship are considered: a) the proximity of the electoral programme and campaigns of Grillo and the M5S to social movement claims; b) the action repertoire and multiple belongings of the movement’s elected representatives; c) electoral outcomes in areas with severe social conflicts.

The Five Star Movement (5SM) is the rising star of Italian politics and one of the most interesting cases of European contemporary populism. It is for this reason that it is all the more important to investigate the nature of such a political force. Several authors have already approached the topic of the ideology of the 5SM, although no systematic study of it seems to have been undertaken yet. The scope of the present of work is, thus, that of drawing the foundations for such a study. Certainly, the members of the movement would probably oppose to this project: they claim that the movement does not possess any ideology but follow just ideas. That is why the first two sections are devoted both to a discussion of the post-ideological stance of the movement and to developing an argument that attempts to show that the 5SM does indeed present an ideology. To pursue such a goal, I will need to advance a minimal definition of ideology based on the works of Freeden and Mullins. Freeden’s morphological approach will be used in the main part to identify what I deem to be the core political concepts of the 5SM ideology. These will be found by analysing the 5SM position in different policy areas. Ultimately, it can be seen that some of the core concepts include green values, direct democracy, rights, legality, ‘the people’ and a range of socialist values. I will also discuss some of the issues that the 5SM has encountered in the application of such values, as well as some of the solutions and trades-off that the movement had to make in order to be consistent with these.

La mediatizzazione della politica che ha accompagnato il ventennio berlusconiano ha profondamente influenzato tutti i soggetti che lottano per far sentire la propria voce nello spazio pubblico: non solo quelli istituzionali ma anche attori poveri di risorse come i movimenti sociali per i quali la protesta rappresenta la principale risorsa politica. L’azione collettiva non convenzionale nel corso dell’ultimo ventennio ha gradualmente incorporato gli elementi propri dei format mediali divenendo sempre più spettacolare e sempre più orientata a ottenere visibilità mediatica. Se la mediatizzazione diviene cifra dominante della protesta, essa apre anche forti contraddizioni dentro i movimenti, che per loro natura tendono a organizzarsi mediante strutture orizzontali. Tali lacerazioni talvolta vengono risolte dando vita a strutture verticistiche finalizzate ad esercitare un controllo ferreo della comunicazione che circola nella sfera pubblica, a scapito del dibattito e della democrazia interna. Nello show iperreale della democrazia italiana in cui anche i movimenti sociali cercano di ritagliarsi un ruolo da protagonisti, l’avvento e la diffusione del digitale aprono percorsi originali per superare tali rischi ma possono al tempo stesso esacerbarli. Il presente articolo si propone di riflettere sull’evoluzione dei movimenti sociali italiani nell’ultimo ventennio alla luce dei processi di media- tizzazione, popolarizzazione e personalizzazione della politica, facendo riferimento ai cicli di protesta che hanno accompagnato i governi di centro-destra, con particolare attenzione a quelli compresi fra il 2001 e il 2006, fra il 2008 e il 2011 e al sorgere del Movimento 5 Stelle. L’analisi diacronica e il confronto fra i movimenti dei primi anni 2000 e quelli che hanno accompagnato la recente crisi economica permetteranno di riflettere sui caratteri emergenti dell’azione collettiva alla luce dei più recenti sviluppi tecnologici.

In questo articolo viene analizzato il risultato del MoVimento 5 Stelle alle elezioni europee del 25 maggio 2014 utilizzando un approccio integrato quali-quantitativo, volto a comprendere l'influenza che il mutato contesto politico ha avuto nella riduzione dei consensi per il M5S rispetto alle politiche 2013.
Dunque, è stato possibile identificare due effetti congiunti che hanno agito sulle decisioni di voto per le europee: l’azione politica di un nuovo governo fortemente incentrato sulla figura di Renzi e su un’agenda riformista, in linea con i desiderata di una parte degli elettori del MoVimento, si è inserita nel solco di una critica persistente al M5S da parte di alcune componenti dell’elettorato a 5 stelle. Infatti, in queste consultazioni europee, il deludente risultato del M5S deriva dalla dispersione del voto di speranza, che alle politiche era stato determinato dal fatto che il M5S fosse l'unica vera novità politica in tale competizione, e dalla non attivazione di quel voto di protesta che aveva consentito l’esplosione dei consensi nel febbraio 2013.

L’articolo, richiamate alcune problematiche della società dell’Internet, ricorda il dibattito sulle due tipologie di partito politico, il partito del leader e il partito piattaforma, che, pur presentando notevoli differenze, aspirano entrambi a superare la mediazione rappresentativa propria dei partiti di massa utilizzando le piattaforme digitali e i social network: i partiti del leader con un rapporto diretto tra il leader e i cittadini, i partiti digitali attraverso forme di democrazia diretta. E’ poi analizzato il provvedimento del Garante per la protezione dei dati personali del 1° giugno 2021 nel caso Movimento 5 Stelle vs piattaforma Rousseau, che costituisce un importante precedente giuridico: il M5S ha chiesto l’intervento di un’Autorità indipendente e neutrale per dirimere la controversia avente ad oggetto i dati degli iscritti del Movimento detenuti dalla Piattaforma, e l’ha risolta applicando l’art. 28, par. 3, lett. g), GDPR. Nella conclusione viene posto l’accento su due aspetti: la necessità di un rinnovamento e di una regolamentazione dei partiti al fine di rilegittimarli e l’importanza della decisione del Garante, che, ponendo fine ad un conflitto potenzialmente insanabile, rappresenta la forza razionalizzatrice del diritto applicata da un’Autorità indipendente.

The essay, after addressing some problems of the Internet society, deals with the specific characteristics of two kinds of political parties, the leader’s parties and the platform parties, which have occupied the political scene for some years. These parties, although with considerable differences, aspire both to overcome the representative mediation typical of mass parties using digital platforms and social networks: the leader’s parties trying to establish a direct relationship between leaders and citizens, the digital parties through forms of direct democracy. The important decision of the Data Protection Authority, dated 1st June 2021, in the M5S vs. Rousseau platform case, is discussed below. This ruling is an important precedent: the M5S has requested the intervention of an independent and neutral Authority to settle the dispute concerning the data of the Movement’s members held by the Platform and has resolved it by art. 28, par. 3, letter g), GDPR. Finally, in the conclusion, two issues are emphasized: the need for a renewal and regulation of the parties to re-legitimize them, and the importance of the Authority’s decision, which, putting an end to a potentially irremediable conflict, represents the rationalizing force of the law applied by an independent Authority.

This article explores how the MoVimento 5 Stelle (M5S) in Italy and Podemos in Spain thematise the role of the State. We draw from a qualitative analysis of speeches of party leaders and party manifestoes in recent national elections. We argue that Podemos and the M5S coincide in reasserting the principle of popular sovereignty to overcome the present “post-democratic” condition and the distance between citizens and the State. However, they differ in their understanding of the State’s intervention on the economy and society. Podemos proposes a new interventionist state reminiscent of post-war social democracy. M5S has a more liberal view, conceiving of the State as a neutral arbiter of the free market. Furthermore, the two parties have different conceptions of the relationship between the State and the Nation. While adopting a patriotic discourse, Podemos has catered for demands of local autonomy, framing Spain as a “nation of nations” and has
been adamant in defending migrants and refugees. The M5S has instead proposed a more nationalist discourse, as seen in tirades by party leaders against migrants and refugees. These divergences reflect the different positioning of these formations along the Left/Right
axis and how this results in a more inclusive/exclusive view of the State.

Luciana Parisi: "Del micro-fascismo bisogna innanzitutto capire se è un desiderio di repressione, e quindi di negatività, o se si tratta in termini cibernetici di opporre l’ordine all’entropia, oppure se parliamo di una disseminazione dell’entropia. Capire cos’è l’entropia è fondamentale per capire questa nozione di micro-fascismo. E’ facile assumere che l’entropia sta all’informazione come il caos sta all’ordine, o come l’istinto di morte alla vita o alla capacità auto-organizzativa di un corpo (corpo sociale, biologico, culturale). Innanzitutto, bisogna dunque ripensare alla tesi termodinamica su cui si basa l’idea di micro-fascismo. Secondo la tesi termodinamica, il micro-fascismo è una distribuzione impazzita del desiderio di distruzione, piuttosto che di costituzione (appunto da molti pensata come positiva in un movimento politico). Questo divario tra costituzione e distruzione su cui si basa la concezione del micro-fascismo a cui vi riferite è a dir poco limitante e quando applicata a movimenti politici rischia di non vedere o non considerare le direzioni del micro-fascismo in termini di tensione tra energia e informazione. Quindi non nei termini di desiderio di morte portato dall’informazione, ma invece della produzione di nuove dinamicità che non rispecchiano il punto di vista di un soggetto che vuole reprimersi. Invece, il micro-fascismo potrebbe essere concepito come produzione di nuove dinamicità, anti-entropie, che non si rispecchiano nell’energia organica. Penso quindi che bisogna partire da questa domanda: di che tipo di entropia stiamo parlando e cosa ci può dire dei movimenti politici ad un altro livello di analisi? Quindi micro-fascismo non significa necessariamente desiderio di repressione. Come anche Deleuze e Guattari hanno anticipato, la questione del desiderio è tutt’altro che risolta in una specie di schema freudiano basato su una concezione termodinamica del principio di piacere." (...)
Luciana Parisi, italiana, vive e lavora a Londra. E' Reader in Cultural Studies al Goldsmiths College, University of London (UK) dove gestisce il PhD programme al Centre for Cultural Studies. La sua ricerca analizza i rapporti tra scienza e filosofia, cibernetica e informazioni, tecnologia e politica per formulare una critica del capitalismo e, al tempo stesso, indagare le reali possibilità di cambiamento.  Durante gli anni Novanta del secolo scorso ha lavorato con il  Cybernetic Culture Research Unit a Warwick (Uk) e ha scritto alcuni saggi in collaborazione con Steve Goodman (conosciuto nel mondo della musica come "dominus" del dubstep con il nickname di  Kode 9). Nel 2004 ha pubblicato con MIT Press il libro Abstract Sex: Philosophy, Biotechnology and the Mutations of Desire, dove ha descritto l'impasse critico tra le nozioni di corpo, sessualità, "genere" e lo stato attuale degli studi di scienze e tecnologie. Il suo ultimo lavoro sui modelli architettonici e il ruolo degli algoritmi nel design interattivo e in architettura è Contagious Architecture. Computation, Aesthetics and Space (MIT Press, Usa, novembre 2013).

Tiziana Terranova, italiana, vive e lavora a Napoli. E' ricercatrice contemporanea, docente di  “Studi culturali e media' e “Teorie culturali  e nuovi media” presso l'Università degli Studi di Napoli 'L'Orientale'. Dopo essersi laureata presso la facoltà di Lingue e Letterature Straniere del Dipartimento di Studi Americani, Culturali e Linguistici dell’Università di Napoli prosegue le sue ricerche su media, studi culturali e nuove tecnologie, spinta dalla passione per questo settore. L'approfondimento di tali tematiche avverrà in Inghilterra dove consegue un master in “Communications and Technology” presso la Brunel University. Consegue successivamente il titolo accademico di dottore di ricerca in Media and Communications presso il Goldsmiths’ College – uno tra i più rinomati nel panorama londinese. Tiziana Terranova si occupa, all'epoca, di sottoculture tecnologiche, di cyberpunk, e a metà degli anni ’90 redige una delle prime tesi di dottorato su internet sui newsgroups e la cultura tecno californiana. Altra esperienza importante per il suo percorso intellettuale si svolge a Londra, presso il Dipartimento di Cultural Studies dell’Università di “East London”, dove fonda e dirige insieme a Helene Kennedy uno dei primi corsi di Multimedia, partecipando in prima persona all’avvio dei corsi universitari in “Media e New Media Studies”. I suoi attuali  interessi riguardano la cultura digitale e i fenomeni che attorno ad essa si sviluppano. Di assoluta rilevanza internazionale il suo libro Culture Network, edito in Italia, nel 2006, da Il Manifesto edizioni. L'ultimo suo saggio s'intitola 'Capitalismo cognitivo e vita neurale' ed è apparso nel maggio 2013  all'interno dell'e.book 'Lo stato della mediazione tecnologica' a cura di Giorgio Griziotti (Speciale Ipermedia - Alfabeta edizioni).

Intervista con Luciana Parisi e Tiziana Terranova su "Masse, potere e postdemocrazia nel XXI secolo" a cura del blog Obsolete Capitalism. Intervista raccolta l'11 dicembre 2013.

Cosa ha portato il Movimento 5 Stelle a diventare un partito in tutto e per tutto simile alle altre forze politiche? Perché da movimento di piazza si è istituzionalizzato? Dove risiede l'origine di questa corruzione?
Il seguente paper si propone di ripercorrere le tappe che hanno portato il M5S a essere protagonista della casta politica in origine tanto deprecata, e a vedere i suoi esponenti diventare gelosi di un posto in quel Parlamento dapprima avversato.

Negli ultimi anni in Europa (e non solo) abbiamo assistito all’emergere e all’affermarsi di partiti (nuovi o rinnovati) che possono essere accomunati dalla critica ai partiti mainstream e alle élite politiche esistenti. Nell’e-book Partiti ed elettori in tempi di crisi si analizzano le basi sociali di quattro partiti anti-establishment (il Movimento 5 stelle, Podemos, l’UK Independece Party e il Front National), al fine di comprendere chi rappresentino. Il loro elettorato è composto dai cittadini che, soprattutto a seguito della crisi economica, si sentono “lasciati indietro” dalle élite politiche. In un contesto di crisi (economica, politica, dei partiti tradizionali), da chi si fanno rappresentare i cittadini europei? Indice Introduzione Di Cecilia Biancalana e Guido Legnante Il Front national: precarizzazione degli elettori e cambiamento del discorso politico Di Elie Michel L’elettorato dello UK Independence Party Di Andrea Pareschi Il M5s: un moderno partito pigliatutto Di Luca Carrieri Nuovi partiti e nuovi elettori: il caso di Podemos Di Raffaella Fittipaldi