The Transformation of the Five Star Movement: the Normalization of Italy’s Most Relevant Movement Party

Since the onset of the Great Recession more than a decade ago, new political actors have emerged, whose platforms are predominantly based on opposition to economic austerity as well as a radical critique of traditional politics. Faced with the newness of these formations, alongside the issues they bring to the forefront of political discourse, social science scholars have produced innovative concepts to address the specificities of these new actors. Some fifteen years have now passed since the recession, and so we believe the time has come to scale back the emphasis on “newness” and rather turn our attention to the analysis of the progressive normalization of discourses, structures, and repertoires of action. Through the classic literature on political parties, this analysis aims to trace the stages of the development of the Five Star Movement, from the birth of its political project to its most recent developments. Pedersen’s concept of “thresholds” combined with the literature on the formation of political parties allow us to trace the rapid path of organisational structuring, whose first manifestations emerge as early as the first parliamentary representation. Our analysis looks at the transformation of the Five Star Movement from an outside political actor to an inside political actor in parallel with the stabilisation of its organisational structure, which increasingly has come to resemble the form of a traditional party.