Differentiated Tolerant Opposition: League and Five Star Movement

Since 2013, the success of populist parties has shaken the Italian political system. Beppe Grillo’s ‘eclectic’ anti-establishment party, the Five Star Movement (5SM) and Matteo Salvini’s League, a new populist radical right-wing reincarnation of the former regionalist Northern League, achieved remarkable electoral successes. In 2018, the two parties formed the first ‘all-populist’ coalition government. Their success raised concerns about the quality of liberal democracy in Italy, especially among opponents. Regardless of these concerns, most opponents pursued ‘tolerant’ modes of opposition against the parties, typically observing the rights, privileges, and respect which political parties would usually enjoy in a democratic system. In contrast, civil society actors pursued a differentiated strategy of opposition, regularly pursuing ‘intolerant’ coercive initiatives against League, while maintaining a tolerant approach toward the 5SM. These features come together in the Italian Differentiated Model of opposition to populist parties. I argue that the development of this pattern of opposition to populist parties not only derives from specific constitutional and political structures, but it also draws on a legacy of past experiences of opposition to populism during the period of Silvio Berlusconi’s populist governments (1994–2011).