Protest and Project, Leader and Party. Normalisation of the Five Star Movement

The article analyses the social image of the Five Star Movement. Voters’ points of view are taken into account by studying opinion poll results according to a longitudinal perspective. The authors focus on three basic points for the future of the M5S: a) the choice between political project and anti-political protest; b) the perceived ability to govern at local or national level; c) the relationship between the electoral base and the leader. The study reveals that the Movement is a heterogeneous subject, ambivalent in many respects. Public opinion, as a whole, sees it especially as a political protest body. Yet the Movement is also evaluated as being better able to administrate at a local level than at a national level. Moreover, with the expansion of its electoral base in 2012 and 2013, citizens with diverse political cultures joined the M5S. The appearance of new supporters – most of them former voters of centre-right parties – suggests a different attitudinal orientation with regard to the relationships among society, politics and leadership. In the end, after some months of the ‘Movement in public office’ experience, the M5S’s social representation seems to be slightly different compared both to other parties and to its own recent past. The M5S’s controversial institutionalisation process and the normalisation of its social image appear to be progressing in parallel.