Behind the Five Star Movement

For all its antiestablishment rhetoric, Italy's Five Star Movement is a force for the status quo.


The 2013 emergence of Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement shook Italian politics.

At the general elections the new formation — which resists the label “party” — organized mostly through the Internet by a famous comedian and populated by people without any prior political experience, obtained more than 20 percent of the vote.

That was as much support as the longstanding Democratic Party received and more than the Silvio Berlusconi–led Forza Italia.

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