As the Italian president called a general election for March 4, the international business press presented a familiar narrative: Italy was the latest country where a popular vote threatened turmoil for the Eurozone. The Economist warned of “New Uncertainty for Europe,” while Forbes headlined “Europe Braces for Italian Elections.” One Financial Times columnist opined that the possible triumph of the Five Star Movement (M5S) and the hard-Right Lega would induce “a heart attack among international investors.”

As with Matteo Renzi’s failed referendum in December 2016, the international media has viewed Italy’s coming election through the lens of wider European politics, where it is framed as part of a narrative of rising populism. But the future of the Eurozone is hardly a central campaign theme in Italy itself. In fact, such a decisive question of Italian national life is notable by its absence, with even once-convinced Eurosceptics today retreating from calls for a break with the currency.

To get a hint of how this question has been turned on its head, we need only note the reinvention of Silvio Berlusconi. In 2011, as Italian premier, he was unceremoniously dumped out of office with the connivance of European officials, seen as a demagogue hampering the resolution of the Eurozone crisis. In 2018 he has been recast as a bulwark against populism in Europe, a re-designation blessed in recent days by Angela Merkel.