On March 4, 2018 — the day of Italy’s most recent general election — David Broder published the provocatively titled article “Italy Is the Future.” This was, indeed, a bold claim. How could this country — burdened by a vast public debt, with near-zero economic growth, ridiculed for its cronyish management of its public resources, marked by deep regional inequalities, prey to a succession of populist movements, and powerless before the rise of a neo-fascist far right — embody Europe’s future? The assertion was all the more unsettling because it so conflicted with the dominant narrative — conveyed by the extreme center from Tony Blair to Emmanuel Macron — holding that the future lies in the “knowledge economy,” in flexibility, in opening up, in “rationalization.”

Yet on closer inspection, matters seem rather different to what this narrative tells us. After all, il bel paese was marked very early on by all the same traits that political scientists now consider to be the structural features of Western democracies: a decline in political participation; the collapse of traditional parties and especially the historical left; the personalization of political life, now dominated by mass media; the rise of technocracy and populism; and the resurgence of the far right.

The interplay of these changes and the economic crisis of 2008 do much to explain the rapid rise of the Movimento Cinque Stelle (Five Star Movement, M5s), culminating in its entry into national government in 2018. Though it was an atypical movement, M5s was able to present itself as a unique alternative to “the establishment.” It channeled citizens’ deep-seated disaffection and built itself in the empty space between the individual and the state, left behind by crumbling party apparatuses.