The thesis focuses on the Five Star Movement, a political movement in Italy based on an Internet blog, which was founded by the Italian comedian Beppe Grillo and which in just four years from its birth received the greatest number of votes in that country’s 2014 European election. The thesis focuses on the rise of 5SM, which was established in a critical political and economic context that provided a fertile environment for its founder’s antiestablishment platform and rhetoric. The structure, ideology and actions of the 5SM movement are examined as are the political and economic contexts in which it arose and now operates. The 5SM is analyzed as a product of an Italian political culture where populist leaders have dominated the political scene for many years. The thesis asks whether this movement can be defined as populist, using as a framework for analysis the work of Mény and Surel “Democracies and the Populist Challenge” (2002), by comparing the 5SM to other European anti-establishment political parties and movements.

I processi di globalizzazione e di individualizzazione che caratterizzano il mondo e le società contemporanee producono inevitabilmente delle ricadute all’interno dei rapporti tra cittadini ed istituzioni. I tradizionali soggetti della rappresentanza politica, i partiti, sembrano annaspare a vantaggio di nuove forme ed esperienze di partecipazione “dal basso”. Il Movimento 5 Stelle, una “giovane” formazione politica nata sulla Rete e capitanata da Beppe Grillo che, cavalcando il malessere e la disaffezione dei cittadini nei confronti della politica tradizionale si è imposta come la principale rivelazione delle elezioni politiche 2013 in Italia, costituisce lo specifico oggetto di studio della ricerca. In particolare, il lavoro di tesi si snoda attraverso due studi di caso: il primo fra gli eletti del Movimento in Parlamento, il secondo all’interno del gruppo di attivisti di base nella città di Firenze. In entrambi i casi, la rilevazione passa attraverso interviste di tipo semi-strutturato al fine di cogliere in profondità elementi di un movimento dalle caratteristiche del tutto peculiari. Nel caso degli attivisti, alle interviste si è aggiunto un periodo di osservazione partecipante all’interno del Meetup: l’obiettivo è quello di fornire una sintesi delle modalità di trasformazione della politica sul territorio, in una realtà mai così in movimento. / The processes of globalization and individualization that characterize our world and contemporary societies do inevitably produce consequences within the relationship between citizens and institutions. Parties, the traditional subjects of political representation, seem like fumbling for the benefit of new participation forms and experiences "from below." The Five Stars Movement, a "young" political formation born on the Net and led by Beppe Grillo, riding the malaise and indifference of the citizens towards traditional politics (and whose emergence has been the main surprise of the 2013 italian national elections) has the specific subject of the research. Particularly, the thesis does investigate two case studies: the first among the elected of the Five Stars Movement in the italian Parliament, the second within its local group in Florence. In both cases, the detection goes through semi-structured interviews in order to understand in depth elements of a movement with quite peculiar characteristics. In the local activists’ case, a period of participant observation within the Florence’s Meetup has been added to the interviews, with the aim of providing a summary of the transformation of politics in the territory, in such a moving world.