Populism and Government: Continuity and Paradoxes in the Yellow-Green Experiment

Domestic and comparative constitutional analyses routinely describe the government as the most under-theorised among constitutional organs. This chapter aims to consider whether and how the Italian government has been affected by the rise of populist parties and movements or, more vaguely, by populist arguments and discourse. At first glance, an obvious starting point is the link between the trend towards the presidentialisation of the executives and the institutional programmes of populism. What has been described as the first experiment in purely populist government in Europe seems to contradict such claims and to have revived some long-term characters of the Italian executive. As scholars have put it, electoral laws and European integration are the factors that have most contributed to defining and shaping the role of government over the last three decades: in a nutshell, they have contributed, among other things, to strengthening the institutional role and visibility of the Prime Minister. Still, the Italian government which was formed in 2018 was based on a “contract” signed by the leaders of the Five Star Movement and the League, and to whose drafting Giuseppe Conte, who later went on to be appointed to the premiership, was largely foreign.