Shibkova Maria Olegovna – PhD in Political Science, Associate Professor at the Department of History and Politics of European and American Countries, MGIMO-University
The purpose of this article is to study the current state of social protest in Italy and its evolution in the context of the emergence of previously unknown challenges. The country's economic indicators, which did not withstand the pandemic shock, resulted in the citizens’ decreased standards of living and their increased protest potential. Particular attention is paid to the absorption of new motives in the agenda of right-wing like neo-fascist ”New Force“, which is an example of the manifestation of the phenomenon of vigilantism. The social movement ”Sardines“ is considered as an antipode to this poli-cy, being associated with the left pole of the Italian political continuum and building up its policy upon the opposition to the right-wing populism. It is shown that despite its small political experience, it has ample opportunities to mobilise the masses and being a centre of attraction for moderate and law-abiding oppositionists who are not satisfied with the current passive role of centre-leftists. The manifestations of global protest trends in Italian context are also examined. For this purpose, the feminist movement, the anti-racist move-ment ”Black Lives Matter“, as well as the association of environmentalists ”Fridays for future“ have been chosen. It is noted that the activities of these movements have so far only led to the intensification of this agenda in the domestic political arena, but have not led to changes at the legislative level, except for some tightening of legislation on violence against women. The author concludes that the activity of social movements is generated not only by the new challenges of the changing world, but also by the weakness of Italian parties in terms of the representation of the people’s interests and which results in dis-trust of citizens and their drift towards anti-system actors.
Italy, social movements, vigilantism, New Force, feminists, Sardines, populism, pandemic.
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