Nuove forme di politica, democrazia e partecipazione

Since 2013 a new collective actor has definitely broken into the Italian political landscape: the Five Star Movement (FSM). It can be considered as an hybrid between a traditional party and a movement: it runs in electoral competitions although it has no traditional structure; it refuses any kind of institutionalization even if its representatives lead many local administrations and its consensus overtook 25% of the electorate during the last political round. The aim of the present article is to give evidence of the political culture and political participation modalities peculiar to Five Star Movement activists. What strategies of political participation are performed by FSM activists? What are their cultural traits and values? Which previous political experiences have they carried out? The results shows the raising of a new political activist: its ideological frame goes towards post-materialistic issues (environmentalism), while the political trust towards every other institutional actor but the Movement, its leaders and its representatives, is quite inexistent. These particular features have led us to talk about a new cultural frame as a mix between postmaterialism and populism.