ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the connections between some “traditional” forms of Italian populism, the emerging trend of techno-populism, a neo-liberal rhetoric on the light-weight state and depoliticisation processes. Populism, in its various and sometimes inevitably contradictory definitions, is often interpreted as a response to the lack of participation that distinguishes liberal representative democracies. This interpretation of the emergence of populism and, with it, the emergence of so-called neo-populist parties is based on an awareness of a crisis of representation. The link between anti-politics, certain tendencies of populism and the process of depoliticisation has been emphasised, in different ways, in several publications. The neo-liberal approach finds one of its points of reference in the ideal of the light-weight state, which is more suitable to favouring the market. Simultaneously, anti-political rhetoric finds fertile ground in the processes of depoliticisation. In social and political studies, there are many possibilities and methodological approaches to investigate populism and its several faces.
