Table Of ContentPopulism
and (Pop) Music
Manuela Caiani · Enrico Padoan
Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology
Series Editors
Carlo Ruzza
School of International Studies
University of Trento
Trento, Italy
Hans-Jörg Trenz
Faculty of Political and Social Sciences
Scuola Normale Superiore
Pisa, Italy
Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology addresses contemporary
themes in the field of Political Sociology. Over recent years, attention has
turned increasingly to processes of Europeanization and globalization and
the social and political spaces that are opened by them. These processes
comprise both institutional-constitutional change and new dynamics of
social transnationalism. Europeanization and globalization are also about
changing power relations as they affect people’s lives, social networks and
forms of mobility.
The Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology series addresses
linkages between regulation, institution building and the full range of
societal repercussions at local, regional, national, European and global
level, and will sharpen understanding of changing patterns of attitudes and
behaviours of individuals and groups, the political use of new rights and
opportunities by citizens, new conflict lines and coalitions, societal inter-
actions and networking, and shifting loyalties and solidarity within and
across the European space.
We welcome proposals from across the spectrum of Political Sociology
and Political Science, on dimensions of citizenship; political attitudes and
values; political communication and public spheres; states, communities,
governance structure and political institutions; forms of political
participation; populism and the radical right; and democracy and
democratization.
Manuela Caiani • Enrico Padoan
Populism and (Pop)
Music
Manuela Caiani Enrico Padoan
Faculty of Political and Social Sciences Department of Social, Political and
Scuola Normale Superiore Cognitive Sciences
Florence, Italy University of Siena
Siena, Italy
Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology
ISBN 978-3-031-18578-6 ISBN 978-3-031-18579-3 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18579-3
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To Emma and Elena
A
cknowledgements
This book draws upon data derived from the project on ‘Popular Music
and the Rise of Populism in Europe’ in five European countries (Austria,
Germany, Hungary, Italy and Sweden), funded by the Volkswagen
Foundation, directed by Professor Mario Dunkel (University of
Oldenburg). Any opinions, findings and conclusions in this book are only
those of the authors and do not reflect the views of the funding institu-
tions. We warmly thank for the great collaboration and exchanges during
these years all the scholars involved in the project: Mario Dunkel, Anna
Schwenck, Reinhard Kopanski, André Doehring, Kai Ginkel, Emilia
Barna, Ágnes Patakfalvi-Czirják, Melanie Schiller. We also want to thank
the scholars who shared their expertise as guest-speakers in the different
meetings of the project, and particularly John Street, Mary Taylor and
Benjamin Teitelbaum.
This project would not have been possible without the enthusiastic par-
ticipation of volunteers for our musicological group analysis and focus
group sessions; for our interviews with militants, activists and representa-
tives of the Five Star Movement, the League and the Sardine movement;
for our interviews with concertgoers and fans of selected artists. We par-
ticularly want to thank all the experts from different fields who offered
their (definitely!) educated guesses, as well as the COSMOS (The Center
of Social Movement Studies—Scuola Normale Superiore) community for
all the exchanges we had on our project. Of course, any weakness of this
research is our own responsibility.
Many dear colleagues kindly and crucially helped us to organize focus
group sessions in different parts of Italy, and we are very grateful to all of
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
them, who deserve a mention: Gianni Piazza, Federica Frazzetta, Fabio
De Nardis, Nicolò Conti, Mattia Diletti, Paolo Graziano, Ekaterina
Domorenok, Lorenzo Bosi, Alice Mattoni, Alberta Giorgi, Silvia
Bolgherini, Elena Pavan, Carlo Ruzza, Louisa Parks, Fortunato Musella,
Raffaella Fittipaldi. Thanks also to the cultural circles and organizations
who hosted us during our focus group sessions, and specifically Fondazione
Urbana (Bologna), Circolo Culturale Ergot (Lecce), Circolo Cosmos-
Porto Burci (Vicenza), Circolo ARCI Radio AUT (Pavia), Centro Studi
Ettore Luccini (Padova), as well as the Treviso Province’s section of
the League.
Last but not least, to the anonymous referees, to the series’ editors
Hans-Jörg Trenz and Carlo Ruzza, to our book editor Elizabeth Graber
and to Palgrave Macmillan, we offer our thanks for the extremely useful
suggestions and the English editing of this manuscript.
Praise for Populism and (Pop) Music
“The book is a methodological feast, insightfully operationalizing the sociocul-
tural approach to populism and problematizing populism’s relation with a central
element of today’s mass culture: popular music. This serious study of the multifac-
eted, two-way relationship between popular music and populism in Italy
transfigures what many political scientists might regard as irrelevant noise into
melodic variations calling for serious analytic discussion. In addition to the
expected “flaunting of the low”, with displays of authentic rudeness and of scan-
dalizing tastes, we learn of the flaunting of the “Italian average” by politicians and
of regional identities and dialects at rallies. Travelling aesthetically from appeals to
the popolare (Rocco Hunt’s pisciaiuoli and fruttaioli) to the low poetry of Senza
Pagare, and socio-geographically and perhaps politically from Veneto’s local bands
to Campania’s rappers—all, so different from Com’è profondo il mare, branded by
the high-left Sardines—the volume not only provides a superb analysis of contem-
porary Italian culture and society, but also, richer insights into their close relation
to pre-political sensibilities and—most crucially—to the current spatial structure of
Italian party politics than could any cartesian diagram.”
—Pierre Ostiguy, University of Valparaíso
c
ontents
1 Populism, Popular Culture and (Pop) Music: An
Introduction 1
1.1 Why Study Populism and (Popular) Culture 5
1.2 Music and Politics 12
1.3 (Pop) Music and Populism: ‘Mind the Gap’ 16
1.4 Populism, Populisms: A Definition (and Its Boundaries) 23
1.5 Populism and (Pop) Music Between Opportunities and
Resources: Research Design 25
1.6 Our Case: Italy 30
1.7 Data and Methods 31
1.8 The Content of the Volume 47
References 49
2 Populism and (Pop) Music: Multiple Opportunity
Structures in Italy 63
2.1 Music-Market Opportunity Structure in Italy 64
2.2 Political Opportunities 72
2.3 Discursive-Cultural Opportunities 75
2.4 Conclusions 81
References 84
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