Italian Parliament · 2013–2022 · 87,312 speeches

The Chamber
Speaks.

Each seat below is one of the most populist speeches delivered in the Italian parliament. Brighter means more populist. Click any seat to read it.

↓ Scroll to the chamber

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M5S
Lega
PD
Bright = high populist score
In government
What you're looking at

The brighter the seat,
the louder the speech.

Each seat represents one of the top populist speeches drawn from the ItaParlCorpus (Cova, 2025), a corpus of 87,312 speeches delivered in the Italian Chamber of Deputies between 2013 and 2022. Speeches are scored using the Decadri & Negri (2023) dictionary — a validated instrument that operationalises populism as a three-dimensional construct: people-centrism (appeals to the common people), anti-elitism (attacks on corrupt elites), and common will (invocations of popular sovereignty and direct democracy). The score is the proportion of non-stopword words that are dictionary hits.

Select a government period to filter. Open-circle seats belong to parties in government during that period — they consistently score lower. Filled seats belong to parties in opposition — they score higher. This is H1 in the data.

The research
Does government participation reduce the use of populist language in parliamentary speeches — and if so, does it also change what that language is about?
H1 ·
Government Moderation
Parties display lower populist scores when in government than when in opposition. The credibility constraint — governing parties cannot credibly attack institutions they now occupy — and the role-shift to forward-looking communication both make anti-elite framing strategically costly for governing actors (Ceron et al., 2021; Decadri & Negri, 2023).
H2 ·
Strategic Topic Shift
Even within high-populism speeches, the substantive topics shift when parties enter government — away from accountability and financial critique (the natural content of opposition populism) toward policy-implementation themes, as the governing role redirects what there is to talk about.
H1 · confirmed

Flip the switch.

Each party governed and opposed during this decade. Toggle between the two roles and watch what happens to the score.

M5S
0.69
%
IN OPPOSITION
Opp Gov
Average across Leg.17 (opposition)
Lega
0.61
%
IN OPPOSITION
Opp Gov
Average across Leg.17 + Conte 2 (opposition)
PD
0.50
%
IN OPPOSITION
Opp Gov
Conte 1 only period in opposition
2013 → 2022

The journey through power.

Four governments in nine years. Watch how the scores shift at each transition.

01 · Leg. 17 · 2013–2018
The opposition years.
M5S and Lega are in full opposition. PD governs. The gap between the parties is striking: M5S and Lega hover near 0.69%, PD sits at 0.26%.
"Se qualcuno ha tradito gli interessi dei cittadini, vuol dire che ha tradito la nazione." — M5S, 2015
02 · Conte 1 · Jun 2018–Sep 2019
The switch.
M5S and Lega enter government together. Both scores fall immediately. PD moves into opposition — and its score nearly doubles to 0.50%. The lines cross.
"Avete tradito i terremotati: vergognatevi!" — PD, September 2018
03 · Conte 2 · Sep 2019–Feb 2021
Lega leaves. Watch what happens.
Lega pulls out in August 2019. Within months its score rebounds to 0.54% — almost back to its pre-government level. M5S and PD govern together, both quiet.
"Sarà il popolo, quello che voi non ascoltate più…" — Lega, back in opposition
04 · Draghi · Feb 2021–Oct 2022
Everyone governing at once.
February 2021. All three parties join Draghi's national unity government. All three record their lowest scores in the entire dataset. The whole chamber goes quiet.
"Io devo spiegare e lo devo ai cittadini calabresi. Lo devo ai cittadini calabresi perché questo decreto io l'ho fatto per i cittadini calabresi." — M5S, in government
M5S
A slow, steady
disappearance.

M5S never returned to its opposition register. Every consecutive government period brought the score lower — a cumulative process consistent with the credibility constraint: the longer a party occupies the institutions it once denounced, the harder it becomes to sustain anti-elite framing. By Draghi, M5S recorded its lowest score in the entire dataset.

0.69%
Leg.17
opposition
→
0.48%
Conte 1
government
→
0.41%
Conte 2
government
→
0.34%
Draghi
government
Lega
Down. Up.
Down again.

Lega's trajectory is the clearest natural experiment in the dataset. Ideology did not change. Leadership did not change. What changed, each time, was the institutional position. The rebounds confirm that the moderation effect is not a product of party maturation — it is a direct, reversible response to governing status, consistent with the strategic communication account (Decadri & Negri, 2023).

PD
The symmetric
mirror.

PD is a mainstream centre-left party — not classified as populist in any standard account. Yet H1 holds for PD just as clearly as for M5S and Lega. When PD went into opposition under Conte 1, its score nearly doubled to 0.50%. This is not PD becoming populist. It suggests that anti-establishment framing is available as a rhetorical resource to any party in opposition, regardless of ideological identity (Decadri & Negri, 2023).

0.26%
Leg.17
government
→
0.50%
Conte 1
opposition
→
0.26%
Conte 2
government
The language itself

Same party. Different seat.

No charts. Just the words. The same party, in opposition and in government. Select a party.

▶ In opposition
◉ In government
The numbers

Every party, every transition.

M5S
Leg. 17 (opp)
0.69%
Conte 1 (gov) 0.48%
Conte 2 (gov) 0.41%
Draghi (gov) 0.34%
Lega
Leg. 17 (opp) 0.68%
Conte 1 (gov) 0.34%
Conte 2 (opp) 0.54%
Draghi (gov) 0.29%
PD
Leg. 17 (gov) 0.26%
Conte 1 (opp) 0.50%
Conte 2 (gov) 0.26%
Draghi (gov) 0.32%
Beyond the score

It's not just how much.
It's what they talked about.

When M5S entered government, even their most populist speeches changed topic. The language of accountability gave way to the language of policy delivery.

M5S in opposition — dominant topics
Public Finance & Fiscal Policy 10.6%
banche, milioni, finanza, miliardi…
Government Trust & Credibility 9.1%
vergogna, voto, fiducia, dentro…
Justice, Corruption & Rule of Law 8.3%
corruzione, reato, giustizia…
M5S in government — dominant topics
Labour, Welfare & Social Policy 9.8%
lavoro, sociale, reddito, misure, famiglia…
Electoral System & Representation 8.9%
elettorale, voto, maggioranza…
Public Finance & Fiscal Policy 8.8%
euro, banche, milioni, finanza…
"The price of power is not ideological compromise. It is a shift in the very language through which parties address the world."

ItaParlCorpus (Cova, 2025) · 87,312 speeches · Italian Chamber of Deputies · Leg. 17 & 18 · 2013–2022
Scored with the Decadri & Negri (2023) populism dictionary

← Full analysis & findings
Edoardo Martorana · Cultural Analytics · 2025–26