1 Populism, Popular Culture and (Pop) Music: An Introduction.-  1.1 Why Study Populism and (Popular) Culture.-  1.2 Music and Politics.- 1.3 (Pop) Music and Populism: ‘Mind the Gap’.- 1.4 Populism, Populisms: A Definition (and Its Boundaries).- 1.5 Populism and (Pop) Music Between Opportunities and Resources: Research Design.- 1.6 Our Case: Italy.- 1.7 Data and Methods.- 1.8 The Content of the Volume.- References.- 2 Populism and (Pop) Music: Multiple Opportunity Structures in Italy.- 2.1 Music-Market Opportunity Structure in Italy.- 2.2 Political Opportunities.- 2.3 Discursive-Cultural Opportunities.- 2.4 Conclusions.- References.- 3 Pop Music and Populist Messages.- 3.1 A Surprising Populist Hype in Contemporary Italian Pop Music.- 3.2 Musicological Group Analysis: ‘Playing Italianness in Italian Pop Music’.- 3.3 Conclusions.- References.- 4 The Use of (Pop) Music by Populist Parties.- 4.1 Music at the Lega Events: Building a ‘Partisan Culture’ Through Music.- 4.2 Music atthe 5SM Events: A Different Process of Partisan Culture-Building.- 4.3 Conclusion: Different Populisms, Different Usages of Pop Music.- References.- 5 The Interactions Between Populist Actors and Popular Music in the Public Sphere.- 5.1 Average Italian Fan: Matteo Salvini and the Politicization of His Music Tastes.- 5.2 Salvini Versus Pop Artists: Flattering and Bullying.- 5.3 Pop Music Artists Versus Salvini: Reproducing the Populism/Anti-Populism Divide.- 5.4 Five Star Movement: Too Little Frivolous to Play Pop-Politics in a Credible Way.- 5.5 Between the Political Roles of Singers and Music Appropriation by Politicians: Voices from Experts.- 5.6 Conclusions.- References.- 6 Between Music and Politics: The Reception of (‘Populist’) Music by Fans and Citizens.- 6.1 ‘I Like Him Because He Got What He Wanted’: Authentic, Rebel, ‘Not Political’ (i.e. Not Ideological or Partisan).- 6.2 Pop Artists and Politics in Fans’ Daily Lives.- 6.3 Music as a Collective Ritual.- 6.4 “Populists Seek the Vote of Those Listening to This Kind of Music”: Cementing the Anti-Populist– Populist Divide Through Pop Music.- 6.5 Music, Politics and Audiences: Conclusion.- References.- 7 Conclusion: Challenges and Opportunities of (Pop) Music for Populism.- 7.1 Music ‘as Action’: Speaking Out Versus Speaking As.- 7.2 Music as Action: ‘Organizing’.- 7.3 Between Music and Politics (in Italy): Towards an Explanation?.- 7.4 Populism and Pop Music: Scientific Added Value and Some Normative Reflections.- References.

"This engaging and important book examines how political actors from Matteo Salvini to the Five Star Movement rely on common taste in music to generate feeling of national emotion. Researchers on populism should read this careful and fast paced analysis and learn that music is constitutive of politics that moves the people.”

—Mabel Berezin, Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Director of the Institute for European Studies, Cornell University

“This deeply researched and endlessly fascinating book tells of the complex relationship between populism and popular music in Italy. But it does more than this. It reveals how – in general – we might understand better the role of music in politics, and the role of politics in music.”

—John Street, University of East Anglia

This book launches a proposal: to fill some empirical and theoretical gaps that presently exists in populism studies by looking at the potential nexus between populist phenomena and popular culture. It provides a detailed account of the multiple mechanisms linking the production of pop music (as a form of popular culture) to the rise and reproduction of populism. The authors use a case study of Italy to interrogate these mechanisms because of its long-lasting populist phenomena and the contextual importance of pop music. The book’s mixed-methods strategy assesses three different aspects of the potential relationship between pop music and populist politics: the cultural opportunity structure generated and reproduced by the production of music, the strategies political actors use to exploit music for political purposes, and, crucially, the ways fans and ordinary citizens understand the relationship between pop music and politics, and subsequent debates and identities. Moving from the case study, the book in its last chapter offers a more general understanding of the associations between pop music and populism.
Manuela Caiani is Associate Professor in Political Science at the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa, Italy.
Enrico Padoan is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Social, Political and Cognitive Sciences (DISPOC) of the University of Siena, Italy.

“Music is a source of collective effervescence and identity that analysts tend to regard as tangential to the study of politics. In their multi-method study of Italian pop music and populism, Manuela Caiani and Enrico Padoan place music at the center of their analysis. This engaging and important book examines how political actors from Matteo Salvini to the Five Star Movement rely on common taste in music to generate feeling of national emotion. Researchers on populism should read this careful and fast paced analysis and learn that music is constitutive of politics that moves the people.”

—Mabel Berezin, Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Director of the Institute for European Studies, Cornell University

“This deeply researched and endlessly fascinating book tells of the complex relationship between populism and popular music in Italy. But it does more than this. It reveals how – in general – we might understand better the role of music in politics, and therole of politics in music.”

—John Street, University of East Anglia

“The intersection of populist mobilization and cultural production is an under-researched theme in our field. Caiani and Padoan, with their methodologically rich and empirically rigorous contribution on the connection between popular music and populist politics in Italy, have offered as a prime example of how to fruitfully fill this gap.”

—Paris Aslanidis, Lecturer of Political Science, MacMillan Center & Department of Political Science, Yale University, USA

The book is a methodological feast, insightfully operationalizing the sociocultural approach to populism and problematizing populism’s relation with a central element of today’s mass culture: popular music. This serious study of the multifaceted, 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 scandalizing 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 contemporary 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

Provides a detailed account of the links between production of popular culture to the rise of populism Contributes to studies on populism and popular culture in Italy Uses a comparative approach and a cultural sociology perspective

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