Populism and technocracy during the Covid-19 pandemic in Italy. A two-year balance (2020-2021)

While populism currently represents a vast field of research and includes those strands of scholarship interested in the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on populist parties, technocracy has generally attracted less interest among scholars. In this regard, Italy represents a rather unique case: since the outbreak of Covid-19 in February 2020, the country has seen populist parties both in government and within the opposition, being currently governed by a technocratic government, i.e. the Draghi executive, that is supported by a large coalition that includes populist parties. Specifically, in this chapter we (i) provide a reconstruction of the populist party family in Italy before and during the pandemic; (ii) assess the performances – through opinion polls and, thus, in terms of electoral support – of Italian populist parties during the Covid-19 crisis; (iii) briefly contextualise technocratic governments in recent Italian history, then analyse the formation of the Draghi executive and the case of the Piano Nazionale di Ripresa e Resilienza (PNRR or National Recovery and Resilience Plan). The concluding remarks provide for some tentative considerations around the impact of Covid-19 on the Italian political system, considering both populist parties and technocracy.