The party's founding guru, Gianroberto Casaleggio drew on his own mentor, Adriano Olivetti, who wrote these books in the 60s and 70s advocating to 'get the politics out of public administration - we just want rational and technological management, efficient and uncorrupted.' Of course, there really isn't such a thing as management or government without politics and ideology. And what actually fills the void is neoliberalism.

Historian David Broder examines the two dynamic forces occupying power in Italy's new government - the contrarian, technocratic Five Star Movement and the hard-right, anti-immigrant Lega Nord - and explains how both parties capitalize on economic malaise, corruption and the absence of a class-based politics after the collapse of the Italian left.

David wrote the articles Salvini’s Triumph and Notes on Italy's Election for Jacobin.